In all my years I occasionally take taxi in Antwerp, I had once a woman as taxi driver. It really is a man’s job in Antwerp. Not so in Singapore.

Danny and I took many taxis in Singapore. They’re easy, they’re cheap enough and the MRT is often quite far away. Three times we had a woman as taxi driver. Two times it was a Muslim woman. Her headscarf gave it away.

What made this extra extraordinary was that this was at night and one of them was blasting pop music through the radio. Not exactly what you would expect. I don’t think such thing would be possible in Antwerp.

Mix

Singapore has a large Muslim community, and a large Chinese community, and a large Indian community, and a large British / European / Western community.

They seem to get along fine. They all have their neighbourhoods.

Lost in translation

Language is an issue in the city state. Not all the taxi drivers speak English well. They also lack ‘The Knowledge‘ of their London counterparts. So it’s important to know the address and postal / area code of your destination. Once we were brought to a wrong place.

But otherwise taxis are clean, safe, practical and they accept credit cards.

MRT

The Mass Rapid Transit or MRT was a bit of downer. There are few lines and few connections. But it’s clean, well organized enough and not overcrowded.