Cycling in Pulau Ubin
Hejhej again!
You may have noticed that I haven't posted anything here for a while, and that I've been keeping it pretty lowkey on Instagram as well. You are right, and I hope you weren't too worried. If you've been reading my blog for a while (thank you!), you know that I sometimes need to withdraw from it completely for a while in order to reflect and re-charge. That is what this past week has been all about! Not sure why, it might be the culture shock setting in, but I've found myself needing more alone time and more rest than before.
Anyway, let's get to the point, shall we? A while ago (last Saturday, february 4th) we went cycling in Pulau Ubin! Ubin is an island outside the coast of Singapore, close to Malaysia. It is is said to give a glimpse of what life was like back in the 60's, when Singapore was basically made up of small villages. It was quite a long journey from NTU, but not so long that it couldn't be a day trip. We went by MRT, bus and of course, boat! I've been longing to go on a boat ever since we got here so that was really great. If you want more info on how to get to Pulau Ubin, Wild Singapore has an OK guide here.
I have an array of mobile phone-quality photos for you!
I was nervous about dropping my phone, but still wanted to take a quick snap.
This is what greets you when you first get off the boat - bicycles! A whole street with rental shops, shows that Pulau Ubin is a popular place to explore on two wheels. Of course we wanted to do the same!
When I did some research, I came across quite a few newpaper articles about nasty accidents in Pulau Ubin. The articles all stated that injuries could all have been lessened, if not prevented, had the people just worn helmets. Suddenly, my mother's words insisting I wear a helmet as a child made perfect sense! However, when I asked the shop owner for one he just gave me a puzzled look. It seems not many would ask him the same question.
"No no, you don't need."
"But I do!"
I saw there were a bunch of helmets in the back of the shop, and he agreed to let me go and try one out even though he didn't think they were in good enough condition (they were a bit dirty but still functional, I'm not fuzzy).
Point is, I fought very hard to look this silly so enjoy the proof! Jokes aside, we stayed on the normal roads and it actually felt very safe. I suppose the accidents happened on the significantly more challenging mountain-bike trails. We tried one out for about 100 meters and decided mountain-biking wasn't really our forte. I also found out the hard way why most people don't ask for a helmet - IT IS SO WARM. I did not really take the 30 degrees celsius temperature into account...
The highligt of the trip for me was seeing these monkeys! They were curious and got pretty close to us as we stopped to look. We kept our distance though, seeing as no one likes noisy intruders in their home.
This one is called Sporty girl on orange bike makes U-turn in lush green scenery.
That's all from Pulau Ubin and our sweaty cycling adventures.
Til next time! / Julia
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