Travel Maven Blog ...... David Molyneaux posts from TheTravelMavens.com

Tips for Singapore visit include eating well, bringing chewing gum

“Our passions here are food and shopping,” said my Singapore guide, Naseem. “I could eat all the time. We eat, eat, eat,” usually about five small meals a day, she said. I agreed to try.

We began a morning with Ya Kun Kaya Toast, a traditional breakfast of grilled brown bread with a slab of butter and swab of jam made from coconut milk, sugar, eggs and a fragrant tropical plant called pandan. It is served with soft boiled eggs. The eating process is dip and slurp.

I liked that morning wakeup so well that I went back for seconds two mornings later, though I did slide a bit of the jam, more intense than I prefer, off to the side.

Touring Singapore, views from the 57th floor infinity pool

Cruise passengers will love Singapore as a home port for ships. It's a great location for getting over jetlag before your cruise.

Infinity pool on the 57th floor atop the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore (Photos by David G. Molyneaux, TheTravelMavens.com)

Singapore, which began as a British trading post, is one of the world’s most modern cities and one of the largest commercial ports, feeding a free-trade zone that seems to have spawned more shopping malls than northern New Jersey.

Singapore, comfy home cruise port for exploring Southeast Asia

Singapore

Good news for travelers: Singapore, a gateway to vacations in Southeast Asia, and one of my favorite home ports for boarding cruise ships, is anticipating an expanded fleet of big, modern vessels. They will be based at new and enhanced marinas, built here at a cost of half a billion dollars.

Cargo ships anchored off the harbor at Singapore

“No doubt about it, we’re going to have a cruising boom during the next four years,” said Bob Guy, Singapore’s managing director for Destination Asia (for for cruise-asia.com). He’s an experienced tour operator with a wealth of understanding about the cruise business, and he predicts 8-12 ships will be based in Singapore by 2016.