After the madness of the previous evening we arrived back in Bangkok for the third time. nice to be in a place which now seems so familiar to us. After freshening up grace made a phone to Pat who was meant to have left a refund on the desk for us from the transfer muck up in Luang Prabang. she said it would be there by the evening.
We headed to Khaosan Road to get our laundry done, some breakfast and a replacement for graces camera. we then got a Tuk Tuk to MBK shopping centre for a day of retail. after traipsing round the thousands of shops we thought it a good idea to have a sit down, what better place than the cinema. tickets just £2.80 and popcorn xxxxxxl £1.60 we settled down to sky fall. AMAZING!!! We also had a free drink in the shopping centres food court which they give to all foreign visitors. a great perk in what seemed a rather exclusive food zone which looked amazing! free western toilet too!
On returning back to the hotel two more phone calls were made to Pat. The first time she claimed she 'forgot'. how lame. ...by morning we still had no refund. safe to say pat and grace are not friends!

I have renewed my book collection again. in Vangvieng I thought I'd be adventurous and opt for a classic read. Me and Jane Eyre really aren't bonding well, I should have stuck with my first choice: James and the giant peach. however, in the lobby of our last Bangkok guest house I spied a Jilly Cooper novel, that surely counts as a classic too??!

We got a 2 hour flight done to Singapore, hopped on to the metro and found our hostel. pretty centrally located down a quiet pretty street we were pretty pleased with our beds at sleepy kiwi for just £10 a night inc breakfast. We dolled ourselves up as best we could and ventured in to town in search of Raffles Hotel. The downstairs of the hotel is like a shopping arcade, but abit out of our price range with Rolex and Louis Vuitton! We found the Long Bar and went in for the compulsory Singapore Sling. Each table has a massive bowl of monkey nuts...all the shells get swept on to the floor! anybody know why?! we felt a bit uncomfortable crunching across the room to our table but overall it was a nice experience!
Having played the part of wealthy young ladies we stayed in character and made our way to the Marina Bay Sands hotel: its 3 tower blocks with a ship sat on top joining the three! here you can pay $20 to go to the top (57floors) and admire the cities views and the outdoor infinity pool. unfortunately the bad weather meant it was closed. we had read however that you can pay $36 to go up to the restaurant near the top, drink included in the price. for some reason we weren't allowed up, apparently it was closed too. feeling pretty bummed out we thought we'd try our luck at tower 1. the lady didn't seem to know why they wouldn't let us up but told us just to get in the lift and see how far we get. so we did of course!
Considering the high speed of the lifts the following groundwork was very efficient. We asked the man in the lift if he was staying here and told him we were in a $20 a night hostel. he laughed. grace asked if the rooms were nice...he invited us to take a look. AMAZING!! the outside wall was just one massive window. the bathroom was pure luxury. the fact that he had a bed in a private room let alone a sofa too was impressive! he pointed out buildings to us, including the business section of banking towers. He was pretty cagey but we've decided he's something very high up in banking. he lives in Singapore but just fancied a couple of nights at the hotel. clearly minted!! Mr Singapore asked us if we were going up to the terrace bar and said he might see us there later.
Back in to the lift, a couple also staying here for a whole week! at the top we wanted to see the pool but weren't allowed as we weren't guests. the man offered to go through and take pictures for us, if we trusted him. grace replied with something along the lines of 'you're staying here for a week, I'm pretty sure you don't want to steal my camera!!' this made him laugh! we chatted to them for a while, the lady said if we couldn't get in to the bar we could just go shopping downstairs; jimmy choo? I think not!!
we asked the security man outside the restaurant (yes, it's that posh!) if we could just see the menu out if curiosity, he said they were inside and pointed to the door. awesome! because we were wearing flip flops we were only allowed to sit at the bar. 2 more cocktails later (and ALOT of free wasabi crisps later!) we thought it would be rude not to check out the wine list (or menu as grace asked for before being corrected! nearly blew our cover!) leaving by the motto YOLO (you only live once) we decided to go nuts and have a glass of wine too. what's a tenner when you're in Singapore for just a day! back in character, they clearly realised we were going to spend money so invited us to sit at the sofa area. fyi this upgrade is a pretty big deal!but of course we didn't carry our own drinks, the suited waitress did, along with another bowl of crisps! by the time we left it was dark so we got to see all the city lights too. beautiful!
Singapore is such a slick city, definitely worth a visit. it's like being in the future!
just remember, don't pay to go up in tower 3, hop in the lift at tower 1 and chat everyone up you see. if you don't ask you don't get!!

We're now in Singapore airport awaiting our plane to AUCKLAND...via a stop in Brisbane for 8 hours!!