Ailsa and Andy’s Travels: Day 34 The Cloud Forest

Today we ventured down to the waterside again and visited the Gardens by the Bay, in particular the Cloud Forest and Flower Dome whilst Dougal and Chloe opted for an attraction called Disney Floral Fantasy!

It was a very easy journey, just a two minute walk from our hotel to the tube and then 4 stops to arrive at the Gardens. The Cloud Forest is an enormous cooled conservatory featuring one of the world's tallest indoor waterfalls and a diverse collection of exotic plants which grow on the indoor mountain! There are suspended aerial walkways which allow you to walk high up amongst the plants and get a unique view.

Upon entering the huge glass building, it was instantly a fabulous place to be as it was much cooler than the 30degrees outside! The first thing that greets you is the enormous indoor waterfall which really is quite something that stands at around 35m (115feet) tall. We then entered a lift which takes you up the inside of the mountain and you then meander along the aerial walkways which take you slowly back down the mountain side as they wrap around the plants. It really was beautiful and we saw some spectacular plants and trees.

Next on the list of things to do today, was visit the second huge glasshouse which was next door to the Cloud Forest….this was called the Flower Dome. The Flower Dome is a 1.2 hectare cooled conservatory that holds the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest glass greenhouse space! It’s made of 3,332 glass panels which cover 16,000 square meters of surface area. There were all sorts of different and unusual plants on display from round the world. We loved the cacti and Baobab trees, the biggest of which weighed 32 tonnes and had come all the way from Senegal (how they fitted that on a plane or ship I have no idea!).

When we left the Flower Dome, the heavens opened and let me tell you, when it rains in Singapore, it really rains! After dodging the downpours we headed home and had a catch up with Dougal and Chloe who had been out exploring, doing a spot of shopping and visiting an Ice Cream Museum, which sounded fabulous!

Everyone was a bit pooped today so we had a lovely Chinese meal in Yellow Pot, the hotel restaurant. There was much hilarity as our waitress was very entertaining with her assumptions and questions about Dougal and Chloe. All the staff here have been so lovely, we’ll be sad to say goodbye to them.

The evening was finished with a dominoes rematch between the 4 of us, I can’t remember who won..so it obviously wasn’t me!