We all have
dreams. In this case I mean wish-fulfilment dreams – like a little boy wanting
to be a fireman or locomotive driver; a little girl wanting to be a princess or
a ballerina. Some of us may wish to own material things, others aspire to
experience intangibles. For some, these early longings fade away, or are
replaced by other, more mature versions which reflect changing values. Some
have their wishes granted, for better or for worse and for a few, life’s harsh
reality bludgeons their dreams to smithereens. Yet I suspect that in many a
human being there are remnants of scores of secret juvenile fantasies that
persist and in the passage of decades, they may even become a ‘bucket list’, to
borrow that now-famous phrase from the film of the same title, even if one is
not in an imminently terminal state – any more so than all of us mortals are,
potentially.
So it was with
myself, in the grey, grim, post-war days in Europe.
Among a whole lot of wishes involving an African scenario in one way or
another, with which I won’t bore you at present, for some reason I came across
images of the vast temple complex of Angkor Wat – possibly due to publicity
given the independence that the Cambodians had wrested from the French in 1953.
Whatever the impetus, I became imbued with this archeological fervour and my
first choice of career was made, and though this was one wish that was not
granted; I did dabble in the science in later life. Still, the vague wish to
actually tread over the ruins of Angkor persisted through the next sixty years,
and suddenly by late last year, I realised that the world had shrunk and it
could be done with relative ease; fortune had smiled on me to a modest degree
and I had a niece living in Singapore, who invited me repeatedly to come and
visit. From that base I could branch out to explore the whole of South East
Asia in manageable chunks, returning to the comforts of her home in Singapore
for rest and recreation alike at intervals during the trip. Asia
beckoned beguilingly; the idea of sampling tropical fruits, foods and spices,
and meeting different nations, histories and cultures at first hand, was very
attractive. My health was unlikely to get better with the passage of time – but
if I took the plunge now, I would actually be able to take Angkor Wat off my bucket list!
By early
January my friend and I had worked out a plan of sorts – itinerary it couldn’t
be called by any stretch of imagination. I wanted to stay in the region for
eight weeks to make the discomfort of the flight worthwhile, since I am a poor
traveller, but beyond making a few stabs at booking flights to Cambodia, Laos
and Vietnam, I got bogged down in the unfamiliar territory of international
flights and the delights of web-booking. Finally I went to see a crackerjack
lass at the local Flight Centre, one Zakiya, who very sweetly and efficiently
sorted out our initial travel problems, saved us a few thousands by adding
‘legs’ to our outward and return journeys – and the die was cast. The usual
problems, hassles and delays then set in, with which I won’t bore you, but
sufficient to say that the trip was a doubtful starter just two weeks after the
booking was made, when I suddenly developed some potentially serious ticker
problems, in addition to a crippling back instability that was nagging at me.
Several weeks later, we had vastly differing opinions from the medical
fraternity, the bank account had already been looted by the medics and the
price of a couple of intercontinental flights, but my last healing guru said
‘what the heck, go and enjoy your holiday and we’ll see what gives when you
come back’. The house-, cat- and business-sitter was installed and we were all
set for a bit of dolce far niente –
but of course, it never turns out quite like that.
Nonetheless,
we went ahead, booked another couple of flights with the gentle Zakiya and got
our visas-on-arrival in gear, so to speak. On the last weekend before the
departure, my companion rose from her seat in a perfectly level room, to cross
the floor, when her knee gave way and she was immobilised on the spot, so to
speak. We spent the rest of that Sunday in a hospital, hoping to get some good
news. By the next afternoon we had four different diagnoses from four different
medics. You could choose from a minimum of soft tissue damage (unspecified) to
a fracture at the top end of the tibia, with the need for a stainless steel
knee joint or torn menisces thrown in between for good luck. The reality of the
situation was that she could only hobble around on crutches or be trundled
along in a wheelchair. Not good in third-world countries with dodgy or no
sidewalks, I believe. We decided to ignore the whole thing instead.
