One of the things that everyone who has been to Singapore has always told me was that it is expensive, even just to purchase tickets of attractions, as a tourist. I thought, 'Challenge Accepted' (in the voice of Barney Stinson!). But here's the thing, it was 'after' I made the plan that I realized that none of the places I was visiting actually costed anything!!! That said, I didn't visit Merlion, Gardens by the Bay, Sentosa, Universal Studios, Singapore Zoo, or any of the usual touristy places which are essentially the ones that cost a lot of dollars! So, here's My Travelogue on the unusual places to visit in Singapore!

If you're an Indian, here's the reference to how big, the country of Singapore is - Singapore is almost the same size as Bangalore, it is half the size of Delhi, and one fifth the size of Goa!!! 

We landed in Singapore at 9:45AM and after heading to my friend's home to drop our luggage and after a a nice breakfast, we headed off to the Singapore Botanical Gardens, Singapore's only UNESCO World Heritage Site. It has no entry ticket, so visiting Singapore Botanical Gardens is one of the free things to do in Singapore.

The Singapore Botanical Gardens covers an area of 82 hectares, so basically it is huge. It has 4 entry points to it and we entered via the Tanglin Gate which is easily accessible via Napier MRT Station. We started walking on the paved road and soon we heard the rustle in the midst of the dried, fallen leaves - it was a monitor lizard! It was Atyudarini's first time seeing a Monitor lizard and it was in the wild as well. I was told there were quite a few of these here in Singapore Botanical Gardens. After this, in the rest of the day, we spotted atleast 3 more! 

Soon we were walking along a small path with water on one side and land on the other with plants all over everywhere and soon we were at a gazebo with a couple of sculptures in it, plus, right there, was a huge waterbody with a large sculpture of flying swans. Our next stop was to see the Sundial - I checked the time and the difference was only about 15 mins. Not bad at all!

Ginger Garden: From there, we walked over the Ginger Garden. This was perhaps the most interesting, most fascinating, most fun-filled spot in the whole of Singapore Botanical Gardens - the waterfalls! In the heart of the Ginger Garden in Singapore Botanical Gardens, there's a small, artificial waterfalls with a passage that goes behind it, so you can see it from behind! It was just awesome and the 2 kids had so so so much fun. Both were completely drenched in a few minutes, splashing water on each other!!! Then we did a bit of a walk around the Ginger Garden seeing the varieties of ginger from across the world segregated by region and soil/water varieties.

Canopy Walk & SPH Walk of the Giants: It was already afternoon, so I headed to the visitors center to ask what else can I do in the next couple of of hours and he pointed us to the Canopy Walk. The Canopy walk is a part of the Learning Forest Trail. Here's the top tip at Singapore Botanical Gardens Learning Forest Trail - walk quietly, like actually walking in the forest; there are quite a few animals & birds which you can observe & hear if you're quiet. The Learning Forest Trail has 2 sections - Canopy Trail and Discovery Trail and we headed to the Canopy Trail. Spiral staircase took us 8m above ground to the boardwalk and canopy. The Canopy was phenomenal and was a superhit with Atyudarini. It is basically a net, 8m above the ground, secured by some iron, wood & concrete and is called SPH Walk of the Giants. Why Giant? Well, walking on this, you'll spot some of the Giants / Tallest & Biggest Trees of the forest. The construction of it is quite fascinating - it doesn't touch the trees at all, but a separate structure around the trees, but very close to the tree trunks. You can even climb the central iron structure around the tree and hug the tree! To realize that I was hugging a tree 9m (30ft) above the ground was quite something! We walked on the canopies, we jumped a bit, we lay down on it, we rolled on it, it was fun! Perhaps the 2nd favourite of Atyudarini here, after the waterfalls! After spending quite some time over the canopy net, we walked the rest of the boardwalk loop before heading back down and then home!

How to reach Singapore Botanical Garden? Nearest Bus/Metro stop - Napier

Singapore Botanical Garden Ticket: SG$ 0

Map of Ginger Garden Trail (incl. waterfalls): Ginger Garden Trail via NParks (opens/downloads as PDF)

Map of Learning Forest trail (incl. Canopy walk): Learning Forest Trail via NParks

General map of Singapore Botanical Gardens: Singapore Botanical Gardens Map via NParks

Here's a thing to understand about Singapore - if you look into a map, you'll see that it's a part of an archipelago. There's the main land of Singapore which is a relatively large chunk of land, but then, around it are, no less than 25 islands! The most famous of them and the nearest one as well, is the Sentonsa Island. It's connected by road & rail transport and is the home of Universal Studios, Madame Tussads, SEA Aquarium etc. This is super touristy and almost everyone who has been to Singapore would have visited Sentosa. Even if you skip it, there are still more than 24 islands to explore around main-land Singapore (however, quite a few of them are closed to the public)! 

