Day 5 – Penang - What Were We Thinking?

Sorry, Sarah here again.  Although not sorry as you’ll soon see what the view is that I’m looking at writing this.  Alan may have a comment or two to make in red.
We were up fairly early this morning.  Neither of us sleep very well when we know we have a morning flight to catch. Plus it's hard to sleep with Sarah snoring so loudly right next to me.

We bid farewell to our small, cramped hotel with the hard bed and headed off to the airport.  We very much enjoyed our time in Singapore; the lovely people, the great weather, the cheap taxi fares.

Check-in for our AirAsia flight was hassle free and we waited anxiously for our boarding time.  The tickets were dead cheap and the airline has one of the worst reputations for delayed and cancelled flights.  The previous flight at our gate was still there 40 minutes after its scheduled departure time.

It eventually moved away and our plane arrived. Boarding time was called, right on time, and before we knew it, we were pushing back from the gate 10 minutes early.  An hour later, 25 minutes ahead of schedule, we arrived in Penang.

A few minutes later we had cleared immigration, 5 minutes later we had our luggage, cleared customs and were buying our prepaid taxi voucher. Then, everything changed.  It was more than a little culture shock after leaving the clean English sign posted Singapore.  Don’t get me wrong, I know what country we are in but after being in the pristine Singapore, it was so different. It soon became apparent to us that we may have picked the wrong place to stay.  We are staying out at Batu Ferringhi, to the north of Penang and what I thought was about 10-14kms out of Georgetown, is probably a bit more and with quite the winding road to get here.  We passed a few interesting sets of traffic lights on the way here. There is a counter telling you how many seconds are left on either the red or green light. When our taxi pulled up to a red light one time, those 68 seconds seemed to take forever.

Everything we had read talks about what rip-off taxis are in Penang and it hadn’t occurred to us that we have put ourselves in an area where everything we want to see is so far away. 

Then we arrived and decided that yes, we are more than happy where we are.  We are at the Hard Rock Hotel, in a seaview room, overlooking the pool.  This afternoon I watched people parasailing and jetskiing outside my window and all is right with the world. When we arrived we discovered that the lock on our balcony door was not locking, so we told a staff member and she said she would let maintenance know about it. We went for a walk around the pool area and returned to our room no more than 10 minutes later to find that it had been fixed. That's great service.

We are here three nights.  After doing some investigation online, I found that others were able to get a car and driver to take them around.  Tonight we checked with the concierge and yes, we can get one for RM30 an hour (A$10). Sounds good to us and a pretty cheap tour for two people for about 5 hours.  If that doesn’t work, who cares.  Look at our accommodation and view.  The room is three times the size of what we had in Singapore, a very comfy king size bed with lots of pillows and some very nice to sit in chairs:

        

We’ve already had a swim in the very quiet pool area.  I could get used to this. The pool was even warm enough for me to swim in so we had a good old time this afternoon. I went down the water slide a couple of times although I did somehow manage to get stuck halfway the first time. The kids waiting behind me weren't too impressed.

Tonight we took a walk down the shops area looking for dinner but it started to thunder so we came back to the hotel and had dinner of pizza and pasta. The open-air restaurant is situated next to the pool area and just metres from the beach so we had a fantastic view while we ate. A little expensive by Malaysian standards but cheap by Australian standards. Just as well we came back when we did as it’s now been storming over our paradise for about 1.5 hours.

Day 4 – Feathers, fun and farewell Singapore

Sarah at it again today.  Not really fair that I did two and Alan only did one. We have to be up early for a flight tomorrow and it's already after midnight here. If I wrote the blog we'd be up until dawn. 

Before I start, let me tell you that today I was in bike shorts.  This is not a good look but it was hot but, don’t worry, you won’t be subjected to any photos that show me below the waist. They have all been destroyed. No they haven't. And for a price you can see them.

After last night’s latish night, we didn’t get going as early as I would have liked this morning.  Alan can be a little too much in ‘holiday mode’ which is fine when you’re not fighting the heat of the day. I'm on holiday, stop picking on me.

