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This week’s LISTENup travel podcast revisits one of Asia’s main hubs, at one of the most turbulent times on The Trail. A city of contrasts, on a continent full of fantasia.

If you’d like to revisit the original post, hurl your mouse over to the original The Sling of Sing’.

[Please excuse the slight hiccup in audio, I'm still coming to terms with all this gadgetry involved with podcasts!]

004 LISTENup: The Sling of Sing’ is a post from Trail of Ants.

Consider visiting my travel blog to explore a wide variety of travel related articles, and score yourself a 7% discount on your next travel insurance policy with my World Nomads promotional code.

I stare at the newspaper. It wasn’t me. I gawp at the television. It wasn’t me. I trawl through the internet. It wasn’t me! I listen to the radio, podcasts, and conversations on the bus. It WASN’T me! At least — I hope it wasn’t me?

I didn’t know much about Asia before I scribbled over her ancient lanes. I thought it was a factory to stock my English necessities. Indeed, my local fish and chip shop, newsagent, petrol station, pizza shop and Chinese takeaway were all owned and operated by cheery Asians.

It’s only now, as I’m sat in as-safe-as-safe-can-be New Zealand, that it’s sunk in. I’ve left a trail of destruction in Asia. I tell myself every day it wasn’t me, but there’s a residual inkling; that it was.

I believe in the butterfly effect — that a butterfly can fart in Blackpool and lift the skirt of a Cornish virgin. So could it actually be possible, that I inadvertently contributed to some of the most iconic headlines of the past two years?

Perhaps the day I fell asleep in Moscow’s Gorky Park, I missed the chance to quell the August 2008 invasion of Georgia? I’ll never know, I’d quickly fallen asleep on a round-city recce because Moscow had swiftly bored me. However it’s not just the invasion of gritty Georgia that has me looking over my shoulder.

In July 2007 I arrived in Mongolia. The Mongols were in full on party mode; it was the annual Nadaam Festival and everywhere I looked small horses jerked fancy young jockeys around the beaten green Gobi. Gers sprang up; a hundred pickpockets tried their luck; I was cruelly threatened in a local nightclub; and I heard of one backpacker being kidnapped, and another who was raped.

Though shocking, none of this deterred me — I was in Mongolia. I was living a dream I’d dreamt for years. A year later — July 2008 — and Ulaanbaator became the stage to escalating violence as protestors rallied against suspected election fraud, and a year later a flood temporarily swallowed the capital. This was amazing; not least because Mongolia is one of the emptiest expanses of land I’ve ever seen. The devil had hit the bull’s-eye.

China’s also suffered. I spent three fascinating months there in late 2007 and ever since it’s been hailing horror. First of all, hundreds of thousands of my beloved Chinamen were affected by the worst snowstorms in decades. Then the warm up to the forthcoming Olympics became the catalyst to a massive anti-China uprising, resulting in my cherished Tibetan skies being splattered with the worst violence in Lhasa for twenty years. As if China hadn’t taken enough of a pounding in my absence, the Sichuan earthquake then culled tens of thousands and not to be outdone, the north-eastern Xinjiang region imploded in another round of ethnic violence. I won’t even mention their milk.

Brimming with innocence, I entered the Kingdom of Nepal. Word had already reached me of the Maoists — a terrorist group — demanding money off stoic foreign hikers in the mystical foothills of the Himalayas. Undeterred, I dodged my way around Kathmandu, spluttered down the river, clambered through bushes looking for tigers and rhino and snuck in and out of Buddha’s old place.

Other than a few spontaneous (yet peaceful) protests, I was confident things were running smoothly. Then I left — and a trio of bombs rippled the terai. Before I knew it the headlines told me the terrorists were in government and soon after they levered the monarchy permanently off their thrown. What had I done? The Kingdom had fallen.

India was never short of controversy during the four months I spent there — that’s one of the reasons I love it so. But nothing of the scale that happened after I left. First off, forty-nine people were slain by a series of bombs in Ahmedabad, and a few months later the sickening news came through that Mumbai had suffered a similar fate, with four times as many losing their lives to hereditary violence.

If all of this wasn’t bad enough, the next country I forayed into was Sri Lanka. I’m almost thankful that when I first stepped foot on the Venerable Island, it was already in the throes of civil war. It meant I couldn’t be the catalyst. The Sinhalese government pulled out of a six-year peace deal the week I arrived. I stayed for two months, fearlessly venturing to the war-torn east coast before looping around and back to India. Then the government accelerated its stance, fuelling the climax to a bloody feud. Maybe my many inquisitive questions were misplaced?

