timely travel

While back home i may be a little bit of a magnet for (minor) incidents, i've realised that i had been unwittingly dodging a couple of far more serious incidents during my most recent trip. It was only after i had safely left the city of Cordoba that i learnt (through picking up on whatever i could from the Spanish-language Argentinian TV report that i happened to catch a brief glimpse of) that there was a police strike there, and in fact only nearing the end of the trip, close to two weeks after having left Cordoba, that i realised that it had turned rather violent, not only in Cordoba itself but in many other parts of the country as well, while i remained blissfully unaware of what was going on. In fact, the strike and riots had begun on the afternoon/evening of Dec 3, while i caught a bus out of the city that same night.

I suppose that you could consider this a benefit of travelling in a country where the lingua franca is by and large alien to you. And of course having to do stuff like arranging transport and accommodation during the precious time that i was able to get online rather than browsing news websites played a role too.

The second incident i just missed were the power cuts in Buenos Aires that have since escalated into protests. The reports state that the power cuts had started affecting residents two weeks ago, which is precisely when i flew out of Buenos Aires. In fact, there was a minor power outage that lasted less than a minute while i was at the airport awaiting to board my plane, though judging by the lack of any hit of surprise on the faces of the airport staff, perhaps that was merely routine. Whatever the case, my timing for both has been spot on, though of course i still feel sad to see such incidents happening in Argentina, which to me really is a country that potentially has so much going for it. NE lesson in the making, this is..

world class

I've been back in S'pore for about ten days now, and in this time i've already encountered two cases of door malfunctions on public transport:

1) an SBS bus door that refused to close, resulting in the bus driver having to get everyone on board to alight and get on the next bus - this took place at the stop at which i had boarded the bus; in other words the bus didn't move an inch (just like the door) once i was on it.

2) the safety door (i.e. not the train door, but the one that prevents passengers from straying onto the track) at City Hall MRT Station refused to close, resulting in the train i was on being stuck at the station for about a couple of minutes, before one of the station staff had to rush down and close the door manually - at first i thought that it was all the safety doors that would not close, but then i realised that it was only the door right where i was standing at.

This all took place after me having a trip in South America that was relatively free of transport woes, apart from one Subte train breaking down at the station in Buenos Aires (or at least that's what i assume happened - i just followed everyone else's cues because the announcements were made solely in Spanish).

Well, if there's a moral to this brief story, it's that yes, Singapore does have a world class public transport system, in the sense that just like everywhere else in the world, breakdowns and malfunctions do occur. (I don't mean this as a criticism by the way - and also by the way i hate the phrase 'world class', but that's another story) And if there's another one, it's that at least in Singapore, my public transport jinx is still very much alive and kicking.

hasta mañana

Just got back from South America (Argentina and Uruguay) a couple of days ago; never having much opportunity to post anything here during that time. Not that there was no internet access - free wifi is rather easily accessible in many places there,  contrary to what many may think, though bearing in mind that Argentina and Uruguay are some of the more developed countries in the continent - but whatever time and opportunity i had online was spent on making trip arrangements, of which there were many. In a perfect world, this blog, which is just about as random and unfocused as a blog can get, would morph into a travel blog, at least whenever i'm on holiday. Instead, i've to make do with writing rather dull and formulaic recounts of my day on my (hardcopy) notebook whenever i've had the opportunity to, just so as not to forget whatever happened, while telling myself that what i've written will soon morph into some credible travel writing on this site. Well, that 'soon' will certainly not be today (i've only just finished uploading pictures from two trips ago), but we can always hope for tomorrow..