Lost And Searching: Singapore fun facts & the journey to Malaysia

This was one of the weird rhings that I found while strolling through the streets in Kampong Glam. It's a bar where you can play with cats. You pay per hour and you also get a drink and cake. You really have to love cats...

On almost every corner you can find a mall, really I am not exagerating! I don't understand how you can keep buying stuff?!

If you have seen the movie 2014 and you keep looking at the top platform, I bet you see a resemblance. Call me crazy but I think rhis is one of the ships they are goin to use to save the elite in case Singapore gets stroke by a tsunami. The ship releases from the towers and can either float or act like a submarine.

Just take the MRT (mass rapid transport ~ Singapore subway system) a few times and you'll see what I'm talking about. I think I was the only one looking around. Everyone is staring at their smartphone and some even have two!

Apparently cars cost much more in Singapore, even simple small cars. But what makes it even more expensive is the certificate you have to buy to drive your car around the city. This certificate alone costs around 30.000€. It is not unusual that the total cost raises to 60K €.

I think you need a lot of time to visit them all! [look up total number of ch, t & m]

I had read that Singapore has the highest GNP, so I was expecting so see a lot of fancy stuff around here. But what I saw was dar beyond my imagination could reach. I found it even absurde!

I have to be honest and say that at a certain point I felt very small. And I'm not talking about my hight, but about the nulbers on my bank account. I don't think I can imagine what lives those people live. I bet they spend a lot of hours inside their office. My Singaporean friend acknowledged this.

Now tell me who do you think is richer? They, with all their money or me, with all my freedom and time? Opinions differ of course.

Why is it that in the rest of the world people can't accept differences between cultures and make war and here, in this big city, 3 big cultures are living together without any problems??

In Singapore you have the Indian community, the Chinese community and the Muslim community and probably a few other minorities. They all live together in peace and accept each other and their differences. That is beautiful. We can all learn from that.

- Every public announcement is made in 4 different languages: English, Chinese, Malay and Indian

- they love coffee; you should see the number of Starbucks shops around the city!

- rules are very strict! You can get a S$ 500 fine for drinking or eating in the subway; it is prohibites to spit on the street and they still have the death penalty.

To sum up: I think I could live here for a while, but I wouldn't want to spend the rest of my days here. It is too big, too fancy and even tough they try to make it as "green" as possible, I still would miss nature. I also love our European cities with their old buildings and sophisticated architecture, small streets and chill vibe.

Now it's time to move on. I'm heading north to Malaysia. It's very easy - and cheap! - to get there from Singapore, you just have to know how.

- go to the corner of Queen Street with Arab Street and take one of the buses to Johore. It costs S$3,30 and you can pay either cash or with your EZ-link card.

- once the bus stops and everyone gets off, tou do the same. This is the checkpoint at the Singaporean border with Malaysia. Once you exit you are in a transit zone.

- take a Causeway Link (yellow) bus to Johore (JB), because you can't walk there. I missed the bus - don't know why, I wasn't looking properly - and I found lyself walking along the highway and suddenly the pedestrian sidewalk stopped. Luckily there was a yellow bus on the road and I signed him if I could hop on. It costs you only S$ 1 to get dropped off at the Malaysian checkpoint.

- after immigration you might want to exchange some money to be able to pay for what's coming.

- walk straight ahead to the bus platform and go left to Platform A (down the stairs)

- take bus number 170 which will take you to Larkin bus station. This costs you MR1,8 (=0,4€).

- at the Larkin bus station you can pick whatever bus you need according to you destination. I am going to Malakka and I took the City Express and paid MR21 (=5€) for a 3h bus ride. The bus is extremely comfy!

On the internet and in my Lonely Planet I had read that from Johore, after the immigration, I could take a direct bus to Melakka, but after asking to two different people, there seemed to be no direct bus going there...

Once you arrive to Malakka, you are dropped off at Malakka Sentral. You can take local bus nr 17 which will take you to the city center (Dutch Square). This one only costs MR1,5.