The stylish new hotel that shows off Singapore's green side

Times

03-05-2025

Looking out across deep-green waters, I can see what looks like thick rainforest on the opposite bank. I hear the barks and quack-like sounds of frogs, the high-pitched call of a collared kingfisher and the mellifluous song of an oriental magpie-robin. This sense of unadulterated nature is illusory, though, as I'm in Singapore, the bustling city-state that has one of the highest population densities in the world. When I listen hard, beyond the birdsong there's the undeniable rumble of rush-hour traffic.
I'm in the Mandai Wildlife Reserve, a green area in the north home to zoos, aviaries and adventure parks, and now, surprisingly, a luxury hotel. The Mandai Rainforest Resort by Banyan Tree opened last month, offering 338 stylish rooms in this tranquil, tropical setting, designed around hundreds of mature trees, including a 12-metre rain tree with a sprawling canopy and a native Indian beech strewn with climbers.
Through a lobby left open to the elements are five storeys decorated with specially commissioned wallpaper depicting the rainforest's natural layers: on lower levels the imagery is of the forest floor; higher up it reflects the canopy.
The most alluring guest rooms are 24 so-called treehouses, elevated on pillars at either end of the main building. The design is said to have been inspired by seed pods but the oval shape and latticed façades reminded me of birds' nests. It was here on the balcony, whose sweeping architectural lines framed the forested banks of Upper Seletar Reservoir, that I felt most immersed in nature.
That a high-end hotel group like the Singapore-owned Banyan Tree brand would open its first hotel on home turf next to a tourist attraction could sound tacky, given that Banyan Tree's usual range is boutique properties in Phuket, Dubai and the Maldives. Here in Singapore, the group has gone big with hundreds of rooms and a bias towards families, providing buffet dining, a kids' club, playground and guided zoo excursions, but no bar or coffee shop.
Zoo kitsch has thankfully been avoided, the biophilic design is stylish and there's a refreshing approach to climate care, with air conditioning set so it won't adjust below 24C. Interactive panels show power consumption and offer reminders when usage exceeds recommended levels. On the rooftop is an infinity pool, next to it an edible garden of herbs and spices, while the spa has three treatment pods inspired by the shape of the keratin scales of the Sunda pangolin.
Although the design has its own appeal, the reason most will stay here is for easy, walkable access to the zoo's numerous areas, including Singapore Zoo, River Wonders, Night Safari, Bird Paradise and the recently launched Rainforest Wild Asia (separate entry tickets from £25, bundles available; mandai.com).
Splitting up the zoo like this incentivises Singaporeans to come on separate visits, but makes it tricky for tourists on a stopover because more than one park a day can be taxing. They tend to prioritise, seeing the pandas in River Wonders, for example, including three-year-old Le Le, who was born here, or the orangutans in Singapore Zoo. Many come after dark for the Night Safari, which claims to be the world's first zoo showcasing nocturnal animals in action.
• Read our full guide to Singapore here
Bird Paradise houses 3,500 birds shifted here from an outdated park in the west of the country, with 400 species across the aviaries, one the size of two football pitches.
Singapore's zoo, which attracts more than a million people a year, often features at the top of lists of 'ethical zoos' and funds conservation projects and breeding programmes, but I felt a tinge of melancholy to see free birds perched on the outside interacting with birds trapped inside; it won't be for everyone.
The hotel comes amid a flurry of new hotels in Singapore, with the biggest news being the opening in March of the resort-style Raffles Sentosa,sister to the brand's flagship heritage hotel downtown (B&B doubles from about £800; raffles.com). The Singapore hotel group COMO — with properties in Bhutan, Bali, Tuscany and Turks and Caicos — has also planted a flag in its home town with COMO Metropolitan Singapore, opened 19 months ago in the thrum of the city, strong on wellness, with a robot barista and sensational digital artwork (B&B doubles from £250; comohotels.com). It is near Orchard Road, the main drag, as is the Standard, which opened at the end of last year as an urban bolt hole with terraced gardens for morning yoga. The check-in desk is a terrarium artwork by Erik Tobua, there are oversized outdoor sculptures and an excellent izakaya-style restaurant, Kaya, where the chef Nicholas Cheng focuses on fermented and pickled dishes in glorious surrounds, with fronds of hanging plants trailing from the ceiling (B&B doubles from £230; standardhotels.com).
There is a sense that this city of striking skyscrapers and efficient infrastructure is also embracing itslush and verdant character. Located just sixty miles or so off the equator, Singapore was once, of course, all dense tropical rainforest, home to tigers and leopards. From the 19th century British colonialists felled giant trees for fuel and timber and established rubber plantations in a continued programme of deforestation.
