July 2015

We arrived at Changi Airport at around 7pm and took the MRT to the city. The subway was easy to use because everything was clearly marked and in English.
Singapore was getting ready for its 50th anniversary of independence in August. The whole town was full of signs, flags, etc. to mark the event. Fighter jets were practicing there fly overs for the celebrations – it reminded us a bit of what we saw in Russia for V-Day 70 in May.

Hostel Vintage Inn
Located in Little India this hostel surprised us by providing double-bed-capsules in a dorm. The breakfast was toast, scrambled eggs, coconut marmalade and kopi. Good location, clean place, friendly and helpful staff.

Hostel Matchbox
As we returned to Singapore we stayed here. Again a double-bed-capsule in a dorm, nice. They had a spacious common area under the roof. Subway station, Chinatown, Lau Pa Sat and Marina Bay were at walkable distance.

LIttle India

All these little stores selling electronics and clothes playing Bollywood tunes, the many restaurants preparing all kinds of food from the subcontinent and of course the many people with Indian roots made this district a very nice place to stay.

Restaurants
Swadhishta
Food from Kerala is cooked here. We chose coconut fry chicken and palak paneer. It’s very spicy!!!

Banana Leaf Apollo
They are famous for their fish head curry. This time we weren’t that adventures and chose prawns in mango curry and chicken in a cashew nut curry. Yummy! The service feels more like a canteen than a restaurant, still we enjoyed our stay here.

Tekka Center
A typical hawker stall with a mixture of Indian and Chinese food. The service is quick, the food tasty (and spicy) and the prices unbeatable. We ate there for a quick lunch but we guess at night it’s a perfect spot too.

Shopping
Mustafa Center
They had everything! We made some everyday shopping here. Shampoo, tooth paste, pain killers, charcoal tablets and so on. They had a big gold jewelry section as well.

Entertainment
Rex Cinema
Next to the Little India MRT station this cinema is the right place to dive into Bollywood. Unfortunately during our stay they didn’t screen a movie that matched our taste.

Tip
Rex Cinema has a website with all the info you need.

Kampong Glam

Haji Lane
In the process of transformation over the years this traditional Muslim alley lost the original flair somehow. Still a nice short street to walk and plenty little independent shops to look through.

Malay Heritage Museum
A nice small museum that explains the roots of the Malay people. They show a lot of old photographs and even have a selection of snippets of old local black and white movies. In one a promotion car of the Rex Cinema is shown

Colonial District

Lonely Planet Walking Tour
It is a nice and short walk, but don’t expect a throwback in time. We did it in the late afternoon, early evening and so we could also see the end of the tour illuminated at night.

Marina Bay

Entertainment
Gardens by the Bay
Apart from being a stretch of land without much concrete and cars it was quiet nice to walk and had some nice explanations about animals and plants of the forrest. The big trees were real eye catchers. On our return evening we went to see them illuminated. Lucky us, without knowing we came on time for the “light show”. Still kitsch and lot of bling-bling,but this time made by professionals.

Flower Garden
The surprising part was that it was quiet cool in here as they try to maintain an endless spring. Walking through all the plants, flowers and trees it was stunning to see with how many solutions evolution came up!

Light Show @ Marina Bay
Well, it’s a little better as the light show in Hong Kong, but still pretty lame. Better go for the light-show at Gardens by the Bay – it’s more entertaining.

Restaurant
Lau Pa Sat
It’s a famous hawker stall in an old traditional market place so the prices where quite high. We went to the satay stall 7&8 – or better: in the center of the hall a guy with a red T-shirt from 7&8 approached us, we sat down at a table, ordered and the food came to us. Really tasty chicken, beef, mutton & prawn satays… Despite the price we had two rounds The drinks however we had to get separately.
Turkish Cuisine, was our choice for the last evening. We hadn’t had a real Döner in months, this ones – with lamb and chicken – were tasty and reminded us of home.

The Quays

Restaurant
Jumbo Seafood
We would have loved to eat the famous chili crab, but there was a long queue… too long. Waiting time 60-90 minutes. Although they send you an sms with your number if you register in the queue.

China Town

To be honest, after two months traveling in “real” China we weren’t really interested to see this part of town.

Café
Sarnies
Nice small café. We had a tasty (and healthy) breakfast with quiet good coffee there. The service maybe not 100% professional, but the friendliness makes up for that. Beside the healthy options like granola, berries, yogurt and smoothies they offer really big portions of eggs, beans, bacon, sausages and all the heavy stuff you sometime really need on a late Sunday morning ;o)

Where do we want to go next?
We chose Singapore because we had to book a flight out of China for our Visa application. The idea was, that we didn’t wanted to choose that long in advance where to go to after China. Now, we had to make a decision.
Philippines? Taiwan? Japan? Indonesia (again)? Malaysia?
What was clear to us was that we wanted a few days off from traveling. Maybe a nice beach, good snorkeling and good food. Finally we booked a hotel on Pulau Perhentian at the north-east coast of Malaysia. We had to prebook it via email (the big portals showed no available accommodations) because at the time it was what they call “Arab season” and only a few accommodations were left. Gili Meno near Bali was still in the race, but they didn’t answer for 5 days and we already had been there before a few years ago.

Singapore to Malacca, Malaysia
Bus company 707 Inc., 4,5 hrs
We departed from Queen Street (Bugis quarter) in a quiet good and comfy bus.

Tip
We bought the tickets online via busonlineticket.com. We paid with pay pal and could choose even our seats in the bus. We had to print out our tickets, which was a little bit old school.

We returned to Singapore after our stay at the Perhentian Islands/Malaysia to travel on to Cairns/Australia. The main reason was that we found the best offer for a flight from Singapore and not Kuala Lumpur.

As always
Thank you for reading!
Claudia & Tom

How was Malacca? Are the Perhentian Islands really that good? Did our holiday from traveling really worked out? Read it all in our next post here.