8 August 2018, Wednesday
Today is the day…Day 100 and the day I return home to Singapore. I woke up feeling a mixture of excitement and sadness – excited because I will finally be back in a familiar place I love so much; and sad because it marks the end of this wonderful Grand Adventure. But like they always say: All good things must come to an end.
I woke up late and headed out at about 10am to search for a nice place to have breakfast. I walked to Pavilion shopping mall and found a German bistro and bar called Weissbräu. I ordered a breakfast set with toast, eggs, bacon and coffee for RM30.90 (S$10.30), but it wasn’t the greatest breakfast ever.
After that, I whiled the remaining time away by window shopping at Pavilion and the nearby malls for one last time. I checked out of my hostel at 12:15pm and walked for less than three minutes to the Transtar Travel office located at 135 Jalan Imbi. For my return journey to Singapore, I booked a coach from Transtar Travel and the one-way ticket cost S$20.
The coach type I booked was a Super VIP bus, with a seating capacity of 26, with three seats in a row. It was the lowest class available from Transtar but it was already very luxurious, compared to the overnight buses I took in Vietnam and the Giant Ibis ones in Cambodia.
If you’ll like to travel in even greater comfort, you can book the Solitaire coach, with a seating capacity of only 18 (two seats in a row) so it’s more spacious. But if you want the best in class, that will be Solitaire Suites, with a seating capacity of 19 but with even plusher seats. Both the Solitaire and Solitaire Suites come with hot meals and beverages on board.
My Super VIP bus was supposed to depart at 1:00pm but there was a slight delay. There was an earlier departure of a Solitaire bus but apparently, the bus broke down. As a result, the company transferred the Solitaire guests to my Super VIP bus, which was not fully booked. By the time it was sorted out, we departed at 1:07pm.
Along with the Solitaire guests came the food, so I was unexpectedly treated to a bento box of nasi lemak with chicken rendang and a hot beverage of either coffee or tea. Two attendants smartly dressed in black suits also accompanied our bus journey to provide service to the Solitaire guests, and by extension, to me as well. Good for me!
At 2:55pm, we made a stop for a toilet break. At 5:35pm, we reached the Malaysian border. There was a long queue to clear immigration, with many coaches in line. At 6:10pm, we left the Malaysian checkpoint and we got stuck in a very bad jam halfway through the Second Link bridge approaching Tuas Checkpoint. Many coaches were trying to enter Singapore, probably because it was the eve of the National Day public holiday.
The male passenger in front of me couldn’t stop complaining about how slow it was, and I got quite annoyed with his incessant rambling. It was true that the leftmost lane seemed faster than the lane we were in, but what good would all the grumbling do? If anything, I had learnt to be more patient after taking much longer bus rides than this.
Finally, we landed on Singapore territory and cleared immigration at 9:04pm. As the bus travelled along the AYE expressway and the familiar Singapore city skyline later came into view, I felt emotional knowing that I was home at last. Driving past the three iconic towers of Marina Bay Sands and the Singapore Flyer, I never felt prouder to be a Singaporean. I had seen so many amazing sights from the past 100 days and yet, there was nothing quite like Singapore.
At 9:48pm, the bus arrived at Golden Mile Complex at Beach Road. I had a small welcome party waiting for me – dad and my good friend LW, who had also sent me off at the airport 100 days ago. I can’t tell you how much it meant to have people dear to me welcome me back. Thanks LW for making the trip down!
Dad then sent me home, where the rest of my family was eagerly waiting for me. They had bought my favourite roasted chicken rice and durians and I jumped right into them as I was very hungry by then. Chicken rice and durian never tasted so good! After sampling all kinds of food from all over the world, I can proudly and honestly say that Singapore cuisine is still the best!
The feeling was divine as I was surrounded by the love of my family, back in the comfort of my own home. I was relieved to have made it home safely, knowing how much worry I had put them through at times. I was elated to have completed my objective of taking One Flight Out of Singapore and making my way back home by land, especially during the last week or so, when the temptation to simply catch a flight home was so great. And I was even happier to achieve my goal of coming back in time to celebrate National Day, which was the next day, on 9 August. As I lay down on my own bed for the first time in 100 days, I thought to myself…This is home, truly.
