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My Songkran Escape
For those who don’t live in the Land of Smiles, let me remind you that the
Songkran Festival is the Thai celebration of the Buddhist New Year and is
celebrated in the middle of April. Festivities usually last three to seven days
and their main focus are on partying and water-throwing. Whereas the original
festival was respectful and fun, nowadays it has completely degenerated into a
drunken orgy of water hooliganism, harassment and binge drinking. No wonder that
almost 500 deaths on the roads and several thousands of accidents occur yearly
on Thai roads during Songkran. By the way, I completely disagree with most
travel guides that say Songkran is one of the best times to visit Thailand. In
my opinion, it’s one of the worst.
The festival isn’t about gently pouring water onto people’s hands anymore as it
used to be; it has become real guerrilla warfare where water cannons, dirty
water and even ice water are used as weapons. Many sexually frustrated male
punters also seem to think that groping females is a legitimate part of the
‘fun’. In order to avoid this misery caused by bullies and barbarians, many
foreign residents barricade themselves indoors for several days during this
period, I kid you not.
This year, the missus and I decided to go on a 10-day trip to Singapore and
Malaysia, partly to avoid the above-mentioned hysteria. I had been to the
southern part of Malaysia (Langkawi and Penang) before but never to Singapore.
She hadn’t been to either. Thanks to the Internet, I managed to buy some very
reasonably priced aeroplane tickets to go from Bangkok to Singapore and come
back from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok. These ‘open jaw’ tickets made it possible to
see both countries without having to do any backtracking.
Singapore
Although some friends and colleagues had depicted Singapore as rather dull and
outrageously expensive, I wanted to see for myself. Most also reckoned that a
two or three-day stay was ample time to see the mini-state, one even thought
that one day was more than enough. How wrong they were.
My first impressions of the smallest South-East Asian country were very positive
and I soon realised that one could easily spend a month there in order to
explore every nook and cranny without getting bored. That is, if one had the
time and money to do so. Although prices in Singapore aren’t prohibitively high,
the country is truly expensive when compared to Thailand.
While walking along the Singapore River in the evening of our first day, my
reaction was: ‘This isn’t Asia’. Singapore is really very different from most
Asian countries I have visited. All the streets are clean. Traffic is very
light. All motorists and pedestrians obey traffic rules. There aren’t any food
stalls on the pavement or mangy dogs in the streets. Whenever there is an open
space, there are some trees and well-kept grass instead of a pile of rubbish.
New buildings are modern while old and historic buildings are tastefully
renovated. Credit cards are accepted almost everywhere.
The reason behind the light traffic is a government policy that forces car
lovers not only to buy a vehicle, but also a permit to drive it. This so-called
Certificate of Entitlement (COE) costs about as much as a small car.
Singapore struck me as being similar to several western cities. I thought it
combined the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Sydney, the sophistication of London and
the homeliness of Amsterdam. Remember that this is just an impression based on a
three-night stay. Thinking of the saying that a new broom sweeps clean, my
positivism might erode with time.
Anyway, I’ll go over the most interesting facts of our stay without trying to
bore you with every detail. Accommodation is expensive: dorm beds start at 20
Singapore dollars (SGD), the shabbiest hotel rooms go for 50 SGD. You’ll need to
pay at least 70 to 100 SGD for a half-decent room, as we did in Little India,
one of the cheaper city districts.
There are plenty of things to see and do; unfortunately they all cost money. We
did seven of the ten must-see attractions (the iconic Merlion Park,
tourist-friendly Sentosa Island, the original Chinatown, historic Clarke and
Boat Quay, authentic Little India and alleged shopping paradise Orchard Road).
Because of time constraints, we basically skipped all the animal and natural
attractions such as Singapore Zoo, Night Safari, Jurong Bird Park and the
Botanical Gardens. There are lots of good photo opportunities, so don’t forget
your camera.
Tourist brochures are plentiful at Changi Airport, but they are disappointing as
they mainly focus on high-street shopping and swanky dining, both of which cost
tons of money. As I’m based in Bangkok, I’d never go to Singapore for shopping.
An Arab wouldn’t go to Australia to buy a camel, would he now? (Yes I do know
there are camels in the Outback.) Actually, we cut short our trip to Orchard
Road, as seeing expensive department stores is not my idea of fun while on
holiday.
If you want to put your platinum credit card to good use when you’re getting
hungry, you can wine and dine at the ubiquitous classy restaurants found all
over the city centre. However, if you aim is to keep the food bill affordable,
try eating at food courts or local, down-to-earth eateries, where the food is
usually just as tasty but where you won’t need to sell a kidney to settle the
bill. Food courts can be found in most shopping areas while basic restaurants
are abundant in the ethnically diverse districts such as Little India and
Chinatown.
There is no Singaporean language. Most people speak Malay, Chinese or Hindi.
Just about everybody speaks very good English as well. It was actually a relief
to be able to speak English again wherever we went – contrary to Thailand, where
hardly any local has the skill to conduct a basic conversation in fluent
English.
