Singapore

A post in two voices this time, since we approached Singapore from two completely different perspectives – Jonathan has been here before.

Clare:

Singapore came as a bit of a shock after the green tranquility of Sri Lanka. Negombo had been quietly rural, low rise, and full of warm, smiley people whose dark faces split into a grin at the least provocation. Singapore was a sudden immersion in a huge, shiny steel and glass jungle, peopled mainly by very pale oriental folk, very serious looking, mostly smartly dressed and made up. Jangly, quarter-tone Chinese music played everywhere (although I swear one of the tunes was Jingle Bells, really), and there was a whiff of five spice powder in the air. It was ridiculously clean and organised, almost like an ‘anti-Delhi’.

It was very disconcerting initially. I wasn’t sure I was going to like it at all. After a couple of days, though, it made more sense. Once I accepted it for what it was, all entirely human-made but exactly what it wanted to be, I did enjoy it.

We scoffed a few dim sum and a beer each after a fairly late arrival on our first night, and hit the pillows. The following morning we headed out into 30 degree heat and high humidity. The first stop was the Singapore Flyer, just a little taller than the London Eye, but with similarly cracking views over the city.

It was a great way to get our bearings. We were able to spot some of the places which Stephen and Jenny had recommended to us from their visit, it was useful to see where we’d be heading! Notable sights included the F1 track, the Marina Bay Sands hotel and the Gardens by the Bay with the extraordinary ‘super-trees’.

We had a spot of lunch in the Marina Bayfront complex, in a little tea house place. Everything was tea-focussed. Everything. Salad dressings, desserts, even Jonathan’s white wine cocktail was tea-infused, which sounds revolting but was delicious!

It was all gorgeous, and my jasmine tea was formally served from a golden teapot by a very nice young man in white gloves.

Suitably fortified, we hopped on the MRT, the underground system, to travel to the Botanic Gardens. Again, it was all spotless, modern, efficient, with driverless trains whisking people from A to B in four different languages. English (phew), Mandarin (no chance), Tamil (looking familiar after Sri Lanka, of course) and, my favourite, Malay. I liked it particularly because of the way ‘mind the gap’ sounds. It sounds like this: “But happy happy me go on platform”. No really. Listen here -> click. Of course, really it’s “Berhati hati di ruang platform”, but once you’ve heard ‘happy happy me go on platform’, you just can’t unhear it.

The Botanic Gardens were fabulous. I took hundreds of photos, it was impossible not to be snapping away in every direction.

The bamboo groves were surprisingly varied, the palm valley a lush green swathe, but the highlight was the orchid garden. They grow outdoors, seemingly effortlessly, although I imagine there’s a huge staff tending to their every need.

There were lots of different colours and flower sizes, some plain, some highly fancy, all glossy and thriving. Which was slightly more than could be said for us by this stage, both of us finding the humidity a bit difficult!

After a couple of hours in the gardens, we headed back on the MRT, making sure not to take any durians onto the train…

For some evening food we went out to find some Hainanese chicken and rice, as recommended by Dennis and Sarah. We walked through Chinatown, enjoying the sights along Pagoda Street.

It’s a ‘hawker’ setup, you purchase whatever you fancy from whatever stalls catch your eye, and then eat it at a table in the middle. It all looked really good. Except for the *ahem* ‘delicacies’ stall, some of that looked a bit challenging! There was loads to choose from, we had the chicken and rice (excellent!), and a few gyozas, some refreshing beer and we were replete.

Jonathan:

Like Clare, modern Singapore initially left me experiencing some cultural dissonance after the Indian sub-continent. Not only that, but it was completely unrecognisable! Whilst flying over the Indian Ocean I realised that I had taken a not dissimilar route at sea level some thirty-eight years ago, as a callow young Midshipman on HMS Antrim. We travelled (if memory serves) between Karachi and Singapore, stopping off very briefly somewhere in or near the Andaman Islands for a beach barbecue on an uninhabited island.

So I was expecting at least to see something familiar, but failed to realise the extent of the modernisation that has taken place. I recognised nothing apart , perhaps, from Raffles, which is currently closed for refurbishment. Everything was slick, efficient, glossy (and fairly expensive). I’m not exaggerating when I say that I spotted precisely three pieces of litter during our visit.

