29th March - sailing photo - Jurong Bird Park - Tanglin Club re-visited (Singapore)

Saturday 29^th March

First a photo, sent by Chantal and Fredy (SV Micromegas.)

Where are we??  Not sure...maybe Pangkor, Malaysia?

Pete recovered remarkably quickly from his nasty drippy cold.  Maybe it was the miraculous drugs – my foraging trip to the huge Mustafa shopping mall down the road yielded one small packet of cold & flu tablets which have worked a treat.  They did not have any strong painkillers…I was very sad about this; I could have bought some in Malaysia but for some reason I only bought a very small strip.  And I NEED them – the mattress in our hotel is…well it is clean and neat but…it is not far off being as hard as a plank and I am having lots of trouble sleeping.

WHINGE!!

So look at these glorious orchids – much nicer than having to read about my boring BORING sleepless nights…

Or how about these lovely bikes, all parked under a railway station?  People here mainly have cars.  Nice shiny new cars.  Not so shiny in Little India, but in the Orchard Road area they are Maseratis, Rolls Royces, fancyschmancy this and that.

Yesterday we ventured forth on another adventure…more living creatures… So far in Singapore we have seen sea creatures in the Sentosa aquarium, many MANY animals in the zoo, and today it was – BIRDS!!  (There is a bit of a theme here…no sure if Pete would be QUITE as keen to do all of this on his very own…)

We got on the train at the Little India station at 9am.  As we waited, Pete commented on how small the queue was, waiting.  I commented on how very whiter-than-white the models are, in the glamorous posters lining the walls.

The shops are full of whitening creams...

He got talking to a new friend also waiting for the train, who said, Yes the queue isn’t very big here but…wait till you try to get on the train!!

Everybody plugged in!!

We got to the Jurong Bird Park just before 11.  Just in time for the SHOW!!!

So much thick black hair

The show was very slick, and very shouty…

The birds flew around, did tricks, sang songs – the audience loved it!

And then it was time to wander around, with the odd moment on the slow-moving tram.  (Some of us were very t-i-r-e-d and needed an elderly moment not walking in the humid hot air… We went around 1½ times…) 

So many beautiful birds…

Pink flamingoes

Misty (SV Tamoure, Scotland,) had told me about the birds of paradise… they have a very good display, and they have a very successful breeding program at Jurong.  But…we could hardly see the 12-wired B of P… He was sitting nicely in a tree but…the wire mesh was so thick he was all but indistinguishable…

Misty, so sorry, I could only get a photo of the info, not of the actual birdy!

The park has also has a splendid collection of heliconias.

small one

and

big one

Pete made friends with an Australian cockatoo:

And we had a dear little bird come up to our feet near the waterfall. 

(The biggest waterfall in the world in an aviary! - made by humans -  Maybe 60 metres!)

No idea what he was!  But...how cute??

The flamingoes were glorious:

But my very favourite bird of all was this one.

A rare, endangered Shoebill, from Africa.  No not the cheeky white one, the big, quiet, restful grey one, behind.

Look again, in  close-up!!

When we got back to town, we had o go back to the Tanglin Cliub.  One of us (ahem…) had left a whole drawerful of clothes there, including bathers, sarong, Cameron Highlands warmer gear.  Pete was kind about this, but a bit, shall we say, critical.  But when we got there, Nantha brought out a big plastic bag which included…another drawerful of MEN’S clothing… underwear, socks, shorts, bathers…

So I was not the only forgetful one…

There we were, back in LUXURY, with our bathers…so, YES, we went for a swim!

28th March - Tanglin Club exiles - Little India (Singapore)

Friday 28^th March

HBO last night didn’t offer much in the way of sustaining or entertaining viewing… Poor Pete nursed his sore eye, coughed, sneezed and occasionally uttered a dismal word of disapproval for Ghost Riders… Maybe we need a MONTH at the Tanglin Club… But maybe after even a few days we will have become all soft and floppy and unable to cope with the Real World of travelling…

We were very sad, leaving our beautiful room…

Check-out was at 12.00 and we dragged ourselves out the door for the last time at 11.59.  Then we trudged away from the Orchard Road area, onto the MRT train system, off to Little India.  The Grand Chancellor is very different to the Tanglin Club.  But…

 It is not too bad!  Our little room is bright and clean, with a fridge in which there are already nice chilly iceblocks.  No free WiFi which is a bit of a downer for me but…there is always a solution.  We will surely find a restaurant nearby, with WiFi, so all will be well!  (I did enjoy having speedy, immediate, 24 hour WiFi at the Tanglin Club…)

There are lots of high-rise apartment blocks around this part of Singapore.  Pete and I love the clothes line systems:

In the afternoon I left Pete having a much-needed nap and went off to explore our new environment.

