12.01.2004 
36 °C
So after one last night in Dublin, I jetted across to sunny Singapore - a balmy 29C on arrival at 4.30ish!
Aside from its Singapore Slings and shopping (and it is still very, very fine), Singapore seems to be renowned for its hardline laws on, well, just about everything and is consequently known as "fine city". When you receive your immigration card, you are warned that if you traffic drugs, you will be executed...so fair enough, no different to anywhere else in Asia. But then you have some more: S$500 for smoking in public places; S$50 for jaywalking (everyone seems to ignore this one though); S$1000 for littering as well as being issued a Corrective Work Order (where apparently you have to do litter-picking up duty whilst wearing lairy clothes which let everyone know you are a litterbug - public shaming, dear oh dear) - the list goes on to include things like urinating in elevators; chewing gum anywhere at all; and not flushing a public toilet! The flushing one seems a little silly considering how many self-flushing dunnies there are around town.
On my first morning in town I headed out to Changi Prison, where Allied Prisoners were held by the Japanese in a POW camp. The prison is still in use today (full of a mixture of litterbugs, thieves, extortionists and trafickers waiting to be hung) so you are unable to visit it, however the museum next door provides, in quite vivid detail (esp. of the torture methods used - e.g. ripping out of fingernails), accounts of everyday life in the prison, as well as an historical account of the Japanese movement across SE Asia. From there I headed over to the Colonial Quarter where I sussed out Raffles' landing site, the Empress Palace Building (currently housing Asian Civilization Museum), the gorgeous Victoria Concert Hall, Parliament House, St Andrew's Cathedral, Padang (home to the exclusive Singapore Cricket Club), CHIJMES (formerly a convent, but now a stunning shopping complex), and finally Raffles City - a stack of shops attached to Raffles Hotel.
The next day was essentially spent shopping down Orchard Road... well it's Singapore! One MUST go shopping when here. On my last night in Singapore, instead of heading to Raffles hotel for a Singapore Sling (a mix of gin, brandy, Cointreau, Benedictine, pineapple juice, lime juice, grenadine and bitters, with a slice of pineapple and a glace cherry on top) for a ludicrous USD$15 (!!) a sling, I headed off to the Night Zoo with a guy from the hostel, and an old college friend of his who lives in Singapore. Fabulous zoo - nearly as cool as Taronga Zoo!
After having lived in not-so-sunny Ireland for 6mths I decided a few days of R&R on the beaches of Langkawi Island would be lovely, though I was unable to get a cheap flight direct to the North Coast so bit the bullet and travelled 27hrs to get there!! It took a taxi, 2 trains (and a four hour lay-over in KL where my Austrian friend, Edith and I decided to hit the Petronas twin towers - at present, the tallest TWIN towers in the world - extremely "grandiose" and in addition to all the MNCs and Petronas offices, home to some fantastic shops!), 2 ferries (one complete with Westlife karaoke!) and another taxi to get there....but it was lovely to stay at a beachside bungalow on a tropical island with all the coconut shakes, banana pancakes, motorbikes and geckos running around bungalow walls one could hope for 
Next I headed to Penang (Georgetown). There I visited Fort Cornwallis (the spot where the Pommie fleet first set up their barracks), the Kuan Yin Teng Temple (dedicated to the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, and full of locals offering gifts of food, flowers etc and waving heavily incensed joss sticks), the Sri Mariamman Temple (a wonderfully colourful Hindu Temple), Chinatown, and generally wandered all over town in the exhausting heat. I stayed at the most budget hostel I could find(AUD$6 - a tad overpriced too!), right near the biggest mosque in town, which was fine, except for that they started up at dawn each day calling the local Muslims to the mosque over the loudspeaker which must have been audible from a km away!! Thank goodness for building site OHS approved ear plugs! (Ta Ken!).
From Penang, I took a flight back down to Singapore, where I met a motley crowd of travellers at the Inn Crowd hostel - possibly one of the coolest backpackers I have stayed at. They have a mascot kitten there, and the guys that run the place organise activities every night and pretty much everyone goes along. So, after a day at the beach with a fellow Ozzy and an Irish girl, a mob of us headed to the Raffles hotel, for that Singapore Sling ($18!!), before venturing up the tower of the Swiss Hotel to the discotheque.
It´s been fun..but time to leave now. I´m heading to Melbourne next for my sister's wedding, before going to Tassie for a road trip. I hit Sydney on Australia Day and should be on the move again Feb 8....
Adios
Love Belinda x
