5. Our first Cocktail in Singapore

Singapore Zoo is definitely worth visiting. It’s one of those places that spends a great deal of it’s time trying to get across the message that deforestation is ruining the planet and animals are becoming extinct at the rate of one species a day. We went for the “night safari” which starts at 7pm but beware, if you decide to go to this it take about an hour to get there via the MRT and the number 138 bus and when you arrive the queues are massive.

As I’m sure you already realise I hate queues so after standing in the queue for the tickets and then standing in the queue for the tram ride round the enclosures and then standing in the queue for the “creatures of the night” show I was ready to punch someone. Not PC I know but during one of our queue sessions the heavens opened I we were saturated which made everyone angry.

There were several animals here I’d only ever seen on one of David Attenborough’s shows including lions, tigers, elephants, rhinos, clouded leopards and porcupines to name a few so it was great to see them in the flesh. However, after spending all that time in the dark and the wet, we decided to head back to the city after the creatures of the night performance (which involved far too many people being crammed into an amphitheatre where idiots kept using flash photography and scaring the performing nocturnal animals – other than that, definitely not one to be missed).

It was getting late when we eventually reached the MRT stop nearest to our hotel but we decided we should probably have our first drink. Obviously a Singapore Sling springs to mind but we thought we should save that for another day and have it in the Long Bar at the Raffles Hotel were it was invented. After a quick look at the guide book we decided to head for a bar called City Space which is on the 70th floor of the Swissotel Hotel.

It was amazing. The view from there over the neon spectacular that is downtown Singapore is breath-taking, so is the cocktail menu – from a price point of view I mean. I felt totally out of place as I was still wearing my sweaty, drenched zoo clothes and everyone else was sharply dressed and ordering S$800 bottles of champagne. We had one cocktail each which were both delicious but the bill was S$63 which is the most I’ve ever paid for two drinks. Call me a tight fisted Scotsman if you will but that’s enough to by 4 bottles of Buckfast Tonic Wine which is enough to keep a family in the east end of Glasgow going for at least 2 days.

It got me to thinking on the walk home that so far I’ve not seen any drunks. Also I’ve not seen any litter, any grafitti or any beggars. When we flew into Changhi Airport the hostess made the usual pleasantries over the tannoy which were followed with “…and please remember that trafficking drug into Singapore carries the death sentence!” No wonder the crime is so low in this city. People are too afraid to get an outrageous punishment for whatever they’ve done wrong. I’m sure that if you get caught stealing you get your hands cut off, if you get caught jay-walking you get your feet cut off and if you get caught having anal sex then the giver has his bits cut off and the receiver has his anus stitched up! Bizarrely enough in the middle of Orchard Rd which is the main shopping street, there is a shop call House of Condoms and it’s full of vibrators, pornography and other smut. Not that I went in of course!