Singapore and a cheap ticket

Early next morning, I set out by bus to meet up with Josh in Woodlands, another part of Singapore.

I slept well despite the earlier childish tantrums. I felt perky and alert and ready for action.

I was soon impressed with the Singapore transit system. I was soon impressed with Singapore as a city state! 

It's a thoroughly modern, well organized place. Everything works to a timetable. I think an atomic clock must tick quietly in some central bunker. The trains and buses are clean and comfortable and always on time. The fares are cheap too. Owning a car in Singapore is horrendously expensive so there's a huge incentive to use public transport. I heard that just to get a licence is around SGD65,000, maybe more.

The train stations blend into the street scape and don't look much like train stations. It's really a light rail system. The trains pull up behind walls. Doors slide open and you step right into the passenger car. No waiting beside tracks or on a platform. It took a bit of getting used to.

Everywhere is comfortably airconditioned which is just as well. Stepping outside into the natural air causes your breath to be sucked up in the humidity. Too long in the damp atmosphere and you feel like a used dish rag. The locals say that Singapore is either hot or hotter. It's never cool. Today being Saturday though, it wasn't too bad. It must've been just hot.

Travelling around Singapore, you discover a well laid-out city. There are large public areas that are lush and green thanks to the many tropical showers. Spreading figs, poinsianas and palms cast shade over streets and footpaths. There is little change in the landscape though. It's generally flat with some rising ground in places.  The locals live in high-rise apartments, most about 10 to 20 storeys. The apartment blocks cluster into separate districts with excellent connections by train and bus. The roads linking the districts are wide and beautifully smooth. I was told that Singapore's airforce can raise and lower parts of the roads for lifting aircraft ready for takeoff, using the road as an airstrip.

I easily arrived at the place where Josh was staying. We both used mobile phones that work perfectly in this modern city. It was great to see him again. A familiar face in an unfamiliar place has a welcoming aspect to it, even though it's only 7 hours from Brisbane.

Josh knows his way around Singapore pretty well and has adjusted to its culture. You see, he married a Singapore girl and is therefore partly local anyway. We got right down to it and Josh suggested a couple of airlines that offer cheap tickets.

Because he'd already been to Thailand, he told me about Khao San Road in Bangkok as a must see tourist spot. Tickets to other parts of Asia were supposedly cheaper there too. Thanks to the magic of Internet, I booked a return flight to Bangkok with Tiger Airways for SGD99. Josh heard a rumour that if you skip across to Johor Bahru, Malaysia, there is a place that sells really cheap tickets to Vietnam.

Johor Bahru is right across the strait from Singapore and easily accessed via a causeway bus. A day pass can be added to your passport on the Singapore side, so that's what I did.

The Malaysia causeway is very near Woodlands so it was an easy bus trip to the border immigration office. By now it was mid-morning with plenty of daylight and the prospect of seeing another part of Asia. I hadn't planned for any of this. I was driven mostly by bargain hunting air tickets and partly by adventure. 

Johor Bahru gave me adventure that I could've done without.

Next time; Johor Bahru.