Emergency measures in the wake of Covid-19:

See the gov.sg and TravelBans/Singapore websites for updates.

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A Southeast Asian island city-state of 63 islands off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, Singapore has a highly urban population of 5 million, but also many parks and green spaces. The area became a trading post for the British East India Company in 1819 and soon flourished at a strategic position on the world's shipping lanes. Self-governing from 1959, and independent from Britain since 1963 as part of Malaysia, the city separated from the federation of former colonies just two years later, becoming even more prosperous, with one of the busiest ports in the world. One of the Four Asian Tiger economies, the 'Lion City' now boasts the world's third highest per capita income, and one in six households has over one million US dollars in liquid assets.

The population is almost 75% Chinese, with Malays and Indians forming significant minorities. The four official languages are Mandarin Chinese, Malay, Tamil, and English, the latter being the primary language of government, business, mass media and education, and the common tongue between the various ethnic groups. Colloquial "Singlish" mixes several of them together. Buddhism, the most widely practiced religion, counts a third of the population as adherents. Christians, Muslims, Taoists, Hindus and those professing no religion make up most of the rest. About 40% of Singapore's residents are foreigners.

Dining and shopping are said to be the country's twin national pastimes. The wide variety of cuisines to be found among the city's restaurants are a consequence of its many different ethnicities, and one of the great pleasures of a visit here. With trade being the lifeblood of the economy, the shops overflow with goods, both local and from around the world.

 

Getting here

Travelers from most nations may enter Singapore without a visa, but some 30 nationalities must obtain a visa in advance. Depending on nationality and entry point, permits are for 14 or 30 days, but EU, Norwegian, Swiss, US, Canadian, Australian and NZ passport holders get 90 days. Have your passport, valid for at least 6 months on arrival, and an onward or return ticket (with visa to that destination, if applicable).

Customs officials may occasionally do spot drug tests of urine at the airport, and it is an offence to have certain drug metabolites in your system, even if legally consumed outside the country. Bring prescriptions for any medicines you may have, and check ahead for rules concerning possession of sedatives or strong painkillers. Singapore has very strict drug laws, and drug trafficking carries a mandatory death penalty. Porn, pirated goods and Jehovah's Witnesses tracts are also banned.

Singapore Changi Airport connects the city to 200 cities in 68 countries with a network of 80 airlines. Singapore Airlines is the national carrier. Air Asia, Jet Star, and Scoot are low-cost options. Airport shuttle buses, SMRT trains and taxis can get you into town. See the airport Transport page.

The Malaysia Railway, KTM Berhad, operates several trains each day and one overnight sleeper between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, by way of the "Jungle Railway." Tickets bought online are cheaper than those at the Woodlands Train Checkpoint station. Customs and immigration procedures for both countries are cleared at the station. The Singapore-Johor Express and the Causeway Link Express both leave every 5-15 minutes (daily between 4:30am and 11:30pm) from the Queen Street Bus Terminal, downtown (50 Ban San St, Bugis).

Buses/coaches also connect the two capitals, along with service to other Malaysian destinations. Aeroline in HarbourFront Centre is one of the most comfortable, with on-board meals, power sockets, WiFi, and a lounge area. Transtar is another high-end carrier with departures/arrivals at the Golden Mile Complex shopping mall near Bugis -- the Singapore terminal for a dozen such companies. In addition Bugis is home to the terminal for Transnasional, the largest company on the peninsular, with the most destinations throughout Malaysia.

Passenger ferries at the HarbourFront Passenger Terminal and the Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal offer services to Indonesian island destinations, and beyond. See Bintan Resort Ferries, Indo Falcon Shipping, and Penguin Ferry Services, among others.

To arrive in style by train, the Eastern and Oriental Express offers elegant private cabins from Bangkok Thailand, by way of Penang and Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. Bangkok to Singapore takes four days and three nights, with stops at the River Kwai Bridge station for a local raft tour of the Kwai Yai River, and for a tour of colonial Georgetown. Their renowned chefs create eastern and western specialities to rival the world's best restaurants. Fares in 2019 run from US$3,100 to $7,100 per person. From Kuala Lumpur it's a trip of two days and a night. See The Luxury Train Club website for details.

 

Getting around

Cars are expensive to own and operate in Singapore, so most people don't bother, opting instead for public transit, walking or (sometimes) cycling. Taxis are popular as fares are relatively cheap compared to most other developed countries. Should you want to rent a car, there are plenty of companies at the airport, or in downtown locations. Cars in Singapore are driven on the left side of the road, as in neighboring Malaysia and Indonesia, and speed limits should be carefully observed as traffic is electronically monitored. Ask agency staff to explain the Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system, or consult the One Motoring government website.

