Singapore

Part three of the trip (in our heads it was always 1- New Zealand, 2- Australia, 3- Southeast Asia) began in a familiar way, with Singapore, one of only two places we had both been to before, but one we had unfinished business with from last time, so this time we made a bee line to the gardens by the bay, which weren't in our guide book last time we were there, and we only found out about them when we got back.

They didn't disappoint, with spectacular sky trees, each being a vertical garden in itself, connected with terrifying walkways, an added bonus was that they were surrounded by colourful animatronic dinosaurs. And hoards of children, but that wasn't so bad.

We ambled around there, then went into the huge glass houses (climate controlled to be nice and cool - my glasses only steamed up when I went out again). One was full of flowers, with the emphasis on the Japanese cherry blossom, and the other was more rainforests, with a 7th floor walkway around the inside (Lisa didn't partake).

It rained mightily while we had coffee and cake, but we didn't mind a bit. Got the tube back to find out luggage, and headed over to our friends Bert and Adrienne, and e settled into their beautiful 20th floor apartment.

After lots of wine and Mexican food by the river on Friday night, we were nicely prepared for the early start for Singapore's nicest parkrun (they have two) where we stumbled round, ended up as a pair of sweaty messes (Lisa beat me!) and had coffee and cake at Starbucks.

We showered and then headed out to little India, visited some temples, (one Buddhist, and one Hindu) and stopped for wine, then found an amazing veggie restaurant, where we ate masses of dosas and vadai and then we had more wine.

On Sunday morning, Lisa and Bert went running in the other (proper) botanical gardens, and Adrienne and I met them later on. We had breakfast, and then did some more exploring, finding the orchid garden, and a palmetum. It was lovely, and we found monitor lizards and chickens too.