Sentosa island is a popular tourist resort in Singapore, its just about 2 km long but filled with beaches, various other popular tourist attractions and luxury hotels and golf courses.
Sentosa can be accessed by monorail, cable car as well as by bus. We took the monorail , the ticket included complimentary passes to a few major attractions on the island as well.
As the monorail coach passed thru a few bends n came close to the island , we were jolted from our admiration of the nearby docks and sea by shrieks of “merlion … merlion” by a small kid who was sitting near us in our coach .
Merlion is the symbol of Singapore, its what Eiffel tower is to Paris (atleast thts what I understand … maybe its like Burj incase of Dubai) . The actual Merlion is near Singapore river though, googling tells me there are 4 merlion statutes in Singapore . All said n done, this one is the biggest and is really grand sight!
We went further up to a place called Imbiah lookout from where we took a ride up ‘Calsberg’sky tower which is offers a terrific view of Sentosa and some parts of Singapore.
Then we visited the brilliantly done “Ïmages of Singapore “… This showcases the culture of Singapore and lets the visitor experience the journey/ evolution of Singapore through ages. It started off with a short movie about what makes the culture of Singapore so unique n spl , followed by a tour through the neatly done museum which captured the journey of Singapore through last 400 years.
The concept is well done and everything is conveyed neatly, I would say it is a must visit for any tourist to understand Singapore , its culture , evolution and what makes it unique !
I particularly liked the initial 5 min experience in which tale of Singapore was narrated; to me it seemed straight out of pages of a Harry Potter book! (for those who have actually seen it .. I do have a wild imagination J )
Next came the ‘4-D’ experience, it was a short 3-D movie plus some features to make you really connect with the movie! Did not have time for the Luge and decided to check out Underwater park instead. There are basically 3-4 points in the island where attractions/adventures are present, you can travel around from one point to next either thru trams or buses. Buses take a shorter route, while trams take a much more scenic route. We took the bus and were lucky to get a double decker open top bus , as we were going from one end of the island to other end , we got a mini-island tour in the bus. Since it was already afternoon we decided to check the dolphin lagoon first and the journey through the island to the point where this place was lovely on the open-top bus.
Dolphin lagoon is a huge crowd puller , the place got full in no time and the dolphins were fantabulous (for want of better word !) . I got a big surprise when I saw them for the first time , they were pink !!! it was kinda unreal at first , heard or even imagined that there could be a pink animal …
But it was good and the show was wonderful and is a must see for visitors to Singapore , we then went to Underwaterworld which was located in another end of the island in a beach tram , which goes alongside the scenic beach .
Underwater world is a pretty good place too , the collections of marine animals from various parts of the world is awesome , but the highlight was the underwater tunnel . We pass through a transparent tunnel where we are surrounded by fishes on all sides; we actually look up at fishes moving above us! Got a greak kick outta watching sharks and other big fishes zooming over us ! Another interesting thing was the presence of RFID … the fishes had RFID tags whenever a fish passed near the display screen thanks to RFID reader , the screen would display info bout the fish which is closest to it… pretty neat usage of technology.
Finally there was Fort Siloso , which was a fort built by British in more than 100 yrs back to guard the harbour . It was equipped with a battery of big guns to thwart any attack on British Empire; the guns are a majestic sight even now. It is a sort of museum with ammo stores, barracks, tunnels, living quarters of soldiers with audio commentary and life size replicas of soldiers inside each place to give us an idea of how the fort operated. The big guns at various points in the fort are the highlight.
It was late in the evening and as we were too exhausted we decided to call it a day and returned back to mainland by cable car from Sentosa. Hope to be back some other time and cover few other wonderful attractions which we missed out this time !
Also observed tht the island was ruled by Coke … no Pepsi at all !!!
All in all I should say that these guys have done a fabulous job of developing(or rather marketing) a tiny little island into such a popular tourist destination ... just a quick glance at numbers from websites tell me what i suspected when i visited the place ... this tiny island attracted 5 million tourist last year compared to 4 million tourists visiting entire India !!!
There is actually nothing so great in this island when you compare it with the natural beauty and the kind of sights and sounds that a well packaged Indian tourism can provide ... but again the numbers quoted earlier tell us clearly what really happens !
