Tag 46 & 47 - Singapur - Hop on hop off (Little India - Chinatown - Botanic Garden - Night-Tour - Lasershow)

On Friday and Saturday we decided on a hop-on hop-off bus tour (48 hours including a “night trip”). Culture was the keyword of the hour - at least for Friday. The first stop for us was: Little India. As the name suggests, this is a district where Indian life takes hold and many Indians live here. Special shopping streets - or rather shopping alleys - can be found. Everything is so colorful and there are many strange smells in the air. Scarves are available in all sizes, beautiful colors and patterns. The women are often wrapped in these cloths. We particularly noticed the “goldsmiths”. There is a street in which there are at least 25 jewelry shops next door to each other. Nobody can tell me that they all use real gold. The calculators are just camouflage 😅. We also noticed a temple. In order to enter, your shoes must be taken off first. That's the rule. But some tourists just wanted to go in... 🤦🏼‍♂️

Afterwards we wanted to look at an Arab-influenced district. But the muezzin call was very loud and persistent. We walked down a street - past the mosque - and turned back pretty quickly.

We continued to Chinatown. There was - surprise - Chinese food everywhere. However, things look a little different than ours. Of course we have never seen all the fruits, vegetables or seafood before 😅. Elisa has eaten a meal - I haven't 😁. We were even allowed to go into a temple and experience a service. If I read it correctly, there is even a tooth of Buddha hidden somewhere 😅. You can also see waving kittens in many shop windows in the surrounding gift shops. One of these shops even had “old coins” from all over the world. Even coins from the Empire smiled at me 😅. Of course I took 3 pieces at a special price for $10 😁👍🏻.

Since the day was dragging on with temperatures and high humidity of around 84%, we drove back to the starting point. This is right in front of a mall. Elisa spotted a hairdresser there. I got my hair cut and styled for $16. I am very satisfied with the result and the price. That's the equivalent of around 10-11 euros. It seems to have been one of the higher quality hairdressers. I even tipped $4 😁👍🏻.

Basically, we're both a bit surprised. We had previously heard that Singapore was an expensive city. We cannot confirm this (at least not for us). On the contrary: hairdressers are cheap, taxis are cheap, magnets are cheaper than before, water and food are also relatively inexpensive,...

These days the euro exchange rate is slightly weaker again in relation to the Singapore dollar. Ms. Lagarde from the ECB has definitely commented on interest rate policy again, but I can't hear anything down here 😁.

Elisa then had her fingernails and feet done at a salon. I took a seat in the waiting area. However, one of the employees was pretty clever. She said that I could sit quietly with my friend. She helped me with my things and gave me the WiFi password. Very friendly. Then she handed me the price list for the massages and I had to laugh 😁. I didn't hesitate and decided on a 20-minute head massage for $38 (around 25 euros). Coincidentally, I was already sitting in exactly the right chair 😄.

Then we ordered a taxi using the Uber equivalent “Grab”, got some food to go and then went back to the hotel.

On Saturday we wanted to get up earlier... but we didn't quite make it 😄. We took a taxi back to the mall because it was the second day of the bus tour. The only problem was that a large area was closed because of the “Tour de France Singapore”. In this respect, he couldn't let us out directly on site - but felt like it was just around the corner at the same building. I said to Elisa that we would automatically arrive at the meeting point if we walked around the mall... but unfortunately it was the building next door 😂. With the help of the police and some nice citizens (one even ran after us😅), we eventually found the starting point (it really wasn't easy because of all the barriers).

Our stopping point and only destination was called “Botanic Garden”. It is a large park with lakes, a rainforest, a park with orchids (probably in orchid research

scientific advances have been made), lots of green spaces and native animals. We strolled around a bit, took a look at everything, ate something and then took one of the buses back to the place

Returned from the starting point. But we probably won't become botanists anymore. Since we were supposed to meet early at the same meeting point for the evening tour, we didn't have that much time and we had coffee and cake in the mall. Then it started!

The tour was supposed to last 3 hours and our guide called himself “Roger”. There was a different name on his ID 😅. He is absolutely on fire for his city with every sentence.

First we were taken to a lookout point where we had a good view of the city. Of course our guide told us a lot. Singapore has been meticulously reclaiming land from the sea for ages and has so far increased its territory by around 25%. The port is very busy and there are sometimes hundreds of ships waiting in front of it to be loaded or unloaded. The waiting time can be days.

Afterwards we went to a food hall for dinner. That was great. There are only food stalls there. They fill skewers with all kinds of meat, mainly seafood, and grill them in front of us. We ate delicious chicken. 😛

Finally, we visited the Supertrees again. They are, so to speak, structures that are reminiscent of trees. I don't fully understand it yet, but they absorb rainwater, generate solar energy and cool the two large greenhouses on the site. A laser show takes place right there every evening. Roger, of course, maneuvered us to an “insider tip” from where we had a more comfortable view of the show. We liked her very much. After the show ended, everyone was dropped off at many central locations by the “Captain,” as Roger always called the bus driver, so that we didn’t have to travel too far to the accommodation. That was wonderful.

On the way home we met a lot of people who were dressed up and wanted certain theme parties. Halloween is already underway here. My favorites were the Jedis from Star Wars 🤪. Fantastic 🤩. We would have liked to go with them, but we were really knocked out and just wanted to go to the hotel.

Kind regards and sorry for the novel (if you read this far) 😃