I’m writing from Singapore, and for the first time, I have my laptop out in a coffee shop. I never really took it outside of the hostel in Kuala Lumpur. It’s not like the NEO. Not quite so portable and all that stuff. Taking this computer feels like I should be doing something important. And it’s a lot heavier. Everything feels a lot more complicated than just a short time ago. The computer is such a powerful beast compared to the NEO, the battery doesn’t last 700 hours and I have to worry about charging it all the time, I have to bring the mouse, and as my body falls apart, I have to wear glasses in order to see the screen. Plus, the keyboard is not that great. Not like the NEO. It may not have been a wise purchase, but I think that about everything.

I’m in Singapore on another visa run. I had intended to leave Malaysia before the last visa ran out, but I got lazy again. And so here I am. Things have not gone well on this trip. I took the train again, largely because the immigration department is very small and casual at the tiny train border crossing. There is a risk that they won’t let me back into the country, and I wanted to minimize the risk. But after I booked the train ticket, I learned that the trains no longer cross all the way into Singapore. They only take you as far as the border city of Jahore Bahru. Then you have to find your way across the strait into Singapore by bus. I tried to get information behorehand about how these buses work and where they take you, but it was impossible. This was annoying because a full bus trip to Singapore would have been much easier. They take you door to door right to downtown Singapore. If I knew I had to go through the main immigration process anyway, I would have gone by bus.

I’ve had a lot of trouble sleeping lately, and with my early morning departure from Kuala Lumpur, I got almost no sleep at all. So I was in a very sorry state when I left. As I’ve said many times in my life, I can understand how sleep deprivation is an effective torture. There’s nothing worse than the agonizing need for sleep while you simply can’t sleep. Sitting on that train for seven hours was horrific. Needing to sleep, yet unable to. And unable to do anything else (like read) because of the extreme fatigue.

There was another foreigner on the train, and I chattted with him a bit. He had done some research into this train/bus situation and he said that our train would hook up with a commuter train at the border and if we arrived on time, we could take that train across into Singapore. That was good news. He got the info from the Seat 61 website. I never thought to check that site.

Trouble began when we arrived in Johore Bahru. I had assumed that since going into Singapore was such a common thing that the steps involved would be simple and that there would be signs. But there were none. Commuting to Singapore from Malaysia was indeed common. It is common to the tune of tens of thousands of people making the trip every single day just to go to work and then go home again. But these people don’t need signs and directions. Only we dumb foreigners do. And there aren’t enough of us to justify any of that.

So a pack of four of us dumb foreigners wandered around in the train station only to discover that the commuter trains to Singapore were all sold out. That left the shuttle buses. It took some time to find them, and we had to go through immigration and customs to reach them. At immigration, my length of stay in Malaysia sent up a red flag as expected, and I was pulled out of the line and sent to a special area for an investigation. One other foreigner was waiting for me, but I waved him on. Who knew how long it was going to take? And there was no point getting him caught up in my drama. We’d only met that day and spoken for all of three minutes total.

The interview was fairly casual. I wouldn’t call it friendly, but it wasn’t hostile either. The two immigration officers were just doing their job and simply wanted to know why I’d been in Malaysia for so long. I couldn’t really tell them the truth – that I’m lazy and I procastinate and I just like hanging out when I find a comfortable place. So I told them the half truth that I was cycling around the world and my bicycle was broken and it was taking a long time to repair it. In any event, I was a tourist and not working illegally or anything like that. I have no idea what the result of that interview was. After all, this was taking place as I was leaving the country, not entering. They did the usual mysterious typing on a computer and then stamped my passport and waved me on to the shuttle buses. It’s possible they flagged my record to say that I wouldn’t be allowed back into Malaysia, but I won’t find that out until tomorrow when I try to re-enter. The glimmer of hope here is that I managed to book a seat on the commuter train  back from Singapore to Malaysia. It’s kind of insane, but I board a train in Singapore right at the edge of the strait. The train crosses one bridge and then stops. You get out and then go into the train station there to go the rest of the way to Kuala Lumpur. This means (I hope) that I will be going through customs and immigration at the small train station and it might be more casual. If I’m not allowed back in, I’ll be separated from my bike and all my belongings. Not sure what I’ll do in that case. Perhaps fly up to Cambodia or some other cheap place and hang out there for a bit. Wait and then try again.

