Singapore

Singapore is not a particularly backpacker friendly place, hostel dorms are expensive and the same goes for food, transport and activities but a few weeks before we left for Singapore we put the feelers out to see if anyone knew of any budget friendly options. Our luck couldn’t have been any better as a friend from the UK knew someone who lived in Singapore who happened to have a spare apartment that we could stay in for free.

Tineke, who we met at Jungle Jacks was also based in Singapore and she gave us some tips on cheap eats and things to do on a budget, along with the monster list of tips the taxi driver gave us we had an arsenal of information and resources to make the most of this city without breaking the bank.

We arrived in the middle of a thunderstorm and unable to get in contact with our Singapore contacts; Pete and Ali, whose apartment we were staying at. We had a rough address and so jumped in a taxi and hoped the driver would be able to fill the blanks, thankfully his 40 year career as a policeman made him both knowledgeable of the streets and also an honest man. He was well travelled and we had a brilliantly enjoyable ride into the city, he’d given me a list of food to try and asserted that if I didn’t try them then I “had never been to Singapore”.

We made contact with Pete, seeked shelter from the weather in the hallway and waited for our Singaporean saviour to arrive. About 15 minutes later Pete and his son, Alfie arrived, they showed us around the apartment which was an absolute godsend- a bed, a working kitchen, a washing machine, a fridge and freezer and WiFi…it was basic but was fast becoming superior to even the Berjaya.

We dropped our bags off then got taken to a nearby bar where we grabbed a drink a plate of noodles and had a catch up, well more a get-to-know-one-another… Pete and Ali are both from the UK and have a background in Performing Arts, they moved out here 19 years ago and set up a theatre school, they have travelled the world which makes them all the better as hosts as they know our deal. Their two sons, Alfie and Billy were brilliant lads and have travelled with their parents to India and Indonesia, to name a few places which has given them an amazing confidence.

Pete and Alfie gave us a list of things to see and do then we parted ways, the storm was subsiding but we opted for a night in.

The following morning we compiled a list of things we wanted to see. Singapore is landmark heavy so this list exceeded 30 items but as a tiny city with decent transport links it was very feasible. We purchased a EZ Link card (similar to the Oyster card in London), loaded it with credits and jumped on the MRT. Our first destination was the Marina Bay area where we would be able to see the exclusive Marina Bay Sands hotel, our dreams of getting access to their famous infinity pool were quickly shattered  when we learnt of the maximum level of security that guards the upper floors of the hotel, even the shopping mall has an entry fee, instead we enjoyed the bemusing architecture 60 floors below.

Arriving in the MB area would also give us vistas of the cities mascot, the Merlion and other wonderful examples of flamboyant architecture such as the Helix Bridge, Gardens by the Bay and a London Eye esque wheel as well as cool views back across the river towards the cities financial district and its ultra-modern skyscrapers.

We stepped off the train at Bugis station and quickly realised we’d gone wrong somewhere, none of these major landmarks were in sight, they didn’t even feature on the street signs. I then confessed to Hatty that I had not paid proper attention to the directions, we were supposed to have got on the line to Bugis but departed the train many stops before. This did however end up being a small blessing.

Bugis is a really lively area and full of shops and stalls, a real hustle bustle of a place and we wasted no time in diving into the food markets and picking out a few local treats, I opted for a Curry Puff a kind of Cornish Pasty, but filled with a potato and chicken curry it was spicy and delicious and only 50p.

We did a full circle of the area and found ourselves no closer to the Marina so went in search of somewhere to get a map. In true Singapore fashion the clouds darkened and the thunder boomed and the rain fell so we headed for shelter in a near by Ibis hotel, they provided us with a comprehensive map which we studied until the weather had calmed.

On route to the Marina Bay area we walked past the prestigious Raffles hotel, named after the Englishman who founded Singapore. Anything that is considered to the best in its field carries the Raffles name, form hotels to hospitals it’s the name to trust for quality. The hotel building is protected by a high wall but there are gaps where you can sneak a peak of this wonderful building which transports you back in time, it’s a real standout piece of architecture as almost nothing else in Singapore is more than 50 years old, this surpasses them almost three times over. Its elegant and classic and way out of our price range so we wonder past in a daydream haze then continue on our peasantry way.

Raffles sits on Beach Road but the name is seemingly misleading, once upon a time it was situated on the waters edge but as Singapore has grown they have reclaimed more land from the sea and Raffles now sits firmly inland with not a speck of sea or sand in sight.

