Day 334- Singapore

SINGAPORE ZOO AND ORCHARD ROAD CHRISTMAS LIGHTS (01/12/09)

Liz had visited Singapore Zoo when she came here as an 11 year old and remembered it being very good. We decided to make a day of it and were not disappointed. The Zoo really is special, quite unlike any zoo we have ever been too. Many of the animals are free ranging, those that aren't have large, well designed enclosures which simulate their natural environment. The animals are well fed and obviously healthy, the exhibits are well thought out and educational and the walking trails around the zoo are varied and interesting. Anyway, we really liked it in case you haven't gathered already.

Siamang Gibbon.

Two of the Zoo's beautiful White Tigers.

No we aren't yet bored of Orang Utans. This baby entertained us for quite a while investigating this old tree trunk.

Feeding time.

The zoo has a large enclosed rainforest exhibit in which live many butterflies and birds as well as various mammals.

This Sloth shared his branch with dozens of butterflies.

Also living in the rainforest exhibit are a number of Flying Foxes or Fruit Bats.

The Africa section.

A large, inquisitive Ostrich.

The Zoo's Orchid Garden.

A False Gharial, a crocodilian species which has recently been discovered to be more closely related to the Gharial than at first thought.

Another of the large False Gharials (it's behind glass).

We used Singapore's clean and efficient metro system, the MRT, to get to and from the Zoo. It has a light up map which shows where you are and where the train is going. Come on London Underground- it's the 21st Century now you know!

Once it got dark we walked down to Orchard Road again to see the Christmas lights after dark. They are amazing! The first section of the road is lit all in red...

...and the middle in orange and purple.

At some points of the road the lights from all around are so bright that it almost feels like daylight.

The various shopping centres had done their best to outdo each other although none came close to this one shrouded completely in gold and lit up with millions of yellow lights.

And finally... the far end (from us) of the road was lit entirely with blue lights.

Days 332 & 333- Singapore

ORCHARD ROAD (29/11/09 & 30/11/09)

After a relatively short bus journey and a surprisingly easy border crossing we arrived from Malaysia into Singapore. We spent our first day looking around the upmarket main shopping street of Singapore- Orchard Road.

We knew that Orchard Road is famous for it's shopping but nevertheless we were astonished by what we found. There are almost no shops on the road just massive (and we mean really massive) shopping mall after massive shopping mall, there are more than 20 of them with several more being built. It is quite hard to comprehend that people really need this much stuff and are willing to spend so much money on it. We felt rather like fish out of water and regarded the whole experience as being rather surreal. Great Christmas decorations though, even better at night (see tomorrow).

Day 331- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR (28/11/09)

Elinor had a morning flight out of Kuala Lumpur which is why we had travelled here from Penang the night before. Once we had dropped her at the airport we decided to spend the rest of the day having a brief look around the city of Kuala Lumpur. We were not particularly impressed, the city centre was sterile and uninteresting whilst the outskirts seemed filthy, grey and uncared for. This is one of the twin Petronas Towers, formerly the tallest skyscrapers in the world (452m 0r 1483ft) until surpassed by the Taipei 101 building in Taiwan in 2004.

Away from the sparkling clean centre the city is very different. Rubbish lines the polluted streets and the scenery is concrete and very little else. We had the pleasure of crossing this filthy, sewage filled river.

The view of the Petronas Towers from our hotel window. We always like to have a look around everywhere we visit but we were both glad that we had a bus booked to Singapore the next morning.