North of the old mouth of the Singapore River is what might be termed Singapore’s Colonial District, peppered with venerable reminders of British rule set back from the vast lawn that is the Padang. The area still feels like the centrepiece of downtown, even though modern edifices in the surroundings constantly pull focus from it – notably the towers of Marina Bay Sands and the Financial District, away to the south, and the Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay complex to the northeast. Despite the district’s historical associations, there are not that many high-profile sights. Chief among these are the excellent National Museum and Peranakan Museum, both nestling beneath verdant Fort Canning Park – itself worth a look, as are the dignified St Andrew’s Cathedral and the diminutive Armenian Church of St Gregory the Illuminator. By far the district’s most famous building, however, is the grand old Raffles Hotel.
Of all the old districts of Singapore, the most charismatic has to be Little India. Here Indian pop music blares from shops, the air is perfumed with incense, spices and jasmine garlands, Hindu women promenade in bright saris, a wealth of restaurants serve up superior curries – and there are a couple of busy temples to visit, too. Though the remaining shophouses are fast being touched up from the same pastel paintbox as that which restored Chinatown to its present cuteness, the results seem to work better in an Indian context.
The original occupants of this convenient downtown niche were Europeans and Eurasians who established country houses here, and for whom a racecourse was built in the 1840s on the site of today’s Farrer Park. Many of the roads in Little India started out as private tracks leading to these houses, and their names – Dunlop, Cuff, Desker, Norris – recall these early colonial settlers. Only when Indian-run brick kilns began to operate here did a markedly Indian community start to evolve. Indians have featured prominently in the development of Singapore, though not always out of choice: from 1825 onwards, convicts were transported from the subcontinent and by the 1840s there were more than a thousand Indian prisoners labouring on buildings such as St Andrew’s Cathedral and the Istana. Today, migrant Tamil and Bengali men labour to build the island’s MRT stations, shopping malls and villas, and on weekends they descend on Little India in their thousands, making the place look like downtown Chennai or Calcutta after a major cricket match.
The district’s backbone is Serangoon Road, dating from 1822 and hence one of the island’s oldest roadways. Its southwestern end is a kaleidoscopic of Indian life, packed with restaurants and shops selling everything from nose studs and ankle bracelets to incense sticks and kumkum powder (used to make the red dot Hindus wear on their foreheads). Here you might even spot a parrot-wielding fortune-teller – you tell the man your name, he passes your name onto his feathered partner, and the bird then picks out a card with your fortune on it. To the southeast, stretching as far as Jalan Besar, is a tight knot of roads that’s good for exploration. Parallel to Serangoon Road is Race Course Road, at whose far end are a couple of noteworthy temples.
While Little India is memorable for its fragrances, it’s the vibrant colours of the shops of the Arab Quarter that stick in the memory. Textile stores and outlets selling Persian carpets are the most prominent, but you’ll also see leather, perfumes, jewellery and baskets for sale. It’s easy to spend a couple of hours weaving in and out of the stores, but don’t expect a quiet window-shopping session – some traders are old hands at drawing you into conversation and before you know it, you’ll be loaded up with sarongs, baskets and leather bags.
After signing his dubious treaty with the newly installed “Sultan” Hussein Mohammed Shah, Raffles allotted the area to the sultan and designated the land around it as a Muslim settlement. Soon the zone was attracting Malays, Sumatrans and Javanese, as well as traders from what is now eastern Yemen, and the area is now commonly referred to as Arab Street. Today, Singapore’s Arab community, descended from those Yemeni traders, is thought to number around fifteen thousand, though, having intermarried with the rest of Singapore society and being resident in no particular area, they are not distinctive by appearance or locale.
Like Little India, the area remains one of the most atmospheric pockets of old Singapore, despite the fact that its Islamic character has been diluted over the years as gentrification has started to take hold. Now it’s the schizophrenia of the place that appeals: rubbing shoulders with the Sultan Mosque, traditional fabric stores and old-style curry houses are brash Middle Eastern restaurants and a peppering of alternative boutiques and shops selling crafts and curios.