One of island trips I really really wanted to go were the Southern Islands. So, here's the ultimate travel guide to visit the southern islands of Singapore. There are 6 islands to the south west of Sentosa of which 2 are inaccessible for general public and there's a ferry that connects the rest 4 and that's what we took. There are a couple of ferry operators, and I chose Marina South Ferries, since their schedule was perfect for me. The other 4 islands are Sisters' Island, St.John's Island, Lazarus Island and Kusu Island. The ferries could be taken to visit all 4 or just 3 skipping Sisters'. One of my main destinations was Sisters' Island, so took the all inclusive ticket. Read on, to know, how to visit do Island Hopping in Singapore. 

While you do have to buy the ferry ticket for transport, otherwise, going Island Hopping in Singapore is also one of the free things to do in Singapore! Technically, one of the cheap things to do in Singapore.

The first stop was ofcourse Sisters' Island and here's your travel guide to visit Sisters' Island Singapore. It was the most important for me because, it is the most pristine, and it was opened to the public just recently in Oct 2024. Till then, it was open to public only in guided trips twice a month during the low tides for nature & sealife enthusiasts. Now, finally, it is open for the general public for leisure. The island doesn't allow any overnight stays, and that's precisely the reason I wanted Sisters Island as my first stop. That would mean, getting to the island, as it wakes up, before other human intervention, and getting to observe it, in its pristine beauty. 

Sisters Island is a set of 2 islands. The smaller one, Little Sisters Island is closed to public and has research going on. We were dropped at the jetty of Big Sisters Island.

The legend of Sisters' Island: The story is that there lived 2 sisters Minah & Linah. Once Linah was taken away by a pirate and Minah jumped into the ocean and swam to rescue her. Looking at her sister, Linah managed to free herself from the pirate and jumped into the ocean and swam to Minah. Sadly the ocean currents were too strong and both drowned. Next day, 2 islands appeared at the very spot and those are the Big & Little Sisters' Islands!

Ocean Network Express Coastal Trail: The island is absolutely visitor friendly. As soon as you enter, in a few steps, are the toilets & changing rooms. Further ahead, to the right, is the hiking path that takes you to the highest point of the small hill in the center of the island. It can be skipped and if you go straight ahead, you go the big lagoon. I definitely wanted to climb atop and we did. This hike is called the Ocean Network Express Coastal Forest Trail and it's just 230m long, with a staircase for most of the route. The view from atop was ok; we could see other islands and quite a few ships. The climb down, lead us very close to the small lagoon. Since we didn't change at the changing area (since we wanted to do the hike and hiking with swimsuit may not be the best idea!), we had to change under towels, at the lagoon! Haha... 

Lagoon & the best beach in Singapore: There were just 5 groups (families/friends) at the lagoon when I reached there and it was beyond awesome! It was so pristine, clean, with hardly any humans. This was definitely one of the best beaches in Singapore. Atyudarini was swimming in the ocean, picking up molluscs & throwing them back into the sea, and spotting some mangrove tree seeds floating away! I just floated away my worries in the water, when Atyudarini decided to climb on me!!! After spending quite some time there, I looked into the watch and it said 11:00. The first ferry out is at 11:30 and the next was at 13:30. I just loved the place too much to start packing! We hadn't even gone to the big lagoon yet, so I decided to take the next ferry out!  

Soon, we headed the big lagoon and there was just 1 other family there! That's it! The entire length of the lagoon was just for us!!! This was even more pristine and Atyudarini found intact shells in a variety of shapes (which she knows to throw back into the sea)... We then came out of the water to have our packed lunch. 

Monkeys of Sisters' Island: It was then we spotted the residents of the island - monkeys! There were atleast 10 of them and yeah, one did try to open my backpack to retrieve a snack and I shooed it away before it could. 

We headed back and walked over the floating bridge, the base of which has been designed to create a favourable environment for corals. After heading back to the shower+toilets and changing, we got the 13:30 ferry to our next destination - Kusu island.

