Go get your glasses and something to drink, this is going to be long.
I went on the "DMZ" Tour with Mr. Trung today and the 6 other students that are with me. We spent 11 hours driving around Central Veitnam looking at war sites. Now, let me explain something about these war sites; with a few mino expections, these sites are mostly re-creations. After the war, there was no care to preserve battle sites ad important war monuments, as the people wanted to rebuild and mvoe on, and they didn't have the money to dedicate to preserving and saving the space. This entry be witten in the order which learnde today. We went site to site, with Mr. Trung answering questions and explaining the historical significance and inportant war facts.
During the one hour drive to the first site, Mr. Trung,a 1LT in the Southern Vietnamese Army in '69, he explained to us how he war started a brief timeline. As he, his brother, and his father were in the Southern Vietnamese Army during the war, he was a great source for all sorts of information throughout the day. Vietnam had been spending many years fighting with China and France. During these wars, the country split into two types of political believers, capitalists and communists. Total, th country will spend 21yeas arguing over this issue. In the late 40's/50s, the government decided to set a deadline, two years to come to a compromise about what kind of government Vietnam, the united country, should have. At the time, the majority of Nothererns were Commnists and SOutherners were Capitalists. The South had a 80% Buddhist population and 5% Chrisitan population, though the Christians ran the country. After these two years, neiher side would give in to the other. They then set a new deadline. They gave the population 90 days to move to the north or souh Vientman "freely", to decide which part of the government they wanted to support. Many Notherners moved South. It was hard, as their side of the border tried to stop some and shouted propoganda in loud speakers to the South and those crossing the border, the Ben Hai River. After this 90 day period was up, some fighting began, but nothing bad. There had been some what they now call minority people, those who live in the mountain and not the villiages, who were technically living in the South who believed the propoganda and wanted to be communists. These people along with a scattering of Northern soldiers would form what is to be knows as th Viet Cong, (VC). The US wanted in, as communism was there enemy. Both sides said no, we need to figure this out by ourslves. Suddenly,some civilians captured Souther Buddhist monks, claiming them to be communisits, holdingthem hostages. The Southerners were very upset, 80% of them being Buddhists. The South wanted the CIA's help in getting the monks set free. The US said okay, but only if you over throw the government (they said it in nicer terms, but this is basically what they wanted.) The agreed, the monks were set free, and there was coup and the Southern president was killed. When he new government was formed, the US worked with them to get over 20,000 troops eventually set over to help. When theyfirst arrived, the VC would fight their geurilla warfare, hittingthe US in small, unorganized groups and fleeing back across the border. They did this by using the Ho Chi Minh trail, a trail runing from north to south Vietman along a stream that owuld be a main supply line during the war. The marines were very upset. They decided to burn rice fields, crops, andvilliages in hope of cutting off the VC's supplies. Many Southerners got upset by this, and 20%of them decided to join he North because of the Marine's actions. The US was important to the Souther cause, as they had only formed an army since 1950, and the Noth had an army from 1930, they surely would have beencrushed without our help. The war starts.The world thinks that the US should leave, so they pull out in 72. On 26 March 1975 (remember this is the date the tanks in Hue said they were "captured" from the US??) Saigon fell to the North and very shortly after the war was over, turning Saigon into Ho Chi Minh. The communists turned the burning country upside down. They closed the border to all foreign help. Trung said there were ong periods where they would only allow the people to use bicycles, no motorbikes or cars, to travel or work with. People starved. In 1989, China decided to open their borders and Vietnam followed. The world saw what the country had turned into and helped. War sites were rebuit as well. Parts of the Imperial Forbidden City in Hue were destroyed due to napalm and bombing in Hue,they were rebuilt.
We drove through the country on he way to Dong Ha. It wasn't the country I expected, thinking of a low-no populated stretch of and, there wer houses and shops lining the roads. Behind them though, were ricefields. Tons and tons. and SOOOO many cows! They were tied up to random things just eating, or walking across the road. There was anoher very odd thing, tombs. There would be these tombs, the best way I can describe them. They were above ground grave sites, with a waist high brick border around the site, with an elaborate enterance and even fancier, 10ft high decorative grave marker. They were larger than car, huge. Most of them were beautifully painted in multiple bright colors. And whereever they were built, they were never distrubed. So, you would be looking at a rice field, and see a small gathering of these huge, Chinese inspired (I think its actually Buddhist inspired) tombs randomly in rice patties, backyards, road sides, forests, etc. Along many trees, and in mailbox-like stands on front of peoples houses, here were also Buddhist shrines, about twie the size of an acutal mailbox. They are also here in Hue, attatched to almost every tree in the city with insence burning.
We stopped breifly in Quang Tri, about 45 min from Dong Ha. We stopped at the Long Hung Church. It was the leftovers of a Church frame that was covered in bullet holes and even had a piece of artllery shell embedded in the ground inside. After the US pulled out, there was 1 Southern Vietnamese ARmy Division left to guard the whole DMZ (March). By June, the North took 4 divisons and sttacked. They captured Dong Ha, Quang Tri, and Hue in a matter of hours. Over the next 81days, the South tried to reclaim their cities. This Church was one defensive position; they thought that the North wouldn't try to bomb and destroy religeious grounds (Church pagoda, as Trung called it). They were wrong. During this 81days, the North killed 10,000 civilizans.
Driving to the next sites, we saw lots of Vietnamese flags on peoples houses.Commnist flags also flew, which look very similar in all ways ot the Nam flag. They also keep the flag polesthe same height.
Next we arrived to the "Rock Pile". This Rock Pile is acutally a huge (height) small (width) mountain off the side of what is now a highway. This was a Marine checkpoint back in the war.It was so inassessible (still today) that the Marines had to enter/leave/resupplyvia helicopter. Surrounding the rockpile was a BN and CO HQ. Due to the bombing, duringteh war Trung said, as he was here breifly,there were no trees. Bombs wouls cause fires, and the wind would take them everwhere, destroying ever piece of vegitation. There was only small trees there now. Only a platoon at a time occupied the mountain, where at a BN stayed in the airfield immediatly below and a CO was in the valley o the rear.
On he way out, we spoke to Trungabout his brother. He heard I was from Florida nad wanted to know if it was near Denver. We asked why, and he said his brother is from there. His brother was a Captian in the Souh Vietnamese army during the way. Both brothers were taken to the prison camps at the end of the war, which is what the Noth did to all ranking officers of the South Army when they took over the country. He told us that during the daylight hours, they would clear valleys and build bamboo houses. from 7-10pm each night, they were taken to watch propoganda. Trung was in the camps from 2.5years, his brother free. AFter the borders were re-opened to the world in 1989, the US made a decree to bring all high ranking South Vietnamese officials during the war who had spent 3+ years in prison camps to the US. We have one living down the road from us acutally. This is why his brother lives in the US and he doesn't.
Next, we arrived at the Khe Sanh airfield. This was a very importan military base for the south/US. It was a stategic location of being right in he middle of the Ho Chi Minh trail about 20km east of the Laos border. It is located on top of a mountain, where they now grow coffee beans (and sell coffee there). Surrounding it are three other key mountains. The airfield has been maintained, meaning the red dirt strip he aircraft landed on was still around and they raked it daily so you can see. It is still barb wired off too. There was a small museum, more IDs and dog tags. There was an old UH-1H and Chinook along with some scrap metal from crashed prop planes. Ter was examples of the ypes of bombs the US used (bad looking replicas), along with re-built bunkers and a memorial to the North vietnamese. This had always been desribed as one of the worst battle positions for both sides, "Hell Khe Sanh". The Museum was fille full of propoganda-like words, mainly photos of Americans dying, dead, fleeing, running, mounrning, etc. Ther were men with trays who had found a smal collection of VC medals, US pins, and money from the surrounding countries and a few old machinese gun shells selling to tourists. At times, 20k bombs/artillery shells were dropped here daily. This was the first place the US left during there pull out starting in 68. The memorial wrote how the North quicky took over when the US left, liberating the city of Huong Hoa from the US and their 10k civilians. The entrance into the city, which was like 2 blocks worth of buildings, was a huge monument, with a famous sculpture,called the victory monument.
So far,this had all been to the West of Hue, and very near the Laos border. Now, we started back East. We followed the Ben Hai River, the physical border between the north and south. We pretty much crossed the country by the end of the day, starting from 20km from the Laos border until we reached the Bein Sea (Ocean). The drive was beautiful, full off rolling mountains and hills, the valley being the river. We were driving on the edge of a cliff overlooking the river. IT really though reminded me of POW movies, where a soldier would get lost in the mountains of Nother Vietnam and get captued. Looked just like it. There were a handful of communist propganda billboard scattered in the various towns we traveled to. They were have themes, such as look, we helped rebuild the city, we provide jobs, etc.
Next, we visited te La Da Krung, a bridge which was a paved portion of the Ho Chi Minh trail where it crossed from North tosouth vietnam. Its a famous suspension bridge you might have seen on google or a photo of Veitnam. Its a beautiful bridge, with a small site dedicated to the trail, even though you cannot see it. Trung said it was paved over for the continuation oft he highway from north to south. You could see the stream though that it travelled along. Quick stop.
the next stop was a long way away, going all the way to the ocean to the Vinh Moc Viliage to see the famous Vinh Moc Tunnels. These tunnels are the most famous, as they were different from many others in the country; they were used to supply, shelter, and attack. There are 6 enterences and 7 exits, all located in ta cliff side next to the ocean. There are three levels, at 12m, 15m, and 23m! 17 children were born in the "health room" in the tunnels. There is a small museum showing the photos of the year nad a half it took to build them, some tools used, a layout, and the ceremony giving the villiage an award for their building. There was a small man who didn't talk to was just hanging around. There was a huge mural plaque on the wall with various people, from soldiers to mothers. He pointed to he portion where a mother was holding a baby up in the air. IT was him. He then showed up a photo of a little boy running around with a shovel inthe tunnels, and a line of babies in the tunnels in cribs that had just been born. He was one of the 17 that had been born there, this was his villiage. Trung later came in and confirmed the story for us. This was an mportant place, as supply would come in via ocean, even thoug h5km off the coast, the US Navy had been there from Japan, bombing the villiage day and night. 350 people lived there from 68-72, when the worst was happening until the US pulld out. Trenches were built from the backs of homes to the tunnel enterences, so the villiagers ccould safely reach the tunnels when a bombing occured. They were SO creppy!The tunnels stood about 5'5'' tall, I JUST could stand, the boys all had to bend over. They were basic and easy, one erson barely fit in them. They had been re-walled since the war for tourists. Electricity was though them (added on later) for a few lanterns, but they were turned off during our tour, but we brought flash lights. They had little rooms set off to he side for a well, bathroom, family areas, bomb shelters, meeting rooms, etc. It was wet and the stairs were slippery. The area we were in was very rural, a one land road that was just barely paved. Many town folk were there selling water and snacks, this was what they did. the pavers we wlaked on to get to the tunnel enterences/exits were paths that were paved over. The paths were strategically placed under the canopy of bamboo and surrounding trees so those from the air couldn't see the people on the ground. There were may large and deep craters the ground, grown over with vegitations, where artillery had left a scar on the earth. We went down to the beach for a second to check it out.
Next, we drove through more rice patties to the Hien Luong Bridge. This bridge crossed the Ben Hai
River. This was the official border crossing spot. During the two years of compromise that failed between the north and south, they let the UN man the border, mainly Canada, India,and a few other countries. During this period, the UN building was built on the north side and they built a bridge. When the war started, the UN left and their building was destroyed, even though were is one in place again to represent it I believe. The US bombs destroyed the bridge. After the war ended, in 2001 they rebuilt the bridge to honor history,and in 2004 put another one beside it for traffic. On the north side, there stil stands a flag pole full of loud speakers for propoganda. There also still stands a large pole with flood lights, watching the SOuth and the river. There is also a large monument with a Vietnam flag. The south side has a watch tower with a few loud speakers. There is a larger monument, more of a huge (HUGE) sculpture. There stands a mother and her child in front of coulds, surrounded by 4 coconut leavs. The mother and child were there to represent something about the war. During the 90 day period of seperation, many families were torn apart. Even more were when the war started and men went out to fight. the mother and her baby stand there waiting forever for the men who will never make it home.
The final stop was the Trong Son National Cemetary and Camp Caroll. The base was a US/South vietnamese base (we are the south side once we crossed the bridge). In 72 when the US pulled out, the base was quickly captured since the 2km permieter set up to protect was had been heavily dis-manned. The only remenemts is a single rusted tank. The whole area is gone due to the rebuiding of a villiage. The town literally sits ont he base, so there isn't much to see, only be there and listen to the history. The Cemetary was interesting. It is the only cemetary in South Vietnam for the war and only holds Northern soldiers. Even though the South were citizens of the same country. it made me mad, I mean we keep civil war confederate monuments, even though they too were US citizens who fought a losing battle too. We all got to talking about how in a generation, no kid will be able to go tak to a vet about their experiance, since they will all be gone. They won't be able to know about the fight against the north. We then started wondering about Mr. trung. How did he feel, seeing these north sites, many of those that were important sites/bases for the south that the north put their memorials and propganda on, the north had held him and his family prisoner for numerous years? But he started histour company, he must enjoy his work. As Kara put it, maybe its his way of getting his word out, he can share with those who want to listen the southern side, since I'm sure there is much blocked about the war to the people even today.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
Day 1: Hue, Vietnam
The dy started out very early with a 430am departure to the airport. This was the first time we were flying out of Singapore and we flew with Tiger air, consistantly ratedthe number one cheap airline in the SE Asia. We arrived at the budget terminal, one of the many terminals in Changi airport. After eating a hearty meal of McDonald's pancakes, we crossed security. There was no sitting and waiting at your gate, there was a lobby like area where there were cuty free shops and a line area to wait for your plane. There was also no ramp, we just walked onto the runway on to the plane. You could tell it was a budget airline, no snacks or water, the flight attendants were very confused and scatter brained, they caused more confusion than clarity I felt. We arrived in Ho Chi Minh after an uneventful 2 hour flight. We met up with the rest of our 7 person group and hoped on the domestic transfer to Hue. The Vientamese airline weflew was wonderful, the seats actaully reclined, the attendants were beautiful and wore dresses, here was classica Vietnamese music playing and they handed out face wipes.
Our hotel is amazing. After spending the day out, our 8$/night room is not that cheap here, concidering lunch and drnks cost around and under $1. Its a 6 story old building, re-done with crown molding and vintage art. The stairway is made of marble. Alot of the design and decoratoion I found throughout the day resembled China, very much so. We went out for lunch, had an interesting meal of cooked pork on skerwes that were acutally lemongrass.We went out exporing the city. Like China, there is a Forbidden City here, called the Purple city. These are imperial citites that only royalty was allowed in, and they are as big as an acutal city. The wall guarding the city still stands on the opposite side on the Perfume River, where we went walking.
The first place we ran into was one of the most interesting places we went that day. I've read that dispite the fact of the huge battle that took place in Hue, the only reminents of the battle are old tanks that were left by the Americans. About 8 armored vehicles and a handful of artillery cannons were lined up with signs in the yard of two museums inside the wall of the impreial city. I immedaitly ran over to see them, even though nobody followed, which I found a little odd.There is not many other places in the world where you can see acutal battle sites and equipment from such a short period of time ago that is safe to travel to. Every single sign said that these objects were "captured by the Libertarian front an Tan My Port, Thuan An" on either 25 or 26 March, 1975.After the US had already gone. That was a little frustrating, the lying signs. You could walk up right next tothe armored vechiles nad look all around. It was beath taking. You could see the scars from battle on the tanks that were not caught on fire, as some were. You could see inside of them, may with the american signs for the placement of equipment stillreadable. All were stripped of everything except the outer shell. I also found 2 syringes inside of one, a sqatters corner I suppose. It was so amazing and ghaslty to be standing next to these pieces of history, where in my life time soldiers died. The vehicles that were burned, all of them only on the inside, were the worst to look at. The metal of the vehcile shell was crumbling, but the outside stayed in tact, obvious that adevice was thrown into the tank to create such a scene of distruction. Many tanks still had their serial numbers, "Amry", and the US star on them, so I took many photos.
