After getting back to Shanghai from our trip, we had one bigger
assignment to do that kept me from updating my blog for a while (but now I’ve time
to write a few posts before leaving China and move back to Finland). So after
the 4 days in KL we took a night bus to Mesring, a city on the east coast of
Malaysia, where we arrived at 4.30am. We’d heard that the ferries don’t really
have a schedule but luckily for us the next ferry was about to leave at 5am so
we just made it on time for that one (the next one would’ve left at 2pm). The
ferry did last about 2 hours and we arrived at the Tioman Islands at 7am and
went straight to look for a bungalow to stay in for the next days. We found two
3-bed bungalows for us pretty easily.
After a short nap, we spent the first day on the beach enjoying the hot
weather, sunshine and clear South-China Sea water. The Tioman Islands are
listed as one of the paradise islands and the village where we stayed was very
small and there weren’t that many tourists (which was a nice thing). We
actually planned to stay there 3 nights but we delayed our stay by one night
because we felt like staying there longer in stead of Singapore. During the
days on the Island we did some snorkeling, canoeing, laying on the beach,
swimming, eating really tasty barbeque and just relaxing. The weather was
really gorgeous the whole time and the first raindrops fell in the morning we
left the island for Singapore. Below are some pics.
We knew it would be a pretty long journey to Singapore, but it was
surprisingly long. First we had to take the ferry back to Mesring and that took
us over 3 hours this time for some reason. In Mesring we had to wait for about
one hour for the bus to Singapore. We were told that it would be a 3-hour ride
but after three hours we had to change busses in the last town on the Malaysian
side. Before actually arriving in some random bus station in Singapore we had
changed the bus twice again due to the border registration activities. Finally
in Singapore, we had no clue where we were actually and no Singaporean dollars,
so we started walking hoping to find a ATM somewhere to be able to get a taxi
to our hostel. 
In the first evening we headed to Clarke Quay, a riverside area full of
restaurants and bars. One place there happened to have a Maifest-party (a
German festival that takes place in May). The next days we spent walking around
different areas of the city. We visited Little India and its super big shopping
mall Mustafa, Chinatown (maybe we missed Shanghai already so much that we
had to experience some China again J), the main shopping area of the city around Orchard Road and went to
movies in Raffles City (yeah, the Avengers was really entertaining). Some other
must-see places definitely were the Merlion statue, the whole neighborhood
around Raffles Place with all the skyscrapers and 5-star hotels, as well as the
Parliament and other governmental buildings. One evening we planned to go the
Singapore Flyer but we were a little bit late and they didn’t take anymore
people on board. However, we had a spectacular view of the city in the rooftop
bar in Marina Bay Sands (that really tops the view from the Flyer). I’d also
strongly recommend visiting the restaurant called Marche’s in Somerset! It’s a
Swiss restaurant and the food is delicious. Unfortunately we didn’t have the
opportunity to go to Sentosa (but maybe next time). One funny coincidence was
the Changing of the Guard ceremony we just happened to walk by and stopped to
watch it. It takes place only once a month at the main entrance of Istana.
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