Our Take on “Expensive” Singapore
How expensive really is Singapore as a backpacker? And can you get by on a budget? We went to find out.
In the lead-up to our time in Singapore, and even since travelling around after our trip, we’ve heard so much negativity towards the place - especially how expensive it is. I mean, it’s certainly not cheap, but there are plenty of free things to do and in this blog, I’ll be talking about each of them, as well as sharing the places we ate at, bars we drank in and exciting neighbourhoods we visited. I hope this will give a more rounded review of the fascinating country that is Singapore!
Before I get into the free activities, I want to start by saying that with each new city, more often than not, I’ll get some form of City Sightseeing Bus around it, to not only get my bearings, but to learn a bit about what I’m looking at and have the ability to jump on and off at each stop that has something I’m interested in spending some time at. In Singapore, we used Big Bus Singapore Tours. Although we didn’t feel the audio description was all that informative, it served its purpose of getting us around the city and helping us get our bearings. It also stopped at each of the free activities I’m about to mention, although we didn’t use it for the majority - we just walked once we knew our way around.
Free Stuff to do in Singapore
Gardens by the Bay
Just search on Google, or any social media site for ‘Things to do in Singapore’, and this will be one of the first things that comes up - you know, the huge man made supertrees with plants and lights climbing up them? That’s the one. Upon arrival at the gardens, we were so surprised that they were actually free to enter! There are some paid-for areas, like if you want to go up onto the bridge to get a better view, then it’s going to cost around £7 per adult to be up there for 15 minutes. We paid the fee and went up - I’d say it was worth it just for the views and photo opportunities, but it’s not a big deal if you don’t do this. There are other paid-for activities that we weren’t interested in, so I haven’t got any information on these.
However, the fact you can just roam freely around the gardens was brilliant. You can spend hours here just lounging in the shaded areas, staring up at the giant supertrees, and looking at the many sculptures around the park. There’s also educational areas where you can learn about the evolution of different plants, as well as other interesting plant-based facts.
Every evening at 19:45 and 20:45, there’s a 15 minute light and music show in Supertree Grove. They have different themes and when we were there, we saw retro night. This consisted of a compilation of music mainly from the 80s, and the lights in the trees danced to the sound. It was as cheesy as it sounds, but it was fantastic. The buzz and anticipation around the place, the amazement on people’s faces and the overall vibe especially to that music was such a fun way to spend some time and round off the day.
Singapore Botanic Gardens
While we’re on the subject of gardens, we can’t miss out on the botanical gardens! This place amazed us. It was totally unexpected - we only knew about it because it was on the Big Bus route, so we got off there to have a look around and ended up spending a couple of hours here! The whole place was a big surprise, and one of the best surprises of all, was spotting our first monitor lizard. There was quite a bit of wildlife here, but the monitor lizard took first place. Each time we turned a corner, there seemed to be a path off to another area of magic. One of our favourite areas was Evolution Garden. Here, we learnt about the evolution of trees and various other plants, and even saw and touched some petrified trees that have existed for thousands of years.
Other areas we covered consisted of the rainforest trail, ginger garden, the botany centre, sculptures, and probably many more that I’ve forgotten to mention! There’s also the National Orchid Garden which you need to pay for, so we gave that a miss due to the enormity of the rest of the free areas we still had to cover.
Fort Canning Park
This was the first garden we visited while we waited for the hotel to be ready for us to check-in. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to explore this to the fullest because the jet lag had hit us hard, and we were so exhausted from all the travelling. However, we did see so many beautiful plants and trees, and even overheard a school teacher telling her students that the tree we were sitting right next to was a cocoa tree! We could see the cocoa pods on the tree, which was a first for us so this was pretty exciting. We also walked through ‘Spice Garden’ - one of nine of the gardens within the park. This garden had all sorts of herbs and spices growing; 180, in fact! Throughout all of the gardens, you can find infographics detailing what you’re seeing, what their uses are and sometimes their historical roles throughout time.
Not only is Fort Canning Park full of amazing flora and fauna, but it also holds strong historical significance and has many uses today for holding various celebrations and festivals. According to the garden’s website, “The hill once sited the palaces of 14th century Kings and served as the Headquarters of the Far East Command Centre and British Army Barracks. The decision to surrender Singapore to the Japanese on 15 February 1942 was also made on the hill, in the Underground Far East Command Centre, commonly known as Battle Box.”
Sultan Mosque
Sultan Mosque is the main focal point of Kampong Glam; the Muslim neighbourhood in Singapore, which I’ll talk about later in this post. Standing proudly, with two huge golden domes either side of the prayer hall, Sultan Mosque also has quite a unique feature - a belt of glass bottles around each dome. These glass bottles were collected by poor Muslim families, allowing them to make a solid contribution in the building of this mosque.
Buddha Tooth Relic Temple
It turns out Singapore has quite a wealth of impressive temples and monuments within its various neighbourhoods. While Sultan Mosque dominates Kampong Glam, Buddha Tooth Relic Temple is a beautifully elaborate piece of architecture located in the Chinatown district. This is a pretty modern Buddhist temple, only having been built in 2007. Despite this, the temple is also a museum which holds cultural information dating back thousands of years. Although we didn’t participate, there are free guided tours every Saturday conducted by volunteers.
