Tuesday 19th October – A man made wonderland, and the irresistible call of India

The plan for today was to go to Sentosa Island, Singapore's man made entertainment island, specifically to go to Universal Studios.

Upon arrival at the monorail which takes you over to the island, we discovered that Universal Studios had sold out for the day. I am not quite sure how that works, but as it has only been open roughly three months it was no surprise. Still, we were minutes away from the island so we decided to make our way over there.

Sentosa Island is a very strange place which reminded me of Disneyland. Everything was so man made and strange; I could not decide whether I liked it or hated it. It is certainly the sort of place you could spend a long weekend, although you could very easily have got on the monorail at Singapore, and stepped off in America.

We made our way to the edge of the island, where there was a beach and lots of beach bars. We enjoyed a South East Asian favourite, Iced Tea, whilst making some plans for Kuala Lumpur and Thailand.

We wandered about the island for a while, but eventually gave up as everything was so expensive, and there was no way we could justify spending the same amount on a cable car ride as we will for an entire week in Laos.

We decided to make our way to Chinatown for some lunch, before heading to the harbour to look at the iconic Merlion. We could also see the newly built Skypark from here, but decided against going over there.

We did consider going to Raffles to enjoy the tourist favourite of a Singapore Sling whilst eating money nuts, however, being dressed in shorts and flip flops, we decided it was best to wait until our return in February.

We made our way down Orchard Road, caught sight of the absolutely huge designer shops (Gucci, Dior, Chanel – you name, they have it), before making our way back to the hostel for some rest. The jelag certainly kicked in today.

We decided to go back to Little India for dinner, and it was as brilliant as yesterday, but with the added bonus of the Hindu temple being a hive of activity. We enjoyed a much needed curry before heading back for some sleep.