The tour ends

After a tedious 12 hour flight from KL, I have finally landed in Heathrow, officially ending the tour of South-East Asia. It has been fun, and I am sorry to leave, but I do have to start getting back to reality and paying off those bills!!!

So what have I learned on the tour? I thought I would share some pearls of wisdom with you all:-

Langkawi
1. Never leave your best man speech until the night before the wedding!
2. Getting anywhere on the island by taxi will cost you no more than 20 Ringgits (about £3).
3. Hiring a car will lead to you being given a clapped out Nissan Sunny, with flat tyres.
4. There is no such thing as road rage in Malaysia.
5. Don't rock a cable car with Sam in it.

View of Langkawi from the Cable car mountain

Kuala Lumpur
1. The Rolex watch you buy off of the street vendor will eventually rust.
2. Taxi drivers don't necessarily know where they are going when they agree to take you somewhere; make sure you have a rough idea, otherwise it could be a long journey.

Kuala Lumpur (day)

Kuala Lumpur (night)

Singapore
1. You can have anything you want, providing you can pay for it.
2. Singapore Slings in Raffles are very expensive.
3. You can't take pictures of the Night Safari on the Canon Ixus 75.
4. Singaporeans love T-shirts.

Some horned creatures at the Night Safari

Cambodia
1. The price on the product is not the real price at all. This is the price they want tourists to pay. The real price is a fraction of this (about 25%).
2. The only way to get around Siem Reap is by tuk-tuk.
3. Drink bottled water, and make sure it is sealed.
4. Western people attract beggars like flies on shit; Chinese tourists attract none.
5. All Cambodians who own a car will own a Toyota Camry (without fail).

I hope you have enjoyed reading my musings, alas that is all for now - until the next time I go on holiday. See you all soon.

Mouseburger (international jetsetter)

The final day in Asia

Today has been a rather sedate day to be honest, I have spoken to Malaysian airlines and sorted out the fact that I will not be joining them on the Langkawi to Kuala Lumpur leg of the journey, and will just get on the plane heading towards Heathrow. They accepted this and I only have to pay a nominal charge for airport departure tax.

Also, I did pop in to KLCC (the big shopping centre place in Kuala Lumpur) because I wanted to visit the aquarium, having missed it by minutes the last time I was here. It was not too bad, but it seemed very similar to the one in Singapore.

The whole city is very busy at the moment, as it is the start of 3 days public holidays in Malaysia, for a festival marking the end of Ramadan (called Hari Raya Puasa). It meant that an awful lot of shops were closed, as lots of people take this time off to be with their families and, of those shops that were open, they were packed with Malaysians looking to celebrate the end of Ramadan buy spending their ringgits!

I would not be very British if i did not mention the weather in my communique. Once again, the day started out very pleasantly, beaming sunshine and the like, but by the afternoon black clouds descended and we were treated to another epic thunderstorm (some of the cracks of thunder were so loud they shook my room windows!) It has all died down again now, although i can see lightning in the distance.

Anyway, I need to be up bright and breezy for my flight back to the UK, as the airport is a good 40 minutes away and i need to fill in some paperwork at the check in desk tomorrow (due to me not coming from Langkawi). so i need to be at KLIA by about 10am (or 3am BST).

I am not overly looking forward to the flight back, as 13 hours on plane is never going to be a bundle of laughs, but it is a necessary evil that has to be endured if i am to see lovely places like this. I am already thinking of where to go on my next adventure :D

OK, for the final time I will bid you all goodnight from Malaysia - I would bring the sunshine home with me if I could, but I am already in danger of exceeding my baggage allowance!!

Kuala Down Pour

Only a short post today, as I have done very little, apart from flying out of Cambodia this morning and arriving back in Kuala Lumpur. I decided to hire Mr Son for one final trip and i gave him an extra $10 which he was over the moon with, as he really has been very helpful these past few days. He even brought me to a small school where they are training up unemployed Cambodians to learn the art of stone masonry and wood carving, which was very interesting.

Overall, the flight was not too bad. Flying out of Siem Reap is quite impressive, as you get to see all of the temples on your ascent. As we got to Malaysia, it was a bit choppy on the descent, but I was glad I was not coming in any later, as when we were driving back in to the city centre, we were immersed in the mother of all thunderstorms, with lightning flashing all around us. I couldn't even count to one to gauge the distance of the lightning strikes, they were that near. It was very impressive, but i would not have been a happy camper if we had to land in those conditions!

Still, I made it to my hotel safely and i am now sitting on the 19th floor of the Hilton, looking out on the city. Tomorrow i will probably head in to town for some last minute browsing before I finally leave South-East Asia and head for cooler climes (i am assuming it is cold and raining back there?!)

