Singapore, a brief story

We arrived in Singapore, in early September 1991, after a long bus ride (I think we’d been travelling for about 12 hour including changing buses and crossing the border etc). It was 8pm and typically for our level of organisation we had no Singaporean dollars, just Malaysian. After some bartering and general discussion we managed to get a minibus into the City and found our accommodation. It was full. Back in ‘the olden days’ there was none of that booking in advance on the internet, so this often happened as we turned up to places that were suggested in the guidebook. However, as it usually does, it turned out fine as there were other places nearby. We found a place just down the road, which was just out of our intended (meagre) budget, but out of exhaustion and necessity we settled down there for the night – enjoying the unaccustomed luxury of hot showers (not really needed on the equator) and a TV.

Of course we moved on the next morning – we couldn’t afford ourselves that level of decadence. Back then, and I am sure they won’t be allowed to do this now, especially as it wasn’t allowed then, many travellers were offered cheap accommodation in apartments that had been converted (boarded out) into numerous ‘rooms’  or ‘cubicles that just contain beds’. It was one of these that we found ourselves in – feeling slightly guilty for the flagrant law-breaking that we were engaging in and encouraging…But also enjoying the clean, modern space with hot water, tea and toast in the mornings and a bargain price!! Such conflicting loyalties about doing the right thing.

Singapore is a small island country, and city, at the end of the Malaysian peninsula. It has a colourful and turbulent history and had recently proved international observers very wrong that it could survive independently. When we arrived it was seen as a successful high-income economy that had developed over a very short period of time, after being ruled by us Brits, being occupied by Japan during WWII and having been (unsuccessfully) part of Malaysia for a very short while.

After the places we’d been for the last 8 months, Singapore was a reminder of the sort of basic things that we had always taken for granted, but hadn’t experienced in a while. Flushing toilets for one example. We no longer had a tap and bucket next to the toilet which you used to ‘sluice’ down after each use. It was also scrupulously clean. Everywhere. There was not a single piece of litter anywhere. There was no spitting on the streets. There was no evidence of poverty and people sleeping on the streets. There were notices everywhere reminding you that these things were not allowed, and clearly the enforcement had worked. It also felt very safe, and there were none of the touts on the street offering food, rooms carpets, or illicit entertainment that we’d met elsewhere.

Singapore looked like a really modern, high-rise city, and for the most part it was. There were some areas though, China Town and Little India, where the old buildings and facades had been kept. That’s where we spent our first day, wandering, admiring the clear affluent and British colonial influences of the past. Much of it was however, at that time, declining.

 

There were suggestions at the time that the city had been cleaned up so much that tourism had declined. I don’t know whether this is true or not but it was suggested that one of the streets, previously known for its colourful brothels, was being encouraged to open up for business again, both to encourage its businesses and to encourage tourists back – obviously red-light districts are interesting.

We managed to find fresh and cheap food, keeping to the expectations of our last few months. Singapore was a place where you felt that eating from street-food vendors was more acceptable, and standards of cleanliness were higher. A number of evenings were spent at the satay stalls…

We also walked miles along the waterfronts, gazing upwards at the high-rise blocks (again something we hadn’t seen for a while). The temptation to splash out and experience an evening in Raffles and have a renowned Singapore Sling was dashed by the fact that the whole hotel was having a refurb. That was probably a relief to us for both our financial and wardrobe reserves!

Singapore Zoo was a pleasant place to spend a day. It was quite different from the zoos we’d seen so far on our travels. This one had huge enclosures, was very green with grass and trees, and the animals looked healthy and well cared-for. There was lots of information about conservation and how they were working with others to increase the populations of rare species in the wild. It felt altogether more worthy that the spartan, concrete enclosures that we had witnessed elsewhere.

I particularly loved watching the polar bears in their glass-sided enclosure. Thinking back now though, the Singapore climate, just by the equator, is probably not one where you should expect to see Polar Bears…

We spent a day at Sentosa Island. The island had a significant military history and had been identified as a perfect spot to develop into a resort in the 1960s and 70s. We had a sceptical view of whether it was a place we really wanted to go, but sometimes you just have to go and experience these places…and, as it turned out, it was an interesting day out. I suspect it is significantly more developed now… There was no bridge over to the island then so we started our day with a boat trip, then had a monorail tour around the island – which in my diary I recorded as ‘through loads of building sites with an horrifically boring commentary’. We watched the ‘musical fountains’ for a while and then stopped off at the aquarium. 

I loved it! I had never been in such a place before. It was probably one of the early examples of the huge glass tunnels with moving foot-ways taking you through the depths of the ocean. I was mesmerised, and so we had to go round the circuit at least a couple of times… The photos were rubbish,, but I got to see the incredible rays and sharks and colourful fish. I was like a kid in a sweet shop… I have always been this easy to please!!

Fort Silosa was a remnant of the military past which was also pretty interesting, and there were opportunities, as there were through our Asian travels, to put yourself in the shoes (or at least in the face) of a historical guardsman.

And that was really it for our brief stay in Singapore. A whole country! Overall a bit of a shock to the system, in terms of the cleanliness and orderliness. I suspect you could argue sanitised.

This trip was full of contrasts!