Because it was the last stop for the cruise I actually got to spend some time in Singapore, but unfortunately didn't make it in to the more interesting parts of town or eat as much as I wanted of the local cuisine. I did get to see both the China town and little India parts of the city.
General thoughts: First of all, you do not fuck around with the law in Singapore. We were given little notices that possession of drugs was a capital offense before the ship even docked, so yeah, there's that. I don't know what they would do to you if you got in to a bar fight, but I suspect it would start with slivers of bamboo and your fingernails and go downhill from there. On the upside, I never once concerned myself with someone picking my pocket.
In China town I had a very nice, if forgettable, meal. I also got to stop in to a Chinese restaurant on the outskirts of China town, which was my first taste of sea cucumber. I can't say that the sea cucumber had a whole lot of flavor itself, but the dish was delicious, and I actually liked the texture. I foresee making some myself if I can find sea cucumber to work with. Definitely one of the better meals, and something I've been wanting to try for some time. A little later in the trip I had the opportunity to try chili crab at a little outdoor place by the water. It was good (if messy), but I fail to see what the hype is about; maybe it was just that place. I never did get to try the fish head curry.
In the visit to little India I managed to show up right in time for a parade which was fairly impressive in it's size, but I left this little bit to talk about until after talking about the food. There were quite a few men stripped to the waist who were carrying (or so I initially thought) rather large pieces of ornamentation. Upon closer inspection however, they were carrying them less with their hands and more with a series of piercings through their flesh. A lot of piercings. I know religion makes even otherwise rational people do phenomenally stupid things, but that was beyond the pale.
Ultimately, piercings aside I enjoyed Singapore and got to see a pretty good museum; I just wish I'd been able to go out and see more. It also gains points because damned near everyone spoke English.
Thursday, June 13, 2019
Asia Trip Part 6: Thailand
It's been quite awhile since the last update, due in part to the fact that I just wasn't excited about writing this part of the trip (none of the two parts to this was worth getting out of bed.
General thoughts: Initially this was the antithesis of Vietnam; the country side was gorgeous well kept farm fields with no indication of the just abject poverty seen in the Vietnamese country side. Unfortunately Bangkok was also the opposite of Saigon; the city was filthy, crowded, and had a major problem with traffic. That traffic problem was part of the reason it took us more than 3 hours to get to our first destination, but at least we got to see one interesting sight on the way: the most utterly, unspeakably dangerous mess electrical wiring I have seen in my life. I honestly don't know the entire city hasn't burned to the ground; I suspect souls were sold to prevent fires and mass electrocutions. There were large parts of the city that we saw on the way in that had bundles of wires as thick as my leg being run along the outsides of buildings with what appeared to be haphazard splices of wire running in to buildings (sometimes through a window). If I ever see that kind of thing again I think I'll just start running from the inevitable conflagration.
The first stop, when we finally got there after more than three hours on the damned bus was another buddhist temple where we got to wander around for hours seem the many, many statues of buddha, all of which were from the 20th century, including the "reclining buddha" for which the temple was known. At this point in the trip I was seriously contemplating acts of vandalism on all statues of buddha. Of course to make things even worse, we weren't even supposed to be there. The tour was listed as another "on your own", meaning that they should have just dropped us in Bangkok and let us explore, but instead we got to be inundated with buddha.
We finally got to a hotel where we could wander around,and do a lot of it because the tour guide was an imbecile who we had to tell multiple times when we were supposed to be back on the ship; surprise surprise we were so late getting back that it held up the ship's departure.
The meal at the only restaurant in the hotel was "Thai", but quite frankly I could make everything on the menu and do a far better job of it. Having some time until we could leave I went looking for some street food to try, and found a few stalls selling things even at an odd hour. I was excited... right until I got close enough to smell; one whiff from any of them convinced me that I would be seriously ill if I ate there. So, complete flop. I had fully expected Bangkok to be the best stop of the trip, but it was far and away the worst.
Second stop in Thailand was a touristy island called Koh Samui. I'll leave the description at a long bus ride to visit two buddhist temples, by the end of which I was the absolute anti-buddha. I wanted to burn shit and salt the earth; I decided it would be safer for all involved for me to just not get off the bus at the second temple. Besides I was short both a lighter and a bag of salt.
I think Thailand could still be a great place, but I doubt I'll ever make the effort to go back.
General thoughts: Initially this was the antithesis of Vietnam; the country side was gorgeous well kept farm fields with no indication of the just abject poverty seen in the Vietnamese country side. Unfortunately Bangkok was also the opposite of Saigon; the city was filthy, crowded, and had a major problem with traffic. That traffic problem was part of the reason it took us more than 3 hours to get to our first destination, but at least we got to see one interesting sight on the way: the most utterly, unspeakably dangerous mess electrical wiring I have seen in my life. I honestly don't know the entire city hasn't burned to the ground; I suspect souls were sold to prevent fires and mass electrocutions. There were large parts of the city that we saw on the way in that had bundles of wires as thick as my leg being run along the outsides of buildings with what appeared to be haphazard splices of wire running in to buildings (sometimes through a window). If I ever see that kind of thing again I think I'll just start running from the inevitable conflagration.
The first stop, when we finally got there after more than three hours on the damned bus was another buddhist temple where we got to wander around for hours seem the many, many statues of buddha, all of which were from the 20th century, including the "reclining buddha" for which the temple was known. At this point in the trip I was seriously contemplating acts of vandalism on all statues of buddha. Of course to make things even worse, we weren't even supposed to be there. The tour was listed as another "on your own", meaning that they should have just dropped us in Bangkok and let us explore, but instead we got to be inundated with buddha.
We finally got to a hotel where we could wander around,and do a lot of it because the tour guide was an imbecile who we had to tell multiple times when we were supposed to be back on the ship; surprise surprise we were so late getting back that it held up the ship's departure.
The meal at the only restaurant in the hotel was "Thai", but quite frankly I could make everything on the menu and do a far better job of it. Having some time until we could leave I went looking for some street food to try, and found a few stalls selling things even at an odd hour. I was excited... right until I got close enough to smell; one whiff from any of them convinced me that I would be seriously ill if I ate there. So, complete flop. I had fully expected Bangkok to be the best stop of the trip, but it was far and away the worst.
Second stop in Thailand was a touristy island called Koh Samui. I'll leave the description at a long bus ride to visit two buddhist temples, by the end of which I was the absolute anti-buddha. I wanted to burn shit and salt the earth; I decided it would be safer for all involved for me to just not get off the bus at the second temple. Besides I was short both a lighter and a bag of salt.
I think Thailand could still be a great place, but I doubt I'll ever make the effort to go back.
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