Afterwards, we stopped by a "museum" that the tanks were situated in front of; It was a small room fullwith dirty cases full of dong son kettle drums and pieces of pottery from 2000-25000 years ago. It was obviously not well kept or kept up at all. The other had wandered to a neighboring buiding. This turned out to be a museum about the "American Invasion". It was incredible. It was 4 small rooms full of war memorabilia and photos. The first room had a sand table of the Battle of Hue. It also held may artifacts taken from American soldiers; uniforms, some weapons, money. The most amazing was the one with the ID's in it. There was a display of US ranks and medals, along side with ID's. The ID cards were Australian, Puppets (Vietnamese that were on our side) and old US military ID's. You could fully see the cut and pasted photos of the young soliders, all privates and sergeants with their DOB and singnatures. Its amazing they have these. The other two rooms were full of more pro-Vietnam/communist propoganda; the newspaper about when the leader of Vietnam died in the 60s, pro-communist papers and photos of political figures shaking hands, flags from the DMZ, etc. There were a couple photos of dead "injured" as they claimed Americans during the Battle of Hue. Many others had captions such as "defeated", "running away", etc American soldiers. The final room was dedicated to the concentration camps the Americans used on the Vietnamese. There was a little cave-like room with a mural painted of a chained up Vietnamese soldier surrounded by American soldiers smoing cigarettes. There were chains hanging from the walls and a display of American tourture devices, chains and hammers used for building. One of the Canadian boys, not seeing I was in the room because I think they all know I'm inthe military, said Wow, what the Americans did was messed up. He repeated it, but saw meerwards, we stopped by a "museum" that the tanks were situated in front of; It was a small room fullwith dirty cases full of dong son kettle drums and pieces of pottery from 2000-25000 years ago. It was obviously not well kept or kept up at all. The other had wandered to a neighboring buiding. This turned out to be a museum about the "American Invasion". It was incredible. It was 4 small rooms full of war memorabilia and photos. The first room had a sand table of the Battle of Hue. It also held may artifacts taken from American soldiers; uniforms, some weapons, money. The most amazing was the one with the ID's in it. There was a display of US ranks and medals, along side with ID's. The ID cards were Australian, Puppets (Vietnamese that were on our side) and old US military ID's. You could fully see the cut and pasted photos of the young soliders, all privates and sergeants with their DOB and singnatures. Its amazing they have these. The other two rooms were full of more pro-Vietnam/communist propoganda; the newspaper about when the leader of Vietnam died in the 60s, pro-communist papers and photos of political figures shaking hands, flags from the DMZ, etc. There were a couple photos of dead "injured" as they claimed Americans during the Battle of Hue. Many others had captions such as "defeated", "running away", etc American soldiers. The final room was dedicated to the concentration camps the Americans used on the Vietnamese. There was a little cave-like room with a mural painted of a chained up Vietnamese soldier surrounded by American soldiers smoing cigarettes. There were chains hanging from the walls and a display of American tourture devices, chains and hammers used for building. One of the Canadian boys, not seeing I was in the room because I think they all know I'm inthe military, said Wow, what the Americans did was messed up. He repeated it, but saw me andsaid just kidding. There were photo albums of the tunnels the Vietnamese hid in, as well as photos taken of the prisoners we releasted and from our camps we sent them to. No mention of the other side of the story, of course.
We walked around some more, wandered onto the main square of the city. This had a multi-story fort with a HUGE Vientamese flag on top. In the pavement in front of it, Vietnamese soldier recruits were practicing drill to a loud speaker playing what I assume would be their national anthem. We went back to the hotel and out receptionist, Nga, struck up a conversation. After talking abouteveryone's occupation, she laughed at me when I told her I was an engineer. She said here, that was a man's job. A women usually becomes a doctor or nurse, then stays home to raise the family when she gives birth. She was very curious about the US, like is this true there, tuition costs compared toVietnam, etc. She then recommended we go get massages at a ocal place down the road, an hour for $8.Who can say no to that? We were brought into small rooms with beds and a pillow. Apparently, there were more men than women who worked at this parlor, so us girls and one of the guys got male massagers. It was nice, very polite, even though they talked the whole time to each other and acted like we were torturing them into doing this haha.
Just went out to a Italian, Indian, and Vietnamese resteraunt next to our hotel. Only one person ordered vietnamese food, as our experiance with lunch was disappointing and not filling. Of course, they were out of that dish haha. The local beer was okay, had two bottles to try them. One was water, the other was alright.
Got an early morning tomorrow, off to see 1 hours of war sites with a Vietnamese veteran!
PS: The computer is in Vientamese, can't run spell check because its not in English so sorry if all the words are mispelled!And they block facebook here.... They are communists. There are communist flags, everywhere
Our hotel is amazing. After spending the day out, our 8$/night room is not that cheap here, concidering lunch and drnks cost around and under $1. Its a 6 story old building, re-done with crown molding and vintage art. The stairway is made of marble. Alot of the design and decoratoion I found throughout the day resembled China, very much so. We went out for lunch, had an interesting meal of cooked pork on skerwes that were acutally lemongrass.We went out exporing the city. Like China, there is a Forbidden City here, called the Purple city. These are imperial citites that only royalty was allowed in, and they are as big as an acutal city. The wall guarding the city still stands on the opposite side on the Perfume River, where we went walking.
The first place we ran into was one of the most interesting places we went that day. I've read that dispite the fact of the huge battle that took place in Hue, the only reminents of the battle are old tanks that were left by the Americans. About 8 armored vehicles and a handful of artillery cannons were lined up with signs in the yard of two museums inside the wall of the impreial city. I immedaitly ran over to see them, even though nobody followed, which I found a little odd.There is not many other places in the world where you can see acutal battle sites and equipment from such a short period of time ago that is safe to travel to. Every single sign said that these objects were "captured by the Libertarian front an Tan My Port, Thuan An" on either 25 or 26 March, 1975.After the US had already gone. That was a little frustrating, the lying signs. You could walk up right next tothe armored vechiles nad look all around. It was beath taking. You could see the scars from battle on the tanks that were not caught on fire, as some were. You could see inside of them, may with the american signs for the placement of equipment stillreadable. All were stripped of everything except the outer shell. I also found 2 syringes inside of one, a sqatters corner I suppose. It was so amazing and ghaslty to be standing next to these pieces of history, where in my life time soldiers died. The vehicles that were burned, all of them only on the inside, were the worst to look at. The metal of the vehcile shell was crumbling, but the outside stayed in tact, obvious that adevice was thrown into the tank to create such a scene of distruction. Many tanks still had their serial numbers, "Amry", and the US star on them, so I took many photos.
Afterwards, we stopped by a "museum" that the tanks were situated in front of; It was a small room fullwith dirty cases full of dong son kettle drums and pieces of pottery from 2000-25000 years ago. It was obviously not well kept or kept up at all. The other had wandered to a neighboring buiding. This turned out to be a museum about the "American Invasion". It was incredible. It was 4 small rooms full of war memorabilia and photos. The first room had a sand table of the Battle of Hue. It also held may artifacts taken from American soldiers; uniforms, some weapons, money. The most amazing was the one with the ID's in it. There was a display of US ranks and medals, along side with ID's. The ID cards were Australian, Puppets (Vietnamese that were on our side) and old US military ID's. You could fully see the cut and pasted photos of the young soliders, all privates and sergeants with their DOB and singnatures. Its amazing they have these. The other two rooms were full of more pro-Vietnam/communist propoganda; the newspaper about when the leader of Vietnam died in the 60s, pro-communist papers and photos of political figures shaking hands, flags from the DMZ, etc. There were a couple photos of dead "injured" as they claimed Americans during the Battle of Hue. Many others had captions such as "defeated", "running away", etc American soldiers. The final room was dedicated to the concentration camps the Americans used on the Vietnamese. There was a little cave-like room with a mural painted of a chained up Vietnamese soldier surrounded by American soldiers smoing cigarettes. There were chains hanging from the walls and a display of American tourture devices, chains and hammers used for building. One of the Canadian boys, not seeing I was in the room because I think they all know I'm inthe military, said Wow, what the Americans did was messed up. He repeated it, but saw meerwards, we stopped by a "museum" that the tanks were situated in front of; It was a small room fullwith dirty cases full of dong son kettle drums and pieces of pottery from 2000-25000 years ago. It was obviously not well kept or kept up at all. The other had wandered to a neighboring buiding. This turned out to be a museum about the "American Invasion". It was incredible. It was 4 small rooms full of war memorabilia and photos. The first room had a sand table of the Battle of Hue. It also held may artifacts taken from American soldiers; uniforms, some weapons, money. The most amazing was the one with the ID's in it. There was a display of US ranks and medals, along side with ID's. The ID cards were Australian, Puppets (Vietnamese that were on our side) and old US military ID's. You could fully see the cut and pasted photos of the young soliders, all privates and sergeants with their DOB and singnatures. Its amazing they have these. The other two rooms were full of more pro-Vietnam/communist propoganda; the newspaper about when the leader of Vietnam died in the 60s, pro-communist papers and photos of political figures shaking hands, flags from the DMZ, etc. There were a couple photos of dead "injured" as they claimed Americans during the Battle of Hue. Many others had captions such as "defeated", "running away", etc American soldiers. The final room was dedicated to the concentration camps the Americans used on the Vietnamese. There was a little cave-like room with a mural painted of a chained up Vietnamese soldier surrounded by American soldiers smoing cigarettes. There were chains hanging from the walls and a display of American tourture devices, chains and hammers used for building. One of the Canadian boys, not seeing I was in the room because I think they all know I'm inthe military, said Wow, what the Americans did was messed up. He repeated it, but saw me andsaid just kidding. There were photo albums of the tunnels the Vietnamese hid in, as well as photos taken of the prisoners we releasted and from our camps we sent them to. No mention of the other side of the story, of course.
We walked around some more, wandered onto the main square of the city. This had a multi-story fort with a HUGE Vientamese flag on top. In the pavement in front of it, Vietnamese soldier recruits were practicing drill to a loud speaker playing what I assume would be their national anthem. We went back to the hotel and out receptionist, Nga, struck up a conversation. After talking abouteveryone's occupation, she laughed at me when I told her I was an engineer. She said here, that was a man's job. A women usually becomes a doctor or nurse, then stays home to raise the family when she gives birth. She was very curious about the US, like is this true there, tuition costs compared toVietnam, etc. She then recommended we go get massages at a ocal place down the road, an hour for $8.Who can say no to that? We were brought into small rooms with beds and a pillow. Apparently, there were more men than women who worked at this parlor, so us girls and one of the guys got male massagers. It was nice, very polite, even though they talked the whole time to each other and acted like we were torturing them into doing this haha.
Just went out to a Italian, Indian, and Vietnamese resteraunt next to our hotel. Only one person ordered vietnamese food, as our experiance with lunch was disappointing and not filling. Of course, they were out of that dish haha. The local beer was okay, had two bottles to try them. One was water, the other was alright.
Got an early morning tomorrow, off to see 1 hours of war sites with a Vietnamese veteran!
PS: The computer is in Vientamese, can't run spell check because its not in English so sorry if all the words are mispelled!And they block facebook here.... They are communists. There are communist flags, everywhere
Monday, February 21, 2011
Day 4: Bintan Island, Indonesia
We left early this morning to get into Singapore in time for my late afternoon class. The water was a lot calmer, which was great news. Custom's was very easy, now that I finally got my student pass. Because I am staying past 60 (or 120?) days, I need a student pass. This is a little ID card with my student visa on it. They didn't even need to look at my passport, just scan the card and push me on through, it was great!
There is so much going on this week, I need to catch up on homework before the Vietnam trip on Friday! I am trying to bring my laptop, so I can make posts and stay connected with the world during my Vietnam War tour in Hue for the weekend. This was the ONE biggest trip I wanted to make while I was out here, so I am super excited to go. I keep hearing how beautiful the country is, and we are going to the imperial city the people hold as the most beautiful in all of the country, so it should be quite a treat.
Went for a run today, and I got thinking about something. So Singapore has a requirement of military service, as we know. I have heard that every male has to do it, unless he had somewhere around $60k to buy his way out. Because its a 3 year requirement of service, this would also mean that all the local males that are in college would be at least 21, but none of them look it. Neither did Alvin, the local who I talked to a couple weeks ago about the military, so what do I know. That is a lot of money, for a low and middle class, of even upper-middle class family to fork up over military service that would only benefit the country and the boys state of mind. Does this mean that most of the men who are in the service for their 3 year requirements are the lower/middle classes? Is being in the military at that young age synonymous with not being rich? If you are a 19 year old in college, can I assume your family has lots of money? It made me wonder if the army is considered a burden only the lower classes have to face before college. How sad is it to think that?
Alma and I were eating dinner and I noticed something else today. So every time I get food, I get chop sticks. I love using chop sticks. Funny side story: A day or so before I went to China, not having realized I would be eating with chop sticks, mom grabbed a pair out of the drawer that they got in Korea and told me to eat with it. I have NO idea how to hold them, what to do with them. As I struggled, I got upset and gave up. Why eat with those when I only had a few days left with a fork? One of the first trips we took in China was to a boarding school. We ate lunch in their cafeteria. I have a memory of sitting down with my tray of food, starving, holding chop sticks. I realized, I had to force myself to learn, eating one small piece of rice at a time, so I would just starve. Now I love to eat with them. But, I feel like I'm the only one. When I look around the cafeteria we go to every day, the only people eating with chip sticks are eating soup. They chop stick their noodles into a spoon (think the kind they give you to eat miso soup at Japanese restaurants) and then eat it. Everyone else eats their meat and rice with a fork. Still no knives, they cut their meat with a spoon.
We are learning Chinese characters in class, they are very hard. The lao shi showed us a video about how many of the basic characters evolved from back in the day until now. For instance, the character for man looks like a stick figure, as the people drew the symbols of what they saw. Most the characters unfortunately, had an evolution going from looking like the object they were, to being flipped and twisted into something totally not recognizable to their meaning . There are others that are just weird. Friend for instance, is a combination of the moon character written two times, and then the character for left and for right. These are supposed to symbolize the left and right hand holding hands together. But double moon? They also have a saying, mama huhu. This is said, when someone asks you how you are and you are just okay, you say mama huhu (its sounds just as silly as what you are probably pronouncing). It literally means horse-house-tiger-tiger. Even out lao shi doesn't understand why, it just is.
So re-cap of coming up events: Vietnam this weekend, Alma and I are going to Penang, Malaysia the weekend after. Right after that, Dad and Max stop by for a 15 hour layover before our fabulous hike of Mt. Kinabalu in Malaysian Borneo for a week. It will be a busy and exciting month to come!
There is so much going on this week, I need to catch up on homework before the Vietnam trip on Friday! I am trying to bring my laptop, so I can make posts and stay connected with the world during my Vietnam War tour in Hue for the weekend. This was the ONE biggest trip I wanted to make while I was out here, so I am super excited to go. I keep hearing how beautiful the country is, and we are going to the imperial city the people hold as the most beautiful in all of the country, so it should be quite a treat.
Went for a run today, and I got thinking about something. So Singapore has a requirement of military service, as we know. I have heard that every male has to do it, unless he had somewhere around $60k to buy his way out. Because its a 3 year requirement of service, this would also mean that all the local males that are in college would be at least 21, but none of them look it. Neither did Alvin, the local who I talked to a couple weeks ago about the military, so what do I know. That is a lot of money, for a low and middle class, of even upper-middle class family to fork up over military service that would only benefit the country and the boys state of mind. Does this mean that most of the men who are in the service for their 3 year requirements are the lower/middle classes? Is being in the military at that young age synonymous with not being rich? If you are a 19 year old in college, can I assume your family has lots of money? It made me wonder if the army is considered a burden only the lower classes have to face before college. How sad is it to think that?
