We finally got to Singapore 18 hours after leaving Krabi (yes we were slightly beside ourselves and delirious) we made it through the endless streams of train passport control, hopped in a taxi and after a quick pitstop to an ATM, set off into the night towards our hostel. We were pretty starstruck at how clean and open Singapore was..after two months in SE Asia seeing an actual city was a bit of a shock! We crashed into bed after a quick curry in a little place across the road (our hostel is in little India) and watching a spot of Bollywood on a tv outside..I LOVE Bollywood!
The following morning Tess and I woke rather cranky as the two old Indonesian men in our dorm had persisted to snore like chimneys all night. And I mean all night. Was sorely tempted to through my pillow at the one closest to me but as I was using it as a muffler it didnt seem the best of ideas! We set off in the morning to start exploring and were lucky enough to have a detailed list of 'must-see' places from both Fran and Tess' friend Rosie :) we started by venturing into little India which literally is a pocket of Indian community within Singapore with Indian shops, markets and schools all around. We went into the little India arcade and, as Fran predicted, were immediately desperate for some good ole Indian beautifying and had some henna done all freehand by some really nice ladies. Of course, I wasn't the best at protecting my hand for 20 mins so mine did get a little bit smudged but after washing it off my flower didnt resemble too much of a splodge!
We then headed for the MRT (Singapore tube) which was super clean and we kept having to remind ourselves that we weren't allowed to drink or eat of we could be fined £2000!! Ooer! It's such a nice tube system though and all air conditioned and huge stations and very quiet as everyone (I mean everyone, even the little old ladies are tap tapping on their iPhones) has smart phones and just sit on them silently whilst on the MRT. We decided to go to Orchard station to get our tourist pass which gave us unlimited travel for two days and were far too excited at the prospect of our card in our wallet that we could swipe over the barrier to make us look like we knew Singapore like the back of our hand :) we then went to Chinatown which was great fun with all the shops in beautiful old colonial brightly coloured buildings. We visited the Sri Mariamman Hindu temple which was beautiful and watched people receiving blessings. It was rather hot though and with no shoes allowed in we did end up hopping to and fro rather a bit! We then had a mooch around Chinatown looking at all the great shops and markets with all sorts of exciting trinkety things and souvenirs.
We then decided to go back to Orchard for lunch as its the huge shopping street with gazillions of malls and food courts. We were pretty awestruck when we got there as there was just mall after mall all connected to eachother underground so you wouldn't ever need to surface if you didnt want to! All the malls are shiny and exciting with every shop imaginable from designer to high street..something we've missed for the past 2 months. We'd got overexcited about boots in Chiang Mai so you can imagine our excitement at finding Zara, M&S and Topshop there! (We refused to go into Topshop though as it felt too weird)! We went straight up to a food court after wandering through mall after mall and I had crispy roast pork, salad and rice (it was calling to me) whilst Tess had a sort of curry thing on a huge banana leaf. We then headed back to our new favourite world to browse all the Singapore 'high street' shops which was all rather painful as there were soo many nice things to buy but we had neither enough room in our already bulging backpacks, nor enough Singapore dollars at our disposal! We were just those annoying customers who get all excited and try everything on but don't actually buy..the havaiana man was not too impressed! At least we didnt look our normal grudgey selves in this glamorous city though!
We then headed back on the MRT for our hostel in order to rest up before going to the night safari that evening. We took the MRT and a good ole bus (still ridiculously clean) to get there and promptly decided that Ben and Jerry's would make as good a supper as ever so thoroughly enjoyed that :) we went to the 'creatures of the night' show which was cool with wolves, otters recycling (dont ask) and hyenas whilst being hilariously gimmicky scaring the audience by pretending things had escaped etc..I must say that tourists do seem to be rather gullible even though I did think at one point that a car had hit the leopard! We then went on the night safari through the zoo which has no cages just moats to stop the animals escaping. There were looads of different species of deer, buffalo, rhinos, elephants, Asian lions (which we previously didnt know differed from African lions!), African lions, giraffes, antelope, bears, tigers and probably zillions of others that I can't remember! It was really fun travelling around by tram in the dark with the guide pointing out different animals and their night time habits! When it finished we decided that we were rather pooped after our intense touristy day so headed back for some much needed sleep. The Indonesian men had headed home only to be replaced by a couple of equally snorey western men so we were in for a great night!
Lots of love Flo and Tess :)