Singapore, Serendipity, and the Stream of Life

To understand the magnitude of this story of fate/coincidence, you may want to read up on my philosophy of The River of Life.

Before I left Korea for my grand backpacking journey, I had a farewell lunch with my Spanish-teacher-turned-best-friend, Lorena. She passed me a book, Siddhartha, with a handwritten note inscribed in the cover. The book is about The River, she promised, and she hoped it would accompany me well on my upcoming journey.

The memory of my five-month backpacking journey is riddled with glimpses of turning the pages of this book, epiphanies and reflections, and connecting Siddhartha's relation with rivers with my own. While reading the book, whenever I felt something significant, I took a photo of the page. Here is a pic of the page that resonated with me on the flight to Singapore. Looking back at it now, what an incredible case of foreshadowing.

A month before, I'd made a Singaporean friend, Dani, in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I was traveling without plans, just a general mental outline, and she'd invited me to visit her on her home turf if I happened to find myself in Singapore.

But Singapore was far off the mark of my mental map. My trajectory would wind me around Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos, keeping me to the north. So I thought. I indeed made it to Thailand and Cambodia, but not Laos. In reality, I was traveling those northern parts during burning season, when most people either wish to or do flee that northern region for southern places with fresher, cleaner air. And I was not interested in diving headfirst into a grainy, smoky, noir-film-esque landscape myself, so I also fled for blue skies, far from the pollution, down in Singapore. In the spirit of spontaneity and going with the flow, I booked my flight two days in advance. And so, plans to meet with Dani were born.

Just a country away, in Malaysia, was Mattia, the Pokemon trainer friend I'd met in Vietnam months before. I'd be heading to Malaysia last, but meeting up with Mattia again wasn't in the cards, considering that he was preparing to return home to Italy soon, within the next week or so. That was the last correspondence we'd had, maybe a week before I flew to Singapore. It was a bummer that we'd just miss each other, but life goes on.

And life goes on with a sense of humor.

Fast forward to Singapore: I was checked into the hostel, bag stored under my capsule bed, dinner plans readied with Dani, and back downstairs, checking out the kitchen and common area. Considering what to do to kill the afternoon, I turned around, and did my eyes deceive me? Entering the door was a tall, dark-featured Italian guy who looked uncannily like the tall, dark-featured Italian guy I'd met in Da Nang months ago, the one with whom I'd had profound conversations about life, fate vs. coincidence, the River. The one whose path had been dotted with Pokemon cards before major leaps of faith -- just as mine would be.

"You've got to be freaking kidding me," I exclaimed, as we stared at each other in shock from across the room.

We shouted, we hugged, we stood incredulously in blends of stammers and silence of wild disbelief. (It's been a year since this moment, and I still can't believe it.)

Before the fated/coincidental reunion with Mattia, after throwing my bag on my hostel bed, I'd done some journaling, reflecting on the above passage of Siddhartha. I'd summarized, "Siddhartha realizes how much he enjoys connecting with other people and being social, and he realizes the joys in the world around him, and that he needs to accept and love himself as a vessel and as a sort of path to what he wants in life. It mirrors a lot the experiences I'm having, of finding myself, accepting myself, loving myself, and reconnecting with other people, finding connections with others, and learning to see the joy in life again. It's really beautiful. I don't know where else this book will go, but I am finding meaning in reading it right now."

A few paragraphs later: "The Grab driver today talked with me the whole way, and he was the second person this afternoon, in Singapore, to tell me that he’d be afraid to travel alone. He told me he admires me, and I could really feel that. I understand what that’s like because I’ve been that person. Maybe it’ll be scarier when I go to Europe. But I’m also having so much fun that it overcomes the fear. I really love the adventure. I really love meeting people and not knowing what’s coming next. There’s something exciting about booking a hostel and wondering who you’re going to meet there. I know that there will be more connections with people down the line, and I’m really excited about discovering them."

Little did I know!!!

Mattia joined Dani and I for dinner, where she shared with us the local opinions and truths of life in Singapore. Though I didn't get to see Dani again, Mattia and I did befriend another traveler from our hostel at breakfast the next morning: Chanchai. And with the trio complete, the Banana Pancake Pals assembled.

The three of us met at breakfast every morning, and though we socialized with others in the hostel, our trio always traveled together. Chanchai, AKA Chance, was an American Air Force vet, vacationing between visiting his mother in Thailand (surprising her in uniform) and beginning university. He may have been the youngest in our group, but we are all young at heart, and his humor (read: dad jokes) and energy were the conduits for our childlike antics and silliness around the city.

