World cruise 28

March 3

At sea. All was calm. We did lose an hour between 2:00 and 3:00 p.m. Now we are far enough around to start losing all those hours we gained. Fortunately, Holland America believes that it is more humane to lose hours in the afternoon while you're awake than to lose sleeping hours.

March 4

Singapore, Singapore. Fascinating place. We had the excellent luck to have a really wonderful guide (Milly) and driver (John) for an all day private tour. They took really excellent care of us. Interestingly, Milly is a retired electrical engineer who decided she wanted to do something different. If you are going to be in Singapore and need a guide, let me know, and I will put you in touch with her.

Our first stop was the National Botanical Garden which began in 1822 and has been working with Kew Garden in the UK that entire time. They have over 60,000 orchid plants in the National Orchid Garden that we visited. The displays, particularly in the Mist Garden, were amazing. Here are just a few.

Next we went for an early lunch to beat the noon rush at a place called Maxwell Market which is the Singapore version of a food court. Each kind of anything has a separate stall. Milly brought us big mugs of teh tarek which is a Malay drink of tea with condensed milk, then stood in a line to bring us a popular dish called Tian Tian Chicken with Rice. It is essentially a boiled ... or maybe steamed ... Then dipped in ice water chicken sliced up on a plate over cucumbers with separate plates of rice and a plate of bok choy in oyster sauce. Dessert came from another stall with a line which sold only tapioca cake dusted with dried coconut. There were 2 kinds, both fresh out of the oven. One was plain tapioca and the other was sweetened with palm sugar. Both were interesting but kind of squishy. Here is a general view of the place, and of the stall next to the tapioca cake place which I thought was interesting.

On to a large and totally ornate Chinese temple.

Next was a visit for Margaret and Milly to Malay fabric shop where Milly did the bargaining for two lengths of silk and one of satin. They did another walk through fabric shops in Little India but Margaret didn't buy anything there. In both places I waited in the van and chatted with John.

On to Raffles Hotel. It was established by Sir Stamford Raffles and is /the/ place to see and be seen in Southeast Asia. It's where a long line of celebrities including Queen Elizabeth has stayed, and Michael Jackson as well. It's where the Singapore Sling was invented. This was not on the original agenda, but we had, through a mix-up of dates, arranged to meet some other people from the ship there for high tea on the same day as our tour. What an elegant place just to sit in the lobby. Here's a photo of Milly, Margaret and our friend Helen from the ship who arranged the tea at Raffles.

Our last stop was to take a tri-shaw ride. A tri-shaw is essentially a two-person sidecar for a bicycle. Our cyclist toured us around various ethnic areas for half an hour pointing out Chinatown, Little India, and the Muslim Mustafa. As we arrived back at the place where Milly and John were waiting, we again met some people we know from the ship, plus had this photo taken.

March 5

We got up at a reasonable hour this morning and eventually each of us toddled off the ship to the big multi-storey shopping center attached to the cruise terminal ... Mostly to stock up on necessities like hair setting gel. I had misplaced the spare tube that I know I brought along. So I got another but had to get a big one instead of a travel size. Margaret also bought me one since she wasn't sure whether I even planned to attempt the very long hike to the terminal much less the shops. So now I have enough industrial strength, made in China, hair setting gel to last over a year. Or it may go on the "Abandonable" list.

The Sail Away Party out on deck this afternoon got downpoured out, but we tend to watch from either our own balcony or the covered back deck next door. It was a rather interesting harbor to leave because of all the empty ships moored just outside the harbor itself. I heard one theory/story that these ships are intentionally abandoned by bankrupt companies, but you can't tell by looking at them what their legal status may be. Anyway we sailed out, waited for a gap in the traffic, and merged into the westbound lane headed through the Malacca Strait.