Having spent nearly five months in Asia, Singapore was to be our last destination before heading to the more western countries of New Zealand and eventually America. After the more haphazard public transport system of Indonesia, it was great to get on the MRT (Singapore’s underground) straight from the airport and arrive quickly in the city.
First impressions of Singapore is that it is a spotlessly clean city, where people wait for the lights before crossing the road and car drivers actually stop at zebra crossings (a novelty for Asia). It is also considerably more expensive, hostel rooms are western prices, even in hawker centres food isn’t cheap and despite what we had heard, shopping is no cheaper than back home. As Raffles was a bit out of our price range for accommodation, we chose the next best thing, a private room in a hostel in the Malay village’s red light district!
With five days in Singapore before moving on, we headed first to the famous Singapore Zoo and Night Safari. Singapore Zoo is an ‘open zoo’ that uses moats and small walls to keep the animals in, rather than cages. The setup makes for a much more pleasant experience as your view is rarely obstructed and the animals all appear to have plenty of space. Timing our walk round to coincide with the feeding times, we saw, amongst other animals, gibbons, lions, rhinos (including a very sweet baby), otters and finally the very beautiful white tigers. Watching the huge white tigers swim and splash in the water while they jostled to be fed was an amazing sight and a definite highlight.
As the zoo closes for the day, the Night Safari opens to give you the chance, either via walking or using the tram, to see the nocturnal animals. Walking through the fruit bat enclosure was hilarious and seeing a flying squirrel was great. The whole park is beautifully setup; with easy to follow trails and informative signs. Two parts of the park can only be seen from the tram, but to be honest you can see just about everything by walking, plus you have the added bonus of moving at your own pace.
Having had a thoroughly enjoyable but tiring day at the zoo we decided that we would have a bit of quieter day looking around the shops. Heading for Orchard road (Singapore’s Oxford Street) and knowing that the ‘Singapore Sale’ was on, we arrived with the intention of getting some serious retail therapy. It all turned out to be bit of a let down, we quickly realised that there wasn’t much we actually wanted and what was there wasn’t particularly cheap! When you have been used to dirt cheap designer rip offs in places like Thailand, 30% off the real thing doesn’t seem that good a deal.
Giving up on the shopping, we spent the rest of our stay doing some sightseeing. We had an enjoyable time at the bird park; seeing Debs getting mobbed by Lories when she went to feed them was hilarious and the huge aviaries are very impressive (one even holds the world’s highest man made waterfall). Continuing the sightseeing we went to see the famous Merlion (the symbol of Singapore, half mermaid half lion), the old central district and of course Raffles. Raffles is very grand looking and its courtyard shop and restaurant area is beautiful, but rather wonderfully it has the shoddiest gift shop we have yet encountered on our travels.
Deciding that we couldn’t leave without having a night time trip on the river to see the city lights, we headed to Clarke quay. As they were practising for the national day celebrations, part of the river was closed, so we couldn’t go round to see the Merlion from the front. Nevertheless the short ride was very pleasant, but it is not the most illuminated city we have encountered.
All in all Singapore is very nice, but to be perfectly honest Kuala Lumpur is less sanitised, has great shopping, cheaper food, better accommodation for less money and just about everything Singapore has to offer except the zoo. The zoo is nearly enough to make us prefer Singapore though, but not quite!
Next: Christchurch New Zealand
First impressions of Singapore is that it is a spotlessly clean city, where people wait for the lights before crossing the road and car drivers actually stop at zebra crossings (a novelty for Asia). It is also considerably more expensive, hostel rooms are western prices, even in hawker centres food isn’t cheap and despite what we had heard, shopping is no cheaper than back home. As Raffles was a bit out of our price range for accommodation, we chose the next best thing, a private room in a hostel in the Malay village’s red light district!
With five days in Singapore before moving on, we headed first to the famous Singapore Zoo and Night Safari. Singapore Zoo is an ‘open zoo’ that uses moats and small walls to keep the animals in, rather than cages. The setup makes for a much more pleasant experience as your view is rarely obstructed and the animals all appear to have plenty of space. Timing our walk round to coincide with the feeding times, we saw, amongst other animals, gibbons, lions, rhinos (including a very sweet baby), otters and finally the very beautiful white tigers. Watching the huge white tigers swim and splash in the water while they jostled to be fed was an amazing sight and a definite highlight.
As the zoo closes for the day, the Night Safari opens to give you the chance, either via walking or using the tram, to see the nocturnal animals. Walking through the fruit bat enclosure was hilarious and seeing a flying squirrel was great. The whole park is beautifully setup; with easy to follow trails and informative signs. Two parts of the park can only be seen from the tram, but to be honest you can see just about everything by walking, plus you have the added bonus of moving at your own pace.
Having had a thoroughly enjoyable but tiring day at the zoo we decided that we would have a bit of quieter day looking around the shops. Heading for Orchard road (Singapore’s Oxford Street) and knowing that the ‘Singapore Sale’ was on, we arrived with the intention of getting some serious retail therapy. It all turned out to be bit of a let down, we quickly realised that there wasn’t much we actually wanted and what was there wasn’t particularly cheap! When you have been used to dirt cheap designer rip offs in places like Thailand, 30% off the real thing doesn’t seem that good a deal.
Giving up on the shopping, we spent the rest of our stay doing some sightseeing. We had an enjoyable time at the bird park; seeing Debs getting mobbed by Lories when she went to feed them was hilarious and the huge aviaries are very impressive (one even holds the world’s highest man made waterfall). Continuing the sightseeing we went to see the famous Merlion (the symbol of Singapore, half mermaid half lion), the old central district and of course Raffles. Raffles is very grand looking and its courtyard shop and restaurant area is beautiful, but rather wonderfully it has the shoddiest gift shop we have yet encountered on our travels.
Deciding that we couldn’t leave without having a night time trip on the river to see the city lights, we headed to Clarke quay. As they were practising for the national day celebrations, part of the river was closed, so we couldn’t go round to see the Merlion from the front. Nevertheless the short ride was very pleasant, but it is not the most illuminated city we have encountered.
All in all Singapore is very nice, but to be perfectly honest Kuala Lumpur is less sanitised, has great shopping, cheaper food, better accommodation for less money and just about everything Singapore has to offer except the zoo. The zoo is nearly enough to make us prefer Singapore though, but not quite!
Next: Christchurch New Zealand
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