Liz on Malaysia. and comments on Bali

Holding a Fruit Bat in Bali. He has claws.

Audience in Bali

Liz on Malaysia and Comments on Bali
If you visit Bali, set aside 150,000 Rupiah per person for the Bali Departure Tax. Travel guide books like Lonely Planet warn about this tax but our trip is to so many places that I failed to organize to the degree to manage this detail. I did not even have a method to make a note to myself due to lack of electronic references. Especially young people max out their cash and credit and then miss their return plane and are trapped in Bali because of this tax. I recalled reading about this tax in the back of my mind but ...

Mike pays our bills on this trip. Why is that? If you are an engineer who has split a dinner check with me or if you are on our Sunnybrook Golf League and recall that I left my handbag in the restaurant after the golf league’s final dinner, then you do not wonder why Mike manages our trip money. So far Mike has converted USD (Dollars) into Australian, New Zealand and Singaporean dollars, Indonesian Rupiah, now Malaysian Ringgits and soon Thai Bhats. As a team we play to our strengths. He would never deny me anything I request. I do not have to prove anything to him. I have a MasterCard (which I used once for Great Barrier Reef tour) but otherwise Mike pays for every meal, hotel, hostel, transport and incidental. Toilets cost 10 cents so I carry change .Mike found the ATM in Bali Airport so we got out of Bali with time to spare He feels naked without cash. He did not want to spend all our Rupiahs but since we were leaving Bali, we did not expect to need them. We bought Luwak coffee in the airport to close out cash on hand and then got burned by tax.

Population of Bali in 2010 is 3,891,000
Population of Oahu in 2010 is 953,000 Bali Land = 5,632 km²Oahu Land = 1,545 km².

We now carry toilet paper in our pockets. Almost every Malay toilet has a spigot for washing your bottom. Apparently spigots with water are preferred to toilet paper. A task for blind men is to sell toilet paper on the street. We saw these blind men in Singapore’s Chinatown and then in KL.

We compared Hawaii’s Oahu to Indonesia’s Bali by land mass and population to try to gain perspective and a frame of reference.
The land and populations are proportionate but the sprawl in Bali is just the opposite of Oahu. Motorcycles v.. 7 million buses passes 


I was told to visit Bali in Dec. 2007 while skiing with my son in Lake Tahoe. Guests went out of their way to tell me that a round-the-world trip must include Bali, that it is really safe, serene and special. Eat, Pray, Love added to the Bali cache. Our Queensland, Australia friends, Terry and Sue say that they only stay in Bali in guest houses without electricity or telephones, that’s how much they enjoy the rusticity. We stayed in the cool north outside of Ubud.

If you are a life long autoworker who takes pride in safety features, forget that value in Bali. Mike says that motorcycles are the symbol of the new prosperity but I see them as crippler of the innocent and aspiring in a country teeming with law abiding young people. A school of children in nice, neat uniforms is let out. A sea of motorcycles flows before us carrying these children and their drivers. Meanwhile our young male room attendant limps through his chores; the limp is from a motorcycle fall. Our 31 year old hotel manager, Sari had a spill as evidenced by the dirty sleeve of her uniform jacket our 2^nd morning there. She denied injury. Honestly, Mike and I were amazed by the skill of drivers and that we did not see any accidents but it doesn’t mean motorbikes are safe.
Sari, the 31 year old hotel manager is a Moslem woman from Java and the oldest person in Bali’s Raffles Holiday Resort. Sari is a smiling girlish looking woman who looks younger than her years. She does not wear a veil when at work. Her husband has no interest in learning English and lives with her 10 year old son on Java. She rarely sees them but Skypes them weekly from the hotel. Sari’s knowledge of English is indispensable to her management. When I asked her if it was rude to telephone Budi, the Celebrity Century’s assistant maitre’d since he had not seen his family in a long, long while. (Budi’s telephone # failed, good thing.). Sari told me no issue, that her guests are family. She told me that a Dutch guest actually visited her and went on to marry her aunt. Workers are taken for granted in Bali. Why should people matter since Indonesia is the world’s 4^th most populated nation comprised of 70 scattered islands with rampant corruption?

