It’s a strange feeling to board a flight to the other wise of the world knowing you’re not holding a return ticket. Every moment, every little thing seems to take on a new sense of being part of a greater journey. So with that in mind watching a new dawn cut its way through the clouds over the Himalayas from my window seat high above Nepal felt especially metaphoric to me. What little plans I had made were now in motion.

It takes a long time to fly from the UK to Australia and each one of those hours sat in the confines of an airplane seat that is designed to be just that little bit too small makes the already tough journey that bit harder. So with that in mind I elected not to go from one side of the globe to the other in one long leap, but instead to stop in Singapore and visit my friend Navin for a few days.

Having just come from the frost bitten beginnings of a long British winter I wasn’t at all suitably dressed for the equatorial heat that awaited me. As I stepped out of the air-conditioned oasis of Changi airport the thick humid air crowded around me like begging children in a third world country. The dramatic change in temperature from the UK jolted me out of a state of travel fatigue and reminded me, as if I needed it, that I had already travelled a long way from home.

In many respects air travel isn’t really travel at all. There’s no graduation from one place to the other, one culture to the next, and there are no real experiences along the way. It’s not ‘travel’ in the true sense of the word, but merely transportation that takes us from one location to another in no more time than it takes to eat a microwaved meal and watch an inflight movie or two.

Despite that, as much as I would love to travel overland by various different means to a place like Singapore, the thought of hauling my two rather cumbersome suit cases any further than from the arrivals lounge to the airport parking lot was not something that excited me as I wiped the sweat from my brow.

Having arrived in mid afternoon, Navin decided we should go to a small place to grab a late lunch. It was a distinctly ‘local’ eatery, far from the glitzy restaurants in the central business district, but a perfect location for a jet-lagged Brit to unwind and acclimatize myself. In the end we stayed there chatting well into the evening, drinking seemingly never ending beers served in ice filled glasses as the world wandered by or waited in traffic. As introductions go, this was a good start.

Singapore

It’s said that there really isn’t that much to do in Singapore other than indulge oneself in copious amounts of retail therapy, and while that might sound wondrous to some it sounds like a special kind of cruel punishment to me. The city feels like it’s dressed to impress, like an exotic woman wearing the evidence of her expensive taste.

Catwalk streets are lined with stores that bare names commonly endorsed by Hollywood stars on the pages of glossy magazines, their windows displaying pictures of perfect models selling the dream. Many of the buildings are new and ostentatious in their design, standing like supermodels in a row carefully trying to look relaxed and underwhelmed by their peers while stealing sideways glances from time to time. In many respects it seemed to me that Singapore is a place where credit cards feast and bank balances go to die.

I could be wrong, but there also seemed to be a distinct lack of public parks and open spaces. I suspect they were bulldozed years ago to make way for more glittering shopping malls, conference centres, hotels and parking lots in this one of the world’s most prosperous nations. In fairness though, despite the lack of open parkland the city is awash with thriving greenery and lush plant life as if to redeem its residents from what might otherwise be an inescapable concrete hell.

Singapore

Singapore

Singapore

Away from the central business district and the designer label laden shopping malls, I was introduced to bustling streets of China town and little India. Although I didn’t explore either place as much as I might have liked to I was able to get a sense of them.

China town was full of places to eat, which only went to support the stereotype that Chinese people are always thinking about food, while little India was bursting with the kind of chaotic color that I had seen on the streets of Tamil Nadu.

Singapore

Singapore

Overall I got a sense that there was probably a great deal more to Singapore than meets the eye. I had been told that four days was long enough to ‘do it all’ but I suspect that’s not the case. Yes, I saw the Christmas lights on Orchard Road, and stood in the Marina Bay Sands Skypark with its spectacular views across the city, but this was just a taster.

It may be a retail junkies idea of paradise, but under the glitz and the mountains of steel and concrete I’m certain there’s more to discover. With a little effort I’m sure I could find the soul of Singapore, and frankly I like the idea of that challenge.

Singapore