Singapore - so clean you could eat your dinner off it.

And so on Thursday afternoon, I bade farewell to India, cutting my way through the crowds and the smog of Delhi in a rickshaw bound for the airport. If it was an episode of Michael Palin the credits would have been rolling and it would be time to turn over for the snooker. But it wasn't, and they weren't. There are so many other things I wish I could have seen in India, but as a country it boasts so many fascinating sights and attractions that it would take years for you to see everything there is to offer.

I have travelled from Dharamasala in the north to Goa in the south and in these five weeks I only scratched the surface. It is a perplexing, mysterious, chaotic, beautiful, cruel and shocking land. And it's not often you visit a place that needs at least six adjectives to describe it! It's a giant melting-pot of cultures, featuring several major religions, over ten official languages and a population of one billion, increasing by 3% every year. (As you might imagine, it is facing a slight population crisis!)

But seeing Delhi again, I was reminded what an overwhelming city it is. It is a horrible mess of overcrowding, pollution, pushy touts and intense, intense poverty that groans under the sheer weight of the millions of people living there. The roads are choc-a-block with buses, rickshaws and taxis, continuously belching smoke up into the evil haze of carbon monoxide floating over the city. There is a regularly-quoted statistic that spending a day in Delhi is like smoking an entire pack of cigarettes. I dread to think how much soot is in my lungs now! There's probably enough to coat an entire Dickensian orphanage.

Walking around the tourist areas, you are hounded every step of the way by touts, stall-holders and rickshaw drivers, all competing for your business. Getting from A to B through crowds of people while fending off approaches from wannabe salesmen is a challenging pursuit. Seeing all the homeless people and beggars huddled on the streets you feel ashamed to be a pampered westerner - especially as you have to remain immune to all the pleas for money and assistance and keep on walking, otherwise you wouldn't last a single day.

Parts of the city are nice (the area round India Gate is pretty), and there's a few interesting buildings (the Red Fort and Jama Masjid mosque are two I saw), but it's far from an easy place to visit, and once was definitely enough for me. The only meaningful conclusion I could draw as I made my way to the airport was, 'thank f**k I'm leaving!'

The night flight to Singapore took 5 hours, and the time flew by thanks to a bumper selection of in-flight movies and some unexpectedly foxy Geisha-like air hostesses serving us drinks. I tried to grab a morsel of sleep as the plane soared over the sea, my mind a rabbit warren of unclean thoughts. Stuck in limbo-land between time zones, I only managed an hour or so.

We touched down in Singapore's pristine Changi airport at 5am local time, and went through the formalities with customs and the touching reunions with our baggage. With two new passport stamps in a day I was well happy! So far so good, and I headed off to meet my pickup in the arrivals hall. But due to a cock-up with the booking there was no driver to pick me up!

I scoured the terminal building, interrogating groups of drivers who were waiting to ferry people far richer than me to accomodation far posher than mine, all to no avail. After two hours I thought 'f**k this,' and headed off on the MRT (metro) in search of my hostel, dreaming of the abrasively witty and expletive-laden email I would later send to STA Travel.

Normally, the first glimpse that you get of a new country as you step off the plane is misleading, as all big airports are utterly alike: smartly-decorated, bland, homogenised, signposted in English and betraying nothing of the country they are in. But the shiny modern airport terminal I had arrived in proved to be a foretaste for the rest of Singapore - slick, sterile, ultra-westernised, hyper-efficient, and ruthlessly air-conditioned!

A small island port off the coast of Malaysia that was historically an important trading place, Singapore was under British rule until the 60s, and has now evolved into a dense jungle of skyscrapers populated by a mixture of Chinese, Malaysian and Indian cultures. It is a pleasant but strangely soulless tableau of eastern and western culture; a popular stop-off point for travellers on their way to either Australia or Thailand.

Despite being very crowded and having one of the highest population densities of anywhere in the world, Singapore is remarkably green and tranquil. Measuring about 30 miles by 20, it is a very well-ordered place, with lots of parks, grass and tree-lined boulevards. There is a harbour, and a nice river that winds through the city, fronted on both sides by restaurants, fancy colonial buildings and state-of-the-art office blocks. The shortage of natural resources means that everything gets recycled and re-used, even the water.

The strict limits on car ownership (only 12,000 new cars are allowed on the roads each year!) mean there is little smog and pollution. You can walk all round the city centre and smell fresh air. And the public transport works so well Hitler could set his watch to it. The buses and MRT (mass rapid transit) system connect all areas of the island and are bloody cheap to use.

