 Our
times in Singapore never disappoints. We stayed in the Hotel Grand
Chancellor by the waterfront where there were restaurants and
entertainments by the score.
We were treated to dress rehearsal for the Singapore independence celebrations complete with fireworks and aerobatics from the airforce. The coloured streaks are from illuminated model aircraft flown at night |
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 Next
door to the Hotel was a Maserati Showroom. We were tempted with the red
one but decided it would have been too difficult to ship home.
The shop below left is a multi level shopping centre selling only computers and electronic goods. A bit of the old Singapore is still here as evidenced by the Central Fire Station below and the very musical Chinese gentleman to the right |
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 Our
Cruise of of the busy port of Singapore was on the Superstar Aquarius.
We had booked a room with a window and we were not disappointed. The
meals were good and given the number of passengers we never found it too
crowded |
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 First
port of call was Penang where we went ashore by lighter in a thunderstorm
We visited the snake temple on our trip around the island as well the
local shops and fruit stalls.
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 Next
stop was Phuket in Thailand.
We visited the famous Phang Nga Bay and the Koh Pannyi Village which is built out over the water. Like every tourist we visited the James Bond Island where the "man with the Golden Gun" was filmed. The scenery is striking with limestone pinnacles rising hundreds of metres out of the bay and with caves and karst topography |
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 We
had some high drama on the way back to Singapore through the Straits of Malacca
when the ship encountered an overturned fishing boat and stopped to
investigate. Nobody was found and it was determined that the fishermen
would have been picked up by other fishing boats in the area.
The Straits are a superhighway of shipping and we were never out of sight of other ships |
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| Then it was a case of flying out of Singapore across the Volcanoes of Java back to New Zealand | |