Lakes and Mountains

Our alarm over the last three days has been set to 9:30, 7:30 and today 5:30 – not a good trend!

It would have been good to have a bit more time to explore Shkodër and our lovely old hotel but it’s not to be. We need to leave at 6:30 to meet a ferry, which only goes once a day. The hotel provided us with packed breakfasts and staff were on hand at 6:15 to provide coffee. Macchiato is the flat white of Albania – it’s available everywhere and is generally good. This morning’s was no exception. It seemed like most of the hotel’s guests were leaving at the same time as us to catch the same ferry. There is a standard circuit in Albania that lots of tour groups do and this is definitely part of it.

We’re soon out of the city and climbing into the surrounding hills, the road winds around the valleys with long drops on one side or the other. At one point we can see a few miles ahead and there is a strung out convoy of minibuses heading the same way as us. We turned off the ‘main’ road and on to a smaller unmade road –the signpost pointed towards a small town – we’re going to Puke! Despite its size the town seems to have a large budget for regeneration, all of the centre is being rebuilt, repaved or renovated. The road surface improves too as we head onwards into the hills.

There are lots of hydroelectric schemes in the area so many of the lakes are higher than you would expect. We stopped at a viewpoint to look at one, the surface is mirror smooth, the mountains still towering over us are reflected in its surface, it’s quite rugged and austere but still beautiful. After about 30 minutes more, the road plunges into a tunnel through a hillside, as the light appears at the end of the tunnel there appears to be a traffic jam, this turns out to be a car park! There is so little space on the dock that once a minibus has unloaded its passengers it goes back into the tunnel where one lane is used for parking until the return ferry later in the day. As we board we come across some people we shared a table with on our first night on Tirana, again confirming this a part of the tourist circuit.

The ferry crosses Lake Koman, which is really a flooded valley, and feels much more like a river. The journey takes about 3 hours. For most of that we are in a steep valley of grey rocks with sparse vegetation, the tops of the highest mountains are in the clouds, small patches of snow remain around the peaks. 28 years ago, I travelled around the north of the Balkans, then Yugoslavia, this scenery is very similar – the mountains provide a backbone to the whole region.

Towards the end of the journey, there are a few signs of habitation – loose clusters of farmhouses and occasional chapels on the hillsides. There’s a small ferry, which appears to criss-cross the river linking these remote communities together. We spot an old man walking back to his boat with two large bags of vegetables.

The jetty at the end is a large flat area of gravel; there is a group of minibuses and drivers waiting for us. Our ride is organised already so we don’t need to haggle with this crowd. The driver treats us to some loud Balkan pop music. It seems to have influences from Europop, the Balkans and further East. Shazzam is able to identify most of the tracks and offer us a purchase on iTunes, should we wish to recreate the experience – which we do!

The drive takes us further into the hills into Valbona Valley, an area known for its natural beauty. We follow a river, which runs down the valley over rocks and small waterfalls. It’s a beautiful turquoise blue colour, which is set off by the pale limestone.

Our hotel is on the edge of a small village. It feels very rural and homely. The valley sides tower above us. We have a little while to settle in then lunch is served – it’s all vegetarian, mostly produced in the fields outside. The highlight is the green salad – no really it’s the baked sheep’s cheese, lovely with chunks of bread dunked in it.

After lunch we had a leisurely few hours to relax, read, make a start on the blog, etc. At 5:00, we joined Adonis, a local villager, for a walk around the immediate surroundings of the hotel. We saw the oldest building in the village; it looked like it had been there for hundreds of years, and an old water mill. We continued to James Lake, created by a villager who died five years ago, he dammed a small area, redirected a spring to fill it and filled it with fish. Unfortunately since his death, Albanian tourists from the cities have littered it, taken all the fish and left it looking quite sorry for itself.

Dinner was another hefty feast of local dishes, we had a glass of local red wine with it – probably a mistake, they came out of a 5l flagon. At least they were cheap.

Café society

 

 

We’d set the alarm for 7:30am in a bid to do quite a bit this morning as we were leaving Tirana at 1pm.

Bags packed, we got breakfast out of the way quickly and set off.

We headed for the square, which this morning had large patches of water running from the top down (the square is not flat). This – a man told us – is to keep the place cool. And as we looked around, we saw more irrigation gaps which we guessed can be turned on or off as needed. We crossed the square and headed for the Resurrection Cathedral – a modern Orthodox structure consecrated in 2014. A mass was in progress so the Cathedral was packed, we could only just have a look inside the main door; it has a large bright dome shape inside with lots of glittering gold tiles on the walls.

