Gardens by the Bay

 One more day at Singapore. I had made a provisional contact with Ania Murlewski who lives with her family in Singapore. She is the daughter of old family friends from my childhood. I had a fuller breakfast than usual to give me the strength to put up with the Singapore sun. I still had time to take some fruit and a buttered roll down to Albina in the cabin. Then I grabbed my passport, picked up a new watch Albina had bought on the boat but needed a new battery, and went back to the terminal and my nemesis, the Singapore Immigration Service. Actually that went slowly again but without unexpected incidents.

I emerged from the Harbourboard Terminal into the hot blazing Singapore sun. It is good to remember from time to time that Singapore is only a hundred miles from the Equator. Yesterday was not so hot as we arrived in the immediate aftermath of a storm that cleared the air. Now I felt I was in a permanent hothouse with no air conditioned coach to escape into. 

I caught a cab to the Gardens by the Bay. I entered a world as spectacularly green as I had experienced yesterday in the Orchid Garden. It was a dark luscious green covering trees, shrubs and ferns. One of the highlights of these gardens was the Supertree Grove, consisting of several massive towers, some of them 50 metres high, covered with dark green foliage which seemed to me like a recreation of the Hypostyle Hall in Karnak. I took a lift to the top of one of these towers, with a stunning view, not only with the remainder of the gardens, but with the whole harbour area of Singapore. One could see the some fifty ships still at anchor, waiting to go into port. 

On the other side was a perfect view of the Marina Sands Skypark, a massive structure, which I had glimpsed yesterday, but reminded of a ship stranded by a tsunami on top of the skyscrapers. It is now the most iconic sight in Singapore. However, I was confounded by its sheer massive disproportionate structure, but then the Warsaw Palace of Culture must have looked equally ugly originally to patriotic Poles. With familiarity the sheer mass of the building becomes more acceptable. However, the view ids always best from the top of the building, because you cannot see the building. Last night my General Knowledge Quiz colleagues went on a Singapore by Night tour which ended with a spectacular night time view of the whole of Singapore. They were delighted with the experience. 

With regard to the Supertree I had mounted, I had hoped that it was linked by a high walkway to other supertrees. Unfortunately access to this walkway appeared to be closed, which was a great disappointment. This walkway was one of the attractions that brought me to the Gardens. However, there were other attractions in this massive 250 acres of planted forest and meadow, especially the Flower Dome. 

The construction of this huge Dome is dominated by a large fan-like glass roof, about five times the size of the glass vaulted ticket hall in Kings Cross Station. The contents are even more breath-taking. The Dome is divided into a number of sections each with a different nationality of garden. The Japanese garden, for instance, is bordered by three typical Japanese gates in bright red, and is full of trees in an explosion of pink cherry blossom. The South American garden has plants from the Amazon and cactus from the Atacama desert. The Mediterranean gardens are covered with flowering bougainvillea and olive trees. All the gardens are linked by pathways at different levels and approached through images of animals relevant to the area. Adjoining the Flower Dome is the Cloud Mountain with the highest indoor waterfall in the world. These wonders are a product of Singapore's extraordinary versatility in innovative science, combined with a wholesale commitment to the environment and a flair for sheer breathtaking beauty. 

It was now 12 o'clock and I contacted Ania. She arrived at the southern gate of the Gardens with her husband Kevin and 7 year old son Francis in a red Peugeot. Kevin drove to work and let Ania do the driving. Ania was kind of to give me a whirlwing tour of Singapore by car covering all the sights of Singapore which I had missed on yesterday's tour. I sat alonside her in the car with my phone ready. 

Colouful temples in Chinatown. Click.  Thian Hock Keng Temple. Click. I even posed in the inner courtyard. Click. 

The Hindu temple in Chinatown with the richest display of six layers of colourful statues over its entrance. Click.  Next door Temple with Buddha's tooth. Click. Inside the temple with Hundred Dragons Hall full of worshippers burning votive candles in front of a golden statue of Buddha back by a golden screen. Click. Bridge over Singapore River. Click. Little Francis coming out with me to pose for pictures on the bridge. Click. Sculptures of young boys leaping into the river. Click. 60 storey new office blocks dominating historuc riverside 2 storey shops. Click. The grand classical Fullerton Hotel, formerly the British General Post Office. Click. 

The grand frontage of the iconic Raffles Hotel. Click. The War Memorial. Click. Arab Street. Click. Trendy back streets in Arab Quarter. Click. Grand Sultan Mosque with its white onion dome. Click.

We stopped in a little cafe run by a Romanian, where Francis had a pizza and I had a mango yoghurt. The Arab Quarter used to be a fairly run down area of Singapore with carpet stores and Turkish coffee shops. Somehow in the last 15 years it has become the trendiest part of Singapore. Tourists pour in with coachloads trying to navigate its narrow streets. There is something about small human scale streets with historic traditions, surrounded by massive colourless blocks which makes the former so popular with tourists. Out went most of the carpet stores and coffee shops and in came arty souvenir emporiums, jewellery shops, bijou clothes stores and more modern cafes. 

After that we got back to the car and Ania drove me to the dock to catch the ship. I went back through the immigation department quite swiftly and got back to the ship by 3.45pm. At 5pm the ship sailed. In 2 days' time we will be in Nha Trang. 

As I passed along the corridor leading to the gangway I past at least 100 passengers and even some crew desperately trying to make contact with their loved ones and their businesses using a shoreline link. Most of them have saved themselvrs the expense of linking to the ship's wifi at about £7 per day but that cuts their contact to the outside world quite considerably. I sort of fekt sorry for them, as you do when you see smokers puffing away at their clandestine cigarettes outside their office.

I need some sleep that evening but rejoined my colleagues at the General Knowledge Quiz. A humiliating 8 and a half points this time. Only one a half points more than yesterday when I had been on mu own, they joked. Tonight we have to move our clocks back, not forward, by one hour.