Asia but better

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Singapore is Asia but better.



It’s a well-oiled, sophisticated business unit, ready to extract every last Singaporean cent you exchange, but also full of free tourist treasures like wandering around admiring the amazing variety of architecture from colonial shop-houses to the futuristic Marina Bay Sands hotel complex.



And it’s the perfect stop over to the UK – four or five movies away from Auckland and you’re immersed in tropical heat from the chill of a NZ winter.



The reason backpackers avoided it in the early years of its reinvention by Lee Kwan Yew - harsh rules about eating, drinking, smoking, chewing gum etc – is what makes Singapore such a beautiful place for baby boomers to visit. It’s clean, nearly litter free (unless you go to the ‘beaches’) safe and unthreatening. And you gotta admire their uncompromising “Death is the penalty for drug trafficking” stamped in red on the immigration card.



The climate isn’t unbearably hot and there are endless shopping malls to cool off in. Shopping- it’s one of the main activities in this merchandising mecca. I’ve found it’s the perfect place to shop for clothes as I’m clearly Chinese-lady-size. I’ve never bought a pair of trousers that I didn’t have to chop half a meter off the legs before I could wear them, but in a department store in Chinatown all the jeans I tried on fitted perfectly. Which was handy as I’d practise-packed too early and completely forgotten the jeans I was going to wear on the plane. Oh dear, how sad, I had to go clothes shopping in Singapore J



Only four nights here this time, but long enough for Rhys to think we should go to Sentosa Island. There were two good outcomes from this. We can now categorically say – don’t go to Sentosa Island unless you have children you want to spend their inheritance on while you’re still alive. The whole island is an exercise in fiscal extraction. We managed to lose three hours of our lives there, BUT only spent a dollar. You pay an entry fee to the island, which is one dollar if you use the new boardwalk bridge. There’s also a bus, a cable car, a monorail or road (where they sting you for parking). We should have spent a dollar each but Rhys managed to jam the turnstile so we got let in for one.



There is a free bus to various parts of the island and a rickety tram along the ‘beaches’ so we kept ourselves amused seeing how we could avoid all the other ‘attractions’ you had to pay for, such as a luge, aquarium, climbing a giant version of the Merlion and their latest amusement atrocity which appeared to be a gallery of the world’s most famous paintings digitally vandalised.



I chose the next day’s venue – one of Singapore’s newest award winning ‘themed entertainments’, Gardens By The Bay. This is a botanic gardens complex Singapore style which means it’s a bit of tropical gardens surrounded by a whole lot of man-made stuff that you have to pay through the nose to get into - such as giant metal ‘rainforest’ trees, huge airconditioned domes (you don’t need hot houses in Singapore) and an indoor waterfall – naturally!



The concepts, engineering and structures are quite amazing but as it is all very man made it has to pay for itself by charging visitors. The good part is you get a sneak peak at the heightened luxury of Marina Bay Sands hotel on your way to the gardens viewing area.



Our hotel was in a less salubrious part of town in Tiong Bahru, south of the river and west of Chinatown. It used to be the Chinese cemetery but in the 1930s one of the first public housing estates was built there and it’s now a delightful low rise art deco apartment suburb with cafes, restaurants and the Tiong Bahru markets.



We’d recommend this area as a budget option alternative to the down town hotels – you can walk to Chinatown, there are good restaurants everywhere, it’s on the metro line and the Tiong Bahru bakery has the best pastries I’ve ever tasted.



Singapore – it can be done on a budget but expect lots of walking, otherwise exit through gift shop.

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