Skyscrapers, supertrees, and seeing family

Hi! Welcome to our blog. Amber is in green and Richard is in blue.

It took a whole day to get from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore. We had got a couple of short trains in the morning to get to the bus terminal TBS, where we got our bus headed for Singapore. The bus was 20 minutes late, and then there was the long journey south. The border crossing into Singapore was very busy. The bus had to queue on the bridge into Singapore, and when we arrived at the border we had to queue inside for a long time since there were not very many border agents working. When we finally got to the front of the queue, we found out we had not been given a form that we were supposed to have filled in so we had to fill it in at the desk at the front of the queue, holding everyone else up – sorry everyone! The bus driver was really impatient and it seemed like he had almost left without us when we got through. A short drive further into the city and it was about 9pm when we finally got off the bus in Singapore.

We had a pretty long walk to our hostel from where the bus dropped us off, and we didn’t really get the best impression of it when we arrived. This was not entirely unexpected as Singapore really is rather expensive – so much so that we almost didn’t go at all as it was not possible on our budget. Instead we just drastically shortened the visit, since who knows when we will next have a chance to go? We are glad that we did because although this blog sounds like it is getting off to a bit of a negative start, we loved Singapore! However it is definitely better suited to a bigger budget – not just compared to our travels in SEA, but it was also more expensive there than when we were interrailing around Europe. Anyway, so we arrived at the hostel and it was pretty unclean and one of those hostels that allows long-term guests who were all old men (they always seem to be) and they made me feel quite uncomfortable. They were also less than ideal dorm mates as they were very inconsiderate of everyone around them whilst being very impatient with everyone else – they shouted excessively at a couple of other guests for what I considered to be very minor infractions! However, we had so little time in Singapore we weren’t going to be spending much time at the hostel! So we got out of there in the hopes of finding food at the rather late hour. Luckily upon leaving the hostel we discovered that we were only a couple of streets over from Little India – seeing Indian food when we are hungry and don’t have a plan is like a flashing beacon of hope, we know we will be able to find vegetarian food! We have found when travelling in SEA that people tend to eat (or at least buy their dinner to take away) earlier, but Little India was still a hive of activity. The restaurant we ended up in looked full from the outside but space was made for us at the end of a table. The stress of our day was finally transforming to excitement in tune with the vitality of the city. We ordered Tikka Masala Paneer Tandoori style and Palak Paneer with some breads – Richard’s was very colourful with pieces of dried fruits in! The other people at our table had all ordered the Thali (a platter with several bowls of different dishes) and were eating it with their hands. This always fascinates me. It admittedly looks easier than using chopsticks but there is still definitly a knack to it!

We returned to the hostel for the minimum time necessary, just to sleep, then we got up the next morning and started exploring! We started by seeing Little India, now in the daytime. There were colourful decorations strung above the road between lampposts on opposite sides of the road, and there were so many visible down this one straight road that they all blurred into one in the distance. We saw an interesting Hindu temple, Sri Veeramakaliamman, adorned with many tiny figures in pastel colours, the first of many temples that day. A little further down that straight road we passed a beautiful group of colourful adjacent houses on our way to Tan Teng Niah, a century-old Chinese villa painted with colours colours even brighter than those houses. It was quite a tourist attraction and lots of people were taking photos with the villa, and while we were there a tour guide arrived with his group. After that we passed some really amazing street art (which we love) on our way into the metro to leave Little India. We bought a ticket reusbale for up to 6 uses – and we used them all in one day! The next part of Singapore we visited was the Arab Quarter, but when we first came out the metro station we could just see a lot of skyscrapers around us. We had to walk for a bit to get to the Sultan Mosque but it was worth seeing, even just from the outside. Its gold dome and white walls looked splendid, and that was temple of the day number two.

The colourful Tan Teng Niah

Sultan Mosque

The great thing about Singapore is that it is full of contrasts. Partly this comes from all the different cultures and neighbourhoods, but as well as the contrasts between these you have the traditional, streets full of temples and hawker centres, but with modern skyscrapers towering in the background. We really did cram a lot in to one day so you will just get the highlights here! Using the metro helped since we were rushing around so much and it was really hot that day. We spent a lot of time wandering through the different quarters, down side streets and though markets. We did make sure to check out a few popular spots though, such as the indie Haji Lane. There was so much colour to be found around every corner, and the city was clean and organised and busy but not too busy and we somehow managed to feel very relaxed despite how much we were getting up to that day.

Traditional Chinatown lanterns in front of modern skyscrapers

Some colourful street art we walked past

On our way to Singapore my family had suggested that I message my second cousins who live there and meet up. I thought this sounded like a nice idea in theory but I’m a bit of a shy person and I sometimes feel uncomfortable in new social situations. However, I like to push myself sometimes, and I also thought it would make my family happy if I went through with it so I messaged Ben and Robert. It was really quite last minute – Robert was in Thailand on holiday but Ben and his wife Amber were very accommodating and we arranged for us to visit their appartment. We took the metro and then a bus to arrive outside their appartment building and followed Ben’s instructions to find their flat. Ben and Amber welcomed us with biscuits and cold drinks and were so friendly, we were immediately glad that we had made the effort. We had a lovely chat for hours and took a selfie of all of us, including their son Noah too. When we left their appartment we were on a real high, proud of ourselves, but mostly our spirits had been lifted by meeting three great new people who instantly felt like family. We left with some tips of more places to visit in Singapore and put them straight to use.

