With October 16th and D-day for my next border run irkingly impending, I had no choice but to make plans for another trip out of Thailand. I wasn’t about to do Burma again, and Penang – in Malaysia, is even longer than the six hour drive I took on my first border run a mere 7 days before. So I wasn’t in the mood for another long-haul mission for a passport stamp. Besides, I still hadn’t forgotten about the mad man behind the wheel of the minibus, so in an endeavor to avoid future border runs and handing the responsibility of my life over to a speed demon – I booked a plane ticket to Singapore for a long weekend.
Singapore and her beautiful cityscape.
My plan was to get to Changi Airport, head over to a backpackers, check in, dump my luggage, make my way straight to the Royal Thai Embassy in Singapore City where I’d apply for my Non Immigrant B Visa, then go find my friends from South Africa who were conveniently in Singapore competing for the International Flowboarding Cup at the Wavehouse on Sentosa Island and enjoy a funfilled weekend with my peeps…
To begin the memoir of my journey to the English speaking, independent island nation of Singapore, I’d like to state – on the record, that window seat over Phuket ROCKS! Day or night! During the day – as you take off and start the steep ascent, you can’t help but gasp at the beauty of hundreds of islands lying beneath you while the turquoise ocean waters surrounding them shimmer brightly from the reflection of the sun.
A birds eye view of paradise!
At night – light’s tricks stir your imagination into believing (somewhat) that you’re upside down, because the ocean is now black, and the THOUSANDS of lit up boats scattered across the sea all look like sparkling stars hanging in the heavens. It’s like you’re looking down at the universe! Very trippy!
Anyway, a ‘B’ Visa would ensure I could legally stay in Thailand on a multiple entry permit for a year and only require a border run once every three months – instead of the random time frame’s I’d receive from either Burma or Malaysia via land entry. The visa was to take two working days to process. The drill, as I found out when I got to the embassy on schedule on Wednesday October 14th at about 2pm, was that for visa applications you’d need to arrive at the embassy between the hours of 9am and 11:30am and then pick your newly visa’d passport up the following day between 2pm and 4pm.
This meant, being that it was Wednesday and that I was leaving to come back to Thailand on Sunday, that I only had one opportunity to be successful in getting my visa. Thursday morning.
Me sitting on the steps of the orchid garden on the Buddhist Temple's rooftop.
After having walked Singapore City flat on Wednesday, looking for the embassy, making the trek to Sentosa Island to see my friends, then catching the last bus back to the underground and only getting to sleep at around 2am – I over slept on Thursday morning. I had hoped to be there by 9am. Instead I only woke up at 11am…
FAIL!
I was going home empty handed!
All the same – I’m not one to add insult to my own injury by crying over milk I spilled… I was still in a new place and the friends I hadn’t seen in ages were still there… I was going to have a great weekend and deal with the consequences of not setting my alarm when I got back to home to Phuket.
Singapore is just beautiful. Unbelievably clean.
Possibly the cleanest country I have visited so far – and the most well managed. The entire infrastructure of this little country is awefully impressive. And the laws they have in place to ensure their spick-and-span country stays ever clean are harsh to say the least.
Statutory law stands firm to ensure it stays beautifully clean.
There are the obvious one’s such as a mandatory death penalty for drug trafficking that applies to foreigners too.
It is also seen as criminal for you to have drug metabolites in your system – even if you reveled in said illegal part time hobby in a different country. If they suspect you as a could be consumer – law is – they can test you and you could end up winning a free phone call to your lawyer at home.
Seriously people – don’t mess around with drug laws ANYWHERE in South East Asia!
Then there are the the less obvious ones.
Like the fines you get nailed with for jaywalking, smoking or drinking in public, spitting on the streets or even being in possession of chewing gum. You might as well nail yourself to a financial cross if you’re an avid litterer – it’s just a no go zone!
Singapore’s currency is also extremely strong and is currently around 23.86BAHT to one Sing Dollar. You’d get about 73 US Dollars from 100 Sing Dollars. So for the above mentioned law violations, you can expect to pay anything between 500 and 10 000 Sing Dollars. It’s a lot of US Dollars for accidentally jaywalking… and it’s even more Thai BAHT.
Of all the endearing qualities Singapore possesses – it’s main downfall in the eyes of the traveller, would be the economy. It’s RIDICULOUSLY expensive! And coming from a place as cheap as Thailand – it was a massive shock to the system
The main street in Chinatown. Singapore tourism is resposible for the urban decor.
