Fodor's Singapore, 11th Edition : Where to Stay, Eat, and Explore, Smart Travel Tips from A to Z, Plus Maps and Color Photos (Fodor's Singapore)
- Book Review,
by Laura Kidder (Editor)
Book Description
No matter what your budget or whether it's your first trip or fifteenth, Fodor's Gold Guides get you where you want to go. In this completely up-to-date guide our experts who live Singapore give you the inside track, showing you all the things to see and do -- from must-see sights to off-the-beaten-path adventures, from shopping to outdoor fun. Color planning sections help you decide where to go with region-by-region virtual tours and cross-referencing to the main text. Fodor's Gold Guide Singapore will show you hundreds of hotel and restaurant choices in all price ranges -- from budget-friendly B&Bs to luxury hotels, from casual eateries to the hottest new restaurants, complete with thorough reviews showing what makes each place special. The Smart Travel Tips A to Z section helps you take care of the nitty gritty with essential local contacts and great advice -- from how to take your mountain bike with you to what to do in an emergency. Plus, web links, maps, costs, and mix-and-match itineraries make planning a snap.
"The king of guidebooks." - Newsweek
From the Publisher
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Fodor's Southeast Asia
From the Inside Flap
No matter what your budget or whether it's your first trip or fifteenth, Fodor's Gold Guides get you where you want to go. In this completely up-to-date guide our experts who live Singapore give you the inside track, showing you all the things to see and do -- from must-see sights to off-the-beaten-path adventures, from shopping to outdoor fun. Color planning sections help you decide where to go with region-by-region virtual tours and cross-referencing to the main text. Fodor's Gold Guide Singapore will show you hundreds of hotel and restaurant choices in all price ranges -- from budget-friendly B&Bs to luxury hotels, from casual eateries to the hottest new restaurants, complete with thorough reviews showing what makes each place special. The Smart Travel Tips A to Z section helps you take care of the nitty gritty with essential local contacts and great advice -- from how to take your mountain bike with you to what to do in an emergency. Plus, web links, maps, costs, and mix-and-match itineraries make planning a snap.
"The king of guidebooks." - Newsweek
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Destination Singapore
With some four dozen ethnic groups crammed into its 240 square miles, Singapore is a city of many faces. All in the same day, you can tour Chinese shophouses, eat chili-hot South Indian curry, sit down at a sushi bar, and shop for Gucci handbags and skin-tight jeans in chrome-and-glass malls, while a Malay muezzin beckons Muslim faithful to prayer in the distance. With so many different voices (and languages), Singapore is, understandably, a city of contradictions: a multicultural, ever-changing metropolis that still nods to its colonial beginnings; a bastion of capitalism sustained by a spiritual people, an orderly city that champions the indulgence of simple pleasures.
Sacred Singapore
For a city driven hard by the profit motive, Singapore is strikingly spiritual. In this melting pot of Malays, Chinese, and Indians, burning joss sticks perfume the air, Chinese fortune tellers do brisk business, and the Muslim faithful obey the call of the muezzin. The world’s great faiths are much closer to the heart than the mall and the modem. Westerners, just a small portion of the population, are served by a few churches, colonial relics such as St. Andrew’s Cathedral. The grandest houses of worship honor Asian faiths. The gold-domed Sultan Mosque, with its great prayer hall, is a cornerstone of the Malay community; the exquisite green and gold façade of the smaller Abdul Gaffoor Mosque is renowned. Among Hindu temples are the splendid Sri Veeramakaliamman and the Sri Mariamman, its pagodalike entrance covered by hundreds of statues. In the Buddhist tradition, enlightenment can take lifetimes, but at the Temple of 1,000 Lights illumination comes easy: At Thian Hock Keng, one of the city’s largest and loveliest Chinese temples, worshipers search for harmony and good fortune in the Taoist main temple and pray to Kuan Yin, goddess of mercy, in the adjoining Buddhist temple The ecumenical Chingay Procession, which wraps up the Chinese New Year, brings people of all faiths together and reflects Singaporeans’ belief that worship has everything to do with joy.
Colonial Touches
Thanks to Singapore’s manic fondness for revising its skyline, not much remains of the city as it was in 1967 — let alone in 1867, the year the young trading settlement became a Crown Colony and a magnet for strivers worldwide. The flood of immigrants dramatically changed city’s face, and only a few buildings, remind today’s travelers of Singapore’s early days, and a sense of history can be hard to come by. Still, amid the skyscrapers, you can still see the pier that greeted the first westerners, the oldest surviving bridge, the oldest church, and some ostentatious Palladian-style structures, along with such imperial legacies as the lofty English Gothic-style St. Andrew’s Cathedral, the veranda’d Singapore Cricket Club nearby, the legendary Raffles Hotel, and the waterfront statue of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, founder of the town itself.
Dining
Any short list of the world’s great food cities has to include Singapore. Chinese regional cuisines from Cantonese to Teochoew show up on the city’s tables. Major Asian cuisines are high art: Indonesian, Malaysian Nonya, Thai, Japanese. The global outlook provides for Italian, French, even German fare; at fancier hotels, finger sandwiches come with dim sum at tea time. What’s more, the pleasures of the palate aren’t confined to posh restaurants. Street fare is also a tour de force, dispensed in open-air hawker centers by cooks who are armed with secret family recipes and devoted to cleanliness (the government sees to that). If you like spicy food, prepare for bliss. These chefs use lemongrass, ginger, turmeric, and other savory notes the way composers use counterpoint, perfecting their subject without drowning it out.
Shopping
If there were college degrees in Consumer Arts, you could do graduate work in Singapore. Shopping experiences run the gamut, from haggling with sidewalk vendors and searching for forgotten treasures in junk peddlers’ wares to prowling spiffy malls like the Centrepoint. Score a coup in rattan or batik on Arab Street or stroll Orchard Road, where Takashimaya and toney designer boutiques serve a feast for the eyes at no charge. Every designer you’ve ever heard of, and some you haven’t, has an outpost here, along with shops selling Mickey Mouse watches, Korean chests, Balinese-frog bookends. The mix can be dizzying — Chinese funeral paraphernalia and sophisticated software might keep company in the same arcade. Lively Chinatown bursts with unusual gifts: chopsticks, teapots, Chinese tea, and hand-carved figurines of deities to assist your every need. Lovely silks shine bright in Little India, as do any number of exquisite handicrafts from carved wood to jasmine garlands. Bugis Street has a number of “dollar” stores with cheap and quirky souvenirs. If you have a black belt in haggling (or are willing to earn one), Chinatown and Little India hold out your best shot at a bargain.
Nightlife
In 1903, a bartender at the Raffles Hotel invented the Singapore Sling, and a star was born. The Raffles is still the best place to sample this classic, but Singapore’s thriving nightlife now centers on clubs like the cutting-edge Phuture and the Boat Quay, where restaurants and bars are packed into the wee hours. Higher up the culture chain, Chinese opera troupes perform free at Clarke Quay or for a fee at Victoria Theatre. The vibrant music scene has something for every eardrum, from rock and salsa to jazz, blues, and karaoke.
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