Traipsing Around: Travel and Psychogeography: Singapore

After the disappointment of Wembley and a truly terrible performance by the Town (although it was good to see family and friends and a good day out) and what seemed like an interminable 16 hour journey via Istanbul, I am finally in Singapore. I had forgotten the fantastic novelty of walking from an air conditioned building into a humid oven of 35C, full of strange and unfamiliar smells and sounds. My hotel is an eccentric old wooden building, formally the Chinese Opera house, smack bang in the middle of China Town, with the Chinese market area just a step away to the front and a street full of Chinese street food stalls behind. The food is amazing: chilli crab, squid and mussels fried in a rich brown sauce with plain boiled rice, spicy seafood sambal with bright red chillies, baby octopus in honey, fried anchovies. The hotel is also next to a shop which sells Durian and although banned from the hotel and the tube, the smell is actually very nice, to my mind anyway, with a sort of warm, pungent mango-ish quality, although I have yet to taste any. The downside is that the location is very noisy, with music stopping around 11.30pm-ish, then the lively sound of traders talking and laughing with each other as they pack up their stalls, then later, the sound of reversing refuse collection lorries and in what seems like no time at all, the sound of traders resetting their stalls, the grate of metal shutters being drawn up and then, at around 10am, Chinese music and what sounds like a 1950’s crooner, singing dramatic, sweeping ballads that all seem to have a happy ending, before that gives way to thumping, monotonous, Euro-pop. It really is great to be back traveling again!

I have established a bit of a routine, with 2 or 3 coffees in the morning (to the amusement of the staff, who joke about me not being able to sleep) at a street café about 500 metres away, where they serve what must be the strongest and cheapest coffee in Singapore. The café is on the way to the city’s central financial district and there is a good, interesting mix of clientele; local builders in overalls and hard hats, business men and women, shop keepers popping in to buy coffee in clear plastic bags with straws. The women in office wear are mainly tall and slender, in small, tight dresses, expensive, lingering perfume and high heels which give them a taut, toned, statuesque quality. The cars on their way to work are also amazing; Lots of Maserati’s, Ferraris (I counted 4 in one morning), Porsche 911’s, (GTS’s and Carrera’s), Boxster’s, even 3 Mazda RX-8’s, (although I hope they are less trouble than mine!) Coffee is followed by site seeing, a light lunch wherever I am, more walking or travelling on the super clean and efficient MRT (underground) in the afternoons and then an evening meal either in China Town, or Little India or near Orchard, where my friend Kathy is staying. Yesterday I sat in the lovely, elegant courtyard of Raffles Hotel, listening to laconic, lazy ambient-chill music and chatted to 4 French tourists and then a woman pilot with a large airline, who, after a few gin and tonics and white wine (and surely the most expensive beer in Singapore at 20 Singapore dollars a pint!), told me her life story and all about her uncanny ability to pick the wrong men! Well, no matter how old we get, we certainly don’t lose the ability to get things completely wrong, that’s for sure!

There is a strange, perhaps childlike element to some aspects of the society here. Simplistic, cartoon characters encourage gracious behaviour on the MRT, with characters such as Hush Up Hannah, Move Up Martin, Bag Down Benny, Stand Up Stacey and Give Way Glenda cheerily helping Singaporeans stay, well, cheery and polite! Bag Down Benny was chosen after a public competition, won by a 52 year old! I have seen grown women walking around clutching teddy bears, which of course have hats on to protect their furry heads from the sun. In the Flower Dome at Gardens by the Bay there is an English garden section, which has large striped bees, perhaps 3 feet long in the body, constructed from thousands of small flowers. I think it is meant for children, but they and their accompanying adults are equally amazed and enchanted, posing and taking photographs and laughing with each other without the slightest hint of embarrassment or awkward self-consciousness. On the one hand, it is great that adults have that childlike sense of wonder. On the other hand, to my mind anyway, it’s all just a little bit weird.

The days have disappeared. I have walked around the separate enclaves of Indian, Chinese, Almeric and Arabic inhabitants, each with their unique cultures, shops and restaurants and smells, travelled on the ferry with Kathy to Pulau Ubin and cycled around that small island, through monkey inhabited tropical forests and mangrove swamps. Interesting too, was meeting a black professional footballer, who gave a fascinating insight into the racial prejudices of a seemingly integrated society. Surrealist of all, perhaps, was a walk through the business and financial district around Raffles Place, near the Old Harbour, one lunchtime. Here a large number of banks and financial companies have impressive, sky-soaring concrete, marble, glass and steel offices and the male workers wear striped shirts, black trousers, mobile phones and walk with exaggerated purpose. I experience a guerrilla, subversive pleasure, walking in a purposefully casual fashion, in shorts and tie-dyed T shirt, sometimes stopping, listening and looking, then walking again, as though seeing a strange tribe for the first time. Recognising some of my previous self and perhaps future self, I witness and smell the energy and focus with a combination of competitive envy (I am probably brighter and more capable than many) and leisurely detachment, so very thankful for the incredible freedom I now have.

But enough of cities for a while. On Sunday I am so looking forward to returning to Koh Samui in Thailand and to beaches, colourful coral and fish and sunrises and sunsets, a sky full of stars and to simply being in beautiful, natural surroundings. Hmmm, cities or swimming? The world of high finance or snorkeling? Pace or space? Easy decision really.