The area was first earmarked for Chinese settlement by Raffles, who decided in 1819 that Singapore’s communities should be segregated. As immigrants poured in, the land southwest of the river took shape as a place where new arrivals from China, mostly from Fujian (Hokkien) and Guangdong (Canton) provinces and to a lesser extent Hainan Island, would have found temples, shops with familiar products and, most importantly, kongsis – clan associations that helped them find lodgings and work as small traders and coolies.
This was one of the most colourful districts of old Singapore, but after independence the government chose to grapple with its tumbledown slums by embarking upon a redevelopment campaign that saw whole streets razed. Someone with an unimpeachable insight into those times, one Lee Kuan Yew, is quoted thus in the area’s Singapore City Gallery: “In our rush to rebuild Singapore, we knocked down many old and quaint buildings. Then we realized that we were destroying a valuable part of our cultural heritage, that we were demolishing what tourists found attractive.” Not until the 1980s did the remaining shophouses and other period buildings begin to be conserved, though restoration has often rendered them improbably perfect. Even so, as in Little India, the character of the area has had a bit of a shot in the arm courtesy of recent immigrants. As regards sights, the Thian Hock Keng, Buddha Tooth Relic and Sri Mariamman temples are especially worthwhile, as is the Chinatown Heritage Centre museum, and there’s plenty of shophouse architecture to justify a leisurely wander.
The area south of the mouth of the Singapore River was swamp until land reclamation in the mid-1820s rendered it fit for building. Within just a few years, Commercial Square here had become the colony’s busiest business address, boasting the banks, ships’ chandlers and warehouses of a burgeoning trading port. The square was later Singapore’s main shopping area until superseded by Orchard Road in the late 1960s; today the square, now called Raffles Place, forms the nucleus of Singapore’s Financial District (also referred to as the CBD, or Central Business District). Until recently, if the area figured in the popular imagination at all, it would have been because of the rogue trader Nick Leeson, whose antics here brought about the Barings Bank collapse of 1995, though his transgressions seem like small beer when set against the global financial improprieties of recent years. East of here, the southern jaw of Marina Bay, Marina South, is home to yet more banks and features risk-taking in a different vein as the site of the striking Marina Bay Sands hotel and casino.
Although the parade of designer names here is dazzling, it’s noteworthy that the area has not been totally untouched by the malaise afflicting city-centre shopping precincts the world over, losing trade to malls elsewhere in the downtown area and all over the island. Perhaps with this in mind, Singapore’s planners have put Orchard Road through a costly makeover in recent years, revamping walkways and adding three new malls. The most striking, Ion Orchard, right above Orchard MRT, has a bulgy glass frontage vaguely reminiscent of Theatres on the Bay, and is topped by a tower of luxury apartments. Just about the only building of significant age left on Orchard Road itself can be glimpsed west of Scotts Road, where the Thai embassy has its origins in the purchase of a mansion here by the Siamese king in the late nineteenth century. Today the embassy cuts a distinguished but lonely figure, dwarfed by the modern architecture around it.
Singapore has long made green space an integral part of the island’s landscape, but none of its parks comes close to matching the refinement of the Singapore Botanic Gardens. Founded in 1859, the gardens were where the Brazilian seeds that gave rise to the great rubber plantations of Malaya were first nurtured in 1877. Henry Ridley, named the gardens’ director the following year, recognized the financial potential of rubber and spent the next twenty years persuading Malayan plantation-owners to convert to this new crop, an obsession that earned him the nickname “Mad” Ridley. In later years the gardens became a centre for the breeding of new orchid hybrids.
Recent additions have extended the park all the way north to Bukit Timah Road, where the Botanic Gardens MRT station (a long journey from downtown on the Circle Line) offers a route to the least interesting part of the gardens; the itinerary that follows assumes the classic approach up Tanglin and Napier roads to the Tanglin gate at the start of Cluny Road. Note that if you’re feeling peckish while visiting, there are plenty of restaurants and cafés in the gardens itself or nearby at Tanglin village.
