CNYp2 - Singapore and Indonesia, or how I got kicked out of the country of India

Sorry to leave you hanging about how I got kicked out of India. It all started when I got super drunk on the airplane. I was playing a drinking game where I took a shot every time the "fasten seat belt" light when on, a baby cried, or the person behind me kicked my seat. Needless to say, I got shhhwasted. In my drunken stupor, I thought it'd be a good idea to go through customs without wearing pants. Well, to me, it was pretty hilarious, but the customs officer did not approve of my lack of pants or my sharpie marker mustache. Then the drug dogs found the cocaine stash in my underwear and it just all went downhill from there.


Actually none of that is true at all. The real story is pretty boring - apparently you need a visa to enter India, which I didn't have. Whoops. Clearly I do an excellent job on researching the countries I plan on visiting. The Indian customs people were jerks about it too and I ended up crying in the middle of an airport with 100s of people watching me. Patrick (the guy I was traveling with) was still in Malaysia at the time because we bought tickets from Kuala Lumpur to New Delhi on different days because of price differences. Here I am, sobbing in the airport, begging to be let in the country, while these Indian dudes are yelling at me telling me how stupid I was (thanks, because I couldn't figure that out myself). I got a couple of "just because you're American doesn't mean you can do whatever you want" speeches. After an hour of me crying and shaking and feeling like an idiot, a group of officials come out and tell me they're going to ship me off to Kathmandu.


KATHMANDU?!? WHERE THE FUCK IS THAT?
[Nepal, I found out later]
I convinced them to send me back to Kuala Lumpur since I had a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Taipei (we were supposed to fly from New Delhi back to KL and from KL back to Taipei). They had to delay the flight for me to get on, a fact the airport workers were intent on criticizing me for, because, you know, I didn't feel bad enough already.


So after one traumatic, awful, sleepless night, I found myself back in Kuala Lumpur. I went back to the hostel and woke an extremely confused Patrick up with a "heyyy, so about that flight to India..."


Although extremely terrible for my pride and wallet, all in all, getting kicked out of the country of India is kind of hilarious. 


Robin's updated bucket list

• get my masters degree
• write a novel
• get kicked out of a country

I'm 1/3 of the way there!!


In about 2 hours, Patrick and I whipped up a plan B. KL was cool and all, but we saw all we 
wanted to see and had no desire to stay there another week. Plan B included a bus ride to Singapore, 2 nights in Singapore, then a ferry to Bintu island in Indonesia.


Singapore, if you didn't know, is located on the same island as Malaysia and Thailand. It's a tiny city-state. Here are some more fun facts: English is the main language. It's pretty expensive compared to the rest of Asia. Chewing gum is illegal (I know, wtf? I wish I could have brought some in the country to see if I could sneak it in, it's not sold anywhere on the island). Spitting in public is also illegal. If you want to know more, JFGI.


The Eiffel tower is to Paris as the statue of a half-lion, half-mermaid/pineapple spitting is to Singapore. Here I am with the "Merlion"

We also visited Sentosa, an island connected to Singapore via suspension bridge, making it the southern-most point of continental Asia. The park was pretty sweet.

As Singapore isn't huge, we saw everything we wanted to see in one day. We jumped on a ferry for 2 hours and went to a small Indonesian island called Bintan. We booked our hostel in, get this, a fucking bungalow. Hells to the yes!

Apparently we came to Indonesia during the off season, because there was hardly anybody at our hostel. We basically had a private beach and hotel staff to ourselves. All that for about 20$/night!

The exchange rate is something crazy like 8000 Indonesian rupia to one US $, so I took a picture of myself holding *one million dollars*

Yeah, ok, so this is really not much more than 100 US$, but it felt cool nonetheless.

The beaches were beautiful and straight out of a Corona commercial. I don't really feel like I got to know what real Indonesia is like though because we didn't sight see at all (there wasn't anything TO sightsee because it was a smaller island) and basically stayed at our resort-y hostel. Outside of our bungalow hostel, the island was quite poor. I'd like to go back and see Jakarta and/or some other islands before I really make a good impression about Indonesia.

I probably never would have gone to Singapore, and maybe not Indonesia, had the whole India fiasco never happened, so I definitely recommend getting kicked out of countries if you want to expand your horizons.

All in all, an awesome trip. Hit a huge road block, but we made the best of it with an impromptu backpacking trip through southeast Asia. Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia - check, check, check. My bank account is depleted so it'll be a while before my next trip, but I'll probably do another one before 2011 ends, assuming I stay in Taiwan another year, which I haven't officially decided on yet.