We’d planned to spend the morning at the National Art Gallery. For most of our time there, we were the only two visitors. On the ground floor, the art is traditional – people in traditional costumes, manual workers, peasants and so on. And then it got interesting. Artists were encouraged to paint historical and political scenes. Big scale art. Colourful scenes. Happy workers proudly working for the country. The industrialisation. Some even went further and painted scenes of Skanderberg fighting the Ottomans in the fifteenth century. One painting caught our eye. Edison Gjergo’s “The Epic of the morning’s stars”. There are a few figures in the background, and people took offence to this. They’re in the dark, surely that means they’re plotting against the regime. And so Gjergo was sent to prison (where he died) and his art was blacklisted.

At the back of the museum, a small garden – out of bounds unfortunately – holds a collection of bronze statues. These, we found out later, depict Socialist workers and two are of Stalin. Sadly, they were covered up. Apparently they were uncovered last week…. So maybe it’s to protect them from the sun? We must remember to check these out in two weeks time… who knows?

We stopped for coffee at Noor. Andy was happy with his macchiato. We reflected on the art we’d seen. We felt almost like locals. Sitting at a café, chatting. No matter what time of the day it is, you’ll find people chatting over an espresso. Making time for each other, catching up. No mobile phones in sight.

Our next destination was the Et’hem Bey Mosque. Visitors are welcome to look inside (and photographs are allowed). We took our shoes off and went in. The mosque was built in 1791. Closed under Communist rule but active again since 1991, it is seen as a monument to religious tolerance in the country. Trying not to disturb the men praying, we admired the frescoes inside, and those in the portico, which depict trees and waterfalls – motifs rarely seen in Islamic art.

We just had time to pop into the corner bakery for a couple of byrek (flaky pastry pies with cheese or courgette). Cheap, and tasty.

We left Tirana for Shkodër. We drove north-east along a main thoroughfare, with mountains as background and vast glass buildings on either side of the road initially, and then more residential properties. The sky clouded over and then it rained. Our guide, Ivan, set us a challenge (that’s the ex-teacher in him). A kind of Albania photography bingo. We have ten things to photographs. I already know that I won’t win as the last challenge is to get an Albanian Facebook friend. Oh well, it’s the taking part that counts, right?

We drove through various towns. Colourful high rises at the foot of mountains.

We arrived in Shkodër around 2.30pm. It’s the fourth largest city in Albania. I meant to check how many people live here. Can’t be many. There are three million people in Albania, of which one million lives in Tirana and all have a car. The traffic in town is non-stop. This is because no-one was allowed to have a car when the country was closed and so when things opened up… yep, they went car-crazy. (There’s a rumour going around that most of them can’t officially drive.)

Our hotel – Tradita Geg & Tosk – is super cute. It’s over 300 years old. Our room achieves both comfort and tradition. We left our bags in our room and made our way to the centre of town.

The short walk was pleasant enough with the temperature a gentle 28c. The town is one of the oldest and most historic places in the Balkan peninsula.

Passing the Ebu Beker Mosque, we walked down the main pedestrian street, lined up with cafés and bars.

Our guide suggested we visit the Marubi National Museum of Photography. The museum is in an old building on the main street, the interior is very modern with white walls and a glass staircase. It traces the history of photography in Albania – with photographic plates, gelatin silver prints, etc. And it had an interactive photo studio. The original studio was set up by Pietro Marubi. in the 1850s. Marubi was Italian and no-one really knows why he settled in Albania. At some point, all the works were donated to the country and so historical images were preserved. The wealth of images is staggering – from the history of Albania to its varied regional cultures. We had just over 45 minutes there and we could have done with another 30 minutes.

We joined the rest of the group outside one of the terrace bars and had a cheeky half. My. If the beers in Tirana were cheap, they’re almost giving these away. 80 lek for a half. That’s £0.52.

We got back to the hotel for a quick refresh before getting taxis to the Rozafa castle. A stone road leads all the way up to the fortress – 130 metres above sea level. Perched on top of a rocky hill, it has wide views of the countryside on one side; an old mosque on another side (we were wondering whether it was still an active mosque when we heard the call to prayer); a lake with mountains on another (which turned out to be Montenegro) and Shkodër on the final side. There was hardly anybody there so we could play castle to our heart’s content. We didn’t. There isn’t a lot left to see but exploring the ruins was fun. There are three courtyards, and the fortifications are still intact. We had seen photos of it in the photography museum just a few hours before and it is still as imposing as it was then. And the views were pretty spectacular with special added cloud effects.

