January happenings.

This last week I was back in Borneo doing some more technical diving courses that I’ve been meaning to do, just so that I can start doing some longer mixed gasses on the rebreather. For those that don’t know what a rebreather is, it’s a device that sits on your back a bit like a suitcase and closes the breathing circuit so that exhaled gas goes back into a unit on your back which then messes about with it so that you can breathe it again.
It just means you dive for hours and potentially deeper without having nasty decompression stops for hours at a time.
It’s a bit more complicated than that in reality – but that’s the 101 lesson. If you want to know more - hey – I’ll teach you ;)

It was a cool course although harder than I imagined to master and a little bit scary to be honest when going through some of the disaster drills. Still a way to go before I can teach it - but not a bad start until the point when I got a bloody great cold half way through the week and had to stop diving. I pushed it a bit and now I’m deaf in one ear for the next two weeks whilst it sorts itself out. Not too clever.

I flew back a few days early in the end as I was getting bored silly of Malaysian TV (only 5 channels) and one of those is an all day repeating cycle of MacGyver, Remington Steele and Matt Houston. It’s the channel where shitty detective TV series never die. I’ll pop back later in the year after I get back from the UK/US in March once I need my fix of Murder She Wrote.
The entire week was a bit of a disaster as I broke my iphone by taking it diving, I broke my hearing through the cold – and whilst there I also had the third ID fraud in the last two years, this time on my iTunes account. Not a very good week really.

Since arriving in Sing I’d been missing doing the cultural activities that I used to do in London so at Christmas I booked myself some tickets for Carmen which was in town and playing at the Esplanade Theatre.

This was great, as I’d fancied seeing the Esplanade up close for some time. The building, like most grand theatres is quite a spectacular sight glistening away on the Singapore horizon. The building from the outside is quite remarkable and is not dissimilar to the shape of two halved Durian fruits. As long as it doesn’t pong like one thank you.
Durian for the uninitiated is a fruit of truly nauseating properties. You either love it or hate it. Some say you’ve only really got Asia in your blood once you’ve accepted the fruit. I’m not so sure about this. The great thing about Durian is all the various guises it comes in.
Durian chocolate, crisps, moon cakes, ice cream – you name it. If you can get it – you can be damn sure there is a Durian flavoured hybrid of it.

It’s hard to really describe the Durian smell in words which don’t make it sound totally foul. It divides opinion into equally as hostile encampments as Marmite can. Personally, I’m not a big fan of anything that smells like old socks full of smelly cheese that’s been festering in the boot of the car on a hot and humid day. But that’s just me.

Maybe it’ll grow on me in time.

Anyway, after grabbing the tickets and settling down in the surprisingly big seats I sat back and took in the show. The theatre was basically a carbon copy of a traditional Shaftsbury avenue theatre. The classic horse shoe design on a slight slope, with four tiers offering elevated seats all not too far away with pretty good views. I’d prompted for tenth row stall seats as I quite fancied a good view and was not disappointed.
I’d never seen Carmen before, although I did know the story and was aware it was a relative smorgasbord of classics and ditties that you pick up with relative ease. What was unusual was watching a majority Chinese cast sing a Spanish themed opera in French. It was all done pretty well and the screens at the side translating into Mandarin and English made it all the more easy. The English, not the Mandarin obviously.
For those that don’t know the story of Carmen – here is my slightly abridged version.

Girl working at Lemonade factory starts drinking far too much of the local produce and goes a bit loopy on it and has a bit of a rough and tumble at the office with one of the other girls over the merits of fruit based drinks counting as one of the required five-a-day. The ensuing altercation is split up by the local shop steward, Mr Jose – who subsequently decides that Carmen is the best thing since R. Whites was invented and promptly decides that she’s the one that he want to make juice with from now on.
Carmen tries to persuade Mr Jose into running off to the hills to start off their own Organic Lemonade business with the possibility of resurrecting Panda Cola. He finds this a bit hard to believe and decides that nobody would want to buy Panda Cola, particularly in the hills of Seville, so goes back to the factory shaking his head in disbelief.
Carmen being a slightly more fiery Spanish women clobbers Mr Jose over the head and drags him off to the hills where she dreams of making ice cream floats. Mr Jose starts coming around to the idea of this as a sound business idea just as Carmen bumps in to the local prized flower arranger Mr Hyacinth. She realises she can only have true happiness with a world champion flower arranger and decides that Panda Cola was truly an awful business proposition and that eighties based cola drinks was a ridiculous idea. Mr Jose is swiftly consigned to the back room and is no longer considered as a viable entity which peeves him somewhat.
Mr Jose having just invested everything into this takes this ever so slightly badly and decides that it’s in the best possible interest to kill everyone, which he goes about doing.

