Can you imagine spending two-and-a-half hours making up your face to a strictly-laid-down pattern and getting dressed in an elaborately embroidered and decorated costume – for a performance lasting a quarter of an hour?

That’s exactly what two members of the Singapore-based Chinese Theatre Circle did for their audience during a recent show at The Pavilions pool villa spa resort in Phuket recently, as a showcase for The Pavilions’ Passion for Music programme. We know, because we were lucky enough to be in the audience that evening.

It was the first time either Kay or I had seen a Cantonese opera performance, and we weren’t sure what to expect, although the notes we were given beforehand told us that the duet we were to hear, The Parting Song of Love, was a gem of Cantonese opera.

The story’s a very sad one. A Chinese princess is rescued from drowning by a warrior from a barbarian state. The couple fall in love, and marry. But the Emperor of China soon hears about the marriage and threatens that he will send his armies to invade the barbarian state if the princess does not immediately return to China – without her husband.

Neither of us speak Cantonese, so we weren’t able to appreciate the full beauty of the performance. (Indeed, we wouldn’t have known what was going on without the programme notes.)

Not only that, but there’s a good deal of symbolism and significance behind costumes, make-up, gestures and movements. Take for instance the pheasant tail-feathers in the barbarian warrior’s head-dress in our photos: they show he’s a military leader. Meanwhile long cloth sleeves – known as water sleeves – are used for expressive effect to show the elegance and tenderness of the female characters, as you can see from the princess’s costume. Make-up also helps identify characters; at a very basic level, men’s eyebrows are usually drawn thicker than women’s, though there are of course many more layers of sophistication than that.

But even without knowing about the traditional symbolism – or even the title of the duet – it was clear enough that the couple were lovers expressing their anguish at being forced to part. And the singing, the music, and the acting all made for a beautiful and touching spectacle.

The Chinese Theatre Circle was founded in 1981 by husband-and-wife couple Leslie and Joanna Wong, who for the previous 14 years had been in charge of a Cantonese clan association’s cultural activities and had taken the clan’s opera shows to unprecedented heights of success for a local troupe. That same year Mrs Wong became the first Chinese opera artiste to be awarded Singapore’s prestigious Cultural Medallion.

Since then the Chinese Theatre Circle has performed to audiences all over the world, including particularly notable performances of The Poet Emperor Li Yu and A Costly Impulse in Beijing – the latter of which was broadcast across China to a viewership of 700 million.

If you did your sums a couple of paragraphs ago you’ll have realised that the Chinese Theatre Circle is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. Sadly, though, we’ve read in the Straits Times that the company is facing funding difficulties – young Singaporeans, presented with a plethora of entertainment choices, aren’t so devoted to Cantonese opera as the older generations, and government grants to boost the traditional arts have largely passed the Circle by. There’s also the question of who will take on the running of the Circle when the Wongs, who are both now in their seventies, finally retire.

Let’s hope their problems find a happy resolution soon – it would be a real loss to Singaporean and Cantonese culture if this wonderful opera company had to close.

You can read more about The Pavilions’ Passions programme here:
The Pavilions, Phuket: Passions

Back in 2003, we published an article by Rowena Carr-Allinson about her trip from Bangkok to Singapore by train. She did it in style aboard the luxurious Orient Express. Sadly, such a grand trip was not on our agenda. We took the somewhat shabby KTM Intercity from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore – Service No.1, the Express Rakyat.

We’d not seen much of Malaysia’s countryside before as we have always flown into and stayed in Penang or KL in the past. This six-and-a-half hour journey was intended to fill this gap in our experience. We could, of course, have simply flown from KL to Singapore but we wanted to try something different. The train is much cheaper than flying – a first class seat costs a mere RM 68 compared with AirAsia’s cheapest rate of RM 109 when we looked, and that was excluding AirAsia’s baggage surcharges. And also, by the time you factor in the long trip out to KL’s Low Cost Carrier Terminal, the waiting times at the airport and faffing about with security etc, the train only takes an hour or so longer and is a lot less hassle.

There are night trains which ply the route and offer sleeper cabins, but we travelled during the day so we could enjoy the views. More about that later – be prepared for a lot of rubber plantations and palm trees.

We had booked first class seats in an air-conditioned carriage. There was plenty of legroom and the seats were comfortable. However, the decor and furnishings were generally shabby and a bit grubby. The carriage would benefit considerably from a bit of a make-over. They did, however, have a large flat-screen Samsung TV at the front of the carriage showing films such as The Golden Compass and promotional information about their services. Watching films might have been an entertaining way to pass the time, but “watch” is the key word here as there was no sound.

Smoking was not allowed inside the carriage, but at the front there was a place to stow luggage between ours and the next carriage. There, they had thoughtfully provided a little pull-down seat and an ashtray for the puffers aboard.

