[As earlier with SAL 21, all comments on Raffles also assume knowledge of the preview discussion in 2010/5.]

Raffles   The flight was a few minutes early, but in any case, I was almost halfway around the world, having left in darkness at just before midnight and having arrived in darkness just before dawn at about 5:30. Changi Airport, like the rest of Singapore, impresses with its modernity, as did the subway/metro, the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) system that has been under construction for some years, is still under construction, and has plans for further future expansion, to cover the whole of the island in this city-state. Actually, technologically, Asia amazes, as I’d already noted in Japan and Taiwan last November.

I got some cash from an ATM. The Singapore Dollar (S$) is worth about 73 US cents, so when seeing prices, I have to estimate that it’s ¾ of what I’d expect. To get on the MRT you buy a ticket at a machine, pretty much as in Japan and Taiwan, by pressing your destination (City Hall Station) and then paying what that distance costs. But there’s a Singapore twist. Every ticket includes a deposit of S$1, perhaps just in case you override what you paid for. On arrival, you have to return the ticket to the same type of machine to get your deposit back. It’s a little cumbersome, although perhaps some locals return their tickets in batches.

There are escalators everywhere. When arriving down on a platform, one finds that it’s enclosed. I’ve seen that on some lines elsewhere, but in Singapore (often written locally S’pore), all underground stations are enclosed. That means that on the platform you’re essentially in a long room, with glass walls facing the tracks on either side. When the train pulls in, its doors line up with the platform doors. The airport station is on a shuttle that connects after two stops to the main East-West line, and I was downtown in about 20 air-conditioned minutes. The system is well patronized, often with just standing room available. Part of the line is elevated, with open platforms, where you can experience both the local view and the local heat.

Entering downtown from the airport you turn southwest, as in this view of downtown Singapore (click to enlarge). That might be Sumatra on the horizon beyond the straits. In the foreground is Beach Road. Picture the sea formerly reaching its left side here. It points to the park called the Padang, with government buildings around it and the Singapore River beyond. The big gray buildings on the right are the Raffles City megamall, including the towers of the Fairmont and Swissôtel hotels, and closer to the viewer, way down below with Bras Basah Road between, are the red roofs of Raffles, whose iconic tripartite façade can be seen facing Beach Road (again, click to enlarge). To the right, with an apparently white-striped red roof, is the West Wing where I’m staying. To the right of that, the Long Bar is in the corner unit. City Hall Station is behind the mall, so from the station I used the air-conditioned mall to get to Bras Basah Road to cross over to Raffles.

When I’d checked the Raffles online rates, I’d noted there was a 10% advanced booking discount, but last December when I went to book, it was suddenly gone. I emailed the hotel about it, also explaining my interests in the hotel itself, and got a response from the revenue manager, who told me that the period I was interested would be one of high occupancy, and they’d dropped the discount. However, he offered me the discount anyway, and in addition, would add a complimentary breakfast buffet and complimentary internet. There are no “rooms”, as it turns out, just suites, 102 of them, and the most reasonably (!!!) priced ones were State Suites in the West Wing, off the main buildings. When I emailed him again recently about my early morning arrival, he even arranged for early access to the suite, and I was in by 7:30 AM.

But let me get back to my walking up Beach Road in the early-morning heat and my actual memorable introduction to Raffles. The main building is close to the corner of Bras Basah Road, and I soon spotted the iconic three-winged façade behind the circular driveway. As usual, the equally iconic doorman was there, dressed in the Indian Army uniform dating back to the days of the Raj.

The exterior was memorable, but more memorable in my mind will always remain the lobby. Perhaps I was also impressed by still being a little groggy from the flight, and by the fact that there were very few people about, but the lobby was to me breathtaking, not only at that moment but every time in my four full days I was there. I would sit down in an easy chair and admire it.

