What happens if you lose your departure card in Singapore?

When entering an Asian country you usually have to fill in a form which consists of an arrival card and a departure card. The arrival card has to be handed in at the immigration office, the departure card needs to be carried until, well, departure obviously. So far so good. The question is what happens in the unlikely event of the departure card being stolen or lost. In Thailand the answer is easy: Just fill in a new departure card when leaving the country. However, in Singapore things are a little bit different as authorities are known to be much stricter than elsewhere in Asia. And indeed, the departure card has a unique code on it, linking it to the arrival card you handed in previously. And of course it had to be me to test what happens if you loose it.

Although I don't know it for sure, I must have lost the slip when looking for my credit card in my top secure money belt. Recognizing it on the day before heading on to Malaysia I asked at the reception of the hotel what would be the best thing to do. They recommended to call the immigration office. Because it was already too late to do so on the same day, I postponed it. The day after however, the tight schedule of our group of the German National Academic Foundation and my hangover left me with no possibility to make the call. Thus, I arrived at the counter for the Bus to Malaysia asking what usually happens at the border in this case. But somehow I seemed to the first person to encounter this problem. All they could tell me was that this might be a severe problem. As the bus was leaving I thought I just might give it a chance and see what happens.

When travelling from Singapore to Malaysia by bus you have to stop two times. First, before leaving the island to emigrate from Singapore. Second, after a short ride over the bridge and a few kilometres of fenced highway to immigrate into Malaysia. The critical part obviously was the first one.Especially because at both stops the bus leaves after a certain time and passengers who do not proceed fast enough are left behind (i am not kidding).

In the end, everything went out quite smoothly. After waiting what felt like ages I arrived at the emigration desk, committing that I had lost my departure card. I was led to the backoffice where I had to fill in an official replacement card and let my fingerprints being scanned. Overall this took about 15 minutes but I was lucky to be the only guy in trouble and finally was able to catch my bus.

So, if you ever ask yourself what happens if you loose your departure card in Singapore or if you are in the same situation. This is what happens.

Ko Kret

Finding rest and recreation in Bangkok sometimes can be quite difficult unless you are living in one of the upper class hotels with a huge spa area. If your are on a small budget but are willing to spend a little bit of time for getting there and away, Ko Kret is the place to go. Ko Kret is a small island in the Chao Phraya river north of Bangkok. A one hour bus ride, which was an experience for itself, brought my fellow student Gregor and me to the suburb of Pak Kret. After arrival we went on searching for the ferry pier which we finally found at the end of a very small and muddy backstreet, where you rather would expect to find a dump than a quay. Nevertheless, the effort was worth it. The whole island is a green, car-free and therefore quiet chill-out zone. A nice and business-minded lady lend us to bicycles to get around the island. Instead of a street there is only a walkway on stilts because some parts of the island seem to be flooded once in a while. Our major concern was to fall of this walkway in a moment of inadvertence. However, we managed to get savely from site to site. Beside two tiny pottery villages and a farm where they demonstrate the traditional harvesting and cropping techniques, the island had four temples. At the second last we met a nice monk who was willing to take some pictures with us. As I just was in the right dress, I also begged  Buddha for some good luck for the FCK. So far, it worked out.

Chinatown

While most of this week was just about hanging around and doing nothing - which even in a city like Bangkok is sometimes nice to do - we decided to have a look at Chinatown on tuesday. The visit was definitely worth it although I seriously got in doubt whether I ever want to visit China. The food offered on Talat Mai - "New Market" (although it is not new at all) is sometimes far away from what I would concern to be food. However, experiencing the buzz of this vibrant quarter is something I would recommend to everyone who is visiting Bangkok. On top we saw the golden Buddha of 3 meters height and 5.5 tons weight in Wat Traimit. Have a look!

Photos from Vietnam

I finally finished the diashow of my whole trip in Vietnam from Saigon via Nha Trang, Hoi An, Hue, and Halong Bay to Hanoi. Enjoy!

Happy Driving, Vietnam!

