Singapore Malay

Singapore is a small city state and there are not many places that are, if not unspoiled, at least less spoiled. Palau Ubin is a small island off Singapore’s north east coast that fits that description.

Getting to Palau Ubin meant a long ride on the metro, followed by a bus and then a trip on a bumboat. The bumboats are tiny boats that carry a maximum of 12 people. They don’t operate on a schedule, instead they go whenever there are 12 passengers available.

When we got to Palau Ubin we hired bikes and set off through the jungle to the East. It’s not perfect but there is a real sense that this is somewhat what Singapore was like before Raffles rocked up. The jungle is deep and towering, there are monkeys swinging through the trees and sitting on the paths, butterflies flit about in the heavy air. 

We passed a sign warning us to watch out for falling durians. Other than thinking that being taken out by a durian would be a smelly and embarrassing end, I didn’t think more of it until we saw monkeys working their way into fallen durians. The monkeys were not entirely satisfied with jungle’s bounty though, we passed another cyclist caught in a tug of war with a monkey who was going to get into the cyclist’s bag of snacks one way or another.

It was very peaceful riding and walking through the jungle tracks. The tiny hills meant it wasn’t enormously taxing even in the serious heat. But after several hours we were fading a bit. So when we got back to the jetty we treated ourselves to a shaved ice Malay desert from a little stall – two in fact. They would have been excellent in any circumstances, but the ice and sugar were a great way recover.

To complete our foray into Malay Singapore we went to an incredibly obscure hawker court for dinner. It was in a closed market and up some obscure stairs. At the top was a bustling area full of locals where we had satay. We then continued on the obscure path by digging out a cute hidden bar for cocktails.

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