Singapore – Part 1
Travelogue about Singapore – Part 1
Из “Tour of Southeast Asia”
МАРШРУТА НА ЦЯЛАТА НИ ОБИКОЛКА В ЮГОИЗТОЧНА АЗИЯ И ВСИЧКИ ПЪТЕПИСИ ЗА
СИНГАПУР, МАЛАЙЗИЯ, О-В ПУКЕТ, БАНКОК И О-В БАЛИ може да видите ТУК.
Climbing to the 57th floor and laying all of Singapore at your feet, getting tricked by the jet lag and waking up at lunchtime, surrounded by skyscrapers, are only part of the unforgettable experiences during our trip to Singapore.
November 11, 2015 is a memorable date in my life, because that was when my big dream came true, and it was to go to the other end of the world.
Krisko, our son, was 8 months old when we set off on the long-awaited trip to distant Southeast Asia. Caring for our two children, one 8 months old and the other almost 5 years old, was entirely taken on by the two grandmothers. It is not impossible for people with children to travel. DREAM and don't give up!
We traveled with only 2 ordinary Tashev backpacks, as we had to comply with Air Asia's hand luggage dimensions, since our DSLR camera was also in one of the two backpacks 🙂
Our journey started with a flight from Sofia to London Heathrow at 14:10 with British Airways, from where again with them at 19 o'clock we were going to travel to Singapore. It turned out that the food on board was very delicious and in a fair amount. On the first flight to London it was mostly a meal, and on the long flight there were three meals, one of which was considered a snack, i.e., two biscuits, and the other two meals were a main and a snack shortly before landing. Honestly, I was very worried about how I would endure such a long 14-hour flight, but to our happiness we were seated in the first row, where it turned out to be quite wide and spacious for our legs and we had no problem at all – they fed us, watered us, we had somewhere to stretch out – what more could a person want? 🙂
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Panorama from the roof of Marina Bay Sands. A visa is required, so upon entering Singapore we got a free visa at the airport, or otherwise known as Visa on arrival. Upon arrival we filled out various forms and they gave us the visa on a flying piece of paper that we had to keep. Our first impression was the perfectly organized public transport and most of all the metro. The ticket cost 1.50 dollars. (* Note: Everywhere I mention that we gave how many dollars in Singapore, let it be understood that they are Singapore dollars. *) We took the Green Line metro from the airport to get to Downtown Singapore, where our hotel was located. On the way we passed through various residential neighborhoods, excellently neat and clean. I was also impressed that there are plants on the roofs and terraces of buildings. I am glad that we had only two backpacks, because besides greater mobility, we also felt better in the high outside temperatures.
The weather in Singapore is divided into a dry and a rainy season, and we were there during the rainy one. By rain, it is meant that it suddenly starts pouring heavily and then suddenly stops, and due to the high temperatures, everything dries up in minutes. What I couldn't quite stomach, however, was the high air humidity percentage. It felt like I was breathing water, no matter how stupid that sounds. Interestingly, right from sunrise, temperatures would rise to around 35-40 degrees and stay that way until sunset.
The hotel was called Park View Hotel. We found it easily as we had booked the cheapest possible room in Singapore, and that without a window. Unfortunately, it wasn't the one from the photo above 🙂 To tell the truth, there were a few more cheap accommodation options on booking.com, but they were in the Little India neighborhood, and I was very glad afterwards that I hadn't chosen to sleep there. Our three nights in Singapore cost us a little less than the remaining 15 nights of the trip, with the bills looking like this: 400 leva for 3 nights in Singapore and 600 leva for all the remaining 15 nights. I suppose this is because Singapore is the most developed country in this part of the world. They have built several artificial islands, similar to Dubai. Singapore is often compared to the economies of the USA, Japan, England, etc. The biggest companies on a global scale have positioned their representative office, office, and even management there. The standard of living is also exceptionally high compared to the surrounding countries.
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Despite the cleanliness and all the other positive things, one thing we didn't like and that was – the FOOD. Since Singapore is essentially a city-state and has almost no territory for agriculture and livestock breeding, almost all food has to be imported. That's why we had a hard time finding fresh fruit or a fresh vegetable salad. Everything had undergone some heat treatment and was then served.
Right after we settled into the room, we took off our winter jackets and thick clothes, put on our summer rags and set out to explore the city. It was around 5 PM and it was starting to get slightly dark. The city turned out to be the cleanest city we had been to. It cannot be compared to other places in the world that are at the top of the cleanliness ranking, like England for example. Singapore is much better in that regard.
Despite its modest area of 719 sq. m. in Singapore, about 6 million souls live there. Due to this fact, so that the city does not get congested with vehicles, the government has restricted the import of cars by imposing taxes and carbon emission fees of about 100,000 Singapore dollars upon bringing a car into the country's territory, which meant paying as much as you gave for the car itself or even more.
That's why there weren't many cars on the boulevards, not to mention the lack of traffic jams. Public transport is what takes up a large part of the traffic and is the main means of transportation for people there.
Before the trip, we had a great desire to buy technology from this part of the world, and more specifically – a computer. It turned out that indeed all technology there is cheaper than in Europe, but since we were traveling only with hand luggage, there was no way to transport it safely on the plane. It had to be in the luggage compartment, where, however, there would be a high danger of breakage, loss, or theft. Therefore, we gave up.
