Chili crabbin' in Singapore

Having left the dusty dry heat of Delhi, we arrived to a much cooler, albeit more humid, Singapore.  30 degrees to be precise.....every day without variation.  We were lucky enough to be staying with our friend's from Vancouver/London (Kari and Brent) whose flat was located just at the bottom of Orchard Road, a shopper's paradise, and next to the president's home.  A five-star experience from start to finish, their beautiful place was located in a truly stunning complex, complete with a perfectly heated pool in which to cool off after a long day of shopping/sightseeing.   At Shling's request, the first night we went out for the famous chili crab (complete with plastic bibs for us novices). Wow.  It was even better than she expected and even Noah had a few bites and conceded the sauce was pretty yummy. We also tried the black pepper crab at Brent's suggestion which was equally delicious but in a different way...spicy and with a dry sauce it packed a good punch.  The following day, we wandered up and down Orchard Road, with a short pit stop for the girls to watch Sex and the City 2 while the boys shopped for their sailor hats for theme party we were attending that night. At around 10:00pm the four sailors headed off to the Swissôtel's New Asia Bar to meet up with the rest of the crew, located on the 71st floor, 226 meters (or 741 feet) up in the air.  After joining in on Kari and Brent's tennis lesson, we spent the next few days wandering around Singapore eating at every hawker market we could find and doing just a wee bit of shopping.  Meeting up with another friend for drinks on Monday we were truly amazed.  It would seem that the entire city was created by Disney.  With themed bars such as The Clinic where drinks are served in IV bags by doctor and nurse lookalikes while you rolled around in wheelchairs, and the obvious absence of any crime, it was such an easy city to visit.

On our final night we had dinner with Noah's colleagues from the Singapore Ernst and Young office, and in order not to be rude to our hosts Noah confirmed that he was happy to eat anything.  We arrived at the restaurant earlier than our dining companions so had a quick chance to peruse the menu before his workmates took it away and ordered for us.  Much to Noah's chagrin EVERY dish contained seafood, but like a good sport he ate everything set in front of him throughout our 6 course seafood menu and of course Shling loved every minute of the prawn, chilli crab, squid, scallop, lobster, and sea bass menu.  

Packing up we were sad to leave our hosts and everything Singapore had to offer, but Bali and the beach was beckoning. 

Things we learnt from India

After a thoroughly eye-opening trip to India, here are the top things we have taken away from our time there:

Fez from that 70s show is a fashion icon

All that is needed for a wedding is a 10 year old groom riding a horse and lots of fairy lights

Cows are like chuck Norris... they fear no one

Who needs blinkers when you have a horn?

We will walk another 10 minutes rather than get ripped off 30p on a rickshaw

Noah's stomach is stronger than Shling's

Prescriptions drugs are the only way to get through a 15 hour overnight bus ride, luckily, you can walk into any pharmacy in the country and get whatever you want, except sleeping pills for some reason.

We will carry an empty water bottle for 2 hours searching for a garbage rather than littering, though we accept we are the minority in that respect

A bed is defined as any surface that fits at least a 1/3 of your body whether the side of the road, a wooden cart, a bicycle or the hood of your car

Street food vendors are licensed to sell delicious chicken tikka while sporting a shotgun in a hip holster

Because of preservation issues in the Indian production of Kingfisher beers, they contain glycerin which will without fail give you a wicked hangover

And most importantly of all: NEVER trust anyone that calls you 'My friend....'

Mountain living

Manali was unlike anywhere else we had visited in India.  Nestled at the base of the Himalayas, it was lovely and warm during the day and then dropped in temperature at night which just provided us with an excuse to drink copious amounts of chocolate chai.  With a whistler like atmosphere, minus all the big resorts, Manali was the perfect end to our time in India.  The hippy town had everything, a beautiful setting, puppies, good food, and a chilled out atmosphere.  Noah was the only male in town without dreadlocks, and in every restaurant and cafe there was at least one group passing around joints ...leading us to believe that we might have walked into some kind of time-warp taking us back to the 1960's.  Groups of men and women roamed the town playing guitars and drums, singing "This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine...." much to our amusement and delight.  With 3 restful and relaxing nights in the most beautiful setting, we concluded our time in India.