To wrap up this Grand Adventure, it is now appropriate to share my reflections on the past 100 days. The following passages were written contemporaneously on Day 99, during the train ride from Padang Besar to Kuala Lumpur, so they accurately capture my feelings at the time:
(As originally written on 7 August 2018, reproduced verbatim)
The time now is 2:35pm and I am on the KTM ETS train en route to Kuala Lumpur. Earlier, at 11:15am, the train had departed from Padang Besar, the border between Thailand and Malaysia. There is about an hour before I reach KL Sentral. Now, as the train zooms through the Malaysian peninsular at a speed of around 125km/h, it is an appropriate time to reflect on the journey I have had over the past 99 days.
In Phnom Penh, I visited a secondhand book shop called Bohr’s Books to look for a book to read for the journey home. The shop was well stocked with English titles and I considered getting a Murakami or a Jack Kerouac, but as I browsed through the last shelf, I came across a book called Long Way Round by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman. I read the blurb and I immediately knew that this was the book for me. I paid US$5 for it and left the bookshop.
Over the next few days’ travelling on the train and bus, I flipped through the pages of the book eagerly and couldn’t put it down. The book is a first-hand account of the journey taken by the two Scottish actors and best friends, as they went on an adventure around the world on their motorbikes. They travelled close to 20,000 miles from London to the end of Russia in the east, before flying to Alaska, where they continued their journey on land to their final destination in New York. They described their travails and travels across Europe, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Russia brilliantly.
I related strongly to their story because it felt very similar to my own adventure. The difference was that they had a cameraman, a support crew and local fixers following them throughout the journey, and they did their travelling by riding their motorbikes, which was definitely tougher. But other than that, I related very well to their spirit of adventure and their reflections.
I’ve been away from home for 99 days now. This is the longest I have ever been away. To be completely honest, I am not feeling homesick. Sure, I do have the occasional pangs of craving for some of my favourite food like chicken rice or bubble tea but the cravings had never been so intense until I felt like I needed to go home immediately. And of course, I missed my family, especially my dear mum and dad, but I think they probably miss me more.
In the past 99 days, I had moved from one city to another every other day. The longest I stayed at one place was four days, in Moscow and Zhangjiajie. I had become used to living out of a backpack, unpacking and packing my bags every day. The longer I travelled, the better I got at packing my stuff. There is a way to pack my bag and I can do it quite well.
I had also gotten very comfortable with travelling long distances, especially after the many overnight train and bus rides. Before, I would have been quite wary of taking overnight rides because of the safety aspect, where the chances of being involved in a traffic accident on a night bus is said to be higher than that of a day bus. Or I would have been worried that people might go around stealing my things when I slept at night on a train. But like most of the biggest fears, they are unfounded.
Overnight rides are good because they save you a night’s accommodation and you get a full day to explore the next destination when you arrive the following morning/day. For buses, there is also less traffic on the roads at night and less chance of being caught in a traffic jam.
Of course, a lot also depends on how comfortable the ride is. If you have a comfortable seat/bed, you can actually get a good sleep. For the overnight bus from Hoi An to Nha Trang, my assigned sleeper seat on the bus was smaller than the others (I suspect it was a children’s seat) so my legs were a quite cramped and I couldn’t get into a good position to sleep.
It also depends on whether your bunk mates are quiet. For the overnight train from St. Petersburg to Moscow, one of my bunk mates snored so loudly that I had to wear ear plugs, and even then, it was still very loud. Nevertheless, I have overcome my fear of taking overnight trains and buses on this trip.
The long distances are also no longer daunting to me. I think after you have undertaken the Trans-Mongolian/Trans-Siberian Railway journey, long rides will not faze you anymore. For my Trans-Mongolian Railway journey from Nizhny Novgorod to Ulaanbaatar, I spent four nights on the train as I travelled across Russia to Mongolia. It may sound boring but I actually had a lot of do during those four days and time flew by. Just having the time to read, write blog posts, chat and play cards with my neighbours, or simply just stare at the gorgeous scenery outside the window, it was blissful in every way. How often in your lives do you have the time or opportunity to do that?
