Sitting in Singapore

Singapore Riverbank. Sculpture by Aw Tee Hong shows a prominent merchant

Scotsman mediating between a Chinese Trader and a Malay Chief.

10 July 2010 – Singapore.

I’m at the Changi airport waiting for my flight back to Phuket and thinking, man, I should have been blogging these past several weeks. Everything is so different now.[bxA] Job prospects, plane tickets and wedding invitations have got me jumping all over the place. Looks like I’ll be traveling a little bit longer.

Singapore started as a visa run but turned into something entirely unexpected, which makes me think visa runs aren’t so bad after all.

July 2010. Air Asia check-in counter at Phuket International Airport.

Changi airport reminds me of the last time I was in this airport - which was the first time I was in this airport and part of that Stalker Effect story I never finished blogging about. I was on my way from New Delhi to Langkawi to sail to Phuket last November and…well…I got on the plane in India knowing full well that my passport was no good. The airline had even given me a courtesy call to reiterate the “NO FLY” email they’d sent me. A real live human being at the airline warned me not to go.

I went anyway. Made it through the airports in India and Sri Lanka just fine but Singapore said no way and half-heartedly suggested I’d be deported. A really nice guy at the transfer desk who sat next to a really mean girl at the transfer desk offered to call immigration in Langkawi to see if he could get them to make a concession for me. Problem was, it was early morning and Langkawi wasn’t answering the phone. I spent an hour wandering Changi Airport contemplating the existential implications of the imminent question: deported to where?

July 2010. View from the Singapore Flyer (on a clear day you can see Indonesia).

I’d enlisted the positive vibes of the angels, Alyssa, and a super cool psychologist from Michigan who was in India studying the teachings of Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda. He advised me to simply not contemplate a Plan B. Sure enough, the airline eventually let me on the plane to Langkawi where I climbed aboard Sirius and sailed to Phuket for what I thought would be two or three weeks. Here I am eight months later flying back to my home in Phuket.

This time I really am leaving Phuket at the end of July (inshallah) and just like this Singapore trip reminded me, there is no telling what will happen next.