Temple in Bali

Because of high demand during Chinese New Year I booked the Luxury Coach from Singapore’s Orchard Road to Malaka. What‘s the most you can pay? $92. We had an assigned seat with individual TV movies. When we crossed the border we were surprised to see that Malaysia was a vast swath of green land, lots of landscape and garden farms supplying Singapore
Poster for Singapore: “You’ve heard of a garden in a city? Singapore is a city in a garden."

                          Live Orchids in Singapore's Airport. They have a butterfly house too.

Miles of palm trees producing palm oil and every type of tropical crop with a few shacks along the Malaysian interstate make for a nice ride, not unlike the US. .
We arrived at the Equatorial Hotel named after the equator because, duh, we’re really close to the equator. We went to a shopping mall to get Malaysian ringgets and then find a cab. I knew our hostel was really close by and that taxis trips are a big waste in a travel budget but Mike prefers taking a taxi with our bags especially when it is hot. He tried 3 ATMs before one worked. Meanwhile unlike Bali Malaysian shops sell pastries and desserts. Donuts and candy stores are in Malaysia that were unseen in Bali. Women are noticeably fatter than they were in Bali. They have skin problems too. The only butterfat type of dessert I noticed in Bali was an ice crème freezer case for a Nestles’ brand “Walls”. Indonesians are so lean and eat smaller food portions of meat. Malaysia is so wealthy and fat by comparison. I usually do not look at dessert but I asked someone (Diego) at breakfast who knows both countries and he agreed that Indonesians are so much leaner than Malays.

Gasoline is $2.50 per gallon; Mike converted the currencies and then liters to gallons several times to be sure of this figure. In Indonesia I expect birth control is centered around transportation. In Bali gas is sold in glass bottles by the liter. How many family members can fit on a motorbike? We’ve seen a family of 4 (baby and toddler) on a single bike whereas in Malaysia families have cars. Big difference. 5 family members may ride in the car and it is a whole lot safer. Yes, I’ve seen a Malay man steer with one hand and hold down a toddler with the other. Typical family size in Malaysia is 3 children per couple. So in Bali families are smaller and thinner in size than in Malaysia.
　
How did we decide to tour Malaysia?
Initially we were going to take a train from across the border in Singapore to Bangkok. That was it. We had no plan to see Malaysia until we asked a stranger for directions in Melbourne. Lian Todd walked us to a bus stop and chatted with us. We e-mailed. After our 3 days in San Remo we returned to Melbourne and met Lian for dinner. She even picked up the tab. Lian is a Chinese Malaysian who makes Melbourne her home. She inspired us to visit historic Melaka, Kuala Lumpur, Cameron Highlands and Penang. I had no knowledge that these places existed before we discussed with Lian. Then we read 2 books. A Town Like Alice by Neville Shute begins in Malaysia and moves to a farm station in Australia. The Dunstan’s gave us their copy of Gavin Menzies’ 1421, How the Chinese Discovered the World. Both books raised our awareness of Malaysia. We booked hostels to get through the overcrowded Chinese New Year’s season in Malaysia until we move into timeshare in Pattaya Feb 4-11.

