January 2023 – Page 4 – It's all about the coffee

First morning here we had breakfast in the hotel complex (it was included in the room rate), so we just went out for coffee afterwards to my favourite coffee place here “Common man Coffee Roasters”. Walking out of the hotel there was no mistaking we were back in South East Asia, the lovely enveloping humidity of the early morning, tropical plants everywhere along the side of the road and the unmistakable pungent aroma that passes from time to time “is the smell durian ? Or is it a bit loose sewer gas”. The coffee was worth the short walk and we came back to the hotel to get ready for our next trip out to Little India.

Little India was only a few stops on the MRT from our hotel, so only took a few minutes. We had forgotten masks were mandatory on the subway here, and everyone is 100% compliant with the regulations, unlike what it was like at home. Luckily the staff at the ticket/info desk were able to give us a few so we avoided having to go out and find some.

Overall I found little India somewhat underwhelming, I’d had visions of walking down the streets surrounded by Diwali colour festivals and passing Bollywood dancers but in reality it was just fruit and vegetable stores, cheap clothing stores, mobile phone/electronic shops and small supermarkets selling Indian staples. There was one interesting Temple (Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple). Sharon and Sally spent some time cruising the “Mustafa Department Store” – massive building selling all sorts of things.

The best part of the day was undoubtably the High Tea experience at Raffles Hotel. The food was amazing, although as a non-seafood & egg eater it seemed every sandwich was seafood or egg based, either crab, salmon or tuna. If you don’t eat seafood, tell them, and they will bring you chicken sandwiches.

The scones & jam were spectacular food. Probably the best strawberry jam I’ve ever had. The grounds of the hotel are great, wander around and take in the ambiance of the architecture. After the High Tea, we headed over to the Long Bar to sample the Slings. I expected the Long Bar to be, kind of “Long”, but as far as bars go it was relatively short. The “Long” must be based on the amount of time you wait to get in!

As a tip, when you book your High Tea, book your place in the Long Bar exactly 90 minutes later and you can experience both without a wait.

We had planned to do a river cruise tonight, this was pretty much the only thing I hadn’t pre-booked and of course it was all sold out. No Boat cruise for you!.

Dinner was down at one of the oldest Hawker Centres (essentially a Food Court) in Singapore. Its massive with so many people everywhere. We got a table near a massive inflatable rabbit (Display for Chinese new year) so I thought it would be easy to find our table once I had my meal, but of course there were dozens of inflatable rabbits everywhere!. At least that equaled a few more steps for the day.

Just outside Lau Pa Sat is Satay Street, with dozens of vendors all selling various satay dishes. We will be coming back for that another night for that.

I still can’t believe we have finally departed Australia again after three long years, two of them due to covid lockdowns and the third really just because the timing wasn’t right as well as multiple bouts of covid across our travel group. I also wasn’t willing to risk booking travel anywhere where a pre-departure PCR test was mandatory and thankfully everywhere I now want to go has done away with them.

Two years of doom scrolling just how impossible travel would be in the future and remarkably apart from uploading copies of vaccination certificates it’s largely the same, just significantly more expensive and crowded since everyone has decided they want to catch up on all that lost travel, and honestly who can blame them.

Although I spent the last month stressed at what could occur that would cause us to cancel this trip, our departure was really a non event, traffic out to the airport was thin, we had reserved parking at the airport which was found easily and we checked in and passed emigration and security in less than 30 minutes. Plenty of time to find a cafe and be blessed with the opportunity to spend over $35 on two coffees and two pastries.

Even the rain and strong wind didn’t interrupt the takeoff. Of course Sydney was the only part of Australia that had rain today, 10 minutes in the sky and most of the cloud cover disappeared and we had great views over the Darling river just before crossing into SA then NT. Unfortunately this time we tracked a little north of Uluṟu and didn’t get to see the rock.

This trip is really just a short break for a week, heading to Singapore to check it out in a lot more detail, past visits have been brief sojourns (max two days) whilst going through Changi on the way to other adventures.

Changi airport was as efficient, clean and organised as ever. Took about 20 min to get past immigration, then 5 minutes in a queue for a taxi and before we knew it we were checked into our apartment. Chinatown looked amazing at night, so we will be heading there at some point to check that out.

After a bit of unpacking headed over to Clarke Quay for a quick bite to eat, oh wow, what a great choice that was. Just picked a random place and had a fantastic Asian Fusion Tapas.