Singapore: from old colonial to new cool

Singapore is shaking off its 'maiden aunt' image with a serious facelift. Mark Rowe marvels at the transformation.

Where am I? After a spin in a dizzying observation wheel, I take a ride at Universal Studios, decide against taking my chances with another spinning wheel – the roulette at the casino – and then stroll around a waterfront in the shadow of sky-high futuristic towers of bristling metal. The steaming equatorial heat is the only giveaway.

Singapore has come a long way – in an extremely short time – from the rocking rattan chairs of Raffles Hotel, where flannelled fools sipped their Singapore Slings under palm fans, amid the ghosts of Somerset Maugham and Rudyard Kipling.

The grand old lady of Asia – whose historically prudish attitude to the hedonistic pleasures available elsewhere in south-east Asia has seen her portrayed as a maiden aunt – appears to have put on a short skirt and had a makeover.

In barely five years the Singapore waterfront has been transformed, its river canalised and turned into the basic building blocks of the country's answer to Darling Harbour in Sydney. Gleaming new skyscrapers have seemingly punched up from the earth overnight, rowers and water-skiers now pull their craft across the stilled waters and then there's the integrated resorts (two of them) combining hotels, family entertainment and – oh, my maiden aunt – casinos.

Source = telegraph.co.uk