It's Bohemian

    We took a train into Singapore, and arrived slightly confused as to how to get a taxi to either Chinatown or Little India. The confusion came as a surprise because for the first time in three months, we were in a first world, modern country. Singapore, unlike it's neighboring Southeast Asia tourist havens, is not a cheap tourist destination. Despite it's size and location or possibly because of it - Singapore is a tiny island on the southern tip of a peninsula below Malaysia - and because of it's tremendous wealth, is not a tourist haven. It's a very modern country, and like most modern countries, it caters to it's citizens and not an influx of foreign currency during tourist season.

    While in Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia, we were constantly asked if not hassled as to where we were going. Tuk took drivers, taxi drivers, motor bike taxi drivers, all standing at the door of every bus or the pier of every boat we rode on, trying to offer us their services. Not so in Singapore. Much like America, or anywhere in the Western world, you hail a taxi if you want one; you seek out a service if you need it. The other countries we had traveled through so far - and these are second and third world countries which have a much lower standard and cost of living than Singapore - would bring every conceivable service to you as you walked across the street, weather you needed it or not. You are a savior to poverty. You are money. You are, in many cases, a large part of the local economy.

    Singapore, on the other hand, has oil. And being as small as it is, not a ton of room for you. And because of the thriving economy, Singapore feels like one big amusement park, with shopping malls taking up half of the landscape. Singapore is not crowded, so to speak, but it is certainly bustling.

    We finally found a taxi at the train station, a very clean and fairly new vehicle, and gasped at the price to get us there. By appearance of things, you got the impression that bargaining was not par out here, quite a departure from the past several months. We arrived at our chosen guesthouse near Little India and checked in. InCrowd, highly recommended by Lonely Planet, turned out to be a good choice. It was the most expensive place we stayed, paying a little over $10 a person for a dorm room with shared shower, but it was run exceptionally. When I daydream about opening a guesthouse, it would be like this one in many ways. Yes, I have come to daydreaming about opening a guesthouse; one with a cafe and a large selection of books you could read; one with a hammock heaven perched high in the trees surrounding it, or above the cafe somehow; one with buckets so you could wash your own clothes and lines to dry them; one with a proper fan placed in the right center of the room to provide the most air to all corners rather than just one corner of the bed; one with wifi, even if only at the cafe to encourage a little more business with the purchase of coffee. In the end, a person needs purpose, but more so, I think I am the kind of person who always need to be creating. And yes, I'm a dreamer….but I'm not the only one.

    The shower at InCrowd was the best I had since leaving America. It was better than the one I had at home. It was so good, I had to blog about it. And a western toilet? With toilet paper provided? And a spray hose? It was almost too much. We were at a backpackers guesthouse, and it felt like luxury. Free breakfast allowed you to walk into the kitchen area - across from the reception desk - and pick grab two boiled eggs, two toast with butter and orange marmalade, and coffee or tea - clean your own dishes when you're done. Four computers mounted on the wall offered free internet, there was free wifi, a sofa sitting area, and a beanbag sitting area that belonged in a retro-chic lounge. Warning to anyone who wants to stay there - pay advance for as many nights as you want to stay, because they are always so booked in advance that unless you're extremely lucky, you will have to get booted for someone who has made a reservation.

    The bus system on Singapore is simple to understand, and the metro system is ultra-clean and ultra-modern. More so than the ones I have experienced in America. What's not so simple, is life in Singapore. They call Singapore a fine city (country), and it is in more than one sense of the word. One day we took a metro after a long day of exploring and were confronted by one of the operators while still in the tunnel, on our way out. She scolded us for carrying a (empty) plastic cup of Jasmin Green Iced Tea from McDonald's onto the metro. I think she took mercy when she was confronted by our confusion and shock, and told us to hurry out because we were on camera, and someone would be coming soon to fine us. That's right - carrying food or drink onto the metro will cost you S$500. Public protest: S$1000. I'm not sure what the fine is for spitting gum onto a sidewalk, nor do I know the fine for possessing gum at all. Chewing gum is illegal. You won't find it in the stores at all, and bringing it into the country may be dealt with a less harsh form of prosecution but not dissimilar to being caught smuggling drugs.

    But Singapore is magical, with art and exhibits and performances everywhere and seemingly all the time. We were fortunate to have been there on a weekend when the student association at the University of Singapore was putting on a multistage outdoor performing arts exhibition. We didn't know what to expect, and we offered a tremendous variety, moving us from one stage to another as one performance ended and another began, winding us through the lawn outside of campus. Laser lights, smoke machines, satellites, fire dancers, traditional clothes, lyrical performers and rap artists, spray paint artists and suspension performers…taking from the past and their ideas of the future, expressive art mixed with interpretation and perspective about their culture and their place in the world.

