One city, two views of Singapore: It’s either very special or sort of a snooze

In early November, we spent a very nice day and a half in Singapore, subject of a Dec. 18 article by Rosemary McClure [“A Storied Sling”]. Singapore is probably too far to visit just as a destination itself, but it is a wonderful gateway to other parts of Asia and worth a day or two on the way to Thailand, Vietnam or Laos.

We highly recommend the National Museum of Singapore to learn about the history of this remarkable city-state, the Asian Civilisations Museum for the exhibit of thousands of pieces of pottery recovered from an ancient shipwreck, and especially the the National Orchid Garden inside the Singapore Botanic Gardens, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Singapore rapid transit system is also a marvel: clean, quiet, efficient and a bargain, with a two-day pass for 28 Singapore dollars, about $20.

On the advice of one of our sons, we skipped the Singapore Sling (even though we did stay at Raffles Hotel, its home), choosing instead the local Tiger beer or gin and tonic.

Daniel Fink

Beverly Hills

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We just got back from Singapore and I read your article. Right on!!

Singapore is a wonderful city. The Gardens by the Bay, Marina Bay Sands, the architecture, Raffles and its Long Bar and, of course, the shopping.

Alan Steinharter

Riverside

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I was interested to read the article on Singapore, which I recently visited with my brother. On the whole we both found it rather uninteresting.

It is certainly very clean and well-maintained, there appears to be no homeless population, and as a recent article in the L.A. Times reported [“A Minus in U.S. Math Test Results,” Dec. 13, by Joy Resmovits] the schoolchildren recently did much better in tests of math, science and reading than those in the U.S. and many other countries.

But we found it boring to visit. The Singapore Botanic Garden was not impressive, and the orchid garden, which we visited and looked at in detail, consisted almost solely of varied green leaves. Only one plant had blooms.

Anyone interested in orchids would do better to visit the yearly Santa Barbara International Orchid Show, set for March 17-19. And an overwhelming show of color and beauty can be found in Golden Gate Park when the begonias are in bloom. There is also the Capitola Begonia Festival at Capitola, about six miles east of Santa Cruz, which is scheduled for Sept. 1-4.

All of this is much easier to visit than Singapore’s attractions and much more interesting — although the food markets in Singapore are worth visiting if you like to see the fish, frogs, meat, fruit and vegetables the residents buy.

Patricia M. Wolfe

Los Angeles