Singapore 2010

28/10/2010 - 2/11/2010

Colonial District (Kuan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple, Shi Krishan Temple, Battle Box Museum, Asian Civilisations Museum, Raffles Hotel), Marina Bay (Esplanade, Boat Quay, Merlion), Orchard Road (Singapore Botanical Gardens, National Orchid Gardens), Sentosa (Dragon Hiking Trail, Fort Siloso, Halloween party), Chinatown (Wak Hai Cheng Bio Temple, Thian Hock Keng Temple, Sri Mirriamman Temple), Little India (Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple), Arab Quarter (Malabar Muslim Jama-Ath Mosque, Hajjah Fatimah Mosque, Sultan Mosque), Changi Museum & Chapel, Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery, MacRitchie Reservoir

Total cost	720 S$ (= 10 000 CZK)
Number of days	5 days
Cost of flight	500 S$ (= 6 900 CZK)
Cost of accommodation	65 S$ (= 900 CZK)
Cost of transportation	25 S$ (= 350 CZK)
Cost of food	80 S$ (= 1 100 CZK)

My stay in Taiwan is slowly approaching the end and thus it was the right time to go abroad again. I have to see as much as possible till I have some chance! I asked several guys whether they want to accompany me, however the only one who was willing to go abroad was Anya from Russia (she studies at the Czech Technical University), who already visited Singapore before.

We tried to find some other places, but as the time approached the inevitable date of departure (later I wouldn't be able to go abroad due to the mid-terms), I decided the Singapore by myself is much better than nothing.

As always, I had problems with my credit card (flight agencies don't accept characters, which are not part of English alphabet) and I had to ask others for help. Due to that I have lost about 1000 CZK just because of waiting (note that the trip could be even cheaper, 8 000 CZK is still realistic from Taiwan). I can just strongly recommend to book in advance and use low-cost flight agencies, as that is obviously the major expenditure on this trip. (Note that JetStar is very poor quality flight agency, only Cebu Pacific have been worse.)

Colonial District & Marina Bay

The flight takes 6 hours and the plane lands in 23:55 everyday. It would be a madness trying to get into the hostel in 1 am, so I slept at the airport (thus I saved money for the room and also for the TAXI, which was the only option how to get into the hostel that time).

When I woke up, I felt the freezing cold typical for Asian air-cons. I will never understand why they wear pullovers when there is 40 outside just because they turned the air-con to 16 inside. :( I had to leave the terminal and got few beams of sunlight to regain warmth to my body and then returned inside to buy a breakfast.

When I took the metro line, I was amused by its name. There is nothing bad on Singapore Mass Rapid Transport, however if you will use the abbreviation SMRT, you will get the word "death" in Czech language. If you then see an arrow pointing down under ground with this abbreviation below, you have to smile :) and when you read the slogan "SMRT, moving people, enhancing life" you just think how right they are!

One hour later I was already standing in the Marina Bay, the ultramodern part of Singapore, full of skyscrapers all around you. It is true, the skyscrapers are not so big, so you feel that Singapore is only a small Shanghai in this term, but when you consider anything else, you will realize Shanghai is just a small Singapore.

I went counter-clockwise around the bay and passed by the famous casino made by 3 skyscrapers connected on the roof with a structure shaped like a boat. It looks like from the Waterworld with Kevin Costner :). It is possible to go upstairs and see the city from the "boat" and you even can take your swimming suit and swim there in a pool. I didn't go, because the entrance was pretty expensive (20 S$ = 280 CZK) and you can't take your camera there.

Before long I emerged in front of the Esplanade. This new National Theater is both hated and loved by locals, depending on personality. It is probably due to its strange shape, which evokes you the stinky durian. So not without the reason locals call it the Durian! I even heard that if you want to be sure, it is much safer to say to the taxi driver Durian then Esplanade :)

No matter what others say, I really enjoyed it. I returned to this place several times during my stay in Singapore, which speaks about something. I spent there about one hour and then I proceed my trip around the bay and stopped in front of the Merlion. Merlion, half lion, half fish, is an official mascot of Singapore. The statue itself is not nice, but you should see the bunches of tourists attempting to take a picture "the fountain is squirting the water directly to my mouth".

I went even further along the Singapore River and reached the Museum of Asian Civilizations. I entered inside and spent there 2 hours. It was quite interesting, I even had my personal guide, as there was just one more tourist willing to take the free guided tour that time.

