As much as I’m loving life in Australia, this video is making me a teeeensy bit homesick for the bay. I’ve been lucky enough to live in some pretty cool places.
As much as I’m loving life in Australia, this video is making me a teeeensy bit homesick for the bay. I’ve been lucky enough to live in some pretty cool places.
As I mentioned in this post, we were trying to save money in Singapore, so we turned to Groupon, where we got a great deal on tickets to the conservatories at the Gardens by the Bay, and also free tickets to the aquarium at Sentosa Island.
I didn’t really know what Sentosa Island was, everyone just called is Sentosa, and said that we absolutely had to go (and by everyone, I mean everyone in the tourism industry, people that live in Singapore stay far away, but we hadn’t discovered that yet) so we did.
Sentosa Island is basically a huge tourist trap/resort with just about everything you could ever want to do all in one place. There’s a Universal Studios, a beach, an aquarium, and tons of resorts and hotels as well. Also there is a giant lion statue. for some reason.
We were there on a beautiful day, it was actually scorching hot out. It was so bad that I took to hiding out in the corner of a Billabong store just for the air conditioning. The other thing about Sentosa is that it is RIDICULOUSly expensive. A lot of the beach bars have signs out advertising $16 beer at happy hour, as though it’s a bargain.
Even though it was 4000 degrees, I wasn’t spending $16 on a beer, or $22 on a margarita, so we didn’t stay as long as we could’ve.
The aquarium was kind of cool, we got to play with sting rays, you can pet them and feed them. I felt a bit awkward about that later, when we met up with an old classmate of mine for supper in Chinatown and we ended up eating stingray for supper.
I normally don’t really eat anything that swims (fish are friends, not food) but I blame the massive Tiger beers that the waitresses, dressed up like Oktoberfest hostesses, were bringing to our table in buckets.
After the aquarium we went to the dolphin show, which was about 25 minutes of some sea lions playing ring ross and balancing balls on their noses, and then 3 minutes of dolphin jumping.
But the dolphins were pink at least. So that’s not nothing.
For the last few weeks we’ve been road tripping up the Eastern coast of Australia, sleeping in our car, and eating most of our meals as picnics on the beach.
Subaru’s are actually pretty comfy, as long as you are kind of short, and not very claustrophobic.
A few snaps from the top of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore. We wanted to go up and check out the infinity pool up there, but it was $25 each to go to the top, and you can’t go to the pool anyway, just the observation deck.
After supper in Chinatown one night we decided to go over there and see if we could sneak in. We got dropped off at the entrance to the third tower, and crept inside. It’s really gorgeous inside the hotel, as you would imagine.
We got in the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor, but we needed a key to get up. Just as we were about to get off the elevator, a group of hotel guests got on, and pushed the button, so we were able to go up and check it out.
At the top there is the pool, a couple of bars and restaurants, and several observation decks, and you can see almost a full 360 degree view of Singapore and the Gardens by the Bay at night.
It’s truly stunning, and I’m very grateful to that group of people for helping us sneak up to see it.
The Gardens by the Bay has two conservatories, the Cloud Forest, and the Flower Dome. The Cloud Forest is the big, splashy main event, but the Flower Dome was pretty cool too.
It’s divided up into sections, to showcase the flowers and plants that grow in different regions of the world, so you walk around into each section, and find yourself in Australia, or South America, or California, surrounded by those native plants.
My favourite part was the flower field in the center of the dome, it’s a themed flower display that they switch up every few months.
When we were there, it was made into a Persian garden, with lots of bright colours, and table displays.
There is a succulent garden, a large collection of cool, gnarled trees called Boababs, and an olive grove with a 1,000 year old olive tree.
I was eventually unceremoniously dragged out, apparently watching someone take 600 pictures of roses gets boring after awhile, who knew?
Today was cruising around the Whitsundays, fighting monitor lizards for our lunch, and hiking with snakes and spiders the size of dinner plates.
Today was sudden rain storms and almost being swept overboard by an errant wave.
Today was practically perfect in every way.
If you’ve ever seen The Jetsons: The Movie, and you remember the scene where Judy goes on a date with Sky Rocker at this amazing futuristic mall, then you’ve basically already been to the Cloud Forest, so no need to spend the money.
And if you haven’t seen it, go watch it immediately. I’ll wait.
OK, so you should probablyyyy still go see the Cloud Forest, all I’m saying is, whoever designed the place has definitely seen that movie.
As soon as you walk in, you are hit by a wall of mist from the water cascading over off the waterfall, which is the tallest indoor waterfall in the world.
It falls from the top of a big, beautiful mountain that’s completely covered in flowers and plants, and as you walk around it, you climb a spiral ramp to the top of the glass dome, where there is a stunning view of the Gardens, and the rest of Singapore.
There are about a million different kinds of orchid, and it’s nice and cool and misty in there which is worth the cost of admission just to get out of the Singapore heat for awhile.
As you walk through there is lots of information about natural cloud forests, and the different plant and animal populations they support in nature.
It’s really an amazing place, even if you don’t know anything about architecture and design, which I really don’t, you can tell that it’s very unique.
