A Trip to Singa-pura

Aloha! Am back after spending 4 days in Singapore...Had limited access to internet over there and so here I am posting my experience :)

About 4 hours away, Singapore is by no way an exotic foreign locale. On the contrary, at most times I felt as if I was in India..This applies more if you stayed at Little India

After a lot of dilly dallying got ourselves booked into the The Albert Court - A Far East Hotel
A pretty decent place to live in and most importantly close to a lot of Indian restaurants (Ananda Bhavan is just around the corner)..Walk onto Serangoon Road (about 50 mts from Hotel) and you have Komalas, Saravana Bhavan and Mustafa Center further down...The best way to book is to try rates at different Online Hotel Booking Sites - Tripadvisor gives good reviews and for bookings try asia-hotel, asiarooms, hotels-online and expedia . Try calling up the Hotel also to confirm rates (i did not have much success as they advise you to book online). If you are particular about vegetarian food, live at Little India.

I took a City Tour on the first day and did a little bit of shopping in Little India. Went the next day to Sentosa Island. This is not to be missed and is probably the best holiday spot to visit if you are in Singapore. You have 2 options to enter the Island - one by Cable Car from Harbor Front Tower 2 or take the Sentosa Express from Vivocity. I took the MRT from Little India Station to Harbor Front Station and then walked across to Tower 2...Lotsa good deals on the counter there for Sentosa - You choose the kind of rides/places you want to see and then choose the best Tour Package - Each costs approximately S$ 60...This would include 2 way trip to Island by Cable Car and entry tickets to those particular rides in the package...Do not miss the 3D cine show and the Underwater World....No Indian food at Sentosa - So pack stuff to eat there (Thanks Padma :) )...Another good ride is the Luge - you can showcase your driving skills here..Me did some Schumi like overtakings and brakings to end up at the Finish Line a cool 5 mins earlier than my parents...Got into a vantage position to shoot a pic of them coming full speed around the final corner and dug into my bag for the camera only to realize it missing...After some 15 mins more of tension and frenzied searching of bags I was in the Aiyyo Nasama Pocche mood and trudged back to the counter and started telling the kid over there about my precious Canon which was no more mine. After patiently listening, the kid turned around, bent down and retrieved my camera..I guess we had left it at the Counter when getting our tickets..Realized why this was such a successful and favored tourist destination (Singapore prides itself on the low crime rate and extreme penalties - For instance, playing around with the MRT emergency buttons can land you a fine of S$5000) ..From the Aiyyo Nasama Pocche mood, I turned pensive and waltzed to the "If this were India and I had misplaced my camera" mood...

The third day was spent shopping..The places you should not miss are Mustafa Center and Sim Lim Square. Both are within walkable distance from the Hotel at Little India...Mustafa is a hell of a big super duper market which stocks everything from exotic condoms to rare gem stones. I couldnt find the need for the former and did not have money for the latter. So me restricted myself to shopping all in between..No bargains at this place. The electronics are clearly more expensive than what you might find outside (Sim Lim etc)...Good buys - Luggages, cosmetics, watches etc...Got myself a Seiko Chrono, Altec Lansing 2.1 Speakers and some other computer accessories...(Note - If you have a relative whose coming down from the US, catch them for a much better deal)...Went down next to Sim Lim Square as I had read a lot about if being a haven for digital cameras and the likes...The mall is pretty impressive with well stocked shops...One thing I couldnt do was bargain - I am not a bad bargainer and I had read a lot about bargaining being the way to go at Sim Lim..But hell, everything seemed to be fixed here...One thing you can do is make sure you collect the Handouts from different shops and compare prices...I did not buy a digital camera here although I could see a lot of shops as I couldn't get the best deal...It is still about 3-4 k cheaper than India for an above average camera...The night was spent at the Night Safari - a popular destination for tourists it being a night zoo. No comparison to Vandalur Zoo in terms of varieties of animals, but in terms of cleanliness and presentation - they represent two ends of the spectrum...Why don't we learn the good things also from the West (or East in this case) ? Vandalur to us is one big picnic outing - Pack a lot of puliyotharai, vadam and curd rice (enough to feed half the species over there), balloons, cricket bats and footballs..Squat right in front of the cage and feed the Tiger the molagai pieces from the puliyotharai and throw stones from the safe confines of the other side of the cage...Not wanting to lead this kind of a lifestyle, every damn tiger would love to get its H1B processed and move on to San Diego or Singapore..In fact the tiger I met at Night Safari gave me a friendly wink...Hell :)

Spent the next day lazing around, little more shopping at Mustafa and arrived at Changi Airport a cool 5 hours in advance..An amazing place by itself, the Airport is itself worth a day's visit..Spent a couple of hours window shopping in each Terminal (Also bought a couple of tees at the end) and then boarded the Indian Airlines flight back home...

Back to business - have to catch up on sleep :)