The white wedding-cake exterior is repeated in the lobby, which is a vast three-story atrium on white pillars, with dark mahogany railings in between. The uniqueness of the long lobby is that it’s nave-shaped, and you enter it at its end, giving a distance view of the spectacular mahogany twin staircases at the far end. Above the three levels of railings is a peaked, greenhouse-style glass roof, letting the Singapore sun flood the white interior. Atrium lobbies are not unique, and modern hotels of many, many stories use them, but that’s just the point. The Raffles lobby, at only three levels, is human-scale, and that makes all the difference.

The back of the lobby behind the staircase on is for residents only. On the left side of the lobby is the present location of Raffles’ famous Tiffin Restaurant. (A tiffin is a three-level round basket, which holds three trays that Indian workers would carry their lunch in, and it also implies the meal itself. There was a tiffin on display on top of the armoire in my room.) On the right side of the lobby is the Raffles Grill and in front of it, in the lobby itself, is the Writers Bar, named in honor of the many writers that have stayed at Raffles (Conrad, Kipling, Maugham, others: Maugham did much of his writing in the hotel garden). The Writers Bar is where the evening piano music is played.

It’s hard to find pictures or videos that do justice to the lobby, since you can’t capture the height or nave-like length, but this short one will do. After the façade (notice the looming Fairmont Hotel across the street in the megamall), the lobby is shown, taken from the side with one’s back to the Tiffin Room. The view sweeps across the pillars from the reception area to the Writers Bar in the middle, to the mahogany staircases on the right. But you get no concept of the three-level height up to the glass roof, with mahogany railings on each level.

After checking in, I spent the first half-day touring Raffles. Immediately to the left of the main building is a separate building called the Bar and Billiard Room. The original building was raised off the ground, and it was under this older building that the famous tiger was found, escaped from a show, which in legend sometimes evolves to it having been under the billiard table itself. The breakfast buffet was served here, and reflected the ethnicities of S’pore itself, including with the standard fare all sorts of nearby Asian specialties, such as Chinese dumplings and noodle and rice dishes including Malaysian/Indonesian goreng.

While the original bungalow that housed Raffles dated from 1887, the current main building, which is restored to the classic 1915 look it had when the complex had been completed, dates from 1899. It has three wings, connected on the second level by mahogany walkways, as is the West Wing that my suite was in, which runs along the Bras Basah Road side of the complex. I’m on the second level, and I enjoy taking the second-level walkway to the main building and entering the lobby down the mahogany staircase. The suite is huge; off the entryway is the bath, then comes the large bedroom with two large beds, then a sitting room with desk and dining table, which has a “back door” to the breezeway along Bras Basah Road (and a “lovely” view of the Fairmont entrance). There are gardens, courtyards, and fountains everywhere. That first day I walked along the shops on the ground level of my West Wing, which includes a Tiffany’s. I found out later that the buildings I’ve described so far are the only original ones, and that the buildings in the square-block Raffles complex that face the other two bordering roads are all modern buildings dating from the 1989-1991 restoration, but made to faithfully match the older buildings. They include the Raffles museum, with interesting artifacts, and the relocated Long Bar, which is actually one flight upstairs. That first day I decided to try a Singapore Sling along with some chicken satay skewers and peanut sauce, at which point I was asked if I’d had my welcome drink yet. I hadn’t been told about a welcome drink, and the Singapore Sling turned out to be complimentary. Eating the peanuts I followed the custom of dropping the shells on the floor.

Then, after 2 ½ days touring Singapore (see below), on my last full day, which was to be devoted to writing (if Maugham can do it, so can I), I made an appointment with Mr Leslie Danker, the Raffles Resident Historian, to meet at breakfast to review the Raffles history. He had worked at many positions at Raffles, and was the only pre-1989 employee rehired by the new administration, so he himself has a great history, and witnessed the entire restoration personally. We had a long discussion, and he then showed me his huge album of pictures.

