Singapore entices tourists

By GRAHAM REID*

Singapore, a sophisticated, modern city, is offering hotel and airline deals to entice tourists now the Sars scare is officially over.

The rains came. Roads were slashed by it and in the twilight cars lay motionless on black tarmac like eels, their metal skins shining under street lights. Nothing moved. It took an hour to make the 10-minute trip home to the heater. Days became bitter. Wet pedestrians huddled into themselves for warmth. Winter had come to Auckland.

So we left.

Damp fields fall away beneath us and below is a grey sea, then Sydney invisible under the clouds, later the arid heart of Australia in the heat of the afternoon, and dusk dropping on Jakarta. In the dark the plane dips and descends on an island just north of the equator which sparkles like costume jewellery in the night.

It's a humid evening, the scent of fragrant flowers and clove tobacco mingle in the night air. It is 30C. Winter is only 10 hours away.

The following morning Singapore's Chinatown yawns and stretches in the heat and we walk the quiet streets, savouring the unfamiliar humidity and tang of early-morning noodles. Life in this multicultural city, distilled into a tiny area, is starting slowly and so are we.

"Hey," says the tailor with a glistening grin standing outside a small and cramped shop. He's talking to one in our party wearing three-quarter-length pants. "I make you longer pants for shorter price."

Good line. We all laugh. In a shopping alley a smiling Indian gentleman offers his hand - and a deal you can't refuse. Unless you have no luggage space for a cheap Middle Eastern carpet which could cover the Coromandel. In another shop I feign interest in jewellery. I am offered a white gold ring with a small diamond setting for S$1395 ($1370). When I stop laughing, the slightly desperate woman says, "How much you want to pay then?"

I say if I was going to buy a ring I couldn't afford more than S$200.

"Okay. But cash, okay? I give it you for $200 because you my first customer today."

If this is bargaining in Singapore - I'm used to more give'n'take and walking away at least once - then I'm sold. Or at least hooked and reeled in. I have a beautiful ring and the vague discomfort something wasn't quite right.

Everywhere in Singapore now there are deals and sales. In part that's the ethos of this powerhouse economy, but mostly it's because of recent events. Singaporeans are desperate to show you something which doesn't exist. The country has been off the Sars list since May 31 - visitor numbers fell 70 per cent the previous month - and they are celebrating in the way they know best, through doing business.

In a city fuelled by tourist money and commercial activity the lack of both has been alarming. Now is the time to fill the tank again. Airlines working with hotels offer cheap travel packages and tourists are slowly returning.

The WHO clearance came in time for the annual July sales although most places jumped the gun just to get dollars through the door. And while a few acts cancelled, the Arts Festival went ahead. Audiences were screened for signs of Sars fever by heat-sensitive cameras - and no one objected.

It has become a matter of civic pride to be visibly Sars-free. Every day health authorities check thousands of workers and issue clearance stickers reading, "I'm Cool".

Staff at the stylish Raffles Plaza where we stay are checked daily, as are those servicing the hotel.

Singapore almost shrivelled in that period when it lived with the problem. People stayed at home, bars and restaurants withered, cinemas saw a decline in patrons.

The crisis has passed - thanks to a public education programme, screening of all visitors on the airport concourse, and quarantine processes - and life is returning.

The justifiably famous zoo is an oasis of quiet around a reservoir. Family groups are back in their dozens to walk through the new elephant park or stand unnaturally close to white rhino, leopards, zebras and the largest crocodiles I ever want to be near.

Sentosa Island - themed parks on an artificial island minutes from the CBD, which you can get to by gondola to take in the aerial view of the Legoland container port - is allowing private cars, to encourage the public back.

Singapore is moving again and we're here to see it. And entertain ourselves in the manner to which we are accustomed.

Isaac our guide is explaining why a beer costs so much, around $8-$10 a handle: "It is for the ambience." He means you're paying for the band, the atmosphere, waitress and so on. It makes sense, but also an expensive night out. However, we learn it needn't be so as we settle over a beer in the oddly named Lot, Stock and Barrel and later a Chinese karaoke bar-cum-pool hall.

There are a number of must-do's in upper-end Singapore; the most famous is having a Singapore Sling in the Long Bar of Raffles Hotel. Frankly, you can keep it.

The night we arrive the place is being pounded by a band singing Doobie Brothers and Donna Summer covers and before we've settled a waitress demands what we'd like. We politely say we'll settle for Singapore Slings - a pink blend of gin, cherry brandy and fruit juices - and she's back within a minute to dump them on the table.

I guess pre-mixed cocktails are to be expected when so many people request the speciality of the house - Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville in Florida is the same although the reception is much more friendly - but even at NZ$53 for three drinks we were made to feel we were inconveniencing someone. Our empty glasses disappeared just as rapidly, swept up by an imposing maitre d' who gave the impression customers were an imposition. Ambience? I've had better at a public bar in Palmerston North.

We left. We knew somewhere much better. Seventy storeys above the I.M. Pei-designed Raffles City Complex and commanding a panoramic view of Singapore up to Malaysia is one of the world's great bar and restaurant complexes: Equinox.

It opened in October so remains relatively undiscovered by tourists. It has ambience in sophisticated dollops. The spacious bar has floor-to-ceiling windows, elegant furniture, private facilities upstairs, table service and, best of all, between 3pm and 9pm drinks are half price.

There is also a private dining area behind the towering mother-of-pearl wall and extensive humidor, an amphitheatre-style restaurant which seats around 150, and the private restaurant Jaan which seats 80 under a Murano crystal ceiling. It combines contemporary French styles with Khmer flavours.

