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Published: June 29th 2010
The third and final major leg of my round the world journey begins with a five hour Qantas flight from a chilly and wet Perth to a hot and sticky Singapore. I've done some reading up on Singapore while in Perth and opt to stay just outside the main commercial heart of this city-state, in a small heritage hotel, the Perak, in Little India - a maze of narrow streets which are home to the sizeable Indian community of the city, complete with teeming stalls, restaurants and general colourful everyday Indian life, bringing some much required urban grit to the rather sanitised image of Singapore.
The city also in fact has a vibrant China town and an Arab quarter, reflecting the real melting pot of cultures who call Singapore home. This is one ultra wealthy and modern little nation too of course, perched on an island at the southern tip of Malaysia, and being a major gateway into South East Asia for vast numbers of people and goods as well as the odd intrepid world traveller... My first lasting impression of the place is looking down from the plane as we circle over the city on the final approach, over
the vast array of container ships dotted in every conceivable place and position around the bay surrounding the city, looking like discarded dominoes from above.
I have ten days before I'm due in Bangkok to rendezvous with my latest and last arranged group travel experience - a month of Thailand Exploring with Gap Year for Grown Ups, and opt to spend the first four nights in Singapore. Three full days is in fact ample to get a flavour for the city and it makes a pretty favourable impression. It is certainly clean and ordered - absolutely no visible graffiti, litter, beggars etc though with its diverse immigrant communities living, working and praying cheek by jowl, the relentless commercialism and the array of new office, residential and civic buildings this is not the sterile, sanitised city it has the international reputation of being.. and much the better for it.
The overt commercalism of the central areas of the city though does become really draining, even after just three days..! There are shopping malls absolutely everywhere, and they are enormous - they all seem to be full of happy contented shoppers too, almost as if shopping is the full time
occupation of the city's 4.5 million residents. The unstoppable commecial development and the traditions of the city's various ethnic groups produces some quite startling contrasts - Hindu temples, Buddhist shrines, mosques and churches are everywhere. The Hindu and Buddhist shrines in particular are incredibly intricate, detailed and beautiful, many sitting in the shadow of the city's shiny, gleaming new glass and metal shrines to commerce and industry - the contrast makes for a constant succession of photo opportunities.
Despite having no great desire to shop, not having any spare carrying capacity apart from any financial reasons), I do indulge in the purchase of a new camera. I've been travelling since I left London last October with two cameras.. a five year old Nikon which has been giving me grief from the outset and is now extremely erratic at best, and a compact Panasonic Lumix which I bought for the trip which has also been playing up with black spots forming on the lens. The vast majority of serious photographers I've met on my travels swear by Canon and the new 50/500 D series complete with HD video recording are considered best in their class, so I take advantage of
the considerably lower prices for electronic goods in Singapore (certainly compared with Australia), flex some of my remaining plastic, opting for the Canon 500 D and a micro lense, enabling much sharper pictures and a much more effective zoom function without the significant additional size and weight of a regular lens of this spec. Initial results are pretty amazing in fact, as I hope the pictures here bear witness to.
Armed with my new Canon from day two in town I take in the major downtown areas and the older colonial parts of the city centre, with its famous Padang now framed by a staggering array of skyscrapers, and find the Raffles Hotel almost now hiding behind an enormous commercial complex of yet more shoping malls, high rise hotels and a hospital also bearing the city's famous English founder's name (somewhat diluting the brand I would venture). The restored Raffles Hotel though is a delight - a rather stunning colonial gem of white pillared buildings with tranquil palm filled gardens, the turban clad doorman and of course the Long Bar where I indulge in its most famous creation - a Singapore Sling. I also seek out Singapore's new performance
space - The Esplanade is a new concert hall and theatre both housed under a stunning glass and metal roof which resemble the shape of that most unusual (and smelly) of local fruits, the durian.
By day three I'm rapidly tiring of the all pervading commercial buzz so spend the morning at the grand Asia Civilisations Museum, which serves as a great introduction to this part of the world at the start of my time here, and then take myself out to one of the many lush green parks of the city in the afternoon. Singapore is very proud of its green spaces and it has every reason to be, and has clearly invested enormous resources in making them fully assessible, including a whole series of green spaces which have been recently linked to each other through the creation of two stunning new bridges - the Henderson Waves, so named as this very high new foot bridge has been designed (by a British team) to resemble a giant rolling wave very gracefully connecting the two areas. There is then an extensive raised forest walkway - a 2km metal boardwalk through the rainforest, to the Alexandra Bridge - another new
and differently graceful bridge over a further major roadway.. all very impressive.
