 |
| Singapore skyline and floating soccer field. |
April
12-14 Singapore
We arrived in Singapore on April 12, after
a 21/2 hour flight from Bali. Singapore is a small island nation at the tip of
Malaysia. (Rhode Island is about 4 times
bigger than Singapore.) Most of the
country is city and the city of Singapore is a very modern, clean and booming
city. Our impression from our time in
Malaysia, Indonesia and now Singapore is that their economies are doing better
than ours. We’ve noticed a lot of
construction going on and the infrastructure is in good shape. Singapore is a huge port and is one of the
business centers of Asia.
 |
| Marina Bay Sands complex and science museum. |
It also has a
very multicultural population. The
majority is ethnic Chinese, and then Malays and Indian and a final group called
Peranakans which are a blend of those 3 for several generations. We rode the metro from the airport to a
section of the city called Little India.
There were Indian restaurants, sari and kurta shops, food stores, Hindu
temples, and many small businesses run by Indians. We stayed in one of the hostels in the area;
called the Inn Crowd. We had a small
room with 2 sets of bunkbeds, shared bathrooms down the hall and access to a kitchen
for the first time in the trip. The boys
and I hunted up a supermarket and got some spaghetti sauce and spaghetti and got
fresh carrots from a street side vegetable market. Our diet during the past few weeks has
consisted of fried rice or fried noodles (both usually have a little bit of
meat and vegetable) and we were getting quite tired of it so the spaghetti was
a real treat. The weather here is like
Malaysia and Indonesia; hot and humid.
 |
| Floating soccer stadium. |
On our second day the boys and I walked
around part of the city. Steve was feeling very low energy so opted to hang out
at the hostel. We wandered by the city
landmark; the Raffles Hotel. We were
impressed by the variety in the architecture.
There are many modern interesting buildings. We walked along a bridge with a double helix
design, saw a floating soccer field, the city hall, Old Parliament building,
the new Parliament Building, and the Supreme Court. We went the Peranakan Museum which had
galleries and exhibits on the emergence of the Peranakan culture and some of
it’s components: religion, daily life, weddings, death and funeral customs, art
and so on. It had some interesting displays plus it was air conditioned and got
us out of the midday heat for a couple of hours.
 |
| The famous Lion statue in Singapore. |
After
picking up Steve at the hostel we went to an Indian restaurant for lunch. The authentic Indian food took us right back
to the beginning of our trip; Sam had his favorite dosa with dahl and raita. We
also had some paneer masala, and dahl and rice.
We then went out to buy some spices for Indian meals when we get
home.
The next morning we caught an 8:30am bus
headed to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was a 6 hour ride through very pretty
countryside. It was limited access
highway all the way and passed through palm oil plantations, small towns, hills
with mountains in the distance. Off and
on it rained. Border crossings with a
bus is pretty straight forward. You
climb off the bus and go through immigration of country #1, then get the bus on
the other side. You climb back on and
cross the border to the immigration and customs complex of country #2. This time you get off with your passport and all your luggage. After all the formalities you drag everything
back to the bus and reboard.
 |
| Old building in Singapore. |
Depending
on the number of other busses and private vehicles will determine how busy the
center is and how long it takes to navigate through. Both of these stops were very quick and
easy-hardly any waiting.
From Kuala Lumpur we caught a bus out to
the airport where we stayed in a hotel right across from the LCCT (Low Cost
Carrier Terminal). We spent the evening
repacking our backpacks. On the morning
of April 15, we all went over to the LCC Terminal and had a last breakfast
together. Ben and I saw Steve and Sam
off on a 2 hour flight to Malaysian Borneo.
Ben and I then killed time at the hotel and the LCCT before taking the
shuttle over to the main terminal. Our
flight for home left at 11:20pm. Our
route took us to Seoul then a 13 hour flight to Kennedy, 1 hour flight to
Boston, 2 hour bus ride to Portland and an overnight with my sister Nancy. On Tuesday the 17th we got the bus
to Bangor where Ian met us that afternoon.
For Ben and I the adventure Is over, but now we need to take the time to
reflect on what we’ve done, seen and learned.
Posted
by Martha
 |
| Sam and his dosa in Little India,Singapore. |
