As is pretty usual, my plans made a left turn on the evening of my last blog post, and the following morning I was on a bus heading to Mersing, south-eastern Malaysia, intending to go to Tioman island, a tropical idyll made famous by the film South Pacific.
I was traveling with Tim, a fellow Brit, and we were following on the heels of Ben, Katie and Rich who had caught an earlier bus. Tioman sounded like an ideal place to relax for a few days before heading to the bright lights of Singapore. The trouble began even before we arrived though.
The Lonely Planet has specific warnings about certain scams - one being at Mersing, where tourists are turfed off the bus early at a travel agents and harassed into booking accommodation on Tioman before they get there, paying well over the odds in the process. That is exactly what happened.... almost. What we hadn't banked on was the national May Day holiday and nearly full accommodation nearly everywhere in Tioman and Mersing; in the end the travel agent saved our bacon (without overcharging us) and we enjoyed a couple of relaxing days in a resort, although the 5 of us shared a family room that became a little snug at times.
Three days later and after a night in an upmarket hotel in Mersing (the rest being full) we headed to Singapore on the only bus that was not packed out with weekend tourists. We reached Johor Bahru, the jumping off point in Malaysia for Singpore, to change buses.... which was where I realised my passport was missing.
The dawning realisation that you have no passport (and are also missing a couple of credit cards) is a uniquely sickening experience - there is a knot in your stomach and your hands start shaking just a little bit. I realised that it must have fallen out my pocket on the bus (or else was pickpocketed) - so after a few anxious minutes the bus was traced (filling up with fuel) and I was asked to wait for almost an hour until it pulled back to the stand. I wasn't having any of that - I started searching the huge parking lot in Johor's bus station, eventually finding the coach The driver was on board and evidently looking for my passport, but shook his head and waved his hands when I asked to have a look. Heart sinking, I had a look anyway.... and found my passport and cards in their little ziploc bag, down the side of my seat. Phew.
We crossed the causeway into Singapore and into Asia's cleanest and most Western city. There was a quick trip through a thermography imaging tunnel, to check for Swine Flu symptoms (still left over from the SARS outbreak) and then we were allowed in. It was a lot different to how I imagined - there was a lot more greenery and I was prepared for (but a little unbelieving) on the absence of litter.
We checked into our out-of-town hostel in Joo Chiat (also known as little Vietnam we discovered) and went wondering.
Singapore was first founded by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1815 as another Straits Settlement in addition to Penang and Melaka on the west coast of Malaysia, essentially to try to improve and control trade through the Strait of Melaka that runs between Sumatra and Malaysia. There was huge and rapid expansion of the city - it quickly surpassed Penang in terms of size - and hasn't really stopped since. After it's fall in World War Two and Japanese occupation, the British were welcomed back, but the fusion of Chinese, Indian and Malay cultures quickly found it's own voice and within a couple of decades Singapore became an independent city state with an economy relying on it's busy port and cheap exports.
Nowadays Singapore is a little bit of the West in the East - there are huge, air conditioned shopping malls by the dozen, an excellent metro system (also aircon), taxi drivers who don't overcharge and more ethnic districts than you can poke a stick at. Our first night there we celebrated in customary fashion with a Singapore Sling at the Raffles Hotel, trying to get our moneys worth by munching our way through the mountains of free peanuts.
Over the next couple of days we looked around little India, Chinatown and mall after mall. We headed to the Battle Box in Fort Canning park - from where the doomed defence of Malaya was orchestrated by General Percival in WW2 - and ate more fast food than I care to remember.... in a city like Singapore, it is the cheapest option often.
We quickly discovered that, during the evening, the area around our hostel was full of karaoke bars and pretty Vietnamese girls looking for men to "talk" to. We had a fantastic night in a karaoke bar (we declined the offer of girls to accompany us) and never did discover exactly what goes on in those private booths where the singing is usually terrible beyond words (ours was).
After 4 days I had had enough time (and spent enough money) to be leaving Singapore. The rest of the group had departed, and after procrastinating about whether to get an Indonesian tourist visa in advance, I took the plunge and booked a flight to Medan, Sumatra for the following day.
