Singapore – Jan 10-19, 2018

The flu, or whatever we caught in Ho Chi Minh, continued to plague us throughout our time in Singapore.  Probably not helped by the cooler temperatures (low 70’s) and almost constant drizzle for the first 5 days of our visit.  Of course, we’re happy to be missing the brutal weather you guys are having to put up with, as well as the sweat box weather in Vietnam.

Singapore is located 85 miles north of the Equator and has only been an independent country since 1959.   It is in many ways the exact opposite of HCMC.  It is well organized, very clean, has few scooters and its tourist attractions are well maintained.  Colonial Singapore began in 1819 as a key port of the British East India Company under the command of Sir Stamford Raffles and his name and influence is everywhere.  They are governed by a prime minister and parliament, but it does not seem very democratic.  The land, housing, construction, health care, speech, and even individual savings are all controlled by the government.

We learned from our bike tour guide that most citizens are pretty happy with the status quo, believing that all these controls are in their best interests.  Drug trafficking is kept to a minimum with extensive use of the death penalty even for Marijuana and much more applicable to us, you can’t even chew gum.  Protests are possible but very restricted.  There is a speaker’s corner that can be used with permission to “speak your mind” (after the government reviews and approves your speech).  These events only happen 6-8 times a year and usually no more that 100 people turn out to listen.

Oasia Hotel – across from our apartment

On arrival, our Airbnb host met us at a hotel next to the apartment.  She proceeded to explain that she had to bring us in through the garage because it is not allowed to lease the privately owned apartment for less than 90 days.  She guided us to an elevator, gave directions, then left us so she would not be seen entering the building with us.  After meeting us at the door to our unit, she proceeded to instruct us that if anyone knocked on the door, not to answer, because it would be security.  Great!  We are party to an illegal scheme.  Our bike guide later explained that housing is strictly controlled.  80% of Singaporeans live in public housing hi-rises, which can’t even be rented to non-residents and they cost between S$300K and S$1M, or $225K – $750K US.

They pay for this in part through a government mandated savings program.  20% of their employment income is withheld and placed in a dedicated savings account and they receive a 17% match from their employer.  They have to be at least 25 or married in order to even put an offer in on an apartment and if they want a new building they often have to wait 2-4 years for the it to be ready for occupancy.  When they finally do get to buy their new home, they are actually only buying a 99-year lease from the government.  No one seems to know for sure what happens at the end of the 99 years.  The whole scheme started with the first buildings in the 1930’s so they are going to find out soon.

National Orchid Garden

Owning a car is also extremely expensive. A car that would cost $30K in the US, can cost 4 times that in Singapore.  Some of that is importing costs, but mostly it’s licensing fees.  The government is trying to control traffic congestion given the high population density.  One way younger people can afford cars is that they buy a much cheaper license that only allows them to drive their cars on weekends and on weekdays between 7pm and 6 am.  To further aggravate the situation, the licensing is only good for 10 years and then the car needs to be scrapped or exported out of Singapore.  No old cars allowed.

Happy to leave behind the grime and pollution in HCMC, our first stop was the Botanical Gardens. Although it was raining and Bill was running fever.  It was fantastic, especially the National Orchid Garden (Taking pictures of flowers is one of the things that Dessa loves to do, so it was kind of hard to complain.  Don’t get me wrong, I did whine and complain.  It was just hard).  For you it means, get ready for lots of flower pictures.  It was really lovely in the mist, and we opted for an excellent lunch at the nice restaurant in the gardens (the wonderful ambiences was somewhat diminished by the constant sound of chainsaws as a crew cut a tree that had fallen).

Buddha Tooth Relic Temple

Prayer Wheel – Buddha Tooth Relic Temple

Next we continued to delay our usual ‘kick off the city’ Bike Tour and headed over to China Town and some temples.  Our first stop was the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and it was amazing (especially in contrast to the dilapidated state of the temples in HCMC).  It was built in 2005 with no expense spared at a cost of S$62 million.  The tooth relic is claimed to be the left canine from a Buddha that was cremated in 543 BC.  Other temples also claim to possess the same relic. We went up to the 4^th floor to see it, but it was behind glass and ensconced in a relic stupa (domed structure) made of 320 kilograms of gold.  If it was visible, I couldn’t see it.  No pictures were not allowed, and we couldn’t find any online either. On the roof, there is a garden (with more orchids, in fact we saw them almost everywhere) surrounding a pagoda with a prayer wheel.  The interior walls of the pagoda are covered with 10,000 miniature Buddha’s.

