Living the High Life: Our Night at Marina Bay Sands!

Hi, everyone!

So this was a special week for us here in Singapore - a few of us decided to split a room at Marina Bay Sands, one of the most luxurious and well-known hotels in Singapore.  Developed by the Las Vegas Sands, this complex is known as the most expensive standalone hotel/casino complex in the world, and the hotel itself has over 2500 rooms!

The hotel is best known for a 150-meter infinity pool, which sits on its roof deck on the 57th floor.  After check-in, we immediately dashed upstairs, and spent the several hours until dinner relaxing and swimming with an amazing view of Singapore.  The only dampers on the afternoon were the massive sunburns Chris and I are still nursing from Malaysia - we spent much of the day applying and reapplying both sunscreen and aloe.

An afternoon swim in the infinity pool!

After dinner, we went straight back to the pool, which is open until about 11:00 every night.  The view of Singapore was even more beautiful after sundown, and we also got to watch the same light show as we did a few weeks ago from the much higher vantage point.  I took major advantage of the "Panorama" function on my camera, and got some pretty good results:

After the pool closed, we freshened up and headed down to the MBS Casino.  There are only two casinos in Singapore and their entry requirements are extremely interesting: they're completely free for foreigners (although you have to have your passport to enter), but incredibly expensive for Singaporeans or Permanent Residents at S$100 (about $80USD) for 24 hours.  After spending a bit of time there, I think I've figured out that casinos are not my thing, but it was definitely a fun experience and I managed not to lose any money!

Tonight Melanie and I will be going to a Hawker Center for dinner and then the newly-opened Gardens by the Bay (see below), then Chris and I will be heading to Phuket, Thailand for the weekend tomorrow.  More updates soon!

Nighttime view of the Gardens by the Bay from the top of the Sands.

Tioman Island, Malaysia: Two Days in Paradise!

Hi, everyone!

This past weekend, Chris, Melanie, and I had a two-day minibreak on Pulau Tioman, a small island off the eastern coast of Malaysia.  All three of us had a really great time, and it was definitely the most relaxing of our vacations so far!

Saturday morning, the three of us got up VERY early (especially considering we had been to see the Singapore Symphony Orchestra perform Dvorak's New World Symphony the night before) to catch a 6:30 AM bus to a ferry terminal in eastern Malaysia.  The most interesting part of this journey was definitely the process of exiting Singapore and entering Malaysia - the countries are separated by a small waterway, and it only took about ten minutes total (including two stops exiting our tour bus and proceeding through immigration) to cross the bridge between the two countries.  One of the more interesting parts of this passage is actually a giant tube that runs along the length of the bridge; Singapore imports about 1/3 of its drinking water from Malaysia through this pipe, as there is very little freshwater available on the island to be used for drinking.  (Fun fact courtesy of Melanie, whose research is on Singaporean water policy.)

After about 2.5 hours on a bus and 90 minutes on a ferry, we finally arrived at Tioman Island, which was absolutely stunning.  The water was crystal clear, and the island itself is a serious of jungle-covered mountains so large that it's actually impossible to cross the island by land - travel takes place by boats, which connect several ferry stops near the resorts across the island.  It's actually a fairly small place, and most of the industry comes from tourism...the total permanent population of the island is less than 500 total!  From Wikipedia, the legend of the island is as follows: "According to legend, Tioman Island is the resting place of a beautiful dragon princess. Whilst flying from China to visit her prince in Singapore, this beautiful maiden stopped to seek solace in the crystal-clear waters of the South China Sea. Enraptured by the charms of the place, she decided to discontinue her journey. By taking the form of an island, she pledged to offer shelter and comfort to passing travelers."

One of our first views of Tioman Island

From the ferry stop, we took an open air bus to our resort (the largest on the island), called Berjaya Tioman Resort.  It was absolutely beautiful, and we got really lucky - our room had a view of the beach and was right next to the pool and the main food area where all meals were served.  The rest of the day Saturday, the three of us went for swims, napped on the beach, and I continued the fresh fruit juice kick I began in Bali.  It's gotten pretty bad, folks...in fact, I may or may not be planning to invest in a fruit juicer when I get back to the States in August.

The view from my Saturday afternoon lounge chair.

After catching up on sleep Saturday night (12+ hours for me!) we woke up on Sunday in the late morning and headed straight to the beach after breakfast, which was delicious (for some reason I really love beans on toast, as it takes me back to my time at Oxford).  After a few more hours of reading, swimming, and napping, we decided to cash in our half hour of snorkeling included in our hotel package.  We picked up our gear and were dropped off at a tiny island off the coast called Renggis Island, which can be seen on the left side of the photo below.

