19th February - Singapore, 1°N 104°E, GMT+8

Singapore is tidy, fast and expensive, a bit like Tokyo. Changi airport is very efficient, no queues anywhere, 30 minutes after landing we were in a taxi heading at warp factor 8 into the city centre (at least it seemed fast after a couple of months in India).

We are staying at the Wanderlust hotel after seeing it on Sara and Nick’s travel blog after they left Laos. It is quite quirky, the rooms are themed, either Pantone where everything in the room is the same colour; Mono where everything is black or white and Whimsical where each room has its own theme, e.g. ‘Tree’. We are in a Mono room. Luckily we can check into our room early at 8am. Otherwise we would have needed to find a park bench as we were both really tired. We sleep a few hours then hit the shops and spend enough money to live in India for two months in one afternoon. There are lots of things we didn't realise we needed. Oh and Karen has another haircut at Toni & Guy, this time by Taz.

Up early the next morning to go to the zoo for 'breakfast with orangutans'. This does what it says on the tin and we do have breakfast with orangutans having theirs a few feet away. We're not zoo people and haven't been to a zoo since we were children but Singapore zoo has a good reputation as one of the best in the world where, as far as possible, no animal is in a cage. This is certainly true of the orangutans (all but 2 bred in the zoo) who have the run of the place but tend to stay in their own area (perhaps after dropping in on a crocodile or leopard while young). For other animals there are hidden barriers like ha-has and we only see some wild dogs that looked like they wanted to be somewhere else.

We have three hours at the zoo and split up towards the end when there is a dispute about how long it will take to get back to the bus before it leaves us behind. Maggie the no-nonsense guide on the bus has made it quite clear that there will be no leniency for latecomers as well as telling a story of a child who fell into a coma the previous week because they weren't sitting properly in their seat while the bus was moving (really?). It has the desired effect though as all of the children sit down, shut up and weep quietly from that point.

In the afternoon we head to Raffles (it’s pretty much compulsory). We end up in the long bar. We had checked their website before and tried to comply with the dress code, only to find when we got there that no one else has bothered. There are boxes of monkey nuts on each table and loads of the shells on the floor, on purpose as this seems to be part of the long bar’s charm. The retro wafting ceiling fans recall men with string providing the ventilation. The Singapore Sling, Bloody Mary and Guinness we had were not most expensive drinks of the trip but not far off. Off then to an Italian restaurant, the home of larger then life chef, Toni Rosetti. The restaurant is called Noti (we can see what you've done there, Toni). Toni says he has seen us before (yeh, right) but it turns out, slightly alarmingly, that he did see us at the place we ate the night before. We Have a great evening, get chatting to a group of Americans and Canadians who have been travelling for 36 hours and yet seem very bright and cheery (it's all down to the right choice of pharmaceuticals). It could be argued that we had a little too much too drink (Toni is generous when he refills your glass) and so we're not as rested as we should be the next day for our flight to Australia.

The bed in our room is enormous with crisp white sheets and we don't realise straight away that it is actually two smaller mattresses with large sheets and duvet on top. We do realise once someone tries to cross the invisible divide and sinks rapidly into the growing gap between the mattresses. Eventually the descent stops and we take some time to reassemble the bed but it never feels quite the same again.

Our flight to Australia isn’t until 10pm so we get a bonus day in Singapore. We go to see the film Hitchcock which we both enjoy and then head for the Garden by the Bay, a large park just on the edge of the city. This is so good that the battery on our camera goes flat before we leave.