Singapore Zoo and skybar Ku De Ta

The next Morning was really lazy from us since we were dead tired and we were trying to figure out what was there to see. We chose to go to the Zoo which was supposed to be one the top zoos in the world! And it definitely didnt disappoint us!

We travelled there an hour, first by MRT and then by bus. We paid 37 dollars each to get in (with this stupid train included). The zoo was massive and most animals had big living spaces and no cages (yes, i know?!?) or boxes. The orang utans were free in there too! Climbing in trees, brilliant!

We liked the zoo a lot! Definitely worth the money. We saw chrocodiles, monkeys, elephants, zepras, giraffes, hippos, tapirs, white tigers etc etc. After spending most of the day and our budget we wanted to spend a chill out night at the hostel with some beer.

On our last full day in Singapore we went to eat breakfast at this 24 hour Kopitan place again where we got to choose what we wanted. Both mornings we ate around for 8 dollars both of us. Since we were leaving the next day we wanted to find this bus terminal and buy tickets alreadu. We walked around for ages!! Everyone was giving wrong directions! Eventually after like two hours we found this Golden Mile complex with bus companies. We bought tickets for 20 dollars each to KL.

Close by we found another MRT station and took it to Marina Bay Sands to see it in a day light. We ended up wandering in this massive shopping complex in Marina Bay with a river and an ice skating rink in it! We found out the dressing code for the skybar and figured that we needed to do some shopping... :D

We went to Orchad MRT station and to this mall called ION where we found shoes for Steve. We ate again in Chinatown and then headed to hostel. After showering and Steve sweating in his jeans and shoes on we headed to the Ku De Ta skybar. Ladies got in for free and Steve had to pay 28 dollars. Up in the bar Steve paid 24 dollars for 50cl beer... :D

The view was amazing with all them skyscrapers, lights and a night sky! At the skybar there were so many annoyingly rich people that made us or me feel so akward and like i didnt fit in.

Back at the hostel we had swapped dorm room because of some double booking. We put our stuff together (I did) and ate the food we had bought from Kopitan.

Next Morning we woke up at 7 am to hear this classical music being played. The previous night this music group had checked in and they had practised late at night and started early in the Morning.. How nice. Not.

The next morning when we were getting ready I was charging my phone when the adapter broke as did my charger lead and my phone.. I got so scared when it basically exploded in my hand. At first it still worked until I saw the battery dying really fast and then i couldnt open it anymore.. What a disaster! All my pics and our budget totally lost!! Thank god I had sent loads of pictures to my parents via whatsapp and I could get some of them back from there!

We walked to the Golden Mile complex to catch our bus at 9.15 am. We drove around 45 minutes and stopped at the passport control where we waited in line for 45 minutes. Back to the bus for a while and then through security check with our bags.

The Marina Bay, Singapore

The next Morning it was time to continue our trip once again. We woke up around 8 ish to leave for the "harbour" to get some boat tickets. There were two cats having a massive fight literally on our bags. The boat eventually came, we got in and no one asked any tickets.. We stopped at Tekek for 45 minutes?! So annoying! After that we finally had to buy our tickets.

Finally at the harbour after a sweaty and really fast walk to the bus terminal (15 minutes) we started comparing prices for Singapore! Transnational charged 48 to Singapore when this other company was only 12,80 to Johor Bahru.. Guess which we chose?

When we got off two hours later at JB we found this local bus to Singapore and bought tickets for 3,40 each. The bus ride took less than 10 minutes and then we had to take all our stuff and walk to passport check / control. Then back into a different bus and another ten minutes later and back out to security check thing with our bags. What a mess!

Then after that we needed to find this final bus to Queen Street that we had paid our tickets to. We waited in this line for the bus for ages and had a massive argument wheather we were at the right place or not.. Finally the bus came and dropped us of at Queen st from where we eventually walked to Bugis MRT, bought 3 day public transportation passes (30 Singaporen dollars of which 10 was a deposit). We took the MRT to Lavender to find this hostel we had spotted online called Gusti. Decent, spacious hostel with dorm rooms. We were asked to pay 26,5 dollars each / night!! Online it had "only" been 20 dollars so we asked to pay that.

