Recently, I had an opportunity to visit
Singapore on official purposes. However, I utilized the opportunity to visit
the tourist attractions of Singapore. This post is a brief guide for all
tourists who plan to visit Singapore and hope you will find it interesting and
useful. It might be felt that the post might contain the topics which are
relatively inclined towards the observations made by an Indian. Please treat
them as my personal opinions.
To give a general introduction to Singapore, I have taken
some text from Wikipedia. Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is a
sovereign city-state and island country in Southeast Asia. It lies off the
southern tip of the Malay Peninsula and is 137 kilometers (85 mi) north of the
equator. Made up of the lozenge-shaped main island (widely known as Singapore
Island and over 60 much smaller islets, the country is highly urbanized, with
very little primary rain forest remaining. Its territory has consistently
expanded through land reclamation. Singapore is one of the world's leading
commercial hubs, with the fourth-biggest financial center and one of the five
busiest ports. Singapore is highly diverse: 75 percent of the population are
Chinese, followed by significant minorities of Malays, Indians, Eurasians, and
others. This diversity is reflected in the country's four official languages —
English, Malay, Chinese, and Tamil — as well as in official policies that
promote multiculturalism. Singapore has a tropical rain forest climate with no
distinctive seasons, uniform temperature and pressure, high humidity, and
abundant rainfall. Temperatures usually range from 22 to 35 °C. April and May
are the hottest months, with the wetter monsoon season from November to
January.
The important tourist spots (I feel) in Singapore are given
as below.
- Sentosa Island - Songs of the sea show, The Merlion, Casino, Adventure World Water park, SEA Aquarium, Universal Studios, Cable car to Sentosa etc.
- Singapore Flyer
- Marina Bay Area
- Clarke Quay/Boat Quay
- River Safari, Singapore Zoo, Night Safari, Bird Park
- Famous for malls and shopping
- Cruises to adjacent resort islands in Indonesia
- Areas of Personal Interest - Hindu Temples, Little India, China town
The Singapore Flyer is again the world’s largest observation
wheel, standing at 165m height, offers a wide range of panoramic views of the
island city and the Marina Bay. Speaking of the Marina bay, which
the general attraction seen in any global advertisements related to Singapore, is
an integrated resort fronting Marina Bay area of Singapore. The structure
basically contains 3 55-storey towers with a marine ship structure connecting
their roof tops. This iconic marvel is home of hotels, casino, shopping malls
and restaurants. The SkyPark on the top has swimming pools and gardens for the
customers of the hotel with one side of the ship allowed for public viewing. It
gives a view of the marina Bay and the Singapore Downtown along with flower
shaped Arts and Science museum. If you haven’t been to the Empire State in New
York, this will be a good start. Watch the video below for more fun.
Singapore is famous for Shopping malls. There are shopping
malls in almost every area in Singapore. For tourists, especially from India, plan
to visit Mustafa center and dine in Anand Bhavan beside Mustafa Center. Apart
from that, there are lot of shopping malls around the city. All major global
brand outlets are present in the shopping malls. Almost all major malls have
food courts with food stalls serving majority of Asian food including Indian, Chinese,
Korean, Indonesian, Japanese etc. So if you are an Indian Vegetarian, you get
it with no major search operation. Watch the video below that shows glimpses of
Vivo City mall and the Clarke Quay. Vivo City Mall is also the point from which
cruises start to take you to nearby islands like Batam etc. Make sure to turn
On HD in settings if it’s not ON.
On the northern side of Singapore, there are few other
attractions like the Singapore Zoo, the River Safari and the Night Safari. The river safari is basically a river
based theme park that highlights various habitats of the major rivers of the
worlds like Ganges, Nile, Amazon etc. Various types of fish and other living
beings of these major rivers are the exhibits in this park. The Pandas are the
major attraction in River Safari. The actual river safari is also available
with boat ride in an Amazon River based theme with fish and other living beings
moving around you/your boat. The night safari is another attraction where you
are taken to safari in a van in the night and to see the animals in the night.
The Singapore Zoo is the home of various animals of different parts of the
world including the polar bear and the white tiger.
Other places of interest include the Little India and the
China town which has large immigrants from India and China. You will get a feel
that you are in India or China when you visit these places. Little India and
China Town also has few Hindu Temples like the Srinivas Perumal temple, the
Mariamman Temple etc which are very old. There is a huge Indian population,
primarily from Tamil Nadu are making their living as human labor in Singapore. The fountain of wealth is another small attraction.
Overall, this city-state is mini-Asia from my view with
people of multi regions, multi cultures and multi religions coexist with peace.
This country is very secure and systematically managed in all aspects. The
public transport is the general mode of transport with buses and the subways,
popularly MRT (Mass Rapid Transit), being heavily utilized. Buy an ezLink card
(prepaid card) and tap it whenever you enter/exit a bus or subway to get
charged for that travel. The city is smart and highly developed. You should
visit this place when you have opportunity.
