Having seconds in Singapore

Ah, Singapore.

How many times have I expressed shock at the continual abundance of this journey? Our time in Bali was so enchanting, I wondered how we'd manage to leave. In a way, it helped to have an unplanned night in Kuta when we couldn't fly out standby on an earlier flight, as we'd hoped. One night in Kuta — the bustling, touristy wasteland of marauding Western vacationers adjacent to the international airport — was memorable (our first durian, and a spotlit, nighttime surfing competition), but plenty.



So, we left Indonesia for Singapore, after paying the airport tax on our excess overcharge fee. (Seriously, I'm all about having the tourist dollar support the local economy, but you won't believe how many extra trips to the ATM at the airport were needed to pay all the departure fees! It didn't help that our very cheap and otherwise excellent AirAsia flight came with zero flexibility, and did not include charges that other carriers build into their ticket prices.) In any case, with the aid of some helpful and (thankfully!) friendly customs officers, we forked over the necessary dough and boarded the plane. To Singapore!

Singapore impresses, right out of the gate. Like the whole country, the airport is famously tidy and well organized, and the public transportation system is, frankly, unparalleled. (I'm prepared to ruffle feathers on this point among the denizens of New York City and London. In our week in Singapore, we took trains and buses all over the city, and not once had to change buses or walk more than a block at either end of the trip. Combine that with the fact that buses run so frequently, our longest wait was, I think, 10 minutes. Most often, it was a minute or two. Freakishly awesome, Singaporean public transportation.)

It's true that one is also confronted quickly with signs of Singapore's strict social code, whether the posted signs warning of various offenses and their fines...



...or the anti-terrorism audio and video broadcasts on most trains and buses, warning riders to maintain vigilant watch for suspicious persons (which, as in post-9/11 America, have a cumulative effect that elevates anxiety, if not outright terrorizes those who hear them). These are the downsides of Singapore people often focus on. For us, they're little more than a footnote on an otherwise amazing experience.

Culturally, it is quickly apparent that Singapore is a confluence of Malay, Chinese and Indian peoples and histories. It is also heavily influenced by the West, although for want of a better metaphor, this feels a bit like the clothes Singapore wears, rather than its body (or bodies). Its vibrant diversity and distinct neighborhoods make for some incredible travel experiences. People say that Singaporeans' favorite pastimes are shopping and eating. We participated in both, but the latter much more extensively.

Owing in part to the politics surrounding the greening of the Singapore River, many of the city's historic food vendors (which previously operated out of little carts along or boats on the water) were relocated into dozens (hundreds?) of hawker centers dispersed throughout the city. Think of a hawker center as a food court on steroids, each with dozens of vendors selling made-to-order meals, most of which cost just a buck or two. You grab a seat at one of the numbered, communal tables, approach the vendor whose fare you want to try, place your order and provide your table number. Minutes later, your food is delivered to your table and exchanged for payment.



The process, though energetic and enjoyable to behold, is nothing compared to the product. The food we sampled at hawker centers throughout the city ranged from the excellent to the sublime. Julie joked that she was going to start having five meals a day to allow us to sample more of the variety available! We quickly realized that we could have every meal of our stay at the first hawker center we visited, just blocks from our hotel, and still not run out of delicious options. It is a place teeming with compelling food.



We sampled some of Singapore's best-loved dishes, including fish head curry, chili crab, char kway teow mee (fried noodles), laksa (a coconut-milk-based soup with noodles, prawns and cockles), a stunning Indian veggie platter, roti prata (an Indian fried bread with onions and, in my case, scrambled eggs), dosas, sardine murtabak, and a range of dishes whose names I don't know or can't remember and whose flavors I can't forget. We also had a broad sample of bao (stuffed rice-flour buns) and dim sum, and some of the finest coffee I've tasted, sweetened with condensed milk. Desserts also proved memorable, especially the slab of ice cream served between two slices of white bread (!) or wafers. Truly, some of the most amazing food experiences of my life were found in this city. Foodies, buy your tickets now.

If the food was the star of the show, there were other captivating attractions, too. We took in a great exhibit at the National Museum of Singapore... about food! The Museum's Living Galleries, covering food, film, fashion and photography, were excellent (especially the first two in that list), as was the Asian Civilizations Museum. In the latter, we encountered the complex, fascinating, tangled history of the clash, intersection, and melding of people living in this part of the world. More precisely, we just scratched the surface, a humbling experience to encounter dozens of civilizations I know nothing about, which have had profound impacts on the shape of things in this part of the world today. Abundance of a different sort, I suppose, that the sweep of history is so broad, but also so unfathomably deep.

As for Singapore's other favorite pastime, we did engage in some commerce as well, seeking to replace Julie's busted point-and-shoot camera with the latest model of the one Linda let us use in Alaska. I dunno, folks, I think Julie must have been trying to flirt with me, too, taking me to Sim Lim Square — a famous six-story hawker-center equivalent for electronics — on our first day in Singapore!



Filtering through the blitzkrieg of flashing signs, conflicting advice and mercurial price-quotes proved to be quite a project, but a rewarding one. She came away with a new cam, and it provided a different kind of lens (sorry) into Singapore. The art of haggling is practiced in a unique way here, with some vendors telling us to so much as shove off ("you'll find better deals upstairs"), others saying their neighbors would try to con us, and still others changing the price every time we asked.

We spent longer (7 days) in the city than we'd originally planned, mainly so that we could obtain an entry visa from the Indian embassy in Singapore. Many travelers we've met along the way suggested that three or four days was enough. For my part, a week felt like just the beginning of coming to know this place. In another common refrain, I look forward to our next visit, and spending more time in this unforgettable city.