The original plan had been for us all to spend the first weekend in Malacca, about 3 hours drive north into Malaysia, as it was a public holiday in Singapore on the Monday. I'd booked the hotel weeks before but when I went to the bus station to book the bus tickets (I couldn't get the website to cooperate), they said they were restructuring their price scale so, could I come back in a few weeks time? When I returned at the appointed time, I was told that all the tickets had been sold out as it was a holiday and many Indian families were returning to Malaysia to spend the weekend with family. Did I know it was a holiday weekend? Yes, that was why we wanted to go! At the time, that was particularly frustrating.
There were other ways to get there, such as getting a taxi to the border and looking for a Malaysian taxi on the other side and then haggling over the price. Certainly, in our former days of backpacking, we wouldn't have batted an eyelid at this. But with David's mum and the children with us, 5 people being too many passengers if we all wanted seatbelts and some comfort (and we did) on a busy holiday weekend, we concluded that wasn't ideal and so we ended up cancelling the hotel reservation.
As it turned out, it was a good thing. She came with us to the childrens’ Saturday morning tennis and dance lessons and then slipped and fell on a wet tiled floor, bruising her foot very badly. Walking round Malacca would have been a non-starter for her, so spending some time recuperating in a nice hotel and at our condo (plus an open top bus trip round parts of Singapore) turned out to be a much easier way to spend the long weekend. (Janet, I hope you don't mind me posting a photo of you all in the pool, but you were all having so much fun!)
With mobility improving, she hit the shops and we did some sightseeing, including the night safari zoo and the bird park on the final weekend. The timing of her visit was such that she was able to attend Hannah's school assembly held for the Indian festival of Deepavali, too.
The assembly was a very colourful event in which all the children in the infant part of the school dressed in Indian clothes and performed a play about the festival along with other songs and short sketches. Hannah is now an expert on Rama and Sita and has been reciting the story as fluidly as if it were Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
The requirement to get an Indian outfit at reasonable cost took us to one of Singapore's great institutions - The Mustafa Centre. This is a huge department store in "Little India" run by an Indian man who started with a very small shop that has grown beyond all recognition. It now fills two large buildings over 6 or 7 floors and is open 24 hours. It's also the only place here to buy the full range of Indian cooking condiments and English made Cadburys chocolate (can't image how I know that last bit!), not to be confused with Australian or Malaysian Cadbury’s chocolate which is made to a different recipe and just not the same.
It was David's first visit and he can't wait to go back with a bit more time to spare. It really is quite an extraordinary place, an incredible emporium. Mr Mustafa keeps prices low by putting as much on display as possible (saves warehouse costs) and not worrying too much about beautifying the displays. Everything is piled high and the shelves overflowing into aisles barely wide enough for 2 people to pass. But there's not much you can't get there either. There were so many gorgeous Indian outfits it was a tough decision, but Hannah does look fabulous in the one we finally settled on.
To end Janet’s trip, we had dinner in a lovely restaurant located in the Botanical Gardens and finished with a night time stroll, wandering along the paths with the trees and shrubs subtly lit. It was a fun week and it really brings home how much there is to do here - she was here for 10 days and there are so many things we never got to. Of course, all those shopping possibilities proved something of a distraction too!
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