A tale of two islands part 1: Sentosa
Friday, October 9, 2009
Singapore is not just the one big island. Singapore’s territory includes many smaller islands. Two of the most well known are Sentosa and Pulau Ubin. These islands are so amazingly different that it is hard to believe that they can exist in the same country.
The first of the two islands I visited was Sentosa. The crass commercialism that characterises Sentosa is evident before you even arrive on the island. The monorail leaves from inside a large shopping centre. As it continues through the island it passes through the building site for a new “integrated resort” (casino) and theme park. The monorail finally stops at the other side of the island. On the way down to the beach you will probably pass several food carts, mostly overpriced. You can tell Sentosa management has tried their best with the beach. There is palm trees and an assortment of nice little beach bars and restaurants to give it a tropical feel. The hundreds of huge ships sailing close by and the not particularly clean water do tend to kill the tropical island feel somewhat. If the bars aren’t your thing and you’d just like to sit on the beach, you can pay a ridiculous sum to hire a beach chair for a while. Spread throughout the rest of the island are more activities and rides, giving you more chances to part with your money. To top it all off in the centre of the island is a very large and very strange looking statue of Singapore’s mascot, the Merlion.
I suppose Sentosa is a place you would enjoy if money wasn’t a problem and you could ignore how commercial place is. To me it seemed a bit absurd and isn’t something I would recommend to visitors to Singapore in its current state.
Coming up: A tale of two islands part 2- Pulau Ubin.
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