As flying to Bali required a couple of flights, we had a choice of a few cities to stop off at before heading to Indonesia. We opted for Singapore, as we’d heard it is a very manageable city to visit, and was a good place to spend a couple of days before starting our travels in Indonesia (as opposed to flying to Jakarta, which we had heard was a much less pleasant city to get around). We had booked a very leisurely 8pm flight from London Heathrow in the evening, and after a 13 hour journey we arrived in Singapore Changi airport at 5pm. We opted to try the subway system to get into the centre, which was pretty straightforward and the cheapest option to get to our hotel. We got a couple of one way tickets to the City Hall stop, and walked to Naumi hotel.

Naumi Hotel

Naumi is a fairly affordable hotel to stay at for a couple of days (hotels in Singapore are expensive!) and boasts a rooftop bar and pool with an amazing view of the city. We spent our first evening having dinner at the hotel restaurant (Indian cuisine) and taking in the nighttime skyscraper views with a couple of Singapore Sling cocktails.

Inner City Centre

Gardens by the Bay

We only had 1 full day to explore Singapore, so we made the obvious choice of visiting the gardens by the bay, famous for the large man-made ‘super trees’, indoor cloud forest and flower dome. We spent a good few hours taking in the tropical plants and beautifully kept gardens nestled amongst the contrasting slick, modern architecture.

China Town

Feeling the need for a bit more culture than just glassy sky scrapers, we took the subway to China Town, and spent an hour or so waking amongst the bustling streets, colourful stalls and neon signs.

Lau Pa Sat Food Court

We had heard that street food in Singapore was decent, and so headed to the buzzy Lau Pa Sat Food Court to sample a few regional dishes. After getting caught in a short but heavy rain shower (in true tourist style) we found the bustling indoor food market and ordered some staples - satay skewers, fried rice and cold beers. It had felt like a great introduction to Singapore and a nice stop off before Indonesia.

On our final day we took a last dip in the rooftop pool to try and rid some of the jet lag (being 7 hours behind) before getting the metro back to the airport for our first stop in Indonesia - Bali.