The island where we snorkeled, Renggis, is off to the left.

After jumping in the water from the dock, we proceeded to swim all the way around the island for the next hour or so, looking at the most beautiful coral and fish through the crystal clear water of the South China sea.  It was spectacularly beautiful - fish of every color imaginable, plus massive coral reefs and even some sea urchins (about 2 feet in width) and sea cucumbers.  The fish were also super friendly; every once in a while I'd turn and realize I was in the middle of a school of at least a hundred!  It was hands-down the best part of the trip, although unfortunately we weren't able to take any pictures due to the water issues inherent to, er...being underwater.

For the rest of the afternoon we relaxed some more, nursing our increasingly intense sunburns and dashing inside when it started to downpour just after sundown.  Although we didn't get to wander around much in the evening due to the rain, we did get some sweet pictures of the storm as it rolled in to the island (see below).

This morning, after eating breakfast (more beans on toast!) and checking out of our room, we took the hotel's shuttle to the Tioman Airport, perhaps the smallest airport I've ever seen in my life (including the Brookline, NH Air Force).  This airport is only served by one airline - Berjaya Air, same name as our resort - which only flies to two locations, one flight a day each to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.  The planes are absolutely tiny, each seating about 42 people, and the cruising altitude is only about 10,000 feet since the flights are so short (ours was about 35 minutes).  Not going to lie, I was absolutely petrified getting on, as (a) I had never been on a plane that small before and (b) the runway was a little short (with mountains at either end), making takeoff a bit of a stressful experience.  We made it through okay, though, and landed in Singapore with no events more serious than some turbulence on ascent.

Departure gate #1 (of 1), looking out onto the runway.

Getting ready to get on the plane!

So that's all for our weekend - another short week in Singapore, then we're off to Phuket, Thailand for our final weekend trip before leaving southeast Asia.  It's hard to believe, but I leave Singapore in less than three weeks, and I'll be home in Cambridge in officially less than a month (now that it's after midnight here).  Stay tuned for more updates!

A Weekend in Bangkok - With a Michigan Reunion!

Hi, everyone!

So although I didn't manage to post before the weekend (nothing too interesting, I'm afraid), there is LOTS to share after an amazing weekend in Bangkok, Thailand, with Chris and Lexi, two of my good friends from undergrad at Michigan.

Friday night, Chris and I landed in Bangkok a bit behind schedule, but managed to connect with Lexi in the GIANT airport, making our way to our hostel in the city (about a 45 minute drive) soon after.  After settling in, we began to explore our neighborhood, which was called Si Lom.   Although also interesting during the day, Bangkok is most fun to explore at night, both because of the markets (which really come alive after dark) and because it's about 10-15 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than when the sun is out.  We ate from a street vendor (soup - which I'm pretty sure contained offal - ordered for us in Thai by a nice German man passing by) then wandered around the night market checking out the stuff for sale.

Before heading to bed, Lexi, Chris, and I got Thai massages, which would end up being the first of three massages during our three-day trip.  Thai massages, even more so than some reflexology we've gotten here in Singapore, are NOT comfortable experiences - on the first night, I was actually stood on by the massage therapist, who kept telling me that although it hurt then it would feel good later.  She was actually right; according to Lexi, the whole experience is very similar to what athletes get when they're hurt or need to be stretched out.  Either way, I can definitely go a couple of weeks without someone digging their elbows into my shoulder blades at this point :)

Saturday morning, we woke up early to travel to the city center to see some sights, and we ended up hiring a tuk-tuk to take us to breakfast and our first stop.  Tuk-tuks are definitely the quintessential mode of transportation within Bangkok - for about 30 baht (about a dollar) or less, you can hire one for short-ish journeys within the main parts of the city (although in a city of 14 million, everything seemed pretty downtown).  Our driver thought we were funny whenever we were worried about crashing, so he kept zipping us around corners at faster and faster rates, which was - quite frankly - somewhat terrifying.

Our very first tuk-tuk ride!

After our brush with death in the tuk-tuk, the three of us wound up at a boat port, where we hired a long boat to take us on a two-hour journey through some of the more residential canal areas of Bangkok, the "Venice of the East."  Although some more land-based parts of Bangkok indicated the income level of the locals, it was more jarring to be going through these very poor areas - it was a definite reminder that Thailand is a developing country.  On this boat ride, we also got approached by many people selling wares out of boats; although none of the traditional Thai "floating markets" are in Bangkok, some people still sell knick-knacks and drinks on the closer canals.

