Travel tips for Trump and Kim in Singapore

You may have heard a little something something about Mr Trump and Mr Kim striving for world peace in Singapore. They'll hole up in the Capella, Sentosa island, to thrash it out - this hotel is a great choice as it has a lovely spa and a long view over the Straits of Singapore. Gorgeous at night! By coincidence, my next novel is set in Singapore. The main character in The Trailing Spouse lives right there on Sentosa, one of the country's most exclusive residential areas: 

"The taxi jerked to a halt outside a waterfront condo, an apartment block fronted with black glass and marble. Someone had tried to soften the effect with fountains and orchids, but there was only so much yin an herbaceous border could bring to the yang of a forty-story phallus."

Goodness, it strikes me now that my fictional condo would be right up our world leaders' street. Or "jalan", as they say in Singapore.

Drawing on my local knowledge and snapshot collection, I thought I would write a few tips to help Mr Trump and Mr Kim get the most out of their trip - and to stay safe on the holiday paradise of Sentosa. Have a great summit!

Entrance to Sentosa

Sentosa is a tiny island off the south coast of Singapore, which you reach by driving over a short causeway. It costs $7 to enter the island - don’t forget your change, Mr Trump and Mr Kim! Or get your people to organise an Islander card so you can come and go.

Merlion

It’s a Merlion. A Merlion. Half lion, half fish. The symbol of Singapore. This is the huge one on Sentosa, but there’s another one downtown that spits a voluminous stream of water, giving rise to the local saying “doing a Merlion” to mean “vomit copiously”.

Tropical paradise

Singapore offers the four Ss in abundance - sun, sea, sand and shipping. Much has been made in the media of Sentosa’s beautiful beaches but before Mr Trump and Mr Kim throw off their kaftans and leap in, I’d just say this: there’s a lot of ships; moored right there; if you were a sailor, wouldn’t you take a tinkle over the side now and then? Just saying…

Durian

Watch out for falling durian! They’re massive and heavy and spiky. People say they either taste like heaven or hell. My advice from experience: double check that what you’ve picked off the breakfast buffet really is a piece of melon, cos durian lingers.

Beasties

This one is just for Mr Trump. We know you love Florida. LUUUURVE Florida. And you’ll probably want to play golf on Sentosa. But don’t worry - if you spot this beastie it’s not a ‘gator. Just a friendly monitor lizard. Don’t let him upset your swing.

Kopi

Right, this is important. Singapore has its own special coffee language. Here’s a handy chart so you can work out if you need to order a Kopi O or a Kopi C. Or maybe you go for a Grass Jelly. Shiok!

And relax

It must be stressful, organising world peace. If things are getting too much, and the other team have taken over the Capella Spa, I’d advise you to head to the Botanic Gardens (you’ll have to cross the causeway again, so don’t forget your $7!) and take a reflexology walk. It hurts more than a caesarian section, but totally worth it when you stop. Enjoy!

The Trailing Spouse

Once the summit is done and world peace is achieved, you can sit back with a good book and reminisce about the sights and sounds of Singapore. Did I mention that my book is set on Sentosa?

Toa Payoh

My home station on the MRT is Toa Payoh. Toe-PIE-oh... only you have to say the ‘toe’ part as fast as is humanly possible, making it more like t’PIE-o. Toa Payoh was the first ever stop on the MRT map - Singapore’s subterranean railway opened in 1987 with a 6km stretch of track from here to Yio Chu Kang.

yellow - YELLOW

MRT = Mass Rapid Transport… everything is rapid in Singapore - like the growth of the MRT. There’s also an emphasis on mass, in the sense of ‘for the masses’, which brings me back to Toa Payoh.

Around 85% of Singaporeans live in public housing in the form of tower blocks in model towns, the like of which failed spectacularly in England but (in a classic case of student surpassing master) succeeded in Singapore.

Toa Payoh Town was the first to be entirely purpose-built by the Housing Development Board. And its convenient little high street - actually a few streets lined with all manner of chain- and mom-and-pop shops where I've bought everything from shampoo to a diamond - is thriving. Tell that to Telford.

Blk 170 Lor 1

The HDB arrived in Toa Payoh - the name is Hokkien for ‘big swamp’ - in the 60s, when the area was said to be as rough as Chicago, and most of the residents still lived kampong-style in attap houses. Wooden huts, thatched roofs, stilts to stay out of that ‘big swamp’.

Out on my balcony - 50 years on and 31-storeys up - there are no echoes of the kampong. Traffic is snarling on the PIE, brakes like hundreds of red eyes. I see street lights, flood lights, head lights, neon lights, traffic lights, dreamy submerged swimming pool lights, even the orange light of a gas flare off Malaysia - but no kerosene lamps. If I close my eyes, the cicadas and lapping water could suggest a swamp… but a siren, a TV set, and the little German-sounding bell belonging to a convent school below break the spell.

