Singapore

18th March 2014. What a place! It should really be called Orchid city. For some reason, known only to the bean counters at P&O this was not an overnight stop but just one day. Ridiculous!

However, met off the boat, this time by my Nephew, we headed for the National Orchid Garden at the Botanical gardens having looked it up on the internet. And were we glad we went? Yes! Any traveller to Singapore who misses this must be mad.

Did you know that Pineapples were orchids? Neither did I.

Having walked around this and then the Chinese and Japanese gardens, where we climbed to the top of the Pagoda, we took a taxi back down town to the waterfront along the Singapore river where electric ferries ploughed back and forth and had a Thai lunch, very nice but I had to take out a second mortgage.

Unfortunately, the day clouded over and we had a few downpours, but that’s the tropics for you. Actually Singapore is only 85 miles north of the equator, or put it this way, the New Captain had to bank hard on coming out of the harbour otherwise we would have crossed it again.

Singapore works, it’s very safe, it’s very clean, the traffic moves, the people all speak English, it’s green, and you can drink the water! And boy do they have some great buildings…

The one I fell in love with is the Casino at the Sands centre…do you remember Bob Newhart? Well if you do, imagine a meeting between the Singapore City Planners and Mr Sands…

“Right, good afternoon Mr Sands, I have here an application from you for a new Casino, but one thing I don’t understand is that you want to build it in the shape of a boat,….oh it’s an ark,…a curved ark and 400m long……but Mr Sands, I only see an application before me for three towers each 200m high,…. where are you going to build the ark?…..YOU ARE GOING TO PUT IT ON TOP OF THE TOWERS?????”

Wouldn’t you have just loved to be at that meeting? I love fun architecture, and it can’t be more fun that this.

It dominates the wonderful Singapore skyline because of it’s eccentricity and sheer fun. From the top of the Singapore Flyer above, you can see all the other buildings of the city behind, each trying forlornly to get your attention away from the undoubted star of the show.

Singapore IS expensive, but if you can, when travelling through Singapore onto elsewhere, try and stop over for a day or two, I promise you will find it well worthwhile. Just don’t bother with Raffles Hotel. Everyone I met who went there was disappointed and fleeced.

So would I live in Hong Kong or Singapore? No question, Singapore.