Singapore & SE Asia - Pictures and stories.

[pdanev]

Allright, here’s a brief summary of how my holiday, erm, ops, exchange semester, went.

I did a lot of things, met a lot of people, saw a lot of things while traveling a lot. I don’t even know where to start. I’ll try to make it short, because a, I could write twice the length of the bible, and b, no one’s gonna read that. I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking.

First of all, Singapore. I really liked it, by far the nicest place I’ve ever been to. The city is very modern, very clean, and simply beautiful. Palm trees, nice flowers, sunshine, hot weather all year long. Everything is very well organized, everyone is friendly, and you couldn’t get lost even if you wanted to and were blind.

I was living in a bigass apartment with 4 other guys, all from my university in Maastricht, Netherlands. Since we knew that we’re going together, we met quite a few times before we left, and decided to look for an apartment together. So once in Singapore, we found a pretty nice condo. 3 bedrooms, 2 bathroom, big living room, kitchen etc, 2 tennis courts, swimming pool, jakuzzi, squash, sauna, steam room, gym, and I think that’s about it. Was not cheap, but with rent split 5 ways it was more then nice. It was few steps away, quite literally, from the MRT (subway) station, so going to university, city centre etc, didn’t take more than 10minutes. Our apartment was on the 20th floor, pretty damn good view, but the best one is the one looking down to the pool.

Note about the pictures: a few of them we’re not take by me but by my friends. Also, most of them were burned like hell, but then again, shooting 100km’s away from the equator mid day is not an idea that is very bright , unlike the pictures. Most were also done on the go in one auto mode or the other, without really much photographic effort going into them such as finding good spots for shooting, trying different settings etc. Nevertheless, a few turned out quite good I think, especially with a bit of post processing in PS. Finally, I had to select from about 1600 pictures the most representative ones, took quite a while so I hope you check out all the pictures if you have time.



The university itself was quite good as well, nothing short on infrastructure and convenience. 5 new buildings handed over a few years ago, right in the city centre, all linked by an underground system with shops, food courts, a bank, doctor, and hundreds of other things, among which is a chill out area with massage chairs and stuff like that. Library also not bad, x-box on a big flatscreen with some comfy chairs for the students to relax from all the hard work. Everywhere there is high tech stuff, wifi, Bluetooth, projectors, etc etc etc, all the rooms have aircon (much like any other closed area in Singapore), which cool the rooms down to 16-18 degrees, so you can freeze your butt off when you walk inside from the 35degree heat and 100% humidity. Just to put stuff into perspective, about how much money the university has. There are 2 MRT stations nearby, less than 5min walk away. However, that apparently isn’t good enough, omg 5minutes walking with no aircon, so they are making a new MRT station for the university, right in the middle of the underground system linking all the buildings together. Oh, another nice thing is the swimming pool on the 9th (?) floor of the Administration building.

Couple of pictures from the university.





Pictures from Singapore, stuff like the luxurious Fullerton hotel (the one in front of the city skyline), Esplanade (the weird looking bubble building(s), which is a theatre), Raffles hotel, Merlion (Lion/fish creature, Singapore’s symbol) and the financial/business district.



Myself



A few things that I really liked about Singapore, besides cleanness, sunshine and palm trees. Clubs are really really good, a lot of partying, with world famous DJs every weekend. Tiesto, Armin van Buuren, Paul Oakenfold, Timo Maas etc, just to mention a few, for the ones that like light house/trance music. The clubs are pretty big, always crowded, bigger ones such as Zouk and MOS (Ministry of Sound) have several rooms, main area usually for house/trance, rnb room, 80s, and pretty much a room for every genre. The girls are also very VERY nice. Unlike in Europe, they are always friendly, you can easily talk to any of them, strike up a conversation, and they are also pretty interested in foreigners, why you are there, what you are doing etc, and it’s not just small talk. The best thing is they don’t have a big ego and look down on you like most European chicks who pretend to be sitting on top of the world.

As for traveling, Singapore is perfect as well. A lot of places to visit around, as long as you have the time. I went twice to Malaysia, twice to Indonesia, Macau, and Hong Kong.

