So here we are again; back by popular demand, after what appears to be a three and a half year hiatus.  Where does the time go?  All those trips in between, lost, never to be documented.  Let me try to put that right and regale you with my latest travel offering…the journey to South East Asia (cue Oriental music).

Rice Vinegar

The date is Monday 13th July 2015, the location is Heathrow airport, the line up is the classic three way split.  To discover the mysteries of the Orient, first we had to negotiate a seven hour flight to Dubai.  It was text book, easily done, no problems at all.  Two hour stopover, sent Rob to the bar, he comes back with three £7 bottles of Heineken, textbook.  We continued onwards; no more time for Dubai, time for that later, we were heading to Singapore!  If we only achieved one thing on the flight it was to discover what our new aliases would be; we loosely did this by playing Tetris on the aeroplane’s entertainment system.  I became John Durian Green, Jim changes to Pat Rambutan and Rob morphs into Ruby Bill Silks.  Simple.   After another seven hour flight we arrived, it was now tomorrow.  We decided to forget about today, today was in the past, now it was all about tomorrow.  Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to forget about yesterday I couldn’t, the lag was starting to catch up with me.  Ever the trooper I battled on for the team.  We used the Metro to head towards our hotel, our stop was Aljunied.  Whoa!  Holy moly it was hot when we stepped off the train, “Oh the humidity!”.  Within seconds we were drenched in sweat.  It took me back to the time we visited Hong Kong, two years ago…(is that the sound of a harp being plucked?)….

Ding dong in Hong Kong

Ahhh, we arrived in Hong Kong and set foot outside the airport, holy moly it was hot, “Oh the humidity!”.  Even though it was night time it was still ridiculously sweaty.  We hailed a taxi, told him to step on it and crank up the A/C, “Canton Road please! And step on it! And crank up the A/C my good man!”.  He knew Canton Road because it’s huge, but he didn’t know our apartment, maybe because it was small, the numbers just didn’t add up.  He had never heard of our host, Eddie Wang either.  He dropped us off where he suspected Eddie Wang’s Palace to be, but to the untrained eye it did not look like any sort of abode resided there.  While pacing the street in search of Eddie Wang we arose the suspicion of a local gentleman who did not speak English and had no interest in our predicament, clearly he feared for his safety, the police were called…Shortly two Hong Kong cops arrived, it wasn’t looking good for us, no doubt we’d spend the night in the slammer.  On the contrary they were incredibly helpful, impossibly baby faced, but helpful nonetheless.  They called Eddie Wang for us, run him though their files, but no leads.  Who was the mysterious Eddie Wang and why had nobody heard of him?  The case seemed closed, Eddie Wang didn’t exist, his apartment didn’t exist, we’d been done up like Chinese kippers.  Hang on! Who was this rascal sauntering up the road in flip flops with a newspaper under one arm?  It was the Wangmeister! After being questioned by the police for illegal sauntering, he was let off with a caution.

The apartment and the rest of the building was proper hardcore Chinese, every front door had incense burning away outside.  It was fair to say it was an authentic apartment designed for your average Chinese person, which was fine, except how was it going to contain three strapping Englishmen for the next few days?  Well luckily there weren’t any staying there.  However they still had us, two Englishmen and a half Welsh, half English, one quarter Scottish hybrid known as Ruby (continuity error, he wasn’t called Ruby two years ago…).  It was by far the smallest apartment we had ever stayed in and one interesting aspect was the bathroom.  It was the smallest bathroom we had ever seen, but also the only one we had seen where it was possible to brush your teeth, drop the kids off at the pool and take a shower at the same time.  It was nothing if not efficient.  I digress…back to Singapore.

Gang bang in Geylang

We headed straight into the heart of it, staight to the harbour to cast our eyes over the Marina Bay Sands hotel.  It was quite spectacular, a three towered hotel with the roof shaped as a boat.  We took the elevator to the top like three excited schoolboys.  The views of the city were incredible and the little football pitch which floats on the harbour was particularly intriguing.  It was however ridiculously hot, the strawberry slushy cooled me down only momentarily.  We made our way back to ground level but it was all starting to catch up with me; the jet lag and the heat were combining to make a vicious cocktail.  It was probably the worst jet lag I have ever experienced; I was tired, I was feeling dizzy and my eyes couldn’t focus.  It was no use, we stopped for a beer, maybe that would help?  A quick pint of Tiger, but to no avail, I was in a bad way.  It was 6pm, we headed back to the hotel which was situated in Geylang, the red light district.  No time for exploring, I hit the sack (but if I had paid a little money I’m sure someone would have done that for me).

Teaspoon of whole cloves

Fourteen hours later I climbed out of bed…feeling refreshed, fighting fit and bushy tailed.  There was an ant hanging around in my shower, he was there the night before but I was too tired to get rid of him.  Now here he was again, I christened him Alan and left him to his own devices.  It’s fair to say we were hungry after all that resting, we popped to ‘The Ashes’ Australian cafe for all day breakfasts all round, I had the Bondi of course, hold the egg.  After that we were energised, time to hit the Singapore Flyer.  “Hey John! Isn’t that the largest observation wheel outside of the United States?” I hear you say?  Well yes it is.  It actually stands at 165m tall, which we all know is 30m taller than the London Eye.  The views were splendid, apart from still being able to see the football pitch which seems to float in the harbour we could also see the Formula One race track and the aforementioned Marina Bay Sands hotel.  It’s a good skyline and an attractive harbour.  After this it made sense to go to the Botanical gardens at what would now be considered the hottest part of the day.  We walked across the Helix bridge which links Marina Bay with Marina centre.  The Helix bridge apparently symbolises Ying and Yang and it’s shape resembles the structure of DNA.  Whether we appreciated this in the searing heat remained to be seen.  We arrived at the entrance of the Botanical gardens, but could we really face wandering around outside in 38C? With potentially no chance of finding any A/C? No we couldn’t.  With our sweaty tails between our sweaty legs we returned from the direction we had came from.  Ice cream!  Well a Gelato actually, big in Italy apparently.  While perched upon a picnic bench devouring this tantalising treat, I failed to notice an army of ants swarming all over my arm.  I was being ravaged and I hadn’t even noticed.  Eventually I started to feel a itchy sensation on my arm, I recoiled in horror, threw my arm into the air scattering the ants all around.  I’m not sure that Alan would’ve been too impressed but they were smaller than him, a different breed.