There is a part of me that is sad to leave, but there is a part of me that is glad to return to proper food (i.e. Macdonalds, Burger King, KFC et al.). Also, while staying in a hotel is nice for a short time, I do miss my own bed. Plus, I miss Sam too. 2 weeks is the longest we have gone without seeing each other since we started going out, and it feels strange not to share these things with her (apart from through the blog). I think i am the last of the wedding party to return home, as the bride and groom are flying back in the early hours of Saturday.

Tomorrow will be the penultimate post of the tour, i will post one final entry once i have returned to Blighty, officially ending the blog (until next time i go a wandering).

Oh yes, i need to let Malaysian airlines know that I am not going to be catching the Langkawi flight.....

The floating village of Chong Kneas

After three days of intensive temple hopping, today has been a more relaxing affair altogether, and i headed out to see the floating village of Chong Kneas. No, Chong Kneas is not some Cambodian megalomaniac who has developed his own village out in the middle of the main lake in Cambodia and is hatching diabolical plans for world domination, like something out of a Bond film (although a small part of me secretly hoped this). It is quite simply a village on the water.

Whole communities of people all live on the lake and it is quite interesting to see the sort of households they have established. There are even distinct communities like Vietnamese, Muslim (the guide lumped all Muslims into one group, which would no doubt upset Sunni and Shia readers - but i am only saying it as it was relayed to me), Cambodian (obviously) and Thai. Being a temporal zone, the water levels on the lake differ from season to season, and so the village has to move about in conjunction with these seasons. When the waters are high, the people seek refuge closer to land as there is a danger they will get swept away, When the water levels are low they move closer to the lake.

Apparently, although i am a bit skeptical, the water level changes by about 10 metres in depth from the height of the dry season to the height of the rainy season. Not sure this is feasible, but the guide was pointing to trees and saying in a few weeks they will all be underwater....so i guess i have to take him at his word.

Girls waving at silly English tourist as he snaps them collecting water. That is the interesting thing, the water is muddy as hell and yet this is what is used to wash with, cook with and drink. As you can see, this is the house they live in, and as far as i could tell, there was no plumbing evident, so i can only assume that the lake also performs that service too. Net result: water quality slightly worse than in our region!!

All sorts of facilities are provided for on this floating village, even going as far as having its own 5-a-side football pitch and a basketball court all floating on the lake. It does make you wonder who has to get the ball when it is blasted into the lake!

This gives a whole new meaning to the term "slam-dunk". Still it is nice to see that other countries are helping support this community, the basketball court was provided by Japanese government.

Also, I popped in to see a floating fish farm, which was similar to the one in Langkawi, although this had a load of crocodiles all penned up. It does not take a genius to realise, from the swathes of crocodile skin handbags and shoes that were on sale, what the future held for these creatures, but it was quite nice to see some crocodiles up close.

Soon-to-be handbags/shoes basking in the Cambodian sunshine. See you later, alligator!

In other news, i am all booked up for my flight out of Siem Reap tomorrow, i leave early morning, and will be back in Kuala Lumpur early afternoon. Now i just need a hotel.....

Monsoon soon Mon

This is the final day of temple visits, as I only bought a three day pass. Also, I need to start making my way back to Malaysia in order to get my flight home (tempting though it is to stay). Today I have visited Sras Srang (The King's swimming pool), Banteay Kdei, Ta Keo, then moved out of town to look at Bakong, Preah Ko, Lolei (not the 90s pop singer who had a hit with "big boys don't cry"!) before finishing up with Prasat Kravan.

Essentially, I have seen every temple worth seeing in the Angkor area. As I mentioned before, that is not to say all of them, there are hundreds, but some are just single towers etc. I have to admit to being a bit templed-out now, and so am looking for a more relaxing day tomorrow, where I will head off to the Tonle Sap lake and look at the village on the lake.

Strangely, as if it had been waiting, towards the end of the day, the heavens opened and I was treated to a monsoon rainfall. All my temples travels to this point had been rain free, but now as I ended my trek, it started. It is blisteringly hot here almost all the time, but when it rains, boy does it rain. Within minutes, water was running down the roads and I was drenched to the skin - I only had to run about 100 yards from the temple to the tuk-tuk too.


This is about 30 minutes. worth of rainfall, Mr. Son did a grand job of negotiating his way through the floods without splashing too much water onto me!! It rained hard for about 90 minutes and as quickly as it came, it went again, to be replaced by heat. This then meant that the water started evaporating and I was stuck in a sauna I could not escape from!!!

Anyway, back to the temples - admittedly I am struggling to come up with things to say about these lot of temples, as they are all similar to the others i have shown. Therefore I will leave the descriptions and just put up some snaps.

