A Week with the Family in Singapore and Pulau Tioman

As the agony and pain of being apart from their ‘little soldier’ grew, week upon week, month upon month, Mum and Dad decided it was all getting too much and booked flights out to Malaysia to come and see us, and also to catch up with the worker of the family - the rather less-missed elder child, Andrew. Although less-missed, Andrew had thoroughly ingratiated himself to us all by managing to get tickets for the Singapore Grand Prix, including a stint watching it from the Singapore Flyer - rather like the London Eye.

So on Thursday 24th September, Mum and Dad landed in KL, and thus started a great week of catching up. We had a day in KL before heading to Singapore. Most of it was spent eating and drinking, but we did do a little sight-seeing too. Shortly after a duck-noodle lunch in a local market, Dad, armed with the guidebook said it was time to go and see the Butterfly Park, which, according to the map, was ‘just behind that building over there’.

After about twenty minutes walking around in circles in the scorching heat, a mixture of despair and jet-lag intervened and a taxi was finally hailed. Lucky it was, because it was a fifteen minute cab ride there. Of course, it was the ‘bloody map’ which was wrong. The butterfly park was great - loads of massive colourful looking butterflies as well as a good collection of lizards and a massive bullfrog which, much to Lauren’s anguish, was being fed live mice!

The next day, it was all aboard to Singapore. Mum and Dad opted for the train, and Lauren and I were on the bus. Both arrived in Singapore late, but the bus won by about an hour. Whilst Lauren and I were again staying with Dave and Storm, Mum and Dad were staying with chums and distant relatives. Following some freshening up after our respective journeys, we decided to meet up at Boat Quay for some food and dinner later that evening.

We all had a great evening down there - catching up with Dave and Storm as well as a chap we’d met in Kuala Lumpur a couple of days before. Inevitably, the evening ended with a drunken trip on the G-max reverse bungee at 2 in the morning! All good fun.

The following day, following a light lunch with Andy Wilson, my cousin’s half-brother (maybe my half-cousin once removed?!), it was time for F1 Rocks! Andrew had very kindly got us VIP tickets for the event which featured Black Eyed Peas and Beyonce, as well as a night of free-flow booze and food! It was decided that Mum and Dad probably wouldn’t enjoy it, and this was backed up by Dad’s comment ‘what’s all this about going to see the dried peas?’. So a group of us, including a few of Andrew’s chums from Hong Kong headed off (after another go on the reverse bungee, this time by Andrew and friends).

It was a brilliant evening - the Black Eyed Peas were fantastic, and Beyonce was good too. The all you can eat food and booze was like a lottery win for me - I think I might have been the only person who reached double figures in the buffet-visiting stakes! Andrew had also clearly had a very, very good night. His speech trouble towards the end of the evening was only outdone by his falling flat on his face whilst trying to tie his shoelaces!

The following morning, race day, Dave, Lauren, Storm and I decided to have a quick round of pitch and putt. We rather unwisely decided to hit the first tee at midday in what were sweltering conditions! I think that we probably broke the course record in not a single one of any of our tee shots - on a pitch and putt - hit the green. Truly shocking! We followed up the golf with a lunch in Clarke Quay at Brewerks, where I had the biggest burger known to man, then Lauren and I headed off to meet Mum, Dad and Andrew for the race.

When we met up, it turned out that poor Andrew had had some trouble keeping his lunch down, and indeed had spent most of his lunchtime in the cubicles. Luckily, however, he was well enough to catch the boat with us to the Grand Prix, and to do a bit of sightseeing en-route.

We arrived at our viewing point in time to have a good look around - everything was very impressive, and we were able to get incredibly close to the track!

I managed to humiliate myself with a bit of a ‘Del Boy falling through the bar’ moment - when trying to sit back in one of the hammocks, I managed to make the bloody thing flip over, thus being unceremoniously dumped onto the floor, both to the amusement of the family and the crowd who had gathered to see what had happened! Very cool.

The race was soon underway - we were basically right next to the track, and the noise was incredible. (If Mr. Capitelli is reading this, Mike - it sounded almost exactly like a dentist’s drill - perhaps you could give the office an example?). VIDEO CLIP:

About twenty minutes after the race had started, we headed up for our ride on the Singapore Flyer.

The views from the top were stunning, not only of the track, but also of the Singapore skyline at night. An amazing experience.

Once the flyer had ended, we headed back down to our original positions to catch the end of the race, before heading back to our various accommodations. Mum, Dad, Lauren and I had an early start the next day to get to Tioman, whilst Andrew had work to think about as well as a banging hangover!

The journey to Tioman the next day was pretty straight forward - we got picked up in Singapore by some chap who Andrew knew, and got put on the boat in Mersing, about four hours drive away. After about an hour an a half on the boat being subjected to sub-zero Malaysian air conditioning, we mercifully arrived at the island, and got the milk float style bus to our resort.

Mum and Dad had very kindly decided to foot the bill for the hotel, and it was certainly one or two levels above what we were used to! We had a huge room with a fridge, massive telly (though no reception - but the telly was impressive) AND a bathroom (with hot water) which we didn’t have to share with other smelly travelling folk! Other bonus features included a kettle and air conditioning.

The hotel was brilliant - we had beach views from our ‘chalet’ as well as a huge swimming pool and a buffet breakfast that would make ? go weak at the knees. The original plan had been to stay three nights in Tioman before heading off for some jungle trekking in Taman Negara, back on the mainland. It was rather promptly decided that three nights might not quite be enough, and indeed the rest of the week ought to be spent in Tioman in order to fully appreciate it. This was fine by Lauren and I!

The next five days flew by - loads of relaxing on the beach being eaten by the local sand flies, swimming in the pool, a bit of snorkelling and nightly matches of snooker after supper. The one strict routine that was introduced early on was gin and tonics at 6.45 on Mum and Dad’s balcony - something I started to rather look forward to from about an hour after breakfast!

On the penultimate morning, Dad and I ventured out onto the golf course (with a buggy, of course). Things were looking bad after the first tee, with three balls missing (all mine!), but gladly our golf got progressively better as the holes wore on. One classic moment was on the first hole, when Dad managed to find the green from about 80 yards away, only to see a troop of monkeys descend from the nearby trees and go straight for his ball. Luckily they only picked it up to see if it was food, but that did not deter Dad from charging up the fairway yelling and waving a golf club at them! They didn’t seem too interested in his putting though, and who can blame them?

It was great to see everyone again - a big thank you to Andrew for sorting us out with tickets for F1 Rocks and the Singapore Grand Prix - both were fantastic, and to Dave and Storm for putting us up again! Also, a massive thanks to Mum and Dad for treating us to such a brilliant hotel in Tioman. We left fully fed and recharged for the next stage of our trip - back over to the mainland then to Borneo to try and get a bit of fitness together for our trek in Nepal, starting in November!