Singapore – Bukit Timah

Bukit Timah 577ft

On the summit

Eric Gilbertson (Dec 29, 2018) Matthew Gilbertson (Dec 24, 2016)

Eric’s Trip Report:

Dec 28 In the morning I flew out of port moresby, connected in Manila, and arrived in Singapore at 630pm. I’d read that the park around Bukit Timah, the Singapore highpoint, was only open 7am to 7pm, so it was too late to reasonably rush over for a night ascent. I usually wouldn’t worry too much about rules like that in the U.S., but in Singapore it seems like there are a lot more rules and they all have serious fines or jail time for violations. For instance it’s a $500 fine for eating on the metro!

Walking over from the metro stop

Who knows the fine for trespassing or stealth camping. I didn’t really want to find out.

I’d reserved a room at the Pegasus hotel, the closest one to Bukit Timah, but was in no real hurry to get there. So I took the metro, which is pretty easy and cheap though much slower than a taxi. I arrived at 9pm, ate a pack of ramen noodles from the room for dinner, and went to bed.

Dec 29 I got up at 6am the next morning and my throat seemed like it wasn’t sore anymore. I’d been fighting a cold since mt wilhelm in Papua New Guinea that never went away since I didn’t really give myself any rest days on the trip. Maybe today was the day.

I got on the dt metro line to beauty station, then walked toward the

The summit from a distance

Bukit Timah park, crossing several roads at overpasses. It was 645am when I reached the trail to the summit. There was a sign saying closed 7pm to 7am, but a bunch of other people were walking by, jumping the gun. There was no gate, so I just followed everyone else. It was still dark and raining lightly but that helped cool things off.

The paved trail was very steep and I passed a bunch of people. I took the final steep stairs to the summit, arriving at 7am just as the sun was rising. I took a few pictures and hung out as many more walkers and runners arrived. That area seems to be extremely popular on weekends. I soon descended back down and took the metro to my hotel. I took a shower, filled up on the buffet breakfast, then took a taxi to the airport for my flight to my next highpoint in the Philippines. For reference the taxi was 22sd and 25 minutes while the metro was 7sd and 90 minutes.

I would say a 5 hour layover would be sufficiently safe to go tag the highpoint if you took a taxi each way.