We finally did our bike tour on the first day that looked like it would be mostly dry.  We were the only customers for the day so it turned out to be a private tour.  Our guide, Bas, shared a lot about the government and culture, and we got great tips on where to eat and what to see. He took us for a traditional breakfast of Kaya toast, curry pocket pastries and lemon tea. We rode about 8 miles (fortunately it is a fairly flat city) and briefly saw all the sights. Among many other things, we rode by the final turn into the grand stands for the Singapore Formula 1 race.  Bill was more impressed than I was with that but our guide did tell us that it takes them 7 months to set up and tear down the complete course for the race.

We also rode by the Singapore Flyer.  This is the tallest Ferris wheel in the world.  It was opened in 2008, has 28 cars that each hold 28 people and it takes 28 minutes for a single revolution.  That’s a lot of 8’s but of course that’s the luckiest number for 76% of the population which is Chinese.

Marina Bay Sands

The Marina Bay Sands Hotel is the most recognizable building in Singapore.  It is an architectural triumph consisting of three 55 story towers, linked at the bottom by a continuous lobby and topped by a 1120ft long sky park that spans all three towers.  In addition to the hotel, the resort includes a convention center, shopping mall with almost 1000 very high end shops, two theaters, several celebrity chef restaurants and the world’s largest atrium casino.  We didn’t go into any of the stores since we weren’t really dressed for haute couture shopping and so clearly did not belong in any of them.  We didn’t see many other people in these stores either so I don’t know how they keep their doors open.  Every night the complex held a fantastic water and light show that was much better than any we have seen in Vegas or anywhere else (check out some video here).  Some of the fountains created a curtain of mist on which they projected a variety of images it was very cool.  The SkyPark contains a beautiful infinity pool available only to hotel guests, at >$500 US per night but also a viewing platform accessible via elevator for only $26 US per person.  Bill has an aversion to paying that much for an elevator ride so we of course didn’t go.

Park Royale Hotel

The plan for Singapore as a “garden city” began in May 1967 to transform Singapore into a city with abundant lush greenery and a clean environment in order to make life more pleasant for the people.  And from our perspective the plan was a success. Every new building is required to provide a green space equivalent to the buildings footprint.  Many of the buildings themselves include plants growing on every surface, like vines growing on buildings that are 40 stories tall, and rooftop gardens even on the metro stations.  This also includes lots of park land like the botanical gardens as well as the Gardens by the Bay.  This was a huge park area that includes the iconic Super Tree Grove, giant metal tree-like structures, covered in vines. The Gardens by the Bay also includes the Flower Dome and the Cloud Forest (Yeah … more flower pictures!)  The Flower Dome contained exotic plants and flowers from around the world, and The Cloud Forest contained a waterfall that was 35 meters tall.  Both were very cool.

Stall # 8 – Satay Street

The trains and buses were quite nice, with the metro stations containing bakeries, shops, grocery stores and restaurants. We tried Hianese Chicken, roasted chicken with rice, at a hawker stand and visited Satay street for some very good Satay one evening.  There were restaurants for every possible cuisine and we had some pretty good Mexican a couple of times (not strictly authentic but good comfort food none the less).  They claim Singapore is one of the most expensive cities in the world.  It didn’t seemed that bad from a day to day living perspective (until you add in transportation and housing …), but nothing was particularly cheap either.  A beer was $8-$9 in most places.  Quite the opposite from Vietnam where we were paying $1-$2.

Next up Kuala Lumpur which we expect to be somewhere in the middle between HCMC and Singapore.  At least we are well on our way to finally being healthy again.

You can find all of our Singapore photos HERE

Post Author: Dessa   (with editorial comments by Bill in Italics)