Happy Solstice, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and a Joyous New Year
We wish you all a wonderful holiday with family and friends. We are going to take a week off to celebrate Christmas with our Maui family. We will continue our trip reports soon. Thank you to all of you for messages and cards about how much you are enjoying our travel adventures. We continue to pray for peace and love in the world.
Our second day in Singapore started out going to breakfast with George and Vanessa. We then took the MRT to Gardens by the Bay. This is all on reclaimed land. The cruise ship piers have been moved to the seaward side of the new island, and the landward side of the island is now a freshwater reservoir where the Singapore River flows into the marina area. Something else that’s new since the last time we visited is the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. The way it’s often described is that it has a “cruise ship on top” connecting the three towers. There is an observation deck on the “bow of the ship.” 
The elevator goes up 56 floors to reach it. We had great views of the financial district, marina area, and harbors. The rest of the elevated platform is used for hotel guests which includes an infinity pool plus bars and restaurants.
We got back on the MRT headed to Arab Street. We were able to go inside the Sultan Mosque. I was okay to go in when I put on my wrap skirt and long sleeves. But Neil had to put on a skirt! It was sized to fit someone at least 6’8″ tall. Look at Neil’s face to see how happy he was to be honored in such a way. We ate a delicious lunch at a Turkish restaurant nearby.
We then walked to the Little India area and through colorful market shops. Neil was looking for a shirt he could bring home and wear on Maui but everything the merchant pulled out was nothing like Neil was describing to him. They were fine quality, suitable for wearing to a Hindu wedding or ceremonial events. We arrived back at the flat ready for a shower after a full day. Vanessa served a wonderful salmon dinner with quinoa and baked vegetables. Yum
We washed all of our clothes in the Spencers’ nice new washer. We should have taken a picture of the drying process; we hung them on hangers and then lifted them with a pole up to the bamboo bars overhead to hang to dry in an open-air alcove. It’s very efficient. It was nice to pack clean clothes as we headed to Bali.
Friday morning, George and Vanessa took Juno for her morning walk at 6:30 am and we left with them towing our luggage to the MRT for the return journey to Singapore airport. I love rolling suitcases! For breakfast at the airport, we had what Neil called Singapore comfort food (seafood noodle soup). Off we flew to our last destination, the island of Bali.
We stayed in Singapore for three nights with our good friends Vanessa and George Spencer. They have a lovely flat across the street from the Singapore Botanical Gardens. They share their home with their dog Juno and their tortoise Houdini. I met Vanessa and her mother 34 years ago in Bali at a Sanur hotel where I was staying a few nights on my trip around the world. We’ve stayed in touch ever since and visit when we are in Singapore. Hopefully one day they’ll be able to visit us in Maui.
Flying into Singapore this time, unlike when we landed
and changed flights to Cambodia, the sky was full of haze as Neil was trying to take photos. George told us the haze is smoke from the fires in Borneo and Sumatra where they are clearcutting old-growth forest to plant palms for palm oil for cooking. He said some of the fires to clear the vegetation catch the centuries-old accumulation of peat on fire and that it smolders long and deep.
Changi Airport is huge with 4 terminals. I don’t know how many runways or taxiways but I do know we taxied for 30 minutes from our gate to the point when we took off on our way to Bali.
Singapore is a very modern and clean city/country. The country is 283.5 sq miles and growing as they reclaim land. It is all connected by a very efficient MRT and city bus system. It’s so easy to get around! We were able to take the MRT from the airport and with only 2 changes, exit out with a 3 minute walk to Vanessa and George’s home.
Every evening, we spent catching up with Vanessa and George and enjoyed a delicious meal cooked by Vanessa. George wouldn’t let us in the kitchen after to help with the cleanup. Houdini (the tortoise) does laps around the balcony and flat all evening. He is deceptively fast and quiet. I’d often feel a tortoise claw across the top of my foot as he seems to really like feet. Juno is much more reserved and every once in a while she’d allow a pet or two.
Our first day of exploration, we simply walked across the street to the Singapore Botanical Gardens which we discovered is a World Heritage Site. Vanessa walked us to the first part to show us the botanical science center. We watched through glass as scientists set up sterile bottles for orchid seeds and the next window showed mechanized rotation to stimulate the germinate process, and the last window showed the bottles still under grow lights with the orchard plants growing inside. We visited a couple of indoor museums, one which included beautiful nature photos of icebergs and penguins. The other was the history of the gardens which started in 1819 when Raffles first came to the area to set up Singapore as a port for the East India Company.
Our first outdoor exploration area was the rainforest garden which was ironically perfect as it started raining as we entered the garden. Thank you Vanessa for the umbrellas. We wandered past the Frangipani garden, which we know as Plumeria trees. From there we entered the Orchid Garden. Numerous paths wound through different colorful outdoor gardens and one impressive indoor structure with a chilled humid micro-climate for orchids that grow in higher-elevation cloud forests. It was beautiful and extremely colorful. 
