Scott G Trenorden

Well, after several years of ill health and rough plans, I am finally overseas, if not only for a relatively short while. I am writing from Siem Reap, Cambodia, but will reflect first on the last two days.

Flying out of Perth, we arrived in Singapore at 3:00am or so, and by 3:30 I was standing out the front of the airport. Thinking it would be quite a bit later by the time I ventured outside (there were near to no shops to visit etc in the terminal I arrived at), I did not book a room for that evening.

And so I found myself at 3:30 in the morning, wondering on what exactly I should do. After a brief internal discussion, I was on the shuttle bus into town, heading to the Inn Crowd, where I was booked in for the following night.

This drive was the only really outstanding (or more-so surreal) experience of my Singapore stay, due solely to the three elderly Indian fellows, also on the shuttle bus, very enthusiastically singing along to a Mariah Carey song on the radio.

Anyway, as it turned out, the fellow manning the desk at the Inn Crowd (yes, at 4am) invited me in and said to rest on the couch for the rest of the night. I did as such, and after a not-so-fulfilling nap, was soon up and about, wandering the ‘Little India’ area of Singapore.

I had a few ‘back in India’ moments that morning, listening to the men chatter and snort their sinuses (bleh!) and a few other Indian customs; as well as the smell of the incense and food.
I must be honest, the nostalgia was not of the most pleasant kind.

Shopping… That seems to be the main - if only - attraction of Singapore. Oh, and food apparently, but I didn’t get much time for that.
The people (on the streets) were lovely, the shop keepers were (on average) very overbearing, and the streets were simply packed with vehicles.
I made my way to Sim Lim (Electronics ’super store’) to buy a couple of things and then headed back to the Inn for a nap, prior to meeting up with Elsie later that eve.

Not the most exciting blog so far huh? Rather reflective of my short stay in Singapore really; nice to see but not overly exciting.

I met Elsie (a dear makeup artist friend of mine, and a driving force behind some of my most successful model shoots) at Starbucks around 8pm that night, and we chatted til well past 10:30. I then retreated to the Inn for a rest before a 3am rise to head to the airport and on to Siem Reap, Cambodia.

And here I am!
I jumped on the back of a motorbike and did the journey to the Mandalay Inn, my place of residence for the next two weeks.

My initial impressions were rather intense. Very poor, very congested, quite polluted (but provides a very nice natural diffusion!) but lovely, lovely people.
I’ve not yet ventured far today (is currently 3:21pm), as I spent half of the afternoon catching up on some much needed sleep and settling in to my room.

So, no photos of Cambodia yet, and not a lot to report on. So I’ll sign off on my Perth to Singapore adventure (and prove that I have taken some photos, Bel!) and see how the blogging from the guest house works out. It’s a very slow process (slow and intermittent Internet), but it works (eventually), so woohoo!

So far, so good!

[Note: I don't expect that all my photography from this trip will be black and white]