Chinatown is one of the many parts of Singapore I didn't see on Saturday because I never left the airport

I’ve done glorified visa runs before. My trip to Papua New Guinea was really just to renew my Australian visa which was expiring after 3 months in the country. I decided to make a real trip out of it, so it was more than just getting a passport stamp. Likewise, last month I went to Singapore because my Thai visa was running out, but I also spent 10 days there with my college roommate Dave and met with people in Singapore.

Last Saturday I flew to Singapore and back to Bangkok in one day. In fact, I never even left the airport in Singapore. That, my friends, was a real deal, in-out, quickie, good old fashioned visa run. My flight arrived in Singapore around noon and I was checking in for my flight to Bangkok at 4pm.

It was a very odd experience flying without baggage. I had my backpack with my laptop and a book, but that was it. The entire airport experience was really different when you didn’t have anything to carry.

The entire cost of the round trip was about US$100, which isn’t bad for a round trip ticket, but its really a stupid policy. I understand the need for countries to set a limit on their tourists visas, but so many people stay in Thailand for more than 30 days, they would be better off just allowing for in-country extensions of the visa for a fee (say $50). It would be easier for tourists and it would bring in cash for the government.

On a related issue of visas, it is the biggest reason I hear from people who don’t live in developed countries for why they can’t travel more. If you are from the EU, US, Canada, Japan, Australia, etc. you can go to most countries on Earth without applying for a visa before hand. There are some big exceptions like Russia, China and India, but for the most part the visa system isn’t so bad if you are a member of the club.

If you are from a country like the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, etc. it sort of sucks. There are all sorts of road blocks which prevent you from traveling. Take Singapore for example: As an American I can show up at the airport unannounced and stay in the country for 90 days with pretty much no questions asked (so long as you are not smuggling drugs or something). If you are from Indonesia which is right next door, you have to have a visa proof of a ticket out AND US$500 in cash on you.

I have met travelers from places like Congo and Ukraine, but not many. Yes, money is a big and obvious impediment to travel if you are from a developing country, but even if you have the means to travel, there are still many legal barriers which make it difficult.

Let me know your visa run stories. Also, if you are from a country that doesn’t get easy visa access to other nations, let me know how you’ve dealt with the rules.

I like writing about Singapore because it is such an oddball country. It is one of the smallest countries in the world. It is one of the most diverse countries in the world. It is one of the richest countries in the world. It has a government that can only be described as….unique.

If someone from a western country wanted to visit Asia for the first time, and they were not an experienced traveler, I’d probably recommend Singapore. It is the only country in Asia where English is widely spoken. All signage and commerce is done in English. While you can often hear other languages on the street (including Singlish), the vast majority of the population, especially younger people, can speak English.

The other benefit to visiting Singapore as a gateway to Asia is the diversity of the country. Here you can find populations of Chinese, Malay and Indians living together. You can find Christian churches, Moslem mosques, and Buddhist and Hindu temples all over the city. In addition to being the most diverse city in Asia, the diversity arguably makes it the best food city in Asia. You can find cheap, good food at any of the many hawkers stands which dot the city.

Singapore is currently trying to build up its tourism industry. Being a small country, there isn’t much to see in terms of history or natural attractions, however. They have ripped a page out of the Macau pagebook and have decided to build casinos. There is currently one on the small island of Sentosa and there is currently a massive one under construction near the marina. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. One casino does not a Macau make, but if there is one country that could pull it off in a classy way, it is Singapore.

The two things people mention right away you bring up Singapore are; 1) the fact that you can’t chew gum, and 2) that American kid who got caned years ago. The caning took place 16 years ago, yet still is one of the only things people think of when they think of Singapore. The ban on chewing gum is technically not a ban on the chewing of gum. It is a ban on the sale and importation of gum. (Technically, if you bring a personal stash of gum into the country, that would violate law, but I doubt if you are going to see the gum police come after you.) The reason for the ban is the same reason Disney World doesn’t sell gum on its property: it is a pain to clean. There is an exemption for therapeutic chewing gum if it is prescribed by a doctor or a dentist.

I am often asked by people if I’ve ever visited a place where I would consider living. Singapore is very close to being such a place if not for one thing: the incredibly high cost of real estate. Being a wealthy country on a small island, prices for rent are very high. They seem to be on a par with what you’d find in Manhattan, London, San Francisco or Tokyo.

I’ll be here the rest of the week, and if you are in Singapore I will also be giving a presentation on Friday, March 5 at Amirah’s Grill, Level 2, No.142 Arab Street Opposite Golden Landmark Hotel. You can RSVP on Facebook.