Even though I’d gotten through immigration and found the shuttle buses, my journey to Singapore was still far from over. Finding the right shuttle bus wasn’t easy. It was Sunday and thousands and thousands of people were crossing back into Singapore and the shuttle bus area was jammed. Plus, all these people were regulars and had passes and it was diffficult to get any info on which bus I should take or even which bus I COULD take and how much it cost. After much confusion and a long, sweaty wait, I found myself standing up and jammed inside a shuttle bus of some type. It went across the bridge and then stopped at Woodlands Checkpoint. It was about an hour of waiting for a 2-minute trip. Then I had to go through Singapore customs. They still use paper forms and I had to fill those out. Of course, I got in the line with some problem people in front of me, and it took forever for them to get into Singapore. Then I was interviewed pretty harshly to get into Singapore. It appeared my reputation had preceded me. But they let me in.

Another reason I’d booked a train ticket was that since I’d done it once before, I knew all the steps and it would be stress-free. But since I’d arrived by shuttle bus and not by train, I was in a completely different area and I had no idea where to go or what to do. It’s a weird border crosssing because it’s for locals, and so it has no money changers or food outlets. I needed to take a bus to an MRT station in order to to begin the 1.5-hour long trip into Singapore proper. But I had no cash. I finally got oriented and found the one money changer hidden deep inside a local grungy market. Then I figured out which bus to take. It was extremely crowded and a giant pain in the ass, but it got me to an MRT station. I figured out where I needed to go to get to my hostel (which I’d booked in advance) and then figured out how to buy a ticket. Of course my ticket wouldn’t work at the entrance, and I had to wait in line at the service desk to get it checked out. Finally I was on my way. Still standing. Exhausted. Sweaty. Barely able to focus or function. It had not been an enjoyable trip.

My hostel was also a poor surprise. The place I’d stayed in before and which was okay was full. I wasn’t able to get a bed there. So I did some research and chose this other one. It seemed reasonable. Singapore is expensive for me, so I chose to stay in a dorm. Figured I could handle a dorm for two nights. But it’s an awful place. Sure, it’s the cheapest option around, but eventually cheap becomes horrible. For me, horrible always means the same thing – a lack of space. That’s always the biggest problem. I don’t mind horrible in the Ethiopian sense – dirty, full of cockroaches, nasty bathrooms. At least those places are big and roomy. In Asia, cheap places tend to be small and crowded. That’s the big problem. This place is like a rat’s maze. But the worst thing is that all the beds are bunk beds, and I was assigned the top bunk. I felt sorry for the poor Japanese girl in the bottom bunk. It was a mixed dorm. She was sitting there on her bottom bunk sorting through her stuff, and then I show up – a hulking, hairy, boorish western man – and I climb up onto the bed above her. I actually apologized to her. I was dismayed to find that this bunk was poorly made and it swayed like the birdnest at the top of a ship’s mast. Every move she made or that I made shook the entire structure. That meant two things. One, I would get no sleep. And two, I would feel like I was in prison – unable to move for fear of waking her up or bothering her. Climbing down the ladder from the top bunk was a real challenge and it shook the bed like King Kong was climbing up a too-thin banana tree. So I was reluctant to go up and down and even though I needed to go to the bathroom, I didn’t dare do so because I didn’t want to bother this poor woman.

Making things more difficult was that there was no space available for anything up there. There was no space in these dorm areas for anything other than beds, so everyone has to leave their big backpacks downstairs in some kind of bizarre storage room. Then they carry up just their daypacks jammed with computers and cell phones and toiletries. But the narrow mattresss in the top bunk offers no storage at all. At least if you are in the bottom bunk, you can put stuff on the floor. But up top, there is nothing. They didn’t even try to provide a couple of hooks or a shelf let alone some kind of lockable space for valuables.

Once I was ready to settle in for the night, I wanted to change into my “sleeping shorts” and take a shower. But there is no privacy at all in this place. I didn’t want to pull off my pants and underwear up there just in time for this poor Japanese girl to turn the corner and get an eyeful. So I tried to do it really fast, and I whipped off my underwear so quickly that I lost control of it and it fell down beside the bed onto the floor far below. There was no way for me to reach the underwear without going down and climbing into this woman’s bed, and she had all kinds of valuables spread out on the mattress. I had no choice but to wait until she returned and then explain what happened and ask her to get my underwear for me. It was awful because I knew my underwear was damp with sweat. I’d been traveling all day in very stressful situations and it was really hot and my underwear was all sweaty. But she grabbed it for me.

