.Out. Singapore. Mostly.

My second trial to get out of Bangkok turned out to be successful. Not purely ‘no problems’ case, though. I just got to the airport building, took a first glance at the screen and what a surprise, my flight is pleasantly ‘delayed’ for 2 hours. Ok, I figured, 2 hours I can manage as long as it doesn’t turn into 2 days. When I got to my check-in desk, I saw the same member of staff from the trial to get out of Bangkok no 1, better known as ‘unsuccessful’ one. She seemed to be happy to see me, she waved, talked to me a bit [even though I know she was talking English, Thai English is sooo ridiculously hard to understand, that I could catch only every third word, but kept on nodding politely when necessary].

While passport control went with almost no troubles, security check was a bit of a challenge, I may say. I had no idea what went wrong this time, but my bag was scanned 3 times and they went through it manually 2 ties. Cottage cheese looked very suspicious for them as I saw, but the main reason for checking, I would guess, was my keys and a little Eiffel tower as a key-chain on them. Be aware of strange key-chains, when you come to Asia!

Anyways, I managed to get through with no of my stuff confiscated [woohoo], so I consider it went more than perfect. Flight, however, didn’t. it was late for way more than 2 hours, started to feel not funny at all anymore, but at least we managed to take off this time. During the flight Kafka has left me. And it kinda left some emptiness inside of me. Just like in Mr. Nakata. Although I usually pretend to be a boy named Crow.

I arrived to Singapore just in the middle of the night. All the passport and security checks went with totally no troubles and soon enough I entered hot Singapore night. It was even hotter than Bangkok night, if You can imagine [can you? I can]. I arrived to my place around 4 a.m., better known as B&B+ @ Liongis [which, I may say in advance, was really a catch – the best hosting I could have ever imagined and more].

Day No 1 or the day of walking.

My first night ar B&B+ was more than perfect, but very short as well. I woke up just early enough to see Liongis before he goes to work, get a map [which my blond mind, of course, forgot to collect at the airport] and suggestions of what I might be able to see for that day. So we did – everyone in that apartment went to work and a blond girl went explore the city/country [still a little fuzzy about that]. The day was sunny and hotter than Bangkokian days, but with no other choice of my hands – I went on exploring.

Day no 1 gave me millions of billions of miles on my feet. I managed to see all the major places in the city center and around it. I started by a walk along the river, followed by Chinatown, which was nice, really, if only people weren’t looking at me as I was some sort of white bear again.

After the Chinatown and some temple from “must see things in Singapore” I moved to the city center, went through real concrete jungles and offices [I would guess that at least half of the country/city works exactly here]. I went to the place that they call “Merlion park”. Apparently a park for Singaporeans is just some square of slabs with no green piece of anything. But that was fine. What shocked me – was the Merlion thing itself. I couldn’t believe it’s size is just as that chick’s with legs in Copenhagen, I was disappointed. Of course, only blinds and me manages to miss the real one and see the copy, that stands next to it. Oh, what a relief I just felt.

So after touching and making pictures of the symbol of Singapore, I went to explore some Marina Bay area, moving to some arabic block. Nothing very spectacular there was followed by Little India. I have never been in the real India, but this place looked very Indian as least for me, indeed.

While seeing some green place on the map, I considered it to be a park and thought that it must be a nice place to finish my walkings of the day. Boy, can you ever be wrong? That green place was closed and covered with a tall fence, and I had no idea why. Later on, people, who are living in Singapore, told me that it is some sort of big person’s [prime minister’s or someone’s..] residence or something. No wonder I had no chance of getting in. Anyway – angry about that I told to myself – ok, then I am going home on foot. That was a long walk, including some walking in the shopping district, so at least Steffany got to do some window-shopping. We try so both could be happy.

Anyways, the owners of B&B+ were so special and awesome people that we finished my first day in Singapore with real Singaporean seafood dinner. For the first time in my life I tried crab [wow, it has some very delicious meat inside of it]. It was sad at the beginning, since I actually saw the poor guy still alive before we ordered it, but that’s the life for you. We also had some huge shrimps and one delicious fish, but the name, sorry, I forgot right that minute they told it for me. After the dinner we have a nice walk along the beach while watching millions of billions of lights of ships and went to sleep.

Day No 2 or the day at Sentosa.

The next day started with a rain. So I was waiting for it to finish, since my goal for that day was to discover one small island, connected with Singapore Island with a bridge. Some sore of resort of Singapore, I should say.

