It's a sweltering hot morning, we've become surprisingly adept at packing everything into our rucksacks and it doesn't take much more than 20 minutes before we're ready for the off.  We have adopted a couple of carry alls as well which we use for the utterly vital, life saving stuff such as HP sauce and a jar of marmite.

We hang about, taking a couple of photos of the appartment before we leave, I for one am going to miss this amazing view, and the balcony where we sit each morning with a coffee or in the evening with a cold beer or a wine, watching the ocean change colour with the lights from the Portugese village, the sun or the moon.  This last week we've watched what Kim discovered was Mars, hugely bright in the night sky as it's risen from the ocean and disapeared over our heads.

Outside we wait a couple of minutes for our grab-car in the bright, hot, morning sun.  Dropped at the teeming with people, "Bas Sentral Melaka" we tote our bags through the packed concourse, get our etickets printed and make our way to the departure gate. Kim heads off to use the loo, when she comes back it's my turn.  Kim's neglected to mention a very old lady sits outside the loo on a wooden chair, she holds a "3 ringit per visit" sign made from cardboard.  I have no cash, I avoid making any eye contact on the way in, "once I've been she can hardly make me take it back" I think as I press the flush.  I determine to bring back a five ringit note as I again avoid eye contact, however I can feel her eyes boring into me as I walk the corridor of shame back to the bus station.  "She'll feel really bad when I come back with that 5 ringits" I think.

I get back to Kim, our bus has been called! she's in a queue of people with our bags, I have to stow them in the hold of the bus, it's a double decker jobby with the whole lower deck given over to luggage and freight, I need to get into the freight deck to stow our bags, the driver is gunning the engine by the time I get out, sweat trickling down my back, sod it, up the stairs to a pair of really very comfy chairs.  I can hear my mate at home, Rob giving his opinion on my missed payment...

"Yeah well, stiff shit"

The guilt sleeps with me a few days.

It's a trip of about 4 hours, we pass the usual huge palm oil plantations, divided by the odd village, road side market stalls, it starts to rain, pattering against the windscreen, we reach the suburbs of Johor and can see sky scrapers around the horizon, some beautiful parklands, then plunge into the city centre and we're dumped without ceremony into yet another sprawling, bustling bus station.

These places are huge.  A vast proportion of the populace is reliant on bus transport and the network is pretty comprehensive. There are literaly hundreds of buses pulled up in ranks here.  Johor is a central hub serving Malaysias' biggest district which encompasses everything from rain forest to tropical islands and cities like Johor which is southern Malaysias largest, and of course not forgetting the huge causeway into the heart of singapore.

As a consequence the bus station is vast.  A key problem when you get to one of these places is arranging how to get to the actual place you want to find, in our case the Puteri Pacific Hotel.  The rain has gone and now away from the sea breeze of Melaka it's absolutely baking, searing, stinking, wavy aired, full of exhaust fumes hot.  Touts yelling "Taxi.... taxi.... taxi boss?" 

We struggle through the crowd.  Like most Malay bus stations, the whole place is full of market stalls selling everything from durian (stink fruit....and it does!) to furniture, via dried fish, mmmmm! 

They're normally arranged around a central concourse where all the tickets are sold.  So there are always at least 4 exits/entrances.  In this case there are a chain of these concourses, each of which has two exits to the outside world so we have maybe 8 to 10 exits to choose from.

Our problem is this.  The grab-car app has our location as "Bas Sentral Johor"  When we get the inevitable "Where are you" call from our cab driver we need to tell him which entrance we're at.  Helpfully, there is absolutely nothing to identify one exit from another apart from the name of a market stall, or cafe stall which presumably changes from week to week or even day to day.  We ask security guards and shop keepers "Is this the main entrance?"

"Yes" they say....regardless of which exit we're at!

Eventually we just stand by the side of the road and by pot luck spot the registration of our car as he barrels past.

So Johor Bahru.  The centre of the city seems to be fighting a losing battle with the vast modernisation that's going on here as the Malay government seek to turn this from (and I'm not kidding here) a run-down gun and murder capital of malaya (that doesn't make it's way into the brochures) into a tourism and commercial hub.

