Sensuous Singapore

Since my dad had been on frequent work trips within India, mostly flying between Hyderabad and Bangalore, he had the privilege of getting frequent flyer miles. In fact, the miles were acquired to such an extent that they were sufficient for a two way trip to a foreign country not far off from India. Thus, the miles were redeemed for a two-way free air travel from India to Singapore, for a family of three.

And so, this is the story of how mine and my mother’s first trip beyond India’s boundaries shaped up (my dad had already been abroad earlier). It was the summer of 2000 when the plan materialised. Being our first trip abroad, we were naturally excited and full of anticipation.

Sometime in the month of May, we boarded the flight to Chennai from Hyderabad. A connecting flight took us through a 8-hour journey to the island of the Republic of Singapore. We landed at Changi Airport which is built away from the land, out into the Indian Ocean.

The name of Singapore finds its roots in the Sanskrit language. Singapore, originally adapted from the name “Singapura” (Lion City), which in turn, comes from “Simha” which is Sanskrit for Lion. It is located between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, just at the southernmost tip of the Malay Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is the second smallest country in Asia. The main island is diamond shaped and has a total area of 648 square kilometres, three times the size of Washington D.C. The coastline of Singapore spans 193 kilometres.

So, coming back to Changi Airport. It was very huge and incredibly beautiful. It was like no other airport we had ever seen. The airport shuttle dropped us off at our hotel. We were awestruck at the metropolis and the tall buildings lining the city’s skyline.

Later in the day, we visited the Singapore Zoo, located on the outskirts of Singapore. The zoo was built inside a forest so jeeps were employed to take visitors from the entrance to the interior of the zoo. We had a lot of walking to do but we enjoyed the sights in the zoo. We even took a photo of ourselves carrying oraguntans on our lap. The safari took us to the forest and we saw a lioness with her cubs in addition to other wild animals. The zoo tour took most of the day and in the end we were exhausted.

The second day of our stay on Singapore started with a visit to the Singapore Cricket club followed by the Singapore Diamond Gallery. Later on, in the day, we visited some of Singapore’s famous shopping malls. In fact, we felt that the number of shopping malls outnumbered the office buildings. We had our lunch at Little India, a small cute town in the city. The post-noon part of the day was spent travelling to the Mt Faber Hill, which overlooks the Singapore port.

On the third day of our trip, we began a lazy morning by strolling through Singapore’s malls and clean-swept roads. In the afternoon, though, we were in for something pleasant. We boarded a cable car from Mt Faber Hill, which took us to Sentosa, via Harbour Front Tower. Enroute to Sentosa, we could see the bustling activity going on at the Singapore port as the cable car glided above it. Once at Sentosa, we boarded the Sentosa Monorail which took us from the beach to the Fort Siloso Monorail station. 

We visited its famous attraction-Underwater World, an underground oceanarium housing all kinds of deepwater sea creatures. It has 2500 marine and fresh water animals of 250 species from different regions of the world. We spotted a white shark as it hovered over us, the travelator moving us further into the glass-encased tunnel.

At Sentosa, we also saw the Merlion Statue, currently the symbol of Singapore, Fort Siloso and the Surrender Chamber wax museum. The museum housed very life-like replicas of people, mostly the natives of Singapore. The Musical Fountain enthralled us with its music and fountain dance.

We boarded the Sentosa bus which took us back to the mainland.

For our last day in Singapore, we booked ourselves for a one-day tour of the city with a local tourist agency. They started the tour by offering us a visit to the China Town. China Town is a small market selling mostly Chinese-made antiquities, medicines, and clothes. We saw jars containing dead snakes in some of the shops. The sight of snakes made me uneasy followed by the Raffle’s Square, a posh area located in Singapore. There was Raffle’s Hotel and Raffels shopping mall located on Raffles Avenue. 

We had our lunch at Little India and as usual, our post-afternoon event included scouring additional shopping malls. In the evening, we re-joined our group and had a cruise on the Singapore River followed by dinner at a Chinese restaurant where they had rice sticks instead of forks and spoons, served crabs, lobsters, prawns and every other kind of seafood. We then went to a local shopping arena to buy souvenirs and presents for our relatives back home.

The next day, we were supposed to board the flight to Chennai in the midnight hours, which, was delayed by quite a long time(7-8 hours) due to a technical snag. So most part of the day was spent strolling through the Changi Airport and browsing through free magazines, and enjoying free food provided by the airlines. We were glad to be back home after a tiring return journey. But we did bring ourselves golden memories to cherish for the rest of our lives, as exemplified by the fact that I am able to remember all these events despite them having occurred 12 years ago, and not having recapitulated any of it in a diary.