We stopped in Singapore to break up the trip to Australia. Who wants to take two flights totalling nearly 20 hours all at once? A stopover after a 12 hour flight was a great solution as Singapore is a fabulous destination.
Singapore is a city-state that sits at the end of the Malaysian Peninsula, just 80 or so miles north of the equator. It has a large, important port, and sits in a key economically strategic point at the end of the Strait of Malacca (through which tons of goods, most importantly oil, pass). In recent years, Singapore has made itself into one of the most important finance hubs in Asia. The city itself is beautiful:
Yes, that is the view from the pool at our hotel -- on the 35th floor.
There are so many interesting things about Singapore. Unfortunately, I am sure that I will miss some key ones, but I will try to do it justice. First, Singapore is a country of rules and rule followers. There is virtually no crime in Singapore. There is not even any nuisance type issues: no littering, no graffiti, definitely no public urination (there are free, accessible bathrooms everywhere, and they are universally clean). And, even though we don't think it was mandatory, only suggested, every single person wore a mask on public transportation. Seriously, we did not see one person without a mask during our numerous rides (of course the system is extremely efficient and easy to use).
Second, Singapore is a multi-cultural society. Essentially, Singapore was settled by people from China, the Malay Peninsula and India, and it was a British colony from 1867, thus there are people from all over. This multiculturalism can be seen in the fact that Singapore has four official languages: Malay, Mandarin, Tamil and English.
Multi-culturalism also extends to religion, with large numbers of Christians, Buddhists, Muslims and Hindus. As far as we could see, freedom of religion is respected and all of the major religions are treated equally. For example, Singapore has ten official holidays: two secular (Singapore Day and Labor Day), three Christian/Western, two Muslim, one Hindu, one Buddhist, and the Chinese New Year. Amazing. The religious diversity is also reflected in the beautiful places of worship, as can be seen below.
We visited our first ever Chinese Temple, which was impressive, but you were not allowed to take pictures of the area with the representation of the Gods, which were amazing, so this picture hardly does it justice:
There are several Hindu temples, this one was particularly ornate:
Although we had visited a number of Buddhist temples in Thailand, this one was impressively large and had spectacular statues of Buddha:
Finally, there are many Mosques in Singapore, but this one was the most photo-worthy:
Of course, there are also plenty of churches, but none as impressive as the ones in Europe, so why take pictures?
One other aspect of Singapore's multi-culturalism is the food. The food is fantastic, and you can eat really good food incredibly cheaply. We ate amazing Chinese, Thai, Japanese and Indian food while never paying above $70 for a meal. Of course, there are also many European options along with super high-end/Michelin-starred restaurants, but we can get those at home/we had no need to spend the money when there were so many good, cheap options.
A hawker center is an outdoor food court with many options for good, cheap food. Most of the places serve only a limited number of things, but there are options for everyone. There was a center near our hotel, that has a number of fantastic satay booths outside it. On our first night we ventured out there. Basically, right at 7 pm, the street is transformed from a traffic artery to a place where hundreds of people come to eat. After figuring out the system with the help of a couple of guys from New Zealand and South Africa (but lived in Hong Kong and now Bangkok), we lined up to order/collect our food, bought beers and grabbed a table. The satay (sold by the stick) was delicious:
Another very cool food experience we had was trying Chinese Hot Pot. Hot Pot is a soup that you make yourself. You get one or more soup bases that are kept bubbling at your table, along with different kind of meats/fish/veggies that you cook in the soup. Then, there is a buffet of various condiments that each person can add to their own soup making it a bit different from everyone else at the table. It took a bit of instruction from the very-helpful waitstaff at the restaurant, but we got the hang of it by the end.
So what did we actually do in Singapore besides eat? There are many attractions that are artificial and manufactured -- not our thing. Just walking around town with its giant skyscrapers, and fantastic architecture is an adventure in itself, but as for activities, we were selective.
We went to Gardens by the Bay, which are a series of domes/locations with various outdoor-type experiences (remember, we said things were a bit artificial). The first had flowers and plants from around the world, with a special focus on, ironically, southern Spain, including reproductions of Andalusian patios, which we have seen in real life.
The second was kind of an interior forest with an opportunity to experience what it is like at the top of a rainforest.
In the Cloud Dome we even encoutered a Chihuly piece:
After that we did two days of outdoor stuff. We did the Southern Ridges walk through a series of parks, which showed how much greenery Singapore has for a large city with many skyscrapers.
We visited the city's Botanical Garden, which were huge and contained many types of plant life along with sculptures and a very strange (for us) device: an mini automatic lawnmower, a number of which were silently working away in some of the lawns.
Although we did not see either a monkey or one of the local river otters (much to Shana's chagrin), we did see a number of these large, handsome lizards:
We visited the Singapore National Museum. We enjoyed learning about how although there is limited information about a trading post existing in the 14th and 15th centuries, Singapore's history really begins in 1819, when the British East India Company arrived and set up a trading port with the agreement of the Johor Sultane. By 1867, Singapore was a British Crown Colony, which it remained until it was conquered by the Japanese in 1942. After the war, Singapore was returned to Britain, but there was agitation for independence, which led to partial self rule in 1955 and then full self rule in 1959. In 1963, the city attached itself to Malaysia, but only two years later, for reasons that the museum glossed over, but appear to include economics and race, Singapore separated from Malaysia and because a truly independent country on August 9, 1965. We thought the museum, which was in a beautiful old colonial building, was well done if a bit whitewashed (e.g., it mentions various riots by Chinese citizens without really going into the issues or what happened).
On our last night in Singapore, we returned to The Gardens by the Bay area to watch a free concert of (coincidently) Spanish music, followed by the nightly light/music show, which was impressive:
We enjoyed Singapore a lot -- it is a very interesting society that has many things going for it even if it seems a bit Disneyfied at times.
Now, on to rainy Sydney.
Until next week,
Jeff and Shana
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