Ted Wilson Reviews the World: Singapore

★★★☆☆ (3 out of 5)

Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of the world. Today I am reviewing Singapore.

The first thing you’ll notice when stepping off the boat you accidentally took to Singapore is the heat and humidity combining forces to make you feel as if your soul is being extracted through your pores.

If you’ve brought a towel, the sweat almost becomes manageable, but the towel will quickly become so soaked that it’s too heavy to carry along with your luggage and you’ll be forced to abandon it.

When you reach immigration, they will find the fountain of sweat running down your face to be a suspicious sign that you may be trafficking in drugs or guns or gums.

(They say you’re not allowed to chew gum or spit in Singapore, but this is untrue. There is a secret spitting and gum chewing club that meets late at night where everyone just sits around spitting on the floor and chewing gum. It’s gross but so are many of the things I do when I’m alone. This is just a group of people unafraid to be gross in front of others.)

Taxis are the best way to get around Singapore, provided the taxi driver feels like going where you want them to go. I had many taxi drivers who said they wouldn’t take me to my destination. I said, “Take me wherever you’re going then.” I had a lot of adventures that way.

If you get stuck walking and need to cross the street, good luck with that. Crossing the street is some sort of Escher-like puzzle where you spend ten minutes walking in circles looking for the crosswalk only to discover there isn’t one. That’s when a sign directs you to an underground walkway that leads you into a mall, and then a mall within that mall. And the next thing you know you haven’t seen daylight in several hours because you found a great deal on yoga pants.

All of the heat and malls and the built-up saliva surplus in your mouth are easily forgotten if you get to eat a bowl of Katong laksa. A round little man made it for me and he was instantly my best friend, although I do not think he felt the same toward me. But the laksa made me so happy I didn’t care that it was an unrequited best friendship.

Best of all, Singapore is a great hub to quickly travel to any of the neighboring countries. Or if you don’t care for any of the nearby countries, you can always just drive to Africa, assuming you can make your way through the Middle East.

BEST FEATURE: The aforementioned Katong laksa. It’s like a bowl of heaven, but you can eat it. An edible heaven. You can almost taste God.
WORST FEATURE: There are homeless cats everywhere.

Please join me next week when I’ll be reviewing a squash.