The next country I dared to step foot in, was tiny Singapore. Rumours were strife that a woman in her twenties was brutally cursed for crossing the road without being escorted by a little green man. And then, if that wasn’t shocking enough, I was told off for taking too long to order noodles. I’ve got my eye on Singapore, if only to see if anything interesting ever happens.

From Singa’ to the Indonesian archipelago. A two-month jolly around Sumatra, Java and bountiful Bali proved to be one of the most exhilarating periods of my life. I left full of admiration for a country of simple brilliance. Four months later the government executed the infamous Bali Bombers, which seemingly acted as little deterrent — eight months later, central Jakarta reverberated to the blasts of two of its iconic hotels.

A year in Australia ensued, for the most part I was safe in the haven of Melbourne sipping stubbies and perusing antipodean quirks. Then one Saturday I dropped Reb and her dad at Avalon airport, and the radio began to crackle through the news that became known as Black Saturday; bushfires left 173 dead and levelled lives in the worst natural disaster in Australia’s history.

All of the above lays in my wake. Battered and torn, broken and bruised. Lives inextricably twisted, love curtailed, and communities eternally altered.

Perhaps it’s true, that you only really know a country and its people once you’ve been there — once you’ve spent time laughing with its children. But perhaps it’s also true, that you only get to know a place, once you’ve left?

Trails of the Unexpected is a post from Trail of Ants.

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Imagine you watched a big American city elope for a walk. It uprooted its underpins, stretched out its girders, slipped its streets into its subways and polished its double-glazed glasses. It packed its parks into its malls and just wandered off into its own horizon. “Bye, Big City. See you again sometime.”

Then one day you took the rickshaw run to an Indian airport, crammed your legs into a right angle and prayed the pilot knew an easier way out. Before long, you land on your old familiar friend. Big City. He’s migrated to Asia to find himself. He now calls himself Singapore and hangs out with new cool friends like Kuala, Kong and Shanghai.

I’m on the fence with Singapore. I shouldn’t say that. The police might pull me down and beat me in a media cover-up. I hasten to add I saw, nor heard anything more grizzly than the nationwide ban on chewing gum. I hasten to add that’s a good decision in my eyes.

As the Reprint is of some escalators I’ll leave you with a harrowing memory. That of a little boy’s shriek being drowned out by his mothers. His foot had done what I thought until then was an urban myth, it had been drawn into the slim gap between the step and the bannister and would have been mangled on the comb if it hadn’t been for the quick actions of a random step-brother. Get it. Step -brother. I hasten to add despite the poor ending that was a true story.

Has this weeks Reprint image hit a cord? Let me know about it via the comments panel, or for more imagery from along The Trail take yourself over to the stills gallery.

The Reprint: ‘Moving Times’ is a post from Trail of Ants.

Consider visiting my travel blog to explore a wide variety of travel related articles, and score yourself a 7% discount on your next travel insurance policy with my World Nomads promotional code.

I’d seen him from a short distance, twelve months previously, he travelled alone aboard a plane to Moscow. He wore a dark tracksuit top zipped over a light t-shirt, and loose pale green shorts covered the knees he cradled by his chest. His hair sprayed out in loose brown curls beneath a khaki cap, highlighted by scribbles of grey. His pale thin lips lined a shallow smile, and his early morning eyes seemed glazed with relief. As his homeland slipped beneath a thin veil of cloud, he lifted his cap and ran his fingers through his hair, his lips parted just once to release his farewell thoughts: Let the journey begin, my friend. Today, he lay upright on the rippled white sheets of a double bed, in a simple, homely room on the island of Bali.

His hair was shorter, still a familiar fiesta of curls and slashed with new grey. His face was slimmer, his pale skin had darkened and his spirit was now windowed by black-framed glasses. His khaki cap lay upturned nearby, a tide of sweat had set a shade in the rim and it was filled with worn foreign coins. His loyal backpack leaned tiredly, resting its bruises and scars against a bamboo table. He lay shirtless, wearing chequered grey shorts between a half empty packet of Marlborough and a swollen blue notebook. Ambient music moulded around his quiet thoughts, and I watched in silence as his eyes circled the motionless ceiling fan. He lay in the path of a mirror, reflecting the figure of a proud and mortal curio. Though he sometimes heard me, I sensed he never saw me.