My glasses fogged up as soon as we came back into the outdoor heat. Ha
After lunch in one of the park restaurants, we walked through the Ginger Garden and I learned some things! While I knew turmeric and galangal are part of the ginger family, I had no idea that heliconias are in that family. And even stranger to me is that bananas are in the same family as ginger!
By this point, I was using the umbrella as a parasol for the sun. Neil’s sharp eye noticed a forest monitor lizard foraging in the leaf litter, and nearby we saw some feral jungle fowl – the progenitor of domesticated chickens. Sadly, we completely forgot to swing by the lake to look for otters which frequent the area. Neil had been really looking forward to that. We walked back to the flat for showers and catching up on our email and then enjoyed a lovely evening with Vanessa and George.
Sunday, October 8, Day 12
After a morning of correspondence and writing, we ventured out for lunch. I decided on Pad Thai again, ha. It was another sunny day with high haze. It felt too hot and humid for a long walk so we decided to wait for evening. We finally made our excursion to Wat Doi Thep Nimit Monastery that Neil has been viewing up on the hill from our room. Sadly, the clear skies hazed over and we didn’t have very good light for photos or sunset. Follow the link above if you want to see it in dazzling sunlight.
When Neil was exploring the footpaths in the jungle when searching for the monastery early in our visit, he said he could easily imagine the jungle teeming with tigers, elephants, and rhinos like it was 500 years ago when it was first being settled by outsiders. Back then Phuket was known as Jung Ceylon, which was originally derived from an incorrect transcription of the Malay phrase “Tanjung Salang,” meaning Cape Salang. Driving through the jungle on our way to the monastery I could also imagine the old days when it was abundant with wildlife.
This was our first tuk tuk ride in Phuket. We remember tuk tuks as being a cheap way to get around town in Bangkok and Chang Mai – but that was years ago – now they are almost 10 times as expensive as we expected. They wanted $17 to go about 3 kilometers and come back!! Yikes, no wonder they were mostly idle and desperate for riders. We had the driver drop us at the Banzaan market for dinner again tonight.
Monday, October 9, Day 13
Today was our last full day in Thailand. I had my last dental appointment to check my healing. The oral surgeon said I was healing well and she took out my stitches.
Throughout our meanderings in Phuket, Neil was having fun looking for the most interesting business names. Here are some notable ones, now he regrets not having photos of them:
| Massage Shops | Cannabis Shops |
| Wink Wink | Wee D. Place |
| Mee Suk | Best Buds Shop Here |
| Get Lucky | Happy Monkey |
| Happy Ending | Can U Bliss |
We went to the rooftop pool area for sunset and enjoyed an Indian dinner for our last night.
Tuesday, October 10, Day 14, Departure day
The day before we had arranged for the hotel to have a driver for us at the specific time necessary to make it to the airport. We took our bags down and the driver wasn’t there yet. We said we would be right back and walked the few steps to our little SAW Thai restaurant, where we saw them panic and look at the clock because they hadn’t opened yet. We said no, just saying goodbye. The proprietress got the biggest smile and was so happy to give us hugs. The cook came out too and we got fun photos.
We said goodbye to the hotel staff after a 2 week stay and climbed into the frigid cab which finally arrived. Neil was laughing the entire way to the airport at the speed the driver was going; we were being passed by semis in the slow lane and sometimes by motorbikes on the shoulder! We wondered if he was conserving gas or whether the engine was just well worn. When we got to a steep hill that question was answered. Our cab had the “Little Engine that Could.” We slowly made it up the hill (being passed by scooters and everybody else.) 
We wondered if he turned off the AC if we would surge forward another 10 or 15 kph. Luckily we got to the airport in plenty of time since it wasn’t very busy.
Off to Singapore! We enjoyed the view of the white sand beaches and green hills as we look off over Phuket Island (we had arrived in the dark and didn’t have the views coming in.)
Monday, October 2, Day 6
Last night, we bundled up in our beach towels on our one-hour ride in the minivan from the harbor back to the hotel. Neil had to laugh when we climbed into the van on the harbor pier, the AC was so high that the entire windshield was fogged over. Do they think the only setting is MAX?? I dug in my bag for the warm clothes they had recommended we bring. Little did we know those weren’t for the boat ride but the transportation ride.
After morning tea and finishing our bananas, we were ready for another trip to the local Banzaan market. Our mornings are usually spent working on correspondence, writing, and photo processing. Morning tea with fruit, an early lunch and then dinner out have been enough. Today for lunch we ventured to the Dang Restaurant that Neil has been wanting to try. I think just for the name, ha. It’s not far from Wink Wink Massage, but he didn’t try that place, as curious as we were about the actual services offered. I got Pad Thai again and, yep, boring flavor. Reinforces our theory about tourist restaurants. It convinced me to only get it at our little locals-loved backstreet corner SAW Thai restaurant near the hotel. But I did discover that one of the smoothies at Dang was chocolate. It’s not a shake with milk but rather with ice. Neil says they should more accurately call it a slushy. Even so, that Dang slushy was still very tasty!