From our room we can see the causeway to Singapore, it's at gridlock whenever you look at it, below us a huge construction site is taking shape, all around us vast modernistic blocks punch skyward, just up the road beyond the construction a beautiful Hindu temple, all spires and carved reliefs, in stunning delicate colours is dwarved by a row of giant shopping malls.

Kim finds us a wonderful roof top bar with roof top pool where we chill for an hour or so before the staff encourage us down to a thai restaraunt.  It's gigantic! we're the only customers, opposite us a row of be-hatted chefs beaver away at food for an adjoining room where a conference is being fed.  They also knock up our Pad Thai and Chicken and cashews...very nice!

We've just booked a couple of days here so we can check out the malls....We have a wedding coming!....and get in some supplies for our move into an air bnb for the next week at a place called Danga Bay, the centre of the current regeneration phase. 

The Malls have that quality of Malls everywhere, 20,000 acres of shops with not a single f*cking thing worth buying.  We spend around 94 hours wondering around these bloody places and Kim gets 1 of the tiny screws which holds the arm of her glasses on replaced, they do it for nothing, so that's our contribution to the regeneration of Johor Bahru.

One task we do want to complete here is to get train tickets to Singapore sorted.  The train takes approximately 5 minutes to cross to Singapore once you're through customs and immigration.  This compares to an hour and a half plus wait on the causeway, in 35 degree heat, getting marched off the bus half way across, unloading you luggage for X-ray, loading it back on, back on the bus, another hour wait followed by another huge bus station, "what entrance are you at" etc etc etc

The consequence of this is that an advance ticket is advised, this is driven home when we walk to the station and see the huge, snaking queue of people for the cross border train, although they go every 15 minutes, with advance sales, turning up on the day could mean a pretty long horrible wait.

We approach the ticketing booth, there's a window marked "Advance sales"....Promising!

Of course there's no one at the window, I catch a guys eye behind the counter, he pretends not to have seen me, calls to two colleagues, they chat, glimpse our way, and promptly disapear out of a door at the back of the office....The door opens a crack, the guy looks across at us, yes. we're still here....

Maybe worth pointing out here that Malays seem about the sleepiest people we've ever witnessed.  The entire country seems to be run by Chinese and Indians while the Malay snooze away the day.  They've perfected the SLLLLOOOOOwest walk I've seen anywhere and everywhere you go you will see a Malay slumped in sleep.  In a cafe there will be two or three individuals head on one arm, the other arm thrown across the table sound asleep.  In tesco the other day two counter staff, side by side, heads on arms, gently snoring such that we had to wake them to get served. 

Our guy here has that, "eyes half closed look" of someone who has just left, and will shortly return to, if we would just f*ck the hell off and stop asking him to do something a deep deep sleep.  Reluctantly he comes over and stands at the counter directly under the "ADVANCE TICKET" sign and looks at us as if  to say "what on earth do you want?". 

"We'd like an advance ticket please."

He reaches for a machine, punches a button and a small docket emerges.

"Bloody hell that's easy" we think, "How much?"

Hmmm, he is pointing to another window in the booth,

"AAHHHH!"

On the docket is a number, we walk around the booth and fight our way through the queue for todays tickets. On the wall is a screen, it displays numbers.  Our docket has 3011, on it, the current number is 3000, not too bad. 

Eventually our number appears, we get to the ticket booth, the same bloke who gave us the docket is there,

"Yes??" he says....

"I'd like a ham sandwich and two pints of best bitter please"

"Or you could sell us two advance tickets to Singapore"

"Also, why don't you just sell the tickets over there instead of issuing a docket"...........oh what's the point?

"We'd like an advance ticket please"

"Passports?" he says

"Passports??"....we don't want to go now, "

"Passports??" he says..

"Why didn't you ask us when you gave us the docket, or could there have been a sign?"

 In our minds eye we are still punching him.

"I been drivin' all night, hands wet on the wheel.....Dar dar de dar dar daaaaang"

It's clear as a bell, and I'm very wide awake in the pitch dark, where the air con is puffing, striving, manfully to keep the steamy heat of the night at bay.  My pulse is racing in that, just been woken from a deep, deep sleep way, a little bead of sweat, leaves a cool thread as it trickles from the hair line on the back of my neck, and between my shoulders.  I need to try to understand why? how? our dear old friend Big Phil should want to wake me up like that, it was definately him, loud, clear, unmistakable. 

