singapora !!

“However fool be a person who has travelled is better than the fool who has been kept at home”

Departure
Though I have widely travelled in various corners of India, both to big and small places and this was my first visit abroad.
India is in transition and clearly we have to bear some pains for this, so we reached airport 3 hours before scheduled departure. Recent terrorist attacks meant that security checks were multiple and cumbersome. A faulty PPP agreement which resulted scaling down of project later meant that airport has less number of aerobridges and flying on a low cost flight we could not get any.

India Airlines played to its reputation with grumpy cabin crew and horrible food.
When plane was about to touch shore of Singapore one could see vast gold course from air. I wondered if Singapore is a golf loving nation, it was only later I came to know that being a small island they have to plan and manage everything efficiently in a small space.

Arrival
Procedures at Singapore airport were fast and one could clearly see the cost that terrorism imposes on us. While taking a SIM, or Metro pass or going to any other place no unnecessarily security checks and whenever there were they were swift without inconveniencing passenger. People who think that terrorism does not affect them should rethink, because its indirect cost on economy in increased security and consequent decrease in productivity are enormous.

One does not face touts and aggressive taxi drivers as is common at all Indian airports. Immigration procedures are fast and one can get detailed map as per one’s requirement – tourism, official, any other at airport itself. This is something we can do in India without costing much and without needing a systematic rehaul. At Delhi I once did find once such map but its scale was so big to make it useless for pedestrian travel in city.

Roads were fairly empty because of Sunday and one could see an occasional jogger or cyclist on the side of road on the tracks meant for same, a sight difficult to find in India as unplanned construction makes it impossible to make any such civic amenities and to protect it from encroachers for long is even more difficult.

Orderliness in traffic also stems from uniformity of vehicles. Even heavy vehicles seem to follow a pattern not like India where vehicles with all shapes and sizes ply on road merrily and make traffic management difficult lane as well as speed wise.

Stay
Next stop was YMCA hotel. It was a surprise much better and cleaner than Mumbai YMCA which I had stayed just a couple of months ago. It can be country difference I guess.

Travel, stay next comes food. No army can march empty stomach so we reached to place next to us i.e. Singapore Plaza (one of the largest mall in Singapore). One was spoilt for choice but alas nothing for vegetarians beyond fired rice (it is a different matter that we discovered a SUBWAY joint at same place later. SUBWAY came to our rescue at many places and my friends in Malaysia & Dubai also vouched for it. Kudos to SUBWAY).

Little India
But by evening we had discovered Little India and that was a discovery. The place lives to its name though we soon discovered that little dark skinned men roaming streets are not south Indians but Bangladeshis. This place is ‘Little India’ in true sense. Traffic works in Indian style, no Singapore orderliness. Shops blare out music and are garishly painted. Mustafa occupied pride of the place and a central attraction like this can always be used to develop stand alone tourist attractions.


MRTS
A word about MRTS system will not be out of place here. Basically I want to praise Delhi Metro here for being something in India which is pretty close to its developed country counterparts in various respects. Announcements in train going to little India were also in Tamil. A welcome relief that this city does not hate its multilinguism after facing horrible discrimination against non local languages in Karnataka and Maharashtra.

Fooling around
Getting food near office was surprisingly not that difficult. One could go to this ‘Kaya Toast’ outlet for breakfast. There was Mosburger store which served nice vegan burgers also and then there was this large ‘Kopi tram’ ( Malay for ‘food court’) which had cuisines of almost all south east Asian countries with their respective aromas present. The vegetarian join which we frequented was something should be copied in India. This fellow had rice/noodles of various kinds as base and then offered vegetarian dishes as per your liking as topping with drinks. Due to standardization operation was efficient and inventory manageable. Later I found such joints in various food courts across Singapore so it does make a viable business proposition.

Street market at Tao Paoh MRT ( near our office) was another site. It had preserved old buildings but this did not mean a clutter on roads or inconvenience to passengers. Heritage market need not be crowded. Public library near MRT was another worthy thing to emulate. We visited only on our last day but as our guide told us there are such libraries in every sector, they are updated frequently, automated book renewal, issue and return system works to perfection.