We arrived at the Jurong Bird Park at 10.30am. I had read an itinerary on the website which suggested we get on the panorail and go to the first stop, have a look around and get back on it again.  Did we do that?? No, of course not.  Alan ended up making us walk around the entire park before using our panorail tickets for a full loop journey before leaving. The park wasn't really all that big.


We had missed the Hawk show but made it for the Birds & Buddies show which was quite entertaining. In all, we spent 3 hours in the park.






We were happy to get into the taxi for the trip back as it was hot out there.  We had another one of those crazy taxi drivers who sped along.  I can’t tell you how fast he was going because he had his mobile phone mounted in front of the speedometer.

Alan ignored my findings and wanted to go in search on the only Singapore Denny’s. Even though I’d told him that it had closed long ago, he was still looking in hope.  The building where it was located was pretty seedy and I was happy to get out of there.  Thankfully, we were on Orchard Road and we went to a lovely Italian restaurant for lunch. Two course lunch with bread and a drink for about A$18 combined. There's a really strange part of Grange Rd, just before it turns onto Orchard Rd, where for some completely inexplicable reason the road suddenly becomes American in that the lanes are reversed and you're driving on the wrong side of the road. Not confusing at all.

We went back to the room and crashed, waking up a little later than had expected. I think we both slipped into a coma when we lay down on the bed. We then journeyed to get on the cable car to go across to Sentosa Island. After arriving we walked around there for a while, looking at the view and seeing their large Merlion.  We then attended a Songs of the Sea light and pyrotechnics show. 






Alan then went on a luge ride before we headed over to the casino.














Alan had worn his jeans so he could get into the casino and, by this time, was pretty hot in them.  The photo to the right here is as close as he ended up getting to the Casino.  Overseas visitors have to present their passport before being allowed in and we didn’t have them.  They wouldn’t accept the Australian driver’s licence. Boo! Boooooo I say.

By this stage it was already 9.15pm and we decided dinner at The Hard Rock Cafe was in order. We wandered around the entire island at least 3 times looking for the place before we finally stumbled across it just near the casino entrance where we had been earlier. Doh! We found ourselves in couple love central (being Valentine’s Day).  That is except the couple sitting next to us who both were more intent on playing games on their mobile phones than enjoying their date.

Alan will more than likely mention that I was lusting after someone in the Cafe.  Well, why not. He was cute, he was playing a guitar and singing me love songs … what’s not to lust after!!! Oh yes what a happy valentines day to me. Sarah wanted me to go up there and take a photo of him while the band was playing. That wouldn't have been weird at all.

After dinner we went and joined the queue at the large taxi rank.  The car park under Sentosa is like a maze and watching these taxis come in and doing all the turns to get to the taxi rank, is like watching a go-kart track, and some of the bends are pretty tight.

We are now back in our hotel, thinking about packing up.  We have to be out of here by 9am tomorrow to get our flight to Penang, Malaysia.

Day 3 - Don’t try to catch a taxi on a Sunday

The blog is being written by Alan this evening because Sarah has been whingeing all day long about having to write the previous two. Plus I’m the funny one around here. OK, yeah, sure.

Last night was a relatively late night stupid soccer so we had a bit of a sleep in this morning and eventually tumbled out of bed around 9.30. I had a hankering for pancakes, so Sarah found Singapore’s only pancake house, which happened to be only just around the corner, and we wandered over there for some late morning breakfast. They tasted nice but were very filling and neither of us managed to finish our meals completely. The strawberry milkshakes were awesome!

After our breakfast we went across the road to a taxi stand but stopped to look in the window of a food place called Mad Jack Mad and Wild Aussie Xperience. There was some strange stuff on display in the windows, including a pavlova, which looked more like some sort of sponge cake. Crazy Asians!

