Singapore to Kuala Lampur

I watch out the window as the rest of Singapore goes by. I pass by the Gardens on the Bay that I regret not visiting, the giant ferris wheel, and outside the city center a gigantic shipping yard, industrial and science centers, some odd-shaped apartment buildings. There is jungle everywhere as landscaping, but no unused space. I switch to a pair of unoccupied seats and pull out my laptop to write this and settle in for the 6-hour journey. Within minutes the bus stops and everyone gets off. I leave my bags and head through Singapore immigration. I wonder what would happen here if I had lost my disembarkation ticket.

I follow everyone else until an official points me to an area for foreigners. Everyone else from all the buses outside are in a line for Malaysian passport holders. Singapore is an island connected by bridge to the Malaysian peninsula; I'm the only tourist here, everyone else is crossing the border to go to or from work. We get back on the bus and cross a long bridge to Malaysia, then do it all again, except this time all the immigration officials are females wearing hijabs. At one point I had researched all the countries I would be visiting; I have notes on exchange rates, visa requirements, and the best way to cross each border. But with no internet access I can't look this stuff up. Thanks for locking my phone AT&T. I'm pretty sure I don't need a visa to enter Malaysia, but I still breath a sigh of relief when I pass through. I rush into a convenience store and ask them if they take US $. He says no, but he sees my Singapore dollars and says he'll take those. I snag a package of cookies and cold can of something with a coffee bean on it.The register rings up 7.40 Ringgit, and I'm trying to convert my guesstimate of a Ringitt being around a quarter, and a SD being around $.70, so if I times the total at the register by one-third I can convert it to SGD and figure out how much I'm spending in USD...The bus driver is leaning out staring at me. I fumble around with change and the cashier says 'tell you what, give me this and go' as he takes $4. I give up converting it in my head, it seems cheap compared to $12 beers and $3 gatorades. I'm back on the bus and I'm going to check the conversion rates now...and it looks like he took me for about 40%. The good news is the price of goods looks like it is going to be half what it was in Singapore. In 28 hours in Singapore I spent about $150, even though I slept for 18 of those hours.

We just stopped at a gigantic rest stop with two markets and a dozen fast-food joints and a half dozen buses out front. It is hotter inside than outside, and it is really hot outside. I've only had the package of cookies in the last 15 hours, so I need to find a money exchange quick. I get directed to the office, which looks to be the pay office for the workers. I ask about exchanging money, he shakes his head at first when I tell him USD; he wants SGD. Eventually he says he'll do the USD 'for 2.5'. Losing 2.5% on exchange is not a good rate, but it is about what I paid at the airport and the tailor took 2.8%, so I figure it is not good but not too bad. I'm tired of being out of money so I exchange give him a hundred dollar bill and my last Singapore dollar. He gives me back 252.5 Ringgit. At this point I realize that 2.5 was what he was willing to give as a rate of exchange for both USD and SGD, not just the vig, which leaves me with a whopping 30% exchange fee. I've only been in the country for an hour and I've already lost 30 bucks.

Singapore was a rich, modern place full of concrete; the infrastructure was modern and well maintained, there was no litter anywhere, and the jungle showed only where it was allowed to for landscaping purposes. Malaysia is a jungle with a few islands of concrete carved out. I'm used to seeing the harsh cliffs of the Cottonwood Canyons where trees struggle to cling to bare rock. Here I can't tell what the mountain would look like, every inch is covered in foliage. I pull in to Kuala Lampur; it looks like a poorer, more run down version of Singapore. The sidewalks are broken, there is litter everywhere, and there are homeless in the park. The bus stops and I ask him if I get off. He says get off. I ask him again if I should get off. He says get off. I grab my things to get off. He says 'You're getting off'??

I figure since I don't know where I'm going it doesn't matter where I am. I get off. I see a Starbucks and head there searching for wifi. Everything is in English. The Starbucks menu is identical to back home. So are the prices. I use the wifi to find hostels. I read the name 'Reggae Mansion' and figure that's the place for me. I stumble in absolutely soaked in sweat. I get a bed in a 24-room dorm for 45 Ringgit ($13). I lay on the bed until I stop sweating, then head to the rooftop bar where I hear reggae blasting. The heavens open and it is pouring rain; I can probably expect it to rain every afternoon around 3pm. Within a few minutes I'm hanging out with Stef and Peter from Holland. They just arrived and are trying to deal with the jet lag. They are headed to Thailand too, so we discuss the Full Moon Party this Saturday. It's not really my scene, but it is a huge deal around here; kind of a right of passage to backpacking Thailand. I end up playing cards with three guys from Toronto: Alex, Austin, and I can't remember the last guy even though I've asked his name multiple times. They were in Singapore for five days, and said not a single person would talk to them. They ask if I'm going to the Full Moon Party too. I tell them to keep me awake and we go out in search of food. It's 6am in Utah, if I can sleep tonight I think I have a new sleep schedule down.

Singapore

My plane lands at 3am and I arrive to an empty airport on the island of Singapore. There is a line of taxis for as far as I can see, all waiting at idle for passengers. Guessing by the lack of people in the airport, they are going to be here a while. I inquire at the information desk; I can take a cab for $30-$40 to the city center, or wait an hour until the shuttle starts at 4am for $9. I'm not going to pay more for a cab than my bus ticket to Kuala Lampur tomorrow cost me so I join a group sleeping in chairs to wait. I trade in a few US dollars for Singapore dollars; I don't get many because I'm only going to be here a day, and airports are notorious for having bad exchange rates.