Anyway, I’m supposed to be describing our second day! We checked the weather forecast, and as rain was predicted for the afternoon decided to visit the Gardens by the Bay in the morning. So we hopped onto the MRT Downtown Line which, rather conveniently, has a station just opposite our hotel on Bencoolen. We hopped back off again at Bayfront, and headed briefly into the glitzy shopping behemoth next to the Marina Bay Sands Hotel for a breakfast of coffee and muffin (half each, don’t want to overdo it!).

The gardens occupy a large site between the hotel and the waterfront. We strolled around for a while, getting our bearings and passing elegant fountains and the amazing “Supertree Grove” – huge mauve-painted artificial trees which are partly sculptural and partly practical – they host large numbers of solar panels which provide some of the power to the gardens. More on those later. We walked on more purposefully to the first of two domes, slightly reminiscent of the biomes at the Eden Project in Cornwall.

The first dome, “Cloud Forest”, greeted us with a huge artificial waterfall above a cliff dense with foliage. Sloping walkways weave in and out of the central structure, the idea being to ascend in the lift and then walk down the ramps enjoying the exotic plants, trees and shrubs from around the world whilst descending.

This being Singapore everything was maintained immaculately, though as a geologist I was disappointed to see that they had excavated huge stalagmites from a cavern to form the “Crystal Mountain” part of the exhibition. Other than that it was hugely enjoyable, and provided some cool respite from Singapore’s muggy humidity.

Onwards we strode, then, to the SuperTree grove, to ensure we went on the Treetop Walk before the rain set in. A lift took us up to the walkway, and we spent an enjoyable ten minutes or so walking between the “trees” at high level, with great views over the gardens.

The second dome, “Flower Dome” was rather more conventional than the first, and highlighted flora from various habitats around the world, including some fine baobab trees, an olive grove and a wide array of succulents. Oh, and some orchids, but we did those comprehensively yesterday!

By now hunger was setting in – after all, half a muffin doesn’t last for very long! The highest of the SuperTrees hosts a restaurant at the top, called Indochine, so we enjoyed some fine Vietnamese spring rolls, and some Singapore chilli crab with rice cakes while admiring the view from the top of a mauve tree.

We had planned to spend the afternoon at the ArtScience museum nearby, but were flagging a little and it was already mid-afternoon. So we returned to the hotel to bathe and rest, and to plan our evening.

Just as the sun was setting we set off for the Marina Bay Sands, intending to watch the evening light show whilst quaffing Singapore Slings in the rooftop bar (inexplicably called “Ce La Vi” – their spelling). It turned out that these two things were mutually exclusive. We could watch the light show from the observation deck with no alcoholic refreshments, or we could go to the bar for cocktails with no view of the light show. Predictably, the cocktails won us over, and we each enjoyed a Singapore Sling as we looked out over central Singapore, directly away from the light show! It was still a great experience, of course.

For dinner we had planned to go somewhere a little special, perhaps a fine restaurant serving upmarket versions of Singaporean cuisine. In the hotel, though, when I was browsing TripAdvisor to find candidates, I suddenly came across reviews of a place called Fatty’s, on Albert Street. I recalled immediately that somewhere in the loft at home there is a photo album containing a picture of the aforementioned callow Midshipman enjoying fine street food at Fatty’s on Albert Street in 1980. Could it possibly be the same place? Well, there was one obvious way to find out, so our fine-dining plans were abandoned and we set off for Albert Street.

In the eighties Albert Street was a sort of roadside hawker market, well known for great street food and low prices, and handily placed for the bright lights of Bugis Street, where matelots loved to party the night away. Bugis Street still exists, but in the form of a shopping centre. Albert Street still exists too, but the roadside shacks are now roadside restaurants.

The food hadn’t change a bit though, thankfully! Fatty’s is now run by the son of the original proprietor (Fatty Junior, perhaps?!). I had to pop out to get a bottle of wine from a bar two doors down the street, and when I returned we settled down to a fine meal of Cantonese food and a particularly delicious dish of Indonesian prawns in a coconut and chilli based sauce. It was all fantastic, and I was tickled pink to have found that Fatty’s still existed after so many years.

After a good night’s sleep we headed off to Singapore airport for the short flight to Penang.