Slinging round the Cape

Busy port

Campaign map

Raffles fountain

The Sling - take out a mortgage!

Bag of nuts

Cool doorman

The antagonists of 1942

Ginger tea

Sky Tower Hotel

Singapore Flyer

They choose nice places to park!

If you believe the Commodore 100,000 ships per day sail through the channel at Singapore and 300,000 ships per day sail through the English Channel. Personally I don’t believe it, but it was a busy entry!

Hot and a bit humid but we decided to do our own thing and hired a mini-bus, driver and guide for 6 hours between us, and Ni was a very good guide indeed.  Collected from the ship we set off to the very moving Kranji War Cemetery on the site of a WW2 POW camp and saw the map of the short campaign in 1941/42 when 120,000 Allied troops surrendered to 60,000 Japanese. Off after that to the old Ford Factory where the surrender took place and looked around a small but very interesting museum with details and stories of the occupation.

No visit to Singapore would be complete without something at Raffles and what else but a Singapore Sling and lunch? The Long Bar was a treat (the only place in Singapore you are allowed to drop your litter on the floor – nut shells!) Raffles’ Grill a delight and then off into the town for a ginger tea and a tour of the city’s ethnic areas. Set up by Sir Stamford Raffles, the town is divided into sectors on a grid system, so it was into the Muslim and Chinatown areas for a bit of cheap shopping. There are some amazing new buildings in Singapore, like the Sky Hotel with an infinity pool on a boat-like structure on the roof and the Flyer – a bigger version of the London Eye. Building and Metro structures going in everywhere.

Amazing how quickly a day goes, so it was a drop-off for the shuttle and look into a photo shop for some kit before back aboard for the next leg to Phuket, with one sea day between.

The Commodore also issued a letter saying that the plans are still to transit the Suez Canal, but the conspiracy theorists in the Queens’ Grill suites reckon that Lloyds will make the decision for Cunard if they withdraw insurance cover for the ship!