BACK TO SINGAPORE

Wrapping up the trip, we rolled out of KL Saturday morning and a 6-hour bus ride later we arrived back in Singapore that afternoon. After being turned away from the hostel we originally stayed at on the front end of the trip because it was full we ended up finding a better place just down the road but still in the Bugis Village/Little India quarter. Since we were departing for home the next day our only two main objectives were to go see Raffles Hotel, named after Sir Stamford Raffles the founder of Singapore, and then make it to the night safari. Time permitting I was also hoping we could make our way back to Chinatown to make a return trip to this great dim sum stall we had eaten a week ago when we first arrived. We successfully went 3-3.

After cruising by Raffles Hotel where there really isn't much to do other than look at it, and since we or rather I wasn't appropriately dressed since apparently gentlemen must be wearing long pants to enter the hotel if they are not guests we just took the obligatory pic from the exterior and then made our way to Chinatown in search of dim sum. The weather was a little spotty, which if you've noticed has been the running theme of the trip. Having learned our lesson in KL, when it really started to open up we simply found a dry covering and waited a few minutes for it to subside. The rain passed, at least temporarily, and we were chowing down on some shrimp dumplings, pot stickers and sipping on a refreshing homemade green apple fruit drink in no time.

After re-fueling we made our way back to the hostel to double check our game plan for the night safari (if you recall, which you probably don't since it's been over a month since I wrote about the first visit to Singapore, we unsuccessfully tried to make it to the night safari on the front end of the trip). But this time even rain, which was coming down at a pretty good clip most of the subway and then 45-minute bus ride to the safari, didn't deter us. By the time we arrived the rain had slowed down. And since it was a Saturday night it was pretty crowded even with the rain. The night safari set up was much more Disney world than I expected, complete with the gift shops, performances and a covered tram that takes you around the safari. That being said, it was still pretty cool. The safari itself is an hour-guided tour on the tram. At the midway point you can also get out and walk on paths to check out some other vantage points of the animals. But we saw everything from lions, tigers, elephants, rhinos, hippos, giraffes, even capybaras which are the world's largest rodents that live in South America and which we saw when in Bolivia. Each section of the safari was a different geographical habitat. So you moved from the Himalayan foothills to Africa to Asia to South America, etc. Quite nicely done and our guide mixed in some eco-propaganda that forced the captive audience to ponder our impact on the animal world. Nothing like making tourists pay to get lectured. What really makes it great is that since it's a night safari in some cases you can't really even see the barrier protecting you from the animals and so often you felt quite close, almost too close, to the animals. Unfortunately there was no flash photography, and they were serious about it actually stopping the tram several times when people snapped pics, so we didn't get any photos of the animals. But if you want to see what we would have photographed, you can click here to check out some of the animals.

The next morning we packed up and made our way to the airport for our long flight home. Note if you ever are stuck in the Taipei airport with a couple hour layover, like we had, they have free massage chairs. Just ask for the tokens in the duty free shops. That's it, sorry for the long delay in getting all the posts up. The trip was a blast; we're already planning our next adventure.

SINGAPORE

The following is a running dialogue from our recent trip, comprised of notes and photos taken while we were there and some commentary that I’ve added upon returning home...

Our arrival into Singapore was perhaps the easiest arrival to a destination we've experienced. While it may have taken virtually 24 hours of travel to get there, once we arrived, the airport and subway, both modern and easy to navigate, which is a running theme in Singapore, delivered us to our hotel's doorstep in no time at all and for about $1 US. Certainly a far cry from landing in Lima, Peru and trying to sort out a taxi ride with relentless drivers coming at you, most looking to rip you off. Some people derisively call Singapore a sterile city. And while it doesn't have the frenetic pulse (or pollution) like other Asian cities we've visited, such as Bangkok or even Kuala Lumpur, which we visited later in the trip, it does have a lot going for it. In many ways Singapore is the prototypical modern 21st century metropolis. It has the before mentioned modern transportation system, the modern skyline, and the general cleanliness not seen in any other urban setting. Mix in the colonial architecture that contrasts with the uber-modern designs, the tropical temperatures and greenery that juxtapose the urban landscape and the diversity of the people - a mix of Chinese, Malay and Indian - and it's really unlike any other city. For some it's the right mixture and for others they are put off. For me, I’m clearly the former as I took to it right away, feeling comfortable and very at home with the surroundings. Of course you still have to be careful not to litter or chew gum, lest you get the cane. Actually, despite its reputation as having many rules and strictly enforcing them, we hardly saw any police and we did in fact see some people littering. So either they are surveilling their citizens using high-tech and these people were rounded up later, or things are a little more easy going than the reputation. We decided not to push our luck by testing that theory though, as we were law abiding visitors.