For dinner, Ivan recommended the hotel’s restaurant. The setting is truly special and homely. The food was great – a fresh salad of tomatoes, olives and cucumber; salty goat cheese; corn bread; cheese pies; dolmades and then grilled cheese. Andy had a glass of white wine, and I had a glass of red. Both Albanian, but we don’t know what they were as we never saw the labels. They were both good.

As the rest of the group moved to the courtyard for more drinks, we retired to our room to get ready for the morning. We have an early start. That, and the fact that we have a few smokers in the group.

Further Tales of Tirana

A combination of an early start and the heat yesterday wore us out. We had a late alarm just to make sure we didn’t miss breakfast and almost needed it.

Breakfast was included with the room, adequate but not exciting. We took a while to get going and left for the town centre about 11:30am. First stop was Mon Cheri Café. Florence had a strawberry smoothie and I had a coffee. It’s supposed to be the best in town – hmmm. We took a back street route to our lunch stop, this was a bit hard to find but well worth it. Luga e Argjendtë is an organic vegetarian restaurant and deli, their philosophy is that food should be fresh, seasonal and travel as short a distance as possible. We had four small dishes, spinach, chickpeas, cheese and courgette balls.

After lunch, we couldn’t put the sightseeing off any longer. The temperature was in the higher 30s so we decided a museum was a good plan. On the way, I stopped to photograph an interesting looking building. It has an Albanian flag so was presumably a government office. A man approached us and muttered something and pointed at the camera. We assume he didn’t like us photographing there so we moved on.

The National History Museum is a large marble building on the main town square. It has rooms covering most aspects of the country’s history from the stone age to the end of Communism in 1991 – sadly, no photos were allowed inside the building. Both the Romans and Ancient Greeks were here in the period before Christ; the Italians returned in 1939 as an invading force. They were followed by the Germans who were kicked out by Enver Hoxha’s communist forces in 1944. In the early years of his rule, he did a lot to improve the country – eradicating Malaria, increasing literacy rates and developing the countries infrastructure. He initially based his rule on Stalin, later moving onto Mao’s Cultural Revolution model. He died in 1985 and his successor carried on the communist model until its final collapse in 1991. Albania had become the poorest and most isolated county in Europe by then; it’s still recovering from those times.

The museum has many, many exhibits from stone age pottery, through Greek and Roman statues to possessions of victims of the Communist regime. The first section has good captions in English but they seemed to get bored of translating after a while and these become fewer and fewer. The stand out exhibit for me was a paving stone from Hiroshima, a few hundred meters from the centre of the atomic bomb explosion. 188 of these stones were engraved with a figure of a Japanese god and sent to all the countries of the world in the hope that this event would mean that nations could in future live in peace and a similar thing might never happen again.

There were a few fans scattered around the museum and a couple of air-condition units but they were fighting a losing battle and it was probably warmer than outside. By the time we reached the pavilion of the Communist Terror, we were both flagging.

We walked back to the hotel and had half an hour to cool down before meeting our guide and companions for the rest of the trip. They seem like a nice bunch. They’d decided to eat in the hotel’s restaurant. We left them as we wanted to try more dishes from last night’s restaurant. It was just as good as the first time. Again, the waiter warned us off ordering too much – he’s very helpful but not much of a salesman. I had a local beer, Florence was more adventurous and had Raki – a home brewed brandy.

Welcome to Tirana!

 

We’re back on the road, and it feels good.

We’ve missed this space, and we’ve missed you all (Chris, are you there? Chris?).

The cats looked at us in disbelief last night as we were packing our bags. But this trip couldn’t come at a better time for us. Re-adjusting to London life since Big Trip has been a challenge.

Packing was a last minute affair, yet fairly straightforward. I guess we’re expert packers now 🙂

The best thing is that our bags weigh nothing at all; they’re both hovering around 10kgs. That’s a whole 13kgs less each than we had when we set off for Mexico City!

The taxi picked us up for the airport at 5:30am. The drive to Gatwick seemed long but there was plenty to look at out of the window – the mist over the North Downs, patterned fields.

Andy got the window seat and was rewarded with stunning views of the (Italian) Alps. Three women seated a row ahead of us were discussing travelling to Nicaragua and Guatemala. They then settled on Costa Rica and they thought a week would be enough. No (I may have said this too loud at the time)!

