A Visit to Singapore

The Year of the Rooster

It is almost Chinese Lunar New Year. It is the Year of the Rooster. Everywhere we go in Singapore we see red lanterns, roosters and mandarin orange trees. My husband and I have been in this remarkable city for the past couple of weeks. We are living in a small apartment in the center of downtown.  It is a perfect place to be a tourist – close to shops, close to two subway stops, close to Chinatown – where the new year’s celebrations are about to jump into full force – and close to the old colonial district with its traditional architecture and abundance of museums.  

Colonial Architecture - Chinatown at night

The two districts are separated by the Singapore River which opens onto a natural harbor. Since the early 19^th century and continuing today, the harbor makes Singapore an important shipping port. The Singapore River is a point of civic pride, completely cleaned up and bordered by manicured parks, bars, restaurants and promenades. Everywhere you look there are outstanding examples of contemporary outdoor sculpture. I’ve been exploring this wonderful public open space.  Over the course of the past week, I’ve walked along the river, crossed the many old and new pedestrian bridges, and joined many Singaporeans and other tourists enjoying the area. 

The Bird

Several of the sculptures are iconic – one of my favorites is the Bird by Columbian artist Fernando Botero.  The Bird can only be described as fat.  But there is something very pleasing about the Bird’s chubby proportions – he or is it a she (?) makes me feel happy.  As with most of the public art installations in Singapore the Bird symbolizes something positive.  In this case, the Bird represents joy, optimism and peace and these, of course, are thought to lead to prosperity. 

Cloud Nine Raining

Signs of prosperity are everywhere along the Singapore River where crowds of financial workers gather for afternoon drinks, for a jog or just to meet, chat and take selfies.  Selfie sticks are practically ‘de rigueur’ in Singapore.  I still don’t want one but I can see their advantage.  Beyond the Bird I have other favorite pieces – I love the Cloud Nine Raining fountain at the mouth of the Singapore River. Conceived by Singapore artist Tan Wee Lit, it reminds me of an illustration in Winnie the Pooh – whenever the lovable bear was sad, a rain cloud floated above his head.  Here in Singapore the continuous rainfall is meant to symbolize how Singapore overcame all odds to achieve water sufficiency.  How great is that?  No wonder I love the piece. Five giant reflecting sound spheres, located on the lawn in front of the Asian Civilization Museum, fascinate me. The steel spheres resonate everyday sounds, recorded in 2015, 24 hours a day. The area is also full of interesting brass statues of historical events and people and a crazy diversity of architecture, buildings and bridges ranging from the most traditional to the wild avant-garde. It is a feast for the eyes and delightful to see so many people enjoying it. Singapore knows how to do public spaces!

The final installation I want to mention is located along the harbor front. It is the Window of Hope by Sun Yu-li, another Singaporean contemporary artist. It commemorates the landing site of the founders of Singapore when they looked through windows to a better, now realized future.  It isn’t one of my favorites from an aesthetic perspective and the symbolism is a bit corny. However the fact that there is an acknowledged appreciation of the sacrifices past settlers made to create a bright future for all Singaporeans is not corny at all.  In today’s world, where too often it seems like it’s all about “number 1” (AKA me) such appreciation of the hard work and sacrifices of our ancestors is often lacking. 

WIndow of Hope

This doesn’t mean that all aspects of a better future (i.e., freedom and opportunity) exist for everyone in Singapore. Of course that is true everywhere including in my own country, USA. But there is a lot of opportunity in Singapore and social benefits like public education and health care are top notch and available to everyone. To be honest as a woman who travels widely, one freedom that exists in Singapore is the freedom to walk around alone and not fear that my purse is about to be snatched. Although there are unacceptable human rights limitations in Singapore, such as the fact that homosexuality is illegal, many such limitations are now being successfully challenged.

