Come see the world with me!

Feb 23

Day 1: City Tour by night, Mustufa

Though we had initially planned to leave on the 25th (the cruise was scheduled to start 26th) we preponed our trip to the 23rd.

Went to Singapore via the cape of good hope (read as : NEVER take the flight I travelled on). Air India: Mumbai-Hyderabad-Chennai-Singapore. And not only that, but a bloomin’ 1 hour stop at Hyderabad & a 5 hour transit & flight change at Chennai ::help::

Pics below of the Chennai Transit Lounge, Ana International Airport, which was surprisingly nice:

It wasn’t all bad though. The AI crew were very helpful & the flight to Singapore was empty (geez, I wonder why?) so we had plenty of room to move about etc. One nice young handsome flight attendant even came, sat & chatted with me for a long time (taste of things to come? I hope so )

My first view of Singapore was in the night - my first time to Singapore & I was thrilled to see the tons of ships on the water & everything prettily lit up as we descended to Changi International Airport.

Took a cab to my cousin’s place. A side note here on the cabs in Singapore. Firstly, they’re all airconditioned - which is a great relief considering Singapore is a lot hotter than Mumbai & equally humid.

Secondly, we found all the cab drivers not only extremely polite, but also so helpful. Once they knew we were tourists almost all of them would tell us places to go, things to do etc. Apparently the Sing gov. teaches them to promote tourism this way. And they all also have a Tv screen (probably about 5 inches) on the dashboard showing off the different hot spots of Singapore - again probably for the tourists.

Reached my cousin’s place & had dinner & then promptly decided to go around the city & see the sites by night. I was kinda tired after our long hours travelling but everyone else started ribbing me about being old (I was the youngest) so went along. Was a good thing I did because my spirit immediately perked up.

Saw a lot of stuff, but couldn’t take any good pics as the car was too fast & they’re not allowed to stop for no reason on the roads. Still, I figured I had ample time in the days to come to take proper pics, so didn’t mind too much.

Here’s a not so clear pic of the Esplanade by night:

After seeing much (almost all I think!) of the main city, we drove to Mustufa Center - a 24 hour Mall in Serangoon.

Mustufa, incidentally was crowded (we reached at 1am)… it seemed like everyone shops in the night (groceries etc!). I checked out a couple of swimsuits but couldn’t find anything I liked. Among other things, bought a fab. pair of shoes - that I made good use of on the rest of the trip. They were as comfy as wearing socks & looked great!