Singapore Riverfront

Singapore is the second country in which I have previously spent time prior to the start of my trip (the other being Taiwan). After my first trip to Singapore in 1999, I became fascinated with the country. I read up on the history of Singapore, I read at least two books on Lee Kuan Yew, and always sort of paid extra attention when something about Singapore came up on the news. I was fascinated by the size of Singapore, coupled with the fact that Singapore has basically gone from a third world country to a first world county (and one of the richest at that), in the span of a generation. Having visited Penang which, along with Singapore, was one of the British straights colonies, I am even more impressed with what Singapore has done.

Chinatown, Singapore

Several times while I was roaming around Singapore, I would find myself in some sort of mall or shopping center and wind up in another completely different mall or shopping center. At time, in certain parts of the city, the entire thing seems like a giant mall. By any international standard, and certainly by regional standards, Singapore is a clean, wealthy, safe, and very green country. The problems of Singapore are the problems of prosperity. (which in the big scheme of things, are good problems to have).

I was able to talk with many Singaporeans during my stay.
One of the things I came away with was how Singapore, while a country, is run almost like a corporation. Unlike many countries in the region, Singapore has very low rates of corruption. In fact, it is the least corrupt country on Earth. They do this by paying civil servants very high wages comparable to that in the private sector, and there is often a lot of shuffling between the two. There is also a lot of targeted investment in certain industries. The current big push is in biotechnology.

Sir Stamford Raffels

One way they have addressed the issue of creativity is funding science. My friend Dave, who I stayed with in Singapore, is a professor at the National University of Singapore. NUS has quickly become the best university in SE Asia, and next to Tokyo University, probably the best in all of Asia. Just walking around the campus, you could tell that Singapore is serious about funding science. In addition to the NUS, there are also several technology centers located around the country.

I still like Singapore, but I didn’t come away this time with the same sort of awe as I did before. My guess is that is mostly a function of having seen a lot more of the world since then. If you were visiting SE Asia, I’d strongly consider going to Singapore for a few days. It isn’t a big country, so you can easily explore the highlights in a few days. If nothing else, Singapore is a great model for how clean and green a major city can be.

McDonald's at the Singapore Harborfront

There are a surprising number of McDonald’s in Singapore. Something which I found in other mostly Chinese cities (Taipei, Hong Kong) but not in the rest of Asia. In addition to McDonald’s I saw almost every other brand of fast food restaurant in Singapore: Long John Silvers, Burger King, KFC, and Pizza Hut. They even had a MOS Burger. (see my Japan post)

Hawker stands near the harbor front MRT station

Most neighborhoods will have hawker stands, which are basically like mall food courts, minus the mall (and Singapore does have a lot malls). When I first visited Singapore in 1999 I suffered, for the first time in my life, from information overload. I went to a hawker stand and was confronted with so many choices that I had no idea what to pick. The average American food court will have “the chinese place”, “the italian place”, maybe “the japanese place”, with various other western chain restaurants.

Hawker stand selling economic rice...whatever that is

…and it’s all really cheap.

If you go down to the riverfront in Singapore, you’ll see just as large a diversity of food, just more upscale. North Indian cuisine, Thai, Chinese Seafood, traditional Chinese. I’ve even saw a Cuban restaurant near Chinatown.

Next to Tokyo (and probably surpassing it) Singapore is easily the best food city I’ve seen on my trip. Within a 10-15 min walk of most places, I bet you could find enough different places to eat to eat out for every meal and never have to visit the same place in a week.

If you ever find yourself in Singapore, skip the McDonald’s and head to a hawker stand.

Yesterday (Sunday) I went to the Singapore Zoo. I had heard it called one of the best zoos in the world, and I can see why. Like everything else in Singapore, it is top notch. I got about 30 min of video at the zoo and it will be its own podcast episode.

Saturday, I went with Dave and his girlfriend Mingko to Malaysia to visit a tropical fruit farm and eat durian. Durian is a fruit I’ve never heard of before I came to Singapore, but some people here are crazy about it. It isn’t anything like you’d expect from a fruit. It tastes more like a baked vegetable or a pastry. It is really hard to explain. The fruit itself is large with spikes, with a giant seed in the middle. In the wild, it is normally eaten by elephants or tigers who spread the seed. The smell of durian is so strong that you can’t bring it on the subway in Singapore. Some people at the farm at so much durian, they had enormous piles of durian husks on their table.

I’ve also done a fair amount of just walking around the city. Had dinner in Chinatown and at at a real vegetarian restaurant in Little India. (I’m defining “real” as a place where normally only Indians eat, most everyone eats with their fingers, and they have a sink to wash your hands in the dining room). A meal there was SG$2 (US$1.50). I also went inside a function Hindu temple for the first time.