We landed at Tirana at just after midday and we were in our taxi soon after 12.20pm. The driver spent the journey telling us about the corruption here, how immigration is a problem, the Albanian mafia and then basically increased the fare by €6. But we stood firm. The price had been agreed in advance.

The hotel staff were happy to see us (as in, really happy). Friendly, informative and welcoming.

We hit the town. Tirana is a city made for walking. It hasn’t got main sights as such, but it’s great to explore. As long as we kept going, we were fine. If we stopped, the heat got to us. We’re not sure what the temperature is exactly. Somewhere around 33c to 36c. I remember reading somewhere that in the summer you should never turn off the air conditioning. Tirana is hot, sometimes extremely hot.

We tried a few places for lunch without luck. The places we checked out didn’t take euros, or cards and we didn’t have any lek. So we got some cash out and hit an ice cream parlour.

It’s difficult to describe what the city looks like. It’s all fairly low rises. Big public squares. A lot of benches – the older generation sits and wiles away the afternoon. As tempted as we were to join them, we had a lot to see.

The Pyramid of Tirana was built as a shrine to communist leader (dictator?) Enver Hoxha. “From 1944 to 1992, Albania was governed under a harsh Communist ideal that modeled itself after Stalinism” (source). The Pyramid is now a crumbling – and unsafe looking – wreck of a building.

Next up was Reja – inside the cloud. An art installation which you can walk over and under. We didn’t stay long as sadly, it hasn’t been well looked after and is now quite grubby (think of it as sitting under a grey-brown cloud)

Thirsty after all this sightseeing and walking, we looked for a bar with Albanian beer in Blloku (“the Block”), which is a fairly upmarket area with lots of cool bars and restaurants.  And then gave up and had a Kosovan beer at Nouvelle Vague, a colourful cocktail bar. The beer was refreshing and we drunk it like we had a glass of water in front of us. Note to self: must remember to drink a lot of water.

Bunk’Art 2. This 106-room nuclear bunker is now a museum and an art gallery. It was built for the dictator in the event of an attack. The permanent exhibition is depressing – it describes how the country’s police force was slowly turned into an oppressive security force. This felt all too familiar, having just spent last weekend in Berlin where we learnt all about the Stasi and how they spied on and tortured their fellow country people. We were not expecting to find this in Albania, not to that extent anyway, and were shocked by what we read. One of the information panels described 36 methods of torture known to have been used there.

We crossed the Skanderbeg Square again. This is the main square in central Tirana. At one end of the square, there’s a statue of the Albanian national hero Gjergj Kastrioti Skënderbeu on a horse. I must confess I know nothing about him. As the temperature had dropped a little, locals were out and about, taking a stroll. A number of people were heading for a podium (near the monument) where loud music was coming from.

The town really comes to life in the evening. It feels like most of Tirana eats out, small tables set on the pavement. We headed to Oda – a traditional restaurant. We sat outside and were joined by two Dutch couples. We talked about the food – our two dishes were excellent – Patellxhan I mbushur me oriz (stuffed aubergine) and Lakror presh ose spinaq (filo spinach pie). One couple shared tips for Kosovo. And just then, I was reminded about how good it is to travel. How much we’d learnt already today. How meeting new people is fun and especially when they’re interested in the places they’re travelling through.

Hot and weary, we made our back to the hotel. After an early start this morning we were ready to go to sleep early.

Never stop exploring

We thoroughly enjoyed writing about our day, each day. It made us think about what we saw, the people we met and the adventures we had. And now, we have wonderful memories, which we’re hoping to convert into a book.

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to be sorting a lot of photos. We’re also planning to post a few round ups (e.g. country highlights, booking information and new photos).

We’ve already decided to continue our Explorers of the World blog. Of course, it’s completely up to you whether you continue to follow our adventures. We hope you will; we’ve enjoyed the comments and the many reactions we’ve had so far.

To give you a taste of what’s to come. 2017 will see us taking a few city breaks (Stockholm, Berlin and Edinburgh); exploring Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia and going on a landscape photography trip to Harris (Scotland).

For now, it only remains for us to announce our competition winner. We’ve loved every single comment, and the discussions which ensued. We’ve loved sharing this wonderful world of ours with you all.

Our competition winner put a lot of work into it – with 135 comments, a mixture of information, stories, weather warnings to keep us safe and just the right amount of admiration.

“Julian has blotted his copy book. The rum is all mine, all mine!”

