Pchum Ben holiday part 3 - Singapore

(NB These Pchum Ben holiday blogs were meant to come one after the other but that didn't quite happen. We went to Singapore in October...)

After the joy that was Melaka (blog part 1 and part 2) we got on the bus back to Singapore already having had a great holiday. The border crossing on both occasions was brilliant. Quick and easy with just a short walk from the bus into passport control for exiting one country, a wee drive to the next passport control for entering the next country and then you were on your way.

street art in Chinatown

Chinatown

We stayed in a lovely hostel in Chinatown but it was a bump back to reality with the price. Our three night stay in Melaka, in a private room, was the same price as one night for two beds in a 16 bed shared dorm. Ouch. However, the hostel did have a massage chair that you could use for free and an endless supply of bread and Nutella. Silver linings!

our hostel was just up this street

All the Chinese medicine stacked up outside...

...the Chinese medicine shop

old meets new in Chinatown

 dragon heads

the Buddha's tooth temple - we didn't actually go in

Chinatown was, again, a photographic highlight of the city, however Little India in Singapore was far more visually exciting than in Melaka. We happened to be there when Deepavali (Divali), the Festival of Lights, was being celebrated.

the entrance to Little India

the entrance to Little India

colourful houses in Little India

Deepavali market stall

Deepavali market stall

Deepavali market stalls

Little India's Deepavali decorations lit up at night

There are endless things to do in Singapore, day and night, but most are fairly costly and, after doing so much in Melaka, we were happy to take it easy. One thing we did do was go to the Changi Museum, which is dedicated to Singapore's history during the Second World War. It was an interesting museum but more exciting was getting the train, and then the bus across town to the museum. Public transport doesn't exist in Cambodia so it was a real novelty. And it's all very nice, clean public transport too.

Another nice thing about Singapore was that we could walk around and feel completely safe, even late at night. Both of us feel safe in Cambodia but you do have to take care of bags in case of opportunist bag-snatchers, and I don't like to flash my big camera for similar reasons.  

One night we wandered down to the riverside to see the Supertree Grove at Gardens by the Bay. This is right beside Marina Bay Sands - an uber expensive, fancy pants hotel that is forever advertising on TV (with a terrible, but very catchy, jingle). As I googled the web address of the hotel I found, on wonderful Wiki, that it is the world's most expensive standalone casino property at $8 billion, including the cost of the land. Turns out fancy pants doesn't even begin to describe it! Anyway, they very kindly don't charge you for walking through the hotel (at a walkway half way up the building) so we did that. And it's also free to take photos, so we did that too!

The Singapore Flyer (bit like the London Eye) with the gardens to the right

Marina Bay Sands hotel on the left, and the Singapore Flyer again

Supertree Grove - they have a light and sound show which was  very pretty. And free.
I assume you can see the Singapore trend developing...

The flower shaped ArtScience Museum, in
front of the hotel and part of the hotel resort

we thought the ArtScience museum was rather reminiscent of this
art installation we saw in Buenos Aires a few years ago

On our other full day we bought a picnic and went to explore the Botanic Gardens. Neither of us are particularly interested in gardens but we couldn't miss a chance for a bit of nature (even if it is 'structured' nature.) What a delight grass is, I tell you. 

picnic with a view 

spot tiny me in the picture!

I could be mean and say he was trying to find the gardens....

After the gardens we walked down to Orchard Road - the fancy shopping district of Singapore. It's only expensive if you buy something.

We're not in Kansas any more Toto!

We narrowly missed out on the free limo back to the airport.

We'd decided to get an early flight out of Singapore so that we could have an extra night in the city and fly back to Phnom Penh in the morning and go into work straight away. Great idea - on paper. Not so great when you realise that you have to wake up at 4am and then pay for a taxi (rather than get the bus) to the airport. However, Singapore airport is delightful - where else do you wander through orchids and fish ponds?

Way back at the start of these Pchum Ben holiday blogs you may remember that, after a few hours in Singapore, I was beginning to worry that I might never want to return to Phnom Penh. At one point (in Melaka) while looking at what we would do in Singapore I even startd looking at a marketing job at Singapore Zoo. And people know I'm not a big fan of zoos. However, while we enjoyed Singapore, it was really nice to return to the familiarity of 'the Penh'. It may be dirtier and more chaotic but it's home and I love it. 

Pchum Ben holiday - Melaka part 1

For Pchum Ben, a Buddhist holiday that took place in October and is about paying respect to ancestors, Gordon and I decided to leave Cambodia and explore a wee bit more of the big wide world. After much debate - after all Vietnam, Laos and Burma are close by and China, Japan, Bali and even Australia are not that far away - we settled on Singapore and Melaka (Malacca), a port town in Malaysia.

Flights to Singapore were under $100 each, return, so it was with slight trepidation that I waited to board the Tiger Airways flight. However all passed without hiccup and the flight was pretty good. A gold star for Singapore's budget airline.

We arrived in Singapore but were immediately heading to Melaka. After a slick journey on the MRT (their under- and overground system) and a friendly greeting by our bus company rep I was worried I might not want to return to Phnom Penh. In Singapore you can walk on the pavements - and they're not cracked and broken, or filled with rubbish, or have motos bearing down on you as they spot a shortcut through the traffic. I thought it was probably a good thing we left the city sharpish!

Our four hour bus to Melaka was one of the most luxurious buses I think I've ever been on. Super comfy seats that reclined to practically horizontal. Bliss! There was one other person on the bus when we got on - a Scottish guy from Glasgow. What are the chances. He had left his job at Bauer Radio (radios Clyde, Tay, Forth etc) and was travelling for a few months.

Melaka is an historical port town and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Malay, Chinese, Indian, Dutch and Portuguese influences abound which makes for some fabulous food.

After dropping off bags we headed down towards Jonker Street where they have a night market every weekend.

he hates when I take pics of him eating

tasty fried noodles

one end of Jonker Walk - the end with the MASSIVE stage

hustle and bustle on Jonker Street - taken right beside the MASSIVE stage

Jonker Street is lined with food stalls and market stalls selling all kinds of wonderful stuff. We did a spot of Christmas shopping as well as buying some new bike lights, me an Angry Birds t-shirt (it's awesome) and Gordon lots and lots of snacks.

The buildings and streets in Melaka are a photographer's delight and I spent most of the next few days with my camera glued to my face. 

dragon on Kampong Kling mosque

top of Kampong Kling mosque

I particularly loved all the buildings in the Chinese part of town.

They'd used the Chinese lanterns to form the body of the dragon the
whole way down the street. The photo doesn't do it justice.

We went on a boat trip down the river, passing all the amazing decorated buildings along the way. Right at the end we also finally saw one of the monitor lizards that are meant to be all over the town. I managed to snap a quick photograph but it is not of a high enough quality to make the blog so you'll just have to take our word for it. (Dad has also requested that I put less photos in the blog as when he prints the blog out for my Gran to read it's getting to be too many pages. Don't say I don't listen to you Pops!)

Part two of our Melaka trip to follow, I hope, shortly. In the meantime, here are some more shots of lovely things that tickled my fancy...

multi-lingual!