Singapore to Malaysia

For the umpteenth time I have confirmed I am a travel masochist. I was walking along the sidewalk the other day and the ground below me gave out. The stones below me actually crumbled leaving me falling about a metre deep, having to climb out with my pack on, the edges of the sidewalk taking some Canadian chunks of flesh as souvenirs. I began thinking 'holy crap Malaysian sidewalks aren't the safest' which quickly morphed into 'holy crap I'm in Malaysia?' 

My last day in Singapore had been a long but good day with the blisters to prove it. From 9am to 10pm I was wandering around the city visiting the sights starting with the expansive Botanical Gardens. JP had mentioned that 40% of Singapore was forests, a fact which is hard to believe considering how small and densely populated it is, but after spending hours through the giant and beautiful Botanical gardens and seeing it wasn't even one of the biggest parks I'll definitely trust him on that statistic. My sightseeing also included visiting the Jurong Bird Park. I'm not normally a bird person but it was pretty cool to see all the different birds there. That said, my time spent as Bismallah Biryani was ten times more enjoyable. JP and his friend Varun recommended it as the best biryani in Singapore, located in Little India and while it was the only one I tried there, I'll agree. The mutton biryani was so delicious that you didn't even notice that the surroundings were not the usual immaculate Singaporean surroundings.

Back at the giant Marina Bay Sands I decided to take a friends advice and I went to the bar Ce La Vie to have the most expensive drink of my life. The view however was fantastic and the drink was delicious, plus it'd feel wrong leaving the country without having a singapore sling. The $29 I spent on one drink may seem ridiculous (and it is) the more ridiculous thing was the people paying $25 to enter the observation deck next to the bar and that does NOT include a drink. After the drink I returned to gardens by the bay and saw the light show put on in the super tree Grove.

After Singapore I entered Malaysia arriving in Mersing and taking the ferry to the Tioman Islands. For 25 rm a night ($8) I found myself at SPBC in an empty dorm room in a bungalow along the beach. I spent hours walking around still mildly in shock that I was in a tropical paradise in a remote Malaysian Island. I'm also in shock at how many people are studying these big books. Clearly proof that everyone on the island (except frugal me) is here for diving or lessons.


Things I've done: most expensive drink ever, walked endless hours in singapore, had Indian food in little India (at a place highly recommended by two Indian friends), sipped a Singapore sling at the top of the Marine Bay Sands hotel, fell though a sidewalk, had te tarik , entered a country through a border crossing (U.S. doesn't count)

Lesson learned: If you are travelling to a Muslim country know when Ramadan is and if you are there when it happens carry a lot of snacks or you may find yourself stranded food less until restaurants open at 7pm.

Couchsurfing in Singapore

Am I in Asia?

I arrived in Singapore on Saturday and it is an incredibly unique city/country and dramatically different from the Philippines. People are saying that Singapore is overtaking Hong Kong as the 'capital of asia' and from what I've seen so far I'm tempted to believe it. It has the multiculturalness of Vancouver, the big city metropolitan feel of New York and regulations/strictness/cleanliness that you might find in Sweden. I've gone from jeepneys to first class metro systems.

Since arriving I've learned a lot about what NOT to do in Singapore. There is a myriad of things you can be fined for, ones that come to mind are:

• no smoking in public spaces (fine by me)
• no eating or drinking in public (not carrying around a water bottle at all times has me feeling like a heroin junkie always waiting for my next "hit" of water)
• No chewing gum
• no feeding birds
• no jaywalking (since I am terrible at jaywalking I finally have a legal excuse to not do it)
• Not flushing the toilet (also fine by me)

And drumroll for my favourite rule...

• no durian in public places, there was no fine attached to this rule so I like to think the penalty is going straight to jail for eating something that smells like rotten garbage in a public space

Rules in Singapore transit systems

In Singapore it seemed that since it is the most expensive city in the world that I should be couchsurfing if I wanted to avoid losing my entire budget so when I arrived I headed for JP's place to have a second go at couchsurfing. That night I learned that while people I'm Singapore observe a ton of rules, they also play hard too. At Chaos nightclub I got my first glance at a Bollywood style nightclub and I was both entranced with the high energy, incredibly fun music and at how everyone could DANCE. At one part I noticed that there was someone else with my mediocre dance abilities since we had the same dance moves  it was the one white boy in the club. I guess it's time to come clean. I have white boy dance moves. So good finally come clean. When the club closed at 3am the crowd moved to Moshi Moshi where it had similar music but professional dancers too. I'd gone from handpicked lemongrass tea on a farm to bottle service in Singapore, and for the umpteenth time I wondered if this was actually my life.

I explored Singapore solo the next day and discovered their architecture near the bay area is also very impressive - honestly I should not be surprised anymore at finding that Singapore is crushing it as a country. After wandering around for the day I met up with JP and his friend Varun and we headed to the open air food market with hundreds of different food options and insanely good satay where the smoke from their stalls rising above a pink sky as we were sitting next to the Singapore Stock Exchange was a somewhat surreal and entirely delicious experience. After enjoying satay and Tiger beer I got to try stingray for the first time and if it always tastes like that it won't be the last time. Hanging or with JP and his friends has definitely been one of the highlights of Singapore. The only downside so far has been that hanging out with them has added another 100 places to my list of places to visit (mostly within India) and even on a full belly had me drooling at the prospect of all the Indian food.

The Merlion in front of Marina Bay Sands

Okay a place with worse alcohol prices than Canada has been found

Stingray!

What I've learned: for the love of God don't break the rules in Singapore. They even have apps for people to send photos of people breaking rules like drinking water on a bus so they can be found and fined

Things I can check off 'the list': Tried stingray, partied it up Bollywood style, seen a folder  oreo cake that costs $110 for a small one, had Tiger beer in Singapore