Alma and I were eating dinner and I noticed something else today. So every time I get food, I get chop sticks. I love using chop sticks. Funny side story: A day or so before I went to China, not having realized I would be eating with chop sticks, mom grabbed a pair out of the drawer that they got in Korea and told me to eat with it. I have NO idea how to hold them, what to do with them. As I struggled, I got upset and gave up. Why eat with those when I only had a few days left with a fork? One of the first trips we took in China was to a boarding school. We ate lunch in their cafeteria. I have a memory of sitting down with my tray of food, starving, holding chop sticks. I realized, I had to force myself to learn, eating one small piece of rice at a time, so I would just starve. Now I love to eat with them. But, I feel like I'm the only one. When I look around the cafeteria we go to every day, the only people eating with chip sticks are eating soup. They chop stick their noodles into a spoon (think the kind they give you to eat miso soup at Japanese restaurants) and then eat it. Everyone else eats their meat and rice with a fork. Still no knives, they cut their meat with a spoon.
We are learning Chinese characters in class, they are very hard. The lao shi showed us a video about how many of the basic characters evolved from back in the day until now. For instance, the character for man looks like a stick figure, as the people drew the symbols of what they saw. Most the characters unfortunately, had an evolution going from looking like the object they were, to being flipped and twisted into something totally not recognizable to their meaning . There are others that are just weird. Friend for instance, is a combination of the moon character written two times, and then the character for left and for right. These are supposed to symbolize the left and right hand holding hands together. But double moon? They also have a saying, mama huhu. This is said, when someone asks you how you are and you are just okay, you say mama huhu (its sounds just as silly as what you are probably pronouncing). It literally means horse-house-tiger-tiger. Even out lao shi doesn't understand why, it just is.
So re-cap of coming up events: Vietnam this weekend, Alma and I are going to Penang, Malaysia the weekend after. Right after that, Dad and Max stop by for a 15 hour layover before our fabulous hike of Mt. Kinabalu in Malaysian Borneo for a week. It will be a busy and exciting month to come!
Day 3: Bintan Island, Indonesia
I didn't quite make it up for the 630am swim. The mattresses there, even though they are about 2 inches thick, are much more comfortable than the rocks we get at school, so I was enjoying a back pain free sleep. Maria had to leave in the morning, as she had class Monday morning, and I decided to get a massage! I walked to the spa, a short 2 minute walk after declining the even shorter 1 minute boat ride up about 20 ft of river. Fazli had mentioned he loved to work here because it wasn't super crowded, so he got to relax too, and I had the feeling the massage ladies felt the same way. Their sister spa, owned by I believe the same Swedish guy who owned the guesthouse and some other places around, was the larger spa at Bintan Resorts. This place was an hour out of the way with less services. But it was perfect for me! The spa was actually a collection of 5 huts, all on stilts connected through stilted walk way over the mangrove river. I picked out an oil to help my sunburn, and went into the room. I was surprised, as I mentioned previously, the Asian massages tend to be no rubbing and conservative. This was oily rubbing in paper underwear, but it was heaven! They washed my feet and back before beginning. Even though we were in the river, the beach was very close and I could hear the waves rolling in during the massage (and in our room when we slept, it was great!). Afterwards, they had a little shower, consisting of a large pot and ladle full of heated water. There was a thermos besides it, which they somehow heated the water up in, as there was no heated water at the guesthouse 20 ft away.
We then asked Fazli to take us in a traditional boat, the sampan, and take us down the river. They made the boats there at the beach. Unfortunately, since the trees took over most of the river, you could only canoe down about 10 minutes, but it was still beautiful. We saw a monitor lizard, which was the size of a small iguana but looked like a miniature komodo dragon. Afterwards, we went down the
towards the kelongs to check out the fishing village that housed the boats. We also happened to pick up 3 bags of sea shells, mostly beautiful conch shells and miniature sand dollars a little bigger than a quarter. Alma and I then rented bikes and rode 15 minutes down the road to another fishing village. It was a nice, slow day!
We then asked Fazli to take us in a traditional boat, the sampan, and take us down the river. They made the boats there at the beach. Unfortunately, since the trees took over most of the river, you could only canoe down about 10 minutes, but it was still beautiful. We saw a monitor lizard, which was the size of a small iguana but looked like a miniature komodo dragon. Afterwards, we went down the
towards the kelongs to check out the fishing village that housed the boats. We also happened to pick up 3 bags of sea shells, mostly beautiful conch shells and miniature sand dollars a little bigger than a quarter. Alma and I then rented bikes and rode 15 minutes down the road to another fishing village. It was a nice, slow day!
Day 2: Bintan Island, Indonesia
We decided to wake up at 630am to watch the sunrise over the ocean, as we had a n unblocked eastern view of the sea. We missed the sunrise, as we learned it rises at 6am, but still managed a early morning ocean swim before breakfast. The water was about the same temperature as Florida in the late spring, very nice! We were in "monsoon" season, meaning India was in a true monsoon season and the rest of Asia jut got more rain than usual, but the sea was still a little foggy due to the small waves and there was lots of trash on the beach. Fazli later told us that during monsoon season, they don't bother to clean up the trash since there is so much, they wait until it's over. The trash comes from the ferry's and kelongs. Kelong's are floating houses (literally houses with stilts attached to buoys) that go a mile from the beach to fish for extended periods of time (months). Luckily, they were servicing the kelongs, so we got to see the houses tied up to trees down the beach.
Breakfast was a little confusing at first, but very delicious once we got the hang of it. We were given
pancakes, which were gooey tortilla-like pieces of cooked dough, cut up limes, fresh coconut shreds, sugar, and mini bananas. We figured you squeeze lime juice on your pancake, cover in coconut and sugar (Maria added the mini bananas) and roll into a cannoli and eat. Best food I"ve had since I've gotten to Asia! After breakfast, we decided to walk down the beach. When we told Fazli, as he always would come and ask what we were planning, since we were in only guests at the guesthouse, he invited himself as our guide and we took off to the south. We passed by some "resorts". These were the resorts used by the locals on their vacation days or days off. Indonesians work and go to school 6 days a week, with the only rest day being Sunday, so we saw nobody this day. Their resorts were small platforms big enough to fit 2 people with roofs by the beach, and this was it. There were about 100 of them at the water's edge, I guess they just lay in and nap, taking shade from the sun.
Fazli told us how friendly the locals are to tourists, and as we journey-ed throughout the weekend, we found this to be very true. Since Bintan is yet to blow up as a tourist destination, especially this part of the island, the locals very much like to see tourists come to visit their home. Hello is the same in Indonesian, so we all exchanged greetings whenever we ran into a local.
We were treated so well as the guesthouse. The staff always was there to ask us about ordering food, getting us drinks, suggesting things to do and taking us there. Fazli alone, the manager of the place, led almost every adventure we had. After lunch and a nice nap in a hammock, we went clamming. Fazli said we could snorkel (with only masks...no actual snorkels) during low tide and find clams and we could cook them for dinner! We went out for about 3 hours, looking for clams, seeing the reefs below. Fazli taught us how to stand on the coral without hurting it and which things NOT to touch or go near. We saw an eel, squid-like thing that looked like an octopus but wasn't (Fazli tried to catch it), many fish, clown fish playing in anemone (Fazli tried to catch them as well, but they wouldn't leave their post and you could practically touch them, they didn't swim away), huge black sea urchins, and all types and sizes of coral. It was beautiful!!!! We walked around looking for fireflies, but the moon was out so there weren't any. We then had a large feast of clams, delicious!
There was a French family who stayed for a night at the guesthouse; their kids worked in Singapore and were here in a vacation. When I told them I was from Florida, they said they knew a professor who lived in New Symerna who worked at some Aerospace school. Turns out, one of Townsend's thesis advisers is very good friends with this couple,what a small world!
Breakfast was a little confusing at first, but very delicious once we got the hang of it. We were given
pancakes, which were gooey tortilla-like pieces of cooked dough, cut up limes, fresh coconut shreds, sugar, and mini bananas. We figured you squeeze lime juice on your pancake, cover in coconut and sugar (Maria added the mini bananas) and roll into a cannoli and eat. Best food I"ve had since I've gotten to Asia! After breakfast, we decided to walk down the beach. When we told Fazli, as he always would come and ask what we were planning, since we were in only guests at the guesthouse, he invited himself as our guide and we took off to the south. We passed by some "resorts". These were the resorts used by the locals on their vacation days or days off. Indonesians work and go to school 6 days a week, with the only rest day being Sunday, so we saw nobody this day. Their resorts were small platforms big enough to fit 2 people with roofs by the beach, and this was it. There were about 100 of them at the water's edge, I guess they just lay in and nap, taking shade from the sun.
Fazli told us how friendly the locals are to tourists, and as we journey-ed throughout the weekend, we found this to be very true. Since Bintan is yet to blow up as a tourist destination, especially this part of the island, the locals very much like to see tourists come to visit their home. Hello is the same in Indonesian, so we all exchanged greetings whenever we ran into a local.
We were treated so well as the guesthouse. The staff always was there to ask us about ordering food, getting us drinks, suggesting things to do and taking us there. Fazli alone, the manager of the place, led almost every adventure we had. After lunch and a nice nap in a hammock, we went clamming. Fazli said we could snorkel (with only masks...no actual snorkels) during low tide and find clams and we could cook them for dinner! We went out for about 3 hours, looking for clams, seeing the reefs below. Fazli taught us how to stand on the coral without hurting it and which things NOT to touch or go near. We saw an eel, squid-like thing that looked like an octopus but wasn't (Fazli tried to catch it), many fish, clown fish playing in anemone (Fazli tried to catch them as well, but they wouldn't leave their post and you could practically touch them, they didn't swim away), huge black sea urchins, and all types and sizes of coral. It was beautiful!!!! We walked around looking for fireflies, but the moon was out so there weren't any. We then had a large feast of clams, delicious!
There was a French family who stayed for a night at the guesthouse; their kids worked in Singapore and were here in a vacation. When I told them I was from Florida, they said they knew a professor who lived in New Symerna who worked at some Aerospace school. Turns out, one of Townsend's thesis advisers is very good friends with this couple,what a small world!
Day 1: Bintan Island, Indonesia
Friday was a long day, dedicated to preparing for our weekend in Indonesia and getting my Vietnam visa finalized. There were three of us going, Myself, Alma, and Maria. We all split up to get various tasks accomplished and met up at the ferry port later in the day. Alma texted me, she had gotten stopped by the police on the MRT. Apparently, one girl carrying two bag packs is suspicious, and they had her open her bags to go through her things. Singapore is always worried about terrorists. In 2001, they foiled a plot believed to be planned by AL-Qaeda to bomb the US, UK, and Israeli embassies in Singapore. There are always signs and announcements on the MRT and buses to beware of suspicious activity to stop terrorists. They have TV screens at some MRT stops that let you know when the next train will arrive, and they also have a like 5-step how to spot a terrorist and what to do if there is an attack video. They also have commercials showing the wreckage of other world wide train bombing with captions such as "Don't let this happen to us" as if Singapore is too smart to get bombed like this.
I was having issues with my bag on the way to the ferry, the strap broke!! In panic without a working purse, I stopped by Orchard, which is pretty much an entire country-sized area that is one huge shopping plaza and found a Fossil. I bought a nice leather cross-shoulder bag. The lady found out I was from the US and kind of laughed, reminding me that I had just over-paid for a bag that was imported from my home country. But then again (as I'm angry in the MRT thinking how right she is), everything is imported from Singapore. There is nothing made here, no even beer. Import is their trade, and they are very good at it.
On the way to the ferry, the bus passed by the Changi Naval Base, which is where Singapore's Navy hangs. I ran into some Navy guys on Wednesday night while we were out. We were at this bar and I saw some crew cuts with a guy wearing a 550 chord bracelet. Only the US Military! Turns out that some Navy vessels had made port and many of the crew was out that night, as we ran into several as the night unfolded. They all assumed we were in the Navy and wanted to know which ship we were from. I also saw a sign for the SAF Yacht Club. I started laughing, Singapore Air Force has a yacht club! But It's not SAF, its RSAF, Republic of Singapore AF. Still kind of funny though :) The east coast, where the ferry terminal and all this is at, must be the "nice" part of the island. There were houses instead of apartment rises like where we are on the west coast. There was also a large number of golf courses, one which is going to hold the Women's World Gulf Championship here in a week or so.
We had booked rooms at a guesthouse about an hour outside of the ferry port on the east side of Bintan Island (larger than Singapore) which was pretty much near nothing. We took the Bintan Resorts Ferry, however, because of its location and timing convenience. We were the small group of backpackers in a sea of rich vacationers. Bintan Resorts is a resort community filled with every luxury that shouldn't be found on a remote island and where you do anything for the right amount of money. It was a short, yet terribly choppy ride, and with only one of us to get sick, we were glad to make it there quickly!
It was night when we made port, and our guesthouse pick-up had a sign with my name on it as we exited, it was kind of neat! He stopped us by a local hawkers area, (food vendors) since we hadn't had dinner. This was foreign country territory. We were all stared at the whole entire time, hard core, but everyone was nice. WE then continued on our hour journey going well over the speed limit in pitch black roads with no lights, honking as we passed everyone on our 2 lane highway. It was the foreign familiarity I have seen in many countries I have traveled to. Long story short, Maria was without a room due to come lat minute issues with other people coming. We figured she can just stay with us, just wonder on in and crash in one of our beds. Boy, we were wrong.
We pulled off the road almost onto the beach. There were 6 buildings. By buildings I mean hand made huts. One was the kitchen, 4 were the huts you can rent, which hold mattresses and mosquito nets, and the third was the longhouse, where we stayed. It had a porch with a picnic table and a hand made sofa, and a room with a lock-n-key door with a bunk bed, which was our room. There was only 2 other people there on this multi-acre coconut plantation guesthouse we were staying at, so we legally got Maria a mattress on our floor for the equivalent of 3USD/night!
This was the absolute most BEAUTIFUL place I have ever seen. Minus the tiny rooms, everything was completely outdoors. It was surrounded by coconut trees, had a few picnic tables, and more hammocks than beds. We could see the beach from out porch in the Longhouse. Since we stayed on the part of the island where nobody (as in tourists) stayed, it was am empty beach. There were little huts without walls on the beach, that Fazli (the manager/tour guide) told us they put up sheets and made tents when they were over booked, like for CNY. They were literally 3 feet from the sand and water of the beach. There was a full moon this weekend, so the fact that there was only generator run electricity from 6-11pm every day didn't bother us when we made the walk to the beach in the middle of the night. We befriended the other two guests, a UK boy and a UK man working in Singapore. They had two dogs, Toby and Raymond (4 month old puppy!) who were both girls. There was also no running water; the toilets were squat pots you hand poured in water from a tub of water in the bathroom to flush. The shower in one bathroom was a large sink-like tub which you ladled water onto yourself, and the other was a hose-shower head that used pressure to push water out, which only drizzled from the shower head. It was awesome! We had really found a remote paradise for "slow tourism"
I was having issues with my bag on the way to the ferry, the strap broke!! In panic without a working purse, I stopped by Orchard, which is pretty much an entire country-sized area that is one huge shopping plaza and found a Fossil. I bought a nice leather cross-shoulder bag. The lady found out I was from the US and kind of laughed, reminding me that I had just over-paid for a bag that was imported from my home country. But then again (as I'm angry in the MRT thinking how right she is), everything is imported from Singapore. There is nothing made here, no even beer. Import is their trade, and they are very good at it.
