Gravity defying

We’re on our way to our penultimate destination – Singapore.  The red eye flight from Rome (the airport is absolutely enormous) to Singapore, via Dubai was long, tedious and sleepless.  The flight from Dubai was for some unknown reason delayed by an hour and a half, after a four hour transit in Dubai.  We both felt like wrung out dish-rags by the time we arrived in Singapore, at 9 pm.  Straight into a taxi, and to our hotel, where after a light meal we fell exhausted into bed.

Singapore is very hot and very, very humid; it’s monsoon season.  It’s a very modern, very clean city, and unlike Italy not a cigarette butt is to be seen anywhere and there’s no rubbish in the streets.  The architecture is awesome and futuristic, some of it seemingly gravity-defying.

Pete’s birthday present from me was a visit to the Singapore zoo, and breakfast with the Orang-uatans.  The zoo is a ½ hour drive from the city centre.  Our breakfast was the usual assortment of Asian and European dishes, but the Orangutans were the absolute highlight.  About a dozen of varying sizes and ages came down from the trees to have their own breakfast consisting of fruit and seeds.  We got up close to them, although touching was not allowed, and there are plenty of photos to share.

Jungle baby

How people can mistreat these wonderful creatures is beyond me.  Their natural jungle habitat is being destroyed by logging and the conversion of jungle into plantations to grow food for the ever growing human population.  Fortunately they are now protected, but it will be a continuing battle to conserve these beautiful “old men of the jungle”.

I fell in love today.  His name is Anthony.  He’s 2 meters tall, slim, and a very cool dude.  I only got to hold him for about five minutes but I will remember him always.  Pete’s only a little bit jealous.   We missed the tour bus back to the hotel, and had to take a taxi.

After lunch we went in search of the Gardens by the Bay which have been built on a small island.  After several failed attempts to find the bridge linking mainland Singapore to the island, we arrived at our destination.

In Singapore every inch of land is built upon, so the gardens are a wonderland area of plants and grassed areas where families can picnic, and kids can run around and have fun.  There are also some wonderful futuristic glasshouses housing “exotic trees and flowers”.  We thought that we would see tropical flora, only to find that their idea of exotic consists of ordinary plants which we have in our gardens in Australia; roses, fuchsias, daisies, gum trees, cacti and succulents, – all the plants that are impossible to grow in a tropical environment.

We were disappointed, but it was lovely and cool in there, so we didn’t complain.

We left the gardens to find a huge tropical storm brewing. The sky was a bruised purple colour, and flashes of lightning and massive rolls of teeth rattling thunder escorted us as we walked along.  We made it back to our hotel just in time, and then a tropical deluge descended.  There was another storm just after midnight, with the usual accompaniment of thunder, lightning and rain deluge, so loud that it woke us up despite double glazed windows.

Today we depart on the last leg of our travels – we are packed and ready to fly to Melbourne.  After 4 weeks away, we are very much looking forward to getting home.

It’s been a wonderful grand tour, lots of wonderful experiences, and a couple of not-so-wonderful experiences.  Most of all we have discovered that Australia really is the best address in the world!

See you at Street-O on Monday night!!

The travel weary Ilze and Peter