We did book
wheelchairs ahead at all airports that offered this sort of service, and duly
boarded our flight to Singapore.
Yes, it was as cripplingly uncomfortable as I had suspected. The airline staff
were absolutely wonderful, though I mentally did question the need for
disturbing their passengers every hour or two during the miserable hours of the
night, to have drinks, eats and hot face-wipes. The little image of the plane
crept ever closer to Singapore on the small screen in front of me, and I
consoled myself that I would not have to do this again for 50-odd days – and yes,
these fourteen long hours would pass. Finally the city loomed out of a thick,
smoggy, orange peasoup of a dawn. We landed at Changi and were whisked away,
Fay in luxury in a wheelchair, with me panting along to try and keep up. It
seemed like we walked for miles; then we boarded the travelator and whizzed
along for hundreds of metres further. For someone more used to African
airports, this was a whole new world – gigantic, efficient, fresh and
sanitised. It seemed as if every five minutes another plane landed and spewed
out its live cargo. With a minimum of delay or fuss we were decanted at the
exit and warmly received by niece and grand-niece. The car was at hand and we
left the complex to step into a dawning hothouse, a physical assault on the
senses.
A city is a
city; it’s a given that there will be thousands of cars, multi-lane highways,
high-rise buildings and a profusion of civil engineering. What immediately
struck me was the amount of vegetation in between everything. In places the
trees on the verges of the highways had their crowns reaching out and almost
touching the crowns of those tropical giants that were planted on the centre
island. Cool, green tunnels snaked away into infinity. The buildings’ outlines
were broken up by green canopies, and gigantic bridges had flowerboxes built
into their structures from which sheets of plants trailed – sometimes even
flowers. The embankments were vaguely shaped and camouflaged by draped
greenery; one would expect brilliantly coloured flights of birds to erupt from
the jungle, or massive herds of grey, indistinct shapes. Instead, all that this
jungle spewed was vehicles.
Our only
imperative task is to get our Laos
visas sorted. The most difficult task was finding parking and the entrance of
the building. The official was as helpful a Communist as you could hope for,
and except for some considerable damage to the exchequer, it was painless. The
first day is misery with jetlag but we drag on until well after sundown and
keel over. A good sleep makes the next day brighter and more enjoyable. We
visit Little India and mosey through a food court. A friendly introduction to
pad thai, kwai toeung and butter chicken follow to celebrate the birthday child
– my friend. Walking is hard going and the painful knee needs lashings of
icepacks. Good that we’re not in a hurry and that we don’t have a frantic
programme to get through. The local zoo comes with a high recommendation, which
is well-earned, and we spend the better part of a day ambling along on two
exorbitantly expensive scooters – a really good investment in our state of
decrepitude and considering the steamy heat. No bars; some glass; further the
monkeys and orang utans walk on branches over your head, you could stroke the
flying foxes and sloths draped over the vegetation(but don’t) and tapirs and
tigers walk past within spitting distance. They look a good deal less penned in
than the population of Singapore.
We have a few
days in the city to recover before we leave for the next leg of the journey. It
seems like a good idea to sample shopping at a ‘wet market’. Deadly when you’re
on crutches – tiles awash with slush, water, scales, slime – sounds unhygenic,
but actually quite fresh and powerful yet inoffensive. Here and there a
familiar fish-face or fin; as also a mind-boggling array of seafood that I have
never seen before. The fruit and veg section is equally bewildering. Most names
don’t mean a thing to us, even if we can make out the words rattled off by the
seller in answer to our queries. We buy red dragon fruit – magnificent yet
implausibly tasteless. Jackfruit – not tasty immediately, but boy, do they grow
on you. How many mangoes does your garden grow? Seems like utterly otherworldly
stuff from what we’re accustomed to. We are tempted by plump beige Chinese pears,
a touch woody, but flavoursome. Rambutans are a little past their prime and are
reminiscent of alco-lychees. There are about a dozen species of bananas
beckoning, from dead ordinary, through shades of dusky purple, to pigmy jobbies
the size of chipolatas. We sample something approximating a halved hedgehog
with pips. The seller hacks around in the prickly carapace and produces some
milky slush – ‘sour-sop’ it’s called – and is promptly promoted into the top
echelons of fruit heaven.
