Right ok so it’s been a while. Singapore is the sort of country that wakes up at 6pm and doesn’t calm down until the early hours. Sort of makes it hard to write anything when your finishing around 3am, so we’ve got a lot to catch up on.

Apparently, about 15 years ago, some newspaper decided to write an article on the top most boring places to visit in the world. This person had clearly never visited Tonbridge because they placed Singapore at the very top of that list. Something the government here took great offence to. But instead of crying in a corner somewhere they smashed open their little piggy banks and transformed the country. Now you only need to be here for 5 minutes before seeing a 24 hour shopping mall or an island full of theme parks.

We knew from the second we got in the taxi after our joyous journey from KL that things were different here. It started with a simple sticker. ‘Please remember to wear your seatbelt’. Not only were there seatbelts in cars, they actually preferred if you didn’t go flying through the windscreen when they braked. Cars waited for a large enough space before switching lanes. They didn’t even beep their horn for no apparent reason every 5 seconds. It felt like we’d just landed in a cleaner version of London.

Our first day was spent whizzing about the MRT. Basically the underground in London language. We have pretty much learnt the entire tube map while being here. You can travel the entire length of the country in about half hour it seems. And with a lot less people than in London, you don’t have to spend the trip between two sweaty old man’s armpits. Which is nice.

So day one was about finding our way around. We went down to the river and jumped on a boat that took us up stream past the main business area where all the huge skyscrapers lived. Under the numerous bridges and past the landmarks many F1 fans may recognise from the Grand Prix. At the end of the bay is the relatively new Marina Bay Sands hotel. For the last 6 years this hotel has put Singapore on the map for many travellers. 3 tall skyscrapers with what can only be described as a ship on top. Whoever came up with that is a genius.  A total nutter of course, but a genius none the less.

At night the hotel puts on a light show like nothing we’ve seen before. We watched something outside the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur where water shot up in rhythm to the music. Here lasers shine down from the top of the hotel while projectors show a video on to the front of the water spraying up into the air. As you sit in front of the hotel you see a short film basically in mid air. Fire balls shoot up from the ground too. I really is superb. If a city somewhere in the world can beat that, we need to go there.

The nearest MRT station to where we were staying was the Botanical Gardens. On Tuesday we strolled through the gardens on our way to Orchard Road. Basically a road with Bluewater on one side and Lakeside on the other. The Royal Victoria Place is in there somewhere too. If you like shopping, you will love Singapore. Through the gardens we ran into a large lake with a couple of swans swanning about on it. Out the corner of my eye I saw something dive into the water. “An otter!” I thought. When we approached we realised that this was the strangest looking otter we’d ever seen.

I tried to get a photo of his head peeping through the water but he was an elusive chap. He wasn’t giving anything away for free. We were about to move on and give up when a smaller otter appeared walking through the leaves. This one loved the camera. Walking up and down in front of me like he was on a catwalk. I managed to get pretty close to him and take this photo. It’s probably worth loads as I can’t see any pictures on Google of an otter like this. Must be super rare….

Opposite another shopping centre in a separate part of town is the famous Raffles Hotel. I have to say I’m not entirely sure why it’s so famous, but what we do know is it’s outrageously expensive. My grandparents stayed here about 30 years so we thought it would be a nice place to at least take a look at. Walking around the outside we saw steps up to the Long Bar. The home of the Singapore Sling, a gin based fruit cocktail. We thought why not get one just to say we’ve done it. You know. YOLO. Before going in Soph asked how much I would be willing to pay. I said no more than S$20 as alcohol is expensive out here. Imagine the look on her face when the menu showed S$29 and I’d gone and ordered two. We soon changed the order to one non alcohol one to save a little money. To be honest it was a bit silly as we both hate gin. Never mind.

The Long Bar is also famous for its littering. Not of everything. You can’t just bring your household bin and chuck the contents on the floor. The shells from your monkey nuts however, that’s a different story. Soph could not get over the fact people just dropped their monkey nuts on the floor. People were cracking up laughing when she began clearing them up. It was quite strange though. Especially as nobody had any idea why they did it. Just seemed to be a thing they did.

Wednesday night was Ladies Night and we were hitting up the town. Howard and Fyza, the amazingly generous hosts who we were staying with, were taking us out to see what the midweek nightlife was like over here. And it turns out they like their ladies drunk. And I suppose who can blame them. Soph had seen away 4 free Martinis before I’d had the chance to sip my beer. After a bit of food we headed to another bar at the top of one of those tall skyscrapers. We’d been looking at going up to the top of the Marina Bay building at some point as we imagined the view would be amazing. But the view from this bar was unreal. The hotel was miles below us and we were surrounded by the super tall skyscrapers now also below us. There was more vodka flowing about than at a Russian wedding, seemingly all going into our glasses. Our usual alcohol limit came and went, just as 2am did. There was no stopping these people. Especially when Soph mentioned her Indian roots to a group of Indian locals. It was  like they just met their long lost cousin. We were inches away from heading to a Bollywood club for further drinks. Thank goodness we didn’t. Don’t think I would have ever got Soph out of there.

The following day we were feeling a little delicate. So we chilled out not doing too much but walking around the city. We had a whole extra day left to do stuff so we weren’t too bothered. Annoyingly our last day has been a total washout. It rained like someone had just attempted to cheat the Jumanji game. It was impossible to leave the house at all. It was a huge shame as we felt we had unfinished business here.

Tonight we met up with Michael. A friend of my grandparents who they stayed with 30 years ago and have been in touch with ever since. Local to Singapore, Michael took us to a local food market where we tried some pretty random things. All actually pretty nice though. We chatted about my grandparents and how they met all those years back. It was  a really nice evening and a great way to end our fantastic time in Singapore.

We’ve liked it so much here that we would truely love to revisit someday. If you’ve been to Singapore at all, especially if it’s more than a decade ago, you must come back. The place has transformed. It really is a super place to be. In less than 2 hours we will be picked up by a taxi to make our way to the airport. This time tomorrow we’ll be in Bali.

Thanks for following x