I was traveling with Tim, a fellow Brit, and we were following on the heels of Ben, Katie and Rich who had caught an earlier bus. Tioman sounded like an ideal place to relax for a few days before heading to the bright lights of Singapore. The trouble began even before we arrived though.
The Lonely Planet has specific warnings about certain scams - one being at Mersing, where tourists are turfed off the bus early at a travel agents and harassed into booking accommodation on Tioman before they get there, paying well over the odds in the process. That is exactly what happened.... almost. What we hadn't banked on was the national May Day holiday and nearly full accommodation nearly everywhere in Tioman and Mersing; in the end the travel agent saved our bacon (without overcharging us) and we enjoyed a couple of relaxing days in a resort, although the 5 of us shared a family room that became a little snug at times.
Three days later and after a night in an upmarket hotel in Mersing (the rest being full) we headed to Singapore on the only bus that was not packed out with weekend tourists. We reached Johor Bahru, the jumping off point in Malaysia for Singpore, to change buses.... which was where I realised my passport was missing.
The dawning realisation that you have no passport (and are also missing a couple of credit cards) is a uniquely sickening experience - there is a knot in your stomach and your hands start shaking just a little bit. I realised that it must have fallen out my pocket on the bus (or else was pickpocketed) - so after a few anxious minutes the bus was traced (filling up with fuel) and I was asked to wait for almost an hour until it pulled back to the stand. I wasn't having any of that - I started searching the huge parking lot in Johor's bus station, eventually finding the coach The driver was on board and evidently looking for my passport, but shook his head and waved his hands when I asked to have a look. Heart sinking, I had a look anyway.... and found my passport and cards in their little ziploc bag, down the side of my seat. Phew.
We crossed the causeway into Singapore and into Asia's cleanest and most Western city. There was a quick trip through a thermography imaging tunnel, to check for Swine Flu symptoms (still left over from the SARS outbreak) and then we were allowed in. It was a lot different to how I imagined - there was a lot more greenery and I was prepared for (but a little unbelieving) on the absence of litter.
We checked into our out-of-town hostel in Joo Chiat (also known as little Vietnam we discovered) and went wondering.
Singapore was first founded by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1815 as another Straits Settlement in addition to Penang and Melaka on the west coast of Malaysia, essentially to try to improve and control trade through the Strait of Melaka that runs between Sumatra and Malaysia. There was huge and rapid expansion of the city - it quickly surpassed Penang in terms of size - and hasn't really stopped since. After it's fall in World War Two and Japanese occupation, the British were welcomed back, but the fusion of Chinese, Indian and Malay cultures quickly found it's own voice and within a couple of decades Singapore became an independent city state with an economy relying on it's busy port and cheap exports.
Nowadays Singapore is a little bit of the West in the East - there are huge, air conditioned shopping malls by the dozen, an excellent metro system (also aircon), taxi drivers who don't overcharge and more ethnic districts than you can poke a stick at. Our first night there we celebrated in customary fashion with a Singapore Sling at the Raffles Hotel, trying to get our moneys worth by munching our way through the mountains of free peanuts.
Over the next couple of days we looked around little India, Chinatown and mall after mall. We headed to the Battle Box in Fort Canning park - from where the doomed defence of Malaya was orchestrated by General Percival in WW2 - and ate more fast food than I care to remember.... in a city like Singapore, it is the cheapest option often.
We quickly discovered that, during the evening, the area around our hostel was full of karaoke bars and pretty Vietnamese girls looking for men to "talk" to. We had a fantastic night in a karaoke bar (we declined the offer of girls to accompany us) and never did discover exactly what goes on in those private booths where the singing is usually terrible beyond words (ours was).
After 4 days I had had enough time (and spent enough money) to be leaving Singapore. The rest of the group had departed, and after procrastinating about whether to get an Indonesian tourist visa in advance, I took the plunge and booked a flight to Medan, Sumatra for the following day.
1 comment:
Burma out Pete?
Post a Comment