Last Saturday we decided it was time to venture further afield and visit one of the city’s gems, the Singapore Botanic Gardens.  The botanic garden was awarded World Heritage Status in 2015 and boasts one of the world’s premier collections of orchids.  Orchids are the national flower of Singapore.  The Botanic Garden has played an important role in the global propagation of orchids, starting in the 1930’s.  Today, the Botanic Garden is responsible for many of the world’s most famous hybrids and for maintaining the breeding stocks for many globally important orchids.

The Botanic Garden is huge – more than 180 acres in size. Entrance to the garden itself is free and it serves as a city park to everyone.  We saw whole families – from grandparents to little toddlers, other tourists, fit joggers and groups of friends, colleagues, and lovers wandering around enjoying the magnificent plants, expansive vistas and 150 year old heritage trees.  The Garden contains many unique areas, including a garden of trellis (climbing) plants, foliage, ginger, a children’s garden, several lakes and many other delights.  The crown jewel is the Orchid Garden, where a small entrance fee is required.  Since we are both over 60 we paid the nominal fee of S$1, or about US$0.70.  Well worth the cost.

The Orchid Garden is extraordinary.  I am a global aficionado of botanical gardens and this garden is a one of the best.  The sheer variety and abundance of orchids boggles the mind. The colors range across the entire spectrum of the rainbow – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet – and include multiple variations on these basic seven colors. We saw orchids in every shade of pink, an almost black violet, gold, magenta, tiger lily, ivory, white and more.

The orchids are impressive – ranging from tiny flowers barely bigger than a fingernail to the giant tiger orchid, sometimes known as the Queen of the Orchids.  This largest of all orchids in the world can grow in the wild to be as big as 3 meters. It blooms rarely in “captivity” so we were delighted to find it flowering. The Orchid Garden contains several special areas, including a green house or Orchidarium, a Cool House and a Mist House. 

In memory of Princess Diana!

The orchid paths ascend a small hill and at the top is the VIP Orchid Garden where hybrid orchids, cultivated for heads of states and other important visitors are displayed.  One of my nostalgic favorites was the simple Dendrobium Memoria Princess Diana, hybridized in her memory after her death in 1997. I’m not a raving royalist but it was nice to see an exotic flower in her memory. 

We walked past several lakes and enjoyed the floating Vitória-régia – a giant water lily native to the Amazon River.  We loved the giant heritage trees and the open woods and traditional gazebos.  All in all the Botanic Garden is as beautiful a garden as I’ve ever visited. I recommend it. It’s also a great way to get in your daily 10,000 steps.  According to my new FitBit – I did over 12,000 steps on Saturday. That was my weekly record! Walking is how you stay fit when you’re a tourist.

Vitória-regia

We left the garden and walked to nearby Orchard Road for lunch. Orchard Road is famous for its classy shops – and for sure they are there. I’ve never seen as many fancy boutiques for watches that cost more than most folks’ annual income. Fortunately we were there for lunch and there are plenty of reasonably priced choices. While we shared a delicious wood fired pizza the sky opened up – Singapore weather is very wet at this time of year.  After waiting for the worst to pass we ventured out in our raincoats, holding our umbrella high.  We were only a few blocks from the nearest subway station.  For less than two dollars and within 10 minutes we were walking back to our apartment.  What a great subway system Singapore has – clean, efficient, fast, cheap – and it goes everywhere in the city.  Now that is an urban amenity I can get behind.  Next stops will be several of the museums; the Art Museum and the National Museum are at the top of my list. Let me know what else you’d like to 

hear about and I’ll see what I can do.

Modern Architecture by Moshe Safdie - the ArtScience Museum symbolized a lotus flower

A Visit to Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Our Mekong-style scientific vessel, AKA traditional river boat

It’s a new year and my husband Jeff and I are on the road for the month of January.  First Cambodia where Jeff attended an international workshop on Asian rivers in the capitol city of Phnom Penh and then Singapore where he is a visiting scholar at the National University of Singapore.  My job is to take it all in.