He recalled how he’d left Moscow, slipping east through Siberia to the rhythmic beat of a Mongolia bound train. It was five days before he set foot in Ulaanbaatar. While he absorbed the strength of the mighty Mongol race, he followed the whispers through the kitsch of their annual games. He described the grace of wrestlers, the poetry of archers and the fear that pecked at the calmness of preteen jockeys. Asia mesmerised him instantaneously. He looked musingly at the ceiling fan, he found its will to spin tremendous. After a short time living with local nomads in their ger and exploding dust clouds with the hooves of horses, he journeyed onward to Beijing. The Mongolians, he declared have a degree in simplicity, their eyes hang like painted canvases in a dusty exhibit of Untold Beauty. His arrival in Beijing was infamous, he writhed in agony for three days. At moments he became so dehydrated he had to use his fingers to pry his swollen tongue from the inner of his cheek. China was kind after this initiation, and even in the cruellest moments he learned patience, compassion and conviction.

He recalled a southwest mountain village where he’d sat and eaten beside a loyal friend, whose name, when he spoke it, started the percussion in his eyes. Following a humble feast they shared cigarettes and baiju with a decade or more excitable locals, who later produced a segment of bee larvae. After a pregnant pause, he swallowed the first of the pale grubs, beginning a long evening of song and dance, laughter and merriment. It says a lot about the Chinese, they’re xenophobes who roll out their welcome mats with a courtesy offered to queens. He shuffled on the bed, and then I listened as he rolled his memory onto the Tibetan plateau. He visited Lhasa, spending two weeks watching the evolution of monks, and the perseverance of pilgrims. He thought highly of the Tibetans. Lhasa radiates beneath a sky so alive, so pure, so blue. It mainlines your veins, and suddenly you’re as wise as the ocean, as blameless as boys, and as boundless as her eyes. He left the Forbidden City in a failing van. He drifted in and around whitewashed monasteries and indigo lakes, vast pale dunes and rich red forts, sought all the while by scores of grubby faced youths. As the traveller’s tale ascended to the base camp of Mount Everest, I picked up the thrill in his tone. He told of being caught out in tumbling temperatures beneath a canopy of curious stars. After a slow 10km hike he recoiled and spent several hours shivering uncontrollably beneath a stack of blankets, his eyes still retained that frozen glaze.

The resilient city of Kathmandu became the stage to a fond farewell, to the girl whose name he chased around the orchards of his mind. He cast his eyes on his cigarettes before confessing it had taken many moons before he realised the feeling seeping from the Kathmandu shadows, was loneliness. The Kingdom of Nepal played stage to my coronation. The day I lost my queen preceded the month I found my Kingdom. It was there, in Nepal, that he first encountered Hinduism. He found sense in aspects of its tradition, Buddha had nudged him on an educational level, but Hinduism and all the myth and colour of its ways and words earned a place in his heart in ways he’d never permitted. He doesn’t believe in mortal gods, or the dictatorship he sees in other religions. The real Hindu takes strength from everything, and gives weakness to nothing. He looped around Nepal, taking to the rivers, roads and jungles before riding on the roofs of buses through the southern terai, stopping by the birthplace of the Indian Prince, Buddha before lowering himself over the border and into the heart of Hindustan, to India.

He smiled, as if trying to expel the gross history of this journey. His first night in India, he told me how drunk he’d gotten, attempting to forget the inward journey that choked him with anger, and drenched him in desperation and blood. I learned later that that aching anger would bind itself with love. He travelled the cities of the north with his parents. Together they took in the holy Hindu city of Varanasi; the glorious Mogul white cliffs of the Taj; the Golden Temple, home of the Sikhs; and the Buddha’s classroom of Sarnath. Between these, they fought with forts and took trains to temples before the three speared their way over rails to the southern, largely Christian city of Pondicherry. North India is crass and callous. You’re soul is robbed, your spirit burned and your destiny is devilishly realigned. Christmas was spent sowing seeds of kisses on that girl, she’d drifted on his whispers to bloom beneath the shadows of festivity and friends. He stopped his story for a moment to sip a sassy smile, though its cause would remain a private pleasure.

He then told me of the month of Janus, who opened a door to new beginnings on the isle of Sri Lanka. The surf and sands of southern Ceylon bore him the fruit of countless new friends, each was true, each loyal and distinct. One day, he fell upon the tragedy of two Sri Lankan brothers, whose family business, a turtle farm was destroyed “the day the sea is coming”, along with almost their entire family. I didn’t have to hear Nimal and Ruwan’s tragedy, I could see it in their eyes and feel it in my heart, and without words I knew she felt the same, we had to help. I listened to his thoughts on Sri Lanka, the gaps he left I figured were small parts of his self that he left in the sands to recover another day. The tea plantations, national parks and holy pilgrimages he spoke so sweetly of, sat beside his firsthand accounts of an island in turmoil, at war.

