Singapore - the Equatorial Utopia

I always thought Singapore was a short ride from Kuala Lumpur. An hour flight, it turns out. My first one with AirAsia, a South-East Asian budget airline. In Europe, the airborne cattle-movers easyJet and RyanAir would charge me an arm and a leg for my two hefty bags but here AirAsia ground staff did not blink an eye seeing me schlepping all my luggage into the cabin. It is nice not to worry about extra weight for once - just to sit back and inhail the tantalising smells of nasi lemak and phad thai wafting from the .

Singapore's shiny Changi stops us in our tracks right away. By far and large I share Prince Charles's views on modern architecture (vile and ugly) but this paragon of modern airports: efficient, beautiful and full of hedonistic surprises. For two hours we wonder through its airy spaces past the never-ending rows of hip eateries, whimsically shaped walls, ... It is so huge, the crowds get dispersed here to the point of near imperceptibility. Like primeval Mumbo-Jumbo we gape at newspaper-, can- and battery-shaped recyclable garbage disposal machines. A mere designer gimmick? Perhaps, but they sure don't cost more than the ubiquitous rows of putrid wheelie bins that clutter the vast expanses of London's cityscape.

- Would you like some change? a uniformed lady sneaks up on us as we frisk our pockets for dosh to buy tickets at Changi metro station. She gives us coins in exchange for our banknotes and punches the right buttons on the vending machine. Singapore's Big Brother is already taking a very good care of his visitors.

The metro train is roomy, noiseless and air-conditioned just to the notch where you feel neither heat nor cold. I can't help but to compare it to the rickety rides in the Tube's rat tunnels. I would love Bob Crow and Boris Johnson take a ride here and comment on Britain's former colony beating it with a stick to a clean, cheap and efficient public transportation.

My fellow metro riders' clothes are crying that we are in the First World, real, unashamed about its love for quality, just like in Switzerland and Japan - simple flattering cuts, clean colours and quality fabrics - nothing like the inexplicable Northern European penchant for deliberate grunge and grime in fashion.

I am so glad I'm in Asia again: I don't need to walk more than a couple of minutes for delicious and inexpensive food. My stomach is grunting for a refuel. Right across the road from our hotel in Little India a 24-hour food court is sending aromas of freshly cooked food wafting through the hot humid air. A sudden torrential downpour brings a bit of cool as we tuck in our lunch: orange laksa (seafood and tofu noodles in thick and spicy coconut broth), big pink prawns in a bowl of mee noodles and a classic plate of steamed rice and sides: stir-fried greens, chicken in black bean sauce and what I would describe as a tastier and healthier Chinese version of Yorkshire pudding made from a soft fried tofu shell and flavoured mashed potatoes. The shakes I picked at the juice stall do not get any more exotic: soursop and kedondong. Both are refreshingly sourish sweet and the tall glasses contain enough liquid to quench our flight dehydration.

There is a lot of slagging off Singaporean authorities for being insensitive to architectural heritage. I really do not understand where that comes from. This is perhaps the only city in the region that takes its vernacular architecture seriously: not as a nuisance to modern development but something to cherish as well as make profit from. The brightly painted façades of the ubiquitous Chinese Straits style overlook cleanly swept pavements while restaurants, shops and small company offices are bustling with life and tons of entrepreneurial spirit. Although the standard high-rise apartments blocks are everywhere, the city has its own distinct low-rise face, that is almost invariably neglected in the rest of South-East Asian cities in favour of modern structures.

Blend of old and new is such an overused expression but it works in Singapore. Take Komala's, a South Indian fast food chain: the much emulated McDonald's concept of set menus and getting food at the counter here is combined with eating spicy curries off a banana leaf by hand. A bhattura (puff pastry), a poppadam, a mound of cashew fried rice, a veg curry, a dahl (curried lentils) and raitha (yoghurt-based salad) to be followed by a small cup of clove-flavoured sweet concoction for dessert. No soda, mango juice please - and, voilà, an exotic vegetarian meal for about EUR 3.50!

I spot a lovely sight of two besaried Indian ladies fixing themselves a glass of teh tarek, Malaysia's national drink. They really take their time pouring hot milk tea from one glass into another to make froth. It's a cultural ritual. In this land that, in all likelihood, had never known famines, it is not merely about feeding your face, it's about having oyur food and drink just the way it tastes best.

Happily bupring we walk out into Little India that, true to its name, is a piece of the subcontinent brimming with brash colours, pungent aromas, arrays of flower garlands,and tiers of colourful gods and godesses.

Food, food, food, people are eating everywhere. Streets are plastered with colourful menus luring you with the sights of colourful dishes. They say Chinaman's life revolves around three things: family, money and food and the rest are just props for those three pillars. I kind of understand this philosophy of the folks who have survived close on five millennia of hardship: at the end of the day what matters is your close ones and their well-being. If you can't provide for them and make sure your life continued, you're a failure.

- Liu lian yi ge! - I try my macaronic Chinese on this ice-cream vendor when English communication fails. I want a durian popsicle but it takes me 20 minutes to get it as a whole Chinese family surrounds the stall and outshouts my . Singapore projects a self-image of an English-speaking nation but most people I meet here use Singlish - a local Pidgin variety heavy on dialectal Chinese and Malay borrowings. Singapore's claim for four national langauges - English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil - holds even less water: your average Singaporean Joe Blow from the street will speak a Chinese dialect as a mother tongue, a degree of Singlish and most likely hardly any Malay and definitely no Tamil. But I do like this melange of cultures living their own merry lives quite separately, yet influencing each other in a variety of subtle ways.

I expected Singapore to be a squeaky clean police state where spots of dirt are banished for eternity and chewing gum lovers are caned into pulp right on the pavement. In reality, it has nothing to do with the scarecrow image of a sterile dictatorship that Western media is fond of using. There is just enough of a touch of delightful tropical funk but none of that nasty man-made kind like plastic bags, discarded packaging and