Why did Lian immigrate from Melaka to Melbourne? Why does Mike dislike Malaysia? Discrimination. Rigidity as manifest in religion. Because Lian is Chinese she faced discrimination in education in Malaysia. In Melbourne Lian is a librarian and a textbook publishing success. Meanwhile Moslems control Malaysia. We see veiled women everywhere here. To Malaysia’s credit today the United Nations classifies Malaysia as a developed nation. This nation of 28 million advanced from undeveloped status just a few decades ago. Airport security and government officials appear highly professional, friendly and honest.
In Torah study class the explanation I heard for covering women in Orthodox religions is to not distract men. Women are to be modest and proper. Men are to focus on religious studies (The Koran or the Torah). The sight of a woman’s elbow, knee, neck or the hair on her head might cause a man to behave in some sexually depraved way. Sexual nudity in statues is illegal. We saw statues wearling bras and panties in the Custom House Museum. Meanwhile Asian women. Korean, Chinese or from wherever, Asian women wear sexy shorts and t-shirts. They stand up for themselves and do not worry about the Moslems. Gender discrimination is not tolerated in China (unlike Japan).
Personally I wear long pants, long sleeve shirts and a sun hat but eh gads, my neck is exposed. I do not measure up as pure but women seem nice to me any way. Women with veils are in positions of authority in the airport and elsewhere so I am satisfied that they have choice and career paths.

I had diarrhea starting in Melaka and because I was indisposed we did not tour Kuala Lumpur. All I saw was Sogo, the dept. store where we bought this lap top. I missed The Petronas Towers! Believe me I would have if I could have! I wanted to send a card to our workplace from the top of the towers showing us enjoying a cocktail but that was not to be. So regrettable but unavoidable. I got over the diarrhea in the Cameron Highlands by taking a lot more Imodium and also some pills for stomach cramps. I am still unsure of my stomach. The cramps indicate bad water probably because I drank the water in the bottled water cooler in the Melaka hostel. I do not dare drink that water again. I toss water bottles away when plastic bottles are an environmental nightmare. Litter is an issue here; Malays are not tidy; they use Chinese and Indians to do their dirty work. Such a shame that I am a contributor to landfills. Before Malaysia we boiled water in electric kettles. Now our HI (hostel international) card takes us to hotels (without kettles) but where breakfast is served.

                                   River front in historic Melaka. We took a boat excursion.

                                Monitor Lizard on the Riverbank during our Boat Excursion

We had interesting chats with 2 middleclass Chinese families who are striving to learn all they can about the world. We discussed Admiral Zheng He, a hero who is both Chinese and Muslim. They said that Chinese schools still teach that Columbus discovered America. Such a shame that this error in fact is still being perpetuated even by the Chinese when Admiral Zheng He deserves the credit.
　

                                                                                    Admiral Zheng He, Chinese eunuch who led exploration of the world in 1421   

                                                             Sultan's Court in 1421

                     Malaysia,a democracy has 9 kings that rotate every 5 years.                     

Disappointed in Malaysia

I don't know why, but I'm disappointed by Malaysia. Perhaps it's just backlash from exotic Bali. Maybe it's because Liz has come down with a case of Montezuma's (or his local equivalent) revenge, thus limiting our touristing. Maybe I'm suffering from depression at losing our netbook. Oh yeah, we got the bag back, sans netbook. Damn! I'm still mulling over the security implications of this. As far as I remember, it was "clean" as far as sensitive data and the like, but did carry an address list of friends and family. Only time will tell. But, all those pictures. Does that mean we have to go to Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand again? Wait a minute, a ray of sunshine there!

Anyway, both Malacca (spelling varies, the locals seem to prefer Melaka) and Kuala Lumpur (commonly referred to as KL) are mostly comparatively modern downtowns with historic districts surrounded by really drab housing areas. Every other woman wears the muslim headscarf and full burqa can be seen on occasion. Granted, there was lots of western dress visible, and nearly no exotic native apparel. Maybe that's what I miss. I was surprised to find that Malaysia has been Muslim since its founding as a nation in the early 1400's. Some Hindu and Buddhist influence and the ubiquitous Chinese but you can not escape the dominant Muslim presence. Other than that, the cities are fairly orderly and mostly depressingly workaday.



