Singapore Hotels & Malaysia Hotels
About Singapore Malaysia

ATTRACTIONS OUTSIDE

The famous image of Singapore, promulgated by the convention board and recognizable to business travelers everywhere, is of the towering cityscape along the water's edge-but there's a reason they call this place the Garden City. Not only are there picturesque gardens and parks nestled within the urban jungle, but the urban jungle is nestled within real jungle. While it's true that most of the wooded areas have been replaced by suburban housing, it's also true that thousands of acres of secondary rainforest have survived the migration of Singaporeans to the suburbs. Better yet, there are still some areas with primary rainforest, some of which are accessible by paths.

What Singapore does have are spectacular gardens, from the well-groomed Botanical Garden to nature preserves like BukitTimah and Sungei Buloh, where tropical rainforest and mangrove swamps are close enough to the city that you can visit them on a morning or afternoon visit. Outside the city center you'll also find historic sites and temples like the edifying Changi Prison Museum and the Siong Lim Temple, as well as museums and science centers.

In the late 1800s, the colonial government began to section off tracts of forest into nature reserves to preserve the habitats of local species of plants and animals. The first of these was the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, established in 1883. In 1990, Singapore passed a national parks act, which established the National Parks Board to oversee not only the national parks, but also the Singapore Botanical Gardens and Fort Canning Park. The mission of the board is to preserve and promote the nature reserves as a sanctuary for wildlife, a place for plant conservation, and a resource for education and outdoor recreational activities. Today, in addition to Bukit Timah, the nature reserve system includes MacRitchie, Seletar, Pierce, and Upper Pierce reservoirs. With the exception of Bukit'fimah, these places are located in the central part of the island (see "Central & Northern Singapore Attractions," below).

While the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve is not under the jurisdiction of the National Parks Board, it too serves to conserve wildlife for educational and recreational purposes.
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