Touchdown in Singapore

The last few days I spent in Darwin coping as best I could with the heat. It actually wasn’t as unbearable as I thought it would be, but it was a little hotter than my comfort zone tolerates. I spent the days hanging out in the hostel pool and relaxing. I couldn’t muster the energy for sightseeing nor did I really want to. I was content to lay low after my extremely busy days in Cairns. I figured I needed a rest before heading to Singapore anyhow.

Luckily I called Garuda International Airlines the day before my departure to Singapore to reconfirm because my flight had been changed from an early, but doable, 9:00am to a seriously early 7:30am. I was up at 4:30am to get myself together for my 5:30am taxi. Waking up at the God-awful hour of 4:30 to the sounds of revelers from the night before still partying on the streets isn’t pleasant, especially when I only got 2 hours of sleep. Nevertheless, the first leg of my trip from Darwin to Bali was enjoyable enough because I had an entire row to myself to stretch across. I wasn’t able to sleep though because I couldn’t listen to music and find a comfortable position to lie in. I want to invent an earphone pillow. It’ll be a pillow with a dent or hole in the middle where you rest your ear comfortably without the earphone jamming into it. I’d take that pillow everywhere.

I thought my layover in Bali wasn’t going to be too long until I realized that upon landing I had to set my watch back an hour and half making my layover almost 6 hours. I spent most of my time seat-hopping and wandering around checking out the numerous shops. I tried to stretch across a few seats to rest but I kept picturing the more-than-there-should-have-been-amount of roaches I’d seen crawling all over the airport, and I kept thinking they were on me. I sat up at one point to adjust the bag I was using as a headrest in time to see a roach crawl from beneath it. I tried to squash it with my shoe but the dirty little bug hid in a crevice where I couldn’t reach it. It must have known death was near. No matter, I was up and on to the next seat anyway. I started to think that maybe I wouldn’t like Asia so much. I do prefer a high level of cleanliness that I don’t think Asia’s standards are quite up to, but I’ll see how it goes.

I found an unoccupied bench and decided I’d try to rest again banishing any thoughts of roaches from my mind. I was lying quite peacefully enjoying my music when a girl sat on the empty seat next to my feet and her boyfriend plopped down next to her basically on my feet. There were empty seats all over the airport but apparently they felt the need to annoy the one quietly resting person – me – by sitting right on top of me and fidgeting constantly causing the whole bench to jerk back and forth. I was seriously vexed and after 20 minutes of being jarred back and forth unnecessarily I was going to say something but alas their flight was thankfully announced and they left me to my bench again.

On my flight from Bali to Singapore I was lucky to have the row to myself – the seat gods must have been with me. This time I decided to forgo listening to music in favor of sleep. I was out as soon as I finished lunch and only woke up when the landing announcement came over the speaker. After a long airport shuttle ride, I finally made it to my hostel. The hostel seems nice enough and the staff friendly, but like Singapore itself, they boast some strict rules like ‘no shoes allowed upstairs’ and ‘luggage cannot be kept near the bed but rather in the luggage rack.’ However, it does have free breakfast and internet so I don’t mind it’s unusual quirks. I almost motivated myself to venture outside my hostel last night for dinner but I fell asleep instead at 8:00pm and didn’t wake until 9:30 this morning. I was just too tired and comfortable to move.