Singapore - the end of the journey

January, 1974 was my last and only time in Singapore prior to arriving on the train from KL. I had taken a ship from Fremantle in Western Australia to Singapore. The MV Eastern Queen took nine days meandering up the western coast of Australia and I felt sea sick most of the way. It was an absolute relief to get onto dry land early in the morning but we only had that day before we were to fly to England.

I managed to find a photo of the ship. It was rumoured that an Arab Sheikh had owned the boat and installed his harem on it. There was nothing you could do of a sexual nature on the ship that had not been done before.

In 1974, Singapore was making the transition from a traditional sleepy South East Asian city to an ultra modern city. Most of the old has disappeared in the past forty years, but some of the deep gutters still survive. I seem to remember gutters even larger than this one.

The down town city area I walked around was unrecognizable.

A few old buildings remain, but not many.

Raffles Hotel. To avoid the heat of the day, I had headed downtown about 9 am but I was already soaked from the heat and humidity. The plan was that I would go into Raffles and have a Singapore Sling, but I think they would have taken one look at my sodden shirt and tossed me out.

I did find something that I remembered. In the course of my wandering around forty years before I had wandered down through a market and surprisingly it was still there. Back forty years ago, it looked like one of the markets in Hanoi but now it was sanitized. 

As I walked down the market, I remembered that forty years before I was the only white person around, which was a bit disconcerting for somebody outside Australia for the first time. Oddly enough, this time I was again the only white person.

Singapore is a very modern and efficient city and probably will serve as the model for the other major Asian cities which in some ways will be a pity because the old traditional markets, streets and buildings will disappear.

Kuala Lumpur to Singapore

Today would be the final leg of the journey from Narvik, Norway to Singapore. My AirBnB host dropped me off at the nearby MRT station and I was soon at KL Sentral. The train was waiting and I got on board. The train left a couple of minutes late.

On my side of the train, I could see sugar cane. On the other side, there were tall buildings.

I found this spiral car park entrance interesting.

Soon we were out in the countryside. Malaysia is really upgrading its rail system. I suspect these pylons are for a high-speed system. The Chinese were doing the same thing.  Raise the track up onto pylons. It gets rid of a whole pile of construction problems and means stray people, animals and car traffic can't stray in front of your super fast train.

Those 'Ladies Only' passengers cars are still on the go.

The standard of housing seems to be quite high.

Coconuts.

Roof of a temple.

Paw-paw. They go very well with orange juice for breakfast, though Marianne has never been convinced.

The trains were well patronized. My carriage was full the entire way. If somebody got off the train, somebody else got on and took that seat. All seats are reserved.

The air-conditioning was fierce. I reckon the temperature was down in the 50's and I had to put on my jacket. I was beginning to wish I had my ear muffs. Meanwhile, it was over 90 outside.

Sometimes you pass by some construction and you just wonder what it was all about.

Lunch for $3. Nasi Goreng (fried rice).

Suddenly the standard of track dropped. This track fastener belongs to the 1970s. My father was presented with a plated version of this spike at his retirement and I still have it.

South of Segamat, the standard of living seemed to go down. The line became just one track.

The standard of housing went down as well.

Workers would leave their flip-flops outside. Most houses in Malaysia have a 'no shoes inside' policy.

The dirt was orange coloured. It looks like anything will grow in Malaysia with rich dirt and plenty of water.

Water tank.

We all had to get off the train just before the Singapore border to go through Malaysian Immigration exit procedures.

The causeway across to Singapore.

The border with Singapore.

Woodlands station and Singapore.

The end of the train journey and what a journey it was. I will do another blog entry about my thoughts about it all when I get to Sydney.

Singapore immigration was pretty painless and I exchanged some money and took a bus to the nearest subway station. After about an hour I was at my last AirBnB around 6 pm.