An hour later I head to the bathroom and the guy at the information desk tracks me down while I'm peeing to tell me the shuttle is ready. The driver drops me off in Little India, I know there are a couple hostels per block around here. I spend an hour trying to get a SIM for my phone to work before realizing AT&T has locked my phone to the AT&T network. It sucks to have no phone, no internet, and no email. I rent a bed ($22) in a shared dorm room until checkout a few short hours later. There is only one guy in there, a local who has been there a week 'waiting for his house to be ready'. He was up playing on his phone at 5am, so at least I didn't bother anyone. I sleep for a few hours, and grab a coffee on my way out. There are a dozen travelers in the kitchen, I see no interaction between them and hear no English. I'm unimpressed by Little India so I take the bus to the more yuppie quay district.

I find a new hostel right off the water, but the good location doubles the price. They hold my passport until I can get some Singapore dollars to pay them. She asks me for my 'embarkation ticket', I have no idea what she is talking about. I had been using a piece of scrap paper to take notes with; she tells me it is my immigration ticket and I can't leave Singapore without it. I head down to China Town; there is always a money trader in China Town. But here there isn't; after half an hour I talk to an Indian tailor. These guys custom make suits for tourists to ship home, they are hungry and enterprising, they are happy to make a side deal for my US currency. He tells me the rate is 1.3; I know it is closer to 1.33 but I'll pay the 2.8% so I can go sleep.

I find a packed restaurant with street tables and find a menu with nothing but pork ribs. Seriously, it is just pork ribs prepared a couple dozen ways. I order Bak kut teh (hot pork tea); it is pork ribs in an endless hot spicy broth, and it is amazing. Maybe hot soup is not the best when it is hot and humid out (93 with 64% huimidity), but I can imagine this stuff on a snow day. I'm the only westerner I see that day, and I notice I'm the only person wearing a hat. I feel like I stick out like a sore thumb, but no one pays the slightest attention to me; I'm guessing they see a lot of tourists, but not now in the off season. The exception was whenever I walked by a 'spa'. The lady at the counter would try to wave me in like it was the place I've been looking for, sometimes rushing out of the store.

Bak kut teh

I stumble outside and see the light show at Marina Bay going off in the distance. I can barely stay awake, but I don't want to keep sleeping and wake up ready to go at 3am when everything is closed. I walk a block to the quay; there are 20 restaurants in a row with an amazing view of the city and canal at night. I'm impressed by a place with gigantic lobsters and crabs and fish in cascading fish tanks. I keep walking and find that every third restaurant has this exact same setup, right down to the font on the signs. There are British pubs with no Brits and Irish pubs with no Irish. There are quite a few Italian restaurants. I grab a seat on the edge of the canal and get 'thick crab corn stew' and beef satay with a beer. The crab stew tastes like corn in flour paste. I realize it is corn in flour paste. I quit after three bites, finish my beef satay and pay my $35SD bill ($25). The amazing street food does not extend to the yuppie tourist areas.

The quay.

This is what $25 gets you in Singapore

I go walking and am relieved to find a familiar place. I had seen a few pool tables around, usually with a full bar and lots of hot young women. The way these places work is you go play pool, and the girls flirt and play pool with you. Eventually they will ask you to buy them a drink; if you do they will keep playing with you and you'll find a $30 drink on your bill. If you want her to take off with you she'll tell you she can't because she is working, but if you pay her employer a fine, she can get off work early and go have some fun. After that, you can make other arrangements with her if that's what you're looking for. But this was an actual pool hall, I could tell as soon as I saw snooker tables and cue lockers. I rent a table and she tries to sell me a 6-pack of Heinekein on special for $35SD. At this point I realize I am down to my last few SD, and I'm not going to find a currency exchange that night or before my 7am bus to Kuala Lampur. I order a Jack Daniels neat. She kept insisting I get a mixer with it. When I won't she brings me the JD on ice. I have no idea what she actually brought me that looked like whiskey, but there was only a faint whisper of alcohol for that $7SD. There was a table of locals playing an amazingly good game of snooker. Imagine a pool table with twice the area and balls that are half the normal size; it takes skill (and long arms). A gorgeous girl in tiny shorts with long black hair walks in with a middle-aged businessman to play at the table next to me. She laughs at everything he says, cheers when he makes a shot, and finds lots of excuses to fall into his arms. He spends most of the time staring at his phone. She looks my way quite a bit, which means the only two people in the whole city to take the slightest notice of me were a couple of spa madam's and a pool hall girl. It's obvious what the reputation of a western tourist is.

I've got just enough SGD left for cab fare to catch my long-distance bus in the morning. I head to the hostel and grab a gatorade at the 7-11 along the way. I'm sitting in bed when one of my roommates walks in. She seems shocked to see me; I say hello, she dives into her bed and closes the curtain. The other guy is in bed too, I can see him behind his curtain. There is a main room with 8 beds, with a community bathroom to one side and our 4-bed room next to it. I'm not sure what the etiquette is in a unisex bathroom, but there is no room to dress in the shower stalls, so I undress in the open and hope none of the girls walk in. I open the door into the main dorm room to a guy wearing a t-shirt and no pants. I guess I didn't need to be careful. I realize I left my key on my bed, I forgot I would need it to get back in. I know both my roommates are awake and right next to the door on the bottom bunks, so I knock. And knock again. Two people in the main dorm pull back their curtains to stare at me. The two in my room ignore the knocking completely. I have to make two trips to reception to get and return a spare key, and it is around 1am with me walking through groups of sleeping people. I never once saw any person there interact with another person in any way. I hope it isn't like this everywhere.