4 DAYS IN SINGAPORE

Our first port of call on arriving is to suss out the best eating houses and to get provisions.  Little India is the cheapest place for that.  We found a great restaurant here called Khansana – not cheap for the area but amazing food.

We were staying at the Robertson Quay hotel – great location but rooms the size of a cupboard, I would not recommend unless you know you will not spend any time except sleeping in the room.

Reasonable views across Singapore at night.

We walked all over the place, McRitchie Nature Reserve, Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, Botanical Gardens, Labrador Nature Reserve, Hort Park, Kent Ridge Park – we did not get to the Southern Ridges and Mount Faber or the Northern green areas – another time. Taxis in Singapore are supposedly cheapest in western world, but make sure the driver knows exactly where you want to go. We had a 5 k uphill walk as the taxi dropped us in the wrong place. Good walk though lots of birds and different wildlife.

McRitchie Nature reserve walk from the reservoir to the Treetop walk produced the most birds – including my favourite the Crimson Sunbird – no photo and not seen again.  This is also where we saw the Colugo with a baby (not even heard of one before – very lucky).

The Botanic Gardens are a must lots of birds including Owls (no photographs unfortunately – well  only one without a head). Orchid house is a got to see.
Had some great food but it is a shame to see the old Singapore disappearing to more sky scrapers – even Little India is being encroached on from all sides as is Chinatown.

The gardens and nature reserves though are wonderful, well looked after – and the Cloud Forest was outstanding, such an amazing design and so many wonderful plant species.

As usual we thought we could fit in more than we could so we will have to come back another time to do the rest – not a hard ship.