Singapore

We are just back from a couple of days in Singapore. I had originally wanted to take the boat there, but it turns out to be very expensive to keep a boat there, it’s also difficult from a paperwork point of view, you have to go to a certain place in the straits, and anchor and wait for a customs/immigration guy to visit and check your papers, then you can proceed to a marina, where you have to appoint an agent to make your application to stay and clear you in. You need an agent to clear you out as well.
However, you don’t need to go through all the border crossing by road hassle in order to do a bit of shopping. We had to leave Malaysia on Tuesday morning, and check in and get a visa for Singapore, then do the same on the reverse. I wonder if the UK will have to go through this rigmarole when we brexit, it’s certainly looking bad, I guess it’s ok if like a lot of people in the UK who don’t travel much, but I would hate it. On the way over we used busses, you first get in a queue to leave MY you get a bus over the bridge, a short ride, get off the bus, get in a queue to enter SG, get in a queue to get a bus to the Metro. It took us about an hour for that bit, sometimes it can take 3 hours if it’s a public holiday or rush hour. We took a taxi back, that was much quicker as they stamp your passport at the toll booth and you stay in the car. The Metro in SG is brilliant, new, clean, quiet, frequent, very cheap, for £7 we got a card that covers all busses and metro for 2 days. 

I headed off to the chandlers to pick up the bearings I had ordered, passing this temple above, which like the chandlers, is in Little India. Sadly despite the fact I had a text msg from the chandler (aqua) saying he had 2 in stock and would be happy to sell them to me on Tuesday, he seemed to know nothing about it and didn’t have any! He said he could get them for tomorrow but I had to pay in full up front. I explained that I wouldn’t, as he had proved to be useless so far, and I wouldn’t risk it, he said they were in his warehouse and he would bring them early, but must be paid first. I pointed out there was little chance of me not turning up, and should I be struck by lightning, he could just take them back to the warehouse. I think that I might have said the wrong thing, because he then got upset and deplored me not to talk bout being struck by lightning, that it wont happen, and I mustn’t say that, he was genuinely concerned for me, which was nice. There’s a lot of superstition out here. Anyway, I found another chandler, MarineTech, just around the corner, that had a nice lady running the show and a deal was done for her to get the bearings, for a much better price for the morning. I also spent a load more there too, stocked up on varnish now. She had a liferaft for just £750, which is about what I am thinking of paying in postage to get a decent one shipped here. This one is made in China, I explained to her, in my most diplomatic way, what with her being Chinese ethnicity, that I had heard some unfavourable comments about Chinese liferafts, she had heard them too, but was keen to point out that she had sold loads, and had no complaints. But isn’t that the way with liferafts? I have a picture below, I think attention to detail is important in this area, so not checking the spelling of fiferatws is disappointing to say the least. 

Disappointed as I was to end up on top of a rock  a few weeks back, that’s nothing to how the skipper of the ship below must have felt we he hit these three skyscrapers.

Below is a very sacred buddhist temple, a fragment of the Buddha’s tooth is here, we didn’t see it, and frankly, I don’t remember teeth being that big a deal in any of the buddhist teachings I read, but all the same, I thought the temple very beautiful and I’m very pleased to have been able to visit.

In many ways, the towns we have visited have architectural similarities, brought on by necessity, the shop houses , where the shop is on the ground floor and the living quarters above, make sense for a small business, the covered raised walkways are perfect for a place where it can chuck it down at any time, and the roads can turn to rivers, and they also provide a great shade from the hot sun the rest of the time. On top of that, the shops can conduct their business outdoors where it is cooler.

So Tuesday night, and we had a lovely walk around town, it’s a very pretty place downtown by the river at night. Kathy has pictures, I can’t find mine. It’s like a mini manhattan, but all the high rise are clumped together, making it feel quite open.

Wednesday morning, I picked up the bearings, and bought lots of hose/pipe and stuff, I found a shop selling a TDS meter, but it turns out I have no chance of buying a membrane for the watermaker here. They have to be shipped from the USA. but I have everything except the membrane, and I have membrane cleaner, so I’m going to give it a go. I’m hoping I should be able to make water, but at a reduced rate. The TDS meter measures the salinity, and the purity of the water, so that will be useful.

Now I went to an area called Sim Lim, where there is Sim Lim Sq and Sim Lim Tower. I may write a separate entry on this, or even start a new blog devoted to them, but I was amazed, It was lie going back in time, floor after floor after floor of myriads of shops within a maze of corridors, and every shop selling stuff that cannot be bought in shops in England anymore, Im taking everything from resistors, capacitors, switches, cables, all the Maplin/Radioshack type of things but add on top of that, everything you need to build a recording studio, or a radio telescope, or a 3d printer or . . . the list goes on, I left Kathy in a cafe where she was falling asleep with Jetlag, and I wandered for a good hour. Here’s a shop that sold connecters 

Some speakers or cones

Reluctantly I had to leave, but Kathy was pleased, especially as the next port of call was to be Raffles, for a famous Singapore sling. Kathy seemed to like it there, I suspect she might mention it in her blog.

And here is the said Singapore Sling in the raffles bar /  snooker room.

Lazy day tomorrow as we watch the marina empty of the yachts, they are all heading off on a rally “Sail Malaysia, Passage East”, we might end up following and meeting them on our way north.

Paul Collister.