Singapore

Impressions of Singapore. Clean, friendly, helpful, hot and muggy, lovely hospital.

I spent one night in my hostel. Remember I said it was either the best decision of my life or the worst decision of my life. The people were lovely and friendly. I met up with a young Swiss man, with an American accent, who offered me some tiger balm for my cough at, I think, about 3 a.m. The lovely staff who were quite happy to go to the shop and get me some Chinese medicine which did help the cough and the breathlessness.

However 3 flights of stairs, dark, dingy sleeping dorms where you couldn't see a thing, showers that were clean enough, but where do i put my clothes to keep them dry while I shower. I never did work that out. I don't think I will come back to this place again.

I arrived Saturday afternoon. Good flight. I slept most of the way between coughing. Got picked up by the hostel no problem except that I didn't see him at the airport. I was one of those people who had a sign with their name on it at the airport, and I missed seeing him first time around. Bugger!!

Hostel. Realised I was 3 floor up, and just how dark the dorm area was, and just how difficult it was to locate anything in the dark.

 

That's the street where the hostel is.

This is the hostel. I'm right up on the top floor.

 

Wandered out for a wander. Down Victoria Street for a while, stopped and looked at a few things. Had a feed at the Irish Sandwich shop. I must admit, a sandwich shop, called the "Irish Sandwich shop" served by Asians, is quite an interesting experience. However, they were nice sandwiches and settled my stomach. Still not feeling the greatest and the last thing I wanted to eat was Asian food.

 

I realised that Victoria Street was very wide with lots of traffic and I was going to have difficulties crossing. Just near the sandwich shop was an over pass, with escalators to take you over the road.

There was only one problem !!

So I had to go back and across !!

By the time I got back to the hostel and  hung around for a while I could feel myself getting more and more tired. I think I went to bed at about 6 p.m. Other than waking up coughing, I slept right through until the next morning. At one stage during the night I woke up feeling quite breathless and then feeling quite anxious knowing I had 3 long flights of stairs to get down (or up as the case may be).

 

Here's some little birds on the sign across the road from the hostel.

 

Sunday. Still coughing and after lots of too-ing and fro-ing and indecisiveness, I took the advice of the women at the hostel and took myself down to Raffles Hospital. Figured all I needed was some antibiotics. Very lovely people. Young doctor in the ED figured my oxygen saturation was too low and that I needed to be admitted, and really didn't think i would be on my flight Monday night. Bugger. By this stage I was too breathless to really care one way or the other. Coughing was getting worse and achieving less. Just that constant, cough, cough, cough.

Anyway, I am well covered by my travel insurance and I've been in touch with the go-between who helps sort everything out for you. they were lovely. A woman in Brisbane, who spoke perfect English, helped to navigate all the little hurdles and let me know that everything would be covered by my insurance.  However there was a little hiccup this afternoon when the accounts department rang me up and said I would have to pay cash.

So Sunday night, instead of sleeping 3 floors up, in a dingy, dark hostel, I spent the night in a 5 star hospital, with good food, great staff, lousy television, no Lara the laptop. I slept the day and night away. Couldn't stay awake for any length of time. When the Doc came to visit he reckoned the doc in the ED sort of overreacted a bit and that I probably didn't need to be admitted, but hey, I got to rest easy. On antibiotics, got me  a puffer to open up the airways, and will be on my plane tonight. They will boot me out of here later this p.m. I'm okay to come and go a bit if I want to, but really don't have the energy to go out in the muggy heat.

View from my hospital room

ACROSS

DOWN

F1 races are apparently finished. I could hear the cars screaming around from the hostel in the middle of the night. Don't know why they decided to make it a night race. but hey, you get that.

Anyway, battery is running down and I don't know I there is enough to publish this or not. If not, then you will get it after I get to the UK.

 

Cheers

Madeleine

Monday, 29 September 2008