17 June: Marina Bay Gardens

After a day to rest following a 12.5 hour flight of continuous turbulence from Frankfurt, we were happy to land in Singapore.

Next day we decided to visit Marina Bay Gardens, created since our last visit. We were not disappointed - quite the reverse, we were delighted and almost overwhelmed by both the facilities we saw, the Flower Dome and the Cloud Forest.

We intended to have a cocktail on top of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, but all the time slots had gone by the time we got there.

As always the Singapore MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) was excellent, getting us quickly and painlessly to our destination and back. One memory I have from my first MRT encounter - in the seventies I think - was the way there are no barriers between the carriages, meaning you get this continual wind of cool air right through the train.

Another brilliant feature of the MRT is that the train rails are walled off from the platform. Only when a train is stationary do doors in the platform wall open, matched exactly with the carriage doors. This is very clever - don’t know how they can manage it so perfectly every time!!

Arriving at the Gardens just before 12, we decided lunch was the first priority, and found ourselves in Satay by the Bay. This is a food hall offering a range of Asian dishes, but once I saw the piles of pre-cooked satay sticks lying unrefrigerated in the Singapore heat, I wasn’t hungry anymore!! We had a fruit juice.

Walking along the foreshore, the first thing you see are two huge glass roofs. One is the Flower Dome, the other the Cloud Forest.

I bought tickets for these, but when I tried to add the Super Tree Observatory and the Skywalk, the attendant refused, saying “See what the weather’s like later”. Thunderstorms & rain were forecast. As it turned out we were so engrossed, we never got back to those activities. Next time!!

The Flower Dome is organised in geographic areas: Australian, Mediterranean, South African, etc. Just when we thought we had seen everything, we discovered a special “Rose Romance”: hordes of beautiful roses!

The Flower Dome was an absolute joy - and a secret restaurant called Hortus, where we had not only a belated lunch, but our first genuine FLAT WHITE in seven weeks!

We then moved on to the Cloud Forest. Absolutely spectacular - look at Des in front of the waterfall. There are seven levels, with walks through the forest, and clever surprises round every corner!

So impressed with the technology, engineering and artistic flair represented by these two attractions. The ones we missed - next time!!Read more