Stay in the centre and treat the whole island as one city. Marina Bay is the postcard: the waterfront loop, Gardens by the Bay and the skyline from the Merlion. The heritage quarters are the reason to stay longer and they sit a few MRT stops apart, so give a morning each to Chinatown, Little India and Kampong Glam, and eat in hawker centres rather than restaurants. Then head east to Katong and Joo Chiat for Peranakan shophouses and laksa, take a half day in the Botanic Gardens or the rainforest trails of the central catchment, and add Sentosa if you are travelling with children. With one spare morning, catch the bumboat from Changi to Pulau Ubin, which is what the island looked like before the towers.
1 Singapore city guide
Fun fact
Singapore has grown by roughly a quarter since independence through land reclamation, and is still expanding.
Stereotypes, sorted out
The realityIt was, when the airport was the point and the city was a night between flights. Three days is the honest minimum now: a day for the bay, a day for the quarters, a day for the east coast or the reserves. The food alone fills the time, and the queue outside the good stalls is the proof.
The realityOrchard Road earns that description and almost nothing else does. Kampong Glam, Little India, Chinatown, Tiong Bahru, Geylang Serai and Katong are shophouse quarters with their own noise and smell, hawker centres are the loudest rooms in the country, and Pulau Ubin is a bumboat ride from all of it.
The realityThe hotel rate is the expensive part, along with the drinks. Eat where residents eat and a full meal costs less than a coffee in most European capitals, and the MRT crosses the island for pocket change. The city is expensive to live in and cheap to eat in, which is an unusual and useful combination for a visitor.
The realityChewing it is not. Importing and selling it has been banned since 1992, after gum jammed the doors on MRT trains, and pharmacists have been allowed to supply dental and therapeutic gum since the mid-2000s. The rule everyone repeats is a trade restriction, not a personal one.
The realityThe skyline is. The Botanic Gardens have been running since 1859 and were listed by UNESCO in 2015, the shophouse quarters are nineteenth and early twentieth century, and the temples, mosques and churches between them predate every tower on the waterfront.
How to fit in
- Choping is real: a packet of tissues left on a hawker centre table reserves it, and the seat is taken even though it looks empty.
- Clear your own table. Tray return at hawker centres and food courts stopped being a suggestion in 2021.
- Queue, and do not treat the queue as negotiable. It is the closest thing the country has to a national sport.
- Cover shoulders and knees at temples and mosques, and take your shoes off where the sign or the pile of shoes says so.
- Eating and drinking on the MRT is fined, and durian is banned outright, sign and all.
- English carries every conversation, so Singlish is a register to enjoy rather than to imitate.
- Ask before photographing people at work in a hawker stall or a market, and do not block the queue to do it.
Famous Singaporean faces
Lee Kuan Yew
Joseph Schooling
Stefanie Sun
Lawrence Wong
Tharman Shanmugaratnam
Halimah Yacob
Loh Kean Yew
Yip Pin Xiu
Fandi Ahmad
Anthony Chen
Fann Wong
Sonny Liew
Kevin Kwan
Catherine Lim
JJ Lin
Dick Lee
Chan Hon Meng
Violet Oon
Must-try Singaporean food
Hainanese chicken rice
Poached chicken over rice cooked in its stock, with chilli, ginger and dark soy on the side. The dish the country argues about most.
Chilli crab
Mud crab in a thick sweet and savoury chilli gravy, invented here in the 1950s. Order the fried mantou buns to mop the plate.
Black pepper crab
The drier, hotter alternative: crab wok-tossed in butter and a heavy crack of black pepper. Locals are split on which is better.
Laksa
Rice noodles in coconut and prawn gravy with cockles. The Katong version cuts the noodles short so the whole bowl is eaten with a spoon.
Char kway teow
Flat rice noodles fried hard over high flame with egg, cockles, sweet soy and lard. Smoke is the point.
Hokkien mee
Yellow noodles and vermicelli braised in prawn stock, finished with lime and a spoon of sambal.
Bak chor mee
Minced pork noodles sharp with vinegar and chilli. The Hill Street stall holds a Michelin star, and the queue to match.
Bak kut teh
Pork ribs in a peppery garlic broth, eaten at breakfast with fried dough sticks and a pot of tea.
Satay
Charcoal skewers of chicken, mutton or beef with peanut sauce, cucumber and pressed rice cakes. Ordered by the dozen after dark.
Fish head curry
A red snapper head in a tamarind curry, created in Singapore in 1949 by a Kerala-born cook feeding Chinese customers, and claimed by everyone since.
Chai tow kway
Radish cake cut into cubes and fried with egg and preserved radish. White is savoury, black is finished with sweet soy.
Rojak
Fruit, dough fritters and cucumber tossed in prawn paste, sugar and lime, with crushed peanuts over the top. Sweet, sour and pungent at once.
Roti prata
Dough thrown, folded and griddled crisp, served with fish or mutton curry. Plain, egg or cheese, at any hour of the day.
Kaya toast
Charcoal-toasted bread with coconut and egg jam and a cold slab of butter, eaten with soft-boiled eggs seasoned with dark soy and white pepper.
Nasi lemak
Coconut rice with fried anchovies, peanuts, egg and sambal, wrapped in banana leaf at the Malay stalls.
Chendol
Shaved ice over coconut milk, palm sugar and green pandan jelly noodles. The best answer to the middle of the afternoon.
Ice kacang
A mound of shaved ice built over red beans, sweetcorn and jelly, poured with syrup and evaporated milk.
Kopi
Coffee brewed through a cloth sock and ordered in code: kopi-o is black, kopi-c uses evaporated milk, kosong means no sugar.
Teh tarik
Tea pulled between two jugs until it foams, sweet with condensed milk. The Malay and Indian stalls make the best of it.
