Travel >> Singapore| Peripatus Home Page Travel >> Singapore |
Updated: 30 May 2002 |
After a long flight, much of it across central Australia (stunning red desert from horizon to horizon) I arrive in Singapore where I’ve never been before. First of all, the temperature is in the high 20s and it is very humid. That much strikes me immediately. A few minutes after we arrive my colleague, Barry, who has visited Singapore several times before, shows me around some of the landmarks close to our hotel. We are staying very near to the intersection of Scott Street and Orchard Road, which is right in the heart of the main shopping area. The buildings are all brand new, tall, and mostly hotels. The lower floors of most of them, two or three levels both up and down from street level, are shopping malls. Electrical and optical goods stores abound. It is very much as I remember Nathan Road in Hong Kong, 10 years ago (although Hong Kong has probably changed now) except that it is not cheap. A Singapore dollar is worth about the same as an Australian dollar but the prices are mostly higher than one would pay in Australia. The shops are open from 10 AM until 10 PM or sometimes 11 PM, even on Sunday.
Singapore is famous for having strict laws. It is illegal to import chewing gum. It is illegal to import a disk of copied software. Being caught with 30 grams of cocaine is considered prima facie evidence of trafficking and carries a mandatory death penalty. Of course I didn’t have any cocaine but I might easily have had a few disks with goodness knows what on them. Strangely, though, the customs inspection was non-existent. Barry and I just picked up our bags and walked out to the taxi stand. We must have looked honest. The fine for littering is S$1,000 for a first offence and S$2,000 plus "corrective work order" for a repeat offence. I don’t know what corrective work order is, but it doesn’t sound pleasant!
More prowling around the nearby malls the next evening, after finishing work. Books are much more expensive than from Amazon and the only Chinese language books I managed to find looked like "Mills and Boon" novels. I was searching for a Chinese version of "Tin Tin" or something similarly within my grasp. Sadly, that was one ambition I was unable to realise. Most of the books I saw had pictures of dewy-eyed girls or sometimes couples on the cover.
All of the people shopping in the area seemed to be wearing trendy clothes – DKNY and the like. Perhaps some were well-to-do tourists but most appeared to be local people so I guess the local economy must be doing well, at least for some. Many people were speaking Mandarin so I could recognise a few words but not understand a whole conversation. I vowed to pluck up my courage and go into a shop and try to buy something using my beginner’s Chinese ... some time during the week. There were also other languages being used – at least two – although I could not recognise them.
Walking in to the malls, whenever one passes a tailor shop, the hawkers come out at you, holding out their arms to shake hands. Once caught, you’re probably history. No thanks and side-step. Good grief!
That night we ate at a food hall where I couldn’t recognise many of the dishes at all. I couldn’t even see anything as familiar as a nasi goreng! But whatever it was that I did get was quite good, with lots of chilli. It was served in a bowl full of liquid which I suppose I was supposed to drink like soup but, not being much of a fan of soup, I just fished the solid stuff out with my fork. It was mostly noodles and sprouts and some sort of meat but the chilli was so hot I couldn’t taste what it was.
In gratitude for having provided me with such a good orientation the previous two evenings, I took Barry for a couple of beers Tuesday evening in the hotel bar. Two beers each; four in total. S$59.80. Hmmm. We won’t be doing that again! Instead, we vowed to exact our revenge by emptying the free mini-bars every night, even if it meant loading up our bags and carting the stuff off to the office. Two Tiger beers, a can of Coke, a bottle of orange, one packet of nuts and two of biscuits was duly hoovered down in my room on each of the following eight evenings.
On the Wednesday evening the whole crowd of us – Barry and I, Rob, newly arrived Ted, and our Singapore host, Dave – mounted an expedition to the the huge IT mall, the Funan Centre. Barry and I made our way there by means of the underground, the Mass Rapid Transport or MRT, from our local station, Orchard. It is quick, clean, efficient, and very cheap. I'm guessing that two or three dollars might well buy you a ride around the whole of Singapore. Our fares were 80 cents. In the long tunnels leading to, from, and around Orchard station, the sides are lined with billboards behind glass, which automatically change every few seconds. It is quite freaky. My favourite moving billboard was this one: "In today’s global market, you can never have too many ties."
