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  The projected revenues have been measured, but the real cost has yet to be determined. Opposition to both casinos has been vocal ever since they were approved by the government in 2006 (even within the government, key ministers initially disapproved of the idea) and careful, calculated steps have been taken throughout to distinguish Singapore from all that hedonism and sleazy debauchery often associated with Las Vegas, Macau and Orchard Towers. Marina Bay Sands is touted primarily as a business conference and shopping destination (The Shoppes!) and the well-worn line that the casino covers only 3 per cent of the floor space has been trotted out on numerous occasions.

  Yet in the week that I visited, newspapers reported on a second-hand car dealer who died after setting himself on fire in March 2011. He had lost more than $120,000 at the casinos so he parked his car along the East Coast Parkway (ECP), called his girlfriend to say goodbye and killed himself. Maybe he would have accumulated similar debts after visiting Genting Highlands or the casinos on Star Cruises, maybe not. Perhaps unsurprisingly, One Hope Centre, which organises weekly support sessions for gamblers, has seen its attendance figures double. According to the Straits Times, six voluntary welfare organisations witnessed an increase in gamblers seeking help in the last year, with seven in ten claiming the casinos had caused their financial downfall.

  Ironically, these gamblers are not even the resort’s main target audience. The average Singaporean is on the periphery of Marina Bay Sands in every sense (even allowing for the free laser show and jazz concerts). If Wonder Full is a gift for all Singaporeans, then the casino is a gift for the elusive VIPs I failed to find on the upper floors. They account for about 70 per cent of the casino’s revenue. Marina Bay Sands is really for them. Like The Shoppes and the rooftop infinity swimming pool, the complex is Captain Ahab, interested only in harpooning whales.

  After a couple of hours sniffing vomit, inhaling cigarette smoke and spotting my mother everywhere, I went a little stir crazy. In truth, I went mad. I gambled the contents of my wallet—a grand total of $12, to be precise. I had earlier spied some Wizard of Oz slot machines and as it is the lifelong favourite movie of my little sister, I succumbed to temptation and followed the yellow brick road to financial ruin. It was part sibling sentimentality and part stinginess. The Wizard of Oz slots were only 5 cents a go. The munchkins gobbled up my $2 bill and some buttons flashed at me, I pressed one and my $2 vanished in a single spin.

  “Woah, woah, woah! What happened there?” I cried, far too loudly and painfully for a $2 loss.

  “You pressed the maximum bet button,” a voice replied.

  I thought it was God. I turned to my right and realised it wasn’t God, but a slim, squinting elderly Chinese auntie who was so short-sighted that her nose almost touched the machine screen as she watched the reels spin. She didn’t look at me once.

  “What did I do?”

  “You press maximum. Next time press minimum, then can spend 5 cents each time.”

  She giggled. She was laughing at my parsimony. Right, I’ll show you, you blind old bat, I thought. It was time for the big notes. Well, it was time for the only note left in my wallet—a $10 bill.

  A dozen or so spins later, the $10 had gone but there was credit in the wonderful wizard’s bank. I pushed the collect button, ripped off the cash voucher, poked blind old bat in the eye and waltzed over to the cashier.

  “I’d like to cash this voucher, please,” I declared.

  The cashier stared at the voucher.

  “It’s for 60 cents,” she muttered.

  “Yes, it’s been a very productive evening,” I boomed. “May I have it all in cash, please?”

  I laughed all the way to Marina Bay MRT Station. And then I realised I had missed the last train home.

  Four

  MARINA South used to be about the shagging. That remains one of my earliest and fondest memories of Singapore with my old mate Scott. We were not shagging each other. In fact, we were quite possibly the only people within running distance not having sex. Having been in Singapore for just a few weeks back in 1996, my old travelling partner Scott and I were taken by genial local host David, our best mate at university, for a game of bowling at Marina South. Driving along what I think must have been Marina Boulevard, there were more balls bouncing around in car parks than there were at any bowling alley. I have never quite ascertained why young Singaporean courting couples are compelled to drive to the farthest-flung corners of the island— Mount Faber, Sembawang Park and Marina South—before getting naked, other than an irrepressible urge to get as far away as possible from their omnipresent parents. I admired the self-restraint. When I was overcome with an irrepressible urge at 18, I struggled to reach the back door of my house.