His return to India was more instinct than desire. He tore himself away from an island he loved and threw himself at the mercy of her southern states. He found shanti the day he rented an Enfield Bullet motorcycle, and found comfort from the loving arms wrapped around his waist. He described the thirty day journey in magnificent stages, from the temple strewn lands of Tamils, up and over the Western Ghats before descending their coats of grit and grim into the green glory of Kerala. All along their way they sipped hot sweet chai and snacked on wadis with a hundred, no a thousand locals. They pinched rice and sweet, spicy curries with their fingers from banana leaves and when their clocks chimed for their ‘hour of need’ it took just a shy passerby, or a hidden onlooker to attract a gaggle of intrigue and set them on their way once more. To thread a passage through India in this way, sweetened bitterness with bliss and spliced cruel with kind. Our path was scribed with poetries of passion, and slow ballads of awe and brilliance. The conclusion however, also brought a sequel to the Toodle-oo of Kathmandu, to his pillion, his equal and his muse. This time born of logic, laced with tears but remembered in gratitude.

He paused, then silently walked barefoot to his porch, as he sat down he drew his knees to his bare chest and lit a cigarette. The plumes of smoke moved thinly through the still, warm air of our Bali night. He stared up into the dim porch light, watching in wonder his self-made spectacle of careless wisps. He extinguished the cigarette slowly, drew a deep breath and continued his memoires, carrying his thoughts over the moss-covered rocks that surrounded a small hidden lawn. He recalled the three weeks of long days that followed her departure when he’d ventured into the state of Andhra Pradesh, going nowhere fast while thinking things over slowly. I knew it was time to leave India, when I was denied entry to a night train. My bribes fell on hollow ears, my begging fell on careless eyes and my will was spirited away on a feather, to a passive plateau. I’d lost the will to fight; I knew right there, right then that my time – for now – was up.

He took to Singapore, a city he knew was a contrast to India, the homeland of humble heroes and fantastic villains. He drank and shopped and laughed and sighed, he ate and walked and talked. Singapore – for the visitor at least – is as neutral as Asia gets with the West. She’s loyal, where others are scheming, and she’s tender where others are tough. He stopped to watch an ant, struggle under a prized crumb of toast, and then from nowhere there were two, then three, and then four to help carry their loot awkwardly away. Touché. He continued, explaining how he flew to Sumatra, an island of Indonesia and one he discovered to be inlaid with treasures. He mounted volcanoes, dipped his weary body in lakes and his finale was attended by the fire-red, pendulous orang-utans. He took an onward flight to Jakarta, capital of the neighbouring island, Java, and en route he lost his prized possessions; his passport, and wallet of critical cards. Corruption in Indonesia was not beautiful, nor welcome. It’s a crime of the coward. If this nation weren’t so soft and sweet in other ways, I’d instil you with its sour side and stench. He spoke of other islands ringed with golden beaches, and cultures descended through lineages of lore.

It was here on Bali that I heard these nibs of his enchanting year in Asia. I listened for over an hour, in awe. I thought I knew the definition of my emotions, I thought I’d felt them all. Though the depths of those in Asia almost reduced my prior sentiments, to mere essence. Even in the shaves of silence I heard the enigmatic echo of his epic. I see his friendships in the constellations of his ebony eyes; I feel his compassion in the warmth of his palms; I feel his excitement in the nape of his neck; I see his astonishment in the furrows of his brow; I sense his caution in the flare of his nostrils; and I’ve heard his story, a thousand glorious times. A thousand glorious times.

A Thousand Glorious Times is a post from Trail of Ants.

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A Dutchman turned up from Delhi. The American? He flew, to Kathmandu. The Korean chap went home. A Danish fellow flew to Kuala Lumpar. A German girl chose train, then chose Bangkok. A trinity of Taiwanese picked Melbourne. An Irishman and his Deutschland girlfriend popped up to Penang. The Englishwoman? Chose Malacca. An Indian guy stayed, and got himself a job. The Canadian chose Borneo. The Swedish fellow took a flight to Denver. An American, he came to study. A pair of English cared for Cairns. A Norwegian pounced over to Phnom Peng. The Singaporean girl stayed home. A man from Finland fled for Sydney. A Frenchman landed from Chennai. A twain of Danes, they’re undecided. A Swedish girl is waiting for a friend. A Polish couple just did Perth. The quartet of Japanese, I couldn’t quite comprehend. The English lad? He said he’s headed for Hanoi. Singapore is a place that no tourist stops for long, but when you do, you start to see the real Singapore Sling. Not the infamous cherry brandy cocktail, but the one hurling tourists all over the world.

