Hitchhiking in Singapore: Botanical Gardens and Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve
16th of January, 2025.
As I arrive at the counter at 7.40 a.m., there’s nobody here yet, they will come at 8 a.m. So I simply leave The Hulk by a pillar, and carry on exploring the place.
The Botanical Gardens of Singapore are for FREE, only having an Orchid Garden which is paid. And honestly, there are so many beautiful plants all over the place, flowers too, of course, and just outside the Orchid Garden there’s also some beautiful orchids, that I truly don’t see the point of paying for it. Yep, a visit to the Botanical gardens is a must once in Singapore. Just as in MacRitchie, there are tracks into the forest, rain forest, with many different types of trees and plants all over the place. There’s also a small Top Walk, but still nice. I like how there’s many explanation boards, showing photographs and giving info about the many different plants and flowers you can find here. For that reason, I’ve learned a lot about them. The area of the gardens is gigantic, and it can take you some good four hours to walk all over. There are three to five lakes too, but I’ve managed to get to three only. Under different circumstances, I would’ve loved to visit them all, and walk all around the place. But in my three hours exploring, I still managed to cover a significant area, and I believe I walked about 80% of the whole extension of the gardens.
There are a few different entrances and access points to the Botanical Gardens, the biggest and busiest one been the one at NPARKS HQ, right at the middle of the gardens. Apart from the lovely flora, you can also spot some wild life as turtles, monitor lizards, snakes, butterflies and birds.
When I come back for my backpack, there’s a bit of a commotion about it. The people from this visitor centre are a bit abrupt at first, saying that they do not allow people to leave their belongings here. How could I possibly know? And honestly, who else apart from me would ask such a thing? She even says that they though somebody had simply left the backpack there. What? Really? A backpack with a tent, a mattress, and my clothes hanging all around it? Yeah, sure! And I even tell her about the CCTV, which could clearly see me when I arrived in the morning with Wilson, and that I just dropped off the backpack there, going around with my other small one. Anyway… The thing is, as they carry on talking and listening to me, they smoothed up a little bit, and all was good.
I had a very simple plan to get to Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve (SBWR): I still have a bit more than 2 SD on the train card I got it when I arrived, so I can use that to get to a station called Kranji, the nearest one to the Reserve, and then walk or hitchhike there. But thanks to the ridiculous Singapore train structure, my simple plan becomes a snowball. When you have a train card, even though your travel distance might cost only a bit over 2 SD, you must have over 3 SD in order to use it; plus, you cannot top up only 1 SD, the minimum amount to top up in cash is 2 SD. Ridiculous, I know! Now imagine me walking around with my backpacks, figuring out all of this, when all I need is simply one freaking ride in a train. Alternatively, you can use your bank card directly in the machines to enter the train terminal, but my card is not these touch and pay ones. And as I already know, my Kbank from Thailand charges me more than 3 USD per withdrawn.
As I sit outside this hospital where 7-Eleven is located (by the way, Singapore is the first country which I’ve been where there are plenty of commercial shops inside the hospital), I keep thinking what to do. I decide to ask for the 2 SD I need. I will have to walk my way out of Singapore, crossing the long bridge to Malaysia on foot, but what to do? There’s a Starbucks right behind me, and I ask in a table with three young boys. Two of them slightly listen to me, while the third don’t even bother taking his eyes out of the paper he’s reading. And I know they saw me with my backpack just through the glass behind them. One of the guys try to give me 10 SD, saying he has no change, I refuse at first but am considering to go get some change, when the other one handle me two coins of 1 SD each. That’s all I need. It’s a shame though that I don’t feel as they are happy to help or anything like that. It reminds me of all that amazing people I’ve met in India, who even being very humble and simple people, would offer me everything they had in their pockets, without even looking at it, and when I never asked for.
One of the man working at the Customer Service is actually really nice and he even tried to help me as much as he could. After I top up the card with the 2 SD (now I have 4.7 SD in total), he tells me I can get the remaining of the card refund in Woodlands Station, where I am going. Yay! That means I can use those 2 SD to take a bus and cross the border.