Once through the Tanglin gate, you can take a sharp right up the slope to the Botany Centre just ahead, a large building containing an information desk with free garden maps. Alternatively, continue straight down the path from the gate, lined with frangipanis, casuarinas and the odd majestic banyan tree, for five minutes to reach the tranquil main lake, nearly as old as the gardens themselves. At the lake’s far end, paths run through a small tract of surviving rainforest to the ginger garden, packed with flowering gingers as exotic and gaudy as anything you could hope to see in the tropics.
North of the downtown area, it’s still possible to glimpse Singapore’s wilder side. True, this sector is as packed with satellite new towns as elsewhere and suburbs shadow the major thoroughfares, but the island’s core remains dominated by thirty square kilometres of rainforest and reservoirs, forming a central nature reserve. Jungle hikes are perfectly feasible and not too taxing, and there are many other points of interest, too, such as Memories at Old Ford Factory, a museum housed in the building where the British surrendered to the Japanese, and Bukit Brown, one of Singapore’s last remaining historic cemeteries. Up in the far north of the island is the area’s main lure, Singapore’s highly regarded zoo (and its Night Safari spin-off), as well as the Sungei Buloh wetland reserve.
In the 1970s, eastern Singapore still had a rural feel, its ribbons of middle-class suburbs interspersed with Malay kampongs (villages). Inevitably, the area hasn’t escaped the mushrooming of high-rise new towns, and much of the southeast coast has been radically altered by land reclamation to create the East Coast Park, a long strip of leisure and watersports facilities. For visitors, the points of interest mainly lie along or close to where the coast once was. Closest to downtown is the suburb of Geylang, which has retained some of its old Malay identity; neighbouring Katong likewise has traces of its historical Peranakan character. At the eastern end of the island, Changi is where the Japanese interned Allied troops and civilians during World War II, commemorated at the thought-provoking Changi Museum. The rustic Singapore of old clings on at Pulau Ubin, an island visitable by boat from Changi.
- Western Singapore
Hilly and green, the western part of the island is home to the country’s premier university, the National University of Singapore at Kent Ridge. It lies at the start of a nine-kilometre series of ridges and peaks now collectively labelled the Southern Ridges, stretching southeast to Mount Faber near Tanjong Pagar downtown. Several minor attractions nestle along the route, but a major part of the ridges’ appeal is the chance to do a couple of hours’ walk from one lush hill to another using a network of interconnecting bridges. Further west is the industrial new town of Jurong, where, true to form, Singapore’s planners have woven several sights and leisure facilities into the fabric of the area, the pick of them being the Jurong Bird Park. In between these areas and downtown is the suburb of Holland Village, boasting a string of restaurants and bars popular with foreigners.
- Singapore Zoo
It’s not every day that you can have breakfast with orangutans. But at the Singapore Zoo you have a chance to do this and much more! Famous for its rare collection of animals, it’s popular with kids and adults both.
Receiving 1.6 million visitors annually, the Singapore Zoo boasts of its free-ranging habitat, where animals roam freely in their natural surroundings. Cages are almost non-existent as the animals are allowed to live almost like they would in their natural habitat.
For photographers, this is a delight as they can shoot to their heart’s content with no cage bars or wires obstructing their view.
- Jurong Bird Park
The aviaries are specially designed to closely resemble the natural habitat of the feathery friends. The 50-acre sanctuary offers educational and entertaining bird shows throughout the day.
Don’t miss out on the Birds n Buddies show that showcases a stunning display of the largest collection of birds. Watch pelicans in the first ever underwater viewing gallery as they prepare to catch their lunch, have colourful and friendly lories feed right out of your hands and be amazed by the singing parrot! Don’t leave the park without paying a visit to the world’s tallest artificial waterfall.
