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SINGAPORE – Like many children in Singapore, my seven-year-old daughter grew up on high-rise concrete floors and is well versed in the virtual worlds of online games like Minecraft.
So I was looking forward to taking her, my wife, and our 20-month-old on Let’s Go Tour’s Kampong Experience, which promised to give a taste of rural life in Singapore.
The two hours we spent in Singapore’s last mainland village, Kampong Lorong Buangkok, were an opportunity to show my daughters Gen Alpha that Singapore was not always the modern and stylish city they grew up in.
It helped that the guided tour was designed for families with children. Our cheerful guide Colin kept the kids busy with history lessons on how Singapore’s kampungs gave way to the Housing Board floors, snippets of trivia about village life, and lots of old-school games that didn’t involve touchscreens. or creating your own virtual avatar.
Yio Chu Kang Road’s kampung has all the modern conveniences we are all used to, of course – the 4G connection is as strong as anywhere else in Singapore and one of the houses we went to had two flat screen TVs in the living room.
Still, my oldest daughter was impressed that there are families in Singapore living in houses with wooden walls and tin roofs surrounded on all sides by nature.
I thought it would be strange for the residents there to have strangers walking through their village and gaping, but apparently the students have been going there for school projects for years.
An elderly Malay woman sitting in her courtyard greeted our group without saying a word as we passed. Probably just another day of tourist watching.
It rained the entire time we were there, so we spent most of the tour inside two of the houses there, both much, much more spacious than an average local flat.
We meet Mrs. Sng Mui Hong, who owns the land on which the kampung sits. The 68-year-old man’s father, TCM vendor Sng Teow Koon, acquired the old swamp in 1956 and leased the land to families who first settled there.
It’s mind-boggling to find that it rents each of the 25 houses, home to nearly equal numbers of Chinese and Malaysian families, for just $ 4.50 to $ 30 a month.
That’s a lot less than what I’m paying for my Netflix, Spotify, and various other streaming subscriptions, I thought.
The walk around the entire kampung was short, but we were able to see the rich variety of flora, from bamboo and moringa to cocoa and banana trees.
We also tried a Chinese chestnut that had fallen from one of the trees there, surely a novelty for my daughters who are used to their fruit coming from the FairPrice neighborhood supermarket.
If you ignore the HDB blocks and the multi-story car park right next to the village, you could almost imagine being outside of Singapore. It felt comforting to hear the patter of rain on the roof and the crowing of chickens outside.
We missed the outdoor games that are usually part of the tour due to the weather, but we were able to enjoy the “air batu” made by the resident of one of the houses we visited, Madam Maimah Ahmad.
Being able to savor the flavored frozen treats was a highlight for my seven-year-old son – what child could resist homemade sweet treats?
She was also excited when Colin involved her in retro games that Singapore kids used to play in the past: batu selembat, pick-up sticks, and stringing rubber bands to score a zero point.
The Kampong Experience Tour is just one of the many new Let’s Go offerings aimed at the domestic tourism market. Others themed history includes one that follows in the footsteps of Stamford Raffles along the Singapore River and another that explores the spices, herbs and plants found at Fort Canning.
While the Kampung tour was certainly a revelation for the kids, I would have loved to spend more time there. If you ever come up with an overnight package, we’ll be one of the first to sign up.
KAMPONG EXPERIENCE
THAN: A private tour of the last mainland town in Singapore.
SHARE: $ 200 per session for two or three people, $ 250 per session for groups of four or five
DURATION: Two hours
BUSINESS: We go on tour
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