Travelling: Singapore

Singapore

To kind of round off the large amount of travelling I'd done recently around Japan, when I was offered the chance for a couple of days in Singapore I accepted. I knew nothing of the country, and having never been to that area of the world I thought it would be an excellent experience. I was told accommodation would be ok as I could just sleep on the friend of a friend's sofa, and seeing as it turned out to be only 4 days I didn't need much if any luggage. A day-bus to Tokyo, then wacky confusion on the trains to get to Narita led to the first sprint for the gate in the airport I've ever had. I'd recommend it - much more interesting than the usual slow sitting around waiting rooms.

What I didn't bank on was the exact location of this friend of a friend's sofa. On a windowed corner of the 24th floor in the rich-housing district a small walk away from the town centre. Awesome.

The city itself was very pleasant. Interesting architecture, bustling with people, spotless streets, and plenty of signposts and maps everywhere so you don't get lost. This does have something to do with Singapore being a very strict police state - the taxi driver from the airport warned "All countries have laws, but only in Singapore are they enforced", citing the example of an American boy caned for vandalism, despite huge public condemnation of such punishment in the US. According to our hosts, the government is quick to clamp down on any civil disobedience, and although I couldn't see any policemen apparently the whole place is marked with CCTV in one way or other, linked to an automatic fining system for any infractions. Scary.

Was hugely dismayed at finding the all-evil Starbucks here as prevalent as ever. Is there anywhere that horrible company will leave alone? Any corporation that installs a franchise in the "Forbidden City" in the capital of one of the most ancient civilisations in the world (China) is due all the animosity people are willing to petrol-bomb it with. Grr. I'm starting to rank Starbucks Addiction up there along with cigarettes - feel free to do it by yourself but nowhere near me please.

Temple Fun

Singapore is an interesting place simply from the point of its culture - it's a large city with distinct cultural sections, and as such there is lots of cultural transfer and mixing. You can walk from India Town to Chinatown and then to the Colonial District, and marvel at the choice and variety of surroundings. Having not known a lot about the place before I left I read up on a couple of things on Wikipedia and made it my task to go and find them in the short time we had. One of them was find one of the multi-level statue-filled gateways that seem to be popular here, and there are photos of some below. For one I think it's brilliant how you have to take your shoes off - wondering barefoot around a foreign temple marvelling at the colours and statues but also feeling the hot stone floor as well is quite an experience.

Singapore's main temple is the red and white one pictured above (an excellent picture available here). The Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum is quite a sight both from outside and inside, and is more lavishly decorated with icons and small statues than many European churches. The ground floor has the main chambers, where people are free to purchase small models of their required boddhisatva and attach it to the wall, and also a huge hall with an enormous gold statue of the Buddha (with a very Chinese-looking dragon behind it, interestingly). Upstairs was the Gold Tooth relic itself, a lump of gold which adding to is meant to be good luck. In my opinion one of the best things was the inclusiveness - real monks were wondering around and of course meditating nearby to the relic, but there were signs encouraging the passing tourists to sit in designated places and take part with some meditation or reflection of their own.

I would have loved to have joined in but time was pressing and so we headed to the Chinatown food court next door. An enormous covered area with more food shops than you could count, crammed full of people. Goodness knows how each made its money, especially as many seemed to be selling the same thing.

The Night Safari

One of the best parts about going to Singapore was managing to get to the Night Safari, a wildlife reserve, rainforest and safari park which only opens at around 7pm. Singapore's near constant temperature of around 28 degrees means that night is only really indicated by things getting dark than getting cold, so wandering around a dark rainforest in your t-shirt is a great experience. And it is wandering - there is a half-hour tour done on a silent electric car-train thing, or there are numerous paths that lead off into the dark leafyness for you to walk around by yourself. More attraction comes from the fact that you can't see the enclosures; whether they're hidden in the undergrowth or whether it's just too dark but it's a much better way of observing animals by finding them yourself other than being alerted by specific divisions between them.

