Raffles old boy

The famous Raffles Hotel, where the Singapore Sling cocktail was invented......of course we went in and had one (three).

Around Singapore

Great place - a sort of end of empire feel to it, but ultra modern at the same time. Seems a kind of mis between modern-day Japan and Victorian England.

Climate is hard going though, even Pinar (who is used to the extreme heat of Cyprus) is struggling. It's so warm and humid it's like being in a steam room all day.

Fast food

Pinar was chuffed to bits.

We saw loads of them round south africa.
Long live coke floats and brown derbys!

Singapore

Apologies for any spelling mistakes or errors in the last few posts. I'm doing it all from the foyer of our new hotel, but I'm about to pass out with tiredness. This is the first chance I've had to really put stuff up.

Capetown to here is one of those strange flights when you lose a day. A noon flight that lasts 11 hours gets you into Singapore for 5am. After much adjusting of watches and sleep patterns we got here and now I'm hoping to get some sleep.

Sunnier St James'

It may look nice and Sunny but I wouldn't have wanted to get off the train here!

Instead of a bus trip, and against some advice, we took the train over to Simon Town. It's a lovely seafront journey but it does pass through some of the less celebrated areas.

We were told to get a 1st class ticket (by a quirk of South Africa Railways there's only 1st or 3rd class) but Pinar held us up and we were so late that we just had to jump on the nearest carraige before the train pulled out. It was third class - about the same as a London Underground tube! Dirty and dangerous.

The people on there couldn't have been nicer to the two token white travellers and we got to the African penguin colony in one piece. There's thousands of them just lying around the beach and it's fine to just go up and take photos.

Most white people use their cars so we were pretty much a minority of 2 for the whole journey which was an unusual and quite liberating feeling.

Table Mountain

Table mountain rings the entire city and is nearly 2,000ft up. The cable car ride to the top is a bit hairy, but by the time you've walked about 10 miles just to get to the starting point you don't really care.

It's pretty high up and gives you a view of the East and West Cape out over the Atlantic and Indian ocean sides. It's pretty spectacular up there, especially when the clowds come down around you.

Robben Island

An ex-political prisoner shows us round the Island. Don't know if it would be liberating or more soul distroyiong for him still being stuck there day after day.

Pinar's worst ever sight!

This boat was the culprit!

Cape Town Waterfront

From our first night in Capetown.

Cape Town

Firstly - got here safe and having a brilliant time.

BUT:

As we enjoyed our first view of the Western Cape, my bag was enjoying the inside of mubai airport. Seems that it got sent to India instead of South Africa. Luckily it was just one of 4 bags we have so we shouldn't miss it too much.

We've already taken in the V&A Waterfront, the city centre and Roben Island where Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years. The 17 or so km boat ride over to the Island itself is a bit choppy - to say the least - and there was a lot of poorly people onboard . Pinar was one of them, but by no means the only one.

A huge Irish guy in front of me was really strugging and it was a bit of a comedy moment seeing him race against time - or more accuratly the ticking time bomb inside his stomach - to get to the deck and complete the inevitable.

Outise the harbour the swells and waves are enormous and the tiny catamaran really gets tossed about. By then our Irish friend was stummbling around like Norman Wisdom after a good night out trying desperatly to get out of the cabin - which was a pretty monumental task in the conditions.

Funny how only one leg ever works when you're about to be sick.

Still at least we knew we were coming back, unlike the inmates of the prison, sent down for demanding their rights. Conditions there must have been awful for Mandela and the others and it was really just a death camp in everything but name. Hard to believe this was still going on as I was growing up in the 80s.

That's it for now.

ready to go....nearly

head case

Pinar fits in her extra large case. Shouldn't have bothered buying a ticket.

Durham CCC

Went to a conference held at Durham Cricket Club today - although it was nothing to do with sport.

It's a really good ground in a lovely setting but it is a bit 'compact' compared to places like Lords and Hedingly. That's no reason why there shouldn't be more International games here though.

I went to the Bangladesh game last year and enjoyed it just as much as the other grounds I've been to. They're running a campaign at www.signthebat.com to drum up support.