Singapore

Who knew it would be so difficult to enter Singapore?! We arrived at Sydney airport in plenty of time to check in as we'd been told that if we arrived early we would get allocated the exit aisle seats (needed on account of Lisab's long legs). The smiling lady behind the check in desk of Jetstar requested that we show her our "onward travel plans". We showed her the ticket from Moscow to London (in 5 months time). Sneeringly (we thought) she then requested the travel plans for the next 5 months. Andyb said "hey, man, we'll go where the wind blows us" (not really) for the next 5 months. This evidently wasn't good enough, as "Jetstar have a responsibility to ensure that you don't outstay your Visa requirements in ANY country, until you arrive home" and we were told that we had exactly 2 hours to book an itinerary or we couldn't board the plane. Our protestations were quashed with "the rules aren't going to change, so lets find solutions, not problems" and "lots of people change their travel plans ALL the time (at my desk)". Her solution was to book us a flight to Cambodia (because, she said, they let anybody in there, for 5 months). We were about to pay, when the woman at the information desk (still Jetstar) said that her colleague was a simpleton (or some such) and what they actually required was JUST a bus/train ticket out of Singapore within 30 days. So we purchased a train ticket to Melaka, in Malaysia, and this satisfied her, but not nowty woman, who was still blurbing on to another colleague at the gate check in about it. Better still, on the plane over, we were discussing the incident with a man sat next to us, who hadn't and HAS NEVER been asked for onward travel plans when he boards a Singapore flight - with no return journey booked. Guess what happened when we got to Singapore? correct, they waved us through, without so much as a "please can I see your onward travel plans?".

We left the airport and entered the steam room that is Singapore. First port of call (after we'd dumped the bags) was to get something to eat. We went to a hawker stall, near Little India. Unfortunately, Lisab didn't (and still doesn't) speak Chinese, and so settled for fruit and crushed ice (she reckoned they wouldn't put meat in that), whilst Andyb had a lovely seafood noodle soup. Over cautiously the next day, Lisab settled for vegetable noodle soup (at a vegetarian food stall). Andyb opted for the fish head soup. Turned out, it was tofu fish head. Lisab was well jealous.

Singapore is great if you want to shop - but we'd had enough of that after the first half hour. We did go to M&S though (just for the novelty and to buy Andyb some shirts so he wouldn't get bitten by the mozzies in the jungle). So, we spent our time people watching and eating at the various food outlets in the shopping malls.

We also did what most people feel they HAVE to do in Singapore; go to Raffles and have a Singapore Sling. We opted to go into the Long Bar (cause we'd heard you could throw peanut shells on the floor). Andyb was incensed that he had to pay a service charge to the waitress who curled her lip every time she looked in his direction. We think this was because when she came to take our order, we couldn't be persuaded to take the "special cocktail of the week" for which she must receive commission. Obviously thought, "bloody tourists, will have one drink, chuck loads of nuts on the floor, then bugger off", and of course, that's exactly what we did do. The added service charge was nothing compared to the shock (A&E needed to be put on red alert) when he received the bill for 2 slings (22 english pounds). Lisab suggested that the glass (engraved with Raffles, Singapore Sling) must surely be included in the price.

Is this the place that serves the most expensive drink in the world?

Another day was spent at the zoo. We absolutely loved it here, and it seems a very well run place. The best space is given to the Orang-utans, which have their own adventure playground in the sky. There are loads of ropes and trees for them to swing around on. "Token feeding" happens a couple of times a day, when they come down to the ground and are fed apples etc. We also went into the "rain forest" area, and got REALLY excited because they promised tree kangaroos. It's only quite a small area (certainly smaller than the big forests we'd tried to see them in, in Australia). We saw every animal that was advertised in that rainforest, but as sod's law would have it, we didn't spy the tree kangaroos. We can only imagine they've been putting the word out amongst each other, to avoid the Bruntons.

baby orang-utan

I'm having a FAG Waynetta

Meercat on sentinal duty

We left Singapore (thanks to Jetstar) on a train bound for Melaka, Malaysia. Interestingly, the train station is actually owned by Malaysia.

Singapore train station

The train was 2 hours late setting off (thanks to Jetstar) and we were delayed on the tracks for another 1 hour (thanks to Jetstar). We arrived 38kms away from the city (thanks to Jetstar) because there is no train station in Melaka - there is a perfectly good bus station, but you can't book buses on line (thanks to Jetstar). We therefore arrived at 1 o'clock in the morning, instead of 9 o'clock in the evening - thanks to Jetstar. A stongly worded letter is winging it's way by post (because Jetstar don't have an internet facility to send complaints - even though tickets are booked on line) to those lovely people in Jetstar's customer relationship services (we've decided to divorce them).

Notes on Singapore: We'd heard that you could get fined for jay walking (not true, we saw loads of people do it & nobody got carted off) and that it was the cleanest city on earth (not true, we saw loads of bins and places overflowing with rubbish). We were quite put out by this - for months whenever Lisab dared to cross before the green man lit up, Andyb would say "you can't do that when you get to Singapore, or they'll put you in jail". Lisab stopped Andyb from taking a photo of a particularly rubbishy street, or we would have photographic proof.