Brett: Today was a pretty lazy day in Phuket. We just wanted to get our bearings around town and went for a walk into Patong from Diamond Cliff. Took us 20 minutes walk to get in and around town. The weather was pretty 'blah' so there weren't many people out and about on the beaches, so town was pretty quiet as well.
We were only out for an hour or so, but when we got back, we were both totally knackered.
So what do you do when you are on holidays in the tropics? Book a 2.5hr massage :) Bliss...
After massage we did nothing...absolutley nothing :) What you want to do on holidays.
Yeah... i cant be assed writing anything further :P hehe... getting into the holiday mode now.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Day 3: Thieving Trishaws and Thailand
Brett: Ok...I have to get something off my chest straight up. Trishaw drivers near the Raffles hotel are THIEVING BASTARDS! We just came to the realisation that the flight from Singapore to Phuket was actually cheaper than the 10 minutes this guy took to ride us from the Raffles to the Double Helix Bridge - $80SGD! The taxi we took back to the hotel was $3.40SGD! Caught us hook, line and sinker. Jaz: Correction - caught Brett hook line and sinker because he insisted I get in the trishaw whilst the driver was dodging my questions about how much for this service. Then when it came down to payment I told the driver it was not worth the $40 each he was demanding and I would only give him $20 which I did. Brett then proceded to get all of his money out in front of the driver (you could just see his eyes light up), argue for a bit, then fold and hand over another $50. Lesson learnt: always establish a set price before obtaining a good or service.
Brett: Ok..the rest of the day was pretty good apart from that.
We slept in a little as we were checking out of the Naumi Hotel at 12.00pm, had
breakfast, packed up and check out. After getting ROBBED by Mr Trishaw, we wandered across to Marina Bay - the amazing piece of engineering that the Singaporian Architects behind the project must have got in a small room with kilos of weed and Tim Tams and had a brainstorming session something like..." Wai..Wai..Wai...Wai...Wait maaaaannn....pfffttt....lets...ahh...lets put a ship...yeah a ship on top of a tower...no..even better...2 towers! bahaha...fuck it...WHY NOT 3!" And what a bloody good job they did making it as well.
We eventually got the SGD together to pay the $40SGD to get to the top...wow...what a view! This whole place is spectacular! We went up during the day, but I could just imagine the views at sunset.
After we followed the Audio Tour around the lookout, I suspected we ventured into the 'Hotel Guest Only' area. I think there were a few people allowed to check out the pool area, but we didn't see any one on audio tour. I would be pretty confident to say that the infinity pool at the top of the Marina Sands has the best view of Singapore skyline anywhere in town.
We made our way through the 'Shopping Malls' at Marina Sands...I'm not sure how you can call buying a Rolex for $145,000 shopping... Looking in the windows of these shops sweating our asses off, unshaved, hats and running shoes on with a backpack on my back, I was surprised they didn't offer us to sit down and try any on for size!
Back to the hotel after this for a quick swim and a shower before heading to Changi Airport to board our flight to Phuket. Where I'm currently writing this blog in our room at the Diamond Cliff while Jaz wanders around trying to figure out which switch is for which light... Jaz: Correction #2: whilst Jaz busily and meticulously unpacks and finds a neat and tidy little place for everything like the wonderful girlfriend she is.
Too tired to write anything further. Goodnight!
Brett: Ok..the rest of the day was pretty good apart from that.
We slept in a little as we were checking out of the Naumi Hotel at 12.00pm, had
breakfast, packed up and check out. After getting ROBBED by Mr Trishaw, we wandered across to Marina Bay - the amazing piece of engineering that the Singaporian Architects behind the project must have got in a small room with kilos of weed and Tim Tams and had a brainstorming session something like..." Wai..Wai..Wai...Wai...Wait maaaaannn....pfffttt....lets...ahh...lets put a ship...yeah a ship on top of a tower...no..even better...2 towers! bahaha...fuck it...WHY NOT 3!" And what a bloody good job they did making it as well.We eventually got the SGD together to pay the $40SGD to get to the top...wow...what a view! This whole place is spectacular! We went up during the day, but I could just imagine the views at sunset.
After we followed the Audio Tour around the lookout, I suspected we ventured into the 'Hotel Guest Only' area. I think there were a few people allowed to check out the pool area, but we didn't see any one on audio tour. I would be pretty confident to say that the infinity pool at the top of the Marina Sands has the best view of Singapore skyline anywhere in town.
We made our way through the 'Shopping Malls' at Marina Sands...I'm not sure how you can call buying a Rolex for $145,000 shopping... Looking in the windows of these shops sweating our asses off, unshaved, hats and running shoes on with a backpack on my back, I was surprised they didn't offer us to sit down and try any on for size!
