Singapore! - Day 49: Biking South from Bangkok

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Day 49: Sept 2: Johor Baru to Singapore

We woke up early to catch the train in to Singapore in order to avoid another scary city-entering scene like the one in Kuala Lumpur. Unfortunately, the train said, “No Bikes”. And the bus said, “No Bikes.” So we lined up at Singapore Immigration alongside 1000 motorbikers. We were the sole bikers. We had to wait about an hour in a fairly enclosed space and were nearly asphyxiated from all the fumes, as all the motorbikes stayed on, idling. We had no problems at immigration, they just had us fill out a tiny immigration sheet, and continue on. (Although two officials did concur, and decree that I must have been really fat before, judging by my passport picture.) We rode happily and freely across the two-mile long bridge separating Malaysia from Singapore.

Once in Singapore, we searched out the train station in an effort to safely ride a train in to Singapore to avoid scary traffic. Not only were bikes not allowed on the train, but the train commission had made an entire pamphlet on why it wasn’t safe to have bikes on the train. Very concerned about safety, we spoke to the manager, nearly begging to be able to take our bikes on the train. He did not bend to our pressure, and we found ourselves back on the street, stressed and terrified.

But Singapore was nothing like Kuala Lumpur, and using our new Singapore map, we were able to take quiet roads all the way from the border to the downtown area. For the first time, we could even bike safely on the sidewalks, as each sidewalk uniformly featured an on and off ramp. So great! So fun and easy and safe! Singapore was grand! Even the drivers were polite, always stopping at crosswalks and when making turns to watch for bikers. We had much bicycle company here, with old and young people favoring bicycles, not just the old and the poor as was the case in Thailand and Malaysia. What fun! Fellow bikers!

The quiet streets were spotlessly clean and were flanked by green fields, trees and massive parks. We actually biked by numerous large, fabulous rainforest-esque parks within the city. It took us about three hours to get from the border of Singapore to the downtown hostel I’d looked up online. Look at me, I was planning! However, I hadn’t planned enough to actually book the hostel, and therein lay the problem. The hostel, surprisingly, lay at the top of a residential area of eight skyscrapers, on the 25th floor. We, along with our bikes, took the elevator to the top and knocked on the door of the un-signed hostel. A young woman opened the door, just a crack, and said that the dorm was full but they had a private room for $90! US! At a hostel! She seeemed scared of us for some reason. We were so bummed; it had been nearly impossible to find that place in the first place, and we thought we were in the easy life now that we’d found it! But $90 was too much.

So using our trusty map, we looked up Chinatown, a place that we’d found to always boast cheap, if whore house-esque, hotels. Lucky for us, it was quite close by. The streets, to our delight, were all signed, and easy to navigate. Upon entering Chinatown we found the Yes Chinatown PT Hotel right away. A private room would set us back $50 SD and was quite terrible, with springs poking through the mattress, a tiny shower, no toilet, and cigarettes still gracing the ashtray next to the bed. But then we noticed they also offered beds in the “Bag-Bakers Room” for 15 SD a bed.

These beds were bunk beds in a room that looked like some college kid’s dorm room. Strange situation. It turned out this was some teenager’s room. The room belonged to the kid who worked the night shift at the hotel. And sometimes the boss just put guests in there. But I don’t think too often. The kid’s underwear, clothes, cds, TV, dishes and food where all in there, just laying all over the place. Also, the kid was in there, sleeping in his bed, hugging his Santa teddy bear. When he awoke he turned out to be an extremely hostile Malaysian kid of about twenty. When we asked the staff about this kid, they responded, “Oh that guy, he won’t be there at night. Don’t worry. He’s just in there during the day. He’s staff.”

We went out in to the street and ate delicious peking ravioli's and hot and sour soup at an expensive but superb Chinese restaurant. This place put delicious Chinese pickles on your table and then made you pay for them if you ate them. Tricky. Following that, we consumed great lamb and pork satay with sumptuous peanut sauce. The streets were graced by dozens of food and trinket stalls, but in a much more organized and peaceful manner than in Malaysia . Loads of tourists and white folks lumbered about. I called Pearl, a friend I’d met online on TravelBuddies.com, and who I’d hosted when she came to Luang Prabang the previous February.