Into a taxi and I asked the driver to take us to the Buddhist Temple. After staring at me blankly and muttering something I couldn’t understand, I then repeated Buddhist Temple on South Bridge Rd. Still nothing. I got the map out of my pocket and showed him where to go and he immediately blurted out “ahh Buddhist temple”. Maybe he didn’t understand the Australian accent. 5 minutes later and we pull up outside a magnificent big temple and the driver points at it and says temple. Well duh!

Entry into the temple was free. We like free things. I guess they make more than enough money by selling the rights to zillions upon zillions of tiny Buddha statues housed within the joint. Once inside it was very impressive. It was all gold and sparkly, 5 storeys high, and I’m sure we must have gotten very high from the amount of incense that was burning. After roaming through the ground floor main section, we took the lift up to the 4th floor, which was the Sacred Relic section with no photography or shoes allowed. I’m sneaky and clever, so I did manage to get a few shots in there. Some people were chanting and praying and meditating and I think one dude had fallen asleep while doing so. We went up the staircase to the roof section where there was the garden of 10000 Buddhas. There were a lot of orchids growing up there and it was very tranquil and pretty. On the way back down the staircase to the 4th floor, Sarah broke the door handle. Too bad for the other people who were up on the roof. There is no proof I broke the door handle.  Yes, there was a sound of like metal hitting the floor.  Alan says I broke it.  I have a feeling it broke in his hand when he opened it and just left it so it fell when I let go of the door.

We left the Buddha temple and walked up the street to the Sri Mariamman Hindu Temple but we decided not to go in there since you had to pay to take photos inside, plus leave your shoes outside on the street front. I don’t want somebody stealing my shoes. Ah yes, the five year old Colorodos, that turn your socks blue if they ever get wet and are also falling apart, would definitely be on someone’s radar.

Into another taxi and this time over to the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. That’s the new joint with the 3 towers and the boat-like thingy on top. Down into the basement to buy our tickets and then into the express elevator and up to the 56th floor. It was very hot up there but the view is great. We were amazed at how many ships we could see waiting to get in to unload their cargo. We took photos from all sides up there and went and checked out the pool and spa area. It must get ridiculously hot for the people lazing around the pool with hardly any clothes on. They pay a lot of money to have people come and perve on them all day at the pool.  I don’t know how comfortable I’d be about that, or looking over the side of the infinity pool.
 


After we’d decided we’d seen enough from up there we made our way back down and into yet another taxi over to Suntec City Mall. In the middle of Suntec City is the world’s largest fountain. Unfortunately you can’t actually walk out into the fountain. We stopped for a quick drink in the mall and we’re going to wander around the shops but thought better of that after about 10 seconds. Instead we returned to our hotel room to relax during the afternoon heat.

We ventured out again at around 6pm, although it took us over half an hour to get a taxi. As we were to find out, for some reason taxis are very hard to get on a Sunday evening. Finally we got one and drove to the Singapore Botanical Gardens. The Gardens are very big and it was starting to get a bit dark so we only walked through about a third of it. We passed by Swan Lake which has been there since 1866. There were quite a lot of people picnicing and playing on the grass in the gardens and one bunch of people were playing a sort of football game except using a frisbee instead. Some of them really should learn to catch. We walked on and saw a few sculptures and  ponds and stuff like that. It was getting very dark by this stage so we though we should leave. A lot of other people seemed to have the same idea though and getting a taxi was looking somewhat futile. We walked down the the main road and were lucky enough to flag one down fairly quickly.

Our next stop was Clarke Quay, my idea, which is a bustling waterfront area with tons of restaurants, bars and nightclubs. We walked through the crowds, checking out the menus at many different restaurants and taking photos of various things along the way. Eventually we settled on a Spanish restaurant/bar for dinner and went inside into the coolness. It was almost empty inside as most people were dining outside. The food was really really yummy and we ended up having 4 dishes between us.


After dinner we continued walking around Clarke Quay and watched people on the G-Max Extreme Bungy, which is kind of like bungy jumping except you’re strapped into a capsule and hurled upwards at great speed. Not for me thanks, I enjoyed my dinner and didn’t need to see it again. We made our way to the taxi stand and since the crowds at Clarke Quay are so huge, the queue for taxis was very long. We had a wait of 45 minutes or so before we were on our way back to our hotel room.

