Wednesday 19th August 2015.
Another peaceful breakfast in the Sanctuary that is the 5th
Floor restaurant, then off to find our own way on the local buses. Using the
official Singapore transport website, I find buses that will take us down North
Bridge Rd and if we get off near St Andrew’s Cathedral it’s only a short walk
to the Ancient Civilisations Museum. The 197 or the 145. Trevor found a better
way using the Singapore Map app on his tablet. The 130 from Bugis Station on
Victoria St will take us right to Connaught Drive and the Padang, outside the
Singapore Cricket Club, leaving us with a much shorter walk to the museum. Better.
Apparently the official transport site has been ‘improved’ and it’s now pretty
useless according to locals.
The information I found about the Ancient Civilisations
Museum was that the displays were very extensive and if you only had time for
one museum in Singapore, this was a very good choice. Excellent! So after the
disappointment of the National Museum the other day, we head off with hopes
high. Are we surprised when we arrive
that we have to negotiate our way through a work site to access the underpass
to get us onto the other side of Fullerton Road and to the Museum? Not really.
Are we surprised to find that due to renovations and rearrangement of displays,
many are closed or packed away? Not really. Thankfully admission was free. What
we saw was very good and we did enjoy wandering around, but I’d have thought
with 2015 being the big anniversary year for Singapore, all this work would
have been done in 2014 or earlier this year in time for the big celebrations in
August. This side of the Singapore River is going to be wonderful when they
finish working on it! Seems the anniversary played no part in determining when
the work would be undertaken. I’d have thought the powers that be would have
wanted everything done either beforehand
or leave it until after. But that’s how it goes!
Next stop, Chinatown, and with bus routes sorted before we
left all we need to do is head along the riverfront to North Bridge Road to
wait for the 197 or the 145 which will drop us right outside the Sri Mariamman
Temple, but an 80 comes in first and Trevor says that will also take us there,
neglecting to mention it doesn’ stop at the Temple but at the stop after
meaning we have to walk back in the boiling heat! Not particularly happy about
that. Strangely, the oldest Hindu Temple in Singapore is in Chinatown. The
iconography doesn’t disappoint, but the hot ground on soxed feet is a bit much,
so we scurry between shaded spots of ground to view the images of Brahma the
creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer.
I was also curious to see the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and
as it’s a short walk down the road we put our shoes back on and make our way
there. It’s a 5 storey pagoda style building which reputedly houses the left
canine tooth of the Buddha, recovered from his funeral pyre in Kushingar, northern
India. It’s truly bedazzling inside and worth going to see. Shoes can stay on
here, bonus as I’m still struggling to walk barefoot on hard floors and the
Temple down the road was hard work for me.
Fabric shopping and lunch are now atop the agenda and
according to some posts on TripAdvisor there’s fabric aplenty in Chinatown.
Sadly though, the shops are no longer there, so it looks like Arab St might be
the best bet, with Mustafa’s running a close 2nd. We had some
steamed dumplings for lunch in a hawker centre in the People’s Park Centre, not
to be confused with the People’s Park Complex across the street!
A quick browse in a pedestrian street market follows, and we
stumble on the Chinatown MRT entrance so rather than walk back to the bus, we
jump the train and head back to our ‘village’. After some cooling off time in
our room, we went for a swim then headed to Dubaii Escapade because Trevor
fancied a pizza for dinner, he’s a bit over rice and noodles. Worst. Pizza.
Ever.
And, of course, the Sultan Mosque just across the road is closed to visitors - for renovations!
No comments:
Post a Comment