Via Singapore

My elder brother is settled out in Singapore since quite some time. He is married to Sweet Julie,  a Malaysian-Chinese origin Singaporean girl. Few years back, I and my wife Anjali visited Singapore when my Bro and Sis-in Law were blessed with a beautiful daughter. We looked forward for our Singapore trip and I even wanted to visit Malaysia, as my good old friend Nair, recently shifted to Malaysia that time. We went there for a couple of weeks and my parents were already there when we visited.

After little bit of googling I already doubted that it would have been boring in Singapore to have had spent 2 weeks out there. I was kind of determined to visit Malaysia and inquired about the visa procedures. Malaysia accepted on entry visa for Indians those days and the consultancy said that we could have applied for it in Singapore itself. As soon as I landed in Singapore, I felt as if I had landed on a different planet and everything looked so hi-tech.  At the airport my brother and mom waited for us and I was totally amazed when we entered into a train directly from airport. In fact, it took me a while and realized we were actually on a train, only after it started to move. 

Even though I already knew about the cleanliness of Singapore, but was kind of stunned to have had walked on such clean streets initially. Laws in Singapore are very strict and my brother already warned me not to smoke and spit here and there. Government out there is very fond of collecting fine and forget about enjoying a piss on the roadside, even they use to fine innocent people who merely spit on the street. I mean, what the hell is that La? I was very much impressed with the Metro service out there. Well, they use to say it MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) and is major component of the railway system in Singapore which connects each and every place. 

I met my good friend Satya out there and enjoyed an wonderful cocktail evening with him. Now what to say about food in Singapore? I felt, food is one of the most important factors which attract tourists to that place from across the world. When Satya came to know that I was little uncomfortable to roam around the city alone, he simply said "Dude, it’s such a country where no matter how hard someone try to get himself lost, but eventually he would automatically return home" He said that the laws are so strict that the level of crime is almost zero out there and the most chilled-out job in Singapore is that of a policeman. I was missing India a bit and then Satya took me to a place named Little India. Well, it was truly India and I felt very comfortable out there. The place got lot of Indian shops and restaurants and it's the only place where I could find loose cigarettes. Well, everywhere else in Singapore people had to forcefully buy the entire packet. Also, that was the place where people didn't wait unnecessarily for the traffic signal in order to cross the road, whenever there's not much traffic.

It was fun to travel by the MRT and I remember one MRT incident. It was peak traffic hour and the train was quite overcrowded. Many passengers were standing along with me. I was little tired enough and very much wanted to take my load off my feet.  All of a sudden a passenger prepared to get down and I eyed on his seat. I was almost ready to grab that space before anyone else could have occupied that. But what the hell? Nobody moved, no one attempted to occupy that space. People standing nearby started to look at each other’s faces and tried to make some facial expressions, just to offer that seat to each other. Ultimately one lady had to sit there and she didn’t look very comfortable, as if she did a terrible crime by occupying that seat, while many people were still standing out there. I was totally confused and wondered "Are Singaporeans really like that, I mean they think about others so much or it’s diplomacy at its best?"

One day we visited the Singapore Zoo and had a great time out there. But to be honest, I am not very much of a Zoo kind of person. Another day we visited the famous Sentosa island, even though it was a great place but it looked kind of artificial and I was not very much fascinated. I saw people from across the globe out there and wondered “How could Singapore manage to attract such huge number of tourists?” Well, they got some luxurious cruise lines, but everyone can't afford that. I wish I would be able to experience it some day. But the usual clean roads, strict laws, tall and colorful buildings couldn’t fascinate me much and I was completely bored within a few days. 

Initially I was little confused, but after a week I was very much determined to visit Malaysia and applied for our visa's through some consultancy. Within a couple of days it got approved and then we booked our bus tickets. There’s bus service from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur and it use to take 5-6 hours to reach KL. I used to have regular conversation with Nair and in fact, used to pressurize him for a good short trip. Initially he used to say "You guys first come and then we would figure out something" Poor guy just recently shifted to KL that time, but after my repeated attempts, at the final moment, Nair booked some weekend travel package to an isolated island.

But it seemed, he didn't have much of an idea on how we guys could have reached there. Ultimately the day finally arrived and we were on our way to Kuala Lumpur.

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