Thing is, I doubt Big Phil even heard of Johor Bahru, that's one obstacle, the other is that Big Phil has been bopping to heavens bar band for around 17-18 years. I briefly picture him sketching an ungainly bow, arm in arm with Rick Parfitt from The Quo and Lemmy from Motorhead....

"If you like to gamble,

I'm your man,

you win some you lose some

it's the same to me,

the Ace of Spades

the Ace of Spades

Narr nar narr........Rock! Sorted! shouts Phil, giving four sharp slaps to his forhead.

Lemmy would absolutely love him, like we all did.

Phil loved a dance, not a dance like you're imagining, Fred Astaire, or  micheal Jackson...

Phil would roadie for our band. We used to venture into pubs in the dead hours, 5-6 oclock on a sunday, when you should be just nodding off after a few beers, a roast and too much red wine.

The only folk in at that time are the hardened drinkers, maybe seeing if they could stretch the afternoon "sess" into the evening.  Devoid of the power of speach they occupy the odd table, the smell of sour beer and the afternoons' carvery thick in the air, staring bleary eyed at each other and us as we load in the gear, speakers, drum kit, hundreds of miles of cable, precious guitars....

Big phil is a very strong lad, but a serious motor cycle accident has left him a little imobile down one side and a one hundred mile an hour, megaphone personality.  He drops the speaker cabinet he's carrying...

"'Ere luv!  Tur, tur tur turn up the old juke box will yer?"  He doesn't have a stutter, he uses repeats for emphasis,

"dur dur dur do you wanna Ro Ro Ro Rock!!"

50p in the slot, Motorhead or Quo come on, he locks his thumbs in his belt hooks and rocks back and forwards, elbows out.  As he bends back, his T shirt, which has a fleeting, somewhat on -off relationship with his jeans, rides up over his beer belly, head back he sticks out his tongue, and gives it a  fearsome bellow of "RAAARRRRRGH!!!" while, tongue out, he shakes his head from side to side....and back to the "rest position"  4 sharp slaps to the head.....

"They bloody well rock they do....Sorted, they are. I Tu Tu Tu Tell you what, absolute geezer that's what they are"

Once when we were doing a gig somewhere we needed to park round the corner from the venue, maybe it was because of the road works. I followed Phil up the road, he had a speaker cab in each great paw, as he got to the corner he stopped, almost as if transfixed, like a dog catching an illusive scent.  There's a hole in the ground, 3 or 4 blokes are, as usual watching one operate a pnuematic drill.  Phil drops the speakers, thumbs in belt loops he rocks away for a bit then stamps his foot in time with several slaps to his forehead....

"ROOAAAAAWWWWRRGHK, SORTED!!, GEEZER!!"

Once when we were at a rehearsal room Phil confided in me that he was .."on a diet"......"Gotta lose some guts" he said. 

I was somewhat bemused by this as I'd just watched him consume  4 large mars bars, following each with a pack of cheese and onion crisps, washing the whole thing down with two large cans of Guinness....I'm guessing he's not got this diet plan from Kate Moss....

"Yeah but that's all I'm going to have to eat all day, I won't eat any meals, ......except a chinky tonight"

I know "a chinky" will involve another 6-8 pints of guinness followed by 2 large spring rolls dipped in polystyrene cups of sweet and sour and curry sauce, I've no doubt the weight will simply fall off....

So why have you woke me up mate....

I wonder, in that illogical way you do sometimes, whether it's a warning..... 

We've had a bit of a run in during our check in to our air bnb.  Don't know about your experience of such things but up until now most have gone ok.   Here in Malaysia, where development is on hyper drive huge amounts of real estate seems to have been snatched up as investments by Chinese, in particular, and Indian absentee hosts.  They instal an agent in a flat and leave them to manage 20, 30 or even more flats all let on Air bnb.

Today we've turned up, it's a huge block of 40 or more floors over 8 floors of parking, pools, gym, dance rooms etc in a vast development.  There's no one here except security guys who don't look inclined to let us in out of the sweltering heat without the necessary security pass card. We phone the agent, it's quickly aparent that Mrs Song cannot speak English.  Also despite our contacting them by email 4-5 times today to let them know we'd be arriving, she seems utterly mystified as to who we are or where we are and indeed why we are anywhere.

