TheBanyanTree: Peter and Chris do Singapore

[Peter Macinnis]

April 12



Going anywhere from Australia costs time. Getting to the border can
take four or five hours, with another hour or so to reach the other
side of the Timor Sea and so into Indonesian air space. Then there
will be a couple hours more flight to reach Jakarta, Singapore or
Kuala Lumpur. We opted for Singapore, in part because we have visited
Jakarta before, but rather more because we were flying Singapore
Airlines. That is a Star Alliance airline which believes in hubs -- so
wherever you go, you will pass through one or more of Singapore,
Heathrow, Frankfurt, Denver and a few other places.



In terms of time zones, Singapore is two hours behind Australia. A
difference of two hours is enough to produce a slight jetlag effect,
not enough to worry about when going west, but we knew the next leg to
Cyprus via Paris would be a long and wearing one, so we had elected to
have two days in Singapore before we moved on. Besides, Chris had been
there, and I hadn't, other than to transit in the airport.



Getting out into the open at Singapore exposes you to high
temperatures and higher humidity. Even standing still works up a
sweat, but we were ushered into a van that was air-conditioned, and
from there into the air-conditioned hotel, where we donned more
tropical clothes and set out.



Singapore is an island off the coast of Malaysia, established
originally as a trading place, an entrepôt where ships would have to
pass on the run from Asia to Europe. When it was established, there
was a small coastal Malay population, but Indians, Sikhs, and
particularly Chinese came flocking in, drawn by work and trade. Now it
is a large island city that still relies mainly on trade, where
Singapore is not only a hub for the airlines, it is also a trading hub
where all sorts of people, even rogue traders gather.



In some of the streets, you can find yourself pressed to buy, enticed
and invited to buy, almost ordered to engage in trade. Just a few
blocks away, though, over the river, there is Chinatown. Now in a city
that is predominantly Chinese, that strikes me as a bit of a problem,
a bit of a challenge. I can handle the concept of Little India, with
the brilliant temple and delicious curries, but the sub-continent is
only mildly represented. Chinatown on the other hand, seems at first
glance like commercial overkill.



In fact it isn't, nor is it an artificial construct for tourists. It
just is, and if you are with somebody who knows the area as Chris
does, you head for Smith Street, and sit down in the street at a
table, buying food from the stalls, Tiger beer from a nearby shop, and
you eat. There are no worries with the food and the water. Smith
Street may be genuine, but there is strict supervision of hygiene,
there are designated cleaners in company uniform, paid by the
stallholders who know a good deal when they see one. There are even
two old men who circulate with plastic bags, swooping on the aluminium
beer cans for recycling.



The food comes on platters but sits on banana leaves as well, cutlery
and chopsticks come from racks provided by the stallholders -- and it
gave us a certain amount of pleasure to be stared at as round-eyes who
ate with chopsticks. At this distance, I can't recall what I ate, but
it was NOT the pig's intestine porridge that was on offer. Whatever it
was, it was delicious.



Wandering back, we managed to get within a few yards of the hotel
before the small parasitic camera and electronics shops took note of
us, and tried desperately to draw us in. They were too late.



April 13



The next morning, we needed a camera  shop to sort a problem with the
camera Chris had brought. I always splurge on digital shots -- before
that, it was transparencies, but she decided she wanted a point and
click for classic holiday shots. Sadly, it had a flat battery, as we
were soon told. Slipping across the road, midway between the
persistent rickshaw man and the parasitic camera shops, we entered the
presence of a magnificent beard, moustache and turban, all attached to
a Sikh gentleman who nodded at our description, popped the battery,
slipped in a test one, showed that the camera now worked, told us what
caused the problem, and retrieving his battery, sold us a new one.
Would we like more film? No. A camera for me? No, I had a digital.
What model? I told him. A very good model -- did I know that it could
take telephoto and macro lenses? yes, I had one of each. Extra memory
cards? I have not worked out what a good price is, but I am in the
hotel over the road, I told him. He gave me a price that was equalled
but not bettered, and so I bought from him the next night, but that
was in the future: we were off to the zoo, but first, we needed
breakfast.



We could have eaten a western breakfast in the hotel, but around the
corner was a standard food court, where noodles, ramen and other
goodies could be had. I settled for a rich and matured curried goat
with naan bread and strong coffee, slightly spoiled by the addition of
condensed milk. Still, it lined the stomach, ready for a long day.



Singapore is only a small island -- you could walk across it in a day
(if you were used to the heat and the humidity) but cars are very
expensive while taxis and public transport are cheap, so we headed for
the MRT, the rail system that is the fast way to get around.



Equipped with Singapore currency, we confronted the ticket machine.
Before we could read the instructions, a man materialised beside us -- 
I suspect he was a member of the public, but perhaps he was an
official. Where would we like to go? The zoo. You need to go to Ang Mo
Kio and get a bus, he said. Press these buttons, put the money amount
shown here in the slot, and don't forget to return the ticket to a
machine for the deposit -- then he was gone.