All in all it’s been a very full day for us and tomorrow we’ll be sleeping in again I would imagine. We don’t have plans for the morning unless we get up and think of something in particular that we’d like to see or do.

Day 2 – Lions & Tigers & Stormtroopers

Sarah is writing the blog again today because, well basically, Alan is too lazy.  If he can be bothered to comment, it will be in red. I'm on holiday and I'm tired!

This morning we were up with the sun, which wasn’t that difficult with sunrise scheduled for 7.15am. We were out the door at 8.10am, straight into a taxi and on the way to Singapore Zoo, arriving just as it opened at 8.30am.

Having not yet had breakfast, we checked out the options at the front of the zoo and found KFC, pizza or porridge. No help there so we decided to start walking and look for food later. 

The zoo, as we had heard, was spectacular, set amongst a rainforest surrounded by a beautiful river. Unfortunately the photos don’t do the river justice.

The enclosures are lovely and all the animals look happy and well fed, a little better than the ones we saw in Calgary Zoo last year. Am I the only person in the world who likes Calgary zoo?

Of course I’m a huge fan of the big cats and we were lucky to be there when the White Tigers were let out into their enclosure. Just like our little ones at home when we let them go out into the enclosure of a morning, they get very excited.

Unfortunately the food situation didn’t improve inside the zoo and we had to opt for KFC.

After our food and brief reprieve from the heat and high humidity, we were back out there to do the second half of the zoo. I won’t bore you with heaps of zoo photos but I will share two more; the elephant doing a painting and the bizarre signage around the zoo.

After three hours we had seen the zoo and the heat was starting to get the better of us.  We were surprised to see the number of people just arriving, in the heat of the day.

A taxi back to the hotel (we really love them here) and we took some time to rest in the cool of our hotel before bracing for the heat again.

Alan had a plan.  We would use our hop on hop off tickets and go and do two different loops, getting back to the Flyer at 6.30 and then we’d go up at dusk.  Good plan, but he didn’t take into account that the people who run these bus tours will do whatever they want.

The first loop was to take us through the Civic District, Chinatown, Little India, Kampong Glam and Arab Street and take 40 minutes.  All he did was take his friend for a quick drive (he was the only person other than us on the bus) to Little India and then back to the Flyer.  Not quite what we had in mind.

The second loop to leave at 5.30pm and do some of the same area but also do Sentosa Island, Orchard Street and back to the Flyer at 6.30pm.  After 3 minutes of being on this loop (and this time we weren’t the only ones) we discovered he was already off the map.  Too bad if you were someone waiting at bus stops in those areas waiting for this bus.

We did get a quick look at Sentosa and can’t wait until Monday afternoon so we can have a better look. 

We knew that there was a parade happening tonight, starting at 8pm,  the Chingay Parade, but what we didn’t know was that the bus, although scheduled to go back to the Flyer, wasn’t in fact going back and we were dumped out near Raffles Hotel.  That wasn’t too bad, we were wanting to get a look anyway.

Then we had to work out how to get back to the Flyer and decided to try the MRT (train). Thankfully there was a very helpful train employee who explained how we get tickets and how, at the other end, we put our tickets back into the machine to get our $1 deposit each ticket back. Must be a way of keeping the station clean.  If people want to get their money back, don’t throw your ticket on the ground.

By this time the crowd for the parade was huge and we shuffled along with them back to the Flyer.

We don’t usually put photos of the kids (Neville & Trevor) on the blog, but I can’t resist with this one.  After taking  the photo, the white stormtooper said to his friends “that was different”.  So glad we could oblige. Everyone loves a having a photo with our adorable little boys.

It was a good time to go up the Flyer with the sun having just set.  Also, we got to see parts of the parade from the air.

