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Frev had been looking forward to our getaway to Singapore and Thailand for months after our last trip to Niue in September 2024. This trip was really intended to be a dive trip with a stopover in Singapore, but it became two distinct trips connected by a short plane flight between Singapore and Phuket. The reason I say this is that we did so much in Singapore that it felt like a holiday in itself, and then after a few busy days in Thailand on the boat, the Singapore leg seemed to be a distant experience from the past.
This post is about the Singapore leg, I'll put up a separate post about Thailand and link to it.
Link to photo page
Super Tree at Night Smiles Chuggalugging Singapore Slammers at Raffles Marina Bay Sands 
Lanterns outside the temple Coffee shop in the Malay Quarter in Singapore Market in Little India, Singapore Richard, Tracey, Fran, Kevin outside our coffee stop in Singapore Street Scene Lanterns outside the temple Lanterns outside the temple Lanterns outside the temple Nice details on the Temple Lanterns outside the temple Lanterns outside the temple Budhha Tooth Relic Museum Impressive graffitti Street scene Fran under a random tree Sunglass Hut at Orchard Road shopping centre for Ab Night scene Night scene Night scene Night scene Night scene Night scene Night time from the roof top bar Heron waitng for lunch at the bird food market. Street scene in Singapore Night scene Chuggalugging Singapore Slammers at Raffles Fran outside our hotel Street corner Singapore river - quite a dirty looking canal, although it was being cleaned further upstream from this shot. Fran Orchid Night time from the roof top bar Night time from the roof top bar Teka Wet Market Inside the temple Temple or Tooth Relic Museum Statue from 1800-1900 years ago Statue from 1800-1900 years ago Statue from 1800-1900 years ago Fran with her red cloak studying a piece Statue from 1800-1900 years ago Statue from 1800-1900 years ago In the temple garden Fran pretending to be in prison, notice the red scarf that all women were required to wear. Dinner at Potato Head Restaurant in Singapore
Day 1 29 Jan 25
The drive down to the airport was dominated by family dramas which diluted the excitement somewhat.
We hopped on a late night flight from Brissie to Singapore.
The flight was uneventful and we were able to get some sleep followed by the quickest ever transit through passport control, baggage collection and customs. Gotta love Changi Airport!
Day 2 30 Jan 25
We arrived at our hotel (The Scarlet Hotel) at around 6 or 7 in the morning. We checked in but of course couldn’t access our room until 2pm so we set off on a walk to take in our first impressions of Singapore in about 19 years. It struck us that even at 7 in the morning the joint was deserted, the city had an air of having been abandoned after some sort of apocalypse with the occasional person in the distance going about their post-apocalyptic business. I exaggerate as to be fair it was Chinese New Year holiday still so a lot of people would have been taking it easy, escaping from the drudgery of work, not the four horsemen.
After a bit of a walk around we made our way to the Botanical gardens for 2 reasons, the first being to check the gardens out but the second was the more urgent prospect of finding an open coffee shop. The first objective was met with great satisfaction but the second not so much as none of the cafes were open until 9 at the earliest. I guess this is very much what would be called a ’first world problem’ and I’ll take that on the chin. It does have to be said that Singapore is very much a first world country.
We met up with Richard and Tracey who had arrived the day before and then we did get our coffee along with a nice breakfast at a café in the gardens which was buzzing with patrons by the time we found it at around 10am. We had previously purchased a 2 day ticket for the Big Bus tour of Singapore which included a night tour. One of the stops was in the gardens so we finished our meal and made our way to the it where hopped on for a trip through town to the famous Gardens by the Bay to see the super trees and other fings.
The Super Trees are quite impressive in size and attractiveness. The shape reminds me of a single stem flower vase, at this stage we didn’t see the lights that would illuminate in different colours, this would come later on the night tour.
Even though we had slept on the plane, we were soo tired so found it a bit hard to take in the Super Trees. After a bit of time there we decided to head back to the hotel for 2pm so that we could check in, freshen up and have a snooze so that we could be ready for the night tour.