But now the wild is being brought back in the spaces between modernity. Highways are increasingly bordered by shrubbery and bougainvillea; many roads are leafy boulevards lined with towering trees with sprouting epiphytes clinging to their trunks, and wedges of urban land have been transformed into bursts of hibiscus and heliconia.
• 15 of the best hotels in Singapore
Singapore Botanic Gardens is a Unesco world heritage site with 197 acres of tropical landscaping and the world's largest display of orchids. Around dawn, locals congregate to practise the meditative martial art of qigong and a gentle form of swordsmanship with long sticks. It's one of the few places in tech-forward Singapore that still triggers my memories of childhood trips here(entry free; nparks.gov.sg).
The modern homage to horticulture is Gardens by the Bay, with glassy conservatories showcasing different biomes (entry to the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest, £18; gardensbythebay.com.sg), and futuristic tree-shaped structures collecting solar energy to power a nightly light show on Marina Bay.
Wilder nature is less prevalent across the tiny country, although there are still some areas, such as Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve in the north, Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, and MacRitchie Nature Trail & Reservoir Park, all within an hour from the city centre by bus or MRT, the highly efficient underground system. An easy walk around any of these is often rewarded with sightings of long-tailed macaque monkeys, smooth-coated otters and clouded monitor lizards.
There's a strong drive in Singapore to integrate nature into the cityscape, to position the country not only as one of the world's most ambitious commercial ports but also one that hasn't forgotten its natural assets, its tropical environs and its place on the planet.
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Michelle Jana Chan was a guest of Mandai Rainforest Resort by Banyan Tree, which has B&B doubles from £260 (banyantree.com). Fly to Singapore
By Chris Fitch
Australia's biggest city is all about sun, sea and some of the country's — if not the world's — best beaches. Down at Sydney Harbour there's twice the fish diversity of the entire UK and at Cabbage Tree Bay, a protected reserve, you can snorkel among abundant marine life. Find the Living Seawalls attached to the local ocean pool (livingseawalls.com.au); these are dotted around the harbour, providing habitats for tiny ocean critters. Head upstream to the Parramatta River and official swimming spots that opened a decade ago after a major clean-up. If you spot seals lounging on the steps behind Sydney Opera House, send a photo to Wild Sydney Harbour to help their citizen science (wildsydneyharbour.com). At Bondi beach, swim among stingrays and humpback whales, as documented by Drone Shark App (@dronesharkapp).
Gaudí's masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia, contains columns sculpted like trees and doorframes with leaf motifs (£22; sagradafamilia.org), but for real nature in Catalonia's buzzing capital, walk 15 minutes east to Parc de les Glories. Once a raised highway, it has been converted into a public park with a lawn, playground, biodiversity corner and newly opened tree gardens. Montjuic, to the south of the city centre, is a raised coastal headland with a diverse landscape of wild forest and pristine ornamental gardens, with walking trails and beautiful views of the city. Stroll down to the coast for Barcelona's famous beaches, artificially created specifically for the 1992 Olympic Games. More than 500 marine species live in these waters, especially around the Forum bathing area.
The Meiji Jingu forest, just south of the trendy Shinjuku district, was planted a century ago to honour the passing of the reformist Emperor Meiji, with 100,000 trees transported from across Japan. It is now a huge self-sustaining forest, with a vast canopy of mature native trees, best accessed from Harajuku Station. Many of Tokyo's native trees have been preserved inside centuries-old ancient shrines, such as Nezu, also home to a popular multicoloured azalea garden. Shinjuku Gyoen, a short walk northeast, contains a diverse range of vegetation densely packed together, from the ecological 'forest of life' to a traditional Japanese ornamental garden. This park becomes full of crowds every time the springtime hanami cherry blossom viewing season rolls around.
In the south of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi National Park is the world's foremost urban wildlife reserve, with giraffes, zebras, hippos, lions and rhinos (£60; kws.go.ke). Drive around independently, jump on a tour, or team up with Friends of Nairobi National Park (fonnap.org) and volunteer on a bimonthly biodiversity drive. The park also has a raised safari walk and animal orphanage to visit on foot. Kenya's charismatic animals can also be seen at the nearby Giraffe Centre (£2; giraffecentre.org) and Sheldrick Wildlife Trust elephant orphanage (£15; sheldrickwildlifetrust.org). To the north, Karura Forest Reserve is a historic site where the Nobel peace prizewinner Wangari Maathai led her campaign for the protection and reforestation of land, and for the rights of the Kenyan people (friendsofkarura.org). Chris Fitch's Wild Cities: Discovering New Ways of Living in the Modern Urban Jungle is out now (William Collins £22)