Among many other things, he verified the tiger story. He showed me a picture of a beflowered Beach Road in front of Raffles with a beach literally across the street, which was the basis for the original bungalow being a beachfront hotel. He pointed out that the Sarkies brothers wisely didn’t name the hotel after themselves, but chose a patriotic British name such as “founding father” Raffles, which ensured them a steady British clientele over the years. He showed me how a very popular ballroom, now thankfully gone, was built in 1920 covering the entry circle and blocking the view of the main façade. One early location of the Long Bar ran the length of this ballroom. He showed me pictures of when the main lobby, filled with tables, was used as a dining room. At one point, it was also used for roller skating. He showed me photos of the deterioration before restoration, including huge cracks in the walls, plus pictures of the restoration in progress. He himself witnessed the tearing up of the lobby floor and the revealing of the original foundation of the bungalow. He pointed out that, before “my” West Wing was built, the Raffles stables there had faced Bras Basah Road. It was a revelation discussing all these events with him.

Standing in the Raffles lobby between the two entry doors is a restored grandfather’s clock/long case clock, long associated with the hotel and said to predate it. It was carefully restored and is wound daily by staff, striking the quarter hours. There is a plaque next to it explaining this background, as well as another Raffles tradition. Every evening when the clock strikes eight, the lobby pianist plays Noël Coward’s song I’ll See You Again. I’ve witnessed it: during the chimes striking the hour, he segued out of what he was playing and into this song. As the historian pointed out, it’s an appropriate title for a hotel speaking to its guests.

Although Noël Coward, shown here in a well-known Al Hirschfeld caricature, is associated with Raffles, he visited it only once, although it was a lengthy, one-month visit during which he stepped in to substitute for an ailing actor in a local theater. Although you have to picture the song being played on the piano in the Raffles lobby, this is Canadian tenor Ben Heppner and the London Philharmonic performing Coward’s I’ll See You Again. In the custom of the time, there’s a lengthy introduction. If you wish to cut to the chase, move to 1:35.

The Noël Coward Society’s website lists his most popular songs, based on performing statistics. His three most popular were all written in the four years from 1929 to 1932. In third position is Mad Dogs and Englishmen (1931), which we discussed in 2010/5 and where you can see and hear Coward himself perform it. The above I’ll See You Again (1929) is in second place. And, for the sake of completeness, I’ll say that in first place is perhaps the most interesting one, because of its (today) open secret, Mad About the Boy (1932). The song is written for a woman to sing, and is always performed that way, but Coward, whose heyday was not long after the Oscar Wilde affair, actually intended it for a man to sing, perhaps even Coward himself. Given the mood of the era, words he wrote involving a husband lamenting what he should tell his wife, have never been publicly performed. Given today’s more enlightened views, I wonder if they ever might be. In any case, I found a very insightful performance by British actress Sylvia Syms OBE, who both discusses poignantly this background and performs Mad About the Boy.

Singapore   Posted on the inside of each elevator door at Raffles is a quote from some time ago, suggesting: When at Raffles, why not visit Singapore? It’s clever, but it also encompasses my point of view as to order of importance. Singapore is nice, and there are a few things to do and see, but I’m principally here to see Raffles. But first let’s do some background.

Singapore is an island at the bottom of the Malay peninsula, with part of Malaysia above it across the Johore Strait and Indonesia across the Singapore Strait. (Keep in mind that the Strait of Malacca coming in from the west narrows and is called the Singapore Strait here, which then leads into the South China Sea.) Indonesia’s Batam Island can be seen from town, and in the distance and to an angle, with luck, can be seen Sumatra (not shown on this map). Note the location of Changi airport as described earlier. The importance of the straits is reflected in the leading newspaper I got in my room daily, the Straits Times, dating from 1845.

Singapore is, as you can see, diamond-shaped, wider than it is tall. EW it runs 42 km (26 mi) and NS it’s 23 km (14 mi). It’s a city-state, so the entire country is a single municipality. It is tiny, and is the smallest nation in SE Asia at only 710.2 km², but still vastly larger than the only two other surviving sovereign city-states, Monaco at 2 km² and Vatican City at 0.44 km². Singapore is the second most densely populated nation after Monaco.