We fetched our tickets, and headed for the platform. Where did we want
to go, asked a man in a suit. The zoo, we said. Stand on this side,
get off at Ang Mo Kio, he said, heading for a train on the other side.



Both men had told us the route number for the bus we needed, so while
no helpers materialised, we had no trouble finding our bus, and I am
sure that if we had asked the sky, three helpers would have appeared
and offered to carry us to the bus stop. Some people call Singapore an
obsessively clean and repressed society -- but all we saw was cheerful
assistance, freely offered. Singapore is foreigner-friendly. Sadly it
is less wildlife-friendly, as wild space is compressed and degraded,
but the zoo tries to make up for it.



The zoo is small, as befits a small island, but it offers a range of
animals, mostly pygmy forms like a waist-high horse and pygmy hippos,
but it also offers a rambunctious gang of elephants who show the usual
methods of working elephants, big cats, assorted simians and a good
range of Indonesian and PNG animals. And they serve excellent curries
for lunch, alas with no beer. Well, you can't have everything.



The surroundings are idyllic, with water in most directions, and it is
only when you look at the map that you realise this is the island's
main reservoir. Now in Australia, nobody gets within a bull's roar of
the catchment, let alone of the water itself. Here, though, there are
all sorts of exotic animals, right on the water's edge, and this on an
island where tropical downpours are more like a brutal water cannon
than the gentle mist of temperate climes. You begin to realise that if
the water is drinkable, they must really grab it by the neck and shake
it in the water treatment plants -- or maybe there is a double system,
with potable water being drawn from the pipes that cross the water
from Malaysia.



Out on the east coast (which is, as you would expect, on the south of
the island), that's the place to go for seafood. We have family in
Singapore, in the form of our son-in-law's crisp sister, who works in
one of the large banks there. We had arranged to meet her outside the
building, which we had spotted, but to get there might be a bit more
difficult, so we set out on foot, taking all the back streets, but
heading in the right direction.



Boat Quay, a section of the river bank, is entirely given over to
eateries, and from the back, all we saw was rather ugly buildings
covered with air conditioners. On the way back to the hotel, once our
mission was accomplished, we headed along the front, and were tempted
to stop at Harry's Bar.



It was only when I got back to Oz that a colleague told me that
Harry's was where rogue trader Nick Leeson used to hang out, the one
who scuppered Baring's. That probably explains why the beer was $8 a
bottle (though at least it was Singapore dollars). Plebs like us are
not their normal trade . . .



That night, we ran the gauntlet of Boat Quay, but where only a few had
invited us in as we walked back from Harry's, now every eatery had
spruikers out, trying to haul us in, but we had a date with Diana, her
Swedish partner, his parents, and some chilli crab.  It was delicious,
but on the way back, we took a cab who started to go the wrong way,
until I said to Chris "He's taking us in the wrong direction," at
which point he turned and went the right way. We had a short chat at
the end of the journey and cut a deal.



April 14

Two major attractions awaited us: a ride on one of the river boats,
and a ride on the on-off bus to see the Botanic Gardens, after a
breakfast of curried beef, naan bread and sweetened coffee. The
gardens also delivered us lunch, but first we headed for the river and
a ride up and down.



As a trading port, old Singapore had one big problem: no port
facilities. So ships would anchor off the shore and cargo in bales and
boxes, kegs and cases, would be heaved over the side into sturdy boats
that carried it ashore to warehouses and godowns, until it was sold on
to another ship, and carried out again into the Singapore Roads, where
the ships anchored. Today's river boats are descendants of the old
ones, but now they just carry passengers.



The port has moved elsewhere, overtaken by containerisation, and only
a couple of the old godowns still exist, but they, too, will soon fall
to progress. There is very little of the old in Singapore.



The gardens came after a circuitous ride through the streets, past
innumerable landmarks, most of which turned out to be shipping
complexes, but one was the Botanic Gardens. Sadly, the forecast was
tropical downpours and thunder, so we cut our wanderings a little
short, and headed back to shelter, late lunch, and a slow bus ride
back to the hotel. We had made one mistake: our two days had cost us
all of $96, but checking out 6 hours late cost us $80, but it was
worth it to be able to shower, pack in piece, and then park our bags
downstairs while we went to dinner in an almost deserted sushi place,
just around the corner.



Our plane was due out at about 11.30pm, local time, so from about 6
pm, we were effectively in travel mode. Add to that 12 hours of
flight, nine hours in Paris awaiting a connection and four hours to
Cyprus: we had a long haul ahead of us. So we ate, went to the shop
where I bought my camera chip, and waited quietly.



Then we made our big mistake.





peter