At 8 PM, Pearl came to pick us up in a car, something I had not been inside of in about 8 months, and gave us an incredible tour of the entire city, regaling us with history and current information throughout. In the Red Light District, professional home to hundreds of legal prostitutes, we ate beef hor fun, a stunning sticky and saucey noodle dish, alongside frog hot pot, a stewed pot of tiny bones with little meat tasting of and with the consistency of fish. This area was raging with people and packed with cars. Prostitution in Singapore is legal, taxed and so profitable that women travel from as far as Russia to work in the biz.

We then drove 2 minutes to Arab St., the total opposite of the last area, completely quiet and nearly deserted. This area boasted sweet old streets and antique homes. At a café, we drank milo dinosaurs , milk mixed with chocolate milo powder and ice with a massive extra pile of milo powder on top. Lawrence, a fun, smart French girl who’d also been in Laos, and who works in Singapore with Pearl at a bank, also joined us. Then we continued a few minutes to an area with many fancy restaurants. The drive reminded me a bit of LA, because you drive everywhere and each area, though close, is quite different. Except here there was no traffic, unlike LA, because there are constant fees that a driver must pay to drive through the city, charged on to your transponder as you pass different checkpoints, called EGRs, throughout the city. These fees vary depending on the time of day, so at rush hour, you may be charged as much as $8, just to drive in a certain part of the ciy. Clever. To add to those costs, gas is $7 a gallon. So the streets of the city remain uncrowned, due to the high costs of keeping a vehicle.

Pearl paid for everything; even though we insisted on paying, she wouldn’t hear of it. She was extremely intelligent and worked for a French bank, as do many of her friends. The pay was bad, the hours were long, but the vacation was generous, seven weeks, and Pearl loved to travel.

Singaporean society is extremely orderly with many rules, and a lot of people that come can’t handle that, and leave. But for those who stay, they enjoy a clean, quiet city, unique to Asia, that is a pleasure to bike and walk around. The population is mostly Chinese, with some Muslims, Malays and Indians, and a quarter international working ex-pats. Fabulous Chinese food, as the food is a combination of cross-Chinese cuisines, coming from immigrants who have arrived from all over China. Very stylish people with the best of everything within reach to those with good jobs. There also exists a high quantity of elderly Singaporeans.

That night when it was time for bed we tried to move our bicycles in to our bedroom. I say “tried” because the manager flipped out and screamed at us, stopping us from doing so.

“I know this is a lousy hotel and we don’t offer 24-hour security but nobody every put their vehicle in their bedroom before, this room is for my staff, and I can’t have bicycles in there. It’s a fire hazard, if there’s a fire my guests won’t be able to get out. You’ll be responsible for their deaths.”

We were the only guests in that room. He was really, really angry about this possibility. He finally said we could bring them in to the bedroom, only if we departed the following day. This was a problem, as we weren’t leaving the next day, but we really didn’t want to leave them in the hall. It wasn’t safe. He had guests coming in entrances from both sides of the hallway all night long, as this actually was a genuine whorehouse. And our roomate, who was supposed to be “security” was fast asleep, snoring, in the hallway, when we arrived back at the guesthouse at midnight. So we moved our bikes in to our room, hoping the man would change his mind the following day about forcing our departure.

Singaporeans don’t have a real say in government, there’s only one party, and they don’t have freedom of speech. But I can see how after living in dirty, disorganized India or Cambodia, moving to Singapore would be like moving to heaven. Even compared to cities in the US, it’s a bit dreamy. And for those who can’t handle all the rules, its at least a lovely, lovely place to visit. I also want to mention we chewed gum while biking around, something everyone knows is illegal here. We didn't notice we were doing it until we had finished. Another thing illegal here is homosexuality; its criminalized here. Another illegal thing: not stopping at a crosswalk; if you don’t stop, you go to jail. No wonder all the drivers seemed so courteous!

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