The guided tour took me through the ancient India, the rest of the Asian civilizations I had to pass by myself. I went to Islamic room, Indonesian special exhibition and some others. The exposition was altogether quite monotonic and thus I got tired in hour and half and left without finishing all of it.

Just near to that I saw the Raffles Hotel. It is an important historical landmark in Singapore and it is worth a visit. It was founded in 1894 by two Indian brothers, at the beginning a little lower class then now (5 stars, deluxe). It is also a victim of not so memorable event as from its window the last Singapore's tiger have been shot.

You can enter the hotel lobby and visit the small museum. It is kind of a swank-type of museum as it shows all things commemorating the importance of the hotel, but you can see there photographs of early Singapore and others, which makes the museum worth a try.

My next steps leaded me to Battle Box Museum. For that reason I needed to pass by two catholic churches, the oldest of the Good Shepherd and the second one quite new, with white and sky blue outer walls. None of them offered anything special.

The Battle Box Museum is about half an hour by walk from the Marina Bay. You can access the hill (where is the museum) by several ascents, but I took the longest one :( the museum itself is a bunker inside the hill with wax figurines to create the atmosphere of the World War II bombings and siege of the city in February 1942.

You will find out how the battle had been lost by British army and how the top leaders overestimated the real power of Japanese army. You can read it all in various mails, books and photographs depicting these horrible days. The museum gives very persuading feel of the moment and it is definitely worth a visit!

I got out almost after the sunset. I went back to the Marina Bay to take some night pictures of Singapore, however I didn't find it so interesting during the late night hours. Maybe the time of sunset will be better. Let's try it next time.

I took the SMRT to my hostel. I have to say it was a nice place. Comfortable beds with 2 pillows, free TV, WIFI, breakfast, lockers and just 4 people in the room. I took the deluxe dormitory and paid 15 US$ (= 400 NT$ = 280 CZK) per night. For further reference just take a look to the link below.

MacRitchie Reservoir

Early morning of the next day I took a breaf breakfast and revise the plan of my trip. The weather was nice and I didn't make all of my schedule last day, thus I needed to make some changes. I decided to go to the MacRitchie Reservoir to take a 16 km jungle hiking trail! Don't worry, this hiking trail is far more safe then the one in Malaysia (viz my Malaysia article), however you can still see some big or dangerous animals, beginning with poisonous snakes and spiders and going to bigger size of sometimes aggressive monkeys and really big lizards (about one meter long).

I took the Circle line to get there. As I have read in the guidebook, the reservoir is close to the Singapore's largest monastery, called Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery. I decided to visit this place too, because the guidebook recommended it a lot. The trip took about 15 minutes, so why not.

On one hand, there were several interesting things inside the monastery grounds, however on the other, the building itself was really new, made by concrete and thus a small disappointment.

The slogan of the place is "Speak only if it will improve the silence" and really this place is QUIET. You can wander through the monastery and hear no voice except the cars passing the road in front of it.

The most interesting thing on the monastery grounds was a field of little stone Buddhas in various positions - standing, sitting, laying on the grass. On the background of the field a big Bodvishitva stood 4 meters tall.

30 minutes later I was on the SMRT station again, this time seeking another bus to MacRitchie Reservoir. After I asked in the Information Center, I have been sent to the bus 57W. The bus captain (another Singlish) promised me to call at me when we are on place. Later on I passed the monastery and thus found out if I would take the bus there, I would save one hour.

I've got to the reservoir park entrance about noon - a little late. I bought a coke to get more energy and immediately went ahead to the jungle trail. At first the path was leading along the reservoir. I was walking on the wooden pier where various monkeys were sitting on the fence and stared at me with total awe.

Just before the path reconnected with the gravel trail I crossed a small bridge and suddenly heard a strange voice. It was like a big animal is going through all the bushes, leafs and other stuff in the forest. When I saw the one meter long lizard just under my feet, I was shocked. Never seen such a big lizard before. However the animal was more scared from me then I from it, thus he fled into the forest before I made any sharp picture.

A group of nasty monkeys argued above on the canopy near by and I spent a long time to spot them unsuccessfully. Then I finally headed into more dense jungle with the Canopy Walk on the very end. The deeper into jungle I went the less creatures I was able to see. The scale of my neighbors was limited for tourists, insects, spiders and occasional small lizards. The never-ending noise of birds can be noticed all the time, but the thick tree crowns didn't allow even a single spot.