Banteay Kdei

Ta Keo

Bakong

Preah Ko

Lolei

Prasat Kravan

I was aiming to leave Siem Reap tomorrow, but upon trying to book my flight, I discovered that there is not a daily service flying out of here to Kuala Lumpur, and so I will have to head out on Friday instead. This does allow me though to see the Village on the lake I mentioned earlier, so not a big problem. After that, I will speak to Malaysian airlines at KLIA and see if they will waive me having to go back to Langkawi to connect to a flight to bring me back to Kuala Lumpur (seems a bit daft to me, but rules is rules).

If they will allow me that, then I have a day in Kuala Lumpur so I can see the city a bit more than I did, before flying home.

Indiana Beamish and the Temples of Angkor

Day two of the temple hopping and have seen more sandstone and bas-reliefs than i thought humanly possible! Today's temples were; East Mebon, Banteay Srei, Ta Som, Neak Pean, Preah Khan and Phnom Bakeng. I know those are going to mean absolutely nothing to you all, but they help to remind me which ones i have seen so i can tick them off my "eye-spy book of Angkorian temples".

Banteay Srei is a good hour away from Siem Reap, and Mr. Son was waiting for me nice and early to make our way out there. This temple is one of the most complete, and unaffected-by-the-elements temples in Angkor. Some of the detail on the stones was really special (taken lots of photos of this!)

A shot of Banteay Srei's central tower, there are more towers like this, all surrounded by a moat. Chatting to a tour guide later in the day he told me that this was more intact than the other temples because they used a different type of stone. It's red tinge is

East Mebon, Ta Som and Neak Pean are all much of a muchness although i did enjoy the elephants that were standing guard at the corners of the temple at East Mebon.

Preah Khan was quite special because it was massive. Similar to Ta Prohm that i visited yesterday, this Temple was also surrounded by jungle. There was tonnes of rubble everywhere, indicating that the place had fallen into ruin, but it really reminded me of monkey city in the Jungle Book. A lot of these temples have now be granted World Heritage site status (understandably so) and so there is a steady move on to restore the temples to something like how they used to be. Lots of pieces of rubble have been numbered and, like a massive jigsaw, they are slowly putting things back together again.

More roots taking over the temple at Preah Khan (aka Monkey city). In this one i have purposely included a chap in it, so you can get a sense of scale on those roots! that is one seriously big tree!!

The final temple of the day was Phnom Bakeng, which is a temple set on top of a mountain. Similar to the Baphoun it is a stepped pyramid temple, but one thing it does do is afford spectacular views of Angkor Wat at sunset. Unfortunately, as it was closing on on sunset, i was greeted by half of Tokyo waiting to get up the mountain! Also, after an intensive day of walking again, i was really shattered, and for the first time wondered whether Mr Son was actually a fitness trainer in disguise, and was trying to spur me to lose a bot of this excess baggage i am carrying!
Fortune was with me though, as at the base of the mountain was a sign saying 'Elephant ride to the top $15', and I was on that elephant's back quicker than you could say "exploiting animals". I have never ridden an elephant before (there just is not the demand for it in the Fens) and so it was quite interesting being buffeted around in the seat by the 2 ton monster. He made the journey to the top look easy, and i have to admit i was quite glad of the rest!

Elephants pose for a picture after carrying me up the mountain - and before you ask, it did not take two of them to carry me!!

At the top there was the other half of the population of Tokyo all snapping away at the various vistas that being perched on top of the temple afforded. A glimpse to the west showed me the reason for coming up here; Angkor Wat in all its splendour with the sun setting behind it. I took some pics of this, but i don't think my camera could do justice to just how splendid a view that was, so you will have to take my word for it!

Angkor Wat through the trees from the summit of Prohm Bakeng. You might have to enlarge this to see it properly.

Tomorrow is my final day of temple visits. After that i will be tying up loose ends and flying back to Malaysia, as the tour is coming to an end. Speaking of which, i need to book a flight.....

Angkor, What?

Today, being my first proper day in Siem Reap, I was up bright eyed and bushy tailed ready for a visit to the Temples of Angkor. The moment you leave the hotel, you are assaulted by a variety of different people wanting to give you a ride on their "moto" which is just a motorbike, or on their "tuk-tuk" - motorbike drawn carriage.

Obviously, seeing a westerner, the locals quickly realise that winning this contract is quite lucrative to them and so there was a lot of competition. I opted for a nice chap called Mr. Son (pronounced See-un) who agreed that for $15 he would be my taxi driver for the day. I have to say, after a day with him, he is a thoroughly nice person, and is very helpful. It is also quite nice that he takes real pride in his town and the temples, telling me, in his broken English, which places are the best to visit at a given time of day.