On the way to the ferry, the bus passed by the Changi Naval Base, which is where Singapore's Navy hangs. I ran into some Navy guys on Wednesday night while we were out. We were at this bar and I saw some crew cuts with a guy wearing a 550 chord bracelet. Only the US Military! Turns out that some Navy vessels had made port and many of the crew was out that night, as we ran into several as the night unfolded. They all assumed we were in the Navy and wanted to know which ship we were from. I also saw a sign for the SAF Yacht Club. I started laughing, Singapore Air Force has a yacht club! But It's not SAF, its RSAF, Republic of Singapore AF. Still kind of funny though :) The east coast, where the ferry terminal and all this is at, must be the "nice" part of the island. There were houses instead of apartment rises like where we are on the west coast. There was also a large number of golf courses, one which is going to hold the Women's World Gulf Championship here in a week or so.
We had booked rooms at a guesthouse about an hour outside of the ferry port on the east side of Bintan Island (larger than Singapore) which was pretty much near nothing. We took the Bintan Resorts Ferry, however, because of its location and timing convenience. We were the small group of backpackers in a sea of rich vacationers. Bintan Resorts is a resort community filled with every luxury that shouldn't be found on a remote island and where you do anything for the right amount of money. It was a short, yet terribly choppy ride, and with only one of us to get sick, we were glad to make it there quickly!
It was night when we made port, and our guesthouse pick-up had a sign with my name on it as we exited, it was kind of neat! He stopped us by a local hawkers area, (food vendors) since we hadn't had dinner. This was foreign country territory. We were all stared at the whole entire time, hard core, but everyone was nice. WE then continued on our hour journey going well over the speed limit in pitch black roads with no lights, honking as we passed everyone on our 2 lane highway. It was the foreign familiarity I have seen in many countries I have traveled to. Long story short, Maria was without a room due to come lat minute issues with other people coming. We figured she can just stay with us, just wonder on in and crash in one of our beds. Boy, we were wrong.
We pulled off the road almost onto the beach. There were 6 buildings. By buildings I mean hand made huts. One was the kitchen, 4 were the huts you can rent, which hold mattresses and mosquito nets, and the third was the longhouse, where we stayed. It had a porch with a picnic table and a hand made sofa, and a room with a lock-n-key door with a bunk bed, which was our room. There was only 2 other people there on this multi-acre coconut plantation guesthouse we were staying at, so we legally got Maria a mattress on our floor for the equivalent of 3USD/night!
This was the absolute most BEAUTIFUL place I have ever seen. Minus the tiny rooms, everything was completely outdoors. It was surrounded by coconut trees, had a few picnic tables, and more hammocks than beds. We could see the beach from out porch in the Longhouse. Since we stayed on the part of the island where nobody (as in tourists) stayed, it was am empty beach. There were little huts without walls on the beach, that Fazli (the manager/tour guide) told us they put up sheets and made tents when they were over booked, like for CNY. They were literally 3 feet from the sand and water of the beach. There was a full moon this weekend, so the fact that there was only generator run electricity from 6-11pm every day didn't bother us when we made the walk to the beach in the middle of the night. We befriended the other two guests, a UK boy and a UK man working in Singapore. They had two dogs, Toby and Raymond (4 month old puppy!) who were both girls. There was also no running water; the toilets were squat pots you hand poured in water from a tub of water in the bathroom to flush. The shower in one bathroom was a large sink-like tub which you ladled water onto yourself, and the other was a hose-shower head that used pressure to push water out, which only drizzled from the shower head. It was awesome! We had really found a remote paradise for "slow tourism"
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Nothing New
Nothing new to talk about really, I am leaving for Bintan Island, Indonesia tomorrow for the weekend with friends. We are staying at a lodge "resort" with a spa at a popular tourist beach, says the brochure. We'll see what we really get! It will be a nice weekend to relax and start reading my new book, From Beirut to Jerusalem.
I found out some interesting news about where we stayed at in KL. There are these two Muslim girls in my Islam class that befriended me. The other day we were talking about KL again, and I mentioned I stayed at Chow Kit, the district where out hostel way. Apparently this is the red light district in the city, explains for all the sketchiness and dirty streets.... We went out to lunch in between our class and tutorial (discussion class) and ended up eating for the whole two hours talking about random stuff. I learned that what I read about different Muslim coverings was wrong, they told me it was just a personal preference. The girls said that in Malaysia, every Muslim is expected to cover their heads, so a lot of them decide that this means they can expose their forearms (wear short sleeves), one of them shivered and said this is just to indecent. She also told me her mom wears a burka, and she doesn't understand why, she's never liked it. So it's a personal/regional thing. Its always interesting to read about a culture then actually experience it. They asked me about Muslims where I am from, and I had an interesting time explaining to them how I have never seen a head-wrapped Muslim on the streets of Daytona Beach. Honestly, I don't think I"ve ever seen one in the US in my life, but look where I have lived.... not in big cities with a variety of people. ON our way to our tutorial, the girls said they had to stop and pray and I was more than welcome to tag along, so I did. There are 4 prayer rooms on campus, 2 for each sex. I wasn't expected to be invited in, as the prayer room at the Nat'l Mosque in KL didn't allow non-believers, but I Took my shoes off and entered when they went in. It was a small janitor's closet room with rugs on the floor, some Arabic scripture, and a clothing line for the prayer clothes. It was kind of neat, being invited to witness something that I would expect to be personal. I think it would be weird if a Christian invited me into a church to watch them pray, but then again Muslims pray more than Christians, so its more common thing to do.
Hopefully I'll get some kind of internet in Bintan so I can update everyone on my weekend, if not look forward to a long blog when I return on Monday!
I found out some interesting news about where we stayed at in KL. There are these two Muslim girls in my Islam class that befriended me. The other day we were talking about KL again, and I mentioned I stayed at Chow Kit, the district where out hostel way. Apparently this is the red light district in the city, explains for all the sketchiness and dirty streets.... We went out to lunch in between our class and tutorial (discussion class) and ended up eating for the whole two hours talking about random stuff. I learned that what I read about different Muslim coverings was wrong, they told me it was just a personal preference. The girls said that in Malaysia, every Muslim is expected to cover their heads, so a lot of them decide that this means they can expose their forearms (wear short sleeves), one of them shivered and said this is just to indecent. She also told me her mom wears a burka, and she doesn't understand why, she's never liked it. So it's a personal/regional thing. Its always interesting to read about a culture then actually experience it. They asked me about Muslims where I am from, and I had an interesting time explaining to them how I have never seen a head-wrapped Muslim on the streets of Daytona Beach. Honestly, I don't think I"ve ever seen one in the US in my life, but look where I have lived.... not in big cities with a variety of people. ON our way to our tutorial, the girls said they had to stop and pray and I was more than welcome to tag along, so I did. There are 4 prayer rooms on campus, 2 for each sex. I wasn't expected to be invited in, as the prayer room at the Nat'l Mosque in KL didn't allow non-believers, but I Took my shoes off and entered when they went in. It was a small janitor's closet room with rugs on the floor, some Arabic scripture, and a clothing line for the prayer clothes. It was kind of neat, being invited to witness something that I would expect to be personal. I think it would be weird if a Christian invited me into a church to watch them pray, but then again Muslims pray more than Christians, so its more common thing to do.
Hopefully I'll get some kind of internet in Bintan so I can update everyone on my weekend, if not look forward to a long blog when I return on Monday!
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Health Care in Singapore
So I had a gross ingrown toenail. Yes, I am telling you for a reason. It got bad, and lets just say I needed to go to the doctor. My school's website lists doctors offices near school, so I called the one closest to us that was opened on Sunday (8am-12pm, 7pm-9pm, odd). It was walk-in only, costs S$28 to visit plus the cost of whatever treatment I needed. We were required to buy group health insurance through the school. I read the pamphlet and it was for hospitalizations, surgeries, and death. It did not cover these kinds of doctors visits. So, Alma and I headed out for a run around the mall until 7pm and we came to the doctors office. There was a line outside the door starting a couple minutes before it opened. Everyone walked inside and got a queue number. There was only one doctor in the day (they had 2 at that clinic) since it was Sunday. They rang a bell telling you who was up and which room to go in. The four people ahead of me went by in less than 15 minutes. At my turn, I went into a regular clinic room and sat down next to a desk with the doctor. I learned he had spent lots of time in the US, so he had a good American accent (lots of Singaporeans have a British accent, as this was a British colony). He told me a part of the nail had to be removed and I said okay let's do it. 6 shots of local anesthetic and about 3 tools later, my toe was better. It needed to be rapped in gauze and tape, and I look like I have a mummy toe, but it was better. It still hurts though :( He gave me a RX for pain/swelling (non narcotics). It came to a total of S$89. This was pretty impressive, as my RX, and 2 bottles of anesthetic with the gauze rapping was only S$60 for no insurance. Good job Singapore!
Afterwards, Alma and I decided to grab some food at the mall so I could take my pain meds. I had gotten a recommendation for this Indian restraint in the mall, a sit down place, so we decided to sit down. It was a very authentic place, we were the only non-Indians in the restraint. I ordered naan (tortilla-like bread) stuffed with chicken and onions and Alma ordered chicken in this sauce. The waiter, after already rolling his eyes at us for not knowing what we wanted to eat after sitting down for 3 minutes, kind of laughed at both of us. He told Alma she was ordering just a sauce and needed bread or rice or something to go with her meal, she ordered plain naan. He told me that even though it said stuffed naan, (I was thinking quesadilla style) that I needed a sauce, and he recommended their medium spicy chicken curry. I also ordered tea, as my allergies are back and my throat hurts.
Everyone around us was mainly eating with their hands. Not just the bread or chicken, but like rice. Chinmay told us southern Indians eat with their hands (right hand only). It is still strange for me to see people eating like this, since I'm just not used to it. Alma told me when she was in Honduras doing a home stay for a couple weeks, they ate with their hands there too. Then my tea came (see FB photo). The tea came in this small sauce dish, and inside the sauce dish was a miniature tin cup that was about 3 inches tall. It was sitting inside the liquid with liquid with it to. We laughed, I had NO idea what to do with it. Do I pour it in my water glass? Am I supposed to get another mug? We asked the waiter who laughed at us. You pour the liquid back and forth from the dish to the mini cup to mix it and then drink it out of the mini cup with the extra liquid still in the dish. It was a great meal though!
The doctor was not the first person who thought I was Australian. I understand that unless you are a native English speaker, it is hard to pick up the British/American/Aussie accent, just as most Americans cannot pick up the different Chinese dialects or Spanish accents. I'm still a bit confused though, I have no met many Australians here, even thought my contact is limited to the foreigners at the various universities. Americans and Aussies dress similarly, as Europeans usually stand out next to Americans from their clothing. I still have yet to figure out why people have just jumped to Aussie....
There are these baby shoes that drive me nuts. I have never seen them in the US, but I am also not a mother. They are for toddlers, and when you step, they make this dog toy squeaky sounds. When the babies run, you hear this obnoxious quick squeak. Alma said she's heard a baby running over the MRT noise at a station before. It reminds me of getting a bell for a cats collar so you know when they are silently wandering around, up to no good. We ran into a few at the mall today.
The majority of people speak Singlish here. Its Chinese (Sing-) with English (-lish). They have their own phrases, which sound like butchered English to me, and have other little twerks. 'La' is one, at the end of Singlish
Afterwards, Alma and I decided to grab some food at the mall so I could take my pain meds. I had gotten a recommendation for this Indian restraint in the mall, a sit down place, so we decided to sit down. It was a very authentic place, we were the only non-Indians in the restraint. I ordered naan (tortilla-like bread) stuffed with chicken and onions and Alma ordered chicken in this sauce. The waiter, after already rolling his eyes at us for not knowing what we wanted to eat after sitting down for 3 minutes, kind of laughed at both of us. He told Alma she was ordering just a sauce and needed bread or rice or something to go with her meal, she ordered plain naan. He told me that even though it said stuffed naan, (I was thinking quesadilla style) that I needed a sauce, and he recommended their medium spicy chicken curry. I also ordered tea, as my allergies are back and my throat hurts.
Everyone around us was mainly eating with their hands. Not just the bread or chicken, but like rice. Chinmay told us southern Indians eat with their hands (right hand only). It is still strange for me to see people eating like this, since I'm just not used to it. Alma told me when she was in Honduras doing a home stay for a couple weeks, they ate with their hands there too. Then my tea came (see FB photo). The tea came in this small sauce dish, and inside the sauce dish was a miniature tin cup that was about 3 inches tall. It was sitting inside the liquid with liquid with it to. We laughed, I had NO idea what to do with it. Do I pour it in my water glass? Am I supposed to get another mug? We asked the waiter who laughed at us. You pour the liquid back and forth from the dish to the mini cup to mix it and then drink it out of the mini cup with the extra liquid still in the dish. It was a great meal though!
The doctor was not the first person who thought I was Australian. I understand that unless you are a native English speaker, it is hard to pick up the British/American/Aussie accent, just as most Americans cannot pick up the different Chinese dialects or Spanish accents. I'm still a bit confused though, I have no met many Australians here, even thought my contact is limited to the foreigners at the various universities. Americans and Aussies dress similarly, as Europeans usually stand out next to Americans from their clothing. I still have yet to figure out why people have just jumped to Aussie....
There are these baby shoes that drive me nuts. I have never seen them in the US, but I am also not a mother. They are for toddlers, and when you step, they make this dog toy squeaky sounds. When the babies run, you hear this obnoxious quick squeak. Alma said she's heard a baby running over the MRT noise at a station before. It reminds me of getting a bell for a cats collar so you know when they are silently wandering around, up to no good. We ran into a few at the mall today.
The majority of people speak Singlish here. Its Chinese (Sing-) with English (-lish). They have their own phrases, which sound like butchered English to me, and have other little twerks. 'La' is one, at the end of Singlish
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Asian Civilisations Museum
Be prepared to learn:
South East Asia Exhibit:
South East Asia Exhibit:
- in 1866, Raffles divided the main city into two parts, the government and business section, located on the different sides on the river (how they still are today)
- The museum was built in 1866 initially as a government building where local Singaporeans (who were the "first" Singaporean generations, who came from mainly South China) could get their ID cards and birth certificates. For the museum, they build an exterior structure around the original building to keep it safe and to add amenities such as electricity and air control
- burials were a transition into another afterlife, so people were buried with pots full of things they would need, such as food, clothes, jewelry (wealthy), and other things. The Earliest civilizations buried these pots at the feet. As time went on, the pots were buried more towards the middle and face, and eventually set on the arms of the deceased.
- The decorations of bronze and clay artifacts were of that the people saw, such as stars, palm trees, leaves, waves, etc. They also had a symbol prevalent throughout the south east, even though it was multiple meanings. It looks like a small hump. In some places, this was meant to represent God's eye to watch over you. In some, it was the symbol of fertility, the breast. Couples who wanted children would rub on it for good luck and fertility.
- The Vietnamese buried their people with Dong Son drums, which are still used today, but as water pots instead of burial and ceremonial artifacts. The more you had in your grave, the wealthier you were. Those who could not afford a drum for burial, would make mini ones that fit in your hand. The original ones were as tall as your knees.
- Buddhism is prevalent throughout South east Asia. As an example in Angkor Wat, Cambodia, the Buddhist temples have small steps that can only fit half of your foot, causing one to bow down when walking up. This is still used today, as it forces you to bow, showing respect to the Buddhist Gods
- Buddha is shown sometimes as meditating within Naga, the snake. Naga has 7 heads, representing the 7 energy points of yoga. His heads are spread out above Buddha to protect him from the rain. Buddha is also sitting on top of 3 coils of the snake. This shows an example of when/where the many gods/deities were first sculptured. This one shows it was created during the rainy season, as the heads protect Buddha from the rain and sitting on his coils keep him from the floods. Some also show him in.out of clothes, meaning it could have been in the winter, or the humid months.
- In Cambodia, when Buddhism was first brought there, the Cambodian God told the sculptures to make the Buddha statues have the kind'sg face, since nobody knew what he looked like (since he was from India). This way, when people say Buddha, they would think their kind was a god.
