Travelling is definitely out of plan for a long while. Instead, we can play tourists locally, and uncover the many gems within Singapore. It's probably the best we can make out of this crisis.
Over the weekend, we hopped onto two local tours with Let's Go Tour. An award winning licensed travel agency providing immersive Singapore Tours available in both English and Mandarin. We did the Kampong Experience tour, as well as the Water Story & Sustainability tour. On top of these, they have many other educational tours listed in their 'This is Home' series tour.
Kampong Experience
A 2 hour tour where we walked through Singapore's last standing kampong to know more of its past stories, as well as the development of housings from villages to high rises. This kampong located at Lorong Buangkok is still home to 26 households as of today. Our local guides, Yap and Robin walked us through the village where we were greeted by sounds of crowing roosters, sighted wooden houses sheltered with zinc roofs and spotted interesting plants. It was a good reminder of progression and civilisation. Which in midst, the lost of closeness and neighbourliness.
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| Wooden house with zinc roof |
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| Spot the 4 digits postal code |
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| The low rise among the high rise |
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| Backyard space |
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| Where do we find bamboo in Singapore?! |
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| Taking shelter |
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| Living space |
We also had the opportunity to meet land owner, Ms Sng who allowed us to enter her attap guest house and very enthusiastically spoke to us while we were in there. She talked about how close knitted the people are within the kampong, how she cycles out to get her groceries and shared about how visitors are increasingly rising in recent years. It was a nice sit through of story telling.
It was really interesting to know that the attap houses rental are made extremely affordable without a cent of increment along the years. The monthly rent ranges between $6.50 to $30.
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| Do you remember zero point?! |
In this meticulously planned tour, the kids also had a go on some childhood games of the past. Making the tour engaging and interactive.
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| Savouring sng bao |
While advancement is necessary, heritage should be preserved. We hope this last kampong will be here to stay. It was a very educational and enriching journey we had. Big Thanks to our guide, Yap for a journey through this well treasured estate.
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| With our local guide, Yap |
Our only advice will be to bring mosquito repellent! Though our guides had it thoughtfully prepared for us. Mosquito bites are part of the experience I guess.
Water Story & Sustainability
In the very same weekend, on a different day, we did the Water Story & Sustainability tour with Let's Go Tour. We embarked on a discovery of our water story and learn about why water is so precious. Our meeting point was at Marina Barrage, and it ended at Gardens By The Bay.
We took away learning and knowledge on the number of reservoirs we have, and identified the reservoirs that are safe for water activities. Some reservoirs have got sightings of crocodiles! Our guide, Yap also shared on the budget taken to clean up the once polluted Singapore river, as well as the development of marina barrage. It was a pity though that we couldn't visit the gallery and rooftop solar panels. Will be good though if they are included in future tours.
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| Marina Barrage |
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| Flood gate control model |
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| Past and the present |
While we may be self sustainable on having clean water, the option of imported water is still cheaper. Water will be priced three times more if we were to be 100% self reliant. Yap also shared on what our 4 national taps are - Local Catchment, Imported, Desalination and Reclaimed water (NEWater).
It was much knowledge shared on water, before we took a leisure stroll over to Gardens By The Bay.
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| Cactus! |
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| With the swan |
Gardens By The Bay is undoubtedly another great pride of Singapore. It is a marvelous rise of horticulture from a barren reclaimed land. And through this tour, we actually discovered a little more about the gardens which we thought we already knew very well of. Not sure about you, but we didn't know there was a little aquarium within the gardens! It was house to some big exotic fishes.
We scooped some insights to its supertrees too. 11 of the supertrees are capable of performing environmentally
sustainable functions. The waste heat created from the burn off of garden biomass is utilized
to generate the electricity needed to cool the conservatories.
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| Big Fish Aquarium |
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| Supertrees! |
Do bring your water play gear along too! Have fun in the children's water playground in Gardens by The Bay before or after your tour.
While time and circumstances allow, let us discover and adventure through the many gems in Singapore. There are many histories to unfold and stories for share. Thank you for having us, Let's Go Tour Singapore and AT Marketing Consultancy!
$200 per session (2-3 pax)
$250 per session (4-5 pax)
Session 1: 9am to 11am
Session 2: 2pm to 4pm
Session 3: 5pm to 7pm
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