Venkat’s travel diary – Singapore – day 2
13 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Travel Tags: Bird, Jurong Bird Park, Night Safari Singapore, Recreation, Saravana Bhavan, Singapore
Our second day in Singapore was reserved specifically for interaction with wildlife. We began the day with a visit to the Jurong bird park, a bird sanctuary housing a large collection of birds from various parts of the world. This place is known for its interactive bird shows where we are visually treated to a plethora of birds performing various amazing stunts and tricks that can make any onlooker wonder whether they are real or not (I had that doubt initially and took me some time to confirm that it was indeed real tricks performed by real birds) .The first show called the “the kings of the skies” is a half an hour show which is a must watch for everyone who visits this park. In this show various carnivorous birds like vultures, eagles etc perform various stunts on the commands of the host. There are just two shows in a day one at 10 am and the other at 4 pm, so ensure that you make it to one of the two shows. We made it to the 10 am show so that we could see the next show at 11am called the “birds and buddies”. This is another interactive show that you should not miss at any cost. This show has a talking parrot, flamingos, parakeets and many other friendly birds performing various tricks including singing songs, playing with each other etc. After these two shows we went around the park seeing various other attractions in a monorail (you heard it right, the park has its own train system). Some of the interesting ones were penguin coast where you can see different types of penguins, lorry loft where you can feed a lory (a small colourful bird) and parakeets in the largest man made aviary built. Rest of the attractions were not great and you can find it in any normal zoo or bird sanctuary.
After having a super lunch at Hotel Saravana Bhavan in Little India we went back to our hotel to take some rest as our next sightseeing place can be visited only at night. Our next sightseeing trip was to the night safari which is one of its kinds in the world. It is a haven for animal lovers as you are shown what animals do at night in their own habitat. Once we entered the park we came to know about a fire dance that was going to take place in sometime, so we waited for it half heartedly as we were eager to see the night safari. But when the show started we found out it in few minutes that the wait was worthwhile as the fire dance turned out to be a visual paradise as the fire dancers did things with fire that we couldn’t even imagine. After getting spell bounded by this performance, we left for the night safari. In this we were taken in a tram around the park with the driver giving a detailed explanation of what each animal is doing at that time, the details about their habitats etc. But after the high standards set by the fire dance performance, we felt disappointed by this tram ride as it did not meet our expectations since it was specifically designed for animal lovers and our affinity for animals was usually repulsive. If you are a true animal lover I advise you to cover the park on foot as in tram you tend to miss a few animals and also you miss the chance to study them closely. After this we went to the amphitheatre at 9 pm for the last program of the day which was an animal show featuring various nocturnal/non nocturnal animals and birds displaying their skills in a moonlit background. Our day ended with a dinner at the famous Chettinadu restaurant Ponnusamy.
Venkat’s travel diary – Singapore – day 1
02 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Travel Tags: china town, Little India, Merlion, silk air, Singapore, Singapore Changi Airport, travelogue
Phew! Finally made the first cross country trip of my life after a wait of 21years. It was a suddenly planned trip and we decided about it just a few days before the actual D-day, giving just enough time for our travel agent to arrange everything. He had arranged for us a five days five nights trip to Singapore including accommodation at 3 star hotel, local transport in a luxury car with a personal chauffeur, sightseeing trips and return air tickets.
DAY 1:
Our Silk Air flight which is the sister airline of the famous Singapore airlines was a clear disappointment having none of the in flight luxuries that we expected. The only consoling fact was the good looking air hostesses who for a change wished me (in India the air hostess wishes the person in front of me and the one behind me but ignores me completely)when I entered the aircraft and took good care of us all through the 4 hour journey. On arrival at Singapore we were astounded by the enormousness of the Singapore airport more commonly known as the Changi airport. Comprising of three floors, this airport has its own train shuttle system for transfers from one terminal to another, an infinite number of shops and a record number of restaurants one of them being Ananda Bhavan,an Indian restaurant serving tasty South Indian food. This restaurant or for that matter any restaurant in Singapore is not recommended for the faint hearted Indian travellers specifically the ones who try to convert the dollars into rupees after every time they spend. After our light in quantity and heavy in cost breakfast (sorry I am a true Indian) we went to the meeting point at arrival hall to meet the chauffeur and the luxury car promised to us by the travel agent. The driver happened to be an old Filipino guy and the luxury car an older than the driver, Nissan van which looked something like a mini version of our Indian tempo traveller which gave a jerk periodically after every kilometer it travelled.
The first day was reserved for the guided city tour of Singapore which comprised of a visit to the famous Merlion, sightings of Singapore flyer (a giant wheel like structure giving a bird’s eye view of Singapore), Raffles hotel and Raffles hospital, some government buildings including the Singapore court. At Merlion we took some photogaraphs in front of the national emblem of Singapore which is the Merlion( upper part of a lion and lower part of a fish for those who couldn’t guess it with the help of the name). Other than the photography session and view of the Singapore river there is nothing much to do here, hence we continued our city tour to the next destination which was China town(as the name suggests it is a Chinese locality located in the heart of Singapore). Here we visited a couple of Chinese temples which was truly beautiful and is a must see for everyone. We also visited the famous flea market known for its cheap goods, but the so called cheap items were ten times costlier than what we get in India.
Hence obviously we left China town swaying our empty hands. Our final stop was at Singapore gems museum where we were shown how the gems are cut and designed to give the final product( the most boring part of the day). Having no interest in gems or how they are cut we left this place in a time faster than the time that I would spend in the loo. After this we were dropped at our hotel in Little India which is another locality in Singapore inhabited mainly by the Indians. The three star hotel turned out to be a service apartment converted to a hotel. It took us an enormous effort to find our hotel as it was not a hotel at all and no one knew about it. Fortunately the rooms were very comfortable with all the facilities that were required in a good room. After keeping the luggage in our room, we began our search for an Indian restaurant for a good south Indian lunch. Being in Little India, this mission didn’t prove to be very difficult as in five minutes we found out a nice restaurant known as Komalas serving nice south Indian lunch. After lunch we returned back to our hotel to take some much needed rest after the 4 hours flight and nonstop sightseeing. In the evening we visited the world famous 24X7 Mustafa’s shopping centre. As far as we could see, there was not a single item that we couldn’t find here. The place was so huge that we couldn’t decide what to buy( nice excuse for not spending money) and we ultimately decided that this is one place that we should visit again before leaving Singapore. Just opposite Mustafa’s we found a chain of famous Indian restaurants including the likes of Saravana Bhavan, Sagar Ratna, Hot chips, Ponnusamy, Anjappar, Copper Chimney etc. We decided to try all the restaurants before we leave Singapore and hence began our short term goal in Singapore with a visit to Hot Chips. After an excellent dinner we ended our first day in Singapore when we retired to our hotel for the night.
