Singapore

I landed in Singapore in the evening so i decided to get the shuttle bus to the hostel instead of navigating the underground at night. I got to the hostel and checked in with the super friendly reception staff who had waited up for me. The hostel was really clean and they let me know the free breakfast was served from 8am until 1pm!! Winner!

The next day i had a look around Little India and the Arabic district. I had been out for about half an hour when i had to turn back due to the intense haze. I wasn't aware but the haze was at such a dangerous level that all schools in Singapore had been closed. The haze is widespread at the minute throughout Malaysia and Indonesia due to huge forrest fires spreading across Sumatra and Borneo. The fires were started on purpose to make way for palm oil plantations, but have got completely out of control, the situation is causing a lot of tension between Indonesia and Malaysia due to the hazardous haze covering most of the country. There is also a real threat to the Orangutans of Sumatra and Borneo who are already critically endangered, their habitats are being further destroyed by these fires and threatening the entire species existence. So avoid products that use palm oil!

On hearing about the fires in Sumatra i had to change my plans, as this was supposed to be my next stop. I decided instead to go to Malaysia up to an island called Penang. I booked some train tickets up through Malaysia and some hostels on the way using the free computers at the hostel. The websites were not in English but i figured it out... or so i thought....

I learnt that my friend from Perth was on holiday in Singapore with her boyfriend so i met up with them the next day and we went and had some drinks. The Singapore dollar is exactly the same value as the Aussie dollar but things are a lot more expensive here! We went to Raffles hotel bar where the Singapore Sling was invented and the cocktail cost $36.50!! That is £18 for one drink! I knew we were paying for the name of the place but it still seemed very steep! We only stayed for one and we made the most out of the free peanuts, the shells of which you just dropped on the floor. It seemed most people tried to get their monies worth out of the peanuts as there were piles and piles of peanut shells all over the floor!

The next day i went with a Norwegian girl to the Gardens by the Bay. Also known as the billion dollar garden due to it's vast cost to make, the gardens are beautiful. They take up a huge amount of space and include sections with different themes from different plant life around the world. We also paid to go into two garden exhibitions, one of which, the Flower Garden was, as you might expect, full of gorgeous flowers, the smell was quite intense and i popped quite a few hayfever tablets but it was definitely worth it! The flowers were all arranged into magnificent displays across a huge space. There were also wooden sculptures and cactus gardens integrated into the displays. It was really beautiful and impressive but there were almost no labels to say what any of the flowers were which was a bit disappointing! I'm sure my Grandma would have been able to fill me in on most of them, but i was clueless!

The second exhibition we went into is called the Cloud garden. This impressive garden consisted of a 4 story high cone shaped structure which was covered in lush green plants, this garden had a much more tropical feel to it and included a waterfall that cascaded from the fourth floor into an abyss below the ground floor. You were able to walk up the structure and then walk out onto ledges that weaved in, out and around the structure. It was like something from another world, the lighting and mist really made it seem like an alien habitat! I loved it but the pictures i took don't do it justice at all! After the exhibitions we walked around the gardens outside some more, the sun had set and all of a sudden there was a loud speaker announcement saying the show would commence shortly. All the floodlights around went off and music began to play. Then these huge man made 'tree' sculptures that seemed nice enough during the day came to life. What ensued was a 15 minute light show with full musical accompaniment that seemed to give the story of plants and flowers through the seasons, at least that is what i took from it. It was absolutely amazing and we were so happy we timed it so well! We headed back to the hostel on the immaculate subway system and stopped for some food, i wasn't overly impressed with the food in Singapore, it was a bit greasy and most of it was fried! But for a few days it was fine.

On my last day in Singapore i decided to book my flights and trains back from Penang in Malaysia to Bali in Indonesia as i didn't know when i would next have access to WIFI. What happened next was probably the worst day of my travels so far! I booked the ticket from Penang to Kuala Lumpur and got it printed out as i had with the others when i though it was a bit weird that it didn't actually say Penang on the ticket. I thought it must be another name for the station but googled it anyways to be sure. Long story short i realised every ticket i had booked and paid for was going either to or from the wrong place. It turns out when you put in your destination and departure places on the website it just brings up every train they have not just your specified route!! So I would have gone across the border into Malaysia at 10pm to catch my 11pm train from JB Sentral but my train actually left from Kluang which is 150km away! I tried to find out how to get to Kluang but as all my trains were wrong and i didn't understand the website to get the right ones i decided it was best to just not go. I didn't want to end up in Malaysia, on my own in the middle of the night completely lost, Malaysia is not a very safe place at the best of times so i didn't want to put myself in danger. I decided instead to just fly to Bali and a girl i met at the hostel was also going there the next day. But the bad day didn't end there. I bought a flight to Bali using my travel card, to then get an email from the company saying they would not accept my travel card as payment, but they had charged it. After a few phonecalls and even after i sent photos of my passport to them they said they would definitely not accept it and refunded it back on my card (minus the $30 booking fee). So i tried again with my Australian bank card, this put me through to a confirmation screen saying my bank had sent a code to my phone for security reasons, but my phone didn't work in Singapore so i couldn't get the text. I tried using a guys Singapore phone but it wouldn't let me change the number as that's not the number attached to my bank account. I then rang the airline and asked to pay by card on the phone,, but was told the person who does phone transactions had gone home early, of course he had!! I begged them to do it but they wouldn''t . At this point i was in tears, completely stranded in Singapore. A guy took pity on me and bought me a beer and Corinne, the girl i was going to go with, tried every website to try and get me a flight but it just wouldn't work. In the end i phoned my Mom and asked her to try and buy me the flight, but she had left her purse at home! At this point for the first tie in 18 months i just wanted to go home, Asia didn't seem to want me there! Eventually Mom rang back and her colleague used her card to get the flight and it worked! I was so relieved and after few celebratory beers went to bed as my flight was early the next morning.