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I have a shameful secret to confess: I had a Singapore fling. I had to do it, just had to, but it's not something I'm proud of.

It all started 24 hours before in KL Sentral train station. I was working in Malaysia, not yet on a work visa, but on a simple three month tourist visa, which required renewing. This meant a trip somewhere: my eyes wandered down to Singapore, the land of sleek skyscrapers, cleanliness, and spot fines for minor social offences. I bought a ticket on a Friday night sleeper train down the country and bedded down for the night, watching the black outlines of the trees against the midnight sky.

In the early morning the train shuttered into immigration at Woodlands. After hauling ourselves off the train and into lines, passengers stood sleepily leaning against corridor walls as we waited to be allowed back onto the train. A short train journey after this through the leafy outskirts of Singaporebrought the sight of the city's beautifully understated 1930s colonial railway station, Tanjong Pagar. The station and its surrounds are counted as Malaysian property and ownership disputes still periodically flare up between the two governments. Whatever happens politically, it would a shame if the simple beauty of this station were not preserved.

Outside the station, the docks loomed up ahead of me so I turned instead towards the path up through the manicured grounds of apartment complexes. Steadily I made my way into Chinatown, which was just coming to life. Shopkeepers swept their neat plots of sidewalk impatiently as passers by began to grow more frequent. I walked along the clean streets, admiring the bright colours of the buildings until I came to the hostel I had researched on the internet earlier. No rooms, no beds: Just what you want to hear after an overnight train journey. So I looked at the next hostel on my list and began to walk to a bus stop. The next hostel was in the Indian quarter on Jalan Besar, a vibrant and friendly area of the city. After checking in and dumping my bag in a locker, I wandered back in the direction of town. Hunger had set in, and as soon as I saw an open caf, I sat down. Some locals were sitting about on the benches, watching TV and drinking that sweet, thick, milky, tea so ubiquitous in Malaysia and Singapore, teh tarik. I ordered toast and egg, but the shop must have only just opened because it wasn't until a man returned with a bag full of ingredients that my breakfast began to take shape. I sat sipping

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