Introduction
This is a rather verbatim transcript of some notes I took during a trip to Singapore in June 1998. It's not meant to serve as a guidebook, but if you're going there maybe it'll give you some idea of places to see or good things to eat.
Table of Contents
6/24: Hong Kong - Singapore
The flight to Singapore took 3:20, no problems with immigration. Chunnu met us right outside and brought us home, near the Bukit Timah Wilderness preserve. he shares a room i a 3-br apt on the 21st floor. The place is nice, bright, and has great views of the wilderness preserve.
We relaxed a bit, talked, hang out. Then Chunnu and I played a few games of squash -- his building complex has a court! His roommate, Nippin, was finished with work at 2210 and we met him after working along Orchard Rd, the main shopping district.
We had dinner at a hawker centre called Newton Centre -- dozens of stalls selling great seafood! We shared
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steamed mussels with scallions, ginger and garlic
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squid in chili sauce
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murtabak
Spicy! For dessert I had a durian shake, which was good. It was the first time I tasted a durian. That fruit is forbidden in hotels and public transportation because of its strong smell. It has a very distinctive smell, and a unique taste.
6/25: Botanical gardens, Little India
We woke up late, Chunnu and I played squash again, he won 4:3. We took the bus towards Orchard Rd, he went to work and we got off at the Botanical Gardens. They are beautiful -- the plants are luxurious, and the ponds filled with ducks and turtles. Inside the garden is the famous Orchid Garden, which is quite amazing. The garden has a VIP Orchid Room -- various orchid strains that were created in Singapore and are named after politicians, diplomats, foreign heads of state, etc. But the flowers themselves are pretty.
On our way out we walked out on the opposite side of the garden and took a long, circumnavigatory walk around the gardens Eventually we got to Orachard Rd, had a bite to eat at the Takashimaya food court -- rice, collards, brinjal, and chicken. Spicy and nice.
After that we walked, eventually reaching Little India. We were both stared at, due to me walking with her and our clothes -- cutoff jeans and tank tops. Harleen says that it was just like India -- although Singapore has strict laws for everything, it didn't seem to affect this part of the city. Because of our clothes we couldn't enter the Kali Temple, they weren't proper enough.
At night we picked up Chunnu and Nippin and went bowling. It was fun, and we all improved in the second game. Chunnu has been practicing since we last played in the USA, and beat us all easily. Then we ate in a nearby hawker centre, they had roti-paratas and I had Mee Hong Kong, a seafood mix over noddles. Very nice.
6/26: Orchard Rd, Chinatown
Chunnu went to work before we got up. Papaya breakfast, reading, still resting after Hong Kong. Around 1300 we took the bus downtown and met Chunnu and Nippin for lunch. After that we walked around and looked at people until 1700, when Chunnu was done. We took the subway to Chinatown and walked around there. The colonial part ws neat, with columnated houses ligning the wide streets. Between the various temple visits we had some spring rolls and prawn porridge. After more walking we reached Boat Quay for drinks, and eventually got home late. Croatia vs Argentina, 0-1.
6/27: Art Museum, Boat Quay
Again we woke up late. The morning was spent between reading the paper, a book on Fermat's last theorem (by Simon Singh), and rice with garlic and scrambled eggs. Around 1300 we took the bus and went to walk around Arab St. The Sultan Mosque looked impressive, but again we couldn't go in because of our shorts. I decided to wear the shorts with zip-on legs, so that I could convert into decent clothing when needed.
The Raffles Hotel is the oldest Singapore establishment, a relic of the colonial age. Again, no entrance due to shorts. Argh.
Arab St was short but full of shops with small things. We had some briyani
mutton -- very nicely done. Harleen took some pictures of a roti-parata
maker -- she said she was an American tourist, so he smiled and was pleasant.
We weren't sure he'd be so nice to just an Indian woman.
The Art Museum had an exhibit called Imaging Selves -- a set of paintings and sculpture from various South-East Asian countries.
Then we met Chunnu again, went to Boat Quay to enjoy the evening. We tried the Singapore Slim, a drink invented by a barman at the Raffles Hotel. The way they made it for us was closer to fruit punch.
Walk around the Merlion Park, St Andrews church, visited Sohrab to see the Brazil vs Chile game. Game was OK, and although Chile deserved to win it they lost 1 - 4. Back home around 0530.
6/28: Santosa
We decided to see Santosa -- although very touristy it has beaches and parks. We ended up taking three different buses to get there, and reached by 1330. After lunch at the Food Garden (Thai chicken and Crawfish laksa) we walked to the Underwater World. It was a fairly long walk, mostly on the road, but it went through a lot of greenery.
The Underwater World was worth visiting -- I especially liked the deep-sea octopus, and the movie showing it squeezing through various narrow opening and tubes. One of the attractions is the plexiglass tunnel, a corridor that goes through a huge aquarium with fish swimming all around. We saw sharks, rays, groupers, and giant spider crabs.
The Santosa beach was closed for upgrade (all beaches are on land reclaimed
from the sea) so we walked to the further beaches. We saw monkeys, and
signs reading "Ladies, please do not sunbathe topless."
Eventually we returned home. Later we went out for dinner with the landlord, Ken and his girlfriend Cindy. They took us to a great Peranankan restaurant -- the original Chinese/Malay settlers of this area. We had:
greens with chili sauce
chicken in coconut curry
fried pomfret
squids in chili sauce
soup with fishballs
Then three various deserts and we were quite full. Since they insisted on inviting us, we took them out for more dessert, after a short walk through Bugis St market. We had dessert at a durian shop -- we had two bitter durians and mangosteens. They were very good! The durian shake I had before was pretty watered down, compared to the taste of the real thing. That almost concluded the evening, with a small stop for tofu in sweet ginger sauce on the way home.
6/29: Singapore
Another lazy day -- but Singapore isn't that big, it's hot outside, and we're resting from Hong Kong and getting ready for the two months in India.
Today we went to Keylang, the older and more traditional section of the city. Recently it's also known as the red light district, but nothing we saw confirmed it. After walking through the food markets and food courts we got to Malay Village, sort of a theme park. Inside we found a nice antique store and bought some fish baskets.
On the way to meet Chunnu we took the wrong bus and ended up far from
Orchard Rd -- so we went home and waited for him to return. He came back,
we played squash and went out for dinner in Little India.
6/30: Singapore - New Delhi
Played squash in the morning, did some last-minute present shopping, and realized that we were grossly overweight with luggage. Air India would only let us take 20kg each, so we repacked and left a fair amount of stuff with Chunnu. In the end we still had to pay a US$100 fine for excess luggage.
What is a durian anyways?
Well, it's hard to explain. I read somewhere a description of durian which likened the taste to be like onion icecream. But I didn't think so when I tasted it. It was nothing else I tasted or smelled before -- so I cannot come up with any comparisons. It's a large green fruit, probably about two feet long and watermelon-shaped, looking somewhat like a jackfruit. It has spikes on the outside, and it smells even unopened. People are very picky about durians, because you want to eat them at just the right time. They often have the store staff open the durian up, they smell or taste a little, and then ask for another one. We went through about 4 or 5 before Ken settled on one he liked.
The inside is interesting -- it has about 8 or 12 ridge-shaped pockets that run along the fruit's length. The ridges contain meat pieces, each looking like 2-3 inches of the middle section of a banana. You pick them out with your finger and eat them. No seeds or any suchthing. The taste is very strong! The fruit is considered "HOT" in the Chinese yin-and-yang style, so you have to follow it with a cold fruit, like a mangosteen. Mmmmm...