He was even OK when I had to return back to the hotel to recharge some batteries on my camera. Basically, today has been so hectic, that I have taken over 1,200 photographs and drained both of my cameras batteries (plus filled up 2 memory cards) - sorry, that is all technical guff for those in the know!!Mr. Son and his Tuk-Tuk. Very nice fellow, and extremely helpful.

Today, I have seen Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom (which comprises of several temples in its own right; the Baphoun, the Bayon and Phimeanakas) and also the jungle temple, Ta Prohm (which is the temple used in the film Tomb Raider). This really is just scratching the surface though, as there are literally hundreds of temples all around this area.

Ok, better give some more details of the ones i have visited so far.

Angkor Wat
This is described as the mother of all temples, and they really are not wrong. The scale of it is of epic proportions, and the intricacy of the stone masonry is nothing short of amazing. The moat which surrounds it, which i believe is man made is easily over 100 metres width all around. There is one bridge you have to walk across to get to the outer wall. Once at the outer wall, you then have another kilometre (at least) to get to the temple complex itself. The temple has 5 turrets all of which have seen better days, as the Khmers used a lot of limestone to make their temples, which gets weathered away over time. There is a lot of restoration work going on at all the temples, as they have finally realised that these treasures are a guaranteed source of tourists.
The final approach to Angkor Wat. The journey to get here caused me to drink about 3 bottles of water and i was dripping with sweat by this point, but it really was worth it.

Angkor Thom
This is actually bigger than Angkor Wat. Basically, the Khmer rulers were God Kings to their people, and so each one tried to outdo their predecessors with an even more spectacular temple. Within the perimeter are the Bayon, which is one of the more interesting temples as all of the turrets have strange faces (of the king?) looking down on you. It might possibly be a 4 headed buddha. The Baphoun is similar to a Mayan pyramid and has some seriously steep stairs. Basically the Khmers allow you to walk all over these buildings with little care for the long term damage this does. To people like me this is the equivalent of Alton Towers and i was scrambling all over the rocks snapping away with my camera.

This is a shot of the Bayon temple.
This is the Baphuon. Restoration work is currently underway, hence the large amounts of canvas!

Ta Prohm
This was the most interesting of the temples i saw (after Angkor Wat) as it is a temple that was abandoned and returned to nature. All the trees and roots are now entwined around the stones of the temple in an interesting synergy, contrasting the beauty of man's creation with the beauty of nature (hark at me with the arty farty talk!)
This is the Ta Prohm "money shot", each of the roots on this tree are well over 2 feet wide, to give you a sense of scale.

After that i was fairly exhausted so i have booked in Mr. Son again, and we will head out further afield. I am sure that word has got out that there is an over generous Englishman in town, as it appeared that i had to turn down even more requests for money today than yesterday!!!

The Road to Siem Reap

OK, after much procrastinating, I arranged to have a taxi come and collect me and take me from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap (roughly speaking it is about the distance of London to Edinburgh). This taxi ride was going to cost about £60, which was not too bad. However, at the last moment I thought it would be more interesting to take the bus and journey with the masses. This trip didn't even cost £10, so I have made a saving which I can blow on fridge magnets at the Angkor Wat souvenir stalls.

In case anyone is wondering, i have become addicted to fridge magnets, they are relatively cheap, personalised for the location you are visiting and, most importantly, they don't take up too much space in the suitcase. So, if your future presents from me come in the form of a small but heavy rectangular shape, you can have a good guess what it is going to be!

The bus journey was uneventful, but it did give me the opportunity to see a more rural side to Cambodia (albeit at a speed of about 100kph) The road between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap is Cambodia's best road, although that is not saying much as 90% of the roads are dirt tracks. The skill of the bus driver was undoubted, he was overtaking people on cars and motorbikes like they were crawling along. This was made a little bit more perturbing as for most of the journey the road seemed to be single carriageway and built up out of the paddy fields. One wrong swerve and we would have been up to our necks in rice!!
This is a traffic jam, Phnom Penh style. People casually walk through the traffic, taking their lives in their own hands, as cars rarely stop!!

Still, it was quite an interesting trip. Cambodia has a lot of similarities to East Anglia; it is very flat, like the fens, it is all sodden, like the fens and the communities all stick to their own gene pool - erm - like the fens.

The Khmer Rouge aimed to create an agrarian society and it seems, thirty years on, the legacy still lives on. Most people are just tilling their own food, and milking their own cows. There were one or two stone masons I noticed on the way, and this Angkorian craft has not died out, as the workmanship on some of the pieces was spectacular. It did make me wonder how much they charged for them, as I could easily see some of the pieces (some of which were 6 feet tall) going for tens of thousands of pounds at some trendy Knightsbridge store.

