Tagged: Singapore
Singapore to Bangkok
Some of the high-rise spaces of Singapore
I stay in Singapore another three weeks. Despite being an expensive place and in many ways quite soulless, life is comfortable and peaceful here. You never know what the road is going to throw up and the most unexpected thing to happen on this trip has been coming to Singapore and spending so much time here. The biggest surprise though is that I want to stay longer. I meet up with Vienna almost every day and especially enjoy chilling out with her. Coincidentally I’m in Singapore when a couple of my brother’s mates are here…Mark who happens to be passing through South-East Asia on his way back from Australia, and Diarmuid, who is working here as an anesthetist and we spend a few evenings catching up. Another traveler I meet up with is Stefan, a German who happened to contact me nine months after I met him in a hostel in Armenia and we exchange travel stories, mainly about Iran where he has also traveled. I attempt to find employment in Singapore but to no avail and due to the high cost of living I’m forced to apply for a teaching job in Vietnam (one a friend had told me about). My application is successful and I make plans to leave and travel overland to Bangkok, where I have to take a flight to Saigon because the company has arranged to have my work visa picked up at the airport there (the job is in the nearby coastal city of Vung Tau).
Singaporean students
The good life
By the harbour as a storm approaches
Vienna
I get the bus to Kuala Lumpa once again and although I should be grateful to be starting a job soon, I’m sombre mood that I’m moving on from Singapore. At the Malaysian border, I see the bus driving off onto the motorway in the distance after I pass through security. I am furious at the idiocy of the driver who couldn’t even keep track at the 8 or so passengers on the bus and I quickly go about trying to contact the bus company in an attempt to get my luggage back once I reach Kuala Lumpur. Luckily, I’m told the bus stops in a local town nearby and I hop on a local bus straight there. I see the bus as soon as we arrive and my relief quickly turns to anger as I hunt out the driver. In my confusion I turn on some poor soul who has the misfortune of resembling the driver (he’s even wearing the same colour clothes) – I ask him, “Are you the driver?” and he puts his head down and tries to walk away while saying “I don’t know”. Being the idiot I am I push him and shout, “You drove off without me!”. A Singaporean lady sitting close by sees this and laughing, tells me that he isn’t the driver. The driver has fucked off and his replacement has yet to come. I apologise to the man I shouted at and go upstairs, still fuming but thankful I don’t have to go through the hassle of getting my luggage back. In Kuala Lumpur I return to the same hostel I stayed at when I first arrived in Malaysia and stay in the Chinatown area for a couple of days before getting another bus to the southern Thai city of Hat Yai.
Chinatown, Kuala Lumpur
My four days in Hat Yai are spent mainly in a hotel, as it’s raining most the time and I don’t feel like exploring much. The train journey to Bangkok takes 16 hours and while I’ve a comfortable bed to sleep on and there’s a pleasant restaurant carriage, I’m eager to just get to Bangkok and be on my way to Vietnam. In the evening soon after boarding the train I go the restaurant carriage for a meal and am the only passenger there. The windows are down and as the warm tropical air comes wafting through, Credence Clearwater Revival plays on the stereo. For a little while I remember what it’s like to enjoy traveling and the spirit of adventure to be going somewhere new, but it doesn’t last long. It’s fair to say I’m jaded. I return to the restaurant carriage in the morning and watch the pleasant, green countryside of Thailand pass by and reflect on the times to come in South East Asia. In Bangkok, my time is limited and I don’t venture further than the area my hostel is in. It’s unfortunate I’m in no mood for Thailand but if all goes well with the job in Vietnam, I should be in the region for at least a few months to come and will hopefully have time to properly explore the surrounding countries once my appetite for travel returns.
Rainy Hat Yai, Southern Thailand
Restaurant carriage on the train to Bangkok
View from the train
Side-street, Bangkok
Singapore
It’s been nearly a year since I was in a ‘rich’ country. Coming from Nepal (the poorest country in Asia) to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and then onto Singapore (the 3rd richest country in the world), is like time travelling far into the future. In KL (more on it and Malaysia in the next post), where I spend two nights, the streets are spacious and clean. After Kathmandu, the most noticeable thing is the absence of any vehicle beeping their horn, which is a nice change to every vehicle beeping every few seconds. It’s hard to believe I’m still on the same continent. Those who follow the blog will wonder why I came to this part of South-East Asia, especially Singapore, that bastion of hyper-capitalism. I never thought it’d be a place I’d want to visit but this trip has been a strange, unpredictable one. The reason I came here should be clear enough by the end of the post (and its not the Guinness!).
Singapore, a multicultural English speaking island city-state off the the coast of Malaysia, is one of the most economically ‘developed’ places on the planet. It is hailed as a capitalist success story…a paean to ‘free-trade’, modernisation and progress: a paean which disregards the distinct history, conditions and location of the island. Its population is majority ethnic Chinese with large ethnic Malay and Indian minorities but the main language of its people is English (or rather its fast colloquial Singaporean version, Singlish). After traveling the Indian sub-continent for 6 months, I can’t, despite myself, help appreciating how easy everything is. The transport system runs like clockwork and everything seems spotlessly clean. Amongst endless gleaming shopping malls, the fashionably dressed young and professionals are more often than not engaged in their smartphones and tablets. On nearly every train I travel, I marvel at how everyone (literally everyone within sight) is staring into a handheld gadget of some sort. I was aware of the existence of smartphones when I left London last year – on the tube it wasn’t uncommon to see them but it seems they’ve completely taken over since I left. I’m not going to get into a luddite rant now about technology (I’ll save that for another time), but to witness the majority of a population totally distracted by it, so soon after spending time in an areas that don’t even have electricity, is a bit unnerving. Considering the feel of the place in general, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World comes to mind.
Skyscrapers
Opulent shopping mall
I pass most of my time hanging out with Vienna, a phycology student who’s lived most of her life in Singapore. I met Vienna briefly in Mumbai 4 months ago and we stayed in contact via email since. She’s the perfect antidote to the grey post-modern monotony of the city’s cosmopolitan environment and the reason I’ll be returning. Another reason I’d been looking forward to coming here is that I’d see my parents for the first time in a year. They decided to go on holidays to a place they could meet their rambling son and arrive a week after me, staying for a couple of days before the three of us go to nearby Malaysia for a few weeks. I could criticise Singapore for many things but I count my lucky stars that I didn’t meet Ma and Da in India or Thailand as I had considered. Both of them immediately remark on how clean and relaxed everything is…how easy it is to move around. It’s ideal after a long-haul flight. Locals are also friendly, polite and treat them with respect, especially the older folk. While walking to a hotel from the train station, not long after they arrive, we take a wrong turn in the opposite direction for ten minutes and so decide to get a taxi to the hotel. A air-conditioned private taxi takes us the short distance but the driver refuses payment as, “it’s only a short journey”. I’ve never known this behaviour from a taxi driver and neither have my parents. It’s a pleasant start to their holiday, as they quickly adjust to being in this calm corner of Asia.
Da’n’Ma
Vienna (enjoying Singapore’s national beverage)
Driftin' Eastward 