It wasn’t my first time to travel out of the country alone, I’ve done it twice for business trips to Malaysia. Travelling to Singapore solo, without a hotel reservation, and without the company credit card, made it worse than the first time.

It was my birthday in 2009 when I did this. I left work a bit early to take the 8pm flight to Singapore. I arrived in Singapore around midnight, I had to SMS a friend to ask where he stayed before when he went there so I’d have an address to write on the immigration form. I wasn’t really planning to stay there, my plan was to just ask the taxi driver to take me to a budget hotel. Unfortunately when I told the driver to take me to a nice $100 (sgd) hotel, he said there’s no hotel that cheap. It was already past midnight and I was very tired so I decided to just go to that hostel where my friend stayed. The driver didn’t know it so I had to google it on my mobile phone to get the hostel’s number and had him talk to the reception officer.

I stayed at Tresor Tavern and fortunately I was received by a Filipino, it lessened my anxiety a lot. I was assigned to a 12-bed mixed room, the hostel was almost full so I really had no choice. It was cheap, had free WIFI and offered coffee and toast for breakfast. The bathrooms were common, they provided a bath towel, and a keycard for the room and your locker. My roommates were all asleep, so I slipped into my bunk bed and dozed off.

When I woke up, some of my roommates were still there, they were also solo backpackers (Koreans, British, etc.) and were trying to engage into conversations, so I joined them and right then I realized the fun of being in a backpackers hostel, you get to meet people from other countries with different culture and mindset! They were there longer and had toured the city already, so I just decided  to explore the city on my own. The guy at the reception gave me a map, which was very helpful (yeah, I’ve used the same map when I went back there twice).

I learned the basics of the MRT system, I was fortunate enough that Tresor is like 5mins walk from Ferrer MRT station. I didn’t buy an ez-link card but when I met with a friend in my second day she gave me hers . My first destination was Sentosa. I didn’t really have a plan, I didn’t even read anything about Singapore before my trip, so everything was spontaneous. I just checked the map and followed the instructions.

I didn’t enjoy Sentosa that much that time, maybe because I was alone. But my second visit in Sentosa the following year was a blast (will tell about it in a separate entry). I went home early and I SMS’d my friend who’s working there, then went out to meet 2 common friends and spent the night at  Esplanade, Clark Quay and SunTec.

The next day I decided to go to Singapore Zoo and to the Night Safari. The zoo was huge and fun, the best zoo I’ve ever been to, though I’m not really a fan of zoos, I did still enjoy it.

I was updating my Facebook about my trip and 2 of my friends SMS’d me that they were also in Singapore for a vacation. So we decided to meet and went to a common friend in Lucky Plaza, he treated us to chicken rice then we ate the popular $1 street ice cream sandwich. I didn’t have plans that day, I was hesitant to go to Jurong Bird Park since it’s quite far, though I already had a ticket (I bought the Park Hopper ticket – with access to the Zoo, Night Safari and the Bird Park), I ended up  joining them for a visit to the Singapore Botanical Gardens.

After exploring the gardens we went to Sungei Buloh Wetlands, a nature reserve and home to thousands of mangoves and wildlife – different birds, otters, etc. It was far off  the city, and  around 2 hours bus ride. We were given a map with different tracks, we chose the shortest route since it was already late in the afternoon when we got there and the park’s closing at 7:30pm. We were half-way our route when it rained so hard and we got stuck to a shelter for almost an hour. Good thing the shelter had an emergency number posted so I was able to make a call and inform them that we were stuck. We waited for the rain to stop but when we got out of the park, we weren’t sure if we missed the bus going back to the city. Fortunately, there was one guy who was also headed back to the city and he had serviced a taxi, he offered to share it with us.

That long walk in Botanical Gardens and Sungei Buloh was so tiring I had to go back to the hostel early that night. The hostels lounge is cozy, I stayed there and watched TV and had conversations with the other backpackers.

During my last day, I didn’t know what to do, I was thinking of going to the bird park but my concern was I might get stuck and miss my flight. I just slept longer and got out of bed just in time for me to prepare and check out from the hostel. I had a lot of spare time since my flight was at 5:30pm, good thing another guest wanted to kill time also so we walked to explore Little India.

All in all, I had a great time. This trip was one of the best things that happened to me. I didn’t stay at Mariott, I didn’t have a corporate card and was travelling in a very limited budget, but the joy of spontaneous travel was life-changing. I actually did quit my job before my trip. I absolutely did take the time off.

As said by  one commenter to Steven DeMaios’ blog:

“If life is one of those snow globes, wouldn’t it be a crying shame never to have picked it up and shaken it?”