After our seamless arrival, unpacking, and a brief sigh from the 18+ hours of plane flights (SFO to Taipei to Singapore), we rallied and took a walk around Little India our first night. As you would expect it was replete with plenty of Indian shops and Indian people. Though mostly Indian men. In fact it became a running joke, as K was virtually the only woman we saw for hours and I was the only man without a mustache. The only way we did fit in was that we were holding hands, which oddly enough most of the Indian men were as well. It was sort of like an Indian version of the Castro, complete with the brightly colored buildings, though I don't think the implied meaning of the hand holding gesture was the same. We did eventually discover that all the Indian women were in fact around, simply inside the air-conditioned malls shopping. Seeing as it was sweltering hot and humid outside, a strong case could be made, using this as an example, that women are in fact smarter than men. As we would discover, shopping, as well as eating, are practically the national pastimes in Singapore. Speaking of eating, we ate at one of the many food courts, called hawker stalls, our first night. Basically a sort of hybrid of a farmer's market and food courts at the mall, though more along the lines of farmer's markets in that everything is homemade and clearly mom & pop shops. We steered clear of the turtle soup, but did have some tasty bites nonetheless. We managed to make it up to about 10p that first night, trying to stay up late enough to get ourselves on the right time zone, as Singapore is 16 hours ahead of SF, so we essentially lost an entire day flying.

On Monday, we set out on another walking excursion, which is more or less how we see big cities when we travel. Between walking around Singapore and then later Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, we literally probably walked at least 20 miles between the 2 cities. On this day we first headed to the Colonial area of town, which is situated near the waterfront downtown. We somehow stumbled into an underground mall, which was massive. Most of the stores were closed it was so early, but because it was air-conditioned, people were using it as a thruway to get around the city. We then again stumbled into the Esplanade, the large modern theater in Singapore nicknamed "The Durians" for it's resemblance to the spiky (and stinky) fruit by that name (more on durians in the next post). At that point we sort of had a stop and start to our walk as K had to give up on the flip flops (her feet weren't quite ready for the lack of support given the miles we were putting on) and head back to the hotel so she could grab her sneaks. The jet lag sort of caught up with us as the return trip (and the sight of a bed) necessitated a brief nap, but we soon rallied, heading out again this time to Chinatown. After cruising some of the shops, which remarkably had very similar junk to what's sold in SF's Chinatown, we found a great place to get some dim sum (again keeping with Singapore's pastimes of shopping + eating).

Later that afternoon we made our way back downtown to the waterfront area to check out the Asian Civilization museum, which features art from SE Asia, China, and India. In addition to some interesting art from the region, it had some pretty cool interactive video displays, and it was also very air-conditioned, which made it a nice (cool) break from all the walking. Singapore's population is about 75% Chinese, with the rest being Malay and Indian. Despite being an Asian city, everything is in English - street signs, billboards, directions, etc, and everyone speaks English. It is in fact their unofficial official language. So in that way it doesn't feel so foreign, and is probably one of the things people cite when they knock the city as too sterile, but from a traveler's perspective, or at least a traveler who speaks English, it makes it quite easy to get around. That is if you bother to figure out where you're going. That night we were attempting to visit the night safari out at the zoo but, no thanks to our Lonely Planet guide, we didn't allow enough time to get out there and see the safari before turning around to catch the last train home. So instead we ended up taking a very long subway ride around the city before aborting and heading to an ex-pat indie rock pub in Little India for a beverage. As a side note I would just say that the 2003 Malaysia/Singapore Lonely Planet guide is crap. LP is our travel book of choice and by and large has always done us right, but this one really didn't pass the test. It's lousy on so many fronts it's not worth detailing. They just released a new version this month, unfortunately too late for us, so hopefully it's better than the one we had.

Tuesday morning we set out on a train for Malaysia with our destination being Taman Negara, a large national park in the rainforest. More on Singapore when we return at the end of the trip. More on Malaysia in the next post in a few days. If you want to be notified automatically when I add the next post, simply add your email address into the box on the upper right, or subscribe to the feed.

NOW DEPARTING FOR...

We've been belaboring the destination of our next trip abroad for a few weeks now. Seeing as we're trying to travel the middle 2 weeks of January, we're getting a bit of a late start on the planning. Originally we had intended on going to Argentina using airline miles, which didn't end up working out. Airline miles are vexing that way. Our next choice was buying tickets to New Zealand, but that proved wildly expensive. So with our first two choices off the table, we broke out the atlas and started playing the where should we go next game. We dabbled with some other destinations in South America, but since our last 2 trips were to Costa Rica and Peru & Bolivia, we decided to head to a different part of the world. I was intrigued by Moscow, but after a check of the weather we ruled it too cold. Kristin zeroed in on Egypt. I then became fixated with the South Pacific. Basically we were all over the place. So last night we broke out the wine and the laptops and invited our friend Andy over, who in his own right is a walking & talking atlas, and started searching the globe. About a bottle of wine down, we finally zeroed in on south east Asia and then after finding cheap tickets and hearing a good sales pitch from Andy we ultimately decided to get tickets to Singapore. We're also planning on checking out Malaysia. So should be a good mix of uber-modern city and then jungles and parks. Assuming we can avoid a caning it should be great. Can't wait.