This is also where Singapore's clean and orderly image really shines through.. The heat and humidity are oppressive on my afternoon park walk, and by the time I have crossed over the Henderson Wave bridge I have worked up quite a thirst.. it is one of those moments when you fantasise about being served an ice cold drink .. this being Singapore, that is in fact the reality. At the end of the bridge is the neatest kiosk imaginable, with brand new vending machine, fully stocked with ice cold drinks, which not only works and is completely untouched by vandals or graffiti artists, but also dispenses the correct change.. ! A perfectly chilled peach iced tea is just the ticket for me to continue my walk.. and when all this liquid delivers the inevitable call of nature - no ducking behind trees in this park - the public facilities here are also spotless and odour free too...!
With almost a week still to spare before the Thailand trip I decide to travel onwards from Singapore by train. The journey through Malaysia and Thailand to Bangkok by
train is a long one and involves three seperate trains, making for three natural breaks in the journey. The first leg is Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, across the border and the capital of Malaysia. The old colonial Singapore train station is pretty much on its last legs and is due to be closed next year - no direct transport links and no doubt no associated shopping mall being the kiss of death here, but two daily Malaysia bound trains still make the journey each day at present, so I book my first class ticket (at a very modest price) and make my exit from the city by train on a humid Saturday afternoon.
The nostalga and romance of train travel in this part of the world is certainly all around at the rather wonderful muralled Malaysia railway station in Singapore - the train itself though is just a little bit too jaded, old and slow to be really relished, and with a lengthy delay in crossing into Malaysia I'm beginning to wonder why I didn't just book a cheap Air Asia ticket instead..! Once rolling through the Malaysian countryside however of lush green vegetation and endless palm plantations, I'm
glad I settled on this way of travelling, getting my first real taste of the region rather than yet more airports and flights..
Some nine hours later and an hour late the train finally pulls into Kuala Lumpur (KL) central, delivering the first view of the remarkable Petronas Towers - the awesome twin towers linked by a sky bridge which were the tallest buildings in the world for a few years.. all shimmeringly lit at night. Together with a very impressive communications tower this delivers an impressive introduction to the capital of Malaysia. I had a tip to book one of mind boggling array of city centre corporate hotels on line as they are absurdly cheap here - I opt for a Deluxe Suite at Fraser Place which costs the same amount per night as the room I had at the Perth YHA ... ! Fraser Place is especially discounted as it is brand new and some of the public areas are still being finished - the only real frustration of staying in this contemporary, plush, central appart-hotel though is that the taxi drivers don't know where it is (it being that new). My Deluxe Suite exceeds expectations anyway
- complete with seperate living and dining facilities, my very own dressing room can you believe, two plasma televisions and the largest and most comfortable bed I have ever slept in I think - certainly since leaving London anyway..!
This, together with the fact that the city centre is just an enormous maze of corporate office and hotel towers, together with hot, humid and wet weather outside, results in me spending a sizeable amount of my two full days in KL luxuriating in my suite, and using the roof top pool and gym.. I do make it out to visit the viewing deck of the KL tower for a 360 degree view of the city below and across to the twin Petronas Towers for a closer oggle, have an invigorating foot massage and some good cheap local meals - I'm still just beginning to appreciate just how cheap SE Asia is compared to Oz..!
As usual, my other main task is to arrange my onward travel from here up to Bangkok, Thailand. Having slept on it, the recent train experience is not one I'm particularily keen to repeat, especially over such a distance, so opt for Air Asia,
the EasyJet of SE Asia (that is where the comparison ends though as Air Asia takes enormous pride in its customer service, unlike its European budget airline equivalents) - and with regular prices into Thailand at around £30-40 one way, it's hard to resist. Krabi on the Andaman coast in the South of Thailand looks like an ideal stopover en-route to Bangkok, so I arrange the required flights and find and endless supply of resort hotels to choose from online - I go for The Sea House in the end located on one of the quieter beaches in the region.
The Sea House turns out to be rather a deserted house .. a very small place of just nine very spacious and tastefully decorated villas right on the beach - this is not a major tourist beach though and it being off season means I appear to be the only guest in residence.. with a small army of attentive and charming Thai staff .. It's a welcome break for me anyway for the three nights before arriving in Bangkok, and I would much rather be here than a big resort full of bored Western families and beer swilling youths
in nearby Phuket any day. So I spread out in my spacious cut price villa (another discounted internet special..!), dine on snapper at the beach side restaurant and even get to catch up on some missed films from the in-house DVD collection - including Tom Ford's debut, A Single Man (rather good I thought).
A day trip to the much busier (and pretty tacky to be honest) beach resort of Ao Nang at least gives a taste of the remarkable sheer limestone cliffs this Southern Thailand coastline is famous for. A trip to the famed island of Phi Phi will have to wait for another time and more clement weather conditions though (it being a mix of strong winds, heavy showers and bursts of hot sunshine here in late June).
