June 4 - June 8

Pualu Tioman --> Mercing --> Johor Bahor --> Singapore

The answer: go to Singapore. This ex British domain is all of the three. Before I visited the place, whenever I read or heard about Singapore, most of the time it would be in a ridiculing fashion. Stuff about how silly are the laws that ban chewing gum, fine jaywalking and littering. About Singapore making too much effort, trying too hard introducing all kinds of improvements etc. But Singapore actually WORKS! Let me explain.

Anyone who travels to a less developed country that their own, have some idea in his head how things should be run, how should services be provided etc. How many people after coming back to a more developed country think "It's great to be back in civilization again". I was saying that to myself when we reached Singapore. Now, I'm not saying that for the past two months we had been traveling among barbarians but in Singapore things actually WORKED like they are supposed to. The metro system was top notch, with clean trains coming and going on time. So efficient and easy was the system that after two rides we practically mastered it. After flagging down a taxi and inquiring about the fare, we got a look from the driver who explained he uses a meter. Well great, but you see, up to this point taxis have been nothing but hassle - never ending settling on the price, making sure that we're actually going to our destination, and at the end wondering whether we would get our correct change. And yes, most of the taxies had meters but sometimes the cabby would just “forget” to use it.
Tourist information point looked like a small company manned by half a dozen staff and actually provided information instead of trying to sell us overpriced tickets. Nobody tried to make us buy sarongs, get a massage/ tuk tuk/ suit or another crap we didn't need. Actually nobody bothered us at all.

Of course it all came with a price. Comparing to Europe, the prices were slightly lower but compare that again with Thailand and they were outrageously high.

Since Singapore is a mixture of Chinese, Indian, Malay and Western cultures and all kinds of manifestation of these cultures were present. We already stayed in Chinatown back in KL, so for a changer we decided to lodge in Little India, where the accommodation wouldn't make us broke. Living on Indian food was doing us just fine living in a loud Indian district prepared us well for our trip to Indian, should we ever decided to go.

So after spending almost a week in Singapore I came to appreciate it for what is was. An ambitious metropolis standing out in the crowd of neighborhood countries. It was clean, safe and organized. But, if everyplace were like that, traveling wouldn’t be any fun, would it?

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