Singapore

A dream destination

By

Swayamprava Panda

In the South East Asia, Singapore is one of the worlds busiest seaports and is regarded by business travelers the world over as the Best Business Destination. It often surprises visitors for its vast array of features .It has developed itself as powerful financial and industrial sectors by making business friendly laws for easy cargo transition and works as a huge cargo depot for its speedy clearance method. Its strategic geographical position was very well utilized to conjoin the east with the west. Situated at the southern extremity of the Malay Peninsula, where it dominates the Straits of Malacca, which connects the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea, along with business and industrial growth has taken optimum effort to develop its tourism industry and showcases itself as one of the best tourist destinations.

While sailing with my husband in a Liquefied Gas carrier, Singapore was one of the main ports, either for loading for another port in South East Asia or for discharging in Singapore itself in another Singapore island, owned by one of the oil majors. Every time I came here, it always makes me compare Indian ports with Singaporean port. It astonishes me as with so many natural resources, vast coastline, and mushrooming shipping companies how backward we are comparing to this tiny country. I dont want to review who is responsible for this but some steps should be taken to make our own ports as competitive as that of Singapore.

Singapore always fascinates me. Both while sailing in a LPG ship and In a container ship, it really astonishes me looking at its optimum development. While sailing in LPG Ship, I had been to Pulau Bukom, one tiny island of Singapore, where the whole island was full of oil and gas tanks belong to oil majors like Shell. But I never explored Singapore as I did it while sailing in this container ship. I can say this is an added advantage of sailing in a container ship as the ship always gets berthed very close to the main city and most of the cargo work is done by the shore people. As per the CNN report in Singapore each day more than 800 container ships can be found. The docks are full with thousands of containers, stacked neatly in rows for as far as the eye can see. On an average day they handle close to 30,000 to 40,000 containers, which makes it about a million containers a month .

Apart from its development in shipping and international trade it has always been a tourist hotspot . The Jurong bird park, the Sentosa island and the zoological park which show cases Singapore asmost cherished destinations among travellers.

The JurongBirdPark is one of thelargest bird parks in South East Asia, havingmost impressive aviaries with more than 8000birds of 600 different species from all over the world. It includes Waterfall Aviary with 30m (98ft) the world's highest manmade waterfall, and the South East Asian Bird Aviary, wherea thunderstorm is simulated every day at noon. An air-conditioned monorail covers the entire park which takes a ride on for a panoramic view of the Park and into a tropical world of jungle mists at theWaterfall Aviary. The plants, the trees, the bird cages, orchids and artificially designed rivers, springs, ponds and small mountains made this place a beautiful & spacious landscape. The birds were kept in very big cages. These beautiful multicolored bird species belong to the family of either parrots or pigeons. The huge cages in which they were kept wereso intrinsically planed it projected as if a there is a small forest with vibrant coloured plants on a beautiful landscape . In FlamingoLake, Number of cranes and pink flamingos, geeseand many varieties of migratory birds were kept and were moving freely through out the park. In small cages,few birds belong to the hawk familywere kept. The spike and span bird park with its multihued plants and birds dominated with lush of greenery appealed me a lot. Another attraction in the park was its unique all StarBird Show, reputed as world-class;normally arrange every day in the afternoon around 2 0'clock. Bird shows feature flamingos, macaws, hornbills and cockatoos and one of the biggest attractions is the Penguin Parade, housing more than 200 penguins of five species.

Singapore is a country, comprising a mainland and about 60 islets. Sentosa was one such islet. From World trade center one has to board the cable car or a boat to reach there. This World trade centre is a huge building, having big shops and so also some important offices, like airlines, cruise liner service etc. From the cable car the view of Singapore is breathtaking as below was the sea and in it thousands ships of different kinds, boats, cruise liners and above the sky with number of flights flying and both the sides are full of greenery. In the backdrop, of the cable car, one can see the red tiled hut shaped arrival lounge of the cable car and the front side was dominated by the main land Singapore. While taking this beautiful aerial view of Singapore, the hanging cable car slickly slides into the Sentosa island.

The SentosaIsland was a big theme park with lots of artificial fountains, very delicately coloured huge cement statues of dragons, lions offering a wide range of activities and attractions. These include the Underwater World and Dolphin Lagoon, Images of Singapore, the recently upgraded Musical Fountain Show, the MaritimeMuseum; and the New Food Centre. Lovely gardens, beautiful beaches and a plethora of restaurants and eating places all contribute to the islands popularity with tourists and locals alike.

The main attraction for was the Underwater World one of the Asia's most popular oceanariums. It has more than 2,500 marine animals from 250 species. Where number of deep sea fishes were kept in a big pool. A glass tunnel was running below the pool, by which one can take a 'voyage to the bottom of the sea', the experience of seeing under water world without even touching the water This is a state-of-the-art leisure attraction of Singapore showcasing the rich variety of marine life which include fishes like the blacktip and whitetip sharks, eagle rays and big-belly seahorses, breed quite naturally indicating how comfortable theyare with their environment found around theregion. I think this was the best thing in Singapore which made my visit to this placeworth of something.Visit to Singapore withoutgoing to Sherangoon road is I think half hearted visit to that place., Because of its high concentration Indian migrants Sherangoon road,known as Little India. Little India had got several huge shopping malls with duty-free stuffs range from electronic goods to gold; in fact it had got every thing to satisfya customers shopping spree. In this heartland of the Indian community one canrediscover India by the fusion of colors, sounds and scents. An array of Indian products which include silks, brassware and bangles were available here.

The Zoological park (Zoo) is oneof the world'sfew open zoos, where moats arepreferred to cages. Here animals were kept free and through out the zoo a deep & widemoat was running to separate one species to

the other and so also from the public. Thoughleopards, pumas and jaguars still have to bekept behind bars, still maximum effort has been made to keep the animals in their respective natural habitats .There are over two thousand animals here, representing more than 240 species. Like BirdPark, it was also full of lush and green with specks of colours, lovely landscaping with beautiful flowering plants & trees.

Around 3 '0 clock every day theyarrange an animal show.The guerrillas, snakes, elephants and two sea lions performed different items. In the elephant show and the guerrilla show, the activities of the animals kept the audience amused, through out. But the snake show and the sea lion show were the best. I liked the sea lion show very much, especially when that animal danced with the tune of Michel Jackson, we all burst into laughter The entire show was very entertaining as the presenters and the animals kept the audience soinvolved as if no body was new to the place or to the animals. Now a day, people are making a lot of hue and cry on animal rights, of which I am also a strong supporter. But looking at the welfare of these animals in Singapore Zoo, I would say the animals will prefer to remain in captivity like this rather than roaming in deep forests.

aspect was really exemplary. One more striking feature of Singapore is instead of these traffics fromsea, road and airways it has done enormous arrangements to keep intact the lush and

greenery of the country. It will always remain as one of the finest memories with me. But I will be

really happy when I see my country and my countries seafarers get the same opportunity and environment as the Singaporeans getting and my country will become the leading tourist spot as well as a leading nation in maritime trade.

the end