Week 92 · Singapore & Jakarta · October 2015
Singapore
Had a quick turnaround from the fun weekend in Busan back to work travel — subway to Busan train station, train to Seoul, subway to apartment, bus to airport, redeye to Singapore, a couple of quick meetings, then evening flight to Jakarta. Everything worked pretty smoothly and frankly easier than trying to fly domestically with connections in the US during winter — even got 15,000 steps in killing time at the airport.
Little time in Singapore and with the smog from the forest fires and my Singapore friends travelling out of town, I wasn't too sad. Public transportation is just easier in the modern Asian countries than the USA. Hopefully next trip to Indonesia for me is to a smaller island, like Bali.
The smog referred to here was the 2015 Southeast Asian haze crisis — one of the worst on record. Caused by illegal slash-and-burn fires on agricultural land in Sumatra and Kalimantan, Indonesia, the smoke blanketed Singapore, Malaysia, and parts of Thailand for months. Singapore's Pollutant Standards Index reached hazardous levels multiple times, schools were closed, and health authorities advised residents to stay indoors. The crisis caused an estimated $16 billion in economic damage and is attributed to approximately 100,000 premature deaths. It reignited longstanding tensions between Indonesia and its neighbours over transboundary pollution.
Flying from Singapore to Jakarta is about 1.5 hours, but never really got out of the smoke. Most time in Jakarta in meetings or traffic — some areas very modern while others are similar to slums of Mumbai. Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world but a much more open society than the Middle East.
Did get out for about 3 hours and had a bad experience with a guy trying to hustle me relentlessly and dragging me through a maze to a terrible spot where only "his friend" could give me a boat ride back out — it didn't help that I was dressed like a Gap advertisement (my standard travel attire of torn shorts, t-shirt, and old running shoes attracts much less attention). I taught him a new English phrase and figured my way out on my own and within 15 minutes ended up in a square with a bunch of very friendly people, which reminded me that most are genuinely nice and why I like to travel to new places. It must have been middle school field trip day — I was interviewed by 5 different groups for an English class project.
Standard interview — everyone had the same first 5 or 6 questions (why are you here / where from / how long / etc). Then they had their own questions: the girls asked about which Indonesian food I liked, what I liked about Indonesia, and whether the people were nice. Boys were asking about favourite sport / car / hobby / supermodel. Things are the same everywhere in some ways.
"Within 15 minutes I ended up in a square with very friendly people — a reminder of why I like to travel to new places."
On the Korea front, much sadness with the losses by the Texas Rangers and LA Dodgers — people were up in the middle of the night watching games as each team has a Korean player.