From Tioman Island, we ferried back to the mainland and eventually boarded a delayed bus to the Malaysia-Singapore border town of Johor Bahru. The border crossing into Singapore was possibly the most efficient and easiest of our trip so far. A local express bus took us from Malaysia via two immigration posts directly to the main downtown bus terminal in Singapore. After a quick stop at a mid-range hotel to convert our remaining Ringgit into Singapore Dollars, we began our hunt for some budget accommodation. Sleeping cheap in Singapore is comparable to slumming it in Beverly Hills...highly improbable, nearly impossible.
We headed to Chinatown in search of cheap hotels, only to find that the area bore no resemblance at all to the 'real' China; immaculately clean streets lined with trendy PR companies and over-priced boutique hotels. Even the local 7-11 was fitted with wood paneling and marble floors. Tired and hungry, we settled for the cheapest room we could find and resolved to continue our search the following morning. The next day we moved to a much more budget friendly room in the heart of Little India. We had swapped our comfortable hotel suite for a windowless room directly above an Australian-run pub!
Our accommodation was above the 'Prince of Wales' pub in the heart of Little India, it came complete with friendly dog and live house bands every evening.
With our accommodation for the duration of our stay in Singapore finally sorted out, we began our exploration of the city and headed to the famous Orchard Road. A wide boulevard lined with giant shopping malls and super trendy shops, Orchard Road is a place to observe the Singaporeans practicing their national pastime: shopping.
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| We also stopped by the world famous Raffles Hotel, named after Singapore's founder, and home to the Singapore Sling. | |
Singapore is a city renowned, and often criticized, for being too clean, too clinical and lacking any character; however, after spending the last ten months backpacking through Asia, we found it's cleanliness, modernity, civility and almost universal air conditioning a complete and utter luxury.
Singapore's trademark - the merlion - guards the harborfront of the city's financial district.
Sunday cricketers brave the humidity to play a game in front of the City Hall.
Our days in Singapore were a blur of
shopping malls and fruit smoothies; nevertheless, we did seek out some
places of historical and cultural interest (there are some in Singapore
if you look hard enough). Our favorite being the Prisoner-of-War
Changi Prison Museum. The museum gave an excellent overview of
the Japanese occupation of Singapore during World War II and what
civilians and armed forces endured during their imprisonment. We
spent three hours wandering the exhibits and reading some quite
harrowing accounts. As we left we lit a candle of remembrance in
the POW replica chapel.
We also paid a visit to
Sentosa Island - a small island at the foot of Singapore. With
it's manicured parks, beaches, educational rides and attractions, and
resort type facilities, it offers an excellent escape from the concrete
jungle. We went to Sentosa to blend in with Singapore's numerous
white-collared executives and play some golf... mini golf in our
case.
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| Eric lines his putt up for a birdie, whilst Nikki gets a hole in one. | |
Our overall impressions of Singapore were very favorable; with it's cleanliness (did we mention it was clean??), accessibility and friendliness. Singapore is certainly unlike any other Asian city; even it's citizens differ greatly from their Asian neighbors: they apologize when accidentally bumping into you in the street and can often be seen forming orderly queues.
Amazingly
the best thing about Singapore was still to come. As we left to catch
our flight to Jakarta, we entered Singapore Airport - truly the best
airport in the world!!! Free internet, free movies at the cinema,
rooftop swimming pools, etc... we seriously considered delaying our
flight out. Much to our delight, we realized we would be back
again to the airport when in transit en route from Indonesia to the
Philippines.
Jakarta
If Singapore is Asia's cleanest city, Jakarta is doing well in its bid to become Asia's most polluted city.
Having arrived in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, one of our first
tasks was to obtain some local currency. When we found an ATM
machine we attempted to take out 3.6 million (how often can you say
that!), however it would only allow us to withdraw 1.5 million at one
time. With hindsight, this was probably a good thing as we would
have struggled to put 3.6 million worth of 50,000 Rupiah notes in our
pockets. We then took a taxi from the airport to downtown Jakarta and
headed to Jaksa Road, the hub of all things backpacker... i.e. cheap
hotels.