We arrive at Marina Bay, snap some photos of the landmarks, walk down the F1 track which was in the process of being set up, across the Helix Bridge and alongside the ArtScience museum which is a brilliantly fun piece of architecture, heavily polished metal segments falling away from one another, like an orange that’s been hit on its head and “cracked open”. From here you get great views back across the city, the gloomy skies make for an even more science fiction feel.

Having got our bearing and ticked off a chunk of our checklist we head to China Town and treat ourselves to some cheap grub. The local Chinese food halls don’t tend to cater for the vegetarian, the addition of chicken or pork in their “vegetarian” dishes often goes unmentioned so this was always going to be a challenge for Hatty. Luckily there are a few fishy options and we order a bowl of each, we pick our noodle type and soup flavour, I try the traditional Laksa which is a rich coconut and tomato curry with all manor of sea life from shrimp and cockles to less recognisable fish matter swimming about in it, it was a hard dish to swallow, the cockles made it very salty and gritty each spoonful was like being dragged facedown along the beach and into the ocean, everything piling into your moth along the way. I moved away from the spoon and onto the chopsticks, picked out and shook of the noodles and called than dinner. Hatty had a much blander dish or noodles, a plain water and spring onion soup and “fish balls”, basically rolled up lumps of white fish. A fairly harmless dish which I helped finish up, with drinks it came to about £2 so no harm done.

The next day we visited one of the most surreal places of the trip; Haw Par Villa. A “themepark”, inasmuch as it’s a themed park built by the founder of Tiger Balm, Asia’s profoundly stronger answer to Deep Heat. The park is home to over a thousand statues depicting scenes of Chinese folk law. Ten Courts of Hell is particularly harrowing and certainly not child friendly. From gruesome scenes of people being decapitated or split in half to the less conventional rat and squirrel street fight each section is profoundly stranger than the next. The park has been open since the mid 1930’s and is arguably as bizarre now as it was then. Amongst the giant pigs bound in full BDSM get up and burning prostitutes are memorial graves for his parents, brothers and sons, one is remarkably smaller than the others and bares a sign stating that he didn’t get on well with this particular son. The park is amusing and bemusing in equal measures and kept us entertained for well over an hour.  

Just a few stops on the MRT and we arrived in Little India, this is my favourite part of Singapore so far, it has all the tastes and smells of India but without the utter madness, Singapore is so multicultural that we were not a strange face which made soaking up the atmosphere a much for enjoyable experience, least not for Hatty. The shops were all blasting out music, incense smoke filled the air, fruit and flower sellers lined the streets and the aromas mixed together to create something quite wonderful. The heavily decorated shrines and temples, all bursting with colour made a welcome contrast to the otherwise grey tone that the Singapore weather creates. Rows of jewellery shops added further colour to the streets and as we walked closer to the food quarters the spices drifted up your nose and beckoned you in to try them.

We had read about this little chapatti place on the corner of the main road so used all our will power to avoid all the other options, we were not disappointed. The restaurant didn’t look like much at all, very basic, run down but absolutely heaving with locals. There was no order inside, the noise of people shouting and moving about at high speed, grabbing plates, slamming them down,  dragged us further into India.

I skipped the goat brain curry and instead asked for another cut of mutton, this wasn’t possible so I got a dahl and a pile of chapatti instead, Hatty joined me with another vegetarian dish and yet more chapatti. We wormed our way through the crowds and budged up on the end of an old plastic table, a man came round and took our money- a total of about £1.50, I went to a separate counter and ordered drinks- a masala chai and a fresh lime juice, a further £1 and sat down to enjoy our feast.

Unlike the experience of China town, here in Little India it wasn’t many minutes before our plates were being  licked clean, the curry was delicious and the chapattis were monstrously fresh, light and filling. We waddled out of there with a big grins on our gluttonous faces.

On our way past we caught the final entry into the recently opened Indian Heritage Museum which houses some fascinating examples of Indian heritage in Singapore, set across four floors (only two were open when we went)it has examples of Indian music, art, fashion, food and all other elements of their culture. Being in Singapore the museum is technology heavy and there is a brilliant interactive part where you pick a character and take them through a day in their life. For the example we picked we were transported back to the 1950’s where we were the mother of a bride going into town to pick up fabric for the dresses, ingredients for the sweets and the all important jewellery. The activity not only allowed you to learn about the different materials, foods and stones, their meanings and their values but it also gave you a sneak peak into 1950’s Singapore.

