Let’s get this rant out of the way then I’ll talk rationally about our day – £26.30 a pint!!
The last time we were in Singapore was 2009. We actually went shopping! Why? Because BA lost one of our cases. Apart from wasting a day of our three day pre-cruise holiday buying stuff we already owned, we had a wonderful time doing lots of great things.
Today we have seven hours only, but we have a plan. First off we head to the Merlion, the instantly recognisable symbol of Singapore, although it might be argued these days that the Marina Bay Sands Hotel is equally identifiable? Said hotel didn’t exist in 2009. We don’t think otters were there then either, nor today for that matter, but do remember Le Penseur. Robocop Is definitely new!
As soon as we’ve battled with thousands around the Merlion we retrace back around the water and wander into the Marina Bay Shoppes. Not for shoppeing, just to walk through en route to the Gardens by the Bay. These are beautiful, with the iconic artificial trees that light up, water features, orchid house and mile after mile of walkways and cycle paths. We only scrape the surface and certainly don’t have time today to dig in, that will have to wait until we book a few days here sometime in the future.
We look at the orchid shaped Art and Science Museum before crossing the Helix Bridge and passing part of the F1 circuit, and a duck.
We wander around the Arab area Kampong Glam with two mosques and some fabulous looking streets full of restaurants. We resist each and every invitation to dine, and move onwards past the Church of our Lady of Lourdes
Next stop is Little India, literally teaming with sari shops, restaurants, jewellers, tailors and of course intense bustle.
We pass a fascinating derelict Jewish building, the Ellison, which in its day was famous for the racing which passed by its balconies, sadly in desperate need of restoration now. The university area is equally interesting with arts well represented.
Talking of restoration, we chat up the lovely doorman and get to take a “residents only” photo of the inside of the newly restored Raffles, quite a change from when we stayed there in 2009. He would have been in short trousers then, but today he’s exceedingly polite and generous.
From here we revisit the War Memorial, and some terribly English spaces like St Andrew’s Cathedral, the various pitches of the Singapore Recreation Club, the National Gallery, the old Parliament buildings and the spot where old man Raffles himself landed in 1819 and decided to build a city.
Walking upriver from here we arrive at Clarke Quay to find lunch. Our pastas are fabulous and cheap, but the beer – don’t set me off again!!
Crossing the river we head towards Chinatown. Now this is quite anomalous, since 75% of the population is of Chinese ethnicity, the entire island should really be called Chinatown, however this little area is quite specific. There’s a great Buddhist temple and plenty of other easily identifiable cultural tokens. The oddest is the incorrectly named Pagoda Steet which features not a pagoda but a Sikh Gurdwara, I suppose it might be an easy mistake to make!!!
Now we’re on the home straight, Cross Street takes us from Chinatown right back to Westerdam, and as we approach we think we’ve grown some new funnels – in fact there’s a huge Genting liner parked next door to us, the first this upstart company built from new. My map has a couple of gaps where operator error failed to restart my watch, but including these, the total walk is 16.8 miles.
We’re so close to sailaway that all the newbies are safely boarded and we are unhindered by queues, literally onboard within minutes.
Sailaway is very pleasant, the sun still scorching hot on our backs as we watch Singapore shrink into the distance whilst enjoying a “Sail Away” cocktail or two.
Annoyingly the canapé service doesn’t happen on embarkation day, quite ridiculous I know, but hey-ho! So we are forced to pop into the lounge and make up a plate from the crudities on offer instead. We treat ourselves to extra Chardonnay as compensation.
There’s no show tonight either, or to be precise the “introductory performance“ is halfway through our dinner so of course we miss that. Fortunately dinner is exceptionally good, we enjoy candied bacon and crab cakes; rib-eye; baked Alaska and chocolate soufflé – all excellent.