There’s a bit of singing and dancing involved in all of this and everyone seems to have a jolly good time about it, until of course when they all die.

That’s my slightly shorter version of the story but I think it captures the prevalent parts of the story and portrays the layered and complex messages of love, lemonade making and not to mess with Latino women. On the whole, it didn’t have the complete magic or energy that you’d get in a London theatre, but it was a great substitute and I’d love to go again sometime in the future.

I’ve finally figured out the local theatre circuit now, so should be planning a few more trips as the year progresses.

Two wheels best.

A new year brings new hopes, new challenges and for some reason a whole bunch of paperwork and admin.
This week it seems like my letterbox has been carpet bombed with flyers, letters, forms and just about every product under the sun.
I’m thinking of having my letter box Feng Shui’d to ward off evil Pizza delivery letters and Real Estate offerings for properties that I can neither afford nor desire.
Some quite pleasing letters that have arrived are my appointment letters for the Ministry Of Manpower (see previous posting for the MoM) so that I can apply for my Permanent Residency (or PR as it’s know). PR basically changes my employment status over from a temporary resident (i.e 2 years) to a visa that has a few more practical benefits and also opens the door to me perhaps buying a house and becoming more of an long term member of society. There are some disadvantages to this as well for some expats, but on the whole it’d be a good thing for me to have especially as I hope to stick around for a while which is kind of handy as my company has renewed my contract to stay for another year which is jolly fine with me. Like most forms in Singapore, it’s a doddle to fill in and hopefully in the coming months I’ll be getting a Welcome To the Club! letter back. I do go on about Singaporean efficiency a lot but when it’s good it’s very very good, and when it’s bad, it’s not actually all that bad at all. It’ll take a few more forms and a few more months to sort out but it’s a step in the right direction.

Being the new year and with a Christmas void of family and friends from home there was no Christmas tree, no baubles and certainly no Escape To Victory playing on ITV2. To make up for this I did what any self respecting guy would do and went out and decided to buy myself a big f*ck off present. This came in the shape of a 1996 Harley Davidson Fatboy Softail motorbike. Having being declined entry on to this island of my beloved Ducati 996 I’ve been enviously looking at bikes passing me since I arrived. This being Asia I did the only thing that you can do and bought an American bike. I’m told that more HD’s are sold in Asia than in the USA which given the number I’ve seen scooting about could be a very reliable statistic.
I’ve never been a HD fan, but my dream bike is stuck in a garage at home so anything else would be second best to that, apart from maybe a 1198 in matt black, but I’m hardly going to spank 70K on a bike that I can’t ride anywhere on without hitting the sea in 15 minutes. Singapore is only 70ks from the widest points so it’s not going to take long to get from the sea to the sea.
I’ve fancied the idea of doing a bit of road touring in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia next year so when I saw this beauty up for sale, at a price that seemed ok, it was an offer I could not refuse.

After picking the bike up and realising it’s not the quietest ride in town I soon discovered that it’s also not the lightest nor has the best stopping distances. I’m used to riding Italian racers which you can stop with your little finger on a penny. This thing needs a hand like an Olympic lifter and the foot brake being pressed with some vigour to stop it’s hulking mass from becoming intimate with the vehicle in front. I’ve never ever used a foot brake to stop a bike before so as the first set of red lights approached my heart started to race a little as they got closer and closer as my little pinky feathered the three pound brake leaver. Only when firmly pressing a good portion of my size eleven on the foot long brake pedal did the beast come to a standstill. After a little wipe of the brow, we moved on having learnt my first lesson of American brakes.
I’m being a bit harsh here as my Ducati has six pot callipers on two twelve inch galvanised discs just on the front. That’s the kind of stopping power the space shuttle utilises when they realise a crucial bit has been left off on a trolley in the hanger and they decide to abort take off. The HD has a bar of soap and some sort of heavy anchor you throw off the back to slow you down string as far as I can see.
It really is a fun ride though and I can see the attraction with Hogs and why people rave about them. If you need to drive a sofa to work and back there really is no other choice. Apart from actually putting some wheels on a sofa and sticking some chrome bits on the side I suppose.

I’ve managed to get a few of the guys in the office geed up so we’re all off up to Central Malaysia in a few weeks to have a bit of a boys road trip which I’m looking forward to very much and I’m sure will give me some stories to wax lyrical anecdotally.

