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Marty Python
We can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that the Kokusai Security Pte Ltd company can catch cheating spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, and partners, find evidence of adultery and provide pre-marital checks, and from the window of its offices in downtown Singapore proudly advertises its website: CatchCheatingSpouse.com.sg. On signing up to their internet site, you can receive a free weekly email newsletter that is absolutely jam-packed with the hottest information to help you catch your cheating spouse, plus true life stories of how people have caught their cheating spouses cheating on them. You can also take their notorious infidelity quiz and learn how to turn yourself onto a human lie detector. Amazing but true.
Our travels in Asia have come to an end, at least for a while, and a four-day jaunt in Singapore provided the easiest of transitions. Only with the greatest of reluctance did we shed the informality of our Thai lifestyle; we had forgotten how exhausting it is to cram in as much as possible into short stays, but we did it, comforted in the knowledge that the world is made safe by Kokusai Security Pte Ltd.
Back on the Singapore Airlines Hop-On bus, we journeyed to Sentosa Island, a sort of tourist theme park with resorts, a sky tower, butterfly farm, insect kingdom, cable car, luge, sky ride, lookout, golf club, dolphin farm, fort, historic displays, nature walks, segway rides, a flying trapeze, movie theatre, underwater world, and a huge Merlion, a cross between a lion and mermaid, the symbol of Singapore. With all the superficiality of the speed tourists that we are, we conquered all we needed of Sentosa in a little less than two breathless hours, including a close-up encounter with a large mottled Python.
Before that, we did the obligatory ride up the Singapore River in the unusually named bumboat, the description apparently somehow derived from the English scavenger or dirt boats which carried dirt and food to and from off-shore ships. These boats were also used for general river transport and these days seem restricted to ferrying tourists, few of whom it appeared were about judging by the large number of boats lying idle and the few actually working.
Of course, while sightseeing might be interesting, it seemed more fun relaxing at a riverside café for dinner, eating outside in the warm evening air, or catching up, again, with our friend Martin as recidivists in the courtyard bar at Raffles Hotel for a leisurely Sunday lunch. Ironically we met Martin as we were about to depart to stay at his house in London while he was settling in for a week’s work in Singapore and Mumbai.
We left Singapore Sunday night, or rather early Monday morning as our flight was delayed, leaving behind a country which is reported to have the highest per-capita execution rate in the world, averaging 13.57 deaths per one million people. According to Amnesty International, 420 people have been executed here since 1991, the hangings being carried out on Friday mornings at Changi Prison. The Chief Executioner apparently consoles those he sends off with a profound little ditty: “I am going to send you to a better place than this, God bless you.” Now that would be a good tourist attraction.