That’s right Chris. The rum is all yours. Congratulations! You just have to wait for our box to arrive in the UK (er, it hasn’t left Auckland yet).

It’s Nice To Go Trav’ling

“No more Customs
Burn the passport
No more packin’
And unpackin’
Light the home fires
Get my slippers
Make a pizza”

~ Frank Sinatra

It’s over. We’re home.

After all 12 of those countries, 137 days travelling and circumnavigating the globe, we’re back home.

The day started enjoying the tasty complimentary food and wine on offer at Changi airport, Singapore.

We boarded and settled in for our 14 hour flight to Heathrow. Florence was torn between watching Ryan Gosling  – La La Land –  or Idris Elba – The Take. I went for Idris, it was okay for a late night flight.

We’d chosen the Indian vegetarian menu option – curry for dinner and breakfast. The food was very good.

Our plan was to stay awake as late as possible to try and get a bit nearer to UK time. This worked up to a point and we both managed about five or six hours of good sleep.

The descent into London was a bit bumpy going through the layers of low cloud. Heathrow wasn’t very busy and we were in our taxi about half an hour after leaving the plane. London felt cold; cold for the time of year and cold after Singapore.

We were home around 10:00am. Jenny and Omar seemed to remember us and demanded lots of attention; this continued all day.

I have a strange combination of feeling we’ve been away for a long time and feeling it was no time at all. I think this will resolve itself over the next few days and weeks as we settle back in.

We’ve done a bit of unpackin, the heating is on, my slippers are still in the loft and there’s pizza for dinner – but no pinot noir.

A long good Friday

We had coffee in our room and finalised our plans for the day. Our first decision was to extend our room booking for another night. The alternative was to check out at 12 noon, hand our luggage in and have a shower later on. That all required too much effort, so we just booked an extra night and can use the room stress free until we’re ready to leave for the airport.

Our breakfast destination was only a few minutes walk from the MRT Outram Park station, just one stop over from our hotel.

The Populus Coffee & Food Co. has good coffee. Flat whites are back! And the food was tasty too. Populus wouldn’t be out of place in Hoxton.

From there, it’s a 23 minute walk to our next destination – Yong Siak Street. At first, it wasn’t apparent why you’d make the journey.

Yong Siak Street is in the middle of a residential area with high rises all around us. Yet, the small street is packed with cool things – great places to eat, a wine shop and a yoga centre. Some pictures on the wall tell the story of an old coffee stall that had lots of caged birds to entertain the customers. We had made the journey to browse the shelves of Woods in the Books (a children’s bookshop) and Books Actually, the latter has a book machine outside selling ‘mystery books’ and they publish books with a local slant such as mini guidebooks to each area of Singapore with hand-drawn sketches or short stories. We love it! Almost every single book we picked up captured our imagination and interest.

Our last stop was Plain Vanilla Bakery. They are famous for their cupcakes. Andy had a flat white and a raspberry breakfast muffin. I had an amazing strawberry custard tart and a carrot juice. This place is divine.

We were on a tight schedule so regrettably, we had to leave and so we got a cab to our next destination – Kampong Glam. This district formerly housed the Malay aristocracy and had a vibrant Malay population during the British colonial period. A man walking past us took the time to stop to tell us that Malay people had suffered ethnic cleansing at the hands of the Chinese. Nowadays, the area is known as the Muslim Quarter and the imposing Sultan Mosque dominates the area. The streets were busy with people making their way to the mosque; we’d arrived just as the prayer call started. We walked down a few streets – Haji Lane and Arab Street in particular. Many have original shop houses with boutique shops and restaurants. Kampong Glam is very colourful. It is one of the few areas in Singapore where graffiti is allowed.

We had lunch at Alaturka, one of 34 restaurants in Singapore to be awarded a Bib Gourmand award in the inaugural Singapore Michelin Guide in 2016. We shared some olives, babakanus, hallumi and an ispanakli pite. We took our time as the sunshine had given way to torrential rain.

After lunch, we sought shelter in Intersections, an art gallery currently exhibiting the works of Tania Nasr and Hanibal Srouji. Burning Landscapes – the exhibition – explores the themes of fire and landscapes. The works were aesthetically pleasing. Yet, in Hanibal Srouji’s case, his works symbolise the journey he undertook when he had to leave Lebanon (background).

The woman manning the gallery spent a few minutes chatting to us about Singapore, and travelling in general.