On our boat on the main part of the river.

The long boat dropped us off at Wat Pho, home to the Reclining Buddha.  There are literally hundreds of Buddhist temples in Bangkok, but Wat Pho is potentially the best well-known.  The reclining Buddha itself is incredibly impressive - over 40 meters long and painted gold, with mother-of-pearl inlays in its enormous feet.  In addition to this Buddha, the Wat Pho complex has hundreds of smaller temples and buildings, and we spent a good hour or so wandering around and taking pictures of the beautiful architecture.

With the Reclining Buddha - all the light bits in the toes are inlaid mother-of-pearl.

After leaving Wat Pho, we took a walk to the Grand Palace, a giant complex about a 20-minute stroll away.  This is a really interesting area, as it's both the religious and cultural center of Bangkok in many ways, housing both the Temple of the Emerald Buddha (actually made of jade) and the royal residence of the King and Queen of Thailand.  The monarchy is still a huge aspect of Thai culture, and everywhere we went we saw flags flying for the royal family: yellow for the King, purple for the Queen, and blue for the Princess.  The Grand Palace complex even had a museum dedicated exclusively to the Queen and her clothes - which, considering the King has been ruling for over 60 years, were quite numerous!  It turns out that after World War II the Thai government actually outlawed wearing traditional Thai clothing, and throughout the latter half of the 20th century, the Queen (with the help of both Thai and western designers) worked to develop a new Thai national dress, which is what is seen at formal Thai occasions today.

Chris and I at the Royal Palace.

After the Palace visit, we found some lunch, tried fish pedicures (more on this in an upcoming post), visited one more temple, and went back to our hotel for a quick evening power nap.  For dinner, we decided to go to a restaurant called "Cabbages and Condoms," which is in the Sukhumvit area of Bangkok, one of two main red light districts in the city.  This restaurant was actually created by the Population and Community Development Association of Thailand in an effort to promote the use of contraception in rural areas of the country, and is now a well-known (albeit a little bit touristy) restaurant in Bangkok serving really good, traditional Thai food.  After dinner, we wandered around a bit, got more Thai massages, and headed back to our hotel to get some sleep.

Mango sticky rice (my favorite!) at Cabbages and Condoms.

Sunday morning, we woke up very early to meet a driver and tour guide we had hired to take us to two locations: on elephant rides and to the Tiger Temple, both about 2.5 hours outside of Bangkok (about 50 km from the Burmese border).  Our guide was incredibly nice and super informative, and she gave us interesting facts about Thailand, Bangkok, and (of course) the monarchy during our short trip west from the city.  Upon arriving at the elephant area, we got to go on a long walk with a large, female elephant, during which our "driver" gave us each the opportunity to ride on the elephant's head, feed her, and take some photos.  After returning to the main enclosure area, we saw an "elephant show," in which a baby elephant did a bunch of tricks for us, including giving Lexi a "massage" and letting us feed him.  Although this part of the day was fun, the way that they treat the elephants at these places is clearly abusive, and all three of us left feeling a little upset at what we saw.  If you ever get the chance to go on one of these trips, try to look into more reputable places to go - they'd definitely be more expensive and I don't know if they even exist, but it's worth a shot if you can find one.

Chris loves this photo, since the elephant and I have exactly the same face!

Feeding a baby elephant - apparently, they like soy milk!

After a delicious lunch at a Thai buffet, we arrived at the second stop of the day, the Tiger Temple.  This is a monastery which has raised 104 tigers over the last decade or so, and tourists visiting are allowed to go up, pet the tigers, and take turns walking them down to a tiger lounging area.  The Temple is only open to visitors in the late afternoon, and by then the tigers are so hot and sleepy that they just nap and lounge while people take turns petting them.  The professional handlers get to have a bit more fun, playing with them and having a grand old time, but petting a full grown male tiger was definitely exciting enough for me!  Like the elephant place, the Tiger Temple also has faced allegations of animal mistreatment, but at least to the casual observer, the animals seemed a lot happier than during our morning elephant visit.

With a tiger cub - sleepy after an afternoon feeding!

