Goodbye Singapore… Hello Malaysia!

So after staying in Singapore for one more night than we’d originally planned (due to having to re-visit and properly fix a temporarily fixed chain and perhaps a little too much coffee drinking and cat-cooing) we’ll be making our first land border crossing to Malaysia today!

For our last day here yesterday, we made the most of our gentle ‘holiday’ like introduction to South East Asia before the sweat, pain and hunger pangs of cycling long distances in this heat really start. How did we spend it? We ate some more delicious food of course! By recommendation of one of my Dad’s old school friends who now lives in Singapore, we headed to Lau Pa Sat. Another Hawker centre, you can expect a varied array of regional cuisines and dishes for a fraction of the price of restaurants, (hello daily budget), but with this one we were in for a treat. We shared a big bowl of beef ball Ramen, and finished it off with a couple of Tao Sar Bao or red bean paste Bao.*
The joy of Hawker centres are that you choose your table, and can then pick from wherever takes your fancy. Depending on your level of hunger, you can almost ‘pick and mix’ a dish from here or there which makes for an exciting meal/ experience. Mostly we stuck to one food stall, but such as today got lured to stall number 2. In total we ate and drank (fresh juices) for about $7 Singapore dollar each, the equivalent to £4. They really are worth a trip!

*The paste was so sweet and dark, with a very strong almost cocoa like essence to it, we weren’t entirely sure if they’d just decided to play a practical joke on us by filling them with some Nutella instead?? Wish I got a picture because the likeness was uncanny!
We then decided to play tourist for the afternoon and walked through The Gardens by the Bay to see the Super trees. They’re free to wander unless you specifically want to walk the Skyway ($8) or visit the Flower Dome or Cloud Forest which would set you back $28 Singapore dollars each.

As for the evening, we mostly looked at the route we’ll be taking this morning to Changi ferry terminal (part 2!) It looks like the dreamy coastal road we planned to take the first time is back open and all maintenance works have finished, so fingers crossed we have a slightly quicker and more scenic ride there today! But for now Coconut jam and coffee calls before we re load the bikes and set off.