Fodor's Expert Review Boat Quay

Local entrepreneurs have created a mélange of eateries and bars to satisfy diverse tastes at this dining and drinking stretch along the Singapore River, the country's trading hub from colonial times to the 1970s. Between 7 pm and midnight, the area swells with an after-work crowd enjoying drinks along the water. At the end of Boat Quay and named after Lord Elgin, a British governor-general of India, Elgin Bridge links the colonial quarter to Chinatown. The original rickety wooden structure was replaced in 1863 with an iron bridge imported from Calcutta. The current concrete bridge was installed in 1926.