Sizzling Singapore & vibrant Vietnam

This item appears on page 40 of the January 2008 issue.

A bustling port and the economic leader of Southeast Asia, Singapore is a city, state, capital and country all in one. My 4-day visit to Singapore, part of a 2-country group tour, began with an orientation tour at the top of Mt. Farber; the views were spectacular.

The city was glistening-clean, with purple bougainvillea bushes lining the highways. All cars there are equipped with alarms to sound if one exceeds the speed limit. No graffiti and no gangs will be found in this tightly controlled democracy. Drug traffickers receive the death penalty.

Suzy Davis (foreground) riding a rickshaw in Hanoi.

We arrived at the perfect time, in early June. The annual Great Singapore Sale (a shopping festival with goods from all over the world) was on, and there’s nothing like some retail therapy to soothe jet lag.

Orchard Road is like a tree-lined Fifth Avenue. There are 150 mega-malls, with some that never close. I’m a label slave and purchased a used authentic Rolex with documents for a fraction of its original cost. Shopping is the national obsession, and bargain hunting can be a blood sport there.

The Arts Festival was also taking place, in a multitude of venues, and after dark the Clarke Quay area with its trendy clubs by the river became party central.

In our touring, highlights included the National Orchid Gardens (60,000 specimens), Chinatown, Little India, the ultracontemporary financial district Merlion Park, Jurong BirdPark and the Singapore Zoo, which houses orangutans and 3,050 other animals in its free-roaming enclosures.

From Singapore we took the 3-hour flight to Vietnam, arriving in Hanoi to another world — with rice paddies, sampans, lotus blossoms, coconut milk and noodle soups. It was like a time machine had taken us back to the 15th century to be in this graceful land steeped in history.

Whereas Singapore was dynamic, Hanoi was culturally stimulating. It bustled with chi (energy) yet was tranquil at the same time, studded with lakes and shaded by tamarind trees.

The first lesson our guide taught us was how to cross the streets. “It’s called the Chicken Game,” he said. “Don’t run. Don’t stop. Just walk slowly so drivers can predict your direction.”

With 2.4 million motor scooters in the city, the 7-lane traffic was horrendous. There were entire families each on a single scooter, and everything was transported on these mopeds: eight piglets, a dozen chickens upside down, a TV, a tree. . . . The pollution was thick and heavy.

Despite the occasional brief downpour, the sun shone every day during our tours, which included the Temple of Literature, One Pillar Pagoda, the French Quarter and Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum. Later we visited Hoa Lo Prison, or the Fiery Furnace, built by the French for political prisoners in 1896 and later to house American pilots, who dubbed it the “Hanoi Hilton.”

On our tour we had elaborate buffet breakfasts and 10-course lunches. Every restaurant was affordable, with dinners running $6-$10 for three courses. One evening, my dinner menu presented a salad of jellyfish plus deep-fried eel, ginger crickets and sticky rice with tender roasted pigeon.

Vietnam’s pulse is found in her cities, whereas her decorous grace is found in the villages. We traveled through the countryside for a full-day cruise of Halong Bay on a wooden junk. The air was fresh as we passed rice paddies and duck and prawn farms. It was rice harvest time, and hundreds of rice farmers were bent over their ponds. Children waved as we went by.

On the bay, we sailed into a dreamscape. 3,000 islands of sheer limestone cliffs emerged from the emerald sea. There was a timeless, haunting quality to this scenery.

The highlight of the trip, for me, was our group cyclo tour through Old Hanoi on the last day. We turned a corner downtown to see 28 bicycle rickshaws lined up to pedal us individually for an hour through the narrow scooter-filled lanes of oncoming traffic. There were some near-misses at the red lights, which were always ignored.

We later went our separate ways for independent exploration, and after several hours I found myself lost in an area of town with no taxis. I had to get back to join the others for dinner. There was no choice but to hire a ride on a scooter.

Dressed in a skirt and with my arms full of bags, I mounted the tiny seat and we were off. On the highway, I wrapped my arms and legs around my driver like an octopus. He laughed the entire way to the Sheraton.

After six days, we flew back to Singapore for a night’s good rest before our long flight back to Los Angeles via Tokyo. I reflected on the contrast between the two countries. It was like visiting two different planets on one vacation: the contemporary garden paradise of Singapore and the new Renaissance of traditional Viet Nam. Truly an Asian affair to remember!

SUZY DAVIS

Smyrna, GA