"The squat, wooden bumboat rocks in the wake of a passing boat as I crawl aboard, and it keeps up the churning as I lurch onto the wooden seat. We weave between freighters and tug boats. The toothless pilot grins as I steady myself on the teetering seat in three-foot swells. On our right smoke rises through haze from the refineries of Pulau Bukum. On our left lie the man-made attractions of Sentosa pleasure isle. This 45-minute ride in a half-roofed wooden boat will take us from the pulsing, high-tech world of Singapore city to a palm-fringed, backwater island named for a pirate queen."

"In an earlier time, small traders shuttled their craft among these islands to barter goods and produce. Pirate ships sometimes lurked behind the tangled cover of mangrove swamps. And smugglers slipped in and out of vaporous coves on moonless nights."

"In today’s world electricity comes from generators, and TV antennas rise from nearly every roof. Yet on Pulau Seking drinking water must still be ferried in. A middle-aged man, leaning on the railing of his verandah, is soon joined by his wife. The voices give their concern about this family’s future. ‘If I spend money to repair my house,’ he tells us, ‘will the government take it over. . .and wipe out my investment?’ For how much longer can these villagers live in traditional style, before their breezy homes are swept away by the ever-growing city-state beyond?"