Well, I am safely back from Singapore, I was not fined, arrested or jailed!
In fact I have found Singapore to be a fine-free city... Singaporeans seem to be very fond of crossing roads at red lights (no I didn't do that), and nobody ever fines them...
For those of you who may be interested in the subject, "oral dental" is just about any sugar-free chewing-gum (just as I had expected). It is available in pharmacies, though somewhat over-priced (but then that is true of a lot of things in Singapore.... but that's a different subject). I'm sorry I didn't bring chewing-gum with me from Thailand, as that would have been perfectly legal (and nobody checked me for chewing-gum at Changi airport anyway, I suppose they have more important things to do...). As far as I could gather, it is mainly bubble-gum which is banned in Singapore these days - and that's a good thing, too...
Thanks hootie for the information about the Bras Basah complex and the music shops. The best bookshop in S'pore is probably Kinokuniya in the Takeshimaya shopping mall... it's even better than the Kinokuniya bookshop in Bangkok!!
Thanks SamPan!!! I promise to do even better next time!!!
Uh... I'm not so sure that there's going to be a next time, though... Singapore hotels are so horribly over-priced and poor value... And there's not much to see in Singapore, either... I mean, if you've been to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand and Malaysia, there's really no point in spending money on Singapore... I was sorry I had booked my hotel for a whole week: three days would have been more than enough...
Not to mention the heat/humidity level, which is almost intolerable (much worse than in Thailand). For an outdoor person like me, it was not a good experience...
Glad you found out that it's not that easy to get fined in Singapore. Singapore does have budget guesthouses which cost about $25 per bed.
Edited by: sololo
Thanks sololo, but I have never stayed in a "budget guesthouse" in my life, and I'm not going to start now that I'm middle-aged... For $25 I can stay in a lovely three-star hotel in Thailand, with a swimming-pool, too... What I was saying was that I had expected more from the Ibis for the $80 I had paid for the room (I'm talking US$).
I would say that the only tourist attraction in S'pore are the local people, who are quite interesting. And the fact that English is widely spoken is also a plus. That doesn't justify a one-week stay though...
Oh, and the Buddha tooth temple in Chinatown is also lovely (especially for me, as a Buddhist)... The daily ritual is rather quaint... Methinks the Buddha would collapse with laughter if he could see all those nice elderly people worshipping his tooth, LOL!!!
Oooooops, sorry anshjain, looks like I'm still chewing my cud in public transport... Are you really a Jain? Nice to meet you. I am very fond of Jains.
For a new traveller, less jaded than you, one could easily soend a week or two in Singapore.
The zoo, the shops, the orchids, the Botanics, The Military theme park, the bird park, the night safari, FOOD, and plenty more.
hey hey sujata
yeah, hotels here are over priced.
its the fall out from all these property mad singaporeans.
so you cant compare singapore and bangkok hotels
and yeah kino in taka is good.
there used to be a public library on the 5th floor of taka, which makes the deal all the more sweeter.
hootie
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