Bus and rapid transit services are provided by: SMRT with buses, and a 102-station, 149 km Metro system of four lines; and SBS also with buses, and a 16-station, 20 km rail system. There are also fully automated and elevated Light Rail Transit networks of 43 stations, between the rail stations. The ticketing system uses rechargeable contactless smart cards.

Tourist Pass cards, for unlimited travel on public bus services, MRT and LRT trains, cost S$28 for one day and S$38 for three days. For other tickets and more information, consult the websites of the TransitLink Ticket Offices and the Singapore Visitor Centres. Trains run every 3-8 minutes from about 5:30am until about 1am, with extended service on the big holidays. Eating, drinking and smoking are not permitted within the system, and high fines will be imposed.

 

The Arts

A cosmopolitan "gateway between East and West" Singapore is also a center for arts and culture. The Esplanade Theatres on the Bay performing arts center is home to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. The annual Singapore Arts Festival is organized by the National Arts Council. The M1 Singapore Fringe Festival is an annual January presentation of cutting-edge theater, music, dance, visual arts and mixed media, created and presented by Singaporean and international artists. Necessary Stage is an innovative theater company, developing new works, and arranging international exchanges and collaborations. Other stage companies include Action Theatre, The Toy Factory Theatre Ensemble, and W!ld Rice Ltd. Art Stage Singapore is an annual international art fair in January, with participation by 130 galleries, and 600 artists from 23 countries.

See Singapore Gay Films for information on gay films and festivals, and the Singapore Film Society for their free regular screenings at GV Suntec and Shaw Lido, plus free screenings of art-house selections on other days each month.The Singapore Dance Theatre and Singapore Ballet Academy websites have details on their performances. For some local museums, galleries and the Zoo, see our map & listings.

 

Neighborhoods

Bugis/ Kampong Glam: Singapore's old Malay district, now filled with plenty of shopping opportunities.
Chinatown: originally designated by Stamford Raffles as Chinese settlement area, now heritage area and home to much of the city's gay nightlife.
Little India: north of city core concentration of Indian settlement and businesses.
Marina Bay: new Singapore neighborhood, dominated by Marina Barrage and Marina Bay Sands resort hotel, casino, shopping mall, convention center/ museum; Gardens by the Bay public garden conservatories – the Flower Dome, and the Cloud Forest.
Orchard Road: commercial center with many shopping malls.
Riverside (Civic District): Singapore's colonial center, with museums, monuments and theatres, restaurants, bars and clubs.
Sentosa: island south of downtown, former military fortress, now sandy beach escape with Universal Studios theme park, aquarium, hotels and gambling resort.

 

Money & Banking

The Singapore dollar, the official currency, issued by the Monetary Authority of Singapore and interchangeable with the Brunei dollar, has been valued in recent years at between 70 and 80 cents US$.

Banks open 9:30am - 3pm Monday through Saturday; some on Orchard Road have Sunday hours. American Express and most large foreign banks have local branch offices, and many banks share their ATM networks. Besides the banks, most malls and many stores have ATMs. Consult your home bank before departure for information that could save you money on ATM withdrawal fees, also let them know you'll be making foreign charges on your credit cards. AMEX, MasterCard and Visa are commonly accepted in Singapore.

 

Gay in Singapore

Social attitudes in Singapore toward gay residents are slowly changing. The government technically criminalizes homosexuality (Section 377A of the penal code, a legacy of British rule), but gay nightlife is diverse and thriving, and police tend to look the other way unless drugs are involved. The big change came in 1998 when Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew famously said: "what we are doing as a government is to leave people to live their own lives so long as they don't impinge on other people.... we don't harass anybody." In 2007 PM Lee Hsien Loong recognized "that homosexuals are part of our society. They have a place in our society."

Still, a majority of LGBT people in Singapore report some type of discrimination or abuse due to sexual orientation, especially transgender people, and relatively few choose to come out to their families. With conscription at 18, some young gay men have difficult times during two years of military obligation.
In Hong Lim Park, the only place demonstrations of any kind are permitted, the annual Pink Dot gathering to celebrate “freedom to love” of whatever gender, has recently attracted crowds of 15,000 people. Sponsors such as Barclay's Bank lend a certain kind of legitimacy, and people are now coming from a wider slice of society, including straight Singaporeans and their children.

Neighbouring Indonesia and Malaysia, with their large Muslim populations, are at least as conservative as Singapore, but locals are watching the recent changes in Hong Kong and Taiwan for cues on Chinese cultural attitudes. They're also well aware of boisterous gay pride parades in nearby Thailand and the Philippines, and the government position, stated as "at this time, our society is not ready…" is said to be under review by those in power.

