Singapore to Hong Kong 2017

I took the water bus up to the Royal Palace - A very pleasant mode of transport! When I got off there was pandemonium with a man shouting into a megaphone to a huge queue of people. These turned out to be Chinese tourists waiting to go on their boat trip. All standing in the sun, the whole adventure looked like hell. I wondered if they go home with good memories of their holiday. Anyway, I carried on my way, taking note of all the portraits of the new King.  I carried on via the peaceful Saranrom Park  into Chinatown and went to the station to buy my ticket for Saturday. The Eastern & Oriental Express from Singapore via the Kwai Bridge had recently arrived and looked splendidly luxurious I then walked back to Saphin Taksin Pier where the shuttle boats were queuing to pick up their passengers.All (including me), very cosetted.

Ever since I got her, I seem to have been surrounded by people coughing and sneezing. Today, I felt I succumbed and spent an easy day sorting out ideas for where I'd go. It was also a roasting 35 degrees which took away any motivation to wander the streets. In the evening it cooled off and I took a shuttle down the river. and found a nice street restaurant which had a reassuring predominance of locals. # It's hard and eccentric not eating meat in Asia but I think it was fish I ended up with - they reassured me when I expressed doubts and hopefully they're not completely brazen!.

I wasn't really ready to leave Singapore but had booked a flight and hotel in Bangkok, so off I went. Everything was easy and I was struck by the peace of Changi and Scoot - a low cost Singapore airline with cabin crew called Scooties. Although similar to Easyjet and Ryanair, there was none of the crazy queuing to board, no seat rage and locker rage. Is that the British or the European airlines? Certainly tthe latter are partly to blame with their petty rules about checking in. Why nt provide a bank of check in machines as Scoot / Changi do? Anyway, it was a good on time flight and I made my way to the hotel. Despite my request to be in a room not overlooking a huge building site, I found myself back at reception within about two minutes asking to change rooms. To be fair, this was easily acquiesced to. So I then set off to Hua Lamphong station to get train information. This confirmed to me that the trip to Laos was best undertaken with a break - otherwise it wou

The National Gallery of Singapore was on the verge of opening last time I was here two years ago. It is an amazing triumph, fusing the old Supreme Court sand City Hall. The Supreme Court has three floors of galleries devoted to South East Asian Art. The City Hall houses temporary exhibitions as well as the Galleries of Singapore Art. Frankly is was more than a day's worth of viewing. Quite apart from the art in the galleries, there is the architecture of the building(s) and the views from the decks at the top. I started with the South East Asia galleries. This is a chronological exhibition, starting from the early nineteenth century. So everything was in the context of a Western intrusion in some shape or form. The first galleries showed early art by Asian artists or Western artists on Asia with the former keen to produce the sort or art wanted by westerners, For example, The story then moved to art that was more in protest against colonialism such

I set off in the morning planning to cover some of the ground of my last visit. This took me to St Andrews Church and then the National Art Gallery. On the Green opposite the Gallery (and that also looked like the ground for the Cricket Club), a football competition - The Asia Cup, was taking place. The pitches looked like a quagmire and wouldn't be great for cricket for  while. I carried on via the Arts House and Victoria Theatre. The Riverside is very pretty and home to sculptures representing the old Singapore. . There is also an installation of modern sound-emitting sculptures outside the Asian Civilizations Museum. There seemed to be a Graduation Ceremony nearby and the Cavenagh Bridge provided a good photographic backdrop for pictures.  I then went down to the Telok Ayer area, looking in at some of the Temples and ex-Temples along the road, including Fuk Tak Chi, a Chinese temple. I wandered