Well, I felt like I should probably get a move on, so I left Singapore this morning and caught the bus across the causeway to the mighty country of Malaysia. Yay. I was trying to get to Kuala Lumpur, and you know how it is when you're in a strange country and have no idea what you're doing. I did my best to ignore the taxi touts swarming round outside the customs area -- it wasn't too hard because I couldn't understand what half of them were saying -- but then I got waylaid by one slick dude who convinced me that there were no buses leaving for KL from there, I'd have to go to the bus terminal instead. In my defence, I am new to the ways of con-men. So we get in his ... read more

I returned to the Botanical Gardens this morning to see what I could see. It was all common stuff of course: plantain squirrels, cute little white-breasted waterhens, koels, flowerpeckers, etc. I fed the whistling ducks with the nutritious fare of white bread crusts. A snakehead came up as well to try out the offerings. The lakes in the Gardens are full of fish -- gouramis, cichlids, catfish, all sorts, as well as millions of red-eared turtles. I saw an Asian softshell turtle (Amyda cartilaginea) too, who was really nice but a trifle perplexed to see me. After I was done, I headed off to Sentosa Island, off the south coast. There's a lookout there labelled as the southernmost point of the Asian continent, which kind of begs the question of shouldn't the southernmost point of ... read more

it has begun... I watched King Kong on the flight over. All I can say is I'm glad I never paid to see it at the movies. What a piece of rubbish. How can a film with so much action be so incredibly tedious? And the dinosaur stampede was the stupidest thing I've ever seen on a screen. Then the woman in front of me tilted her seat back as far as it would go and kept it that way for the next seven hours. Arrived in Singapore at 7pm, and saw some crested mynahs from the plane. Bird number one. I'm staying at a place called Cozy Corners Backpackers. Its a bit of a rabbit-warren of rooms and corridors (the sort of rabbit warren you'd get if some badgers moved in and turfed out all ... read more