Travel Biography - Week 75.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow?

All photos here are my own, taken in 1997.

Before chronicling the 1997 flight from London Heathrow to Singapore Changi Airport, I need to express an issue I had problems with during the weeks before take-off, an issue I should have dealt with in last week's blog had I thought about it. 

When I was a boy, and especially during schooldays, I had to have short back-and-sides haircuts. However, back then, that was normal among boys of my age. This was further insisted on by my father's older brother, who was a Warrant Officer in the Royal Air Force. There were times, whenever he came around to visit when Uncle told Dad off for allowing my hair to grow a little over the military regulation. One Saturday morning in 1966, in my parent's absence, he gave me a severe telling-off for popping out to the shops without a tie during my earlier teenage years.

Evening lights at Clarke Quay

By the time I was 17 years old, I began to let my hair grow, despite having disputes over it with my parents. This was due to Beatlemania among teenagers slightly older than I was. Their trendsetting for the nation's young people, I guess, had led many a barber to reconsider his future. By the time I was 18, my hair was considerably long for an average male, and having reached adulthood, even Uncle had by then lost all authority over us on these matters of hair length and dress code.

And so, for my entire adult life, I always had long hair at various lengths. Sometime during the nineties, a church elder suggested tying my hair into a ponytail, an idea I had found to be advantageous enough to have my long hair in a ponytail during daylight hours to this day, especially if I'm outdoors on a windy day.

When Singapore became a republic in 1965, one of the first things their Government did was to impose a ban on all males wearing long hair. And that applied to both the indigenous and the visitor. Their explanation for this ban was that long hair was related to the hippie culture which was into illegal drugs. Their Flower Power culture was in direct conflict with the Singaporean Conscription for National Service, compulsory for all able-bodied men, whether home-born or immigrants.

The ban brought controversy between Singapore and neighbouring nations, especially with the issue of tourism. A long-haired male tourist arriving in Singapore was given a choice of two options. Either get a haircut straight away or leave the country. Despite such a controversial issue, the ban remained in force for the next thirty years.

Hence, as I was preparing for the Round-the-World travel experience, I was teased, especially by one unmarried Christian. This regular churchgoer believes that being English with their imperial past was always superior to that of any other nation, especially the Italians with their reputation of recklessness. As such, I was an ideal target for his mockery.

Therefore, one weekday, I boarded a train to London to visit the Singapore Consulate. It was here that one staff member reassured me that there was no longer a ban on long hair in Singapore. He then testified that he had long hair when he recently visited the State. Although reassured by a Singaporean staff member, the visit to the Consulate brought further mockery from some of my friends.

Take-Off to Singapore. 

My long hair has always been my genes. Therefore, no way would I have it cut so short just to make another man happy! So, the only other option was to reboard a plane at Singapore Changi Airport for Australia if the worst came to the worst.

On Tuesday, May 20th, my next-door neighbour and friend, Mark, gave me a lift in his car to the station. From there, I made my way to Earls Court to claim my bed at the YHA Earls Court. To do this, I changed trains at Richmond-on-Thames, and sitting directly opposite me on the TfL District Line train was one of my window-cleaning customers.

We chatted heartily during the stretch from Richmond to Earls Court, where I alighted. He remained on the train to take him into Central London for a business meeting. Once checked in at the hostel and leaving my rucksack leaning on the dormitory bed with my tickets, traveller's cheques, and passport locked away safely in a locker, I started a reminiscence walk from the hostel to my childhood street, St Georges Square in Pimlico. As I walked along the Embankment, I passed the annual Chelsea Flower Show, a national garden exhibition opened each year by the Queen. Thus, whenever the Flower Show opens, I always have a flashback to this day, the eve of take-off.

(Full coverage of my childhood walks along the Chelsea Embankment is detailed in Week 1 of the Biography.) 

Orchard Road.

Life at Orchard Road.

The next morning, after a wash and shave, I had breakfast in the hostel cafeteria and sat at the table opposite a friendly young Asian female. We chatted whilst I kept my eye on the time. She wished me all the best for the coming journey.

Later that morning, I sat by the window on the port side of the British Airways Boeing 747 airline, one of the largest aeroplanes to take off from Heathrow Airport. This was for a flight lasting more than twelve hours with a further eight hours ahead of the Greenwich Time Zone, which means that it was the morning of the next day when the plane landed at Changi Airport in full daylight. Incredibly, most of the seating within the plane was unoccupied, including the two other seats on my row. As we passed through the shortest night I had ever experienced, I was able to lie down across all three seats. However, once the night had drawn in, far below, lightning flashed, creating momentary bright spots in the cloud cover over the Middle East area of Asia. It was quite a spectacular sight!

Arrival at Singapore.

After landing, at the arrival customs, there were notices written in English warning us all that if illegal drugs were found, then the carrier of the drugs would be sentenced to death. It was a shocking reminder that this is a very different country to that of the UK, having a tiger economy. Once in the arrivals lounge, it was pleasantly cool as I looked for a bathroom to freshen up. However, after stepping out of the building, the reality hit me.

