Survivor Singapore (a true story)
Everyone's got a travel disaster story. But before I tell you mine, I need to stress one thing: I had a fantastic time and with mild exceptions everything went incredibly smoothly for quite a bit of travel done in merely one week. But the story of how I got back from Bintan, Indonesia to Singapore is certainly one to be jotted down for posterity and very, very humorous in retrospect.
So I had a fantastic start to the day: I snorkeled all along Bintan island and was treated to views of colorful corals, seaweeds, and marine life, went swimming in a huge pool overlooking the ocean, walked along powdery white sand beaches, drank fresh coconut and pineapple drinks, relaxed under palm trees and topped it all off with a 90-minute full body massage.
Not too shabby. Unfortunately, my whitey skin was not accustomed to the equatorial sun, and despite four applications of sunscreen, I was pretty lobsterish by the end of the day. During my third application of sunscreen, a Swedish woman came up to me and gave me a prophecy that Cassandra would be proud of:
-"It's too late for you," she said ominously.
-"What?" answered I, incredulously.
-"You already red. Too late. Don't bother. You will not sleep tonight."
-"Umm, okay, thanks, I guess." I mean what else can you say? Despite her predictions of sunscreen futility, also offered to help me apply more sunscreen to my back, but surprisingly enough, I declined.
But she was right. I was so lobsterish in fact that I think I suffered from a touch of sunstroke, because I felt dizzy, nauseous and feverish by the end of it. I parked myself on a couch in the hotel lobby to wait for my bus that would take us to the ferry terminal. Finally, I felt like I was going to be sick so I get up to go to the bathroom and I just collapse...
Crack. There went my weak ankle. Yikes, not again! A German guy walked over and just stared at me.
-"Why you fall down? There nothing there to trip on! What happen?"
Having gotten that encouragement, I got up and hobbled to the bathroom and promptly threw up. My bus is now scheduled to arrive in about five minutes and I still feel like baked stuffed crab. But suddenly the bus comes into view and everyone starts piling on the bus. Crap! I run over to the bus and get on but then notice that it's going further up the island coast and not into the city. I talk to some of the passengers and they all seem to be going to the Kelong Restaurant, a renowned seafood place about 10 minutes away...
Frantic, I asked the bus driver if the bus was going to the ferry. He nods yes, and I sit back, relieved, but still throughly cooked. We head back to the hotel and the ferry passengers start getting on the bus. Crisis averted. But time goes by and we keep waiting and waiting and waiting, and we all start getting antsy, worried that we're going to miss the ferry -- the last ferry leaving the island that night... Finally, I lean over to the driver.
-"What's going on? Are we waiting for someone?" I ask.
-"Yeah, someone isn't here."
And then it dawns on me...
-"Is this person named Kristina?" I ask, my eyes widening.
-"Yeah, you know her? Where is she?"
Now everyone is glowering at me, afraid that my early presence on the bus may have made them all late and sleeping in the ferry terminal overnight. We Andretti it down to the terminal over speed bumps which make my stomach churn and my ankle throb...
Finally, we run over to the ticket gate and are promptly told by the Indonesian ferry agent that the gate is closed. Many a passenger is freaking out; it's 15 minutes before the ferry is scheduled to leave and all the shops are closing up for the evening. However, I am able to ascertain that the gate is closed ... because it hasn't opened yet and the ferry is running late. Again, relief washes over me. Another close call.
So I'm sitting in the terminal, still feeling ill, watching these little Korean girls make their parents really, really mad by pretending to duck under the security gate and run to the still-not-ready ferry. When they are finally made to sit down and shut up, the older, eight-year-old girl sits down and pulls out a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince translated into Korean, reads for about 10 minutes, and then screams... [Consider this your spoiler warning if you haven't read HBP yet!]
-"Dumbledore! Noooooo! [String of Korean invective!]" She starts crying and her five-year-old sister starts laughing at her, which makes her cry more, and they finally come to blows. I run into the bathroom and throw up again.
Now we're on the ferry and they start playing the latest episode of "Survivor: Exile Island" with Mandarin subtitles and I'm trying my best not to hurl, and I manage to get by without doing so, which of course is a relief. We're almost there! And I'll get to put aloe vera on my burn and go to bed with a cool fan... Mmmm...
