Singapore

Singapore's a rather remarkable place. Once a part of Malaysia, it's quite different in outlook and focus. I live with a Singaporean in Sabah, and he's always going on about how Singapore has vanquished poverty and everyone owns a home and everybody's happy and fulfilled - why can't Malaysia do the same? What's wrong with the people? But Singapore has 3.25 million citizens - it's not so easy with Malaysia's 28.3 million. 

And Singapore is tiny. Their army runway is a major highway - the pots of plants in the middle get whisked off, and hey presto, you have a landing strip in case of war. Everything rises upwards, too - people live in towering blocks of miniature flats, laundry hung on long sticks out the window; business addresses are often something like Room 925, 89th Floor, Block H, Blah Business Park.

It's so multicultural too, Chinese Buddhist, Christian, Malay Muslim, Indian Muslim, Hindu, "non-religious" (I'm not sure that's even an option on a Malaysian census form...) Of course, each denomination has its place of worship too, so there are these amazing temple structures everywhere (yes, also soaring into the skies...)

Sri Mariamman Temple, Chinatown

Masjid Sultan, Kampong Glam

Buddha Tooth Relic Temple

The Malay quarter was nearly the only place without soaring towers - just low shophouses converted into bars and stores selling organic bamboo clothing and handmade soaps, and an old cemetery.

Apart from height, my overriding sense of Singapore is of smell - incense, food (and what food - shops are selling Very Lucky Turtle Soup, and Pig Organ Stew). Everywhere I go, the scents change - from marigolds and incense in Little India, to fried food and incense in Chinatown, to car fumes in the City Centre... Actually, surprisingly, the air seems to be fairly clean in Singapore, even in the centre; a guide tells me that the bus we're on runs on natural gas, so perhaps most other cars do too.

Helix bridge, ArtScience Museum

Sometimes the didacticism gets a bit much. I mean, I know we had a Road Safety Track when I was a kid for learning about the roads, but here it's called the Road Safety Adventure Park... Walk on Left, Use Official Crossing, Clean Water: Beat Dengue... it's constant.

So is the sense of wanting to present a good front. On the bus, they go on about what a wonderful place it is: "Yes, this is a beautiful old park. Even though this is prime land, we protect our heritage. On the left is an old temple. I see you're wondering why it hasn't made way for a skyscraper yet. Well, even though this is prime land..."

But while they may be sensitive to heritage, they certainly aren't to the social gap. We pass for ten minutes through an area of obscenely wealthy properties, red Porsches sitting outside icing-cake-pink mansions. It's particularly blatant in space-desperate Singapore. Many of the houses here are smaller than my house in Zimbabwe, and were built decades ago, but because of the space, they're now worth millions of US dollars.

As I leave at the end of the day, I realise how space age Singapore can be, too: we pass through what looks like an abandoned tollbooth, but which is actually a solar-charged congestion charge point, picking up car signals as they whizz by, to add the charge to their monthly account.

All too soon, I am back at the airport for my flight home to Sabah. I'm there on time; my plane isn't: there has been flooding along the Sabahan coast, and the pilot prevented from reaching Kota Kinabalu Airport, so I sit and wait for 4 hours. If you're going to be delayed for four hours, Changi Airport is the place to do it - lots to keep one occupied, and for free. But eventually the plane arrives and I return to Sabah and to little Ranau, and because of the delayed flight, I have to set out for work immediately on arrival and there's no time to mourn the end of my long journey. 

I realise though when considering my next trip that this journey has taken almost four full pages from my passport, and I'm going to need to get a new one about six years early. So not that cheap a trip after all ;)