Hi everyone!

I know it's only been a couple of days since our last blog but we only stayed in Singapore for 4 days and are on a whole other continent after that!! Let's just start by saying Singapore is HOT!! A real humid, clammy heat and you are constantly soaked in sweat trying to walk round the sights!!

We landed in Singapore with 2 guys who were in the hostel in KL with us, they were leaving the same day, so we and another girl all got the bus down together and stayed in the same hostel again. The hostel we booked was called Rucksack Inn and was the 2nd highest ratest hostel on the review sites. So it was with some trepidation that we climbed the dirty, graffiti covered stairs to the 3rd floor (not an easy feat seeing as my last and only handle on my suitcase had broke!!). The graffiti on the walls turned out to be comments from previous backpackers.

When we got in, we were hot and starving, so we sorted ourselves out in our dorms (36 bed dorm, none of the luxury of Reggae Mansion in KL) and went for food. Nobody wanted fast food as we were all fed up of eating food that didn't quite look dead or even remotely like meat, so we went into a Malaysian cafe place on the street. This was our first taste of how much Singapore was going to cost us. It is so unbelievably expensive compared to Thailand for everything!! The meal wasn't bad though and we ordered simply, peppered beef. None of us were brave enough to try the pig brain, pig tail soup, fish head soup and other such lovely dishes on offer! We all just crashed after that as we were knackered and strangely for a 36 bed dorm, had a great night's sleep. Though now after a couple of days here, we realised we could sleep through because this hostel has zero craic or atmosphere and no-one talks to eachother so the dorm was deadly silent! and lights out by 10.30pm!! Needless to say, we started to wonder who in their right mind would write a comment like 'home away from home' or 'world's best hostel' as it was defo neither of these. It had even received an award from hostelworld.com for Best Atmosphere!! I don't know what these people are on!!

Anyway, on our first full day we went into Chinatown for a wander, nothing 'wanderful' about it at all!! Although I think it would have been better at night time when it was all lit up! Then we went onto Sentosa Island, a family resort for the 'hob nobbers' and 'well to do-ers'. We got a cable car to it and the view of the harbour from above was nice but my camera ran out of battery so only got one photo! When we got to the island, it was like stepping into Florida. They had a Universal studios, an indoor skydiving building, man made beach, the works. We had just paid $50 for the return cable car and when we got off on the island, every single thing you could do cost an arm and a leg so we just had a walk round and got an ice cream. Since we refused to pay $10 a meal in Singapore, we've been having noodles for lunch and dinner every night and as we haven't been getting meat or anything, we have been knackered traipsing round in the heat.

On our 2nd day we went to the Singapore Zoo and it was a cracking zoo. it's all open and most animals are free to roam around a huge area, only the dangerous animals were seperated from you, albeit with a pane of glass. That's how I was able to get such a close up picture of the cheetahs. There were 3 white tigers too, they were class looking creatures, one kept pacing up and down and looking at people, I think it was figuring its chances out of jumping and making it! We also found out an interesting fact. It's not just tiger fur that's striped, it's their skin too. So if you shave a tiger, it would still be stripey!!

That night, we went for a walk down to the Marina Bay Sands with Laura and Mike that came from KL with us. Marina Bay Sands is the huge 3 tower hotel with the boat sitting on top and it has the infamous infinity pool. Unfortunately for us, they stopped public viewing of the pool on 26th September and we had really wanted to see it too!! The hotel was so strange looking with a boat on top and kind of scary when you were at the hotel looking up at the underside of it between the towers. So we walked through the complex of the towers which anyone can do; and thought we would try to be sneaky and just say we were going up to the Sky bar for a drink so that we could go up. We couldn't afford a drink between us but we thought we would chance it anyway. We headed down to the back to get the lift up to the 52nd floor. I said to the guy at the desk that we wanted to go up for a drink and he looked at his watch and said the bar was closing in 10 minutes. I said 'Really?' 'Yes'. Realising this was an utter lie as it was 11.10pm and what bar closes at 11.20pm, I noticed the dress code behind him for smart/ fashionable. Not one of us were either of these!! Mike from Liverpool was in serious need of a haircut, Matt was sporting an outfit that can only be described as 'laundry dry' attire and the humidity made my freshly washed hair turn into a giant puffball with half of it stuck to my face with sweat!! So we realised it was really a polite 'not tonight love' and mosied on!! Gutted we didn't get up but totally unsurprised!!

Today we went to Little India and found where all the bargains are to be had!! Flip flops were about £1 so we stocked Matt up to the hilt!! It was generally a load of crap they were selling but some bargains to be had!! So now we are sitting in our hostel with our (falling to pieces) suitcases packed and waiting for our flight in 12 hours time to Perth. We have loved the past 7 weeks in Asia, especially Thailand. If the opportunity arises, it would definately be on the cards to come back to Thailand and do the other route of Cambodia, Vietnam etc. But for now, it's on to even more expensive climes, Australia, HERE WE COME!!!!!