Surrendering My Soul to Singapore

In the Lonely Planet's Southeast Asia on a Shoestring, the section on Singapore begins as follows: "One of Southeast Asia's most remarkable success stories, immaculate Singapore confirms and undermines popular stereotypes in equal measure.  Yes, it's modern, clean and organized.  No, it's not stifling, strait-laced and dull.  What you have here is a dynamic 21st-century metropolis with a culture, history and cuisine that's remarkably rich for a place so small."  As it turns out, the LP and I have that attitude in common.  Yes, Singapore just might be my soul city-country.  No, I am not kidding.

I had a good feeling about this last stop on my itinerary before I got there, and I wasn't disappointed.  After arriving by bus from Melaka, Luna and I found the nearest metro station and hopped on the amazingly easy-to-navigate Singapore Mass Rapid Transit to head out to the friend's apartment where we would be staying.  I mean, what kind of city has a public transportation system whose acronym spells SMRT?  I liked this place already.  

Our first night in Singapore, we headed down to Little India where I proceeded to consume possibly the most amazing Indian meal of my life at a restaurant called Komala Vilas.  Luna, who studied abroad in India and had just returned from almost a month of travel there, admitted that this was maybe the best dosa she had ever had.  Actually, it was the best dosa she'd ever had.  Not that I needed any convincing, but Singapore's Little India went straight to the top of my List Of Places To Return To As Soon As Possible.  The next day we explored Chinatown, where I was introduced not only to pink bubble tea but also the most aesthetically beautiful, chicly hipster and if-I-had-a-million-bucks-I-would-buy-everything-in-this-bookstore-y bookstore, called BooksActually.  Even the name was chic and hip.  I walked inside and was drooling within 4 seconds.

With a superhuman display of self-restraint on my part, I managed to exit BooksActually having only purchased two items: an bilingual anthology of Malaysian/Singaporean poetry called Dari Jendela Zaman Ini/From the Window of this Epoch, and a vintage red and turquoise notebook -- but you can bet your behind that this little independent bookstore also shot straight to the top of my List Of Places To Return To As Soon As Possible and snuggled in up there with Little India.  I decided that if I ever live in Singapore, I will just go ahead and allot a portion of my monthly salary to my very own BooksActually fund.  It will be like taking out taxes, only I will be the one withdrawing the money, and it will come back to me in the form of books and extreme intellectual and aesthetic gratification.  [:: drools ::]  Later that afternoon, Luna and I took an excursion to the grocery store around the corner, where we discovered that, contrary to our experience in Indonesia, you can buy the following items at any old corner grocery store: real bread, blue cheese, mixed-berry jam, and red wine.  A veritable feast, and then two sulfite hangovers, ensued.  I love Indonesia, don't get me wrong, but if I expect to attain any sort of long-term happiness in my life, both wine and its immediate procurability are going to have to be in the picture.  

The next day -- and last day before heading back to reality -- was spent goggling at the shopping sights of Orchard Road, wandering through the Singapore Art Museum and gorging ourselves on incredible mexican food (one more prerequisite to my long-term happiness that is sadly missing in Yogya).  And though our flight was the next morning, I wasn't too bummed out.  I mean, it was love at first step-on-the-SMRT.  And though Singapore does have its potentially creepy idiosyncrasies (the signs on buses urging you not to pretend to be sleeping so you don't have to give your seat up to grandma, for example, or the lanes that separate walking traffic in the SMRT stations), it's all just part of the package, and I know I'll be back.  Come on, I have to be back -- the whole damn country's holding court at the top of my List Of Places To Return To As Soon As Possible.  And as anyone who knows me knows, I don't take lists lightly.  No siree.

Flying Solo

For those of you who follow the "Buku-Buku" section of this blog, you'll have noticed that the book I most recently read was called "A Woman Alone: Travel Tales from Around the Globe." The book, which was a gift from my aunt, was a collection of essays by women telling the stories of their solo travels. I read the whole thing cover-to-cover in just a few days, and was so inspired by some of these women's stories that I just couldn't wait to get out on the road, and face my fears about traveling alone.

And as it turns out, I've gotten my chance. I left Yogya last Friday, and spent the next four and a half days with my friends Aggi and Alex, who are teaching on PiA fellowships in Penang, Malaysia. After gorging myself on Chinese, Indian, Malay, and Thai food in Malaysia's veritable food capital, kicking it around Georgetown (the main city on the island of Penang), visiting some sweet temples (see a picture of Kek Lok Si to your right), hiking through a national park to go swimming on a deserted beach, and helping Aggi ring in year number twenty-three, I decided it was time to head out on my own. Aggi and Alex had gone back to work and I had seen (and eaten) the best of Penang, so it was time to move along.

With three open days before my scheduled reunion with Luna in Kuala Lumpur on the 15th, I hopped a bus to the Cameron Highlands (which lie roughly between Penang and the capital) to see what the mountainous tea plantantion towns had in store for me. I've traveled alone before, including in countries that are not my own, but this trip was different -- in the past, I've always had the phone number of at least one person with whom I could get in touch at my destination. When I took a solo weekend trip to Granada while I was studying abroad in Spain, for instance, I was able to meet up with the friends-of-a-friend, who took me out and showed me around town. But this time, I was completely on my own -- a woman alone, as it were. Oh goody.