As the journey was so long, there were a couple of scheduled stops for using the facilities. It did seem to me that these stop offs were more of a business arrangement, as the moment we pulled up we were surrounded by people trying to get us to buy food. Being of western extraction (or possibly because I look like a gullible sap) I was seriously pestered by vendors trying to liberate me of my dollars!! It does make me feel a bit guilty saying "no" to an emaciated doe eyed child, but if I am to have any cash left for the final part of the trip I need to be tougher.

Still, after 7 hours travelling (the first hour of this was actually trying to get out of Phnom Penh) we arrived at Siem Reap. The moment you step off the bus you are harangued by hordes of tuk-tuk drivers (a tuk-tuk is a motorcycles with a carriage on the back), who promise to drive you to your hotel for free. This can be precarious, as some of them are scammers who will drive you to a hotel they want you to stay at (another cushy little business arrangement). However, as I had booked ahead, I was making it completely clear where I wanted to go, the tuk-tuk driver did not mess me around.

He was good to his word and did not charge me a penny for lift, although I gave him a couple of dollars of my own volition. Travelling by tuk-tuk with a large case is an experience in itself - the potholes in the roads at Siem Reap are massive and so every time the tuk-tuk swerved, the case lurched precariously over the side. Still, I arrived at my hotel in one piece, and once again I am in relative luxury.

Tonight I think I will head into Siem Reap and see what the lay of the land is like and tomorrow, Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples await!!

Choeung Ek, National Museum and the Royal Palace

This is my only full day in Phnom Penh before i move off to Siem Reap and so i decided to make the most of it and hire a taxi for the day (this cost me £17 and my driver personally waited for me before driving me around the city).

I decided a while ago, that i would have to see the Killing fields, which is called Choeung Ek to the Cambodians , and i thought it would be worthwhile to see the National museum which has the largest collection of Khmer artifacts in the world (although i dare say the British Museum could give them a run for their money!) and finally on to the Royal Palace, and the Silver Pagoda.

One thing that is of a slight annoyance is the fact that in some of these places, photography is forbidden. I am trying to work out the rationale for this, and suspect it has something to do with them wanting to sell guidebooks with nice glossy pictures in themselves.

Anyway, Choeung Ek is a hell of a moving experience. My blog has attempted to be a relatively lighthearted thing from the outset, but i just feel i can't be so blase on this particular subject. Men, Women and children were brought to this place and executed for no sane reason whatsoever. Also, to save on bullets, the Khmer Rouge resorted to using axes and various other bludgeoning devices to kill their own people, and the marks of these can been seen on some of the skulls.

Anyway, that is all I will say about it here, as the pictures below say more than I ever could.


Ok, after the killing fields, I returned to Phnom Penh to visit the National museum, which i have to say is not too shabby, considering the general state of antiquities in the country. Apparently, this is where a lot of treasures from Angkor Wat were taken when the Khmer Rouge were on the rampage, destroying anything cultural. Having said that, it is a bit one dimensional, in that it only has Khmer artifacts. I guess we are just spoiled with places like the British museum, which has some of the finest treasures in the world (plundered during our empire days!). Having said that, it is really hard to fault the intricacy and artistry of Khmer buildings, they are really spectacular.

I quite enjoyed this sign, primarily because of it polite request for people not to bring in handguns and explosives. I duly handed in my Semtex and .44 Magnum, and continued the tour. Handguns are par for the course in Cambodia, as you can imagine there are very little rules here, but that does not instantly mean you are going to be robbed at gunpoint. The people here are very respectful.

After the museum, i paid a visit to the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. Again, the architecture on these buildings was nothing short of stunning, but once again they were a bit funny about people taking photos of the interiors, which means i cant show you the hundreds of tiles made out of pure silver from which the Silver Pagoda gets its name. I did however get some nice exterior shots of the buildings.
One thing that is stark in Cambodia is the poverty, there is a lot of begging, and you would have to have a heart of stone not to give a few pennies to some of the people. One chap outside the National museum had no hands and one leg (which i presume was the result of a landmine), and he was trying to sell me a Lonely Planet book of Cambodia to make some coins. Unfortunately I have this book already, but I gave him a dollar (which is approximately what an average Cambodian earns in a day) for his troubles, and he was over the moon.

Phnom Penh

Ok, i managed to do some late night booking and arranging and have made it to Phnom Penh (Cambodia). I have now entered the Malaria zone (plays twilight zone music) and now those pesky little critters gain a whole new level of respoect from yours truly. Yes i have started taking anti-malarials, and i will spray myself with mosquito repellent too, as i really don't want to get off of work that desperately that i contract malaria.

