Monday, January 19 Entry

Wednesday, January 14
Cindy, Max and I depart on the luxury bus to Singapore at 9:00 am. Roomy seats in a double decker bus with about 30 seats and a downstairs lounge area. The Chipmunks movie was playing on the overhead monitor and we were immediately SERVED tea and a Subway sandwich. I spent the first of the five hours reading up on Singapore and the next four knitting the Aran knit cotton blanket for Jeremy and Max’s baby. The goal is to finish it in time for Cindy to take it home after New Delhi and mail it to the proud parents. The baby is due March 23.
The road is as modern as any European or American motorway, replete with rest stops hosting a slue of food vendors, everything from cut up fruit to stir fries. And the scenery is lush tropical forests - but cultivated ones. Along the road are the tall skinny rubber trees and inside are miles of palm trees. Malaysia’s four main exports are rubber, tin, tea, and palm oil so we were watching two of the four growing mile after mile.
The bus pulls into the port of Singapore on the harbor front where there is a massive complex for cruise ships, the metro, buses, shopping, fast food restaurants including, of course, McDonalds. We take a cab to our hotel, the Furama, an "economy" class hotel that looks far above that and where we have been upgraded into a suite because there are four of us. $140/ night but $100 for two on the second and third night. (I’ll include this kind of info in case anyone is reading this looking to stay in Singapore). The hotel is between two metro stops, three blocks from Starbucks, and at the gateway to Chinatown.

The ever efficient, knowledgeable, and helpful Max grabs us a cab to the historical section of town where the bay meets the river. Here Stamford Raffles landed and more or less declared Singapore to be part of the British Empire through a series of trades and deals with local Sultans and chiefs. The famous statue/fountain of the merlion (mermaid tail, lion’s head) looks out over the bay, magnificent high rises sprout all around, and yet there is a general sense of airiness.
Singapore is truly a beautiful, elegant, clean and wonderful city.

Have I mentioned that it is hot here?

Wednesday through Saturday, January 14-17.
To not bore you with all the details of what we saw, where we went, where and what we ate, and when but to nevertheless serve as my own reminder, I’ll list some of the sights and impressions of the remainder of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Max was with us until Thursday evening and then we were on our own. I have to say that Cindy and I mastered the city, walked it north, south, east, and west, many places more than once.
By the time JR and Eileen (Cindy’s son and daughter-in-law) arrived, Saturday late afternoon, we were able to BE the tourguides. Believe it or not, they are on their own three month tour of south east Asia and have just come from diving in Palau. If you are a truly fascinated travel blog reader (and you must be if you are reading this), click onto http://jrtozer.blogspot.com/ and read where THEY have been. Don’t miss the underwater video of them swimming UNDER a giant manatee or WITH jellyfish.

Impressions:
Two hotels are heart stopping, each in a different way. Near the merlion and the beautiful view of the harbor and river is the fabulous (not hyperbole, even though I use this word too often) art deco Fullerton Hotel. Rooms start at $500 (Eileen asked) but we’re told you can do it for a bit less on line. We were in the hotel enough times to be able to say that we know exactly where the bathroom is and feel at home in it even if we couldn’t afford a glass of wine or participation in the elegant dessert bar in the lobby. The other hotel is the world famous Raffles, pictured in all guidebooks and listed in 1000 Places to Go before You Die. Its famous Long Bar is a bit over famous but at least we’ve seen it. Twice. Last night when we tried to have a drink at the equally famous Writers Bar off the equally famous lobby, we were denied entrance because JR was wearing shorts..... But we’d seen it the day before and can truly say we were there. As JR said, I can only imagine what the setting was like when this was truly a British watering hole one hundred and fifty years ago before it was a mere oasis in a sea of high rises.

We are in southeast Asia before and during the Chinese New Year which starts on Jan. 26 and continues for several days. Everywhere we have been there are hanging red lanterns and most interesting orange trees rather espalied in place. One gives gifts - usually money - and it is mandatory that everything one wears on New Year’s Day is brand spanking new. We are told that Danang and Hue in Viet Nam where we will be on the first day will be closed. Think our New Year’s Day. Not sure if there is also a New Year’s Eve celebration or not but stay tuned.
Chinatown is bustling in preparation. Little stalls line all the streets and sell everything from noodles to clothing. We did some shopping - cheap cotton clothing made in Nepal, etc. but some of it of a size to go around an American rather than a petite Asian. One shirt I bought was a 4XL (that is XXXXL). How’s that for an ego boost when one is setting out on an eating fest of a cruise for two weeks? After the shopping bonanza, we "dined" in one of the hundreds of Chinese restaurants. Max ordered some things we couldn’t eat because they were so hot. She had to run before the bill finally arrived in order to catch her bus back to KL. When we paid the bill, we created an international incident by being one dime short and mistakenly having given the waitress a Malaysian dime. Much yelling in Chinese from the front of the restaurant to the back, heads turning, and we left in disgrace with our tails between our legs.

