Tuesday, December 17, 2019; Disembarkation and Singapore Tours
Princess has made disembarkation pretty simple and efficient, so long as you pay attention to their instructions. We had our large suitcases out in the hall last night at dinner time, leaving our carry on sized wheel-on’s in the room so we could brush our teeth and do our bedtime routines. But we forgot to get the small bags out by 10PM, the deadline for all bags going ashore via porters. But no worries, it was no trouble to wheel our carry on suitcases off the ship with us.
We had our last breakfast in the buffet and bid the ship’s crew members who we have come to know adieu. We made an attempt to check in for our flights in the Internet Cafe, but all our attempts failed and we ended up burning up the last of our complimentary internet minutes in the attempt. We then went to our designated disembarkation lounge and were lead off the ship right on schedule. There were no long lines to contend with. We pretty much just walked off the ship, presented our passports for immigrations stamps, collected our luggage, and then were met by the greeter for our disembarkation Singapore tour, who escorted us to our bus and loaded our bags.
There were about 30 passengers doing the disembarkation tour in a 50 passenger bus, so we could spread out, and it was a very modern and comfortable tour bus.
Our guide is a Chinese Singaporean. His great grandparents immigrated to Singapore and his family has remained ever since. We learned a little more about how Singapore ended up separating from Malaysia after only two years in the Federation from 1963-1965. Looking around, it is quite apparent that Singapore is 70% ethnically Chinese and not a Muslim majority like Malaysia is. It boiled down to racial and religious tensions that were sorted out peacefully and diplomatically. You’d think that maybe Israel and Palestine might think of following Malaysia and Singapore’s example someday.
Our first stop was a drive up Mt. Faber, which is Singapore’s second highest peak, which is all of 300m high, but it does afford a natural view of the harbor, and is the cable car station linking Singapore with the waterfront. It is one of Singapore’s very few National Parks, surrounded by lush tropical jungle. It is quite a contrast with the very modern and clean city which glimmers with glass, steel, water and concrete.
Our next stop was the Singapore Botanical Gardens, which are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We visited the National Orchid Garden, which has over 1000 species and 2000 hybrids of orchids- the world’s largest display of orchids. There are gardens dedicated to orchids named for various world leaders and celebrities, including hybrids named for Jackie Chan and Princess Diana. While the gardens are beautiful, we found ourselves caught in a monsoon rain, which made it a bit challenging to get pictures and see the gardens without getting soaking wet.
Our next stop was a nice restaurant in Chinatown for lunch, and a chance to dry out completely. Singapore is home to Hainan Chicken Rice, which is a poached chicken dish served with seasoned rice and dipping sauces. Unfortunately, that was not on our lunch menu, but they did have some unique baked dumplings with an almost black bun surrounding a crab filling that looked so striking that some Australians at our table refused to even try them, but they were actually quite good. We also had shrimp dumplings and vegetable dumplings along with steamed Bok Choy, sweet and sour fish, and fried rice. It was among the best excursion lunches we had on the trip. Another oddity was Marmite Chicken. It looked like it might be General Tsao’s chicken, but when you tasted it, it was savory, and not sweet at all. Oddly, the Australians didn’t seem to care for that either, but it was certainly an interesting uniquely Singaporean dish, reflecting a British influence.
We took a walk through Chinatown where they have a huge Buddhist temple featuring another Buddha tooth relic. We didnt’ go upstairs to see that, but it apparently is on the fourth floor and surrounded by 24kg of solid gold. Across the street was something called the Chinatown Complex, which was built to tidy up Chinatown, consolidating all the street hawkers into a modern mall with sanitary facilities, and a large wet market in the basement where fresh vegetables, fish and meats are brought in daily. The place is extremely popular with locals who flock to the food vendors on their lunch breaks because the food is inexpensive, fresh and familiar. Apparently the wet market in the basement also used to sell all manner of exotic animals including monkeys and turtles, but more recently, it is just domestic animals and all manner of animals from the sea. There are blocks and blocks of 3 story buildings that are now being preserved as historical structures where people lived in the upper stories while working in shops and businesses on the ground floors since the 1800’s. There are shops filled with colorful merchandise and restaurants all over the place. You could easily experience sensory overload here.
Our last stop was at Marina Bay, which is actually a huge fresh water reservoir. This used to be a tidal bay, but about 10 years ago, Singapore realized it had a critical strategic reliance upon Malaysia for drinking water that it needed to wean itself from, so they cleaned up the Singapore river and as part of it’s Marina Bay redevelopment plan, they built a dam to keep fresh water in, and salt water out. We were a little bit shocked to learn that because the water in the bay is actually brown in color, and not sparkling clear blue, like you’d hope a major city’s drinking water source would be. But Singapore still imports fresh water from Malaysia, desalinates sea water and purifies water from Marina Bay to satisfy it’s fresh water needs. It’s becoming increasingly clear that wars in the future will be fought not over oil but over fresh water.