So after the rain finished I tried Singaporean metro for the first time [I have to say the metro itself is not much different from others, except that it is insanely clean and tidy, but when operator started singing “train is coming, train is coming, train is coooooming” they surprised me] and then took a little train to Sentosa. From the first look it is very touristic place – plenty of fancy hotels, casino, restaurants and other stuff. I kept on walking. I stopped at Merlion statue, which is on of the main points in the island, made some walking around, ended up in some sort of ‘walking in the jungles’ kind of style path and decided to walk it. It must end up in the beach – I was sure about it. Turns out, I was wrong. Who could have thought? Again. Don’t laugh. After I got lost there in the woods somewhere, I found my way back just almost as easy as I lost it for the first time. So after some jungles I did end up in the beaches. I was walking around feeling like being in some sort of movie. You know, with palm trees in the beach, nice sand and calm sea? It looked just like that, just soo.. not completely real. But I could touch everything and I knew it’s real. So I was walking, taking pictures, enjoying the time for myself.

I walked up to one board, which proudly stated that ‘we are 136 kilometers from the equator’. Damn it, I thought, I am so close to the equator, it’s almost possible to touch it with hand and no, still not below it. Well, maybe next time.

When I got back from my small trip in Sentosa, B&B+ owners took their guests [a.k.a. me] to play some tennis. Boy, would you have seen me play. It was so sad, funny or pathetic, I don’t even known how to say – but one is clear – I am NOT good in tennis at all. The night was finished with some beer and some conversations before we all went to sleep.

Day No 3 or the day of museums.

I decided to take it easy on the third day. After all I had two pretty heavy days already. So I have been walking around the places I missed on my first day, met Liongis for lunch and then, decided and encouraged by Liongis, took a toud in Asian civilization museum and National museum of Singapore. Both were interesting, I have to admit. And I have learned some more about Asian cultures and I definitely learned some more about Singapore history, culture and development success.

After that we took some beers and stayed a bit at the pool, enjoying the cool weather after the really hot day. And after that we went for some Mexican meals and margaritas. It was my first time I tried margarita as well, and may I add – I will most likely will go for trying those once again.

After the Mexican meal we went to some place called Marrakesh I guess, but we drank Irish beer there [you would be surprised, but there in Singapore they have Guinness and other irish beers, even my beloved Hoegaarden and etc]. and some nargile [you would better know that thing as water pipe].

Day no 4 or the last day

From the morning it seemed that Singaporean sky just decided to cry non-stop. I was waiting patiently [or not] long enough, but then decided – enough and went to the Botanic garden. I knew I have to see it and some kind of rain is not going to stop me. I realized, a bit later, that it’s maybe even better that it was raining, since the park was almost empty [I had almost it all for only myself], plus the blossoms of the flowers just looked so nice in the pictures with a little drops of the rain on them.

So I dedicated all day for the Botanic garden and there was no single minute to regret it. It was amazing. Such a green thing in such a small place like Singapore, amazingly nice blossoms and different trees from Europe. Some rain forests, some orchids, some swans in the lake. Actually that one, the lake of swans I mean, had this small island inside of it and then a statue of several swans on a flying mode. It gave me some shivering and some memories from one movie, I have seen millions of years ago [more than 20 if you can believe me]. The one, I have seen in the cinema about seven sisters, who were coming to the lake in a shape of birds, turned into girls, did some swimming and went back in the shape of birds. Damn, I started to want to see that movie again. But it’s already about 10 years I have been looking for it with no luck.

After the botanic garden we had some Indian dinner, said goodbyes and the guys went for some salsa dancing lesson. I left there alone. A little time after a little and I packed all of my stuff and went to the bus station to catch my bus to the Kuala Lumpur, which, in Asia, popularly is much better known as KL.

Day of KL or day of having my ass kicked.

To my surprise, when I got to the border of Malaysia, I realized that this is a Muslim country. And the deeper I went into it, I learned that it is really a Muslim country. It just hit me how still so little I know about the world. About Indonesia, at least, I knew. Did you know that Indonesia is also a Muslim country?