Soon we all met up on the steps of the Funan and headed across the road to one of Singapore's few surviving pirate software shops: hundreds of titles on CD, S$15 each. The MS Office packages – Word, Excel and so on – were individually split off, each onto its own S$15 CD but other than that most everything seemed to just be straight rip-offs of the real software packages. On-line documentation doesn't seem such a clever idea, now, does it? As former software developers, Barry and I remained outside, conscientiously objecting, while our colleagues went in and glutted themselves.
After a time they became sated, mercifully, and we all returned to Funan Centre: five large floors of wall-to-wall technology shops. As you'd expect, there was a certain sameness about them after a while, and it was really only the most popular items being peddled. Nothing that was really exotic or difficult to find elsewhere. The prices appeared similar to whatever I'd pay locally, so, in the end, I didn't buy anything during this visit though Barry and I returned on Friday, having finished work early that day, and I succumbed to an entry-level version of Dragon Dictate. (Which I have yet to install and try. Sigh.)
Thursday evening the pair of us "did" Orchard Road. It's not hard, really. There's a certain sameness to it all, after a while. But we found some neat stuff: a serpentine carving of a pair of dragons – Jo is a dragon and our daughter, when she is born, will be also – and a set of three beautiful little Ming dynasty wine cups sorted out my present obligations.
Barry returned home on Friday evening. I visited the odd shop on my own afterwards, but I was sated. I quit not long after and returned to my hotel room, and the sybaritic pleasures of cable TV.
When visiting foreign metropoli, your more gregarious visitors usually home in on restaurants, the clubs, the hot spots. In Singapore, these folks are probably to be found knocking back gin slings in Raffles. Not me. I do other stuff.
For instance, whenever I am in a new city I make it a habit to inspect the zoo, if there is one, and if I am staying long enough in the place. Over time I have become quite discriminating: Perhaps one day I should compile a list of zoos of the world, and give them a rating, a bit like Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide. Anyway, as soon as Saturday arrived, I was on the MRT heading north to Ang Mo Kio, then aboard SBS bus 138 to Singapore Zoological Gardens. I arrived just after 9; half an hour after opening but still early enough to avoid the crowds.
As always, the yardstick is San Diego (even though it must be nearly 20 years since I last went there, so I probably need to return to refresh my memory of the place). Although a respectable 28 hectares, Singapore zoo is smaller and lacks some of the nuances, such as the cable car and the attention to botanical as well as zoological detail, but otherwise it is laid out along much the same lines: moats and rock walls replace concrete and wire mesh, acting as natural barriers between the human animals and the other sorts. Indeed, in some places visitors can walk in to various enclosures when nothing except the animals’ good sense stands between them and us.
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The grounds are established on a headland extending into the very attractive Upper Seletar Reservoir which provides a conveniently natural background of water and forest. A broad, paved roadway, which walkers share with a Noddy-train-like vehicle, runs around the periphery of the grounds. You can see into many of the enclosures directly from this road. Smaller paths lead in to the ‘interior’ where there are others. Near the entrance/exit, the "Treetops Trail" is essentially a bridge over a small stream gorge. But the Trail is on the same level as the sealed road and almost indistinguishable from it. Perhaps a more imaginative soul might have devised some kind of elevated rope bridge arrangement instead. It is in this kind of way that Singapore zoo, though essentially excellent, just falls short of the flair in needs to achieve the highest ranking in my mind.
There is one area in which it does excel however: white rhinoceros, orang-utan, pygmy hippo and other endangered animals are regularly bred here. Sadly, zoos provide the "last best hope" for saving these creatures – frankly, they just are not going to survive in the wild – and so this is surely the most valuable function of any zoo.
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Singapore zoo is very much ‘encounter’ oriented. Animal feeding shows, animals performing tricks, rides, have your photograph taken with a baby chimp on your knee, and opportunities to pet, for example, a gorgeous (and patiently long-suffering) spider monkey. The orang-utans were consummate performers; far more talented than their human co-stars. I definitely formed the impression they were enjoying themselves. Is this sort of unnatural behaviour a bad thing? In a perfect world, yes. But when the alternative is probably extinction, I’m not prepared to be so adamant any more.
My favourite exhibits, in order of their appearance in a counter-clockwise tour of the premises, were:
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The polar bears. The nine year old male, Inuka, at three metres, is one of the most impressive mammals you can imagine. All the more so for seeing him under-water, shimmering through the Perspex panels behind a group of tiny little Chinese kids with their faces pressed up in front of him.
