Hail,
well, time for a big mail i feel!! The last one was from malacca wasn’t it?? if not. malacca was great fun, but no time to dwel on it now!.

WE arrived in singapore to cleanliness and sweet smelling air. Even the underground was clean and sparkling!! lots of touts to meet us of the bus, and we went with oine called percy as he seeme nice enough and was offering a free ride into town anyay. The rooms turned out to be fine, and we settled the price for five days and moved in. It was a huge room with enough space for the bunion and it had air con, which we are not used to but found rather pleasent!!

Percy was really nice and prtovided free breakfast and tea and coffe as well as info about the town and variouse other things. he was always talking, mostly about the lady down stairs who had just opened a guest house and was stealing all his ‘walk in’ guests. A source of much amusment!! we settled in for a bit, and having checked our mails last night and everything was on scedule for jul to arrive at arround 6ish, we headed off on the cleanliness advert, the metro, to the airporte. We waited dutifully with noses pressed to the glass for jul, but no sighn! I did see a couple of pink haired ladies who i thought for a moment could be him, but it was not to be. all the people had gone, all the luggage had been colected, and no sogn of jul. Cursing muchly, i headed to the singapor airline desk where the lady informed me that a certain j. brockbank had been booked on the flight and had not turned up!!!!! Upon phoning dod to enquire what on earth the yip was playing at, it transpired that something had gone wrong with his ticket at the last minute and he had had to pospone his flight until the 5th!!! This caused geoff no end of stress as he had to try and fit the train fares into the weekly budget!!! Oh well….

We recovered from the stress of waiting for someone and drawing ablank surprisingly quickly, and headed of to enjoy the delights fo singapore.

Our first stop was the zoo which i remembered from having been here when a child and had found most entertaining. It was not a disapointment, and we had a great time! It was all really wellcared for and most of the animals were in the open air. I usually feel sorry for animals in zoos, but i would say these had an ok life. The polar bears had a big tank with seethrough sides which was fun! In comparison the night safari was not as interesting, but non the less worth a visit. The most interesting animal here was the wild pig. it had tusks growning out of it’s snout!!! Much fun and amusment had by all viewing all these animals.

The next day, after the early morning installment of percy;s vendeta against the lady donwstairs we headed of to little india. Like the real thing but much cleaner. We had a nice indian meal which reminded us of the good old days of rough travelling!

China town was full of food courts, and we spent our time wondering round these pigging out on loads of different things! Rafreshing ourselves with a pint of sugarcane juice from time to time! Orchard road didn’t go too well as it poured with rain, and geoff not being the most enthusiastic shopper at the best of times was womdering round like a drenched sheep with the botts! Good to see it though. We also had a fleeting glance at the raffles complex which was most impressive. Our relaxing activity was the botanical gardens and the orchid garden which was really tranquil and nice.

Of to the airport aain on the fifth. This time we were in comunicartion as i had finaly got my phone to charge. We spotted him at once. He looked like a reject from an indiana jones audision!!! The hat, the coat, the hair…. need i say more!! Well, we pilled onto the metre an headed homestay wards! (percy’s g/house is called chinatown homestay)

I had a great b-day at the airpore!!! geoff gave me a classy mah jong set and julio gave me and unmade bracelet!!!!

The flight to bali was unseventfull accept for julios oooo’s and aaaaa’s at the private screens in the back of the seats!

WE met up with ed and nikki and had a couple of days in Kuta goind to the beach and buying dvd which they precticaly give away here. The people are really pushy, and touting is far more like it was in vietnam. we had settled in our room leaving julio to find his own way back from the internet place. this was a mistake as he turned up with braids in his hair and polished finger nails!!! He had apparently looked on girl in the eyey for a nano second,l and a hoard of them ad leaped out bellowing ‘so hansom, so hansom’ and dragged him into their shop, plating his hair and applying polish befor he could say jack robinson!!!! we all found it most amusing as he had given them the contents of his wallet and legged it!!!! Apparently the 20,000 he gave them was not enough!!! He handed over another 20 and made his escape. It must have cut like a knife, but it was inreality only a couple of quid!!! Most entertaining non the less. He has now perfected his snear and walks past the hustlers with ease!!! well, we then headed to the plush hotel which was rather pleasent to meet up with the rest of the gang. Julio, nikki and i rested by the pool while geoff and edd went to the airport to pick their dad and younger brother richard up. to be contimued…

Love tanya