Meeting Singapore's homeless

Originally my plan was to leave Singapore at night with one of the last busses and pass the night at the bus station in johor bahru. A Malaysian friend however warned me that it is really not safe in johor. He even wanted to give me hundred ringgit so that I would stay in a hotel there. I declined but this made me reconsider and decide to take a bus the next morning and instead risking confrontation with the strict police of Singapore.

So at first I was sitting next to a shopping mall and thought I'd pass the night sitting there, but half an hour before midnight an old man told me I shouldn't sit there because of police and the last mrt would be at twelve. Alternatively I could stay at a branch of an evil fast food chain which is open 24h and this would have allowed me to charge my electronic devices. Alas I wouldn't want to support that chain, so instead I headed to the nearest park.

In the park, I had to pee. So headed for the toilet.
This was a place with light as well and I had my heavy backpack leaned against the wall already, so I got lost in browsing online. Meanwhile lots of Indian men entered and left the toilet. At some point one who was about to enter said he'd leave his stuff with mine. I said: "sure". When he came back he asked me in his almost non existent English about my situation. The he said he'd help me I should come with him, there wouldn't be an Ali baba men. I decided to take the risk, as sleeping seemed such an awesome idea. While we walked for a while, he apologized for the distance. Finally we crossed a tiny stream and passed between two buildings to the building of the company he worked at. We went through the building and I was a bit confused. We ended up in a staircase and he pointed at some cardboard. This was his home! This guy worked in Singapore for six years and he couldn't afford housing. So he shared his cardboard home with me. He also said maybe he could find me a job.

After a few hours of sleep I woke up early to leave first people arriving to work already I walked through the corridors of this company seeing many Indians sleeping on cardboard, hoping nobody would stop me and ask me what the heck I was doing there and thinking I had seen some of them a few hours earlier passing through the park toilet.