Singapore

So it was a wonderful reunion last night at the airport. I picked Sarah up, we hopped in a cab and returned to the hostel that I had scouted out earlier. Not the most upscale place by any means, but it did the job. We would only be there that night. The next day was our only day in Singapore, so we tried to make the most of what little time we had. First on the list was picking up the train tickets from the train station, a short walk from the MRT stop. The clerk at the hostel had recommended getting a cab, but I thought that was nonsense. After a thirty-minute walk, the ticket had been purchased at an old style train station. It was run by KLM, the Malaysian train company. It featured old, grungy-looking food vendors, and made you pay for the bathroom. The important thing now was our first mission for the day had been accomplished.

We didn’t have much of a plan for the remainder of the day in Sinagpore. After all, what is the country known for? It seemed like an Asian mixing pot, with people of all different lineages walking around. I had an Eyewitness Travel guide that gave a few tips. There were a couple of neat looking temples that we were keen on going to. But the Harbourfront was closer so we made our way there first. There, the next option was to choose between Sentosa, an island just south of Singapore, or Mount Ferrar, which was more like a hill by the time we got up there. It offered a decent view of the city, which was a cluster of skyscrapers off towards the northeast. However, it wasn’t much more than that, and we didn’t last very long at the top.

Once we had descended the mountain on the cable car, it was time for Chinatown. Visiting Chinatown in any place can become a repetitive experience, or it can provide a new glimpse at Chinese culture in some random part of the world. In this case, it was simply reminiscent of most other Chinatowns that I’ve seen (predominantly Sydney’s). We quickly stopped at a temple, whose name escapes me, plus a large shopping complex that had Asian-centric stores. Nothing too special. It was bloody hot outside as well.

Then we went to Little India. I wanted to have some Indian food, but we decided to look for the Sultan Mosque, an interesting looking mosque that was perhaps a 1.5 kilometer walk from the Little India MRT station. We arrived and saw that it was closed, after briefly getting turned around, unable to find the right street to go on. Once we made it, we decided that we were tired and went to the train station for our trip to Malaysia. The MRT took us to our hostel, where we had left our luggage, grabbed our belongings, hopped back onto the MRT and found a cab driver to take us down. We were an hour early, and had some chicken curry at the run down food court, which looked more like a bunch of street vendors. The station was out of place in the modern city like Singapore. We hung out and chatted up with two Canadians who had spent a good deal of time in Kuala Lumpur – the city where we would wake up. They passed along some useful traveller tips, like what to see or do in just a day, seeing as though we were only passing through.

After a decent wait in the non-air conditioned station, people started to line up in preparation for boarding. It was an interesting array of people getting ready to board the train. A few white people here and there, but the vast majority were of a darker complexion – most Malaysians are like that, I would learn. We passed through the border security with no problems and took a long walk to the end of the platform to find out train. I had decided to book first class, wanting to risk nothing in terms of how shoddy the Malaysian train system was. Turns out it wasn’t that bad, and we bordered our sleeper car despite orders not to. After a five minute spell of unpacking and getting sorted in our tiny bunk-bed room (complete with bathroom) and relaxed. Unfortunately, this was about the time when the lights went off, along with the air conditioning. Thinking rather quickly and unsure of what to do, we jumped off the train, leaving all our stuff minus passports and valuables. Not sure what was going on, we sat on the platform as a Malaysian train official spoke into a walkie-talkie, obviously trying to get something sorted out. Sarah and I speculated as to what could be going on, but were shocked when he jumped on the train and it took off, taking our stuff with it. Panic set over me a bit. While half the train was still there, why did the first eight cars leave?

This issue didn’t last too long, as ten minutes later, the train came back. I think they were trying to add an extra car for the seats. Whatever. We were back on and took off for Kuala Lumpur that night.