January 11th 2015--Christmas in Singapore and
Indonesia/Bali- The temperature was wrong but the sights were fantastic!
I had a hard time deciding not to come home for Christmas. Having a holiday without family is not
something I was looking forward to but I could not get on a plane for a 22-hour
flight unless it was to come home for good.
So I occupied my negative thoughts with trip planning- a great form of
therapy. I convince Jody to come along
and even Angela, a friend from Texas.
Before Bali, I have five days in Singapore. I am meeting an exchange student who lived
with me 16 years ago-Irene. She is from
Holland, but is currently living in Laos teaching elementary school. Irene was
like a touch of home. We exchange gifts nightly, so there is a little of the
commercial side of Christmas and we explore the city daily. It is so nice to
get into a city that makes sense. Things
are organized. Things are green and most importantly- things are clean. They
have real highways, water I can drink out of the tap and I do not think they
have bugs (or at least the government makes sure they are hidden). I have two new friends there, Chris and
Karen, so I am picked up at the airport and whisked away to comfort. We shop,
eat and talk about the country. I learn so much. I love that Chris describes it
as a “benevolent dictatorship”. From the
book A Fortune Teller Told Me, I
already knew it had the most police per capita than any other country (yet one never
sees them). People are monitored,
scrutinized and restricted unawares. I (or
my bags) did not even have to go through a scanner upon leaving the airport,
but am told I had been checked. They check passengers’ temperature upon leaving
the plane (without them knowing) to combat diseases being brought into the
country. The Singaporians are definitely a forward thinking country.
So Singapore consisted of some retail therapy-now I remember why
I am the mother of two boys! Did you know that the flip-flop Havaianas are all the rage? Irene needed a pair so we search them out. I am expecting something different and unique only to find they are
like the ones hanging on the walls at Walgreens. They were $79.00- OMG- for
thin little flip-flops, but I guess they are good because I looked them up on
Amazon (where they are only $15- $45 dollars) and people rave about them. Oh well, the commercial part of Christmas is
about what you want, not what you need. Besides shopping we share some
wonderful meals-excellent food is a mainstay in
Singapore. We mainly eat cheaply but treat ourselves on night to Chili
crab. I think the best part of this meal
are the rolls- these are unlike any roll I have ever tasted- delicious and not
because I have been roll deprived for months. In between eating, we sight
see. The zoo is famous around the world
and although I am not a fan of zoos, this one is trying hard to have the
animals in a natural setting. One of Irene’s friends tours us around- he is
into animal conservation-did you know in some places they trap black bear to
get their bile for medicinal reasons?(https://www.animalsasia.org/intl/our-work/end-bear-bile-farming/)
and that the poachers capture rhinos, kill them cut off their
horns and grind them to make medicine that has no scientific proof that it
works? (http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/05/why-does-a-rhino-horn-cost-300-000-because-vietnam-thinks-it-cures-cancer-and-hangovers/275881/)
I learn much. I cannot say enough about their botanical gardens-
beautiful! And then we approach the
ridiculous side of the country that has the biggest discrepancy between rich
and poor in the world- The Marina Bay Sands Hotel and Mall. It is the one that has an infinity pool on
the 54th floor (make sure to goggle it) . Generally, one has to pay
$23 dollars to go look at it. We opt to have a drink at the bar upstairs
instead, and still get great views of the city from the observation deck.
The five days in Singapore go great and it was nice to get into
an organized city for a while. I am so grateful to Karen and Chris for inviting
us to their Christmas dinner (under the guise that Karen needed my help
cooking). The meal was a highlight of
the trip- turkey/ beef tenderloin and all the trimmings.
Part two of the “I need to have fun so I don’t miss my kids”
vacation is in Bali. I fly in, am picked
up by a driver recommended by friends, go to the hotel and wait for Jody—who
never shows. Her snafu of forgetting her money and passport in the safe from
her last hotel – delayed our meeting for a day. Oh well, dinner alone and a
massage made up for it.
We meet the next day in Lovina- a beach that is only about 12 kl
long and that has volcanic black sand. It is chill time. We go on a dolphin “chasing” tour and then
head out to snorkel. The boat is a canoe-like vessel with two balancing thingys
on the side (like a catamaran). We jump out, see the beautiful coral, colorful
fish and then start battling the current.
