my first leap

I’m back at the internet cafe opposite the 7-Eleven on the main road near Fragrance Hotel Emerald. Yes, back here again. We’re only going to stay one night before we catch our flight tomorrow afternoon. Kallang MRT (nearest station) is on the same green line as the airport. We just wanted to keep things simple. And it’s kind of cool to come back here and have that familiar feeling where you feel at home, like it’s a childhood neighbourhood.

Catching the KTM train from Kuala Lumpur was easy enough. We packed last night. As usual Seb whooshed through while I took my time. And as he got ready for bed, I was still packing and finding bits of his stuff that he had forgotten and was frustrating him by creating a neat pile for him to deal with when he woke. Remember what I said about the tortoise and the hare. This is a great example. Once I had finished, I had at the same time managed to tidy the room whilst putting away my mess. You should have seen Cullen’s face when he checked out the room he left me in; it was the uncleared aftermath of a bomb site. Cullen is very sweet; I later found out he had given me the room with proper twin beds and he slept on the sofa bed in another room. That is trully gentleman-like of him. I appreciate it Cullen! 

Seb and I did not get to bed until 1amish. He set his alarm – a new cheap watch he bought (we saw good-looking watches but you don’t really want to attract attention with good-looking watches), I set my alarm which I’ve figured out how to work finally and Seb asked for a morning wake-up call. We were well prepared.

After Seb exchanged emails with the guy on the reception desk; we left. My backpack, rid of many things posted or dumped, was still as full because naturally I had bought other things. It’s maddening how that happens and you always say to yourself, I’m going to have to dump stuff every time you lumber, stagger and struggle with the big lump on your back.

On the train, I try to hitch this monster lump of a backpack by first climbing and standing on the armrest. But as I yank, Seb always manages to come to the rescue. He tells me he doesn’t me to hurt myself. Really he doesn’t want to carry me, my backpack and his backpack as well if my back breaks or something. I reassure him telling I have travel insurance; if I die, all my visa debt will be covered and my family doesn’t have to weep in their sleep. Still he’s right and as it just takes a finger for him to lift it, I move out of his way and leave him to do the manly thing. 

Crossing the border from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore and vice versa is a puzzling affaire. On the way to Kuala Lumpur; we got stamped out of Singapore but never got a stamp to enter Malaysia. And on the way out of Kuala Lumpur, guards enter our carriages, check our passports and entry forms and with a red ballpoint pen, squiggle on my passport. This squiggle is my official stamp out of Malaysia because later we get stamped into Singapore. But this time going out of KL unlike going out of Singapore, we have to take our luggage with us to be scanned. It just goes to show how serious Singapore is about people coming into Singapore compared to Malaysia where one man’s squiggle is enough.

At Hotel Chinatown 2 there’s a shelf of books people can exchange their books for. I saw Bill Bryson’s ‘Neither here or there’ and took it without an exchange but hey, I am travelling budget-style and I can’t help it if I have no book to exchange. I read half the book on our train journey. Bill Bryson doesn’t like the French. I show extracts to Seb. Seb asks ‘Is he American?’ Yes, Bryson mentions he’s American and I guess he should know. Seb replies in his French way ‘Pur!’, a ’nuff said’ type of gesture. I tell Seb he can read it after. I ask Seb if he’s read the 2 Buddhist books the doctor gave him. He tells me ‘no’. I skimmed read one of the books; not fun reads.

I bought lots of snacks at Kuala Lumpur Sentral station – a modern hub of sleekness compared to Singapore’s KTM train station – to get rid of the Malaysian ringgits we had. Later I find out Seb won’t touch the crisps, prawn crackers and chocolate. Instead he went to search for proper food. He came back with a box of fried brown noodles which would have been more appealing if it wasn’t cold. I was concerned about how long it’s been cold. He tells me they have rice, a more appealing option. Luckily when the women came round with the food trolley, they accepted Singapore dollars as we had no Malaysian money left. One snack I bought at the 7-Eleven that Seb took a real liking to was a sweet dough-like thing that reminded me of the flubbery flubber jelly-like but thicker in the Robin William’s film. This sweet is called ‘mustiara dodol’. We tried the durian brown one and the pandan green one. At the food festival we saw how it was made, mixed in a vat by giant metal arms.

Got to go for food.

***

To Andrew: Thanks for your comment. It means a lot. Everyone’s comments have meant a lot.

To Amy: Thanks. Yes, please tell me what mum and dad thought.

To Simon: Will try call mum tonight.

***

The shortest answer is doing the thing. – Ernest Hemingway (writer, novelist).

Tags: Border Crossing, Singapore, Travel

This entry was posted on Friday, July 21st, 2006 at 12:04 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.