Exploring in the Banzaan local market, Neil found a fruit that looked like a cherimoya: one of his favorites on Maui. It is not quite the same flavor but we enjoyed it for something different. Back at the hotel, I took a dip in the pool during the heat of the day. 
I found a little shop right next to our corner Thai restaurant for a manicure/pedicure at local’s prices. Nice to have a little pampering. Later in the day, we found that there was a rooftop pool and bar in addition to a gym on top of the other building. We went up to check out the view.
For our evening entertainment, we found a public stage in the Jung Ceylon shopping mall that appears to have performances nightly. We had just missed one of the dancing performances the other night, arriving in time to see dancers in beautiful traditional clothing forming up for a group photo. We thought we would get seats early tonight. It turns out they change the show nightly and tonight was Fire Dancing. At first we thought “we see that on Maui,” but stayed to watch. Glad we did as it was different from the Polynesian version because they used some “fireworks/sparklers” in their performance!
Tuesday, October 3, Day 7
I spent the morning writing about our Sunday canoe excursion while it was still fresh in my mind.
Today was my last set of dental procedures: crowns and then teeth extractions. I had lamb curry for lunch because it will be the last time I can chew food for a few days. The crowns went on very easily without any shots! I came back in the evening for the oral surgery. This was the first time I had to wait over an hour for my appointment (every other time they took me in immediately). I was in and out of the chair in 45 minutes! I had to bite on gauze in my mouth for two hours to reduce the bleeding and they gave me an ice pack for the swelling. Neil has been so sweet and supportive. He walks me to and from the appointments (only a block from our hotel) and makes sure to listen to all the instructions for my care.
Wednesday, October 4, Day 8
I had a good night. I used diluted clove oil on gauze pads to reduce the pain and for the antiseptic effect, and the bleeding has stopped. I used the ice pack a few times and I didn’t need any pain pills. I am going to stay quiet for a few days. It’s a rainy day so it’s easier to stay in. (86 F with 94% humidity) I am finally hav
ing time to work on our journal entries for Cambodia. Neil went foraging for us this morning. He had looked at the weather and said it wasn’t supposed to rain until 2 pm. I encouraged him to take the umbrella anyway which was a good thing as it poured soon after he left. He brought back delicious bananas and beautiful yellow Marigold Buddha flowers for me.
I plan to stick with soups and smoothies for a few days (fruit juice blended with ice is the definition of a smoothie here.) For lunch, we both had a dahl and for dinner Neil got our new favorite lamb dish, Roghan Josh, while I got a mere cream of chicken soup! It did have a lovely flavor.
We then headed to Jung Ceylon Shopping Center to watch the show. But there were no chairs out in front of the stage? I was finally able to find an information booth and found out that the performances had just been for one week for the celebration of Golden Week. Seems we had just caught the tail end.
Thursday, October 5, Day 9
Another quiet morning. I had a good night, no pain and I continue to use clove oil which helps. A little bit of a headache from the antibiotics and I use white willow bark periodically for the headache.
I am getting a lot of writing done in the mornings. After lunch we took a walk to the beach and sat for a while and watched the parasails. They have a fascinating system. I included a video of a launch and a landing below. (You might need to go to the website to see it.)
Before dinner, we went to the rooftop to watch the sunset. Such beautiful color in the sky.
Neil has been fascinated by motorbike mobile restaurant carts that have live hot coals and woks with boiling oil actively cooking and grilling even while they motor down the street to their next location. He bought hot satay chicken from them a number of times.
Friday, October 6, Day 10
Yeah, I am feeling better and eating more solid food. I had Pad Thai for lunch and we tried the Iranian restaurant for dinner. Neil enjoyed a delectable leg of lamb and I had beef and eggplant in red bean stew. I found a smoothie place where I could get a chocolate banana smoothie with milk and honey. Yum. It’s still raining and I didn’t feel like going farther afield.
Neil remembered he wanted to take a look at Thai TV since he forgot to check Cambodian TV. He surfed through many channels. At one point he ran across Raiders of the Lost Ark dubbed in Thai. And also found a sports channel showing Thai boxing. Every couple days there’s a large truck cruising the street with fighters standing in the back making noise a loudspeaker (in English) announcing Thai boxing nights at the local arena (located across from Banzaan market.) Neil kinda wanted to go until we figured out it was $75 a ticket. I told him to go ahead (without me) but he decided against it. He thought it was funny to find it on TV after all the street promotion.
Saturday, October 7, Day 11
We woke to sunshine so we decided to walk to the beach and enjoy the sand and surf. The afternoon clouded over and we worked on our Cambodian log which will make creating web posts (like this one!) so much faster and timely when we get back to Maui.
We ate dinner at the street vendors outside of the Banzaan market. It becomes a lively, colorful, multi-sensory street fair after dark. Neil was particularly amused by a 9-year old bartender at a stall where he made alcoholic drinks and smoothies. He got a huge smile when Neil asked to take a photo.
