First World Asia
Sure, it’s artificial, manufactured, sterile – even fake – while its cleanliness is so pedantic to be on the verge of silly and the irksome rules you must adhere to in order to maintain that cleanliness can be tiring et cetera et cetera … but, let me tell you: after three-and-a-half months on the subcontinent, Singapore is amazing.
Some highlights for an Indian-adjusted eye: traffic lights, pedestrian crossings, queues, air conditioning, a fantastic public transport network, no mayhem in any direction, wonderful food at every corner (especially laksa), and, most of all, being able to walk down a street (on a spotless sidewalk, while I’m at it) without being converged upon by rickshaw drivers / hotel touts / souvenir touts / beggars / kids / beggar kids / people asking you ‘What is your academic qualification?’ (a Bangladeshi favourite) / et cetera.
It had been over five years since either of us had been to Singapore, and we really enjoyed it. We spent most of our time wandering around the distinctive quarters of the city (Little India, Chinatown, Arab St and the Colonial Core). While you can see how hard the government has tried to ‘create’ culture in these places, there is a legitimate basis for it and they’re all very pleasant to walk around.
We also managed a trip to the zoo on Monday, which – hot on the heels of a visit to a pretty depressing zoo in Orissa state last month – was fabulous, with ‘free-ranging’ orang-utans swinging from tree to tree, uncaged white tigers swimming in a river-moat not 10 metres away, and plenty of other animals living in excellent conditions.
We ended up staying for four days while waiting for our laptop to be repaired (which it finally was after several unsuccessful attempts in India), and as a result had to miss out on visiting the Malaysian city of Melacca and quickly zoom up to Kuala Lumpur for our flight to the Philippines. But we’re now considering returning to Malaysia after we’re done with the Philippines to really ‘complete’ our travels in Southeast Asia, so we may get to Melacca in a couple of months in any case. But first, the Philippines…
Tags: Asia, clean, insanely clean, not India, Singapore, Southeast Asia, Travel
Nick