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Published: September 7th 2021
After a four hour wait at Jakarta airport, we finally got away around 6.30pm. It was only an hour’s flight with Thai International (prepaid price $54), with the cabin service excellent and a great meal of lobster and wine. We arrived in Singapore at 8pm (they were 30 minutes ahead), having crossed the equator 10 minutes earlier. The harbour was fantastic at night, with all the vessels awaiting berths well lit up, backed up by a beautiful sunset. Only blot on the Thai copybook was the non-arrival of my suitcase at the end of the flight, although arguably it was probably the best thing that could have happened to me as it was later replaced with a much lighter backpack and about a quarter of the number of clothes.
Teamed up with Aussie girl Angela at the airport and took off to the city in a taxi, checking out around 10 hotels before finally settling on a room at the Tong Ah Hotel in Beach Road. At SGD14 (6 bucks) for 2 or SGD16 for 3, we took the latter with Angela, with some creative sharing of the facilities. It was expensive after Indonesia but great to be back in
the world of air-conditioning, hot showers and clean rooms.
Singapore was certainly like a breath of fresh air after Java - clean streets, pleasant people, new cars, no “hello mister”, hot showers etc. We got up early to stroll around, but the city didn’t really open up until 10am. We got a bit lost wandering around without a map and had difficulty finding the big department stores – finally we settled for the People’s Park Shopping Complex. A wander up Orchard Road gave us a view of the very flash Hotel Mandarin. (Editor’s Note – I ended up staying at the Hotel Mandarin for a fortnight some 4 years later on my first overseas business trip and while nice, it wasn’t as flash as I had thought.) We had a dinner of fruit slices and chocolate thick shake at “The Copper Kettle”, and also bought bread, honey and cheese to turn it into a truly western meal. After dinner, we took a cruise around the harbour. It is interesting to note that the Chinese are generally the wealthy race here, with Indians doing a lot of the menial work.
It was a bright sunny day for our second
day in Singapore. We first made it down to the central business district to check out Merlion, the official mascot of Singapore, but wasted most of the morning in the office of Thai Airlines, but the bag had still not been located. They offered to pay USD12 per night towards two night’s accommodation, due to our delay in not being able to move onwards, which we were happy to take up.
In the afternoon, we went on the Sentosa-Mt Faber cable car (which had only been open a week) and walked down from Mt Faber. We then took the bus back to Orchard Road and strolled down checking out the major stores such as Robinsons on the way. That evening, the three of us went to a classical guitar concert by the Venezuelan, Aldiro Diaz. We got really good seats for $7.50 and the performance was great.
Our final full day in Singapore was pretty quiet. It was wet in the morning but fined up as the day progressed. We took off for Changi Beach for a couple of hours, and while the beach itself was nothing special, the swim was refreshing. An interesting evening started with dinner
at the Orchard Road car park, where we bought a great meal of pork noodles, banana fritters, and watermelon, all for the princely sum of less than a buck. Singapore at night is a great place to walk around. The snazzy guys and their gals all looked so sweet and innocent – as though on their way to Sunday School. Certainly, the sort of place you feel safe wandering at any hour.
The next morning, I caught up with an old friend from Sydney who was in Singapore on business and staying at the fabulous Raffles Hotel. He was kind enough to shout me breakfast there, a great feast of porridge, eggs and other goodies, so just for a brief time I felt like a king! I followed that with a trip down to Thai Airways, but there was still no sign of my bag. I received $40 preliminary compensation to purchase additional clothes, toiletries etc, and spent precisely $12 of this on couple of new T-shirts, jocks and razors. I saw the insurance company to make a preliminary claim and instructed Thai on where to send the bag in Bangkok should it be found.
During a rainstorm
at lunchtime, we made the decision to split for Penang. We left Singapore by train at 1pm and arrived in KL around 7.30pm. The Malaysian countryside was mainly dense scrub, with just the occasional open spaces. It was flat in the area along the coast, with many rubber plantations. We scored a stall meal in KL but didn’t take in too much there before catching the 9.30pm night express to Butterworth. We travelled 2nd class but paid extra for an upper sleeper, a small surcharge well worth paying, although it didn’t result in a great night’s sleep.
We reached Butterworth around 7.15am to be greeted by a great sunrise after overnight showers. We booked into the Federal Hotel in Butterworth, close to the train station, so we could get away early for Thailand tomorrow. We then took the ferry over to Penang Island in the morning, where we browsed through shops, and I bought a few more clothes. We visited the Botanical Gardens, which was very relaxing, with monkeys roaming quite freely. From there we went to Penang Hill where we took the funicular railway up and back (gradient 1:2). The ferry trip back from Penang
produced Freddie, one very screwed up Roman Catholic man, who just didn’t know which way to turn in life. He was most distressed over our immoral westernized lifestyle, but we managed to counsel him and give him some peace of mind over a couple of drinks – at his expense!
It was an early start, with our taking the 6.50am train over the Thai border into Haadyai. A combination of books, cards and conversations with other travellers helped to kill the 5-hour trip (including the border crossing), with our arriving at 11.15am Thai time, which was 30 minutes behind Malaysian time. Haadyai was a surprisingly thriving metropolis, and the Station Hotel gave us our first full western meal since we left – tomato soup, followed by fillet steak and veges, for a total of 24 Baht – less than a buck.