Richard, Amber, Ben, Noah, and Amber

So our next stop was Chinatown! We wandered through a market and explored a little until we came to the famous Buddha Tooth Relic temple. It was pretty big considering it is right on the street, and we went inside for a look around. They were preparing for an event inside and it was very pretty. Next we went to the Telok Ayer area and had a short rest in a pretty little garden. We learned a little about the history of the various groups who have lived there over the years. There are shrines, clan houses and temples in close proximity in this area and we visited several – many of them we just stumbled across which is always a nice way to discover things! We made sure to stop by the Thian Hock Keng temple, and to check out the beautiful mural painted on the back street-facing wall. It was huge, and depicted the history of the Hokkien immigrants to Singapore up until the present day. We really enjoyed following the story and I found it to be one of the highlights of our day. After walking around Chinatown we walked for a while through a section of the city full of skyscrapers. We enjoyed pointing out all the interesting details to each other – I was rather fond of one that reminded me of movies set in 1920s New York, and Richard liked the shiny blue ones.

Inside a temple in Chinatown

The very long mural

By this time we were extremely hungry, so we ate lunch at Lau Pa Sat hawker food centre. It was a single-storey building with an orange tiled roof nestled amongst the modern skyscrapers and inside there were decorative cast iron supports painted green against the white of the ceiling. We looked around inside at all the food stalls and found a local delicacy, fried carrot cake. Don’t be fooled by the name – there are no carrots in this dish, and nor is it a cake! It is made with a radish that is sometimes referred to as a white carrot and is available in two different varieties, white or black. We bought a combo plate and found that Amber prefers the white version and I prefer the black one. After our lunch we headed off towards what we suspected would be a highlight of Singapore. It was only a twenty minute walk through the skyscrapers to get to the Gardens by the Bay. The Marina Bay Sands hotel, the iconic image of Singapore, kind of crept up on us and we didn’t realise it was there until we were right on top of it (not literally, we couldn’t afford to go up on the roof this time). We walked on past and in to the Gardens of the Bay. Inside, we walked through the absolutely beautiful gardens, through the themed areas, such as the heritage gardens (Colonial, Malay, Chinese, and Indian, the four main influences in Singapore), occasionally spotting the MBS hotel or the supertrees towering above the normal trees. Then we did a little exploring of the Sun Pavillion with hundreds of different types of cactus and succulents. As it started to get dark we headed towards the supertrees and saw some turtles through a glass wall, Kingfisher Lake and Waterlily Pond on our way to the Golden Garden where we saw a few of the supertrees up close for the first time. They are giant tree-like structures made from steel frames with a concrete centre that are then planted with thousands of plants from different countries. There are three in the Golden Garden, three in the Silver Garden, and twelve in the Supertree Grove. We left the Golden Garden and got an ice cream from McDonald’s to keep us going. I had a strawberry sundae and Amber had a sweetcorn flavour ice cream which she loved and said tasted like ice-cream-cone-flavoured ice cream. We got to the Supertree Grove a little before the light show and found a place to sit and wait.

Lau Pa Sat hawker centre nestled among skyscrapers

The Flower Clock in Gardens by the Bay

Us with the supertrees of Gardens by the Bay

It was very busy and people had spilled over from the few benches across the floor of the courtyard. We had a good view from our spot and sitting on the floor had the effect of making the supertrees look even taller! Even while we were waiting there was plenty to admire as the supertrees are beautiful up close even without their lights on, and before the show they start to illuminate them little by little. It was a very pleasant evening and the atmosphere was a cheerful hum of low key excitement. I’m one of those people who is utterly enthralled by fireworks, twinkling or coloured lights, so it was pretty much a given that I was going to enjoy the show. Even so we did especially enjoy it. Perhaps all the more so because we had had such a successful day, but also because it was one of those moments in which it really hits home how exciting this whole trip is, because we were somewhere so famous. Any time we are somewhere exceptionally well known, from movies, pop culture, postcards, travel bloggers etc, this feeling tends to strike. It’s that pinch-me-so-I-know-I’m-not-dreaming-and-this-is-really-what-we-are-doing-right-now feeling. It’s fantastic really because it reminds us to really appreciate the moment while we are in it. I think it tends to hit me a bit harder than Richard – I can’t imagine him crying with excitement in the street (which happened to me in a few cities on our Europe trip!) So we sat and enjoyed the music and lights show, and afterwards we stuck around taking pictures, and because we were doing that for a while, we stuck around for the second viewing of the show (which was far less busy but still magical). Then we had a bit of an unfortunate come down from our lovely day – we were hungry so we tried to go to another hawker centre on the way home which a couple of food blogs had indicated served vegetarian versions of some of the popular local dishes that I was keen to try – however, when we got there it turned out to be the wrong one somehow, so we had to go without. A great excuse to return to Singapore at least…

Supertree Grove at dusk

Supertree Grove at night

And so ended our one full day in Singapore. The next morning we checked out of our hostel and booked a bus out of the city. Other than the hot walk to the Golden Mile where the bus companies were, it was a much easier journey, mostly due to immigration being a relative breeze as we exited the city through the west instead of the north. The bus took us back to Kuala Lumpur, stopping on the way for some lunch. We had a baked honey sweet potato which was really yummy and tofu lumpia, a kind of spring roll. Once we got to Kuala Lumpur, we took the monorail to get to our hostel for our overnight stay before our second flight of our round-the-world journey. The dorm room we stayed in was for four people but we were the only two people in the room that night. For dinner we decided to use the free pizza voucher we had received last time we were in KL. In the morning we took the monorail to KL Sentral station, and from there we took the KLIA Ekspres to the airport terminal – this wasn’t our original plan but we got up late and then the monorail didn’t arrive for ages so we took the express train to avoid missing our flight! In the airport, we spent our leftover Malaysian ringgit on muffins and waited to board our flight – to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand.

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