If I had gotten it correctly, my tour guide for the tour was Jeya.
It was quite a scorching hot day. Our tour started from the Singapore Philatelic Museum, and we walked up the Fort Canning Hill. I like the tours by The Original Singapore Walks, as they are very informative, and backed up by good historical research. The best thing is that the information is usually easy to be digested even by the lay-person. I think it's wonderful to be able to share one's love for history with others. I wonder what I would need in order to be qualified as one of their tour guides? Anyway, I was to shy to ask Jeya this question. If you happen to be on one of their tours, perhaps you could find this out for me, please?
Fort Canning Hill used to be called the "Forbidden Hill" in the past, because it was a hill for the royalties. It has been interesting for me as a participant of the tour to learn about the rich history of the Fort Canning Hill. I thank the history researchers for taking so much effort and time to uncover the richness of our past.
We visited what was known to be the Keramat of Iskandar Shah, and learnt about ancient history of Singapore that dates back to the 14th century. We also visited the Archaeological Dig Exhibit. I remember that Jeya told us that the different layers of soil "belonged" to soil from different periods of time. It was at about Layer 3 that the archaeologists found a good number of artefacts from about the 14th century, hence supporting that there was already some forms of civilisation in Singapore since that time.
Perhaps it was because I had just returned from a vacation in Penang a month ago, I was quite interested to see how a Pinang tree looked like. So, it didn't surprise me that I was very eager to take a picture of the Pinang tree when Jeya pointed it out to us. During the tour, Jeya pointed to us some other common plants in this region, and gave us some insights on the significance of these plants in this part of the world.
We also went to the site of the old Fort Gate on Fort Canning Hill. Jeya explained to us how the Gate was designed to make the Fort "easy to defend, difficult to attack".
We had also a chance to visit one of the first Christian cemetries in Singapore.
At the end of the tour, I felt more enriched in terms of my knowledge about Singapore's past. I am glad that I took time to come for this tour. It's a tour worth joining if one is interested about the history of Singapore, from 700 years ago to WWII. For more information, do check out: (http://www.singaporewalks.com/privatetours.htm#forbidden)
On Fort Canning Hiill
Gate of Fort Canning
Site of a archaeological dig on Fort Canning Hill. Note the different layers of the soil.
Display of some of the objects discovered from the archaeological dig.
Pinang tree. This was the tree that Penang was named after.
Fort Canning Centre
Updated on 8 Dec 2007: This tour is now available as a private walk.
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