Heavenly Eating (and Hellish Shopping)
Trip Start
Nov 01, 2006
1
57
118
Trip End
Aug 29, 2007
Singapore,
Singapore
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Anyway, what's Singapore like? It's hot and humid for a start with plenty of rain showers over the few days, with 37 degrees during the sunny days, and very humid even when overcast. It's a great introduction to Asia. Yes, it's swish and modern and clean and orderly, with plenty of very strict rules and hefty fines for minor infringements. For example, cycle your bike instead of pushing it along the canal under an overpass: fine $1000. Take a durian fruit (stinks) onto the metro (or eat or drink on the metro): another fine. Spitting and jaywalking: more fines. The metro is very modern and the place is full of huge skyscrapers, both the business district and the hotels. Beach road is two kilometres from the coast at this stage to give you an idea of the amount of reclaimed land here. But, you can also make your way to Little India or Chinatown to get a taste of the "real" Asia, by which I mean the sights and sounds and smells that you would expect in India or China or wherever. There is also the Arabic quarter to explore. There are big mosques, Hindu temples, Chinese temples, Buddhist temples, all bustling with their own ceremonies and rites and congregations. I'm sure there are churches here as well, but everyone knows churches are boring compared to the Hindu temples with their multicoloured gopurams (decorative pyramid-like towers on top of the temple) and miriad gods.
So you have all of these different cultures side by side and they don't seem to clash. Obviously each religion will have it's own place of worship, but visit a food hall (of which there are many) and there is no segregation. You can get authentic Indian, Chinese, Malay, Japanese, Western and god knows what else in the food courts, and all for roughly 3 - 7 Singapore dollars, i.e. less than three quid. Mmmm mmmm. Of course there are plenty of more upmarket places (fifty quid for flower crab on the harbour for example) and everything in between. It really is amazing. Favourites so far include Singapore Laksa and Wanton Mee. None of the stalls in the food courts do drinks, there are maybe one or two central stalls where you can get all sorts of fresh juices made in front of you and again for much cheapness. Oh yes, it's great to be back in Asia!
The other thing Singapore is great for is shopping - in the city centre there seems to be a whole underground, air conditioned world of endless shopping malls all interconnected in a huge maze. In short, it's a total nightmare.
There are loads of old British buildings about the place as well, remnants of the colonial era. One of the must-dos here is to go to the Long Bar at Raffle's Hotel where the Singapore Sling was invented, and (wait for it) have one. So of course we did that and the place is pretty cool complete with mechanical fans that are rows of large leafs that move back and forth in sync, and with peanut shells all over the floor. Couldn't figure out the reason for that one. Anyway, the slings were as expected, colourful and sweet, so I had a beer.
So tomorrow we say goodbye to the luxury and the pool and lug our backpacks down to Little India. But we've had a great time hanging out with Jenny's sister Emma and her folks and we've been extremely well looked after, and definitely built up some reserves of fat for the journey through Southeast Asia over the coming couple of months. Despite many, many changes of plan the current one is to make our way north from here and eventually complete the overland route home to Europe via the Trans-Mongolian Railway... We're serious about this one, having already bought a guidbook for it and getting quite excited about it. There's lots of red tape involved in getting the visas for Russia, China and Mongolia, and also booking the trains ahead, but it'll be worth it. Unfortunately this means giving Indonesia a miss - we'll keep that for the next trip!
Comments
wanton mee?
wanton dave is also in my top 3 favourite meals. hur hur hur