So from two wheels with an engine to two wheels without. This weekend I indulged in my other big passion which is cycling. I bought myself a Trek road bike a few months back with a view to using it to keep a bit fit by cycling to work every other day or so, but also to explore a bit of the island upon. I’ve always been more of a mountain kind of guy, but as most of the hills here resemble small mole hills there is not much choice in vertical.
I’m really enjoying the road riding so a few of the guys from work and I ventured off to Bintan in Indonesia for a days riding the pristine roads there. We set off at 5am to cycle to the ferry terminal in the east and took the 50 minute ferry over the waters to Indonesia.
We coined ourselves the affectionate and slightly deprecating name of Mamils. Middle Aged Men in Lycra to you and me.
I’d been to Bintan once before but only on a luxury spa weekend so was quite looking forward to seeing what the real place is like beyond the ringed fences of the spa compounds that scatter the place.
The riding and roads where epic. It’s the most pristine island of islands and is surprisingly bigger than Singapore by a fair bit - and the roads, hills and scenery is unparalleled. I’d ridden a bit in Borneo the year before and it was certainly on par with that, if not better for road riding.
We did a 90k loop of the north west part of the island which is used as a stage run for the Tour De Bintan cycle race held yearly in October. I’d not done it the year before as it’s a bit of a killer event, but it’d be something I’d be keen to do this year after seeing the layout.

The three of us set off on our pristine bikes with the combined street value of a Porsche 911 and swiftly started to sweat our own bodyweight as the first of many rolling hills and king of the mountain stages started to loom into sight around gorgeous traffic free bends.
After not riding a hill for over a year and after 90ks of ups and downs I can safely say I had nothing left in the tank at the end. So much so that when I came to stop outside the police station at the end of the ride I promptly got cramp in my dismounting cleat foot and landed in a heap with Trek’s finest on top off me with it’s wheels spinning.
The local constabulary thought this quite funny and gave me an inspiring round of applause whilst I tried to look a bit like I knew what I was doing. It’s a bit hard trying to look anything other than a total dick when you’re strapped to a bike by your feet whilst your head is in a ditch. After scrabbling out from under the bike and dusting off my lycra we got our bearings and headed off back to the ferry for some well earned Satay and copious Bintang beers.
All the way around the island we were greeted and waved at by the most friendly school kids and people you could hope to meet. Being smiled and at and cheered by a sea of gappy toothed kids out by the roadsides in the brightest of school uniforms made the day go by brilliantly and made us all feel very special. I can’t wait to go back and spend a few days exploring more of the routes and seeing more of the island. After doing it, you can really see why people do these amazing trips on bike over extraordinary distances in the most remote of places. There really is nothing quite like appreciating friendly inquisitiveness than getting amongst the people than on a bike and I’ve found.
Planning has commenced to go back with with a bigger group for the 156Km stage ride in late February with a well deserved stay in the spa in the evening to tend to our battered and bruised bodies.
I just need to take the padded shorts next time and get some more practice in as my backside feels like it’s been riding a razor blade today.

New Year message

As the new year beckons I look back fondly on the last few months since I arrived in Singapore and some of the great experiences I’ve had, some of the great people I’ve met and most of all some of the wonderful things I’ve learnt since I arrived with a couple suitcases full of stuff that I thought you could not buy here. Turns out the snowboards, sweaters and puffa jacket have not seen the light of day since I unpacked them and I’m already on my third pair of flip flops so it gives you an idea of the weather I'm used to. Going back to the snowdrifts of the UK does not seem like a good prospect. Even more interesting, I've had one day of being ill since I arrived and that I suspect was down to some rather dubious satay that I'd polished off one evening.

So as I look back, what have I garnered about this new land?

I’ve learnt that everything and anything can be bought in Singapore, apart from Muesli.
I’ve discovered that you can buy over 100 different types of Chilli Sauce at the most basic supermarket. The wall of chilli I’ve coined it.

I’ve figured out that you can reserve a table place from the massing hordes in a public place with nothing more than an elaborately folded business card.
I’ve worked out that the most valuable and often rarest item amongst friends is a serviette in a hawker centre.
I’ve come to the conclusion that Singaporean deserts whilst looking like they’ve come from Mars are actually quite nice once you brave them and give them a go.

I’ve just noticed that these all seem to be food related... Maybe I’m just a bit hungry.

It’s not just been all about food though. I’ve been enriched culturally and potentially emotionally since I’ve arrived and that was always the goal above any positive of warm weather, low taxes and a clean city which are the things you hear most of the people comment on when they describe why they like it here.


Some of the things I’d like to achieve this coming year include....

The damn four tones of Mandarin. Erggg – Arghh – Urghh – ZzzUgg is all it sounds like to me. Mandarin does actually make a little bit of sense when you deconstruct it but the tones – they’ve got me stumped.

