Night safari capers and Sentosa Island beach bummery
Today is looking like its going to be a day of not very much but it doesn’t matter because the last three days have been very busy… I’ll start with Sunday.
It was a quiet sort of day spent by the pool at the Ritz Carlton, Jo and Mandy laid out on the loungers while Georgie and I took full advantage of the hotels other superb facilities… The club lounge and the gym. With no beach to jog down we settled for the super swanky gym and I even managed 5km, the furthest I have ever ran without the police behind me!..
A storm blew in by midday and we were stuck at the hotel for most of it, not that it was a problem, we just enjoyed a presentation or two and a cocktail or three at the club. The rain lashed down on the marina and from the 32nd floor we could see lightning striking buildings all over the city, just across the marina a massive building project is underway where they are building a huge casino called Marina Bay Sands I think, sat on top of the three towers are tall construction cranes and as we sat swigging our drinks a huge bolt of lightning hit one of the cranes… No damage but the thunder was so loud it shook the windows!
As night fell over Singapore the storm passed and we got ourselves together for a trip to the famous Singapore Night Safari. It boasts all manner of creatures and animals acting naturally under the cover of darkness, we hopped aboard the natty zebra striped train thing that ferries people around and prepared ourselves for excitement.
We had a laugh as the train drove past sleeping piles of animals under spotlights that looked suspiciously like they were sleeping… Every time I have ever visited a normal day time zoo certain animals that you want to see frolicking about are often asleep and we are told it’s because they’re nocturnal… Bollocks! They are all just lazy because at the night safari the truth comes out… All the fun animals like lions and tigers can actually sleep up to 20 hours a day.
The rest of the night safari followed the same pattern… Spend five minutes trying to spot the little bleeder and when you finally manage to you realise it’s fast asleep! Except for the bats they were very much awake and by far the best thing there, they flapped about around our heads swooping only a couple of inches from us and I got a couple leaves and scared the winkles out of Georgie.
All in it was a good day, relaxation, achievement and sleeping animals… What more can anyone want from a day. Honestly though, zoo’s are a day time affair and had it have been just Georgie and me I would have felt pretty cheated but we had as much fun watching Jo and Mandy squinting into the shadows.
We had a spot of food down by the marina at a lovely clean little hawker centre before calling it a day and turning in.
Monday was the exact opposite of the great night safari swindle, we 
popped along to Sentosa Island, Singapore’s prime beach destination. We took a cable car from up on mount favour over the docks and the sea down to the Island, somehow we managed to book onto some sort of tour group but it wasn’t too bad at least we didn’t have to walk.
The sights we were expertly guided around were the aquarium, very cool – got to touch some stingrays and see some crabs that span a good 4 ft, and a slightly weird cinema/simulator thing where we all got strapped into booths and flung around to a big screen showing a log ride. The ride kept breaking down halfway through and it just added to it’s weirdness but eventually it managed to finish and a good time was had by all.
Next up was the luge – a sort of big skateboard with handlebars, Mandy wasn’t too keen but once she was strapped in it was clear she was gunning for pole position…
It was really fun as it goes, if it was a little longer it would be possible to achieve some serious speed and when your arse is only an inch off the floor it feels like your going a lot quicker!
The luge brought us nicely to the beach and more importantly a beach bar, I was down to my shorts in seconds and we quickly got amongst the beers as if we had never left the sand.
The drinking continued into Monday night as we spent it necking Singapore slings and boogie-ing the night away to a funky band down at the classically beautiful Raffles hotel.
Yesterday we went to Changi museum in the morning to get to grips with Singapore’s POW history which was sobering but like any other museum of war somehow necessary. In the afternoon we took a stroll around china town and in the evening we went to the Hard rock cafe for some hard rocking grub and live music… Georgie and I managed to sneak a bottle of booze back to our room and with it we drank ourselves to sleep…
