This is the little city-state and the great pearl of Asia at once. Singapore is a magnificent example of excellent planning and the resulting affluence, and above all, the marvellous blend of Asia’s main cultures all coexisting colourfully. Singapore is more like a ‘modern’ Austria in Asia—clean streets, order, but with some bustling that seems to bother no one.
This part of the city-state displays remnants of British rule even though contemporary buildings somehow shadow the fact –the towers of Marina Bay Sands and the Financial District, theatres on the Bay complex, the National Museum and Peranakan Museum, and Fort Canning Park are also places worth a look. You can also visit the stately St Andrew’s Cathedral. However, the district’s most famous building is the grand old Raffles Hotel.
Indeed, the name is well-deserved, but putting aside the probable nuance of terrible jams and cacophony usually associated with mainland Indian cities, this part of the motherland is actually the quintessential, most colorful part of Singapore: bazaars, restaurants, temples, exotic scents, charming street vendors all combine with the country’s obsession with order to provide the traveller with a marvellous, up-scale taste of real India…thousands of miles away!
You can look no further if you wish to see also a piece of Arabia and Persia—the best pieces, that is to say. Like Little India, this quarter keeps a very picturesque profile of the cultures for which it was named…and also a high profile of excellent textile shops, restaurants serving delicious Middle Eastern cuisine, and exotic markets where getting lost is more of a blessing!