Spectra - Light and Water Show
Located in the fancy area of Marina Bay Sands (MBS), the nightly water and light show, Spectra, brings the bay to life and puts on a wonderful display completely free of charge. Personally, I thought the light and music show in Supertree Grove was better, but as they’re both free, I’d definitely recommend attending both so you can make up your own mind. There are plenty of food and drink places around too, although they are super expensive. The show lasts 15 minutes, and the showtimes are as follows:
Sunday - Thursday: 8pm and 9pm
Friday and Saturday: 8pm, 9pm and 10pm
We sat at Dallas Cafe & Bar, but it was definitely necessary to walk down to the water’s edge to get the full effect. You can’t see the whole show from the bar’s outdoor seating area despite the website saying you can watch it from there. I’d recommend giving the bar a miss, and getting yourself down to the water 5-10 minutes before the show starts, to get the best view.
Neighbourhoods in Singapore
Although we did visit Little India, we didn’t spend a lot of time there because it was far too busy for us and we were hungry but couldn’t find anywhere we wanted to eat. Therefore, I don’t want to write about this area as it wouldn’t be a fair representation of what it possibly has to offer. What I will say is that they’re not short of jewellery shops! In the short time we were there, we must have seen about 15 jewellery shops absolutely bursting at the seams with locals looking to get their hands on a golden bargain. Many other blogs say it’s a really cool place to visit, so I’d recommend going anyway and seeing for yourself.
My favourite neighbourhood was Kampong Glam. I mentioned this area earlier, when talking about Sultan Mosque which is located in the heart of Kampong Glam, but there’s so much more this neighbourhood has to offer. The streets were bustling, but not stressful. It was full of beautiful art painted on the sides of buildings, local merchants were selling all sorts from beautifully patterned cloth to extraordinary persian rugs. There were plenty of options for food and drinks, and we enjoyed sitting outside of a bar on Haji Lane just watching everyone passing us by. As well as Haji Lane, Arab Street is another buzzing street following much of the same vibe as Haji Lane.
Our hotel was located in Chinatown which was another fantastic neighbourhood in Singapore. Every corner you turn, there’s something else to look at, whether that be Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, huge sculptures of rabbits (2023 is the year of the rabbit), interesting buildings or Chinese lantern decorations. There’s also plenty of choice for food and drinks, including a massive choice of Vegan and Vegetarian food! They even have mock meat so we could still have the famous Chinese dishes, but in a plant-based form.
Bars in Singapore
The first part of this blog talked about all the free things to do in Singapore. Well, these things heavily compensate for the prices you’ll be paying for drinks during your trip. Don’t be shocked to find yourself paying £10 - £15 for a single pint of beer!
Plenty of bars do have happy hours, but even still, the drinks are still more expensive than you’d pay back in the UK. Despite this, we treated ourselves, and tried out some of the bars Singapore had to offer.
The very first bar we went into was called The Book Bar. This was a cross between a library, cafe, co-working space and a bar. It was good to get out our laptops there and do a bit more research now that we somewhat had our bearings, but we only stayed for one drink because once we'd finished researching, it felt a little too workspace-like. However, if you're looking for a quiet coffee or beer, and to do some reading/research then this is the perfect place. The staff were very friendly and it was a clean and comfortable bar overall.
The next bar that's worth a mention is Good Luck Bar. This is located in the very middle of Haji Lane, and you couldn't ask for a better people-watching spot! It was a total fluke that we stumbled across this place, but we were so pleasantly surprised when we saw the menu full of craft beer; even more pleasantly surprised when the bartender told us that it was all from local breweries! The beer here was absolutely divine. After visiting multiple bars and only seeing Tiger, or other lagers on tap, we were so happy to finally have access to some proper craft ale. Like everywhere in Singapore though, the beer was expensive. We didn't mind so much this day, because we had no grand plans to go to Universal Studios or anything like that, so the only things we'd really be paying for were food and drinks. The staff were all wonderful and made us feel very welcome. One even took a picture of us for her social media. There was an elaborate food menu, too, and the dishes looked delicious. We didn't eat here so I can't rate the food, but it did look good.
Now that we'd had a taste of craft beer again, we were eager to find more over the following days, rather than settling for bog-standard lager that we thought we were going to be stuck with. With that, we came across Lion Brewery, which was located in Chinatown, not very far from our hotel. Lion Brewery didn't have as many taps on as I thought they would, but the beer they did have was pretty good. The venue was quite spacious, and they were serving food as well as beer. Again, we didn't eat here so I can't comment on the food. Reading Lion Brewery's story, I can confirm that their goal to make sessionable beer that's tastier than standard lager, but not as strong or dense as other craft beer, has been hit. The brewery was created in Singapore with a goal to make beer that fits the climate. It did just that.
