Singapore Stopover

"People are too busy to appreciate their lives these days," declared the elderly Chinese gentleman in his perfect Queen's English, his even older and rather stately-looking Indian friend nodding in agreement on his wooden crate in the midst of one of the city's swarming shopping arcades.

But busy and multi-cultural as it is, Singapore must also be one of the easiest cities in the world to visit. There is Little India, which has the colour and curries of India, without the hassle of hawkers, open-sewers and beggars. There's the Chinese quarter (although these days it should really be the Chinese three-quarters), which has the food, temples and markets of China without the communist overtones or the communication barriers (I never did really get used to a whole nation of Asians all speaking near-perfect English, even among themselves).



And the city is clean! Cleaner even than Japan. In fact, cleanliness seems to be a national obsession, with hard-core legislation to back it up. Forget to flush the toilet and you're looking at a minimum $150 fine! Spit and you’re looking at at least $1000! Don't even think about chewing gum - you can't even buy it.

The subways are not only surgically clean and efficient, they also espouse philosophy: "Our life is frittered away by detail... Simplify, simplify, simplify!" was the Thoreau quote that greeted me on the electronic announcement boards of Little India Station on my first day in Singapore.

And if efficent subways aren't enough, the people also seem outrageously friendly. In Japan, though kind to a fault, people are rarely accused of being outgoing and chatty. In India, though outgoing and chatty to a fault, people are rarely without something to sell. Singaporeans seem to strike a happy balance between the two extremes: chatty and approachable without treating you like a walking wallet.



Indeed the city is so easy-to-use and purpose-built that the friend I was travelling with was prompted to call it the Esperanto of cities. And although not entirely without its own grit and charm, you can't help feel that Singapore is almost unnaturally neat and user-friendly, certainly lacking the raw earthiness of somewhere like Thailand.



Resting on a bench in the shade of a multi-national corporate skyscraper and gazing admiringly at the statue of modern Singaopore's founder, Sir Stamford Raffles surrounded by multi-coloured lions, it's easy to forget that Singapore, with its foreign-friendly tourist industry and chatty people, is a nation under an authoritarian regimen. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Kim Il Sung have given dictatorships a bad name in this last century, but with it's green manicured gardens, smooth-flowing traffic, and crime and drug- (not to mention litter-) free streets, Lee Kuan Yew's vision of utopia does make one stop and think twice. And although perhaps big brother with his censorship and limits on freedom of speech (however subtle) would eventually drive me away, in the short and albeit superficial three days I spent there, I found myself quite fond of this buzzing little metropolis.

And contrary to popular opinion, three days was not enough.

Singapore photos