Wednesday May 4/Thursday May 5

 

I debated trying to stay up all night again but figured the time change was big enough that it was going wreck me no matter what I did.  I ended up doing a lot of cleaning up around the house before getting all packed up and turned into bed around 3am.

 

The following morning I had the bright idea to call the credit union to advise them that I was traveling and not to put a hold on my card when they saw foreign withdrawals.  The customer service rep informed me thatMalaysia was on a hold list and I wouldn’t be able to use my card as an ATM card, although it would still function as a credit card.

 

Well, that threw a monkey wrench into things. By this time I was pretty committed to Northwest Airlines, and my vacations were as much dictated by Northwest’s cheapest fares as to where on the planet I really wanted to go.  At the time, the fare to Singapore was cheaper than Bangkok, with some extra air miles no less, so that made it the most logical place to go.  The plan sketched out was to go to Singapore and work my way up through Malaysia to see the south of Thailand, enjoying a few beaches along the way.

 

Wisely I decided to call and was informed that villains had put fake fronts on ATMs in Malaysia in order to scan card particulars and commit fraud. Singapore and Thailand, however, were deemed safe by the credit union member services rep.  I therefore felt obligated to change my plans in a whisk.

 

Andy arrived on time as usual and we took a quick trip across the street to Fred Meyer to pick up a puzzle book for the flight and some condoms.  Andy and I chatted away and traded snide comments about my purchase aloud. A female stock clerk passed us in the aisle and was perceptibly aghast.

 

Andy walked down the pharmacy aisle with me and gently teased me about my brand of raincoat.  Apparently the clerk drew the connection that I’d be using them to Roto Rooter Andy’s dirt pipe that afternoon or something.  Not that I really gave a fuck what she thought. There lays the difference between Mike at 39 and Mike at 29. Andy appeared equally dismissive after we discussed the scene.

 

We headed out to a place on Canyon Road for our traditional bon voyage breakfast.  I spied the place earlier and it seemed to have some investigation potential, at least. In fact, I was right and it was worthwhile.  The place had menus as if they were 1957 newspapers and it was decorated in bright wood with black bears everywhere. The breakfast was good and Andy updated me on things going down at his workplace. 

 

A step up for the traditional breakfasts over the shitty Satellite restaurant we used to frequent on my earliest trips.  The black bear place was really tasteful and a hoot besides. In front, there were a bunch of wooden black bears posed as playing a round of golf, attired appropriately.

 

The flight to Narita was full, long and tight.  I sat by a rather expansive gentleman to whom I yielded the common arm rest more than I should have. I was awoken from a decent slumber by a troll of a flight attendant wanting to push her shitty food on me.  A kid managed to scream most of the flight, not far away from me.  Despite the surroundings, the flight was somehow bearable.

 

Apparently my plane carried through from PDX to Singapore, but I had to get off and get checked for security when arriving at Narita.  This time it was slick and I made it through the check without any waiting or chaos. I wandered the austere terminal killing time.  I did a logic puzzle and admired a large breasted ethnically Indian woman who sat next to me.  She had a ring on her finger.  I cruised the duty free shop but didn’t buy anything because I suddenly felt conspicuous in the store.

 

My rather harsh assessment of Narita earlier seems to have mellowed.  I’m not sure what caused the mass pandemonium and panic of the earlier scenes.  Perhaps there were late arriving flights.  The most recent trips through proved to be less irritable than the earliest visits, although the terminal remains surprisingly dull, bland, uncomfortable and uninspiring.  You’d think the Japanese could put together something at least as good as Portland, Oregon for their international airport.

 

It seemed to take forever to get on the plane to Singapore and it seemed no boarding call was ever issued so I just checked in and sat.  Mercifully the flight wasn’t full and I had an empty seat next to me.  This was tempered by at least three kids screaming bloody murder the entire flight, sometimes in chorus, sometimes a capella.  I survived the torrent pretty well by sleeping in large chunks of the flight.  Coach had video on demand, so I watched part of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Syriana on the flights.  I flirted with the flight attendants, most of whom on the second leg were Asian females in their thirties.

 

Syriana was a complete mystery to me.  The illumination on the screen stuck in the seat wasn’t exactly right, so I couldn’t always make out what was going on, and I probably had focus problems caused by the screaming kids and the shapely flight attendants as well.  The end result was that the whole story was a complete loss to me. I couldn’t understand a lick.  I had poor results with Butch Cassidy as well, but at least could follow it having seen it a few times before.

