Arrived in Singapore

Arrived in Singapore at 6am this morning.  I left Koh Tao about 33hours before...a long but not too painful trip.  Worst part was the night ferry from Koh Tao.  I was supposed to have a bed on the 9 hour ride, but the person i booked the trip through got me to the pier at 8pm and to get a bed you needed to be there at 7pm and line up.  Instead of a bed we were placed in a cargo hold which would best be described as a 17th century slave ship without the chains...literally a wood floor with reed mats to sleep on and they packed as many people into the hold as possible.  The ceiling was only about 4ft high so everyone had to crawl around...plus they left the lights on all night.  On top of that, all of us in the hold paid the same price as the people who got beds, didn't really make any sense.  Somehow managed to sleep 3 hours or so, but mostly just sat there trying to read in the dim light and listening to my ipod. 

 

After that a 4hr minibus ride to Hat Yai and I met a British guy also going all the way to Singapore, so we stuck together on the 24hr bus ride to Singapore.  The bus was actually great, a "VIP" bus with huge seats that almost went all the way back.  Was able to sleep for a lot of the ride...would have slept more if not for the horrible Thai music and Thai dubbed American B movies they kept playing at full volume over the speakers. 

 

Got to Singapore at 6am and nothing was open, I wondered around town with the British guy looking for a place to book a room, finally found my room and the adventure was over.  I learned the metro system pretty fast, and have been going around town a bit, went to the ritzy shopping area where I was craving a Big Mac because the British guy I was with kept talking about McDonalds, so I went and had my first Big Mac with Super Sized fries and drink in probably 3 years.  It helped that I didn't eat dinner the night before and barely had any lunch.