In between all
of this, we have been to Bali for the best part of a week, but we return time
and again to Singapore,
our home base. Last night we graced a mid-range, melee of a sea-food eatery off
East Beach. Pure bedlam; as soon as a table
becomes vacant, more steaming patrons are seated to devour steaming dishes. The
menu is daft in scope and almost completely incomprehensible. Many items are
unfamiliar; the names mean nothing, they are just foreign syllables. There is a
bank of tanks along one wall, filled with ‘live’ goods: Canadian Gooseneck
Clams, Scots scallops, SriLankan crabs the size of chamberpots, Alaskan Spider
Crabs which could span your table with their legs, Aussie crayfish that look
like those we’re used to, and garish Tiger lobsters – a feast for the eyes – prawns,
shellfish and fish you may or may not have heard named before.
We’re in luck
.Our local family do the ordering. Sit back; alternate a sip of scalding tea
with glug of Tiger lager from the jug. May be strange, but it works for me. The
view is out onto the roadstead. Ships are banked up three or more deep from
left to right across, forming the horizon. Cities afloat – but almost deserted
it is said – just parked there waiting for the economic downturn to become an
upturn. Food arrives … and arrives. Flied lice, black noodles with fish, prawn,
chicken, greenery, carrotery, Thai octopus (squid) salad – fresh, sweet,
slightly sour and spicy – beguiling. In between courses, a waitress person
bearing a tall stack of plates arrives. Her name tag proclaims her to be
‘Frenzy Ann’, and her job is to whip away the accumulated debris, which is
often, and to dish out new plates. The pepper crab, a whirl of body parts,
darkly basted with grainy sauce; two menacing claws the size of middling
lady-fists proclaims the dish’s identity. I try my luck on a spare leg with a
knife – but this tribe is a tad better armoured than the crustaceans I normally
murder. Joe has a nutcracker and after a bit of two-handed battle with much
banging, we have pieces of 2mm thick claw-shell whizzing about. The slab of
meat, chicken breast size, is delicate and sweet. I’d rather not fight for the
scraps from the body. A similarly platter of garlic-chilli crab comes next and
gets the same treatment, but we mop up the lashings of thick sauce with steamed
buns. Though I’m groaning, more sauce is ladled over leftover rice – can’t bear
to waste the lovely stuff. Luckily they have sink, soap and paper towel in
mid-restaurant, so we can get halfways decent before we leave.
Its always
hot, it seems, even after a shower of rain. We go for a morning walk along the
walkway fringing the Macritchie reservoir. Quite pleasant and scenic on the
opposite bank, with lush jungle trees and towering clumps of bamboo – but there
is a certain sterility about the forest – a small group of monkeys sits around
under a tree; only isolated birdsounds and cicadas can be heard, when you’d
expect a cacophony. A few youngsters are spinning for bass and though we
actually see one, it’s probably too hot for them to feel like a nibble. We walk
across a flooded walkway, and the water is almost at blood-temperature. All
around us are hordes of people, taking their constitutionals, running or
shuffling along in the stifling heat, groups of youngsters on outings, though
God knows what they hope to find. Not that it isn’t pretty, but more like an
oil painting, nary a pooch in sight anywhere – verboten – I’m quite certain, by
the edicts of the rulers, since filth is an abomination (rightly so) and dog
excrement on the pavements would surely rank with spitting, chewing gum and
littering, which equate almost to capital offences in Singapore. Dogs still
bark distantly in our neighbourhood, though, penned up or pampered, and taken
for a stroll by Filipino maids on a leash in the grey dawn or dusk.
