Slinging Back to Singapore

The sticker on the front bus shade read -Sucker knob made in Taiwan. It made this antique Englishman smile with its double entendre. We were, once again, riding the wasp coloured super bus down to Singapore. My hard working wife entertained yet another business call as I searched for the seat latch, and I am certain that our hostess really did not mean quick relief when she mentioned the toilets.

Meanwhile I listened to Quicksilver Messenger Service on my earphones, to drown out the constant babble from the two elderly Indian aunties in the front seats. I was trying to sleep, but being disturbed by memories of Jude and I listening to the very same album, in Mann's Music, 1967, grooving to the beats in our impressionable hippy youth.

That day, that old Malaysian North/South Highway rolled through acres of rubber or palm oil plantations, bouncing gradually down towards that consumer materialistic island which brings Malaysia to a full stop. With a head full of electric guitar feedback, equatorial insects committing suicide on the windscreen, I projected foward, thinking of the second launch of our charity book and the preparations we need to oversee when we arrived. My love slept, curled in her stretched back seat. She was the reason I was there. The reason for our travel and the originator of the book's conception. She woke, smiled. We kissed. Ain't life grand on that yellow and black Aeroline.

The Robertson Quay Hotel may not have been the worse hotel that I have ever stayed in, but it was a close call. The double room that we had booked, contained the smallest double bed I have seen for a very long time. The shower/toilet was just that, combined. It was possible to do both at once. A few inches away, beside my head, in the part of the room devoted to that miniscule bed, on one side was the all metal safe, on the other an equally head splitting shelf. A head banger's delight if ever there was one.

One of the hotel's features, was that the room came with breakfast. It seemed like a good idea. That was, until we saw the boiled chicken frankfurters, the cold scrambled egg and the overly sweet baked beans lurking in the dimly lit, so-called, dining room. Coffee was, of course, stewed. We exited to find something vaguely edible outside. The proliferation of fusion, or is that confusion, restuarants in the local mall did not help. Singapore does not awaken until 10.30am. Ho hum.