We had seen Marina Bay from the vantage point high up on the Marina Bay Sands Hotel Observation deck- the ship shaped structure balanced atop the Marina Bay Sands Hotel’s triple towers. This time we got to stroll the Esplanade and get a better look at the glass and aluminum domes of the Esplanade Theaters, and Singpore’s Merlion mascot- a sculpture of a mythical creature with the head of a lion and body of a mermaid- spouting water into the bay.
Our tour concluded with dropping us off at the Swisshotel Stamford hotel. This is a very nice and modern hotel with an enormous room complete with a California King sized bed and a sweeping territorial view of Singapore. It was nice to get showered up and cleaned up after having been rained on and sweaty from humidity and heat. The rain has kept the temperatures to the lower 80’s, which the locals consider a cold spell. Our morning tour guide said if the temperatures dropped another 5 degrees, people would be wearing their heavy coats and gloves.
After we got settled in, we got a call from the Princess host, wanting to confirm our airport transfer details for tomorrow morning. We asked if she knew of any tours that we might take in the evening. We had heard of a night time zoo tour, but since it was likely to rain, she didn’t recommend it as much as she did a city tour with dinner in Chinatown, a Tri-Shaw tour around Chinatown and Little India and a boat tour of Singapore river and Marina Bay. We had considered just relaxing in the hotel, but then thought, what the heck- it’s not every day you’re in Singapore, so we had her sign us up. The tour operator accepted credit cards, so that was one less obstacle to doing a little more sight seeing before heading home.
We changed into more rain appropriate gear and headed off for our evening tour. The tour operator picked up two more couples from another hotel. One couple was from New Jersey, and had been on the Sapphire Princess with us, although prior to this tour, we had not run into them on the ship. The other couple was a couple of women from Vancouver, BC. They have been touring Malaysia and Singapore on their own over the last week with land based tours.
Our first stop was back to China town. We approached it from a different direction than we had in the morning tour, and saw both the Mosque and Hindu temples that are both nearly 200 years old. We also saw the historic district of Chinatown, whose buildings are protected monuments now. The upper two stories have shuttered windows of various architectural designs and colors, while the ground floors are filled with shops. We were lead through a maze of shops and up a long set of stairs to a restaurant called Chow Yum. It reminded us of restaurants in China because it had free standing air conditioner units in the corners of the dining rooms. We thought that was a good sign that the food would be something special, but what they had ordered for us was pretty bland fare consisting of fried rice, broccoli with garlic sauce, sweet and sour fish, and chicken with soy sauce and scallions. There was also a corn soup. It was good food, but it would have been nice to have something a little more exciting or regional like the Hainan Chicken Rice or Singapore style noodles.
After dinner, we walked around the streets of the historic Chinatown, which were lit up with strings of Christmas lights and paper lanterns shaped like people and holiday figures. One unusual find was a very modern shop entirely dedicated to the Tin-Tin cartoons. There were hard bound copies of the books, movie posters, figurines, dioramas, and models, as well as T-shirts and hats all decorated with characters and scenes from the Tin-Tin comic series.
Our guide then gathered us up and then walked us over to the Chinese Buddhist temple with the Buddha Tooth Relic, and the Chinatown Complex. We got back into the van and then headed to Bugis Street where we loaded up into modern day rickshaws called Tri-Shaws. On the surface they look like bicycles with 2 passenger sidecars strapped to their sides, but on closer inspection, we spotted hub mounted motors, so these are actually e-bikes in disguise. The drivers do supply significant energy to make their rounds, but the e-motors allow them to keep up with traffic and work all day. Singapore is rather flat for the most part, and the route we took from Bugis Street and through Little India was all on the level.
When the British colonized Singapore, they had no qualms with racially segregating populations, and they imported people from China, India, and even Arab countries to provide the labor they needed to make Singapore a shipping trade center. The city planners created separate neighborhoods for the Chinese, Arabs, Malay, and people from India in separate corners of the city. Our Tri-Shaws took us through the colorful and busy streets and shops of Little India, which were lit up brightly and filled with people in traditional costumes of India.
Our van rendezvoused with us and then took us to Clarke Quay, which is a very lively night spot in Singapore filled with night clubs, bars and restaurants. We boarded a tour boat, and learned that these were special all electric non-polluting boats specifically designed to be operated on the city’s fresh water reservoir. We cruised down the river past the landing site of Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore. Seeing the city’s sky scrapers from the water was quite scenic. We passed under several landmark bridges and past several historic buildings on the waterfront. We eventually entered into Marina Bay, motoring past the Merlion statue, and the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. The giant Ferris wheel on Marina Bay used to be the tallest Ferris wheel in the world, but that didn’t last long. It was lit up, but our guide said that it had suffered some sort of mechanical breakdown and was not operational. But it was still capable of doing it’s multicolored light show display.
The rain that had dogged us earlier in the day had turned into a light sprinkle when we went to dinner, and had stopped for the most part during our Tri-Shaw ride. During the cruise, it just sprinkled lightly on and off, so we managed to get by quite OK regarding rain during our tour.
After the boat ride, we were dropped off back at our hotels, winding up our evenings with repacking our suitcases to put our rain gear back and recheck the weights of each bag. Tomorrow begins the long trip home back across the Pacific.
