Singapore Sling
Trip Start
Nov 01, 2009
1
15
38
Trip End
Jul 01, 2010
Singapore, Singapore
Monday, December 14, 2009
'Mandras Hotel' in Little India provided us with a spacious, comfortable room with a powerful hot shower – heaven! The surrounding area was dominated by strong smells of curry and backpackers' bars and hostels. We soon found out that the central city action was a short bus ride away, where we became familiar with the orderly street names and took a peek at the famous 'Raffles Hotel', named after the influential Sir Thomas Raffles, and home to the original 'Singapore Sling'. We decided on the spot that we would be making a longer visit here later. In the meantime, we shared a late lunch in a small restaurant called 'Skinny Pizza', where ingredients are light and the dough usage is minimal! In just a short time walking around Singapore, it's obvious that the city is a shopper's paradise. Malls, shops and restaurants line every street. But most impressive of all were the Christmas decorations – gold, silver, red, green and purple décor loomed over our heads and all around us as we moved through the city. So much effort and time had clearly been given to Christmas... It was beautiful and reminded us how quickly Christmas is creeping up! Feeling jaded but determined, we walked all the way back to our hotel and relaxed for a couple of hours before getting ready for our night out. It was fun dressing up and knowing that soon we'd be drinking in the posh Raffles Hotel! At about 8:30pm, we were there, sipping on Singapore Slings in the Long Bar and following the strange tradition of throwing our monkey-nut shells on the floor. The bar was stunning, with smartly uniformed bar tenders, fairy lights, glamorous tables filled with glamorous people and gliding leaf fans cooling the customers below. We came to the assumption, from chatting to various tourists, that most of the people there were probably not actually staying at the $6000 a night hotel, but were visitors, just like us. From gathering this information we felt more comfortable and less out-of-place, and the evening flew by us, helped along by an American pilot buying us drinks on his 'expenses tab' (so we didn't feel so guilty) and other friendly drinkers sharing their travel experiences with us. On realising that we hadn't eaten, we reluctantly tore ourselves away from the grand hotel and took a short ride on a Singaporean tuk tuk to Clarke Quay; a beautiful harbour peppered with restaurants, bars and clubs, situated right on the waterfront. Despite already having spent a fair amount already, we decided to continue down the more expensive path and ordered a bottle of wine and paella at a riverside Spanish restaurant. Why not make it a night to remember?! To conclude the evening we paid a short-lived visit to a Latin-style dance club, but on seeing the empty room, we headed back. Apparently Monday evenings are not late evenings for Singaporeans! Instead, we ran through a series of shooting water fountains – a great idea at the time, and one which left us a little wet, much to the taxi driver's dismay on the journey back to our hotel. I don't even remember falling asleep that night.
On making a huge effort to be up in time for our included hotel breakfast, we were disappointed to find a tiny table in a cafeteria-style room containing a bowl of bananas, a loaf of bread and a toaster. Underneath the table were two buckets full of water, accompanied by a sign instructing us to place our dirty plates and cups in them. For the money we paid, we weren't overly happy with this poor attempt at a breakfast, but came to the conclusion that it was probably karma for not having done the sensible thing and stayed at a cheap hostel! Nevertheless, two holes were filled, and we were up at a reasonable hour, ready to start another day. The day was based around an open-top bus tour of the city, run by 'Hippo Tours', whose tag line was 'Be Hip! Go Topless!'. We stopped off at the beautiful Botanical Gardens, which house the world's biggest orchid garden. There were Christmas trees decorated in a style which represented different countries, which was interesting at first but soon felt like the spirit of Christmas was being ignored when some trees were made up of tin lids and plastic bottles to signify 'being green'! The gardens were peaceful and colourful, with thousands of different kinds of flowers and plant-life, lakes and ponds, a stage and a good selection of restaurants. The bus showed us the entire city, following two separate routes (east to west and north to south), which took about two hours without stopping off anywhere. We passed the famous Orchard Road – a massive street packed full of designer and high-street shops, not to mention a crazy amount of Christmas decorations. Other attractions included the 'Singapore Flyer' – five metres taller than the London Eye but not as aesthetically attractive, Raffles Hotel, various plush hotels, areas such as China Town and Little India, markets, stunningly designed buildings and other amazing architecture, historical sights and monuments and more. In the afternoon the skies opened and it poured with rain, forcing us to flee to the bottom deck of the bus. We were disappointed because we'd hoped to visit the 'Night Safari' next to the Singapore zoo; a trip that would've let us see tigers and other such animals in the dark. Instead, we sat in a backpackers' bar and had a surprisingly good meal with the football blaring on the TV screen and no one but English people surrounding us, including the bar staff. Throughout the evening a guy who was too talented to be there played his guitar and sang, which was entertaining, but eventually we ran back through the rain to our hotel and packed our backpacks... This saved having to do it at 6am in the morning, when we would be sleepily but excitedly getting up to catch our flight to our fifth country: Sydney, Australia!