This past Friday we were in Cambodia. We spent the day sampling the Tonle Sap and Mekong Rivers with other scientists at the workshop.  The workshop participants and a handful of Cambodian students boarded a 50-foot wooden boat and left downtown Phnom Penh about 9 o’clock in the morning.  Our goal was to collect water and gas samples from both rivers separately and where the two rivers mix at their confluence.  

Preparing equipment for water sampling

Phnom Penh is located on the southwestern bank of the Tonle Sap River – about a 6-hour boat ride downstream from the famous Angkor Wat.  The downtown core of the city is less than a kilometer from the confluence of the larger Mekong with the Tonle Sap.  The workshop participants represented a spectrum of Asian countries and a few foreigners, including my husband, who have studied the hydrology and geochemistry of the major rivers in the region.  Countries represented included Vietnam, Cambodia, India, Singapore, Korea, US, Bangladesh and China.  With the mélange of participants the lingua franca was English.

Dredge barges on the Tonle Sap - full (blue) and empty (green)

The Mekong River, like many rivers in the world, is under continuous assault.  Its anthropogenic uses are myriad – water supply, habitat for hundreds of fish species, including critical food for more than 60 million people who live in the river basin, hydropower, wastewater disposal, transportation, cultural practices and recreation.  In Cambodia, where agriculture has been the economic base for centuries, it is hard to say that deforestation in the watershed is greater than in the past but that is what the Cambodians told us. That plus the significant increase in urban development in and around Phnom Penh is creating many changes in runoff, river chemistry and in the habitat quality for local fish species. A curious new phenomenon is the dredging of river bottom sand for filling wetlands around the city – a fact we experienced directly in the continuous stream of rusty powered barges moving upstream full of sand and returning empty downstream to the dredging site on the Mekong.  The new ‘land’ created from the filled wetlands will be used for new building – eliminating the wetlands’ natural functions of stormwater infiltration and water quality treatment. The loss has already resulted in widespread street flooding and reduced water quality following the smallest of rainfalls.

Housing along the Tonle Sap

The uses of the Mekong and its tributaries are in constant flux and the changes in the river’s water quality and hydrology can cause conflict. Everyone wants something from the river. It is hard to satisfy all parties when six very different nations and multiple cultures with diverse power and influence share the watershed. Regardless, in the spirit of true collaboration, the assembled scientists spent the day measuring carbon fluxes and collecting water samples for later analysis.  The basic information collected will help support predictive computer models that can assist the nations in determining how to best manage and ideally share the rivers’ abundant resources.

Taditional fishing boats and modern buildings

On the river we saw examples of wealth and poverty, slums and modern developments and boats of every kind. The day presented a fascinating window on Cambodian cultures and history promoted by a period of rapid development and growth in Phnom Penh. Much of the new development is spurred by foreign investment but unfortunately it does not seem to be accompanied by needed investments in urban infrastructure. In fact the city streets are in a state of chaos – traffic is extraordinary, a wild and fluid sea of luxury SUV’s, taxis, tuk-tuks, motor scooters and bicycles.  There are few traffic lights and crossing a street is an exercise in positive thinking – you wait for an opening and walk boldly forward waving your hands above your head, hoping for deliverance.  There is no place for the faint of heart.  The only blessing is that the traffic is so thick that the average speed is very slow. 

Mekong style fishing "house" boat

Everywhere along the muddy river we saw open decked wooden fishing boats – laying out nets or pulling remarkably empty nets back in.  Fish migration following a full moon is very low and the fisheries biologists on our boat said that accounted for the low catches. But a low catch is bad news for the boat owners since the daily sale of a few kilos of fish is their sole income. Typically these narrow boats, about 35-40 feet in length, have raised prows both bow and stern and are powered by long-tailed outboard motors. The ‘long tails’ have the mandatory ability to lift up unharmed when hitting the bottom of the river. Since the rivers can be less than a meter deep during low water this is a critical adaptive trait. Most of these sampan-style fishing boats have small covered shelters that function as “shipboard” homes to the owners.  I was amazed to see small toddlers helping their parents or grandparents haul in the nets.  I wondered how the average first world child would manage the physical limitations of living on a narrow sampan.

