Singapore

 It's Friday afternoon in Singapore. Tomorrow we fly to Auckland. The taxi is booked for 5am.

River sculpture.

After a flight of more than 12 hours from Amsterdam, we arrived at dawn on Wednesday, making it to our hotel by 8am. For the next 25 hours we had three sleep sessions, totalling 18 hours. We must have had plenty of catching up to do. Our hotel room is very budget, but it's quiet, has comfortable beds and good air conditioning. We managed a short walk and an overpriced lunch along the river, but it was definitely a rest day.

Chance meeting.

On Thursday we set off with a plan to find the information centre and make a plan. According to Google maps, it was a 30-minute walk. We were dressed for the heat and I had on a well-ventilated cap from some sports event in 2016. We hadn't gone far when a chirpy voice behind us said: "I've got one of those caps." Unlikely but true. Tanya Lee-Parker from Rotorua was the first New Zealander we'd spoken to in 10 weeks. The 2016 race wasn't the first time our paths had crossed. Tanya was in Manchester in 1993, the first time I ever travelled overseas to race.

Finding the information centre was an adventure in itself. From there we set off to Little India. Quite by chance we spotted a massage sign and spent a relaxing hour having a very good massage. Finding food at a reasonable price isn't easy for outsiders in Singapore, but we found ourselves in a little alley and got ourselves a shared tray, with rice and a variety of small curries, plus a large beer for almost nothing. It was great.

No shortage of interesting buildings.

By the time we'd wandered back to the hotel, we'd covered 13km, quite enough in 30+ temperature and wearing sandals. Here's a Relive video of our walk: https://www.relive.cc/view/vZqNx4Bd93O

By the way, the song Orchard Road isn't about Singapore, but my brain wouldn't turn it off: https://youtu.be/bs4_hNfbcYI

Spain has accustomed us to siestas, so we had one of those, then set out for Chinatown to see if we could find more cheap ethnic food. We didn't manage super-cheap, but it was pretty good.

Saw some great fish on the way back to our hotel.

Friday.

We decided to do a circuit of the harbour area, starting at the Merlion.

Wandered through foyers of fancy hotels, through underground shopping centres.

On to the gardens, by which time we were flagging, so we turned for home, which was quite a long trek, getting back sometime after 1pm, very hot.

We decided to call it quits. After another 13km walk, we had lunch in the cafe beside the hotel, then came up to have a shower, a RAT test (negative) and pack our bags, ready for that 5am taxi.

Here's today's Relive video: https://www.relive.cc/view/vKv21P8gA4q

Here's the photo album since we arrived: https://photos.app.goo.gl/eYUxaMYszAMjWj286