🇸🇬 Singapore
- what you say when you’re on a very long trip. -S🇸🇬
Our favorites from the trip
To put the final bow on our 100 Day Adventure, we thought it’d be fun to reflect on our trip “favorites.”
Destination
It’s probably not surprising that our favorite destination on this trip was safari-related, as that was the part of the trip we were most excited for. This particular destination featured a day of both morning and sunset safaris, interrupted only by some time at our remote tented camp inside a national park. The two game drives were stellar—we spotted an incredible amount of wildlife, including our very first leopard, along with a bunch of other great interactions with a wide variety of “top tier” animals. I’m speaking of the Okavango Delta in Botswana, an UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Wildlife experience
While we thoroughly enjoyed our experience in Botswana, I think our single favorite experience was following a leopard in Sri Lanka. It was such a surprise when we saw it (the rest of the safari tour that day had been sort of a dud), and then we promptly lost it into the bush. But, we repositioned along a different roadway and were able to track for quite some time, losing it as it entered the dense forest, repositioning elsewhere with the hopes of it again emerging from the vegetation, and guessing correctly several times. Eventually we got a chance to watch it make a (surprisingly lackadaisical) hunting attempt on a spotted deer that just a handful of yards away from us. Seeing a leopard was our primary goal in Sri Lanka, so it was great that it came together like it did.
Country
Overall, our favorite country on the trip was Australia. It was the only country on the trip that we could easily relocate to—just show up tomorrow and feel like we’re still at home. It also helped that we spent most of our time there campervanning around national parks…which, you know, is already probably our favorite thing to do. So as you can imagine, we’ve already started plotting a return trip, and a new quest to circumnavigate the continent, too.
City
Our favorite city (yeah yeah, it’s also a country) was Singapore. Of course, it helps that you arrive in perhaps the most interesting airport in the world. That place is impressive. But overall, it was both a welcome reprieve for us, as well as a quite unique place. After arriving from Sri Lanka after more than a month in Africa—places where roadside trash is seemingly ubiquitous—Singapore felt nearly surgical-table clean. Beyond its cleanliness, it also featured some really interesting architecture. It felt modern, safe, and a bit futuristic.
Meal
On the second leg of our overlanding safari tour, our truck broke down for seven hours on the (effectively shadeless) side of a two-lane highway in Zambia. Not ideal. Eventually, we busted out the cooking equipment and our guide made some simple chicken fajitas. They were glorious. It might have just been the situation, but it was our favorite meal of the trip.
Accommodation
Our favorite accommodation during the trip was our tented camp in the Okavango Delta in Botswana. This was not the nicest place we stayed, by any measure, but it was among the more memorable. We had to leave our overlanding vehicle and take a 4 hour ride in a safari vehicle just to get there. The camp had very limited electricity, just a couple plugs in the “lobby” tent, which were grossly abused by visitors who concocted a Griswold-style daisychaining of extension cords and chargers that was surely a fire hazard. Luckily, we had prepared for this and used our generous battery capacity instead (it pays to come prepared). Our shower and toilet were outside and open to the air. Baboons bounced on our tent roof during our mid-day siesta. Meals happened in the large “lobby” tent, which was open on one side to a large grassy field where large mammals grazed, or you could sit around the campfire instead.
Brewery
Good craft beer was hard to find on this trip. That’s not too surprising—the places on our itinerary aren’t beer places; after all, you don’t go to rural East Africa for hazy IPAs. That said, we had expected a bit better beer in a few of the major cities we visited. Luckily, our time in the Blue Mountains in Australia helped redeem the beer portion of our trip. That’s because we found Mountain Culture Brewing, which was our trip favorite by a wide margin.
A few shots from Gardens by the Bay in Singapore -S🇸🇬
Night scenes from Singapore -S🇸🇬
“This is my last day for these clothes.”
When your beer comes with…ice and a straw?? 🧐🤨
(it is an excellent cherry/raspberry/apricot smoothie sour from a Latvian brewery) -S🇸🇬
A random Singaporean street scene -S 🇸🇬
Sunset over Singapore, from our hotel’s rooftop pool. -S 🇸🇬
Other random shots from Singapore’s Chinatown. -J 🇸🇬
Street art scenes in Singapore’s Chinatown -S 🇸🇬
Random shots from our walk around Singapore. We specifically visited Merlion Park, home of Singapore’s iconic half-lion, half-fish statue/fountain. -J 🇸🇬
Hit an Irish Pub in our 19th country today -Singapore! (19/32) -J 🇸🇬
A bit more history on this place, the first Irish pub to open in Singapore (back in 1995):
A quintessential Irish pub Molly Malone’s was the first Irish pub to open in Singapore, way back in 1995. More than a quarter-century on, she still maintains that unrivalled jovial atmosphere intrinsic to any classic Irish Pub.
Molly Malone’s Irish Pub was actually born in Ireland and transported piece by piece to Singapore, where she was reconstructed in 1995 on the corner of Circular Road and Canton Street. There she remained for just over 9 years, before packing up house and moving across the street to the helm of Circular Road on Christmas Eve of 2004.
We haven’t seen much of Singapore yet, but I can confirm that the airport kicks ass. You see that instantly upon arriving at immigration, which took 20 whole seconds. Baggage claim ain’t too shabby either. And of course, the Jewel waterfall is pretty damn cool. There’s so much more too! -S🇸🇬
We’ve been hunkered down in Singapore since Monday, after we both started to feel sick the night before our flight to the Maldives. We pulled an audible, deciding that it was better to skip our Maldives visit entirely and head directly to Singapore, where we’d have an entire week to get better. -S🇸🇬