Back in 2005, I married the man of my dreams and we decided to take a fantastic trip to Australia for our Honeymoon. My husband was keen to break up the journey with a stop off at Singapore. I wasn't that bothered about going and just wanted to get to Sydney so I could cuddle a koala and stroke a wombat. Just for your information, wombats are a bit of a grumpy creature and aren't keen on tourists stroking them. However, as it had been a life long ambition of mine since I had watched "A Country Practice" whilst revising for my GCSE's, I had a quick stroke. As my husband's role in the wedding planning was to book the honeymoon, we stopped off in Singapore en route to Australia.

I don't often say this, but my husband was right. It is the most fabulous place. Westernised and warm, with fantastic food and the cleanist place I have ever been. We were only there for a couple of days but we crammed as much in as we could.

Top of my list was to go to Raffle's for a Singapore Sling. Well when in Singapore....


If I remember correctly, it was on the pricey side, but you got free monkey nuts and seemed to be encouraged to throw the husks on the floor!

We had also heard great things about Singapore Zoo. I am not a zoo person really, but we gave it a go. We used their underground system, which was nothing like London. It was so clean and not that busy. On the train there was a sign that stumped us for a while.


It turns out that the durain is a rather smelly fruit that you must not have on the underground system.

The zoo was nice with a fantastic working elephant show. We also stayed for the night zoo, meaning that we could go round in a train and see the animals in a different light. In hindsight we should have decided to do the day or night part. Not because it wasn't good but because we were jet lagged! The animals may have come alive in the night, but my husband and I found it hard to stay awake.



On our last day we did a tour of Singapore, taking in some of these amazing sights.


So our stopover in Singapore ended up being an amazing surprise. A beautiful place that I hope to revisit one day, as there are still plenty more places there for me to explore.


This article has been written to recognise the author's contribution to travel and tourism by Avis Car Hire on the A-List Awards 2013