The launch of Element gay lifestyle magazine illustrates the current situation. To avoid being licensed by the government the magazine is published online, sold as downloads from Apple and Android app stores, and their website is hosted in the USA. Government policies aside, the publishers believe most locals wouldn't yet buy something like this from a local news stand. Hirokazu Mizuhara, the magazine's managing director, and former marketing manager at Harper’s Bazaar in Beijing, had been surprised to find such a cautious legal and cultural climate, after moving here from China and Japan.

Filmmakers and theater producers have been more progressive in the past decade, with forthright and positive explorations of homosexuality in stage productions and some recent films. But homosexuality is nothing new or foreign here. During the 'sin city' period of colonial Singapore, the city was filled with brothels, opium dens and gambling houses catering to lonely migrant workers in a strange city where gender imbalance was the norm. Chinese men were said to outnumber Chinese women 15 to 1, and Indian and other laborer populations would likewise have been disproportionately male. Male-male liasons in those communities might have followed long-standing but discrete social traditions of both China and India. Young Europeans were normally single too, and older family men usually left wives and children at home. Local servants or houseboys may have tempted the British to suspend their Victorian values and disregard the strict laws whenever they could. There are reasons to think they did, but written evidence, if set to paper, rarely survived destruction in the fireplaces of British officials or families who discovered memoirs they considered obscene. Such was the fate, at the hands of his widow, of many personal papers of the British Orientalist and explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton. Fortunately he wrote elsewhere with observations about sex between men in this part of the region he called the Sotadic Zone, spanning the Mediterranean, across the Middle East and South Asia, to Japan. See the Wikipedia gay history of Singapore article.

 

Media & Resources

Element Magazine, the Singapore based, gay lifestyle bi-monthly "voice of gay Asia," can be downloaded from the Apple and Android app stores.

Hypertainment lists their gay dance parties around town. SG Rainbow social group targets gay and bisexual males ages 18-25.

Travel Gay Asia has listings for SE Asia, Japan, China, Indonesia and Sydney Australia, has good coverage of the Singapore scene.

Utopia, a well-established and comprehensive gay guide to most major Asian cities, includes Singapore. Fridae is another useful gay guide and community site for the region.

Oogachaga, the LGBT community organization, provides a local hotline, counselling sessions, a support group, and training sessions.

Two local sites are no longer being updated: Singaypore, with online LGBT articles, video clips and community events listings; and Pluto Magazine, with PLU Guide listings of LGBT businesses.

Visit Singapore is the official Singapore Tourism website. SG-Now "the insider's guide to Singapore," has tips on entertainment, restaurants and events around town.

For good online guides to Asian food and restaurants, see Makansutra, and iEatiShootiPost ("never waste your calories on yucky food"). TalkingCock offers a look at local satire and humor.

There are three downtown Singapore Visitor Centres for tourist assistance, at: 216 Orchard Rd (MRT Somerset); ION Orchard Level 1 Concierge (MRT Orchard); and 2 Banda St, Kreta Ayer Sq (MRT Chinatown).

In addition to the LGBTQ bars, clubs, saunas, and massage services listed below, see a more complete list of massage spas for men, plus a sample of restaurants, hotels & guesthouses, shops, museums and performance venues, at our Singapore gay map & listings pages.

 

Going Out

Altimate/1-Altitude (1 Raffles Place, 61st floor), 18+ mixed crowd weekend party nights, upscale rooftop lounge bar/ dance club and restaurant, with 7 DJs and shows in two areas; Sunday brunch. Hyperentertainment does gay events here.

Backstage Bar (74 Neil St), new location of popular cocktail bar near sister Tantric Bar; old movies/musicals-theme decor, dancing, mixed gay crowd.

Bar Naked (95 Club St, Chinatown), 5pm-2am gay/mixed karaoke bar, live music, women-friendly.

Dorothy’s Bar (13A Trengganu St, Chinatown), gay music and cocktails bar opened at old Backstage location, balcony overlooking Chinatown.

DYMK (41 Neil Road, Chinatown/ Neil Rd) - CLOSED Nov 2018 - comfy/cozy townhouse cocktail bar/lounge, open nightly

Hypertainment throws elaborate dance parties at various venues around town. See their website for event dates and locations.

Lluvia (145 Telok Ayer St, Chinatown), popular bears/friends bar, karaoke, comfort food, special theme events.

Lulu's Lounge (Pan Pacific Hotel, 7 Raffles Blvd), dancing, terrace, live entertainment, drag cabaret and burlesque, DJ sets, live jazz and Boogie Nights, snacks; well-dressed gay/mixed men/women crowd.

May Wong’s Cafe (78A Neil Rd, Chinatown), English-style lounge above Tantric Bar, movie-star-photo decor, creative cocktails

Man About Town (various venues), 4-5 monthly events including their Sunday Aquaholic Pool Party SG, cocktail socials, movie nights and more.