In the vanguard of the HDB and the MRT, Toa Payoh was a pioneer in the mass, rapid transport of Singapore into the future. “One of Modernisation’s / first ports of calls”, as the poet Koh Buck Song has it.

taste of the kampong in blk 169

There are many other reasons to visit Toa Payoh and not just transit at the bus interchange: the remaining dragon playgrounds, the excellent public library with its special kids’ area, the oldest Buddhist temple in Singapore, and a suggestion that the Toa Payoh Long House popiah might just be the best in the country. I’d say “I’ll be back” but I’m already here.

*** I don't have permission to reproduce it, so I won't, but the National Heritage Board has a wonderful photo of the attap houses in Toa Payoh with the new HDB towers in the background taken in 1968.

Guilt-edged

My fellow Swiss blogger at Time For Tea, has raised one of the topics I love to hate the most: guilt. People of various religious denominations seem to vie for the guilty crown (of thorns) but I would hesitantly raise my hand and stake a claim on the title: what about ‘only child?’ or ‘being unemployed?’ or, goodness knows, ‘motherhood?’. There - have a handful of personal issues to stir into your culpability cauldron.

What do I have to feel guilty about anyway? I’m decent - mostly. Well, it can be summed up in two words: money and kids.

Back in the day, before I turned all ‘expat’, I had an actual job. Now, don’t get excited, I was hardly running a bank, but I did receive a modest monthly stipend, courtesy of the BBC, who sweeten their measly salaries with a subsidised bar, outings in the Countryfile Land Rover and free tickets to the Eurovision Song Contest. I was well chuffed with the deal.

Then, in the space of one week, I left my job, got married and moved to Cameroon. After a quick calculation, I worked out that financial dependence = guilt.

I’ve never been good at managing money and once believed that a perfectly acceptable approach to ‘sticking to a budget’ was to keep taking money out of the cash machine until it refused to give me any more. Then, to my credit, I would stop. But as soon as I wasn’t earning any money, I developed an obsessive aversion to spending it. Even now, almost ten years on, I’m plagued by guilt-induced spasms over it. Just the other day, while cutting up a lemon, I was hit by the realisation that, under my own steam, I couldn’t afford the lemon. I don’t deserve this lemon, I thought, guiltily. I haven’t earned this lemon!

And if spending money on oneself is bad, then try spending time on oneself.

After Cameroon, we went to live in Singapore, where we put up for a short while just off Orchard Road in a nice little flat with a lovely pool. Day One and the Husband rides off to work on the MRT, while I consult my To Do List, which only has two items: 1. find supermarket, 2. relaunch career.

We stayed at the flat with the lovely pool for six weeks, during which time I was so riddled with guilt about To Do List item No. 2 - I got No. 1 sorted, I’m guilt-prone, not stoopid - that I never once set foot in the pool. I was simply too shamefaced to swim in or sit by that pool while The Husband spent all day in the office. The lovely little pool became the very symbol of my reluctant idleness and unmerited life of luxury.

Then I got an office job and felt like a right numpty for wasting the pool but, hey, you live and learn.

And then there’s now. Motherhood. All that other stuff was just baby guilt, playground guilt, Guilt for Dummies – motherhood is a crash-course PhD that turns you into Dr Guilt. In fact, there are so many things about motherhood that make me feel guilty, I’m going to have to use bullet points, for fear of stretching your patience...

• Finding out you’re pregnant when you got a bit drunk a few nights before.
• Being pregnant and eating half a plate of something that seems innocuous before someone informs you of a study that found that the comestible is somehow lethal to foetuses.
• Books / websites / people telling you that the way you carry / feed / cuddle your newborn will damage its hips / mental health / life expectancy.
• Not being able to lift Child One onto the slide at the playground because one is pregnant with Child Two.
• Not being able to devote oneself entirely to Child Two because of the presence of Child One.
• Saying that about Child One.
• Spending any time at all away from your children – whether it’s a hospital stay or a day at a spa, it’s all the same, guilt-wise.
• Leaving child in care in order to go to work.
• Failing to be a good role model by not going to work.
• Giving them beans on toast for their tea instead of a nutritionally-balanced meal that includes all the food groups.
• Hearing the Curly Girlie say “the other children don’t want to play with me” because she insists on speaking English at the German-language crèche.
• Letting them watch too much TV.
• Not letting them do exactly what they want (watch TV).
• Shouting at them.
• Putting their shoes on the wrong feet and not noticing for ages.
• Nappy rash (what is that mother feeding them?!).
• Nightmares (why doesn’t she sleep right alongside them?!).
• Falls in the playground (why doesn’t she lock them up until it’s safe to go out?!)

I could go on. Honestly, I could. Motherhood is impossible to get right. And that makes me feel, really... you know.