Cable Ties and Cough Medicine

For most of our stay in Singapore we were based at One Farrer Hotel, located in Little India and I can highly recommend it.  The bed was large enough to accommodate a modest family of four.  Everything usually hand operated had a button to control it including blackout blinds and curtains. The Smart TV also had this functionality and we could have shopped and had the goods delivered to our room if we so wished.  There were even his and hers irons!  Chief just looked at me and quite rightly pointed out “what’s the point of two irons when there’s only one ironing board?”  He has an answer for everything that one!

It was just as well that the bed was comfy as I’ve spent quite a lot of the last few days in it.  I’ve been sick and knew I was going down with something before I had even finished work last week – typical!  I haven’t had a day off sick since I’ve been in Brisbane so of course I had to go down with something for our first holiday in ages instead.  Shivers, high temperature serious headache and a fairly decent cough thrown in too.

Huge bed at One Farrer

Some of the bathroom

I decided that I should perhaps find cough medicine.  Chief remembered seeing a pharmacy on his lonesome travels, located not too far from our hotel so we set off on our quest to find cough medicine.  The place Chief had seen was just closing and we were ushered across the road to what can only be described as a chemist department store; it was huge!  The pharmacy was right down the back corner and after a brief consult, some sign language and Singlish, I had cough mixture and painkillers in hand.

It appeared that all paying customers were served by just the one cash register so we dutifully joined the back of the queue, which, by now was half way down the isle of electric blankets and thermal feet warmers.  We thought this to be odd items to be selling as Singapore is virtually on the equator and the same temperature all year round – hot.  The queue was moving slower than we wanted it to be.  Most customers had a couple of items each – shampoo, toothpaste, nappies, tissues but the cashier had to bag all items and then cable tie them plus handle the payment – it was so painful to watch.  And then to our horror, three customers in front of us was someone with a trolley of groceries – but hang on a minute, this is a chemist shop!  Where the hell did he find that lot?  Surely he’d be turned away, we could be here all night at this rate.  Chief was becoming agitated and I was breaking out in a feverish sweat.  I was so glad that it was taking ages for the guy with the groceries – he had frozen peas and ice-cream and no esky (cooler bag).  By the time he transported those cable tied bags to wherever, it would be a defrosted mess and that would serve him right for holding us all up.  Joy!  It was our turn.  Chief was ready with the cash and we were good to go!

Fast forward five days and I’m beginning to feel slightly better – at least I can dose myself up enough to go out in the evenings before returning to cough all night long in the air-conditioning – marvellous!