Sh*tty Singapore

First off, let me begin by saying I don't care for Singapore. And I had already established this opinion before the crappiest part of my trip occurred there. Singapore is a small set of islands on the southern tip of Peninsular Malaysia. It grew from a country with little natural resources into an international financial hub. There are some tourist attractions but none I wanted to see. I don't know what the big deal about getting a $30 drink at Raffles is, I don't care about their world class zoo (much rather see animals in the wild), their beaches don't compare to Thailand or even Malaysia so why bother. Well, the only reason I had planned on going there was because it was a short trip from KL, I wanted to try and find a cheap portable hard drive, and I could fly cheap from there to Vietnam.

I should have seen it all coming when I got to customs. It started raining just as we got to the border. I spent over an hour waiting at customs and when I finally got through the bus I took from KL had already left so I had to take a city bus downtown. When I got downtown I had to get some Singapore dollars so I tried several ATMs but my card didn't work. I ended up having to take money out of my Wachovia account. I just found out today that I was charged for two withdraws that didn't happen with my first account so I'm in the process of working that out. But I finally had some cash so I decided to grab some food since I hadn't eaten all day. I walked into a Burger King and was asked to leave because I was dripping water (note, it had not stopped raining since the border). I finally made it to my hostel and was just relieved that I was leaving the next day. Since I had the rest of the evening open I went to one of the places recommended to buy electronics only to find out that most of the electronics here are just as expensive if not more than they are in the states. The waterproof digital camera I wanted to buy was over $100 more over here. Its not just electronics, everything is expensive here. I was in the grocery today and saw a small box of cereal for $6 USD. I think its because they have to import all their goods.

Now for the real crappy part and I realize that this is mostly my fault but all the stuff from the previous day didn't help. As I was checking into my flight the next day they informed me that I needed a visa to enter the country. Well no !*#@ Sherlock. What I didn't notice and my trusty Lonely Planet didn't mention was that Vietnam is one of the countries that requires you to get your tourist visa ahead of time and it can take up to two weeks. This put me into a downward spiral where I was trying to figure out how to get a visa, trying to rebook flights, places to stay, etc. Looooong story short I lost 2 days and around $140. I ended up hooking up with an online travel agent who can arrange for a visa pick up upon arrival in Saigon for a fee of $50. Plus I couldn't rebook or get a refund on my flight because it was one of those low budget fare deals so that first ticket I bought just went down the toilet. On top of all that I had to spend an extra 2 days in my favorite place in SE Asia, Singapore.

So that's where I'm at now, sitting here waiting to get out of Singapore tomorrow. So let me tell you a little more about Singapore. It is sometimes referred to as the 'fine' city. Not because its all that, but because you can get fined for almost anything. Smoking and littering in public places carry hefty fines, not flushing a public toilet does too, and my favorite is chewing gum will get you fined as well. I heard people get ticketed for jaywalking a lot, but I don't know how true that is. The country prides itself on being a really clean city but outside the city center I don't think its that clean. But it is nice to not have litter everywhere like in the other southeast Asian countries I've been to. Oh yeah, and the rain here sucks. Its worse than Malaysia so if you combine that with the freaky clean addicts you get kicked out of fast food joints like I did. I only took 2 pictures while in Singapore, the first one is of the downtown skyline when there was a break in the rain and the second is hard to see but its a big plastic container full of live frogs at this one restaurant I ate at. The container was out front beside all the tables. Needless to say, I didn't order frog. Get me outta here!