Its settlement dates from 1819 when Sir Stamford Raffles, representing the British East India Company, landed and founded a trading post here on the “Silk Road” spice routes (see 2010/10 “The Indies/Malaku Islands”). The city’s name derives from the Malay word Singapura/Lion City, but what was originally spotted was probably a Malayan tiger, which was common here, and not a lion, which didn’t exist here. As colonial rule subsided worldwide, S’pore tried joining Malaysia in 1962, but it didn’t work out, and seceded a couple of years later. As a matter of fact, the day I left New York was Singapore’s 45th birthday, and I saw the remnants of the celebration when I arrived.

S’pore is a cosmopolitan world city, and the world’s fourth leading financial center. It’s a blending of Chinese, Malays, Indians, and Europeans into a unique modern national identity. But the percentages are significant. Out of a population of 4.6 million, 75% are ethnic Chinese, only 14% the original Malays, 9% Indian, 2% other. Compare that with Malaysia’s population of 27 million, which includes among others 50% Malays, 24% Chinese, and 7% Indian. This ethnicity was reflected in the restaurants I chose for dinner. Across the street in the megamall I went to another branch of Din Tai Fung, the Chinese dumpling restaurant I went to in Taiwan and Japan; also there to the Shahi Maharani Northern Indian Restaurant; and given my interest in Indonesian rijsttafel, which is similar to Malaysian food, I went up to the Orchard Road neighborhood to the Rice Table restaurant. The ethnicity is also reflected in place names. For instance there are MTR stops at Dhoby Ghaut, Queenstown, Sengkang, Pasir Ris, MacPherson, You Chu Kang, Mountbatten. This is a warning sign in the four official languages, English, Chinese (simplified), Tamil (spoken in India and Sri Lanka) and Malay, spoken in Indonesia, which uses a variety of Malay, and Malaysia. Note that Malay uses the Latin/Roman alphabet.

In S’pore if you don’t have one sort of an Asian face or another, you do stand out. This is in contrast to the British heritage here. The statistics say that 71% of Singaporeans are literate in English, although that probably includes the pidgin form referred to as Singlish. I didn’t note any preponderance of Briticisms with the definite exception of MTR signs and announcements, which are veddy British: you look for the way out (not exit); you’re told to mind the gap (not watch the gap); you’re asked to give preference to alighting passengers (not passengers getting off); and you have to expect your stop at Orchard Road to be pronounced Awchid. Also, traffic drives on the left, and you keep to the left on escalators.

And S’pore is HOT, so when walking around you have to hop from air-conditioned shop to air-conditioned hotel lobby. S’pore is only 137 km (85 mi) north of the equator, and the temperature is about the same all year, with daily highs quite regularly in the 29-30-31°C range or the high 80’s F. And being on the sea, it’s humid!

Finally, S’pore is known for its strict behavior norms, which were reflected in a tee-shirt I saw in a shop. It said: Singapore is a Fine City, but below were about a dozen red circle-and-slash symbols showing things you should not do unless you want to get a fine. I’m glad it didn’t include dropping peanut shells on the floor of the Long Bar.

Finding the Charm in Singapore   While here I’ve been having a correspondence with friend Paul, since he was here two decades ago and we were comparing notes as to changes. But one thing we tended to wonder about. Does Singapore have any charm? In those 2 ½ days I mentioned I was walking around town I got the impression that there was little of substance here other than Raffles. Near Raffles were huge hotels, malls, the fancy MRT, but it didn’t seem very interesting. But finally I found a spot that does seem to have some spirit on a human scale. This is how I found it.