Equinox is more than a relaxing refuge from the humidity, it is emblematic of the emerging Singapore. A model of Asian refinement, it reminds you while Singapore is losing the idiosyncratic character of its Muslim, Chinese and Indian cantons - all being cleaned up and sanitised so they look like Parnell - it is moving in the direction of upmarket sophistication.

Contemporary sculpture adorns public places and the cool lobbies of shops and hotels, swanky bars and eateries in the Chijmes compound step neatly between the casual and classy, and the newly opened Esplanade Theatre complex on the edge of Marina Bay boast state-of-the-art performance spaces and fine dining.

One of the finest restaurants opened late last year and is the work - there is no better way of describing it - of Chinese designer and musician Zhang Jin Jie who likens her restaurants to melodious worlds. She's right. Her restaurant in the Esplanade - named, with amusing self-effacement, My Humble House - is an extraordinary dining place with high-back chairs, an elemental decor of wood and water, and a footbridge over an internal stream. The private dining room looks directly into the open kitchen behind a wall of glass; the stone and glass washroom is photogenic.

This is a restaurant of subtle and restful design, aesthetic nuance and, needless to say, exceptional food. We have given up trying to describe the entree of crab claw which arrived in a bed of open flame or the dessert which was its aesthetic counterpoint: half a young coconut filled with fresh fruits on a plate of dry ice which drifted in wisps across the table.

The menu alone, an elongated hardback book of zen simplicity, begs to be borrowed for showing off later. Expensive though it may be for dinners (not that expensive actually), lunch is well within the average tourist's grasp. Over the designer plate of deep-fried lychee with a single, wasabi-filled prawn as accompaniment we guessed lunch here would be only NZ$30 a head - and for that you get more than beautiful food, you get My Humble House.

This is the new face of Singapore: cool, contemporary, elegant and confident.

On Sentosa Island, the in-house playground for Singaporeans which has artificial beaches of white sand, theme parks and adventure walks, the newest attraction is Spa Botanica, a luxurious pamper parlour with massage facilities, a therapeutic mud pool and a restful waterfall pool set in herbal gardens.

As some tell it, Singapore is little more than shopping centres linked by shopping arcades, with a zoo and a Fantasy Island attached. At one level that is true. But the cliche doesn't account for the diversity of the shops - Chinese crafts, Malay eateries, Marks & Spencer, Indian tailors, Muslim perfume shops, and electronic plazas - nor their variable quality.

Certainly there is an imposed social cohesion which to an outsider's sensibility denies spontaneity, and the old Singapore is being sanitised into sterility.

To see the old world, the Chinatown Heritage Centre not only tells the story of the arrival of this community - often in slave trade vessels no less miserable than those of the Middle Passage to the New World - but also recreates a typically crowded and dark shophouse of early last century. In the absence of such places today, as Singapore's heritage is buried under new paint, this is a highlight of any visit. The smoky history of opium dens, gambling and prostitution sits oddly alongside the new and sometimes soulless modern city.

In Singapore, the past is another country. But when seen in all its poverty and pains - especially those during the Japanese occupation - you can see why Singaporeans embrace their pristine present.

We joke with Isaac about his clean, efficient and friendly country. We say he seems very proud.

"Of course. If not me, then who can be?" he laughs. He's right.

On our final morning we stretch our legs in the botanic garden where dozens of varieties of orchids are in bloom. Later we shop on Orchard Rd or visit friends.

We fly out as another warm night settles over the island. Beneath us are clouds. The plane dips and descends onto a green island we call home. Rain slashes across the taxi's windshield. It is another slate-grey morning in Auckland; the air feels white and frost-filled. It is 14C.

Singapore is only 10 hours away.

Getting there:

Singapore Airlines offers daily non-stop services from Auckland, and five times a week non-stop from Christchurch. Holiday packages including four nights' accomodation start from $999, plus taxes and other charges, for July departures.

When to go:

Singapore is hot and humid all year with temperatures around 30C and humidity around 75 per cent. November, December and January are wetter than other months.

Things to do:

Singapore Zoo: Don't ignore the famous zoo, which is open-plan and allows you to get closer to rare animals such as the white rhino. Or, better, try the Night Safari.

The Chinese Heritage Centre: On Pagoda St, this is fascinating, especially the three-storey reconstruction of the traditional shophouse which offers a glimpse of the cramped living conditions of last century. Guided tours are worth it. S$8 adulst, S$4.80 children.

Sentosa Island: The playground of Singapore. An artificial, offshore island, it has historical displays, an excellent museum, butterfly park, mini-golf, a water world, nature trails and sophisticated restaurants and spas. Free buses take you from one to the other.

Equinox: One of the new absolute must-dos. This friendly and stylish bar and restaurant complex is atop the Raffles City Complex; entry through Introbar on Level One of Raffles City from the Beach Rd entrance. Take a camera. Half-price drinks from 3pm to 9pm.

Walking tours: Most guide books provide helpful maps of walking tours around Chinatown, Little India and Arab St. Try to do these after 10am and before the heat comes down at around 3pm.

Getting around:

The underground MRT is fast, efficient, clean, cheap and takes you just about everywhere you might want to go. Buses are reliable - almost everyone speaks English, so you will have no problem making yourself understood - and taxis are also cheap


* Graham Reid flew to Singapore courtesy of Singapore Airlines and with assistance from the Singapore Tourism Board.

http://nz.visitsingapore.com/splash.asp