Singapore

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 17^th 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.