Next, and probably my favourite place, was Heart of Darkness. For me, this place wasn't just about the beer, but the atmosphere there was right up my street. Very friendly staff, who even remembered us when we re-visited, good music, a good size, some decent food options and a bar full of taps with tasting flights for us to indulge in and choose our favourites. The bar had quite a rocky vibe, which you could probably guess by the name, and it was quite dimly lit compared to others we'd been in.
Last but not least, the final bar I want to shout out to is SG Taps. This is a small taproom with an ever-changing variety of beers on tap, mainly from local breweries. Our server was very knowledgeable about the beers on offer, and even expanded her knowledge sharing to giving us recommendations of what to do with our time in Singapore! It seemed like she had all the time in the world for us, but she was giving everyone equal attention and was right there to get anyone another beer when their glass was empty. SG Taps also serves food - we shared a pizza which was pretty nice and went down perfectly with a pint of Pink Blossoms Brewery's craft IPA. We were so excited to see they stocked Pink Blossoms Brewery, because just the night before, we'd been walking home when we came across their beer truck parked on the waterfront selling pints from the van. We had their 'Happy together' beer, which was a Watermelon IPA. It was so refreshing!! We could have stayed there all night, but we were hungry… as usual.
Not SG Taps, but a picture of Tora enjoying one of the watermelon beers from the Pink Blossoms Brewing van
This leads me on to the final part of this blogpost; the restaurants!
Restaurants in Singapore
We started off our trip pretty jetlagged and also homeless for around 12 hours due to the check-in time… so, after some wandering around in the early hours, it was time for cafes to start opening their doors. We came across a cute little cafe in the Citylink shopping centre called Yugoslavia Bakery & Cafe, and it was selling all kinds of delicious Yugoslavian treats. One thing we didn't expect on our travels, was for our first meal in Asia to be Yugoslavian - but we were here for it!! Tora had a feta flat-bread and I had a spinach and potato Börek; a delicious flaky slice of pie with layers of spinach and sliced potato. Not my usual 8am snack, but to me, it was around midnight. The place actually set us up with false expectations in terms of the price of food, because it was only £10.80 for our food, some juice and coffee… It sounds about right for UK standards, but in Singapore, this would be considered pretty cheap.
If you are looking for cheap food, however, there are many Hawker Centres - food halls with many stalls to choose from - and we went to one called Lian Yin which was under the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple in Chinatown, which was mentioned earlier in the post. I must admit, we were slightly overwhelmed due to how busy this place was, the amount of choice and the language barriers. We simply didn't know what anything was, and I ended up with brown rice, some mock-meat, and a deep fried sweet potato! While Tora had some white rice and stir-fried veg and sweet and sour mock-chicken balls. It was very cheap, and great to experience eating amongst the locals. The food was nice, albeit a bit on the random side, but if I went again, I'd definitely just take my time and try a lot harder to understand what was on offer.
Still in Chinatown, we discovered Eight Treasures Vegetarian Restaurant, and it was a real treat! The menu was huge, and full of delicious vegan and vegetarian food - most of which had mock meat in some form or the other. We definitely went overboard with our order, because we simply couldn't choose just one thing each, but the extremely friendly staff brought out tupperware boxes and disposable chopsticks so we could take the leftovers back to the hotel. This place was pretty reasonably priced, too, from what I remember. My main memory of Eight Treasures was how wonderful each member of staff was - nothing was too much hassle for them, and they were full of smiles the whole time we were there.
Despite being about to embark on a month-long jaunt in Thailand, we simply couldn't wait for some Pad Thai, and we paid a visit to Sawasdee Thai Restaurant (also in Chinatown). The food here was so tasty and the staff were friendly, but knowing what I know now after having been in Thailand for a few weeks, the food was pretty expensive for what it was. Saying that, it's all relative to the economy in that country, so it was pretty standard for Singaporean meals. I remember the buzz on this street being great, though, and we enjoyed our dinner sitting outside watching the madness around us.
The final restaurant to give mention to, is Afterglow. Afterglow has a fully plant-based menu free from preservatives, refined sugar and artificial flavouring according to its website, and is mostly gluten-free. The food here made me feel so good, after a few days gorging out on rich Asian food, and it was all so very delicious! They have a wide range of options on their menu, from sharing platters, to salads, raw mains and warm mains. There's something for everyone!
I hope I managed to get across how much we enjoyed our time in Singapore, but more importantly, how you can enjoy it whether you're on a tight budget, or you're balling! Singapore is a vibrant city full of beautiful people, gorgeous natural green spaces, many food and drink options and a lot of activities - both free and paid-for.
Compressed List
Free stuff:
Gardens by the bay
Supertree Grove
Singapore Botanic Gardens
Fort Canning Park
Sultan Mosque
Buddha Tooth Relic Temple
Spectra - Light and water show
Neighbourhoods:
China Town
Kampong Glam
Arab Street
Haji Lane
Bars:
The Book Bar
Good Luck Bar
Heart of Darkness
Lion Brewery
SG Taps
Restaurants:
Yugoslavia - Citylink
Lian Yin
Eight Treasures Vegetarian Restaurant
Sawasdee Thai Restaurant
Afterglow