The lobby to the building is in the car park, you cannot enter without a pass card, neither can you enter the lift, neither can you get to any floor in the lift without a passcard to that particular floor.  Mrs bloody Song knows all this well, we did not, until we spent 20 minutes waiting for it to penetrate her thick head that we had no option other than to wait for her.

Eventually she shows up and gets us into the lobby, the lift, then shows us how to input the 15 digit!! code to open the door.  It's a stunning property, 3 balconys, 2 overlooking the stunning Danga bay development while the other looks out across the strait to glistening, twinkling Singapore, the whole flat on the singapore side is floor to ceiling glass doors.

I have had to contact the owner, whose in China about a couple of issues and I've perhaps been less than complimentary about Mrs Song.

Kim has double locked the appartment door and locked our bedroom, Mrs Song has the build and look of a well gnawed chicken wing, but in my sleep addled state I can imagine her now, pressed against the sheer wall of the block, arms and legs splayed, outstretched, finger and toe nails seeking and finding tiny cracks and fissures in the render such as ghekkos use to keep her flat to the wall, 20 storeys above the road below.

"Were you trying to warn me Phil?" 

Coming to our window she'd pluck a long oriental hair from her head and insinuate it through the fenestration, loop and operate the lock.  With fiendish ninja enginuity, she'll slide, shadow like into our room and slide a sharpened steel chop stick into each of our ears.........

Nope I've had a good listen, there's no one else here.

I eventually decide that Phil, on some great, joyous loop around some universe or other must have brushed against ours.....

"I been driving all night....hands wet on the wheel..."

and given us a nudge .....

"Don't forget me"

As if we could!

Big Phil, sorted, geezer....MUNDO! 

This place is weird.  There are maybe 20-30 blocks each between 40-50 floors all crammed in to a small footprint and development continues. A few units have been sold and we sense most of those to investors so the place has the feel of a vast, multi storey ghost town.  From our vantage point we look down on a pure white, man made beach, lined with newly planted palm trees.  As it gets to the water line the sand rapidly browns where it's touched by the waves from the very busy Singapore strait. Swimming is not advised.

At night all of the palm trees are lit by string lights, it looks stunning.  There is a small, cabana beach bar, a beautiful winding pathway is cut among lawns which edge the beach, dotted with sculptures and park benches.  Walking around in the evening we learn the bar never opens.  It's just fake, signs advertising cocktails are affixed to the palms, swing chairs line the bar, picnic tables are set up.  No one serves, no one expects to buy. It's a Marie Celeste of a bar as if everyone just got up and jumped ship. 

Dozens upon dozens of Malay promenade the sand, and sit around the bar, and on benches set amongst the lawns and trees. Singles, families, groups of lads, Girls (they never interact, such contact in public is frowned upon here) The odd courting couple, furtively touching hands across a picnic bench, like in the House of Commons, a (pork) swords distance between them.

From a distance at ground level it's idylic.  Lawns, palm trees, white sand and a huge sunset reflected orange and red in the ocean.  After a while it dawns what the otherworldlyness is about the situation.  All these people, and they are not making a sound!  Anywhere else in the world, given a beach, a bar, a sunset, there would be conversation, laughing, the clink of glasses the odd pop of a cork.   Here? ....... Silence, it's like a vast open air seaside library.....SHUUUSH!!

Look again and you see virtually every individual is staring into a phone, I suppose with no booze and no sex what the hell else are young people supposed to do?  From our room when we look down, as it gets dark we lose sight of the individuals and all we can see are the lit phone screens like so many fireflies dancing and winking around each other.

Given that this place is virtually empty and it represents billions upon billions of someones money, security is tight.  We watch as every morning and evening the security teams go through a drill at changeover.  Formed into ranks we can make out that our section has just over 40 guys. 

It's not like the UK where two blokes slouch up, roll a fag each then nod off on a plastic chair.  These guys are mainly nepalese immigrants and clearly have military training.  They line up in impecable uniformed ranks and go through an elaborate drill which is presumably designed to give confidence to those residents that are here and to intimidate any riff raff.  At night these guys block the roads and man the barricades to ensure they don't become rat runs.