We’ve been off
to the mainland for a couple of weeks, and return with exotic scripts and books
in strange languages, besides other delicacies. We are welcomed by my niece’s
Filipino lady-help, as my relative has gone walkabout to Hawaii with her tribe. We have the house to
ourselves – just the thing for lying about for few days before this journey
continues. We sink into stupor, but the next day’s morning paper brings news of
an electronic fair in the city – offering prices almost too good to believe. I am
not a believer, but hail me an ‘uncle’ with a taxi anyway. The venue is on a
lavish scale, and there are at least six of them in a row. I head for no 5 and
as I enter, I am overwhelmed by retail frenzy. An expo is an expo is an expo –
but in Singapore
it sounds more like half a dozen street carnivals competing for audiences on
the same pitch. Almost ever other stand has some sort of auction or special
going. The man with the mike shouts his wares’ benefits, while his minions,
also on the counters and podiums, almost rub the items in the gawking crowd’s
faces as his sales pitch comes to a screaming crescendo. Presumably some lucky
consumer walks away with the goods out of this bedlam, but I can’t stand the
racket, so move to the next stand, where they are still winding up the hysteria
and the sound.
Of course I
don’t find the super-cheap camera and tablet as advertised – but I didn’t
expect to. I make my way round from stand to stand, trying to avoid the special
specials and hype – by a few metres anyway. I buy quite a nice little camera
that will do for both business and pleasure, and a small tablet – actually
second choice, as the first, larger one could not be persuaded to speak or
write anything except Mandarin, even by the Chinese salespeople – and my linguistic
skills don’t stretch that far. Even the one I chose only had an instruction
booklet in that language, but at least the machine had a few dozen language
choices, which the lass set to the appropriate one for me, knocked another $30
off the price and we parted friends. I like a bit of a challenge – at times. A
few more small purchases and I was out of there like a scalded cat. In Singapore you
don’t always get to hail a cab. Venues have orderly ranks, where the clients
queue, not the cabs. Should one disgorge his load, he sidles up to the line of
waiting people and the first in line get the prize. And so it goes, nice and
orderly – very civilised.
I got a chatty
uncle (actually young lad – but this is their title by right, it seems) this
time with a good command of Singlish (yes, that is what the local dialect of
Shakespeare’s tongue is called), so as we got mired in a traffic jam, we had
quite an interesting conversation. From what I hear, it sounds as if even taxi
drivers get bored by being over-governed. He complains about being able to put
his eight year-old on a bus or metro alone to go across the island to see a
friend. For kicks he visits Japan,
the US, Indonesia and Taiwan. He’d love to try Cape Town sometime, he
reckons.
‘No, you
wouldn’t, buddy,’ I tell him. ‘The view’s great, it’s not too expensive, but
since you come from a law-abiding dictatorship, you might find our lot a bit of
a culture-shock, if not a downright health hazard.’
We pass a
pleasant hour in a traffic snarl-up, talking of presidents and pumpkins,
pensions and privilege. Apart from that excursion, I try to recuperate from a
serious back spasm, probably incurred on the train at Hue, when the quite hefty luggage had to be
swung down from the overhead rack. My friend decides she’s had enough and
returns to South Africa.
I’m not done yet and book my next trip to Phuket, to sample a little of Thai
hospitality and culture, and then on to Penang, the reputed food and spice Mecca of the Straits.
A week later I
am back with another bee in my bonnet. I have only just heard of the plain of
Bagan, in Myanmar, which has
apparently some two-thousand temples of the same vintage (templarage?) as
Angkor Wat – this in addition to the Shwedagon in Yangon
– enough of a drawcard for any tourist. I decide to try my luck at the Myanmar embassy in Singapore for a visa. After some
agonising hours of waiting in a stifling courtyard, I get into a queue and when
I reach the counter, the snarley type on the other side of the bullet-proof
glass tells me that I have no ‘standing’ in Singapore and need to apply in my
own country. When, stupidly, I ask why, he snarls at me ‘how do we know who you
are?’ I can only dumbly wave my passport at him and point at my chest. He
doesn’t give a damn; nor will he deign to contact our embassy a few blocks down
the road. I can come back in seven days and he will enquire in South Africa
whether they know of me there. He takes my application form and photo.
