Singapore – first experience of Southeast Asia

We’ve now had our first 24 hours in SE Asia and been suitably impressed by our initial experience of Singapore, having arrived yesterday morning after a 15 hour Singapore Airlines flight from Manchester via Munich – I have to say the service on board was excellent and I enjoyed 2 films (Social Network about the original development of Facebook by Mark Zuckerberg and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, the sequel to Wall Street again starring Michael Douglas as Gordon Gecko now out of prison, based around the time of the 2008 banking crisis.)

We spent around 7 hours in Singapore City, admiring the futuristic architecture, most remarkably represented by the Marina Resort Casino consisting of 3 tall blocks with a boat shape straddling the top of all three. The Singapore Cricket Club conjured up British Colonial times with its stuffy looking ambience and “members only” rule. We walked along Boat Quay where there are numerous river front restaurants (including bizarrely The Manchester United Cafe) and where you run the gauntlet of waiters trying to entice you with offers of Happy Hour beers. We eventually settled for one offering small snacks of dim sum.

The ubiquitous tour bus ride round the city followed as we attempted to ward off the increasing jet lag followed by the essential visit to Raffles for the original Singapore Sling (invented in 1915). I have to say the hotel still has an amazing elegant style – we vowed to stay there one day.

After another snack in an open air courtyard, with tiredness now beginning to overwhelm us, we hired a taxi back to our hotel for what turned out to be an interesting ride viewing the now illuminated skyline. The driver explained that taxi drivers must be Singaporean and must “sell” the country to tourists, which he certainly did with an interesting commentary all the way.

Incredibly, we managed to sleep for 12 hours, which successfully overcame our jet lag in one go. This morning we walked around the area close to the hotel, with markets stocked up for Chinese New Year on 2^nd/3^rd Feb (The year of the Rabbit), numerous shops of all descriptions, a large park with 20km running and cycle track alongside the coast on reclaimed land. The view along the coast consisted of at least 100 container ships, tankers etc, presumably waiting to load up in the huge Singapore Port.

We also discovered an impressive Sri Lankan temple in a backstreet that a local driver didn’t know was there and tried to direct us miles away! Award for the most boring photo seen being taken so far, an escalator leading to a walkway over the road – imagine showing that to your friends.

We’re now in Hanoi, Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, and first experience of this remarkable country. The taxi ride from the airport to the old town was like wacky races but our driver was very calm. At over 30,000 dong to the pound, we’re already dong millionaires several times over. The people have been so welcoming, we’ve never been treated so well when arriving at a hotel.