We’re in Singapore, a city of clean streets, clockwork public transportation, high-tech gadgetry, video surveillance, high-priced, glossy shopping malls and signs politely instructing that it is our responsibility to keep Singapore safe.
On the subway large, flat screens air PSAs. One we watch flashes horrific photos from the train bombings that have taken place around the world over the past few years. Following is a filmed dramatization of a male passenger stepping aboard a train, exactly like the one we’re on, with a large, black, bulky bag. He looks suspicious. We know he looks suspicious because he fidgets and clutches his bag close to his body. The other passengers eye him warily, as they’ve been instructed to do by our government narrator. He also wears a baseball cap low over his eyes and has one too many buttons undone on his shirt. [As we’re watching, we can’t help but furtively check out fellow passengers and scan under the seats for unattended bags.] The other passengers continue to monitor him and when he leaves his bag and steps off the train, they call out to him, “Excuse me, Sir! You left your bag!” Over his shoulder he replies, “It’s not mine!” But we know it is! One of the passengers, a tidy young woman pushes the emergency call button and alerts the authorities. She gives a detailed description of the man and what he was wearing. She and the other passengers are instructed to exit the train at the next stop. Though the car is crowded, everyone remains calm - no shouting or panicking for this group - and the young woman kindly helps a frail, old woman off the train ahead of herself.
The passengers are departing the station when our narrator warns that terrorism doesn’t just take the form of bombs. No sooner are the words out of his mouth than we see a woman stagger over to the stairs. Gagging and choking, she throws up and collapses. The best part of the film is the ticker tape banner running beneath, which reads: “This train will terminate at Punggol Station.” This “on-site cinema”, as Johnny calls it, a story set in the location that you are viewing it from, is fascinating and we almost miss our stop.
We are staying in Little India and the streets are filled with the scents of curry, spices, flower garlands, incense, money changers, tailors that promise to make saris, business suits and shirts in less than 24 hours, gold jewelry shops, restaurants featuring both North and South Indian cuisine, and Indian pop music stores. Willa bops her head and rocks her body back and forth when we pass the stores’ outdoor speakers. Actually, we have yet to find a type of music that she doesn’t enjoy and physically react to.
Last night we took a walk around Little India after dinner. While there are a lot of Indian men in our neighborhood, congregating heavily around the train station and the market, the number of men out last night astounded us. We walked down streets and to a park, on the edge of which large buses were continually pulling up and emptying full loads of even more men. There were literally thousands of men out: talking, eating, shopping, playing cricket and soccer, talking and texting on cell phones, napping on the park lawn. No women in sight. I wish I had gathered the nerve to ask someone where the women were and/or how this all-male gathering came to be. I’ve never felt so conspicuous.
We’re being true tourists in Singapore, taking the sky tram, visiting the disappointing aquarium, plastic Sentosa Island Beach with its imported sand, playing ‘picks’ in the Singapore Art Museum and Mint Museum of Toys, taking a river boat tour, checking out the lobbies and room rates of expensive hotels, and going to the zoo, which is well worth the price of admission. There are no cages, few enclosures and ring-tailed lemurs, two-toed sloths, monitor lizards, orangutans and other monkeys roam freely around the zoo.
But, of course, the big question every day is, “What do you want to eat?” There is every type of food available here and we have yet to spend more than $10 for a meal that amply feeds the three of us. There are ‘hawkers markets’ everywhere, filled with stands preparing Thai food, Indian food, Chinese food - Dim Sum, Cantonese, Szechuan, Vietnamese food, Western food, Malaysian food and all sorts of desserts, my favorite being Indian pastries and sweets. Thank goodness the food is so inexpensive because nothing else here is.
Our room is tiny, literally the size of a cruise ship cabin, and Willa-scale. Furniture is perfectly distanced for walking, she can climb on and off the bed, cabinets just fit her body. She’s so rightfully proud of her mobility and gets frustrated when we limit her. Unfortunately, there just aren’t a lot of safe places for her to walk and crawl, though I have given up on trying to keep her from the wide floor expanses of airport terminals and museums. They’re just too tempting. So, we wipe clean her dirt-blackened hands, knees and feet and keep vigilant watch over what goes into that little mouth of hers. Oh, a fun new game she made up in Bali: sometimes she puts something from the ground into her mouth and sometimes she just pretends to put something into her mouth. Either way, Mama freaks out and, if it’s a case of the latter, Willa laughs her throaty chuckle.
These battles of wills aside, she’s a dream travel companion: cheerful, laughs a lot, not a picky eater (she will try anything at least once and surprises us with the levels of spiciness she can tolerate in food), friendly and outgoing, initiates conversation and is excited to be a part of things. As long as she gets plenty of sleep, shares the bed with us and doesn't have too many baths, she's happy.