Wonders of the world

Initially planning on doing a day trip to Agra from Delhi to see the Taj Mahal (no trip to India would be complete without it), we heard that the only way to see it and not have 200 people in the background of every picture was to get there first thing in the morning. A day trip from Delhi is 4 hours each way so unless we got up at 2:00am we would be seeing the Taj smack the middle of the day. Since we weren’t sold on spending a lot more time in Delhi anyways, we decided to stay in Agra instead. Being the off season, a lot of nice hotels were offering large discounts on their rooms so we got a room at the Trident, a 4.5 star hotel for £55 a night. After staying in places for £15 a night in Jaisalmer, we were both looking forward to a nice bed and more than anything a pool. Our time in Agra passed fairly unremarkably, with the exception of two interesting things:

1) The sheer amazement of the locals that we actually wanted to walk anywhere, on mentioning that we wanted to walk the 8-10 min to the Taj they looked so aghast that we couldn’t help but think we had inadvertently suggest they take a long walk off a short plank.

2) On our second night we visited a popular street food stall that we had noticed the night before. The manager of the stall brought over our chicken tikka (by far the best of our whole trip), we had a chat and then he headed off but not before we noticed a shotgun prominently displayed in his hip holster. I guess things can get pretty crazy when the chicken is that good.

After some much needed pool time, popcorn, and eyebrow threading we left Agra to make the long journey up to Manali.

Roasting in Rajasthan

We left Mumbai, luckily for Aisling, we took a plane this time instead of another bus. We arrived in Udaipur to a cooking 44 degrees, but little did we know it was only going to get hotter from here. Udaipur is called the Venice of the east but it was almost more like Lake Como with the town built up on a cliff overlooking the lake. We only had one day to see the city so we rented a tuk-tuk (autorickshaw) for the day. In just a few short hours we had seen the tombs for all the kings of queens of Udaipur for the last few hundred years, a wedding parade complete with a 10 year old groom mounted on horseback, an elephant walk through streets that were barely wide enough to fit a car, and some kind of celebration involving women in brightly coloured saris carrying similarly decorated vessels on their head.
We then headed off to eat at a lakeside restaurant with a beautiful view of the Pond Pal....sorry I mean LAKE Palace. Due the time of year, and a less than wet monsoon last year, the city of lakes was more like a city of large puddles, but nevermind, the dry lakebed made for a great cricket ground for the locals.


Next we were off on a night train to Jaipur, the Pink City. We had one day of sightseeing the hectic bazaar that surrounded the Pink Palace, before a dodgy papaya shake ensured that Shling didn’t see much but the inside of our hotel room for the next two days, the slightly healthier Noah was relegated to fetching fresh drinking water duty. Feeling much better a few days later, we then made tracks to Jaisalmer...the hottest yet.


Topping out at 50 degrees, the idea of doing a camel safari in the desert sounded more like torture than a treat, so we opted to stay around town knowing that we had a nice air conditioned room to come home to at night. Having made a quick stop at the Bhang shop for some special cookies (recommended by Lonely Planet), we then made our way to the only restaurant crazy enough to be open at the hottest time of the day ...Little Italy. A veggie pizza and 2 litres of water later we braved the heat to wander through 1 of only 2 lived in forts in all of India. The stunning fort was at its best at night, the view from the top extended all the way into Pakistan. After a dinner that was definitely overpriced (£2.50 for chicken tikka ... seriously??) we decided to follow the light. From our vantage point on the rooftop restaurant we could see a bright glowing light off in the distance and the unmistakeable sound of bhangra music. Like moths to a flame we were off, only to discover that since it is the off season, the locals take the opportunity to play cricket every night, with games kicking off at 6:30pm, 9:30pm, and 11:30pm. There we met a friend, who despite promising not to sell us anything, the following day tried his hardest to sell us a giant wall hanging and a duvet cover despite our insistence that travelling another 5months with it on our backs was near to impossible. But still, after a few beers we left amiably, ordered a pizza to go, and headed off for our overnight train to Delhi. All in all Rajasthan had undeniable beauty, however everyone who told us that it was a place not to be missed has obviously not visited in 49 degree weather. We will have to re-visit it in the future, when there is water in the lake and we don’t have to take a break every 20min to recover from the heat. Next Agra and the Taj Mahal.