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6 top urban heritage tours in Asia, from samurai training in Kyoto to Singapore’s Chinatown and a Shanghai ‘Venice’

Explore Asia’s rich heritage with city tours that offer a glimpse into the history and culture of these vibrant urban centres

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A photo op on On-A-Roll-Tours’ Historic Chinatown walking tour in Singapore. Photo: On-A-Roll-Tours

Published: 6:15am, 20 Feb 2025

Heritage is defined as “valued objects and qualities such as historic buildings and cultural traditions that have been passed down from previous generations”. As such, it’s no surprise that some of the most popular city tours and workshops aimed at inquisitive foreign visitors, in Asia as elsewhere, are those that focus on history and local traditions.

1. Manila, the Philippines

The Unesco-listed San Agustin Church in Intramuros, Manila. Photo: Shutterstock

A tour on a Bambike constructed by a Bambuilder and led by a “bambassador”; the Philippine bicycle maker and operator of Bambike Ecotours may overdo the puns, but there’s little doubt that a turn around Manila’s most historic quarter is more fun on a machine made of bamboo.

Intramuros (Spanish for “inside the walls”) is the Philippine capital’s oldest neighbourhood, having been built around Fort Santiago, established by the Spanish in the late 1500s. As well as cobbled streets, leafy plazas, hidden courtyards and houses dating back to the colonial period, highlights of a 2.5-hour Bambike tour of Fort Santiago and the wider Intramuros area are the Unesco-listed San Agustin Church, the 18th century Revellín de la Puerta Real de Bagumbayan fortifications, the 16th century Puerta del Parian and the opposing statues of Spanish king Charles IV and independence hero Dr José Rizal.

Tours in a group of between five and 10 people cost US$35 each. bambike.com/ecotours

2. Singapore

Chew Kee Eating House in Singapore. Photo: On-A-Roll-Tours

On-A-Roll-Tours has perfected travel aboard a vehicle with wheels even smaller than a Bambike, its evening excursions around Singapore by kick scooter giving the company its name. But it’s one of its walking tours that is gaining the most plaudits.

Guests led by lawyer-turned-entrepreneur Yeo Yen Ping on the 3.5-hour Historic Chinatown Tour learn how immigrants left China in search of a better life and found it in Singapore, where they established clans to look after one other. The tour takes in temples and shrines, the sites of once-thriving Chinese opera theatres, brothels and opium dens, street art and premises devoted to still operational traditional trades.

Included in the price is lunch, which is taken at one of two traditional soy sauce chicken restaurants – Chiew Kee Noodle House or Chew Kee Eating House – which have been rivals since 1949 and are a few doors apart, on Upper Cross Street.

The Historic Chinatown Tour costs S$62.88 (HK$363) per person. on-a-roll-tours.com

6 top urban heritage tours in Asia, from samurai training in Kyoto to Singapore’s Chinatown and a Shanghai ‘Venice’

Explore Asia’s rich heritage with city tours that offer a glimpse into the history and culture of these vibrant urban centres

1. Manila, the Philippines

2. Singapore

3. Kyoto, Japan