I’ve been in the same bed, in the same street, in the same city for over two weeks now. I came for rejuvenation. To shed my ten month chrysalis and sprout new wings. I’ve shaved with alarming regularity – twice. I’ve done laundry in a machine – once. Not for the first time, I got a cold and not for the last time, I got incredibly drunk. Singapore is a city that inspires me for the very fact that I feel I’ve seen it all before – in India and China, and also in London and New York. There are few things unique to The Lion City of south Asia other than it’s paradoxical location. It’s a city where small children suck from fat straws and gorgeous women glide by branded street cafes. A city where escalators take the strain and the doors of the MRT (underground) double up as mirrors for the veins of vain. It’s far from utopia but being a successful city and a country all in one, it’s a prosperous blueprint. It reeks of ‘prevention rather than cure’ and for me – and I suspect the same for many backpackers – it’s a gulp of fresh air before submerging back into the other world, it’s alter ego, the sweet stench and chaotic calm of less-fortunate Asia.

I’ve stacked up on shiny new things, slung out shabby old stuff and with a bit of luck I’ve persuaded the nation of incredible islands, Indonesia, to grant me a 60 day visa. ‘What?! Indonesia? That’s south! What about Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and all that gang, Ant?’ It’s OK my child, fear not. My decision was partly whim, partly logic. The monsoon, that loathed season of rain is due to tip it’s load on Thailand and this would leave me cornered in the playgrounds of southeast Asia where my heart would beat from the historical truths of persecuted populations while my head would pound from Beer Lao and droves of western tourists. I will clarify, I am western and I am a tourist but right now I prefer the adventure offered by the 17,500 islands, unjustly devoid of tourists due to the misdemeanors of Man and Mother Nature but teaming with orang-utans, volcanoes, Komodo dragons, jungles, surfing, diving, birds of paradise, things that go bump in the night and buses that go thump in the day. I do plan on visiting mainland southeast Asia at some time, and given that I was forced by the no-onward-flight-no-visa rule of Indonesia, I’ll be briefly returning to Singapore in July and then, who knows. Unless. Ahem. I achieve my plan to snare a crewing position aboard a Darwin-destined yacht.

On a somber note, my words are with you but my thoughts are with the victims – suffering now and those who will suffer consequentially in the future – of the Burmese cyclone and the Chinese earthquake. I know from conversations with victims of the 2004 tsunami that the Burmese, especially, will find solace in their deep faith, that even after the aid (domestic or foreign) dries up and their neighbour’s home is rebuilt, that they will continue to ask questions. The Chinese, with the wily eyes of the world already on them, have another Olympian task ahead. China is a nation scarred by disasters of nature and marred by disasters of mankind, but beneath the rubble there is a torch of light that will prove more powerful than the one just descended from Everest; The torch of Mankind, an affection that goes beyond politics and borders, and will lead their compatriots to their feet. In contrast the Burmese, led by a stubborn dictatorship will barely know the eyes of the world are on them. The average Burmese boy finds the edge of the world just passed the next village. It’s a country of cloistered choirboys who mostly never dream of faraway cathedrals, even though we hear their stoic song. In both tragedies, beliefs will lead, conspiracies will follow, some will forgivably never forget while inherently, some will never remember.

The Sling of Sing’ is a post from Trail of Ants.

Consider visiting my travel blog to explore a wide variety of travel related articles, and score yourself a 7% discount on your next travel insurance policy with my World Nomads promotional code.

I remember a bright blue flying saucer, tilting this way and toppling that way between a cluster of shiny, soaring sky scrapers. I remember a cartoon appearing in a fountain, and it telling me ‘Sunshine was her name‘ and ‘friendship is my game‘. I remember seeing temples tucked in unlikely corners, spit-and-sawdust bars and drinking brightly coloured cocktails while fallen stars sank into the still waters of the quay. I remember my head sinking with disappointment after the first mouthful of my first meal and I remember it being so humid I’d wished I’d brought my armbands. I remember knowing I’d be back, and four years later, I am.

