After eighteen months of having our feet firmly on the ground in Sydney town, finding jobs, building a business, finding somewhere to live and enjoying four trips to Adelaide to share in some special family occasions (happy 70th birthday Dad and happy 1st birthday gorgeous Scarlett!) we were so excited to finally be packing our passports for another journey. On 23 February 2013 we were to celebrate ten years of marriage and we absolutely could not let the journey pass without marking it by spending time taking another adventure together. We spent many hours fantasising about where we might go. I was quite keen on a luxury trip to Tahiti, we discussed Burma (where we are itching to go), southern India (which has been on my list of dream destinations for a long time), Mauritius, Cook Islands and the Phillipines all got mentioned (as you can see our travel bucket list is long!). Besides it being the wrong time of year for a lot of the destinations we decided that we didn’t want to just lie on a beach for a week, we wanted to use the opportunity to really travel and experience a country. Just perhaps not in our usual manner of taking local buses and staying in budget accommodation. It was our 10th wedding anniversary afterall! So in the end we settled on Sri Lanka. This tiny island seemed to have it all. Beautiful beaches with lovely boutique accommodation, delicious food, friendly locals, buckets of culture, gorgeous scenery and of course great tea!

Given that we had only returned from our six months journey from London to Australia quite recently and were still finding our feet in Sydney we had to make sure we made the most of our budget. I am so lucky that Andy has so much patience in piecing together amazing flight deals so we booked ourselves a flight to Singapore with Scoot and decided to stay there for a night and day before heading on to Colombo with Tiger Airways. To be honest we weren’t that excited to be going to Singapore, from what we had heard it is ‘nice’ but a bit dull. But it was so cheap to fly that way, and it was a chance to add another country to our list! We were pleasantly surprised.

As it happens the cheapest day to fly out was Valentine’s Day. Awesome, we thought. What better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day that starting a big adventure! Our flight was due to get in a around 7.30pm. Perfect, we thought. We’ll get to the hotel, drop our bags off and head out to one of the rooftop bars to celebrate! As it turns out we didn’t get to the hotel until about 9.30pm and were so exhausted that all we wanted to do was crash! Singapore is known to have some of the most expensive hotel prices in the world so finding something nice on a budget was a bit of a challenge. Luckily though there seemed to be quite a few boutique hotels with character and nice design in the ‘not too expensive’ category. We stayed at the Naumi Liora hotel, which by booking a basement room (which was fine given we were only sleeping there one night and would be up early the next morning) was very affordable. It was clean, modern, beautifully decorated with nice products in the bathrooms, had really friendly staff, was in a gorgeous street with pretty colonial shopfronts … and a free snackbar. It was also right in the heart of Chinatown so our Valentine’s Day celebration consisted of Pad Thai, fishcakes and cold beer sitting in plastic chairs on the steamy street side. Who needs rooftop bars … it was perfect and we were in Asia again, travelling!

A friend had told us about having breakfast with the orangutans at Singapore Zoo. She loved it so much she went twice so we were up early the next morning ready to make some primate friends! The breakfast was a buffet set in a gorgeous open plan pavilion in the middle of the zoo. The orangutans come out and sit on branch whilst the zoo keeper feeds them and the tourists file past to have their photos taken. They are so gorgeous, especially the babies and it was enchanting to watch them whilst we ate brekkie. I was not quite so sure about my close encounter with an animal of the more slippery kind!

The rest of Singapore Zoo is fantastic and we must have spent a good five hours wandering the walkways, taking photos, watching animals being fed, admiring the pretty orchids and laughing at the animals shows. Definitely a must visit destination!

With no time left to mess about with local buses we hopped into a cab back into the city centre to see a bit more of Singapore. We wandered along the river bank in the baking heat and found a little Chinese New Year market where we ate noodles as we read our Chinese horoscopes (scarily accurate!) for the year. We walked across the helix bridge and were going to make our way to the Gardens by the Bay, but in true Singapore style mid afternoon and a storm rolled in so we retreated to the nearest shopping centre. Now shopping centres are not usually our scene, at all. In fact we avoid them like the plague but this one was a little different. It contained some great brands that you can’t get in Australia, had a mini version of the canals in Venice, and what we think has got to be rival for the best tea shop in the world. Needless to say Andy was in heaven.

When we were planning our trip to Sri Lanka one of the things we were very excited about was the chance to stay amongst the hilltop tea plantations and sample some of the world’s best teas. You see my husband and I have a bit of a tea obsession. When we left London we must have had at least 25 different varieties of tea in our cupboard. Our cupboard in Sydney was also at the point where if you open it you risk getting pummelled with an incredible variety of teas. So when we found ourselves at the front of the TWG Tea we couldn’t resist going inside. And then of course it would have been rude to not at least sit down and have one cup of tea.

After perusing the tea list of over 300, yes 300, teas and indulging in a leisurely cup of tea and plate of macarons (we were on holiday after all!) we reluctantly dragged ourselves back out into the real world. But not before tempting ourselves with all the lovely teas, tea canisters, tea pots, and every other sort of tea paraphernalia you could think of. The staff even showed us the humidifier they had hiding on the counter pumping out yes, you guessed it, eau de tea! We had found tea heaven.

Having our fill or macarons, tea, window shopping and neon lights and with time steadily marching on it was time to head back to Chinatown to check out the Buddhist Temple before picking up our bags and heading to the airport. As we alighted from the metro in the middle of Chinatown the rain was again falling in full force. Bucketloads of it pouring from the skies! After waiting it out for a while we decided we’d have to make a run for it. We ran carefully along the paved streets, dodging the sheets of water falling from the tarpaulins that cover the shops and weaving in and out of tiny, jam packed stalls to make it to the temple. It was a gorgeous temple with thousands of buddha statues covering the first floor and some excellent exhibitions on the upper floors. We’d have loved to linger longer but time was marching on. Just enough time to pick up our packs and make our way to the airport. Next stop Sri Lanka!

Raffles Hotel
Our journey home from Sri Lanka also consisted of a stopover in Singapore and what else was there for us to do but stop by Raffles for a Singapore Sling. It is a very touristy experience, and by no means the nicest cocktail I have ever tasted, but the building is a beautiful, elegant place and the experience one of those things that is not to be missed. Plus, you never have to twist my arm to hard to convince me it’s cocktail o’clock.