Reading through my blog from yesterday tells me two things: I perhaps wasn’t as clear in my head after all and the spell check is not doing its work. 

It is about time I leave Singapore. My plan is to leave tomorrow so I decided to do some route scouting today with the benefit of not having to carry all the luggade. And who knows, singapore might have a few positive surprises up its sleave. This went relative well … in the beginning. While the scenery was mostly uninspiring, there were a few patches of “old” Singapore left from the time when the island was a mosquito infested swamp with proper rainforest and tigers. The route of choice took me along Thompson Road and Upper Th. Rd. and then turn left along Mandai road. It was possible to do a few detours along quiet road into small patches of forest reserves. No tigers in sight, but i shared to road with monkeys. But the general picture was of huge wide roads with heavy traffic. What’s worse, on the way back to town it began to rain, and by rain I mean a proper monsoon downpour that flooded the street in no time…and soaked me completely in less. I had no choice but to continue, otherwise I would risk not getting back before it got dark. The city center never saw a drop of rain!

After that bit of misfortune I decided that was enough adventure for one day and went for some food. Fortunately the food managed to restore some sympathetic feelings for Singapore again.

The food is generally very good and excellent value. Today I had a sizzling Chili Chicken dish, that was served with naan bread. The place was a pakistani restaurant in Little India – like always the place itself would not make it into a tv-show because of its inspired interior decoration, but the food was just perfectly spicy and the staff definitely beat Gorden Ramsey on the personality barometer. They were more than happy to hear what I thought about the food and they played it cool when I for a moment thought I hadn’t got enough cash with me to pay for it. Price was 13 singapore $ (less than 10 euros) and to be fair that is the most expensive meal I’ve had here yet. 

And so, here it is:

Pakistani dish with chicken in (plenty of) chili

The other top attraction here is really the local people, who are generally very friendly. Several times I have had the experience of being contacted by people who just wanted to tell me about the history or customs of something, ask me about my bicycle or photography or just chat for a few minutes. Never with the intention of getting anything in return. In this category I will put the “Roman” owner of Fabscycle who helped me out with some spare parts to my bicycle free of charge. Yep, it’s an Italian who moved to Singapore because Italy is too cold!