I don’t want to bother you with how I found each place, since I didn’t spend more than a week in any of those places, so I’m gonna let the pictures talk and throw in some comment here and there. (pictures not in chronological order)

Hong Kong

Unfortunately, I managed to catch the worst haze ever, you couldn’t even see across the bay, I’ve never seen something like this before. Notice the big grey cloud on the 1st pictrure. On the last picture it was a bit better, that was the last day, we went out early in the morning hoping to get some better shots.



The night shots were a bit better because of the lights on the buildings. The famous HK skyline at night.



The streets of HK, from financial district to places selling a lot of shiny fake junk. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many rolex signs in a city. Also pretty damn crowded everywhere.



Night Market, 2 of my flat mates, me in the middle.


Picture from the star ferry, tallest building in HK, and the Bank of China.


Oh, one thing I found really weird in HK is the money. Every bank prints its own version, and you have about a zillion different 20dollar bills etc.


Macau

Nothing special here, apart from the dozen of gambling junkies spending shitload of money in the casinos. Unlike Vegas, you don’t really get any type of entertainment here, in most of then you’ll be lucky if there’s a bar. Even in the biggest one, Sands, there’s nothing, a bar, some light music, some restaurant and that’s about it. This is a bit strange, considering that Sands is the largest casino in the world with 740 tables, and that Macau has more revenues than Las Vegas. Although not completely surprising, because most of the people in Macau are real hardcore gamblers, playing till they loose their last penny.

Another interesting thing in Macau is the WTCC race, which luckily was when I was there. I was there on Qualify day, but still pretty impressive. The track is pretty nice, and damn long, 5-6kms. All day long there were races, a lot of classes, Carrera cup, F3, etc. Sadly, I had to catch my ferry to HK just before the WTCC was about to start as the last event for the day. I didn’t take much pictures, as the view was most of the time blocked by fence, but I’ll post some pictures from the race later.

Besides the gambling, and some church ruins, there is nothing much to see in Macau, I spent 1 night there, was more then enough. The rest of the city is… well, see for yourself.



Pulao Tioman, Malaysia

Was on a diving trip on this island for a weekend, very cool stuff. Jungle, beautiful weather, and not crowded with tourists so you can really relax and chill here, enjoy the nature, make some dives and see some impressive coral reefs, visibility under water is very very good! The island (most of it) is also not so developed, so it’s really a nice place which is not covered till the last inch with hotels and tourists.



Pulao Bintan, Indonesia

This island is just about an hour down south by ferry/speedboat away from Singapore. Its quite a common getaway for Singaporeans, especially the northern part of the island where most of the resorts are, with luxury hotels, villas, golf courses etc. However we went to the southern part of the island, away from the tourist. It was a trip into the middle of nowhere, right into the jungle. Stayed in some wooden “houses” right next to the beach, which is as basic as it gets. But then again, this was more like a “trip to the nature” kind of weekend, so it was really really good, jungle, empty white endless beaches, and the water was boiling, you couldn’t even escape into the sea to cool off.



Second picture btw is some mobile hut stuff they pull far into the sea for fishing.


Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Not so special as I expected, since the city didn’t really manage to catch my attention, apart from the Petronas Twin towers, the KL tower, and a HUGE shopping mall, with rollercoaster inside. Oh, forgot to mention that Singapore is crazy about shopping as well, with countless malls along Orchard Road, and pretty much everywhere else you see. Only one of those I really enjoyed, the 7-8 story IT mall. Anyway, back to KL. I don’t know, for some reason I was not impressed by the city, it didn’t have anything special from my point of view.

Pictures from the twin towers, went up to the skybridge, sadly you can’t go to the top, so you gotta be happy with going up to the bridge which is at about 170-180m height, iirc. Nevertheless that’s damn cool as well, you can feel the bridge moving quite a lot, and you can also see really good how it is attached and the structure allowing it to move. On the picture from the bridge, I’m the one in the middle with the brown tshirt.