Seeing the Cloud Forest is one of the big reasons I wanted to visit Singapore, and I was not disappointed.
A few more photos from our time in Cambodia.
I wanted to share a few extra pictures from Cambodia that didn’t really fit in anywhere else (I only took about 6000 photos). It’s such a beautiful country, and the people there are so wonderful and friendly. I felt truly lucky to have had the opportunity to visit.
We were only in Cambodia for about 10 days, we took the bus from Bangkok to Siem Reap, and then another bus from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, and then flew back to Bangkok, but here are a few things I learned in the process:
Clothing– This is mainly for the temples, if you’ll be visiting Angkor, but make sure to bring a thin, white cotton t-shirt, and a sarong. If you don’t, you’ll end up buying a sarong, and a shoulder wrap at the entrance to some of the temples in order to get in. I only brought a black t-shirt, and had my own sarong, and by the end of the day at Angkor I was so hot I just wanted to strip naked and dive into the lake. Which I’m pretty sure would be frowned upon.
Another note here, this is not always enforced. I was kind of annoyed to be there completely covered up, because we’d been told on our sunset visit the night before that we wouldn’t be allowed in otherwise, only to see other girls coming in in tank tops and short shorts. It is a religious site, so you shouldn’t be coming in wearing that anyways, but it was soooo hot. You’ll be much more comfortable in just a t-shirt and sarong than if you wear a tank top, and have to spend the whole day with a shawl around your shoulders.
Currency– This one is a bit tricky, but bear with me. Unlike Thailand, the US dollar is accepted almost everywhere in Cambodia, if you go to an ATM to get money out, you will get US dollars, not Riel. There is also a fee to change US dollars to Riel, so you’ll be paying an ATM fee, and then another fee at the money exchange.
The reason you would want to use Riel, is because sometimes you will end up paying less than you would with US dollars. For example, if a bottle of water is 2000 KHR, but $1 USD is 4000 KHR, if you have USD, they will charge you $1.00, so you’ll end up paying twice as much. Also, exchange rates can vary from store to store, lots of places will have it right on the register that $1 USD is equal to 4100, or 4000 KHR, so sometimes you feel like you are kind of getting the short end of the stick no matter what you do.
There is no fee to transfer TBH, or other SEA currency to Riel, so the best advice I can give you is get out as much TBH as you are comfortable with carrying before you cross the border, and then take it to a money exchange once you are in Cambodia, to avoid paying the USD to KHR fee. You’ll still likely end up visiting the ATM once or twice, depending on how long you stay, but you can cut down on your fees a bit by doing it this way.
Tuk-tuks– The tuk-tuks in Cambodia are a lot more open than the ones in Thailand, and if you go to the land mine museum, Angkor, the Killing Fields, etc, really anywhere outside of the cities, it can get very dusty, since many of the roads are unpaved. Always bring your sunglasses with you, even if you’re traveling at night, to keep dirt out of your eyes. Sometimes I even wore a sheer scarf over my face for long drives.
Night buses– There are a few ways to travel around Cambodia, but the cheapest and easiest is definitely via bus or mini-bus. That being said, the roads in Cambodia are not great. Most of them are unpaved and bumpy, and can get muddy if it’s rained. Also, outside of the city there are no lights on the road, so traveling at night is not the best idea. There are night buses offered at many of the tourist information places, it sounds like a great deal, for around $15USD you can curl up in a full reclining chair with a movie playing, sleep through the night, and wake up at your destination.
It’s very attractive because it gives you an extra day to sight-see, instead of spending a whole day on the bus. But I heard over and over again that night buses are very dangerous, and after our experiences with the driving and road conditions in Cambodia, even during the day time, it just doesn’t seem worth it, even to gain a little extra time.
Schemes– In addition to the one I mentioned here, another “scheme” to get money out of tourists happens if you’re traveling from Thailand to Cambodia via bus. When we bought our bus ticket, we were told it was about 6 hours from Bangkok to Siem Reap. With transfers, picking up other people, and a stop to get a visa at the border, it was more like 11 hours before we got to the bus terminal in Cambodia where we were supposed to be picked up to go the last hour or so to Siem Reap.
Once we got there, we were told the bus to take us wouldn’t be coming for another 3 hours, but if we wanted to chip in together with some of the other people to take a mini-bus, we could leave immediately, and it would also take less time than taking a large bus, because we would be taken directly to our hotels.
I’d met a guy at the border, a frequent traveller to Cambodia who told me this is very common, because even though people have already paid for their tickets to get all the way to their hotel, after that many hours on the road, they are usually willing to pay more to get there faster. We caved in and did it, just because we were completely exhausted, and it was another 200 TBH (or $6 USD) per person. It’s up to you whether you pay it or not, but it’s good to be aware either way.
Border– One more thing to mention on that, we had no issues crossing into Cambodia, but we did have a guide that told us to be wary of people in uniform at the border. Apparently you can rent police or border guard uniforms anywhere, and people will ask to see your passport or visa, and try to get extra fees out of you. Just like anything else when you’re traveling, be smart, ask questions, and if something doesn’t feel right, don’t ignore it.
loveliness. 