Basically we had paid 50 ringgits for double room and now we paid 54 ringgits EACH! For a dorm! The place was really clean with a big livingroom area. We arrived to Singapore and the hostel around 6pm ish.

As we were starving we took the MRT to Chinatown and did it offer us different food options...! I struggled as usual to order anything.. I could only see green soups or fisheads in the foods.. No thanks. But most importantly we bought two big beers for 600 ml for 5 Singapore dollars!

Next it was time to explore the Little India where we didn't stay or enjoy much at all. Only staring indian men there and most places where shut already.

Then we decided to to go find the boat floating in the air :D Without a struggle we soon found it. Arrived at the harbour at 9.30 pm just on time for the night light show which lasted like 15 minutes. I felt so relaxed just sitting there in the silence feeling tiny in the middle of all the skyscrapers. We wanted to walk around the promenade (3,5km) and of course took lots of pictures of every angle we could get. The marina bay itself was really impressive as everything was built around the bay and the water.

After a long day and a sweaty walk it was time for bed in our 8 bed dorm. And what a night it was! Some guy snoring like hell and someone else doing this weird weird noise. Both of us and this other couple stayed awake till 3.30 am or so..

The island of Tioman

The next Morning we woke up at 8 am to get the 10 am boat to Tioman Islands. We ate the breakfast at the boat terminal, more roti canai and teh tarik. :P

The boat trip to Tioman lasted around 2 hours and we got off at the ABC -stop. The first impression for me was: what?! Where was all the sandy paradise beaches? The beach seemed (and it was) really rocky and there was absolutely nothing anywhere. We walked aloung the only tiny one metre wide road and compared couple of places and their prices. We ended up almost at the end of the beach in Mokhtars Place. We paid 50 a night for our own chalet.

Next door to us was this lovely English couple who had stayed there for over three months. They had travelled around for 15 years (!!!!) since their retirement. The woman was 78 years old!! It was so nice hearing their stories about travelling etc. They also told us that the monkeys visit daily outside (and also inside if you leave the window open). We missed the monkeys tho. :(

After we settled down we went to eat at our hotel's restaurant. Really good and simple food for decent price. Then it was beach time on Sunset Beach (the only half sandy beach). Nice beach with nice bar and friendly (!) owner. At night we wandered by the beach "road" to find nothing. We admired the stars together <3! We stopped to eat at Johan's Place and the food wasn't good at all and I didnt even get what i ordered.

After a hot but rather comfy night under the mosquite net it was breakfast and beach time again. After a while when we got bored at the beach i wanted to take a day hike to Tekek, the main hub on the island. It was said to take 20 minutes but we ended up walking closer to 40 minutes in the most hottest time of the day.. At the tiny center the restaurants didnt even have any food!?! A taxi ride back (5 each) and we went to eat at this nice Nazri's place. The place looked new and like it didnt fit in and the food wasnt tasty at all. We spent pretty much the rest of the day on the beach. We ate again at Mokhtar's and the Steve headed to Sunset bar for some football.

Pit stop at Mersing

The next Morning we took a minibus from Taman Negara to Jerantut for one hour. The driver was crazy. Jerantut was a grim, depressing place where yet again all the local men stared at me like i had to heads.

We ate breakfast at this local place across the streets from the bus office where we left our bags. Teh Tarik and Nasi Goreng it was again. We then had an anxious wait for the local KFC to open at 10.30 am so we could use their modern toilets.. We of course had to make a purchase so a mango peach smoothie thing was the same price as both of us breakfast and drinks! :D

Then after being pestered by some locals trying to sell us taxi rides to Kuantan + Mersing we finally got on the normal bus to Kuantan (for 3hours ish..). From the minibus and the bus to Kuantan we paid 70 each. Once in Kuantan we had a 2,5 hour wait for our next bus to Mersing. We burned the time by eating, playing cards and trying to plan our Indonesian part of the trip.

The journey to Mersing took around three hours again. When we arrived in Mersing we quickly got out from the bus station and headed for hotel Embassy which was about 10 minutes walk and had been recommended in our guidebook. We got a room from 50 ringgits and left out for some food. We shared one big beer in the lobby and played some cards before heading to bed. We paid the bill to this extremely rude, ignorant owner..

