Singapore

Almost 6 months ago when we started our little journey we thought that when we reached Singapore that would mean the end to our Asian travels and Australia would be beckoning. However tomorrow we fly to Borneo for a month and then back to southern Thailand for another month after that. Apart from southern Thailand which we flew over to meet Andy and Emma, we've traveled overland from north Vietnam near the Chinese border all the way here to the teeny tiny country of Singapore. Founded in 1819 by Sir Thomas Raffles, Singapore is now a very modern city / country lying at the end of mainland Malaysia. Being a former British colony, there's still a lot of influences around, most people speak English, all the signs are in English, along with Chinese, Indian and Malay, which tells you what a lot about the ethnic diversity of the place.
Singapore is very, very, very clean! This is because its a nanny state and there are signs everywhere telling you what to do and what not to do (even worse than England). There are fines for littering, smoking, eating or drinking on the tube, which is why its such a sparkling place. However this does seem to take a bit of the spirit out of the place, there's just not the same kind of energy here as there is in Tokyo or Bangkok. Saying that however, should not diminsh in any way what a brilliant place it is. Theres a ridiculous amount of things to do and anyone flying via here should spend at least a couple of days exploring and definitely shopping.
We've been staying at a small hotel in 'Little India' right in the heart of Singapore, the locals aren't the friendliest bunch for some reason, but theres some very tasty food and its right next to the MRT station (tube). The underground here is unbelievably efficient, trains every 2-3 mins, obviously immaculate, lcd screens everywhere, you can buy a card as well that you just top up when you want and use it on all the tubes and buses, the cool thing is, you keep it in your bag or wallet and tap it on the sensor as you walk through and it deducts the fare automatically. Nice.
Our first couple of days were spent lost in the insane amount of shopping centres here. There's a road called 'Orchard road' in the center that has at least 10 shopping malls dotted along it, all of them at least 6 levels high, makes Churchill shopping centre look like a corner shop! Electronical goods are very cheap here, at least a third off UK prices and they have all the latest gadgets as well, I was after some underwater housing for my little Sony camera, but was told it was an old model and they didn't stock it any more, I only bought it in January!
Once we had escaped the clutches of the shops (having bought no techo stuff at all) we headed for some history lessons at the Changi prison museum. This museum tells the story of the Japanese occupation of Singapore during the Second World War and back in those days the Japanese were a thoroughly nasty bunch who spent their time killing and enslaving the population and Allied forces. The museum used to be in the Changi prison that housed the British and other troops captured when Singapore fell in 1942, but that prison was knocked down and a new one built to house inmates.
Singapore has loads of parks and lakes, which seems wise as most of the population live in high rise apartment blocks with glamorous names like 805 or 362 and I even saw one called 136! Amongst the numerous activities for bored Singaporeans to escape their apartment block life, is the Night Safari! Its open from 7.30pm till midnight and if you go on a Friday or weekend night its a 'shitfight'. Meaning theres tons and tons of people there which spoils the image of walking quietly together looking at the animals, but it was still good fun. The idea of the zoo is so you can see what the animals get up to at night, you can walk or ride around in a kind of tram with commentary, which is what we did. You're not allowed to use flash photography, so as not to hurt the animals senses, so I've stuck up a piture of a wart-hog type creature that we saw at Singapore zoo. The commentator had an accent that sounded like an American David Attenborough and kept going on about 'the magnificent lions', when he wasn't telling people off for using their flashes. Its a bit of a dream like experience riding around in the dark and then subdued lighting picking out lions, rhino and all sorts out of the darkness. The animals are in cleverly disguised enclosures that are surrounded by moats, so they look like they're free, the enclosures are really big though and the animals all look in beautiful condition. One particularly exciting part was walking through the bat cage, a giant area where fruit bats are kept, they're the worlds biggest bat and are vegetarians, but they still look quite scary when they're swooping down near your face! When we bought the ticket to the Night Safari we got a combo one that lets you into the Singapore Zoo as well. Its easily the best zoo we've ever been to, its a huge place with tons of animals, virtually all in cage free enclosures with bags of room to run about. After getting your ticket checked, you walk into the park and straight away you see several different kinds of monkeys that are allowed free reign of the park. We spent 3 hours walking round the zoo, cause we got there late, but given the chance we'd have spent all day, you could spend most of the day watching the Orang Utan family that live in several trees in the middle of the zoo, with ropes inbetween and no fences, they can come down and wonder about the rest of the place if they want to. Other highlights were the Probiscus monkeys with their daft noses, the butterfly enclosure and the Rhino.
Apart from visiting all the wildlife in Singapore, we've been eating our way through it, there's some amazingly tasy food, given all the different cultural influences here. Indian food eaten off a banana leaf, chinese at a street food vender in the middle of Chinatown, steak at a French restaurant on the waterfront, it's hard making these kind of food choices every day!

Finally.....football. Ohh England. What a hard task it is as usual watching our side. Still we managed to beat Ecuador 1-0 eventually thanks to Becks, who although playing like he's on Heroin, still manages to set the goals up every game. Portugal for the quarter-finals then... a tricky one and no mistake, lets hope if Sol scores this time they'll allow it for once and we'll not be robbed again! Thats a piture of a Probiscus monkey by the way, not Rooney!



Singapore Zoo slideshow