Anyway, my initial thoughts are, this is a big culture shock from Singapore where you could have anything you wanted, providing you had the money to pay for it. Conversely, here you could have all the tea in China and there would still be things that you could not buy. Admittedly, i have only seen Phnom Penh by night, and it was not that long ago that these people were brutalised by an oppressive regime (putting it mildly) so i suppose they are still recovering from that. Initial views of the people are they are very polite and manneredly, which is always a nice thing.

The traffic system over here is also a major contrast to Singapore, which was incredibly well organised. Over here, it is completely normal for cars to drive on the wrong side of the road, some dont even bother to use headlights. Traffic lights are occasionally adhered, to, but pretty much it is a free for all at junctions. Still saying that, i got to the hotel in relative safety.

Another little nuance of Cambodia is that the currency (Reils) is hardly used at all, primarily because it is worthless. Instead they operate in American dollars, so i have stocked up on greenbacks in order to pay my way.

Tomorrow i am going to visit Choeung Ek (killing fields), the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. I should have some nice photos

Slingapore Sing *hic*

Yes, i have finally made it to Raffles, that bastion of colonialism on the island. I have to admit i was a little bit disappointed with it, as it seems to have succumbed to modernity and now has a shopping mall on the ground floor. Admittedly the shopping mall is for stores like Faberge, Cartier and the like, but it is still a bit of a sell out!!Anyway, the hotel itself is very impressive, nice architecture and all that, and you can tell that it is opulent when they have an Indian chap in full ceremonial uniform opening the door to my taxi welcoming me. Of course, the clientele of the place were all chinless wonders - smoking cigars, and swapping tales about how their grandad once shot and elephant and the like.

Anyway, I had my Singapore sling - well it was actually a Singapore mineral water, but i was not paying the 20 odd dollars for the signature drink, especially as i hate gin. I did however, throw my peanut shells on the floor, as is the tradition.
A gratuitous picture of my nuts!! Don't worry folks i did not shell all those myself, that is a days worth of tourists contributions too!! The floor of the whole length of the bar is covered in shells. For a 5 star hotel they really need to sack their cleaners!!

OK, now i have some hard decisions to make. Where to go from here.....i am technically checking out of the hotel by 12am, but i have not yet booked my flight to any other destination yet. To make matters worse, over the weekend, there are no flights out of Singapore for Cambodia so tomorrow's flight is the last for a few days. I could head back to Kuala Lumpur as there are more regular flights to Cambodia from there. Decisions, decisions.

Jurong Bird Park

I have spent most of the day looking at birds at the above park, i decided to give the Botanic gardens a miss, as once you have seen one flower, you have seen them all ;)

As with everything in this country, the bird park was impressive. I am not a big fan of seeing animals caged up, but it seems the Singaporeans aren't either, and so they have set up massive aviaries for them to fly around in and you enter the aviaries and snap away. One aviary is so large that it even has a 30m waterfall in it - basically it is the Eden project, but for birds!

This waterfall is not a natural feature, it has been completely man made for this aviary!

For a change though, the place did not have an escalator, instead they have a huge monorail that ferries people around the park. Being a good lad, i refused the monorail, and walked around, which is a fair old trek!!

The only downside was the park was a little light on the birds of prey, but that is me being very picky indeed, as there is a massive wealth of other species. Also, i think that we are quite lucky with Raptor centres in our own country.

Overall, my favourite part of the Bird park was the penguins exhibition - i just really enjoy the way they waddle around, and then flop into the water. Fortunately for them, and unlike the polar bears at the zoo, their pool is chilled to near freezing temperatures. To be honest, that must be a welcome relief, as today is the hottest day I have had yet.

Having said that, i did also enjoy the chance encounter with a couple of iguanas. They were so well camouflaged, that i almost trod on them!! This was quite exciting although i am not sure whether they have escaped from the other park, as across the road is the Jurong Crocodile and Reptile paradise.
I resolved to go and find out and so, when i left the Bird park, i popped across the car park to see if i could get in. The whole place looked incredibly dilapidated and right next door to the "Reptile paradise" was a Restaurant specialising in Crocodile meats, which really made me think that this place is not so much a haven for reptiles.

There seems to be a conflict of interest here, not really what i would call a paradise at all! Still if you wanted to try crocodile burgers, this is the place for you. Off to Raffles in a while, so will let you know how i get on.

Sentosa Island

I am really enjoying Singapore, there is so much to do here and it seems to be the T-shirt capital of the world. So much so, i am going to extend my stay here, and maybe give Thailand a miss - which is a bit of a shame as i fancied having my pic taken with a group of ladyboys....but we can't have everything i suppose. Today, i have been to Sentosa Island, a small island off of the southern tip of Singapore, that you get to by Cable car.
It was not as impressive a ride as the one in Langkawi, but it was interesting to head out to sea in a cable car! I met up with some 'Spanish' chap, who joined me for the ride - he was actually from Catalonia, but was relatively polite about me referring to him as Spanish!!

