It's Ruthless

The things we take for granted in our world.

Off the plane, through customs, into a taxi. Traffic is nuts. Scientists marvel at how army ants are practically blind yet can navigate running through obstacles using only their sense of smell. It's like that here. The things people get agro about back home is just the norm here. You merge across any lane into others, but just honk while you do it. Cut through 5 lines, drive/ride within a mm of pedestrians, kids run loose and are just as good at navigating traffic as anyone else. It's just a huge mess of bikes, tuk tuks, motorbikes, cars, trucks, oh and lots of bloody people, oh yea and rubbish too, oh and stray dogs. Wild town!

I don't know what to say about the people here. It's just a ruthless world the part I'm in. You blink you die, you fall into a cycle of poverty. People here work there bloody asses off. There's no welfare system forget about that. If you haven't found a way to make money you will be poor. Not even two minutes out of the international airport and your eyes are met with sign of poverty, stray dogs, poor walking/working the streets. What you see in 5 minutes here you never see in 5 years back home. Below pics are just outside the airport.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As soon as I left my hotel i had a tuk tuk driver follow me around for 15 minutes. I said no, I ignored him for 14.8 of those minutes, but he still followed, constantly asking where i wanted to go. Maybe I'm just a noob and i don't know how to tell him to get lost. He was actually pretty scary, his dark and weathered face had these blood red eyes that just stared at me emptily "where sir? market sir? eat sir?" . I lost him for a good hour before he found me again. This time I asked him to take me to the CBD so I could find some food. As soon as I jumped in another guy jumped in with him and I felt suddenly out numbered. I don't think they meant any harm but the second guy just started barraging me with suggestions on where to go, places he'll take me to instead of my actual requested destination. Definitely a con-job of the mild sort and unfortunately for them I knew it. I was annoyed and by chance saw a bustling area so I asked them to stop and paid them 50INR (~$1) for their time which was still probably too much but whatever. As I walked away they were still yelling out that the place I elected to stop had nothing interesting (wrong)!

As soon as I was off the tuktuk some young girl approached me beg. I didn't really pay attention but heard snippets of "5 rupees 10 rupees" which is piss all in our world. I caught a glimpse of her face at times and she was such a beautiful young girl who had she been born in any other country, would be someone's darling little daughter; the centre of attention spoiled then raised to be someone who would have a headstone when the time came. It made me sad to think that when we're born into this world it's just pot luck whether you're born into poverty or privilege. Nobody gets to choose. Some are born into royalty while others are born on a dusty dirt floor and the rest of their life is already determined. I didn't give her any money, even if it would've cost me peanuts. Apparently it's not a good idea to give to beggars as they most likely work in a syndicate.

Being the only tourist here as it seems to be off season and I'm not really in a touristy place, I was the only foreigner walking the streets. The only. I was the centre of attention for a variety of reasons and none of them that great. I looked strange, they wanted me to buy their stuff, they wanted to take me for a ride (in many ways) etc. In the 4 hours walking the streets I saw perhaps 10 other pairs of foreigners, which is really quite sparse if you think about it. I probably looked the most touristy but I tried not to by acting disinterested in everything. That worked really well until I took a photo of something I thought was interesting. I didn't take as many as i wanted to because honestly I was pretty nervous and scared, and didn't know what the ethical thing to do is when you are a comparatively rich westerner travelling through the world of the poor. It doesn't always feel right taking photos of people just because you think it would get a lot of upvotes on [insert photo sharing app/site]. I tried my best to keep it simple and ask beforehand if it was going to be a bit contentious. Eg, see below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do NOT rob a jewellery shop in this town. You will have double load of buckshot up your lungs and it won't be rock salt like it was in Kill Bill (Uma Thermometer is HAWT). These guys were quite happy to pose and their guns actually had the most beautiful engraving on the butts. I'm guessing they are ex military or something. Other (I'm guessing poorer) shops just had unarmed security personnel. Actually most shops with glass window fronts (as opposed to just open plan) had security guards although they looked extremely weathered down and I think if I wanted to I could fly-round-triple-jump-kick their head and they wouldn't see it coming. Anyway guards are highly necessary in a place where poverty is so rife.

 

As I walked the streets I just saw things that you never see in pictures. It was really confronting how poverty, in its true sense of the word, manifests itself in the infrastructure, the people, their clothes, their lifestyle. A guy with no forearms was begging. Another man was sifting through rubbish taking out plastic pieces probably for recycling. Some guy was in his Lexus 4WD on the phone honking for tuk tuk drivers who earn peanuts to get out of the way. There were piles of rubbish just outside of shop fronts. Every alleyway, window, building, street space, was occupied by someone trying to make a living and every inch of wall space had advertising or a shop sign of some sort.

 

 

 

 

There were also powerlines running everywhere. It's the electricity equivalent of dreadlocks.

 

 

 

 

I saw a cow. It was just chewing. As cows do. They regurgitate the stuff they ate before and chew it more. It's either disgusting or really efficient depending on which way you look at it. Anyway debating it is a moooot point. hehe. It's reigns go through its nose. That probably hurts but I didn't get a chance to take a statement.

 

 

Finally found somewhere to eat. Interestingly there's not that many places to really eat. There were some isolated street vendors but they looked like their cooking oil was recycled diesel. I found some place that was selling 'fast food'. I'd rate it 6/11 for taste (average), 13/17 for freshness (high), and 0/9 for ambience (shit).

