Of Singapore slings and tribal warfare

Rachel, me and Liz with our Singapore Slings at Raffles
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Hanging in the opium den wasn't all that bad last night, I guess. We sort of bonded, told jokes and just had a low-key evening as a group, probably for the last time. (sad!) The evening seriously declined when we went to bed and Liz especially was really miserable the next morning, because  the owner and his wife were up talking until 2AM and our wall was the facing wall to the room  they were in, so she had a bad night -- I didn't  hear anything of course.

Out the door by 7AM, we were on a bus headed to Singapore by 8AM.  About 5 hours later, the bus stopped and we rushed out to clear customs.  This was actually a pretty stressful part of the trip, because the bus would have left without us if we  hadn't cleared customs in-time.   Jane was proud of us in the end -- it was the fastest any of her groups had cleared customs.  I was mostly excited for my new stamps!   :)

We will miss them! Team Von Trapp 4 EVA! :)

Kat and Nicola (the birthday girl!) all dolled up
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We got back on the bus for the short drive from the border to downtown Singapore and when we finally arrived, we took cabs to our hotel.  We quickly raced to settle in and shower -- we had less than  12 hours to conquer this city and we weren't going to waste a single second!

First stop was Little India.  With Rachel in tow, Team Canada is slowly becoming Team India, because the three of us just LOVE Indian food.  We got off the MRT (Singapore's metro ... it's crazy efficient.  It tells you when the next train is and exactly how many minutes to get to each stop.  It was like being in a spaceship -- so clean and quiet !) and immediately quizzed some locals about where to find a good meal.  We followed their recommendation and headed into this restaurant, where there was not a word of English anywhere -- in Singapore!  Not knowing what to do, we sat at the nearest table and just watched the other people.  No one seemed to pay any attention to us -- no menus, no  waiters, nothing!  Eventually, we sort of figured out to go to the front of the restaurant and order.  We of course I had no idea what we were actually ordering, but we selected something involving chicken!  Eventually, our food arrived, on banana leaves, of course -- no plates anywhere.  Also interesting was the lack of cutlery... that's right, food is shoveled into face using nothing but your hands!  My RIGHT hand, of course (this was the most difficult part of all for me!)  It didn't take long to mash up the gravy and sauce into the rice, pour the curry on and DIG IN!  It was like playing with finger paint -- except, way more delicious!  :)

The tribal crew
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After lunch, we walked around the market and purchased some longer-sleeved shirts, which we will need for Indonesia. But we didn't last long, soon opting to    re-board the train to head to the famous Orchard Road, or shopping central.

Orchard Road reminded me quite a bit of Tokyo: it's a beautiful boulevard street (tree-lined and all).  It lacked a bit of the culture we have come to love from shopping districts, though, as everything was in large malls lining the streets.  We had about half an hour, which Liz and I used to speak to some travel agencies and Rachel used to buy a backpack.

The tribal crew is ready to party!
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Back on the MTR, we headed to the famous Raffles Hotel -- Singpore's most notorious and super fancy-schmancy luxury hotel.  Raffles -- or rather, its bar -- is most famous as the birthplace of the Singapore Sling.  We of course needed to try Asia's most famous, and EXPENSIVE beverage.  Ordering up 2 Singapore Slings and a Singpore punch (Rachel is a non-drinker), we then proceeded to people watch.  It didn't take long for Liz and I to spot the consultants in the room!  All around us were other foreign tourists, enjoying beers in huge litre-sized glasses and $20 CDN Singapore Slings (I told you it was expensive!).  We met up with Wez, Sara, Rosie and Alex who had been at the zoo but only Rosie was brave enough to cough up the dough-ray-me for the all-too-small drink.  I have to say, it was pretty good and I savoured every drop.  :)

We once again boarded the MTR, back at the hotel in-time for our last dinner as a group before the Indonesia leg of the trip begins.  From the 12 travellers, only 6 will move on to the second part: Liz and I, as well as Rachel, Sara, Rosie and Wez.  We were excited to meet new people, but sad to leave the others, as we have grown particularily close this past week.  We even have a name, calling ourselves Team Von Trapp (TVT), in honour of the crazy woman we saw backpacking with her 6 children (2 of whom are still in diapers...).  And since Jane kept calling us her children, we decided we are certainly a Von Trapp clan!

Also worth celebrating was one of our TVT members' birthdays.  Happy 19th Nicola!  A lot of the girls were planning to make it a very BIG night (one that would surely put the reggae bar night to shame!) in celebration of her b-day and as one last hoorah, so they all geared up in Tribal Wear, including fake leaves, gold eyelines, black markings EVERYWHERE and gold piping strung all over their bodies.  Since Liz and I had very early flights, we passed on the getups, because we weren't planning to stay out, but it looked like they had a lot of fun dressing up and we were certainly a scene walking down the street, en masse with feathers coming out of our hair!

Our final dinner was in the road.  Quite literally!  One street here closes for the night and street vendors set up in rows along the side of the street and tables are placed in the middle.  It's like one big open-air food court!  Liz and I also taught our TVT clan the concept of the Warm Fuzzy, which we thought would be a nice way to end the trip.  Everyone picked a name out of a bag and had to say something tribute-ish about them, one last time.  It was very beautiful to be sitting in the street having a very low-key dinner, toasting each other and letting it be known how much we would miss one another.  My Warm Fuzzy went out to Alex, who I am very sad to leave behind in Singapore.  I really wanted to kidnap her and put her in my backpack to bring to Indonesia -- again, curse the mini-pack!  Wez said mine and it was really sweet.  I think everyone enjoyed the Warm Fuzzy experience, even the Brits, who were all initially very neg on the whole thing, but we warmed them up such that they even said "Awesome" ... haha!!

After dinner, we hiked to some random bar and said our final good-byes, as half of us were preparing to head out early and half of us were, well, ready to drink their faces and tribal wear off.  It was quite a sad moment!  We will miss them!  Team Von Trapp 4 EVA!  :)