The Scarlet Hotel is in the middle of China Town, apparently it's 'Adults only'. This is evident from the décor which is a teeny but risque. There are no windows in the rooms but they are comfortable enough.
Richard and Tracey where also staying at the Scarlet and decided to join us on the Night tour which took in the 'Barrage', a famous food market and the Super trees where we had been earlier in the day.
First stop was the 'Barrage' which is a giant civil engineering project that functions to protect Singapore from flooding. It must serve a similar purpose to the Thames Barrier in England. If a significant wet weather event threatens the city then they can use seven giant pumps to lower the water level upstream of the barrage to give the flood water somewhere to go without affecting the city. I wonder what level of event would overtop this, surely designed for a 1:500 storm?
The barrage site itself is really nice and has been set up as a place to go for picnics and, kite flying. It was so sweet to see hundreds if kites in the air being flown by kids and adults. Some of them were super high up in the sky. We went into a convenience store on the way back to the bus to get a cool drink, it turned out to be a kite store that also sold drinks, rather than a convenience store.
While at the Barrage, our guide told us about the myriad of huge ships anchored in the bay off Singapore.
Apparently these are mostly oil tankers waiting for the oil price to go up. He said that 1000 ships per day through Singapore. Seems like a lot but these things are often more extreme than you realise.
Next stop was the food market in the centre of the city. The tour included a sampling of some Satay Chicken skewers from one of the stores. These were very nice. We were told that if we wanted more we could just go up to the front of the queue and order them but we didn't feel comfortable doing this, so instead we went wandering in search of food further into the market. We came across a stall that we had vaguely heard of as famous for being the only Michelin starred street food store in the world. I have to be honest and say that the judge must have been feeling very generous on the day he/she dished out the star as the food was average at best and not served with much panache. The market itself was fascinating. It was packed with people and there were so many different types of food on offer.
We then went back to the Gardens by the Bay to see to see the Supertrees light show. I sound like whiner now but this was also a bit underwhelming. We had to scramble for a place to stand, then wait 20mins for the show to begin, then it only lasted about 5 mins, followed by a rolling maul to get back to the bus. I guess we were still very tired so we couldn't appreciate it as well as we might have done if we weren't so tired.
We were grateful to be able to return to the hotel to collapse into bed for a deep and restful sleep.
Day 3 31 Jan 25
Having had a refreshing sleep we found a nice coffee near the hotel at Les Mains deli. This was lovely and the manager was so attentive that I felt obliged to give the business a 5 star review on google.
We visited the nearby Tooth relic museum which actually a Buddhist temple. I wasn't sure what to expect from this but I found it to be fascinating. It housed these magnificent Budha statues made out of grey schist, some of which dated back to 2nd/3rd century CE. We really enjoyed this visit, especially the museum, the garden on top was nice too. The monks seemed to be getting ready for something downstairs so we didn’t really see much of the main temple. I have to admit that I came out feeling a sense of calm and positivity towards the world. Those Buddhist’s are definitely onto something!
The Gardens by the Bay also have two large glass structures, one is the 'Cloud forest' and the other is the 'Flower Dome' which is basically a gigantic greenhouse full of beautiful exotic and local plants.
First stop was the Cloud Forest which was full of fellow tourists but it was well managed crowd control so it wasn’t too bad. There is a tall waterfall which must add moisture to the air making it resemble a tropical rain forest. I am sure there must be plenty of real rainforests around the Malaysian Peninsular but this was quite enjoyable. The beautiful orchids were most notable but there were other interesting looking plants. The structure itself is very impressive, particularly with the man made waterfall.
We left the flower dome to eat our lunch on a bench before going into the flower dome. The Scarlet Hotel was great for many things but one of the best things was the free mini bar that included snacks. We raided this before we left in the morning so we had cool drink, water and chocolate bars, nuts and other snacks to enjoy.
The Flower dome included a Monet exhibition which was nice but the appeal reduced somewhat when it was apparent that they paintings were all replicas. The exhibition was nice but I wasn’t really in the mood and I don’t think Fran was either so we didn’t stay long.