Convert ten people to give up eating Shark Fin. For every one I convert the ripple effect will continue. I’ve managed it with 2 people so far with not so much effort, so it can be done. Granted, they’ve now switched to Tiger penis so I might need to perfect my cross over technique but it’s the thought that counts.

Learn some Asian cooking – I do miss cooking and cooking for 1 is nowhere near as much fun as for a bunch of folks. So, I’d like to go and learn to make a few dishes and make use of some of the great local produce out here . Starting off with figuring out the local wet market.... I need to find some unwitting test subjects to try out experiments on and now I’ve finally got a dining table it’s something I’d like to try out.

More travel. It’s hard to know where to start with the travel options ahead this year. China, Japan and some road trips on my new steed around Malaysia and Indonesia are top of the list and a couple more diving trips that I’ve got my eye on in Sipadan, Sulawesi and a a few of the more eastern Indonesian islands. Who knows what opportunity will arise with work as well. My trip to India this year was very interesting and somewhat humbling and was a place I’d love to go back and be able to explore some more.

So as the year closes to an end I’m quite excited about the year ahead and what may, or may not be. Even better is that I can say this all again in February as it’s Chinese New Year then!

Happy new year to everyone and hopefully I’ll see some of you this way in the coming year.

I’ll keep you posted on the continual search for muesli and the progress of my Ergggs and Arghhs.

In the meantime as I stock the fridge full of Tiger for the friends and festivities that tomorrow brings I bid you Xīn Nián Kuài Lè!

Christmas in the Philippines

Christmas day this year was a little bit different than any I’ve spent before. Not being able to go back to the UK for the seasonal break as had most people I decided that a few days diving somewhere exotic would be a good idea. So after a little bit of planning myself and three other dive buddies set course to Puerto Galera in the Philippines to spend a few days either side of Christmas day doing a bit of lounging around with the occasional diving thrown in.
PG is a quaint little place in the province of Oriental Mindoro (which is a very cool sounding name) which is about 100ks drive south of Manila. Having never been to the Philippines before and facing the prospect of having my turkey on the beach I was quite looking forward to this mini excursion.
Once you reach the coastal town of Batangas, a jump on a little bum boat across the Manila Channel for an hour’s sail and you’re plonked down on the sandy beach of Sabang which is the main heart of the bay where most of the cafes and bistros (spelt Bistrot oddly) are perched.
It’s a sleepy enough little place and I’d expected it to be rammed at peak season but mostly down to the credit crunch, snowfalls in Europe and other unknown factors the place was oddly quiet. I’ve no problem with this at all and it made the place feel all the more quaint without hoards of European tourists clogging the place up. The Philippines is a great location to spend the festive period as the majority of Filipinos are Christian so Christmas (or Cleese-maaass!! – as I now find myself pronouncing it ) and the shenanigans that go with it are celebrated in gusto.
The minute we arrived in Batangas, a flurry of bargaining, payment of taxes, bribes and backhanders commenced at a rate that I’ve never seen before in all of my travels. From unloading of my dive gear from the taxi in the ferry terminal car park to setting sail on the bum boat we must have paid 5 different taxes and paid off 3 or more people looking for a quick peso or two. It’s a bit daunting at first to have such a full on frontal of people looking to make a quick buck off you, but once you’ve figured out that it’s done in a friendly and non menacing way, you quickly get into the spirit of it all and go with the flow. Ian, my half Chinese mate had a field day bargaining and negotiating everything from his bags being carried to the environmental tax and even the price of a cup of coffee. I just sat back and watched and took it all in. My top tip for anyone doing this is to carry a wad of low denomination peso notes around and give them out like they are going out of print.
The amount that Filipinos earn and the poverty level is strikingly low so I wasn’t going to begrudge giving a few of my dollars away to people who needed them a lot more than I did. It’s hard not to give a few pesos to a wide toothy grin smiling back at you in people that just want a few pesos for helping you out in any way that they can. There is not a lot of paid work to be had so anything that can lend itself to a bit of income is fair game.