Ready to eat along the river

We stopped in the early afternoon at a riverside restaurant for a delicious meal of fish soup, rice and green papaya salad.  The meal, where we sat cross-legged at low tables set on platforms built over the river, was one of the best meals we had in Phnom Penh.  

Unfortunately I had bad luck with contaminated food on our last night in Cambodia following a meal at an upscale restaurant.  Folks always warn you about eating in local river establishments.  But that wasn't where I got food poisoning. I guess it can happen anywhere but suffice it to say it was a most unpleasant experience. 

The Throne Hall

After lunch our group visited the Royal Palace (where the current royal family lives) complex and the exotic Silver Pagoda home to the intricately carved 17^th century Emerald Buddha.  It is illegal to take interior photographs of these sacred places but the famous silver tile floor that gives the Silver Pagoda its name is extraordinary. Who can imagine covering the floor of a very large hall with silver tiles? I guess you have to be royalty! The gleaming floor, the benevolent Emerald Buddha and the many silver and solid gold, often with encrusted diamonds, Buddhas make a visit to the Pagoda worthwhile. The whole complex, built starting in 1863 when the capital of Cambodia moved to Phnom Penh, is an excellent example of traditional Khmer architecture. 

The Stupa of HM King Suramarit and
HM Queen Kossomak

Beyond the Silver Pagoda, there are many interesting structures in the huge complex -- big ornate Stupas, round Buddhist shrines that contain the ashes of past monarchs stemming back to the founder of the current King Norodom Sihamoni.  My favorite was the Stupa of HM King Suramarit and HM Queen Kossomak, the grandparents of the King Sihamoni.  Another peaceful site in the complex is the artificial vegetated hill, Phnom Mondop, with its many Buddhas surrounding a shrine that contains a large Buddha footprint and 108 Buddha images that symbolize the 108 past lives of Buddha.  A fresco-painted wall surrounds the entire Silver Pagoda complex.  The 1903 paintings, some of which show signs of weather-induced deterioration but which are still beautiful, tell the story of Reamker, the Cambodian version of the epic Indian poem Ramayana. The poem is essentially a traditional story of the balance between good and evil – the quintessential human dilemma.  All the buildings are surrounded by formal gardens, filled with eye-catching topiary and tropical flowers. The seven-headed serpentine river god, Naga protects virtually every staircase. Fortunately, the whole Palace complex was preserved during the Khmer Rouge occupation, although not for altruistic purposes. The preservation was entirely to show the world that the regime was preserving Cambodian heritage.

Having visited Phnom Penh twice previously starting more than ten years ago I was struck by the changes in the city.  On my previous visits I felt that the city was in a state of depression, still recovering from the horror and shock of mass killings.  Now there is a sense of energy and optimism in the air – although time will tell if that optimism results in improved quality of life for a majority of the population. The new growth is a real opportunity for recovery and could put the sadness and devastation of the Khmer Rouge into the past.  Unfortunately there is evidence everywhere of pressing needs that do not appear to be addressed: crumbling chocked streets, filling of wetlands, flooding, ubiquitous trash, lack of adequate sewage and water management and endless, disturbing stories of corruption despite the government being a democratic, representative constitutional monarchy. Given my short visit I was only able to learn a little about the environmental conditions and nothing about critical social conditions including schools and health care – and other areas outside of my expertise. Either way as a retired engineer, it was encouraging to meet Cambodian scientists and engineers who are excited to help manage transitions in the city’s water resources.  We left Phnom Penh for a very different kind of city, Singapore.  I’ll be reporting in.