Dorsett Johor Johor Bahru

... club itself was fine but the music was not on par to our expectations especially as we felt, by the end of the evening, that the winebar beforehand was more fun. The music was loud and repetitive ("rave" music...) and there was this guest DJ from some random country who wasn't all that. When we got back to Geylang at 2am loads of eateries were still open and crammed full of business so we just had some lovely Chinese food - definitely beats the greasy chips at home in my opinion.<br><br><br><br>

... disgress.. <br>The night safari was AMAZING!! I think one of the most memorable experiences I've had in Singapore thus far (although, I haven't really had very many experiences out side the lab). Basically a night safari is exactly as it sounds. Instead of going the zoo during daylight, this zoo (or safari.. whatever) open at dusk and goes till around midnight. Most of animals aren't caged, they are free roaming and are seperated from the people and by ...

... We visited some wetlands &#8211; mangrove forests that haven't disappeared due to development, although only a fraction of what used to be here is left, and took an interesting walk over a series of bridges in an area of the city that offered great views.<br><br>All in all its been a good way to wrap up our tour of South East Asia. Next stop is Vancouver, where we will get re-aquainted with our van,and prepare for the long drive back to Ontario.

... and then went round the front to take a photo of the doorman in his Indian-style uniform. we then walked down to Orchard road (the shopping street) to see what all the fuss is about. In the first shopping centre we found a supermarket selling baguettes, ham and stilton so we bought some, went back to the hostel and feasted on too much cheese. It was so nice to have cheese for the first time in ages! The next day we took our flight to Yogyakarta in Indonesia.

Singapore is known as the 'Lion City' and has a lion as its mascot. Once again we were docked in the container port (yet more triffids and I'm sure we've seen some of these containers before) so had to use the shuttle bus to get into the city. We naturally had to do a bit of shopping and then decided to hire a taxi to take us around Singapore. We didn't have a lot of time as we needed to be back at the ship by 3 pm as we were ...

... least the slog up the hill was done by the funicular railway and it was much cooler at the top. Great views over Georgetown looking down, views of massive spiders on massive webs strung between trees and leccy pylons when looking up! The following day we took the bus from Penang to Melacca, a 'looooong' 6 hour bus journey down the mainland's east coast. The bus dropped us some way out of the city, we eventually found the right shuttle bus ...

... hit the spot and the turkey pepperoni was surprisingly good. I'm really enjoying this bit of the trip. Although this bit of the trip has considerably less drinking and travelling than most of the rest of the 11 weeks (I haven't touched a drop of booze since the plane across), its good doing the day-to-day in a different country and getting in amongst everyday folk rather than just people who want your tourist money. JB isn't the most stellar city in the world ...

... was a water slide. The next day we drove to Rantau Abang beach. This is one of the only two beaches in the world where the leather back turtles come to lay their eggs. The leather back turtle is the largest turtle in the world. They can be 2 metres long and weigh 500 kilograms. A turtle can lay 60 to 120 eggs from May to August. I wish I could have seen leather back turtles. We drove to Pantai Cherating ...

... our return ticket back to Singapore. Where it took us only 1 hour to get from our condo to JB, took us almost 2 hours on the way back due to the Sunday afternoon rush. Mental note - pick an off-peak time next time. Once back over the causeway again - despite enjoying our few hours in Singapore, there definitely was an unspoken feeling of 'pwhew' - we are back in clean and orderly Singapore.

... booked, sweat pouring down us and a lot of people touting for business. We eventually found accomodation, showered and changed. We were only staying one night so we picked a local eatery and got a taxi to take us there but he had other ideas and we ended up at a restaurant that was no where near the one we had asked for! In the morning we headed for Johor Bharu airport for our flight to Kuala Lumpur.