The other thing I enjoyed about my adventure was meeting fellow travellers. I am an introvert by nature but that doesn’t mean that I am anti-social. I realised that I am selectively social. It takes time for me to assess someone to decide if he/she is someone I can get along with before I make the first move. Most of the time, if not all the time, I have a pretty good sense of a person’s character and I have met some really nice people throughout the way.
I enjoyed travelling with my parents in Europe and then the rest of my family in China, but travelling solo is when I have the opportunity to make new friends. When you’re alone, you’re “forced” to talk to other people. Perhaps a better way to put it would be, being a solo traveller, the opportunity arises for me to come out of my shell and talk to other people. I enjoyed the conversations I’ve had with the people I’ve met, and I thank them for their companionship.
As I approach the end of the adventure, I realise that I would not have been able to do this trip any earlier. This was the right time for this trip. I mean it not so much in terms of having financial support to undergo a 100-day adventure, but rather, the emotional aspect and having the wits to do so. Planning for this trip took about half a year. It involved a lot of researching on places to visit, where to stay, how to get from one place to another, how much time I will need for each place and how much money I will spend. It was a massive undertaking but I loved every minute of it.
And if I may allow myself to brag about it a little, everything worked out brilliantly in terms of the itinerary. I booked two months’ worth of connections and accommodations and I did not miss a single connection. There were no screw ups in terms of visa issues or other unforeseen circumstances. I am immensely grateful that everything went smoothly.
These days, the Internet and mobile phone apps make planning a lot easier. I can book my hostel on the go as long as I have mobile data connection. Mobile SIM cards are also getting cheaper and more easily available. Wi-Fi is also everywhere. Travelling has become easier, compared to when I first started backpacking six years ago.
A few times during this trip, I looked back at my first proper backpacking trip six years ago, when I travelled around Asia for 30 days to celebrate my 30th birthday. That was such a monumental trip because it laid the foundation for every trip after that, and of course, for this trip. I have come a long way since that trip and I am very proud of that.
For this adventure, one thing to be clear is that it was never meant to be compared to anything else, or indeed, to be compared to trips by other people. I believe that everyone has their own journey in life and there is no point comparing with anyone else. No point comparing to see whose trip was more “epic” or who had more fun, because everyone’s journey is different. In fact, two people can go on the exact same itinerary and emerge with two totally different experiences. It depends on who you meet along the way, the accommodation that you stayed at, the weather when you visited, so many different factors can come into play. So it is all serendipity. If something happened the way it did, it was meant to be.
A few friends have asked me, “What is your favourite city from the trip?” I thought about it and found it quite hard to answer. At first, I said Stockholm. But then the more I thought about it, the harder I felt it was to give a truthful answer. Every city or place that I visited had impacted me in some way, usually good. And there were so many nice cities and places that I went to. There isn’t a clear-cut favourite.
However, I can probably list down my top three favourite experiences from this trip – homestay with the nomadic family in a ger in Mongolia, trekking to Trolltunga and the entire World Cup experience in Russia.
I know that I will not be able to do such a trip for a long time to come. In fact, I don’t think I ever will do such a trip again. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it (of course I did), but everything has its time and place and I’m not interested to repeat this journey because I have already done it before. I need to feel inspired to undertake an adventure like this, and I did this trip because I was inspired to do so. I cannot force myself to think of another adventure to top this one, because as I said before, it is never about do something that will surpass the previous one. It all has to come organically.
I have thought about where I would like to go next and I think it will be South America. I have never been to South America or Africa before and those are my priorities. As I found out on this trip, visiting the same place the second time isn’t as thrilling as the first time, so I would like to visit someplace new if I can. I am also acutely aware that time and money are limited, so I should spend them wisely.
As I conclude my grand adventure, I would like to thank my family for their continued support. I know it was hard for them to accept me being gone for so long. Not just being physically absent, but also emotionally and financially. Their love for me is unconditional and I am eternally grateful to them for supporting my dream. I would also like to thank all my other relatives and friends who have sent me well wishes and kept in touch with me during the trip. Thank you for having me in your thoughts. I hope I brightened up your day by sharing with you photos of my adventures.
I would also like to thank all the fine people whom I have met and new friends I have made. I hope I will have the chance to meet you again and show you around Singapore should you come to visit in the future. Like I’ve said, it’s all serendipity.
THE END