As I predicted, I got very little sleep. It was impossible to get organized up there because there was no ledge around the bed. Anything that got pushed to the edge would just fall off and crash down below. And I couldn’t really move without shaking the entire bed. I had to build up all kinds of barriers and use straps to try to secure my belongings so that they didn’t fall off. It is a truly horrible place, and I’m stuck there for two nights. Just one more to go.

It’s a popular hostel with backpackers, I suppose. It’s one of the cheapest options around and it has the vibe that backpackers look for – including a chill-out space where you can play the guitar. I can handle pretty much all of the negatives except for the uncomfortable and poorly designed bed. I liked the other place much better. It was better mainly because the beds were capsules and built right into the wall of the building. So there was no danger of anything falling off. And nothing shook as you moved around. And they provided a large lockable locker down below and a small lockable compartment inside the capsule. I suppose it’s just me. Being a light sleeper, I can’t handle bunk beds. I would rather sleep on the floor than in this bed.

As I’m sitting here, I can’t help but worry about the battery life. I keep checking to see how much time I have left. Perhaps for my lifestyle, I should keep the NEO with me. At least for a while. I planned to get rid of it, partiallly because I haven’t felt the urge to keep a journal or write emails lately. But perhaps the urge will come back and then I’ll wish I had the NEO.

3:30 p.m.

I wrote the above while having a coffee at an upscale coffee shop in Arab Town. My hostel (called the Sleepy Kiwi, by the way) is dead center in Arab Town. It’s very strange. From the placcards I’ve read, this area was once a thriving market area, but now it is pure tourist trap. The street outisde the Sleepy Kiwi is identical to a Disney Arab-themed district. There is nothing authentic or real about. Just lines of restaurants and cafes and carpet dealers. All the people on the street are white tourists. I suppose it would be a nice play to stay if you were here for a short time and living on a budget that allowed you to eat in these nice restaurants and cafes. I have my meals in a neighoring district with typical Chinese eateries. It’s right beside a bunch of office towers, and the locals eat their lunches there. You can get a good, filling meal of rice and veggies etc for a couple of dollars.

But my morning coffee I had in the upscale place I mentioned. I asked specifically for my cappucccino to be super, super hot. But it was lukewarm. They worry so much about getting the foam just right with a nice design on top that they forget that customers want their coffee hot. At least I do.

After my coffee, I had my lunch in a Chinese eatery. While there, the heavens opened and a massive thunderstorm struck. It was nice. Singapore feels much hotter than Kuala Lumpur right now. The rain cooled it down a bit. Then I dropped by a shop that sold diving gear, and I found a cheap waterproof neck pouch. I’ve been looking for one of those for a long time. Had I had one in the Philippines, I would have saved myself a lot of money by not being robbed. And in a 7-11, I found a display of cheap reading glasses. I’d looked all over Kuala Lumpur for them, but couldn’t find them. My eyesight continues to get worse and my reading glasses aren’t strong enough anymore. I often can’t see the fine details in maps and such thing. I think the ones I have are 1.25 power. The new ones are +2.0. They are much stronger. The problem is that these reading glasses don’t help me with the computer screen. I’m not sure how to deal with my need to read books up close and a computer screen. I’ll need four different pairs of glasses for each type of distance. At least they’re cheap. These reading glasses are quite nice, but they cost only 13 Singapore dollars, which is something like US$9.

I don’t think I’ll do anything else on my one day in Singapore. I’m going to relax at the hostel and drink coffee and watch the world go by. Then go to bed as early as possible so that I can survive the rigors of tomorrow’s journey. My train leaves from Johor Bahru at 8:30. My commter train leaves from the Singapore border at 8:00, and I’m told I have to be there at 7:30 to get through immigration. And that means leaving from here as early as possible. It will take about 1.5 hours to get from this hostel to the train station at Woodlands Checkpoint. A walk to the MRT, then a long MRT trip and then a bus. Anyway, I’m looking at leaving the hostel at slightly before 5:30. I’ll have to give the poor Japanese girl a warning and an apology. Nobody likes an alarm going off before 5 in the morning.