We disembark from the ferry, get our passports stamped and we're home free at the Tanah Merah ferry terminal! I'm starting to feel a little better now, but while Bintan was cooled by seabreeze, Singapore is completely still. It's about 10:30 p.m. on Friday night and it's still got to be about 90 degrees. I figure out that there is a queue for taxis and I line up with a bunch of Japanese tourists, who of course have a healthy respect for the rules. Not so much for some of the native Singaporeans, who grab the cabs before they can make it to the front of the line which is not-so-conveniently located at the end of the road. Cutting off families with small children (the Korean family, for example) and old ladies, mind you. While there were a bunch of taxis at first, they significantly dwindle in number until they stop almost completely, coming in 10-minute intervals. So to recap: I'm burned, sweaty, and nauseous and still no closer to getting home at 11 p.m.
I was lucky that Yvonne's dad had given me some numbers to book a taxi, so I stroll on over to the payphone and try one of the numbers only to be told that there are no more cabs around the area. Another obstacle is that they ask me to provide a number to reach me at, but since I'm calling from a payphone, it's nigh impossible, so I'm forced to enter fake numbers. Then I call another and finally get a human being on the phone, and I'm asked my name and where I am...
-"Sumima... Excuse me!" One of those pretty, fragile Japanese girls is flagging me down.
-"Yes?"
-"I am a Japanese. I am Minori. I am alone here and I am very worried. I don't want to be alone here. There is something on your leg!" she cries, pointing.
I look down and see a huge cockroach crawling up my leg. I look around and find dozens more scurrying about. I start screaming.
-"What is wrong?!" The taxi dispatcher is concerned.
-"I'm at the Tanah Merah ferry terminal, I'm sick, and there are cockroaches crawling up my legs. Please send taxis. It's like Lord of the Flies out here!"
-"And one for Minori!" Minori chimes in.
-"And one for Minori," I add, defeatedly.
Unfortunately the dispatcher tells me that there are no cabs. I relate to her the story about the heat, illness, cockroaches, and near bloodshed for the love of taxis, and she is sympathetic, but still unable to oblige. I tell Minori that she couldn't send us cabs, and she runs back to the queue; it seems as though she doesn't believe me, and so she decides to take my place in the line, basically cutting me in line even though I tried my best to negotiate a cab for her. It is all too much. She approaches a trio of Japanese guys and starts gomen nasai-ing them into giving up their space in line too. I quickly see that they are forming a Japanese cab alliance and that I am dead last in the queue. I decide to work the taxi phone lines again. It's now 11:15, an hour after we first docked. Half of the passengers still don't have cabs.
I'm finally able to book two cabs, just to be safe. One under "Yvonne," and one under "Kristina." I'm told that they will take about 10 minutes to arrive, but before I know it, I see one of the cab ID numbers assigned to me rushing past, full of those amoral, desperate, thieving survivors. Determined not to let the next one pass me by, I make a run for where the taxis first enter the terminal, but I see a pair of Japanese guys get into another cab with the ID number assigned to me. It starts to move away.
-"Hell no!" I scream and jump in front of the car.
I bang on the window and the two Japanese guys get out. My Japanese, apparently better when I've been drinking and/or infuriated, starts coming out in streams:
-"Doko ni ikimasu ka?! Watashi no takushi desu! Warui desu!" (Broken English translation: Where are you going? That's my cab! That's bad!")
Properly terrified, they get out of the cab and start gomen nasai-ing, but still not content. I tell them (in English) that they would never do that in Japan, so they shouldn't do it in a foreign country. They are properly ashamed/terrified. I have earned my taxi. I get the satisfaction of knowing I have gotten out of cockroach hell before Minori and the Japanese alliance, but feel a little twinge of guilt to see that the Korean family is still waiting.
-"You must be Kristina!" the cab driver beams, oblivious to the scene that just occurred.
-"Yeah, did those two guys look like Kristinas," I answer wearily.
-"Hahaha!" he laughs heartily. "You funny!"
I don't feel funny, but I don't disagree. I'm too busy revelling in air conditioned comfort. When we start to get closer to Yvonne's house, he starts asking me what I'm doing in Singapore and why I'm going to a public housing complex, and I realize that he's suspicious of my motives. He tells me that he's never seen someone go to such great lengths to get in his taxi!
"Well, I booked the cab and cockroaches were climbing up my leg and I'm paying a surcharge for a booked cab that you almost gave away to someone else. I'm sure your cab company is going to like that ... Mr. Shi Ho Lee, Operator Number 5439."
Now he is terrified that I might report him to the cab company. We pull up to the apartments and he tells me I don't have to pay... He likes me and admires my spunk! I barely care. ETA: 11:45 p.m. More than one-and-a-half hours of Cab Survivor Singapore madness.
The Swedish lady had one thing wrong. I did sleep. Until 11 a.m. the next morning.
