2/3 - Back In S'pore

Let it be known that the abbreviation "S'pore" is not my invention. They often refer to it here that way on road signs and postcards and I'm merely borrowing it, so as not to have the full "Singapore" appear in too many entry titles.

Anyway, we're back in this splendid city for one last night before the flight to Bangkok tomorrow. I like to think of the Thailand/Laos portion as Part II of the trip, with this currently being the conclusion of Part I. So, for those of you that were craving a little organization, there it is.

We decided to do the daytime local bus to Tapah/"Super VIP" bus to Singapore all in one go. The Singapore bus was supposed to take seven hours and it took something like nine, but that sort of thing I'm used to at this point. The bus was very comfortable. They seem to have a number of buses in this region that are configured with one seat on one side and two seats on the other, seating about 25 in total. This means lots of legroom, legrests, etc. Like business class on a bus. It cost us about US$11 for the ride down. We were on one of these types of buses on the way up to Kuala Lumpur, but this time the bus was much newer, with an engine that could support acceleration on inclines, and decent shocks. Not to mention that despite lots of legroom on the first Super VIP bus, the seats didn't recline. Seemed an odd oversight. The designers of the latest bus cabin had thought of the recline feature. The only drawback here was that instead of having a non-working bathroom in the back with the door locked (as has been the case on all other buses), this bus just didn't even bother installing one at all. So we had to rely on the whims of the driver and time ourselves accordingly, being careful about water-consumption amounts all the while.

And the local bus down the mountain to Tapah--it was a bit of a rattler, as we were warned, but it wasn't too bad. Waking up that morning I had envisioned the brakes failing at a critically steep point (such is the way my mind works at times) but that never happened, and even though it seemed from the sounds the thing made that there was a fairly good chance that something would break, it was an uneventful ride down. Fairly interesting was watching the people who got on the bus at various points midway down the mountain, emerging out of the forest to flag it down. They looked decidedly different from the Malaysians you see in towns and cities, their faces somehow more dramatic and weathered.

Now, a few words about Singapore, because I haven't so far covered it much. It's a very wealthy city, especially compared with its neighbors in the region. You can pretty easily forget where you are when you walk around the center of Singapore. Most will disparage the place for being overly sanitized, and I have done so myself in fact. It's true that the place has an overly controlling government (banning gum chewing, for instance) which has tried to sweep as much chaos under the rug as possible. At times it feels that the Singaporean authorities would like very much to turn the entire city-nation into one big Disney park. Posters all over town display instructions on how to spit into tissues instead of the ground, signs in public toilets depict how not to miss the urinal, etc.

The result of this approach, of course, is a convenient and efficient, heavily modernized, orderly, and comfortable place, with air-conditioning everywhere and speeding, on-time public transport. And as much as that has come at the price of the sort of character that less efficient cities tend to have, this in effect becomes its own sort of character, and is just as fascinating to witness in action as the utterly chaotic cities elsewhere in the region.

Meanwhile, Singapore has plenty of neighborhoods, such as Little India, where we're staying, that are nothing like that sanitized veneer that central Singapore has. Walk into this area and it feels like you're in India, with Bollywood hits blasting out of shop windows, people wandering around in the road (though without the cows, sadly) and vegetables and fruits spilling out onto the street.

Then there's the fact that Singapore has some of the best trees of any city I've ever been to. In fact, I think it takes the top spot. Massive, tropical-looking trees lining the streets, palm trees covering parks, etc., all make for a very green city with lots of shade, which is crucial when the sun is out, and which is oddly lacking in most other cities around here. I suppose it has to do with time and money, which Singapore has and other cities don't. But in any case, the overall effect is a very pleasant and relaxing place to spend time.

Finally, this place we're staying in, which is called The Inn Crowd, is a great little hostel that I discovered when I came here for the first time last August for a few days. It's dorm-style accommodation, so it means sleeping in a big room with a bunch of other people and using a big communal bathroom, but the place is so nicely designed and kept so clean that it's much more pleasant to stay in than most of the hotels we've been in. It's painted in orange, blue, purple, and red, which sounds garish but actually has a really nice effect. All the furniture is modern and simple, and there are windows and even skylights in the dorm area. The only unfortunate aspect is that some members of the staff have this odd attitude towards the people staying here, as if they expect us to be typical backpackers, and therefore be irritating and careless, and so even before we walk in the door they have decided to be vaguely irritated at us during all of our interactions. I suppose the return for them is a feeling of superiority over the mindless backpacker. Well, perhaps I should direct them all to read my blog, for then they would see that I am not mindless, but a genius, clearly, and would surely repent and sign the place over to me to run as I see fit, for I am clearly the Seer of the True and Good Path and Eternal Enlightenment will only come through Me....

Speak to you next from Bangkok, then.