singapore 3rd - 6th December

By 5:30pm I had passed through Singapore immigration, re-boarded the bus and had crossed the causeway that linked to Malaysia en route to the bus drop off which I hoped would not be too far from my accommodation for the evening. I had splashed out a little extra for the last couple of days before my flight, booking a private twin room in the YMCA that was located at 1 Orchard Road. The house that I had previously part owned and lived in Bristol before things had gone to a bit to tits was located in a small cul-de-sac called The Orchards, so it seemed like an apt place for this part of the journey to  come to an end. The privacy and room would allow me to have a final good sort out, discard anything that was worn out or no longer needed and just relax a bit before the 15 hours worth of flights that would be taking me to New Zealand via China in thr coming days.

The "bus station" where I disembarked was just a normal roadside bus stop in the the Little India district of the city. I switched on my phone, loaded up my Mapswithme application and waited for the GPS to lock on and display my position so I could see exactly where I was and work out my proximity and route to my destination that I had "pinned" onto the map when booking my stay from Melaka. Luckily it was well within walking distance so I mounted up, secured my straps and headed off on the 25 minutes walk through the traffic filled streets, stopping just the once en-route to grab a subway to keep me going. No one crosses a road in Singapore until the green man signals, even if the road is completely clear. Quite a contrast compared to the rest of the locations I have visited so far, where any traffic signals have been largely ignored by road traffic and pedestrians alike. Like all the other places I had visited though, I followed the lead of the locals.

The YMCA was a clean and tidy hotel, with just the odd bit of Christian paraphernalia dotted around to make me feel a little uneasy in my surroundings due to being non religious. The bigger disappointment lay in that despite everything I had been told in the past was a lie. No motorcycle cops, Red Indians, workmen, cowboys or leather clad bikers seemed to be staying here. Hell, no one apart from the odd passing female were even sporting moustaches so I hurried off to my room, cleaned up and removed the 0.1 mm worth of facial hair that had taken me 2 months to cultivate. That night my face stuck to the pillow like Velcro.      

In the morning I ripped the pillow back off my face and tried to decide what I was going to do with my day in Singapore. There is no shortage of ways to while the hours there, but I thought I would spend my time checking out the museums that were dotted around the city. A ticket covering entrance to 5 of the museums cost $10, worth the price of admission for the aircon alone and I was happy enough spending the rest of the day wandering the venues, learning about the culture and talking "art" to the friendly staff who were eager to come over and chat to anyone who was showing interest to further understanding the meaning behind the   displays.

A boat full of bottles with messages inside them was a piece where the artist had gone to one of the jails and asked the prisoners to write down a promise to themselves. What they hoped for in the future, what they wanted to do and what was important to them. Visitors were then invited to reply back to any of the messages that appealed to them, hoping this would inspire the prisoners and keep to the promise they had made. Another at first glance looked just looked like simple wooden boards with insets of small class beads. When you got closer to each glass though it became apparent that each bead contained a picture. This was the artist trying to say that humility (bowing) is important for you to be able to see a full picture.

The mix of abstract, modern and traditional exhibits throughout the museums were wide and varied and dutifully covered off a diverse range of subjects such as the Asian film industry, the changing fashions and attitudes through the 1900's, photography, wildlife, food and the heritage of the Peranakan's, a name which describes a native born person of both mixed local and foreign ancestry. All in all it was a very cool, educational and enjoyable day and as I left the last museum in the early evening my thoughts were on what to have for dinner and how I was going to humour myself for the rest of the night. Bungee jump perhaps?

Back at the hotel I dug out my paperwork that contained the flight details for the next day and logged onto the website to check everything was still scheduled according to plan. It's amazing sometimes how many times you can re-read the same word thinking that maybe you've read it wrong, or hoping it changes on a page refresh, "Cancelled" for a brief period seemed to be a word I was unable to comprehend or put into any context. I dug around for more information on the agency and airline websites and finally found that the flight had been moved from from 16:50 on the 5th to 08:00 on the 6th. A quick check at reception clarified that there was no room at the YMCA the following evening so I was going to have to find another place to crash for tomorrow evening to take me through to the morning of the 6th. By 5:30am I had managed to settle,  book a room I was happy with and had time to crash out for a few hours before breakfast.

Just before mid day with old clothes, rubbish and broken Bluetooth keyboard cluttering the bin and cowboy hat, spurs and moustache not left on the bed, I checked out, hauled my bag onto my bag for the final time and made my way to the new hostel which lay a ten minute walk away. By now the temperature had hit 30 Celsius and it was around 96% humidity so after dumping my bag I sought out the cool air of the coffee shops and shopping malls between wandering around some of the other sights of Singapore, walking a stretch of the f1 circuit that runs through the city. A slight word of warning to those who don't yet know, the large coffee that is served in the many Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf outlets around the globe is served in a mug which I'm pretty sure is around a pint.

By the end of the day I was pretty wired and spent a bit of time back at the hostel arranging my bag ready for the 5am departure the next day. Everything that was no longer needed was packed away ready for the trip, clothes for the following day were placed separately next to the bag along with my towel and toiletries for a shower in the morning. I then went downstairs, talked to a few other travellers both beginning or ending their travells and drank some more coffee. At around 11pm I took the decision to go without sleep for the rest of the night. I justified this with the following reasoning;

Whenever I have a few hours sleep I always wake up feeling absolutely rotten.
The amount of time I would be spending on a plane in the coming days it would probably benefit me being knackered.

and

once I get a stupid idea in my head, its often hard to shift the bugger.

As I nudged forward into the 6th December I put the kettle ready for another dose of 3 in 1 instant coffee and plugged in my phone in order to have something to keep my mind occupied with music, movies and messages for the next few hours. Time never goes at normal speed when your sat there watching and wanting the time to pass quickly.

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