Cloud Forest Dome, Singapore: The multi-storey green wonderland that's the best thing to see

Several things make me shiver in delight as I step into Singapore's Cloud Forest Dome. One is the bliss of its chilly interior, an immediate antidote to the island nation's relentless humidity. Another is the 35-metre waterfall, reputedly the world's tallest indoor waterfall, and the surrounding walls of greenery that tumble with orchids and ferns.

Most of all, it's the delight in discovering something so utterly magical for the first time. I've been to Gardens by the Bay before, but only to see the Supertrees that form part of an evening sound-and-light show against the backdrop of Singapore's skyscrapers. How could I have missed the Cloud Forest Dome – and why isn't it just as famous as the nearby Supertrees? Which are, dare I say, just that bit overhyped. And over-hot.

The Supertrees are admittedly a fine idea, but there are quite a few novelties in the Cloud Forest Dome, too. The experience of feeling the temperature drop as you step into a greenhouse, for a start. The three-dimensional exploration of space for another. This isn't a greenhouse you potter through like a Victorian gentleman, craning your neck for a look at palm trees.

This is a thoroughly modern greenhouse that you explore on multiple levels, linked on walkways that swoop around a great mountain of plants. You can look up, you can look down, you can eyeball pitcher plants and get up close to trembling begonias, their ruffled petals dewed with water droplets.

I don't know who the mad genius was who thought of recreating a cool-climate cloud forest here on the sweltering sea-level equator. It's an engineering achievement to build a huge dome 58 metres high and unencumbered by a single column. (In fact, its twin Flower Dome is the world's biggest such structure.) It's a marvel to maintain the temperature at about 24 degrees and to mist it in re-creation of the damp, cool conditions found in tropical highlands and mountains.

Most of all, it is sheer inspiration to create an actual mountain on which to display the plants – or at least an impressive scaled-down version of one. The Cloud Forest Dome takes the idea of the Supertrees – a steel structure draped in thousands of plants to form a vertical garden – and transforms it into something quite different.

The best way to visit is to take the lift up to the summit and walk down using the various walkways that encircle the walls of greenery. The plants – there are some 60,000 of them, and every leaf seems perfect – change as you descend, mimicking various altitude zones.