It’s hard to say whether we should have gone straight from Melbourne to London without a stop-over but as we love Singapore we decided to spend a couple more days there on our way home.
When it rains in Singapore it doesn’t mess about and my goodness was it raining when we arrived! Instead of getting soaked wandering around we decided to get our heads down for a while. We stayed in The Park Regis Hotel again and had a fab room looking out on the swimming pool.
After a couple of hours sleep we headed to our favourite cafe bar for breakfast, Malaysian style. This place is such good value and the person who runs it is so welcoming. Cheapest place in the city for breakfast (we reckon) as long as you’re happy to have a little honey on your bread with a boiled egg and cake to follow. Interesting combination and it worked for us. I didn’t have to explain this time how I like my tea (black tea, cold milk and one sugar), our friendly owner remembered from our visits a couple of weeks earlier. If she thought that having milk in tea was odd she didn’t say!
Next stop after a bit of a wander round was to the imposing building known as Parkview Square. I’d spotted this Art Deco building when we were in the city last time and thought maybe it was a museum. Turns out it’s one of the most expensive office blocks in the city. This link will tell you all about it so I won’t go into the detail of its history here but enough to say that despite the Art Deco architecture it was built less than twenty years ago! Parkview is not all it seems!
Once my man had researched the place and discovered there was a rather excellent wine bar on the ground floor that was where we headed. Apparently amongst its patrons are members of the Divine Wine Bar Society, I can aspire to that! Sitting in the Atlas Bar surrounded by Art Deco frescos and statues everywhere, you just want to make your glass of fizz last for ever!
Eventually we managed to drag ourselves away and walked to the adjacent district of Kampong Glam Malay, home of Singapore’s Muslim Community. It’s a popular area for tourists as there’s lots of good value cafes but more importantly at the end of Muscat Street is the imposing Masjid Sultan mosque which is a must to visit. The massive gold domes are a magnificent landmark and inside is a huge prayer hall which can accommodate up to 5000 people. Before you enter the Mosque women are given a very fetching all-over robe and for men wearing shorts there is a sexy long skirt for covering the legs. As you’ll see from the picture below we both looked rather fetching! Our stay in the mosque was longer than planned as in true Singapore style the heavens opened and for about an hour the rain was torrential. Even a rather large scorpion came inside to shelter! We gave him a wide berth …
Back to the hotel for a swim and another snooze (this jet-lag is hard to ignore) and we were ready for the evening.
There’s so much to do in this city and one of the star attractions is to go up to the Observation Deck of the Sands Park Hotel. The lift whisks you up the 57 floors to the SkyPark Observation Deck. You can go up anytime (it’s not free!) but at night you can watch the light and water show which is spectacular. These pictures don’t do it justice but there’s only so much my Panasonic Lumix camera can do from that height! You can see the ‘Gardens by the Bay’ and the whole of the Marina Bay area and the amazing cityscape which is Singapore.
Then it was time to head for Chinatown for yet another decently priced meal at one of the many restaurants and to soak up the great atmosphere there.
The last day of our trip. We were heading home but not until late evening. We’d already done lots both at the beginning of our holiday and this stop-over on the way back so what were we going to do on our last day? It was easy to decide …Singapore’s Botanic Gardens. It’s world famous and rightly so and a great way to spend a few hours. Apparently the Gardens are the most visited botanic gardens in the world with over 4 million visitors annually.
It’s easy to get there by metro and free to wander round the grounds. There are lots of themed gardens and although we didn’t have time to go round them all we managed quite a few. After lunch we headed for the National Orchid Garden within the site. I’ll never forget this experience; the most fabulous orchids you’re ever likely to see, even tops Wisley! It’s cheap to get in too, just $5 dollars for adults and $1 dollar if you’re over 60.
If we go back to Singapore we’d definitely go to The Botanic Gardens again. There is so much to see and as interesting as the theme gardens are it’s the Orchids I’d head for straightaway. If you love orchids you’ll love this garden. This visit was the perfect way to end our holiday.
Travels with the Booths.blog 