Apartment block - typical
Cruise ship, also typical



In Malacca, our hostel, the Backpacker Freak Hostel (Would I make  that up?), was the only place available during Chinese New Year and was as basic as it gets but with a very pleasant atmosphere. Lots of foreign travelers, mostly German and Chinese. Nearly all with some English skills, the single uniting theme we've seen in hostels. If I'm going to travel with one language, it had better be English. It's located right on the edge of the historic district, just across a strange little amusement park. During Chinese New Year, this park was jammed. From the common room in the hostel, we saw some interesting dragon shows (Durn camera batteries were exhausted!) and lots of fireworks. All through the park and the historic district, the most colorful and noisy pedicabs hauled Chinese tourists around. Saw lots of museums relating to the changing influences on on Malacca and the rest of Malaysia, from the founding Muslim prince to Portugese to English, Japanese, then independence. During a quick river cruise we saw that the most colorful areas (walls painted in all manner of pictures) were Chinese.

Pedicabs like this all over streets of historic area



River scene, lots of shops line riverbank





St. Paul's Church, built 1600's, used by the British in 1800's for gunpowder storage





More pedicab






All that's left of old Portugese fort



Exotic Bali

This morning a very well educated Malaysian woman and I were at breakfast, trying to find a more descriptive word than "exotic" to describe this island. No luck. Alien, bizarre, beautiful, different, unexpected, surprising, several others were tried. Nope, exotic it is.



Our introduction to the place had us wondering if we had made a huge mistake. Off the plane at 9:30 at night, pay 50 dollars (500,000 rupiah.Wanna be a millionaire? just get 100 bucks out of the ATM) for a visa, find out one of our bags was lost (more, much more on that later) and a flatly terrifying two hour journey to our hotel. On the good side, our driver was there waiting with a sign with our name. Unfortunately, his English was too lacking to give us much information on much of anything. Leaving Denpasar on our way to Ubud amid a swarm of motorbikes (all of them under 250cc and single cylinder, thus not quite qualifying to me as real motorcycles), over narrow dark roads through some of the least promising landscape we've ever encountered. The roadside in the headlights looked like one gigantic slum nestled RIGHT up aginst the road for mile after mile. Constantly being passed by aforesaid motorbikes, our driver staying resolutely in the center of the road until the last moment to allow oncoming traffic to pass. Once our senses adjusted to the combat-like atmosphere we realized we were passing thousands of stone (alright, mostly cast concrete) statues of mythological creatures, shops full of glass cases with all manner of consumer goods, vodka bottles of bensin (gas), wood carvings, etc., high stone walls with closed gates and open workshops of all types. In the dark it all looked like Dogpatch squared.

The exotic part started as soon as we passed the gates to the hotel. Down a curving brick paved drive to a small parking area, the entire staff waited to meet us with the traditional "saloom" greeting (hands steepled together, in front of face, you've seen it in many asian movies). All four of them, all sweet looking young ladies maybe 17 years old. Quickly ushered into our quarters, not room, a bungalow of good size, all window and curtains on two sides. The bath down a set of steps, the shower area open to the sky. Once more, exotic as hell. Same with breakfast. Not one thing a westerner would recognize as part of  a morning meal with the exception of excellent high octane coffee. Fried rice, noodles, wokked vegetables, breaded fish, barbecued chicken, sorry, forgot the white bread (not toast, a completely foreign concept) and jam. All for the two of us. Did I mention this was served on an open air patio distinctly labeled Lobby? Since the serving staff outnumbered us two to one and nobody looked old enough to leave high school and was all female I felt like daddy at the daughter's tea party.

Lunch in Ubud

View in Hotel

Out into town after breakfast. Our shuttle driver dropped us off in Ubud after another tense (to us) adventure. A distinctly frontier-like atmosphere, interspersed with unimaginably old stoneworks. Our drop-off point was obviously the umpteenth use of a stone-pillared pavilion. Along the narrow road (yes, filled with traffic, evidently as undisciplined as ever) were shop after shop, most of them open-fronted hard up against the sidewalk, where one existed. Take your pick, textiles, 7-11 stuff, a two-story coffee shop/restaurant obviously dedicated to the tourist trade (There was a LOT of stuff dedicated to the tourist trade!), an amazing profusion of exotic (there's that word again) fruits, and tchochke (Yiddish word, pronounced choch-key, the stuff on your grandma's mantle and in that china closet) beyond description.

