Well we thought it was about time we gave you another update. Sorry about the poor quality of the Mumbai photos, but most of the good ones were on Rob's camera which he managed to leave on the back seat of a rick shaw in Juhu (Bollywood) - sorry mum!

Our three plane journeys to Singapore were truly harrowing. We had to run through the blistering heat of Calcutta searching for the International departure lounge (just made it with 10mins to spare), Rob thought that he had lost his passport (we were both worrying for God) and was starting to feel a few interesting internal bowel movements. He learnt his lesson the hard way. That is to never re-use a toothbrush that has fallen on the floor in a dodgy hotel, especially when it tastes like ass. He will freely admit that he deserved it, especially when he used the toothbrush twice!!!

Our hostel (Fern Loft) was far superior to the delights of the Samrat. The owner 'Dave' was an absolute legend even running us into town on our first day. We are meeting some interesting characters on our trip, including a Chinese guy who had sold his house in Singapore and is now lodging at the hostel. He was fascinated by JF even demanding a photo of him, which he duly obliged to of course! "Can I have a photo, your one leg is crazy!"

We spent most of our first day wandering the streets gawping at the unbelievable surplus of amazingly hot asian women! In one smart restaurant (with a bemused old English couple having lunch) we saw three waitresses dressed in French maid outfits - what would Germaine Greer say?! The city itself does everything on a grand scale (we went to buy a new camera in a mall called Simlim City designed specifically for electronics and it is 10 storeys high!!). We sat on the lawn and watched the Singapore cricket club in action with a backdrop which rivals NY. Every single car we saw was brand new, we saw the poshest McDonald's in the world, and there were countless hotels, bars and restaurants with horrific prices to match. And all the taxi drivers are friendly supporting English football teams - but alas have never heard of Burnley! That night we had our first Chinese meal and learnt that everything comes at once - JF was wondering why the waiters were looking at him like a retard when he asked how big the starters were.

On the second day we went to Sentosa island, a purpose built theme park. First was the bird and insect park where we were groomed by parrots (one took a liking to Rob's hair and one the inside of JF's ear). We held 3 snakes and saw all manner of horrifically big creepy-crawlies! Next was the underground aquarium where you can literally see sharks swimming above you. We finally went to see a cheesy dolphin show (run by yanks) to truly dire music - Singaporean music taste is crap. We rounded off the day throwing nuts on the floor of the famous Raffles hotel where we supped on a couple of Singapore Slings. At $23 or a tenner each we are very grateful for the contributions from uncle John and grandma and granddad!

We began our final day in Singapore wandering around the botanical gardens where we were lucky enough to see an orchid dedicated to Ricky Martin "for his contribution to Latino music". The gardens are amazing, it is basically like walking through a rain forest with the added benefit of millions of hawker stalls selling all kinds of strange Chinese delights! Some attractive, such as fish head curry and some less attractive such as fungus and bird nest soup. After the gardens we headed to Singapore zoo and night safari, which was hands down the best animal experience we have ever had. Along with the usual, we saw white tigers, indian elephants, leopards, cheetahs, komodo dragons, lions, monitor lizards, monkeys of all shapes and sizes, tortoises the size of small cars, polar bears, giraffes and an extremely mean looking croc (but the monitor lizard was our personal favourite - check out the photo!). The night safari was an amazing experience. You trek through a rainforest designed so that you are never more than 20 feet from an animal and it looks like you are actually in the middle of it all!

We both absolutely loved Singapore, even though most of the time we were sweating like (insert appropriate word here!). It is an amazing city, which is clean, friendly and has the most diverse selection of foods you could ever find. We have enjoyed a romantic meal on boat quay! And spent a horrendous amount of money. Next stop Melaka and Kuala Lumpur......

PS. will put photos up when we have better internet access! x