Tuesday 14th August

An early wake up to catch the metro to the bus station, it was an easy route considering we had already done it. We waited for a little bit for our bus, but it was on time, and left on time! Shocking! Our bus was another VIP, not as nice as the one to KL, but we settled down for the five hour journey.

Before long we were at the border, we had to remove our entire luggage and walk through customs. A quick stamp and we were back on board. The bus drove over the bridge from Malaysia to Singapore and once again we had to get off with all our belongings and go through customs.

Another quick an easy stamp permitting us entry for 90 days, we hopped onto a different bus, not quite sure why, but our driver assured us it was ok!

A short ride from Woodlands (the customs entry point) to beach road. When we brought the ticket the guy at the counter assured us this was the closest stop to the road our hotel was on. We stopped a taxi and asked how much it would be, he also told us where to find an ATM, we got some money out before hailing down a cab. Not as easy as it sounds, maybe they didn't like the look of me?!

I eventually got us a cab and we were on our way to the hotel. Our hotel, thanks to dad, was a Marriott on Orchard Street. Instantly our bags were taken from us and escorted to our room. We headed to the front desk and checked in. We had been upgraded to executive on the 29thfloor! It was a lovely room with a great view of all the shoppers on Orchard Street.

We stayed in for a while as Stu was tired, he actually fell asleep and started snoring! I woke him up to find food. We headed into one of the many malls on Orchard Street, shopping central, to the food court. Apparently the food here is really good and cheap too! I found some Chinese sweet and sour chicken and was sold. Stu found some noodle soup and we happily ate.

As we were upgraded to executive they had free desserts, we took their offer and scoffed our faces in the executive lounge! There were mini apple pies, fruit and other desserts. It was really tasty; I'm not going to lie!

We went back to the room and had a good night sleep in the huge comfy bed!

Wednesday 15th August

This was our only full day in Singapore, there was a lot to see, but we had to limit what to do due to Stu. Bless him! I told him not to feel bad as we'll end up coming through here again at some point!

We went to breakfast, also free, where we had cereals and a mini fry up!

We were advised by our Singapore friend Jake we met at the full moon party that the zoo was a good shout. We asked the front desk the best way to get there, and they said taxi. Why not? We jumped into a cab as they were quite cheap, well compared to the UK. It took us 30 minutes to get there and we brought our tickets and headed in.

The zoo was actual one of the best I have been to, and we have been to a lot while travelling thinking about it! The monkeys had no cages; instead there were moats and plenty of trees for them to climb over into other parts of their enclosures! At one point there were a few orang-utans hanging above us! Pretty cool!

The only animal with a 'cage' was the jaguars and cheetahs. For obvious reasons! It was a really enjoyable day! The best bit for me was watching and listening to the otters cry for food. They sound a bit like a dog barking and a cat meowing, it's hard to explain. But they were damn noisy!

We headed back to the hotel and had a swim in the pool and a snooze while a wedding was going on. Felt like I was intruding a bit, but the feeling passed!

We headed back to the room where we got washed and dressed, and headed downstairs for food. We ate in the Marriot and I had the tastiest shrimp ever! It better be for the price we paid!

We then got on the metro and headed for the Raffles hotel, not before getting a little lost. Stupid maps! We arrived at the hotel and headed to the bar where we both enjoyed a Singapore Sling. Very cliché but it was good! It was a steep price of $26 for one, £13, but when in Rome as they say! The rest of the drinks menu was actually pretty cheap! Just making money from the tourist I guess! I also enjoyed some monkey peanuts where you drop the shells on the floor! Very satisfying!

We left after our drink and headed to the Esplanade, we wanted to see Merlion, but he was 'getting ready' for his 40th birthday! There was a wall round the base, but we did get to see the top half. The Merlion is a mythical creature with the head of a lion and the body of a fish, used as a mascot and national personification of Singapore. Its name combines "mer" meaning the sea and "lion". The fish body represents Singapore's origin as a fishing village when it was called Temasek, which means "sea town" in Javanese. The lion head represents Singapore's original name Singapura, meaning "lion city" or "kota singa". We enjoyed the view over the water were everything was all lit up for the night. We slowly headed back to the hotel where we were in time for dessert! After our fill we went to bed ready for our flight tomorrow!

Thursday 16th August

We woke up and enjoyed our free breakfast and headed back to the room to pack. It took a while considering the amount of stuff we had! We managed to get everything packed away, hoping we wouldn't go over our 25kg limit!

We weren't in a rush and casually headed to the airport and got checked in. We grabbed some lunch in the form of Maccy D's (I swear I will stop eating them!!) and headed in the tiny departures hall. We had a while to wait, but we got a free code for the Wi-Fi and enjoyed browsing the internet.

We were soon called for our flight with Tiger Airways; we boarded and left on time! Not that I was worried if we were late, we had no connecting flights this time! We were soon cruising the sky; we brought some food since we would land in Perth at 10pm and we sat back or in my case slept the entire way. There is no other way to bypass the time flying, my specialty!

Soon we were heading down for landing. Soon we had landed, early by 40 minutes! We went through customs where Stu was over panicking about nothing! I tried to tell him our visas are lodge on our passport number and it was all approved and they need nothing else, but he wouldn't listen. We got through with no trouble and enjoyed telling him, told you so!

Our bags were one of the first to come out, shock horror! We grabbed our bags and headed to the taxi rank where we jumped in a cab (unknown to us but driven by a crazy South African with a dodgy Australian accent!). We arrived in one piece after he got lost looking for our hostel, we checked into our room and our roommate had given us a warm greeting…of him butt naked on top of the bed sheets. (We haven't spoken about the incident with him yet, but he is a lovely guy nonetheless!).

Overall view on Singapore:

We had a bigger budget thanks to my dad using his points for the hotel so we really splashed out. Singapore is quite expensive, but the food is still cheap. I really enjoyed myself; I think that is help to where we were staying. It was a nice knowing we had no more long bus journeys for a while and we'll be in one place for a long period soon. I'm sure we'll come through again; I have some unfinished business here!

Total miles travelled from UK: 15,190

Transport taken:

Trains = 21

Boats = 11

Bus = 26

Hours ahead of UK:

+8