Walking back out onto the streets of Little India, give the addition of a few extra cars almost nothing had changed here in all that time. It’s remained firmly in its roots, something which the rest of the city has little interest in. Singapore has no historic pride, no nostalgia for its old stuff, it prefers to rip it down, rebuild and keep it modern. This certainly makes for an interesting place to visit but I prefer the charm of the old, authentic streets of Little India.

In the interest of saving pennies but with the desire to try some of the culinary delights that this city has to offer- seriously this is a foodies heaven, I searched for ways to eat big and on the cheap. My results came back with a frightening number of food challenges, from monster burgers to potentially life threatening spice challenges Singapore had a challenege for you, even the hawker stalls joined in with one place offering free satay skewers if you could beat the current record which was beyong 150, you fail you pay for what you eat.

I narrowed my search down to “The Terminator”, six burgers amounting to 1kg plus bacon and cheese, another half kilo of fries and a container ship of coleslaw. You have to eat it all in under 20 minutes to get it for free. I consider myself to have a big appetite, I am a gluttonous pig and after watching You Tube videos of people washing it down in sub 8 minutes I decided to book myself a table at Roadhouse Diner and take on the challenge myself.

Somewhere between looking for food challenges and booking the table I forgot that I’d been travelling for almost five months, although I may talk about big feast that Ive eaten these are often significantly smaller than what I would eat back home, spread over a much longer period than 20 minutes and tend to consist of something considerably lighter than one kilo of medium rare beef patties, cheese and bread. Regardless of these facts I was determined and so seeking an opertunity to exercise I decided to walk to 5km to the restaurant instead of using public transport.

Fatal error number one. The exercise plan had backfired, I was dripping with sweat, my internal body temperature was about 30 degrees higher than it should be and I was deliriously thirsty from walking in the humidity. I downed two glasses of water.

Fatal error number two. The water swished around in my belly and as the waiter jibed me about those who had attempted the challenge I began to not only feel nervous but nauseous. He showed me one photo of an old lady in her mid 70’s, “Dora the Destroyer” who had completed the challenge in 15 minutes, and one more of a pre pubescent boy who saw of the Terminator in little more than 6 minutes. This did nothing for my confidence. I ordered the Terminator medium rare and waited for my fate to be delivered.

In the YouTube videos I watched the athletes, that’s right I’m calling them athletes managed to spoon in the coleslaw in one mouthful, the chips they bundled together and munched down in three or four neat piles. I opted for this as my game plan but when the portion arrived my heart sank.

Even if I had used a ladle there was no way this was one spoons worth of coleslaw, I shovelled in as much as I could and tried to ignore the attention I was receiving from all the other diners who up until this point were having a pleasant and civilised meal. I gagged instantly on the rich, mayonnaise drenched carrots and onions, it was over powering. I pushed that to one side and made way for the chips, I picked up the first bundle and as the boiling oil blistered my hands I knew my chances of swallowing them was even less likely than the coleslaw. Regardless I stuffed them in and as they burnt the roof of my mouth and tongue my confidence dropped to an all time low.

Hatty was sat opposite taking regular photos and laughing, she repeatedly told me that this was the best dining experience of her life, the joke was very much at my expense.

I tried the coleslaw again but my brain had long since told my body to reject it, I ploughed on and after three long minutes had finished the coleslaw, a portion of the fries and was deciding how to take on the meat.

I toppled the burger stack over, removed the buns and ate them with the cheese and most of the bacon, the stringy bacon was a little oil heavy and my body had not had bacon in so long that like the coleslaw this was quickly rejected. I gagged again, this time much louder. I chugged some water and as if it wasn’t obvious already I brain informed me that this would not be possible.

I picked up and demolished three of the burgers as if I was a possessed being, they were actually delicious and I enjoyed eating them but despite being able to fir the burgers in my mouth I was finding it almost impossible to swallow them. I filled whatever gaps I had in my mouth with water and forced the meat down, it would swim around in my mouth rapidly loosing both temperature and flavour until it either went down or tried to come back up.

Hatty’s laughs were getting louder and more frequent, she cheered me on, told me my time and continued to take demoralising photos of me. Had I not already have lost my dignity it would have surely been taken from me today.   

As I moped up the forth burger, the chips and scraps of coleslaw I knew it was do or die but frankly death was the preferred option. 19 minutes in, two and half burgers and what looked like a new pile of chips on my plate it was defiantly game over but I carried on with the torture.