Before long a weather changed and a slight sprinkle came. Good time to have a snack in the hut I was passing that moment. I sat on the bench and watch the surrounding rain-forest, when the heavy rain came. After a while all the bugs and other disgusting animals start to gather around me. A 30 cm long, 1.5 cm thick centipede crawled in between my legs just when I was watching a group of monkeys running far in the forest.

After 20 minutes a first hiker came to my hut to hide himself. I highly doubt it was still necessary as no matter what he took with him, everything had to be already completely wet 10 minutes go. Several other came later and thus we were 7.

When the rain halted, I took the trail again. During hour and half I was inside the hut the trail changed to a meter wide stream of water. I had to walk in it about half kilometer before I reached another trail on the small ridge. That leaded me directly to the Canopy Walk.

The Canopy Walk is a suspended bridge across a small valley inside the jungle. It provides a trail on the canopy level, which is important for studying rain forest inhabitants. It is known that more than half of the species in the rain forest live just in the canopy level, where the sunlight encounter the tree-tops.

The bridge is 200 meters long, but you can easily spend there one hour. I was there maybe 30 minutes, observing all the species around. I saw a lot of birds, which were the first who went away after the heavy rain. Lucky for me all the snakes and that stuff went to hide themself :)

From here now for next 2 hours I was travelling with a group of Germans. No offence for those who are not like them, but most of the people know what "German tourist" means. Group of four had slippers in the jungle, yelling all over, kicking and tearing anything in their way. And when I tried to speed up, they speeded up too, when I slowed down, they suddenly started to take care about the sights and read it too. The great finale came when I climbed an observation tower in the forest (with them) and the 12 years old boy start to yell around so much the birds flew away ... oh gosh.

I outran them when I again reached the MacRitchie reservoir's banks. But that was already during dusk. I was already so angry I thought I will punch them. When I reached the starting point, the heavy rain came again and I was sitting on the bench under the roof for next 30 minutes, oh great!

When the rain halted I took the SMRT to the Orchard Road and tried to find some shops with postcards or anything interesting. I found none. I tried maybe five stores and nothing. I saw just a lot of quite expensive electronic stuff and jewelry. This is really not a place to go shopping huh :)

I slowly returned to the Boat Quay and suddenly I saw a man selling postcards. I quickly bought four and went to the Marina Bay to take the my favorite look to the city :)

When I returned to my hostel, I met a girl from England who traveled through Asia already half a year. She even traveled from Hanoi through Laos to Thailand by bus ALONE. What a brave girl :)

Chinatown & Sentosa Island

The next day I headed to the Changi village to the Changi Museum & Chapel. It is a historic site from the World War II, nevertheless it have been moved for several hundred meters because of the Changi prison expansion. To reach the place it is necessary to take a bus from Tamah Nemak SMRT station for 15 minutes.

The museum is very interesting, but very sad commemoration of the history. Photos, letters and witness records tell the story about the torment in Prisoners Of War camp in Changi during World War II. The torture of prisoners often haven't any rational reason. The italic lines reproduce what I have read (and I tried to write down again as accurately as possible) and for those who can't stand it I just recommend to skip this part.

They took me to the small room out of the main camp area and bound me so I cannot move. They ask me several questions, but I denied I did it. Then they start to spill the water to my throat till my belly swelled up. When they poured all the water into me, another soldier came in and trample my stomach so hard the water spilled out of my mouth again. Then I went unconscious. When my consciousness returned and I got to my room and fell to sleep I heard voices telling me "you have to admit". "I did nothing wrong" ... "That is irrelevant, you have to admit!" The next day they did the same thing to me all over again. When I admitted their claims, they didn't came again, gave me no punishment.

One day the Kempetai took us all men over 12 outside to the plain. We were standing on a small ridge and behind us was a long pit - our grave. They gave us bags on our heads. Then a machine gun fire can be heard and everybody around fell to the ground, so did I. That probably saved my life. All of the others were dead, I have got only two bullets to my leg and managed to escape when the Kempetai left.

Pictures of Japanese soldiers impaling the laying bodies to ensure they are dead is presented beside the group of Hindu soldiers with a rag over their eyes and execution group aiming to them. A thin bones and skin bodies inside the camp are the pictures of these who were more lucky.

