Times travel: Singapore swings, by gum

There are as many ways to see Singapore as there are Singapores to see.

The densely populated island city-state and former British colony has reinvented itself over the past decade. It's busy, contemporary and cutting edge, an Asian New York with a skyline you can't stop gawking at no matter how painful the crick in your neck gets.

It is also a city with layers of history within a kaleidoscope of cultures - Little India, for example, across from Chinatown. The former offers a dozen temples, fish-head curry and, for valiant shoppers, the frenzied, 24-hour Mustafa Centre, a budget-friendly 37000m² that stocks almost everything you can think of. In the latter you get a journey through Singapore's Chinese heritage, free Wi-Fi and, at the Singapore City Gallery, a large-scale model of the entire country.

We had fewer than 24 hours on this densely populated island (over 5.5 million people in a country less than half the size of London), the home of the world's tallest Ferris wheel, and where chewing gum (both the verb and the noun) is outlawed.

The short time in our hotel room was mostly spent staring open-mouthed at the mass of futuristic skyscrapers surrounding us. The triple-towered Marina Bay Sands, complete with a ship-shaped sky-park that sits atop all three towers; Republic Plaza, one of the tallest skyscrapers in the city; the semi-circular Pearl Bank apartments; the UFO-shaped Supreme Court - all engineering and design feats, all a testimony to a discipline and aggressive optimism that has made Singapore, according to popular vote, the best place in the world to live.

Intrepid travellers, each with her own set of plans, we could have used the famous Mass Rapid Transit system (where eating and drinking on the trains comes with a R5000 fine), but chose various alternatives instead. I walked the streets, Hilda travelled all four lines of the hop-on-hop-off bus, and Lauryn took a cab to the retail paradise of Orchard Road, Singapore's 2.2km-long version of New York's 5th Avenue. She wasn't seen again until it was time to leave for the airport. It was the day before Christmas, the sales were on and the bags at Victoria's Secret were "so cheap they were almost giving them away".

Hilda's 24-hour touring pass covered all the major tourist spots in the city. It allows you to hop between buses and routes, get off at the attractions that grab your fancy or climb to the open-air upper deck and listen to a fascinating audio commentary.

By late afternoon, on the wrong end of a multi-kilometre walk, I found myself at Raffles Hotel, the sophisticated, iconic 130-year-old heritage site that in its time hosted the likes of Noël Coward, Somerset Maugham, Rudyard Kipling and John Wayne. I stood in the magnificent triple-volume lobby and decided that, although I could never afford to stay, I could definitely have a drink and that drink could be nothing other than a Singapore Sling. It was the most expensive cocktail I've ever had.

According to local lore the pink, gin-based drink was invented in 1915 by the bartender at the time, and is accompanied by all the peanuts you can eat.

I sat outside for mine, in the tranquil courtyard where no-one minds how sweaty you are. It was my definitive Singapore moment, but give me 24 more hours and I know I'll find another one.