Singapore

We woke up from our overnight flight at 6 AM Singapore time (3:30 AM Sri Lanka time) and found ourselves in a completely different place. Often an airport doesn't tell you much about a city, but it certainly did in Singapore. The airport had free internet access, all kinds of western restaurants, free massage chairs, and even a swimming pool. There were lots more things too, but these are the ones I noticed as I was being pushed through the airport in a wheelchair by an airport worker.

You might reasonably wonder why I was being pushed through the airport in a wheelchair. Regular readers of my blog know that I carry a large bamboo stick with me for many reasons. It's very useful and we discovered a new use for it in Sri Lanka when someone droped their sandal on the rail track and needed some help. As useful as it is, it sometimes gives us problems at the wide variety of security checkpoints we come across in our travels. I tend to develop a limp as we approach security checks police officers and the like. After we pass through I'm usually able to walk normally again. Unfortunately, this isn't the case at airports.

You don't just need to pass through a checkpoint, you need to pass through two or three on your way in and even after that you have to get your passport stamped by immigration exiting one country and then entering another. This means I'd need to keep up the act for quite some time. Luckily for me I don't have to because they usually check the stick for me when I check in. That means the only way for me to get through the airport is by a wheelchair. Then the only thing I need to deal with is the guilt of wasting everyone's time, but I'm not willing to give up my bamboo so this is how it must go.

When we got out of the airport and into the city the first thing that struck us was how easy it was to do everything. There were no touts hassling us for taxi rides or tours as we left the airport. The public bus we took to the city was clean and comfortable with pleasant buttons you push to signal to the driver where you want to get off. The bus wasn't overcrowded, there were no offensive odors, and it was even air conditioned. We just sat there feeling so comfortable it was almost eerie.

On the bus and everywhere else things just seemed so sanitized and sterile. It's not that we don't appreciate being comfortable, but it was a bit too much for us. Eventually I realized that the discomfort caused by all this comfort was boredom. It's true, taking the bus in Singapore is not exciting. You might think taking the bus shouldn't be an exciting experience, but for us every bus we've taken from Nepal to Sri Lanka has been. Riding the bus entails so much in these countries.

You need to hurry up and get on so that it doesn't start leaving while you're halfway in. Then, if you're lucky, you stumble to your seat while the bus swerves left and right. If you're not lucky there are no seats and you're faced with the constant challenge of holding on and not falling over. Usually you don't know exactly where you're getting off and stops aren't announced (in a language you understand) so you have to figure this out as you go. And on and on. There is so much to do while you're riding the bus in these countries. In Singapore, whether we were on the bus, the metro, or even just walking around, there were no challenges you had to overcome. Everything was taken care of for you in a clean, comfortable, and efficient way. We appreciated a break from all the stress, but it really was a bit dull!

After settling in, we headed downtown. Everything was very modern, of course. No horns honking, no tuk tuks, plenty of blinking crosswalks. Enough about all that, you get the idea. We were in a very different place. Our first stop was Chinatown which is clearly just for the tourists these days. It was so artificial it was almost like being in Disneyworld. We walked around and found a temple that claimed to have a tooth of the Buddha, just like in Sri Lanka. Except this one you can just walk right up to and look at. I don't know how many of these Buddha teeth there are laying about the world, but the excitement has passed.

On the edge of Chinatown we saw an Indian temple that was unlike any we had seen in India. The colors were bright and bold, not faded. There were so many different carvings. It was really beautiful, but to me it didn't seem very authentic. I quickly realized the problem wasn't that it was not authentic, but there is just so much more money in Singapore. They can afford to spend so much more on making things look nice than was the standard in India. I wonder if all the temples in India would look like this one if it were a wealthier place.

The next day we went to the bayfront and noticed three large buildings with a (fake) boat on top of them. I've never seen a boat-like thing on top of three skyscrapers before so we went to check it out. It was a really fancy hotel - too fancy for us really. We couldn't get to the roof without a keycard that we weren't willing to pay for. That was fine, we're used to not satisfying our every whim. It's really not that sort of trip. But all of these things we saw had an impact on us. What kind of place has a boat on top of some really high buildings just for the luxury of it all? Singapore.

You can imagine that it was a very expensive place for us. Believe it or not, we found that the best place to eat in Singapore is at the shopping mall food courts. Yes, really. First of all, there are shopping malls everywhere. You really can't avoid them. Second, they're some of the cheapest places to eat in the city. And finally, you can get so many different things there! It's really an amazing concept that I never appreciated before. You can get Chinese, Italian, Indian, and fast food all in the same place, so cheaply. I can't ever imagine a group people in the states wondering where to eat until someone suggests the food court at a shopping mall and everyone applauds the idea as a brilliant one. But to us, it's a revalation - and just so convenient! Maybe I've been away from home too long and am going a little crazy or maybe I see the world from a broader perspective now and appreciate things more in the way we all should or maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle - I'll let you decide.

Anyway, the convenience never stopped. When it was time to go we found ourselves missing India, sad to leave the comfort of Singapore, and excited about the thought that moving on might mean returning to whatever small amount of normalcy we knew before coming to this place.