At last we are starting to catch up with our somewhat epic adventures. Next stop Singapore, and youve all seen how the Griswolds did London now heres the story of how Hev and Rob did Singapore.
Arriving mid afternoon off a luxury Singapore airlines flight we knew we wouldn't be going very far without some local currency and somewhere to stay. Off we headed to the information desk where a very helpful lady supplyed us with maps, the train route to Little India where we could find cheap accomodation, or at least by Singapore standards and various other bits of useful information. Once we had aquired some money from the ATM we went to the basement to board the train, sorry the MRT (mass rapid transport). The lady at the booth directed us to the electronic ticket booth that clearly hated us as it would only spit our money out at us and produced no ticket. The man on the help phone informed us that a $10 bill was too much for the machine to handle and we must return to the lady in the booth for some smaller change first, Singapore was already showing itself to be the truly efficient place we had expected.
As the MRT neared our final destination looking at each other we knew we needed no words to understand what each other was thinking. We were starting to realise that Little India is not just the area of Singapore where you would visit to go for a curry, it is actually an Indian community. Bring on the bad smells lack of sanitation and lack of personal space awarness was written all over our faces. Unkown to us it was raining outside, as we hadn't been outside since Bangkok, we pushed and shoved our way off the train, as is the way and boarded the network of escalators to reach ground level, the last one was turned off. Feeling totaly chuffed that we had to walk up the last one with our bags we soon realised why. The local people are scared of the rain the way the wicked which of the west is scared of buckets of water, probably around 200 people were hiding from the rain in an area around 20foot square it was madness, and pushing our way through the crowds to enter the shower was all we could to avoid being pushed back down the escalator.
Bearings found and raincoats doned we headed off to find somewhere to sleep. We suddenly forund that little India is like India with all the bad bits missing, so all the smells were appetising and the streets were clean infact if the real India was like this well it wouldn't be India but we would be in more of a hurry to return. Each of the hostels we visited was $20 pppn, we started to realise how very expensive this was going to be (there are $2.2 to the pound). Rob left me with the worlds most expensive can of coke and our luggage while he made a mission of finding somewhere cheaper to stay, short of a door way I was not hopeful, however he returned having found somewhere for only $18 pppn with a buy 2 get one free offer. Now on a deadline weve got two full days to DO Singapore.

Day 1: we were up at the crack of dawn to enjoy our free breakfast, which consisted of a rationed 2 slices of bread and 2 eggs per person and heaven forbid we should try and sneak a little extra. We took the MRT to the nearest station with a maned booth where we could buy a tourist ticket for a public transport access all areas for the day, so where are we going? To the famous water front to visit the merlion and the big durian fruit on the esplanade, from here Rob took us on a walking tour of some of the sights he had read about, mainly war memorials (you all kknow what hes like) but all the same they seem to be something to be taken quite seriously in Singapore. The tour ended at Raffles hotel where before Rob produced his magic orange ball he first asked for, "permission to bounce sir" where much to his surprise the duty manager was called, and previous evidence had to be shown before he could continue. With permissin granted and Bentleys and Rolls Royces parked in the car park Rob came bouncing out of Raffles on his giant orange ball. We showed the video clip to the head doorman and concierge who told me my vidoeing skills had been a little off and we should try again. We asked if we needed further permission from the duty manager, they sheepishly looked around and told us to go for it, giving filming direction as we did. We packed up the big bouncer and explored the grounds of Raffles, found the famous long bar and decided that tonight we would return to endulge ourselves with a Singapore Sing.
Next stop Clark Quay, by which time it had started raining again. Its funny being in a country thats practically slap bang on the equator you'd expect that it would be hot all the time and infact Singapore has got the worlds 3 highest annual rainfall in the world. While there are no major sights in Clarke Quay it is just a fabulous place to wander, if we had more money we would have happily returned there for a night out to any one of the may themed bars that all looked like great fun.
We had heard that China town was the place to get good cheap food so this was our next stop. Whilst little India was very clearly Indian the part of China town we managed to find was like no other China town weve seen - but weve never been to China. We found bizzarly expensive meat, flash resturants and no small street vendors, our quest for cheap food in China town was abandoned before the hunger monster made enimies of us.
We headed to Orchard road the part of town that is every shopaholics dream. This is an entire road without single shops side by side but however shopping malls instead running its full length, which was a very long way. Luckily for us it was the middle of the Singapore sale which meant that Orchard road was crammed full of desperate crazy people looking for the best bargain, it was just like the Next Boxing day sale. We worked our way on to the 5th floor of one mall where there was a food court and not a minute too soon.

