The lost tales of a backpacking slacker...

Ok, I guess I really should post some photos from the remaining days of my travels last year, besides it beats writing a long-winded entry describing all these places, so here they are in sort of chronological order:

At the Chinese New year (2006) celebrations

along the Singapore riverside

Catching my coach ride to Kuala Lumpur the next day, the

AeroLine coach service stops and starts from the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel in downtown Singapore (Note: I'm not actually running here, I'm just imitating the logo on the coach and it was a good coach ride at around Sing$ 20 one way)

Crossing the bridge connecting the Southern-most tip of the

Malaysian peninsula with Singapore

Important immigration information for travellers:

As you are literally crossing the causeway into another country you will need to have your entry permit slip to hand (the slip you fill in and the half of it you are given at the port of entry into Singapore by immigration) along with your passport if you don't need a visa to visit either Singapore or Malaysia. The immigration points of both countries are on their respective country's end of this causeway and so you'll need to get off your mode of transport twice to go through both immigration points (once for each country when coming or going).

Now here's the important part, when travelling in a party such as on a coach (especially on a coach!) and when you get off at Singapore immigration make sure you fill out your exit permit well BEFORE you are processed by immigration as any delays here will mean you missing your coach ride or equivalent (especially if its a cheap company!) that waits for a reasonable amount of time for most (not all!) of its passengers before continuing on its way across the causeway to Malaysian immigration. That's why they make you take all your luggage off the coach just in case!

I was lucky enough to go with a reputable company such as AeroLines as they were kind enough to wait for me because I didn't fill in my exit permit even though it was given to me when I got onto the coach! The reason? Because I didn't think I would need to go through Singapore immigration, not until I actually FLEW out of the country! Alas I didn't make the same mistake when it came to Malaysian immigration on the other side. But on my way back from Malaysia to Singapore I used a cheap coach company and was left behind because I didn't fill in my NEW entry permit for Singapore before getting processed and had to go to the end of the long line of people and start over again! It was no biggy getting back to my cousin's place because Singapore's so small.

As a side note the Malaysian immigration personnel seemed really relaxed compared to the Singaporean ones (that could have changed by now!). Also if you intend to bring the equivalent of your local Blockbuster's in pirate films/music and any other counterfeit products into Singapore, lets just say its not a good idea. But a few fake designer goods or other things should be ok and if the authorities are reading this I'm not condoning purchasing fake goods in any shape or form.

So to summarize (as if I ever needed to):

• Fill in your entry and exit permits BEFORE you get processed by immigration at either end of the causeway and have everything that's immigration-related in order


• If you're caught with counterfeit goods in bulk especially DVDs/CDs the penalties are high

My lunch on the AeroLines coach service to KL (this is not standard so you won't get this on a cheaper coach services but I could be wrong)

Welcome to KL! My first night in the city and I made a beeline from my homestay (hostel) to the Petronas towers to see them by night after a really cheap yet quality dinner (It was some kind of Chinese chicken with beansprouts in blackbean sauce) with some exchange students visiting the city

My breakfast (mmm...satay chicken skewers) before going on the official Petronas towers tour, the tour is free by the way but you need to queue up really early in the morning to get a shoo-in

The Petronas towers by day with a touch of the Chinese new year

atmosphere in the form of lanterns hanging across the street

One of the many views from the bridge connecting the two towers,

I was hoping we could go right to the top but security's real tight here

While exploring the rest of the city I stopped by the National Mosque near the old KL train station to pray, it looks pretty plain from the outside but it's really quite pretty inside and this is coming from someone who's seen many mosques and other Islamic architecture from around the Middle East!

I'm no architect but I do love the straight clean lines and how this Bauhauesque theme works well with the functionality of traditional Islamic design (but I could be biased because I'm Muslim!)

The main prayer hall under one large dome

The Sultan Abdul Samad building,

this is where the Federal court was housed before it was moved

Petaling street aka Chinatown where I bought a pair of Levis 501 jeans; Docker's Khaki pants; 2 t-shirts and a seemingly nice pair of blue suede Pumas (they were 1 size too small because my size was sold out and I couldn't resist buying them for £6!) for around £15!

The busy main street of Chinatown

The next day I went to the Batu caves on the outskirts of KL with another backpacker, the caves aren't all that spectacular inside but getting to them is quite a task and is part of worship for many Hindus oh and that big gold statue is apparently the world's biggest Lord Murugan statue

Next stop: Pulau Penang!

I took this shot from the coach en route to Penang island to illustrate how much of the ancient jungles in the Malaysian countryside is being destroyed to make way for vast palm plantations - Malaysia is the world's largest producer of raw Palm oil

Looking Westwards and you can just make out the coast past those mountains


Crossing the Penang bridge/causeway into Georgetown, capital of Penang

The view from my hotel room balcony the next morning (The hotel Mingood - I'd recommend this hotel because the staff are really helpful and homely). The tall building behind those houses is the Komtar and it's part of a shopping complex, its the tallest building on the island

Breakfast at the rooftop restaurant at the hotel and real halal beef bacon rashers!

Artistically positioned antiquated rickshaws at the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion near my hotel

Different generations of transport in Penang in front of a mosque

built by early Bengali settlers

Lunch! Chicken curry, garlic naans, lentil soup (or daal) and a nice tall glass of ice cold Mango Lassi! You gotta love the food here!