A plate of Nacho’s cost me S$15 and instead of being merry with my mates – we all involuntarily opted for sobriety over the weekend after we discovered that A beer cost nearly S$18!!! When I heard the bad news – I recalled my mate Hannah – who was in Singapore the weekend before, telling me that she got so hammered at the Quays that she spewed, and I thought to myself “HTF did she afford to get THAT drunk?!?!”
But it’s not just food and beverage that’s are so ill priced. Accommodation is too! I got lucky and found a backpackers that was S$18 a night. Poor Hannah paid nearly S$100 per night. AND she went shopping! Not sure whether she won the lottery or robbed a bank before she left Phuket…. but it would seem ‘poor Hannah’ really isn’t poor Hannah…
I on the other hand – was going to have to choose my poison wisely.
Luckily the world champs type competition my friends were invited to compete in ensured their needs were met over the course of their stay and they were given food vouchers for the Wavehouse restaurant. One voucher could get them 3 dishes if they liked… so I did score a few freebies while I was there.
Another awesome aspect of Singapore’s infrastructure is that they are very centered around the environmental and her well-being There are recycling reward systems in action – your average paper, plastic and glass with pretty primary coloured bins gridding the city and then your travel tickets get you a S$1 deposit refund when you return your used public transport voucher to the ticketing machine.
The Skytower has a rotating lift that carries you up to the top of the tower and rotates while you take in Singapore's panoramic elegance.
And there are Eco-Malls! I was particularly fond of that idea! I bought some fruit from one of the convenience stores inside an Eco-Mall and I was quite put off when they gave me a plastic bag. After considering the audacity of a mall advertising itself as eco friendly and then distributing very un-eco-friendly carry bags (it was really bugging me), I took a closer look at the packet – it wasn’t plastic. It was corn! ‘They’ had just redeemed themselves – a hundred fold!
I get that this might not be quite as novice to you as it is to me because wherever YOU are from has had systems like this in place for ages. But clearly it’s not just me who’s had my head in a hole since the beginning of the eco-revolution, because when I showed my fellow Saffa’s at the Wavehouse this ingenious invention – they were as impressed as I was.
South Africa’s peuney contribution toward environmental sustainability is like farting in the wind! They might as well not even bother. They have a long way to go to catch up to places like Singapore! But that’s a different story for a different time.
Chinatown streets are asthetically awesome.
As far as Singapore sights go:
The city itself is really modern, with mirrored glass skyscrapers and a freshly built tube system they call the MRT, commuting thousands of people to work and to colossal shopping centres in and around the city that is a country.
The MRT in reality is not THAT fresh, but it’s pretty much brand new in comparison with London’s almost vintage underground.
Despite being super modern, Singapore still has it’s ‘old charms’ like Little India and Chinatown which make for a great day walking through the streets and witnessing different cultures.
Singapore’s main tourist trap – and pretty much where I spent the entire weekend, is Sentosa Island – which is basically one big expensive resort with three beaches – the main of which is Siloso Beach. It’s pretty… and well kept – but nowhere near as fantastic as the beaches here on Phuket. If it weren’t for the fact that there is a section of Sentosa Island that rises well above sea level, I would insist that the entire island is man made. The beach sand doesn’t feel as soft as beach sand should feel and the palm trees look planted. Even the rocky bays look fake. Maybe I’ve just been spoilt. It is still a nice outing though.
The one touristy thing (the poison I was talking about choosing earlier) I did decide to do was going for a ride up the Skytower on Sentosa. I had to do it. As an aspiring photographer – the photographic opportunity that a panoramic view of Singapore City at night would bring would be worth it’s weight in Sing gold.
Charming Siloso Beach. I've decided all beaches need to have their names on them like this.
As lovely as Singapore is – it’s TOO expensive and TOO hot for me, so when Sunday afternoon rolled in and it was time to hop on the plane back to Phuket, I was more than ready to go. I had a lot of fun and really enjoyed my experience in Singapore – and watching Team South Africa take first place in the competition 
But, it’s like when you’ve gone on holiday and you’ve had a great time – and then you wake up one morning after your 2 weeks is up and you feel that it’s time to go home now. You’re ready. You miss YOUR bed, YOUR shower, YOUR fridge and YOUR island.
For more information on traveling to Singapore – visit http://wikitravel.org/en/Singapore
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