Cycling and eating our way through Vietnam: Adieu Singapore, hello Siem Reap

Our trip to Singapore ended with a night time visit to the Marina Gardens at the Bay to see the light show in the super trees. The pathway to the gardens takes you from the shopping mall at Marina Bay, out through the roof and over an outside walk way to walk through at the top of the Atrium of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. It’s a great way to make an entrance to the park, although at night, you do get to see what the rooms in the hotel are like because the one way glass is now back lit, and completely see through.

The Singapore Flyer

The Super Trees at the Gardens at the Bay

Before going to the light show, we stopped for drinks and dinner at a bar outside the Shopping at Marina Bay Shopping Mall. Fortunately, it was outside, so we were able to watch the sunset over the city.

The Mall itself is amazing, and has all the top name brands over 4 levels. We had been for a couple of walks through it to see what the well-heeled of Singapore are buying these days. The whole experience was very similar to malls we’d be in in Shanghai, with large shops, very little for sale, and shop assistants who were more like night club bouncers that customer service representatives. I thought that I might have been qualified to visit the Porsche shop (I certainly wasn't qualified for the Lamborghini or Ferrari shops, and not interested in the Harley Davidson shops), however the two shop assistants were doing a great job of keeping people out of the shop by standing shoulder to shoulder in the door way. Maybe it was a 911 store, rather than being for any Porsche owner, although the 911 store sounds more like a convenience store for people who sleep late.

The shoe designer to rule them all - and the wrong dress code :-)

Anne's in love

We were booked into the Crown Plaza Hotel at the Changi Airport for the night, so we checked in at 9:30. The first thing we were asked was “When are you checking out?”, the answer to which was at 6:30 tomorrow morning – in 9 hours time. We then went through the longest ever check in process, which resulted in us being upgraded to a suite so that we would be very comfortable for our 9 hours sleep. We went to the room, slept the night and checked out the next morning.

10 people from our tour had flown up from New Zealand over night, and we caught up with them while waiting for our flight to Siem Reap.

We are now in our hotel in Siem Reap, we have visited Angkor Wat, and are looking forward to our first days cycling tomorrow.