Goodbye Singapore

Well would you believe, our time in Singapore is up already and tomorrow we head off to cooler, but not too cold we hope, England. The temperature was around 30 degrees, but the humidity was extremely high due to low cloud and an occasional shower. Today we went on another bus tour and saw Little India but it was very crowded as it was a Public Holiday. We had a wonderful time standing on the side of the road waiting for a bus and watching how Asian traffic works. It was a 4 lane road and we noticed a cyclist riding down the middle, going the wrong way!
People were double parked and tripled parked, people were parked in parking zones and people came out of side streets and drove right across to the other side of the road. With all this going on, the traffic ran smoothly and no-one got upset. Do you think we could learn something from them? Later in the day we decided to face the elements and head to the upper open level of the double decker bus instead of the lower level which was air-conditioned and we agreed we should have done this before as the views and photo opportunities were better. Never mind we have a pretty good idea now what Singapore city is like.

Some facts to record about the place ….. it is very clean and tidy and the gardens are beautifully manicured. The population is 4 million, about the size of Melbourne. The city has 260 shopping malls, many of which have over 100 shops, so shopping is a great past time. Here there is a special tax on used cars, therefore you never see an old car. anything over a couple of years is exported and you need a permit to purchase a new car which can cost you up 10,000 American dollars for the permit only. This is done to try an control traffic congestion. The bus services are amazing, with buses coming at very regular intervals and taxis are quite cheap. When traveling around the city there was hardly one street in which construction was not taking place, either repairing, replacing or building new buildings. The architecture is amazing, with the most unusual and exotic designs which you will need to see to appreciate and they were also setting up for the Grand Prix in a couple of weeks. Much the same as in Monaco where the cars race along the streets. We think Singapore was well worth a visit and have had a good time. Sorry we can’t include some of our amazing photos at this stage. Don’t know when next we’ll post as our battery is now running very low.