Jennifer decided to make the trek back to Rainbow Beach, a spot in Australia she visited 19 years ago. While she went to Australia, I decided to go further south, to Singapore, and make my way back to Thailand via bus. Unfortunately, Singapore is very expensive compared to the other Southeast Asian countries we've been in; but luckily, there's not enough to do in Singapore to stay more than 3 days anyway. So, I booked a bed at this amazing little hostel in Chinatown called Royal Hostel and found a pub crawl in Clarke Quay (pronounced Clarke Key) on Friday night. Sadly, I did not get any photos at the pub crawl, but I met people from all over the world. Some were travelers, some were living in Singapore, including several American college students completing an internship for the summer. Saturday and Sunday I just took in the sights of the city on a hop on/hop off bus tour, walked around Chinatown, and saw a light show at the waterfront.
As the title states, Singapore is incredibly clean. For those of you who don't know, gum isn't even sold in Singapore, to prevent people from discarding it on the sidewalks, streets, etc. There is a huge fine for littering, and I heard on the radio that there are people employed by the government of Singapore who hang out in parks to see who allows their dog to poop and they don't pick it up. They're dressed as civilians and once they see the offending action, they will chat with you about their dog and then find out their name and breed. Since all dogs have to be registered with the government, once they have the name and breed, they can mail you a find from their dog database. So, don't litter! (You shouldn't litter anyway!)
Some of my friends have asked me if we have been affected by the smog in Singapore and Malaysia, I think from the fires and smoke blowing in from Indonesia. I did not have any problems with this in either country. Plus, after breathing the polluted air of Bangkok and the seeing the dirtiness of the strees in Kuala Lumpur's Chinatown, the smog might not have even affected me!
