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Published: January 30th 2007
Singapore
A view of downtown from the East Coast Parklands. A little more urban than the view from Darwin.Well, I've made my touchdown into Southeast Asia. I took a four and a half hour flight that left Darwin at 3:00 am and arrived in Singapore at 6:00 am Singapore time. Luckily, there were few passengers on the plane, so I was able to gave three seats all to myself, on which I was able to lay across horizontally to get some sleep. Everything at the airport went smoothly and my taxi had dropped me off at my hostel before 7:00. As you may expect, it wasn't yet open, so I walked down Joo Chiat Road to a coffee shop where I ordered a drink and watched the sun rise and the Singaporeans rush off to work. After finishing my two cups of tea, I went to the hostel to check in. I then decided to rent a bike for the day. I wanted to keep moving because I feared that if I didn't, I'd probably get tired right away and fall asleep. My 3.5 hour plane sleep was okay, but probably not enough to keep me energized for the whole day. I felt that biking would keep me moving, and would allow me to see a lot of the
Singapore
Riding my bike downtown on Geyland Road. things that I wanted to see in the downtown area. There's also nothing wrong with a little exercise. Or is there? We'll find out the answer to that soon enough.
It was a great day for a bike rode. I first made my way all the way down to Sentosa Island. I didn't enter the island, only because iI didn't properly do my research, but I missed my opportunity to ride down to the southernmost point in continental Asia. Since Singapore is an island, I thought that that a place in Malaysia would lay claim to that, but I guess the technical boundary of a continent has something to do with its continental shelf. Whatever, I find that continent definitions are always somewhat vague anyways. I wish I had gone though. From there I worked my way back up northwards, this time stopping at many points along the way. I had lunch in Chinatown, then rode over to the financial district that surrounds the banks of the Singapore River to watch the bankers out and about during their lunch hour. I then rode over to Fort Canning Park. By the time I finished riding my bike up to the
Singapore
More of the beautiful, clean streets enjoyed on my bike ride. most elevated part of the park, I was really hot and sweaty and extremely tired. I had finally hitten my wall, and hard. I knew that I needed some rest if I was to not only make it through the day, but make it safely back to the hostel. So, I found a nice park bench tucked away in a garden area, and I laid down for about an hour. I'm not certain for how much of that I slept, but I wasn't awake the whole time. To the passersby I probably looked like I was a member of the ranks of the Singapore homeless. Anyways, I felt recharged and ready to continue on afterwards. The nap was just what I needed, and I couldn't have found a better spot to take it (Yeah, except maybe for a bed). The park is located right near downtown, but the sounds of the city are barely perceptible. The city folk must love using this place as an escape. To give you an idea of how urbanized Singapore actually is, it's population exceeds that of New Zealand (4.4M vs. 4.0M), but it's land area is a quarter of a percent that of New
Chinatown
The streets of Chinatown. Zealand's. So, Fort Canning Park would be one of the few places to escape to from the concrete jungle. After my nap, I headed back to the hostel, but went through Little India on the way. It was now the beginning of rush hour, so the roads were getting pretty hectic, although they always seemed busy. It was pretty exciting riding my bike on the road with all the traffic. I would split my time between the road and the sidewalk, depending on how many people were on the sidewalk. Everyone is quite comfortable with the bikes on the road, but you have to keep your head on a swivel as there are cars, motorbikes, and buses whizzing by you. It was exciting though. Day 1 was an exciting and interesting day. I saw a lot of great things in my first Asian city and got a lot of exercise.