We  picked up a few essentials,shirt, pants, the all-important wall-outlet-to-USB adaptor, some of that exotic fruit (I highly recomment mangosteen), poking into this shop and that. Some things started to make sense. Prices of all items were incredibly low compared to western. For sure, overheads had to be kept low. Therefore, no place for fancy displays or shop decorations. The  right-of-ways were likely older than western civilization and property along them jealously protected. Probably a lot of real estate was grudgingly given up just for the road width provided. Even though traffic seemed chaotic, there were none of the accidents I would have expected were westerners driving this way. There was a different set of rules, unspoken, that I apparently wasn't privy to.

On the way back to the hotel, I was able to stop concentrating on our imminent demise and start looking at the scenery. Rice fields, fruit trees, vegetable gardens, villages, jungle vegetation everywhere behind the shops and more visible as shops faded on the outskirts. Everywhere, somebody was doing something productive with a leisurely air speaking of enjoying the moment. Now and then, a heartbreakingly pretty vista completely different that anything I'd ever seen outside of postcards. You've heard it before, pictures can't do it justice.

Dinner at the hotel. This time from a menu. Compared to lunch in town, horrendously expensive, nearly 20 bucks. Of course the menu was in Balinese only (at least it used English letters) so the we asked the waitress to read it to us. At least that way we had the pronunciations right, though we had a twenty question and pantomime thing going as to what the vegetable words represented. No matter, I don't know what to call what I had but it was delicious. We did finally get through to her that spices were OK. That livened things up considerably. No wonder breakfast and lunch had seemed bland!

Next day, Liz was wary of facing traffic and wanted to plan a couple of tours with the hotel manager, a lady from Java named Sari, incredibly 31 years old, married and the mother of a 9-year old boy, so we took a day off, just hanging around the hotel and watching life around here take its languid pace. Lucky us. The entire island came under a day long pounding rainfall. Just as glad to be out of it.

Morning, breakfast, tour. Just a short one. Not a big deal, just a couple of temples (famous ones, you don't have to go far to see any number of  temples), Kintimani volcano and a memorable coffee stop. First was a quick stop just for a view of the famous terraced rice paddies. Now, many paddies are mildly terraced, it's the easiest way to do the job, given a properly placed water supply. Bali has these water supplies in abundance. The terraced paddies go right up thirty degree hills for hundreds of feet, Narrow strips of irrigation then a drop and another narrow strip, repeat as necessary. Gorgeous! Old as hell as well. We were handicapped by a driver with very limited English so the travelogue was missing. I have no idea where I was, not that it really mattered. We saw this theme repeatedly, though not quite so spectacularly. That this was a standard tourist stop was reinforced by the number and persistence of the roadside merchants. This theme was also repeated.

What can I say about these temples that hasn't already been said by dozens of travel writers. Let's just get all of them out of the  way by saying that they bespoke incredible age, wonderful craftsmanship, imaginative visualization of the forces beyond human control as personified by various religions deities. Also, a great deal of serenity and a lot of pragmatism. These are after all, residences of generations of priests.

Now let's talk about that memorable coffee stop. You've of course heard of Luwak, aka "weaselshit" coffee. It isn't really a weasel, more of a cute sort of civet cat, not that dissimilar to a possum. Yes, they do eat the ripe coffee cherries and excrete the seeds. Then, enterprising individuals collect these droppings, wash and roast them and grind them into coffee. Excellent coffee. Let me say that again. Excellent coffee. With and after effect that wasn't exactly a caffeine buzz but more like half a beer on an empty stomach. While I wouldn't pay the stateside price, 6 bucks for a two-cup pot of it along with a sampler of three more locally grown varieties and two teas and locally grown chocolate is some kind of bargain. Oh, toss in a couple of hand-rolled cigarettes of excellent locally grown tobacco. Rolled at your table by a master of the art, making it indistingushable from a machine-made cigarette. Check that one off the Bucket List.