- Those who follow Buddha and do not reach nirvana are called Quam An. They usually have multiple hands to show they can multi-task, answering many prayers at once.
- Some villages show Buddha as more feminine than masculine (he was a man), to show their mothering and protecting qualities.
- In Highland Indonesia, they had soul locks, usually Necklaces places on a baby at birth. As they grew older, it would be replaces with a larger one. This represented literally its name, to keep the soul in place within the body. When they died, it would be removed to let the soul move on to the afterlife
- In Vietnam, it was popular for the people to dress their children in hats with red pom-poms, representing flowers. This was so, when the children played outside, the flowers would protect them from the other bad spirits on the air.
- Blue and red were very popular colors, as blue was from the indigo plant and was readily available, and red was the color of protection and celebration. However, if one was dressed completely in red without any other colors present, if worn before death, this meant the person wanted to seek major revenge in his next life.
- Dajak's, Indonesian Islanders (this is gruesome, just FYI)
- when a boy was ready to become a man, he head-hunter. He would go out into the woods, and return with a human skull. He needed to show he was artistic as well as a good hunter, so the boy would shave the skull and tattoo the bone with etchings. There would be a place in the family house to show off the good warrior/artistic skills of the family men, so he would put the skull in this room, which would be filled with them on display.
- The hair from the skulls would be displayed on a shield, which represented rank. The more hair (or holes for the hair, in case it fell out) you had on your shield, the higher rank/more seasoned warrior you were.
- Sometimes they would eat the killed if there was a famine, but not in everyday practice.
- When a woman was 3 months pregnant, just enough to start showing, the husband would go to a nearby village to find a boy or girl to kill, depending on which he was hoping to have. He would bring back the skull, and drain the blood onto his wife's pregnant belly, as a sign of transferring the spirit of the killed child into the unborn child. They literally thought this was how a baby was made.
- Bataks
- Christianity transferred these Islanders into non-head hunters
- They stayed in "long house", which held ~140 people. There was 1 small room, meant for the tribes eldest/head to sleep in
- The houses were carved with the legends of that particular tribe
- They had medicine men/witch doctors. The medicine book they held had three purposes, cure, prevent, and kill enemies. (Gruesome again) The medicine men had staffs with wooden "fringe" coming out of it, which was like a stopper to a hollow part of the staff. The doctor would find a very strong men (or boy) and fill up his orifices with mercury so no air could get out. While he is still alive, the man would cut out the beating heart and boil it it. The liquid was then poured into the staff and it was stopped up.
- It is part of national education for Singaporeans to learn Islam, Hindu, and Buddhism to learn to be tolerant to all religions.
- This room was filled with mainly Islamic writing of the Quran, it was like an art exhibit.
- Middle Easterners bring their own rugs into the mosque to pray
- Qurans are on a stand. This is so, when a person is praying or neeling, the Quran is held higher than his knees
- they had a projector screen in front of a rug and on the ceiling. It scrolled through various mosques around the world so you got the feeling you were actually inside of one
- in mosques, there are these 3 step staircases. Imam's preach at the 2nd step to project their voice, as the 1st step is left for Muhammad.
- A haj for Singaporeans now a days (the pilgrimage to Mecca, as part as a requirement in ones lifetime to meet one of the 5 pillars of Islam) it takes about a month, as you stay in tents (not hotels). Here, they wear all white on their journey and it costs about 10,000 Sing $.
- Qurans are put into special boxes when not being used
- Muslims have so much geometrical patterns in their architecture and art because Muhammad asked that no animal/person be worshiped
- Mini Qurans were created back in the day, so they could be put on the staffs of the first soldiers to ride into war so the Quran would protect them
- Most Singaporeans migrated from South China and can speak most the dialects of Chinese
- Xingjiang province, which is north of Tibet province, is where the majority of Chinese Muslims are from
- Filial Piety is the practice of respecting your elders. In this old famous ancient book there is a quote
- When the parents are alive, one must not travel far. If one must, ones whereabouts should always be made known
- Elders are buried or cremated with fabric (or stones, in the old times) with drawings of filial piety stories. One of the stories is as follows:
- There was a 3 generation family living in a village that was experienced a famine. The grandmother said she would not eat so her grandchild would eat. The son said, I only have one mother, but I can have many more children. As the son went to bury his child so his mother could eat, the heavens were so touched, he struck gold when he shoveled his first shovel of dirt. They lived happily ever after
- The emperor was thought to be the son of heaven. He had his main robes, and then robes for his birthday and festivals. Different colors represented different things; yellow was the sun, blue was the moon, and various others were for the seasons
- Robes with birds showed a rank of civilian in the emperors court, and all other animals were for the military.
- Calligraphy is one of the highly sought after skills by a Chinese person (as well as musician and reciting poems/historical facts)
- She told me this is why so many Singaporean parents want their children to learn to play a musical instrument
- For those who cannot afford calligraphy pens, back in the day when all the men had long braids, they would whip their hair around and use the end of their pony tail braids to write with
- Now, the new tradition and highest quality brush is made from baby's hair. It is a new thing to shave the first head of hair a baby grows, for luck. It is then shipped into China, and a calligraphy brush is made from it.
- In ancient China, all of the good/nicely made artifacts were kept for the Kingdom and the mess-ups were exported. Now, its the opposite, the Chinese keep the bad quality stuff and only export the best.
- Most Indians who come to Singapore are from South India
- Shira is one of the main gods celebrated by Hinduism. He is the god of energy and destruction. He is always shown to be dancing (with one foot up), to represent he is always energetic. The day he stops dancing is the day of the end of the world
- One of his sons, another God, has an elephant head. The story says that the father went away for a long time to learn. When he returned, the son did not recognize him and wouldn't let him into the house. The mother was in the shower, so she could not tell the son this was his father. The father was so mad that he couldn't come in, he cut off his son's head. The mother heard the screaming and came yelled at Shira for cutting off her son's head. She demanded that since he was a good hunter, he needed to replace his son's head. He found the first animal in the woods, an elephant, and cut off his head and gave it to his son. You can tell the "person with the elephant head" is a little boy, as his trunk always is shown to carry a little basket full of sweets.
- This exhibit was set up in the many rooms as a Hindi temple, where certain rooms are saved for certain things. The most important room is where they store the gods (the statues). This museum room was also the most important rule back in 1866, it was the treasury room. The vault door into the safe is still standing and you can see the large heavy door with the stamp on it still.
Cheesecake please, hold the peanuts
This weekend, we decided to stay in Singapore to enjoy the Chingay Parade, which I read on Singapore's website that it a world famous parade holding over 200,000 people. This parade celebrates the ending of CNY, which is celebrated for 15 days (I realize that 15 days hasn't happened yet, but they wanted the parade to be on a weekend I'm assuming...). Last night and maybe tonight if we are up to it, we went out to the city center underneath the big ferris wheel to watch the parade. I found it a little disappointing. I Think it was because I was expecting a grand parade with huge floats and decorationg running around the whole city. Intstead, smaller groups and businesses had dancers and usualy one huge float, and they walked along a small semi-circle under the ferris wheel. It was still beautiful though, very colorful!
There were floats from the zoo, embassies, government groups, society groups, dance groups, schools, everything. The zoo was my favorite, as they handed out cute fans with bird facts and had these adorible giraffe costumes where they had a 7ft tall giraffe head attached to their waist, and would stick the head/neck into the crowd to be pet. We arrived a tad late because we mistaked where we were going. When Alma nad I got off the MRT station, we ran into a small fair near the marina. There were typical fair rides, food stations, and a huge floating dock with various CNY animals on the dock. We over head a lady at he information say that "the Chingay Parade was overthere". We had stumbled upon the RIver Hongboa 2011, which runs from Feb 1-13th. I asked the lady what it was, and she just kind of brushed me off, she looked like she didn't enjoy her job....
Well when we found the parade, we caught the tail end. The multiple groups would stop and perform, then continue on around the bend where they disappeared. At the end, all the groups lined back up, humans only (no floats) and all danced to this one song they played over and over and over again. I couldn't definatly beloeve there were 200,000 performing at this parade. There was one group that was trying ot beat the World Record for the longest parade dance group.
Tonight, the parade comes back out for another performance. We also say signs for this thing called CityWalk or CityTour, or something that was called "Singapore's biggest street dance party". I think we are going to check it out and see what in the world it is. Because I love Alma and want to embarass her (<3 haha), I will tell you about the ride back on the MRT. So we are fortunate enough to be at the end station of one of the 5 MRT lines near campus. This means when we go anywhere, we always get seats. Since it takes 30 min to get into the city JUST on the MRT alone, sitting is important. This also means that anywhere else we get on, there are no seats. Our feet were killing us from walking and standing for the parade, so one thing we and a few other people like to do it find where the cars connect and sit on the floor. Noone cares, its no big deal. Well Alma wore her dry-clean white pants last night. She hapened to sit near a moving part, meaning she got a huge black grease mark on her pants!!!! (She did manage to get it out later). I was trying to take a picture of it to show her how bad it was since it was on her butt, but we kept getting really weird and concerning stares so we stopped. Too funny!
It has gotten So hot here. HOTTTTT. Think like July in Florida, well maybe May because its not in the 100s, just the high 80s low 90s, and 100% humidity. But, everything is outside. I don't use the AC in my room, because its expensive. Nothing is super ACed like in FL because its expensive, and all the walkways, bathroms, etc are outside. Theres no breeze, apparently when I got here it was the end of the breeze. Great.
So today I went to the Asian Civilisations Museum (they did spell it with an 's', not 'z') because I have to do a museum response on the West Asia (Islam) exhibit for class. It was free students, which was great, and I came in just in time for the free volunteer-lead English tour of the museum, which I took. I Took notes, and I'll talk about the findings in the blog after this. I had an interesting run in on my way to the museum. I was listening to my ipod, walking across one of the beautiful bridges over the Singapore River, when this nicely dressed Asian in his late 20s started talking to me. I was like great, I don't want to buy anything from you, go away, but then he said, pointing to my forehead, you are happy, aren't you? I can tell by this. Yeah, it caught my attention. He started telling me how I am happy, and a month from now I will be receiving great news. He said I have a tendency to think too much, again pointing to my forehead. He said you think too much, you need to let your brain sleep. You can only get 50% done when you do this, letting your brain sleep will let you do 100%. He then went to talk about something like (he had a very think Indian accent) a women he knew who was like me (pointing to forehead and my legs/posture) who did something 5 year and 1 year ago, it was hard to understand his English. After this, we had crossed the bridge, and he said, I have never met you, we have never talked, but I can tell you this. I am studying Astronomy, and he shook my hand and said God Bless. Cool!
The museum was pretty much South East Asian-inspired exhibits, meaning China, Malay, Indonesia, and India. There was the Islamic (west asia) section. It mostly focused on influencial factors to Singapore's culture, such as religeon, thought, and art. Not history. Back in the day, South east asia was one big plot of land, not islands. Singapore was the tip of a mountain. Overtime, the land flooded, allowing Sinapore to stay above the waterlevel. This is why there was no "SIngapore" civilizations specifically from a long time ago. People wanted fertile land, near the water, better for living, eating, and trade. Who wants to live on top of a mountain? That is also why there aren't many ancient artifacts around S.E. ASia, it is too hot and humid and wet. The few that we have are from burials that were done to preserve artifacts and on dry land.
After the museum, I went to a coffee shop on the water for some over prices lattes and dessert. I ordered blue berry cheesecake. It came with a side of peanuts, drizzled in raspberry sauce. I still don't know what to think of that.
There were floats from the zoo, embassies, government groups, society groups, dance groups, schools, everything. The zoo was my favorite, as they handed out cute fans with bird facts and had these adorible giraffe costumes where they had a 7ft tall giraffe head attached to their waist, and would stick the head/neck into the crowd to be pet. We arrived a tad late because we mistaked where we were going. When Alma nad I got off the MRT station, we ran into a small fair near the marina. There were typical fair rides, food stations, and a huge floating dock with various CNY animals on the dock. We over head a lady at he information say that "the Chingay Parade was overthere". We had stumbled upon the RIver Hongboa 2011, which runs from Feb 1-13th. I asked the lady what it was, and she just kind of brushed me off, she looked like she didn't enjoy her job....
Well when we found the parade, we caught the tail end. The multiple groups would stop and perform, then continue on around the bend where they disappeared. At the end, all the groups lined back up, humans only (no floats) and all danced to this one song they played over and over and over again. I couldn't definatly beloeve there were 200,000 performing at this parade. There was one group that was trying ot beat the World Record for the longest parade dance group.
Tonight, the parade comes back out for another performance. We also say signs for this thing called CityWalk or CityTour, or something that was called "Singapore's biggest street dance party". I think we are going to check it out and see what in the world it is. Because I love Alma and want to embarass her (<3 haha), I will tell you about the ride back on the MRT. So we are fortunate enough to be at the end station of one of the 5 MRT lines near campus. This means when we go anywhere, we always get seats. Since it takes 30 min to get into the city JUST on the MRT alone, sitting is important. This also means that anywhere else we get on, there are no seats. Our feet were killing us from walking and standing for the parade, so one thing we and a few other people like to do it find where the cars connect and sit on the floor. Noone cares, its no big deal. Well Alma wore her dry-clean white pants last night. She hapened to sit near a moving part, meaning she got a huge black grease mark on her pants!!!! (She did manage to get it out later). I was trying to take a picture of it to show her how bad it was since it was on her butt, but we kept getting really weird and concerning stares so we stopped. Too funny!
It has gotten So hot here. HOTTTTT. Think like July in Florida, well maybe May because its not in the 100s, just the high 80s low 90s, and 100% humidity. But, everything is outside. I don't use the AC in my room, because its expensive. Nothing is super ACed like in FL because its expensive, and all the walkways, bathroms, etc are outside. Theres no breeze, apparently when I got here it was the end of the breeze. Great.
So today I went to the Asian Civilisations Museum (they did spell it with an 's', not 'z') because I have to do a museum response on the West Asia (Islam) exhibit for class. It was free students, which was great, and I came in just in time for the free volunteer-lead English tour of the museum, which I took. I Took notes, and I'll talk about the findings in the blog after this. I had an interesting run in on my way to the museum. I was listening to my ipod, walking across one of the beautiful bridges over the Singapore River, when this nicely dressed Asian in his late 20s started talking to me. I was like great, I don't want to buy anything from you, go away, but then he said, pointing to my forehead, you are happy, aren't you? I can tell by this. Yeah, it caught my attention. He started telling me how I am happy, and a month from now I will be receiving great news. He said I have a tendency to think too much, again pointing to my forehead. He said you think too much, you need to let your brain sleep. You can only get 50% done when you do this, letting your brain sleep will let you do 100%. He then went to talk about something like (he had a very think Indian accent) a women he knew who was like me (pointing to forehead and my legs/posture) who did something 5 year and 1 year ago, it was hard to understand his English. After this, we had crossed the bridge, and he said, I have never met you, we have never talked, but I can tell you this. I am studying Astronomy, and he shook my hand and said God Bless. Cool!
The museum was pretty much South East Asian-inspired exhibits, meaning China, Malay, Indonesia, and India. There was the Islamic (west asia) section. It mostly focused on influencial factors to Singapore's culture, such as religeon, thought, and art. Not history. Back in the day, South east asia was one big plot of land, not islands. Singapore was the tip of a mountain. Overtime, the land flooded, allowing Sinapore to stay above the waterlevel. This is why there was no "SIngapore" civilizations specifically from a long time ago. People wanted fertile land, near the water, better for living, eating, and trade. Who wants to live on top of a mountain? That is also why there aren't many ancient artifacts around S.E. ASia, it is too hot and humid and wet. The few that we have are from burials that were done to preserve artifacts and on dry land.
