Sentosa Siloso Beach

Every grain of sand under your feet was shipped in from Indonesia and Malaysia starting in nineteen eighty-eight, when engineers reshaped a rough natural coastline into the calm, postcard beach you're standing on. They carved gentle bays to keep the water still, and above the beach the British-built Fort Siloso still watches from the ridge, its guns raised in the eighteen-eighties to guard the harbour's western approach. Look up at the fort before you settle onto the sand — the guide asks what those guns were really built to do.