Very nice it is, very interesting.  Full of shops selling hankies, phones, gold gold GOLD!!

I was successful in my quest – I found a most enormous crowded pharmacy in an immense maze-like shopping centre called Mustafa.  A very snappy, efficient pharmacist sold me some cold & flu tablets for Pete and sent me on my way into the maze.

I found my way out and strolled back along the streets, occasionally stopping to talk to a restaurant hustler – they were very pleased; people usually try to avoid them.  The life of a hustler is one of constant rejection…Not a job for the timid!  I was on a mission - wanted to know what time they open so we can have roti canai for breakfast, and I also want to know whether or not they have WiFi.

And yes they do...we ate food from Kerala and...the Wifi worked a treat!

27th Thursday - Singapore - eye clinic

Thursday 27^th March

Our last day at the Tanglin Club, yesterday…

Oh so sad…

Where have all the flowers gone??  Where did the time go??

Enigmatic Islamic calligraphy

We haven’t even swum in the pool…too BUSY.  Also we just loved our big spacious room, with the desk, the viewty,* the bath, shower, ironing board and…the great big clean white bed with PERFECT pillows!  And HBO on the TV!

Our plan was to leave tomorrow for a Big Adventure – a flight to Medan,** in Indonesia, followed by a (possibly bone-rattling) four hour bus trip to Lake Toba, a serene and fascinating outpost of civilisation surrounded by jungle inhabited by…many MANY orangutans.

But…no… a spanner in the works!

How fortunate we are to be in Singapore right this minute when Pete is displaying symptoms of a torn retina in his OTHER eye.  Eye no. #1 got fixed in October in Tasmania; now Eye no. #2 is in need of repair. 

WAS in need of repair…

It is now all fixed, thanks to speedy ophthalmologists #1*** and #2**** at the Eye Hospital.

We spent many hours in the hospital, waiting waiting waiting…

We were very hungry because we had missed breakfast – too busy playing with our viewty, shower, ironing board, kettle… The downstairs shop did offer birds nests…

Umm…no…

I got desperate enough to buy a toasted sandwich from this machine:

It was…nasty…

By 2.30 we were all done and dusted.  Pete had had his eye lasered, had made an appointment for next Tuesday (1^st April,) and had paid a bill for more thousands of dollars than you can imagine (over TWO thousand, in fact…we are very much hoping our travel insurance will cough up.)

So we have to stay here in Singapore…but, sadly, NOT at the Tanglin Club.

Onto the MRT trains in search of accommodation… we rather fancied Little India – roti canai for breakfast!  Yum!  We wandered around (Mad Dogs and Englishmen. It was very hot…) and finally settled on a room in the Grand***** Chancellor in Little India.  We had a choice of:

$250 per night official rate

$200 daily offer

$170 if we booked on the internet

$125 if we went with some soliciting scalper-type Indian men on the street…

So…guess which one we went with??

We will be there tonight, faintly mourning the extreme luxury of the Tanglin Club, the serenity of the Heeren House…But all will be well!

In the MRT we were fascinated by this schoolgirl, scooting along the hallways reading from a slim volume of verse in Mandarin script.

She did NOT break her stride!!  Along the hallways, down the stairs, onto the escalators without ever looking away from her book…

Today is Meriloy’s birthday.

She is my friend of many years, and she is still full of enthusiasm and a feeling for adventure.  I got an email from her today, saying;

We are headed to the mainland in our camper and will get to Sydney for the writers festival in May.  Later in the year we are going sailing in the Bonofacio rally.  I am excited for me.  We also have a villa in Sicily for a week and plan to do a cooking tour of India on way home.

It is beautiful in Tasmania at the moment. Best time of the year I think.

I rest my case – Meriloy is enjoying life and embodies infectious enthusiasm!

And will we go to Medan/Lake Toba, next week after Pete's 1st April check-up??  Watch this space...

* I still think viewty should be a dictionary word…thank you Felix, aged three when he coined it!

