It's been over 12 months since I felt real summer heat - the satisfying sort that lingers through the night and really warms your bones through and through. Our hotel is in the Geylong area of Singapore (for those who may have been there), part of Little India apparently, though my orientation of the city is not all that clear just yet. It is hot, and it is humid, and I am not complaining one bit.
Getting off the above ground metro and walking towards our hotel, one of the first things that struck me was the strong smell of incense that lingered in the air in abundance. It was being burned all around - a clear indication we are no longer in Europe. Besies this, the area is laden with restaurants, so all kinds of stuff is frying and boiling and smelling fantastic as it does. I really don't know what a lot of it is.
And hookers. They are all over the place as well.
Yes, it turns out that our cheap hotel is situated in the red light district, but fortunately, being Singapore it is friendly nonetheless. Along with the $500 fine eating on the netro, $1000 fine for smoking in the metro (and of course death penalty for importing illegal drugs), I think there may be a hefty fine for not smiling and being happy, because everybody seems to be. But of course, so am I.
Even at the reception of our hotel, the guy greeted me with a smile as I walked saying, 'Mr. Anderson...like The Matrix'. I used to think Anderson was a pretty dull name, but I can tell you it's stock has risen considerably since Keanu Reaves (of all people) got ahold of it.
The hookers are actually all rather attractive and normal looking, even Elisabeth acknowledges, which evidently impresses the groups of men who are generally gawking quite obviously all around them. In fact, most of the hookers are dressed in such a way they could be whisked off to the opera, just as easily as the nearest one hour hotel room (and I suspect our hotel does a fair trade in this manner, though it is not publicised at the reception, thankfully).
Ordering some food at a place nearly a short time after checking in, a place that seemed more or less the most bustling of the many (and that's saying a lot, believe me), we watched fish being netted straight from the tanks - so yes, the food seemed rather fresh, no worries there.
We tried to order a vegetarian meal actually, just to be on the safe side, but failed utterly. The fried rice turned out to consist of rice and egg as well as pork, shrimp and some mysterious little fried worm-like things whose little eyes stared our at you through the rice as you scooped it up. Their taste was a cross between potato chips (ie. crisps) and salty, dried fish - actually they reminded me of these odd 'flaeskstej' (pig skin) chips you get in Denmark made of (yes) fried, dried pork skin. Those chips, I have always found mildly repulsive. But the taste of this dish tonight somehow works though, I acknowledge.
Anyway, even if I quite liked it, Elisabeth refused to eat more than a mouthful of the dish, in spite of my deconstruction of it to try to demonstrate that, in themselves, all the ingredients were nothing extraordinary - save for those little fish/worm things of course. This failed to convince here. She didn't want anything to do with egg in rice, which tastes just like scrambled egg in my opinion, which she likes. So this decision of hers not to eat much had consequences later.
So now wide awake in spite of our 30 hour journey to get here and only a few short hours of sleep in the process, I write this in our air conditioned room, on uncharming light illuminating the space and windows screwed tight by metal latches to prevent them from being opened to the humourously placed concrete wall in front that lies a metre out from these windows. Quite a view. I'm looking forward to our switch to a highly rated hostel tomorrow night, which is more central and couldn't possibly have less character than this hotel.
Elisabeth suddenly could not sleep, a short time ago (it's well past 2 in the morning now) finding herself rather hungry after refusing most of the dinner on offer, as I mentioned before and woke me up. Oddly a cup of instant rice and an electric kettle was provided in the room by the hotel, so she made that and ate some of the chocolates that I had brought with me - since they were a going-away gift and as such, I felt bad about the idea of just leaving them behind or giving them away, so they made the trip as well. They wouldn't have lasted long in the heat of tomorrow. A new day.
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