Travels & Travellers

Well, another month’s gone by. The weather’s starting to get hotter, and it’s not raining as much (although we still have an occasional torrential downpour). It’s been a busy month, full of visitors.

Right after my last blog entry, my parents flew over here as the first stop in their 6-week see-half-of-the-world whirlwind tour. I met them at the airport, and was happy to see that they had survived the flight (this was their longest flight, by about 16 hours & flying isn’t one of mom’s favorite activities). I had used some of my frequent flyer miles to upgrade them to business class, which they really appreciated. They really liked sitting upstairs on the 747, despite some unpleasant flight attendants.

I was very happy to see that they were not wiped out by jet lag the next day, which was good, because I had a lot of things to show them. We took the subway down to the Central Business District, and I showed them around the Quays, where all the restaurants are along the river. We checked out some of preparations for the upcoming Chinese New Year, which would happen the following weekend. We grabbed some lunch & walked around a little bit more before heading back to take a break from the heat.

On Sunday, we flew up to Thailand for a week in Bangkok & Phuket. It was my first time flying into the new Bangkok airport. I wish that I could say that I was really impressed, but… Well, I’ve heard their going to close part of it down soon to make some necessary upgrades. I think it will be much better when they’re done with those. The International Departures section looked really nice – they just need to make the other areas look like that.

Anyways, we got to the hotel, and went out wandering around Bangkok. It was good to show them all the places that I’ve enjoyed seeing on all my previous trips. At night, we went to my favorite restaurant, Suda, for dinner. The food was great, and mom & dad were thrilled when a baby elephant showed up. They bought some fruit from the handlers & had a great time feeding it.

The next day we took a tour up to Ayutthaya – the former capital of Thailand, before Bangkok. That’s an amazing place! The ruins are spectacular, and we also stopped at some temples, and one of the Royal summer palaces.

After the tour, we boarded a boat for a 2-hour trip down the river back to Bangkok. As you sail down the river, you start to see small rural houses built up along the water, which eventually turn into modern office buildings, hotels, and palaces as you enter Bangkok. It’s quite a journey.

The following day we boarded a plane again & headed down to Phuket for some time on the ocean. We stayed on Kata Beach, in a room with a beautiful view of the ocean from the balcony. The only downside… the hotel was built on a hill, and we had to climb about a million stairs (ok, it was a couple hundred) and take 2 elevators to get to the room. So, we had a good leg workout those days.

We took a sailing trip, well… a motor boat trip on a ship with a sail, the next day out to Phang Nga Bay. We saw lots of cool islands, including ‘James Bond Island’, which was featured in The Man with the Golden Gun. Despite being very crowded with tons of tourists, it was a pretty neat site to see. It’s a piece of rock that sticks up out of the water in the middle of a little bay. It was much smaller than I expected, though.

The Phi Phi Islands were our destination the next day. I had booked a speedboat trip for the day, imagining a standard speedboat with 6-8 passengers. When we boarded that morning, I discovered the largest speedboat I’d ever seen! There were 39 passengers, and 4 crew members. It was a little crowded, but not too bad.

The Phi Phi Islands were cool. We stopped at the beach where they filmed The Beach (I never saw it), and we went to a couple different places to snorkel. We finally stopped at another island for a couple of hours to hang out on the beach, and snorkel off the shore. The only problem was the snorkeling was done in less than 2 feet of water in some places, so it was easy to get snagged on some of the coral.

The 2 days we spent in Phuket were lots of fun. One thing that wasn’t good, though, was the time in the vans. We stayed at a hotel on the south side of the island, and the boats for our trips left from a pier on the north side = = 2 hours in the van each day. That sucked.

Then we flew back to Bangkok for a few more days of touring palaces & shopping. We saw the Grand Palace, Wat Arun, Wat Po, and Wat Benchamabophit. We also stopped by Baiyoke Tower (the tallest building in Bangkok) one evening to watch sunset from the top. Then on Saturday, it was the obligatory trip to the Weekend Market to do some shopping. Funniest thing I saw – the policeman who was riding a Segway! He drove up to one store, and stood there on the thing while someone grabbed something for him. He paid for it & drove off. Weird…

Coming back to Singapore, I realized that I had timed Chinese New Year wrong. We got back on New Years Day, and I had expected to see an incredibly crowded & festive China Town. Wrong. It was like a ghost town. Apparently all the festivities in China Town take place on Chinese New Years Eve. So, we missed out on that. But, we did see some interesting shows down by the Esplanade. It kind of felt like a carnival, with lots of giant blow up statues & rides for kids. There was also a stage where there were several different performances going on through the evening – dancers, jugglers, etc… By far the most impressive was the Chinese Acrobat. She was a young woman – probably in her late teens or early 20s. What she was doing was incredible! She was balancing her body (parallel to the stage) on one hand. Then, she would push herself up into a handstand (still, only on one hand). It was unreal! Oh, and then there were fireworks. Yay.

In a couple of days, mom & dad left for the next stage of their vacation – Australia & New Zealand. They’ve been having a lot of fun down there, and will swing back through Singapore next weekend, on their way home.

Chinese New Year activities have continued for the past few weeks. My windsurfing friends & I went down to see a parade on Orchard Road two weeks ago. It was incredibly crowded, and I had to watch through a hole in a temporary wall. I tried to sneak past the security line, but the police didn’t think that was such a good idea. So, back to the little hole.

We also had a group come to our apartment for an impromptu lion dance. It was fun to watch, but incredibly loud! The drummers & cymbal players really got into it! As far as I can figure, the deal is that the lion shows up at your door, and there is a try of food out as an offering (mandarin oranges, and some lettuce). The lion ‘eats’ the food, and while it’s inside the lion, the people are peeling the oranges & then leave them as a treat for the audience at the end of the dance.

Last weekend, my friend Brian flew down from Thailand to hang out. He’s over on business, and took advantage of a 3-day weekend. It was really good to see a friend from the US. We were in the Ngee Ann City shopping center one afternoon & wandered into an art gallery – just out of curiosity. I checked out the first sculpture, and saw that it was selling for $39,000. Ok… no touching anything. We kept on looking, and the paintings & sculptures got more interesting towards the back. Then, Brian pointed out a Dali painting. It was for sale for $2.75 million!!! I couldn’t believe it. It was a weird feeling to be so close to something that valuable. There wasn’t really any visible security either. I felt like I could reach out & touch it.

So that’s been life for the past month. In a little over a week, I’m heading off to India for about 2 weeks. I’m going to hit a few different regions, and see some sights like the Taj Mahal, the Ellora Caves, and some very crowded cities. Then I’ll be heading up to Thailand in early April for Songkran – the Thai new year. After that, I think I’ll take a break. :-)