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We arrived in Singapore a day later than we expected, on the 23rd of March. It had taken us 2 weeks to cover Malaysia, no mean feat considering we covered over 1000kms and a whopping great mountain in the middle. We were tired but happy to know that we were to have a little rest and relaxation with friends and to stay in a home, rather than a hotel.
The customs procedures were pain-free and finally we were on the 1km causeway that connects Singapore to the mainland. Dean and Jessica had given us directions to theirs (very straighforward) and cycling the15-20km from the border to their house, clearly marked the contrast between cycling in Malaysia and Singapore. Nice, clean, tree-lined streets, traffic that behaved itself impeccably, orderly pedestrians, etc. In fact you could say after Thailand and Malaysia it was like cycling into the Stepford Wives suburb. A fine city indeed!! :p (see later)
For our first night there Dean and Jessica had organised drinks with some of their friends at the nearby Holland Village, an area popular with the local expats. We hoped we would not make complete fools of ourselves, having not had one drop of alcohol for weeks and wondering if we had completely lost our social graces and communication skills in the course of or journey!! Not to mention having little clue about current news and what was on at the cinema/charts/etc. It was such a relief for us to be able to have an intelligent conversation with people – the topics with people we meet in the last few months being restricted to the same questions over and over again – and usually in very basic English!
The next morning (OK, who are we kidding, the next afternoon!), we set out to explore the glitzy shopping malls of downtown Singapore (Orchard Road), the skyscrapers of the financial district, the Colonial District flanked by reminders of British rule, the half-lion half-fish statue of Merlion, the official tourism symbol of Singapore, and the Esplanade – a new sprawling art complex occupying six hectares of waterfront land and boasting several concert halls, theatres, and galleries. Opinion is split on whether the two huge, spiked shells that roof the complex are peerless modernistic architecture or plain indulgent kitsch. They have been compared to hedgehogs, kitchen sieves, insect eyes, golf balls, microphones, and even mating aardvarks, although the locals usually refer to them as the ‘durians’.
And of course, no visit to Singapore would be complete without a visit to the legendary Raffles Hotel, almost a byword for colonialism and best known for its infamous cocktail the ‘Singapore Sling’. Patronised by the rich, the famous, and the influential, the guest list includes Somerset Maugham, Rudyard Kipling, Noel Coward, as well as a long string of film stars and politicians. The museum in the hotel is crammed with memorabilia following the hotel’s history.
The next day we went to the Haw Par Villa with Dean and Jessica, a theme park depicting Chinese legends and moral values, built by the Aw brothers, inventors of the all-curing Tiger Balm ointment. The best – and most gruesome – statues lie in the Ten Courts of Hell exhibit – graphically depicting horrific punishments for a multitude of sins. Prostitutes are shown drowned in pools of blood, drug addicts tied to a red-hot copper pillar, and those who haven’t yet donated to Nutsonbents flayed alive. :p There are also some surprisingly harsh punishments for what we would consider to be mild sins – being sawn in two for cracking the spine of a book, and entrails pulled out for cheating in an examination!! The rest of the park contained several Buddhas, Chinese wise-men, and (to Nic’s delight!) a section on the story of Hsan Tsang (Tripitaka), the Buddhist monk who went to India to retrieve Buddha’s scriptures, with his companions Monkey, Pigsy, and co., all immortalised in the TV series Monkey Magic (which Nic loves).
After the Chinese park, we paid a quick visit to Chinatown, to have a look at the Thian Hock Keng temple (the most majestic Chinese buddhist temple in town) and the Sri Mariamman Hindu temple, with a colourful pillar of statues. Then we joined the bus-loads of tourists browsing through the stalls in the busy Chinatown market.