It was time to return to our hostel for a shower and a few moments of relaxing before the break neck Singapore experience continued. Back on the MRT we returned to the Esplanade where we had read about an area full of street vendors rumered to be the best in Singapore, in our minds this meant cheap and tasty eats. After around half an hour of walking in the wrong direction we finaly walked in to the poshest hotel we could find to ask directions to the street food, fortunately enough for us our random wandering gave us a fantastic view of Singapore lit up at night that we would have otherwise missed. The food was fantastic, infact to die for which meant it was never going to be cheap but at that point it didn't matter anymore. Dinner was followed by the long awaited Singapore sling in Raffles Long Bar, which was totaly fabulous. The bar was full of people all doing the same thing as us, checking off one of the must do's on the list, however they in majority were acting civilised like this was a normal night out for them, and us, well you know thats just not our style. As the drinks were so unspeakably expensive we tried our best to each eat our body weight in free monkey nuts to make up for it, it was fairly evident by the knee deep pile of shells around our feet. We didn't descreatly take a snap shot like most, however we could now fill an entire album with staged photos of me and a singapore sling. The one drink lasted us maybe 2 hours so we can now say our longest long drink we ever had was in Long bar. We left with a huge paper shopping bag with a raffles glass inside, posed for a few more pictures on our way through the door and headed for our final MRT trip of the day finaly taking us home for some well needed rest before the start of day 2. If only getting home could be that easy though? We had to connect trains half way home, and just as we alighted the first train we heard a very efficient announcment informing us that we had disembarked the last train of the day and please leave the station as it is now closing - oh joy. Fortunately as always we were armed with a map a saw we were only about 2k from home so what the hell, we purchaced a beer from the nearest convenience store and off we went passing by the venue for Singapore Idol on the way, finaly we arrived home at the end of day 1 for some well needed rest.

Day 2: So after the extravagance of the previous day and the singapore sling we decided the budget was already shot to pieces so suff it, off we go to Singapore zoo. We waited as directed by instruction from our hostel round the corner for the zoo bus, which when we had arrived 10 minuits before it was scheduled we were starting to loose faith after waiting for an hour. We agonised over the fact that if we left to go and get the train instead that the bus would arrive just as we got out of sight, so we waited and finaly it did arrive. We got on board what we thought was a free bus only to be charged $4 a head, but finaly we were at the zoo. We paid the $18 entrance fee and entered aruguably the worlds beat zoo. From the moment we spotted the cotten headed monkey in the tree only 10yards from the entrance we knew it was going to be something special. To the largest part there are no cages only raised walkways, moats and glass screens you feel within touching distance of everything you can see. We wondered around the zoo feeling like small children, and seeeing some animals for the first time ever from Proboscis monkeys to baby pigmy Hippo's and the most amazing looking white tigers. We took full advantage of our free $5 meal voucher by buying 4 pows (if you dont know what these are you havn't lived and need to get to your local Chinese supermarket and try some, we recomend BBQ pork) after our free feed we saw a marine life show featuring seals and sea cows amongst others. Whilst walking round the park there were always Orangutans swinging through the trees above us which was magical. We finished the day at the polar bear show which was truly worth waiting for. We returned to the hostel to freshen up before going out for a fantastic meal of nan bread and sauce, with a beer each, a good cheap dinner?! So that was our whistle stop tour of Singapore, and I think you'll agree that we gave the Griswolds a run for their money. The next morning we were leaving for Kuala Lumpur, after another free breckie and a telling off for eating too much bread we heaed to the bus station of course in the rain. We managed to hunt down the cheapest bus ticket to KL which turned out to be a plane without wings and only cost a whole days budget, only for that kind of luxury I think it was worth it, we had reclining massage seats, personal TV screens and an in flight snack, it was 6 hours of bliss, that is baring the in flight movie about how a horse won the west. KL and peninsular Malaysia will have to wait for another day, but until then,

In England: Ellen Griswold: Clark, youre on the wrong side of the Road.
Clark Griswold: Yes I know, honey, Im also on the wrong side of the car.

All our Love,

The Shoestring Two XoXo