Singapore, but only just!

It was impressive if only a fleeting visit to Singapore, where we stayed and ventured out for five hours traveling from Vietnam to Indonesia. So we landed at about 4 pm, dumped our bags in a hotel room at the airport, and taxied to its center.

The Uber taxi driver was a long-time resident and we would have loved to take him to dinner to talk more about the changes which he told us about, particularly how the young were more selfish and less community-focused.

Our friends Katie and Bernie, who had lived there for a period a few years ago, had tipped us off on a decent restaurant so this was our first stop, washing down the fantastic Chinese-style cuisine with a beer before continuing on foot to explore.

Even our brief drive and ramble through the streets showed Singapore to be very different from other parts of Asia we have visited; it was wealthy, very multicultural, and very high-tech. Everything was clean, tidy, and well-maintained.

We had time for only one key visit, so we went to the spectacular gardens by the bay. It was truly spectacular, with its artificial light-laden trees intermixed with considered and surprisingly mature landscaping. It was a great treat to see the light and music display before we had to leave and we had timed it perfectly, by accident just before the evening show began.

We struggled to get a taxi back to our hotel, finding ourselves on our own - it turned out, through a conversation, that trips at night to the airport were unprofitable as no one flew back in (for a return fair).

We eventually solved the problem - the famously clean underground system whisked us off in 30 minutes back to our hotel and we snuggled down for a few hours before our early morning flight to Bali.

Definitely somewhere to visit again for a few days.

M&J