Financial Arrangements in the internet age. We got on Thursday morning as my banking problems continued to multiply. I had purchased 24 hours of internet connection for $25 from the hotel and was attempting to solve the latest iteration of those problems using my new vonage connection which provides something slightly less than a real connection, as in not satisfactory. This all took careful use of the internet minutes because of the time issues. I had to wait until 10 at night for business to open at 9 am in DC but could get up early in the morning to speak to people in the evening at home. Not to bore you but can you imagine that one cannot transfer money from ones’ State Dept. Credit Union savings account either by phone (why the hell do they ask for all those passwords and dead people’s middle and maiden names for security purposes then?) OR on the internet. I had to FAX a letter with my signature and the very kind customer service rep with whom I spoke on my one GOOD vonage connection said she would take it to a manager at one of the branches in Washington. The good news is, however, that she actually did what she said she would do unlike any other transaction I made to prepare for this trip.

Cindy and explored Little India on our own all day Thursday after the anxious morning of banking. We met a young Australian woman doctor on the street and lunched with her on Indian food whose names I cannot say. Suffice it to say that it was great. The main street running through Little India, Surrapoon, is home to hundreds of restaurants, stalls selling all kinds of cheap stuff from knock off watches to readimade clothes, to nasty shoes, to trinkets. At the far end of the street, through the brutally hot afternoon, are two Buddhist and one Hindu temple. By now we have a pretty good idea how to behave, when to take our shoes off, when to put a shawl on, when not to sniff the flower necklaces etc.

Dyed Indian/ Chinese bazaar clothing. I may have mentioned that it is warm here. (I may not have mentioned the recently abandoned hormone patches but some of you can imagine that might have something to do with the heat issue.) The previous day I had purchased one of those pairs of pants that one puts on like a diaper. You know, tie the fabric from the front around the back of your waist, reach between your legs and grab the front, pull it up BEHIND you and tie in the front. Voila! A pair of pants that looks a little like a skirt but which allows for a little air along the sides. Mind are red. By the time I finished sweating gallons of fluids that day, red was also the color of my underwear, the previously white shirt I had tucked into the pants, and my new nylon travel purse/belt. When I shaved my legs, the razor turned pink, too.

Cultural sensitivity. In spite of the heat, we have worked hard to be appropriate. The racial/religious proportions in Singapore are the exact opposite of those in Malaysia: 75% Chinese, probably about 15% Muslim, and 10% Hindu. Remember that the Indians can be either Muslim or Hindu. Apparently Stamford Raffles not only took control for the British East India Co., appropriated the best land along the river for the Brits and their business and trading enterprises, but also assigned the Chinese and Indians and Malays to their own enclaves. Where they have remained ever since. The Indian area gives way to a more solidly Muslim enclave where you start to see more head scarves and, in turn, receive a lot more stares. We spoke to a pair of magnificently clad and bescarfed women outside of a glorious mosque to inquire about whether we could go in. It struck Cindy and me that they were purposely trying to be friendly and impress us that we needn’t be afraid of them. We are reminded to be similarly aware of going out of our way to speak to Muslims in particular so that we can be good ambassadors for our own country and prove that they don’t have to be afraid of us.

A disclaimer: while I am reminded less often here in Singapore than in KL, I have a visceral reaction bordering on anger when I see women all covered up and their husbands in their cool cottons and jeans. What are they saying to their little girls? And even the little girls are dressed in lots of black, their arms, legs, feet covered. Of course, the teenagers are in skin tight jeans and loaded with makeup and text-messaging like crazy with their friends and boyfriends (which would never be accepted in the Arab world) but why should they have to cover their hair? I just don’t get it.

Food. We have been told that we can eat anything in Singapore and the guidebooks actually encourage you to eat the street food and it is indeed not to be missed. We dined twice in a "hawker" court, named for the touts hawking their particular food. At least a square block in size, undercover of a huge roof but still open air, literally hundreds of stalls sell any kind of food you can imagine. No tummy upsets so far. One of the nights there was a singing group playing on the overhead platform, singing - well, what else?, American sixties favorites.

Facilities: Never leave home without a partial roll of toilet paper in your purse. We have encountered more squat toilets than you might expect but there is never toilet paper supplied in the sit down kind either. Not true of the Fullerton Hotel, of course, which partially explains our affinity for it’s ladies room. Also, never pass up a temple bathroom. It will be a squatter but it will be clean. You can tell by the hose hanging down helpfully nearby.

Saturday, Sunday, and Monday January 17, 18, and 19
Welcome to a new world aboard the Quest, Azamara’s cruise ship. More will follow but I have to hurry off to my aerobics and stretching class. Cindy is off playing Wii tennis. Our stateroom is great, we are happy and wellfed, and surrounded by so many old people that we feel young. We haven’t spotted any single men but haven’t been here that long either.... We spent our first night on the ship although we met JR and Eileen when they pulled into town during the evening. At 1:30 Sunday afternoon, we watched Singapore’s amazing harbor, one of the busiest in the world as it provides the best passage through the Straits of Malacca, fade off into the distance.

Hootay! Tomorrow at midnight we will watch our man be inaugurated. Will we stay up all night or let CNN continually replay the event for us?