That first half-day I toured Raffles on my own I then spent the rest of the day, and all the next, walking around neighborhoods, and also making MRT connections between them. Near Raffles was little life. There was the Armenian church, which was being restored for use by other churches, since the highly active Armenian community, to which the four Sarkies brothers belonged that founded Raffles, is gone. As I kept walking, I passed (the former) City Hall and other former government buildings around the Padang, a large grassy park. All these buildings are no longer in use, but are, fortunately, being recycled into art and history museums. Continuing south, there seemed to be little hope of finding anything but empty shells that used to be places of activity. Then I went down to the Singapore River to see the Raffles Landing Site on the north bank, and I finally found the sort of thing I was looking for.

The river, too, has been refurbished. The east-west flowing river had been the center of activity, with the government area to the north, where I had been walking, and the commercial area, including Chinatown, to the south. Then in recent decades it had become a virtual sewer and slum area, but that’s all been cleared up, and it’s beautiful now, and buzzing with humanity. The reason is that it’s still on a human scale, despite the skyscrapers surrounding it. The rather small river widens at this point, then narrows again near its (former) mouth. In addition, the south bank of the river that had originally been swampy had been cleared when the original settlement developed, and that extra width of the river was considered fortuitous to the Chinese, who called it “the belly of the carp” because of that rounded shape. The carp is thought to bring luck, and its belly is the best part, so Chinese merchants established themselves on the south bank of the river in this stretch, called Boat Quay (pronounced “key” here in British style). Note the low-level buildings called shophouses that had been built, with shops below and residences above. These have all been restored, with awninged restaurants facing them on the river’s edge. Even given the heat, I walked the length of Boat Quay to finally absorb some charm in Singapore.

Near the (former) mouth of the river was the graceful Cavenagh Bridge (1870), the first bridge to cross the river. It’s today only a footbridge, but antique signs have still been retained at either end. (Note the Fullerton Hotel, discussed below, on the left.)

Indicative of the kind of former business activity in this area is a life-sized set of bronze statues at the Cavenagh Bridge and Fullerton Hotel showing three merchants, one Scottish, one Chinese in costume, one Malay in costume, all bargaining, with workers loading an oxcart nearby.

There is actually here a trio of bridges. Just beyond the Cavenagh is a 1910 bridge, still used, built to replace the Cavenagh, and just beyond that is the inevitable modern bridge with traffic whizzing by. Still these three bridges defined the (former) end of the Singapore River, with Boat Quay just inland. The entire scene is charming.

Despite the nearby skyscrapers here in the former commercial district, two streets running south (parallel to the sea, which is significant) were to me of great interest. Several blocks inland was Telok Ayer Street, which had a number of religious buildings, oddly all on the inland side. One charming little Chinese temple had a cozy courtyard and cozy interior, with joss sticks in front of the shrines. Joss sticks are lit, then blown out, set in a rack before a shrine, and allowed to smolder, spreading incense. Their use is parallel to the use of candles in a Catholic church. And additional item of interest in this temple were rows and rows of spiral joss hanging from wires outside in the courtyard. They were very long joss sticks curved like bell-shaped bed springs, smoldering away.

There was also a Muslim shrine, further along a mosque, and also a spectacular Chinese temple listed as one of the best in SE Asia. But one final temple that had been converted to a museum had a model of the street with original buildings which explained the whole reason for this neighborhood being how it is. Just as the sea used to reach Raffles on Beach Road, the sea, specifically Telok Ayer Bay, used to reach Telok Ayer Street. Workers arriving in S’pore by sea would beach their boats on one side of the street and walk across to the temples and mosques to give thanks for arriving safely. I’ll refer to Telok Ayer Street as shoreline 1, which disappeared because of landfill in about 1879.

Back on the river at those three bridges, there is, beautifully converted from a former 1929 General Post Office with a huge atrium inside, the beautiful Fullerton Hotel shown here with its riverside façade facing the Cavenagh Bridge, and shown here with the Collyer Quay façade that was shoreline 2 for much of the 20C. Pictures in the Fullerton lobby show the former port running all along here.