Bali, Indonesia

Was not impressed here that much either, quite a lot of hype around Bali being a hot touristic spot, being awesome and all that. It was nothing special, quite poor infrastructure, cab drivers that try to rip you off all the time (same goes for KL btw), and people trying to sell you all kind of junk, fake t-shirts, shoes, etc. Even on the beach they won’t let you alone. I don’t have anything against people trying to sell you stuff, its like that everywhere where there are a lot of tourists, but on Bali they were really annoying. They wouldn’t go away for 5-10minutes, no matter how hard you yell at them, really really annoying. The nature of course is beautiful, although people don’t really have the habit of keeping the environment clean, and literally throw away their garbage infront of their doors, out of the car/truck onto the road, and pretty much everywhere they want to.

The only thing that made this one week holiday really good, was the villa that we stayed at. There were 8 of us (perfectly suitable for 4 huge double bedrooms, each with own shower etc), and we decided to go for it and experience the luxury that Bali has to offer. We had 6 people personnel at our disposal, driver, chef, security guards, gardeners. The service we got was unbelievable, tops everything you can imagine. We even had a small remote with a single button on it, that you can press 24/7, even at 3 during the night when all you want is an icecream. Pretty amazing staff, very friendly and polite, never disturbed you, never made a remark. The chef was making dishes that I usually dream of, he was so good in fact, that we only had dinner twice outside the house. No restaurant on Bali could match this guy, he told us that he used to be a chef for luxury hotels in Singapore, and I have no reason not to believe that.

Pictures from the villa, with a wonderful view of a rice field. (as funny as rice field may sound, those things are amazingly green and beautiful to look at)





Last picture is the shower, very nice idea with no roof above it, was sort of on the outside part of the house. The whole villa had a really nice open design, keeping it simple yet very stylish and spacious.

This is how I look like when I’m leaving my troubles behind, kicking back with a drink and chilling.


Kuta Beach – this is where the bombings were, we even caught a commemoration on the streets one day, passing along the monument with a long list of victims.
The beach itself is a famous spot for surfers, waves are pretty big (ok, not 10m high Hawaii waves), but hard to catch. They are also very short and rough, crash down on you with really big force, and suck you down for 30-40seconds. Pretty nasty stuff, you can’t tell where up and down is, you feel like in a washing machine quite literally. On the pictures you’ll notice the endless offers of surf boards for rent, there are hundreds of guys renting boards for a few euros/dollars per day.




Elephant cave – really impressive, quite into to jungle. On the group picture you’ll see us wearing some colorful stuff, no shorts/skirts allowed on a holy place. (2nd from right to left on the picture is me)




Monkey forest & rafting – monkey forest speaks for itself, a place with lots of monkeys, that climb and jump all over you.
Rafting was not so wild, only 2-3meter drops, pretty tight canyon though. What was really good is that it was right in the middle of the jungle, with everything far far away, only trees around and nothing else. Not so wild as I said, more like sightseeing but damn, what a sight!



Random road pictures, some rice fields, very nice!


As you can see traffic is a bit chaotic, but so it is everywhere else in SE Asia, apart from Singapore.

Tanah Lot, a nice place & temple to watch to sun go down.