After the museum, I went to a coffee shop on the water for some over prices lattes and dessert. I ordered blue berry cheesecake. It came with a side of peanuts, drizzled in raspberry sauce. I still don't know what to think of that.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Vietnam Embassy
Not too much has been happening since I've got back into Singapore from CNY. I am starting to finalize everything to Vietnam and we booked a small ferry trip to Indonesia next weekend.
Indonesia is close enough to see here. There are many large and small island you can get to from Singapore via ferry. The beaches are beautiful and there are small and big towns, so whatever kind of beach vacation you can have its there. We are staying in a very rural-type beach area in Bintan Island, Indonesia the weekend of the 18th of Feb. Just Alma and I, relax in the water, snorkle, see local culture, etc.
I've been looking at Vietnam hotels, nice 3 star hotels run from 5-20 USD /night. Wow. So cheap! There are many hotesl to chose from in Hue, which is surprising because it is not THAT Big of a city, but you are close to the river, the bridge, and all the main sights. Got the DMZ and city tour booked, and we are taking the city tour on motorbikes! We keep hearing thats apart of the Vietnam experiance, the motor bike haha. So I went to the embassy on Wednesday to get my via. Online, they said it cost 25USD (like high 30's Sing $$).They are only opened from 9-12 every morning. I had class, so I got off the MRT/bus at 1130. It seemed like an easy walk down a side road, however there was construction going on and all of the street signs were covered. I decided to grab a cab because I was scared I wouldn't be able to make it in the 30 min that I had. He drove 1km down the road hahaha. But the embassy was located a short distance off the main road in the millionaires neighborhood. MAN, these were some huge houses! Multiple tories with large grecian collums near the front, water fountains the the round-a-bout driveways, all complete with entry gates. Then you come upon this not so nice looking building with a tiny gate and the smallest "Vietnam EMbassy" sign. I walked up, there were people otu from just hanging out. IT looked like someones house. Now I've never been in an embassy before, but this was not that I expected. You walk into a room and there were two open rooms off to the side and that was it. No welcome desk, no visitors only, no signs. I stood and looked around and a guy called me in to the room. He was standing in from of a shelf, no desk, no uniform, and asked me what I wanted. I told a visa and handed him my paperwork. He said it cost 84 Sing$ for a single entry. Well, thanks for the bad webs site info! I handed him my stuff and he said it would take 1 week, handed me a reciept, and that was that. Took 3 seconds.
I'm starting to miss food. Now, at first I thought it was that I missed American food, but its not. Since I havent lived in the dorms for a long time, and that time was short, I cooked all my meals all the time, for Townsend and I especially. I'm so used to eating what I want, when I want, and cooking it. I'm sick of this food more because I get the same choice everyday all the time and that is it. No variety. And its ALLL rice + meat. Maybe they'lll have veggies that I can recognize every now and then. The "western" food is stuff like chicken and spagetti, very odd. And they have chicken fingers, and that's pretty much it. There is a subway, which is good. Canadian Pizza, which is NOT a Canadian fast food joint as I've asked my Canadian friends who live in West Canada. Its not good anyway, there is no cheese, its all veggie, meat, or Hawaiian. All over town, what choices..... McD's is here too. You can get an ice cream cone for 40 cents US. Now, I don't eat this at home, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I ordered a spicy chicken sandwhich. I took a bite, and it was the bad meat. I mean, I know its McD's, but when you order chicken from a fast food place, it atleast looks white. This was the bad gross dark brown/grey slimy meat, it was so gross..... I didn't finish it.
Speaking of food, there are two Muslim girls in my Islam class that I have befriended. They were talking to me about the variety of food in Singapore, as thye are both locals. They were also very excited to hear about my trip to KL, because there was a lot of halal food. So, Muslims have to eat halal-approved food. So there are halal-approved resteraunts here. Apparently, there are not very many in Singapore, but KL is the place to be for food fodr them, as they have a huge population. It made sense, as I was remembering there was no pork on my TGI Fridays menu. There were beef sprinkles (bacon), beef ribs, etc.
Alma and I also noticed something else in KL, the variety of coverings for a Muslim women. It all depends on which school of law the family follows; there were burkas, the complete covering of everything except the eyes, we saw a good handful of that around KL. The majority of women there, as well as Singapore, cover everythign but that face. This means shoes, pants, long sleeves, and head wraps. Sometimes they wear sandels. In KL, we also saw some Muslims women who had their arms exposed, wearing short sleeve clothing. I cound't find online why this is it. I also learned that in places like Turkey and France, it is illegal for Muslims to Hajib (this covering) in public and private schools.
Just something I noticed the other day. So unlike China, were people constantly wanted to take photos of us, Singaporeans see Caucasian everyday, or atleast a couple times in their life. There have been a handful of tourists that will stop us to take photos with us, which is slightly odd, but no harm done. But, there are still a good number of folk, usually away from NTU, like in Little India or on public transportation that like to stare. Most of them will continue to stare when we catch them glaring, its quite off. I was in line waiting for the bus the other day getting my visa, and a Caucasian lady got off the bus. As I watched her, she did a double take at me. I kind of laughed, I wasn't wearing everything out of the ordinary. After she left, another Caucasian lady came to wait at the bus stop. I looked at her. Then I did again to check out her purse (it was cute). I realized, even we do double takes at Caucasian ! They are such a rarity, considering how used to it we are at home, that Indians and Chinese people here in Singapore aren't the only ones double looking at us.
Indonesia is close enough to see here. There are many large and small island you can get to from Singapore via ferry. The beaches are beautiful and there are small and big towns, so whatever kind of beach vacation you can have its there. We are staying in a very rural-type beach area in Bintan Island, Indonesia the weekend of the 18th of Feb. Just Alma and I, relax in the water, snorkle, see local culture, etc.
I've been looking at Vietnam hotels, nice 3 star hotels run from 5-20 USD /night. Wow. So cheap! There are many hotesl to chose from in Hue, which is surprising because it is not THAT Big of a city, but you are close to the river, the bridge, and all the main sights. Got the DMZ and city tour booked, and we are taking the city tour on motorbikes! We keep hearing thats apart of the Vietnam experiance, the motor bike haha. So I went to the embassy on Wednesday to get my via. Online, they said it cost 25USD (like high 30's Sing $$).They are only opened from 9-12 every morning. I had class, so I got off the MRT/bus at 1130. It seemed like an easy walk down a side road, however there was construction going on and all of the street signs were covered. I decided to grab a cab because I was scared I wouldn't be able to make it in the 30 min that I had. He drove 1km down the road hahaha. But the embassy was located a short distance off the main road in the millionaires neighborhood. MAN, these were some huge houses! Multiple tories with large grecian collums near the front, water fountains the the round-a-bout driveways, all complete with entry gates. Then you come upon this not so nice looking building with a tiny gate and the smallest "Vietnam EMbassy" sign. I walked up, there were people otu from just hanging out. IT looked like someones house. Now I've never been in an embassy before, but this was not that I expected. You walk into a room and there were two open rooms off to the side and that was it. No welcome desk, no visitors only, no signs. I stood and looked around and a guy called me in to the room. He was standing in from of a shelf, no desk, no uniform, and asked me what I wanted. I told a visa and handed him my paperwork. He said it cost 84 Sing$ for a single entry. Well, thanks for the bad webs site info! I handed him my stuff and he said it would take 1 week, handed me a reciept, and that was that. Took 3 seconds.
I'm starting to miss food. Now, at first I thought it was that I missed American food, but its not. Since I havent lived in the dorms for a long time, and that time was short, I cooked all my meals all the time, for Townsend and I especially. I'm so used to eating what I want, when I want, and cooking it. I'm sick of this food more because I get the same choice everyday all the time and that is it. No variety. And its ALLL rice + meat. Maybe they'lll have veggies that I can recognize every now and then. The "western" food is stuff like chicken and spagetti, very odd. And they have chicken fingers, and that's pretty much it. There is a subway, which is good. Canadian Pizza, which is NOT a Canadian fast food joint as I've asked my Canadian friends who live in West Canada. Its not good anyway, there is no cheese, its all veggie, meat, or Hawaiian. All over town, what choices..... McD's is here too. You can get an ice cream cone for 40 cents US. Now, I don't eat this at home, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I ordered a spicy chicken sandwhich. I took a bite, and it was the bad meat. I mean, I know its McD's, but when you order chicken from a fast food place, it atleast looks white. This was the bad gross dark brown/grey slimy meat, it was so gross..... I didn't finish it.
Speaking of food, there are two Muslim girls in my Islam class that I have befriended. They were talking to me about the variety of food in Singapore, as thye are both locals. They were also very excited to hear about my trip to KL, because there was a lot of halal food. So, Muslims have to eat halal-approved food. So there are halal-approved resteraunts here. Apparently, there are not very many in Singapore, but KL is the place to be for food fodr them, as they have a huge population. It made sense, as I was remembering there was no pork on my TGI Fridays menu. There were beef sprinkles (bacon), beef ribs, etc.
Alma and I also noticed something else in KL, the variety of coverings for a Muslim women. It all depends on which school of law the family follows; there were burkas, the complete covering of everything except the eyes, we saw a good handful of that around KL. The majority of women there, as well as Singapore, cover everythign but that face. This means shoes, pants, long sleeves, and head wraps. Sometimes they wear sandels. In KL, we also saw some Muslims women who had their arms exposed, wearing short sleeve clothing. I cound't find online why this is it. I also learned that in places like Turkey and France, it is illegal for Muslims to Hajib (this covering) in public and private schools.
Just something I noticed the other day. So unlike China, were people constantly wanted to take photos of us, Singaporeans see Caucasian everyday, or atleast a couple times in their life. There have been a handful of tourists that will stop us to take photos with us, which is slightly odd, but no harm done. But, there are still a good number of folk, usually away from NTU, like in Little India or on public transportation that like to stare. Most of them will continue to stare when we catch them glaring, its quite off. I was in line waiting for the bus the other day getting my visa, and a Caucasian lady got off the bus. As I watched her, she did a double take at me. I kind of laughed, I wasn't wearing everything out of the ordinary. After she left, another Caucasian lady came to wait at the bus stop. I looked at her. Then I did again to check out her purse (it was cute). I realized, even we do double takes at Caucasian ! They are such a rarity, considering how used to it we are at home, that Indians and Chinese people here in Singapore aren't the only ones double looking at us.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
KL Day 4; History of Malaysia
As I have been forgetting to mention, it has been tremendously hot since we have been here, hotter than Singapore and just as humid. Students back at NTU said its been getting hotter there, so I think we are exiting "winter season" and getting into an even hotter one. The temperature range in Singapore throughout the year during the day I don't believe ranges more than 10 degrees F (highest EVER recorded being around 92 and lowest EVER recorded around 71), but its just so hot here. This meant we decided to keep the day somewhat short and spend most of the day in the National Museum.
We decided to sleep in a little, since I have been staying up until 2am Skyping and writing blogs, and the others decided to go out at 11pm last night and explore until wee- hours of the night. Our first stop of the day was the National Museum of Malaysia (not the Malaysian Museum, which was right beside it, which was slightly confusing). It was actually a small museum, with 4 rooms in 2 stories going from pre-historic peoples through colonialism to present day. Here is what I learned:
There are many ancient (very ancient) burials and artifacts that have been discovered in the Malaysian peninsula. One of the most famous burial ruins, housing 35 bodies, is Gua Cha which is in Malaysia. It is 8,000 years old. This room featured what southeast Asia was like back in 225 million years ago during the age of Pangaea, and went through pre-human civilizations, burials, and artifacts that have been found in the region.
The next exhibit was the history of the kingdoms of Malaysia. There has been evidence showing the earliest kingdoms went back to the 2nd century AD. Power was exchanged through birth and different families had power, just like what you would think. Even through the years of different occupations (see more later), the kingdom was prevalent in Malaysia. This has always been one of the earliest ports of trade, coming from the Middle east and other parts of Asia. There have been many findings from sunken ships and looking at underwater artifacts to tell about the history. There have been hand-written Qurans discovered here from the kingdoms. This room also held about 200 years worth of maps from 1694-1830's. Most of the coastlines were similar, but some where not, kind of cool to look at. I learned Brunei (its one of the countries on the island of Borneo) originally had the whole Borneo island and parts of Indonesia in its kingdom, but it lost power in the 19th century and then the British came. Now its the tiny little city-state-like country it is today.
The third exhibit housed the colonial era. In 1511, the Portuguese sent explorers to the east. Some entered the hands of the Malacca's (Big Malaysian city), and some lower level people of importance were killed. Portugal got upset and sent an armada to take over. After 2 tries, the had occupied and controlled the Malacca's. The Malacca's fought back with an army said to be 20,000 people with 20 elephants (can you imagine, elephants in the army!). For over 150 years, Portugal rules Malaysia who continuously tried to fight back. They managed to stop the spread of Portugal into Bintan (Indonesia). The Dutch, who hated the Protugese, decided they wanted to try for the great Malaysia trade, and beat the Portuguese and claimed the land. Many from the north and east came to help fight back, but the Dutch won. A treaty much later on gave Malacca to the British, where they occupied the majority of the country. On Penang Island (I will visit here sometime), the UNESCO world heritage site of the town of Georgetown still stands, where the British occupation began and they built this colonial city which still stands alongside their defensive position at Fort Cornwalis. Malaysia was a great place for many goods, still today 20% of the world's natural rubber comes from here, as well as rice fields and coffee fields. The government, during the colonial days, offered 3 years of waved taxes for any farmer who planted coffee, a non-native plant brought it from Sri Lanka at the time. There was a brief blurb about the ~6 years occupation by Japan, which led you to believe it wasn't this long.
The next and final room started from the early 50's when Malaysia finally was by itself and trying to make a constitution. It was a little odd that the 40s were completely skipped, there was no mention about the resistance movements towards Japan, or the fact that the Malaysia's tried to help protect Singapore from Japan but lost. Nothing. Anyway, in the early 50's, the king chose some top men to be his ad visors and they had a few years worth of meetings with surrounding countries for help on choosing a system of government and witting a constitution. There was so much influence from the Islamic world, local South east Asia, and the British that it took a long time for the constitution to be written. Finally, in March of 1957, the Prime Minister came out to the country and to the world with the constitution and the official beginning of the country of Malaysia under their own government rule. They have the table the papers were presented on in the museum. Also during this time, was the State of Emergency. This started in 1950, when the Malaysian Communist party (MCP) formed, a communist group influenced by WWII. The MCP killed 3 British men, their first terrorist attack on the country. After the country was put into the emergency state, the MCPdisban until 1989.
The first Malaysia military was gathered together in March of 1933, where a group of 25 men from the "Experimental Malaysian Company" were sent to help fight against the Japanese. By 1950, there had been 7 Battalions formed. Now, at the age of 18 men are required to go through 3 months of boot camp (bonding as the poster called it) and they are picked by a draft system.
The government is said to be a "constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary democracy". This means there is a king and queen, who are the military leaders and head. His first advisor is the prime minister, who also is in charge of Parliament. There are also sultans, who are relatives of the king, who lead the 13 states of Malaysia, and are only allowed to keep 5 years in power at one time.
I also learned the Petronas buildings were finished in 1999 and designed by an American architect. They sent their first astronaut into space in 2007.
One our way to the museum, we were trying to find a taxi and stumbled upon another Hindu temple. There was a ceremony inside, and we stood outside and watched for a bit. Chin May explained that the temples are for one person (their name is in the temple name), but as all gods, good and bad, are in a place together (like heaven), all temples have many of the gods in them to worship. He also told me the meaning of "sri", which is in front of all the temple names. It is the equivalent of a formal male title, like Lord. So when you refer to the gods, this name is in front. I asked him if that is where Sri Lanka got its name and he said yes. A while back, a very bad unpopular ruler worshiped the god Lanka and decided to name the country and capital city Lanka and Sri Lanka. As he was a bad guy, the name was changed after a while when he was gone, but was changed back to Sri Lanka, as that is how everyone knows it by.
