Our journey into Singapore was slightly delayed by the escape of JI terrorist Mas Selamat on February 27th - because one of the most dangerous men in SE Asia literally walked out of a Singapore detention center, they are taking every precaution now to save face with the neighbors. From what I could see, that just meant processing everyone coming into Singapore extra slowly. After that, we had to find a room, which proved equally difficult. I had emailed around before coming to Singapore, but everything was booked - we were lucky to get two dorm beds at The INN Crowd in Little India - apparently this is the busy time of year in Singapore. While it was quite a nice hostel, with exceptionally helpful people at the front desk, it did remind me that I'm too old for dorms, and how nice earplugs are. I'm actually kinda glad we are staying in Little India - I'm hoping the maddness of this place will get us slightly prepared for how crazy Mumbai is going to be when we land there tomorrow.

I expected Singapore to be a squeaky clean city, with everything shimmering, no litter, no chewing gum (and certainly no vandalism - remember that?)- and its really not quite that, atleast above ground. Hong Kong has it beat in cleanliness by far above ground. The subway systems though, are a different story. They are very modern and absolutely spotless. What a difference a system like that would make in a city like Boston or New York. Impossible to do, I'm sure, but nice to think about. In all honesty, we haven't explored that much outside of Chinatown or Little India, save a walk down to the water. However, I'm sure that it blows away what we're about to step into...

Haven't gotten to post this or Malaysia yet, due to the lack of wireless in Singapore (well atleast uploading). But, I also wanted to write a bit more on Singapore. My view of the city was changed slightly after we took a bus out to Newton Circus to meet Ashley's friend from college, Nina. Once outside of the areas of Little India and Chinatown, and the downtown, the area was beautiful - lots of trees, modern apartment buildings - all within a few kilometers of the downtown. And, we were told, that wasn't really even considered the suburbs. So, I think its quite a livable city - combine that with the options of food available - we had spicy stingray, beef and chicken satays and BBQ chicken wings that night - its quite a good city to live in, if you want to live in cities... Which is not the choice of one Frenchman we met in Singapore, Jean - he is the founder of Native Planet, an NGO which works to preserve indigenous cultures worldwide. He's got some great photos here, and for those interested, he runs cycling fundraisers for Native Planet - info can be found on France or WA State State.

One last thing - I wrote at the top that I hoped Little India would prepare us for Mumbai, and it certainly did. Mumbai is much more relaxed, less crowded and less noisy than a Friday night in Little India, Singapore is.