Here’s What an Unplanned Trip to Singapore, Malaysia & Indonesia Looks Like

After my first attempt to get a Korean visa in 2015 devastated me, I thought about spending the money I’d saved for Korea somewhere else, not throwing the five-day leave I got from work (and all the hype I had) into waste. It was one of those quick resolutions I came up with to heal a broken heart.

Also read: My First Visa Application Was Denied & This is What I Learned

Literally less than a week before that, I found a relatively cheap flight to Singapore, a country I had never even thought about visiting in the early years of my ‘travel career’. Nevertheless, a few days later, I found myself in this small yet progressive city with nothing to look forward to except checking in my hostel at Lavender Street, which I also booked at the last minute.

Day 1

Morning came on my first official day in Singapore and I spent all of it chatting some friends on Facebook who’d been here before about possible places to go to. With a map I got from the hostel and my handy digital camera (which everyone says is really cute), here are the places I got to visit on one afternoon walking from my hostel.

Little India

Bugis Junction

National Museum of Singapore

National Gallery Singapore

Suntec City

Arab Street

Day 2

After serving myself some bread and milk for breakfast at the hostel lounge, I went back to my capsule room to do yet another round of research for what I could do this day. With some rough ideas, and again, my map and camera with me, I set off on foot to visit the following places.

Orchard Road

Chinatown

Mount Faber Park

Day 3

Today I decided to actually leave Singapore for a day and sail to a small Indonesian island nearby called Batam after knowing about it from one of the hostel staff, who happens to be a Filipina. The ferry ride took about 45 minutes and I reached the island just before lunch time. After I got out of the port, the feeling of being in a remote province in the Philippines hit me, only I had a about at least a hundred thousand worth of cash with me thanks to the conversion rate. A girl at the concierge handed me a map of the entire island and pointed out a few attractions I could visit within a day. Since public transport isn’t readily available in the island, I hired a taxi to take me to a few of them. Here they are.

Beach

Floating Restaurant

Nagoya Hill Shopping Mall

Maha Vihara Duta Maitreya Monastery

I made the worst decision of leaving my taxi after I got to the mall so, without the slightest idea of how far the temple would be from there, I took off walking with my map which leaves out any specific information on directions. I was basically walking along the roads like a chicken with its head cut off. I managed to find my last stop before realising I only had an hour to go back to the port to catch my ferry to Singapore. I ended up reaching the port on right on time, only to find out I was an hour early for the trip because of the time difference.

Thinking I had enough time to try to take an overnight train to Malaysia, I continued my journey from the south of the Singapore to the train station way up north.

Day 4

I did get on the train to Johor Bahru in time (even after some problems with the immigration), however, I didn’t make it to the last train to Kuala Lumpur. This forced me to spend the next hours inside the train station, before heading out at about 2 or 3am to go to the bus station instead. Alas, I was on my way to Kuala Lumpur via a 6-hour bus ride. The country wasn’t as pedestrian friendly as Singapore as I would’ve liked, so I ended being able to visit just three places for the rest of the day.

Petronas Twin Towers

Lake Garden

National Museum of Malaysia

The Lake Garden was just a few minutes walk to the central train station so I went there directly after sunset to book a ticket and get on my train back to Singapore. After spending the previous night almost sleepless, I collapsed into my berth and instantly dozed off.

Day 5

I woke up to a misty Singapore which took away the last of my exhaustion from the last two days of running about. It was going to be the last day of my trip as I was scheduled to fly back to Manila around midnight. The hostel I’d previously stayed in welcomed me back and even let me take a shower as a non-paying guest this time. I figured I should spend the entire day in the city once more, and this time, with a companion I met during lunch at a nearby hawker centre.

With no specific intentions on that day, I decided to team up with him to pass some time. These were where I ended up.

Marina Bay Sands

Helix Bridge

Gardens by the Bay

After the day’s tour, we decided to hang out at Arab Street with another solo traveller from the hostel, before I rode a taxi to the airport to conclude my first solo, spontaneous trip abroad.

Also read: How I Travelled 30 Days to 5 Southeast Asian Countries Under ₱50k Budget