Friday, January 07, 2005
8 of Hearts
One week down, 6 to go. As I type this, it's almost exactly 168 hours since I left York. Not that I'm counting these things...
For a brief period today (about 20 minutes) I was an illegal emigrant! (And yes, that's spelt right...read on.)
Adrian and I jacked in the idea of going to Indonesia today, when we found out it was a 4 hour bus ride there and back, and the timings of the few buses we had available to us would have meant both a 7 o'clock wake-up and only having 2 hours there. So instead we went over the bridge to Malaysia - a half-hour tube journey and 10 minutes further by bus.
Johor Bahru, the city we visited, was pretty rank. Smelt awful, very smoky and practically nothing there. We decided to leave after about an hour and a half (which beats my previous record of 2 hours before deciding to leave Bratislava). Spying a handy gap in the fence which meant not having to walk nearly 3/4 of a mile back out of town to get to the bus stop, we crossed the road, got on the bus and headed back to Singapore.
Immigration at Singapore then caused some problems. Our "gap in the fence" was apparently a major immigration loophole! We'd not actually exited Malaysia, as we hadn't had our passports stamped, so we weren't allowed to come back into Singapore. Fortunately, the extremely helpful and jovial border guard explained what was going on, and how he saw 3 or 4 such events each week! Glad I was there with a Singapore resident ... not sure how cheerful he'd have been if it was just me!
So back on the bus to Malaysia, and we're at entry checking again. Ooops! Fortunately, after explaining the predicament again, (perhaps they breed them specially) another happy jolly soul waved me straight through and pointed out the 3/4 mile walkway back into the city...
And now I've got 3 Singapore exit stamps and 2 Malaysia entry stamps in my passport!
Now that's over with, here's a few phrases, mainly to jog my memory when I get back...
Incroyable! (Adrian's favourite French word.)
Hui Sim (the ... again! ... happy jolly little tour guide round the Asian Civilizations Museum)
SpacePORK (TM) (Lint, I have a photo for you of this one...)
Fire Noodles (marked as hot in a real Thai restaurant - couldn't resist...)
Alexander (not a good film!)
The Aviator (a better film)
My next post will be from Oz.
For a brief period today (about 20 minutes) I was an illegal emigrant! (And yes, that's spelt right...read on.)
Adrian and I jacked in the idea of going to Indonesia today, when we found out it was a 4 hour bus ride there and back, and the timings of the few buses we had available to us would have meant both a 7 o'clock wake-up and only having 2 hours there. So instead we went over the bridge to Malaysia - a half-hour tube journey and 10 minutes further by bus.
Johor Bahru, the city we visited, was pretty rank. Smelt awful, very smoky and practically nothing there. We decided to leave after about an hour and a half (which beats my previous record of 2 hours before deciding to leave Bratislava). Spying a handy gap in the fence which meant not having to walk nearly 3/4 of a mile back out of town to get to the bus stop, we crossed the road, got on the bus and headed back to Singapore.
Immigration at Singapore then caused some problems. Our "gap in the fence" was apparently a major immigration loophole! We'd not actually exited Malaysia, as we hadn't had our passports stamped, so we weren't allowed to come back into Singapore. Fortunately, the extremely helpful and jovial border guard explained what was going on, and how he saw 3 or 4 such events each week! Glad I was there with a Singapore resident ... not sure how cheerful he'd have been if it was just me!
So back on the bus to Malaysia, and we're at entry checking again. Ooops! Fortunately, after explaining the predicament again, (perhaps they breed them specially) another happy jolly soul waved me straight through and pointed out the 3/4 mile walkway back into the city...
And now I've got 3 Singapore exit stamps and 2 Malaysia entry stamps in my passport!
Now that's over with, here's a few phrases, mainly to jog my memory when I get back...
Incroyable! (Adrian's favourite French word.)
Hui Sim (the ... again! ... happy jolly little tour guide round the Asian Civilizations Museum)
SpacePORK (TM) (Lint, I have a photo for you of this one...)
Fire Noodles (marked as hot in a real Thai restaurant - couldn't resist...)
Alexander (not a good film!)
The Aviator (a better film)
My next post will be from Oz.
posted by Chip : 13:14
2 comments
Comments:
Yes - 52 days (inclusive) between visits to work. I was going to use American States, but I realised (a) I didn't know all of them and (b) unlike James Grammer, I know there are only 50 of them, not 52!
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