Singapore

At 9pm we entered KL Sentral train station and boarded the night train for Singapore. For just $74 we had our own compartment with bunk beds, TV, and an attached bathroom with a shower. As it turned out, the shower didn't work, and the TV only showed a rerun of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. It was more difficult to sleep on a train then I had remembered, and we arrived in Singapore pretty beat. Our first introduction to Singapore was their overzealous immigration checkpoint. The entire trains passengers were required to get off, with all of their luggage, and go through airport-style customs and immigration. This took well over an hour. I've crossed a half-dozen borders by train before and this is the first time I've ever seen anything like this. Normally, the customs officers just hop on the train somewhere near the border, and while it is in motion, they go cabin to cabin, checking and stamping passports. Singapore brought out the drug sniffing dogs, and went through every compartment. After the tired disheveled mass of passengers were allowed back on our train, we had only a few more minutes to the Singapore station. We alighted, caught a cab to our hotel, and got our first glimpse of the city. Skyscrapers lined the river, the highways are perfect, and no graffiti in sight.

"Disneyland with the death penalty." "The only shopping mall with a seat at the U.N." A country where importing chewing gum is illegal. After two days here, I would describe Singapore like this: Think of the most massive, cavernous, shopping mall you have ever been in. It is gleamingly clean and white, it's air-conditioning a little too cold. Every big name store on Earth is present, Armani, Dolce Gabbana, Rolex. Now picture that instead of this mall being populated by a few hundred portly American families chewing on their Orange Julius, it is instead filled with several thousand Chinese, all chattering in Mandarin you can make no sense of. They press in on you from all sides, sometimes trapping you in cramped passageways for a few claustrophobic seconds. Now imagine that the spaces between each big box store in this mall are separated by 100 meters of outdoor sidewalk sun-baked to 90 degrees with 80% humidity. After one minute of walking you are soaked in sweat. Your only refuge from the sweltering heat is to re-enter yet another frigid, packed, shopping mall. This goes on for several miles. There is no escape. Welcome to Singapore.
Apparently Malaysians like to stand on sit-down toilets.
Best to leave the smokes, burgers, durians, and gas cans at home.

This tunnel could be your most expensive bike ride ever.

They shoot jaywalkers on sight don't they?

Durians smell really bad.
Our visit to Singapore started out well enough. Our taxi ride into the city was quick and reasonably priced, maybe $6. Our digs, the Southeast Asia Hotel, were run down but adequate. On early Saturday morning we walked the empty streets to the Riverwalk area and admired the city skyline. There is no question Singapore is an attractive city. It's clean, has green parks, great museums, water everywhere, and excellent public transport. It's well ordered, as it's reputed, the cars actually stop for pedestrians, and no one jaywalks. We passed all the above signs threatening fines for varying minor offences, yet we did not see a single policeman. Are the Singaporeans so cowed that enforcement is no longer necessary?We passed by the Merlion statue, the Esplenade theatres, and visited the fascinating Southeast Asian Civilizations Museum. We went for a quality run in Fort Canning Park, probably the best run in two weeks. We walked to all the major sights of the city, but it was strangely empty, like everyone had cleared out for the weekend. Our first night we made the obligatory trip to Raffles Hotel Long Bar for an original Singapore Sling. Actually Lindso got the Sling, and I opted for a pint of Tiger beer. My beer cost 21.06SGD ($14.75 US), so I had the thrill of setting a new personal best for most expensive beer. Below is my reaction to seeing the bar bill. I expected tourist trap Raffles to gouge, but I was shocked to find beer all over town costing 10, 12, 14 Singapore Dollars. For a city of four million, on a Saturday night, there was almost zero going on. Weird.

Flower sales outside our hotel

By the second night we had it figured out. We rode the MRT to Orchard Road and entered hopping mall hell. I've concluded the national sport of Singapore is shopping. We saw thousands of Chinese ladies frantically digging through the sales racks in mall after mall. I've also discovered that the "cafe culture" of Europe that we love so much is completely absent in Singapore. Nowhere can you find a place to sit and have a coffee or a beer and watch the world go by, except at a chain like Starbucks, or at some extortionate tourist trap. Singapore ranks very low on my list of destinations. We couldn't wait to leave.