Big Fat Heads

We took a flight with Malindo (a pretty decent service for a budget airline, btw) to Bangkok, where we were staying for two nights. We got a taxi to take us to our hotel, which was deep in the middle of the city. Our driver was roguishly friendly, trying to entice us into tours of the city that he does in his ‘other’ car. He was also an LFC fan. I fail at this aspect of international relations in that I don’t follow the football, and this is always the means by which foreigners try to find common ground. Both halves of the Americas, Oz and NZ, here and no doubt the rest of SE Asia: they always get excited when they meet a Brit male, because at least we can chunter on about the footie. Nope. I can’t even pretend, because we’d get four words beyond what vagueries I can remember from friends bitching about their teams on Facebook and then my fraudulent facade would crumble. So I have to find other inanities to kill the silence that the friendlier blokes find unacceptable.

The hotel was hidden within a warren of alley ways and choked roads, lined with hawkers and street-vendors, before being revealed rather dramatically at the end of a cul-de-sac.

The Thais we’ve met so far have either been the friendliest crowd we’ve met, or do such a good impression of it as to make no difference. I know not to attempt the wai –the bow with the hands in a prayer pose that they do- as it is incredibly nuanced, with all manner of subtleties related to status, age and circumstance. I don’t need any more ways of upsetting anyone, so I do the awkward Brit nodding smile with unnecessary thank yous sprinkled throughout every sentence of any interaction.

Occasional laziness to one side, we don’t normally eat at the hotel unless there’s nothing else available, but the restaurant here was ridiculously good, with one chef training at the Michelin-starred noma, so we took our evening meals here twice. There was still plenty of time to make ourselves ill by way of street food in the remainer of our time in the country.

We were in Bangkok, so we made sure to visit the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. One thing we didn’t read or remember was that one must be properly attired to enter these places, so we had to queue for half an hour to get given clothing to cover my obscene bare legs, and Chan's trousers as they were not baggy enough - the slattern. Thusly made decent, we entered the grounds of the temple and did our best not to do anything sacrilegious.

"I FUCKING LOVE MY JOB!"
"Shut the hell up, Frank"

Not far from the grounds of these buildings is the temple of the reclining Buddha, which those sophisticates in the audience will remember from the Sagat stage of Street Fighter 2.

These particular grounds are special for having a series of ancient engravings in the stone, some describing remedies for abscesses on different body parts as well as some other maladies. Peer-reviewed citation might be needed for some of them.

When we were done there, we got a taxi to the Platinum Fashion Mall, so we could marvel at all the cheap clothing in diminuative Asian sizes. I was in need of T-shirts and Chan was in need of chuddies.

It was six floors of what were essentially market stalls. One lady did my haggling for me, as I was foolishly going to pay the asking price for a shirt, and she gave me a 30 baht discount, pityingly.

We took a tuk-tuk ride back to the hotel, for which I did actually go through the motions of haggling, as I know 300 baht (£6) for a ten minute journey is robbery. I got him down to 150 baht, which was still theft, but it’s hard to get emotional over three quid. Tuk-tuks are an experience. The roads there are loud, filthy and dangerous, and all vehicles weave among each other as if tuned in on some organic level that us aliens cannot perceive. But it was enjoyable, even if my lungs won’t forgive me anytime soon.

Kurzfassung auf Deutsch: Wir flogen nach Thailand, wo wir etwa einen Monat reisen werden. Wir besuchten das Grand Palace und mehrere wichtige Tempel, hatte aber länger Hosen zu tragen da wir unanständig erachteten.

I have to admit, that from conversations I'd had with people who'd been here over the years, I'd long come to expect that Singapore would be a clean but humourless place. Tales of chewing gum prohibition enforced by bamboo cane corporal punishment, fondness for the death penalty, strict government censorship of the media and the occasionally dangerous levels of pollution don't paint the most enticing of pictures.

Our flight from Sydney got in reasonably late and we were met by a driver sent from the hotel - a newish boutique place called "hôtel vagabond" (all lower case with the french accent, presumably). When we arrived I couldn't locate the front desk on account of it being a giant brass rhinoceros.

There wasn't even this bloke there to give us a clue

Despite occasional attempts to loosen my grip on reality, the staff were fantastic and plied us with several complimentary cocktails. The hotel has an emphasis on art, with resident artists often in attendance in the bar. The lift (which lives behind an elephant) has a large LCD screen showing the installation video piece "Evolution" by Marco Brambilla, which made our transport to and from the foyer several degrees more dramatic than usual, I can tell you.

As we are prone to doing, we went to the National Museum to pick up a bit more about the place.

Singapore was settled around the second century, passing between the ownership of an assortment of empires and sultanates. In 1819, Sir Stamford Raffles came along and persuaded whomever was in charge at the time to let him set up a trade port on behalf of the East India Company. After a fashion it became part of the British Empire, as things tended to do, and things were largely dandy. The Second World War comes along and Singapore -like this whole part of the globe- falls to the Japanese after some very poor preparations on the UK's part. Singapore's large Chinese population does very badly during this time, and is killed off by the Japanese to the tune of 5,000 -25,000 souls, numbers depending on whether your source is Japanese or not.

