19 October 2009
A late start this morning. Had breakfast next door to the hotel in a Hawker Centre – freshly squeezed orange juice, a plate of rice, egg with onion and chilli squid. Not our normal breakfast (content or pricewise) but it was excellent and only $10 (£5) for the two of us.
Walked to Clarke Quay to pick up a bumboat for a 30 minute trip up the Singapore River. It was an interesting and informative trip. Should have been $26 but was free with vouchers from Singapore Airlines. We then caught a hop on/hop off bus – normally $24 for a day pass but with vouchers it wasfree. Hopped of on Zion Road near another Hawker Centre for 2 iced lemon teas, curried meat and veg – $6.
Hopped on again to Singapore Flyer (similar to London Eye) and hopped on the Sentosa shuttle bus. Should have been $6 but didn’t realise and showed driver our pass which he accepted. Sentosa is an offshore island connected by a bridge. It’s now a huge theme park and holiday centre. Not really our sort of place but you can’t really fail to be impressed by the sheer scale of the place (oh, and we got in free with our SIA tickets). We took a free tram to one of the beaches where we had a walk and drink. Boy was it hot but we struggled on. Next was a free bus to the highest point of the island to the Tiger Sky Tower. This is a pole as high as a 50 storey building with an enclosed viewing platform that fits round it. Not bad for someone like Alan who is scared of heights and claustrophobic! This slides to the top of the pole whilst rotating and holds about 30 or so people. Cost $24 but free with SIA.
We caught the last bus off Sentosa at 7pm and walked back through Little India to our favourite Hawker Centre for another lovely meal washed down with 2 Tiger beers ($14). The place was buzzing as it’s Friday night.
Back to our lovely air conditioned hotel to cool down to wait for our transfer to Changi airport. Really good flightime – 1.55a.m!!
One place that we didn’t have time for was the Changi War Museum. It was too far out for us to get to in the short time we had. Many people don’t realise that there was a huge loss of life of both Singaporeans and British during the second world war. Winston Churchill called the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in 1942 ‘the worst disaster and largest capitulation in English history’. Apparently we were confident of an attack from the sea but the Japanese came overland on foot and bicycle and although they were outnumbered 3 to 1 we had surrendered within 7 days. 30,000 prisoners were lead on a forced march to Thailand where many died building the bridge over the river Kwai.
We would like to see more of Singapore and will definitely return one day.
