under the blanket

There’s actually loads to write about my 24 hours on the cable car, but I’ve been repeating the same anecdotes until I no longer know which ones are funny. So I’ll just copy and paste something which I wrote for the paper:

Over the course of 24 hours, my level of personal hygiene deteriorated to that of an army boy.

And I didn't even care.

I pitied poor Clara who had to share an enclosed space with me.

At the start of our journey just after noon and 10 minutes into the endless loops between Sentosa and Mount Faber, I was already airing my damp armpits over the air vents.

One hour later, we were discussing, quite earnestly: ""What should we do if we need to fart?''

Hold it in? Face the window? Let go loudly and proudly?

Bodily emissions, we decided, should come with warnings, although I feared I may have unleashed a couple of silent killers while napping.

We dozed on and off in the heat of the day, lulled by the swaying motion of the travelling microwave oven we were in.

The excitement of playing with the inbuilt audio guide for tourists wore off after we listened to the ""Espanol'' version more than once, and even the most breathtaking scenery got dull after a while.

Making myself as comfortable as I could on the seat meant for three large tourists, I could feel my bare arms and thighs sticking to the hard plastic like stubborn Post-Its.

I can only imagine how like an oil slick I looked and how bad I smelled, since my companion didn't seem to have sweat glands or pores and maintained her flawless complexion throughout the trip.

And as far as army boys and underwear go, all I am going to say is that with only a total of 9 minutes 59 seconds spent in the toilet during the entire 24 hours, there was hardly time to think about such niceties as pristine panties.

At one point, after we were left with less than three minutes for our loo trips, which we had to take together, I surprised myself by suggesting: ""If we don't wash our hands, we can shave off about 10 seconds.''

As night fell and we were transferred to a parked cable car for the night -- contestants will not be left dangling over the water overnight -- I was actually gleeful that we didn't need to bother with oral hygiene before sleeping.

Dragon breath in the morning was another small issue easily washed down with the three litres of water we were each given.

Not that we had the use of toothbrushes or toothpaste anyway. Those would have been considered luxury items, and we were only allowed one.

As electronic devices were not allowed, after much consideration, we decided on Scrabble to keep our journalist brains from turning to mush during the long hours.

What we didn't count on was Clara's motion sickness.

After 45 minutes of balancing the tiles precariously, we gave up before she puked all over the game board.

She was still leading by seven points, though, despite feeling sick. Damn.

Maybe I made her feel nauseated with my ever-escalating smelliness.

With my increased tolerance towards grime and grease, I would have no problems surviving seven days cooped on board a cable car. Now, I just need to find an army boy willing to take part with me.