Final, yet most painful story, climbing the volcano on Bali. For most of the traveling, we relied heavily on Lonely Planet guides, those traveling a lot sure know them. These are the best guides out there, whether you wanna do sightseeing, backpacking, partying…whatever. Well the lonely planet book for Bali said that climbing the volcano is an exhausting trip, but it does not involve climbing, is more like trekking up a steep slope. They also fail to mention, the close to freezing temperatures at the top (~3100m). Since they don’t mention cold, we assumed that it will probably be around 10-15degrees up there, which is cold compared to 40degrees down. So we dress up light, with a safety pullover and jeans in backpacks. The trip takes about 5-6hours up, same down. We did it during the night, so that we can watch the sunrise on top. The first worrying factor was when we saw our guide in gloves and winter jacket. No more going back, we drove 2-3hours to the volcano, gotta make it all the way to the top. The start is indeed trekking, heavy bushes and pretty steep, sandy, dusty, slippery slope, 1 am in the dark morning, not so pleasant. This is only the beginning unfortunately. As we climb up and up and up in pitch black, never seeing to top, the terrain gets rougher and rougher, slope is getting steeper, temperatures falling drastically closer and closer to zero, wind picking up heavily, vegetation disappearing making wind even more a pain in the ass. Muscles and man power (only 3 of us guys did the climb) get weaker, and the pace slows down considerably. A lot of rocks towards the top, and some surprising 3-4meter cliffs appear, that we have to climb not seeing anything. We had torch lights, but those don’t do miracles. Somehow, surpisingly, we made it to the top. Sadly, we could not enjoy the sunrise, as we were freezing to death, and our legs ran out of juice. Half an hour freezing, and a few pictures later just for the sake of proof that we did make it up, we begun our way down. That of course was also a pain in the ass, especially heavy on the knees. The terrain was utterly slippery, a lot of small rocks, and a lot of dust towards to bottom. Quite a number of falling down on our asses… Anyway, as we were going down in daylight conditions, we were really shocked and surprised about where and how we made it up. Some of the cliffs were really scary, even during daylight, I’m glad I had no clue what I’m climbing and what’s around me on the way up in the dark. So, to sum up, we did not sleep, drove a few hours to the volcano, 5-6h up, 5-6h down, few hours drive back, and same afternoon catch a flight. Quite needless to say that I could not move my feet for the next few days, and I was dead like a horse when we arrived back in Singapore, after an exhausting climb in the middle of a 48h sleepless period.

The pictures are from top down, you can see how rough the terrain was. You can also see the crater on the top, iirc 700m diameter, it was huge, doesn’t look like much on the pictures, but trust me, it was one bigass hole. 4th picture is one of my friends, just illustrating how steep the slope was. Notice also how the vegetation picks up the further we go down.





That’s about it, I know it’s a freaking damn long post and quite a few pictures, but after all I was away for half a year. Summarizing the time of your life is a bit hard to do just in a few pages, but I hope I managed to give you some idea about the places I went to and what I did. I hope you enjoyed the pictures and the stories.

To conclude my post, I seriously recommend a visit to Singapore! It is a hybrid between Asia and the West. Experience Asian culture, religion, food, traditions, yet live in a city more modern, clean, organized, and beautiful than most cities in the West. It is definitely worth visiting once, and provides you with countless opportunities for further travel around SE Asia.

I wish I had time for Vietnam, Thailand, and a few other places, but maybe next time.

PS: Sadly I could not buy and a new camera in Singapore, I wanted an SLR but they were at the same price or even more expensive (surprisingly) then here in Europe, offering only local warranty. Therefore I didn't get a new camera, had to tell my parents to ship me their sony dsc-h1, which is ok-ish, but not really great.

[jayhawk]

All I can say is: About damned time you shaved off that hippy beard!

Joking aside, that was an interesting read. Be glad you are one of the few people in the world whom have traveled as much as you. I myself will probably never leave North America.

[pdanev]

Haha, yeah that beard was nasty.

[Hidden_Hunter]

Yeah singapore is a lovely place, I found the same deal with KL as you did....

Maybe you should come to the land down under D:

[Topher]

That was a good post, i've always wanted to go the Singapore and Hong Kong (i was told thats the best place to buy electronics from) coz it looks awesome, so one day i shall do that.

I liked the photos they were very cool

[Goose+]

I have been reliably informed that Singapore is boring and not just by one person for that matter. As for Hong Kong, it's one of the best cities there is.

[Hidden_Hunter]

your sources suck ass then

[MXM]

Nicely written

I am quite surprised by the lack of.. people on your photos. Very few tourists or locals on most shots. Empty pools, tennis courts, parks, streets. Only HK seems crowdy.

EDIT: Oh, and imageshack sucks.. Half of the pics are not loading Will try later

[mgkdk]

Good read Glad to hear you had a great trip, that monkey looks cute

[fbc]

Great read - sounds like it was an excellent experience. And welcome back!