Back to the hotel after this for a quick swim and a shower before heading to Changi Airport to board our flight to Phuket. Where I'm currently writing this blog in our room at the Diamond Cliff while Jaz wanders around trying to figure out which switch is for which light... Jaz: Correction #2: whilst Jaz busily and meticulously unpacks and finds a neat and tidy little place for everything like the wonderful girlfriend she is.
Too tired to write anything further. Goodnight!
Monday, June 28, 2010
Day 2: Sentosa and Safari
Brett: A bit of a lazy morning, slept in until about 9.00am and wandered down for breakfast. We decided that we would jump on the train system again and brave the Monday traffic and congestion, but yet again - I need to stop comparing Singapore's rail system to Perth prehistoric locomotives. No problems what so ever..!
2 trains, one monorail, and an orange bus and we were over at Sentosa island. Took all of 45 minutes door to door.
When you get to Sentosa there are a number of different regions that you can go to...oh it's at this point that I should mention that you won't have a cheap day out at Sentosa, load up the wallet.
The different regions are: Resort World - Universal Studios, Hard Rock Hotel, cas
ino and other fun thing for kids; Imbiah Lookout - up the top of the hill which houses the start to the luge, MegaZip adventure park, and the Tiger (named after the local beer) Tower, 4D cinema and other simulations; Siloso Point - Pink Dolphins @ Underwater World, Wavehouse (Flow Riders...Jaz enjoyed herself) and the beaches of Sentosa; and the last Serapong - resorts, golf courses, you know... for the rich only.
We fluttered around Sentosa for a few hours until we had to scoot back to the hotel to catch our pick up to the Night Safari and Dinner.
Jaz: The driver was early which meant I had to drink my freshly made malibu and diet coke faster than I would have liked, but at least they hadn't accidentally left us off the list. There was a transfer at the Singapore flyer then our bus load of people with purple "night safari with dinner" stickers headed out of town towards our destination.
The night safari is a must do in Singapore. Our buffet dinner was delicious, there was a range of interesting looking shops in the main section, the tram/open bus ride was cool (you could see most of the animals, even if they were just laying there) and there were 3 walking tracks you could choose from to get up close and personal with the animals. Our tour guide recommended the Leopard walking track as opposed to the others, so that's the one we did. It was really cool walking through the ju
ngle at night, coming across different enclosers as we went. The leopards were very courteiously sleeping right night to the glass of their encolsure, Brett got some awesome photos. The giant flying squirrels put on a show for us, as did the civets and the fruit bats. Other highlights included the playful otters, the bathing hippos and the english tourist who exclaimed "it looks like a cat!" when she was looking at the creature in the "Golden Cat" enclosure, to which Brett replied "...like a golden one?" We all had a good laugh at that, especially the english tourist's friends!
I did get to see the malaysian tigers, but only just! They were all sleeping at the back of their enclosure - a small pile of orange and black. It didn't help that there was another smaller bus parked along side the enclosure which our bus stopped right next to, blocking our view. If the tiger had been up and about I would have jumped off to get a better look, but as it was, there wasn't much to see anyway. The elephants were in great view a little further down the road which was cool, but it made me sad to see the big male bull swaying his head from side to side, I saw on a documentary once that's a sign of depression. Looking at the size of his enclosure it wasn't surprising that he was distressed and depressed. Very sad.
It turned out that we had a good photo taken of us before the tram took off (yet another "let's get more money out of tourists" ploy). So like the cash rich tourists we are we bought ours. What's $20 for a nice sourvenier aye?! Brett: As soon as we got off the tram one of the girls runs straight up to Jaz and goes "Oh...i know where your photo is!" meaning - I spotted the tall red head in the green dress!
Brett: We had a look around some of the different room categories last night at the Naumi. The corporate suites and luxury suites (See photo) are HUGE. Each room category have the same little nic-nacs i.e. Nespresso machines, flat screen TV's, huge frige with complimentary soft drinks etc, so don't feel left out if having to choose the Premier Rooms. The 2 bedroom suite is PERFECT for family with 1 or 2 kids, as it has a seperate kids styled room, with smaller flat screen (which you can hire Wii's or Xbox for) and DVD player.
Anywho...that was 5 minutes of work...but great to see the rest of the building. I rate the Naumi hotel highly.
2 trains, one monorail, and an orange bus and we were over at Sentosa island. Took all of 45 minutes door to door.
When you get to Sentosa there are a number of different regions that you can go to...oh it's at this point that I should mention that you won't have a cheap day out at Sentosa, load up the wallet.
The different regions are: Resort World - Universal Studios, Hard Rock Hotel, cas
ino and other fun thing for kids; Imbiah Lookout - up the top of the hill which houses the start to the luge, MegaZip adventure park, and the Tiger (named after the local beer) Tower, 4D cinema and other simulations; Siloso Point - Pink Dolphins @ Underwater World, Wavehouse (Flow Riders...Jaz enjoyed herself) and the beaches of Sentosa; and the last Serapong - resorts, golf courses, you know... for the rich only.We fluttered around Sentosa for a few hours until we had to scoot back to the hotel to catch our pick up to the Night Safari and Dinner.
