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klwardSingapore is hot, wet and, as it turned out, contagious. How I didn't end up with the infection that afflicted poor David is a mystery. This is one of those cities built by the British East India Company in a place the locals didn't and for a damn good reason - you know the drill, mad dogs and Englishmen wear collars in 80% humidity. I understand that it exists to this day, as a genuine, independent city-state, because it would simply be too much trouble for anyone to assimilate, despite or because of its wealth and connections with so many of today's corporate superpowers. The friends we were staying with moved there for the Company (which shall remain nameless).
Things grow in Singapore. This would seem to apply to companies, tower blocks and above all to plant life - on roofs, overhead bridges, over every wall. My impression of the Botanic Gardens was that their main problem was stopping things growing there. A vivid green creeper wrapped around a branch turned out to be a snake. It just lives there, along with the orchids and bromeliads. Having said this, the island of Sentosa - the entire island - is one of the most completely artificial environments I have ever entered, at least on this scale. There is something about the concrete dragons and carefully sculpted water courses of the Rainforest Trail that makes shopping malls feel organic by comparison. Of course, there is something to be said for the comforts of an artificial beach.
There is a touch of colonial gothic to the city. The cathedral of Saint Andrew shines spotlessly white, from threshold to buttress and steeple. No stain of moss or jungle twiner is permitted to encroach upon its turf. It is a surprise to come across a pond of koi but there they are, brighter than the stained glass! Fort Canning once occupied the highest point above the harbour; only the walls remain there now, and the massive red gatehouse stands alone on a plateau of fig trees. The jungle would take them quickly enough, were they not officially sanctioned relics. I came across a pair of men and their truck parked next to remains of the English cemetery, a stand of elaborate crosses and columns. Plumes of steam rose from their equipment as they methodically cleaned them. Less massive memorials have been cemented into a wall running up to the Canning Park Function Centre.
About five minutes walk from our host's apartment was a Hindi Temple. Not a relic, this; cars were parked by its gates and each evening a plume of smoke rose from the offertory. I caught sight of a priest, nut brown bald, brow painted and waist wrapped in a saffron cloth. He carried fire and water. I should have liked to come back at a more appropriate time and visited as the signs said I might. I should have liked to wander through Little India and the Arab Quarter, and seen the Taoist Temple that once stood on the wharfside in Chinatown. Thanks to land reclamation schemes over the past century, it now stands completely surrounded by city buildings. I glimpsed many such things from train and taxi, green gables and bronze bells protruding from behind concrete and steel. What I wandered around, in air-conditioned semi-comfort was the Asian Civilisations Museum, where everything was safely tucked away behind glass.
I'm not much of a traveller, when all's said. To tell you what else I did in Singapore would involve a critical opinion of the first season of 'Torchwood' and a paen to our hosts' leather lounge suite. But, there was the sound of Chinese Opera and a taste of lychee tea. A glimpse of the neighbour's pampered white dogs, and of 'lovecats' scavenging in the omnipresent drains. Hot coffee in plastic bags with drinking tubes attached. A carousel made up of the animals of the Chinese zodiac. A cartoon seeming to involve teenage girls with chi powers and a magical, pulsating pumpkin. The scent emerging from the mighty buttressed trees, mist hanging about their branches as roller-skaters pass by underneath. These fragments will have to do, informing my dreams of trees with roots growing over cars and through windows, turning inexorably into snakes.
Things grow in Singapore. This would seem to apply to companies, tower blocks and above all to plant life - on roofs, overhead bridges, over every wall. My impression of the Botanic Gardens was that their main problem was stopping things growing there. A vivid green creeper wrapped around a branch turned out to be a snake. It just lives there, along with the orchids and bromeliads. Having said this, the island of Sentosa - the entire island - is one of the most completely artificial environments I have ever entered, at least on this scale. There is something about the concrete dragons and carefully sculpted water courses of the Rainforest Trail that makes shopping malls feel organic by comparison. Of course, there is something to be said for the comforts of an artificial beach.
There is a touch of colonial gothic to the city. The cathedral of Saint Andrew shines spotlessly white, from threshold to buttress and steeple. No stain of moss or jungle twiner is permitted to encroach upon its turf. It is a surprise to come across a pond of koi but there they are, brighter than the stained glass! Fort Canning once occupied the highest point above the harbour; only the walls remain there now, and the massive red gatehouse stands alone on a plateau of fig trees. The jungle would take them quickly enough, were they not officially sanctioned relics. I came across a pair of men and their truck parked next to remains of the English cemetery, a stand of elaborate crosses and columns. Plumes of steam rose from their equipment as they methodically cleaned them. Less massive memorials have been cemented into a wall running up to the Canning Park Function Centre.
About five minutes walk from our host's apartment was a Hindi Temple. Not a relic, this; cars were parked by its gates and each evening a plume of smoke rose from the offertory. I caught sight of a priest, nut brown bald, brow painted and waist wrapped in a saffron cloth. He carried fire and water. I should have liked to come back at a more appropriate time and visited as the signs said I might. I should have liked to wander through Little India and the Arab Quarter, and seen the Taoist Temple that once stood on the wharfside in Chinatown. Thanks to land reclamation schemes over the past century, it now stands completely surrounded by city buildings. I glimpsed many such things from train and taxi, green gables and bronze bells protruding from behind concrete and steel. What I wandered around, in air-conditioned semi-comfort was the Asian Civilisations Museum, where everything was safely tucked away behind glass.
I'm not much of a traveller, when all's said. To tell you what else I did in Singapore would involve a critical opinion of the first season of 'Torchwood' and a paen to our hosts' leather lounge suite. But, there was the sound of Chinese Opera and a taste of lychee tea. A glimpse of the neighbour's pampered white dogs, and of 'lovecats' scavenging in the omnipresent drains. Hot coffee in plastic bags with drinking tubes attached. A carousel made up of the animals of the Chinese zodiac. A cartoon seeming to involve teenage girls with chi powers and a magical, pulsating pumpkin. The scent emerging from the mighty buttressed trees, mist hanging about their branches as roller-skaters pass by underneath. These fragments will have to do, informing my dreams of trees with roots growing over cars and through windows, turning inexorably into snakes.