In Woodlands Station, I need to change trains to reach Kranji. As I stand somewhere in the station, looking very much puzzled, another lovely man, an angel, is sent to help me. He says to me: “You look lost!”. Laugh. I explain to him that I need to ask, at the Customer Service, how to get the refund of my train card, but I can only see the CS outside the station. He tells me to follow him. Wisely, he guides me to the underground, from where we reach the other side of the station, and the CS, without needing to leave the station. Brilliant! After a lot of talking, I figure out the following: you can get the refund only in a few stations, and you must give back the train card, meaning I can only do that at my final station, Kranji, which conveniently do not do refunds. When the lovely man who is helping me asks how much is the refund, I tell him that it’s not much, only 2 SD, but as I am leaving the country and have no cash with me, I would use that to catch the bus to cross the border. He then, immediately, takes out his wallet and try to handle me two notes of 5 SD. I tell him I cannot accept the 10 SD as I only need 2 SD. He then says it doesn’t matter to him, to what I reply – it matters to me. So finally he accepts to give me only 5 SD, to what he says – pay it forward. No way! I have just rewatched this film. I am touched! I cannot believe he actually said that. Anyway, one last thing, he was also very charming. Or was it his attitude which made me look at him in that way?
I get a lift with three man from Singapore. They drive me to the other entrance of the Reserve, the one which is nearer to the birds watching trail. It’s OK, I guess, and only wonder what is the reason for that to happen.
There’s nobody around here as well, and as I drop off the hulk in front of a desk where it should be some personnel, I only hope that I am not breaking any rules again. I first eat the cheese, the chocolate bun and the red velvet cake. I have had the pear already at the Botanical Gardens. Then, I take the birds trail, and for some strange reason, contradicting what I have planned earlier, I take left instead of right. You see, I really only came back here because of the crocodiles. They are one of the few animals I haven’t seen yet, which I really would like to. So I am repeating out loud – crocodiles, crocodiles, crocodiles… As soon as I start walking, I see a young man standing by the fence. As I am approaching him, he tells me that there’s a huge croc over there. Where? – I ask – So he shows me. I can barely believe! I was expecting to see some small crocs here, from the marketing campaign and photos, but this guy, he is massive! I even get a bit frightened, I must confess, because he is really big. He’s underwater at first, but I still can see his face. His tail, or better saying, what is left of his tail, is the only thing visible out of water. Apparently, he is the biggest croc in the Reserve, and his name is Tailless. He got into a fight and another croc bit off almost his entire tail. How the hell that happened, him being the biggest croc, I don’t know, all I know is that, right after his back legs there’s a lump, and where his tail should actually start, it finishes. Pour baby! I think that if he had his tail, he would be longer than four metres.
Tailless is about two metres long from nose to tail lump, which might not seen so impressive, but as he is a really large animal, his body is massive and thick. As he emerged to catch some air, I am astonished how something so beautiful can also look so frightening. He is very close to us, only about 1.5 metres away from the platform where we stand. His eyes are gorgeous, and he looks right into us. His teeth are big and coming out of his gigantic and scary jaw. What an incredible creature! Crocodiles are very impressive beings! They look so out of this world! Perhaps because I like dinosaurs so much, that’s why I also love crocs!
I stay with him for a little longer, and then I must go and look for more crocs and other animals.
I see so many monitor lizards! And some of them are huge! When I was volunteering in Kedah, I had some hard time admiring the one gigantic monitor lizard we had there, and was never able to take even one photograph of it. Now, here at SBWR, I see them all the time, and some of them are not shy at all, with me passing lees than one metre of them, taking photos and making videos, as it was just another Thursday. In one of my videos, I am following a couple. Well, almost. There’s a female running away from a male, and I am following them. It feels a lot like my entire love life actually. Laugh.
The funny fact is that I don’t really see any interesting birds. Perhaps because I am too focused on the reptiles? I also don’t see any other crocs. But that’s because (I believe) there are a few men cutting the grass right in the middle of the lake, so the loud noise might have driven them away. Damn it! So I keep on seeing only monitor lizards. By the end of the day, I am already used to them. But I still think they are gorgeous creatures too!
I also see a playful otter, having some fun in a bit of sand. I almost step in a tiny and thin green pit viper. It’s so adorable! And the way which slither away, almost not touching anything, as it is actually floating instead of slithering, is enchanting! I see also another snake, which could’ve been a mangrove pit viper, but as it super tiny, rolled, and a bit far, I couldn’t distinguish very well, neither take a decent photo. I also see many tree crabs, which I thought were spiders at first. And that’s it!
It is a wonderful experience after all! I loved and I am glad I came back! As I also came back to see Tailless one last time before leaving the Reserve. It was like he was waiting for me, as he just left the spot as soon as I arrived.
I walked to the main road to hitchhike once more from this same spot, as I did last Friday, when I arrived to Singapore.
10 Years Around the World 