Down at ground floor we stroll around the building, there are fake fair ground roundabouts, statues of families at play with balloons, sugar plum fairy and soldier statues, plastic gnomes, turtles, fake flowers, flamingos, a pool with sprinkling fountains, small rocks scattered about the place which are actually hidden speakers, "relaxing music" is piped constantly, silent, electric, plastic "Limos" ghost about the place, driven by liveried chaufers, ferrying residents between blocks and the "Beach".  As we wonder down to the fake bar we wonder onto the beach itself....It's not even sand! some kind of pure, white silica......

We can't help but look back over our shoulder to check for some huge bouncing ballon!

Ok, so off to Singapore!  Checked out of our air bnb we make our way to the city station. It's very well managed as we're through immigration, on the train, off the train, through Immigration in about 20 minutes, 4 of which were actually spent on the journey.  Crossing the causeway we wave two fingers in the general direction of the hideously gridlocked traffic.

So what's the first thing you need after arriving in a new country?  We've mostly found it to be local curency.  I mean you've just landed, arrived or whatever, in most instances the only thing ou have is the address of a hotel.  Bus schedules are of course a complete mystery and even if they're not you still need money, cash, moolah.  In fact i think in most instances you're going to say hang the bloody expence just get me a cab.  Here there's an amazing cab service, they queue for miles and you just make your way to the front of the queue and off you go......assuming you have dinah, wonga, spondoolics.  At the woodland station which, only serves people arriving from a different country....Malaysia, you can as usual buy anything you may need to set up home from a sofa to tea spoons, in fact one store seems to be selling deconstructed powerplants.  I'd have bought one but, surprisingly, they wanted krona, squids, dosh, wad.  Yes, you can get anything you need right here, no need to go into singapore proper, just need some cash...ATM? we ask, we're rewarded by a look as if we've just emerged from a smoking space capsule and said something in martian.  No, it seems, the only thing you can't get here, or within some 30 minutes travel.....by car, is Singapore dollars.

All checked in and we stumble out into the steamy heat of little India.  What a great place.  We have a hindu temple next to the hotel, great wafts of incence cloud out into the street mingling with the smells from tandoors, from the flower garland stalls which line the street and the banana leaf curry houses.  The rythmic chanting from the temple, puntuated by drums and trumpets make for a very evocative back drop.  Inside the temple all is colour and noise. 

The strange hindu deitys take some understanding, elephant headed gods and fierce warriors trampling their dead foes mix with saintly looking budha types.  I'm particularely taken with a very beautiful statue.  A girl, lashes resting on alabaster cheeks, she has 4 arms either side of a voluptuosly rounded belly, rose tinted nipples atop pert breasts, she stands on one leg, the other straight up by her side such that the sole of her foot is next to her ear! the calf beautifully formed, the thigh, rounded silky, soft.  I mean, it aint "we plough the fields and scatter"  Had I seen this age 14 I'd be a tattoo'd, bearded, turban wearing acolyte right now.

I spend some time watching the drummer.  I've spent some time being dealt permanent hearing damage by a drummer friend (and renowned pirate....AhAARRRR!) of mine.  Thye guy here is quite astounding, at first I thought there were three of him!  Wearing a double headed drum on a sling, he uses his left hand, fingers and knuckles covered in shields to play ridiculously intricate patterns and counter rythms while with his right he beats out incredibly loud bass lines, it's quite mesmerising and rathe like my mate Dave, it's incredible to think that one individual can generate so much din.  He's joined by a guy playing a very long trumpet type jobby.  I've no doubt it was all quite traditional but for all the world it sounded like Coltrane on occassions playing all kinds of atonal scales, it sounded amazing, quite magical.  

This however is not the word we use to describe it when we learn next morning at 8am that this, joined with tolling bells is how our Hindu brothers choose to welcome the dutiful to morning prayers....But hey-ho, when in Rome.

Call me cynical but I'm wondering whether, if miscreants were treated to 20 lashes AND a $500 dollar fine the streets in the UK would be as cleanas they are here.  Smoke or drink where forbidden and the fine rises to $1000, printed on our entry cards is "Drug smuggling will be punished by death".....any questions??  The footways here are spotless, you will not see waste paper anywhere.  The MRT (Singaporean for underground) is just incredibly clean, all of the platforms are buffed to a sheen, the trains run like (in fact they may well be) clockwork. The one disconcerting aspect is that the carriages, sumptuously wide, roomy, clean and comfortable do not have barriers between carriages, there is no drivers cab, all of which means that you can see straight out of the front of the train as the lights illuminate the tunnel.  For all the world it feels as if you're in a computer games as we noislessly carreer around under a city which is building a new station every 2 months through until 2020!!