Sources have told me that Thais are envious of Singapore, and so they should be.
General living conditions are much better, e.g. no traffic jams, limited air and
noise pollution, clean and wide pavements, better working conditions and decent
salaries. Also, very few people in Singapore seem sexually confused: there are
no ladyboys, transvestites, transsexuals, eunuchs or tomboys to be seen on every
street corner, contrary to Thailand. By the way, Singapore has also shown the
world that it is possible to have an abundance of squeaky-clean, non-smelly
public toilets. I wish the rest of the world would follow suit.
Isn’t there anything negative about Singapore then? I suppose there is, but I
just wasn’t there long enough to experience it. Rules are said to be very strict
and laws are rigorously enforced. I saw a T-shirt for sale claiming that
‘Singapore is a fine city – smoking $500 fine, littering $1000 fine, jaywalking
$300 fine’. Press freedom is supposedly suppressed and the government doesn’t
seem to handle criticism very well. Also, if your daily diet requires lots of
alcohol, remember that beer is about three times more expensive than in
Thailand.
Malaysia
After three nights in Singapore, it was time to catch a bus to Malaysia. To our
surprise, we were the only two passengers on the coach to Melaka (aka Malacca),
a coastal city in the south-west of the Malaysian peninsula. Malaysian
immigration was efficient, friendly and swift. I received a visa-free
three-months-on-arrival stamp without even the need to fill in an arrival card.
Although it doesn’t have the sophistication of Singapore nor the sandy-white
beaches and nightlife of Thailand, Malaysia is a pleasant and relaxing place to
visit with a lot of atmosphere. Melaka, which is rapidly being developed as a
seaside resort city cum fancy shopping malls, has lots of interesting buildings,
museums and remnants of the colonial era, mainly located around Bukit Saint Paul
(Saint Paul Hill), in the middle of the old town centre.
Accommodation in Malaysia is much cheaper than in Singapore, albeit slightly
more expensive than Thailand. The hotel room we found was twice as nice and half
the price of Singapore. Food is tasty and restaurants cater to most palates,
with a mix of Malay and Chinese food being prevalent. Most restaurants are
‘halal’ (conforming to the Islamic dietary laws) of course, as the majority of
Malaysians are Muslims. Alcohol is expensive.
Seeing all the sights in Melaka and getting some relaxation took us three days,
after which we moved on the capital Kuala Lumpur. After a two-hour bus ride we
arrived in KL, as it is commonly known; it’s a big, modern city which doesn’t
seem to be plagued by never-ending traffic jams and near-fatal air pollution. A
swath of fairly inexpensive but scruffy hotels and guesthouses is located in and
around Chinatown, so choose wisely. Most Malaysians speak basic English,
although some can be hard to understand.
KL’s Chinatown should really be called Faketown, since I hardly saw anything
authentically Chinese sold at the Petaling Street market. Fake perfumes,
designer clothes, leather ware, watches, pirated DVDs and the like was all there
was. One could of course argue that producing fakes is an art the Chinese have
perfected. On top of that, the market was swarmed with herds of obnoxious and
bothersome vendors – none of them Chinese – who couldn’t sell a bottle of water
to someone stranded in the desert.
The main tourist sites in KL include Independence Square (Dataran Merdaka) with
the picturesque Sultan Abdul Samad building, the Petronas twin towers and a
number of famous mosques. Besides these, the Lake Gardens in the middle of the
city provide a welcome oasis of green with several attractions such as a
planetarium, orchid and hibiscus garden, butterfly garden, the biggest bird park
in the world and a placid lake with boats for rent. Lake Gardens cover quite a
big area, and doing all of it on foot can wear you out in the heat. I wish they
would have banned all cars and rented bicycles instead.
After another three nights in KL, it was time to return home. The Air Asia
flight was not only cheap but also punctual and took us in two hours back to
Bangkok. It had been a very nice break from Thailand indeed. Looking back, I was
very pleasantly surprised by Singapore and racked up another positive experience
in Malaysia. However, I was a bit surprised and dismayed that a lot more people
than I had imagined in both Singapore and Malaysia smoked, with countless
cigarette butts littering the streets especially in KL.
Several English language newspapers are available in both Singapore and
Malaysia. While we were there, two Malaysian stories caught my teacher’s eye.
The first one decried the situation in which youngsters find themselves pushed
to the limit by their parents to perform well academically and are dragged
kicking and screaming to tutoring schools every weekend, thus denying them the
opportunity to be a child and play with friends. It surely reminded me of
Thailand. The second one focused on parents’ anger towards a teacher who thought
nothing of caning a boy after he had supposedly misbehaved. Locals usually
condone corporal punishment and wouldn’t have batted an eyelid if it weren’t for
the fact that in this particular case the boy who underwent the caning suffered
from Down’s Syndrome.
A belated Happy Buddhist New Year to everyone.
The author of this article can be contacted at
philiproeland@hotmail.co.uk
1/5/2008
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