As the evening approached we made our way to the Singapore national stadium to indulge ourselves in some Football.  The stadium was impressive, certainly not sold out, but we were only watching Stoke v Everton.  Clearly the fans who stayed away had the right idea, the match was mind numbingly dull on an epic scale.  The stadium had A/C which they turned off during the game, which made it very difficult to stay awake.  It was warm, there was beer and the game was heading nowhere.  Peter Crouch came on in the second half but only Abbey Clancy could’ve made this exciting.  0-0, Everton won on penalties.  The stadium certainly filled out more for the arrival of Singapore Select v Arsenal.  Again, not an exciting game by any stretch of the imagination, the substitutions were inspired though, bringing on Achibald Tossi, Gillian Anderson and Bruce Willis certainly pepped things up.  Possibly only one of these was a real player, difficult to choose one from those names isn’t it?  I may have misheard the announcer of course.  Anyway, Arsenal won 4-0 and Chuba Toothpaste got a hat trick.  After an evening of watching predominantly English football we decided to fully integrate ourselves into Asian culture; we headed to the Penny Black Victorian English pub.  It was expensive of course, so swiftly moved onto the Bq bar, The Public House and Mogambo’s.  The latter became a bit of a favourite, not least because everytime somebody rang a bell they had to buy everyone in the bar a drink.  We certainly didn’t partake in this ritual, what do you think we are? Stupid?  However we were more than happy to accept free drinks.  Vodka red bull was supplied to everyone in the bar a couple of times and everyone seemed to enjoy it, especially that woman that was dancing around me, clearly she could sense I had some hidden dance moves…I kept them well hidden.

Teaspoon of Coriander seed

I awoke this morning to find Alan was running up and down the wall opposite the shower door.  I hope he realised how privileged he was; to spend time in my bathroom, most people would pay good money for that.  Today we were heading to Sentosa island, apart from Alan that is.  Alan had a job interview in the city; due to his fondness for mathematics he had applied to work in the finance sector, he had always dreamed of becoming an Accountant.  I wished him luck and continued showering.  We jumped on the metro and headed to Harbourfront, for $29 we got to use all the cable cars around the island.  Arriving at the island it looked like Jurassic Park, not so much because it had dinosaurs wandering around (which it didn’t), but because of the vegetation and layout.  Basically Sentosa island is a theme park with beaches and hotels thrown in.  We decided the best way to see the island was to walk around it; it’s possible that not many other people shared our view.  Mainly because it was another roastingly hot day and the humidity was off the scale.  Forget the rides, our number one attraction was to find the shop which had the coldest Air Conditioning.  For your records the best A/C could be found in the 7-11 store in the Merlion area, fairly close to the Merlion himself (giant half lion, half fish statue that guards the island).  We decided to get some lunch; I opted for the steak and onion baguette, nothing quite cools me down like a hot steak and onion baguette.   This time it didn’t work, it possibly made me feel hotter than ever.  I was possibly hotter than that guy we saw wearing a leather jacket.  We retreated and returned to the city.

Tonight was our last night in Singapore, so it was important to go out with a bang.  Our first stop was Raffles, naturally it was Singapore Slings all round and at $31 a pop (£17), they were not cheap.  Our expensive fluescent pink cocktails were all too easy to drink, we prolonged the experience by eating the monkey nuts and throwing the shells on the floor along with all the others. From here the evening started to gather pace…  A quick pit stop at Paprika & Cumin for Rib-eye steaks and a duck pizza all served by an impossibly cute waitress.  After this we upped the ante by paying a visit to the ultra trendy Loof bar, probably too (a)Loof for us.  We had one cocktail each in here but we felt a little out of place, and a little under-dressed (even though it was very hot in this outside rooftop bar).  After this we found the all too familiar confines of Molly Malones Irish pub.  Familiar in that no matter where you are in the world you can always find an Irish pub and most of them look the same.  What wasn’t quite familiar was the price of a pint…£9 a pint!!!  Understandably we only stayed for one.  To finish the night off we decided to head to our new favourite, Mogambo’s and as before somebody was once again buying drinks for the entire bar.  This time the shots were being bought by Tanya; Tanya Hyde, the Brit from Dubai.  It turned out to be a good night, the very poor taxi services were the only blot.  It seems that if it’s late, Singapore taxi drivers bide their time driving around the city waiting for their shifts to end but not actually taking any passengers.  Strange.  I arrived back at my hotel at the ungodly hour of 6:35am, in 1hr 25 mins I would need to get up, as by 9am we would need to be on our way to the bus station for stage two of the adventure.  Not the best preparations for our 6hr bus ride, a lack of sleep and a hangover.  No matter, it was done.  The plan was to rendezvous in the hallway at 9am.  Pat Rambutan was there, I was there, but someone was missing, where was Ruby Bill Silks?  We gently rapped at his chamber door…No answer…We tapped again…Still no answer…Where was Ruby Bill Silks?

To be continued.