Day 19 - Final thoughts

14 hour flight back to London was a bit hard for me. Because of the daylight savings we could not understand how much is left till landing, and last two hours have been really long! In London we had to run through the airport to check-in for our Dublin flight… One more hour… Back in Dublin…

In general, the trip was very good, but nature was particularly beautiful. I would actually say that I enjoyed the nature most with waterfall swim and volcano climb being my favorite moments of the trip.

Big cities were the biggest disappointment, unless one can do some dining or shopping there, like in Singapore, for example. Jakarta and Padang have been the ugliest spots of the trip in terms of dirt and Kuta Bali was the ugliest spot in terms of drugs, prostitutes, drunken tourists and other “sweet life” accessories.

Activities are difinitely the key to the successful trip. We would not last for 17 days with one and the same activities. Motorbikes, volcano hike, beaches, surf board, waterfall swim, night club, etc. – the trip should definitely be activity-centered, rather than place-centered. But changing places once every three days was also a great idea.

Finally, small local villages with authentic experience, local language, and day-to-day habits are probably the best spots to enjoy the country. It was such a peace of mind to be among people, who are happy for you to be there, who smile as sincerely, as you do, and how don’t care about selling something to you, as they have their own stuff to do.

Waiting for another year… Let’s see what happens…

Day 17 - More Singapore

Well, this day was probably the most boring one. We slept only 4 hours, plus this was one of the last days on the trip and were looking forward to come back home. Relaxing program of the river cruise was accompanied with the strongest sun and heat, which made our existance almost unbearable. We dreamed about a cool and relaxing place – probably that’s why we ended up in the electronics shopping mall again :)

In the evening we came back to hostel, and what a surprise – we have met Dasha! Two days we were sending emails forwards and backwards, as our phones didn’t work properly. She was staying at Makenzie Rd 11, and we were staying at Makenzie Rd 12 – well, the same G4 Station Hostel, as we discovered at the end… Happy days and happy dinner! Zoli was satisfying his gastronomic passion with chinese century eggs, and later with durians… Dasha was sharing her plans about Formula 1 Grand-Prix in Kuala Lumpur… Good ending of our stay in Singapore.

Day 16 - Singapore

After Indonesia Singapore was a total contrast! Everything is organized and civilized, almost everyone speaks English, and actually almost all the faces look educated.

As expected, Dima and myself got stuck on the passport control. From Dasha’s words CIS countries enjoy visa free transit entry for 96 hours. Immigration office first hesitated that our flight from Kuala Lumpur is actually eligible for this regulation, but after all the stories about our trip, and royal mail, they stamped our passports with entry permits.

The heat in Singapore is even worse than in Indonesia due to total concrete structures all over the place. We spend about 1.5 hours in search of a hostel and ended up in the most expensive accommodation of our trip - $40SG per person. We could hardly stand all together in the room – it reminded me army conditions with double beds and no space whatsoever…

From the hostel we went to meet Joao, and after that luckily we proceeded to local team event meeting very interesting people from the local office – real mix of asian nationalities – philipino, vietnamese, indonesian, thai, singaporian, taiwan and so on. Joao brought us to his favourite Thai food restaurant, after which we could hardly walk. Indeed, Singapore is a paradise for Asian food lovers, but I am definitely not the best person to tell you about this…

After the dinner we went around the town. Night views of Singapore are very nice, although not as impressive, as in Hong Kong. Personal income taxes are really low here, so with a slightly higher accommodation prices compared to Dublin, one can enjoy a significant tax benefit with lower prices on other services on top. Not even saying about electronics paradise that we witnessed in the Sim Lim Square shopping center. Singapore is the place to be, if one is looking for an Asian hub city for living.