Suffice to say it is a whole world away from Delhi! You couldn't find two more different cities anywhere on Earth. I can't help worrying what they do with all the poor and homeless people here. Do they dispose of them in a big incinerator or some kind of a squashing machine? Maybe they give them jobs at Starbucks? (There are millions of Starbucks here.)

Much of the city is built on reclaimed land. Depressingly, a phalanx of giant cranes are at present beavering away at the corner of the harbour constructing a new super-casino development. 90% of the population live in high-rise flats - with land at a premium, only the richest of the rich can afford a house.

All the suburbs look well-ordered and tidy. No-one dares drop litter - I've no idea what the penalty is but it may well involve getting fined six months' wages or facing a firing squad. It is a fair and free place to live, but you can sense a subtle threat that any wrongdoing will be treated harshly by a man carrying a big stick. The fine for smoking on the metro for example is S$1000, over three hundred quid!

Singapore is very hot all year round. It sits almost slap-bang on the equator and the heat is sweltering, even at night. I staggered up the hill to my hostel on Friday morning, bedraggled and drenched in sweat after three days' solid travelling, and even through solid cloud cover the temperature was about 30C. I was a man in need of a serious lie down.

Fortunately the hostel turned out to be f**king ace! After weeks of roughing it in spartan Indian guest-houses I was delighted to get a piping hot shower delivered with the full force of western plumbing! The dorms are cosy (despite the strange smell of sweaty feet lingering in our room) and the whole place is furnished from top to bottom in ultra-hip Ikea stylings. You get free breakfast, free internet and even free tea and coffee while you surf the web. They have nightly movie screenings.

I'm filling my boots with all the free stuff. I'm spending Sunday evening going goggle-eyed in front of a computer, gorged to the nines on caffeine, while the dialogue from some Hollywood flick booms from the corner of the room. I'm into my third day here and I'm still suffering a litle with jetlag. Tonight is supposed to be my 'quiet night in' where my body clock resets itself and remembers its arse from its elbow.

I've done most of the sight-seeing I want to do. Singapore is nice to visit for a few days, but once you've seen everything it begins to get dull. The place lacks that little bit of tradition and soul necessary to give it a unique identity. You almost forget where you are after being here a while - you could be anywhere in the west!

On Friday I explored the city centre and went on a bumboat (the hilarious local name for motorised river taxis) along the river, watching the driver and his cronies bickering in Chinese with some amusement. That evening I had a meal and a leisurely beer at a riverside restaurant, and felt myself unwind as the daylight of my first day faded and the kaleidoscopic night-time skyline blinked gradually into life. What a mistake that was, it's a bloody pricey area to eat out! Suitably chastened by the bill, I headed back to the hostel but couldn't locate any affordable alehouses in the vicinity. My Friday night had died a death.

On Saturday I went on a coach tour round the city and visited the Little India and Chinatown districts. I've just visited real India so Little India didn't intrigue me much, though Chinatown looked cool. Next came a totally unnecessary visit to a jewellery store. It always pisses me off when you're on a tour and the guide/driver ushers you into a store - it happened loads in India. You can almost see them salivating at the prospect of commission. This gave us less time at the botanical gardens in the north of the island, which were lush and inviting and could easily have kept me entertained for a few hours!

That evening I went on the world-famous night safari, which was pretty good, but not the mind-bending rollercoaster ride the travel agent's hype had led me to anticipate. It's just a zoo. At night. You get zoos everywhere. Admittedly though they put on a good show featuring some interesting and well-trained creatures, and you got to ride out into the middle of the animals' habitat on an electric buggy. I got chatting to a guy from Leeds and we saw all manner of creatures; hippos, elephants, bats, buffalo, ant-eaters and many others. It was a cool way to spend an evening but the jet-lag had left me weary and cynical and I gratefully returned to my bed that night.

Today I journeyed out by bumboat (teehee) to Pulau Ubin. This is an island about a mile long that lies just to the north of Singapore, very close to the border with Malaysia. Unlike the rest of Singapore it has survived completely undeveloped, covered in trees and lush vegetation and home to a small fishing community. I hired a push-bike so I could cycle round the island, and spent a couple of hours roving up and down the peaceful roads, occasionally dodging people who were blissfully cycling on the wrong side. It was a nice and relaxing alternative to staying in the city.

The island is dotted with traditional cottages (nowadays selling cold drinks to the small but steady stream of tourists passing by), while numerous wooden dwellings on stilts crowd the waters around the island. It allows you a glimpse of Singapore's vanished past, and a clue as to its cultural identity that has been all but lost in the frantic drive towards modernisation.

Well that's all for now, I've prattled on for bloody ages and I need to get some sleep! Nighty-night y'all!