After great effort and time, we bought tickets for our visa run to Singapore. Indonesia allows a maximum 60-day visa, so we had to leave and come back. Although we were in Singapore less than 24 hours, we made good use of our time and got a good feel for the place. It is mind-blowing that Singapore exists so close to Indonesia. The city is oozing wealth. The architecture is so creative and dramatic that it seems the developers just needed a way to spend more money. It is also, as its reputation would suggest, very clean and orderly. Indonesia has a serious trash problem, so the contrast was stark.

Our hostel was right on the metro line, so it was easy to get around . Our first stop was Litle India for a delicious lunch. I've never been to India, but Shen described Little India as "India, if you put it through a washing machine." We went to a mall to watch a movie, and we walked around the harbor. We found a vegetarian restaurant in Chinatown for dinner, then we walked to a bridge over the river and watched Saturday night unfold. After dark, several buildings sported colored lasers beaming across the city. Again, I could picture the building owners saying, "How on earth can we spend all this money?? I know: Laser shows!"

The next morning we hopped the metro to the airport and flew back to Indonesia. Very quickly, Singapore seemed like a dream, or maybe a brief foray back into normal life. We had booked a flight back to Jakarta, but we couldn't purchase the onward travel to Kalimantan in advance. We did manage to reserve seats, but the reservation would expire if we didn't make it to the ticket counter by noon on our day of travel. We landed in Jakarta and rushed madly through immigration, baggage claim, customs, the painfully slow inter-terminal shuttle bus...and made it with five minutes to spare. It was truly a whirlwind tour of Singapore, but at last, we're Borneo-bound!