What I am getting up to is the over-modernization of the Singapore shoreline. In recent years, huge areas of landfill have extended shoreline 2 to what I’ll call the present shoreline 3, which adds HUGE amounts of land to downtown, seemingly doubling the area in size. On top of it, these extensions are not built with standard human-size city streets, but suffer from the gigantism syndrome, and are car-oriented. Much of the buildings are monstrosities built on a world’s fair scale. I’m very dissatisfied with this development, where you can’t even see the sea anymore from the traditional downtown. The Singapore River no longer ends at the three bridges, but now flows into “Marina Bay” between the first two of the three extensions. Beyond that, a “marina barrage” is being built connecting the two outer extensions, which will essentially capture all the water from the Singapore River and another river, creating a freshwater basin in the Marina Bay area as a reservoir for drinking water. I’m all for water conservation, but not having the river reach the sea any more? What kind of world is this?

Before leaving Chinatown I went further inland to another mosque and the first Hindu temple I’ve ever seen. It had a huge number of ceramic figurines on the outside, and almost-life-size white statues of cows, perhaps a dozen around the top of its perimeter wall. Nearby was a Chinese bazaar. I then took the MRT a couple of stops to Little India. The minute I left the MRT station I was in a sea of shops selling merchandise to the Indian community, something I’d never seen before. But my goal was another Hindu temple, which was open and which you take your shoes off for in order to enter. This was the first one I’ve ever gone into. I ended the day taking the MRT inland to the Orchard Road area to go to the Rice Table Restaurant. Orchard Road is another commercial center with many fashionable hotels, but one that also suffers from gigantism. Pedestrians are secondary to cars here and have to use underpasses, which made getting around clumsy.

Singapore Flyer   My third day had been planned to stay at Raffles, just as the fourth day was to be, but instead I decided to go ride the Singapore Flyer ferris wheel. It just opened two years ago, but after riding the very similar London Eye (2001/6 “Bicycle Wheel”), I didn’t at first feel the need. What got me to go was that was the only way I’d get to see the sea in Singapore. Isn’t that saying something? Well, I also wanted a view of downtown as well.

The Flyer is currently the largest ferris wheel in the world at 165 m (541 ft), and is about 42 stories tall. It exceeds the London Eye in height by 30 m (98 ft). However, Beijing is building a bigger one at 208 m (680 ft), Dubai is talking about one, Berlin is working on one, blah, blah, blah. The Flyer has 28 capsules and a rotation takes 30 minutes. As with the London Eye, where I even got Beverly’s wheelchair onboard with their only slowing the wheel down slightly, it keeps on moving while passengers board and alight on opposite sides. The capsule always remains on the outside and rotates in place. (Note the landfill area in the background.)

The influence of Chinese culture here is amazing and amusing. The wheel originally rotated in the opposite direction, but was changed under the advice of feng shui masters. Also, on the first three nights of operation, tickets were offered at S$ 8888 each (US$ 6271 !!!!), 8 being apparently an auspicious number in Chinese culture. They all sold out.

So I took the MRT onto alien land to ride the Singapore Flyer. It’s located in the center reclaimed section where the two rivers meet, just before the barrage. Although some cars were rather full, I happened to get on a car with only two other people. I was grateful, actually, to the feng shui people, since the car arose on the (to me) less interesting side away from downtown, so you could concentrate more on the experience and less on figuring out the downtown buildings. Still, in this direction I could see, beyond the marina barrage, the Indonesian island of Batam across Singapore Strait to the south, and to the southwest I hoped I was looking at Sumatra on the horizon. Once over the top of the circuit I could spot a bit of Raffles, and further south, the Padang with City Hall, just a bit of Boat Quay, and the Fullerton area. I was really quite satisfied with the experience.

Then, after my writing day Friday, Saturday morning was scheduled for the train trip on the Eastern & Oriental to Bangkok.