The cats. Always. Today they were lying in whatever shade they could find, stretching out on their backs with their legs indecorously waving in the air, just like Sophie, my silly, affectionate and overly-plump cat at home. Normally I cringe when I see cats in zoos on account of their having insufficient room to run around in. This was true in Singapore also, although today, with the temperature in the high 20s and humidity to match, I imagine running was the last thing on their minds.
"Fragile Forest." Providing a strong conservation message (a theme running through many of the zoo’s initiatives) this is one of the walk-in enclosures where one can, in principle, jostle cheek-by-jowl with the animals. In practise, even the butterflies are smart enough not to come within arms reach of the madding crowd, although many birds and beasts may be seen very close to, in here. Mouse-deer, ring tailed lemurs, and a bizarre tree-perching duck (when’s the last time you saw a duck in a tree? yes, webbed feet and all) are among the delights to be seen.
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Reptile Garden. Actually, the exhibit is nothing special; I liked it because an information board posted there avoided the current fad of simply assuming dinosaurs to have been warm-blooded – a trendy conceit for which there is no convincing evidence whatsoever – labelling them bloody-mindedly (if not somewhat incorrectly) as lizards. Unfortunately, the author of the little display rather blotted his copy-book with his account of their extinction, which involved the earth being knocked off its axis by some Velikovskian cataclysm, climatic breakdown and, just to make sure they were safely consigned to posterity, the Ice Age (which everybody else in the know believes to have actually trailed along some 60 million years or more after the event, but never mind the details).
And the brickbat goes to … (the envelope, please, Virginia) … the shop. Here one could buy souvenir ashtrays, key rings, paper weights featuring scorpions entombed in plastic, tee-shirts, etc. But wait; yes, there are two smallish, glossy booklets describing the zoo and its inhabitants. Seven dollars each and not many more pages. Sucks!
Today, Sentosa Island beckoned. I caught the ‘E’ route bus from Orchard for quite a long ride through town, then finally over the causeway bridge, from which I could see massive boat yards stretching away in both directions, to the Visitor Arrival Centre. From here one can walk, stay on the bus, or take the slow, creaking, but free, monorail which winds around the western half of the island. I chose the monorail and no sooner was I aboard than the skies opened up with a formidable downpour.
The downpour didn’t last long however, although it was still raining a little when, two stops later, I alighted at Underwater World. It’s not a bad little aquarium, having the usual coral fish (almost no freshwater tropicals, except the obligatory piranhas looking deflatingly benign in a corner), sea dragons (I hope there are still a few of these left swimming around the coasts of Australia, and that they haven’t all been swept off to various aquaria around the world, although one can’t deny that the little creatures are simply stunning), and a walk-through undersea plastic tube thingy surrounded by sharks. The most unusual exhibit was a dugong – Gracie, by name – sponsored by Swatch, for whatever that piece of information might be worth. Three stars plus a couple of bonus points for the sea dragons and the dugong.
Two more creaking stops on the monorail and I arrived at the Butterfly Park and Insect Kingdom Museum. This is a combination of the usual walk-in butterfly aviary and a museum-style pinned insect collection, with a few terraria containing other live inhabitants thrown in. These last comprised giant (at least they looked bloody big to me) tropical millipedes, scorpions, stick and leaf insects, tarantulas plus a few others. The live butterflies were gorgeous, although there were only half a dozen different kinds. It was the pinned collection that was truly eye-opening for its spectacular diversity of form and colour. Lacking a pen, I tried to remember a few names, but my memory was unequal to the task. (Desmostigma, or something like that, maybe?) And, of course, there were no useful brochures or books in the gift shop. Just the usual tee-shirts and crap, plus a variety of plastic artefacts featuring entombed arthropods – all unlabelled. I wandered over to inspect some nice-looking silk scarves, a steal at $35; the proprietor smiled encouragingly. I ran my fingers around the edges until I found the tiny stub of the manufacturer’s label which had been snipped off. I glanced up. Mine host was no longer smiling.