In terms of sheer variety, Singapore is by far the best food city I’ve visited on my trip. There are hawker stands everywhere where you can find any number of varieties of food. (I’ll have a lot more to say on that in a few days in a post of its own).

I visited the Asian Museum of Culture, which is one of the better museums I’ve been to (Singapore….go figure). The museum covers most of Asian culture from SE Asia to the Middle East. (It omits anything from Korea or Japan which I thought odd. I was told later that it might be a matter of difficulty in getting artifacts from those countries.)

Everyone I talk to says Singapore is expensive. Compared to the rest of SE Asia it is, but coming from Australia, it’s like shopping at Wal-Mart.

I also got to talk at length to several native Singaporeans, and their thoughts on the country are interesting to say the least (more on that later as well). Suffice to say that Singapore is a truly unique country. There is nothing like it anywhere else in the world.

I hope to have internet access somehow on Bintan, but we’ll see. I’d be surprised if there wasn’t some sort of connection given its proximity to Singapore.

I finally got a cell phone yesterday. I haven’t had one in over a year. It’s pretty cheap, but it gets the job done.

Typing is a pain on the iPod. The new WordPress app makes the process a bit easier.

I’m taking photos today and tomorrow I’ll shoot video. There is a high density of things to photograph here.

I’m staying at the apartment of my college roommate Dave, who is a professor at the University of Singapore.

Singapore is much as I remember it: clean, efficient, modern, and very green.

There are some changes which I’ve noticed, in particular there are more signs in Thai. I don’t recall seeing any signs written in Thai when I was here last time, but many of the signs are written in English, Chinese, Thai, and Bahasa Malaysian. I think there are many more foreign workers in Singapore also.

They’ve put in a large Ferris wheel like they have in London. I’ve already found several times the number of open wifi connections in than I found in almost six months in Australia.

The University of Singapore looked (as much as I can tell in an hour) as a pretty good school. It is exactly the sort of thing which the Singapore government would put money into. It is certainly the best university in South East Asia, and probably one of the best in all of Asia, certainly outside of Japan.

It is really humid here. The Changi Airport is really nice. I’d put it over the Hong Kong airport.

I’m going to search for a cell phone. I think I’ve reached the point where I need to get one. It is more a matter of figuring out what card/plan to get. I don’t need to make a lot of calls, but I would like to do international text messaging.

I can’t believe I’ve been here for more than five months. I originally intended to be here for about 2-3 months. The size and vast emptiness of the country really is astounding. While it is approximate in size to the continental US, it is very different in how things are spread out. It would be like the US if everything outside of the east coast and Sand Diego was the Nevada desert.

I’ll have a lot to say about Australia in the coming months. There is too much to say in one post. If I can summarize it in a simple sentence however, it is that Australia (and Canada, US, New Zealand, UK) are more alike than they are different. When you visit a place like Australia, as an American, you notice the things which are different. When you visit Japan, you notice the things which are the same.

Singapore will be the second country on my trip which I’ve visited previously (technically third, but a 24 hour stop over in Japan really didn’t count). I was in Singapore for four days back in 1999 and fell in love with the place. I am really interested to see what has changed and how the city is different. I’ll probably be writing more about Singapore than I otherwise would for a country its size, just because I find the place so fascinating.

One thing which I’m looking forward to in Singapore is FREE WIRELESS INTERNET. During my entire stay in Australia, I’ve found it in one place outside of an airport. Australian internet has been disappointing to say the least. It is slow and expensive. Many things I’ve wanted to do on my site I’ve put on hold till I could get to Singapore, just because of state of the Internet. I hope some of the location based services on my iPod Touch will work in Singapore.

I’m also looking to the lower prices of South East Asia. Australia is expensive for someone using American Dollars (and in some items like Coke is expensive for everyone. $3.50 for a 600ml bottle, or about 20oz. Yet you can often buy 2, 2 liter bottles for $5). Even though Singapore is probably the most expensive place in SE Asia, it should still be cheaper than Australia. One Singapore dollar is worth about US$0.75. When I was there in 1999, five Singapore dollars was about US$2.

Expect a few podcasts in quick succession. One problem with doing a podcast like I do, is you are held hostage by what internet connection you can get. I have two I shot in Australia almost ready to go. I might not be able to post exactly one per week, but I think I can average one per week by putting up more to compensate for when I can’t post. I also might be going back and revisiting some places I went where I didn’t shoot video by doing the Ken Burns thing with still photos. We’ll see.

If anyone in Singapore is reading this, drop me an email (gary AT everything-everywhere.com). I always enjoy meeting people.