** Lonely Planet says of Medan…

Medan is…somewhat mythical in travellers’ circles, regularly popping up in ‘What’s the worst place you’ve ever visited?’ conversations…

Oh goody (But I reckon Pete and I have been to WORSE places, quite happily…)

*** Elaine Chong, on her FIRST day in Singapore after seventeen years in Melbourne – she was recommended by Pete’s wonderful retina specialist in Hobart.  Synchronicity and serendipity that she just happened to be in Singapore YESTERDAY was her first day at work!!

**** Edmund Wong, Senior Consultant and a very speedy worker

***** Not all that grand…

26th March - idle morning - Marina Bay Sands - Rebak adventures on the rope track - flying biting antsA flashy shoppign mall display

Wednesday 26^th March

We started off having a leisurely day of rest.  By midday it was time to go into town – we were on a mission!  First of all…new thongs for Pete.  We tried all over the huge shopping malls, which seemed only to be full of fashion items, NOT useful non-slip sailing thongs.  Pete did have perfectly good ones, of which he was very fond, and they, mysteriously, vanished, somewhere in the smaller islands of Thailand.  He is very sad without them…

Oh the agony of choices!

Eventually, after much up and down many escalators, many levels under ground and above ground, we found a World of Sport shop, where they – thank heavens – had thongs which Pete deemed to be suitable.  There are hundreds of large shopping malls in Singapore and I had visions of trailing on and out of each and every one of them, getting more desperate at each Gucci and Louis Vuitton and Prada shop…

A flashy shopping mall display

Next – a pre-paid simcard for my phone… I had tried before, but they wanted my passport, which was locked in the Tanglin Club safe.  Things are very official in Singapore! 

Handbags!

We have our nifty three-day transport tickets so of course we had to have a bit of a traintrip.  And I was, again, very attracted to taking a photo of our reflection in the window…

We wanted to go to Marina Bay Sands – I forgot to take a photo from outside so only have this one, from the internet…

And this one from inside.  It is vast!!

And it is full of yet more shops, selling Philippe Patek watches, fantastically expensive handbags, designer clothes…

Such pretty frocks, in Singapore!

It costs $23 per person to go up to the observation deck, on the 55^th (or maybe higher??) floor but…it is free to go up to the bar… We had a G & T, for only $20 per person…

The viewty is lovely but...the bill...OH the bill!

and we got to look at the fantastic view while sipping a cool drink.

What bill??

We enjoyed it all very much, as well we might!

I have taken a few photos of young women in the city; they wear such pretty clothes; I am very impressed!  And I found some very pretty clothes myself, in some of the luxury shops… Only $750, $699 for a cocktail frock, or a street dress, in glorious burnt orange…

So pretty!

Rebak News (interspersed with random photos...)

I have received some very interesting and amusing emails from Misty, our Scottish friend from SV Tamoure, near 2XS in Rebak marina.  Peter and Misty call themselves The Slashers – they are the ones who have been clearing the beautiful ridge track on the island.  A labour of dedication and love…She gave me permission to include some of their most recent experiences here…

GREEN Islamic calligraphy

Today was my turn for the flying ant experience - yes, there is something worse than an angry red ant: an angry red ant that can fly!  A few days ago Peter was hacking away and suddenly was swarmed upon most painfully.  In the past ants have come from tree leaves & branches, and if you paid attention before whacking the branch you'd notice what was about to happen, but this lot are invisible - they live underground!  Twice now Peter's been attacked so we give them a wide berth. 

However today I was in front and was trying to clear up big mess in vicinity of ant activity - seeing none I assumed they'd pushed off to live somewhere else, which is what's been happening on the main path when their house has been felled to the ground. 

Pete with a weddingcar inOrchard Road

But no - woosh!  They were on me - oh my god!  Everywhere!  My arm, my neck my face!  I fled down the slope, discarding weapon, stick, gloves, squealing all the while.  Perhaps you heard me in Singapore??  It was awful!  Peter had commented they were like wasps - swarming and then stinging and by golly do they sting.  I was shaking - horrible experience!   And did I get any sympathy from beloved husband?  Not. A.  Cheep.  Except: I told you so............  I told you there were ants...........  Under ground. 

Cosy companionable friends at the zoo

Ah ha - here's where the misunderstanding came in:  Underground sounds quite like on de ground, and since there were none when I looked on de ground, I pressed on with my clearing.  The little blighters!  I can see them attacking someone who was destroying their house and garden, but to attack someone who was just clearing up the mess 3 days later did seem a tad unfair.

A random ZooMonkey

But fear not, Marguerite - we will escort you safely away from Ant Corner. Leave 'em alone and they will leave you alone - a lesson painfully learnt!