Then the volcano. I really don't know if I was seeing clouds or volcano smoke at the peak. Just put it down as gorgeous. Had a terribly overpriced buffet lunch (almost twenty dollars, including beer) with a view of the volcano and a lake that has to be an old caldera. Hair raising (getting a little less so) ride home, just in time for a cloudburst. Met with an interesting pair of Aussie women who were pretty much old Bali hands and considered it the ultimate inexpensive week's vacation. Spent the evening drinking beer and playing Uno. How's that for a wild night?

Another day, another offbeat if delicious breakfast, and off to see the Balinese dance. Too cool. I've forgotten to mention Balinese music. Odd rhythms played on sort-of xylophones, bells and drums. Liz swears many of the rhythms are being used in modern popular music. I have no ear, so will not disagree. The dance is actually a morality play, opera and ballet all rolled together. Thankfully we had a program describing the play. Even without the program, the playful, earthy bits would have jumped out at you. The costuming of course was gorgeous (I seem to be using that word a lot. Good reason, I'm trying to avoid exotic.) You could easily see that these dances were being fine-tuned for a few hundred generations by players travelling form village to village, the Eastern equivalent of wandering minstrels.

More temples. Each one has its own theme, its own beauty. The last, Tanah Lot, was definitely unique in that it was built on a rock just off the western shore. This temple was notable in that this is where the Indonesians come, by the thousands. Also unique was the mass of hucksters betwen the parking lot and the temple. Sigh. Just gotta get used to some things.  Almost forgot the Monkey Forest. Yes, also a temple and sacred to the local macaque monkey. Inhabited by hundreds of them, obviously a ready made tourist trap. Whatthehell, it was fun, and the monkeys are extremely well behaved, so long as you keep your empty hands visible. They are also extremely polite about delicately taking the peanuts off your open hand. They also expect you to mind your manners and don't even think about petting them. Dignity, you know. There were also fruit bats. Some entrepeneur had a dozen or so tame ones. Pick one up, spread its wings, get your picture taken. The smooth leathery wings were fascinating, as was the size of these things. a 4 foot wingspan!

I mentioned missing luggage. Herewith I'd like to paraphrase the late, great Mark Twain in his letter to the gas company, available in a delightful volume of his letters, "A Pen Dipped in Hell". Ahem. The goddam airport goddam lost my goddam backpack. They have no goddam idea where it goddam is and I'm goddam sure it's goddam well lost for goddam ever. There's a lot of goddam stuff I'm goddam going to goddam miss and if it isn't goddam obvious by now I'm goddam mad! Thank you.

The big tragedy is, like an idiot, I had the netbook in it. All those pictures gone. Also I'm going to really miss my other set of REI clothing and that wonderful REI underwear. Yes, Ann, they were worth the price and would dry very quickly. I don't care if they make me look a cross between a tourist and a cheap mercenary, they are very comfortable and now the one set is all I've got.


Liz Here

"87.2 Hard Rock Radio Bali" with alternative and rap music accompanies us on long road trips. A silent focused young driver chauffeurs us to Raffles Holiday Resort. We meet Aussie girls who let us know we have overpaid for our $50 per night room that drop to $35 per night the last 2 nights.

Jean Dunstan in San Remo (Vic, Australia) advised us on where to stay in Bali. She said go to Ubud or Sanur but avoid Kuta. Since we like mountains over the beach I chose Ubud. We are close to a volcano.