Under hazy sunshine, the air was hot and humid. The first thing to do was to get into the centre of town and find a bed for the next four nights, as this was more of a rest stop on the journey to Australia from the UK than a final destination. I found out that there was a cluster of backpacker's hostels in the district of Bugis, near Orchard Road, one of the main streets of the city. By asking around, I boarded a bus which would pass through Bugis, where I was to alight. 

Along the coast-hugging highway, I was intrigued by how every bridge that crossed the motorway was covered with tropical vegetation. This would have made the entire environment an extra delight to the motorist, perhaps something the UK can learn from.

I alighted from the bus at Bugis, within the city. I was surrounded by modern tall skyscrapers, one of which didn't even conform to the traditional square cross-section, but instead, with its obtuse and acute angles, the building looked as if flattened. A short walk, and I saw what looked like hostel bunk beds peering through an upstairs window. Acquainted with the good old "Off-the-Street" walk-in with no previous booking, I took a lift to the third-floor reception and asked whether a bed was available. I was offered one straightaway, much to my delight and relief.

Will's Homestay was a one-floor hostel on the third floor, or should I say, the Singaporean version of an Italian pensione, a hotel with a dormitory instead of individual rooms. It had a central lounge, bathroom and a kitchen, but unlike a proper hostel, the kitchen was accessible only for breakfast. I was to spend four nights there, with the 5th night spent at Changi Airport boarding another Boeing 747, the Qantas Airline flight to Cairns, Queensland. Hence, including a morning arrival, I spent five full days in Singapore. 

One set of incidents took place at Will's Homestay. Here, on the evening of the first day after arrival, I befriended a tall, athletic Dutchman. He was taking a few days' holiday in Singapore from Holland, and the next day he was due to fly back home, I believe, at his parent's bidding. Estimating his age, I would have placed him somewhere in his mid-to-late twenties. That evening, I never realised that telling him that Singapore was a stopover on my way to Australia from the UK would stir up jealousy.

That was manifest the next morning. Just after breakfast, he entered the kitchen and spoke to me in a less friendly, more harsh tone and ordered me to keep an eye on his item whilst he was off to pack, ready for his flight home. The item left on the table in front of me was a torch or camper's lamp. After he left the room, I rose and made my exit, leaving his camper's lamp unattended on the table. Not that I wouldn't have shown a favour to anyone polite, but he was hostile as if he spent the night comparing his holiday with mine. What he didn't seem to realise was that he was in his late twenties, I was in my forties. Unless he marries soon, he has much of his life ahead to make a go in world travel.

My stay at the hostel also involved a fright one evening. After returning from a day out, I used the elevator to get to the third floor. I was alone in the lift when it stopped for no reason between floors. In a panic, I punched the alarm button. That got the lift moving again, but I arrived in our dormitory shaking a little. To this day, although I'm not phobic against elevators, I do feel wary when using them, and there are some lifts I wouldn't use at all. Fortunately, a fire escape stairwell accompanied the lift shaft. From that evening on, I used the stairs when entering and leaving the building.

As for my health, the hot and humid air caused me to feel unwell on the first day after arrival. I was walking down Orchard Road when I felt a little queasy and continuously thirsty. I came prepared. There is a compartment on my rucksack that contains Paracetamol and similar medicines. I affectionately called that compartment Auto Doc, and it served just that, keeping me well when on a journey, especially from mild ailments such as feeling feverish. But I did find the Singaporean air oppressive. It was hot and humid, and this stirred up thirst. I found myself drinking one can of soft drinks after another until I acclimatised.

The 37-metre high Merlion, Sentosa.

As I walked along Orchard Road, I began to notice that the city's shopping precinct was unlike any other Western town I had visited. The street wasn't lined with shops as with a typical British High Street. Instead, there was a row of huge shopping malls lining both sides of the street. Inside each of the air-conditioned malls were the shops. One of the malls I entered and looked around. It looked newly built, and if I remember right, this one was built with polished granite. Perhaps the English equivalent is the Oracle in Reading, but this mall in the tropics was grander, consisting of several floors, and had all the shops and restaurants one can imagine.

And so, the journey has begun. The Round-the-World trip is up and running. And it would never fade from memory.

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A couple of corrections from last week's blog.

1. What I referred to as Clarke Bay was actually Clarke Quay, a platform a little way upstream on the Singapore River, and not the inlet itself, which is Marina Bay. I stood on Clarke Quay in 1997.

2. Fantasy Island closed down in November 2001, according to Wikipedia. But when Universal Studios opened in 2011, the old Fantasy Island was upgraded, made safe and incorporated into Universal Studios as Adventure Cove Waterpark, which is separate from the oceanarium.

I apologise for the misinformation and strive to give the most accurate biography as my abilities allow.

Next Week. Singapore attractions and Sentosa Island as they were in 1997.