After spending an extra day lying on the beach in Ko Phangan we embarked on our longest single journey of our trip down to Singapore. At 6 a.m. we were picked up from out bungalow and driven in the back of a pick-up to the port. We then took a boat over to Surat Thani. Several mini-buses later we were down to the border and over into Malaysia. We made it down to Kuala Lumpur in the final mini-bus, I think three in total, and we were on a sleeper bus to take us to the end of the line in Malaysia. We got dropped a few kilometers away from Singapore at a massive bus station and were given tickets for a city bus that would come at 9:00 a.m.; we were dropped off at 8:00 a.m. We took the city bus to the border and tried to rush along with the mad scramble of people through customs. We came out last and realized that people were rushing this time purely to catch the bus which waited for about ten minutes for us; and we missed. We eventually caught the subsequent bus and rode to Singapore; that last part was simply Malaysian departure customs. We went through the same ordeal with the buses again before taking the final massive viaduct into Singapore.
We landed there, 28 hours after we left, with two young British couples that we had spent most of the trip with: Ross and Kirsty and Julian and Mandy. We had heard from Shawn, who had been there only a few weeks before, that the cheapest hostels were in Little India, so we took the very efficient metro over there with the Brits. After a short walk on one of the cramped streets of Little India, which to me seemed like a much cleaner version of what India must be like, we found The Prince of Wales, which had six beds available at $18 each including breakfast. Even though the hostel was one big room, it was partitioned into small eight-bed sections with low walls so that the six of us had our own space for the first few days.
I was looking forward to some real sleep after all the bus rides, especially after 11 hours of freezing cold on the sleeper bus with extreme air conditioning, but some wanted to go tour the city so we headed out. Singapore is a truly ultra-modern city. The skyscrapers are amazing and the city is both clean and efficient. The only thing that I didn’t like was that I had to wear a shirt and sweat all day. We had dinner, or tea as the British call it, at a food court in Chinatown. It was the back home food court Chinese food that we had been looking for all over Asia. I had some ramen noodle soup which was delicious. At about 7:30 it became dark and the city around the marina light up. There are about a dozen light art installations around the marina which are cool, but the buildings themselves are all light up different colours creating an amazing nighttime skyline. After enough browsing we hopped back on the metro and headed back to the hostel in Little India.
The next day we found a restaurant across the street called Apu’s. For $4 we got a massive spread of chicken, potatoes and vegetables, all in different sauces, rice, and a crisp kind of bread for scooping. We found that we were the only people in the restaurant using cutlery not getting our hands covered in sauce. That day we found that the hostel had wicked fast wi-fi, so coupled with us being tired from the past two days we spent all day in bed streaming video on the internet.
The next day Alex and I did the South Ridge Walk; a beautiful walk through raised and non-raised paths through some of the last pieces of forest in Singapore. We started too far north unfortunately though and had to bus to the far edge of Kent Park. We walked through several parks and over several small mountains on the continuous path. The view of Singapore is wicked, and the path itself is gorgeous. On the way home we stopped in Chinatown and found a massive food market just outside the metro stop. We had duck. It was delicious.
The day after we walked along Orchard Avenue, basically the Singapore equivalent of Rodeo Drive, and took in the architecture and early Christmas decorations. On our final full day I walked through Singapore by myself and took in the massive skyscrapers and the downtown core. I loved it. I think it’s what Vancouver is going to look like in the near future. I also ended up walking all the way home for the first time. The three tower building with the boat on top will probably never be popular enough to build in the West though.
On our final day we were flying out to Bali at 9:30. Other than leaving for the airport we left the room one other time to get food in Chinatown. After eating several times at Apu’s we had to stop. The plates were just too filling and would sit in our stomachs like rocks. The Brits had all left for Bali previously and we were looking forward to seeing them again. Ross introduced me to dubstep which is wicked. The dubstep scene in Manchester is massive apparently. He also told me about Project Warehouse, which is a multi-level car park where world-famous dj’s perform, even though the venue only holds a couple thousand people. The Singapore airport is just as big and new as the one in Beijing. It’s like another massive soccer stadium.
Steeves