About an hour down the track, friendly staff came round and offered free drinking water and a snack. Neither of us ate ours as they looked like some kind of unappealing buns. Mine had a picture of corn on it while Dave’s had chocolate. We thought we would simply give them away to other passengers, but the first two of our neighbours whom we offered them to politely declined so we quickly got the impression that the locals didn’t particularly like the food either.

The train continued to clank, clatter and whurp its way through palm trees. And more palm trees. There seemed to be quite a lot of new construction going on too, of what looked like bridges and roads. There was also one site which looked as though they were building a new airfield.

We rattled past more palm trees. And more construction sites. So much for this treat of seeing the Malaysian countryside. We also passed through some towns. The rubber industry was very apparent in that there was an abundance of large Dunlop signs and hoardings. In one small town every second business seemed to be in the motor industry in one way or another – car sales, traders, repairs.

Back in the countryside we saw some brand new villas, juxtaposed with corrugated iron dwellings and traditional-style wooden houses. But each new villa was isolated and seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. It made me wonder who would want to live there, but I could only speculate. Perhaps they were for plantation managers? I expect the owners would live somewhere more accessible and probably in something a bit grander.

The temperature inside the train was fine. I’d brought along a thick, fleece jacket and a pair of socks as I really dislike sitting in a refrigerated atmosphere. Thankfully I didn’t need them.

There were two toilets at the rear of the compartment. One was a Western-style “sit-down” toilet, the other was an Asian-style squatter. Both were equipped with grab-rails – thankfully, as the train lurches from side to side quite alarmingly on some of the faster stretches – and were relatively clean, roughly on a par with some of the UK’s seedier InterCity trains. Both also had sinks with full hand-wash dispensers. It soon became apparent why the dispensers were full – neither of them worked. However, Dave managed to dispense some himself by opening the dispenser and getting some liquid out of the bottle. And then he discovered that there were no paper towels.

One mildly interesting break from the palm trees, more palm trees, the terracotta-coloured earth and the construction sites was Paloh Station. This is a neat little station with colourful flowering shrubs. The station-master obviously takes great pride in the appearance of the place. It made me think of Bhowani Junction. The book is set in 1946/7 in a small railway town when the British were pulling out of India. Most of India’s railways were run by Anglo-Indians – people who fitted into neither the Indian nor the British community and therefore formed their own, much of it built around India’s railway network. But I have digressed. Paloh just looked a little bit different from the norm in that it was so pretty.

We later passed through Kluang station. It looked as though the station was sited in a grubby old part of town, but there were modern skyscrapers in the middle distance and relatively high hills in the background. A man was sitting on a bench accompanied by two identically dressed little boys. They were well scrubbed up and squeaky-clean looking. I surmised they were waiting for the arrival of someone special.

The train continued its erratic drum beat, lurching and shoogling towards its destination and as we approached Singapore, the conductor handed out immigration cards. Then a cleaner came round to remove the rubbish bags, which had been thoughtfully provided for us at the start of the journey.

The train halted one last time at Johor Baru, where we were checked out of Malaysia. And then we took the short final journey across the causeway and into Singapore!

As we struggled to get our luggage off the train a very helpful lady in uniform (on closer inspection of her name badge, we discovered that her name was Joyce and that she was an auxiliary police officer) pointed out an unused trolley and even went and fetched it for us. We then made our way towards Immigration. The passage through Immigration was relatively straightforward (helped by Joyce advising us that we could take the trolley through) although Dave was held back as his handwritten (and hand-corrected) passport was thoroughly checked. After a short delay we were allowed to proceed, although Dave found that he was admitted for only 30 days instead of the 90 usually granted to Irish passport holders. (UK passport holders get 180.) Customs was similarly simple – just a matter of passing our bags through the scanner. And then Joyce was on hand again at the end to point us in the direction of the taxi rank.

In fact, the only snag about the Woodlands checkpoint and train station was the complete lack of toilet facilities. Dave went on a long hunt to try and find one, but in vain – he eventually managed to find someone to ask about them (yes, Joyce again!) and was told that the nearest toilets were at a snack bar just over the road from the exit. We decided to hold it in until we got to the hotel, which was a relatively pleasant 20-minute journey away by taxi.

You can book this train trip online and even choose your seats. To sum up, if we were to be travelling from KL to Singapore again, I would definitely choose to go by train rather than air. It’s a lot less hassle and provides a relaxing interlude from busy airports.

You can find out details of train times – and book seats online – on the KTM Berhad website.

Despite several visits to South East Asia over the last two decades – and even living there at one stage – we realised a few months ago that we had been to Singapore only once in all that time, and that was for only two nights about 15 years ago. Our impression then had been that it was expensive and rather sterile.

