Singapore is a tiny island city-state famous for being one of the safest and cleanest countries in the world. Despite its small size, it’s also remarkably diverse, with influences from its Chinese, Malay, Indian and other communities visible throughout the city.
I visited Singapore for only a few days while traveling onward to Sri Lanka. My first impression was of an endless network of shopping malls and high-rise buildings. There’s obviously much more to the country than that, but on this trip I spent nearly all of my time exploring the more developed parts of the city. If I return, I’d like to see more of Singapore’s beaches, gardens and remaining natural areas.
Unfortunately, I came home with only about half a dozen terrible photographs from this trip, and this was probably the best of them. It shows one of Singapore’s many clusters of high-rise buildings.
Singapore packs millions of people into a very small area, making it one of the most densely populated countries in the world. What makes the city especially interesting, though, is how much cultural variety exists within that space. Neighborhoods such as Chinatown, Little India and Kampong Glam each have their own character and history.
A company I previously worked for occasionally sent employees to Singapore for several weeks at a time. I never got the assignment, but if I had, I probably would have spent every weekend exploring a different part of the city.
The few days I spent in Singapore were mostly overcast, although I managed to avoid much rain. Above is one of the shopping areas where I went for dinner.
Below is a building whose actual name I never figured out. I just called it the Beehive Building.
High-rise living is everywhere in Singapore, where limited land has pushed much of the country’s development upward. Even this building, which seemed tall to me at the time, was relatively modest compared with some of the towers around the city.
Below is the view from my hotel. Back in my earlier travel days I usually stayed in hotels instead of hostels, which wasn’t exactly the cheapest strategy in an expensive place like Singapore. I found this room for about $50 a night, though, which seemed like a pretty good bargain.
The neighborhood certainly wasn’t luxurious, but I never felt unsafe walking around it. I unexpectedly got to test that impression when the hotel’s fire alarm went off around 3:00 in the morning and everyone had to evacuate. Someone at the front desk told us we could return in about thirty minutes.
I had already been asleep and there wasn’t much I felt like doing at three in the morning, so I wandered around for a while. To my surprise, there were still plenty of people out and activity on the streets even at that hour. It wasn’t how I had planned to experience Singapore’s nightlife, but at least the fire alarm gave me an excuse to see another side of the city.