The city itself is staggering in it's scale and ambition.  Raffles hotel lords it, a pile of colonial era splendour, but at the bay front the sands hotel stands there, the most expensive building in the world.  It's a mind bending construction, a huge cantilevered ship curves atop three huge towers topped with restaraunts, bars an infinity pool, gardens, palm trees the works.  We have a few drinks and a meal up there (we should have paid off the bill either by 2023 or when my kidney sale goes through) and the views across Singapore are jaw dropping.  At ground floor, particularely at sunset, the construction and materials of the tower seem to set the "ship" afloat.  What looks like such a huge, imposing element in dayyight slowly seems to become weightless as the evening light is reflected in the windows and panels of the towers.  It floats there, looking for all the world like an Ark, carrying it's palm trees to a new home.

Everynight the building goes through a light show, search lights criss cross the city, emerald lasers bounce down onto the waters of the bay fan out then rise skywards.  To our left the huge "Bug eye" concert halls, just in front of them a 40,000 seater stadium, part cantilevered over the water, part floating and part built rows of seating is lit by what looks like a pink floyd pyrotechnic display.  I'm thinking this is the most stunning harbour I've ever seen.

9th August is Singapore's 53rd birthday, that's the day we fly home!  Lucky for us on the 5th  they hold a full dress rehearsal, complete with deafening jet fly past, (It circles "the ship" atop the Sands hotel on it's side, at it's own level in a stunning display of airmanship) and amazing fireworks display. Kim manages to blag our way into a bayfront restaraunt (all of which have been booked for months) with a combination of charm and It's ok we're British attitude.  We sit there quite happily munching a burger and a sandwich, a beer, a wine, sod it let's have a jack daniels.....all for only $250!!!!

The buildings here are huge, almost de-humanising.  While the roadways are wide, tree lined and very lovely, once into mall and hotel land the scale becomes staggering.  On a walk down to the harbour front we make our way into the vast Suntec mall and hotel. Take an elevator to the 40th floor, and there are still another 40 floors above you, it's constructed to be hollow in the centre such that a huge atrium sits over the building, it's roof, transluscent, is lit by constantly changing light patterns at night, by day, inside you crane our kneck looking at row upon row of floors disapearing above you, each lined by hanging gardens, take a vertigo inducing look down and 40 floors below you the restaraunt sits, alcoves floating on fish filled pools absolutely stunning.  We manage to "break in" to a conference room it has a balcony to the outside, we're 40 hotel floors plus 7 or 8 of shopping, plus 5 or 6 of parking above ground. The millions of people swarming like flies, round MRT underground, or like ants, in lines and clusters as they move around, threading about obstacles, carrying burdens, leaves, twigs, all back to their nests. The concourses below which link this building to adjoining malls, the walkway to the harbour front, the helix bridge to the stunning museum and sands buildings have shrunk their makers, insects trying to negotiate their own amazing creations, all of which is to say, we have absolutely no f*cking idea where the hell we are!

Well, that was a quick five months.  We remember sitting in a railroad station, leaving Heathrow with snow falling, it was minus 5, we've rarely had temperatures below 30 in all this time.  It's taken a while to get a handle on "travelling" as opposed to being on holiday but little by little we've settled into our strides.  Writing this now on the pool terrace of the hotel in Singapore were both excited about getting home, seeing friends and family, taking a break, the next leg!

Up here we can smell the tandoors below, just getting the chicken kebabs up to speed, we've eaten tandoori mushrooms and their 5 different chicken preparations down there on a couple of occassions, delicious!  We can see hotel 81 where we stayed last time we were here, we even found a tiny street bar where we'd sheltered from one of the prodigious rain storms we get here.  If they could just cut the price of a pint we'd feel quite at home.

Last night we sat at a very swish cocktail bar and ran over the trip, the highlights, the tough bits, when did we realise that this, travelling, is what we're doing rather than going anywhere? For me, Koh Lipe, a long way into the trip, funny how your mind plays these tricks, I still turn things, even travel into "projects"

All packed, we have 6 hours or so to kill before we need to be at the airport