As you might expect from a tiny state with four official languages, Singapore defies easy definition. Its majority Chinese population co-exists with large Malay and Indian minorities in a city with a very visible British heritage, floating at the end of the Malaysian peninsula very close to the equator. One feels that it could be set adrift and not feel any more or less alien wherever it came to rest. At its best, it offers the most exciting aspects of its component cultures in food and the arts while reinventing both in a distinctly Singaporean fusion, and at its worst it blends beyond invention into a homogenous shopping mall that could be anywhere in the modern, wealthy world.
Having seen where all of Singapore comes to play, we decide to try out some of the culturally distinct areas in the daytime. We step off our train (beverage and durian free, I am happy to report) and wind our way across a series of bridges, through rather uninspiring concrete blocks housing uninspiring shops, until we descend with some relief into the more appealling, brightly-coloured part of Chinatown.
Here, the houses have wooden shutters and dangling lanterns wobble in a steam-powered dance. It feels like the perfect colonial vision of the Orient, except for the modern, commercial bustle that, despite the concrete, manages in a great feat of irony to prevent it feeling like a substandard theme-park version of itself. We spot a Tintin gift shop, across the street from a truly huge stone coin, which used to be placed outside someone's home purely to display their wealth - a bit like a pre-industrial sports car, and (much like the modern-day equivalent) too laden-down with luxury to make everyday use practicable. A hole drilled through the centre allowed for some movement, if one were willing to pay a few people to lift it on a large wooden pole, but as currency it was entirely impractical.
After a couple of fairly restrained shopping stops, we arrive outside the local Hindu temple via its more discreet walls.
"Holy cow," says Tallulah. We have arrived.
The decorated roofs make the more kitsch excesses of (some) Latin American Catholicism look restrained. Many of the figures seem to be hanging out for a chat while visitors do the same below.
I venture just inside but decide not to go beyond the point where bare feet are mandatory due to soreness. While Tallulah explores, I converse with and buy a kimono from an Indian man who used to live in Kilmarnock. This is Singapore.
After our explorations, we retire to an opium den (former, I should add - now a Thai restaurant, adding a sixth or seventh culture to our morning) to discuss our movements over a Coke. The outdoor tables are covered in plastic, but the plastic protects the world maps used as tablecloths underneath. We chart our journey so far, having travelled almost 1300 miles in less than three weeks. It's a real travel moment, a connection to the visceral experience of travel in the days before we were so desensitised by telecommunications and effortless intercontinental travel in a matter of hours, somewhere between a sudden stomach-plummeting glimpse at how far I am from home and the exhilaration of having achieved it.
We step onto an escalator in China and re-emerge in India.
Singapore's Little India is the area of all the places we visit that feels most authentically lived-in. Brightly coloured railings top buildings of manageable stature, the local shops and oil-leaking garages filled with customers wandering in a manner unmistakeably local. There are events being advertised here, too, but the most prominent announce a local food festival.
We need lunch, and crave Indian food, so we walk up and down Buffalo Road, the main street, until we settle on a restaurant that we cannot resist, knowing that the food may be overpriced and less flavoursome than its rivals, but swayed by the fact that it's hard to pass up a restaurant where the façade features a giant papier mache elephant eyeing a giant papier mache giraffe with suspicion.
Inside, it looks like the owner decided that what the Hard Rock Cafe needed was more wildlife. The result is a genuinely bizarre menagerie, Tarzan swinging through the jungle interior being the least of the credibility problems. Waiters dress like Rudyard Kipling having an eccentric day, there's a polar bear observing customers from the jungle canopy and halfway up the tree under which we are dining is a very British looking garden squirrel. Across the restaurant sits a grumpy gorilla sporting pince-nez.
We take a taxi back to the hotel to recover.
The evening begins with a refreshed couple of budget travellers getting all fancy and respectable-smelling for our number one site in Singapore: Raffles Hotel.
We follow the poshest-looking people from the train and find ourselves in the ultimate colonial paradise. Despite all the baggage of empire, this is an aesthetic that I appreciate, and on a warm early evening it provided a welcome respite from the noise of the city. The gardens are beautiful but tame, and the shop is expensive but rewarding. Yes, I am trying to justify my purchases. Shut up.
We gravitate, as most tourists do, to the Long Bar, where the famous Singapore Sling was invented. Tallulah has one, while I enjoy a $15 apple juice, then enjoys it so much she has a second. For the results of this, see the next post on the ensuing Night Safari hijinks.
Meanwhile, I enjoy the transgressive but officially-sanctioned pleasure of the Long Bar's peanut policy, whereby customers can enjoy a bottomless pot of unshelled peanuts and are encouraged to throw the shells on the floor.
