The afternoon highlight was attending an origami class, conducted by a very flamboyant member of the cruise staff whom we have named Gok Wan due to his height, dark rimmed glasses and gangly manner. (His name is actually, Matt). We all made paper swans of varying standards although your correspondent's looked more like an ugly duckling.
Many of our fellow passangers have commented upon how much shipping there is in the Malacca Straits. Indeed, at one point whilst looking out over the port side we counted 35 vessels in view. The other comment made is just how much rubbish there is floating on the surface of the sea. We have seen flotsam and jetsam in other areas of the ocean, but these Straits are far and away the worst for plastics, polystyrene and whatever else that we have witnessed.
So today, Tuesday, we have been back in Singapore as more than half of the passengers have opted to only complete the five day segment of the cruise rather than the full fifteen days. This has given us an opportunity to have a further day exploring another part of this vibrant, cosmopolitan city.
We disembarked, jumped on to the MRT, and headed up to the Ion mall on Orchard Road. There was a certain irony in stepping from the 30 degree heat outside into the mall where the background music was "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas" and "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow". Just browsing the stores and seeing the huge mixture of products from all over the world condensed into one small area is quite amazing. My particular favourite was a SGD2 "pound world" selling everything under the sun from Japan. As an aside it's interesting to see notices on the MRT warning that the carrying of durian fruit carries just as a severe penalty as smoking.
Lunch was taken in the food court and consisted of a huge bowl of rice noodles and chicken. The accompanying fruit drink was nothing I have ever heard of before and it tasted like liquid turkish delight. Rather delicious! Having recharged our batteries we then decided to head to the Chinatown district. This was another part of the city which easily stimulated the senses (although having just eaten we had to pass by all the food stalls) and before long we found ourselves looking around an incredibly ornate and beautiful Buddhist temple.
However there was one further place of worship, the Thian Hock Keng temple, which the guide books told us we should make an effort to see. Just as we found the back entrance to this cultural icon, the heavens opened. It was the start of an absolute deluge and made the storm we had experienced in the city the previous week seem like a light shower. Within minutes the streets were flooded and although we were well sheltered under a covered walkway by some shops, we were pretty much trapped. And we needed to get back to the ship as our time before sail away was rapidly diminishing.
Abandoning our plans for visiting the temple and after some minutes of strategic planning, (but with umbrellas at the ready) we managed to get back to the MRT station without getting too wet and without having to wade through too many flooded streets. Once we exited the station for the ship, it was still raining but thankfully there was a covered walkway along the edge of the park to the terminal. As we walked we heard a very strange mooing sound, rather like a herd of cows. Somewhat puzzled we eventually discovered that it was the noise being made by hundreds of frogs which had come to life in the very soggy conditions. Quite bizarre!
So we did make it back to the ship in time and we are now heading out to sea in an easterly direction towards Brunei.
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