Singapore
August 7, 2008I just remembered that I forget to spell check my post about Cambodia. I say this because I wrote it in the taxi on the way from Siem Reap back to the Thai border. Since the road was completely unpaved, I made numerous spelling errors because of my fingers accidentally hitting the keys on bumps. I was going to go back and edit it when I got to Thailand, but that didn’t happen. So that is why there are lots of bad spelling errors. Anyway…
Singapore is by far the cleanest city I’ve ever been to. This was a complete change from the places I’ve been for the past 6 weeks…the dirt streets of Cambodia and the aged urban metropolis of Bangkok. It felt like I was back in America, it could have easily been some city in California or Florida. Besides the cleanliness, there was a huge mix of cultures, every sign was posted in at least 4 languages: Chinese, English, Malay, and Philipino. The population seemed to be mostly half Chinese and half Indian. I wasn’t really sure what to expect going there and was surprised to see so many Indians living in Singapore.
We first arrived on Saturday afternoon and took the metro from the airport to our hostel. We stayed at the Welcome Inn. It was $25/night for an AC dorm room, bathroom with sinks, toilets and showers. It also had free internet access and WiFi as well as a lounge area with a nice big flat screen tv and couches and bean bags. Breakfast was included….but it was actually just free bread with jam and coffee…Not much of a breakfast so I ended up eating 10 pieces of bread for breakfast, to get my money’s worth. Also to fill me up for 5 minutes.
Walking around the city at night was really nice. It was a clean, futuristic, modern, urban sprawl with nice buildings everywhere. I really felt safe, compared to when we were walking around at night in Bangkok or Cambodia. Not that I felt that I might get jumped at any moment in those places, but Singapore has this really safe feeling to it, which might be due to the penalties of all of the crimes. As we walk into immigration at the airport there is a big sign that says “Death penalty for all drug trafficers.” Then when you ride on the metro, there are postings that prohibit drinking and eating on the trains and station premises. If you eat or drink on the train it is a $500 fine. Carrying explosive materials or liquids on the train is $5000 fine. Smoking at the station or in the train is $1000 fine. There was also a “No Durians” posting which we thought was hilarious. As you can get the idea, people don’t really want to break the rules, especially when there are security cameras EVERYWHERE so big brother can watch. This is why I felt safe in Singapore, there was a big incentive to not break any rules and it seems to be encouraged from a very young age. There was a sign I saw a few times that says “Low crime doesn’t mean no crime,” which made me assume Singapore has a pretty low crime rate.
Overall I had mixed feelings about Singapore. It was really expensive compared to my standards of the past 6 weeks of living in Thailand and going to Cambodia where I can get a meal for $1 and a room for one night for $4. The food is all about $4-$8 and same portions as Thailand. Plus, there wasn’t a lot to do…on a backpacker’s budget. Nor was there much cultural stuff to see, like there was in Thailand/Cambodia. We saw the Merlion…a big half lion half fish statue…we saw Fort Siloso (which was kind of corny, not as call as I thought it would be for a famous WWII spot)…We walked around the city some, Chinatown, Little India…but overall it wasn’t that great. There is a bustling night life here, which would be fun to partake in if you traveled there with a bunch of friends. There is this club area called Central C in Clarke Quay district. There was this cool bar called C Clinic where they served the drinks in hospital bags and they had an IV hose coming down and you would drink out of it through the IV hose while sitting in a wheelchair. I’m sure it was expensive, but it was a really unique idea and pretty cool.
So that is about it, not a lot in Singapore to report on. We only stayed Saturday afternoon thru Monday Afternoon. It was enough for me, paying $50 for a room for 2 days. Blah. I’m on the plane flying to Bangalore, India right now, so when I manage to update this, I will be in India, the last leg of my adventure.
**Update: I’m actually in Bombay now. Took a while to get internet access. Bangalore was boring and not very scenic. We spent most of our day at the Air India office booking our return tickets. I am flying from Calcutta back to Bangkok on the 21st for only $112. The funniest stuff we saw in Bangalore were cows pulling flatbeds in the middle of traffic and people peeing on the sidewalk out in the open in the middle of the day. That pretty much sums up our time in Bangalore. We took a 24hr train ride from Bangalore to Bombay and arrived last night. The train was fun and sleeping on it was cool as well. Not something you get to do in America, especially for the price. Sleeper class ticket is only about $10 for a 24hr ride. Now we are staying at our friend’s house from Denison, Shikha. I am finally getting to eat lots of good food. Since we have both been budgeting, our food consumption has been pretty low but Shikha’s mom loves to cook and feed guests so I am no longer supressing my appetite to say the least!