Saw an advert on the MRT train: "Nearly 4 houses are broken into every day". Apart from incredulity at this apparently almost invisible crime rate, I have to ask what they class as fractionally broken into.Steve Davies (BMW R1150RT - silver, of course) and his wife took me out on the town on Saturday night. Had a great time, culminating in one of the hookers on Orchard Road (I think, but can't remember clearly) propositioning Steve and me as she thought I was a bloke. Well, I *was* wearing one of my very floppy T-shirts and had just had a No.2 haircut. She took a lot of convincing, and I ended up having to lift my shirt for her. Said hooker, Steve, Jenny and I were practically rolling on the ground in agony we were laughing so much. You had to be there,
really.

Treated myself to a Singapore Sling in the Long Bar at Raffles Hotel. Expensive, of course, but these things have to be done and someone has to do them.

I've learnt a bit about getting cheap flights, as well. In the process of sorting out a flight to Darwin to meet the bike, I consulted both human travel agents and the web. Most of them came up with the same solutions:

a) Direct with Qantas for S$1800
b) Indirect with Singapore/Garuda (incorporating 8 hours overnight in the transit lounge at either Bali or Jakarta or a mixture of both) for around S$700
c) Indirect with Royal Brunei (incorporating 8 hours overnight in the transit lounge at Brunei) for around S$700

Hmmmmm, have you ever spent the night in a transit lounge? Let alone one with absolutely no facilities, never mind a chair. There were other suggestions, like going via KL (there's a shuttle from here to there, and the bus is pretty good).

So I went to the Qantas website and found a completely different direct flight for S$1200, which is still a lot for a five-and-a-half-hour flight but more tolerable than the other alternatives.

Tomorrow night I'm singing for my supper at the Clubhouse (which just happens to be on the premises of Performance Motors which is the BMW dealer here). So I spent yesterday morning at Ai Ling's flat sorting the pix on to one of those USB pluggy things, and I've bought a world map and scrawled on it with marker pen. Hope there's some beer.

Then I fly to Darwin on Thursday night after spending a night at Raffles (there go my savings).

Singapore has been the most expensive country so far - everything except taxis and public transport costs much more than anywhere else, including Japan. Having said that, a perfectly OK hotel room + breakfast can be had for around 30 quid a night (like at the one which poached me).