Singapore is the closest city to Australia that connects to mainland South-east Asia. For that reason we started in Singapore as it was just one flight from our home in Australia to the gates of south-east Asia.
We were unsure of Singapore's cycling infrastructure, but lo and behold Singapore is full of wonderful cycling paths. Importantly, you can directly cycle out of Changi Airport from any terminal, but we particularly enjoyed cycling from the Hub and Spoke Cafe at Terminal 2. This connects you up with the Jurassic Mile. We kindly asked the staff at Hub and Spoke for a place to dispose our bike boxes - they let us use their big bins but we had to cut down the boxes to fit them in.
Our route takes you from Changi Airport through city parks to the centre of Singapore metropolis, gliding past the Gardens by the Bay, Marina Bay Sand and the gigantic Merlion statue. After that, the route follows the Singapore Rail Trail all the way to the Singapore - Malaysia border crossing, referred to as the Woodland Checkpoint.
There is only one border crossing from Singapore to Malaysia for vehicles, motorbikes and bicycles called the Woodlands Checkpoint. Disappointingly, there are no bike lanes for cyclists to cross the border and you must use the motorbike lane. There is a pedestrian way but that is via train and bicycles are not allowed onboard. Avoid crossing the border during peak hours (from Johor Bahru to Singapore, this is before office hours (approx 6 - 8am), from Singapore to Johor Bahru, this is after office hours (approx 5 - 6pm). The advice we were given when talking to the information centre at the train station is to join the motorbike lane. If you can preplan to get onto the motorbike lane highway before getting to the Woodlands area that would be better. If you already at Woodlands, go up the 'Cars Only' sign and merge onto the motorbike lane. Be on the lookout for the manual immigration booths on the right-hand side and avoid the QR scanning booths on the left-hand side.
Singapore is very hot and humid with thunderstorms accumulating and pouring down with rain in the afternoon. The goal is to start early, even around sunrise time and have a break between 11:30am to 2:30pm. For the afternoon, prepare to get wet or seek shelter.
As we zipped through Singapore quite quickly, unable to find a host and, accommodation was very expensive due to the F1 race, we didn't interact with many people. As we were there on a weekday, there weren't many people out and about anyways. We mostly saw elderly people doing runs or morning walks, and construction workers taking their midday nap in the park. It was busiest in the centre around Marina Bay Sands but, everywhere else we cycled was mostly quiet. There were a handful of cyclists on the road, most of them road cyclists.
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