Like the Cloud Forest, the Flower dome itself is very impressive. It was also very busy, but tolerably so although I found myself speculating on what the polite length of time is to wait for someone to take a photo before continuing to walk into the field of view? This became a teeny bit tiresome as some people seem quite happy to keep you waiting for as long as it takes to get the right pose. As I mentioned above it contained plants and trees from all over the world, including South Africa and Australia. I wondered to myself how they prevent seeds from these alien plants escaping the dome and establishing themselves outside as invasive species.
Waiting outside near a man on a bench who is watching something on his phone on full volume. Nice.
Tracey had booked tickets for us all to visit the Marina bay Sands Hotel observation deck so we rendezvoused with them in the lobby before getting in the lift to the deck. Unfortunately this didn't give access to the infinity edge pool but it was still great to get the all round view from the top. The observation deck is lovely. It was a bit cloudy today but you could see far off into the distance. You could see what seemed like hundreds of ships in the in the bay so maybe our tour guide from the previous night was right about the numbers passing through the port. It also looked like you could see all the way across the island to Malaysia as there were a large number of high rises buildings way in the distance in addition to the Singaporean high-rise towers in the middle distance all around us as well. The observation deck really is quite impressive and very very high. It wasn't too busy up there either. It started to rain while we were up there so a lot of people started clearing off. TO be honest this prompted us to do the same.
After this we went and had street food meal at the same place as the previous night. We weren't tempted by Michelin stars this time. . Lakshadweep and a white chicken rice, way less spicy. Washed down with two jugs (between all four of us) of Tiger beer. Fran then sourced two tasty desserts that were praised by all.
We finished up in the food court and took a leisurely stroll back through China town to our hotel with a stop in a funky bar restaurant that had really good Spanish vibe.
We arrived back at the hotel with the intention of hitting the roof top bar, but first, we needed to shower to freshen up.
The rooftop bar lacked atmosphere as we were the only customers but it did have incredible views towards the city.
Day 4 1 Feb
Again we had coffee and a bagel and Les Mains. It's important to form habits. We got wrapped up in our chatting with Richard and Tracey and suddenly thought we needed to rush to catch the hoponhopoff bus but having power walked to the stop we realised it was an hour away. In the end we abandoned the idea of the hoho bus, and decided to walk. So it turned out to be a bit of a waste of money, oh well, nothing ventured nothing gained as they say.
We intended to visit Little India and the Arab quarter but we had heard about a ’biltong’ shop that was on the way. This was for cured meat Singapore Style and apparently was always very busy in the lead up to the Chinese New Year. We arrived at the location and at first struggled to find it but then it became clear that it was actually closed. I guess this is fair enough as they will have probably just finished one of the busiest periods of the year.
We then made our way to 'Little India'.
The Tekka wet market is very memorable as Frev nearly chucked cookies everywhere when walking through part if this. We had to hold our breath and look down, otherwise it might have been all over (the floor)! I can't imagine what the Wuham Wet market must be like if it really does have animals from all over the workd.
The Malay quarter seemed a lot tidier. The musjid (??) mosque was very attractive. We had a Turkish coffee buttered kava toast (not Fijian kava!) at a place called Tarik.
After some aimless wandering around we eventually ended up at the ion shopping mall at Orchard. This was overwhelming. All these expensive shops selling nothing but adornments to make you look more like the adverts that you pay to watch.
It was a shortish trip on the MRT to the Boat Quay which was a line of pubs and eating establishments on the water. It was a bit tiresome to have each proprietor try to shepherd you into their restaurant to the point were we didn’t have the planned drink. We thought we might try the nearby Fullerton hotel instead but that was zoooo expensive. The decision was therefore made to make one last push for our hotel and have a drink in our room from the free mini bar. This was good.
A bit of a rest in our windowless room eating snacks and adding additional baggage for our flight tomorrow followed by the rooftop bar.
We had been told about a restaurant called Potato Head (now known as 1939 for some reason) by Adam and Fi, so we made our way there and had a lovelysalad and a chip type dish with chicken sausage but after the wet market experience we couldn’t stomach the chicken wings.
It was lots of fun to get into some night time street photography on our way back to the hotel before heading to bed for our early start and flight to Phuket.