While there are heaps of cultural differences between Vietnamese and "Western" culture - if such a thing exists - I could adress at this point, one of the most prominent is definitely the way of driving. Especially for me as a German who is used to a very orderly and regulated way of driving, which on the other hand allows us to drive quite fast, the traffic in Vietnam is very fascinating. Lanes do virtually not exist and there are different speed limits for various vehicles. The Lonely Planet describes aptly: "Size matters and small vehicles get out of the way of big vehicles. [...] head-on collisionsare all too common." To give you an idea about how driving in Vietnam is like and why you should refrain from hiring a car yourself and use the public transport instead, I recorded a short video of our drive from Halong Bay to Ha Noi. Don't worry, our driver did an excellent job!

The Bangkok Mall-Crawl or "Where to buy trecking equipment in Bangkok?"

My first days in Bangkok where dedicated to get done some administrative issues such as booking an apartment and selecting courses. In addition, I had to buy some additional trecking equipment for my trip to Vietnam: a raincoat which should be as light as possible and zip trousers. Although the shopping possibilities in Bangkok are almost unlimited and incomparable to any other city I have ever been to, this turned out to be  a rather difficult task. Thus, I completed what Martin Schacht calls the "Mall-Crawl". Around the Siam Square there are no less than 9 shopping malls. I found this quite fascinating and thererfore decided to gather some facts about the Bangkok "Mall-Crawl". The tour starts at the MBK and heads on East until it reaches the Amarin Plaza and finishes at the Platinum Fashion Mall:

1. MBK Center
   The MBK describes itself as the "most visited" mall in Bangkok. It has 8 floors with around 2,500 shops and 140,000 sqm sales area.
2. Siam Discovery
   Right across the junction is the more inconspicuous Siam Discovery. Unfortunately, I could not find any detailed data about this rather midsized mall.
3. Siam Center
   The larger twin of Siam Dicovery is currently closed but will be reopened in December 2012. It has 4 levels.
4. Siam Paragon
   Passing by Siam Center you will reach the glamourus Siam Paragon which is connected with the Siam BTS station. With 8 floors, more than 250 shops, a huge department store and more than 500,000 sqm sales area in total it is a real heavyweight among the shopping malls.
5. Central World
   Even bigger than the Siam Paragon, the Central World is the Queen of shopping malls in Bangkok. 18 entries, 7 levels with more than 500 retails spread on over 550,000 sqm. I lost orientation in here a couple of times.
6. Erawan
   If you cross the Ratchaprasing junction, you end up in front of the Erawan. Although the location is probably more famous for it's shrine, the Erawan nervertheless comprises 13,000 sqm sales area on 5 storeys.
7. Amarin Plaza
   Linked to the Erawan via skybridge the Amarin Plaza as well has 5 floors. I could not obtain more reliable data about this mall.
8. Gaysorn
   On the opposite side of the road you can find pure luxury on 5 levels, in over 100 shops of 12,600 sqm. If you want to get rid of your money, go there!
9. Platinum Fashion Mall
   A little walk over the Central World Plaza and across the Khlong Saen Saeb takes you to the biggest fashion mall in Bangkok. On 7 storeys with more than 110,000 sqm you will find all you need to dress up.

Just to give you an idea of the size of these facilities: If you calculate 200,000 for both Siam Discovery and Amarin Plaza, you get a total of 1.5 million sqm which is more than 200 football pitches. Without the Siam Center being opened of course. For comparison: the KaDeWe in Berlin has 60,000 sqm sales area and the Lafayette in Berlin 70,000 sqm.

So what does all this have do to with my trecking equipment.?Well, besides the two very expensive North Face stores in the Siam Discovery and Central World I was unable to locate any proper trecking store. A quick search on google revealed that I was not the first person facing this issue. However, I finally found a blog entry that send me to the right place: the Amarin Plaza. As it is a smaller mall compared to most of the others I had not noticed it before. So that's where you can buy your trecking equipment in Bangkok.

Happy shopping!

PS: I know it might seem strange to some of you that this post is written in English. However, as there are some international readers of this blog as well I decided to vary between German and English on this blog.