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Part 6 -
SINGPORE
’See you at Raffles’ :
catch phrase in the 1930’s era
13.3.07
Quite a civilised departure time
today, leaving hotel at 10.30am. The flight to
Singapore
is 7 hours, seems long but Qantas tries to vary the routine. They gave
us icecream – mini Magnums – on the way here and now we are served
fresh fruit and hot chocolate or camomile tea at intervals. I find the
meals themselves rather poor, probably the worst airline food in years.
Once again on landing, we are met at the airport and ferried to Raffles.
The façade and entrance hall are so famous, you could be forgiven for
thinking you had been here before. But we are taken round the beautiful
Palm Court
, fringed with palm trees and fragrant frangipani, to our Palm Court
Suite. It’s fabulous. Our own cane chairs and table on the verandah, a
parlour with sofa, easy chair and TV etc, and a dining table with fresh
fruit [inc strawberries] waiting for us. An archway and louvred windows
separate the parlour from the bedroom which is enormous, two double beds
so high you almost need steps, another TV and a range of wardrobes you
could live in. Fresh slippers are laid out for us next to each bed. The
bathroom is actually two rooms, one with two basins, one with huge bath
and shower and w.c., all immaculately tiled and marble topped. The suite
is so big we might not see each other till we leave. We are introduced
to our own personal butler, Ashrif, should we need him.
The hotel is so elegant, beautiful and sumptuous, it epitomises another
more gracious era. Everything is designed for comfort and to please the
senses. Verandahs stretch for miles joining buildings and attractive
courtyards. The staff are wonderfully polite, helpful and friendly
though never assuming. They thank us repeatedly, and it is tempting,
being English, to say, no … thank you!
After a while, it gets easier to smile and accept it.
Straight to bed in preparation for a wonderful stay. In Raffles
parlance, we are now ‘In Residence’. How absolutely wonderful!
14.3.07
Another dream about buying a Scottish house, this time the name of the
property is clear, Madeira Cottage. Another google noted for when
we’re home.
Breakfast in the Tiffin Room, a beautiful buffet. More waiters than
guests; you can’t leave the table to go up to the buffet without one
of them folding your napkin and coming to put it back on your knee when
you return. So many dishes, you would have been proud to produce any one
of them for a dinner party. Bananas in coconut milk and cane sugar
sounds plain enough but is exquisite and my favourite, but I have
American pancakes with maple syrup and crispy bacon as well. I think we
are never going to finish breakfast, it is like groundhog day. Each time
we empty our glass of orange, or we finish a cup of tea, we come back to
our table to find them refilled, and used cutlery is immediately
replaced in case we want to go round the buffet yet again. The food on
the buffet is constantly replenished too, and there is a chef who will
cook egg dishes to your particular order.
Surprisingly as we are in the Tiffin Room, no curry for breakfast. The
Tiffin Room was started by the original owners of Raffles, the Armenian
Sarkies brothers. The word
Tiffin
comes from the original 3 tiered carrier used for taking homemade food
to work. The top tier would contain bread or rice, the middle one
vegetables and the bottom one curry, which came to be called
Tiffin
curry. When the British arrived, they adopted the custom while reducing
the fieriness of the curry. So the Tiffin Room was designed to serve
Tiffin Curry for dinner, and still today serves only a buffet of North
Indian food at night.
After breakfast I try again to buy a T-shirt, having run close to having
to wear a manky hand washed and re-washed one in the luxury surroundings
of Raffles. I’ve saved a pair of white cropped pants for this part of
the trip, should be easy to get something suitable. Tried to buy a
T-shirt in
Brisbane
but didn’t come across a shop I could a) buy one a decent size, not
cropped, and b) buy one under £50. I hear there is a Marks and Spencers
in
Singapore
; when I enquire, one of the three M&S’s turns out to be in the
next block. We venture there and I finally buy a shirt blouse to go over
a clean camisole I have left. I’m surprised at my reaction when I see
the familiar green M&S sign – relief, excitement? Certainly
enjoyed the familiarity.
Late morning, we get a taxi – hailed for us by the giant Sikh doorman
– down to the Harbour Centre where we book a boat trip for the
afternoon, and then stroll round the shops. It’s an indoor mall, just
as well because outdoors is like an oven. We lunch at the Orange
Lantern, a Vietnamese restaurant. We seem to be getting good at having
food completely at variance with the country we’ve just arrived in.