We took the MRT back to the hotel, and reluctantly made a start on packing our bags.

The rain let off. Time to head out for one last adventure.

We took the MRT to Bayfront and spent an hour or so walking around Gardens by the Bay. Lush greenery, exotic flowers and a great background – the Marina Bay Sands Hotel and the business district. And of course, Supertree Grove. The supertrees have become a symbol of Singapore. I love that they are actually used to convert sunlight into energy for the gardens. The park is stunning and it absorbs a lot of people. We often found ourselves on our own. We walked to the other side of the Marina Bay Sands to look at the waterfront and the business district.

“Come on, let’s go home” said Andy.

We took the MRT to Chinatown station, got a deposit back on our travel cards and instead of heading to the hotel to finish packing and leave for the airport, we went on one last last adventure.

The sixth floor of the People’s Park Complex. It’s not easy to find, and this top tip – believe it or not – came from Booking.com.

LePark! is a ‘secret’ bar on the roof of the shopping complex. It has imported craft beers.

We’re not naive. We know that things can be tough here. Yet, we’ve had a great time.

We cheered to Singapore and headed into the night.

Time to go home.

Shiok

We both woke early this morning, our bodies are still on NZ time. We had a coffee in bed and made quite a slow start.

Singapore is only 100 miles north of the equator and it feels like it. When we left the hotel the heat was reasonable and the humidity was very high.

Our plan today was to explore the Chinatown area just south of our hotel. We had an online walking tour and a list of sites and cafés to guide us.

We started with breakfast at Tong Ah Eating House. This is quite a basic no frills place that has been open since 1939. It’s one of the few places still serving kaya toast – toast with coconut jam, we ordered coffee but received tea – very stewed tea with condensed milk.

Fortified for our walk, we hit the streets.

The Chinese make up the largest ethnic group in Singapore. There are records of Chinese settlers in the area in 1330. Chinatown itself was created as part of Sir Stamford Raffles’s plan to organize the city in 1820. Most of the development in the area took place between 1830 and 1850. Until the 20th century, Chinatown was on the waterfront but ongoing land reclamation has moved the water at least 500 yards away. Most of the buildings are three stories high with shops and restaurants on the ground floor and accommodation with shuttered windows above. Many are painted in bright colours and patterns; a lot of streets are strung with lanterns. In between the houses are Hindu and Buddhist temples, mosques and churches.

The largest is the four storey Buddha’s Tooth Temple. We were lucky enough to arrive when a ceremony was going on. The large prayer room has a huge Buddha statue at the end; the walls are covered with hundreds of other figures. The dominant colours are gold and red; the smell of incense hung in the air along with the sound of drums and chanting. On the upper floors, there is a viewing gallery over the prayer hall, a museum, a rooftop garden and the shrine with the Buddha’s tooth relic.

Across the street, Florence spotted Hawker Chan’s restaurant. She went to investigate. She’d told to me the story of Mr Chan – who was the first street stall vendor to get a Michelin star.

If you haven’t heard of Hawker Chan, read this and watch this.

The restaurant is very unpretentious. We queued for 10 minutes maybe. There were a couple of vegetarian options on the menu. We had Thai tofu, noodles and vegetables – it was really tasty and very cheap. Hawker Chan won his Michelin star in 2016 for his soy sauce chicken served with rice – the only dish he made at the time. The original stall is three minutes away from the restaurant.

We walked down streets named after the activities that used to happen there and the original residents. Many of the brothels were filled with Japanese ladies so the red-light district was centered on Japan Street. In Chinese culture, it’s bad luck for somebody to die in your home so Death Street was created to house those known to be near the end of their lives; there was little comfort or care for them in this arrangement.

We explored the largest of the food halls in the area. This one has hundreds of stalls selling food and drink from all over Asia. Some stalls have long queues, others are deserted.

Next was Telok Ayer Street – the former waterfront street’s name in Malay means ‘bay water’. The street is now overshadowed by the office blocks of the business district. Chinese arriving in here in the 19th century liked to give thanks for their survival as soon as they arrived; the street has a variety of temples, churches and mosques. The walk took us down a number of streets that have become more gentrified in recent years with upmarket cafés, bars and restaurants.

We thought we’d almost finished our walk when we came across The Company of Cats – a cat café. We paid for an hour with the cats; there are ten of them – all rescue cats – sharing a large room. We joined in feeding them their afternoon treats.