Jaz: The driver was early which meant I had to drink my freshly made malibu and diet coke faster than I would have liked, but at least they hadn't accidentally left us off the list. There was a transfer at the Singapore flyer then our bus load of people with purple "night safari with dinner" stickers headed out of town towards our destination.
The night safari is a must do in Singapore. Our buffet dinner was delicious, there was a range of interesting looking shops in the main section, the tram/open bus ride was cool (you could see most of the animals, even if they were just laying there) and there were 3 walking tracks you could choose from to get up close and personal with the animals. Our tour guide recommended the Leopard walking track as opposed to the others, so that's the one we did. It was really cool walking through the ju
ngle at night, coming across different enclosers as we went. The leopards were very courteiously sleeping right night to the glass of their encolsure, Brett got some awesome photos. The giant flying squirrels put on a show for us, as did the civets and the fruit bats. Other highlights included the playful otters, the bathing hippos and the english tourist who exclaimed "it looks like a cat!" when she was looking at the creature in the "Golden Cat" enclosure, to which Brett replied "...like a golden one?" We all had a good laugh at that, especially the english tourist's friends!I did get to see the malaysian tigers, but only just! They were all sleeping at the back of their enclosure - a small pile of orange and black. It didn't help that there was another smaller bus parked along side the enclosure which our bus stopped right next to, blocking our view. If the tiger had been up and about I would have jumped off to get a better look, but as it was, there wasn't much to see anyway. The elephants were in great view a little further down the road which was cool, but it made me sad to see the big male bull swaying his head from side to side, I saw on a documentary once that's a sign of depression. Looking at the size of his enclosure it wasn't surprising that he was distressed and depressed. Very sad.
It turned out that we had a good photo taken of us before the tram took off (yet another "let's get more money out of tourists" ploy). So like the cash rich tourists we are we bought ours. What's $20 for a nice sourvenier aye?! Brett: As soon as we got off the tram one of the girls runs straight up to Jaz and goes "Oh...i know where your photo is!" meaning - I spotted the tall red head in the green dress!
Brett: We had a look around some of the different room categories last night at the Naumi. The corporate suites and luxury suites (See photo) are HUGE. Each room category have the same little nic-nacs i.e. Nespresso machines, flat screen TV's, huge frige with complimentary soft drinks etc, so don't feel left out if having to choose the Premier Rooms. The 2 bedroom suite is PERFECT for family with 1 or 2 kids, as it has a seperate kids styled room, with smaller flat screen (which you can hire Wii's or Xbox for) and DVD player.
Anywho...that was 5 minutes of work...but great to see the rest of the building. I rate the Naumi hotel highly.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Day 1: Early Start
Brett: Well, day one actually started on Saturday and blurred into Sunday after we got on the 00.05 Jetstar flight from Perth to Singapore. It is a relatively simple flight on a budget airline, so I wasn't expecting anything exciting...and they delivered exactly that - nothing exciting. The service was good, the legroom was lacking. I'm just glad I was so tired that I got an hour or so on the flight.
Landing 15 min early was a bonus into Changi Airport. We got through customs amazing easily and straight into a taxi. $25SGD into the CBD from the airport (No traffic on the roads at 5.30am).
The Naumi Hotel is a little cracker of a property. The old Metopolis Hotel right across the road from the Raffles Hotel and 2 minutes walk from the most expensive pints of beer you will ever come across at the Long Bar (famous for the Singapore Sling). The bill was $51SGD - about $41AUD.
The Naumi is a small botique hotel which has everything covered...i mean everything - there is a welcome condom in the top draw of the bedside which on the front says - "Naumi says....play safe".
When we got into the hotel at 6.00am, we just had to crash - 4 hours later we awoke and headed down for breakfast.
If you are expecting those MEGA buffet breakfasts, you will be disappointed. We weren't disappointed though, cereals, juices, fruit, eggs, toast and pastries were all we needed.
After breakfast we got ready to head out into town...with no map or expectations, we walked out the front of the hotel, turned left, then left again....walked for 3 minutes, turned around and went back the other direction! Took us all of 3 1/2 minutes to get lost.
Our point in the sky to give us our bearings was the Singapore Flyer, the large ferris wheel which looks over the city. But without a map, we had no idea that is was in the opposite direction to where we wanted to be.
We walked through the many malls and archades of the shopping district, walked past the same stalls, and shop a few times, walked to dead ends and over overpasses which put us back to those same stalls, shops and dead ends!
