The Ice Cream Seller by the Singapore River

To most people, Singapore is hot … all the time, day and night. When the sun sets it is not quite as hot but still definitely tropical.

Down by the River, often on the walkway between the Cavenagh Bridge and the Asian Civilisations Museum you will find the Ice Cream Seller.

I am not sure why, but ice cream bought in any of the many shopping malls just doesn’t taste as good as the ice cream from the street Ice Cream Seller. Shopping mall ice cream is also much more expensive, but I guess that the rents there also add to the price.

The street Ice Cream Seller has a mobile “stand” like a motor bike with a side car that is a mobile freezer. He will set up where there will be a passing parade of hot tourists and locals alike and a queue forms fairly quickly. Up goes his umbrella to protect him from the sun and the shop is open. His ice cream is stored in cartons (in the old fashioned way) and he will cut off a generous slice of your chosen flavour and present it between two wafers, wrapped in a tissue, all for the very reasonable price of $1! There are many flavours to suit all tastes, even the local variety – durian – a very interesting taste.

So, if you see the bright umbrella of the Ice Cream Seller, don’t hesitate, try it, you’ll like it.




The Cavenagh Bridge was named after Colonel Cavenagh, the last Indian appointed Governor of Singapore. Construction began in 1868 and it was originally planned to be a drawbridge, but on completion it was found only to be suitable as a fixed structure. It continues to wear its original splendour and is now open only to pedestrians.


The Cavenagh Bridge links the Asian Civilisations Museum and the Fullerton Hotel. Both, places of wealth, one in culture and the other probably more correctly in dollars.


The Asian Civilisations Museum, formerly the Empress Place Building, named after Queen Victoria, was completed in 1867 and has served at different times as a Court House (not of royalty!) immigration department and government offices.

The Fullerton Hotel was constructed in 1928 as the Fullerton Building, has seen duty as The Singapore Club, the Chamber of Commerce, General Post Office and Internal Revenue Authority. Today it remains a masterpiece of neo classical grandeur and splendour. Walk through and take in the ambience, perhaps even stop for a cool drink in the airconditioned café or bar.

Viet Nam! – Myth to Modernity

I am sorry to say that I felt that the exhibition was very disappointing, no even more so……a tad underdone. Yes, there was quite a lot of artifacts, from earlier eras, but little to tie them together and cover the ebb and flow of the great dynasties, rulers, regality and the reach of kingdoms across what is now Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia even into Thailand and southern China in the period 1200- 1600, before the arrival of Christian missionaries. After all, one of the ancient rulers of Vietnam beat the great conquering mongol, Genghis Khan. Some of the artifacts are quite stunning, especially the bronze and porcelain, and the statuary.

There was little on the modern period, even the 19th and 20th centuries – little on the French period in the late 18th and 19th centuries, little on the nationalist era of the early 20th century and the removal of the French colonialists, little on the American war [the Vietnam War of the 1960s- 1970s] except for a small photo of the Ho Chi Minh trail, nothing on the heroin trade of the 1970s and 1980s [see the book - The Politics of Heroin in SE Asia by Alfred McCoy] and really nothing on the period since 1980, when most of the current citizens of Vietnam arrived in the world.

All of a sudden the exhibition just stopped, with nothing but a few propaganda posters of the 20th century and a picture of Ho Chi Minh made of postage stamps. Not a lot that extended the exhibition in name ie the modernity, and the rapid industrialization of the past 30 years was also conspicuous by its absence.

Even the Ho Chi Minh trail, a key element of the so called American war…….if you have seen it, you marvel at the effort to move goods and munitions along the trail. It is tough going in monsoonal weather, of the character of the WWII Kokoda trail in Papua New Guinea, and a powerful tool that boosted nationalism and effectively operated through, and survived the US bombing. Where is all this stuff???? You can learn more of the pre 2nd world war period [1930-1940] by reading The Quiet American by Grahame Greene, or seeing the movie. What an opportunity squandered!