SOUTH EAST ASIA: SINGAPORE

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Date visited: 31st March-2nd April

The flight to Singapore - about 7 hours, passed quite well. Our seats were at the front of a block so we could stretch out. The meal on-board was gorgeous - a chicken dish in mustard sauce with kumera mash, complete with salad, chocolate cake, cheese, biscuits, chocolate and wine. (These are economy seats by the way) Who could want anything more?!!

The arrival to Singapore couldn't have gone more smoothly. We arrived at the pristine airport, complete with relaxed background music, fresh flowers everywhere and an empty immigration control. They stamped us through with a smile before we were showed our taxi. Taximan got us to your hotel within 15 minutes, where we checked in, showered and slept hard.

The humidity of Singapore took some adjusting. 27 degrees at 3am when we arrived to over a 35c in the day.

The first day was a sorting out day. A mix of jobs from B getting his hair cut (what a sleek affair that was!) to sending our tent back/ checking out Little India, where our hostel was based and so on. Little India so-called because of its similarity to Bombay or a hectic Indian street but really it isn't like that at all. Plenty of Indians yes, and multiculteral food, but its so clean here with no pullution or dirt or poverty or market sellers or beggars - everything which India is - so some would argue not quite 'little india'. Some of the sidestreets were rammed with little shops and street-cellars like in India but thats about it - the place had character thats for sure.

After a heavy much needed sleep we had a wonder around the local district of Little India oncemore observing the hustle and bustle of a typical asian city. At night Singapore really came into its own showing off its thousands of eating market malls and outside stalls oozing with flavours and scents from many lands. Within a 10 metre stroll we were faced with culinary delights from anywhere between Bangladesh and North Indian cuisine to Thai, Chinese, Malaysian and Singaporean. By our third day we sampled the nicest of Biryanis, tasty noodle soups, fishfood stir fries and hot Indian specialities. Would our stomachs cope with this after our safe salads and vegetables from Australasia?!

Apart from its endless smells of cooking Singapore impressed for its sheer cleanliness - not only in the air itself but on the roads and pavements; this made for a refreshing change avoiding the usual end-of-day nose cleaning duty and coughs from air pollution. Singapore is described as a garden city and and this became apparant when strolling along the many treelined streets and walking past pretty flowering pots lining the carriageways. Amongst the contrast of its people and food, Singapore also demonstrated this in its colonial buildings set against its modern office skyscrapers and its temples sitting aside an ultra modern shopping complex - past and present existing side by side.

Apart from stuffing our faces and observing querky asian city scenes, we managed to squeeze in an amusing tour of the Battle Box, an underground rabbit warren of tunnels and meeting rooms, where army generals of the British held their last meetings on the day of the surrender of Singapore to the Japanese, WW2. For our one pound coin we got a guide who spoke no English, a walk around the tunnels with headsets ( that didn't work) and a set of talking dressed up manequins re-acting the characters of ' the time' prior to the handover (their English accents and jibberish amused the group) as well as the attempt to complicate this tourist attraction with its (failing) techno gadgets! Still, it passed an hour or 2 away in quite an entertaining sort of way!

Singapore as promised provided us with an effortless introduction to Asia - suprisingly much less commercial and touristified' than Bangkok with many less backpackers, spotless organisation in terms of the taxi rank at the airport, swift transfer to our very well run hotel, and a very good taster of the food to come (or so we thought...)

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Photos

Sir Stamford Raffles, founder of Singapore!
(Colonial District)

Ben having a Singapore chop
Does he look a bit concerned to you?

More skyscrapers!
Good old English Cricketground in the forground ...