Jungle of Taman Negara

Our last night in D'Rock ended up being quite interesting and scary! At 4 am our "pet" lizzard tried to come through our door. It scratched it and eventually what felt like ages climbed to the roof. I was shitting myself! Our bed was right in front of the door and the noise was so loud we really thought it was gonna come through the door!! We were afraid to move and I already had a plan to throw my phone at it since i didnt have anything else!! I was so scared!!! All night we could here it somewhere on the roof and I was shitting myself that it's gonna find some hole to crawl into our room like the little ones.. I did not sleep. At all. We had to have a mission to get out from our room cause we were scared it's gonna be waiting us outside.. We could even see the marks on the door and how it had climbed up from the door!! :O

Well the journey to one of the world's oldest jungles started early and was exhausting. We took the taxi boats from the shore and swapped into this bigger boat to harbour. Our first driver was crazy and Steve got to enjoy this mans crazy driving from the front seat. We stopped at several places but the minibus still wasnt comfy at all. Jumping on the back seat, sun boiling on me and my throat hurting like fuck, Steve on the front seat with no leg room.. Eventually around 6 pm we got dropped off in the middle of nothing. We checked that hotel with the others on the minibus but all of us decided to continue walking closer to the "center". Walking around what felt like ages we eventually ended up to this hostel called Dakili with nice old lady running the place. We paid 50 ringgits for our room with fan. Breakfast and wifi included.

Our breakfast Place. Spot the chicken! :D

Where we stayed in

On that night we went to the "center" of Taman Negara which was literally a 50 metre long street with three places to eat. The next morning we were up early and headed to the park head quarters across the river (30 seconds). We paid our camera fee 5 ringgits each and entrance to the park 1 each. Then we headed to the Canopy walk up in the trees.

The trek was easy as we walked on these wooden things the whole way. At one point there were men sitting around in the jungle and asking for our camera permissions papers. If you don't have it you can be fined for 10 000 ringgits and sentenced to three years in prison! The canopy was nice (cost us 5 ringgits each) but quite scary, as the highest point was around at 40 meters! The walk itself was around 2 kilometers. On the way back to our place we stopped to eat at these floating restaurants on the river.

Steve spotted this poisonous snake !

Then we got back, had a nice rest and showers. At 6 pm it was a night market time. It was only held once a week and it gives local people chance to buy toys for kids etc. It was nice to taste a bit different local foods and sweet things. Almost straight after it was night safari time with 4x4 jeep. We paid 70 together for 2 hours. It was terrible. We got 90 minutes and saw a cat, a snake and a bird!

My throat situation (glands) got worse and worse every day. :( After a night of sweating we woke up for breakfast and no one was there.. The whole day was so weird, we didn't really see that many people anywhere. Chost town. In the Morning we went to this local clinic to get some medicine for my throat. The place was some kind of maternity clinic and I was terrified they thought that I was pregnant. After some hassle and registering myself to their clinic I got to see this doctor who actually to our surprise talked english. I paid 23 ringgits to register to the clinic, the doctor's appointment and three different medicines.

Since I didn't feel great at all I stayed at the hotel and Steve left for a hike by himself. Three ours later I got my sweaty man back. Then we had a social media afternoon updating pictures and talking to people via Skype. We were sweating so much even tho we just sat in the shadow!! We tried to track down the owner to pay one more night. Since we couldnt find her we went down to the floating restaurants to eat and chose a different one this time and it turned out the be a really bad decision, it was the worst food we had eaten on the whole trip. Also to top off the bad experience we were the only ones there when we were drowned out by a tour group meeting.. Akward silence while we sat and ate.. We got back to our room and eventually found the woman. We had to tell her what we had paid since she couldnt remember. :D Then we collected the laundry which we had given her the previous day. It still smelled so bad and Steve wasn't too bothered but I was. We got the money back from her eventually. Then after all the hassle it was food time at the village again but we ended up watching badminton Malaysia - South Korea. Final meal at this fly, bug, cat infested place..

Two nights in  Taman Negara had now come to an end and a new day with a new destination was ahead of us.

Notices:

• when people shake hands they touch their heart after (Taman Negara)
• Steve was still too tall everywhere
• Some young kids want to work with tourists cause it gives these "jungle kids" opportunity to learn from the "other world" as one young lad told us.