Back on July 7th I posted after our first week in Singapore. Since then I posted twice about our cycling trips. We finally left Singapore three days ago so it is time for a Resumé.
Our first impression was that Singapore is a jungle with a city in it. We have since been told that it was a jungle that had to make way for a city and then they wrapped a new jungle around the city. This agrees with what we saw on our daily dog walks in Bukit Brown Cemetery which is, so we were told, the largest Chinese cemetery outside of China. It was used for fifty years and there were 100 000 graves by the time it was closed in 1973. Now, fifty years later, it is once again a jungle but a jungle covering thousands of old graves. It would be a great place for a horror movie and no Chinese person will go near the place after dark.
Within a week we had noticed that the public transport is clean and incredibly well run. Now we know that is true of everything. Just a few examples:
- there is a glass wall that separates the underground platform from the rails. This has doors which align perfectly with the trains. They do not open until the train is stopped in the station and close before the train moves away. No suicides, no accidents and much less fire risk.
- there are rubbish bins that show how full they are with a display, have compactors to increase capacity and let the cleaners know when they need emptying. We never saw an overflowing bin in Singapore.
- you don’t need to buy a ticket or even know where you want to go when you get on a bus or train. You just tap your credit-/debit-card/mobile phone/kids-card as you get on and tap again when you get off. If you change to another bus or train then the “taps” get added together to one journey. The system charges you based on kilometers traveled. This makes public transport incredibly easy and delivers the bus operator with detailed data about exactly which bus or train is exactly how full every minute of every day.
At least once every day we agreed that it is amazing what can be achieved, if people want to achieve. And every day we reflected on other dysfunctional countries where people are too busy thinking up reasons not to achieve improvements.
Everyone knows that Singapore is an incredibly expensive country but it turns out that the average cost of living is not so different to Sydney or London. Rents are higher than Berlin but much less that New York. We were of course unbelievably lucky as Michael, Christin and Maxime lent us their beautiful home deep in the jungle for almost six weeks. For most of that time Ganis was also there to give us local tips and show us the places to see. We discovered that there is so much to see and do for free that you can just ignore anything that costs money. There are parks, beaches, tree top walks, botanical gardens and long bike paths that are all free. There are even sailing boats on the harbor that are extremely difficult to book but, once booked, free for a 40 minute sail between the incredible Singapore skyline. On Day One we made the mistake of ordering two coffees in Orchard Road and paying €18 but we quickly learned that by avoiding tourist areas and anywhere with Europeans then two coffees can cost €3. We never even thought about eating in a “tourist trap” but, by looking for a hawker center, we could find lunch for €10. Fun doesn’t have to cost so much, even in Singapore.
We cycled over 700 kilometers while we were in Singapore. 160 kilometers were commuting back to Malaysia to work on the boat but the rest were on the island. A bike is a fantastic way to explore any county but when the country is pretty flat and has a network of cycle paths, then it is amazing. We saw so many interesting little corners that even some locals have never been to including allotment gardens where we were given herbs, Buddhist temples where we were given bottles of water and an offshore island with a wicked mountain bike trail.
On our last evening it was Singapore’s national day and we were invited to watch with a group of locals on their “big screen”. It was an impressive event and you could feel the pride that those taking part and the spectators felt for “their” country. Singapore is not the most democratic country on earth but neither is it among the least. It is rated roughly “in the middle” but as someone quoted to us “we can’t demonstrate but what is there to demonstrate against!”
Singapore, an amazing experience.
Our best pictures are in our “Singapore” album at Google.
Super.