India & Southeast Asia

The final 36 hours of 50 total hours of flights/layovers was spent in Singapore. I hadn't yet slept since departing Kathmandu at 8:00 p.m. (and a refuel in Bangladesh at midnight due to the Nepali fuel crisis), so navigating Kuala Lumpur Airport was a challenge. By the time I arrived in Singapore Airport, I was a smelly zombie of a westerner with a gross beard in a posh Asian metropolis. Nonetheless, given my low budget and Singapore's not-so-low prices, I was committed to managing to enjoy the city-state without a hotel room (i.e. stay out all night or manage to find a chair to sleep on in the airport). I found a cloak room to stow my main pack, hopped on the local subway, and groggily explored Tiong Bahru, Chinatown, the Marine Bay path, and a food stall district near Downtown called Lau Pa Sat.

Tiong Bahru was young and definitely the hipster part of town. Naturally, I bee-lined to a coffeeshop, as that is what hipsters tend to do best in my experience. Chinatown was much more busy and equally modern. The food was stellar and the striking Singaporean cleanliness was on full display (littering is a $500 fine & chewing gum is illegal). The immaculately clean theme followed for the day. For the first time in my travels, I was making the area around me more dirty and not the other way around.

After Chinatown, I hopped on the super efficient subway and went toward the downtown financial district. I found myself walking the perimeter of the bay and got to see the skyline at from a view point at sunset. On my walk back to central Downtown, I caught the Fullerton Bay Hotel water show on the bay, which is actually really entertaining.

All in all, I looked a bit like "Into the Wild" trying to reintroduce himself to society. The scraggly beard made me appear more homeless than tourist compared to the posh local actresses, bankers, and ex-pats that walk the streets. Given that I am sleeping again on airport plastic chairs, I guess I am a bit more homeless than tourist after all.Read more