Singapore – Feb 5
I'm having computer issues and lost everything I typed in Word, so I had to recreate this all over. ARGH! We think the problem is fixed and time will tell.
Our sail in was cloudy and
foggy. It was supposed to be a rainy day, but other than one short downpour it
was just a few light showers. It didn’t really impact our day.
We walked the covered
walkway to the SMRT station and learned that we didn’t need to buy day passes
anymore and load them with cash. They let you use your tap credit cards and at
the end of the day they bill you once. It cost us $6.00 each to use the subway
all day.
We headed to the Upper Bukit Timah Road/Dairy Farm Road stop, (nearly at the end of the subway line) to do the Wallace Trail in Dairy Farm Nature Park.
We decided we
needed some refreshment and a snack before starting the hike, so we stopped at a
mini market only to find out they didn’t take credit cards. He told us where a
mall was where we could get something about 10 minutes away. We found the
grocery store there and got a couple of cold drinks and some snacks before
walking back to there the park was. We thought we would be done with this hike by this time, but the late start off the ship had us behind schedule. (it's becoming a trend on this voyage)
We weren’t seeing a lot of
birds but at one point we came across a troupe of Long-tailed Macaques. There
were many young ones. All of a sudden, all hell broke loose and there
was a lot of screaming and fighting. The youngest one was chased into the
street, and others followed. It appeared another troupe had invaded on another’s
turf. We just stood still and waited for them to calm down. In all the
commotion there was about 10 seconds of monkey porn on the path. Just as I got
the record button pushed it was over. I have a blurry still. Finally, they all
calmed down we moved on.
It was well past lunch time and we wandered back out of the park. On the way we found a hot spot of birds before making our way to the subway.
We got on the train and went to White Sands Mall via the Pasir Ris line which is the end of the line. We headed for the hawker stalls outside the mall and grabbed some street food and the only place to get a cold Diet Coke was McDonald’s in the mall, so we ate our food in there.
Greg went in search of dessert and came back with a couple of decadent Belgium Chocolate brownies. Yum! It was after 3:00 at this point and it felt good to rest and have some food.
Refreshed we walked to the Pasir Ris Park and did the Tampines Nature Way
walk.
Three young Indian men
asked me to take their photo and I did. Then they chased me down to see if I
would pose for a selfie with them. They wanted me to send them my photo so I
entered my email into his phone, and he said he would send my photo to me, and I
could then send theirs to them. (they have not done so) I think they thought I
was alone, but I was just lagging behind Greg taking photos.
We climbed the birding tower but didn’t see much. Many locals were camped out up there with picnics. There were many shelters there for people to hang out in and enjoy the park. It really was a lovely park.
We wandered around until we came to the water with many floating “islands” like fishing villages. We could see some real islands off Malaysia across the water.
This is when the sky
decided to open up. There was a small shelter close, and we clustered with a
few other people out of the rain. There was an Indian couple that handed us one
of their umbrellas to shield us all from the wind blowing the rain in. Soon it
was over, and we wandered our way out of the park.
It was time to take the 2 trains back to the port. Getting off of the last train we ran into Tom & Cathy and got caught up on each other’s days.
Going through immigration, my thumb prints wouldn’t work so they sent us to another booth. I got mine through and while Greg was there waiting to get his done, another passenger starts cussing out the immigration officer. He was saying all kinds of rude things like “I suppose this will take another f’ing 20 minutes like earlier”. Refused to take off his hat. When told to put his thumbs flat he barely touched them to the pad and was told to put them flat. He says, “this is as flat as I’m going to put them”. He was standing too close, and they couldn’t get his photo, so they told him to step back. He responded with “you should put marks where you want people to stand.” Then proceeds to say, “this is my passport, you can see my picture and know this is my passport” We needed to move on since they won’t let you linger in the area once you are processed, but Greg told me that we missed the immigration security guy taking him away.
Greg was ready to get the backpack off and rid himself of the camera, so he hurried back to the ship while I walked back on with Tom & Cathy.
The loudmouth harassing the immigration officer did make it on the ship since we saw him on a lounge chair when we went for a walk later on the deck. It was a beautiful night, and the city is beautiful when it is all lit up at night.
There was a folkloric performance called Colors of Singapore, but we didn't get back in time to see it
Now for 1 sea day before Penang
and Phuket.
I won’t be updating the
blog for a while since we have the 2 ports and then only 2 sea days to get
ready for our over-land in India where we will be gone a week before rejoining
the ship in Dubai. We will have a total of 8 port days before getting a few days off.
Birds seen today:
Black-headed Bulbul - NEW
Brown-throated Sunbird
Collared Kingfisher
Common Myna
Dollarbird
Eurasian Tree Sparrow
Greater Racket-tailed Drongo
Javan Myna
Osprey
Red Junglefowl
Rock Pigeon
Spotted Dove
Straw-headed Bulbul - NEW
White-bellied Sea-Eagle
White-breasted Waterhen
Yellow-vented Bulbul
For larger photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/mn1H74BeujR28hF49
Here are links from our previous trips here. We did "regular touring" in 2013 and 2017. We birded in 2019 and 2023. In 2019 we did do an evening trip with Bob & his group doing Trishaws in Chinatown and Chinese dinner and an evening Bum Boat ride with some beautiful photos of the city scape.
Singapore - 2013 https://photos.app.goo.gl/mwvZp5dRMpAFFwBXA
Singapore – 2017 Day 1 https://photos.app.goo.gl/Q5Vw6NFiCW8gxNpR8
Singapore - 2017 Day 2 https://photos.app.goo.gl/Q6wZgkhaxbbwGWe98
Singapore 2019 - Day 1 https://photos.app.goo.gl/D82AswBU9aTGAymJ8
Singapore 2019 – Day 2 https://photos.app.goo.gl/mwvZp5dRMpAFFwBXA
Tomorrow, we have 1 sea day before Penang.
Thanks for the immigration information, we will know what to expect. lol Looks like a great birding day along with other interesting memories. Enjoy your inland trip. Enjoying the blog.
ReplyDelete