Fili’s world

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“You do realize that this a prostitution area?”, her gaze inspecting my body response as I hesitate what to do next. “Prostitution, you say?” I try changing reality by nativity, but her reoccurring nod suggested that she expected me to be either pleased or change hotels. How can that be? I never book hotels through the Internet, but I knew that arriving at Singapore on 06:00am after a night flight would exhaust me to the point where my whole day would be ruined unless I could drop by for an early check in at a hotel I reserved before. The whole idea came to me as I was inspecting the ‘Jewish Singapore’ site to find out where my free Chabad Internet use and the world-Jewish-info-connection would be at, but then it had a section about suggested hotels. Browsing through the highly expensive hotels I saw there was a big chain with a decent looking website with hotels situated all over the Geylang area with descriptions talking about ‘active night life’ and a ‘wonderful time out’. Not being into the dorm experience in the Lonely Planet budget section, I encountered an interesting proposition they had for ‘backpackers’ suggesting a 12$ (25S$) for a bed in a twin room with possibly another backpacker in a hotel. That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Oh well, so I’m spending tonight in the red-light Malay district, by myself – so it seems till now – in a fair room. At least I got some good jet-lag sleep and a refreshing shower before heading out.

Yeah, it’s true. Not only that it’s clean, it’s spotless. Not ‘Australia spotless’ but more like ’scary spotless’. Unreal. I’ve gotten so used to looking down at the Asian Thailand, Laos and Vietnam that seeing a place like this shatters all inner stereotypes. These folks are modern, cool-fashionable-gorgeous-looking and extremely efficient in every possible way. Singapore Airline flight was one of the smoothest rides I’ve been to, with a very prestige aroma – even for us simple people traveling Economy class. I guess I owe the British for the English language used everywhere and together with my newest passion for anything Chinese this places makes a perfect deadly combo. I was planning to spend here a week on the way back to my sweet Thailand, since Taiwan (and even India) required onward tickets out of the country to get VISAs - doing that from Australia was too much of a hassle (and unbelievably expensive) and all return tickets prices from Thailand seems like a joke compared, but seeing what I’m seeing now – who knows? I don’t even know if my funds would hold for a Taiwan/India adventure, and I’m already here, right?

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