Singapore for dinner

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I dropped into Singapore to catch up with Sonia for dinner. It's so close to Malayisa and yet so far removed. The outdoor restaurant where we ate was incomparable with the dingy cafe where I watched the world cup final in JB - full of westerners (I was the only one in JB), clean, efficient, decorated, modern, and bloody expensive. Luckily Sonia was paying!

A bit of history: Singapore joined the federation of Malaya (hence the name change to Malaysia) in 1965 and left in 1967 when Lee KY saw the writing on the wall. Good choice. The sultan of Brunei decided not to join Malaysia, preferring to remain the world's richest man, while Sarawak and Sabah did join, and have been regretting it ever since judging by the locals healthy disrespect for the federal government. Taxi drivers in particular seem to resent KL: roads in Borneo are nothing like the smooth highways on the peninsula and the long serving minister of transport has never even been to Borneo. At least the PM drops in once in a while.

Sonia and I had a huge steak and drinks, reminisced about old times, and enjoyed having digs at each other. It is amazing we didn't kill each other in the eight years we were together!

I caught a taxi to the border (taxis can't cross the bridge) and walked the 1.5km to Malaysia, enjoying the nightscape on the way. There is talk, mainly in Malaysia, of reuniting Singapore with Malaysia and creating a land bridge between the two to physically connect them. Back in dingy JB I really couldn't see Singaporeans agreeing to such an idea.

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