My beach side chill time is soon over though and it's time to take the short onward flight up to Bangkok. The plane descends in clear skies over this enormous sprawling city and the usual swath of concrete and glass towers - much more spread out throughout the city here than the central concentration of towers in both Singapore and KL. My month long Real Gap Thailand Explorer
trip officially begins on the day I arrive so I have a free transfer arranged from the airport to the small downtown hotel our group are staying in for the first three nights. With my fellow group members arriving from different locations at different times the first meeting opportunity for everyone has been moved to the following morning so freeing up the rest of this first day to do my own thing. I brave the nightmare city centre traffic here and head across town to a luxurious spa complex called Babylon which has been recommended as a good first introduction to the city and return to the hotel in the evening suitably refreshed and relaxed.
The full group finally all meet together over breakfast - early indications not being too good to be honest - a wildly disparate group with totally different trip expectations and no effective leadership from Real Gap to bring them together. Our local guide for the first leg is great though - Nee (all Thai's having easy to remember nick-names) and we set off with her on the city's skytrain above the grid-locked streets below to visit the major tourist sights of Wat Pho -
Bangkok's oldest temple, and the Grand Palace. Both are overwhelming in terms of their sheer size and number of ornate, richly decorated temple complexes. The most awe-inspiring site of Wat Pho is of its enormous reclining Buddha - no less than 45 metres in length, the gilded statue depicts the Buddha entering nirvana.. his beaming smile alone is five metres wide and his huge feet are inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The chapel housing this enormous figure seems barely able to contain him - one big stretch and the surrounding walls would crumble into dust for sure. Taking in this and all the surrounding opulent temples and shrines in the sticky heat is all we manage in the morning and after a break for lunch we have sufficent restored energy to tackle the even larger complex of temples and palaces which make up the Grand Palace.
The Grand Palace is a vast collection of remarkably ornate royal residences and temples built by a succession of Thai monarchs since the creation of Bangkok as the new capital of Thailand back in 1782. The undoubted highlight here is the Temple of the Emerald Buddha - tiny in comparison to the reclining Buddha, though
absolutely exquisite in detail, carved from a block of green jade. The sacred image is clad with one of three seasonal costumes (summer, winter and rainy), with the costume being ceremonially changed each time by the King..!
Being somewhat templed-out (already!) a small group of us head on over to experience the Khao San Road - the supposedly notorious centre of Bangkok's backpacker scene and opening setting for 'The Beach' - perhaps because it's low season though, the street is a pretty drab collection of all the usual tourist tatt and Thai massage parlours (including one where a tank of live fish eat the dead skin off your feet - which I didn't feel inclined to try) and the usual collection of scruffy backpackers I've encountered everywhere from Ecuador to Perth.
We are treated to a welcome dinner that evening, at the bizarrely named Cabbages and Condoms restaurant (after a high profile Thai campaign to get rural people to associate using condoms as regular an activity as buying a cabbage.. kind of makes sense). After dinner we are all up for some more local flavour so Nee kindly agrees to take us all down to Patpong - also
notorious - this time perhaps more accurately so as the red light district of Bangkok, and home to such tawdry delights as the Ping Pong bars and of course the Thai ladyboys! Nee calmly and without warning takes our mixed group, including one mother and daughter pair, straight upstairs into a dimly lit bar with a large stage on which are around 10 women, clad in nothing but boots whose speciality is to do various things with ping pong balls and lighted cigarattes (remember that scene from Priscilla Queen of the Desert..?!). There is nothing remotely fun or titillating to be seen here though - the girls are neither pretty nor in shape or even willing to put on a good show - most looking totally bored, and after one attempt at pinging some balls and one cigarette trick it is definitely time to leave - to the ladyboy bar downstairs .. which is a completely different experience and much more fun.. A similar number on the stage - this time though the girls are boys, looking remarkably like very pretty and glamorous girls - a particularily bizarre contrast from the stage of the bar above... Welcome to Bangkok..!!
Our next and final full day in Bangkok is Sunday and so a trip to the huge weekend market (of 6,000 stalls!) on the edge of town followed by a visit to the Jim Thomson house - the American who made his home in Bangkok is on the cards - I opt for a quiet day close to the hotel (quite happy to escape the group already!) and meet up with my fellow travellers later for the painful experience of witnessing England crash out of the world cup to Germany ... agghhhhhhh ....!!!
Our Thailand Explorer trip begins in earnest the next morning with our departure from Bangkok, and the experiences and no doubt trials and tribulations of this four week trip will be the focus of my next post, 12, at around the end of July.
Until then, adieu..
LOL
Simon XX
ps All Bangkok photos are on page 2 .. !
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Catherine
non-member comment
Fabulous
Wonderful photoes and marvellous blog once again.