 

Fresh baked greasy bread-pancakey-thingy with lentil-curry-something-powdery-texture and a generous side of 1/18th cucumber salad (did not eat it).

 

 

An Indian dish called giant-Indian-style-crepe-but-crispier-than-French-crepes-with-weird-white-yoghurt-sauce-and-whatever-that-orange-bowl-is.

 

 

And that's the end. Need to sleep, have a 15 hour busride coming up and there is a 96.88% chance I will vomit.

 

Singapore

Arrived in Singapore yesterday. Highlights of the flight:

• thinking about writing a list on what the highlights of the flight are
• drafting a list similar to this one
• leaving drafted bullet-points blank in case something eventful happened

I got off the plane and was met by an armed man standing at the gate. Either he was a policeman or someone dressed as a policeman. I'm not sure if his job was to create an image of security or to provide actual security because he was the one and only armed authority I saw. Going through customs/security was quite boring standing in 21.5m queues so I played a game in my head where the people in the queues beside me were in a race to reach the front. I won the race but only to be met by the most unceremonious finish - customs officer Ms Something bored out of her brains stamping passports. To her credit she was incredibly efficient at using that stamp and also at matching my face to my passport photo. Once through, I picked up my bags and walked through wide-open gates out onto the street. To my surprised there were no strip-searches at knife-point or interrogation under incandescent globes; I guess incandescent globes are expensive to run compared to current tech.

After exiting the airport and boarding the MRT (rail) service, it was pretty clear right from the start that the system was designed with users in mind, unlike CityRail where they've designed everything to piss people off (success). Firstly the trains themselves are an open carriage design where the whole train is just one long continuous tunnel, kind of like the insides of a snake? There are no upper or lower levels, no doors separating carriages, and minimal seating reserved for what appears to be hunch-backs, people carrying watermelons under their shirt, or those with walking sticks (e.g., Master Splinter). Carriage interiors are amply fitted with rails, electronic signage showing stop information, and a little light indicating which side the doors will open on. Unlike those shit CityRail trains, you don't have to stare blankly at a vandalised rail sticker on the wall or wait for that scrolling sign to finish scrolling, or embarrassingly stand facing the wrong door (which sometimes leads others to follow suit).

Outside the trains there are simple but effective arrows on the ground at the door entrance indicating that those entering the train should stop and wait for those leaving. The train itself is actually separated from the platform by a glass barrier which has automatic doors which align with the carriage position. I imagine this is the same in other parts of Asia (or places far away from Sydney). Tickets are magnetic and the cost of travel is ridiculously cheap, I think in the region of S80c for a journey about 5 stops. Trains arrived every 5 minutes and a connecting service was often just across the other side of the platform.

 

 

 

 

 

Moving along, I caught the train to Little India today. They say it's pretty authentically Indian but not in the same way they say Chinatown is like a little Chinese town. Little India showed signs that it had developed into a bustling ecomony within itself, built up over what seemed like many decades of Indian settlement and migration. There were Indian banks, jewellers, many Indian humans, and other like Indian stuff.

A street tailor who hems your pants for $1. A DOLLAR I SAID!!

 

 

 

 

 

Lunch was a sugar-cane juice for $1.70 ($2.00 without ice), roast duck with rice and chicken rice (i.e., chicken with rice, not rice that is chicken) for $3.50. It was good for the price and a great way to fill my belly after weaving my way through Little India. Dessert was a little peanut cakey-puffy-thing for 70c.

Afterwards we (I'm staying with a dear friend Olivia who is so hospitable enough to host me at her most opulent $700/night apartment. I can not even fathom that some businesses would pay their employees accommodation at that rate!) went to Clarke Quays which is kinda the touristy harbour area where beer is expensive and there isn't really much to do. After drinking more beer than could reasonably fit into my stomach (the happy hour value was too good to refuse/the salesperson was a pushy bitch) I waddled home for a nap.

For dinner we decided to find a really 'hip and cool' place but after wading through a sea of reviews and testimonials we just decided to head out the door and cast our luck into the wind. That worked well because we ended up in Newton which boasts a little cluster of about 100 tiny hawker stores running kitchens no bigger than 2.5m x 2.5m. The cooks man the stoves and prep the food while a team of hawkers try to usher you to buy from them. I figured they are actually paid a commission off the food sales they make for the respective stores they can take orders for. In any case it's a bloody hard job I would never want to do and the competition from others is fierce but friendly. Below is something I don't know the name of but I will now call The Rolly Polly Thing With Beansprouts. It tastes 'good'. That's all I can say. My palette is pretty shit and my vocabulary is even worse so I can't conjure up any tasting notes like 'has hints of organic sun-ripened juniper berries with a smooth lingering finish of fresh-cut grass and smoked rose-wood'.

 

 

Pork and chicken skewers. Ten for $5. Value questionable. See below

The Meat to Skewer Ratio (a.k.a. M:S) was pretty poor. Careful observation will note approximately 4/13ths of the skewer is covered by meat. This is quite unacceptable and any self-respecting BBQ Technician would never let such a tragedy touch his grill. According to the BBQ Operater's Almanac v13 you should be aiming for coverage equivalent to 83% plus. I hope one day there is legislation against this sort of crime but for now I'll just have to eat it.

 

Afterwards we headed for Marina Bay, which is just full of really tall buildings which I imagine would be the place where lots of important and rich people do important work and have meetings and stuff. There's not much more to say on the place so just look at the pictures.

 

Apparently those tall buildings are really cool and are linked at the top by some open deck pool forest something amazing.

 

 

 

And that's like the end.