Instead, niece
and I decide to do some serious dim sum sampling on the synthetic leisure isle
of Sentosa. This is reached by an airconditioned
bridge, which has travelators to speed the flow of tourists, while a
monorail whistles past overhead. The island is almost entirely deserted; it is
midweek, but apparently there’s hardly standing room on weekends as
Singaporeans seek diversions. If you’re looking for kitsch, this is apparently
your destination of choice. Nothing seedy, or even vaguely unhygienic – no, all
good, sparkling, garish, mostly electronic and gastronomic entertainment. Our
restaurant is no exception. They have elevated dim sum to haute cuisine, and
the prices along with it. Admittedly the food is absolutely out of this world –
and if you are so minded, you can watch the chefs preparing your little
dumplings from behind a sheet of glass. They also make a fantastic lemongrass
drink with a ball of sugar-ice floating in it, which I sometimes dream about.
On another day
we go island-hopping and take a bum-boat to Pulau Uben, which is a mile or two
off the main island across a busy shipping channel. It looks like Singapore of a
century ago, I’m told. Corrugated iron shacks; bits of thick jungle, meandering
roads through the village; chickens, cats and dogs meandering about, stalls
selling all sorts of fruits and refreshments and hiring out bicycles by the
hundred to tourists from the ‘mainland’. My companions lead us straight to the
waterside restaurant. Suddenly it’s pouring with rain – a chunk of monsoon has
come to visit. No matter if you get wet; it’ll soon steam off you again (see
picture above). The beer is cold and the seafood is easy on the stomach and
wallet. After lunch we take a stroll into a herb garden, cunningly hidden away
in a chunk of mosquito-ridden jungle. Nobody stops you from tasting them all,
if you like. Nothing stops the mosquitoes tasting you either. The monsoon comes
back for another swipe.
Instead of
hanging about an empty house (as niece is already visiting her ma in South
Africa and husband is away in US on business – we do have a strange travelling
relationship) – I wonder whether I won’t be able to cuddle an orang utan in
Borneo – so I hive off to Kuching, the capital of Sarawak. The name of the
place holds a secret niche in my heart ever since I read The White Raja by Nicholas Monsarrat when I was a teenager; so this
is another small ‘bucket list’ item than can be ‘acquired’ – to tread in
Brooke’s footsteps, so to speak, and to visit his kingdom. More of that
elsewhere.
The end of my
visit is beginning to draw near when I return, but I calculate that I might
still be able to squeeze in that Myanmar trip, so I go and sit in
the queue at the embassy again. This time it is even more pleasant. While some
fifty people are broiling in the courtyard, the Singapore municipality comes past
with their periodic fumigation truck and in no time at all we are all enveloped
in thick, toxic, white clouds of fumes. Everybody is coughing and spluttering –
but I get a violent attack of hayfever, and the only place is out of there, so
I run into the embassy, past the coughing security guards and up the stairs to
get to clear air. After some 20 minutes in relatively clearer atmosphere on the
third or fourth floor, I can stand the hostile looks of passing staff no longer
and retreat downwards, only to be detained by nonplussed guards, who can’t
quite understand how I manage to ‘break out’ of their secure domain. They
release me into the tender care of their hostile visa man once more, and he
tells me curtly that no, they haven’t heard that I belong to the subcontinent of
Africa yet, and that they will let me know in good time, except that the next
day is Singapore National Day and they will be closed. That day I wisely stay
close to home instead of fighting the traffic jams that develop as people make
their way to the parades and show venues all over the island. Despairingly, I
book flights to Java instead, as there are only five days left to departure.
