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From Kuala Lumpur, our plan had been to catch an overnight comfortable sleeper train to Singapore, leaving at a reasonable time in the evening and arriving at a respectable time in the morning, having had a good nights sleep with little interference at the border... However, the train was fully booked and we had to explore the alternatives. Doing the journey by bus was fairly cheap, and several different buses left KL to arrive in Singapore around 6am. One quirk of Malaysian bus travel is that there seems to be a law banning toilets on board - so no matter how high up the luxury scale you choose to pay for, you may still end up crossing your legs for a while. Partly as a result of this, our overnight bus to Singapore did not leave us quite as refreshed as the train might have; we had a pleasant evening dining on our favourite street, and boarded the bus at midnight, the lights went on and we stopped just over two hours later for a comfort break. A couple of hours later we all had to get off to pass through Malaysian passport control, followed promptly by another disembarkation, this time with all our bags, for Singapore immigration. Heather had just fallen sound asleep and Drew had to shake her awake as we arrived at the bus station in the centre of Singapore just as the sun was about to come up.

We forgot to mention in the last post that when we got off the bus in KL we walked to the taxi rank to find a group of taxi drivers swigging cans of beer. After some hard bargaining (we walked away and one of them called to us to accept our lowest offer) we paid 10 ringgits (£2) to be driven round the corner. As we arrived in Singapore, there was a refreshing lack of touts hassling us. It was still dark, and we had to walk for a while with backpacks on before we really got our bearings. We had booked into a hostel which was in a good location, and reasonably priced (we could have blown our budget to smithereens quite easily in Singapore) and on the map it looked like a short stroll from where the bus dropped us. It wasn't a very long way, but even in the early morning cool we arrived at the hostel sweaty and were very grateful (and perhaps a little embarrassed) when they suggested we could have a shower in the shared bathrooms hours before we could check in.

It was still before 8am and our enthusiasm for exploring the city was limited but we had little choice as our room would not be ready until 1pm. We headed for the quay district thinking that we would be able to get a coffee and some breakfast beside the river which would give us the boost we needed. However, as we came out of the metro station into the district in the centre of the city, we found a ghost town and it soon became apparent that nothing opened until 11am... apart from Starbucks and Burger King. Despite our valiant efforts to find something else (including asking a local boy scout!), we ended up breakfasting in Seattle's finest. It was a measure of our tiredness that even after a good strong coffee, we both found ourselves dozing off in the comfy green seats.

Our preconceptions of Singapore led us to expect strict rules, severely enforced. Crossing the street before the green man even when the roads were empty first thing in the morning made us very nervous. We were relieved that we attracted very little attention as we snoozed for a couple of hours on a park bench in the nearby Fort Canning. Compared to other places that we have visited in Asia, litter was certainly conspicuous by its absence. There wasn't an oppressive atmosphere anywhere we went though. On our first evening, we were a little taken aback by the price of a beer at the river-front bars (£7.50 per pint) but it looked like budget conscious travellers and locals alike were enjoying the same view with their own drinks on a nearby stretch of the riverbank, so we joined in.

Like in Penang and Kuala Lumpur before, it was interesting to see the mix of Chinese and Indian influence (along with all the colonial legacy). Little India provided us with another delicious lunch of dosa and uttapan which we had grown fond of in Kolkata (although they are actually South Indian dishes). Our hostel was ideally located from this point of view; on our first night, we sat outside enjoying a beer and were treated to a Chinese celebration at a temple a few doors down involving two fighting dragons (they are essentially the same but so much cooler than a pantomime horse!). The next night, we arrived back from town at our underground station to find a big Hindu festival underway, with hundreds of men picnicing in the park and brightly lit carriage processions along the street.

Outside of the city centre sights, we also visited the Changi prison museum. We are currently (re)reading James Clavell's books and it was fascinating to see many of the original documents and artwork from this grim episode in history. The museum does a good job of celebrating the camaraderie, resourcefulness and triumphs over adversity of the prisoners. Lighter entertainment was provided by the excellent Singapore botanical gardens. We were in Singapore over the weekend, and it was nice to see all the families enjoying a day out in what is a beautiful, well managed expanse of precious green land so close to the urban jungle.

Another tiny aside is that electrical plug points in Malaysia and Singapore are 3-pronged like those in the UK. This has actually meant we've had to use adaptors for one or two new acquisitions, but most of our devices will plug straight into the wall for the first time. This must be a result of colonial legacy.

Our next port of call was Ho Chi Minh City (still known as Saigon to many people). The flight over here seemed to us to be over in the blink of an eye. The currency in Vietnam is the Dong, and to make any sense of this you have to drop the last three 0's. Withdrawing £100 from the ATM makes you a multimillionaire!

It is quite remarkable that this is the first country we have visited (barring our quick trip to Cambodia) where people drive on the right. However, the first thing that you notice about the roads here is the profusion of motorbikes. It is a little like watching a wildlife programme where every square foot of space is instantly filled by another rider dodging in and out of the traffic. There are bars and cafes who have built their whole business on their prime location to watch the method in this madness. Even in the narrow lanes, there are valet parking attendants who manoeuvre parked motorbikes in and out of tightly packed clusters.

In KL beer was a little expensive compared to what we'd got used to. In Singapore there were places you could get a couple of beers relatively cheaply, but it could be very expensive to go out. It was a relief to arrive in HCMC and have a delicious dinner with a couple of beers for only a few dollars. Having stayed in a few fairly basic backpacker places in the last few stops, we're now in a lovely hotel room in Saigon with a balcony opposite a temple - relative luxury for the moment.

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