After dumping our stuff in an 'adequate' hostel, we went on a short
exploratory walk around the neighborhood. There were a few
noteworthy shops and restaurants in the surrounding area but to reach them we had to negotiate
busy streets lined with heavy traffic, hawker stalls, open sewers,
scavenging cats, scuttling rats, rogue motorcyclists, and the usual
groups of Asian men hanging around doing nothing but staring. We
certainly were not in Singapore anymore!
The following day we strolled out to explore the city - strolling is
probably the wrong word, it was more like stumbled. The pavements
were uneven and covered with litter, foul smelling puddles, and other
delights. A constant stream of traffic was doing a grand job of
ensuring there was no fresh air; after 5 minutes our throats began to
itch and ache from the fumes. We walked to the Monas - a tall
column topped with a golden flame, it is Indonesia's national monument
to independence. We took the elevator up to the viewing platform
where we enjoyed an amazingly cooling breeze. The views, however, were
blurred by a pollution haze, but we were able to make out many high
rises and even the harbor and sea in the distance. We became a
tourist attraction ourselves when a local guy asked us to pose for a
photograph with his family. It was to be the first of many such
requests during our trip through Indonesia.
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| The Monas (left) was one of the many monuments scattered around the capital. | |
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| Mosques as well as skyscrapers dominate the city skyline as viewed from the top of Monas. | |
We visited the National Independence Museum at the base of the monument; viewing the 50 or so dioramas - scenes from Indonesia's history - the artwork was quite impressive, the adherence to time lines and historical accuracy was not. After returning to wandering the streets, and getting very hot and sweaty, we dived into the nearest air-conditioned restaurant for lunch, a McDonald's; unfortunately, whilst McDonald's has reached the shores of Indonesia it seems the ability to cook the burgers properly has not. Visiting the restroom after lunch we looked in the mirror for the first time in over 24 hours (our hostel room has no mirrors) and discovered that we had been feasted upon by mosquito's as our faces, necks and torsos were covered in bites (we had each assumed that the other was suffering from a few sweat spots and politely not commented). It was time to return to our hostel, upgrade to a room with an air conditioner and erect the mosquito net!
As part of our sight seeing of Jakarta, we visited Taman Mini, the 'little Indonesia' park, which has cultural displays and model houses from all corners of Indonesia. The displays are build around a country 'map' lake which offers the novelty of boating around all the islands of Indonesia in under 20 minutes. In the lake are grass islands made in the shape of the major islands of Indonesia; if you squint hard enough they do bear a vague resemblance, some even come complete with molehill-style volcanoes.
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| Examples of the traditional houses of central Sulawesi and East Kalimantan | |
We wandered around learning about the different tribal houses and customs, and gathering useful information about some of the areas we would be traveling to over the next few weeks. We again became a tourist attraction having to pose for some photographs and endure some staring and giggling. We tried out a gamalang set (traditional Indonesian musical instruments) but didn't really stop to watch any of the traditional dancing or cultural shows, as stopping meant having half the audience turn around to watch us instead.
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| Whilst admiring displays such as this gamalang set we were often asked to pose for photographs with the local tourists. | |
We took a taxi back from Taman Mini to the center of the city and stopped at one of Jakarta's new swanky shopping malls. Affluent citizens can now shop at the likes of Gucci, Prada, and Tiffany's - though we were hard pressed to think of anywhere in the city one could wear such expensive designer gear. All vehicles pulling up at shopping malls and large hotels in the capital undergo bomb checks, and we ourselves frequently had to pass through metal detectors and bag checks, even to get into fast food restaurants. These checks serve as very visual reminder of the civil unrest the Indonesian government tries so hard to conceal from the outside world.
Having exhausted Jakarta's main tourist attractions, it was time for us to move on. During our time in the city we had rarely encountered other foreign tourists; it seems they all bypass the streets of the capital and head straight for the over crowded beaches of Bali. Much to the surprise of locals and touts alike we had decided not to go to Bali but instead to explore more of Java.