The Botanical
Gardens deserve a visit; somewhat as an afterthought, since the antique shops
at a shopping mall nearby are all closed at 9am. Small signs in all their
windows proclaim shopping hours from 11am–7pm. Obviously they have unionised –
or their buyers have, and one of their rules is to rise late. Well anyway, I
need to spend a couple of hours doing something else, after which I can return,
so a city-tour bus seems to be the obvious answer. My brochure says it starts
at the Botanic Gardens, which is only a couple of blocks away. The plod is all
uphill and it is steaming hot on the sunny sidewalks. At the gates there is no
sign of a bus stop of any sort, so I ask at the visitors’ centre inside. It
turns out that the bus stops in the middle of the park somewhere, waaay further
on. Since I might as well get some enjoyment out of necessity, I amble (or
rather slosh) my way round a very beautiful creation, perspiration dripping
from every pore, necessitating the purchase of a bottle of water at every
station, so to speak. The Singaporeans have to be congratulated on this
facility. As usual, no expense has been spared. Everything is beautifully
landscaped, manicured and scrupulously clean. The tropical plant collection is
extensive and the only small niggle I could find is that their collection of
ginger species is not adequately labelled for my taste. Except for the heat, I loved
every moment of my stroll. Of course, for $50, I could have hired me a
battery-powered golf cart with an English-speaking tour guide, but I only found
that out near the end of my walk when one hummed past me.
The bus was
punctual to the minute and airconditioned to boot. Map in hand, bathed in a
stream of deliciously cold air, I listened to the descriptions of the features
we passed and enjoyed the overview. Chinatown
was my next goal, with a little grid of streets right in the centre as the main
target in my hunt for things bookish. The first thing in sight on Temple Street was
about the most hideous, garishly decorated Hindu temple I have yet laid my eyes
on. Disneyland technicolour is about the only
way to describe it. Yet there were throngs of locals and tourists shedding
their sandals like dandruff on the pavement and queueing to enter, while
another doorway disgorged sated devotees and sightseers. In muted contrast, a
few buildings up the street was a miniature turquoise mosque, scarcely five metres
wide in all, with twin mini-minarets delicately perched on each corner. It also
had its adherents staidly entering for noon prayers. The shops’ products ranged
from garish mass-produced junk, to poorly made clothing and typical
tourist-traps, to dark, dusty caves, filled with cracked ceramics, bronzes,
wood and silken antiques and reproductions alike, which would tax the cognitive
abilities of a layman to the utmost. My quest for the printed article was
unrequited; instead I opted for lunch.
An unprepossessing
corner entrance with a monosyllabic Mandarin/English sign over the door,
proclaiming ‘Dim Sum’ in the small print underneath the ideograph, drew me like
a magnet. I entered the restaurant through the kitchen, it seemed, since all
was wreathed in steam, and behind it lay the dining hall, crammed with plastic
tables, chairs and people. I was not warmly received, as I was a single person
and there was only a four-seater vacant, but on promising that I would be
prepared to share my table, they graciously agreed to feed me. No wonder, as
the place was crammed with locals – always a good sign. Before my order had
been finalised, I had a table partner of a young mother and her son, who
immediately pinched my peanuts. We smiled at each other, nodded and then got on
with our own business, i.e. having a dim sum lunch. By way of a farewell dinner
to my South East Asian home of the last few weeks, I celebrated by eating my
way down the menu of these delicately flavoured morsels, and drank a toast in
local lager. Top marks to this nameless eatery; and the accolade for the best
value for money in Singapore
too.
After a few
hours of enjoyable wandering about, I caught the bus again and as we were
driving along towards the antique shops of my morning’s excursion, my phone
rang. At first I was a little puzzled, since very few people knew this local
number which I had bought on arrival. It was the Myanmar embassy spokesperson. I had
officially been acknowledged as a pukka South African, and now the Myanmaris
were prepared to grant me a visa. Since it was Friday and I could only present
my passport up to 3pm, and visas took two working days to process, I could have
it by Tuesday – the day I would be returning home! Regretfully I said, thank
you, but no thanks – you’ve lost out on a couple of grand on your tourist
income budget. He was still spluttering when I had the satisfaction of cutting
him off.