 

I must have seen Butch Cassidy as a second feature years ago.  For a while in the late seventies, my father/son time with my dad involved going to movies.  It seems inconceivable now that we would blow four hours of afternoon time seeing two movies for a couple of bucks each.  My dad, bless him, pretty gave me free reign as to what we saw, so later on I wised up and invariably picked R rated features. A significant portion of my sex education stemmed from those movies.

 

Upon arriving at Changi Airport in Singapore I stuck a big wad of gum in my mouth to be a rebel.  As soon as I started to walk the terminal towards immigration I began to feel guilty about it.  The place had the appearance of being ten or fifteen years old but was absolutely spotless.  I never saw a hand print on the wall or a spot on the floor.  It was completely amazing.  Even though we arrived one hour early, at 12:30 am, I thought the airport would have been a breeze to get through even at peak times.

 

Apparently the tough guys that run Singapore didn’t care for the gum stuck the sidewalks and so in the 1990’s banned the stuff.  A few years later an American kid was collared for vandalism and beaten with rattan cane, and the legend grew through the press that he was beaten for chewing gum.  True or not, I’d made up my mind to chew a wad to see if they’d try to spank a 275lbs., 6’ 2” monster like me.

 

In fact, the reality of Singapore was completely startling.  The place was immaculate and orderly.  I was arriving at a very late hour, however I saw no less than six teams of people cleaning things, including the chrome hand railings to the slidewalks, which didn’t have a fingerprint on them.  That I would even consider challenging this impressive order made me feel more like a juvenile delinquent than a Wrigley’s Revolutionary.

 

Immigration was easy, with an ethnic Indian lady stamping my passport, and I debated long and hard about buying some Bailey’s at the duty free shop. All I saw was a maxi bottle for 31 SGD and it was more in volume than I really wanted to tote around with me.  The big bag was on the belt as I emerged and customs wasn’t even a thought, passing through the green lane to the exit doors.  I got some money and briefly rested to organize myself. 

 

The city was humid and it hit me like a club upon exiting the terminal. Getting a taxi was no trouble at all and I had a pleasant ride through the expressways to the hotel. Hopping into the cab I was instantly reminded of my lessons in Thai heat management.  The streets were more or less deserted, but clean and very well kept, with tons of greenery and trees everywhere.  I realized how instantly comfortable I felt in direct contrast to my initial impressions of Lima.

 

What a difference.  Singapore at night might as well have been Portland in the jungle, compared to the crumbling ruins and ominous foreboding Lima presented when I left the airport.  The city was quite obviously asleep, but I felt no danger of being skewered by some Sandinista hiding around the corner.  I thought a lot about how Lima compared. It is important for me to remember how deeply shocked I was upon arrival in Peru, and how for the first time in ages, I really felt a reluctance to press on.  I felt a malaise engulf me to the tune of “Do I really want to be here?” and would have considered going straight home, if the opportunity was reasonable.  The feeling lasted for days in Peru, and perhaps for the bulk of the trip.

 

On the other hand, speeding through the Singapore night I can describe my feelings upon arrival as nothing less than fully refreshed.  Given my very recent time in the air, refreshed was quite a sensation at that point. Greenery hung heavy over the tropical night, and apartment windows glowed as the Toyota wound its way through the more or less empty urban expressways towards the city center.

 

The driver got me to the hotel, although it felt like he took an awfully circuitous route, which included a street named Bencoolen.  I tipped a bill, not knowing how much I was really giving him because it was so dark. Gauging by his reaction, it was an adequate gesture.

 

“Where ya been?”

 

“Bencoolen, man!” kept running through my mind, over and over again.

 

As usual, I probably overdid the tip, but I was so grateful to be where I needed to be it didn’t matter to me at the time.  One of my lifelong goals is to become less grateful and more of a tightwad with taxi drivers.

 

The hotel lobby was palatial with gold and marble everywhere.  The little Asian tigress that checked me in indicated my room was upgraded, but did not appear to be a sensational upgrade.  It was clean and comfortable if a little worn compared to the lobby.  The small bathroom featured a bidet.  I was clueless as to how to use it, although I wouldn’t have even if I’d known.

 

I peeled off after doing some preliminary organization and scanned the TV, including some Premiere League.  I was pleasantly surprised to get a couple of sizable chunks of rest in the space of about four hours.

 

Given the early hour of my arrival, some sleep was most welcome.  I pondered that, once again, I was in a new country without a clue as to what to do with myself.   As I lay in my royal surroundings, I wondered what surprises and adventures the next day would bring, stopping to think that I have never imagined myself a travel junkie when I was younger.  But there I be.

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