To get our cheap cheap flight to Singapore we had to stay a night in Had Yai- a place we had hear mixed, if not mostly negative things about. We got to our hotel late, we paid a little extra to make sure it was OK so so far so good. Our search for dinner resulted in sitting in a Thai restaurant with no English menus and where we soon realised we were expected to cook all the food ourselves at the table. One waitress spoke English and offered us some fried rice, so whilst everyone around us chomped on hearty meat dishes, the only 2 westerners in the place sat quietly and ate rice. We concluded that Had Yai was a good way to experience a genuine thai working town, but not much else.
The next day we headed to the airport. By this time I realised that what I thought was an odd collection of mosquito bites on my hands turned out to be a reaction to something and throughout Singapore I had to put up with very hot balloon-esque hands- not the most practical! Singapore itself was similar to KL in that the fancy city train lulls you in to a false sense of western luxury. When you actually arrive at your accommodation that you have paid 30GBP a night for- it is a hole. Our hole was just outside little india, so instead of feeling like we were in Singapore, we felt as if we were in Bangladesh or similar. For me it was a little strange as at times the streets were full of men, not a woman in sight. We also found that unless you threw a wad of cash as restaurants or hotels, it was mostly impossible to get a decent meal or place to stay and it was for these reasons and the absence of fresh fruit that were were impatient to leave.
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| twiddly orchids |
To make our stay more enjoyable we visited the botanic & orchid gardens and zoo. These activities were a good distraction apart from the fact that my first sight of an Orangutan was whilst it was performing in a zoo show (why these still go ahead I cannot comprehend). On our final day we decided to go to the cinema to kill time before our flight at 8pm. We chose to see "The Impossible", a film about the boxing day Tsunami that was set in Khao Lak- this was very surreal having just been there. This film was extremely well done and an eye opener that does in no way compare to seeing news stories on the TV at the time.Well worth a watch.
Finally, at the half way point of our journey, the time had come to fly to our next country that we were both very excited about: NEW ZEALAND!!!
The next day we headed to the airport. By this time I realised that what I thought was an odd collection of mosquito bites on my hands turned out to be a reaction to something and throughout Singapore I had to put up with very hot balloon-esque hands- not the most practical! Singapore itself was similar to KL in that the fancy city train lulls you in to a false sense of western luxury. When you actually arrive at your accommodation that you have paid 30GBP a night for- it is a hole. Our hole was just outside little india, so instead of feeling like we were in Singapore, we felt as if we were in Bangladesh or similar. For me it was a little strange as at times the streets were full of men, not a woman in sight. We also found that unless you threw a wad of cash as restaurants or hotels, it was mostly impossible to get a decent meal or place to stay and it was for these reasons and the absence of fresh fruit that were were impatient to leave.
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