Once you arrive on the island, there are a whole series of tourist attractions which you can partake in. I opted for underwater world, which gave me the opportunity to see tiger sharks swimming above me in their specially designed tunnel.
These are tiger sharks, it wasvery impressive stuff, although it was clear that this was the signature tank of the aquarium, and the the rest of it was pretty much the same as any other.

As a slight side note, it does appear that Singapore is the land of escalators and elevators. Even the aquarium tunnel had an escalator in it!! mind you when most of you city is built in the skies, i suppose that becomes a necessity.

Anyway, to reiterate, the sharks were very impressive, as was the Japanese Spider Crab, which looks like something from Aliens and the Jellyfish.This is a Japanese spider crab. It might not look much in this picture, but if i said that this was over a metre in size, you get an idea of how large the things were!! Personally, I would not like one of them buggers nipping my toes as I was paddling!!

Once i had finished in the aquarium, I went to see Dolphin lagoon, where a couple of intelligent fish perform tricks for a load of morons who then feed them fish. It was not too bad, although it really did not last long enough to warrant buying a ticket (this ticket was given to me free when I went to Underwater world).

The dolphin is desperately trying to advise this Australian lady that getting into the water in a white dress is not the wisest of moves....she ignores him and gets more exposure than she really wanted.

Then, I went off to see the Merlion - a Sea lion which is the new symbol of Singapore (which means in Malay, Lion City (Singa - Lion, Pura - City). This was a magnificent erection at the centre of the island that you could climb up (or to be more precise, get an elevator up). I have a few photos of Singapore from the lions mouth, which was pretty cool.The thing you can see in from the lions mouth is the port. Ever wondered where all those "made in Singapore" products started out from? wonder no more....

After the Merlion, I came home to shower (I am currently on 3 showers a day, as the temperature and humidity is so great that, even after a couple of hours, you have a film of sweat ) and then popped into a couple more shopping arcades, before returning here to write the blog. It was 34 degrees today and even tonight the temperature has not dropped below 27 degrees. (not that I am gloating at you folks languishing in chilly Europe!)

Tomorrow, i am donning my Safari suit once again and heading off with my elephant gun to bag a couple of tigers from the balcony at Raffles Hotel, while knocking back a Singapore sling. If you read the literature on the island, the last tiger in Singapore was shot in the billiards room of Raffles. Although, what a tiger was doing playing billiards at Raffles is a mystery to me. He wouldn't even be able to hold the cue properly.....

Before Raffles though, i will probably head off to their botanic gardens, and possibly the Jurong bird park and then for my final day, i might head to the Bukit Timah Nature reserve, which is the last piece of rain forest in Singapore. It is now protected from development, and you can understand why, because if you stand still for long enough in this place, they will be laying foundations on you.

This image is for Sam - proof that there are white beaches out there that do not have any litter on them. The Singaporeans are sticklers for tidiness, and this beach was spotless!! :D

Singapore Zoo and Night Safari

I have spent most of today in my Safari suit wandering around the animals at Singapore zoo. This zoo is very impressive indeed, easily the best zoo that i have ever visited by some distance. At the very outset, i knew that i was going to be in for a treat when i went to the large sign showing a map of the zoo, only to see a primate wander over the top of it and sit in the branch right next to me.
Whose a cheeky monkey?! this is par for the course in the zoo, lots of animals roaming around and swinging right over your heads.

From this point on, i walked miles around the zoo, which seemed to have a maze like quality about it, and walking down a little side alley seemingly opened up a whole range of other animals for you to look at.

I have to admit though that i felt slightly sorry for the polar bear; they are used to sub-zero temperatures in the Arctic, and yet have been forced to languish in 30 degree heat all year round with only a medium sized pool of tepid water to jump into.


That said though, the majority of enclosures were amazingly spacious for the animals, and the way the zoo has been designed means that there are no cages for the animals - they are kept at bay from the food sources (i.e. the visitors) by a series of electric wires and ditches. This really allows you to get incredibly close to the animals, in particular the Indian elephant, who was bathing in the water. She was so close, that if i reached out, i could have patted her trunk.

After all that i headed home to freshen up and prepare myself for the night safari. Basically, there were lots of sealed off areas of the zoo during the day which are then opened up at night. This allows the visitors to see the animals in their more favoured medium. Some of the animals we saw were the same as during the day, but to add some extra fun to the proceedings the trams actually go through some of the enclosures (obviously not through the lion enclosure, which would have been carnage!), and i literally brushed past a tapir on this trek.

