Mar 18th, 2008
Squeaky Clean
They say it’s the cleanest city in the world. They say that everyone knows the rules; no gum for sale, no jay walking, no speeding, a lot of ‘No’. And guess what, they’re right! What’s more it makes a huge difference to your experience of visiting a city like this. I think the first thing that struck us was the vast amount of green space around town, that and the wonderful architecture, from the colonial Raffles Hotel to the modern interpretation of colonial design at Parliament House. The central business district towers above the rest of town but then everything flattens out.
Walking around the Muslim area was so peaceful and we were just moments away from the middle of town. The Mosque could do with chilling out a bit on the rules though – if the Muslim faith really wants to be seen as accommodating and gentle it should try to re-think its marketing strategy for visiting a Mosque here. In India we didn’t feel threatened by God Almighty at all, even when we visited one of the worlds largest Mosques. Here we were being reminded by signs of the deathly blow that will come to you if you do not believe in Allah and the lack of validity that Gods in other religion’s have.
Singapore was a short respite for us to sort out a few things before heading for Indonesia. We stayed at a lovely little hostel with hot water and aircon – bliss. In retrospect we didn’t give ourselves enough time here though, the people were friendly and helpful, there’s such a mix of cultures all the history and previous convictions fly out the window when walking down the street and just getting on with life.
We did of course head for Raffles to order a Singapore Sling, a rather poor tourist trap with the opportunity to by the key ring, t-shirt, mug, glass and all that other rubbish as you leave the famous Long Bar where the drink was once concocted. Helen was most disappointed to find that the Long Bar was not a swish bar at all, but one that could’ve been mistaken for any sticky-floored pub in London with discarded nut kernels across the entire floor. We discovered as we left the bar that the real Long Bar was somewhere else and had been moved many times since the drink was first served.
Probably the highlight of our stay in Singapore was meeting a wonderful man call Yarets. Yarets is now 60 years old, in 2000 he left his home town of Minsk, Eastern Europe on his motorbike to ride around the world. Aside from his age, origin and challenge of going around the world on a motorbike he is also both deaf and mute. A balding, middle sized man, with so much expression in his manner, he really was an inspiration to meet. Imagine trying to communicate to locals in Israel with just your hands in order to buy petrol or ordering some food in Argentina? Well he’s done it and he has plenty left to do as he leaves Singapore shortly for China, probably his greatest challenge yet.
We made a little film of Yarets, I’m not entirely sure what he’s saying so if anyone out there is familiar with sign language and can send me a transcript I’ll add the subtitles along the bottom. Yarets – if you read this maybe you can just send me something yourself to write underneath :)
Our quick stop over in Singapore was lovely; it’s a city we could have both quite happily have stayed in much, much longer and if we could come back in September for the Grand Prix ‘night’ race then we’d be there – I’ve no doubt the city will pull off an awesome event like that.
Rules can be good see!