When my bus pulled into the bus station in Tanah Rata, the main town in the Highlands, I disembarked without really knowing where I was going. I had called ahead to reserve a dorm bed in a guesthouse mentioned in the Lonely Planet, but I didn't really want to sleep in a dorm, so I was considering that my back-up plan. All the couples who had been on the bus quickly dispersed (obviously THEY knew where they were going), which left me and the only other lone traveler on that bus, a British girl who looked uncannily like a blonde Minne Driver. (I have since entertained the possibility that she actually IS Minnie Driver with a dye-job -- the resemblance is that uncanny.) Minne clearly didn't know where she was going either, so when a man approached us offering a free ride to a guesthouse called "Twin Pines" where we could check out the rooms, we both accepted. At Twin Pines, upon discovering that they were offering single rooms for 12 ringgit (which is about US $4) per night, I was sold. The rooms were basically closets in the attic, but I wasn't planning on spending too much time there -- and besides, it's cold in the Highlands. Like, actually cold. Is this still Southeast Asia? Will somebody please wake me up?

After parting ways with Minnie in the attic hallway and dropping my bag in my closet, I went back downstairs to head out for a walk, enjoy the cool air of the afternoon, and check out the town. While I was standing on the patio examining my map, someone with an American accent said, "So, what are you up to this afternoon?" I looked up to see a bald dude of ambiguous age, sitting at a table and smoking a cigarette. "I don't know," I said. "I just got here." Forty-five minutes later, I had learned that Ernie (not his real name -- gotta protect people's privacy dontchaknow), age 43 and hailing originally from Wisconsin, had already traveled around much of the world and was basically kicking it in Asia, waiting out the economic crisis in the States. Ernie is an ex-drug addict who first went to jail when he was 15, never got married or had kids, has bungee jumped in New Zealand, has touched a great white shark while scuba diving off the coast of South Africa, has taught English in China and has never had a beer in his life. If I had been heading out for my walk with someone else, we probably would have passed Ernie right by. Instead, I made a friend. Score one for Team Woman Alone.

I think that most people who have traveled alone agree that it can be by turns (and sometimes simultaneously) invigorating and exhausting. For example, when I had to use the bathroom in the bus station, I didn't have anyone with whom I could take turns watching the bags and going to pee, and when it came time to make decisions about accommodation, I only had Minnie for solidarity. On the other hand, no one complained when I chose to eat Indian food for all three of my meals today, and I didn't have to weigh the pros and cons with my travel companion of paying for a tour of the tea plantations -- I just decided to book the tour, and I booked it. (Which, by the way, was totally worth it -- not only did I get to tour a tea plantation, watch the tea being processed, sample some tea and buy oleh-oleh for my housemates back in Yogya, but I also got to visit a butterfly aviary, hold a scorpion the size of a bottle-opener, and eat fresh strawberries from a strawberry farm. Word.) I've taken a few walks, written 5 postcards, had coffee with Ernie twice, made friends with a Pakistani girl from Australia who has promised to add me as a friend on Facebook, and eaten every meal alone. It is sometimes lonely, but mostly fantastic.

That being said, I am more than looking forward to seeing Luna tomorrow. My few gorgeous days in the Cameron Highlands have been a super solo experience, but I'm ready to morph back into A Woman With Friend -- after all, it's nice to have someone to crack a beer with, say goodnight to, and ask to watch your stuff while you go to the bathroom in the bus station. Trying to maneuver into those tiny stalls and squat with a backpack on -- trust me, it just doesn't work.

A Report from the Future

One year ago today, I wrote in my journal: "First entry of 2009! Call me crazy, but this year feels like a good one. :-)" Then, near the end of the entry: "The cosmic energy is definitely here in 2009." So now, one year later, it feels appropriate to ask: was the cosmic energy here in 2009?

Let's take a little scamper down memory lane and check it out. I wrote a small book of poems -- my academic thesis -- and graduated from college. (Bachelor's degree: check.) I spent an amazing summer visiting friends and family all over the U.S., and packed all my worldly possessions into labeled boxes which are currently being stored in my mother's basement, waiting for whatever comes next. (Thinking ahead: check.) I bought a one-way plane ticket and moved to Indonesia to teach college students English. (Plunging headfirst into the great unknown, thereby throwing all forward-thinking out the window: check.) And what have I done since I moved to Indonesia?

I've learned a new language, eaten cobra, and sat through an all-night shadow puppet performance. I've been caught in tropical thunderstorms and swum in the Indian ocean. I've hiked the foothills of a volcano, watched the sun set over Bali, and received baby turtles as a thank-you gift. I've stood on the side of a dirt road while a man I've just met shimmies up a coconut tree, cuts off a young coconut, hacks off the top and hands it to me so I can drink the water straight out of the fruit. The cosmic energy, I think, was definitely there in 2009.

And while I won't pretend it doesn't make me a little sad to be celebrating the new year so far away from friends and family, can I really complain? (I mean, who else gets to drink fresh-blended mango juice on New Year's Day?) I'm having the adventure of my life, and I have no idea what's on tap for 2010. And I like it that way. Happy New Year to everyone from me and my mom (and our becak driver) in Indonesia -- here's to hoping the cosmic energy sticks around in 2010. And to all the Americans I love on the other side of the ocean who are reading this as they wake up hungover a couple hours from now, from where I'm sitting (12-15 hours in your future) -- the chances are looking pretty damn good.