Singapore Sling

The next day we had to leave and cross another border to make our way into Singapore. This was much more of a secure border than the last one. Kit had told us that we had to try and go through the border as quickly as possible and back onto the coach otherwise the coach would leave us (and he wasn’t joking). The queues were long but we waited patiently. Kit was up first. The customs guy looked at his passport and looked Kit up and down, next thing we know Kit had been asked to wait until a supervisor was available to ask him some questions. We started to panic a little and Kit just waved us on and told us to get back to the coach asap. After we had all past customs we thought about waiting for him but he always said that if somebody got left behind to always carry on and wait at the next destination, so we made our way back to the coach. About 2 minutes before the coach was about to leave we saw Kit rushing towards us and he made it on just in the nick of time.
We eventually arrived at our Youth Hostel and we could see straight away how clean the streets were. They have very strict rules in Singapore ie you cannot bring chewing gum into the country. We were all very hungry so Kit took us to a cafe called Mr Bean’s where we enjoyed a pizza and then went shopping on Orchard Road with Lisa and Paul. Adam and i found a few places that sold camera’s and looked around for the underwater housing for it. We came across a shop that had both and even though the price wasn’t as cheap as the one we had found in Hong King it was still over £100 cheaper than what we would have paid in the U.K, so Adam was very happy with his new toy. We had to rush back to the hostel as we had all booked to go on the Singapore Zoo night safari. The hostel had arranged a private minibus. There was one other person from the hostel who was also going to the zoo – Becky who turned out to be from Birmingham, it’s a small world! She joined us on the tram ride around the park which gave us an overview of what animals were there. We got off the tram half way round to go and see some of the animals more closely. The night safari was good but not great.



We liked how there were no fences, in most cases it was just either a ditch or water that separated us from the animals, but on a negative point we could not take photos with the flash on which meant a lot of the pictures we took were very dark. When we spoke to Adam’s parents on the phone they told us of how they too had gone to Singapore zoo but in the day and had a fantastic time so i would say not to bother to go at night time. Anna’s flight was early the next day and she was leaving before any of us would be up so we sadly had to say goodbye to her that night. Kit was also getting an early morning flight back to Bangkok to start another tour, so we all thanked him for such a great time and said a sad goodbye.



The following day it was Lisa’s turn to leave us but before she left we made sure we packed in as much as we could. So off we went to go exploring around the city. We went to the Asian Cultural History museum in the morning where a tour guide took us around. He was very informative but detailed and we did end up getting a bit bored towards the end. After that we walked to Raffles Hotel where you guessed it we tried a Singapore sling. It was a little bit expensive so the cheap backpackers that we are we all bought just the one to share amongst the 4 of us.


Before we had left to go to Bangkok our flight had stopped in Singapore airport so in order to lighten our luggage we had left some things at the airport luggage storage. Adam and I had decided that we may as well accompany Lisa to the airport (wanted to make sure she actually left) and get our things and pack them for when we left the following day. This proved to be a lot more difficult than what we had thought. Whilst Lisa and Paul went to check her in Adam and I went to get our luggage. However the airport police would not allow us to enter the transit area. They told us we would have to get a pass to enter the other side. So off we went to get the appropriate pass. Security however were not too happy about letting us through, they asked why we wanted to get our luggage. We explained that because our flight was so early the following day we just wanted it so we could pack it all the night before instead of rushing in the morning, eventually the supervisor agreed but only allowed Adam to go through. Adam took his pass but when trying to enter the transit area was told he had to go another way, anyway after an hour of trying to get through and then arguing with the airport police about how we were being told to go from one place to another we eventually managed to get our stuff and quickly made our way back to terminal 2 to say goodbye to Lisa. We ventured back to the hostel with Paul on the underground train and as that was the last day of our trip with Imaginative Traveller we had booked one nights accommodation at the Summerview hotel. Paul helped us move our things to the other hotel and then we carried on to find Bugis street which there is a large night market. Bugis was so busy that it was a struggle just to walk through the market let alone look at any of the stalls which looked as if they only sold tat anyway, so we gave up on that and followed signs to a local cinema. The film we had wanted to watch had already started so we settled on watching Deception. If you are thinking of going to watch this at the cinema then don’t. In fact it was so rubbish i wouldn’t even bother getting it out on DVD. After the cinema it was our turn to say goodbye and as it was late we said bye to Paul and texted the others.