Barong Dancer



Out of New Zealand, into Singapore

Wanaka is hard to get to, and just as hard to get out of. Bus to Queenstown, plane to Auckland, looong plane ride to Singapore. One very long day. The Jetstar magazine showed a route over the ocean but our plane actually crossed Australia diagonally. Saw lots of the outback - truthfully, that's what most of Australia is. Braided rivers are really pretty from the air. Streams meander back and forth in a broad channel which is only filled in flood conditions. Not very often, in Oz. Lots of mountain ranges, too. About Jetstar. They do charge less. Then they sell you everything but the seatbelt. Not that 3 bucks for a cup of coffee is a big deal, I just object to being such a captive market. Especially for an eleven hour flight. If my belly had held out, they could have stuffed their fifteen dollar TV dinner.

So now we're in Singapore, a place Liz has wanted to see for 20 years, ever since she read about it in the New Yorker. Very clean, very modern, very full. over 5 million people, 272 square miles. The harbor is unbelievable, row upon row of cranes with cargo ships lined up under them, swapping cargoes. Downtown full of highrises, retail shops on the bottom floors, offices above them and apartments above them. Miles of them! Underground, it's a similar story. We went looking for lunch in the lower part of the Sun Tec complex and emerged two streets over. Good, cheap lunch though. I counted over forty different food stalls available there. KFC, McDonalds and Subway among them. I suppose over here that's exotic, where prawns and noodles is commonplace. Chinatown is in the throes of Chinese New Year, making the area even more crowded than usual. Cross streets are jammed with hucksters of all kinds, from hundreds of specialty food stalls to every kind of cheap and colorful gimcrack with bunches of gewgaws thrown in. Worse than Christmas at Gibraltar Trade Center (If you haven't been there, it's worth it, just to understand the word kitsch).

Always budget conscious, we found the perfect tour. For 33 dollars each, we boarded the Singapore Hippo Duck tours. Double decker buses, four different routes and a riverboat, hop off and hop back on for 48 hours. THIS is a bargain! For two solid days we rode and walked ourselves into exhaustion.

We marveled at the multitude of architectural styles. It seems every new building needs to outdo its predecessors in some style or other. If you can't be tallest, how about being football shaped and covered with diamond plates? Two of them, side by side. They're called the durians (a particularly exotic fruit with a very strong odor) by the locals. Maybe a cruise ship on top of the casino, or a flying saucer to house the supreme court in the justice building? Use intersecting helixes (helices?) to house a walkway? You get the idea.

                                                   Singapore's Supreme Court Building

                                                                                Casino

World's Largest Foutain, "The Fountain of Wealth" is surrounded by 5 Buildings representing 4 Fingers and Thumb (so that Money will flow from the palm of your hand)

Raffles Hotel with colonial architecture is where Singapore Sling was invented. Raffles, an Englishman, put Singapore on the map.



                                                           River connects Singapore.

The Flyer. Each car holds 8 people. Have dinner during 1/2 hour trip.

Sunday, we hit Sentosa. This is Southeast Asia's Disneyland. Fortunately, they didn't pay much attention to Walt. A lot more in the way of nature walks, free stuff to do, very minor admission fee (Don't worry, you'll get nicked later if you go the independent attractions. Universal Studios in particular is expensive). On the other hand, we rode the luge and came back up on the chair lift 3 times for 10 bucks each. We got lost on the nature walk and covered almost half the island on foot, in the woods. Much of this was on a boardwalk looking at the top layer of three canopy jungle. Came out somewhere near the gun pits where the old coastal defense artillery had been. Had a hell of a time finding our way back to a bus stop. Seriously, Sentosa is a very cool place one couldn't fully cover in a week.

Luge - 680 meter downhill with plenty of curves

Sky Tiger - see all of Singapore from the top. Spins as it slowly rises.

Nature all around.

Waterfall on the nature trail

Liz at the little nature park under Flyer

View from Zipline tower.



