Round and round we went: Singapore Day 3 (24 July, 2014)

Round the island

Back in 2010 before we started our travel blogs, Sue wrote a post on her litblog about doing tours. We felt after our experience on that holiday that those sorts of day and half-day tours were not for us. We did, however, do a couple in Spain, but for very particular purposes – one was the only way you could see behind the scenes, and the other was to escape long queues. Both tours were fine. However, for our Singapore trip, we decided to try the day tour again. Well, hmmm …

It’s not that we’re complaining, because we chose our Round the Island Tour for some specific reasons: our time here was limited and the places on this tour are spread out making this the most efficient way to get to them all in the time available; and, with the humid weather and demands on our feet, a respite from walking all day wouldn’t go astray. But, there is a price to pay – and it’s the same old things. Limited time, meals are geared to presumed tourist tastes, and the leader’s patter can be challenging.

The last of these was the main issue here. Our tour’s main, though not only, subject was Singapore and World War 2, with visits to Kranji War Memorial and the Changi Chapel and Museum. Our guide told us about Singapore’s role in the war and, specifically, about the Japanese occupation. Fair enough. It was a terrible time for the island’s inhabitants as well as for the allies – and the Japanese were brutal and the Japanese government still hasn’t fully owned up to what it did, what it countenanced, in the name of war. But – and it’s a big but – there are ways of telling this story. For our leader that meant excoriating the Japanese at every opportunity, including in reference to those living in Singapore today. It was a bit much. While delivering history objectively is not totally possible, and perhaps not even desirable, there’s something to be said for erring on the side of caution in situations like these. Even the Changi Museum, for all the horror of the stories it told, provided some “roundedness”.

Nonetheless, the tour had its value:

• we saw the sights we wanted to including the very moving Changi Museum.
• we met some interesting people, including Brandy from the USA who has just downsized to Reston (where we were living when Evan as born – no-one has ever heard of Reston!) and the lovely Indonesian flight attendant, Siti, who stayed on with us at the Gardens when the tour ended.
• we learnt a lot about living in Singapore that we wouldn’t have easily discovered ourselves – and that gave us much to ponder about. What are the costs of living in a safe, clean place where there’s minimal crime, no graffiti, no homeless people or beggars, but where freedoms (such as of assembly) are curtailed and where punishment can be very harsh?

Round the Gardens by the Bay

The tour ended with an hour at Gardens by the Bay, but several of us decided to stay on and make our own way back to our respective hotels to enable us to “do” the gardens properly. This is where Siti joined us – in our little bus tour of the site, and our walks through the Flower Dome, the Cloud Forest, and the Skyway in Supertrees Grove.

Gardens by the Bay is new, with its first phase opening only in 2011. It’s part of the government’s plan to turn Singapore from a “Garden City”, as it has been known for some decades, to a “City in a Garden”. We spent about 4 hours here and didn’t see it all, or spend as much time as we could have in the places we did see. The park itself is free, but you pay for the attractions we named in the above para. The Flower Dome and Cloud Forest were great, not only because of their content, but because of their controlled environments. The Flower Dome is set at a dry 18°C to accommodate Mediterranean and other dry country plants, and the Cloud Forest to cool mountain air. The irony was not lost on us that we found ourselves walking in very comfortable environments while being educated about the serious ramifications of climate change if we don’t do something now.

Still, we saw some amazing – and beautifully presented plants – both within these paid venues and in the open gardens.

Round the intellectual traps: religion, politics and the environment

As you will have gathered by now, it was a day that roamed widely, intellectually speaking as well as geographically. We spent an enjoyable couple of hours with Siti at the Gardens. She was tickled that Len was “made in Indonesia”. She’s an interesting young woman – a mother of a three-year-old, and a flight attendant working for Saudi Arabian Airlines. A Muslim herself, she was very conscious of the difference between her life and those of Saudi women. She sees her religion as a personal relationship between her and God, and practises it that way. You would not, for example, have known she was Muslim from her dress (as she was very much aware!). She was also interesting about Indonesia, and is hoping hard that the new President will bring change. We are “a developed country”, she said, “but we are not developing”. She named pollution as one of their serious issues.

Anyhow, after such a day, where to eat? We’re not sure that we consciously intended it, but it’s perhaps appropriate, and hopefully not insensitive, that we ended up eating Japanese!

And a few photos for us to remember by, and hopefully also, for you to enjoy …

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A quick tour of the Cloud Forest …