  Developments in and around Marina Bay Sands led to most operations and businesses in and around Marina South closing down by 2008. Intriguingly, Singapore’s dwindling birth rate continues to be cause for concern. The government may want to consider reopening those old Marina South car parks.

  I recalled the halcyon days of Marina South as I struggled along Marina Street. I had impulsively decided to walk from Marina Bay MRT Station to Marina Barrage, a brisk 20-minute stroll, thanks to archaic memories of peaceful greenery, open spaces, minimal traffic, crickets chirruping, exotic fauna, families kite-flying and cars rocking. That was the Marina South of yesteryear. Today’s Marina South is a dusty, grimy, noisy, sweaty building site, a combination of rumbling cement trucks, cranes busily burrowing their way through to the earth’s core and bored construction workers dozing at their security posts.

  Turning left into Marina Place, I was confronted by hundreds of trees on the kerbside, still in wooden boxes but destined to decorate the Gardens by the Bay. The three waterfront gardens will skirt the reservoir like a green necklace. Just the sheer scale—more than 100 hectares—and the diversity, with their conservatories and themed gardens, will be the final aesthetic piece of the puzzle for this man-made southern haven. In the future, Gardens by the Bay will offer visitors one of the most arresting walks in the region. Currently, it offers one of the most unpleasant. I stood before a sign for the gardens that promised flowers as far as the eye could see. I could only see exhausted foreign construction workers sleeping in the street. They were taking lunchtime naps under the street’s tree-lined canopy, evidently not expecting an idiot to ramble along such inhospitable, untidy roads. It was uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as the sticky heat scratching at my scrotum.

  Finally, I turned into what I humbly believe might be Singapore’s greatest achievement and provides an ecological template for much of the lackadaisical planet to follow. Marina Barrage is more than just a dam and a lifestyle attraction (although it accomplishes both with minimal effort), it is a pumping artery for a country dependent upon the oxygen of green technology for its survival. I’m all for the Prada handbags on sale at The Shoppes but they soon lose their lustre when you can’t wipe them because there’s no water in the bloody tap.

  My former Australian town was, at one stage, less than 15 per cent away from that becoming a reality. At the height of the merciless drought of 2006 to 2008 that leached the soil, decimated agriculture, left some farmers suicidal and facilitated the deadly Victorian bushfires of February 2009, Geelong’s water storages had reached critically low levels. Residents were just a handful of rain-free months away from turning on the tap and nothing coming out. There was talk of desalination plants, recycling plants, dam building, rerouting dying rivers and buying water by the truckload from interstate. There was so much talking. Delegations from resource-rich Australia were sent to resource-poor Singapore to learn how to manage a declining water supply. How PUB officials managed to refrain from blowing raspberries whilst singing “You’re not singing anymore”, I’ll never know.

  In the end, Geelong was rescued not by desalination plants or new dams but by residents showing initiative through various water-saving measures (such as my infamous tanks) and Mother Nature herself. The heavens ope
ned. Regional water supplies rose quickly, gardens could be watered again, treasured rose bushes bloomed once more and order was restored in the suburbs. Sceptical Australians were right after all about those ridiculous recycling plants in places like Singapore. Who wants to drink their own wee wee? It’s so much easier, cheaper and cleaner to wait for the rains to fall. Singapore does not think this way. The city favours self-reliance and innovation rather than rely on the whims and fancies of Mother Nature. Marina Barrage will prove more dependable.

