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SINGAPORE
The Republic of Singapore is made up of the main island of Singapore and 60 other smaller islands.
With a total area of 253 square miles (655 square kilometers), the main island resides a population of 3.87 million. Singapore measures a maximum 26 miles (42 kilometers) from East to West and 14 miles (23 kilometers) from North to South.
Lying close to the southern part of Malaysia, the two countries are linked by 2 causeways.
Lying almost on the equator, Singapore is a thriving city-state that has overcome its dearth of natural resources to become one of the juggernaut economies of Asia. In the crowded streets of Chinatown, fortune tellers, calligraphers and temple worshippers are still a part of everyday life. In Little India, you can buy the best sari material, freshly ground spices or a picture of your favourite Hindu god. In the small shops of Arab Street, the cry of the imam can be heard from the nearby Sultan Mosque.
Singapore may have traded in its rough-and-ready opium dens and pearl luggers for towers of concrete and glass, and its steamy rickshaw image for hi-tech wizardry, but you can still recapture the colonial era with a gin sling under the languorous ceiling fans at Raffles Hotel. It is this carefully stage-managed combination of Western modernity and treasured Eastern and colonial past that makes Singapore such an accessible slice of Asia.
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