After doing absolutely nothing on Koh Lanta for a week or so, we headed off to Singapore where we... well, continued to do absolutely nothing.
In our defense, we did get out that first night and most of the second day to do our usual new-city-wanderings. The city went right over the top with a dazzling X-mas light display that lit up the streets like... well, you know. It was pretty, although we didn't know that hot pink was a traditional X-mas colour (nor that X-mas trees came in Tiffany's-box-blue), but there is something weird about hearing Mariah Carey's holiday cd being pumped inside Starbucks while wandering the streets in flip flops.
Singapore, we concluded, would be Ned Flanders' utopia. Okay, perhaps it's missing a church and a left-handed store on every block, but other than that it's modern, efficient, and so clean you could probably give birth in the middle of the street without fear of infection. It also boasts to be one of the safest cities in the world. This is probably due to its incredibly harsh judicial system, which still implores the death penalty for ANY drug offense and hands out fines, jail time and medieval-style lashings (yes, Lashings) for anything from chewing gum to eating on the subway. Although we did see a few high school girls imbibing a couple of Smarties while on the metro--those hooligans!!
Unfortunately, all this sanitation and law-abiding makes Singapore feel somewhat... well, soulless. Wandering around, each of the ethnic neighbourhoods seems remarkably like the others, except for the physical skin colour of the inhabitants. Perhaps this is partially due to the fact that a large part of the population are young urban professionals who move to Singapore for a couple of years to make money before returning to their own country to start a family. As a result, there are plenty of hip shopping malls and somewhat pretentious clubs, but little true character. The affluence, both of the individuals and the city itself, is visible everywhere--from the $14 cocktails to the immaculate gardens. It's almost a strange sight, after nearly a year of traipsing around Nepal, India, Cambodia, etc.
In any case, we actually spent the majority of our time in Singapore sitting in a modern, air conditioned apartment watching cheesy wedding shows and eating ice-cream. So I suppose we can't complain Too much...
Since then, we've come to Koh Phi Phi. Normally, we'd be running around doing the usual ridiculous things that tourists do on Thai islands, but unfortunately our bodies appear to have given up on us and we're both down with head colds. However, we can't complain Too much--we've had an excellent run in southeast Asia.
See you all very soon!!
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