Day 95 - One last entry (14 September)

Today I catch my flight.
Good bye the rest of the world, I hope to see you again soon!

Day 94 - THE END! (13 September)

Here it is... my last full day - a day in Singapore. I feel very sad that this epic journey is already over, even though it has been over 3 months. But there is a lot I am looking forward to about coming back. I imagine I'll be a little lost when that happens!

We went to the National Museum of Singapore today. There was a great photographic exhibition by an Iranian photographer called Abbas Atar', and the exhibition was focussed on war, the changing world and globalisation. The picture I have shown is a wall crumbling after an act of arson in Belfast.

The Singapore history section of the museum was also great. too. I prefers to look at the exhibits with my own interpretation, but this section would have been better appreciated with an audio guide. I still learned  about Singapore history  (as you might expect). The exhibit of the Japanese bicycles referred to the Japanese attack by using the bridges from Malaysia where they used bicycles. The British lost this battle, and had their weapons wrongfully  facing out to sea.


The museum also contained sections on Singapore life: fashion; food (amusingly there was a "no food" sign) including some smelling exhibits, cinema and photography.

We then went to Raffles Hotel, and put on posh accents to tick off the Singapore Sling part of our itinerary. When staff were present, I ensured that I referred to my friends Tarquin and Bunty.

We finished the day with a good serving of tasty Sushi and other Japanese food.

Tomorrow morning, I see Cathy off at 6am. Then my flight is later after that. My holiday is over. My last words on this blog will be words of warning, taken directly from my departure card for getting out of Singapore...

""DEATH FOR DRUG TRAFFICKERS".

Look after yourselves and each other, stay at school, and help old ladies to cross the road (without leaving them half way). Live long and prosper.

Day 93 - Things to do in Singapore (12 September)

There was more to do in Singapore than we realised (and more than just shopping and eating).

Our first stop was Asian Civilisations Museum. The tour there was free, and excellent (they lady was very enthusiastic)! We paid about £4 for each ticket - I highly recommend it. It covered the various cultural influences and origins that exist in Asia. Interestingly, what we refer to as the Middle East was called West Asia. I learned more than I expected.

There were some really interesting pieces on display. Shown are: a strange face from the Chinese/Buddhist area; an intricate piece of writing whose characters, when inspected closely are made up from tiny letterings of the entire Quran!; a Shiva relic.

There was also a special exhibition on the Terracotta Army. Some of the back-history was informative... though when you have seen the mass of Terracotta Warriors in-situ in Xian, nothing compares!

We then had a very interesting lunch back at the hawker stalls in China Town. The highlight was the Sting Ray - another culinary first for me. 

We spent the evening at the Night Safari in the north of Singapore. It was amazing - you should definitely do it! The initial 30 minute show was a bit cheesy (probably directed at younger people in terms of conservation, recycling, saying "aah" to cute animals, and being shocked by Boa constrictors!). The best bit was the walking tour and tram tour through the gently lit areas of the national park when various animals were roaming (some we were protected from!).

Pictured are: common palm civet; pelicans at night; a red flying squirrel (it's a bad picture, but we also saw one flying). 

Cathy and I also managed to handle a couple of big snakes. There were some fun exploratory activities, including walking through a bat infested wood (you had to watch out for bats peeing from the trees!) as well as a cave complex containing scorpions (the scorpions did not have access to people!).

When we got back to the hotel, we ate a moon cake. It was moon cake day - this is a Chinese harvest festival that happens at full moon. The cake was kindly given to us yesterday by Jonathan... thanks! It was a nice sweet cake, with the yolk of a boiled egg in the middle.

Week 14 - Onto Singapore (11 September)

We caught the 9am bus to Singapore. It involved a border crossing, of-course. However, we noticed that our bus driver was a bit jittery about getting a move on at the Malaysian immigration office. When we exited Singapore immigration, he had driven off without us and about 8 others from our bus!!!

 After some faffing about, finding out information, and seeking out local currency, one of the drivers of another company let us complete the journey on spare seats in his VIP bus for free!!! He is pictured here with a rubber duck that I gave him as a thank you (it came on top of a cake that I had earlier in the journey).

It was a bit of a shock to the system to come to Singapore - the cost profile of the sabbatical shot up! Hotel prices went up about three-fold, and many other prices went up too!

We stayed at the Robertson Quay Hotel. It is on one of the three quays, and this is the least busy one. We had a nice view of the river and the swimming pool.

In the evening, we met up with Jonathan (a friend that I had met travelling on the Trans-Siberian railway) and his friend Odora (spelling?). They took us on a nice walking tour along the quays and of China Town, and we saw some really interesting modern buildings too, as well as a famous dancing old man - you will have to see the videos!

In China Town, Jonathan helped us to choose some really delicious local dishes, which we gathered and ate from different hawker stalls. He we are all seated with our massive meal! The food included a fantastically delicious peppered crab (the guy I bought it off brought out a live crab to check that I was happy with it!),  tasty satays with peanut sauce, Laksa and Taiwanese sausages. The dessert of sweet peanut soup with sticky rice balls was strange!

Many thanks to Jonathan and Odura for introducing us to such good tastes!

P.S. How cool is this - Jonathan slept a night in one of the towers of the Great Wall of China!

Day 91 - Onto Melaka (10 September)

After Steve fed us coffee and toast (thanks Steve... Theve!), and sent us away with cereal bars, fizzy drinks and water (thanks Steve... Theve!), we took our very nice bus to Melaka. It was more like a flight, and the "VIP" seats came with complimentary drinks and a proper table that folds out of the arm.

Before we did any touristy stuff, we made sure we got to the post office - one of our errands was to post back the room key that we had accidentally taken away from the Cameron Highlands!

Melaka is a lovely place - in another life, I would have decided to stay here longer. It was an important port in the history of Malaysia. There was also some sort cultural event going on regarding the people and students of Melaka. There was a long collage of photographs of local life several metres long in the city... below is just as small part of it.

We walked to see the remains of the old fort (which protected an important well from being poisoned in the past) and St Paul's Church, both importannt monuments in Melaka's history. The skyline views from the church were nice out towards the sea (including the Maritime Museum on a replica ship), but were distubred by the hideous massive erection of the Holiday Inn (not pictured, because I only want to show nice pictures!).

Afterwards, we chose Stadhuys as the museum of choice. They do a "Night Museum" here, which was great, were we got an evening ticket for \round 50 pence each! It was a good representation of the history of the eras of Melaka (Portuguese->Dutch>British->Japanese->British->Indpendence), as well as some insight into Melakan culture. The building itself is also set on a nice fountain square. There was also a little windmill marking the relationship between Melaka and the Netherlands. On the way back to the hotel (the very nice Baba Hotel that I recommend), there were some nice river views.

For supper we had a chicken rendang and a Lakhsa, as well as some other nibbles we coudln't help eating. This was our last night in Malaysia, so we tanked up on Malaysian food!