In addition to the awesome food tour put on by Betel Box, they also offer a bicycle tour all over the city. We took this tour in 2009 and had a great time. In addition to Shannon and I, Singapore guide extraordinaire Tony Tan and an Australian couple spent the better part of the day biking several dozen miles around the city.

If you check out Betel Box’s website for this tour, you can see several photos of us as well.

We covered a lot of ground and went to a water purification plant at the end of the tour that offered great views of the downtown skyline. Singapore has little natural water sources and relies heavily on imported or recycled water to provide for it’s citizens.

Betel Box hostel is located in the Joo Chiat/Katong neighborhood which is a charming historic neighborhood between downtown and Changi Airport. It has tons of excellent eating and traditional row houses.

Joo Chiat is the center of Peranakan culture. These people are descendents of Chinese immigrants who settled here centuries ago(sometimes also called Straits Chinese)

There is a large Malay population so there is a lot of activity and festivals around Ramadan.

Finally, here are a couple night time photos of downtown Singapore (near Clarke Quay) taken on our 2009 trip.

Shannon and I were so happy to have been able to come back to Singapore with our friend Derrick, and also to have gone on the legendary Betel Box food tour that we missed out on our first trip. We rested well before a long day of travel to new country for all of us…..