Seeing as you can read any other travel blog to learn what to do in Singapore, I’ll skip that part and get to the good stuff – a bulleted list of silly, meaningful moments that led to me skipping my booked departure flight, just so I could spend one more day with my Banana Pancake Pals.

• When you mix up your words, and your friends just go with it, and ridiculous wordplay comes about. “Reflects” becomes “roflocks.” You discuss “deforesting fires.” You pose with “breeching inlet” signs because it sounds like a British exclamation (“breechin’, innit?”). And Jack Johnson leads to your friendship call sign.

• Wandering around real-life Gotham, or as they call it, Atlas, in way-too-casual clothes, and marveling at the disturbing artwork outside

• Playing with games and puzzles, coloring at kid zones, and channeling our inner child in whatever way we can whenever we had the chance (pardon the pun)

• Reliving Mattia’s filmography past at LASALLE College of Arts. Learning of the hostel-based sitcom he wants to make. (I think he probably got inspiration for a few scenes from our shenanigans.)

• Chance accidentally trying to get into a Grab car from the driver’s side, like a moment from GTA. Oops!

  
  

• Watching Mattia take video calls from friends and family at any moment of the day. It’s special being on this side of his life, after watching his reels and Stories on IG for so long.

  
  
  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  
  
  

• Performing Pokemon tunes on public pianos

• Finding a cool stick on the way to the Botanical Gardens. Walking past beautiful mansions and embassies while pretending the stick is a wand and reenacting scenes from Harry Potter.

  
  
  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  
  
  

• Mattia and Chance whistling and singing the Mario theme, with character impressions and everything, at the top of a double decker bus while confused passengers find their seats, way in the rear, far away from us.

• Eating Hong Kong’s #1 noodles in Singapore Chinatown. Wondering, “Number 1 in what? It could be the #1 worst noodles, right?”

• Sharing traditional Chinese desserts (chocolate snow ice, Cherdol snow ice, sesame black pudding thing, ginger soup with mochi-like balls filled with peanuts, mango wrapped in a slimy, white dumpling thing) -- all delicious, despite my poor descriptions.

• Deep conversation with the Grab driver on the way to the airport, who learned that Chance and I are American and immediately asked us if we support Biden or Trump. I said we hadn’t discussed politics together, and he asked, “Why not? It’s important.” (He likely didn’t realize we weren’t actually traveling together and didn’t know each other that well.) He told us he had studied philosophy and psychology and said we need to talk to each other about politics. He admitted that he’s not proud of Singapore anymore. Its heyday was in the 80s and 90s, he said. He doesn’t believe there are any qualified politicians in the world anymore and criticized how the US runs, presidents always having to undo the last four years. He concluded by recommending that we visit China so we can see how good it is and how it does things right, with free transportation rides for people over the age of 60 (he must have been in his 70s, at least) and where people follow the rules.

• Exploring the Pokemon Center at Jewel with the guys, each of us buying a pack of Pokemon cards, playing arcade games, and getting Community Day stickers. Chance completed a survey for the Pokemon Center and got a special research sticker, taking me back to the golden days of working for Disney Research.

  
  
  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  
  
  

Somewhere toward the end of our stint in Singapore, Mattia and I sat on a bench in the gardens. We'd lost Chance somewhere in the maze of paths and plants. The shadows expanded as the golden light relented to the twilight. Mattia and I entered perhaps the dozenth dialogue about this wild, crazy, unbelievable, serendipitous reunion.

"Do you think it means something?" he asked.

I don't know. I didn't know then, and I don't know now. But probably.

Is there such a thing as fate? Is there such a thing as coincidence? I don't know.

I remembered our goodbye, five months ago, on a dusty street in Da Nang. A traveler's farewell. Our connection had been forged in the circumstance of promised distance, the unlikelihood that we would ever see each other again. A two-day-old friendship, seemingly fated to WhatsApp messages. Two travelers on separate journeys, one beginning and one ending, divided by the internal perimeters of a vast continent.

Is the world really so small that these two travelers could walk into the same hostel, in a country neither had even planned on visiting, just within minutes of each other's check-in? Apparently. We later learned that Chance, too, hadn't planned to visit Singapore, either.

Fate or coincidence? I still don't know. All I know is that when I follow the flow of Life, it leads me to incredible moments and the best people. Whether or not I can explain it, I'm just grateful for it.