I finally make it to the boat and decide to hang my feet off the
catamaran things and stay like this for an hour. I could have done this all day it was so
beautiful. Now--- to get into the boat. Exhausted by swimming and handicapped
but a sucky ladder, I fail- big time. The three-step ladder with nothing to
hold on to at the top and that precariously slips under the boat as I begin my
first attempt, calls for way too much upper body strength. I try several times and do not accept help
from the boatman for fear I will crash over the side and kill myself hitting
bottom (or crush him). What to do? We are only a mile
out so I tell the boatman who insists he can get me in, to just drag me along
side the boat. I hook my legs to the floaty thing and hang on for dear
life. I am sure the fishermen got a good
laugh, and at one point I think I hear the word whale (and do not think they
were talking about a sighting) but hell, I am also glad I did not think about the ladder before I dove in. I would have missed a beautiful underwater
gallery of glory. I drink the rest of the day to get back my pride and doctor
my arm bruises.
Off to Ubud. Our driver (now friend) takes us to the middle of
Bali to a small town that is about 1.5 hours from any attraction one would want
to see. We stop on the way at the twin lakes, and a coffee plantation where the
famed Luwak poops out coffee beans after he/she eats them and that the locals
clean and turn into VERY expensive coffee (why anyone needs $100.00 worth of
coffee and teas is beyond me, but this was the first place I stopped where I
could buy something so common sense left me). We stop at the rice terraces,
along side the road to feed monkeys and hold bats and then we arrive at our
hotel- ten miles from the city center. This
would have been great for a family or for a romantic get-a-way for two- but not
for us. Because they do not have the double I requested (two twin sized beds),
we are able to cancel. The search is on for a place to stay for four days. We
find a beautiful place called Ubud Inn. The rooms were so-so but the garden
was beautiful and the location was right in the middle of town. Jody and I
tour, shop, see temples and go white water rafting. One temple we see has 500 steps going down to
it. I go, but am not looking forward to the trip back up. Thank goodness there
is a man selling coconut water on the way back up; I manage but a woman
carrying two bricks on her head laps me. The next day- white water rafting!
Now I love a good raft trip but usually it does not entail six
hundred 18-inch deep steps that are precariously on the side of a mountain. I am slow to go down and after about the
first 100 steps (with salty sweat pouring into my eyes; I slip and fall on my
ass). The guide goes with me for the rest of the trek down and I make it safely
to the raft. The grade level was labeled as 3/ 4 but I am convinced it was a
4/5 because of all the rocks and drop offs. We are with a family who does not
know how to paddle so much of the work is up to the guide, Jody and me (finally
something I am good at!). The trip ends after about three hours. Along the way
we see the side of the rock cliffs carved with stories and images. BEAUTIFUL.
No camera- dang. About twenty people have been working
on this for years, but it was started over 100 years ago.What goes down, must come up. I trek the six hundred steps back up and am
once again embarrassed that the kid carrying the 80 pound raft passes me. Needless to say I could barely walk the next day and for the day after that, I cringed going up and down even the smallest steps.
We get back to the hotel about the time Angela arrives. It’s
sooo good to see her. She (and her two
HUGE suitcases- she is only here for six days), unpack and we are off to get
massages and shop. Angela, horribly jetlagged, is a trooper and our New Year’s
Eve is a great mix of live rock music and interesting people watching. I yell
Free Bird at the end of the night and my evening is complete. Lynyrd Skynyrd is universal. In Ubud we have four days of live music at
night, great shopping, monkey business at the Monkey Temple and fun excursions.
We are off to the next place.
For four hours we battle the traffic to the country's hub. A meal on the beach and it is early to bed.
We must be at the airport at 4:30am. No rest for the weary!
We fly to Flores, and take a one and one half boat ride to
Kawana Island, our own little secluded island, for three days of rest,
relaxation and snorkeling. I will not expand on the facilities; pictures paint
a thousand words here.
The snorkeling is the most beautiful I have ever seen. Around
our island, the reef is even alive and flourishing. That is until we go to Pink beach- now that
is a reef. The most beautiful fish and coral I have ever seen. We snorkel here
after our trip (another 2.5 hour boat ride (did I tell you Angela has a
tendency to get sea sick?) to the UNESCO protected area of Komodo Island. Yes,
we see Komodo Dragons and I will have to say, they are not pretty. The
highlight for me was the underwater “movie” I watched for two hours by Pink
Beach. Before getting into the water, I have to see what the ladder situation
is. I cannot be pulled two hours back to
our host island. Our captain has a two-step one, but then pulls out a straight
six-ring ladder and I am much happier. It is still a difficult climb (picture a
straight ladder with nothing at the top to hold on to and that drifts under the
boat as you step on it and you will have an accurate picture). The captain
holds it for me so it does not drift under, and after a little heave-ho under
my butt, I am safely back on board the “ship”. I use the term “safely”
generously here. On the way back this
little boat runs into swells that are all converging from different directions
and it gets a little hairy. I did not know to be scared, and just enjoyed the
ride. Angela sleeps to keep from getting sick, so I guess it all ended well. It
is only then that Jody informs me that we just went through what could have
been an extremely dangerous boat ride. The swells were way too big for the boat
we were on. In this case, ignorance is bliss!
