Orchard Road

This guide to Orchard Road in Singapore starts with a nineteenth-century mystery: sometime in the 1850s, the nutmeg orchards that gave the street its name began mysteriously dying, branch by branch, and no planter could explain why. It traces Stamford Raffles' original spice estates along this two-kilometre corridor, the fortunes poured into saving the crop, and the decades the puzzle went unsolved. Listen for how the name survives on every street sign, long after the trees themselves vanished.