An aside: car ownership in Singapore. This is the most expensive place to own a car in the world. Check this out: http://www.expatsingapore.com/content/view/1152. Due to these laws, Singapore exports more used cars than anyplace but Japan.  Nevertheless I saw dozens of Ferraris, Maseratis and Porsches. This despite tough traffic laws and universally slow traffic. I feel so sorry for the high performance cars that never see more than about 50 mph all their life.

Liz with Suspicion in Singapore or I am an amatuer traveler and feeling it.

Suspicion started when Mike exchanged his Australian $50 for Singapore dollars in the airport and the exchange he got was one for one. He said he met a thief. Then we got to the hotel, check in and charged our room. The female clerk said that SGD to USD was $1 for $1. Wow, I thought I was out of touch, Gee the US Dollar must be in deep trouble! However we only get 3 TV channels in our room, not even a news channel but CNBC financial news reports that SGD = 1.29 to USD =$1. So the clerk has an attitude and Chase Visa will manage the currency exchange no matter what the check-in clerk says.

Yesterday Mike and I jay-walked in Chinatown. No traffic was coming. Why not cross instead of waiting. Looking back it really stands out that we were the ONLY people to cross the street on a red light. I wonder if that will get us a ticket or future embarrassment. They monitor with cameras here.

Our hotel is in the Kepple District, a huge shipping complex but we'd never know it. It is hidden from view. I selected this hotel for price and convenience to Sentosa so we might visit the famous Disney-like Park there and ride the luge. Mike is not keen on cities but he saw the travelogue on TV with the luge ride and he thought Singapore looked like fun when I asked. But somehow we cannot take a bus from our hotel to Sentosa but rather we must return to the city and go out again with the tour ticket we bought.

                                                             The Year of the Dragon

We return to Singapore on Jan. 22. So what? Jan. 22 is Chinese New Year's Eve! Dumb time to be on the move! No thanks to Air Treks agent. Even though I tried to anticipate cultural events and dates like this by enrolling with a GM website who warns of this type of conflict, I missed this huge date on Chinese calendar. All I can say is "Kong Si Fa Chi" (Happy New Year! ) Don't ask me if that is Mandarin or Cantonese. I get them mixed up. I hear both and the accent is slightly different. I started practising "Kong Si Fa Chi" (think KFC) since a Chinese clerk in New Zealand said "Merry Christmas" to us. It is the least I can learn to say.

We return from Bali on Jan. 22 and spend one night in Singapore. Then on Jan 23, we take a bus to Melacca, a very historic trading city. The bus is booked through luxury.com.sg and costs $46 per person. We are paying more for a bus ride than we typically pay for a room. But we selected our seat and it is a sure way out of Singapore to Melacca. Melacca is also spelled Melaka and many other ways.

I like to make note of government messages to people. Singapore is intensely capitalistic so corporations buy their advertising before the government does. Nothing is free. It is not a "nanny state" Mike agrees that fewer messages are on display here than in Australasia. The most powerful two were heaped with guilt.

"Do your children speak proper English?"

"Your life. Your fight. Dengue."  (I saw these two only once and at a glance. I don't think they want them in neighborhoods with tourists.)

Trash cans say "Do your part. Let's Bin it.". No Smoking symbol By Law.
Army recruiting posters say, "Your Country". Singapore has some friction in region. It is a lot richer than neighboring Malaysia. Birthrate is 1.1 per couple. Workers are imported from India. 85,000 hotel maids congregate on their day off on Orchard Road, equivalent of Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.  

Luxury shops on Orchard Road

President's mansion

Mass transit is great here. Buses run the same on Sunday as any other day. Choices are tandem buses, double decker buses and regular buses. We have not tried the trains.

Green spaces are terrific and prolific. Reuse is great too. I meant to mention this about Australasia too. The only place where plates and utensils were thrown away was in Sentosa Park and even there the clerk took our Chinette plates and forks from Mike as he was about to put them in trash. She did not let him throw it away. We don't know why. The stands in Chinatown even use red plastic chop sticks. They do not waste money putting paper in landfills. They must run a lot of dishes through dishwashers.