  From the outside, Marina Barrage has all the allure of the former Queenstown Remand Prison. The low, grey, drab entrance did not bode well, nor did the inescapable presence of armed security (understandable considering they protect the country’s most valuable resource, but hardly inviting). I had a quick pee in one of the waterless urinals—naturally—and ventured onto the barrage itself. To the casual visitor, Marina Barrage is Pamela Anderson. There is little going on up top, it’s what’s going on underneath that counts. Built across the 350-metre-wide channel, the dam connects Marina South with Marina East, blocks out seawater and creates a freshwater reservoir (the country’s 15th). (There are 17 at the time of writing and more will follow. This is Singapore.) Five rivers now feed into Marina Bay (Singapore River, Stamford Canal, Rochor Canal, Kallang River and Geylang River if you are taking notes) ensuring that storm water collected as far away as Bishan and Ang Mo Kio is eventually stored in Marina Bay. In Geelong, I couldn’t find a way to store the water in my front garden.

  And as for those snobby visitors who bewail the unsightly longkangs, or open drains, beside cafes and condos, they are not the result of neglectful sanitation or inferior Asian standards of hygiene (I overheard this once on a bus). No longkangs, no water and a humiliating dependence upon a gloating neighbour. You choose.

  I had the barrage to myself, despite it being the Saturday afternoon of the Singapore Grand Prix weekend, which was remarkable because it’s the only location that joins all the dots on the horizon. The SkyPark Observation Deck gives a bird’s eye view but it cannot reveal Marina Bay Sands. (If it did suddenly, you might want to hold on.) The Singapore Flyer shows off everything from the comfort of an air-conditioned cocoon with the exception of the Singapore Flyer itself and some of the skyscrapers provide a coastal panorama but nothing of the city itself. Only Marina Barrage showcases the best of Singapore. Standing in the middle of the dam, the future Gardens by the Bay were on my left, the bulbous bluebottle buzzed around beside the floating platform and the Grand Prix grandstand, the dominant Singapore Flyer occupied centre stage and kayakers dotted the Kallang Basin on the right. Only a handful of engineers building the Marina Coastal Expressway (MCE) on a sea pontoon behind me were further south of the Central Business District (CBD) than I was. I stood at the foot of the city. I had the best view of the city and it cost nothing. Why are visitors not flooding the barrage at weekends?

  I noticed a Chinese construction worker in a hard hat heading my way. I stopped him to enquire about visitor numbers. He did not speak English. He was from China and very much a member of new Singapore. Sitting in my glasshouse, I would have some difficulty throwing stones labelled “foreign workers”, but the language barrier is proving to be as effective as the one upon which I was standing. My Chinese is woefully deficient and my Hokkien never really got past chee and bye, but the increasing prevalence of the mainland Chinese language is causing no little public disquiet. I went to Giant supermarket recently to buy a singlet (the neighbours had clearly had enough of my man boobs through the front door grilles) and the first two employees I encountered were from China and spoke no English. Who am I to behave like an indignant imperialist and go all Somerset Maughan, demanding only English be spoken in all supermarkets? I can only be inconvenienced, rather than slighted. But if I were a Singaporean Malay, Indian or Eurasian struggling to be understood in a Singaporean supermarket, despite speaking the country’s first language of business, I might be inclined to feel slighted, rather than merely inconvenienced.

  At the Marina East side of the dam, a Police Coast Guard craft dangled in the air. A blue rectangular boat hoist was lifting the vessel from the open sea and into the reservoir. Half a dozen Police Coast Guard officers had gathered as their workplace craft was loaded onto the contraption. I sidled up to the youngest, most impressionable-looking of all the men in uniform.

  “What’s that blue thing on wheels for?” I asked.

  “That lifts the boat from the sea and into the reservoir,” he said, as the boat was indeed lifted into the air by the hoist, which rolled gently across the dam before lowering the vessel into the reservoir on the other side.

  “Why would you be worried about the reservoir? Surely any illegal immigrants will be on that side of the dam,” I reasoned, pointing to the sea.

  “Cannot say.”

  “Have you guys caught anyone today?”

  “Cannot say.”

  “Can I at least take some photos of the boat being hoisted into the air?”

  “Cannot.”

  “Well, thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”

  I obeyed the officer of the law’s instructions and did not take any photographs from the water’s edge. I retreated 5 metres to one of the dam gates and joined a couple of visitors snapping away like the paparazzi. Taking photos of an innocuous boat-lifting exercise from a further 5 metres away will surely keep Singapore’s borders safe for the foreseeable future.