Post war, the country became a self-governing state within the Commonwealth, eventually joining with Malaya, Sarawak and North Borneo in becoming Malaysia. It was a tumultuous period, with Chinese communist groups sowing discord on the island, and race riots among the three major ethnic groups (Malay, Chinese and Tamil) commonplace across the federation. The Federation of Malaysia lasted two years before the other members voted unanimously to kick Singapore out. Thus, Singapore became independent against it's own will.

Lee Kuan Yew, the first Prime Minister of Singapore set the country's policy and direction lasting to this day, with an emphasis on supporting entrepreneurship, long-term economic growth and limits on internal democracy. The country went from third to first world inside a generation and formed one of the original Asian Tiger economies. Despite the modern cost of living there, 90% of its population own their own home and enjoy an employment rate of 98.3%. From a business point-of-view they're doing something right.
They also set about dragging 20% more of their country out of the sea and covering as much the land they do have in green stuff, which is why it's referred to as the City in a Garden.

Since we were in the area, we popped into the Singapore Art Museum, where they have the local contemporary stuff exhibited. One impressive example (for which there's a clip to save me explaining it) was this installation of pipes, actuators, amplifiers and wires as a means of music creation:

This one below involved several thousand donors providing a drop of blood, each of which was trapped in a glass prism and strung together:

And this one involved flower sculptures made from the artist's own dead skin, shaved from his feet, and also salt made from the brine of his sweat. Chan got halfway through that description and just checked right the fuck out of the room.

Delightful.

Having worked up an appetite after that little lot, we went into a local food market to dine with the locals. The makeup of Singapore means that there is a lot of Thai, Malay, Chinese and Indian food with some local idiosyncrasies muddled up with colonial influences.

A big local thing is Kaya toast, which is toast with a coconut and egg jam, served normally with runny eggs and strong coffee done in the south-east Asian style, i.e. the coffee beans are roasted with margarine and the resulting coffee is served with condensed milk.

Later that evening we went to the Night Safari, an adjunct to SIngapore Zoo that doesn't open until nightfall. There is a narrated tram and several walking trails about the place, where you get to see animals that would perhaps not be as active in the daytime. This made for a diverting experience if not for high quality photographs.

A friendly tapir

A fishing cat, so called because they are cats that fish. You're welcome.

A mouse deer. It's deer roughly the size of a rabbit, which is pretty cute.

Flying squirrels waiting to swoop on unsuspecting acorns.

Slow loris. They hunt in packs and eat your toes.

Gardens by the Bay is a massive artificial nature park in the centre of the city, built entirely on reclaimed land . Aside from the abundant greenery the main features are the two massive conservatories and the strange metal 'Supertrees'.

The Supertrees are themselves frames supporting a variety of plant life, but they also collect water for use in irrigation and the fountains, generate electricity by way of hidden photovoltaic panels, and serve a heat exhaust/water coolant function for the conservatories. You can walk between several of them by way of an elevated platform, which makes for some pretty pictures.

The first of the conservatories we went in was the Cloud Forest, an artificial environment meant to simulate the cool, moist conditions of mountainous areas around the world. Singapore's climate is a touch on the muggy side, so I would've visited here if it were just a car park.

The Flower dome, which is the other conservatory, is the world's largest columnless greenhouse and simulate a drier, warmer climate representing various part of Africa, the Americas and the Mediterranean. It being close to the lunar new year when we were there, there were gardens set up with a Chinese influence.

Across the way from all this was the Marina Bay Sands hotel, which has become an iconic part of the Singapore skyline. We went up there for a drink as -as my mate Dave put it- you can either pay $20 to go to the Skydeck. or go up to the bar with the same view and buy a $20 beer. Which is no argument at all. So we went up for average cocktails and a nice view.

Then we crossed the Helix Bridge to get to the other side of the river to the Ritz Carlton: where we could get a better drink and look at the massive art collection they've decided to dot about the hotel for any old peasants to have a nose at.

Chan got this elaborate 'deconstructed' Gin Sling, which included some manner of jelly and some foam on a spoon. Alrighty then.

At this point we were knackered, so we took the subway to Little India for something to eat. Most of the Indian food we'd encountered up till this point of the trip has been somewhere on a spectrum of disappointing, so we were very pleased that we dropped into Lagnaa. You order your dish with a spiciness rating of 1-10, and if you manage anything 3 or greater, you get to add a peg with your name onto the relevant line on their wall. I opted for a 3, which prompted raised eyebrows from our hostess, as I must look American or something. She was an English teacher at some point so could pronounce 'Gareth' on the first go, which means she beats the Americans.

Enthusiasm ebbs at about 5. I think there might be a park bench somewhere in memory of drunken Geordies attempting 10.

The following day I received this picture by email. I've never been more proud.

Yes, I did look slightly flushed.

Then we retired back to the hotel for cocktails among heavy red drapes and confusing imagery. I afraid, that after killing the fire with at the restaurant with a brace of 600ml bottles of an 8% beer from India called "Bullet" (which was rather moreish, by the way) I was somewhat worse for wear by the end of the night. I do recall that this left-most cocktail in the picture below involved charcoal and Chartreuse, which, frankly, sounds like a bet gone wrong.

Changi airport is voted best in the world by the kind of people who opine about airports. I'll admit it is very fancy, with some manner of tropical arboretum running the length of our terminal, a full-scale X-wing with accompanying R2-D2, a cinema, and a butterfly garden. It also has a Costa coffee, so that's Heathrow's trump card undone.