We decided then to take the express train all the way into Bangkok, with it being cheaper to pay with Thai money once over the border. There were no 2nd class sleepers available to Bangkok, so we had to settle for 3rd class seats, which were very cheap. Big, big mistake
to travel on the 3rd class tickets – it was a long, long night! We left around 2pm and finally reached Bangkok at 10.15am after a trip of over 20 hours. It was a relatively uneventful trip except for our controversial introduction to Buddhist culture. Bob and I had set up our sleeping bags on the luggage racks above the seats, as these were the only places where we could stretch right out, and this thoroughly offended a number of our Thai travelling companions, and it appeared at one stage that WW3 was breaking out. After much faulty communication, it was conveyed to us that there had been a Buddhist monk sitting in the seat below the luggage racks, and in Thai culture it was most degrading for anyone to sleep above his head. Once we sorted out this little protocol, we were all good friends again. However, the remainder of the trip afforded us little sleep, given we were upright for the duration, so we occupied ourselves with reading, writing letters, talking and generally being miserable. While we had always set out to be budget travellers, there is even a degree to which we would resist
going again, and 3rd class Thai railway was it!
First impressions of Bangkok were that this is a noisy, dirty, and remarkably primitive city. The train trip in showed up a lot of poverty and houses in swampy areas. The city is full of screeching traffic, and we are right back at Le Mans, where even using a street crossing is a hazard. The people seemed to dress remarkably conservatively, with shorts and dresses to the knees, and all the talk of the glamorous Thai women appeared to be a bit of a myth.
We booked into a local scungy Chinese hotel and then made our way to the Burmese embassy to set up our upcoming trip. We had hassles explaining our 7 day and 1 hour flight schedule (the same flight in and out a week later) against the strict maximum 7-day visa, but finally got the okay from the Consular General himself. A brief visit to the Thai Airways office re my suitcase proved fruitless.
Early next morning saw us down at the riverfront of the Oriental Hotel with a chartered boat trip around the canals and the floating markets. It was
a pleasant enough trip although it got a little repetitive after a while, and while we saw little of the markets, we did get a good look at Wat Arun and the Royal Barge. Most fascinating were the baby elephants and the acrobatic monkeys.
That evening took in a big night out on the town for the boys. We took a bus to Sukhumvit Street where we had an excellent western meal at a local cafe. We had plenty of offers from a couple of ‘massage parlours’, each of which showcased many local beauties in a long, glass fronted room, but regretfully had to decline their kind offers due to budget constraints. Instead, we took in one of the nightclubs on New Petchburi Road, a go-go salon with Singha beer at 25 Baht a bottle (that was within budget!) and suggestive Thai girls thrown in for nothing. In general though, the nightclubs appeared pretty spread out, so it didn’t really give out the atmosphere of a typical ‘red light’ area.
Next day, we caught the midday bus for Pattaya from the Northeast terminal in Sukhimvit Road, which was a 2-hour ride. Pattaya looks very pretty, with clean sand
and lots of palm trees, but regretfully no surf. It’s an obvious haven for Mr & Mrs Wealthy American Tourist, as well as a lot of continentals. It is also crawling with American servicemen on R&R (Editor’s Note – remember this was prime Vietnam days.). All in all, a totally different crowd than we had met previously on our travels.
A memorable evening started with a meal of all the US goodies – hamburger, banana split & milkshake, before we strolled down to the Fantasy Club for an eyeful of the gorgeous local Thai women. Some good sorts, and altogether too much – literally, with the going price 300 Baht for the evening, and I doubt that was for them to read you poetry! Seems everyone is a starter over here – with Mr Straight America, Mr GI and even Mr Oldie Continental all strolling around with Thai girls on their arms, most of them young enough to be their daughter, so it seemed it was only Mr & Mr Smooth Young Aussies that missed out that night! That’s not to say that Bob wasn’t tempted, and I even offered to babysit the young lady’s accompanying monkey, but the
negotiation fell through! Instead, we saw the night out at a smaller club where we got our first taste of live Thai boxing.
We awoke next morning to a beautiful clear day, with a glassy sea, following a great night’s sleep at Johns Hungarian Inn on a pier overlooking the water – no mossies even. In the morning, we took in a sunbathe, a water ski, and an ‘optic nerve’ at the many Thai lovelies doing the rounds on the arms of incredibly straight looking US servicemen. We had an interesting discussion back at Johns with two of the ‘lovelies’ in question, who explained the tricks of their trade and the incredibly beneficial payment scheme. All very illuminating for two relatively naïve Aussie boys.
The bus trip back to Bangkok was a bit of a drag, due mainly to a police check and a bus change, which took many back roads and too many stops, taking 3 hours in all. Back at Bangkok, our planned final big night out on Phatphong Road went a bit sour after a rip-off meal of fried rice, the “Golden Bottle” was short on action, and even the Turkish Bath was a letdown
on what we had observed earlier.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
2007
We went to Raffles on an around the world trip in 2007. We sat on the porch for a while. I didn't pay the $22 for a Singapore Sling. As you stated... when watching your money you can stay on the road longer.