The three days end just when I am running out of clothes, and we
are on a flight back to the main island of Bali. After a nice seafood meal and
full body massage, we sleep and I will be saying good-bye to my friend who flew
half way across the world to visit me. She packs her boots (yes- I have no idea
why she thought she would need leather boots on an island), her new purchases
and sets the wake up call for 3:00am. What a wonderful vacation!
Reflections so far:
1. It was a hard decision not to come home for Christmas break. In
the end, I think I am glad I made the decision I did. I will be home soon
enough and my boys will appreciate my Christmas in July dinner.
2. Facebook for me has been a lifesaver. I just realized yesterday
however, that the little read mark under private messages affects me like the
blinking light on an answering machine- I get that little jump in the pit of my
stomach; it makes me happy. When I mentioned this to several other teachers the other night they looked perplexed. A few had never had an answering machine. Talk about feeling old.
3. On the same note, when someone shares a link I post, it is like
my gift at a white elephant gift exchange being frozen. Yes- it’s the little
things.
4. June approaches quickly and I have no idea what the next phase
will be in my work life. This is such a daunting feeling for someone who has
worked since the age of fifteen. I think I know how Dylan feels as he tries to
figure out what he wants to be when he "grows up"; although the options are
limitless, we do have a limit on what we think we can accomplish. Would not it
be great of we saw ourselves as others see us- people who have the potential to
do or be whatever they put their mind to be. By surrounding myself with people
who are positive and point out my strengths, I feel I am closer to believing in
myself. I am blessed to have so many positive friends and family members.
5. I am a little proud of myself.
On this vacation (and others) I pushed my limits and did things that
tested my strengths. At times I felt I was holding Jody back, but she is such a
gem she pointed out that was what she liked about me; I did not let my own fear
or limitations stop me. People keep from
doing things because they so easily talk themselves out of it. As we get older,
this voice gets louder. I just saw a video of my great-niece skiing; wow- she
is already a pro. I remember my own kids’ acclimation to the slopes when they
were young and low to the ground. I also remember me giving up after my second
day because it was hard and because I feared I would run into a tree (like
Sonny Bono) and die. Damn I wish I would have learned this lesson years ago.
Don’t just sit in the boat because of a poor ladder design. Jump in a worry
about the climb later. J
6. While I am on vacation, I am also getting essays from seniors
who hope I will edit them. Even the best
students procrastinate their January 1st deadline. I receive one that makes me pause. She talks
about the racism here in Myanmar towards the Muslims. Hopefully, she will give
me permission to share it with you. You
will be amazed! It takes time and education to change attitudes. Slowly but
surely this generation of Burmese are at least thinking about their
relationship with other races. It does
not happen easily or quickly to erase lessons our parents share through words
and actions. One of my proudest moments
as a mom was when Dylan was pointing out his 2nd grade teacher to me
and he said, “There she is mom. The one in the purple dress.” She was the only
African American standing in the back of the room. How easy it would have been
for him to use that trait to describe her. I will admit, I patted myself on the
back when that happened.
7. Lesson learned- Talk to the taxi drivers! While with Irene in Singapore, I made it a
point to have a conversation with all of the taxi drivers who picked us up. She
thought it so unique and strange at the same time. I explained my reasoning. First, if they see
you see them as an equal, it is hard for them to take advantage of you and hike
up the fare. Secondly, they know all the good places, the tips about food and
entertainment. Next, they drive all day. If I put myself in their shoes, I
would want to talk to those who got into my car. How boring it would be if all
I did was drive in silence from point a to point b. Lastly, they have the most amazing life stories.
I learn so much from this sector of the working world.
That’s all for now. Picture time!
Really cool plant that eats bugs it traps. A pitcher plant
With all that is happening in the world- this is the headline of the Singapore paper.
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