Once again, I’d crumbled to the lure of an airplane. It’s occurred to me sometime in the last 10 months that while lugging yourself over land-borders, you lose something that I find bewitching in travel; culture shock. As you drift into the border regions of a country it begins to dovetail it’s neighbor and before you’ve realised it the cultures, faces, languages and customs have become blurred. So much so, that when you cross the line, the only thing that really changes is the colour of your money. For ten months now, I’ve travelled in some of the toughest and poorest, most turbulent and proud countries on the planet, and they’re side-by-side in what could be construed as the most rugged neighbourhood in the northern hemisphere, if not the world. In an extraordinary contrast, Singapore exudes elegance, modernity, comfort and possibilities. I’ve come for all these things, but also for an ingredient it’s predecessors couldn’t offer; sin-free fun. The majority of The Trail so far, has been an education ergo not rib-splitting fun. It’s a practical demonstration on poverty, a real life repertoire, of real life. Don’t confuse the fun you find in misclacking chopsticks or watching tourmates get chased by wild yak with the fun of slipping on a clean t-shirt and – hang on! The more I think about it, The Trail has been ‘fun’, more fun in more ways than I’d realised. I’ll leave that bouquet of sentences as a gift, it’s an unadulterated moment of truth.

What Singapore is, is safe. It has that super-clean, super-organised, super-easy way that anyone arriving from a developing country will find super-unnerving. Why is he sending me down there? He wants to rob me! He’s saying something, he must be shifty. What? Oh, ticket, there’s a ticket machine for the MRT (metro/tube). If I shop in the 7Eleven they say ‘thanks for shopping in 7Eleven‘, if they’d said that in an Indian shop I’d have questioned the whole day if it’s because they’d short changed me. If I lit a smoke up on the train I’d be scratching my signature on a S$1000 (£400) fine. In India, it was IRS200 (£2.50) and both seem relevant at street level. This über-strict solution to everything does have it’s downside. As I write I’m taking notes aboard the aforementioned MRT, every deadpan face of the brimming car is cast in glumness. No one talks and I can hear myself think, ‘every deadpan face in here, is cast in glumness‘, so I write it down and become the most animated person in the carriage. Through the pristine windows I see the pale prongs of high-rises pinning up an overcast sky. When I boarded, a kindly voice announced ‘doors closing‘, it wasn’t till I sat down on the unblemished seat that I realised, just 24 hours previous I was in a country where doors were a hindrance for the death-defying hangers-on of the trains, buses and rickshaws of India.

The other notable difference, as a traveller, is that I’m back in dorm-room accommodation. This has nothing to do with the all new, me-minus-Reb chapter, it’s down to cost. Just a bed is costing me £10 a night while in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Tibet and out-of-the-city South China it was at the very least your own room. It was a rarity not to be en suite in India, and at least 50% of the time, you had a TV for just a third of the price! The plus side of dorms is obvious to a solo traveller, some would call it a necessity. I’m yet undecided whether battling with the vibes of Velcro and the crescendo of zips at every hour is an inconvenience or that I’ve been spoiled to the point of snobbery. The dorm room has supplied a miscellany of new friends. I filled the first day here with chirpy Korean, Alvin, so I guess the dorm and it’s proverbial gift horse can wait for it’s oral inspection.

Alvin dragged me to the beaches and I dragged Alvin to VivoCity, a meganormous shopping center filled with cool air, a vibrantly coloured, curvaceous design and shops filled with shops on top of shops by shops. If you like shopping – or like me, a Royal Enfield and trickling heat reduced your best-in-bag to a fading pile of misshapen rags – then VivoCity is Singaporean for heaven. The beach, though not the Hawaii that Alvin claimed it to be (despite having never being there) was a welcome sight. It said ‘I’m Singapore, I know, what you want‘, even though I wanted a beer, and the best the beach-side bar could offer was two bottles for S$15 (£6). So Singapore, for me at least, is a holiday from travelling. Within 72hrs I’d replaced a pair of decaying shorts, and set free a t-shirt or three to make room for new. My glasses, scratched and chipped, have been made redundant by an all new pair and most excitingly, my future time in the internet cafes is vastly reduced, with the addition of an all-singing MacBook to the bag of buckles. Picture me standing with it at a crossroads, a not-so-super-organised crossroads.

Some frames from Singapore

Super Singapore is a post from Trail of Ants.

Consider visiting my travel blog to explore a wide variety of travel related articles, and score yourself a 7% discount on your next travel insurance policy with my World Nomads promotional code.