Singapore

We went to the Australian embassy in Singapore to find out when our visa would arrive there. They again kept telling us next week just like in Bangkok. The weeks started to pile up.

We had a great time in Singapore. We went to the night market almost every night for great food. The night market was a collection of food vendors all in one location. It was a great international mix of foods. We pigged out big time on all the good cheap food nearly every night. During the day we would go to the zoo or wander around the wharf watching all the shipping traffic or just wander around town checking things out. Singapore was just beginning their clean campaign when we arrived. Historically Singapore was a typical filthy dirty port city but the current government was on a serious clean up push. They were cracking down hard forcing the people to clean up the place. They even banned chewing gum because so many people spit it out on the streets. They made littering a major crime punishable by getting whipped with twenty lashes and a fine. It worked, the city was the cleanest one I had been in yet. People on the streets would comment to us as we walked around asking us if we were impressed with how clean their city was. We always agreed with them. They cleaned it up "morally" also. In other words they drove most crime underground like prostitution and drugs. They made huge penalties for getting arrested for these types of crime. There was one part of town where it was allowed however, Boogie Street and Queen Street.

We usually went down to this area of town after we ate at the market. We would get a table at one of the outdoor bars and restaurants and just sip our beers and watch the world go by. This was the area of town where drag queens cruised for tricks. There were some straight girls and gay boys working the area too but the majority of the working girls were transexuals either with the operation already done or not. We got to know a lot of the girls there and we ended up partying with them many nights. They were very good looking girls. A lot of times I would watch them pick up a sailor and go do the deed with them then later when I saw the sailor I would ask them how their date went. They always told me she was hot or something to that effect. Then sometimes I would tell them that they just went out with a guy. They never believed me. They inevitably told me that it was real pussy they had. It wasn't but I always said oh my mistake then or something like that. The girls were talented. I had a bunch of good pics of them but my ex has all the pics right now. I will try to find some to post here later on to show you how good these girls were.

Kirsten and I were running out of cash now as the weeks started to roll by waiting for our visa. The next weeks kept coming but not the visa. We had to wait for it in order to get into Australia and earn some money to keep traveling again. To make some money we made a deal with our hotel that we would find them guests if we could stay there for free. The Chinese owners quickly agreed. We filled the hotel without any effort at all. The hotel was a bit weird though. There were peep holes in a lot of the rooms where the Chinese owners would peek in and watch the guests disrobe or have sex. We ignored the peep holes. I didn't care if some dirty old man got a kick out of watching me naked. I loved the bucket showers we took at the hotel. Kirsten and I would usually take them together so that we could pour the cool water over each other and wash each others backs. The dirty old hotel owner loved us taking baths together. I never found the peep hole for the shower but I am sure there was one, it was just well hidden somewhere.

I was hired to go check on an American company that was opening a manufacturing facility in Singapore. A friend of mine gave them my name and contact information and they asked me to go see how the construction was going on their new facility. I agreed to go check it out. I went over to the address and told them I was there representing the owners in the United States and that I wanted to inspect the new project's progress. The guy behind the desk almost choked when I said it. He jumped up and immediately started to wine and dine me and Kirsten at all the best places in Singapore but he never took me to the facility to inspect it. After a few days of this high rolling entertainment I figured that they had been less than truthful with their reports about progress to the owners. I reported that to the owners and they ended up flying in to straighten out the job. We got wined and dined and paid for doing it. We thought it was fun. This was the first time I had ever had a true Peking Duck served in a fancy restaurant. They brought the duck to the table for carving and carved all the skin off and served that then threw away the meat of the duck. I did not know Peking duck was served that way until then. We got a laugh out of my ignorance.

Kirsten went on a couple of forays on her own from Singapore. I think she went to Borneo and somewhere else. I just stayed in Singapore until the visa finally arrived. By the time it arrived I no longer had enough money to travel through out Indonesia like we had planned. So instead we just booked a flight from Singapore all the way through to Sydney Australia on Singapore Airlines. Now that flight was very nice. Singapore Airlines knew how to treat passengers. I loved the flight.