2024 – Queen Mary 2 Grand World– Part 3 –Sydney to Singapore..3.4 Saigon to Singapore

The latest scoop from the ship in today’s Daily Programme, delivered last night, March 20 as we left Saigon, was that Singapore required an arrival card, which had to be filled in online before arrival.  I called everyone and volunteered to do the online work for them.  Those who had not had me do their Indonesian or Sri Lankan visas would have to bring me their passport info.  I ended up doing about half of my pax.  My recovering wheelchair bound passenger had asked me to get her a quote on next year’s world and I took a minute to write to her travel agent because I knew she’d love it:

I worked on the Singapore arrival cards for everyone and found out from my Indian American family, that I would soon be doing a different set of SriLankan visas for them because they were planning to get off the ship in Colombo and spend some time in India.  What a great idea.  I am jealous.

I made up welcome packets for two cabins who would be boarding in Singapore.  I worked late, had an early dinner and got ready for our tour in Singapore in the morning.  It was masquerade night and I did get one of my people to take this picture of me, in my Saigon market find, with the ship’s flower arrangement, well, because:

On Friday,March 22, I woke up in Singapore.  I had texted our Singapore Tour Guide, around 8am, and she had replied.  My people assembled in the Champagne Lounge at 9:00 am.  We had been warned that it might take a long time to get through the terminal, with the new facial recognition systems in place, but, it was pretty easy and we met Eliza Hoh so early that we all had to wait while she called the bus in, and it came.  Singapore being Singapore, that didn’t take too long and we were soon off.  Eliza had an excellent command of the English language and the facts about her city.  She used COVID for continuing education, first taking courses, then training newer tour guides.  We hit the jackpot this time.  Singapore is a small place, with a large population and a big middle class.  It would be an enormous parking lot if there weren’t very restrictive rules on the acquisition of vehicles.  You have to be rich to own one.  First you need a certificate of entitlement, which are distributed by lottery and cost a bomb.  The smallest cheapest car requires a $20,600 certificate.  That’s $15,000 USD, and you haven’t bought the car yet.  It’s going to cost you double its price, because you pay 100% tax in it.  You can only keep it until your certificate runs out, which is ten years.  Then it gets sold into some poorer country and you begin the process again.  There’s a lot of car-sharing going on, as you can well imagine, and the public transportation system is second to none.

Singapore works.  It has gone from a third world country to first world, and very first world, in 40 years.  I started coming here 30 years ago, and I am not sure I totally believe that, but she’s not far off.  People own their apartments, with a 99 year lease, so it depreciates when the time is running out, before the government takes it back.  The average apartment is worth $2000 USD per square foot. So a 1000 sq.ft apartment sells for $2,000,000, just an average one, mind you.  If my apartment were in Singapore, in an equivalent location, it would be well over ten million, likely more, but I can’t wrap my mind around that. 

The powers that be (Lee Kwan Yew and his well chosen team) did not think the city should break up into neighborhoods along ethnic lines.  The breakdown is 75% Chinese, 15% Malay, 8% Indian (mostly Tamil) and 2% Eurasian, only a few of whom are purely European.  Therefore, apartment buildings are to be occupied in that proportion.  If you are Malay, you cannot sell to a Chinese, because it would upset the balance.  It can get complicated.  But…it works. 

All that interesting stuff brought us to the Orchid Garden.  I have been there a number of times, it’s gorgeous.

The only mistake Eliza made all day, was letting one of my guests do the walk with her walker, when she could have asked the front office for a wheelchair for her husband to push.  By the time it became obvious we were too far away from the entrance to fix it.  The tour operator should have permitted her 50lb collapsible power chair and all would have been well.  We had the same bus all day.  She could have brought both the chair and the walker and at least used the chair in the gardens.  They were fully paved.  I let it go because the garden had not been paved the last time I was here, 2018, but the guide should have known and the tour operator shown more flexibility.  They need to understand these new lightweight power chairs better.  I only leave this story in, because it might help someone else visiting Singapore with a handicap.

