sign in a cave in Laos

4 October 2013

Stal at the Gardens by the Bay, Singapore

One of the newest attractions in Singapore is the Gardens by the Bay, located by Marina Bay Sands. Although I have been to MBS, I haven't been to the gardens.

When a friend told me that there is a lot of large stal on display, I was curiously concerned. My friend said it had been imported from China.

So I googled the gardens and see there is a Chinese Garden in the Heritage Gardens. There are some photos on this site, and I also found this blog that shows some of the stones. They seem to be large pieces of rock rather than actual speleothems. I just hope they have come out of a quarry or were "free standing" stones - I hope they haven't actually been removed from any caves.

But then my concern grew when I continued googling and came across this blog Singapore Actually . It mentions a Crystal Cave and shows photos of stal - click on the link and scroll down to see the photos. The photos show some huge pieces of stal sitting on strangely shaped stands. They look totally out of place.

I continued googling and found these videos on youtube, by liberto , E. Pua and another by Pua showing the Crystal Mountain at Cloud Forest hall. There are mirrors around the hall to reflect the stalactites and stalagmites, see this blog by Alicesg . According to Wikipedia, "The Cavern and the Crystal Mountain contains exhibitions of mineraology and caves".

I don't know how these stal were imported to Singpaore, whether it was done 'legally' or not.
In the past there have been various exhibitions of speleothems in Malaysia, the supply presumably coming from China, or even Philippines.  See more on my website .

© Liz Price
No reproduction without permission

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