Singapore: It's a "fine" city...

Hello Everyone,

 

We will be leaving Singapore early tomorrow morning and heading to Siem Reap, Cambodia.  Because Singapore was an English colony and most everyone here understands English, this was a nice initial stop in Asia for us.  This city may have been an English colony, but it is everything Asian now.  There are few Europeans to be seen.  Singapore is a melting pot of Asian cultures and religions.  The city is mainly ethnic Chinese, but there are large numbers of Indians, and Malaysians also.  You can also find almost all of the world's major religions here:  Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity amongst others.  We stayed in an area of town known as Little India- and as expected, it is full of Indians.  "India Lite" as one of our friends has described it.

 

The city is impressive in some areas and oppressive in others.  The architecture, infrastructure, cleanliness, and per capita wealth & living standards are impressive.  The restrictions on social behavior and political dissent are oppressive.  As we saw in some of the tourist craft stalls, they sell T-shirts declaring, "Singapore: a Fine City" with a list of all of the steep fines for "improper" social behavior or independent thought.  It is too much for me.  It is also a very expensive city on par with the west coast and northeastern seaboard cities in the States which is very costly compared to the rest of SE Asia.

 

We took a city tour.  We made our own walking tours.  We enjoyed the riverfront.  We visited the ethnic neighborhoods and various houses of worship.  We went out to a few of the gay bars and clubs.  It was enjoyable and definitely the most modern city we have been too since Toronto.

 

But it is time to move on and see the other side of southeast Asia.

 

I am looking forward to it.

 

Ciao for now,

 

Sean