The museum contains hundreds of pictures which colorfully displays the common acts in the Prisoner Of War camps under Kempetai. We all know a lot about the Jews and Gestapo. Everybody heard it hundreds of times (but have to mention there are still these who think that battle in Vietnam ended with throwing the atomic bombs to Hiroshima and Nagasaki). The acts of Kempetai were as cruel as acts of Gestapo. World should know about it too.

When I went through all the museum and chapel, I took the bus back to the SMRT station and took the green line to Marina Bay (again :) ). When I reached the Singapore river, I just managed to see the boat races in the river delta. I spent some moments there and then crossed the bridge and entered the Chinatown, the second third of my program for that day.

I visited several Chinese temples (Wak Hai Cheng Bio Temple, Thain Hock Keng Temple), one mosque and Hindu Sri Mirrimman Temple. The entrance is easy to miss as the interesting entrance dotted by hundreds of colorful statues is lower than the buildings around. The entrance is also even more interesting then the rest of the temple and the ticket allowing you to take pictures inside is worthy only in case you are bold enough to take the pictures of old Hindu women, which seem to be very interesting spot for photography, however I still didn't reach this limit of boldness.

In 40 or 50 minutes I took the SMRT again, this time to the isle of Sentosa. I took the Diamond cable car for 40 S$ (= 550 CZK) and that was definitely a big mistake - I really recommends you DO NOT TAKE IT - it is not worth the money. The train going there is about 5 S$ (= 65 CZK) and reach the isle faster. As long as the view from the cabin is not interesting, you can easily get along with that.

The island itself is a big Jurassic Park ... or Disneyland if you will. All the attractions are rather for small children or infantile teenagers. The price is even bold. Who would pay 12 S$ (= 150 CZK) for a elevator taking you 50 meters higher and returns back ... huh.

The only two things I concerned as interesting were the Fort Siloso and Images of Singapore museum, colorfully explaining all the history of the city from the very beginning till these days (yet I missed the opening hours of the museum ? ).

The fort was about 20 minutes by walk from the cable car station and as I assumed they already extracted enough money from me I took a walk there. The path leaded through a "jungle" for German tourists (all the old fat guys were totally stunned as they passed around some small waterfall and saw a 5 cm big spider. I could offer them just the snort of derision. I can imagine how they tell the stories to their colleagues how threatened they were and how a big snake tried to kill them, but they stood calm and caused him heart attack with their tough look.

The fort itself was another figurine museum, worse than the Battle Box, but still quite interesting. You can learn the history of the island as well as the limited history of the city (from 1942 to 1945).

The fort have been built to protect the Malaysian straight between Indonesia and Malaysia, which is a very important road for goods ships. The Singapore is in her head. It is then understandable, why all the cannons on the fort's ramparts aimed the wrong way when the Japanese forces attacked Singapore from the north (from Malaysia).

When I returned back to the cable car station I found out the museum was already closed, this day only at 17:30, in other days much later. I was really disappointed. I headed to the coast to see the traditional village. It was some tourist trap, but when I went here, I wanted to see at least two things! But the village was some laser show with the background of bamboo huts on the sea. Another disappointment came ... I sat on the bank and stared on the sea. The Sun start to sink into the sea over the horizon and then I took my DSLR and shoot several nice pictures with tankers in between the Sun and me :)

I wanted to return to the cable car and leave, but suddenly I saw a skeleton under a small artificial waterfall ... What the hell is that? I went further and saw several others ... one staring out of the old well, one hanging on a lamp and then I came to a graveyard where some of them were just digging out! Another one was hanging from the tree, the blood and remains of flesh were still present. It smelled like a Predator! I passed another twisted skinned bodies and emerged on the main platform, where the elevator "to the skies" have been several hours ago. A ghost emerged from trees just in front of me ... I took my camera and made several quick shots. I had no time to set all the stuff and thus the quality of picture is very poor. However that doesn't change anything on fact I saw a real ghost!

If you think I went mad, I just expected that the "bazinga" was obviously implied (for Big Bang Theory fans :) ). That day was the Halloween and all the platform was filled with costumes of dead, undead, tortured and others. The skeletons described before were artificial. However well positioned camera can make miracles and some of the pictures look pretty good :)

When I made enough pictures I took the train back to the "mainland" and by SMRT returned to my hostel.

