June 16-18
Exchange rate: 1.3 Singapore dollars (SD) to 1 US dollar.
Singapore is an independent city-state that sits at the tip of the Malay peninsula. It’s demographic make-up is 74% Chinese, 14% Malay, 9% Indian, and 3% “other”. All the signs, and announcements, are in English. The city, a major transit point for Asia, has a reputation of strict compliance and rules. No spitting, no chewing gum, no littering, no jay-walking, and as a result, is one of the cleanest cities we’ve visited. The good news, with the exception of littering, a lot of those laws are not enforced unless you happen on a policeman having a bad day (or if you’re making an obvious nuisance of yourself).
It’s also a very expensive city, on par with larger European ones – hotel rooms close to downtown start at $110/night. Most western style restaurants easily run 40-50SD for 2 people for breakfast. But if you ask your hotel clerk and cab/GRAB (Uber in SE Asia) driver, you can get some great advice on good food on the cheap. A typical breakfast in Malaysia is called Nasi Lemak – rice, with dried anchovies, some egg, a spicy sauce and a choice of protein (pork, chicken, fried fish, a fish cake or tofu) – for 3.2SD each.
I chose the fish cake (Set 4 if you look at the photo above)– which had an odd flavor and texture- the flavor was OK, the gummy texture put me off. The egg and rice was plenty of food, so after a couple of bites, the fish patty was left alone. I was sure there would be many better options through the day.
We could not get a Guru walk on a Saturday – our main day in Singapore, so I went through my city guide and the primary attraction I wanted to see were the Botanical Gardens – especially the National Orchid Garden. We debated between getting public transport or a GRAB – since it was basically the same price, we went with the GRAB. The Botanical Gardens are free to enter, and have many specialty gardens galore – plumerias and other frangipanis, gingers and other tropical plants. But the show stopper, the pride of Singapore – and an entrance fee of 15SD for adults (3 for seniors) is the Orchid Garden.
Acres of orchids – including a misting “cool” building to highlight ones seen in the mountains, some orchids cascading blossoms down long stems. Overall – my favorite experience of the trip thus far.
When John had his limit of orchids and flowers, we caught a Big Bus (one of the hop-on-hop-off type tour buses) to see the rest of the city for 55 SD each. We took it through the end of the Yellow line – switched over to the Red line, and eventually ended up at the Sands Expo & Convention Center at the harbor front. There was a casino there, but they won’t let you in without your passport, and a huge mall with a canal in the lower floor offering gondola rides. Every type of designer store was present – Tiffany’s, Ferragamo’s, Coach and Luis Vuitton. Not exactly our interest, but it was air conditioned and comfortable.
Outside, they were having a health fare. You may have caught John’s video of me on Facebook trying to cross on the rings. We just caught the HOHO bus as it was pulling back out and completed the Red line – then went back to Little India for lunch. It was after 2 o’clock, so in the first 2 places they were sold out of the fish soup and other foods I could eat, and we hit upon a restaurant with Pakistani style curry called Aloo Gosht (I had mine with shrimp)– so I had a new type of curry – it was very good with lots of potatoes and a decent number of shrimps.
Once again, we had good timing with the HOHO bus and took it down to Chinatown – within a kilometer of our hotel – the Nostalgia Hotel. We had debated going to the famous Raffles Hotel to get a Singapore Sling, but decided spending 30SD for 2 drinks was a bit much for a drink neither of us particularly like.
We wandered back to the water front after a rest, John brought his passport so he could check out the casino – very expensive with hands starting at 25 SD. I found a vitamin store to resupply our supplements, and after walking through a small free festival, we got a GRAB back to the hotel (having the regional SIM card has been wonderful).
In the morning, we thought we’d get to the airport early – multiple travel sites mention the spectacular at the Singapore Airport. Most of the ones outside of security are located in “The Jewel”. We would be going out of terminal 4 – 3km from “The Jewel”. There was a bus, but we still had all of our carryon baggage. Inside terminal 4, I found out about a museum of Singapore culture. I checked with an information desk – confirmed it was after security, so we thought “fine”. Went through security, could not find the museum on the map of the terminal, I asked another information counter. “Its closed”. The Singapore Airport’s own website mentioned its hours of operation. It had closed in 2020 and is currently being redone, set to re-open in August. There was a koi pond with a pretty bridge.
Next stop – Kuala Lumpur!