April 2013
We left
Sydney and waved our Tall Ships friends from the Soren Larsen farewell. We will
be back in August! Marty the skipper offered us jobs for the Australian Tall
Ships event. We sail from Sydney to Melbourne, to Hobart and back to Sydney. It
will be a celebration of the Royal Australian Navy’s centenary and some of the
most magnificent Tall Ships will join (also the two Dutch tall Ships
Oosterschelde and Europa).
Scoot
airlines flew us back to Singapore. Cheap airline were nothing is included so
in the end you “world deal ticket” becomes a lot more expensive if you add
luggage, food & drinks. After 8 hours in our cramped sitting area, we were
relieved to stretch our legs. We booked this time our accommodation via
Roomorama. Hotels are so expensive in Singapore that for world travels like us
there is the choice to sleep in a closet size room of 10m2 or a bunk bed.
Roomorama is a website where you can find private rooms, houses which people
rent for short term. When we arrived in our accommodation, we were completely
flabbergasted. A complete villa, with swimming pool and a servant all for
ourselves!
The day
after we figured out that
the owners of the villa already moved to another house
in Singapore and the villa is up for sale. Their daughter is the owner of
Roomorama and put her parent’s house on Roomorama.
Check it
out yourself for your next trip.
When we left Sydney, we knew that there was another delay in the refit of the Royal Albatross. After twice changing our flights, we told the captain Mark, that we would fly to Singapore anyway and wait for the start. Our intention was to visit the ship and see ourselves how the progress of the refit was coming along. But all this was not needed when we got an email from Mark that they were still facing problems with the stability book and a redo of the painting of the hull. The planned start of our contract and the training of the crew were now postponed to mid May. For us this was absolutely the limit of our patience and we decided; it’s time to move on. Maybe the adventure with the Royal Albatross will never happen. It’s time to go to sea!
We spend
most of the time in and around the villa, enjoying all this luxury. Some days
we took the bus to town and discovered more of this wonderful city. We visited
the national museum of Singapore. The grand dame of Singapore museum scene,
with a magnificent rotunda with crafted pieces of stainless glass. The museum
features a wide variety of multimedia exhibits, primarily on Singapore’s
history, culture and glory. 
Very interesting was the exhibition about the food
culture. It is anunderstatement to say “That Singaporeans live to eat and not
eat to live”. They love their hawker centres, open dining areas with food stalls representing all sorts of local
cuisine.From Chinese to Malay, Indonesian and Indian.Here you sit down on cheap plastic chairs and wading into a $ 3,- of char kway teow. A dish of
noodles, clams and eggs fried in chilli and black beansauce. A “hawker” was
once used for a food vendor who moved their wares around in mobile carts,
setting up their burners where ever there were customers. Of course this as not acceptable in modern Singapore anymore and now they are all stockade into
hawker centres.
We enjoyed
some of this Chinesefood culture in the food courts and
cooked our own chicken rice
(without the head and the feet
of the chicken by the way).
We went to Clarke Quay, one of Singapore’smost popular night haunts.
Enjoyed a beer at Brewerkz, a microbrewery with a list of superb beers. The best thing was their quote on the coaster
“When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up
reading”.
Hidden graffiti art in one of the footway tunnels with a critical view on Raffles who brought Singapore under the British colonisation and occupation. He was sighting for a new port to cement British interests in the Malacca Strait and a depot to encounter Dutch power in the area. Raffles was the one who turned the sparsely populated tiger infested malaria swamp into an economic powerhouse. And still this Raffesian spirit underpins the tireless drive of the city to be successful.
We checked
out “Little India” a part of Singapore with wonderful sights, smells and
sounds. Go at night time and it is a buzzing area with Indian’s checking out
the numerous gold shops, buying fruit & veggies at the little food stalls
and enjoy Mustafa’s department store, 24 hours open and they sell literly
everything. The best priced Indian dresses you’ll find in the Tekka centre,
with an enormous hawker centre on the ground floor (too sketchy & tricky
for us to have a meal there). 
But the main attraction is the fabulous
Indian food in a range of restaurants.
We ate curry and naan and Billy tried
some of the hottest spicy peppers ever!
Still trying to find a new sailing adventure, we thought the Singapore boat show could be a good networking activity. It was a sort of millionaires fair for the fortunate who can spend a few millions on a motor yacht with a couple of crew. We were glad to leave this plastic stainless steel world behind us.
In the
meanwhile we were working on our new sailing adventure. Checking emails for
reactions on our applications and checking flights to potential boating
opportunities. We got a positive reaction from the yacht “Infinity”, a 120 ft
ketch. She does sailing/ diving adventures in Asia and the Pacific and does
projects in sustainably. Check out the website: www.infinityexpeditions.org
Although I regret that the job on the Royal Albatrosss didn’t work out this time, I am really happy that we found a new challenging sailing adventure. With an itinerary of the islands of Malaysia (best diving spots ever) and then to the Philippines, promises a fantastic new experience.
I can’t
wait to throw off the mooring lines. Next blog hopefully with a lot of sea salty
stories.
Ahoy
Charlotte
