Singapore

Steve and Zoe moved to Singapore just after we left on our world trip, which is great, because now we can see them again, and stay with them in between the SE Asia/ Japan - India leg of our trip.

It's really hard to believe we're in Asia, because Singapore is so nice, and clean, but every now and then we'll get bitten by a mosquito, or we'll leave the apartment and hit a wall of heat, and remember where we are. Still love it.

Highlights so far include:

• Getting to know lovely, smiley, whiney, 6 month old Max
• Seeing how much 2 year old Joe had changed, and watching him run the length of the living room, over and over again, like a lunatic - fantastic!
• Swimming in Steve and Zoe's apartment's huge swimming pool
• Playing tennis. We were rubbish, we only had three rackets between four of us, and Zoe said she might get a tennis coach. Heh!
• Cooking, in a real, clean kitchen again
• Hanging around with great friends, who we can be ourselves around, and who plan all activities for us, so we don't have to :)
• A trip to Singapore Zoo, where a polar bear waved at us. No shit.
• Watching rubbish TV. We love it!

Steve and Zoe lived in Bombay for 2 years, so we're asking lots of questions about India ("Can you buy tampons, suncream, and prescription drugs over the counter" Answers = Yes, yes, yes but they may be fake, so ask for a brand you know.) There will be more questions. We know from experience that the strangest things can be hard to find, so we're quizzing them now in a bid to stock up on unpurchasable items before we leave.

Debs

"It's India, same as last week"

Phew... looked like we were screwed for a moment there.

We couldn't get a visa for India before we left, like we were supposed to, because it would have expired by now, so we planned to get a visa in Singapore, a week before our departure. Erm.

We turned up at the Singapore High Commission of India and were locked out for the afternoon, faced with the message that they'd outsourced their visa services to agencies - agencies, that on further investigation, employ complete dumbasses, who don't know anything about visas to India. Great!

After talking to the two agencies, and checking the website of the embassy, we were seriously worried because they all told us that visas are only available to Singapore residents. Shit. We're due to fly on Monday, and don't have visas.

So, bright and early, trying not to panic, we trotted along to the embassy the next morning, wearing our 'nice' clothes and waited in line in the sweaty waiting room, watching each person in front of us leave, without a visa.

When our turn finaly came, we were a little flustered (even Ben had pink little cheeks) and the guy behind the desk was on the phone, ignoring us - not a great start. We kept our cool though, and when he eventually saw fit to look at us all he said was "Why didn't you get your visas in England", which we explained, then he seemed to take a shine to us, asked us what we did back home, grated us our visas which we can pick up on Monday morning, and bid us a very pleasant farewell with the words "We need nice intelligent people like you in India. Enjoy your trip". How nice. Although we're still terrified of what's to come, we're looking forward to India more and more each day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNDs56H3cA8



Yeah!

Debs and Ben