McRitchie reservoir

Upon hearing “Singapore”, your will probably think up images resembling this one.

I indeed pass by this building every day on the way to my class. It is Takashimaya, a shopping mall at Orchard Road selling exclusive brands. About half of Singapore’s land area is used for buildings. These areas, whether used for commerce, living or industry, are filled with tall buildings. A way to make use of limited space is to stack people up in several layers.

That’s not all there is to Singapore, though. In the centre of the island are large reservoirs: tropical rainforests with lakes to conserve rain water. In the 19th century, the first large lake was created to stock up drinking water for the city: the McRitchie reservoir. It looks like this:

There are several walking routes around the lake, and there is opportunity for canoeing as well as golfing. Last week Yiran and I spent the better part of a Saturday exploring this area (click here for more photos). We walked 12 kilometres but took our time. We were totally amazed by so much nature, tranquility, and the absence of any buildings as far as we could look.

The McRitchie park also has a canopy walk, meaning a bridge between the tree tops. It’s nice to observe the wildlife and vegetation from a higher perspective. The only canopy walk I’ve seen before is at Kakum National Park in Ghana – it is one of Ghana’s prime tourist attractions.

It shows that Singapore is much richer than Ghana. Where wood and rope are the most utilised materials in Ghana, this bridge consists of steel and is supported by very strong cables. Although probably a lot safer, such a strong construction did take away the adventurous feeling of hanging between the trees.

Later, we also found a watch tower, which to our surprise was taken over by monkeys! They just sat there lazily and didn’t mind at all that we passed by at just a metre when climbing our way up.

The walking route was supplemented with educational signboards – one of them told us that Singapore is the most-frequent lightning place in the world. Several of the taller trees are even equipped with lightning rods. Towards the end of our walk we ended up in a thunderstorm, but were lucky enough to find shelter under a little roof. Since we had nowhere to go without getting terribly wet, we decided to just enjoy the view.

When returning home, we found it hard to believe there is so much green and wildlife at just a half hour bus ride from our flat.