We went to the National Mosque next. we had to wait around for prayer to end, and we were given robes to cover ourselves and our heads. It wasn't very interesting, as you cannot go into any prayer rooms since we aren't Muslim. They had a cemetery there, just a small one for "VIP's", like the prime minister and government officials. We stopped by the National Palace, which is the ceremonial palace for the king. (he doesn't live there). You cannot enter the grounds, so everyone stands outside the main gate and takes pictures. ,You can only see the driveway, one of the parade grounds, and the tip tops of the dome toppings of the buildings. There are 2 ceremonial guards out front "guarding" it. I believe they are positioned after the guards places outside the palace in Britain, they stand there and do nothing and people take pictures around them. We saw a police escorted caravan guarding one expensive vehicle and we were all hopping it pulled into the palace, but of course it didn't. The history of the palace was in front, which is quite unusual. in 1928, the palace was built by a very rich man as his house. When the Japanese took over, the converted the house into the officer's mess hall. When the British came to help run out the Japanese during WWI/II, the Royal Air Force used this as their HQ. Finally, in 1957 when the country declared its Independence, the palace became the house of the king.
We had issues getting a taxi home, since we were next to a highway, but we got back to the hostel which is where I am typing now. We do not leave until midnight, but we have nowhere else to go so we are just hanging here!
We decided to sleep in a little, since I have been staying up until 2am Skyping and writing blogs, and the others decided to go out at 11pm last night and explore until wee- hours of the night. Our first stop of the day was the National Museum of Malaysia (not the Malaysian Museum, which was right beside it, which was slightly confusing). It was actually a small museum, with 4 rooms in 2 stories going from pre-historic peoples through colonialism to present day. Here is what I learned:
There are many ancient (very ancient) burials and artifacts that have been discovered in the Malaysian peninsula. One of the most famous burial ruins, housing 35 bodies, is Gua Cha which is in Malaysia. It is 8,000 years old. This room featured what southeast Asia was like back in 225 million years ago during the age of Pangaea, and went through pre-human civilizations, burials, and artifacts that have been found in the region.
The next exhibit was the history of the kingdoms of Malaysia. There has been evidence showing the earliest kingdoms went back to the 2nd century AD. Power was exchanged through birth and different families had power, just like what you would think. Even through the years of different occupations (see more later), the kingdom was prevalent in Malaysia. This has always been one of the earliest ports of trade, coming from the Middle east and other parts of Asia. There have been many findings from sunken ships and looking at underwater artifacts to tell about the history. There have been hand-written Qurans discovered here from the kingdoms. This room also held about 200 years worth of maps from 1694-1830's. Most of the coastlines were similar, but some where not, kind of cool to look at. I learned Brunei (its one of the countries on the island of Borneo) originally had the whole Borneo island and parts of Indonesia in its kingdom, but it lost power in the 19th century and then the British came. Now its the tiny little city-state-like country it is today.
The third exhibit housed the colonial era. In 1511, the Portuguese sent explorers to the east. Some entered the hands of the Malacca's (Big Malaysian city), and some lower level people of importance were killed. Portugal got upset and sent an armada to take over. After 2 tries, the had occupied and controlled the Malacca's. The Malacca's fought back with an army said to be 20,000 people with 20 elephants (can you imagine, elephants in the army!). For over 150 years, Portugal rules Malaysia who continuously tried to fight back. They managed to stop the spread of Portugal into Bintan (Indonesia). The Dutch, who hated the Protugese, decided they wanted to try for the great Malaysia trade, and beat the Portuguese and claimed the land. Many from the north and east came to help fight back, but the Dutch won. A treaty much later on gave Malacca to the British, where they occupied the majority of the country. On Penang Island (I will visit here sometime), the UNESCO world heritage site of the town of Georgetown still stands, where the British occupation began and they built this colonial city which still stands alongside their defensive position at Fort Cornwalis. Malaysia was a great place for many goods, still today 20% of the world's natural rubber comes from here, as well as rice fields and coffee fields. The government, during the colonial days, offered 3 years of waved taxes for any farmer who planted coffee, a non-native plant brought it from Sri Lanka at the time. There was a brief blurb about the ~6 years occupation by Japan, which led you to believe it wasn't this long.
The next and final room started from the early 50's when Malaysia finally was by itself and trying to make a constitution. It was a little odd that the 40s were completely skipped, there was no mention about the resistance movements towards Japan, or the fact that the Malaysia's tried to help protect Singapore from Japan but lost. Nothing. Anyway, in the early 50's, the king chose some top men to be his ad visors and they had a few years worth of meetings with surrounding countries for help on choosing a system of government and witting a constitution. There was so much influence from the Islamic world, local South east Asia, and the British that it took a long time for the constitution to be written. Finally, in March of 1957, the Prime Minister came out to the country and to the world with the constitution and the official beginning of the country of Malaysia under their own government rule. They have the table the papers were presented on in the museum. Also during this time, was the State of Emergency. This started in 1950, when the Malaysian Communist party (MCP) formed, a communist group influenced by WWII. The MCP killed 3 British men, their first terrorist attack on the country. After the country was put into the emergency state, the MCPdisban until 1989.
The first Malaysia military was gathered together in March of 1933, where a group of 25 men from the "Experimental Malaysian Company" were sent to help fight against the Japanese. By 1950, there had been 7 Battalions formed. Now, at the age of 18 men are required to go through 3 months of boot camp (bonding as the poster called it) and they are picked by a draft system.
The government is said to be a "constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary democracy". This means there is a king and queen, who are the military leaders and head. His first advisor is the prime minister, who also is in charge of Parliament. There are also sultans, who are relatives of the king, who lead the 13 states of Malaysia, and are only allowed to keep 5 years in power at one time.
I also learned the Petronas buildings were finished in 1999 and designed by an American architect. They sent their first astronaut into space in 2007.
One our way to the museum, we were trying to find a taxi and stumbled upon another Hindu temple. There was a ceremony inside, and we stood outside and watched for a bit. Chin May explained that the temples are for one person (their name is in the temple name), but as all gods, good and bad, are in a place together (like heaven), all temples have many of the gods in them to worship. He also told me the meaning of "sri", which is in front of all the temple names. It is the equivalent of a formal male title, like Lord. So when you refer to the gods, this name is in front. I asked him if that is where Sri Lanka got its name and he said yes. A while back, a very bad unpopular ruler worshiped the god Lanka and decided to name the country and capital city Lanka and Sri Lanka. As he was a bad guy, the name was changed after a while when he was gone, but was changed back to Sri Lanka, as that is how everyone knows it by.
We went to the National Mosque next. we had to wait around for prayer to end, and we were given robes to cover ourselves and our heads. It wasn't very interesting, as you cannot go into any prayer rooms since we aren't Muslim. They had a cemetery there, just a small one for "VIP's", like the prime minister and government officials. We stopped by the National Palace, which is the ceremonial palace for the king. (he doesn't live there). You cannot enter the grounds, so everyone stands outside the main gate and takes pictures. ,You can only see the driveway, one of the parade grounds, and the tip tops of the dome toppings of the buildings. There are 2 ceremonial guards out front "guarding" it. I believe they are positioned after the guards places outside the palace in Britain, they stand there and do nothing and people take pictures around them. We saw a police escorted caravan guarding one expensive vehicle and we were all hopping it pulled into the palace, but of course it didn't. The history of the palace was in front, which is quite unusual. in 1928, the palace was built by a very rich man as his house. When the Japanese took over, the converted the house into the officer's mess hall. When the British came to help run out the Japanese during WWI/II, the Royal Air Force used this as their HQ. Finally, in 1957 when the country declared its Independence, the palace became the house of the king.
We had issues getting a taxi home, since we were next to a highway, but we got back to the hostel which is where I am typing now. We do not leave until midnight, but we have nowhere else to go so we are just hanging here!
KL Day 3; Rained Out
This morning we had a nice plan of the day, which got quickly changed by rain and shopping, but none the less it was a success. We woke up to Traditional Thai massages we booked at a fancy salon in the Golden Triangle, the area where TGI Fridays was. As I found in China, Asian massages are like nothing you would get in the US or in the west on general. Thai was very similar. We were given jasmine tee while they got our room ready. All 3 of us girls went in for Traditional massages. First, the ladies gave us sandals and washed our feet. We all were in the same room with curtains around us, but they just closed them to the outside and not towards each other. We changed into a large shirt and pants and lied down on our backs on a mattress on the floor. The massages were rougher and involved pressure points and pushing rather than rubbing. They would also stretch and twist our body parts and sit on us to apply pressure. I enjoyed it, the other girls (this was their first massage) did not. The ladies did a very good job and the spa was nice, a very enjoyable experience.
We left for a lunch and headed to the other main city-like part of town, this is the part of the city where communities are rather than large buildings and shopping. This is where Chinatown, Little India, famous mosques, etc are. I noticed something on the way in; there are some words in Malay that are spelled like English phonetics. For example, taksi is taxi, muziem is museum, etc. Anyway, we started at the Central Market. We ended up staying here for a lot longer than expected because it was more like a craft market than a tourist facility, lots of locals and tourists were here. The Chinese ran stands were closed, still for CNY. There were trinket shops, clothing, textiles, hand carved wood, silver, antiques, everything. The first shop I enjoyed was this beautiful pottery-like store ran by an Iranian (it was also Iranian goods). Him and I talked about Southeast Asia, where to go and which beaches were the best. He was curious to ask me questions, as an American in Singapore, what it was like to go from a not-so-much-rules country to a strict country like Singapore, as, how he put it, he enjoyed going from rules-Iran to no-rules-Malaysia but missed the order sometimes. I asked him to tell me about his pottery, since I obviously couldn't afford the 150$ USD+ goods, I just wanted to know about it and he told me about it. It was actually copper, which amazed me because it looked like ceramics until you picked it up. It was painted white in the background, then with hand painted blue designs. It was scratch proof, fire proof, and shatter proof. He also pulled out a box made out of camel bone, which smelled like camel butt. I bought a barrette, which is inlaid wood with enamel and camel bone.
The next place I went to wasn't such a positive experience. It was a stall with brass inlaid wood and I found a tray I liked. I was talking to the guy for a while, he was Pakistani. I was trying to barter and I told him I was from the US. He started off with I don't mean to offend you, a bad sign right there, and went into this speech about how he believed most Pakistani's felt about the US as we left their country in shambles after helping them and this and that and we only help out countries of natural disasters to get our image up the world. But please, I don't mean to offend you. I just said I don't want the tray and I left.
I ended up buying a Turkish rug, a tad bigger than a welcome mat for 10$ USD and I also found an antique rummage-through kind of shop with clearance dishes. I bartered down to about $15 USD for a set of three large green Japanese bowls with a gold leaf pattern. Very pretty, and they're antiques :) Some thing we had also planned on trying, we found in the market, the massage fish! "Hello my name is doctor fish and i do not have teeth" read the sign of the cute fish spa in the market. A while ago in Turkey, some people discovered these fish that like to nibble off dead skin. There are many spas in few countries that have pools of these fish you can submerge your whole body in for exfoliation and micro-circulation. KL is famous for these little pools of fish that you stick your feet in. for about 2$USD, we all got to spend 10 min sticking our feet in a tank of well over 400 fish. I am not ticklish in my feet, but we all were screaming with laughter trying to get our feet in. Slowly but surely, we managed to get into our ankle. The fish would like suck, it was very odd and creepy. But our feet really did feel smoother after we did it!
It started raining, of course as soon as we left from the cover of the market, and we took refuge in the outskirts of Little India in a very local Nepalese restaurant, where we all got hard stares as the foreigners entered the locals-only place. Luckily, many of the waiters spoke Hindu, which Chin May speaks, and he ordered us some good snacks and helped with the waiter tried to double our bill price.
The rain had subsided so we went to Independence Square, a large field (think soccer field) where the Japanese Red Army officially surrendered to the people of Malaysia (there was no official government before this, just a king) after they surrendered to the world (Thanks, America). Anyway, it is in front of the beautifully large Government center for Info, Communication and something else. There is also one of the worlds largest flag poles on the square. We hung around Little India and Chinatown, which was full of pirated DVD's and purses. Finally, after eating at a nice local meal which I bartered because I only had 55 RM (Malaysia Ringgits) left for the next 24 hours, we got on to the bus.
The bus system here is very different than any bus system I've been on. (which is pretty much just Singapore haha). You get on the bus and they do not leave until the bus is somewhat full or, in the case of this night, we sat there for 20 minutes and nobody else wanted to get on. Then, someone goes around with little tickets and you give them money and they give you a ticket. There's no official exchange of where you are going or how much it costs to get there, its like an honor system or something. We decided not to go into the KL Patronas Towers after talking with a UK guy from the hostel. In the past year, the towers decided to charge a 3RM fee for coming to get a ticket, which tells you what time that day you can join your tour group. You can only go up to the bridge part of the towers (1/2 way up) and they are offices, so there is really nothing else to see. They told us that most of the time, you can get a ticket before 11am, but because it is CNY, they went at like 7am and the tickets had already been sold out! Office building aren't that worth it, and the bridge was at the height of the SkyBar we had went to the night before, so we know what that view looks like. You really can't get an idea of exactly how tall these buildings are until we were at the bar (the towers have 81 floors) and theres nothing NEAR as tall. And, with an exception of the jungle, EVERY place we went this weekend you could see the towers, EVERYWHERE. Awesome.
The architecture in this area, and many of the government buildings around, are Muslim influence. I mean this by the dome-point-like add-ons to the top of buildings and round/pointed doorways of the top of a mosque instead of traditional square doors in the west. There are many signs written in Malay, English, and Arabic. Many of the jalans (roads) are names after Muslim people as well.
We left for a lunch and headed to the other main city-like part of town, this is the part of the city where communities are rather than large buildings and shopping. This is where Chinatown, Little India, famous mosques, etc are. I noticed something on the way in; there are some words in Malay that are spelled like English phonetics. For example, taksi is taxi, muziem is museum, etc. Anyway, we started at the Central Market. We ended up staying here for a lot longer than expected because it was more like a craft market than a tourist facility, lots of locals and tourists were here. The Chinese ran stands were closed, still for CNY. There were trinket shops, clothing, textiles, hand carved wood, silver, antiques, everything. The first shop I enjoyed was this beautiful pottery-like store ran by an Iranian (it was also Iranian goods). Him and I talked about Southeast Asia, where to go and which beaches were the best. He was curious to ask me questions, as an American in Singapore, what it was like to go from a not-so-much-rules country to a strict country like Singapore, as, how he put it, he enjoyed going from rules-Iran to no-rules-Malaysia but missed the order sometimes. I asked him to tell me about his pottery, since I obviously couldn't afford the 150$ USD+ goods, I just wanted to know about it and he told me about it. It was actually copper, which amazed me because it looked like ceramics until you picked it up. It was painted white in the background, then with hand painted blue designs. It was scratch proof, fire proof, and shatter proof. He also pulled out a box made out of camel bone, which smelled like camel butt. I bought a barrette, which is inlaid wood with enamel and camel bone.
The next place I went to wasn't such a positive experience. It was a stall with brass inlaid wood and I found a tray I liked. I was talking to the guy for a while, he was Pakistani. I was trying to barter and I told him I was from the US. He started off with I don't mean to offend you, a bad sign right there, and went into this speech about how he believed most Pakistani's felt about the US as we left their country in shambles after helping them and this and that and we only help out countries of natural disasters to get our image up the world. But please, I don't mean to offend you. I just said I don't want the tray and I left.
