Singapore

Wow. September just so happens to be Singapore's hottest and most humid month, what a time to visit. The temperature and humidity don't actually vary that much - it's always hot and sticky here with a good chance of rain - but at least I know that I got it at its worst. I arrived at 5pm and after the usual faffing about at the airport I got to my hotel - a cheap little affair about 3 miles north of Orchard Road - at about 7pm and feeling pretty sleepy. My first excursion out of the hotel was to get some food, and I soon realised that my time in Singapore would be a pretty harrowing experience. I have a Lonely Planet guide and it recommended eating at Hawker Centres, big market places with lots of little stalls selling cheap food (it really is cheap - less than £2 for a meal). I ordered some beef with rice from one of the stalls, which also came with a side dish of chillies, a bowl of soup and a spoon, and of course some chopsticks.

Chopsticks really are a stupid invention. Culture? Tradition? Class? Eloquence? Forget it, they're stupid. I eat to live, not live to eat, and I just want to get it down my neck - even the best chopstick user in the world can't match me with a fork. I looked around on his stall. No forks. I asked him for a fork. Still no forks. So, I sat down, finished the soup with the spoon, uselessly pawed at my food with the chopsticks, and then grabbed the spoon and used that instead, to the horror of all the locals sat near me. Who cares - chopsticks are stupid. I usually deal with facts to back up my smugness so know this - China alone chops down 33 million trees every year for producing its chopsticks. Now try and tell me they're a great idea.

After a heavy, hot day and an early night I slept pretty well and left the hotel raring to go at 10am. Lots to do and see, my guidebook pointed out loads of things that I managed to plot in an orderly line on my map. I didn't have to wait long for a taxi - about half a nanosecond - and in no time at all I was standing outside Lucky Plaza on Orchard Road, just one of many centres in Singapore's famous shopping precinct. I had a quick look around, added an Australia-to-Singapore plug converter to bolster my impressive collection of wires and things, and then set off on my whistle-stop tour of Singapore city centre. And here's my Gordon Ramsay style description of 'Singapore in a day'...

T-shirt. Light trousers. Trainers. Backpack. Taxi. Orchard Road. Hot. Walk. Raffles Hotel. Unimpressed. Use the toilet. Leave. City Hall. St Andrew's Cathedral. Theatres on the Bay. Impressive. Merlion Statue. Weird. Sweating. Badly. Keep walking. Old Parliament House. Old Supreme Court. Grand Prix spectator stands. Fullerton Building. Grand Prix adverts. Lau Pa Sat Hawker Centre. Soup. Spoon. Done. Move. Thian Hock Keng Temple. Sri Mariamman Temple. Clarke Quay. Fort Canning Park. Dripping. Smelly. Disgusting. Keep going. National Museum. Orchard Road. Taxi. Shower. Hawker Centre. Food. Eat. Slowly. Watch football. Liverpool. Two. Man Utd. One. Bed. Done.

Sorry about that, I watched an episode of the F Word a little while ago and it was in my head. My flight to Bali was quite late in the afternoon the next day so I decided to entertain myself by visiting Little India and checking out some of the giant gold Buddha statues in the temples there. This turned out to be a very bad move as not only were the temples shut but I ended up incredibly sweaty again from all the walking. Oops. Anyway, I was fed up so I got a taxi back to my hotel, grabbed my suitcase and spent the rest of the day waiting in the air-conditioned airport, using their free wireless internet service. All in all, a much nicer experience than walking around Little India, and in fact a nicer experience than most of Singapore which I can't say really interested me very much. Plus it's far too hot and sticky. Next (and penultimate update) is from Bali...