Batam

"Take everything off," she said. I did, and slid onto the table. For the next hour she scrubbed and oiled me to my most profound pleasure, until she offered to massage the only thing she had not yet touched.

"No, thanks," I murmured. I wasn't here for that. Plus she was 40, fat and wore thick glasses. I got up and waded into the spa, then the sauna. She left the room to bring some tea, and I locked the door, showered and put on my clothes.

She returned and handed me the cup. I was scarcely halfway through the drink when she extended her hand and said, "tip?" I was shocked. They are never so blatant in Thailand.

I gave her 30,000 rupiah, the equivalent of 6 Singapore dollars. She took it and exclaimed, "Seeeekit?" So little.

I smiled at her coldly and left. This was a plush spa in a 4-star hotel. This was a strange island only an hour's ferry ride away from Singapore, riding on the coat-tails of foreign investment to build, build, build.

This was were gargantuan blue and yellow malls towered half-empty above the corrogated slums, and sprawling wooden seafood restaurants with karaoke stood on stilts upon man-made ponds in the middle of red, arid wasteland, and the neon lights of Nagoya town boasted of fast-food delivery and sin, and a gaping social divide.

After that we went back to the rooms where a chocolate cake with blood-red candles awaited. I spent my 26th birthday eating cake, KFC, wine, and smoking sampoerna's late into the night. I hated this island, yet I was enraptured by its simultaneous sense of vibrancy and ruin.