It’s at this point I should mention a further fatal error, I had woken up ravenous with hunger on the morning of the challenge and a mere two or three hours before showdown I had eaten myself full with boiled eggs, toast, watermelon and more water than a normal person consumes in a week. By the time I arrived at the Roadhouse I wasn’t actually remotely hungry. I am my own worst enemy.

Twenty minutes chimed on the clock and I put my head on the table, I didn’t care that I had failed I was just pleased that I could stop eating, or chewing for that matter, I hadn’t swallowed any food in about 3 minutes. My prize for this demoralising experience was the bill for the burger, a cool £34- that’s more than me and Hatty spend on all our food, accommodation and transport for a normal day, thankfully the enjoyment she got through my suffering meant she forgave me the hideous over spend. We walked back, very slowly, I stripped down to my pants and laid out on the bed, we watched the Theory of Everything as I rubbed my belly and released wind for most of the night. She’s a lucky girl.

The rumble in my stomach was out gunned at 5am but a truly epic thunderstorm, Singapore has the highest concentration of lighting storms in the world and these can be pretty violent. For the next four or five hours the world around us boomed and cracked, the sky illuminated by the bright whips of lighting which spread over the city.

We waited for this to calm down then made our way back to the Marina area to visit Gardens by the Bay. It was here that I discovered that I actually really enjoy gardens, plants, flowers. Maybe it is the epic design of the Cloud Forest with it otherworldly feel, a towering mound of plant life with a helter skelter style path rapping around flora from different levels of the microclimate, there is even a waterfall that had me so enchanted. Maybe it’s the fact that inside this dome you are so far removed from the city but a quick glimpse through the glass and you can see the skyline of Singapore. I am beyond dreadful at applying photos to my blogs so please give Cloud Forest, Garden by the Bay a quick google and see what I’m talking about.

The second dome, known as the Flower Dome comprises different areas such as English gardens, Mediterranean and South American gardens amongst others. Aside from all the wild, colourful and often outrageous plants it was entertaining to see where people gravitated to. English flowers are so far removed from anything else on display that this grabbed the attention and hearts of locals, meanwhile I was transfixed by the cactus and desert plants that are so foreign to me. Walking through the English garden I never expected to find a piece of home here but we were both transported to our grandparents gardens and for a moment that was a nice place to be.

We left the gardens feeling a bit nippy, we later found out that the domes are kept at about 25 degrees which really does not hold us in good stead for our return to the UK- jumpers at the ready.

On our penultimate night in Singapore we met up with Tineke who wanted to show us around Arab Street, this ended up being a very cruel experience as for the past few weeks I had had an overriding craving for Lamb Kofte, I was feeling delirious at the idea of filling my belly with Middle Eastern delights, it’s easily one of my favourite cuisines. But as we browsed the rows of menus we quickly realised that this is not a backpacker budget friendly place, curse that bloody burger. We enjoyed the sights, sounds and smells of Arab street but with three hungry tummies we knew there was only one real option.

One final trip to Little India and to our favourite chapatti shop, a couple of quid and three very full tummies later we carried on our sightseeing tour of the bits we’d missed.

Tineke took us to a department store called Mustafa, an open plan cluster fuck of a place, a supermarket car boot hybrid, if it didn’t sell it you didn’t need it and if it did then the same rule applies. If you are in Singapore and in desperate need of a Union Jack mug or a four foot glass grandfather clock with a lions face on it then this is the place for you. Bypassing the entire row of Old Spice merchandise I picked up a flannel and made my purchase, one that I wish I’d made months ago.

Our final day was spent in the Botanical gardens which were spectacular, better than any city park I’ve ever been to, large expanses of green space to relax in, beautifully designed gardens with everything from banana trees and ginger trees to orchids and other brightly coloured and fragrant examples of flora. There are numerous ponds and lakes in the gardens, one is populated with swans and another with turtles. Along the banks of the water you can spot monitor lizards just going about their daily business. Its yet another wonderful place to escape the city, get some fresh air and chill out, which is exactly what we did for a great number of hours.

We spent our final evening with our hosts who further showed their generosity by taking us our for dinner. We went to the Marina and Pete and Ali put together a buffet of the best of all the hawker stalls in the area, we had chicken satay, stingray steaks, noodles, spinach in garlic, giant shrimp and a good pile of rice. Washed down with a large cold beer and later a very sweet coconut dessert it was a feast of champions. We had a brilliant evening chatting and eating but like all good things this too came to an end.

The following morning we rose early to catch our flight onto our next destination, Bali in Indonesia.

For now that’s all folks, as always thanks for reading.