Back to Singapore

We continued our journey on the bus again to Singapore. This was a long day but an interesting one as we passed through many rubber plantations and stands of palm trees. We had to cross back into Singapore at Johor Bahru where crowds of locals were passing through immigration and customs. You get off the bus, carry your bags with you and after leaving Malaysia you do it all again to enter Singapore hoping your bus is waiting for you somewhere outside. Most of the passengers got off at Johor Bahru but a few were left to reach the end of the route, a rather dismal car park and not what you might expect in a city as modern looking as Singapore. Strangely it isn't that well located in terms of buses and the Metro but after a modest walk we found the Metro station and in were back to Sam and David's apartment.

The next to days we spent looking around the City which has many fine buildings. We were also invited to the apartment where David's secretary lived and arrived to join quite a party with a great deal of food, mainly Chinese and Indian. We were made very welcome and celebrated the end of Ramadan in style.

Downtown Singapore has many high rise buildings.

View of the Singapore River.

The Raffles Stamford hotel in the background and then old Parliament in the foreground.

We saw where the Formula 1 Grand Prix will run next September. Part of the track will run over this bridge.

The next day we went into Chinatown and just nearby was a Malaysian temple.

It was very active and outside was the normal pile of shoes, how anyone finds their own pair afterwards is a mystery.

Next stop was the famous original Raffles Hotel.

It occupies a whole city block but the hotel itself is quite small. The rest of the area is filled with very exclusive shops,and many classy restaurants. The doorman is said the be the most photographed person in Singapore.

It wasn't the best of days but a typical one where it rains very hard for a while and then clears up.

In the background you can the second Merlion, the other one is on Sentosa Island.

Water pours out of the mouth into the River at Marine Bay.

The hotel in the foreground is the Raffles Stamford and the two smaller towers in the background form the Raffles Plaza (now the Fairmont Singapore) where David is based.



Our time was nearly up and the last morning we all met up for lunch and took the standard "we were there" photographs.




Then out to the airport to catch the flight to Hong Kong and after one night in the hostel it was back to Vancouver on Oasis Hong Kong.