So I had a fantastic start to the day: I snorkeled all along Bintan island and was treated to views of colorful corals, seaweeds, and marine life, went swimming in a huge pool overlooking the ocean, walked along powdery white sand beaches, drank fresh coconut and pineapple drinks, relaxed under palm trees and topped it all off with a 90-minute full body massage.
Not too shabby. Unfortunately, my whitey skin was not accustomed to the equatorial sun, and despite four applications of sunscreen, I was pretty lobsterish by the end of the day. During my third application of sunscreen, a Swedish woman came up to me and gave me a prophecy that Cassandra would be proud of:
-"It's too late for you," she said ominously.
-"What?" answered I, incredulously.
-"You already red. Too late. Don't bother. You will not sleep tonight."
-"Umm, okay, thanks, I guess." I mean what else can you say? Despite her predictions of sunscreen futility, also offered to help me apply more sunscreen to my back, but surprisingly enough, I declined.
But she was right. I was so lobsterish in fact that I think I suffered from a touch of sunstroke, because I felt dizzy, nauseous and feverish by the end of it. I parked myself on a couch in the hotel lobby to wait for my bus that would take us to the ferry terminal. Finally, I felt like I was going to be sick so I get up to go to the bathroom and I just collapse...
Crack. There went my weak ankle. Yikes, not again! A German guy walked over and just stared at me.
-"Why you fall down? There nothing there to trip on! What happen?"
Having gotten that encouragement, I got up and hobbled to the bathroom and promptly threw up. My bus is now scheduled to arrive in about five minutes and I still feel like baked stuffed crab. But suddenly the bus comes into view and everyone starts piling on the bus. Crap! I run over to the bus and get on but then notice that it's going further up the island coast and not into the city. I talk to some of the passengers and they all seem to be going to the Kelong Restaurant, a renowned seafood place about 10 minutes away...
Frantic, I asked the bus driver if the bus was going to the ferry. He nods yes, and I sit back, relieved, but still throughly cooked. We head back to the hotel and the ferry passengers start getting on the bus. Crisis averted. But time goes by and we keep waiting and waiting and waiting, and we all start getting antsy, worried that we're going to miss the ferry -- the last ferry leaving the island that night... Finally, I lean over to the driver.
-"What's going on? Are we waiting for someone?" I ask.
-"Yeah, someone isn't here."
And then it dawns on me...
-"Is this person named Kristina?" I ask, my eyes widening.
-"Yeah, you know her? Where is she?"
Now everyone is glowering at me, afraid that my early presence on the bus may have made them all late and sleeping in the ferry terminal overnight. We Andretti it down to the terminal over speed bumps which make my stomach churn and my ankle throb...
Finally, we run over to the ticket gate and are promptly told by the Indonesian ferry agent that the gate is closed. Many a passenger is freaking out; it's 15 minutes before the ferry is scheduled to leave and all the shops are closing up for the evening. However, I am able to ascertain that the gate is closed ... because it hasn't opened yet and the ferry is running late. Again, relief washes over me. Another close call.
So I'm sitting in the terminal, still feeling ill, watching these little Korean girls make their parents really, really mad by pretending to duck under the security gate and run to the still-not-ready ferry. When they are finally made to sit down and shut up, the older, eight-year-old girl sits down and pulls out a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince translated into Korean, reads for about 10 minutes, and then screams... [Consider this your spoiler warning if you haven't read HBP yet!]
-"Dumbledore! Noooooo! [String of Korean invective!]" She starts crying and her five-year-old sister starts laughing at her, which makes her cry more, and they finally come to blows. I run into the bathroom and throw up again.
Now we're on the ferry and they start playing the latest episode of "Survivor: Exile Island" with Mandarin subtitles and I'm trying my best not to hurl, and I manage to get by without doing so, which of course is a relief. We're almost there! And I'll get to put aloe vera on my burn and go to bed with a cool fan... Mmmm...
We disembark from the ferry, get our passports stamped and we're home free at the Tanah Merah ferry terminal! I'm starting to feel a little better now, but while Bintan was cooled by seabreeze, Singapore is completely still. It's about 10:30 p.m. on Friday night and it's still got to be about 90 degrees. I figure out that there is a queue for taxis and I line up with a bunch of Japanese tourists, who of course have a healthy respect for the rules. Not so much for some of the native Singaporeans, who grab the cabs before they can make it to the front of the line which is not-so-conveniently located at the end of the road. Cutting off families with small children (the Korean family, for example) and old ladies, mind you. While there were a bunch of taxis at first, they significantly dwindle in number until they stop almost completely, coming in 10-minute intervals. So to recap: I'm burned, sweaty, and nauseous and still no closer to getting home at 11 p.m.