Finally, we walked around a few streets we’d seen earlier in the day that weren’t specifically on the walk. We found a very good bookshop and a craft beer bar – more of this later. The sound of drums took us along Duxton Road – outside a sweet shop a number of Chinese dragons were dancing while two figures with large heads of old Chinese men came out of the shop.

The food hall we went to last night had a vegetarian stall that had closed when we arrived so went back to try again. It was open but we had a very confusing conversation with the owner – nothing from the menu was available, only what was left. They may or may not be open tomorrow.

We went back to the hotel for a swim and a cup of tea then went back to last night’s food hall to try some more dishes. We both had a potato dosa, very tasty. The last stop for the evening was the craft beer bar we saw earlier- The New Harbour Café. Archipelago is the only craft beer made in Singapore; they had six brews on offer – we tried four between us, all very good.

Shiok: a Singaporean and Malaysian expression denoting sheer pleasure and enjoyment. It sums up our day.

On boarding the plane, we turned left and kept going

We got to the airport hours before we needed to, which is very unusual for us. The check-in was strangely more chaotic than we’d expected due to a shortage of staff.

After clearing immigration, we went up to the lounge. There was an array of complimentary food and drinks – soup, sandwiches, cakes, biscuits, tea, coffee, juice, wine, champagne and spirits. We chatted about the next leg of our journey; it soon became apparent that following our initial research months ago, we remembered little about what we’d be doing in Singapore.

Apart from eating.

It’s going to be a food-fest. We’ve only got a couple of days and have a list of twenty places to check out 🙂

We left the lounge as our flight was ready for boarding. Once aboard, we settled into our seats and familiarised ourselves with our surroundings. We watched a bit of TV, had dinner (with proper plates and cutlery!), a couple of drinks and then asked the stewardess to make up our beds. We slept relatively well and watched more TV after a comprehensive breakfast.

We landed in torrential rain and it took us a little while to get our bags from the carousel due to possible lightening. The taxi from the airport to the hotel was incredibly cheap and we even managed to see a few sights on the way. The heat and humidity are staggering after New Zealand. I love it!

As our room wasn’t ready, we had tea and coffee in the hotel restaurant (oh, the quality of flat white has already deteriorated) and used our time to plan our visit. Our hotel seems to be well located, nothing’s going to be too far away. Sadly, we had to strike a few things off the list as they’ve closed down (Jungle Beer – a local craft brew and Tian Kee & Co where I hoping to try the rainbow cheesecake); are closed for renovation (the Long Bar at Raffles so no Singapore Slings for us!) or de-installation (Singapore Art Museum).

We took a short walk to the Chinatown MRT station to buy our three-day transport cards. Our room was ready by the time we came back; it has a great view of the outdoor terraced garden – one of the hotel’s distinctive features. It prides itself on being sustainable.

Our first port of call was Little India – we followed a self-guided walk around markets and side streets. The place has so much energy; it was buzzing. Colours, sounds, smells. We ticked off one of our places for lunch – Kailash Parbat. We ordered the Bhatura Platter (four flavour Bhatura) with cole masala, Mirchi and Achaar and Masala Cheese marvel. We were about to order a portion of Paneer Butter Masala (a house speciality) when the waiter told us ‘no’. We had enough. It was all incredibly tasty and of course, our waiter had been right 🙂

The city-state of Singapore is located in a tropical rainforest climate. It gets 92 inches of rain every year. Turning into a side-street, I found the art installation I was looking for. The Umbrella Trees – created by local artist Marthalia Budiman – offer colour and protection from the elements. Each of the five trees rises up from a large green cushion that you can sit on to escape the rain and/or sun. The umbrellas were being replaced whilst we were there.

We continued to walk around the area until 4pm, when the temples opened. First, we visited the Sri Srinivasa Perumal temple – dedicated to Vishnu the Preserver. The temple has a 60-foot-high monumental gopuram. Devotees were making offerings of fruit to one of the manifestations of Vishnu – mostly bananas.

Our second temple was the Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple which is dedicated to Kali the Courageous, a ferocious incarnation of Shiva’s wife, Parvati the Beautiful.

The Mustafa Centre nearby is open 24 hours a day and it allegedly sells everything — if Mustafa doesn’t have it, you probably can’t find it anywhere else in Singapore!