Arab Quarter, Little India & Botanical Gardens

The last morning I got out quite soon. I have left my keys on the refrigerator and left the hostel. The woman told me I can leave my back there but it would be rather a problem for me as I needed the backpack and some stuff from it, so I would have to leave just some clothes.

The first place I went was the Arab Quarter (or also Kampong Glam). I got off the SMRT at Lavender station and walk along Victotia street to reach the Malabar Muslim Jama-Ath Mosque. The azure blue building has nothing much to offer except the painted walls. I could also read there a story about "How the atheist had been turned into Islam ". I have nothing against any religion, but I don't like when somebody force me to convert, especially when their arguments are very weak. I have the same right to do not believe to anything like others have the right to believe in something. Nobody can prove his right, so please, respect my opinions as I respect yours. The story was a little stupid (and it is really like that, I didn't skip any part), so I will write it down:

Once a Muslim meet an atheist and ask him, if he believes in anything. He answered he is atheist, so he believe to himself. Muslim answered that it is due to the Allah he believes to himself and then suddenly the atheist haven't been atheist anymore.

Turning to the left just in front of the mosque I reached the Hajjad Fatimah Mosque. The mosque is interesting mainly because of its European-style minaret, which is tilted 6 degrees to the right (what can be really easily seen from outside the mosque).

Just few streets to the west it is possible to visit the Malay Heritage Center. However you have to come other time than Monday morning, because they open after 2pm on Monday. I walked in the gardens, which used to be a palace once and bought a bottled coke, because I really needed an energy.

From the gardens it is already possible to see the roof of the Sultan's Mosque, the most beautiful mosque in Singapore. It is certain I headed there immediately. The place is really huge and you can walk even inside. It is possible to read some interesting facts about Islam (this time very reasonable and interesting) and there is even an English-speaking guide, who can tell you the story of the mosque (or answer your questions about Islam) for free.

There was an old shopping street in front of the mosque and I have bought a Singapore's T-shirt (red, very nice :) ). Then I walked across all the quarter to the Little India. I planned to go to some temples first, but the hunger forced me to change my plans and the Lonely Planet pick restaurant won as the first place I have visited there!

I ordered an local specialty and also the recommendation of the waiter, who (surprisingly) picked one of the cheapest food they had in the menu (9 S$ = 120 CZK). The food contained the curry rice, chicken, vegetables and curry and soar cream sauce plus can of coke. It was delicious! And what's more, I finally understand why it is said the right hand is for eating and the left for cleaning our ass. Despite the presence of fork, knife, spoon and even chopsticks on all the tables all Hindu people ate with their bare hands (right hand, left was laying flat on their thigh), food falling all around them :D

After I finished my lunch I went to the Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple just few streets beside the restaurant. The temple is dedicated to Kali, the bloodthirsty consort of Shiva. The goddess is described with skulls and disembowelling victims.

The second temple was really far and (at least according to the guidebook) not so interesting so I skipped it and took the SMRT to Orchard road. Later on I used a bus to reach the Botanical Gardens. I thought long time whether it is worthy or not to go there, however I can say, it was pretty nice and worthy now ;)

The gardens are for free, but you can pay a small entrance fee (1S$ = 13 CZK) if you would like to see some special parts (i.e. Orchid Gardens). The place is very calm and comforting with huge scale of different kinds of flowers and insect species. Great place for lazy afternoons :)

The Orchid Garden is just a small part of all the Botanical Gardens, but it is still quite a big area and it is not easy to pass it within less than one hour. I spent there almost two hours and honestly I don't think I would be too slow, but it depends on the personality. I was definitely surprised how interesting the place was, maybe other people would feel different.

When I left the Orchid gardens, it was almost 17 and thus the time to go. I caught the bus back to the Orchard SMRT and took the red circle line to the Marina Bay station, where I waited for the sunset on the pier. I spent there about two hours (from 19 to 21) and then took the last walk around the Marina Bay itself. Slowly, I went all the way around in one hour.

At 22:30 it was the time to catch SMRT to the Changi Airport. I was quite lucky as when I arrived there, the trains in opposite direction were already canceled. So since 23:30 I was partly wandering on the airport, partly trying to sleep on the airport bench.

At 7 am the plane took off heading to Taipei. When I arrived to the Taipei Main Station, I visited my favorite curry house and returned to my dorm to take a shower. I was even able to arrive to my afternoon class :)