  Standing above the gate, I was joined by an energetic security guy, who was jabbering away into a walkie-talkie.

  “Excuse me, can I ask you a question?” I began slowly, more tentative this time. “Why does the Police Coast Guard need to patrol a closed-in reservoir?”

  “No lah, this one not for illegals,” he said excitedly. “This one for Formula 1 over there. Must protect, right or not? Got many big shots in town. We must keep law and order, put on a good show. Cannot let F1 see any trouble.”

  He beamed with unmistakable pride as the sleek patrol craft was lowered into the reservoir. He smiled and jabbed his walkie-talkie aerial towards the boat and then out to sea.

  “This one ah, illegal immigrants got no chance,” he stressed. “They try to come in with one silly, small sampan. You know sampan?”

  “Yeah, I know sampan,” I replied, but he ignored me, preferring instead to mime someone sitting at the back of a sampan and steering.

  “Sampan is a small, small wooden boat with that little putt-putt engine,” he continued, still miming. “How to escape? ... Putt-putt-putt ... Sure get caught one ... Putt-putt-putt ... We pick them up, kena stroke, and then we send them back. How to escape in Singapore?”

  “Er, well Mas Selamat managed to escape,” I interjected, referring to Singapore’s most infamous fugitive.

  “Ah, yeah, that one did escape,” the security guy mumbled, visibly deflated.

  He perked up suddenly.

  “But we catch him already, right? We catch him in the end, right?”

  “In Malaysia though, right?”

  “Yeah lah, I suppose Malaysia police help us a little bit there.”

  His gaze drifted out to sea, where engineers were digging and drilling their way towards connecting the Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway (KPE), the ECP and the Ayer Rajah Expressway (AYE), linking east and west via a tunnel behind Marina Barrage. The MCE is scheduled to open by the end of 2013 and it had better. Or else.

  “This one ah, you see them all working, must build correctly, the ‘gahmen’ watching them closely,” he stressed, eager for a distraction after my impudent Mas Selamat interruption. I regretted letting that one sneak out, but then so does the government.

  “It’s a massive engineering project for Singapore, I imagine,” I agreed.

  “No lah, bigger than that. Look where it is. Look where we are. Look over there.”

  I was getting dizzy.

  “One small, small mistake and that’s it, we got a tsunami already,” the security guy insisted. “Look where the t
sunami will go. If that happen, the ‘gahmen’ will hammer the engineering company.”

  I wished my “gahmen”-fearing friend well and, with considerable hesitation, stepped into the Sustainable Singapore Gallery, which is an early contender for the most boring exhibition name (we’re only four chapters in so I’m expecting stiff competition). The Sustainable Singapore Gallery does not inspire awe and expectation, at best it offered an air-conditioned respite from the humidity. But, as the saying goes, you can’t judge a book by a shit title. The gallery was thoroughly uplifting. Singapore’s water story is miraculous, easily one of the country’s most groundbreaking (and soon to be oft-copied) achievements. And cynics please take note. I’m not the naive victim of a “gahmen” brainwashing exercise. The PAP didn’t inculcate my abiding admiration for the city’s transformation into a global hydrohub. Living in Australia for five years and enduring draconian water restrictions did that.

  Back in 1977, if someone tumbled into the Kallang River, the race was on to see which killed the victim first: drowning or drinking a drop of the water. In those days, both Kallang and Singapore rivers were little more than open sewers. Lee Kuan Yew instigated a clean-up operation that took 10 years to complete. By 1987, Lee envisioned a dam enclosing Marina Bay to create a freshwater reservoir to alleviate the dependence upon Malaysia. This was 1987. I have no idea what Britain was doing in 1987, other than trying to grow Rick Astley quiffs and emulate his swizzling leg moves to “Never Gonna Give You Up”. Meanwhile Australians were focusing on male tight perms, moustaches and cricket scores (they still fixate far too much on the last two). Neither country was concerning itself on the national stage with the natural resources left at its disposal in 2012.