I ended up buying a Turkish rug, a tad bigger than a welcome mat for 10$ USD and I also found an antique rummage-through kind of shop with clearance dishes. I bartered down to about $15 USD for a set of three large green Japanese bowls with a gold leaf pattern. Very pretty, and they're antiques :) Some thing we had also planned on trying, we found in the market, the massage fish! "Hello my name is doctor fish and i do not have teeth" read the sign of the cute fish spa in the market. A while ago in Turkey, some people discovered these fish that like to nibble off dead skin. There are many spas in few countries that have pools of these fish you can submerge your whole body in for exfoliation and micro-circulation. KL is famous for these little pools of fish that you stick your feet in. for about 2$USD, we all got to spend 10 min sticking our feet in a tank of well over 400 fish. I am not ticklish in my feet, but we all were screaming with laughter trying to get our feet in. Slowly but surely, we managed to get into our ankle. The fish would like suck, it was very odd and creepy. But our feet really did feel smoother after we did it!
It started raining, of course as soon as we left from the cover of the market, and we took refuge in the outskirts of Little India in a very local Nepalese restaurant, where we all got hard stares as the foreigners entered the locals-only place. Luckily, many of the waiters spoke Hindu, which Chin May speaks, and he ordered us some good snacks and helped with the waiter tried to double our bill price.
The rain had subsided so we went to Independence Square, a large field (think soccer field) where the Japanese Red Army officially surrendered to the people of Malaysia (there was no official government before this, just a king) after they surrendered to the world (Thanks, America). Anyway, it is in front of the beautifully large Government center for Info, Communication and something else. There is also one of the worlds largest flag poles on the square. We hung around Little India and Chinatown, which was full of pirated DVD's and purses. Finally, after eating at a nice local meal which I bartered because I only had 55 RM (Malaysia Ringgits) left for the next 24 hours, we got on to the bus.
The bus system here is very different than any bus system I've been on. (which is pretty much just Singapore haha). You get on the bus and they do not leave until the bus is somewhat full or, in the case of this night, we sat there for 20 minutes and nobody else wanted to get on. Then, someone goes around with little tickets and you give them money and they give you a ticket. There's no official exchange of where you are going or how much it costs to get there, its like an honor system or something. We decided not to go into the KL Patronas Towers after talking with a UK guy from the hostel. In the past year, the towers decided to charge a 3RM fee for coming to get a ticket, which tells you what time that day you can join your tour group. You can only go up to the bridge part of the towers (1/2 way up) and they are offices, so there is really nothing else to see. They told us that most of the time, you can get a ticket before 11am, but because it is CNY, they went at like 7am and the tickets had already been sold out! Office building aren't that worth it, and the bridge was at the height of the SkyBar we had went to the night before, so we know what that view looks like. You really can't get an idea of exactly how tall these buildings are until we were at the bar (the towers have 81 floors) and theres nothing NEAR as tall. And, with an exception of the jungle, EVERY place we went this weekend you could see the towers, EVERYWHERE. Awesome.
The architecture in this area, and many of the government buildings around, are Muslim influence. I mean this by the dome-point-like add-ons to the top of buildings and round/pointed doorways of the top of a mosque instead of traditional square doors in the west. There are many signs written in Malay, English, and Arabic. Many of the jalans (roads) are names after Muslim people as well.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
KL: Day 2; The Jungle Day
Had a fabulously long day at KL. Woke up at 630am and had a hostel breakfast of toast before catching a taxi with our little group of 4 people to find this train entrence I read about on one blog to a waterfall. Of course, the taxi driver said he knew were it was when we got in, but when we got around the area he started calling the taxi people on the radio for directions. He was nice enough to turn off the meter when we got lost for about 15 minutes. We were all cracking up in the back of the car as we would continuously go back and forth down the same roads and he was on the cell and radio trying to figure out where he was going. Finally, he figured it out (the first way we went) and it was like 5km down this dirt road literally in the middle of the jungle.
The jungle here was like nothing I thought; it was mainly bamboo and other types of trees I haven't seen; not many flowers or anything, probably becuase it wasn't a rain forest. Anyway, we enjoyed getting a tad lost among trails following this bloggers informative directions. Heard all sorts of monkey's hollering to each other but didn't spot any. Finally, we came to the trail to the waterfall! It was about 50ft tall, coming down from smooth rock around a corner surrounded by bolders. Of course, we all took our shoes off and got in! Alma immediatly got attacked by a leech, Maria soon after. We wandered around, it was beautiful, we were on the edge of a complete unknown wilderness and you could really tell.
We had ran into a couple locals who ran an ATV-tour through the jungle (why do people insist of destroying jungles with 4wheelers?) and they told us, as well as our taxi driver, that there was no way we would find a taxi back. We were told to stop by the ATV main HQ and they could help us get a ride home. After walking around for about 4 hours, we finally got to the ATV main HQ, which was a roofed patio (with cold water luckly) and a beautiful pool. It had rocks and boulders at the bottom and was fed using mountain water. We sat with our feet in, and luckly, some Europeans showed up so we used thei taxis to make our way to Batu Caves.
Batu caves are one of the most famous things in KL. On the outskirts of the city, there are small mountains. A Hindi temple was built inside two a joining caves, one covered and one opened up on the top. You clumb about 280 stairs to get into the temple. There are other temples around at the ground, and bad monkeys looking for tourist food everywhere! We went to eat, and since Chin May was with us (He's Indian), he ordered a mixture of Southern Indian food to try. We tehn climbed up the stairs and into the caves, it was beautiful! There were peacock statues and feathers everywhere; Chin May told us that each Hindi God had its animal that he travelled with, and the god which this temple was dedicated to rode a peacock. There was also this very provocative statue of a cox with breasts and a woman's face; this symbolized that the God was first married to a cow, before he married his wife who was a human. Interesting...
We decided after to head into a local craft market, but it was closed for Chinese New Year (CNY). The place is near what is known as the Golden Triangle, which is an area of the city full of "the main city", economy and tourism. It was much cleaner, nicer everything. After seeing this, I realized that we lived in the "average" part of town, hence why garbage wasn't necessarily picked up regularly or completely like it was here. Anyway, we couldn't decide which over prices resteraunt to eat in, so we went to TGI Fridays because it had happy hour (free drinks for ladies at 8) and it was the same price at home with the exchange rate, even a little less. Stayed for about 3 hours, drank and had a great time on the deck overlooking the main city which was still beautifully decorated from CNY. We then attempted to meet up with some other NTU kids at one of the coolest bars I've ever been called SkyBar. It was on the top floor of a hotel located about 3 blocks from the Petronas Towers. 3 of the 4 walls of the bar were complete windows, so you could see the towers, which were lit up RIGHT There and have a drink. It also had pools and hot tubs. We only lasted for about an hour, after complaining about how everything was important from Europe and the US so there was nothing under 100$ US to order....
It was a lovely day with great weather. Can't complain :)
The jungle here was like nothing I thought; it was mainly bamboo and other types of trees I haven't seen; not many flowers or anything, probably becuase it wasn't a rain forest. Anyway, we enjoyed getting a tad lost among trails following this bloggers informative directions. Heard all sorts of monkey's hollering to each other but didn't spot any. Finally, we came to the trail to the waterfall! It was about 50ft tall, coming down from smooth rock around a corner surrounded by bolders. Of course, we all took our shoes off and got in! Alma immediatly got attacked by a leech, Maria soon after. We wandered around, it was beautiful, we were on the edge of a complete unknown wilderness and you could really tell.
We had ran into a couple locals who ran an ATV-tour through the jungle (why do people insist of destroying jungles with 4wheelers?) and they told us, as well as our taxi driver, that there was no way we would find a taxi back. We were told to stop by the ATV main HQ and they could help us get a ride home. After walking around for about 4 hours, we finally got to the ATV main HQ, which was a roofed patio (with cold water luckly) and a beautiful pool. It had rocks and boulders at the bottom and was fed using mountain water. We sat with our feet in, and luckly, some Europeans showed up so we used thei taxis to make our way to Batu Caves.
Batu caves are one of the most famous things in KL. On the outskirts of the city, there are small mountains. A Hindi temple was built inside two a joining caves, one covered and one opened up on the top. You clumb about 280 stairs to get into the temple. There are other temples around at the ground, and bad monkeys looking for tourist food everywhere! We went to eat, and since Chin May was with us (He's Indian), he ordered a mixture of Southern Indian food to try. We tehn climbed up the stairs and into the caves, it was beautiful! There were peacock statues and feathers everywhere; Chin May told us that each Hindi God had its animal that he travelled with, and the god which this temple was dedicated to rode a peacock. There was also this very provocative statue of a cox with breasts and a woman's face; this symbolized that the God was first married to a cow, before he married his wife who was a human. Interesting...
We decided after to head into a local craft market, but it was closed for Chinese New Year (CNY). The place is near what is known as the Golden Triangle, which is an area of the city full of "the main city", economy and tourism. It was much cleaner, nicer everything. After seeing this, I realized that we lived in the "average" part of town, hence why garbage wasn't necessarily picked up regularly or completely like it was here. Anyway, we couldn't decide which over prices resteraunt to eat in, so we went to TGI Fridays because it had happy hour (free drinks for ladies at 8) and it was the same price at home with the exchange rate, even a little less. Stayed for about 3 hours, drank and had a great time on the deck overlooking the main city which was still beautifully decorated from CNY. We then attempted to meet up with some other NTU kids at one of the coolest bars I've ever been called SkyBar. It was on the top floor of a hotel located about 3 blocks from the Petronas Towers. 3 of the 4 walls of the bar were complete windows, so you could see the towers, which were lit up RIGHT There and have a drink. It also had pools and hot tubs. We only lasted for about an hour, after complaining about how everything was important from Europe and the US so there was nothing under 100$ US to order....
It was a lovely day with great weather. Can't complain :)
Thursday, February 3, 2011
1st night in KL: Just arrived
had a long day of travel, the keyboard sticks here at the hostel (its very nice, 5 computers with free internet for use) so excuse any spelling mistakes.
So a few more comments about the zoo, since I rushed out this morning: It was SO much nicer than China, for those of you who remember my posts about that sad depressing place. They even had a Borneo section full of animals you can see there and the list of animals the island has that nowhere else in the world does (this is where I'm spring-breaking with dad/max!!!) They also had this cool like walk-in (think big net with free ranging animals and you walk around in it) called fragile forest. It was a walk through the different levels of a rain forest. There were bats (biggest I've ever seen), little mini deer, bird, etc. There were two sloths, both were moving which was amazing. One of them was sitting on this little perch where you could have touched him from the walk way. He was holding onto the perch with hsi hands and feet, beltn over backward. There was a guy who was making kissy noises at him to get his attention to take the picture. The sloth would bend over backwards and stare at him with his big black eyes just amazing. Everytime he stopped and started again, the sloth would arch back, got pics, will post when I get back to Singapore.
Anyway, the bus ride was about 6 hours, with an house spent waiting for people to go through customs. Learned that you can get cheap booze/gas in Malaysia compared to singapore, so of course they've made rules: no brining booze across the border from malaysia, and if you drive over the border, you MUST have a 3/4 full tank of gas, there are huge signs everywhere. We rode on a new MRT line to get to the station which was in this Thai/Indian part of town which smelled like rotten cheese. We rode these really neat escelators that spead up when the motion sensor went off that someone was getting on, I kept playing with the sensors, it was really neat. We took the bus about 30 minutes to the border. Everyone got out and "departed" Singapore. We got back on the bus on the other side of the fence and drove over one of the (I believe) two bridges to get to Malaysia. The whole ocean-side of Singapore was fenced in, not in Malaysia. Soon after the bridge, the rest of the road was fenced in until you got to customs. There were photos of royality on the wall and customs was very easy. This is a place with no toilet paper, which isn't that uncommon and I always carry it with me. But they have their own version, hoses in the stalls that you "wash" yourself with...so all the bathrooms are dripping wet.
Prohibited Items to bring to Malaysia: Porn, gun-shaped lighters, any imprint/reproduction of the Quran phrases on any type of material, turtle eggs, drugs (penalty by death), piranah fish, lead, anything that could possibly hurt the image of teh country.
It was truley a foreign country, as I see Singapore as definalty more westernized. About 5-10% of the signs on the road/customs/rest stops had english translation, most was strictly in Malay. Not everyoe knows any English, and if they do, its very few. Since there is a huge population of Muslims here, there were prayer rooms at rest stops. It reminded me of Central America at first, we entered the country in a very rural part full of plantations and trees, with constant reminders that rural folk usually live in poverty. There are lots of posted laws like Singapore, such as no food here, no littering, etc. But here nobody seems to follow them. The streets are dirty, we got a little lost when we got off the monorail from the bus station to the hostel, and everything smelled like trash during our wander around. We saw huge rats coming out alot of the trash cans and stray cats everwhere. but this is the biggest city, the capital. I think maybe we aren't in the tourist part of town, but its okay.
The hostel is nice, its the first one I ever stayed at and my friends who are with me (US, India, and Mexico) said this is a pretty nice one. Anyways, its super late, we are getting up very early to go try and see animals during our hike to some waterfalls tomorrow!
So a few more comments about the zoo, since I rushed out this morning: It was SO much nicer than China, for those of you who remember my posts about that sad depressing place. They even had a Borneo section full of animals you can see there and the list of animals the island has that nowhere else in the world does (this is where I'm spring-breaking with dad/max!!!) They also had this cool like walk-in (think big net with free ranging animals and you walk around in it) called fragile forest. It was a walk through the different levels of a rain forest. There were bats (biggest I've ever seen), little mini deer, bird, etc. There were two sloths, both were moving which was amazing. One of them was sitting on this little perch where you could have touched him from the walk way. He was holding onto the perch with hsi hands and feet, beltn over backward. There was a guy who was making kissy noises at him to get his attention to take the picture. The sloth would bend over backwards and stare at him with his big black eyes just amazing. Everytime he stopped and started again, the sloth would arch back, got pics, will post when I get back to Singapore.
Anyway, the bus ride was about 6 hours, with an house spent waiting for people to go through customs. Learned that you can get cheap booze/gas in Malaysia compared to singapore, so of course they've made rules: no brining booze across the border from malaysia, and if you drive over the border, you MUST have a 3/4 full tank of gas, there are huge signs everywhere. We rode on a new MRT line to get to the station which was in this Thai/Indian part of town which smelled like rotten cheese. We rode these really neat escelators that spead up when the motion sensor went off that someone was getting on, I kept playing with the sensors, it was really neat. We took the bus about 30 minutes to the border. Everyone got out and "departed" Singapore. We got back on the bus on the other side of the fence and drove over one of the (I believe) two bridges to get to Malaysia. The whole ocean-side of Singapore was fenced in, not in Malaysia. Soon after the bridge, the rest of the road was fenced in until you got to customs. There were photos of royality on the wall and customs was very easy. This is a place with no toilet paper, which isn't that uncommon and I always carry it with me. But they have their own version, hoses in the stalls that you "wash" yourself with...so all the bathrooms are dripping wet.
Prohibited Items to bring to Malaysia: Porn, gun-shaped lighters, any imprint/reproduction of the Quran phrases on any type of material, turtle eggs, drugs (penalty by death), piranah fish, lead, anything that could possibly hurt the image of teh country.
It was truley a foreign country, as I see Singapore as definalty more westernized. About 5-10% of the signs on the road/customs/rest stops had english translation, most was strictly in Malay. Not everyoe knows any English, and if they do, its very few. Since there is a huge population of Muslims here, there were prayer rooms at rest stops. It reminded me of Central America at first, we entered the country in a very rural part full of plantations and trees, with constant reminders that rural folk usually live in poverty. There are lots of posted laws like Singapore, such as no food here, no littering, etc. But here nobody seems to follow them. The streets are dirty, we got a little lost when we got off the monorail from the bus station to the hostel, and everything smelled like trash during our wander around. We saw huge rats coming out alot of the trash cans and stray cats everwhere. but this is the biggest city, the capital. I think maybe we aren't in the tourist part of town, but its okay.
The hostel is nice, its the first one I ever stayed at and my friends who are with me (US, India, and Mexico) said this is a pretty nice one. Anyways, its super late, we are getting up very early to go try and see animals during our hike to some waterfalls tomorrow!
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