Harbor Cruise

What is it about being on the water that gives such a different perspective of what a waterfront city looks like?  We took a harbor cruise because it had easy access for mom.  We had tried to take a river boat -sort of a water taxi-but there really was no landing that had a way for mom to get on the boat.   This particular cruise was a sort of Chinese junk.

It could have been tacky, but it was actually very nice.  The harbor is interesting because almost all the shipping is off shore...there is no real docking area and the ships are all anchored off shore and there are taxis to take crew back and forth to shore...

The cruise was about 2 and a half hours and went past several islands, one of which we stopped at.  

Sentosa Island has apartment blocks and looks sort of like Miami...

A lot of these towers looked unfinished and it seemed that pretty exclusive...the views are all of shipping.  

The views back to the city showed the same skyscrapers we had seen from land but from a different perspective.

We stopped on Kusu Island which also has a tortoise sanctuary....it has a Chinese temple and an old Malay temple.  We walked around while Mom rested on the boat.   I even saw the only sort-of-lighthouse on the whole trip.

The Malay temple was up many steps on a small hill.  There were several alters.

 There was also an offering and incense table.

I love that this little out-of-the-way place obviously has lots of visitors...I really enjoyed the trip and it was nice and cool on the water, which was refreshing after so much heat.

Love these fan palms.

An egret-couldn't get any closer though.

Heading back to Singapore, passing container ships...a very nice cool day...

Lovely clouds on the horizon.  You can see Indonesia in the distance.

Market in Little India and Chinatown

We woke up early and headed to the Tekka Market across from the Little India Arcade.  It has amazing  fruits, vegetables and meat and fish...I thought the smells were difficult.  The meat and fish smells were very strong and although I know from Margie that this is a good market with fast turn-over and fresh seafood, it was hard to think of eating it.   Do I have too much of a western sense of smell?  The fruits were amazing.

Durian, of course-better left uncut.

I loved the people and the activity and was wishing to have time to shop, cook, and eat.

Beautiful fresh crap and prawns.

We walked around and had iced coffee, Mom's new passion..she loves this stuff which is surprising because it's so sweet....maybe it's the heat and the sugar...helps you survive? Margie had her people that she always shops at and she introduced us and she let them know she would soon be leaving.

We then headed for Chinatown-yes they are all the same, but not really.  I still love to see them even if I don't buy the shlock anymore,  There is a Hindu temple just bordering Chinatown so we stopped there first. It's gorgeous...Sri Marimaman,the oldest Hindu temple in Singapore.  It was founded in 1827 and serves the South Indian Tamil Singaporeans. Unlike the Bali temples, no special dress was required but we did have to remove our shoes.

There are beautiful paintings on the walls and ceilings.  Love the ornate figures and colors.

There was music for the ceremony.

There was a ceremony-we had tried to arrive at noon and the priest blessed the worshipers.  Some were beautifully dressed and these children stole my heart.

At the alter-one of the minor deities. 

Outside was just as interesting.

We finished the temple visit and headed outside and around the corner to Chinatown.

Lanterns and shophouses are everywhere.  Chinatown is close to downtown.

So colorful and beautiful.

Again, what I love about Singapore is the old shophouses and neighborhoods juxtaposed against the background of modern skyscrapers.

We walked around and had a great lunch..Italian..we tried for a noodle house but Wednesday is the day these little restaurants are closed at lunch time.

It was a really fun day and we saw a lot.....

Bali-Back to Ubud

After we left Pura Besakih, we headed back to Ubud to a different hotel, outside the main downtown area and out in the country a bit for different views.  

Rice paddies from our late lunch view...on our way to Ubud.  We arrived at the hotel and found the restaurant was too far for mom to walk.  We didn't need dinner and the hotel agreed to bring breakfast to our room the next morning....they brought us a table and let us choose the foods we wanted.  They couldn't have been nicer to us....Margie and I swam the next morning early and then showered for breakfast. The grounds of the hotel were beautiful..

There were orchids everywhere-they grew out of the trees on the grounds.

Spectacular colors and amazing blooms.

This is one of the upper pools...the lap pool was much bigger and right next to the restaurant.

More orchids...we even saw a tropical rose, which seemed strange until I rememberedd that we get tons of Central American roses at local florists here.

There was this amazing palm, fern-like thing that  had the top leave as skeletins...not sure if this is what happens after they die or if the top leaves are just like this..tried to get a good picture with enough light between the layers so that the skeletal qualities could be seen.

We went to Celuk (Chelook for pronunciation) to look for Bali silver...our driver, bless him, tried to take us to the artisans coop, a place where all the silver makers sell their wares in one big place.  When we drove up and 3-4 people surrounded us:  one to open our car doors, one to help us out of our car, one to help us up the stairs and one to escort us inside, I knew  it would be expensive.  Sure enough and we drove around looking for smaller places...that was probably something that deserved more time than we had because of our evening plane...we settled on a place that had no cars parked in front and we went in and got some pretty good deals on bracelets for the girls and other gifts...not what I wanted, which was a place to buy beads for jewelry, but fine for a first trip to Bali.   Then we headed back to our hotel in outer Ubud for lunch on the terrace and then to pack for the airport....we had one last watermelon juice for the road...so thirst quenchiing.

Couldn't resist my sister's kebaya that matches her eyes.

One last orchid and off to the airport.  This hotel deserves another stay too..