Singapore Diaries
In the current times when people have abroad trips literally like going to neighboring cities, we had still not been to any abroad trips so far !! We had decided that we would go on one amazing trip after our wedding, but our official commitments had held us back for a long time now. Singapore had always been my dream destination since childhood.
Once we mutually agreed on a place the actual confusion started how do we travel? Should we go to both Malaysia and Singapore or only Singapore? Do we book our travel through a travel agency or plan ourselves? What all do we need to carry? How do we manage the expenses? how do we get our Visas done? Yes!! A lot of questions kept bombarding us in our heads !
Then started our hunt for travel agencies. We made many phone calls and visited many travel agencies but we were somehow not convinced with the plan and the fare they charged us. So we decided to leave everything behind and plan on our own. Anyways we wouldn't get lost since we had our buddy 'Google' accompanying us at all times.
Most of the people combine the trip to Singapore and the Malaysia so that they can tick off these place from their bucket list. Trust me, this place is amazing and needs atlast 7 days just to explore just the main attractions. There are so many fun theme parks, beaches, zoos, bird park, food and in fact this city has a lot more to offer than these. The length and breadth of this country is well connected not only through buses but also through MRTs.
We explored a lot and came up with a draft plan. We decided we would travel in November. It was the end of July now and we just had 3 months to execute our plan and moreover, we had to manage the expenses too. We decided to start off by booking the flight tickets. Luckily, at the same time Tiger Airways had something to offer us. The Offer - Book your tickets via HDFC credit card to fly to Singapore and Fly back free!! Wow!! With zero delay, we immediately booked off our tickets. Now we had no option to turn back and tell “No, we will change our plans”. In case we did that we would lose a ransome.
We now started focusing on the things to do, places to stay, local attractions, travel cards and lot more. By the end of August we had a draft plan ready and had booked our stay at the Venue Hotel after a lot of research. We booked the hotel for 6 days. The rooms did not have windows but actually it did not matter.
There were lot many hotels available for lesser cost but since we were travelling abroad for the first time, we did not want to have a awful experience. Now our flights were booked and the stay was also arranged, we need to explore the places to visit. After a lot of researching, we decided on all the tourist attractions we would be visiting.
In the next month we booked off the tickets for all these. We went for the combo prices. It helped us save a lot. Approximately 100 SGD per person would cover River Safari, Singapore Zoo, Night Safari & Jurong Bird park. Now that is what I call a Steal Deal ! The Universal Studios and the Sea Aquarium tickets were way cheaper when booked online than purchased on site.
By October, we had booked off all our major expenses. So what remained was our travel card. We bought a travel card and loaded it with some money which would be using it for our daily expenses like food, beverages & shopping.
We were all set to travel by the first week of November.