After a plane, car and ferry ride we arrived in Sabang and decamped our stuff, wacked on the dive gear and promptly set about exploring some of the local reefs and dive sites that were on offer. The diving in PG is scattered around the many coves and pocket beaches which make up the coastline. It’s mostly accessible by small boat as the rugged coastline is fragmented with big rocky outcrops which are simply stunning to look at.
Behind and right up to the white beaches the thick jungle encroaches all the way back up to the mountainous ranges of Mindoro. It would have been great to do some exploring of this and do some trekking of the interior, but that would have to wait for another time. PG being one of the top diving destinations in the Philippines which is what we were here to do.
The first couple of dives where a little uneventful, but by day two we were in the thick of some good diving on the some of the more advanced sites. PG really does have a great variety and health of corals which is easily on par to that of Komodo which I was at a few months before. The visibility is not as great but it’s pretty acceptable and coupled with some great drift dives in a some quite strong current made for a great couple of dives on Canyons and Fish Bowl.
I had to laugh at the Fish Bowl name. I must have dived in over 20 places with dive sites of the same name. I’m going to start a campaign for more creative dive site naming. Surely there has to be a better and more interesting method than taking a fish or animal name and appending it with a topographical noun. Shark Reef, Coral Garden and Crystal Point are getting a bit repetitive to see on dive maps. I’ve decided that I’m only going to dive sites that have more interesting names next year, that or just rename them myself as something more descriptively accurate. Sounds good in principle but I’m sure not many people will want to go diving with me to “Swampy quagmire” or “Nowt at all to see bleached mound”
If you do like drift diving though, some of the sites here are pretty good for that and I can see myself going back at some point to do some more of the more technical 60-70mtr channels and canyons that are within easy reach of the main beach.
As a place to go out PG is quite a lot of fun as well. The beaches in Sabang are not much to write about as the influx of cafes and dive shops has spoilt the idyllic feel of the main bay coupled with quite a large selection of girly bars to frequent in the evening which gives it a more of a Patong feel than Mediterranean infused hideaway. What it lacks for in being rough around the edges it more than makes up for in exuberance. You can easily spot the folks that have arrived more for the pleasure of the bar girls than the diving but hey, this is Asia after all and I’m no prude. The beaches further along the coast which are pleasant boat ride away are simply stunning. If ever you wanted to see a place that has been hardly touched by man and to have your own beach for the afternoon with a glass of Chablis or two, then this is the place. Get dropped off, crack open the vino, swim around on your own beach and get picked up later by your own little boat.

But this still being Christmas eve we were duly required to have our Christmas lunch or something as close to it as we could find. In the end, it was not difficult to find a decent lunch as most of the hotels had laid on buffet style dinners with salmon, turkey, lamb and all the trimmings of cranberry jam and accoutrements that one could wish for. It really was pretty good although sadly no Christmas pudding and a tawny port to wash it down afterwards.
As far as Christmas dinner was concerned, it was my first in Asia, my first by the beach and my first away from friends, family and loved ones. It was really enjoyable though and as I looked out over sea watching the colourful hanging lanterns swinging in the sea breeze I gave a little toast to those far away in distance, but not very far away in thoughts.

In the evening I made my way into the locals end of the bay and got talking to a bunch of young local guys and some girls who were back from overseas visiting their families for the celebratory period. In the Philippines, it’s a big thing to come back and see your family and spend time together at this time of year as they are very family orientated.
After a few drinks of some of the local fire-water which consisted of pure gin and lime juice fused together in some magical swirling concoction followed by copious amounts of Red Horse, the local 7% beer, we were all hugging and singing Filipino party songs like I was one of the family, albeit a slightly taller and more pale version.
Speaking of beer, it took me a few days to work out this little peculiarity of napkins being wrapped around the heads of the beers. At first, I’d thought it was some polite hygiene thing or to keep the condensation at bay like in humid Singapore, were your beer will be sat in a pool of water within seconds of leaving the fridge. After watching a few locals wipe the rim upon opening the bottle my curiosity got the better of me and I gave in and asked. It was explained to me that the bottle tops of San Miguel rust for some reason and occasionally make the neck go a rusty colour, which is to be wiped off. So, every single bottle of San Miguel comes with a little hat napkin to wipe it, rusty or not. My inquisitive mind was satisfied at last.

As we all sat out by the family house by the bay the local band in the bar next door were belting out local renditions of Let it Snow when clearly it could be seen that it was anything but snowing and no amount of letting would be likely to change that meteorological forecast. As we all danced around I was made to feel at home in a way that you’d never see anywhere else in the world. Allowing a complete stranger into your home, into your lives and at the most important family time of the year and making them feel like part of the furniture was something that I’ll remember for a long time. The world really does have some good people in it.

After being invited into their home in the early hours for yet more traditional local food (the goat curry looked a bit odd but was amazing) we had some more drinks and I got to ask lots of questions about the Filipino way of life and I was probed, climbed on and giggled at by the small children about what it was like in England at Christmas time.
No TV or Playstation to be seen, no family bickering, no expensive gifts being exchanged but a simple and enjoyable get together with anyone who was sober enough to be able to still speak coherently. Man, I can tell you Filipino know how to drink!
In the early hours as I walked back to the hotel along the beach I sat down on the harbour steps and looked out to the mainland wondering what was going to be in store for the year ahead. Certainly some new adventures, certainly some new friends to be made. As the firecrackers and fireworks subsided I picked myself up and started the short walk home just to be greeted by a grin of one of the young kids I’d been chatting to. “You are coming for New Years Andy?” was the question. “You should really see us party then!!” he smirked.
I smiled to him and replied maybe. For sure, it’ll be a place I do end up going back to one day. I just need to let my liver relax a little before then.