I was lucky that Yvonne's dad had given me some numbers to book a taxi, so I stroll on over to the payphone and try one of the numbers only to be told that there are no more cabs around the area. Another obstacle is that they ask me to provide a number to reach me at, but since I'm calling from a payphone, it's nigh impossible, so I'm forced to enter fake numbers. Then I call another and finally get a human being on the phone, and I'm asked my name and where I am...
-"Sumima... Excuse me!" One of those pretty, fragile Japanese girls is flagging me down.
-"Yes?"
-"I am a Japanese. I am Minori. I am alone here and I am very worried. I don't want to be alone here. There is something on your leg!" she cries, pointing.
I look down and see a huge cockroach crawling up my leg. I look around and find dozens more scurrying about. I start screaming.
-"What is wrong?!" The taxi dispatcher is concerned.
-"I'm at the Tanah Merah ferry terminal, I'm sick, and there are cockroaches crawling up my legs. Please send taxis. It's like Lord of the Flies out here!"
-"And one for Minori!" Minori chimes in.
-"And one for Minori," I add, defeatedly.
Unfortunately the dispatcher tells me that there are no cabs. I relate to her the story about the heat, illness, cockroaches, and near bloodshed for the love of taxis, and she is sympathetic, but still unable to oblige. I tell Minori that she couldn't send us cabs, and she runs back to the queue; it seems as though she doesn't believe me, and so she decides to take my place in the line, basically cutting me in line even though I tried my best to negotiate a cab for her. It is all too much. She approaches a trio of Japanese guys and starts gomen nasai-ing them into giving up their space in line too. I quickly see that they are forming a Japanese cab alliance and that I am dead last in the queue. I decide to work the taxi phone lines again. It's now 11:15, an hour after we first docked. Half of the passengers still don't have cabs.
I'm finally able to book two cabs, just to be safe. One under "Yvonne," and one under "Kristina." I'm told that they will take about 10 minutes to arrive, but before I know it, I see one of the cab ID numbers assigned to me rushing past, full of those amoral, desperate, thieving survivors. Determined not to let the next one pass me by, I make a run for where the taxis first enter the terminal, but I see a pair of Japanese guys get into another cab with the ID number assigned to me. It starts to move away.
-"Hell no!" I scream and jump in front of the car.
I bang on the window and the two Japanese guys get out. My Japanese, apparently better when I've been drinking and/or infuriated, starts coming out in streams:
-"Doko ni ikimasu ka?! Watashi no takushi desu! Warui desu!" (Broken English translation: Where are you going? That's my cab! That's bad!")
Properly terrified, they get out of the cab and start gomen nasai-ing, but still not content. I tell them (in English) that they would never do that in Japan, so they shouldn't do it in a foreign country. They are properly ashamed/terrified. I have earned my taxi. I get the satisfaction of knowing I have gotten out of cockroach hell before Minori and the Japanese alliance, but feel a little twinge of guilt to see that the Korean family is still waiting.
-"You must be Kristina!" the cab driver beams, oblivious to the scene that just occurred.
-"Yeah, did those two guys look like Kristinas," I answer wearily.
-"Hahaha!" he laughs heartily. "You funny!"
I don't feel funny, but I don't disagree. I'm too busy revelling in air conditioned comfort. When we start to get closer to Yvonne's house, he starts asking me what I'm doing in Singapore and why I'm going to a public housing complex, and I realize that he's suspicious of my motives. He tells me that he's never seen someone go to such great lengths to get in his taxi!
"Well, I booked the cab and cockroaches were climbing up my leg and I'm paying a surcharge for a booked cab that you almost gave away to someone else. I'm sure your cab company is going to like that ... Mr. Shi Ho Lee, Operator Number 5439."
Now he is terrified that I might report him to the cab company. We pull up to the apartments and he tells me I don't have to pay... He likes me and admires my spunk! I barely care. ETA: 11:45 p.m. More than one-and-a-half hours of Cab Survivor Singapore madness.
The Swedish lady had one thing wrong. I did sleep. Until 11 a.m. the next morning.
Labels: Indonesia, Singapore Splendor
posted by Wicked Words at 9:00 PM
2 Comments:
This story made me laugh aloud while I was reading it! Such great stories, but so nightmarish when you were actually living it...it's almost like the creation of some sadistic scriptwriter, what with the sunburn and the cockroaches...
Kristina, that story is GREAT! I loved it and am so glad you are back with us in one piece with no more cockroaches. I wonder if they have bugspray with aloevera lotion for your legs!!! Maybe we should invent one for your next trip to Singapore!
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