Singapore Stopover

When planning this trip, Mum and I agreed that no one likes travelling for two days straight, so we started looking at ways to break up the trip a bit. I had never been to Singapore before, not even just in transit, so I was keen to explore someplace new, and it had been a while since Mum was here, so we booked ourselves a couple of nights’ stay and called it the beginning of this adventure.

Before we go any further with this story, if you’re reading it on a computer, I apologise for any weird formatting – turns out it is trickier to get everything right size-wise with only a phone to work on than I had anticipated!! Is the font size consistent? When I’m editing it everything’s the same size, but then it looks like it changes once I publish the post! Actually, if someone could message me with a screenshot of the text-photo ratio below that would be super useful haha. Right. Back to the story!

The first thing I noticed when we got off the metro in downtown Singapore was how green the city is. Actually, no, the first thing I noticed was the humidity, the heat, and the thick, almost viscous air. The highs and lows for our days in Singapore all fell within the range of 26°C and 33°C, and it was oppressive. It hits you in the face as you walk out of the air conditioning, and in an instant you are sweating and sticky and gross. I know I’ve been places like this before – China definitely had its moments, and of course my other travels through this part of the world – but you forget what it’s like, and coming from a cool Wānaka autumn it was a real shock to the system.

I guess that means that the greenery was the second thing I noticed, then. Most notable are the plants growing on the sides of buildings, but really there’s just a huge amount of plant life throughout the city. There’s the obvious places, like Fort Canning Park which we wandered around on the morning of our arrival while waiting to be able to check in to our hotel, and of course the Gardens by the Bay, which we visited on Wednesday, but also just in streets and on balconies, and even the walls of the airport and many metro stations are lined with live plants. I liked that a lot.

Speaking of Gardens by the Bay, it was a real highlight of Singapore for me. The Cloud Forest was particularly cool, with a large, plant-covered structure complete with waterfalls, and a walkway in the air around the outside. They were preparing for the next themed exhibition – Jurassic Park – so there were several dinosaurs around too, which was unexpected, but quite fun! We also visited the Flower Dome, and stayed for the light show in the supertrees.

While waiting for the lights to begin, some Indonesian school girls interviewed me for their English assignment, and I also made friends with a young Indian boy who had a passion for geography! He told me about the microstates in Europe, and how they can all fit into Luxembourg with room to spare, we discussed population density in different countries around the world, we calculated the time difference between India and NZ, and he showed me that he could name all of the countries in South America. Oh! And he also gave me a brief timeline of US history. He can’t have been more that about 7 or 8, so this was all reasonably impressive!

While in Singapore, we also spent some time wandering various neighbourhoods. Little India received just a brief visit; we were struggling with the heat, lack of sleep, and general travel-weariness. I really enjoyed the little peeks at street art that I got though – these cows, for example – and the pretty, colourful buildings.

We had out first lunch in Chinatown, at a Hawker Centre, which are food court type establishments dotted all over the city. We both had curry rice – mum with chicken and me with braised pork, both also including a serving of cabbage and a fried egg. It was very tasty, and only five Singapore dollars (~NZ$6.50) for a decent sized plate. We returned to different centres for the next couple of meals too. The food is cheap and delicious, so it seemed like the clear choice!!

Kampong Glam, Singapore’s Muslim quarter, was our last stop, before heading back out to the airport. The mosque was closed to visitors when we arrived, but we had a wander around the streets before stopping for lunch. We sat with a couple of local men who chatted to us as we all ate. It was nice to hear a local’s perspective on life in Singapore, and they seemed interested in hearing about NZ too.

Our stopover is now complete, and we’re back in the airport with two more flights until we reach Madrid. While it was nice to break up the journey, it does make the whole trip feel very long – we’ve been out of NZ for three days now, and still haven’t arrived at our destination. It won’t be long now, though, and after a couple of days in Madrid it will be time to begin this walk!