My India Trip of 2013

Ben and I, started our journey towards India on Wednesday, 4th September 2013.  We booked a Singapore Stopover Holiday (SSH) to stay at Singapore for a couple of days and to explore. The purpose of this trip is to attend one of the most expected and most important wedding of Lydia, my niece.

Isaac and Ben riding Singapore Cable Car

The flight landed at Singapore, a few minutes past midnight on 6th September.  Ben helped to collect the baggage, clear the Immigration and customs.  Immigration into Singapore was a breeze, even without a visa, as we are US Citizens.  We located the SSH Kiosk and collected our pass for transportation, hotel and numerous attractions. For both of us it costed $240, including two nights stay at Hotel Grand Chancellor -- quite a deal.

A 24-Seat Bus came and picked us up from Singapore Changi Airport and he dropped us off at the Hotel in Little India.  Nothing much done on that day except a high-level planning for the next day, as we've got the entry tickets for a couple of dozen attractions.

Friday, 6 September 2013:

We were ready by about 07:00 and headed out, each of us carrying a back-pack.  Across the street we saw Karaikudi Restaurant and wanted to eat breakfast.  We were carrying our own water as we were not sure about Singapore water.  The young Islamic girl at the counter was overly friendly, giving us all direction, probably because she could make out we are outsiders -- she even inquired about my other family members.

After eating typical Tamil breakfast (Dosa, Vada, Idli, etc..) we wanted to go to Singapore Flyover.  We thought of taking the hop-on-hop-off, but could not figure out were is the bus stand.  We walked up and down for about an hour and decided to take a taxi.

At the Flyover we saw SubWay and eat some sandwich and soda.   It took about 30 minutes to make a full round

view inside flyover's car

 The cars in the flyover were fully enclosed in glass in air conditioned. I guess it is designed to hold about 10 persons.  During our flight, there were two girls from, I guess, North-East India, speaking language closer to Hindi

view of Singapore from flyover

The views from flyover are simply great!  We can see Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia from the flyover and the beautiful view of Singapore is amazing!







Ben took the lead in planning, organizing and taking care of logistics to make best use of the two days we were in Singapore.  He picked up the interesting/important attractions that we should see and suggested that we should visit Sentosa Islands first (where the Singam or Lion or Merlion attraction is) and come back to hotel, take an hour rest and then go to Night Safari.

From flyover we went to Singapore Cable Car to get into Sentosa.  Got into Hop-on-Hop-off bus, which dropped us off near entrance to Sentosa.  But we decided to take the CableCar to get into Sentosa.

pictured inside (near mouth) Merlion

Merlion is the Big Lion with Fish (Mermaid) tail.  There are lifts available to go to the mouth of the Lion and elevator is available to go to the crown.

Singapore Flyer

Cable Car ride into Sentosa Island

The huge Merlion (Mermaid+Lion)

from Merlion's mouth (touch Lion's teeth)