Completing my monorail circuit back to the Arrival Centre, I caught a bus back to Tiong Bahru MRT where I dined on BK and then walked about 20 or 30 minutes to reach Chinatown. Maybe there just wasn’t much to be had or maybe I was looking in the wrong places. Either way, all I saw was the usual range of electrical, optical and money changing emporia you’ll find anywhere on Orchard Road plus a few really cheap clothing shops. It was a fairly desultory experience and I came away empty handed. But although the shopping was a complete bust, it was great to smell the air as I walked past the food stalls and hear the music (though I’d have preferred something more traditional than Hong Kong pop) and generally experience the jostle and atmosphere of a decent-sized Chinese community again.
We finished a bit early on Monday, being ahead of schedule, so I had a chance to get out to a place I had found in the yellow pages which claimed to sell fossils. I expected I probably wouldn't buy anything because I could probably get better ones on the web anyway. Moreover, Singapore is part of a volcanic arc so any fossils would be imports. The same shop also advertised telescopes, so all things considered, it still seemed worth a look. But what a gyp! I ended up walking nearly two hours in blazing sunshine – it must have been at least 6 or 8 kilometres – to find shop number #04-17, at 587 Bt Timah Road. It's a long road. Each property only gets one number, so you can start outside number 253 and walk for 100 metres or more past a huge apartment complex, only to discover that you are now standing outside number 255. In the end I found 587 Bt Timah Rd ... but there is no level 4 there, hence no shop number #04-17. I caught a cab back.
Chastened, I spent the next two nights more or less "in." Borders (English language) book store on the corner of Orchard and Paterson was about as far afield as I ventured. Apart from that, it was just Carl Sagan, HBO, and me.
Wednesday was the last work day but my flight out was not until 8 PM or so on Thursday. So I rose late, loafed around my room, packed lazily, and eventually dropped my bags with the concierge around midday. The afternoon I spent wandering around the botanical gardens, wilting in the heat: I began with a bus ride from Orchard – no foolish walking for me today although, ironically, this time the distance was quite manageable. But just getting off the bus and crossing the road had me sweating already. The shade under the trees looked cool, but wasn't.
Near the entrance was an enormous tree. I forget, now, what attracted me to it initially but upon reaching it I saw that the lower part of the trunk was a scene of feverish activity by groups of ants. Swarms of small ones rushed around, foraging I supposed, while relatively few, much larger ants with big jaws stood by. The relationship between the two groups seemed somewhat ambivalent. Every now and again one of the larger ants would seize one of the smaller workers in its jaws and fling it down the tree. Those I saw land, eventually struggled back to their feet and rushed off again. It appeared to be that the much larger ants could easily have killed their smaller kin if that's what they were about, yet their behaviour did not seem consistent with guard duty either. Beats me!
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Next I entered a dense little copse surrounding some shallow pools, sheltering there from the worst of a passing rain shower. Their were soft plops and splashes as invisible fish disappeared in the reeds at my approach and, when the sun returned a few moments later, dragon and damsel flies to admire. There was even a little patch of Mimosa pudica, a favourite of mine. This is a feathery little plant which folds up its leaves when they are touched, say, by rain or pesky fingers. Although there is a larger, more manicured, pool further around (populated with tiger barbs, I thought) I enjoyed this little unkempt area best of all the gardens, because it seemed to have been forgotten.
These gardens are large enough to have several specialist areas. I inspected the cactus garden and the bonsai collection – both well worth the effort – before making my way to the orchid gardens where I hoped to fill in a couple of hours. (Otherwise, what would I do until it was time to leave for the airport?) The orchid gardens are reputed to contain over 60,000 orchids, and that may well be true. But it is important to note that they are not 60,000 different kinds of orchids. In fact, there are very few varieties on display; most of the 60,000 plants are, disappointingly, all the same. Moreover, they all are hybrids; flashy plastic looking flowers having little to do with the stunning diversity of the natural family. Indeed, the most exotic specimen I observed there was a European-sounding red-head trotting around with her boyfriend in tow [® sidebar].
Disappointed and hot, I sought solace in a coke and an ice cream at the tea room. Next door was the shop; I went in without much hope. As it turned out, the shop at the gardens was everything the shop at the zoo was not: There was a fine collection of books – I purchased a reprint of Wallace's The Malay Archipelago out of simple gratitude for its being there – and other bits and pieces, both fun and educational.
On the return leg of my walk I wandered through pretty much the whole of the gardens, including the extensive bush section, and past the exotic looking trees with buttressed root systems that spread out for metres all around, before finally returning hot and weary to the Royal Plaza on Scotts to collect my bag and head for the airport.
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