I really enjoyed the bats enclosure, as there was one cheeky chappy right in front of my face nibbling a bit of melon. The only shame of the whole experience though was that it was so dark my camera could not get a good focus on the animals. The most impressive exhibit had to be the jaguar, who was sitting on one side of the glass looking out, and i was on the other side looking in.

I was told on the tour that there is also a nice Bird zoo on the island, so i might pop and see that tomorrow.

Singer Poor

Awoke early this morning and headed onto the train for Singapore. This was a 6 hour ride through the Malaysian wilderness, most of which was jungle like. I have to admit, there were shades of 'Bridge over the River Kwai' about the journey at points, but all in all it was a really relaxing way to get into Singapore.

In contrast, Singapore is a more busy version of Kuala Lumpur. I admitted in my last post that the shopping centre in KL was massive, but even that is nothing compared to Orchard Road in Singapore, which has a shopping centre of similar size on each junction. I have been in 3 of them already (which has taken most of the day) and there are, by all accounts, at least another 31 shopping malls for me to go into! Basically this has ruined me for life, as places like Bluewater will be tiny in comparison.

They say that anything that is desired is available on this road, and it is easy to see why. Prices don't seem to be dirt cheap though, and so I have been haggling with the locals - even getting one chap to make me 2 tailor made cashmere suits for £170, which is not too shabby. I have also been warned that some of these shopping malls have shops for more discerning gentleman clientele, but look like everyday stores from outward appearances. Therefore i am being ultra careful about asking for a "Silky Tie", as i might get a very different result to what i was intending......

What with all the travelling i sort of forgot it was my birthday today, and was only reminded when the girl on the check in desk wished me a happy birthday. Thanks for the good wishes folks - to celebrate, I am in another plush hotel, being pampered again, just off of Orchard Road.

Koala Limpar

I have arrived in the city, and it is a welcome mix of bustle and relaxation....the relaxation part is that i am on the 12 floor of the Hilton hotel in KL, and am enjoying the pampering very much.

Upon leaving the airport though, I instantly felt as if the more relaxed nature of Langkawi has been replaced by the drive to make money. That is city living I suppose. When I enquired about a taxi fair from the airport to the hotel i was told it would be 60 Ringgits (about £10) and this was a major shock, as i had got used to travelling across Langkawi for only 20 Ringgits.

To be fair though, I did not really appreciate how far out KLIA (airport) is from the city. The taxi ride was a good 40 minutes drive and he was going some too! The whole layout of the city seems to be geared around creating space and as such everyone is considerably less stressed than their London counterparts.

After i checked in to the hotel, I thought I would make the most of my day in Koala Lumbar by popping up the KL tower. This really was quite impressive as I was about a 1000ft up in the air. From this vantage point, i could also see the Petronas towers, so i took a few snaps of the city from this vantage point.
The Petronas towers, as seen from the KL tower. It just goes to show how high up this thing was!! Apparently it is the 5th highest observation point in the world. For reference, all the other buildings around it are normal skyscrapers.

At the bottom of the tower is a patch of jungle in the middle of the city, which has been preserved, rather than just hacked down in the name of commercialism. There was a free tour of this, so i went along and met a few fellow Europeans - the Swedes on the tour, being fair haired, took the brunt of the mosquito attacks, which was a welcome relief, as i had forgotten my can of Hoffmeister!! This was a short but nice tour, we saw monkeys, which the tour guide seemed wholly unimpressed by, but us Europeans were snapping away like Japanese tourists. Then at the end of the tour, the guide excitedly pointed to the distance proclaiming that there was a dog. I took a token snap to make her feel better, but it was soon deleted.

The monkey is nicknamed by the guide as David Beckham, because he has a Mohawk hairdo a la Becks. See made a joke that the monkey could not play football, and was not impressed with my comment that "neither can Beckham".

After that i walked down to the Petronas tower, which houses a shopping mall the likes of which i have never seen - think of the size of Lakeside, but on 6 levels. It has every shop imaginable, and quite a few that i could not have dreamed of. Every single designer store you can think of was in there (even Marks and Sparks); Louis Vitton, Christian Dior, Rolex, Paul Smith, Gucci, Armani, Chanel to name but a few - Lets just say i know a few people who might blow their bank accounts if they ever got here!! :D
Unfortunately i could not get up the Petronas Tower, as it was too late, but to be honest, I have heard that the observation deck is not as high as the one on the KL tower, so I don't think I have missed out on that much.

Tomorrow morning I head off by train to Singapore. It is an early start, but should mean I get in to Singapore by early afternoon, so I can do a bit of mooching around. Looking forward to travelling through the Malaysian countryside.

Speak to you all in Singapore.