OUT Bar (43 Neil Rd, Chinatown), 1960′s Hollywood décor showbar, guest DJs and performers, open mic nights, free WiFi.

Pandora’s Garden (28 Ann Siang Rd, Outram), new gay-friendly rooftop Gin & Rosé Garden in Ann Siang House courtyard; Wednesday Blush Ladies Night.

Peaches Club (100 Orchard Rd/ Kramat Ln) - CLOSED Nov 2018 - Wednesday-Saturday "Weekly parties for the fun and the free;" young men/women mix, emerging Divas and established DJs, BroNuts nights. See the PLAY link for weekend promotions.

PS Cafe (45 Ann Siang Rd, 02-02, Ann Siang Hill Park), gay-popular restaurant/wine bar and pizza take-out; one of four city locations; brunch, lazy afternoon teas, tempting desserts.

Taboo (65-67 Neil Rd), two-level Friday/Saturday gay dance club, dance at ground level, upstairs lounge loft, last Saturdays of month biggest night with international guest DJs.

Tanjong Beach Club (120 Tanjong Beach Walk, Sentosa Island), chic young and buff gay crowd, restuarant and bar, swimming pool, most popular on Sunday afternoons.

Tantric Bar (78 Neil Rd), popular gay warm-up bar across from Taboo Club, open courtyard bar, mostly younger guys; upstairs May Wong Cafe.

The Bar Above (72 Tanjong Pagar Rd), LGBT/mixed wine bar and gastropub, young crowd, community events, women-friendly.

CLOSED: Play, itinerant gay dance and pool parties, now at Peaches; Ladies District (72 Duxton Rd), mixed/young LGBT/women crowd; Salvation at Avalon Club (2 Bayfront Ave, Marina Bay Sands), Sunday gay dance parties; Tipsy (68 Duxton Rd), the briefly surviving bar at Ladies District also closed; Zirca (3C River Valley Rd), gay/mixed nightclub.

 

Saunas

Cruise Club (285 New Bridge Rd), gay gym, tanning, heated pool, Jacuzzi, steam room, maze, cabins; rooftop café, cinema lounge, internet and book exchange area.

Keybox Sauna (17 Upper Circular Road), moved from N Bridge Rd to Club One Seven's old location; men's gym, steam room (in former bank vault), dry sauna, hydro-pool, lounge and café drinks, snacks and meals. Formerly Club One-Seven Sauna site.

Shogun Sauna (51A Pagoda St), men's sauna/ steam, private relax-rooms, dark room and cruising maze; glow sticks, Chub & Chaser, and Skin nights.

Ten Mens Club (32A Pagoda St), bear-popular men's club sauna/ steam room, rain room, cabins, maze, TV lounge; massage services and internet area. Theme nights include: Chub & Chasers, Beefy, and No Towel. Moved into the old Absolute Sauna location after that club closed.

CLOSED: Hercules Club (4 Jalan Klapa), men's spa, hot pool, steam room, dark room, cabins.

 

Massage & Spa Services

Bodylite (26a Keong Saik Rd, Chinatown), 60-90 minute full-body massages, body wraps, scrubs, aromatherapy, facials, foot reflexology.

D SPAradise Spa (15A Temple St, Chinatown), East/ West fusion massage therapies by men for men, body scrubs, detoxifying wraps, waxing, hyrdo bath, herbal steam.

Nature Forest Spa (62B Pagoda St, Chinatown), all-natural Balinese ambience, professionally trained male therapists; Swedish massage, aromatherapy, scrubs, detoxifying wraps, rain therapy.

Secret Homme at Classique Hotel (240 Jalan Besar Rd, Kallang), men-only sensual/ erotic massage, acupressure services, Swedish, Javanese, Shaitsu and Tantric techniques by certified therpists; manhood therapy, lingam/prostate and deep tissue massage, facials and scrubs.

Shuang Spa (11, Bukit Pasoh Rd, Chinatown), men's boutique spa; Swedish massage, essential oils, body scrubs, foot reflexology; off-peak afternoon bargain rates.

SINxMen (220 Orchard Rd, Midpoint Orchard), exclusively male-to-male massage services, Brazilian waxing, facials, "Universal Contour Wrap" body sculpting.

WaterSpa (43A Craig Rd, Chinatown), men-only Swedish/Thai fusion body massage by certified therapists, water cleansing ritual, herbal heat compress, full body scrub, scalp and eye care.

For out-call massage services for men see: AsiaHunk; Home Spa for Men; M ModelAsia; Singapore Gay Massage 69; Singapore Massage Club; Strong Beefy Man; and Unimasue.

 

In the News

June 1, 2017 - Singapore: Restrictions to LGBT gathering another attempt to suppress activism - Amnesty International