Back on the bus, Eliza showed us around the neighborhood where the “Crazy Rich Asians” live.  It’s very near the Orchard Garden.  She also took us through Little India and told us about Moustafa, where you can get anything at any hour of the day or night, and explained the sheltered walkways the neighborhood is famous for. We went through Chinatown, too, and got an education on the best Singaporean dishes, chili crab, laksa and chicken-rice.

Our last treat was a bum boat ride down the river and around the Marina Bay Basin.  That was good for some photo-ops.

My Indian family left the tour to get a good vegetarian lunch in Little India and the rest of us went back to the ship for a nap.  A 6:00pm we went back out in Singapore for dinner.  This was one of my pay-as-you-go add-ons.  We went to Loulou, a French restaurant in Chinatown.  Yes, I know that sounds odd, but when the Schéres recommend restaurants to me, I listen.  It was fabulous.  We have a ton of food pictures.  The best dish was one I had never had before, at least not together – it was tartare on moelle:

Which wouldn’t be everyone’s cuppa, but sure is mine.  There wasn’t anything wrong with the bouillabaise either:

We waddled out of there and called it a night.  I tried for another bum boat ride at night, which would have been a completely different and maybe greater experience, but there were no takers.  And I wasn’t sorry to see my bed, either.

We had another day in Singapore on March 23, 2024.  Amanda and I planned time in the Little India arcade followed by an Indian lunch.  Holland America’s Zuiderdam had docked this morning and I was hoping to link up with Arthur and Linda Starr for a little fun.  It was Purim, so that was always iffy, but, in came the email and it coincided nicely with our plans.  We would just be a little later into the terminal than the Starrs. 

As it turned out, our timing was magic.  The Starrs liked the front end of my day plan and Tom Mullen was coming out at the same time. How cool is this?

Tom had a tour to lead but the Starrs had been able to free themselves up.  Off we went to Little India.  Arthur found a haircut and I found Bobby Pebbles, who sells me nice kurtis, which are about all I wear in warm weather.  Thank you, Ulla Brown, for putting me on to them fifteen years ago.  I have been in them ever since.

Amanda did some damage at Lotus Mantra, too, which is air-conditioned now.  Smart move, Bobby, it was very hot.  Banana Leaf Apolo is much improved, too, although it’s more like a food court with a restaurant in the middle of it.  They now serve Chinese specialties as well as Indian, like all the ones Eliza mentioned yesterday.  We bought what we thought was her “chicken-rice” and it was good, but the butter chicken and onion bhajis were better.  It all washed down nicely with Tiger beer.

We parted company after lunch, Amanda back to the ship, the Starrs off for more touring and me, off to Moustafa.  I needed a drugstore and the one in the Little India Arcade had closed down.  Everyone pointed me to Moustafa.  I walked, using the sheltered promenades, but it was still pig hot.  Moustafa is an enormous building, a whole city block.  There are security guards searching your bags at every entrance.  The one I needed was the second one, so there I went and found everything.  If I had had more energy, I would have explored, but the heat had done me in.  I went looking for a taxi. 

The first one I saw was being loaded up by a whole family with a trunkload of purchases.  You do your week’s grocery shopping at Moustafa, too.  Before the taxi could take off, up came a woman who disputed that family’s right to be in it as she had been first in line, wherever the line was.  The family unloaded and the two of them got in with their bags.  It wasn’t looking good for me getting a cab.  I couldn’t even figure out where the line was and who was waiting and who wasn’t.  It was shady on the side street, but the taxis were few and far between and the shoppers were accumulating.  I decided to go up to the main street and hail my cab in full sunlight.  It would be painful, but it might work.  The first one I hailed cast aspersions on my literary prowess, asking me grumpily if I could read.  His dome light read “change”  How was I supposed to know it meant off duty for shift change?  Creep.   The next one I got was more sympathetic, and I think he was off-duty, too, and just took pity on me.  I was grateful for that.

Back on board, I worked a little more, among other things, asking Bevs for invitations to be sent to remind our people of our cocktail party tomorrow night.  I went to sailaway, which was lovely, and turned in early.  It had been a busy two days.