There were too many people, not surprisingly, down around the Flyer that we came back to the hotel.  The restaurant downstairs was having a private function but we were able to sit at the bar and have a drink and a snack.  Oh and it also allowed Alan to watch some of the soccer. (boring). I wasn’t very hungry so just had some calamari and Alan had a burger, and Manchester United scored in the first half. Alan, in disgust, decided to return to the room with me. I would have stayed to watch the 2nd half if Manchester United were losing.

Before I finish off, let me just tell you that I can’t find a comfortable seat in Singapore, unless it is in a taxi. Not at bus shelters, not on buses, not in any restaurants. Even the chair in the hotel room is uncomfortable, which is why I’m writing this perched on the bed.

 

 

 

Day 1 - Hello Singapore

Hello everyone and welcome to Singapore.  Sarah is writing today’s blog and Alan will undoubtedly comment in red, which I’m sure I’ll have to correct his inaccuracies.

New lesson learned yesterday … don’t leave it until 2 hours before you leave to do the packing. If you do, you don’t get a chance to know what Alan has packed.  I later discovered he brought 17 shirts for 17 days (even though I will be doing washing) and he failed to bring his swimmers. I guess I’ll be having a lovely time in the water in Penang and on Langkawi Island while Alan stays nice and dry. I’m sure I can find a shop to buy some swimming gear. And why is bringing 17 shirts a problem? It’s probably not.  Now you’ve got no room to do any more shopping.

Thanks to Alex for taking us to the airport.  He dropped us off about 2.55pm and when we walked in we discovered a HUGE queue for check-in.  I had read an article just yesterday about how Sydney Airport was the worst in Australia.

So we started to join the queue when I (not Alan no matter how much he will try to say he did) saw a sign that said online check-in.  We had done just that so we joined the queue behind only one person, and four minutes later we were minus luggage and browsing through the shops. It was more of a joint effort really. Why did your nose just get longer?

After buying some donuts where the guy couldn’t calculate the change, making a mistake in our favour, we went to immigration.  There was a large queue to the left and no one to the right so we walked right up to the counter.  Next on to the security check. Of course, everyone who had gone left for immigration were now queuing for the security check but there was no one in front of us.  Much to my sister’s delight, who gets tested for explosives every time she flies (which can be 4-6 times a month), I got stopped for a test.  Not sure what she complains about … it’s a bit of fun and takes no time.

We watched our plane come in, the Qantas A380.  It really is huge.  Once inside though, I didn’t notice much difference.  The night before when I did the online check-in it asked me if I wanted to change our seats.  Having a quick look through, we found there were a row three available in a group of four so we moved there in the hope Alan would have no one sitting next to him.  As it turned out, it worked. Yay, room to stretch out!

One thing about the A380 I liked was the nifty little tail cam that you can watch so I enjoyed doing just that as we took off, during a bout of very heavy rain over Western Australia and then coming in to land in Singapore.

We normally fly the cheaper airlines but having flown Qantas twice now in 3.5 years, I don’t know why we ever fly anything else.  The food and service is much better quality.


After a reasonably smooth flight, we arrived in 30 minutes early but they were unable to open the economy doors.  After a 10 minute delay, they allowed us to exit via the first class door which gave us a good look at the first class cabin.  Ahhh, we can only dream of once flying like that.
Immigration was slow.  Someone must have gotten back at us for the ease we had in Sydney as we managed to get on a queue run by a very slow employee and a tour group who had failed to fill out their immigration cards.  When we made it to the luggage carousel 45 minutes later, our bags had been taken off and were waiting for us. Well it wasn’t me who suggested we join that slow queue.
A quick few minutes wait and we were in a taxi with the world’s fastest taxi driver.  He is the guy you want when you’re in The Amazing Race, or needing to use the bathroom badly like I was.  The speed limit of 90km/h was ignored as we bulleted along never hitting below 120km/h.  One very cheap taxi ride later we were at the hotel and shortly after in our small but thankfully cool room.

The beds are very small singles but sleep came easily. They’re very hard, but surprisingly comfortable and the doona is very snuggly.