[pdanev]

MXM - The Singapore pictures I took on a Sunday, in order to avoid crowds.
There are also no people around the university, because it was already past all exams and a holiday.

Empty pool and tennis court, I didn't even think about it till you mentioned it, that's surprising indeed. Normally there are always some people around...

On the Bali shots there are also not many people, was off season when I went there, mid October.

TopGearFan, as Hidden_Hunter said, there is something wrong with your sources.

The only area where Singapore is boring, is from a petrolhead point of view. There is not much automotive related stuff, no races, no gokart tracks (there is only 1 afaik) etc. There are pleanty of luxury sportscars though, a lot of lambos, ferraris etc infront of clubs.

[FireFox]

Good read
Which continent will be next?

[mancs]

Ah... As I told you before, I hate you Good read, and nice pictures. Next time I'm coming with you

[Hidden_Hunter]

Originally Posted by pdanev

On the Bali shots there are also not many people, was off season when I went there, mid October.

That's just before loads of tightwad australian tourists arrive

[mautzel]

That's been a nice report - thanks for sharing!

[pdanev]

Sorry to bump this, but I said I'll post a few pictures from the Macau GP, in case anyone is still interested. None of the pictures turned out good for several reasons.
1, I was not close enough to the track, the only reason I got pictures is thanks to some magic x12 optical zoom. Up in the hillside, I was way to far from the track, and of course without a press pass they wouldn't let me go to the good spots right next to the track.
2, Down in the city, there were fences for obvious safety reasons, and I didn't even bother to take pictures there, no chance for a decent shot.

The track itself is pretty impressive, very long ~6km, and quite narrow.

I was there for practice/qualify day, so no "proper" racing, but still, nice to see and hear those cars. There were several classes and series going on the whole day, usually each one running for about 40minutes followed by a 20min brake. There were some regular smaller touring car series mostly hondas there, civic & integra. As the day progressed the better stuff came out, such as carrera cup and f3. The end of the day was WTCC (final round btw, with only 1 (iirc) point difference between 1st and 2nd place in the overall championship, so I guess the race must've been exciting). Sadly, I missed the WTCC qualifying, since I had to take a ferry to Hong Kong in the late afternoon, just when the WTCC cars rolled out.

In the hillside area the sound of all the cars was amazing, quite a lot of echo, really really loud, my friends - no proper petrolheads - were putting tissues in their ears as "ear plugs".

Anyway, here are a few of the pictures, I didn't take that many unfortunately.

Best picture probably, was a nice spot, sharp right hand corner followed by a downhill section.


Even though it was only practice/qualify day, some guys were really going at it.
You can see how narrow and twisty the track is, those guys were going lap after lap at mind blowing speeds just a few cm's away from the wall, pretty cool!


Lots and lots of corners.


A wider view of the track, a part of it that is.


Finally, a nice porsche which made a really nice sound.


I spent most of the day walking around the track trying to find a nice spot, but without much success. The tickets for the stands down in the city were only a few dollars, so nothing basically, but the location of those is very crappy. One stand is at the end of the long straight, you just see 1 corner and the cars disappearing uphill. And the other stand is at the start line, not much action going on there either.

Well, that's about it. Was a nice experience, nice cars, good sound, very good & challenging track. Even though no good pictures but still, maybe next time.

[llpc60]

are you gay by any chance?

[fbc]

Macau GP is on my list of must-do's in life - so thanks for sharing pdanev

[andyhui01]

haha... pete, great pictures... its finally nice to see some pictures instead of all talk on msn. But to be honest, I only like going back to KL because most of my cousins/uncles/aunts some friends are there, I don't even go to the city that often either.

But as for Hong Kong and Singapore, I'm the complete opposite... sometimes I love how busy Hong Kong, Singapore seems to organized to make it interesting.

But great read

[Scott]

Originally Posted by jayhawk

I myself will probably never leave North America.

Why not? Just get a passport, book a flight and GO! There is WAAAAAAAY too much planet out there not to see at least a little bit of it!