- Singapore History Museum
Housed in the elegant and impressive National Museum building, the Singapore History Museum explores the rich heritage of the people of Singapore. The museum is known for its natural history collection of Southeast Asia as well as its ethnology and archaeology collections.
Hop on to the world’s largest observation wheel and enjoy breathtaking 360° views, as you spot iconic and historical landmarks along the Singapore River. Before you board the flight, go on the Journey of Dreams and be awed by an engaging multimedia showcase that helps you understand the history of Singapore and the stories behind the Singapore Flyer. Nothing is more romantic than marvelling at the gorgeous night views of the city from atop the Observation Wheel. Indulge in a romantic four-course sky dining experience that comes with a personal butler.
- Singapore Flyer
- Singapore Night Safari
Hop on to a tram and embark on a journey through the world’s first wildlife night park that takes you from the Himalayan foothills to wild equatorial Africa. This is your chance to come up close with lions, tigers, tapirs and more! You are sure to be in for an experience of a lifetime as you take this 40-minute journey around the park and see over 1,000 animals in eight geographical areas.
- River Safari
River Safari is one of the most loved and visited attractions of Singapore. It is the first and the only river themed wildlife park in Asia and has many fun and adventurous activities to offer. The theme park is based on some of the world’s most prominent rivers like the Amazon, Ganges, Mississippi, Nile, Congo, Murray, Mekong and Yangtze. Every river has its own adventure and wildlife to offer. The River Safari theme park also has a Panda Forest which is the largest panda exhibit in southeast China. Children, once they are in the River Safari, do not ever want to leave! The River Safari has the world’s largest freshwater aquarium exhibit which has been aptly named as the Amazon Flooded Forests. The River Safari also provides complimentary Amazon River Quest boat rides.
- Singapore Discovery Centre
Not quite an art gallery or a museum, the Singapore Discovery Centre is a unique attraction that is part science centre too. The Singapore Discovery Centre shares the story of Singapore’s rise and the unique ‘Singapore Experience’ in an interactive and interesting way. The centre boasts of an XD Theatre the features a 4D simulation rides. The iWERKS Theatre boasts of a five storey high movie screen. Don’t forget to enjoy the thrill of firing paintballs at the Crossfire Paintball arena. Adding to the thrill is the virtual shooting gallery and the crisis simulation theatre. The Gateway exhibition at the Singapore Discovery Centre presents Singapore’s history in a music video. The On Location Reporter gives you the opportunity to experience the thrill of broadcast journalism.
- Singapore Philatelic Museum
Singapore Philatelic Museum is a museum that has preserved and recorded the history of postage and stamps of Singapore. The museum is a celebration of everything about Singapore’s stamps – from the earliest to the latest. At the museum, you will come across stamps that are more than 200 years old and are not even made of paper! You will learn about the background and important historical connections of many of the old stamps on display here. Explore the picture postcards of Singapore that have been in existence since 1893. The museum also has an exhibition that talks about the traditions, history and culture of various migrant races that came to Singapore in the early 19th century.
- Singapore Art Museum
The Singapore Art Museum stores the largest collection of of modern and contemporary Southeast Asian artworks. The Singapore Art Museum was established with the objective of bringing forth and presenting the contemporary art practices of Singapore and the Southeast Asian region. There are quite a few exhibitions here that would interest you. Not Against Interpretation – Untitled exhibition puts on display artwork from the National Heritage Board’s collection of drawings, paintings, prints and sculptures. Other exhibitions worth taking a look at include Singapore Biennale - If The World Changed and In/sight.
- Singapore Turf Club
For an adrenaline rush, for some thrilling action and for some pure horse-racing entertainment, visit the Singapore Turf Club. The Singapore Turf Club was established in 1842 as the Singapore Sporting Club with the aim of operating the Serangoon Road Race Course at Farrer Park. Today, the Singapore Turf Club is the only horse-racing club in Singapore. You can also place bets on the horse of your choice and who knows, you might just walk away with a windfall.
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