I rode down to Singapore on Thursday to attend the launching of Bike Asia 2008. I left Kuala Lumpur at 9am on a 2005 Aprilia Tuono. Pravin Menon from The Malay Mail accompanied me on his Suzuki DT800. It was a beautiful sunny day, and we rode so leisurely that we arrived at the Johor immigration checkpoint well after noon.
Getting into Singapore was pretty straightforward. Initially, I was a bit apprehensive because I had a pretty colourful passport. In the past two or three years, I had travelled a few times to Pakistan and Indonesia on assignment. What was worse was that I also had an Afghanistan visa, and with my beard - I fit the profile of a terrorist pretty well. I half expected to be stripped down and body-searched.
Pravin - who was dressed in all black body armour didn't help things much by appearing like a futuristic Tamil Tiger. I smiled at him weakly as I handed my passport to the Kiasu-looking officer sitting in his booth.
Thankfully, the Singapore border guards were calm and were not trigger happy with their machine guns - and while we raised a few eyebrows - everything went smoothly, and we were soon heading at a steady 80km/h to the city centre.
Ah.. Singapore. That wonderful city-state that is similar, yet so different from our own country.
Source:Arman Ahmad
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