Slung In Singapore

Every country has its own laws dealing with foreigners and foreign travelers. In the U.S., for example, people enter the country for a two-week vacation, disappear and end up with a job, no taxes, their kids getting in-state tuition for college and everyone gets the right to vote. Thailand isn’t quite so accommodating. In fact a tough-to-get visa is needed for anyone who wants to stay more than 30 days. Rather than paying the price and going through the hassle, Pea-Z and I figured our way around the strict law was to exit the country and return, having the 30-day clock start over. And if it took us to someplace interesting, so be it.

Based on length of flight (an exit on a train gets you only 15 days), the cost of the flight, and available Hilton Hotels that allow payment with points, we chose Singapore. I would have preferred Hong Kong, but it’s nearly a four hour flight and much more expensive. Singapore was on my bucket list, so that’s where we decided to go.

Every place has its charm and its bothersome characteristics, but Singapore is so small of a City State that both ends of that spectrum are on full display. Singapore is an odd mixture of capitalism on steroids and a police state and everyone seems quite pleased with that incongruity. On the immigration form as you enter the country, there is a bold red statement that says, “Death to drug traffickers under Singapore law.” It made me nervous to jaywalk…

It’s a highly organized city with strict rules on traffic control, including high taxes on cars and a huge 10-year car ownership fee that bumps the price of a new Toyota Camry to about $175,000. It works, too, because there is really no traffic on the streets, with most people traveling on a very user-friendly metro system.

Being there you get the impression people are satisfied with the strict rules and tight restrictions on immigration. Singapore has the most millionaires per capita and the third highest per-capita income in the world. I suspect many of the people who live there like the idea of keeping it a tropical business and wealth paradise and are willing to give up a slice of their personal freedom to ensure it stays this way. In that respect, the government takes on a sort of out-of-control HOA that feels they have to tell homeowners the length of each blade of grass in their front yard. The yards end up looking nice, but it would be very irritating to watch a busybody neighbor in front of your house with a ruler every day.

Singapore is mostly a Buddhist country, but seems to be more secular than anything. Their real religion may be in earning money and building 80-story buildings. Singapore is surrounded by 240 million Muslims across one waterway in Indonesia and another 30 million Muslims in Malaysia across a river that I could still swim across, given a good set of goggles. But they all seem nonplussed by being an outpost of temperance, more than likely because they have everything they could ever wish for, which includes the third busiest port in the world. I’m guessing everything their neighbors want they need to get from the ports run by the nice Singaporeans so they’re left to accept a little miscegenation in the neighborhood if they can get cheap electronics.

The other noticeable thing is Singaporeans are bored – or so it would seem. There is no natural beauty to the island, save the orchids and natural fauna, so they have built up about five Disney-like resorts with everything from huge hotels and theme parks to a 6,000 room casino/hotel with three 55-story towers with what looks like a Viking cruise ship that landed on the roof of the three towers (see photo). By all appearance, the locals were just looking to make the place more interesting – in a way, like Las Vegas. So super structures for the amusement of both adults and children popped up like pimples on a junior high school student and permeate any space that isn’t already occupied by a skyscraper.

The culture in Singapore doesn’t have the centuries to provide the color that a place like Thailand does, but there are a few. Pea-Z and I sampled a few of Singapore’s contribution to Asian culture: chicken rice and the Singapore Sling monster alcohol drink. Both are good, but one of the two should be approached with great moderation. Chicken rice is a blend of rice simmered in chicken broth adjacent to very tender white or dark meat chicken and surrounded by very interesting spices. A Singapore Sling has a lot of gin and other libations and, if you have too many, you’re given the urge to take your pants off over your head. The good news is Singapore has such a high sin tax on alcohol one can only afford a single dose of the drink invented at the Raffles Hotel, where we were. At more than $20 a pop, drinking is done in moderation so the pants generally stay on.

We’re now in Thailand, having met our immigrational journey. It makes us legal here, we think. If not, we’ll have to cross another border or two. Any suggestions??