    One day we walked passed Little India, toward the center of town. We came across a Hindu Temple, something we had not yet encountered in our travels through predominantly Buddhist (and in the case of Malaysia, Muslim) countries. Singapore is not predominantly Hindu by any means; it was just a happenstance of the path we chose. After making our way around the temple and admiring the statues of divinities, we walked out and into a street market. We have grown accustomed to them; smells of fish and meat following you as you walk through fruit stands and stands selling shirts and clothes, past the stall selling fried insects, onto another several stalls selling squids and dried fish. This market had the same look and feel, minus the smell. We were not in the mood to shop so we walked briskly through the market and took a left at the next corner, only to step into another world - glass buildings, the names of French and Italian fashion designers labeling every doorway, with people moving under flickering lights or neon displays. For the next hour, we walked, and never were we abandoned by the company of a mall along our way. I may have seen larger malls in my life, but never have I seen so many, one after the other, some attached underground, others not, simply mall after mall after mall, and high end malls at that. This was not a place for the shoestring backpacker. This was a place  for the rich. I was reading a book called Some Girls at the time (it's not really a guy book for those looking for recommendations), and the American girl who went to Brunei to become a harem girl for the prince was taken on shopping sprees and their destination was always Singapore.

    In Singapore, we took it all in. We enjoyed our hot shower, we were delighted by our flushable toilets, we lounged in air-conditioning. We went to a movie, we ate at Carl's Junior and played cards at Starbucks. We enjoyed a pizza from none other than California Pizza Kitchen, which may not have the best pizza in the world, but wait…we're still in Southeast Asia? Singapore felt like what Dubai should feel like.

    I was in the bus leaving Singapore, returning to Malaysia, when I realized that I had forgotten my iPhone at the guesthouse. I had plugged it in that morning, and left to plugged in the dorm room at The Prince of Wales Guesthouse. It was about an hour to Malaysia, and mostly because we had to go through immigration for both countries. I arrived at the bus station in Malaysia, obtained a bunch of coins for the pay phone, and made the call to the number on the business card for the guesthouse. The sound quality was terrible, and the entire time I talked I felt I was contracting leprosy from the handset. No time to worry about that; I had to communicate that I had left my phone in hopes that they would find it, and I had to do it while putting coin after coin into the phone just to stay connected. The display showed how much money I had left and was counting down quickly, in leaps of a quarter at a time, so fast that I could barely keep up. There were a couple times I had to stop talking so I could concentrate on getting money into the slot. The man at the reception desk found it, and I informed him that I would get on a bus and come right back. An hour later we had checked into a hotel near the border, and I left my bag, grabbed my book (still Some Girls), went back to the bus station, and made my way across the border, again.

    While in line waiting for the bus, an elderly Chinese couple struck up a conversation with me. They happen to be Singaporean and not Chinese, but that is their ancestry. They, mainly the husband, would ask me if I'd been to this country or that country, and mid-answer would laugh and wave his hands as he started telling me a story about his travels there long ago. He had traveled a lot, and now lived in Singapore. They had asked (several times) where I was headed, and each time would nod and wave while telling me what stop I should get off at and which bus I should take next. I had the impression that this bus would drop me off where I had caught the one in the morning to Malaysia, but that was not the case. They offered to get off and help me catch the next bus, but I assured them I could find it - it was in Little India after all. They told me that they were getting off at the next stop, and as they got off they pointed to those getting on and smiled to say "follow them." The inside of the bus quickly changed; it was only after the bus left again that I realized the bus was filled with very fair skinned locals, and that they mostly appeared to have a Chinese ancestry. This was the bus from Malaysia over the boarder into Singapore. The elderly couple - who I was told were 76 and 72 years old - had gone over in the morning to do some shopping and then come back. I didn't find out what they had gone for, but was told that it was illegal to bring many things over the border, including cigarettes. The lady smoked and had told me that cigarettes cost about ten times more in Singapore than they do just across the border in Malaysia, but that it was against the law to bring any over. The bus had been filled with one culture of Singapore locals and was now filled with a group with Indian ancestry; mainly very dark skinned, smiling and talking in Hindi or Urdu (I have to be honest that I do not yet know the difference, but will be in India for two months soon and plan on losing this ignorance). Follow them, they had said.

    Several stops later and nearly everyone gets up. I look outside and we are one block away from the Little India Metro Station. I get up as well and make my way to the guesthouse to retrieve my iPhone. An hour later, and I am back in Malaysia - three border crossings, three hours.

    I feel like I have said very little about Singapore, and in fact I have. I was there for a total of five days, and feel as if I experienced so much in so little time and yet only saw the surface. Imagine being tossed into a waterfall - within the second that you drop from top to bottom, you experience such intensity, but you know nothing of the river before or what lies ahead. But in those short days, I was able to say (repeatedly) that I could live in Singapore. It's charming; it's rich in flavor; it has an eye on the future but so much identity with the past; it's diverse and modern and expressive. It's Singapore.