When you've had enough of looking at fairly happy (if slightly fat) animals, there's a complete tribal village with ongoing performances and enough gift shops to sink a battleship with plastic or stuffed tat. We were lucky in that, by the time we'd made it back there, we were just in time for the last animal show, in which the darkness was taken full advantage of by sending animals actually into the crowd, and having them run past openings. An enormous 15 foot boa constrictor slithering around people's feet causing plenty of screams and the presenters running around trying to catch it again, letting loose small mammals to try and find grapes hidden by the audience, it was a very engaging display with environmental message attached which I'm sure if you attempted in the UK it would be torn to pieces by the ridiculous health and safety people. No doubt some visitor would turn out to be allergic to snakes or oxygen or something.

The Battle Box

One thing that felt obvious while wandering Singapore was its English colonial history. Walking around the city at times felt like stepping back in time to the 1920s, and it was a very odd feeling seeing that particular old-fashioned style of architecture still there, being lived in and very much a part of the city. That mixed with the cultural diversity I mentioned before is a very interesting experience.

Singapore was also the last British bastion before it lost South East Asia to the Japanese in WWII. The bunker now turned museum at Fort Canning Park offers a great history lesson with animated wax models from Madam Tussauds London, charting out the timeline of the British surrender, and what the Japanese did with the bunker when they discovered it. And no, the guns weren't facing the wrong way, as we were often reminded - the guns were to deter any attack from the south by sea, which is exactly what they achieved, and a couple were also apparently turned around to fire upon the approaching land forces. You can catch a bus out to the coast for a bit of wandering-around-a-jungle action and also visiting one of the gun's bunkers for another quick museum experience.

Colonial City
On the evening of the last day we made it around the colonial district, home to Raffles Street, Raffles Hall, Raffles Hotel and everything to do with the chap who first decided Singapore was worth developing for the British. It was impressive, and made me wonder if there were still bearded people cradling shotguns sipping gin and tonics in there somewhere. If anywhere it would still exist here.

Of course around the place were very wealthy seeming hotels, restaurants and impressive government buildings. There was a large park which seemed out of bounds in front of one, which several groups of people had gathered around for some drinking, since apparently it's not possible anywhere else in public. Walking by the riverside was very nice however, and it would have been better to have stuck around for a bit longer but again time was against us. Eventually we arrived at Singapore's famous lion-fountain combo. As you can see in the first photo I posted at the top, it was covered in scaffolding (the vague blue tower in the background). Why? It had been struck by lightning the day or so before. Aww. But it was still interesting to walk around such buildings and take in some of the old colonial powered atmosphere.

I would recommend going to Singapore. It's clean, friendly and because it has a huge amount of different cultures, locales and tastes available you will always find something you like. It's a little more expensive than Japan, and especially getting there will probably eat up all of your budget. It doesn't seem to have a great deal to do aside from the evident tourist attractions, once you've seen it it does lose some value, but for the first time it is definitely worth going and witnessing a very unusual and anomaly in the "one country, one race" scenario.

The last thing I want to mention is this ghastly fruit. This is a durian. It is the smelliest thing I have found in the entire world - you can smell it as soon as you enter the supermarket, and actually like a hound dog follow the scent to where it's being sold. The smell is very pungent indeed, and even having brought one back home it proceeded to out-smell every other scent around. Singapore underground's "forbidden" signs actually went "No Eating, No Flammable Gases, No Durians". I suppose a good practical joke would be to hide one in the roof of your school or something. Upon daring to eat the thing, first you have the lovely job of ripping bits off it, releasing even more delightful smell, then you have to remove the stones. The first bite is horrible, since you're still smelling it as well as tasting it, but after that the smell disappears and it tastes like a mix between cheese and a banana. Not bad at all, but the effort to get to the second chew would have put me off a long time ago.