Day 26 - Southbound, to Singapore

12:30
I gave up on the football at the end of the 90 minutes. Just couldn’t keep my eyes open. I checked the score when I predictably woke up at 03:00. Back to sleep, but awake again around 06:30, and no more sleeps. Today’s not gonna be the very funnest of days. Felix and I meet at 10:00 to get checked out and have a coffee, then jump in our cab to Phnom Penh Airport. The traffic is pretty mental - as it has been most of the time we’ve been in Cambodia. Our driver is not just a loon, but pretty aggressive with it. Thankfully, we arrive at the airport unscathed.

We’re about 3 hours ahead of our flight, but the desk doesn’t open for another 40 minutes. Something in the back of my brain is freaking out at this, so I drown it out with a beer. Check in and security are dealt with blissfully quickly, though I have to say goodbye to a travel fork/spoon thing that I stupidly left in my hand luggage, as it has a 4cm, blunt as fuck knife blade on it. Never liked it anyway.

We’re sitting in the departure lounge - me with a beer, Felix having fun with his various bags and backpacks, trying to figure out how to connect them all together. We’re both sad to be leaving Cambodia. It’s been a great country to visit:

1) The folks here are WONDERFUL. They’re just so warm and friendly. Wherever we’ve been, there are smiles abound.
2) It’s a stunningly beautiful country. The cities have charm and fractured chaos, the countryside is as green as anywhere on the planet, the mountains are breathtaking, the beaches deserted. So much beauty to recommend it.
3) The food - by the power of Grayskull - the food. I had I would say it’s closer to my experience of Vietnamese food than Thai, but Khmer cuisine has an identity all of its own. We’ve eaten incredibly well here, and done so at bargain basement prices. It feels like we’ve eaten healthily as well though.
4) Whilst I wasn’t blown away by Angkor Wat, I would visit Siem Reap again, and go back to Angkor Wat later in the day, but honestly - the other temples we visited were, for me, far more charismatic and enchanting. Ta Prohm particularly is one of my top 10 heritage sites I’ve ever visited. Just spell-binding.
5) If you come to Cambodia, go to Battambang. It’s a fabulous little city, and the views of the bat exodus at sunset are worth the stop alone.

21:30
We land into Changi a little ahead of time. Transiting the airport is a piece of cake, and we’re into our cab to the city centre by 17:40, about 30 minutes after landing. The drive into the city is amazing. I’ve been told that I’ll think Singapore is what the cities of the future will look like. Crossing the Sheares Bridge into the city centre, it’s hard to disagree. I’ve also been told that I might think of Singapore as too sterile, lacking soul. The streets we pass by look anything but. Clean, yes - but far from soulless.

After we’ve checked into our hotel - comfortably the most expensive of our trip, and probably the least luxe - we head out in search of cash and food. The visit a hawker market not far from our hotel, which is chock full of random little stalls, selling random food. I have a Hainanese pork and rice dish, Felix opts for some braised pork belly, and then a dumpling soup. When he asks me to buy him a weird soft drink, I do not fail. We decide the best way to describe it is sparkling Listerine. It’s meant to be sasparilla, but no - Listerine it is. Between us, we do not finish it.

The food is cheap - S$4 for my pork dish, and little more for Felix’s two dishes. It’s very easy to spend a ton of money on food in Singapore, and we’ll do our best to eat at some of the more economical hawker markets. After dinner, we amble back in the direction of our hotel, stopping at a pool hall for a few frames. Felix wins.

We head back to the hotel. We’ve got an early start tomorrow for a walking tour of Chinatown and Little India, and I’m beyond jaded…Read more