We faced some afternoon traffic after leaving the Tiger Temple, but managed to make it back to Bangkok in time to spend about an hour the Chatuchak Weekend Market, one of the largest outdoor markets in the world.  Open each Saturday and Sunday, the market covers 35 acres and is home to 11,000-15,000 stalls (this number varies wildly depending on what book you read).  They sell everything imaginable (including endangered species, apparently, although we didn't see any of those), and all three of us managed to pick up some fun souvenirs, even though many of the stalls had closed up shop by the time we got there.

The rest of the evening was fairly quiet - dinner by our hostel, banana pancakes cooked by a street vendor (fried in oil with extra butter added - can't be beat), some more shopping at the night market, and foot massages (massage number three, for those keeping count).  Chris and I left early Monday morning to make it back in time for work in the afternoon, and since we've gotten back to Singapore it's just been a lot of actual work, picture uploading, and blog writing.  In terms of next updates, this week is a busy one, but I'll try to report back after next weekend, which we'll be spending on Tioman Island in Malaysia.  Have a great week!

The Singapore Night Safari - More artificial than Disney World?

Hi, everyone!

It's been a while since my last post, but nothing all that exciting has been happening here in Singapore - although more soup dumplings, a 3-day Startup Weekend for our SUTD entrepreneurship program, and international celebrations of the 4th of July are great, they just don't merit extensive commentary.  Last night, however, we went on one of the best-known attractions in Singapore - the Singapore Night Safari!

So we didn't really know what to expect upon arrival, but it turns out that the Singapore Night Safari is very similar to the Animal Kingdom at Disney World, but even more perfectly manicured and regulated.  Upon arrival, we bought our tickets and attended an "Animals of the Night" show, where EXTREMELY well-trained nocturnal animals wandered about doing tricks for the crowd.  Perhaps the most remarkable were a set of three Asian otters, who had been trained to separate a pile of recycling (aluminum, paper cups, and plastic bottles) and put each type of rubbish into the corresponding bin, all three of which were on stage.  The amount of time and money put into training these animals must have been ridiculous, and the result was definitely impressive.

During the second part of the evening, we took the night safari tram around an open-enclosure park, which they've designed so that it seems like the animals are RIGHT next to the vehicle, although the perspective is such that they're actually separated by a good 15 or 20 feet.  We drove through enclosures for giraffes, elephants, bears, hyenas, tigers, and a bunch more animals, and most of them were actually pretty active and fun to look at.  The elephants, in particular, seemed to be having lots of fun eating and wandering about - so much so that I could have SWORN that they couldn't be real.

The coolest part of the tram ride was a stop that we made about halfway through, when we were allowed to get off the tram and walk around to a few different enclosures.  We got to see all different types of animals fairly close up, including porcupines, owls, a slow loris, Asian otters (which smell very bad and make very annoying noises), clouded leopards, and giraffes.  We also got to go into a fruit bat enclosure, which had dozens of bats flying around our heads and hanging out munching on fruit (reminded of the stress of the Monkey Forest in Bali I actually didn't enjoy this all that much, but it was cool to be about 8 inches away from a giant bat).  Some of them were absolutely enormous - one hanging from the ceiling spread its wings and had a tip-to-tip wingspan of at least 3.5 feet!

It's funny, but I feel like the Night Safari, in all its designed glory, is a good example of how Singapore is trying to develop today - this island is incredibly small (only 274 square miles) and has no natural resources (even a lot of its water is imported from Malaysia), but through pure force has managed to design and engineer itself to be an interesting and exciting place.  In Singapore, they build water reservoirs, create new land (rumor has it that about 30% of Singapore is reclaimed), build infinity pools on the tops of buildings, and create a real-life Pandora - why shouldn't there be a manufactured safari here as well?

So that was the gist of our Night Safari experience, and today is another exciting day - we're going to dim sum at the famous Raffles Hotel, then checking out the newly opened Gardens by the Bay (the Pandora mentioned above), before getting fish pedicures!  I'll hopefully get a chance to throw together a quick summary before the weekend, but if not, they'll be an update next week on our trip to Bangkok with Lexi Zimmerman!  Stay tuned...

A Weekend in Bali

So this weekend, Chris and I spent a weekend in Bali, an island in Indonesia made famous (at least in recent years in the United States) by the novel Eat, Pray, Love and its film adaptation.

