I had visited Singapore a decade back. That year Delhi was totally engulfed in a very thick & dirty smog that had hung for over 3 weeks in December. We hadn't seen the sun at all during that period, visibility was a few meters at the most. In fact life had become intolarably difficult & depressing. Imagine driving under this kind of condition daily in the morning and evening.
Just like a ray of sun came the offer to speak at a conference organised by the technical institute of Singapore.
Took an Air India flight in the late afternoon and reached Singapore at night. This was my first trip to an Asian destination and the first thing that struck me was the level of efficiency and order at the airport. Immigration went off like a breeze and I was in a cab heading to my hotel in no time.
I think the hotel I stayed was Central Park or some thing, a highrise structure very close to the huge departmental shop Mustafa. The air was warm & humid so had to take off the coat. At the hotel reception I was handed the smart card key for my room. Before this I haven't come accross card key which now is a common thing all over. The door of my room opened without a fuss and the first thing I did was to start filling the bath tub. Got rid of my clothes, poured a drink from the duty free stuff that I had picked up and immersed myself in the huge tub. What a great feeling after weeks of bleak dirty winter. My contact at the unviersity called me & wanted to know what I am going to do tonight. I told him that I will take a real long bath, this confused him quite a bit I guess.
Air India had fed me well and the soothing bath combined with the golden elixir made me sleep like a log.
Woke up next day feeling very fresh. Out side was sunny and bright. The breakfast buffet was laiden with western fare mostly, so drank some juice and stepped out to see what locals are doing. Just a few paces away was a big eatery with tables on the pavement and a very busy kitchen. Locals were slurping steaming soups and picking up morsels from the soup bowl with their chop sticks. A young guy came up to take my order but didn't understand English. To avoid further complicacy I simply pointed at the soup that most of the customers were eating and hoped for the best. Never had soup for breakfast but who cares? Do as the Romans do in Rome had always been my mantra. The soup came with some things which were familiar and some things which were not. It was a wonderful seafood soup but since I can't use the chop sticks I was at a loss how to pick up the tiny bits of things in the soup. So I went up to the open kitchen and tried my best using sign language to request a spoon. One of the cooks went in & gave me a plastic spoon. When I went back to my table I found that my bowl of soup had been removed !!!! Damn efficient these Singaporians are. Imagine using sign language to complain about disappearing soup bowls. But I manged to do so and got another bowl of soup. Lucky begining I thought. Before coming I was warned by others who had visited Singapore before about throwing cigeratte butts. But I found that this was no longer valid as people were smoking and there were butts all over the pavement. Good, another hassle gone.
It was begining to get hot and I was to go to the university campus which was quite far from the city. I took the metro and in the cool comfort of the metro reached my destination.
My host offered to take me out for dinner that night. Around 8 PM he came over to my hotel along with his charming wife. We had a few drinks and went to the river side where there were a million eateries. Their staffs were out on the pavement to drag potential customers in. My host and his wife and me in their wake dribbled through these guys and went to a place which was a bit far from the scene. We started off with a glass of stout and satay, followed by king prawns. It was a great meal.
Next day went to the Santosa island, wasn't impressed by the so called beach but the underwater thing was great, missed my family. In the night went to a huge food court and in one stall found very succulent looking racks of pork chops. I ordered a portion of that and the lady in charge cut off 4 chops using a big pair of scissors. Shuddered at the thought of more sinister things that could be done with these scissors. The chops were good but that would fade after my visit to the china town next evening. The roasted pork bellies that I ate from a street vendor were simply out of the world. The only problem I encountered was buying tickets in the public buses. Most were accepting cards and not cash. Once a local young man paid my fare using his card.
On my last day went to the Mustafa’s shop and was completely lost. Took me some time to get my bearings. Oh my God, had never seen anything like this and the prices were unimaginably low. Bought a dozen VCR tapes(Yes VCR tapes, many of you might have forgotten what is VHS I am sure), a pair of Coss headphones, a watch for my wife and clothes and various gadgets for my daughters.
That evening my host drove me to the airport and I returned with happy memories.