First stop in our India Adventure: Singapore

December 2006 

We flew Air Singapore from Vancouver to Singapore, and can say without hesitation that Air Singapore richly deserves its reputation as the best airline in the world.  The service was exceptional - the most caring and considerate stewards and stewardesses, looking after one’s every need.  Free drinks, and fabulous food.  But perhaps the best part of all was all the leg room.  Even Doug, who is usually forced to fold up like some sort of collapsible deck-chair, had enough room to stretch out his legs.  Best of all, it was actually possible to sleep, with the real wool blankies and soft pillows provided. But who wanted to sleep when you could, on your own screen and with your own remote (heaven!) watch any one of 50 or more movies, play games, listen to music, learn any one of a number of languages, or learn about various aspects of any one of a number of countries.

So we arrived in Singapore in relatively good shape, although jet-lagged of course.  We were glad we chose Singapore as a staging site.  In the 25 or so years since we were last there, Singapore has, if anything, improved.  Our cities could learn a lot from Singapore.  Even the middle of the city is clean and green.  Large trees lining either side of the road, banks of flowers and green foliage.  And numerous parks and open spaces.  So it feels light and airy despite its many tall – and super tall (some well over 50 stories) – buildings.  It helps that all of the wiring is underground.  It helps that the climate is conducive to growing just about anything. But what really makes the difference is Singapore’s determination that their city will be clean and green (environmentally green as well as herbaciously green).  They started out on their clean and green campaign about 30 years ago, and as far as we’re concerned, it’s been a tremendous success.

We were both impressed – at times even awed – by the lively diversity of architectural styles in Singapore.  Of course there are many wonderfrul old buildings, including the gaudily gorgeous Hindu temples, with their short colourful steeples, completely covered with intricately carved statues of gods and goddesses, fantastic animals and lots of dancing girls.  And the lovely old Raffles Hotel, endearing and enduring symbol of the British Raj and all that was white, clean and well-organized in South East Asia.  But it was the diversity of the modern architecture that was most impressive.  Although Singapore has experienced quite a boom in the past several years, and there are literally hundreds of new buildings in the downtown area, I don’t think I saw any two alike, and none that were out-and-out ugly, as there are in some cities whose names I will not mention.  Indeed many of the buildings were beautiful, intriguing, stunning, incredible - like gigantic pieces of art adorning the city. 

Additionally there are many sculptures and decorative art pieces in the city, some in surprising places, like the metro. Speaking of which, considering the staggering population that lives and works in this island city, the traffic is less congested than Vancouver.  The metro is incredibly efficient (we rode it several times), and the roads are mostly used by taxis and buses, not private cars, although there are certainly a reasonable number of those as well.  The length of the traffic lights is longer than what we use, and it seems to result in better traffic flow.  But apart from the beauty of the city, it was great to witness again the genuine happy industry and well-being of the people, in this place that has such a reputation for repressive rules and regulations.

It is true that in Singapore you can be fined for just about anything – jay-walking, spitting, littering, loitering, etc.  But looked at another way, here we have an immense city in which we saw NO graffiti, NO pan-handlers or beggars, almost no litter, only one guy spitting (for his wife rebuked him by whacking him on the back with her hand-bag), and no one doing anything other than behaving in a polite and orderly manner.  

 

Were I to imagine the “perfect future” for urban mankind, I think Singapore would leap first to mind.  We found as well that despite Singapore’s reputation for repression, people were ready and willing to speak openly, were genuinely proud of their city, were interested in and gracious to foreigners, and seemed to be having a pretty damn good time.  I felt absolutely safe in Singapore, the city which never sleeps, and reveled in the colour and energy and life of the place.  Added to that, the food was fabulous.  Every conceivable nationality, and lots of it.  Yum!

We fly to Bangalore in a few days - already anticipating a very different reality....