We took the MRT back to the hotel for a well-deserved R&R. And then we took off again. Back on the MRT. Our destination this time was the Marina Bay Sands hotel for sunset – one of the most iconic buildings in Singapore. We had to buy two vouchers worth 20 SGD each. These we swapped for cocktails once we got onto the outdoor bar on the 57th floor. We managed to find some seats and had a good view of the pool. It was like a zoo – too busy and full of selfie sticks. We’d thought of staying there but the price is prohibitive and looking at how busy it is, we felt we had a lucky escape. There wasn’t much of a sunset after all that, but the cocktails were nice and the panoramic views are a sight to behold.

Back down to earth, we took the MRT to Telok Ayer Market – known as Lau Pa Sat by locals. This is one of the most popular food markets in the city, surrounded by the tallest buildings in the heart of the financial district. The market is apparently open round the clock. Andy had Indian (bhel poori and samosa poori) and I opted for Japanese (a small curry udon). The market was busy, and spilled onto the streets outside. We will need to go back… as we spotted a vegetarian stall which only opens during the day.

By the time we got back to our room, it was close to 9:30pm – that’s 1:30am New Zealand time. We’ve done well today.

Auckland: Hour by Hour

00:00 – Midnight alarm to get some tickets for the FA cup semi-final, it took half an hour but we got some. Back to bed!

07:00 – Today was a day run against the clock to try and fit in as much as we could on our last day in Auckland. We started with a flat white each from Shaky Islands then we took a taxi to re-pack our box of stuff that’s going by ship back to the UK; nothing we need to wear soon and as many heavy things as we could fit in.

09:50 – Once that was done, we headed to Ponsonby. We’d heard lots of good things about this place. It’s a couple of miles west of the city centre. It has a reputation for some of the best food, coffee and some of the chicest shopping in the city. We started at Mary’s Café for brunch – we’ve had a lot of breakfasts of combinations of halloumi, eggs, avocado and toast but this was the best of all of them. The ingredients were all fresh and tasty and beautifully cooked. Ponsonby is also Auckland’s hipster central and mid-morning is when the locals businesses come out for their coffees and meetings, while we enjoyed our brunch we heard a lot about ‘value propositions’, ‘product-based content’ and ‘customer led exposure’.

The eating, drinking and shopping places are spread along Ponsonby Road – the main thoroughfare. We walked past a number of tempting looking cafes and restaurants. Florence tried on some clothes but they didn’t work out – which is just as well as the prices were dear. The Open Book, a second-hand bookshop, filled seven rooms of an old house, Florence bought a novel by a New Zealand writer that covers a lot of aspects of Maori and current societies.

11:45 – We went back to the hotel, dropped our bag off and walked down to the waterfront to take a ferry to Devonport.

12:15 – The ferry runs every half an hour to Devonport during the day, more often in rush-hour. It’s only twelve minutes across the water from the city centre. The atmosphere is very different, people seem to have a lot of time (no-one’s rushing), there are lots of cafés, little shops and restaurants. We had planned to base ourselves here when we first arrived in New Zealand but the flight delays leaving Tahiti meant that we missed out on Devonport. We picked up a couple of self-guided walk leaflets from the library – the first one took us along the waterfront past a number of old wooden houses overlooking the harbour, some lava flows from old volcanic eruptions and a monument to some of the earliest Maori landings in the area. The second walk highlighted some of the old buildings on the main street; the most interesting was an old movie theatre.

14:15 – Return ferry, everybody seems to walk faster the moment they are back in the city centre. We headed for the Art Gallery, we’d had brief look inside when we first arrived but didn’t have time to look round properly. We were short on time so we only looked at the permanent exhibits, these include mainly contemporary New Zealand and international work as well as a room of 18th and 19th century European works. The most interesting for me were a couple of paintings that commented on the treaty signed between the British and the Maori in the 19th Century and a mural-sized work that looked like an impressive abstract from a distance but close up had many details covering recent global conflicts, nuclear testing in the Pacific and many other global issues.

16:30 – We returned to the hotel to shower and finish packing.

17:45 – Met up with Tony, a former colleague of Florence’s, for a quick beer. We haven’t seen Tony for many years but it was good to catch up and find out what’d happened in those years.

19:00 – Back to the hotel to collect our bags and check out. We took a taxi to a pub in Mount Eden, a suburb few miles from the centre, to meet two friends – J&S. The pub has a huge selection of beers and is reputed to serve excellent food – an ideal local. It would be a great pub in London!

20:45 – Taxi to Auckland international airport. We spotted a final example of Kiwi humour on a warehouse near the airport: ‘Always give 100%, unless you’re a blood donor’. Our New Zealand adventure is over. Singapore, the last leg of our trip, awaits.