Jaz: So as described above, we spent a large part of the day wandering around taking in the sights of Singapore. I was amazed at the amount of shopping malls but not really interested in shopping - which is just as well for Brett's sake and that of my already full suitcase!
When we got back to the hotel we were hanging out for a nice cold drink and an opportunity to put our feet up. We did exactly that in our lovely air-conditioned room then went up to the roof top pool for a dip. There are amazing views from the pool at Naumi, looking right out over the town from the 10th floor.
Following drinks at the Long Bar (as described above) we headed out of town with Jacinta Yeo - a friend of mine from UWA and a Singapore local. Jacinta gave us a guid
ed tour out to Serangoon where we descended on the locals favourite eating place. Numerous stalls with all sorts of interesting foods, we ordered the following: sugar cane drink, grilled stingray with chilli, numerous satay sticks, seafood noodles and black carrot cake (a traditional chinese dish made from eggs, wheat flour, onions and other veggies - looked and tasted nothing like the carrot cake us weterners are used to, but it was delicious none the less!)
After dinner we had a quick walk around the block to help with digesting our yummy dinner, then said goodbye to Jacinta before hopping on the train to Clarke Quay. The train system here is awesome, Perth in particular could learn a lot from Singapore in this area.
There were lots of things going on in Clarke Quay but we were happy to just wand
er through and watch. Brett took some photos and I tracked down a street vendor selling icecream sandwiches, highly recommend the chocolate one with waffer - yum! We had planned to catch a taxi back to our hotel but as we couldn't find so much as a tuk-tuk, we ended up walking all the way back!
A big day of walking and exploring saw us cooling our tired feet in the pool before turning in for the night. What new adventures await us tomorrow...? We'll keep you posted.
Landing 15 min early was a bonus into Changi Airport. We got through customs amazing easily and straight into a taxi. $25SGD into the CBD from the airport (No traffic on the roads at 5.30am).
The Naumi Hotel is a little cracker of a property. The old Metopolis Hotel right across the road from the Raffles Hotel and 2 minutes walk from the most expensive pints of beer you will ever come across at the Long Bar (famous for the Singapore Sling). The bill was $51SGD - about $41AUD.
The Naumi is a small botique hotel which has everything covered...i mean everything - there is a welcome condom in the top draw of the bedside which on the front says - "Naumi says....play safe".
When we got into the hotel at 6.00am, we just had to crash - 4 hours later we awoke and headed down for breakfast.
If you are expecting those MEGA buffet breakfasts, you will be disappointed. We weren't disappointed though, cereals, juices, fruit, eggs, toast and pastries were all we needed.
After breakfast we got ready to head out into town...with no map or expectations, we walked out the front of the hotel, turned left, then left again....walked for 3 minutes, turned around and went back the other direction! Took us all of 3 1/2 minutes to get lost.
Our point in the sky to give us our bearings was the Singapore Flyer, the large ferris wheel which looks over the city. But without a map, we had no idea that is was in the opposite direction to where we wanted to be.
We walked through the many malls and archades of the shopping district, walked past the same stalls, and shop a few times, walked to dead ends and over overpasses which put us back to those same stalls, shops and dead ends!
Jaz: So as described above, we spent a large part of the day wandering around taking in the sights of Singapore. I was amazed at the amount of shopping malls but not really interested in shopping - which is just as well for Brett's sake and that of my already full suitcase!
When we got back to the hotel we were hanging out for a nice cold drink and an opportunity to put our feet up. We did exactly that in our lovely air-conditioned room then went up to the roof top pool for a dip. There are amazing views from the pool at Naumi, looking right out over the town from the 10th floor.
Following drinks at the Long Bar (as described above) we headed out of town with Jacinta Yeo - a friend of mine from UWA and a Singapore local. Jacinta gave us a guid
ed tour out to Serangoon where we descended on the locals favourite eating place. Numerous stalls with all sorts of interesting foods, we ordered the following: sugar cane drink, grilled stingray with chilli, numerous satay sticks, seafood noodles and black carrot cake (a traditional chinese dish made from eggs, wheat flour, onions and other veggies - looked and tasted nothing like the carrot cake us weterners are used to, but it was delicious none the less!)After dinner we had a quick walk around the block to help with digesting our yummy dinner, then said goodbye to Jacinta before hopping on the train to Clarke Quay. The train system here is awesome, Perth in particular could learn a lot from Singapore in this area.
There were lots of things going on in Clarke Quay but we were happy to just wand
er through and watch. Brett took some photos and I tracked down a street vendor selling icecream sandwiches, highly recommend the chocolate one with waffer - yum! We had planned to catch a taxi back to our hotel but as we couldn't find so much as a tuk-tuk, we ended up walking all the way back!A big day of walking and exploring saw us cooling our tired feet in the pool before turning in for the night. What new adventures await us tomorrow...? We'll keep you posted.
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