On Friday evening, Chris and I arrived in Bali late, and haggled for a taxi to take us to our hotel in Ubud, a famous town/village in central Bali.  In Bali, everything is about haggling and fees that you don't necessarily think that you should have to pay - you pay tolls to both enter and exit the country, and you haggle for everything, right down to having a driver for the afternoon.  This first evening, we definitely got taken advantage of cost-wise by our driver, but he did take us safely from the airport (on the south side of the island) to where we were staying, which was about an hour and a half trip.  The road infrastructure in Bali is virtually nonexistent, so getting anywhere takes a lot of time - most roads are just two lanes, and there are constantly vespas zipping about, cars parked taking up most of the lane, or dogs meandering across the street, making passage a very very slow endeavor.

When we finally arrived at the place we were staying - a small home stay - around 11:30, the incredibly nice owner informed us that all of the rooms were occupied for the evening, at which point I apparently appeared the most horrified and scared that Chris had ever seen me.  The owner, however, then informed us that his relative living across the street had an extra guest room where we could stay, and she welcomed us in and allowed us to sleep there for the evening.

The next morning, we returned to the home stay for breakfast, at which point the owner cooked us breakfast and showed us to our room.  Both the room and the breakfast were absolutely to die for - he made us amazing banana pancakes with coconut (maybe the most delicious thing I've ever eaten), and our room was on the second floor, with an open-air balcony and a bed with a canopy inside.  When you get off the main roads in Bali, everything just smells fresh and amazing - it's a sweet, earthy, incense-y smell that I think every yoga studio back in the States hopes to achieve.  At night, we'd just leave the windows open and let the breeze blow through, which was great until we were woken up every morning by the roosters next door!

Our breakfast - banana pancakes and a fresh fruit salad, plus fresh Indonesian coffee (called kopi)!

On the balcony getting ready to head out for the day.

Our room entrance.

After breakfast, we left our home stay to head into the town of Ubud, which was about a 15 minute walk away.  After arriving in town, we went to the Ubud Monkey Forest, which is a holy monkey sanctuary right at the center of the town.  I don't know what Chris and I were expecting, but essentially it was just a set of pathways through an area FILLED with monkeys, who would just hang out in the trees and on the walkways, getting fed bananas and doing other things that monkeys do.  They also get a little bit rowdy - Chris had set his bag down to take a photo, and one of them grabbed it out from between his feet!  I can now say I've seen one of my friends get into a tug-of-war fight with a large, agressive monkey; luckily, Chris won, and we proceeded through the forest holding on tightly to all of our belongings.

VERY close to the monkeys.

After the Monkey Forest, we walked to the Ubud Market and did a bit of souvenir shopping, then got massages (about $25 USD for 90 minutes at a very upscale place), and stopped for a juice break before heading to dinner at a place called the Dirty Duck, which specializes in a fried duck entree with a lot of Indonesian spices.  Juice breaks and fresh fruit may have been my favorite part about Bali - for about $2, you can get a fresh pineapple, mango, banana, or orange juice fresh squeezed from the ripest, best fruit I've ever had.  My favorite combination was mango banana, which I enjoyed at a restaurant with a view of some rice paddies, where a local vendor introduced us to his son and taught me how to fly a kite (unflattering picture below).  After dinner, we stopped for a quick $2 beer at a small bar up the street from where we were staying, then read on our porch (where the owner of the house brought us tea and late-night snacks) before going to bed early.

Learning to fly a kite over the rice paddy.  The day we left was a big kite-flying festival in Bali, and a ton of people were out flying HUGE kites all day.

Sunday morning, we had breakfast at the home stay before heading out for the day with a driver that the owner of our home stay had suggested.  There are a bunch of cool things to see and do in Bali, but unfortunately they're spread very far apart, and it's difficult to see that many in one day because of the uncertainty of travel time between each place.  Sunday, we got to see a water temple, Mt Batur and Lake Batur (a beautiful volcano with a crystal clear lake underneath), traditional rice terraces, and another temple just outside of Ubud.

At the water temple.

Mt. Batur (off to the left) and the lake underneath.

Rice paddies just after harvest - usually green, but all the rice stalks had just been removed.

Last temple of the day!

We ended earlier than expected, but unfortunately we weren't very close to any of the other places we wanted to see, so our driver just took us back to the airport, where we ate dinner outside (a very different airport layout than anywhere I've been before - most of the things were outside before you even entered) and waited for our flight.  Overall, a very successful (but very short) weekend in Bali, and we definitely learned a lot (and bought a lot of souvenirs)!

This weekend, we'll be staying in Singapore to help with a Startup Weekend for the SUTD entrepreneurship program, but hopefully we'll be doing some interesting things this week so I can have something to post.  As always, let me know if there's something specific you'd like me to talk about!

Hugs,

Dara