And so, our first evening in Singapore we set off along Beach road, then we turned towards Nicoll Highway, where the multitude of skyscrapers could be seen. Everywhere the green areas were excellently maintained.
We entered the mall, right next to Marina Bay Sands, where we tried local cuisine for the first time. It turned out we had picked some extremely spicy, fried, and disgusting dish and even though we were very hungry we couldn't eat it. We even panicked that if all the food in this part of the world is like the one in the mall, what are we going to eat for the remaining 18 days? Thank God, for the remaining days we had no trouble finding normal unspicy food, we had just drawn the short straw the first evening, as they say 🙂
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The mall was huge – it had an indoor waterfall, luxury and brand-name stores, and even gondola access to the water canals beneath the Marina Bay hotel.
And as we were walking around the mall, I saw a poster for Michael W. Smith's concert, which was going to take place in the hotel hall in a few days. He is actually one of my favorite Christian artists. The date of his concert coincided with the date of our flight to Phuket, and I was really torn on how to continue our journey. It was a huge dilemma for me, because this artist is very difficult for me to catch, since he usually performs his concerts in the US and Canada, and now I happened to have the chance. But in the end, reason prevailed and we continued along our pre-planned route.
After the walk in the mall, we headed to the panoramic roof of Marina Bay, located on the 57th floor of the hotel. Its full name is Marina Bay Sands Singapore Observation Deck and admission cost $23 per person. The organization of both going up and coming down was top-notch, despite the huge crowds of tourists. It was already getting dark, and going up there, the night view was definitely worth it. The multitude of skyscrapers around made the view even more impressive.
We saw the Infinity pool from afar, but to take a dip in it we had to be hotel guests, and to be hotel guests we had to set aside the "modest sum" of a minimum of 350 Singapore dollars per room. And guess what, we gave up and left it for next time 🙂 Also from above you could see the football field, which is built on an artificial island in the lake in front of the hotel, as well as the Singapore Flyer. The hotel is rated 5 stars and is extremely luxurious.
Even on the way down, I spotted some high-roller offer for $10,000, which included a romantic dinner + helicopter ride over downtown Singapore, spa, and many other perks.
Our return route passed by the football field. From there, you could see the multicolored illuminated Marina Bay and the Spectra light and water show in the lake ahead. We returned extremely tired after a 14-hour flight and about a 5-hour walk around the city. And since we had left the kids with their grandmothers and instructed them in detail on how to use Skype, it was our duty to inform them that everything was fine with us. For an hour we struggled with Skype and the hotel's slow WIFI to be able to contact them. On this holiday, we did not take any additional SIM cards for calls or internet. We relied solely on the free WIFI.
After that, we slept like logs.
The next day we woke up, looked at the clock and were horrified to find it showed 12 o'clock noon. We went to the reception to check and indeed it turned out we had overslept quite a bit 🙂
We had missed the breakfast included in the price and had to get ready quickly, quickly, because I had planned for us to go to Sentosa Island that day. All this was thanks to the time difference which was +7 hours compared to Bulgaria, as well as our budget decision to not have a window in the room 🙂
Sentosa Island is the entertainment hub in Singapore.
There is an amusement park, golf course, Aquarium, many shops, beaches, and stages for concerts and other outdoor performances. I had bought tickets in advance for the Disney-like park called Universal Studios. Including sleeping in until noon, then dragging ourselves through the metro and bus, and finding the ticket redemption counter for online-purchased tickets (which turned out to be in the parking lot!!!) and since the park closed at 6 PM, it turned out we had no more than 5 hours at our disposal.
The park was packed with people, but despite that, once again it was amazingly clean. Simeon and I first went on a "modest" roller coaster according to him, but for me it was quite enough. Simeon, however, had his mind set on riding the huge roller coaster at the other end of the park and while we were walking there, the weather turned bad. It didn't manage to rain, but they closed the outdoor attractions. Because of this reason, we couldn't ride most of them. Simeon went and lined up for the big roller coaster and waited for an hour and a half and finally, shortly before the whole park closed, they let him ride. The experience was top-notch and once in a lifetime! On the way back to the exit, we saw the spot called New York – it looked a lot like scenes from the show "Friends", but unfortunately it was already closed. The food in the park was very, very expensive, so it is highly recommended to bring something in beforehand.
After that we took a small loop around Sentosa Island with the free metro line and saw a beach that wasn't anything special and since we were very tired, we decided to head straight back to the hotel. Shortly before heading back, we decided to go to the Golden Mile Complex and find the place from where we were supposed to catch the bus to Kuala Lumpur the next morning. Actually, this is the main place where all buses to Malaysia are caught. We asked, inquired, searched, and everyone told us different things and sent us in different directions. It remained for the next day to find our bus. Finally, we grabbed a bite at a local small restaurant that was very, very cozy. I ordered duck with rice, which turned out to be very delicious and not spicy.
Everywhere in all restaurants, both in Singapore and in Thailand, dishes are served with chopsticks and you have to explicitly ask them for a fork. Then for dessert, I ordered something whose title I didn't quite understand what it was, but in the end they brought me fried fish, which certainly, according to my understanding, does not fall under the category of 'dessert' and was not sweet at all.
TO SINGAPORE – Part 2
More photos from Singapore, you can see below:
