Home via Singapore

Dinner at Lyn and Thor's hawkers centre

We hit Singapore a second time on this trip and again imposed on the hospitality of Lyn and Thor.  Lyn and Thor moved to Singapore 6 months ago from the Central Coast of NSW so that Thor could spend the twilight years of his career in exotic Asia. I have known Lyn and Thor since 1979 when they met as punters on a London to Kathmandu overland tour where I was the tour courier.
We headed straight to our Singapore home at Woodlands to see Lyn reclined with a slight injury, she had tripped and swan dived while showing her recently departed other guests around. In addition they were both getting over a bout of the flu, a souvenir that Thor brought back from a recent trip to New Zealand.
We relaxed, unpacked and soon after Thor arrived home from work. Lyn cooked us a beautiful meat and vegetable dish, our first western style meal in nearly a month.
The night was relaxing with a few beers and some nice wine on the upstairs balcony.  As we had been doing through South East Asia we headed to bed early.
We rose early the next morning for a swim in the resort/complex pool. That day was spent in the air conditioned comfort showing travel photo's of Cambodia and Laos. Lyn and Thor are in Cambodia as I type.
Lyn was still under the weather so Thor, Hilde and I took the metro and headed into the Marina Bay area of Singapore to watch the National Day Celebration, rehearsals. It is obvious by the people and the infrastructure in Singapore that Singaporeans do things properly. Their preparations for this annual event take over a month and several full dress rehearsals are done leading up to the event. This allows many people who can not squeeze in on the actual event the chance to participate in one way or another.

Thor holding up the most prominent landmark in Singapore, Skypark Marina Bay, or (big boat on top of the buildings)

 We took the lift up to the top of the big boat for a fantastic view over Singapore. When I was here in the 80's this was all harbour and has since been reclaimed. The building has not stopped and it is Singapore's showpiece.

Hilde and I atop the big boat, looking back towards the pool and Singapore's main docks. (thor)

 The view from the top of the boat is awe inspiring, construction of the new Marina Bay Gardens in the following picture. Also in that picture is the barrage, a dam like structure that holds out the seawater. This seawater bay was transformed into a fresh water reservoir.

The new Marina Bay gardens in foreground, the barrage centre and Keppel harbour in the background.

 We wandered around on top of the big boat for a while and intended to head to a harbour side hawkers market for a meal. A hawkers centre is an area set aside to eat, the diners can select their meals from a group of stalls where the food is prepared. For example you can get a dish from different stalls and retire to your table to feast in public. But, we could not get there as the roads to it were closed due to the rehearsals. Instead we went underground to the dining area below the Marina Bay big boat. It was not dissimilar to a western food hall.

The reservoir and the big boat at dusk (thor)

 After dinner we wandered around Marina Bay looking for a vantage point, during dinner we missed the army skydivers who jumped from a helicopter into the bay, but did catch the helicopters and fighter jets flyover, the also had a line of 7 artillery pieces firing off into the heavens. However the main attraction for the thousands of spectators was the fireworks rehearsal. The waters edge right around the Marina bay was 4 to 5 deep, with the front line itself was occupied by an endless line of tripods and camera's right around the waters edge.  It was an amazing experience, with this large crowd, not one drunk, rowdy or obnoxious person, no garbage dumped over every available piece of ground. It seemed that Singapore has a culture of politeness.

Marina Bay, the big boat, the big wheel and the fireworks. (thor)

 When the fireworks rehearsal was over I expected a crush of people to head towards the metro, as the metro and the bus system are the two main transport options in Singapore. But crush there wasn't we walked to the Station and away we went, obviously their were many more points of departure from the Marina Bay and all worked well. We arrived back at our Singapore home buggered, Thor went for a swim while we headed for the shower and bed.
 

The pool from Lyn and Thor's apartment, Thor is in the water to the left.

 Our last full day in Singapore was to be an easy one, we decided to take a taxi to the McRitchie Reservoir Nature Reserve walking tracks. Again what an amazing place, sitting in the middle of one of the most densely populated places in the word, total wilderness and not a sign of civilization. We came across several colonies of monkey's

Mother and child on the track

 Thor doing his duty.

A male alongside the track, looks a lot like Yoda, the star wars Jedi. (thor)

I was told to smile, resting  on the track.

 The walk around McRitchie

Across the road from Lyn and Thor's guesthouse is this little Hawker's Centre, we had lunch there on several occasions, this was our first dinner and we were not disappointed.

 On our last morning Hilde and i took the metro to Kranji War Cemetery, only a few stops from Woodlands. My mothers uncle, John (Jack) Matthews is buried here. He was a 24 year old corporal with the Australian 29th battalion during World War 2. His battalion became surrounded by the Japanese during a battle at Bakri in Malaysia some 150 kilometres south of Singapore. The Japanese were just about unstoppable during their march down the Malaysian Peninsula and the eventual capitulation by the British at Singapore.  After the 29th battalion was surrounded the commanding officer was killed and the remaining troops staged a breakout. Once that breakout was accomplished the remaining troops were told by the surviving officers to make their own way to Singapore in groups of ten men. Jack Matthews who had been wounded in the neck during the battle was in charge of seven men, 5 from his unit and two British gunners. All seven were captured near a  Kangkar village and transported north by truck to Sungei Mati where they were murdered by the Japanese and buried in a shallow grave along with all their equipment.  After the war their bodies were recovered and interred at Kranji. Some of remainder of the 29th battalion suffered similar fates, others made it to Singapore. The sister Battalion the 19th also became surrounded and had to abandon their wounded to the Japanese at Parit Sulong. The Japanese took custody of the 200 wounded mostly Australians mixed with Indian soldiers. The Japanese tied them together doused them in petrol and set them alight. Their remains dumped in a canal. Remarkably two escaped to tell the tale.

Jack Matthews grave bottom right, he is buried alongside the men who were murdered with him.

    Kranji War Cemetery is a short walk from Kranji Station, the cemetery contains the graves of 4,000 known allied soldiers, from Australia, Britain, India, Singapore and Malaysia and the Netherlands. There are 40,000 others with no known graves. 
   The visit to the cemetery was sad for many reasons, not just family but for the tremendous loss of life in the hands of a then cruel and inhumane people.

Outside the male toilet at Kranji Station, if you need paper you need to get it before entry.

The Kranji Station had a remarkable feature, outside toilet paper, if you missed it on your way in for a number two, you would be in trouble. I saw one young lady take about 5 metres of paper for her visit, she could have possibly needed that much, surely.

That afternoon we were lucky that Thor arrived home from work early to see us off and we headed to the airport for our final flight of the trip, again it was the spacious A380.

The End.