Kusu in Hokkien (Chinese dialect) means Tortoise and this island is called so, thanks to the tortoises here! Here's more on how to visit Kusu Island, what to do in Kusu Island and places to see. There's a large 'Da Bo Gong' temple in the heart of the island, which is visible as soon as you enter. The temple also has a tiny pond with a few tortoises in it. The temples were on the face of a monolithic rock and there was also this space for people to write their prayers/wishes and tie them. It was quite multilingual and Atyudarini started to hunt for Tamil ones. Da Bo Gong is the God of Merchants & Prosperity. Further ahead is the tortoise sanctuary and then further ahead is a stairwell to reach the top of a hill which has the Kramats (holy shrines) of 3 saints. Here too, there was a yellow painted wall, with markers lying around, for devotees to write their prayers on the wall. Walking down from there we headed to the bay. The beach was pristine here too, just like Sisters' Island, but we were already done with being in water for the day. There is no dedicated place here to change to swimsuit & back, as well. This whole thing got over pretty soon and we had atleast 30 mins till the next ferry. There were trees and benches under them all over the island and we just slept! At 15:30 was our ferry to our next stop.

St.John's Island & Lazarus Island, Singapore:

St.John's Island is the largest of these 4 and the closest one to Singapore main land. Unlike the other islands, it is allowed to stay here overnight and there are multiple hotels, campsites, restaurants & more! This is also a bit more touristy. 

As soon as you enter, you can either go right to the camp sites and the bay, or you can go left towards Lazarus island. We headed to the left and after looking into the information boards on the history, flora and fauna of the island. St.John's island once served as a quarantine island, for whoever comes to Singapore. Everyone were checked for infections and diseases and only healthy people were allowed to proceed to the mainland. The huge prison here was where prisoners of WWII were held. 

Mangrove trees & Mudskippers: Soon, we stopped at a point to see the mangrove plants. There was a family there, catching fishes with nets, standing inside the water. What fascinated me the most here, were the mud-skippers. These fishes, could swim inside the water, stay out of water, on the mangrove tree stems & the rocks around for several minutes together, and also kinda fly, I mean, more like glide when they jump from the rocks/trees into the water. It was quite fascinating for both Atyudarini and myself to keep observing them. 

Lazarus Island: After a while, we started walking towards Lazarus Island. Lazarus island is connected by a man-made causeway to St.John's island. A bit of a walk, on a asphalt road with trees on either sides, we soon reached the Lazarus Island beach, which is also a bay. This is further connected to Seringat Island & Kias island. While these are less crowded than St.John's island, I wouldn't call it as beautiful as Sisters' Island. That said, the Lazarus Island Beach was impeccable. It's a gorgeous white-sand beach and absolutely pristine & clean. Lazarus Island Lagoon is one the best beaches in Singapore. Atyudarini had so much fun running around here. However, we were all quite tired island hopping for an entire day and we wanted to go back home. The last ferry of the day to head back to Singapore main land was at 18:00 (6:00PM) and we took it. 

Where is Marina South Pier (starting point of the ferry)(on Google Maps)? Marina South Pier

Marina South Ferries Island hopping Tour Ticket from Marina South Pier: SG$15 for adults & SG$12 for kids

Island Entry Ticket: SG$ 0

DAY 3 - MACRITCHIE TREE TOP WALK (Original plan)

Here's what I came to know after going to Singapore. Cloud to ground lightening strikes are not too rare in Singapore!!!! What??? Yeah, that's true. I, literally saw, the burnt piece of asphalt road on my hike to Henderson wave, caused by a lightening strike! There are boards everywhere in Singapore saying that we should take shelter if lightening begins. The meteorological site has a page dedicated to lightening forecasts.... Hiking is a no-no when lightening begins because... one, there's no shelter in the forests and two, tree branches may fall down if lightening strikes those! Well... The day I had planned Macritchie Tree Top Walk showed lightening forecast in the afternoon. So I gave up on going there and went somewhere else. Anyways, if you'd like to go, here's the shortest 7km hike that goes via Macritchie Tree Top walk...

Macritchie Tree top walk Ticket: SG$ 0

Macritchie Tree top walk Map: Central Catchment Nature Reserve Hiking Map via NParks (Opens/Downloads as PDF). The Route 6 starting at the Venus Drive of Windsor National Park is the one that goes via Macritchie Tree Top Walk.

Brochure/Guide of the route: A guide to the Treetop Walking Trail by NParks

DAY 3 - FORT CANNING HILL & HENDERSON WAVE (Changed plan)

Once the plan to visit Macritchie was smushed, thanks to the weather, we decided to head to Fort Canning in the morning, then Henderson Wave in the evening. 

The Tree Tunnel is Fort Canning Hill is one of the famous instagrammable spots in Singapore and it has gotten pretty famous in recent years. I reached here at 8:00AM and there was a queue of about 15 people in front of me and I thought, "That's not bad; if each take a 2 minutes, it would be our chance in 30 minutes of so". But, boy was I wrong. While the first one left quickly, the next took 15 minutes and the 3rd took out a professional camera and tripod and I left immediately. So yeah, if you want you photo taken here, come very early in the morning or be prepared to wait for a few hours!