Travel to Singapore: It’s Simply Pleasant.
I’m sitting in the Singapore airport and watching the security screening that happens as you are called to your gate ahead of boarding. It makes sense for security on the plane, but not much sense for any sense of security prior to being gate-side. I guess the rest of the airport is basically a mall/attraction site so it has been left open.
Most things in Singapore make a lot of sense. To prevent traffic congestion, residents have to bid for permits to have a car and drive it. The cost is now over $100k for a permit and have to be renewed every ten years. If a government wants people to use the metro and walk, that is certainly a logical tactic. Their goal is to have a metro within ten minutes walking distance for everyone.
Singapore sites were nice and very manicured. The trip felt like spending a few days in a gated community, partially because the green areas were so well maintained. The entire place felt very safe, not quite sterile, but controlled, if controlled had a more positive connotation. We had seen the botanic gardens, a light show at the bay, and eaten the famed stinky durian fruit. We visited China Town, India Town (?), a few temples, and a mosque. The most intense time spent was browsing the traditional Chinese medicine shop and deciding which supplement and formula we would try. Crocodile oil for anti-aging and a fungal-based sleep aid were the winners.
It felt like time to get to something more adrenaline-producing so I browsed surf areas in next door, Malaysia. Two to three hours driving and we could be at a surf location. It seemed like a great day trip option, until I looked up cross-border transportation. It turns out, the Singapore/Malaysia border is the busiest crossing in the world. Over 300,000 people cross daily, compared to Tijuana/San Diego’s 90,000 daily. There was bound to be hours and hours of waiting to cross and many recommendations were to avoid it, if possible.
More time in Singapore. It was very pleasant. We got our daily matcha and coconut milk drink. We continued to eat amazing Chinese and Indian food, and found an Indian/Mexican restaurant…which was mostly Indian with a menu page of burritos. An Indian soap opera played in the background, synced to a song. It was a nice lunch. Everything was just lovely.
The metro was great, it seemed like stops were everywhere and there wasn’t too much walking from them, unless we got lost in the underground malls on our way up to the ground level. The underground food seemed endless. High quality meals, baked goods, and snacks continued just to the escalator down to the trains.
It felt like Singapore represented a decent attempt at utopia. Clean streets, greenery, attention to efficiency, safety, law and order, without police everywhere (cameras everywhere, apparently). It didn’t seem to contain the harder parts of human existence, like homelessness or poverty, from what we saw. Those issues did not seem to be managed or resolved, but likely pushed elsewhere or restricted from entry. Famous for its laws against spitting and gum, the country had other strict laws, like two years in prison for physical fighting, which seemed to inform behavioral norms and what limits would not be accepted.
Like other cities outside of the US, Singapore was quiet. The metro had some chatter, but no one yelling on their phone or speaking loudly as if they wanted everyone to overhear. No one’s headphones blasted music that oozed out of them. Not a lot of drama or over stimulated excitement, but contentment, it seemed.
Aside from some of the differences, the arrival was not shocking, as my travel friend pointed out. She noted that we could arrive and use our phones, wifi, and credit cards. We were not far behind, technologically. We were not ahead either. English was the common language. Travel to major cities has become rarely shocking. She said this, hoping she didnt sound too numb, but I would agree. Perhaps the blend of globalization, ease of technology, and having traveled a bit, have eased the anxiety of arrival in some of the world’s cities.
Or perhaps we are speaking too soon. Our airline to Jakarta emailed us a week ago with a flight change. It seemed to just be a change that wouldn’t affect our connection to Kupang, where our adventure to our surf retreat would start. Today, as we prepared to go to the Singapore airport early and explore the butterfly garden there, we noticed that the flight change was not just the hour, but a shift in the whole day of our flight. Not an ideal change. It would not only limit our surf time, but because of the limited travel available to the island from Kupang, it would make it possible that we would not arrive to our final surf destination until days later, when a flight or ferry would be available.
A bit of stress. We grabbed a taxi to the airport, early, as planned. Our airline personnel were not at their stand. They would not be until three hours before the flight. We had been looking up alternatives on our ride to the airport. Batik Air? Lion Air? Not the most reliable airlines, according to news headlines. We walked over to their counter, though. They had no idea about the other airline, but they had seats open tonight. Almost the same itinerary. I thought we should take it, and we did. A couple hundred dollars later, maybe we saved ourselves extra hotel stay nights and hopefully saved ourselves from missing the boat to our retreat. Hopefully, the flight is ok…
The overnight flight is about to begin. Perhaps in our American and EU view points, we didn’t think that the region was very big. How long could a flight from Singapore to Jakarta be? Well, only two hours. So how long could a flight from Jakarata to Kupang be, both within Indonesia? Surprisingly, 4–5 hours. It seemed long, especially tagging that trip onto the 16 hour flight from San Fran to Singapore for me, and five hours from Germany to Doha + eight hour flight from Doha to Singapore for her. It is a good thing we skimmed over the time details when agreeing to the trip.
So we shall see. Maybe Jakarta will have the shock value, especially arriving in the middle of the night on an airline we did not plan to take. I would be ok without it though.