A trawl of various hotel review websites revealed that it was still every bit as expensive as it had been relative to other countries in the region. Nevertheless, we found a hotel which looked as if it would be comfortable and well enough equipped for our needs, and reasonably close to the centre of things (an undeniable advantage of Singapore is that you’re never too far away from anywhere you want to be). So it was that we arrived at the Robertson Quay Hotel early one Thursday evening in mid-November, having booked – as always – through Agoda.

Check-in was handled mostly pleasantly and efficiently, although there was a little bit of head-scratching when we pointed out we’d asked for a double bed and a smoking room. But we got there in the end.

The room itself was pretty tiny, with a simple double-sized bed (we estimated it to be 1.5m wide) rather than a king-size or even queen-size. The bedside table (there was only one!) was on one side of the bed, the room’s light controls were on the other. With a room that size, the air conditioning was more than adequate – we kept it turned off most of the time.

There was space for only one chair and desk-cum-dressing-table, but as there was only one cable connection for the Internet that was OK. The connection’s available for what the RQH describes as a “nominal” fee; S$ 5 is certainly a good deal less than many hotels charge for a 24-hour connection.

There was, however, space for a mini fridge (not a mini bar – it was empty!) which was pretty much what you’d expect of it and well up to the job. Dave nipped over to the nearest 7-Eleven and stocked up for our first evening; on the second day we discovered a branch of the Cold Storage supermarket chain and did a more comprehensive shop there.

Although there were tea-making facilities (a kettle and the necessary crockery, with a couple of teabags and sachets) There was no drinking water in the room, which surprised us – but apparently the tap water in Singapore is drinkable.

The bathroom (which was a wet room) was, er, compact – enough room for the bog, a reasonably sized sink, and a small shower. The sliding door (more space-saving) was a bit difficult to manage, and had to be pushed quite firmly to the right, to the full extent of its travel, to enable the catch to engage.

The safe door was also a bit tricky, although the instructions were clear enough. One of the hinges was loose, so the door needed a bit of more or less forceful persuasion to get it into position.

As with far too many hotels, the internet connection software was a bit difficult to manage. Initially Kay couldn’t get logged in. Dave tried using his own machine and got on straight away; then tried again with Kay’s and was told he was already logged in. After a while he hit on the idea of logging out – but he had to guess the URL of the logout page because the instruction sheet provided by reception didn’t mention it. Once he’d done that, it worked OK.

Breakfast was included in our room rate but would have cost S$8 otherwise. We struggled bravely out of bed to try it on our first morning, but didn’t bother on the second – and we wouldn’t have chosen to pay for it if it hadn’t been included. The selection was pretty mediocre. (About the best that could be said for it was that the bananas were nice. And how hard is it to find a nice banana in South East Asia?)

The road is quiet; even in our room on the first floor we weren’t disturbed. And the view of the Singapore Repertory Theatre opposite was pleasant enough, enhanced by the greenery in the window box below our window. On our first evening we found a couple of places to eat and drink in the streets just round the corner from us, including a lot of Japanese and Korean restaurants. And then on our second evening we discovered a whole lot more places along Robertson Quay itself, some of them really good, and making us wish we’d booked longer than the two nights we’d allowed ourselves. Ah well…

Overall rating: 3½ out of 5
Despite the shortcomings, the RQH is really not a bad place to stay. Yes, it’s a small room, and not everything is as well maintained as it might be, but it’s a good deal cheaper than the more luxurious places we’d otherwise have considered staying in (Singapore is expensive!) and the location’s pretty good. We’d go back there – unless we found something in the area that was better value, which seems unlikely to happen.

Unfortunately we found the expo a big disappointment and only spent about ten minutes in the exhibition hall.  There was no available map of the event or participants’ booths, it seemed as though there were no entertaining events, and there was no real opportunity to make new contacts with people in the F&B industry.

Instead there were lots of stalls selling discounted items. It seemed like much more of a one-day market than a serious trade event.  Obviously it was popular as there were crowds of eager shoppers jostling for the bargains.  I personally wouldn’t go back and just thought I’d mention it on the off-chance that any of you might be considering going to the 2011 do.

You can visit their website if you want more information.

Singapore could be set for an influx of visitors in July, with two major events set to be held in the city-state.

The Garden Festival will run from 15 to 22 July and will celebrate the talents of the world’s “gardening luminaries”.

Based at Suntec Singapore, the exhibition will feature highlights including displays by local and award-winning designers and a showcase of orchids found in South East Asia.

Another highlight for travellers to look out for this month is the Singapore Night Festival, which will take place in the Bras Basah precinct on 16 and 17 July.

Running from 18:30 to 02:00 local time on each night, the festival will feature a host of special events including street theatre performances and art installations, as well as extended opening hours at the National Museum of Singapore, the Peranakan Museum and other venues.

The Singapore Food Festival is also being held throughout the month of July and finishes on 1 August.

Opodo cheap flights, hotels and car hire – let the journey begin!