homeward bound

We arrived in Singapore at midnight on Sunday. The flight was a bit more turbulent than the previous two flights especially as we got closer to Singapore. We had a hassle with our room. For some unexplained reason, we couldn't check in to the room we'd booked for the week, but had to stay in another one with single beds for one night. Bit of a pain but nothing we could do about it. They have given us a very nice room now on the 19th floor overlooking Clarke Quay - the view is absolutely magnificent day and night. It is mid-autumn festival here so there are lots of colourful lights and lanterns around as well as concerts outside Central each night.

On Monday we eased into the place, got our bearings and made a few plans. We visited Little India and came back to laze around the pool.

On Tuesday we took a tour into Melaka, Malaysia. It was almost 13 hours long but well worth it. There were only two others from Switzerland on the tour as well as the driver and guide. Melaka (also spelt Malaka and Malacca) is rich in history with invasions from the Portuguese, Dutch, British and Chinese to name a few. We were particularly interested in St Francis Xavier who in 1545 was the first person to bring Christianity to the area. He was a very popular man and gained favour with the locals. A statue of him is at the top of a stepped hill where his tomb was also housed before being sent back to India.

On Wednesday we had a fairly relaxing day. We had a thunderstorm mid morning and waited until that cleared. We wandered around, had another swim at the great pool here. We ventured out in the evening, had Japanese food for dinner and watched some dancing and singing. Next we went on a river cruise down to Marina Bay.

Today we have been to Chinatown for a couple of hours and wandered around the shopping centre next to our hotel. We've had another swim and will venture out for dinner soon.

Tomorrow we are hoping to have 'high tea' at Raffles and visit the spectacular Marina Bay.

We travel home on Saturday arriving in Auckland late at night so are staying there for the night. We will visit Craig's mother, who turned 90 while we were away, and will travel home some time after that.

Thanks to all you blog readers out there. This will probably be it until our next adventure although check in next week as I'll put some photos up here.