Part of our package was a city tour and commentary. Our guide was quite informative and amusing. Our first stop was the Botanical Gardens. It was Sir Stamford Raffles the founder of modern Singapore, who developed the first ‘Botanical and Experimental Garden’ in 1822 and which closed in 1829. Thirty years later it reopened at its present site and today has a great diversity of tropical plants including the National Orchid Garden which is what we went to see. They have over 20,000 orchid plants on display and the colours and varieties have to be seen to be believed. Our next stop was to be Merlion Park (the Merlion has a lion head and fish body and is the symbol of Singapore) but as there was a marathon taking place that day the roads were closed and so we we went to the highest hill in Singapore, Faber Hill, from which we could see the water on one side and the city on the other. This was followed by a visit to Thian Hock Keng Temple, one of Singapore’s oldest Buddist-Taoist temples. Apparently it had been in a bad state of repair but in recent years has been completely refurbished and has now become a tourist attraction. A local Handicraft Centre was included and here they had pictures and ornaments made of semi-precious stones which were very ornate and beautiful but not to our taste. The tour was finished by a trip to Little India.
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