The South East
Asian Civilisations Museum was one of my last destinations of choice. As luck
would have it, a special exhibition had just opened, focussing on the presence
and history of Islam in the region. This fitted in very well with my sudden
passion for Asiatic scripts and writing systems, so I bespoke me an ‘uncle’
once more, whose taxi dropped me off at this imposing destination on the Singapore River. At the efficiently run reception
I was given my map and informed that conducted tours were imminent, each
equipped with a choice of interpreter in English, Japanese, Bahasa, German,
French or Italian. This was a free service (the likes of which were available
in several of the temple sites I had visited, but you had to pay about US$10
per hour), though I didn’t make use of them since I wanted to find and study my
hobby of choice, but I kept on running into little huddles of grateful tourists
and guides in between the exhibits. Again, I have nothing but praise for the
way this facility was arranged and maintained. The cultural artifacts were
beautifully displayed; in the case of smaller items, one or more pinhead spots
would highlight areas of interest; large items would be illuminated islands
looming out of dim surroundings. Only in the stairwells did the sunlight blind
you – everywhere else was a cool, dark treasure cave, twinkling with gold,
jewels, paintings, ceramics and fabrics. A thoroughly enlightening and
fascinating experience. I ended off this, my last visit, by managing to lose my
credit card – probably as a result of repeatedly having to extract different
pairs of glasses from a crammed shirt pocket. I heard it fall, but couldn’t see
what I had dropped and probably kicked it under a display in the gloom; so
disregarded it. I discovered the loss half an hour before I had to leave for
the airport. Singapore
is about the safest place on earth where you can lose anything – and have a chance of having it returned to you – but so
far no one has phoned to say they have found it.
Singapore has
its good points, but it is difficult to love. In small doses I would probably
be quite happy to spend six months there, as there is such a huge diversity of
sights, experiences and flavours to sample. The mighty dollar rules everything
– $hows, $ales, $ociety, $hopping. If you have enough dollars, you can get
almost everything – except drugs – for which you get the death sentence. I am told
you can even watch an execution, by my fellow-traveller on the return flight,
an expat Singaporean of some seven years standing – but I won’t vouch for that.
The press is not only bland, it’s completely inane. Mostly you can read about
the official party-line on matters of little importance, adverts for the next
sale, and exhortations to Singaporeans to produce more babies, since they all
seem to be too busy making money, necessitating people imports from southern China, and
reminders that people have to provide
for their parents in old age. Above all, the economy features in every day’s
offering. Who acquired whom, what percentages GDP had risen, what forecasts
were for earnings, and similar fascinating stuff. Yet the thousands of ships
and planes that land on the island every year, bring in the very life-blood of
the nation, their food, their clothing, their consumables and their durables. Singapore
produces very little material goods since they can afford to import it all.
Every morsel of food that I eat there has more airmiles on it than I drive in a
year; and the container or wrapping, along with tens of thousands of tons of
other rubbish, is exported to the next poor neighbouring country just round the
corner. Singaporeans don’t have to do the meanest and dirtiest work anymore;
they just import dirt-poor people from those same poor neighbouring countries
to labour for a dollar an hour; then they lock them up in shipping-container
like cells, which are stacked six storeys high, for the night, until they are
required again to work next day. I could carry on a bit, but I know too little.
My other
destinations were much more interesting, and you shall hear about them all in
the next few months. None of the airports worked as well as Changi.Yes, there
was dirt, poverty, overcrowding and fiendishly dangerous and snarled-up
traffic. The taxis were horrible old rattletraps in the main. The roads had
potholes and no drainage – in some places open sewers ran alongside the
pavements. There were beggars almost everywhere, or else hawkers pestering you,
but at least they had the time to smile or to exchange a joke. Most countries’
people were friendly and on the whole; none posed a threat. We walked the
alleys at night, we shoved our way through crowded markets and strolled through
the traffic; we ate and drank what food and drink we found along the way. We
sampled only minuscule snapshots of each country, but along the way met some
very interesting people and learned much unimportant trivia mixed with a little
culture and history. It was the sort of modest adventure that I should not have
missed in my lifetime.
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