The Process: Planning

Here's a sample of how my haphazard RTW trip comes together. These are some of my notes for Singapore and Borneo, culled from online and guidebook sources at the last minute.

Singapore to Kuching

Really, the world will be a better place if we all drop the gum-jokes when we mention Singapore. And any sort of dog-eating joke in reference to Asia? Give it a rest.

Taking great care not to make any remarks implying that I had some hot info about Singapore due to its partial-gum-ban (hey, we can give caning jokes a rest too), I packed up and headed back to the airport for my AirAsia flight to Borneo.

I was flying to Kuching, a city in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. Borneo is the island, and there are parts of three countries on the island—Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei. The Malaysia bit consists of two states, Sarawak and Sabah. I was flying into Kuching and out of Kota Kinabalu in Sabah ten days later.

A Day in Singapore

What the world needs, I thought, is a contest for the grumpiest traveler. With cash rewards.

I had one full day—today—in Singapore. I wanted an early start. But my hostel's free breakfast didn't start until nine, so I stood outside the bar at 8:20, wondering if free toast was worth hanging around for.

Not really. I headed over to the nearest coffee shop, which turned out to be Starbucks. That's all right. I could use my Boingo Asia membership there, the one I'd signed up for back in Tibet when my hotel that "didn't have wifi" actually did, so long as you paid for it.

What I was searching for online was a good travel store in Singapore. With a few clicks, I found half-a-mall-full.

Bangkok to Singapore

I was packing up to head out of Bangkok to Singapore, when I discovered slime in the Zip-Loc bag that held all my just-in-case pharmaceuticals. And how long had those seven acetaminophen pills been melted together?

Travel=glamour, I thought as I scrubbed out all my Zip-Locs in the bathroom sink.

I'd taped together my compression packing bag which had somehow split open, and I'd put a rubber band around my travel soap dish, which had been broken by the cleaner on Sunday. Had it happened on, oh, say, Saturday, I could have gotten a new one. But I'd only learned this in the shower now. I could probably find a good travel store in Singapore. My friend Stephanie would know one, or Larry Hama's friend Gabrielle. I had actual people to see in Singapore.

My pack gets heavier with every bit I throw away, I thought as I hoisted my bag onto my back to head down to the airport shuttle.

Yes, I was taking the plane instead of the train. AirAsia is one of those budget airlines where you end up saving money by flying. You have to be on top of it, remembering to disable the automatic flight insurance and the thing that wants you to pay ten bucks for a seat with extra leg room, but even if I had left those on, I'd be paying way less than if I took the sleeper train for two overnights and paid for a night in Penang (the train has a layover there).