One of the unfortunate things about only spending two days in a place, particularly a large city, is, first that you are only experiencing a small amount of what the city can offer, and secondly, if you have a bad experience while you are there, no matter how chance
Chinatown
A smaller street in Chinatown. or atypical that experience is for the area, it could leave you with a bad impression of the city. The same could be said if only good things happen to you as well. That could leave you feeling that a place was much better than it actually is. Two days is just too short a period of time to make an accurate judgment on a place. However, when you might only be coming to this end of the world once, and you want to see all that I want to see, there's no way around that, so please bear in mind my short sample period when reading my evaluations of the places I visit. Now, pretty much from the time that I returned my bike to the hostel, a few negative things happened that probably unfairly soured my impressions of Singapore. After returning the bike, the first thing that I did was a grab a bite to eat. I walked down to the food court just down the road and got a S$3 plate of rice, beef, scrambled eggs and green beans. It filled me up, and I just marvelled at the fact that I was made full by a
Singapore
The bankers on their lunch break. plate of food that cost me $2.10 CAD. Afterwards, I hung around because one of the stalls also had relatively cheap beer prices (because of government taxation, the beer is not as proportionately cheap as the food), so I stayed to enjoy a few 640 mL bottles of Tiger, the proud brew of Singapore (cost S$5.20/bottle). As evening turned into night, I began to notice some seemingly mismatched couples enjoying a night on the town together (please also bear in mind that this was a Monday night). I was unexpectedly witnessing the southeast Asian sex trade at work. I though that Singapore, with its many laws, and known strict enforcement of those laws, would be the last place that this industry would exist. I thought back to my cab ride from the airport earlier in the day and that it now made a little more sense. My cab driver knew very little english, but he was eager to try it out on me. A pair of the few words that I was able to make out was "hanky panky." Well, apparently he was referring to the part of town that I was staying in. The types of unsavoury characters and
Singapore
The architecture along the Singapore River. businesses that accompany this type of activity were present in this neighbourhood as well, they just hadn't presented themselves until after the sun went down. I never felt unsafe at any time (It was much more dangerous riding my bike on the streets), it just left a poor impression on me as I didn't expect my street to be baby Bangkok (I'm sure I'm exaggerating and that Bangkok is on a whole other level - I'll find out soon enough). This was the first strike on Singapore, and I understand that this is not indicative of the city, but because it was going on near where I was staying, it had an impact on my attitude. I must state that everthing was very discreet. There were no neon signs or open solicitations on any street corners. I just saw an indordinate amount of 40+ year old Chinese men with girls that were all dolled up in their early twenties (I'm being extremely generous there) or late teens. I know that I'll not have to be so sensitive when I go to Bangkok, but atleast I'll be expecting it there. I ordinarily don't have a problem when the market forces are
Singapore
The financial district. at work. Morally I have a few issues with what I saw. I understand that women can make large sums of money doing this, I just wish that the profession was entirely comprised of mature women that had made a well thought out decision to be a part of it. But, I also understand that there is not a lot of demand for these types of women. What you get are a lot of really young girls that are lured into doing something that they don't really want to do because of the easy money. I saw some tables that had four or five girls (and I mean girls) sitting with an older gentleman. There was usually one girl that was noticeably older than all the others (but she was still a girl). I don't know exactly what was going on there, but I do know that the girls were far too young to be introduced to that environment. These were my last impressions of an otherwise very enjoyable first day.
Well, the negativity continued when I awoke on Day 2 feeling like complete crap. I don't know if it was specifically from my cheap meal the night before,
Singapore
Me at the Padang Sporting Fields with the Suntec City Mall area behind me. or from my poor airplane sleep coupled with my large amount of physical activity the day after, or dehydration from the activity or just general malnourishment from being on my own the past few days (no mom to remind me about the four food groups). The likely answer is probably a combination of all of the above. I knew I needed to eat, but I couldn't find anything that was appetizing to me. I finally got some chicken on rice in the late part of the morning. I couldn't eat very much of it though. I was already very sick of rice, and the chicken seemed to be undercooked. I was still hungry, so at a place nearby I got some beef stir fry thing (with no rice, even though it was the same price). The veggies were okay, but the beef had gelatinous texture. Very disgusting. I just wanted some protein. I was very lethargic during the day, so I just hung out around the hostel. I kept drinking a lot of juice, and eventually this picked me up, but I had wasted a large portion of one of my only two days in Singapore. In the late afternoon
Fort Canning Park
My napping bench in Fort Canning Park. I rented a bike again so that I could visit the nearby East Coast Parklands. Well, while on my way out there I came across a Western food stand, where I ordered a plate of spaghetti and a chicken burger with fries. That tasted great and everything seemed perfect again. The park was great, and from there I was able to see the tremendous amount of shipping traffic that makes the Port of Singapore the second busiest in the world, behind only Rotterdam. I stayed there until sunset (which wasn't that great since they're not called the West Coast Parklands), and then I headed over to the train station to catch my overnight train to Kuala Lumpur, which was leaving at 10:15.
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Singaporean#2127908
non-member comment
Joo Chiat
Just a quip, the local government is a very practical one, and the decision to regulate rather than ban the sex trade was taken so as not to drive it underground, fearing the unchecked spread of HIV and other STD's. That being said, prostitution in the Joo Chiat area is a relatively recent and unwelcome phenomenon...