Saturday, May 07, 2016

Singapore Southern Islands Trip

After years of talking about going to Lazarus Island, cousin and I finally made it there today!

I came up with a list of things we need to bring aka packing list:

1
Casual bag
9
Tissue paper
2
Bottles of water
10
Wet wipes
3
Umbrella
11
Food, chips, snacks and apples
4
Hat
12
Book
5
Sunglasses
13
Sunblock lotion
6
Mosquito patches
14
Waterproof bag
7
Picnic mat
15
Plastic bags for rubbish
8
Towel



And an itinerary to follow so that we don't get stranded on the island:

645 am
Rise and shine. Prepare breakfast and pack lunch.
730 am
Leave house and walk to MRT. Take MRT to Marina South Pier station and take Exit B, 600m or a 10 min walk to the pier.
830 am
Reach pier and buy tickets $18 from Singapore Island Cruise ticket booth.
9 am
Take ferry to St. John Island. Reach at 930am.
Take pictures around the island.
From the jetty, take a left turn to Lazarus Island. Follow the tarmac path and walk through the palm trees to the beach.
1030 am
Sea and sand time! Picnic!
1245 am
Take ferry to Kusu Island
1 pm
Visit Tua Pek Kong temple where it houses Da Bo Gong and Guan Yin.
Visit the Tortoise Sanctuary that houses hundreds of tortoises.
Walk along the beach.
230 pm
Take ferry back to mainland.

We were there on a Saturday, so make sure you check out the ferry timings for that day! 

The day started heating up food we prepared the night earlier - chicken wings, luncheon meat, bread, fruits, hard boiled egg, tuna and chips.


Make sure to check the destination of the MRT to Marina South Pier. We wasted twenty minutes cos of boarding the wrong MRT and alighting on the right one. -_- 


Upon reaching, we made a dash to buy our tickets and ran towards our ferry! We almost couldn't make it for the 9 am ferry!


Thirty minutes later, we reached St. John Island. We were greeted by the ever sunny hot sun and put on our caps, sunglasses and cousin whipped out her umbrella. Scorching hot!!! However, the sky was blue and the island was very serene! Such peace!



The water was clean and clear. After taking some OOTD, we proceeded to Lazarus Island which we had to walk westwards. We came to this long "bridge" that links St. John Island to Lazarus Island. There were some people fishing and under the hot sun, the journey seemed long.


After about fifteen minutes of walking, we finally reached the beach we wanted to go.



There were also two private yatch anchored and we saw young ang mohs having fun in the clear waters. We found a shady area to lay our picnic mats for food. We were already hungry! Hot and killing ants that kept crawling up and biting my legs. 


It was so so so hot that we left the beach after eating and walked back to the jetty. We decided to go back to Marina South Pier and all we wanted was icy cold drinks. We took the 1245 pm ferry out and the ferry would stop at Kusu Island and not leave till its next departure at 230 pm! Luckily, there were drinks on sale and we had no choice but to buy a few as we already finished all the water we brought.

Since we had to wait for the ferry, we might as well walk around the island.



The island was small but clean. Finally it was 230 pm and the ferry took us back to main land. We were so exhausted we fell asleep during the twenty minute ride. 


This is the ferry we took. We were glad to be back and headed for air-con places and looked for cold food immediately. Will we revisit the islands? Probably not in a long long time. We can't forget the heat!! Haha!!

We saw provision shops selling all sort of foods, even pre-packed food that one can buy to the islands. There were also necessities such as sunblock and caps. If one has forgotten anything, no worries at all to get it at the jetty. Just make sure you don't reach at the last minute!