Southeast Asia trip - Singapore

After the trip was book some time in the spring, the month of October arrived and our trip started.

We were 3, packed with backpacks and heading to an upscale backpacking trip, sleeping in hi-end backpacking places and in 4star hotels here and there. The tickets to and from Singapore were bought first and after, we decided on an itinerary and booked our flights with the low-cost AirAsia airline and after checking tripadvisor.com and lonelyplanet.com choose most of the hotels leaving the hotels in one of the towns and the nights after the first in another to local booking on place.

At the Basel airport, it appeared that my backpack (the checked one) weighted 8.1kg believe it or not and the carry-on small backpack was 4kg (incl. the lonely planet guide and the camera with the new lens which was probably 1kg). The friendly AirFrance handed us huge plastic bag to put the luggage in and protect it (and make their life easier with all bands and so hanging).

First was the short fly to Amsterdam, then a walk in rainy Amsterdam, a train back to Schiphol and boarding KLM flight to Singapore.

Landed in Singapore, the heat with high humidity hit us. Somebody from Singapore has told me before the trip that we will be there when it is cooler and won’t experience hot hit – well, it felt like a hit the first day!

The hotel was OK – as basic as could be. The interesting moment was in the evening with the shower when the water as cold and quite unpleasant (especially when you are the last to take a shower and the water is the coldest). As we found out in the morning, from a note on the wall next to the bathroom door, we were supposed to turn on the water heater at least 15min before taking a shower. Well, put a bigger note and stick it on the door!
Singapore is absolutely NorthAmerican-European type of city. Buildings, people, habits and so on – you don’t feel the Asian atmosphere that much. Chinatown is like most Chinatowns. The restaurants there are too touristic and try to avoid them (which is not something we did unfortunately).

Hindu people were celebrating a festival of light, so we went and visited a temple that was full to the roof but we succeeded to enter as well after leaving the shoes out. Took a boat ride along the river and at the end, waiting for 15min or so in a line for a taxi back to the hotel… insane!

Next morning after breakfast came the first AirAsia flight and the more exotic, different and dirty city of Bangkok in Thailand.