“FINE” country
Respect for law and orderliness in public life was apparent as how everyone from old to young, rich to poor followed traffic rules religiously. But there is another secret behind it as our guide explained that why Singapore is known as “fine” county. There are heavy fines for some thousand crimes what constitute an unacceptable public behavior like spitting, eating in MRT, not flushing public toilets, smoking in no smoking areas and jumping the light. A detailed national identity card number system means you will get fine details no matter where the crime was committed at your home or office and there are no exceptions to rule. No one is any minister, bureaucrat or cop’s brother or friend.

Shopping and excursions
On our first weekend I had an opportunity to go to Singapore Expo centre for CFA exam and one needs to see the scale to believe it. It is an exhibition cum convention sector and huge air conditioned halls without a supporting pillar has been created. This CFA exam also reinforced the idea that this century is India. More than 90% participants were India, more so because it is banned in India. Imagine the kind of money Singapore economy is making because of judicial delays and red tape in higher education in India.

Mention of mall at City MRT will not be out of place here which consists of shops as one comes out of MRT towards main road. Compare this with shops we have at local stations in Mumbai and one can say that no space is small if judiciously used. China Street and Bougies street had some good bargains and foreigners were obviously amazed at handicraft items. Being an Indian we were not that crazy and were always looking for a good bargain which we found also but at last a visit to Mustafa was to be made much against our earlier insistence that we will not go for Indian style shopping here. Mustafa was also offering best currency exchange rates so clearly a textbook example of economies of scale.

INA Memorial & Sea Front
I had read somewhere about INA memorial in Singapore but none of the tourism brochures mentioned it and when I reached there near esplanade I discovered the reason why. Though just in front of Singapore parliament and near high court and occupying same premises as their own national martyr monument ‘Cenotaph’ it was dimly lit and no one seemed to bother about it. For that matter their own national memorial was also not in a better condition. Some obviously drunk men were chatting at its footsteps. No wonder why everywhere one sees huge ads of join Singapore army as with march of progress bonds of nationalism do weaken more so in city state which is a cultural melting pot and without a history that goes very long.

But sea front has been developed in a nice venue for dance and drama. There was a group performing Christmas songs on sea front and in adjoining esplanade concert and drams were going on. Backdrop of sea ensured relief from suffocating humid tropical environment and a great view also. Why cannot we do similar thing in Mumbai or Calcutta is really puzzling. Any new reclaimed land in Mumbai has to be filled by skyscrapers without paying attention to cultural needs of city.

A walk across Orchard road, main Commercial Street of Singapore showed why this nations is called prosperous. It seems eating out and shopping are the two main occupations of residents and one can see both places filled at all times of day throughout week. Weakened Indian rupee meant that there was not arbitrage in electronic items even in specialized mall recommended on tourist websites but at least one could take pride that SP road in Bangalore also offers similar variety though without gleam and sheen


Sentosa la la la
Last day was reserved for Sentosa Island and it lived to its reputation of priced high and nothing really to see. Children might enjoy it but for grownups Dolphin show, underwater & Songs of the sea laser show was only attraction. Beaches were very poor and 4D movie was a marginal improvement over what one gets to see in India. I think wonderla in Bangalore gives a better value for money. After every attraction exit was via a shopping space – so they do not want to leave a single opportunity to entice tourists. There was picture and live images show of Singapore’s history (officially sanitized – no bad points or turbulence was shown). All four races i.e. Malay, Chinese, Indian and European were represented. Underwater world was upto expectations but Laser show deserves to be mentioned. Laser show with backdrop of sea menat no background issue and calm see solved problem of wind to large extent. It could be combined with gas fires and fountains as sea water is readily available – real crafty people. Scarcity of space means that one can see container ships being loaded and cranes hauling them while commuting in buses at the island.

Physically all Singapore residents seem to be fit and reason in apart could be their protein rich fibrous diet free of oil and fats. In fact at one of the MRT subways there was large space and as against India or west where all kind of unsocial elements will come and occupy it there were young boys and girls practicing every imaginable kind of dance routine, acrobatics and skating.

Arrival
Once again an early morning flight with some initial apprehensions about luggage exceeding limit (almost everyone had done extensive shopping , more so because all of us had liquidity due to receipt of stipend in the end), and failed link at Indian airlines counter for more than an hour we finally arrived safe and sound in motherland once again in company of even more grumpier cabin crew ( these time two middle aged gentleman)