Twenty something year old doing twenty something year old things

‘Thank you for flying with Air Asia and welcome to Singapore. If you have any drugs in your possession this will be punishable by the death penalty’ announced the intercom comfortingly as I touched down in Singapore last week. The city state which in many ways epitomises modernisation also manages to hold onto some pretty antiquated systems. It may be a capitalist city but the bankers here won’t be partying like they do in the Wolf of Wall Street. My first greeting into just how multi-cultural and, well, ‘white’ this city is occurred during my first ten minutes of wandering around: oversized rucksack on my back and birkenstocks drenched by the rain, trying to find my friend’s apartment block. A bubbly English woman approached me, clearly having taken pity on the ‘lost backpacker in concrete jungle’ ('has she flown into the wrong destination?' ) and wondered did I need directions --as it transpired the apartment block I was searching for was the one she lived in and I was le...

In typical backpacker style I booked only one night at my current hostel and ended up 'sticking' as seemed to be a similar affliction for anyone staying in 'Zoku Lifestyle hostel'. I spent the majority of my trip in Borneo with an ozzie pal whom I first met working in the US three years ago. Our only plan for our time here was the hiking of Mt. Kinabalu which we proudly summited and from which my legs have only just forgiven me for. This was a two day one night feat which included staying in the 'Laban Rata' mountain hut, which we like to call base camp. We set off on this hike confident in our abilities 'to smash it' and soon realised training may have been a good idea! The track to the summit is comprised of never-ending and very steep steps through thick and beautiful jungle. The air is heavy with the only sounds (apart from your own heavy breathing) being birds screeching and insects screaming. We set off at a hearty pace which gradually began to...