You know you’ve landed somewhere pretty special when even the airport has a waterfall, monorail and butterfly garden.  It’s also amazingly well run, efficient and pleasant to travel in and out of.  It’s a no announcement airport so it’s surprisingly calm without constant intelligible “bing bong” announcements so it’s important to check your flight details.

If you haven’t visited Asia before Singapore is an excellent entry way.  As a former British colony English is widely spoken, signs and announcements are also in English (they also drive on the left hand side of the road).

The city itself is a beautiful mix of historic buildings and iconic skyscrapers.  It’s a lot greener and less frenetic than cities like Hong Kong and Bangkok.  It is also an important financial and business and hub, and it’s clear there is also a lot of money floating about the place. But the city also has a fascinating history and has been a crossroads for multiple cultures. 

The local indigenous population refer to themselves as Hainese.   Throughout the city you’ll find other communities like Arab Street and Hagi Lane where you can find the beautiful Sultan Mosque, where Muslim merchants originally settled and you can find multiple pretty little Turkish, Indonesian and Malaysian restaurants. 

Walk about 10 minutes and you’re in Little India, there is also a sizable China Town, with endless places to eat, a night market and beautiful ornate Hindu temple.

Hawker markets also play an important part in the food culture of the city, producing over 1 million meals daily, as it’s common for locals to eat out daily.  They are essentially food courts where you can buy everything from the local speciality of chicken and rice (poached chicken and rice served with a simple but tasty chicken broth and costs about £3.20), through to other dishes from all over Asia. 

The Lau Pa Sat hawker market was probably my favourite but is popular with tourists, it runs alongside what’s known as Satay Street.  As you’ve probably guessed you can find multiple vendors cooking and selling satay skewers with chicken and  prawn being the most popular, but frankly I thought it was overpriced, with food inside the hawker market being better value.  The Maxwell hawker market in Chinatown was probably more authentic but maybe less fancy.

Singapore is incredibly easy to get around, the airport is only 30 mins from the city centre, and it has an excellent underground railway system (MRT) with fares costing around £1, and you can just tap your debit card going through the turnstile, so no queuing for a ticket.  There is an option for a tourist pass depending on what you’re planning but I found it cheaper to just pay as I went.

The one thing I would recommend to anyone visiting Singapore is to visit the Gardens on the Bay.  It’s a huge parkland that is free to visit and contains the iconic tree structures that resemble something from an alien planet or Jurassic park.  There is an amazing light show each evening on the hour (this was honestly my favourite thing I did), and if you’re visiting during the day you can visit the Cloud Forest, an indoor botanical garden specialising in exotic plants and orchids, as well as the Flower Dome.  You’ll need to pay in to see these as well as the viewing deck for the large tree (not to be recommended if you have a fear or heights). 

Ask anyone who has ever been to Singapore and they’ll tell you how clean it is.  Chewing gum is banned and smoking outside is banned except for designated areas with a green bin.  On more practical considerations, if you need to use your phone  lots of companies offer online Esim cards that work in several different Asian countries if you’re travelling, but ordinary sim cards can be purchased everywhere if your phone isn’t compatible with Esim cards.  While the public transport system is excellent, I used the Grab transport app a lot when travelling  in Asia (they haven’t sponsored me, but if they’d like to I’m definitely open to it).    A bit like Uber you can book pick ups, there is a translate function and you can also take a photo of where you are, which was really useful if you’re in a busy street and makes it easier for the driver to find you, as well as knowing what the fare is up front and avoiding the need to haggle to agree a fare.

Singapore is a beautiful city, but very hot and humid.  The best piece of advice I can give apart from staying well hydrated is to get up early and to see things, it’s less crowded and cooler.  You’ll also avoid the torrential thunderstorms that happened every afternoon when I visited and were pretty cool.