My feet started to hurt as I toured the nearby area on foot (courtesy of those ill-fitting Pumas!) so I hired a trishaw for the princely sum of RM16 if I remember correctly, these things are purely ceremonial these days and mostly tourists ride on them

The next day I met some more backpackers to hang out with and check out the rest of the island and so we went to quite a few places like Penang hill (above) early in the morning where you get amazing views of the island and surrounding sea because the air is so clean at that time of day. We also went to the one and only Snake temple aslo known as the Temple of the Azure Sky (its full of poisonous snakes just hanging around !) and the Penang butterfly farm which sounds boring but had some really interesting exotic species of not only butterflies but strangely, tortoises, squirrels and millipedes!

After touring the island in the taxi we hired for the day we ended up just chilling out on Batu Ferengi beach which isn't the most spectacular of beaches - I've seen better - but it served our purpose!

Another shot of Batu Ferengi beach

On a boat in rural Bangaldesh crossing one of the many rivers that criss cross this country, this was taken in my Dad's home district in the South of the country

And to neatly finish off my whirlwind photo tour

of South-East Asia (which really did take 2 weeks) here's a fitting sunset from Bangladesh

Hopefully you can put two and two together to fill in the gaps between the end of the trip and now!

This better have been worth it...Mybrid! It took me forever to get the apparently 'new' blogger to format the pictures and text and even now they're still looking screwed up.

Its too clean here!

As you know I’m here in Singapore and just exploring this island of many cultures and of that ever-present ‘Merlion’ thingamajig. It’s been a very surreal experience so far but I’ve been trying to squeeze as much out of the short time I have here as possible. I caught an early morning flight to Singapore which meant that I had a few hours to rest at my cousin’s place once I arrived, before heading out and exploring the city.

I’m sort of lucky to have not one but two personal tour guides in the shape of my two younger nephews who know the island back to front. The eldest one lives and goes to the top local school and the younger one lives in Sydney and is in Singapore for a few days before going back to school. As I was saying before, this is one very surreal place (probably not to the extent of Tokyo) but surreal nevertheless. Why? Because rarely do you find such a well developed country in a place like Asia where people of many cultures and backgrounds getting along with each other to make this the one of the most successful economies in Asia.

Granted it’s a very small and rather manageable country, but given what problems nearby countries like Thailand and to an extent, Malaysia are going through with their different ethnic groups, I’d say Singapore’s done pretty darn good. Everything from the bird flu epidemic originating in this region to terrorism, its all kept in check and the Singaporean government isn’t one to be messed with.

It’s a really strange social experiment – if I can call it that – they got going here, very few places on earth can boast total ethnic and religious harmony. Its as if the issue doesn’t really need to be discussed because its understood so well and it’s a given. Having said that you’ll always get a little racism and general backwardness here and there as my eldest nephew told me, referring to a few comments he gets from his Singaporean-Chinese schoolmates probably due to his dark skin.

Mild racial bigotry aside, this is a very – how shall I say – welcoming yet highly restrictive country. Yeah we all know how you’re not allowed to spit chewing gum (no shops sell chewing gum in this country) or throw cigarette butts on the streets here

Signs like this are a common site, no wonder the souvenir T-shirts say 'Singapore is a 'Fine' city!' You'll find out about the 'Durian' if you read on

Public transport

Everything here seems to work seamlessly and the public transport system here is no exception. We took decided to take the train Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) that criss-crosses the island to the more central parts of the city and I’ll tell ya, they got this whole ‘Clean-and-stay-clean’ thing down pretty good (see above picture). All trains as far as I know are driverless.

But I must say I just can’t seem to quite get my head around the idea of every single citizen of this country actually OBEYING the very strict laws here. And the amazing thing is there are very few CCTV cameras around to enforce these rules, this is of course in sharp contrast to here in the UK - I think we have the highest density of CCTV cameras in Europe and it still doesn’t seem to work here!

Downtown Singapore

Our first place to visit was the Padang (A Malay term for large expanse of space usually used for national events) and its surrounding areas next to the Singapore river and the central business district where all the tall buildings are. Just before that we broke for lunch and went to Burger King, and I’ve gotta say the variety of burgers here are so much more mouth-watering and ooze with local flavours and they’re just so ‘moreish’, you just want to have more. The ones back in England don’t even compare to these spicy burgers. Sorry, I just got carried away there trying to relive the taste-bud explosion, after all its ONLY a burger (I’m still trying to convince myself). I forgot to take a photo of it.

The central business district of Singapore

Same buildings but from the Singapore riverside

We also visited the famous Esplanade...

The Padang with the Esplanade in the background

Another view of the Esplanade from the riverside

...(locally called the 'Durian', after the well-known spiky and very smelly fruit)

See the resemblance with a Durian?

It’s a nice multipurpose building used for performances of all the arts and exhibitions, but the young nephews found it boring so I didn’t really get to hang around much to check out what was on that day or catch any particular exhibits etc.

So we settled for messing around with the camera in front of the Esplanade.

I couldn't quite get the camera level right for this picture and the one below, I was trying to go for a 'floating/kung-fu fighting on water' effect

As the clouds were thickening we decided to head underground and catch the MRT to Orchard road and the central parts of Singapore city. Orchard road is like the Oxford Street or Times Square of Singapore, it’s got all the glitzy shopping malls and hotels there and the streets are so clean and spotless I just couldn’t believe it. Since I’m on a tight budget I settled for a little window shopping amongst all the Boss and Armani stores and all that designer spiel.

After moseying all fancy shops we decided to call it a night and headed back home and home’s where I’m typing this up from before I hit the sack. Its so humid here that I need to take a shower twice a day, I just took one now and my T-shirts soaking again, better crank up that AC. That’s all for now folks!