Singapore Flyer with the grand stand for the Grand Prix.
Imagine being out in that sun all race

This morning we were up and out by 9am.  We stopped by the buffet breakfast in the hotel which was reasonably priced and delicious.  Then, with our newly acquired map in hand we headed out the door and were pleased to find it not too hot or too humid.  We went down a couple of blocks and bought tickets for the hop on hop off bus which does a number of different loops.  The upstairs had an enclosed air conditioned section.  As a plus we were the only ones on the bus.  We went by Raffles Hotel, The Singapore Flyer, The Merlion, got our first view of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, saw the business district, passed the Botanical Gardens  which is huge and apparently takes 2 hours to walk through, passed the many embassies, the public housing and the private housing districts.  They have strict housing rules in Singapore, one of the most bizarre being you have to be at least 35 and married before you’re able to buy private housing!

We then headed to Orchard Road (where we won’t be shopping) where we hit a massive traffic jam.  We were quite impressed up until this point about how easily the traffic moves.  In most main streets the roads are 4 lanes wide each way. The bus tour guide said that the traffic is uncommon at that time of the day and we discovered further up that there was a car accident.

We got off at the Singapore Flyer and took a walk around.  We planned to go back this afternoon at dusk which I’ve read is the best time to go.  I also read that you never have to queue for it and certainly we saw that today.  The place was empty.

Merlion minus the water, surrounded in scaffolding

We then hopped on the bus again for a few stops, getting off at Merlion Park and a better view of the Merlion (which is, unfortunately, surrounded by scaffolding)..  By this time it was midday, 33 degrees but in the sun it felt more like 40. I think that every photo taken of me on this trip will feature a red face.  Looks like Photoshop will be getting a work out when I get home.

Us in front of the Marina Bay Sands

Alan's new job perhaps

Instead of getting back on the bus and doing the rest of the loop back to the hotel, we opted for a taxi.  Although we were stuck in traffic for quite some time, it worked out to be A$6! So cheap.  I think we will be using them more often. The same taxi ride in Sydney would have been over $25 because we were sitting in traffic for ages.

Dinner

We planned to stay in until about 5pm but around 4.30pm it started to rain and by 5pm it had turned into a nasty thunderstorm. Visibility got worse as the storm went on and we decided to leave the Flyer for another day.

Although still raining, we decided a food hunt was in order and we got as far as the lobby.  Who would resist a 5 plate sampler for approx A$16, and that was before the guest 25% discount.  The sampler fed both of us.  I was a little apprehensive over the BBQ stingray but it did taste just like fish.  We also had a chilli crab claw, noodles with seafood, duck with plum sauce and satay skewers.  Plus I had a chocolate fondant and Alan had an apple crumble.

We stepped outside after dinner and discovered the rain had disappeared, the cloud was gone and it was only about 24 degrees.  We were heading to 7-11 for a drink and decided to keep walking it was so lovely.  Just up the road and to the right is a market area and I made my first purchase; a magnet for my collection.

We then returned to the room, where we are now for the night.  Only 8.30 but we want to get an early night so we can get out there tomorrow before the heat of the day.

At the markets. They must have known he was coming

New Blog Home

To everyone who is reading this, preparing for our next big trip, yes, our blog has moved home.

It used to be on Windows Live Spaces but they made the decision to close down that facility and we needed to 'move it or lose it'.  We moved it both here and to Wordpress but after spending a bit of time looking at both, I decided I liked Blogger better. 

The only problem with the 'move' is that our photos didn't come with it.  The photos for the previous trips are still available for viewing HERE

However, from now on, we will be adding photos to the blog here for our upcoming trip, which is coming up faster than we would like. 

10 February we will fly off to Singapore for 5 nights and then on to Malaysia.

Daily blogs and photos will be posted, as per usual.  

In the meantime, take the time to have a look at our housesitter's blog http://overthebackfence.blogspot.com/  They are a lovely Canadian couple travelling around Australia for about a year.  Their Canadian take on Australia is amusing.