TIMOR-LESTE REPTILE & AMPHIBIAN SURVEY
PHASE IV: SNAKES OF A PLANE cont.

The mystery remained unsolved until we reached Singapore and were met at the aircraft door by Faridah from Air Timor. It was she who had noticed it was Hinrich's birthday and "taken the liberty" to organise the cake on board. Oh and by the way, the specimens were being collected even as we spoke. What a surprise it had been, but what a surprise for the flight attendant trying to deliver the cake if the 'birthday boy' had still been in Dili and not on the flight!

If we thought this eventful day of travel had shown all its surprises, we were wrong. We collected all the luggage from the carousel including the specimens. I have one night in Singapore before flying back to the UK, the rest of the team have two nights before traveling back to the US. We headed for the Green Channel at customs, since none of our baggage was to be left in Singapore, but we were pulled over to have our check-in luggage x-rayed. No problem, this happens regularly enough, except this time there was a problem.

All the bags went through ther x-ray scanner and those belonging to Scott, Paul and Kyle were pulled aside to be opened. All three contained machetes, which were part of their field kit returning home. There is not normally a problem having a machete in your check-in luggage, I have flown literally thousands of miles without incident, with a machete in my snake-stick bag, but this time we were entering Singapore, albeit briefly, and we learned that in Singapore machetes were "prohibited items".

Hinrich accompanied the rest of the team through Customs and I accompanied our three miscreants to the Customs offices where I proceeded to explain why they had the machetes and what we were doing in Timor-Leste. The Singapore Customs were very friendly and said there was no problem, that the three students would not be arrested, but they had to involve the Singapore Airport Police because we had not delared the machetes (because we did not know it was necessary). While we waited Hinrich went about obtaining a pass to come back, leaving Robert in charge of the students already outside the Customs channel. Kyle was chewing something and I said "If that's gum you had better swallow it quick" (gum is on the list of prohibited items), but he said it was a candy given him by Customs.

The Police arrived and it was all very amicable, the three were interviewed, and both Police and Customs said they understood it was an innocent mistake, one made by many travelers passing through Singapore. While we waited for the interviews to be completed I discussed the CITES posters on the wall and talked to the Customs guys about turtle conservation and the fact that Hinrich, Scott (he of the machete), Benny and I were planning to be at an Asian Turtle Conservation workshop at Singapore Zoo in roughly two weeks time. The senior Customs officer, who had already recommended the best places to eat chilli crab in Singapore, disappeared into his office and returned with a copy of a TRAFFIC turtle identification guide book authored by Mark Auliya, a friend of both mine and Hinrich's. I then showed the Customs officer the dozen or so photographs in the guidebook with the citation Photo: Mark O'Shea.

It was clear to both the Customs and the Police that we were a legitimat biological team and the machetes were returned with licences to own a machete in Singapore, and a warning not to wave them around in public. With that we all shook hands and, joining the rest of the team, boarded a minibus driven by Poh S.Y., a Big Adventure fan who wanted a photograph with me once we reached the hotel.

After all the excitement is it any wonder that most of the group favoured an early night.

Singapore from the Furama City Centre by night and in the cold light of morning