Farewell India and hello Singapore, the land of 24 hour shopping malls, escalators and great food – country number 17 on our trip!.

We took a sleeper train from Varanasi to New Delhi, and of course being our last Indian train it was naturally over 5 hours late meaning an entire night spent in a grotty train station listening for the announcement “For your kind attention” (telling us that each and every train was delayed) every couple of minutes and of course being eaten alive by mosquitoes. We arrived at Delhi the following evening and pleasantly appreciated the fact that it was much less hassely than when we arrived back in January. Maybe it was the 45 degree heat and high humidity or the fact that few foreigners visit India at this time of year – either way it was welcomed and gave us an opportunity to visit the sites we’d missed before such as the Red Fort, Jama Masjid and Chandi Chowk. Naturally Rich also made the most of the wide availability of good curries…….

We took a surprisingly comfortable Air India flight which took 6 hours to Singapore. The only drawback was the desire of the air stewardesses to constantly feed and water us, which meant another night with no sleep. Naturally when we arrived at Singapore we were shattered, but despite this you couldn’t help but notice that the two countries couldn’t be more different. In Singapore you cannot spit (hoorah!), eat or drink on any public transport, drop litter or smoke anywhere – hefty fines and in some instances prison sentences for committing such offences. The cows have been replaced for shiny cars, McDonalds sells Big Macs again and above all it’s really clean. There are however skyscrapers and shopping malls everywhere, in fact you could also walk around the entire city without venturing outside simply by walking through one mall to the next.

Singapore is famous for three things in my mind – Shopping, food and a Singapore Sling in Raffles Long Bar – naturally we did all three. The shopping was to be honest disappointing the electrical items are no cheaper than we can buy at home on the internet the only advantage here I think is the sheer amount of choice available to you, but having said that most of the shops are the same i.e. M&S, Gap, Topshop, Body Shop, River Island, Zara, Mango etc and its all been imported from the UK!.

The food on the other hand is fantastic and cheap (as long as you eat in the plentiful food halls and hawker markets and not in the restaurants!). We sampled “Eat all you can Sushi” for 6 pounds per head, Black Pepper Crab, Seafood and of course Singapore noodles. We also tried the Durian fruit which smells revolting. We also visited Raffles and had a Singapore Sling (which tastes like Calpol), sadly the entire hotel was completely refurbished about 10 years ago and in doing so the colonial charm has been replaced by 5 star modern luxuries, they did however provide you with monkey nuts and actively encourage you to throw them on the floor. Drinking is actually more expensive here that it is in the UK, we went to Clarkes Quay on Saturday night and the price of a pint of Tiger beer was about 5 pounds!. Singapore is of course full of lots of very poncy bars – great for people watching.

We visited Sentosa Island which is a completely artificial beach resort complete with imported sand and watched “Songs of the Sea” a laser, firework and water show which whilst aimed at children was good fun. We also went to China Town, the Esplanade, MacRitchie Reservoir and Little India but to be honest did little in the way of sightseeing as there isn’t that much to see.

We left Singapore on Wednesday and took a bus to Kuala Lumpur – the seats on the bus were big and spacious – there was even enough room for Rich’s legs!.

The journey to Kuala Lumpur took 7 hours and thankfully the bus dropped us off at China Town which is the backpacker and budget hotel district and also home of KL’s biggest counterfeit night market. We spent two nights in KL, to be honest it was a lot like Singapore in that there were skyscrapers and shopping malls everywhere but noticeably not as clean. Food is just as good and shops much cheaper (except electrical goods – the hunt for Rich’s new camera continues….) but otherwise there was little to see and do. A highlight to our trip was a visit to the Petronas Towers, built in 1998 and the tallest building in the world at 452m high (88 floors).

Conscious that we have little time left on this trip, we cut short our visit to KL and after a breakfast of dim sum headed by bus to Pulau Pinang, an island on the north east.

Today we are in Georgetown its still really hot here so visiting tourist sites is challenging to say the least and we seem to spend most of our time either showering or looking for an air conditioned mall/cafe etc. Georgetown is a pleasant colonial town and trading port which has many beautiful buildings dating back to the British occupation of 1786.

Next stop Sarawak, Borneo.....