Times really do change. The backpacking culture when I first came to Asia was quite different from the hippy days. But it was still a little bit rough and adventurous. Or maybe it just felt like it to me. But now the backpacking culture seems so fluffy and clean. This hostel is super modern and organized (despite the rickety bed). I’m thinking about this because a group of 8 young women just arrived to check in. They all have a backpack on their back, but they could easily have just stepped out of a Teen magazine. There’s no adventure here. I honestly wonder why anyone uses a backpack anymore. No one does any walking. They might as well have a more convenient suitcase with big wheels.

Now I just have to see if I make it back into Malaysia tomorrow.

 

August 18, 2015
8:30 a.m.

I’m back in Malaysia. In Johor Bahru to be exact. I’m sitting on the train at the JB Sentral station and waiting for it to get underway. Scheduled to leave at 8:30 and lo and behold it is leaving right now just as I started typing. Trains are weird here. I came along this exact same route and paid the same amount and took the exact same train when I came down. But that train was a piece of junk. It was falling apart. This train is brand new and all decked out with modern comforts. There is even a big-screen TV up at the front playing horrible movies. No sound, thank goodness. I even saw a dining car of some variety on my way to my car.

That I’m back in Malaysia tells you that I didn’t have any immigration problems. I’m fairly certain that was because I made the wise decision to take the commuter train across the strait and therefore I went through the small and relaxed immigration area. My feeling is that if I’d gone through the official immigration process, I’d have had trouble and perhaps been denied entry. The young guy that dealt with me was friendly as could be and barely even looked at my passport or at the computer screen. He just opened my passport, stamped it and told me I had 90 days. No questions, no chit chat, nothing.

That isn’t to say that the trip itself went easily. I did my very best to get some sleep last night, but it was hopeless. I had to set my alarm for 4:45 a.m. in order to make the train, and with that in mind, I climbed up into my rickety top bunk at around 8:00 p.m. I knew I would never be able to sleep that early, but I figured I could lay around for a couple of hours and eventually fall asleep. But it was not to be. At 2:30 in the morning, I was still just lying there. I had earplugs and eyeshades, but there was nothing I could do to stop the shaking of the bed every time the woman below me moved. And she moved a LOT. It was impossible to sleep. Plus, the hostel was jammed with people and as is the case with me, I had the worst bed in the place. It was right beside the single communal bathroom and people thumped around and slammed doors all night long. It was bedlam.

I dropped off to sleep at some point after that because the alarm woke me up. I didn’t have any time to waste. I got up right away and went to take a shower and shave. I had prepacked everything and gotten organized the night before so that I wouldn’t disturb the woman below me. The streets were empty as I made my way to the MRT station, and I got the first subway trains of the day. I had to travel one stop on one line and then transfer at City Hall station for a long trip on a second line. Then I had to take a bus to Woodlands Checkpoint to catch the commuter train. The MRT trip went smoothly, but I had trouble with the bus. It was very crowded and confusing. And then the bus didn’t take me to the outside of Woodlands Checkpoint where the entrance to the train station is located. It took me right inside the official area with the full immigration section. And once I was inside there, it was impossible to get back out. People kept wanting to check my passport and tickets and that sort of thing as I explained to them that I had a ticket on the commuter train. In the end, I was assigned an official man in uniform and he had to take me through a series of locked gates (complete with radio communications) to walk me back out of this restricted area so that I could get to the train station. Don’t ask me how or why this happened. All I did was take a regular city bus that had a stop outside Woodlands Checkpoint. At no point was it apparent that I was on a special bus that went inside a restricted area.

Once I was back on familiar ground, it was smooth sailing. There were very few people taking the commuter train. I was stamped out of Singapore and then I got my Malaysian entry visa with no problem and climbed onto the empty train. This train went across the bridge in two or three minutes. Then it was a simple matter of crossing over to the next platform to board this train to Kuala Lumpur. It is also largely empty at the moment. I don’t know if it will stay this way. A problem is the usual one of air conditioning. It is ice ice cold. I’m never prepared for that because I have no reason to bring a jacket. I’m in the tropics. It is sweltering hot out there and I drip with sweat as I walk down the street. So it’s silly to pack a winter jacket. But when you get onto one of these trains, you need a jacket. I do have my sleeping sheet with me, and I will use that to try to stay warm.

No other stories. I’m sooooooo tired. This is going to be a brutal trip. It will be nice to be back in Kuala Lumpur and get a good night’s rest.

Tags: Malaysia