However we have the most delicious spring rolls we’ve ever had, with
mango salad, green Vietnamese tea for
Harvey
, and tender fresh coconut for me. The flavour is heavenly, and I decide
if heaven is going to be scented with frangipani, it will taste of
coconut water. They serve it with a spoon with which to scoop out the
soft flesh after you’ve drunk the water, never had it like that
before, completely unlike dried coconut, very moist and delicate.
We find our boat – not a huge accomplishment as it’s the only
Chinese decorated boat in the harbour, the Cheng Ho - which we board for
a tour of the harbour, calling at Kusu or Turtle
Island. The boat is a replica of an historical boat, decorated in garish
colours with typical Chinese roofs and panel paintings. We have only
paid for the ride. A few dollars extra would have bought us high tea on
the water. We have to wear different coloured badges because of this, so
everyone knows we are stingy. In reality, we just can’t eat the amount
other people seem to put away. Blue badges for stingy, Orange for
greedy.
We love the leisurely pace of being on the water, but this is not
pretty. The docks cover hundreds if not thousands of acres, the biggest
container port in the world. A container ship leaves every minute, there
are always hundreds waiting to get into the port and the waiting time is
about 3 days. Enormous metal structures, whose purpose is a mystery,
straddle the shore like mad meccano, and the harbour as far as you can
see is dotted with waiting ships. We pass a couple of islands which are
used by the Singaporeans for leisure, and then we come to
Kusu
Island
where there is a beach, a Chinese temple and a turtle sanctuary. We have
45 minutes to explore.
Looking back at Singapore
Island, the sky scrapers have a misty appearance which enhances them
enormously. We walk leisurely round the small island, time here is so
short that we have to keep an eye on our watches and not get carried
away.
Back on board, we find that our stingy blue badge does include a cup of
tea and a packet of biscuits after all. What the spendthrifts get for
their extra dollars, we don’t find out because they are on a different
level of the ship, naturally. We are content in the relatively fresh
air. Having nabbed the only bit of shade on deck, I sit in splendour on
a podium decorated with a Chinese roof.
Taxi back to Raffles, greeted by another huge Sikh in beautiful regalia,
white with sashes and splashes of red and gold, a white turban and bushy
beard. Conclude that you have to be huge and a Sikh to stand a chance of
the door job at Raffles. We notice in the Raffles shop that you can buy
a cuddly version of him; at about a foot tall, slightly less
awe-inspiring that the original.
Shower in the echoing bathroom and don our second best smart outfits,
having read in the Raffles bible that the Tiffin Room is smart and
requires men to wear jackets. Naturally, when we arrive, we sit next to
a couple in very casual gear,
not even ‘smart casual’ as required by the bars, and
Harvey
is the only one in a jacket. Still, we are dining where the good and the
great have dined, well the great anyway. Noel Coward, Somerset Maugham,
Charlie Chaplin, James Michener, Prince of Wales and
heads of state from all over the world, so we are content to feel a bit
gracious ourselves.
The Indian buffet looks wonderful with a number of vegetable dishes to
tempt me. We start with saffron soup, sounds innocuous, but the first
taste has us rushing back up to the buffet for ladles of yogurt to cool
it down. Luckily I’ve ordered sweet lassi to drink, which is also
cooling, and delicious. Many of the dishes are a little hot for me, but
we enjoy it. Another groundhog day experience, this time it’s naan and
popadoms which are replenished. How do you know when you’ve finished
eating at this place?
The
hotel was almost demolished, after the rising prosperity of the 60’s
and 70’s, it was beginning to look a bit shabby. But in 1987 someone
recognised the value of its history and it was declared a National
Monument, and so a programme of restoration began. There is something at
once soothing and slightly disturbing about all this opulence.
To bed in our sumptuous suite, air conditioning turned off of course,
but still sleeping under duvets though it has again been 38-40 degrees
outdoors.
I reflect as I drift off to sleep; no wonder Kipling, after dining in
the Tiffin Room in 1899, advises his readers to ‘feed at Raffles’,
which gave Raffles its slogan. And Somerset Maugham described it as
‘standing for all the fables of the exotic east.’ It certainly
encompasses a dream for me, a dream begun watching Somerset Maugham
dramas on TV as a teenager. Then it was too remote from my everyday life
to consider it would ever be anything more than a dream.
‘Indisputably the place for every visitor of note to stay.’ Get
that. It means me!
continued ....
Part
6b
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the incomparable Raffles Hotel
Raffles Foyer
Palm Court with palms[below] and frangipani[above]
Come into my parlour
it had to be done, photo in the Writers Bar
Cheng Ho
temple and turtle sanctuary, Turtle Island
from Turtle Island looking back to Singapore
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