A day started with no promising beginning. For starters, the bus stopped somewhere, but I mean, literally somewhere [well, for some maybe that place means something, but for me, poor European girl in KL for the first time – it was just somewhere] at 4 a.m. with no cash, no ATMs around, no public transportation available and no people [everybody seemed to have plans of how to get out of that place] I was staying there. There were some homeless people around, some strange, kind of seeking for troubles guys not too far away from me, but since I had no other option, I just stayed. The good part was, I remembered Karolina telling me that I can keep the book [which I borrowed in B&B+] so I was reading it for not falling asleep [that was a miracle to have that book, really] up until the dawn.

When it was already not dark anymore outside and people started walking around to work or somewhere, I went to look for a currency exchange booth or bank or anything. Of course, not surprisingly, I found nothing but an ATM. With no choice, I just took some money [way too much, to be honest, but how can I take just as much as I will pay for taxes while using foreign ATM?]

While finding no tourist information [that was a mystery for me all the time by the way – because I could not find any at any time and I could not find a map anywhere, even in a central train station! So if You want to explore KL – bring your own map! A must in your bag] I decided to take a metro [or something] to a more ‘city center friendly’ stop and walked with no directions or no map or anything.

As I mentioned in the beginning, this city kicked my ass. Big times. And yes, I know, I have been in the worse situations or met stranger creeps, but at that time, this one hit the bottom. In general people in KL were very nice. None of them talked English, but they were smiling and greeting me. So I sat down in front of some sort of city hall in a kind of nice park, but since it was an early morning, I was alone. I was just trying to finish reading my book [the last pages and I just was dying to know how the things ended]. And while reading I saw somebody coming closer. I wasn’t looking up and I thought somebody just needs to pass by. But I noticed that this somebody kind of stopped kind of close to me. Trying not to be paranoid, I kept on reading my book but started to feel really uncomfortable. I looked up and I saw this guy [****ing pervert, if I can be impolite] taking of his pants and getting ready to jerk off just next to me.

I can’t say I was afraid or scared, just a little shocked and disgusted. I would have just as simple as that taken the knife out of my bag and offered him to cut his balls for him [I was pretty pissed about all the picture I have seen], but since I had only my hand-luggage for the plane, knives are not acceptable. So without wanting to get into troubles, I just took all of my stuff and moved away. He wasn’t following me, which was a good thing. For him. But still, he destroyed my any positive impression about KL.

Later on I was just exploring the city, going here and there [not too far away, because I was afraid to look track without a map] having some, most probably Malaysian meal in the local place, exploring Chinatown [there is one in every city here in Asia I guess], meeting much more normal people than the one before. Two times I was complimented for my T-shirt [pink one with a bee, can you imagine? Who would do that?].

So after a while I sat in the KL sentral [train station, a.k.a.] to wait for my bus to the airport. Here comes another creep. For starters he is being pretty nice, just talking to me. Seemed like an ordinary guy [pretty old though] who was just bored and needed someone to talk to. So we did. When he started telling me I should come back to KL, he will take me to the places, he will take me to his place to cook me dinner or he wants to marry a girl like me [well, that would be just stupid, but hearing this was creepy] – it started to hit me ‘girl, get the …. out of there’. To my surprise, when I kind of stopped talking to him [it was a very comfortable chair, I did not want to loose it just because of some creep], he started pointing out that, for example ‘my fingers are like men’s’. I mean – what the f…? Did he just want a good punch in his face? Then he said, that ‘my belly is too big’ and, if it was not enough that ‘I should do some running or swimming to make it smaller’. Then I got frustrated. I mean, no matter how fat I am, or become or can be, no moron has a right to tell me what to do with that. He was lucky I am not an angry bitch, just psycho one, so instead of getting angry and screaming I just starting finding people pathetic. So then I left, leaving the pathetic jerk sitting there. I don’t really need this. And I went to the airport.

At the airport I got extremely nice security check, nothing went wrong, they were smiling and being very nice. It kind of brought some believing for Malaysia in me, I might be considering coming back. Just not to KL I guess, but some paradise looking islands. When I saw a bookstore at the airport, my eyes started shining – I was missing Kafka or Trainspotting so much already, that I needed to buy a new book to read. And they had so many and so good ones, I couldn’t decide what to take. Finally I ended up grabbing “The girl with a dragon tattoo” which, I have to say frankly, so far got to me and I am very interested in what is going to happen. What next I should pick up for readings? Suggestions are welcome!

And then I got back home. Yes, home, Bangkok is already feeling like home. The same streets, the same room, the same heat and the same annoying tuk-tuk drivers, that don’t even annoy you as much. I’m back. In.