Day one:

After KL we headed to Singapore. We opted to get the coach as the station was opposite our hotel in KL. What a mistake that was! What was meant to be a 5 hour bus journey turned into a 9 hour nightmare. To summarise: hot and sweaty with no air-con, only one stop after 4 hours with no toilet on the bus, the suspension on the bus went so we all had to get off for it to be fixed and the bus was detained at the Singapore border as someone had left a bag on it. But then we arrived in the beautiful, clean and spacious Singapura - Lion City. Surprisingly, Singapore's native language is English but most people also speak a second language.

We had booked a hotel in Little India so once we were dropped off in the centre of the city we jumped on the MRT and found our way. The MRT (Mass Rapid Transport) is an air-conditioned version of our tube and is pretty easy to navigate. One thing we noticed about Singapore is how clean everything is, partly due to that you cannot eat or drink on the MRT or in stations and you are not allowed to chew gum anywhere. The Singaporeans appear to be very well-dressed - they love a label.

Arriving in Little India felt like yet another different country. The streets were lined with Indian people, sari shops and Indian markets. It was around 9pm so we dumped our bags and headed out for a curry (what else?!). We found ourselves sitting upstairs in a local restaurant and had a delightful selection of curries, rice and naans (all vegetarian) served on metal trays with sections for each part of the meal.

Day two:

An excitable Steph was up bright and early (well, relatively - we're getting used to the lay-ins) in order to visit Universal Studios Singapore. We got the MRT straight from Little India to Harbourfront to pick up the monorail to Sentosa Island.

Universal Studios Singapore is split into 7 zones: New York, Hollywood, Sci-Fi, Ancient Eqypt, The Lost World, Far Far Away and Madagascar. Highlights of the day for us included the Transformers 4D Ride (felt like you were in the movie), seeing Shrek's swamp and the castle, the Mummy Rollercoaster and the Waterworld show. Unfortunately the biggest ride, the tallest duelling roller coasters in the world, was shut for safety reasons. All in all we had a great day, it was very different from the days out we are used to.

We spent the whole day in the park from open to close at 7pm. On the way home, we stumbled across a Hawker Centre which is a canteen like place with cheap food stalls all selling different dishes, predominately Singaporean, Malay, Chinese and Indian food. After finding ourselves a table and doing a few laps of the food stalls, we decided on our dishes and took it in turns to go and buy. We went for a traditional Singapore noodle dish, Char Kway Teow, which is flat rice noodles wok-fried with bean sprouts, cockles, prawns and Chinese sausage in dark soy sauce and chilli sauce. Next we had a spare rib noodle soup.

Day three:

In the morning we visited the Gardens by the Bay. The jungle plants are gorgeous and well kept; we did the treetop canopy walk which gave us great views of the park. There's a modern twist with gigantic man made trees that plants grow up.

From there it took us a few hours to get to the iconic Singapore Zoo. Our favourite animals were the orangutans and gibbons. We watched the Splash Show where a vey clever sea lion did some amazing tricks. At sunset, we went to the night safari. It was cool to see the nocturnal animals such as Tigers and hyenas awake in their natural habitat.

Day four:

Sadly, this was our last day in Singapore, so it was definitely time for some shopping! We headed to Orchard Road, which could seriously rival 5th Avenue and definitely beats Oxford Street. The long, wide road is lined with numerous air-conditioned shopping malls and stores. Steph had a bit of a spree in Abercrombie, H&M and Forever 21, much to her backpack's dislike.

Our last stop before it was time to head to the airport was for a Singapore Sling at Long Bar, Raffles Hotel, where the drink was created. Raffles Hotel is very traditional looking but at the same time, very plush. Long Bar is on the second floor and is filled with bags of monkey nuts which you can crack on to the floor and old sweeping fans on the ceiling. It was the best Singapore Slings we've ever had!

After a whistle stop tour of one of our favourite cities in the world, we boarded a flight to Bali, Indonesia and arrived safe and sound last night in Sanur.

Steph and Max x