Monday, October 30, 2006

Uniquely Singapore

My Diwali this time was spent in a unique way - in Singapore!!
Being my first visit outside India, it was a great experience.

To begin with, here are a few facts and comparisons (source):
Singapore, though has a very short history (of about 600 years), established its identity in the guild of nations of the world.
It is a very small country compared to India, being 699 sq.KMs(190th largest country) and having about 4 million people.
India is the 7th largest and has 3,287,590sq.KMs and more than a billion people (!!) (source)
But in terms of the GDP per capita, India(122nd place) is way behind Singapore(22nd place) (source)
Tourism is one of the largest industries of Singapore, with about 9 million tourists in 2005.

Singapore has a rich mixture of different cultures as it is mainly formed out of immigrants from Malay, Chinese, Indian, British among other places. From what I observed, the identity of singapore as a country has evolved as an amalgam of the different immigrants who have settled there.

The importance given to small details which may seem insignificant to us Indians, hit me right on the face. Be it the roads, or the cleanliness, or the infrastructure effort that has gone into the architecture and planning, especially with respect to the tourists, it is commendable.
The blend of art and technology is visible everywhere. Its indeed very difficult to get lost out there, with all the indicators and helpful people. The creativity with which the places are built makes it a pleasure for tourists to spend time.

Well, they do have their own set of problems, which I wont go into now, but on the whole, it is a beautiful country.My visit made me learn a lot about India too, along with, needless to say, Singapore.

I am not trying to compare two nations and rate them or anything of that sort. The few days that I have seen in singapore is very trivial to make any such comparison. And also, as obvious from the facts, the scale at which these countries operate is totally different.

It was definitely a good decision to visit Singapore. Thanks to my sister who pushed for it the most, we decided to go in the last moment. I'll upload a few snaps when I get some time.

Majulah Singapura!! (Malay:"Onward, Singapore")

13 comments:

ROhan said...

cool.. didnt know u went there !!!

Anonymous said...

For a moment I was thinkin how could this be ur first visit outside india.. then i realized u had gone to Delhi before and not China..
Singapura is a very nice place and I wish I had visited it once.. They are very professional as u said and Singapore is one of the cleanest countries in the world. You did a nice thing by visitin the country.. Do post photos and let me know :)

Anonymous said...

great! Look forward to more snaps and detail of what you did, saw and ate there.

Ghee

Anonymous said...

All I can say now is, KNM...

Anonymous said...

The way you have written it makes me feel that, if 'Singapore' was a "product", you would be one of the right guys to do marketing for that product!! Bad analogy, I know. The kind of place it is, I dont think it needs any marketing anyway..

Singapore could be one of the most beautiful countries and the most visited or whatever, but dont get so carried away dude..
Let me see if I get carried away as much as you did and if I dont get lost there!
By the way, I liked the title of your posting!

Anonymous said...

i second krishna this time... ;).. if i got his comment right...

Anonymous said...

one KNM saying another one KNM.. wow .. great... Both are facts anyway..

Anonymous said...

Hey I didn't know that you went to Singapore.. When did you go? How long were you there?
I've heard from a lot of people that it's a very good place

Karthik said...

@vinay - yes, it is a good place [all the answers to your questions are in my post! Go and read it first ;-) ]

@nanditha - Indeed Singapore is a nice place... but I'm definitely not "carried away".

Nanditha said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Nanditha said...

Ok. Now that I have seen the place, I can rightly comment.. Yeah- I agree.. You cannot get lost in Singapore- Well- I guess that needs very hard work!

But I think I liked Tokyo more than Singapore.It was beautiful!

Aparna said...

really nicely written post yo!
Me wants to travel too!! :D

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