I do in Bali

This weekend, I was back to Bali for a friend’s wedding that I’d kindly been invited to. It was quite exciting as not only was this the first wedding I’d been to this year but it was also my first Singaporean wedding too, albeit it being in Bali of course.
The wedding was in the north of Bali in Tulamben which is a pretty little village in the northeast of Bali, about two and a bit hour’s drive in a rickety little minibus. Previously I’ve been a bit hard on Bali but that’s more to do with the south as the north and anywhere other than Kuta is actually quite pretty. I can’t quite put my finger on exactly why I like Indonesia so much but it’s a place I find myself enjoying whenever I end up there. I’m certainly not enjoying the annoying $25US visa that you need to buy every time you decide to enter and then the $10US tax you have to pay to leave so it’s time to investigate getting a longer term visa. That and another passport as I’m down to the last few pages and it’s starting to get funny looks from the immigration folks as I pass over my 10 year old battered and frayed paperwork over the counter.

I was in Bali for a few days and being a bit of a diving connection to the group, it was customary to get a couple of dives in whilst there. Tulamben has three or so shore based dives which are actually really nice. The water was a tepid 30 degrees and with pretty good visibility and no current at all. I even managed to see a few new things that I’ve never seen before which was cool (Ribbon Eel for one and a Leaf fish!).

The main highlight for the diving is the Liberty wreck. This is a huge WWII ship which was torpedoed by the Japanese, although apparently it was only sunk off Bali by an erupting volcano in 1963. Diving it is pretty easy for all levels and I was lucky enough to dive it pretty much alone one morning when I got up before the others and had it to myself.
It’s about 120mtrs in length and has some good swim throughs and for a shore based wreck the flora and fauna is very impressive. A dream to teach on I’m sure.

After a day’s diving and a fun evening of drinking far too much of the local firewater (Arak – a fermented coconut number) with some Instructor mates, it was time for the wedding the next day. Luckily, the weather held out after the torrential downpours which we had the day before and a lovely ceremony was had. It was a simple enough ceremony with about 40 guests right on the beachfront.
Being a bunch of divers, we had changed the “Arch of Sabres” to an “Arch of Fins” as the happy couple passed through a plethora of brightly coloured raised ScubaPro and Mares fins.

It was quite funny to watch and will probably the only time I ever see that again. The ceremony was on a little bit of beach next to the dive school and had been decked out in pretty ribbons, balloons and traditional Indonesian ceremonial bits and bobs (not a very technical description I know)


After the ceremony the drink flowed and everyone ended up getting thrown into the pool, which was quite refreshing as it was getting pretty sticky in the afternoon.

The traditional tossing of the bouquet was performed but with a slight twist in throwing it to a bunch of burly 6ft blokes splashing around in the pool who were still wearing the somewhat de rigueur wedding uniform of khaki beach shorts and white linen shirts.
Annoyingly, I was out jumped by a rather large ex second row rugby player who caught the bouquet, much to the delight of his hysterically giggling Malay girlfriend. It was quite funny to watch (the catch not the Malay girlfriend) and once the frothing waters had subsided the victoriously caught bunch of slightly soggy and battered flowers were held aloft for all to applaud. Well done Neil!

In the evening we were treated to some traditional Indonesian dancing which was really fun to watch. Not being the most appreciative of the communicative medium of dance I could not really understand the full sequence of what was being conveyed, but it was very interesting nonetheless.
I do now understand where the robot dance gets its origins from though.

What was great over the few days that I was there was that I met a load more great people especially a few more instructors which was fun in so much as to swap travel stories and tales with. All in all, a very relaxing and fun weekend. I forgot how much fun weddings can be, which is handy as I’ve two coming up back in England next year.
Which reminds me – time to start writing the Best Man speeches.

Reflections...

It’s been nearly six months since I started out on this journey and although it only seems like two minutes since I was packing up my London life and coming out here to make a new start, I guess I’ve discovered a lot but in some ways I’ve only just scratched the surface. Some things are easy, some things are hard and there is nothing more satisfying than writing a list about what is floating my boat and what is not.

