We left Australia on the 19th of March and headed onwards to do Singapore in two days, before going home.
After checking out of our hostel in Cairns we got a lift from the hostel by their own shuttle. When arriving at the airport Peter and I had a silly little argument about what to eat for lunch, maybe we were nervous about going home.
First we flew Cairns-Darwin. I sat next to a very talkative guy (bordering too talkative), but I took my mind of flying a bit so that was fine.
We spent around an hour at the very small airport in Darwin, before flying onwards to Singapore where we landed at 19:40 in the evening.
We grabbed a taxi to our hotel Parkroyal on Kitchener in Little India. The hotel looked quite exclusive even if the area it which it was located did not. The district in which the hotel was located was very busy and had lots of cheap little food places and a huge, hectic, and famous mall called Mustafa. However we were exhausted after our travels from Australia and decided we’d have a early night in order to feel well rested for our one and only day in Singapore.
When we woke the following morning the skies looked quite grey. One of the things we were eager to to was visit Sentosa Island and the beach. But since the weather didn’t look that great we decided we would start with some shopping on Orchard Road. But before heading out for a busy day of sight-seeing we had a lovely breakfast at the hotel. To my delight you could order your own omelet and eggs, according to your own wishes.
Then we headed for Orchard Road, to which we travelled by subway. The Singapore subway certainly lived up to Singapore’s reputation of being very tidy, not a single piece of garbage to be seen anywhere. We did Orchard Road in a couple of hours, my purchases accumulated in some cheap but cute earrings. We were getting very warm and hungry and decided to head for lunch at Sentosa Island.
You can travel to Sentosa by several ways, we took the cable-car, taking only minutes to get there from the city and enjoying a great view. Sentosa Island is a very well kept little island with lovely beaches, beautiful gardens, a marine park and feel a little like an amusement park with beaches. To get to the beach from the cable-car station we took some bumper like cars down the hillside, this was a fun way to start our afternoon on Sentosa, which within minutes fell in love with.
After a stroll a long the beach we ended up at a lovely restaurant, Café del Mar, where we decided to have lunch. They had a whole concept including music, a swimming pool and beach club. Perfect as they warned for marine creatures in the sea and I didn’t feel brave enough to go in, so the pool came well in handy. But this time it was really warm, maybe the warmest we had had during our whole trip.
Peter had gone for jeans and a long-sleeved shirt on this day, judging the temperature to be cooler after having woken up to grey skies. So he was more then happy to change to bathing trunks and enjoying a cool pool and bears!
After a lovely afternoon on Sentosa we headed for Raffle’s Hotel and of course the famous Singapore Sling. Yes, it was expensive, being a total tourist trap, but you can’t travel this far and then be to mean not to have one… However it tasted good and we enjoyed ourselves, peeling the famed peanuts and enjoying and slurping on our drinks.
Then we headed for Clarks Quay, a lovely area full of restaurants in the harbour. We were both struck by the enormous amount of restaurants, and neither of us believed to have seen so many in the one and same area. Of course we had a difficult time deciding which one to go to, being totally spoilt for choice. Eventually we chose a cosy one right down by the water and enjoyed a meal before heading back to the hotel, after a long but very good day of sightseeing.
The following day we decided to go back to Sentosa, after having enjoyed it some much on our first day. It was much busier getting there, since people seemed to be on Easter holiday I guess. We went to an other beach then the first day and enjoyed more sun, food and drinks on the beach. Then we headed back to our hotel, had a swim at the hotel pool and cleaned ourselves up after the beach.
Before heading for the airport we had a quick look at the Mustafa mall, but it was a bit to hectic for us and we decided to leave it and head straight for the airport.
Singapore airport is great! We enjoyed a very tidy and peaceful airport with free Internet, sweets and massage machines. Then came our longest flight during our whole trip, 12 hours to Frankfurt.
We arrived crazy early in the morning after a good flight (had 3 seats to share, which allowed us to get some shut eye) and found Frankfurt airport to be under construction with very confusing and misleading signs. This resulted us in running around for quite some time, confused and frustrated as to where to check-in for our onward travel to Gothenburg. But, finally we managed.
When we arrived at Landvetter it was 10:20 in the morning and a total winter wonderland, with masses of snow, quite a contrast to what we had experienced during our 5 weeks of travels! Anneli, Peters sister, drove us home, passing my parents on the way to pick up plants and say hi and then finally dropping us off at our home sweet home on Klareborgsgatan 36C.
