THE RACHELEN PROJECT

We arrived in Singapore on the 4th June, 6 days ago. It was quite a culture shock after being in Cambodia and Vietnam for so long; the bus was air conditioned and only had 10 seats. The bus ride to our hostel went past Marina Bay so we got some pretty good views of the lights on the way over.

 

Our hostel was near Little India and was the cheapest one in Singapore, but still three times the price of most Vietnam hostels! We visited a local shopping mall once we checked in and discovered fairly soon that shopping is one of the main attractions of Singapore. Its malls have the same feel of luxury about them as many malls in China do, i.e. shiny tiled floors and perfume  throughout, but they have affordable shops and even cheap stores for UK brands.

 

We went past the Singapore museum which looked impressive from the outside, but we didn’t get time to look inside. It had some exhibitions from the British Museum which would have been strange to see in a different context.

 

Chinatown was good to see but still fairly expensive. The cheapest beer we could find was £5 for a 330ml can, and most cocktails were at least £10 (as were several beers). Drinking is very restricted in Singapore, and you can only drink in designated areas during a particular time slot.

 

It’s bizarrely clean, too. Chewing gum is banned and you’d be penalised if you tried to bring some over the border. There was virtually no litter anywhere. You’re not allowed to drink on the metro (not even water), and you’re not allowed to bring durians either, which are a particularly smelly fruit you can find in most places in Asia.

 

Even the metro was expensive by Asian standards, at roughly £1 - £1.50 for a quick journey. However, living in Little India meant we could get an incredibly cheap curry 5 minutes down the road. Between us we could get two curries, two rices and naan bread for less than £2 each and it’s very good curry too.

 

On our second night we went to Marina Bay to see the light show. There’s a bar on top of the hotel with views out over the bay; it’s free entry but the cheapest drink was a small beer for £8 +service charge. But it was worth it for a view. There was a rooftop infinity pool entirely filled with tourists lined up at the edge, taking selfies with the view in the background.  

 

The light show happens twice every evening and features about 5 minutes of fireworks, as well as some ‘holographic’ images being projected onto sprays of water coming from the marina. It was fairly interesting but also quite pointless.

 

We snuck around to the other side of the tower to get a view of the Gardens by the Bay, which is a gigantic nature reserve featuring the iconic ‘supertrees’, large sculptures to demonstrate environmentalism. They stand between 25m and 50m tall and aim to replicate the function of trees, using PV cells to light themselves (for shows) and rainwater harvesting for irrigation and water fountain shows. They also form part of the adjacent Cloud Forest and Flower Dome, conservatories similar to the Eden project, by providing the route for air intake and exhaust. We came back to view the gardens the following day, and it definitely is worth a visit.

 

After this we went shopping near the Sentosa Island, which we didn’t visit as it’s only got  resorts and a theme park on it. It’s interesting that you can almost get around the whole city without going outside; most metro stations lead directly into the nearest attraction.

 

We left Singapore the next afternoon after getting another curry for breakfast. It was a bizarre three days and a strange break from other cities in Asia. Next stop Indonesia.