Floating the boat

Travel – Singapore is one massive bus stop to the world, either by air or by boat. Nearly everything coming from West to East or vice versa comes in close proximity if not actually even stopping here. Taking a cursory look out of the window down to the beach (ok – I exaggerate about the quality of my view) it’s one long cavalcade of container ships, freight and tankers ploughing up and down the Straights on to destinations further and more unpronounceable than I know. The same goes for me. It’s possible to be in a different country every weekend for a year in less than 4 hours on a plane for a few hundred dollars and not even hit the same place twice. I’m whittling them down a bit but even I know it’ll be a list of places that would take a lifetime to see and I’ll be lucky if I even do half of them.

Food – Trying desperately not to put on the famous Singapore Stone is a tricky job. One of the two national sports here is eating and it’s possible to eat out on hardly any money at all and satisfy one’s palate on everything and anything from any corner of the globe and some odder places in between.
As long as you like it with chilli sauce you’re sorted. Screwed if you don’t. Even McDonald's have a special chilli sauce pot that I’ve only ever seen served here.

Cheap beer – Singapore is actually an expensive city to go drinking in if you don’t watch what you are doing. It’s quite easy to be racking up S$16 beers if you don’t pay attention, but in the same sentence, if you shop around when plying the local barmen for his trade, you can easily be knocking back S$5 beers a few feet in the opposite direction. Happy hours are the rule here and hawker stalls peddle the amber nectar at prices that can hardly be beat as long as you don’t mind the beer of choice here, Tiger.

The beautiful people – Ok, Asian women are very hot I’ll make no bones about it. Even still, Singapore does seem to attract a rather above average set of people, both male and female I note. I’m not counting myself in any of this statement but the journey to work is all the more easy on the eye than anywhere else in the world I’ve been lucky to work. Maybe it’s something in the water.

Exploring – Maybe it’s living in a new city after living in the old one for so long, but the weekends and holidays seem all the more exciting when there are new places to explore, new people to meet and new experiences to try out.
Getting up early on the weekend is all the more easy knowing that there is a whole new exotic world outside the door waiting for you.

Cycling to work by the beach – I’ve been a keen cyclist for quite a few years now and NOTHING beats cycling to work along the beach with the morning sun shining on the sand and the waves coming rippling in. Fair enough, I’m painting a picture of absolute paradise but whilst the sand is imported from Indonesia and the waves are laced with marine diesel, it’s still quite exhilarating to be able to wrap the start and end of the work day with a pootle down the promenade.
Changi may not be the most rip roaring of places to have an office on the island, but for the days that I am there it’s actually a pleasure to go to work that way.

Bonkers food names – Kang Kong, Kai Lan – the list goes on of foods that look familiar but of which I’ve no idea of what they actually are. It’s an education just trying to do the local shopping and lots of fun deciphering that some exotic word that you can’t pronounce just means garden peas.
Buying fish from the wet market is even more of a fun activity. All manner of fish types are on offer of varieties that I’ve never been able to buy before. I think I might sign up for a local cooking course to try and not only understand what I’m actually buying, but also to find out what on earth I'm to do with it as well.


Not floating the boat.

The lack of seasons – Singapore has two seasons. A hot one and and a really hot one. You never even know which one it’s going to be on any given day as well I’ve found. I’m not complaining at all and more than anything I’m not going to be a moaning Brit who bangs on about the weather all the time. What I do miss is the seasons and especially the changing of seasons. No more crisp crunchy frost on the way to work. No more kicking brown leaves down the pavement. No more seeing a cool mist on the Surrey downs whilst walking the dog before breakfast. Ok, I never lived in Surrey, and I don’t even have a dog, but it’s the thought that counts.
It's now Christmas here and seeing Orchard Road lit up in all it's glory, which is quite impressive actually is rather nice but it's not the same without roasted chestnuts, a cold crisp breeze and the excuse to warm yourself up with lashings of warm mulled wine as you traipse along.

Ants in my condo – I have very mild OCD. I like things to be in order. Ants do not have OCD. Ants like chaos, apart from that thing they do when they go in a nice neat line (which is quite nice to watch).

I don’t like ants. I have lots of ants in my condo. Therefore, it’s very annoying.

I don’t know if it’s just me but the general fumigation exercises I see every few weeks around the place does make me think that it’s more of a common thing than my taste in home furnishings being particularly desirable to the local ant population and making them want to move in with me.

Building noise - Singapore in places is one massive building site. Everywhere you look there are condos, malls, MRT stations and office buildings being built. Either nothing has been built in the last ten years and someone has been given the mandate of “Hey – We need to build a load of shit!” or there is a boom going on that I don’t know about. It’s a rush job though as building starts from 8am in the morning till 8pm in the evening and even over the weekends now outside my condo on the East Coast. The sound of the jack hammer and pile driving was not the dulcet tones I’d set myself to hearing on a Sunday morning over my breakfast noodles.

Having to change the bed sheets every week – Just to set this straight before the giggling at the back starts – this is nothing to do with my prowess but more that I sleep without the AC on when I can which can make it bloody hot and sweaty at night. This means that the sheets only last a week before they’re whisked off to be changed for another set. My two cats will think it’s an amusement park for them alone as they go mental whenever I change the sheets and they are around. Obviously the answer is just to sleep with the AC on, but maybe I’m just getting a bit green in my old age, or maybe I’m just a bit tight when it comes to paying bills.

Never being able to get a cab after 10pm on a Sunday, anywhere – For some reason all the cabs in Singapore enter the twilight zone at 10pm on Sunday. Now, there is obviously something going on at this time which likens the chance of hailing a cab to the same odds as the winning the lottery, twice. Where do they all go? Where tell me? If it starts to rain at this time, give up as all the taxis are made out of something that makes them dissolve in rain water and you’ve no chance at all of seeing one.

Being able to share it with someone – this is pretty self explanatory but half the fun of doing the kind of stuff I’m getting up to is precisely what it says. Half the fun. I’m a double the fun twice the laugh kind of person so it’d be all the more nicer to have a partner in crime to do some of the things I’m doing with. Besides it’d make the hotel bills half the price.

Singapore organisation – sometimes it’s good when things don’t work. Don’t pay your Electricity bill on time – they cut you off exactly at 9am the day after. Want to park your car overnight in the visitors spot and don’t have the green sticker but have the red one, forget it. Rules are rules I agree, but there is absolutely no chance of flexibility, bending, letting go or even trying to argue about anything as it simply won’t wash. “Cannot” is the answer if you try, which is a pretty infuriating word I can tell you. I’ll get on to the joys of Singlish another time when I’ve managed to get to 10 or more words that I can make out.

It’s not much of a list and the negatives are hardly very important. All in all, it’s hard not to love Singapore and coming here has been a real highlight of my life so far. Let's hope they let me stay a bit longer!
If the worst I can complain about is the amount of ants I have wandering around the place, whilst shirking away from the wider topical points such as discussions on oppression of freedom from a single party government for the people, then things aren't too bad I suppose.

Driving

As a newbie here in Singapore, I’m entitled to drive on my international license for the first 12 months without having to worry about anything. Once I get past 12 months though, I need to take the Singapore Basic Driving Theory test. Why, I don’t really know. They drive on the same side as the UK, all the signs are in English, even the road signs look the same.
The only reason I can make out is that I probably drive quite sensibly and I have to take a test in how to drive like a twat.

Here is some evidence to go with this,

Example 1.
Whilst approaching an open junction with no clear right of way, what is the best course of action when two cars from opposite sides arrive at the same time?

Answer in England - Slow down to a safe speed, flash ones headlights whilst raising eyebrows northerly in a manner to suggest, after you dear Sir, thus allowing the opposing vehicle to navigate the crossing in a safe and thoroughly jolly encounter.

In Singapore – Drop your head down, make no eye contact at all with the opposing enemy and accelerate wildly until you either make it first or crash and explode in a fireball of death.

Example 2.
In a three lane highway, which is the correct procedure for overtaking slow moving traffic?

Answer in England – Using ones mirrors (all three of them), indicate well in advance and manoeuvre in a controlled and somewhat graceful manner into the lane to the right hand side of said slow moving vehicle. Politely wave in a nonchalant manner to the passing vehicle with a slight waft of the relaxed and loose wrist whilst smiling in appreciation throughout the exercise.

In Singapore – Never show weakness or anticipation by giving the game away by signalling, just jam your foot down on the gas and use any means necessary to undertake or overtake the infidel in front of you. Once past, rapidly jam on the brakes before slamming into the back of the vehicle you could not see as you were on your mobile phone therefore crashing and exploding in a fireball of death.

Now I’m not saying everyone drives like a complete cock in Singapore but there are some seriously bad examples out there. Maybe I’ll turn into one if I actually pass my test, who knows. It’s been over fifteen years since I learned to drive a car and over ten years since I learned to ride a superbike. To get me through the mish-mash of different signs here I’ve bought the theory book, which has the majority of signs and sample questions that you’d expect plus a couple of ones that you’d not expect on the mean streets of London. It’s got nothing like the “Give way to Elephants” or “Caution! – Monkeys” signs I saw in Africa, but there are a couple of odd ones for sure.

My test is on the 21st Jan so I’ll swot up a little on stopping distances, aggressive taxi evasion techniques and other salient pieces of information that might be in the book beforehand.

As they say, if you can’t beat them, join them