Bali Hai

So when you travel half way around the world, you need a vacation within the vacation.  My pal Carla stepped up to the plate and decided to plan a little weekend getaway for us.  We were toying with something "resortish" in Thailand, Malaysia, or Indonesia.  Ultimately, she settled on Indonesia and the tropical island of Bali.

The plan was to fly out to Denpasar on a Thursday and return home on a Monday.  Just the right amount of time for a relaxing little vacation.  Of course for a long weekend with a toddler, my friend's overpacked a tad, but still managed to forget a few minor things like bottles and a stroller.

We flew Air Asia.  They are the ultra low cost airline of the far east, but they are inexpensive, and it gives us a taste of how the other half lives.   We sprang for the "hot seats" which are assigned seats up front, so we got priority boarding (although they let everyone stampede at the same time, so not sure what the benefit of that is).

The Indonesian currency, the Rupiah, is like tens of thousands to the dollar, so for the first time in my life I was a millionaire!

We arrived at the Denpasar airport at sunset and were met by our driver.  His name was Gedey, but he goes by G'Day, as a way to connect with the millions of Australian tourist (Bali is to Australia what Cancun is to the United States).  He drove us thru the bustling town of Denpasar to our little hideaway of Sanur in the east.

Carla booked us a private villa at the Kejora Suites.  It was like a little house, with an open floor plan.  All the bedrooms opened to our private pool and patio.

The compound was right up against the promenade, so after we got settled, we headed out for a late night dinner.  I had Nasi Goreng, which is like an SE Asian speciality, with little fish heads and rice.

The weekend was a great combination of drinking beer and eating and relaxing.  The famous local beer is Bintang.  After a few of them, I got artsy and decided to do a picture with some flowers.

Isla managed to make a little friend while we were having lunch at the beach one day.  Kids who don't even speak the same language, can still find a common ground for communicating.  In this case, it was playing with sand.

This little slug was always hanging out by the door to my bedroom.  I named him Mike.  I thought his shell was pretty.

The area around Sanur was very quiet.  There are other parts of Bali that are known for wild events and hedonistic tourists, but we stayed in a more quiet and tranquil part of the island.

While Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world, the island of Bali is largely Hindu.  As a result, every business, house, and even car, has these flower offerings placed on or around entrances, windows, dashboards, you name it.

You are never within more than 5 feet of a gift shop or someone trying to sell you something.  The stores all sell pretty much the same thing, but you have to haggle.  I ended up buying a Bintang shirt and got an "F" in negotiations from Carla because I felt sorry for the saleslady and ended up offering her more than she was asking.

Of course a day in the hot sun shopping means an afternoon at a local bar drinking tropical cocktails.

During one of our days, we hired G'day to take us in country and we explored some Hindu Temples and the Rice Terraces of Ubud.  Per Hindu custom, we had to wear sarongs while visiting the holy sites.

The view of the Rice Terraces was simply breathtaking.  What you can't see in how incredibly hot and humid it was, but it was totally worth it for a view like this.

This is a civet.  It's a little cat like animal that eats the coffee beans as they fall from the plants.  It digests and poops them out whole and then the locals fetch the civet droppings and roast the coffee beans.  It's apparently quite the cup of joe because it sells for like $50 a pound. It only served to make me confident in my decision not to be a coffee drinker.  Carla did try some and said it was tasty.

Like all good things, Monday came and it was time to go back to Singapore and finish the rest of my other vacation.  We managed to survive our flight with the unwashed masses back to Singapore and thank goodness we had "hot seats".

I am so fortunate to have friends living in exotic parts of the world as it affords me to the opportunity to visit places I might not otherwise go.  This was a fantastic vacation.

And now on to Singapore

Part two of my vacation began the day after I got back from San Francisco.  My plan all along had been to go to Singapore in January and see my friend's Carla and Steven.  Carla and I have been friends since the 9th grade.  She was the first person I met when I started high school (she didn't take to me at first, but I kept chipping away) and after 24 years, we are still pals.  She and her husband Steven recently relocated to Singapore for a two to three year expat gig with Steven's job.  I had hope to see them in January until the pesky mitral valve got in the way, so with my deferred vacation, I planned to head over to Singapore in March.  I was fortunate that my base chair and vice chair, Ted and Maureen, allowed me to take a trip removal for some union work I had done towards the end of last year, so I had the rest of the month off to play in Southeast Asia.  So I packed my bags, grabbled Flat Stanley, and jetted off to the orient.

Traveling on space available passes means you have to go where the seats are, and so I went the long way to Singapore, via London and Kuala Lumpur.  I would end up coming home via Tokyo, so I got to say that I circumnavigated the globe for a third time.

It was kind of strange flying Malaysia Airlines a week after their plane went missing in the Indian Ocean, but lightning doesn't strike twice.  From London to KL, the flight is about 12 hours, but I had a whole row to myself on the new A380 double decker, and it was quite pleasant.  The Purser was nice enough to extend a personal tour of the airplane and I got to see some of it's neat features.  It sure flies smooth.

I arrived in Singapore two days after I left Dallas, but it wasn't a bad trip.  Carla and Steven and their little girl Isla were waiting for me at the airport.  This was actually my second trip to Singapore, since I had visited there for a long weekend with Carla and Steven back in 2006 when they were living in Malaysia.  The city is perpetually under construction and there wasn't much I recognized from my previous vacation.  I immediately noticed what a strange sense of fashion some Asian women have.  This lady clearly was a fan of Snoopy.

One of the first things we did was celebrate Carla's birthday with a nice brunch at a trendy eatery called Wild Honey.  Two facts about Singapore: it's terribly expensive and it rains every day.  Once you get over that, it's quite a nice place, with humidity on par with my upbringing in Florida.  We dodged the rain and were able to enjoy a meal in their patio (which as a backup was covered).  And a little prosecco goes a long way in helping you recover from Jetlag.

We didn't really have an agenda of anything we wanted to do, so we just took it day by day.  One of our first tasks was to get them a few rugs.  The floors in their apartment are marble and that coupled with a toddler makes for stress, so we made our way down to Arab Street to shop for some quality floor furnishings.

The Arab art of haggling can be quite stressful.  After rather intense negotiations, I stepped in with a final price and said "let's shake hands and part as friends" which became our mantra for the rest of the trip.  Ibrahim acted like he sold the rugs for a huge loss, but we know at the end of the day he still made out just fine. It's all part of the game.

Singapore has a strong British influence as it is a former colony of Great Britain.  The modern city was founded as a colony in the late 1800's as an important stop over point for ships trading between India and China.

Carla and I signed up for a tour with her American Women's Association one day and visited Waterloo Street.  It's kind of the religious center of town, with Buddhist temples, Hindu shrines, and even Jewish Synagogues all located in one central area.  Being the token male, I was the hit of the tour with all the middle aged expat American women.

My favorite part of the day was when we passed a fortune telling parrot.

I got out a few days and did some sightseeing of my own.  One thing you see everywhere is skyscrapers.  There is a very small amount of land, so space is at a premium, and the solution is skyscrapers!

I spent a really interesting day at the National Museum of Singapore.  They have wonderful exhibits that really give you a look into the founding of the city-state and the history of the nation.

The most popular part of the city is the Marina Sands complex near the harbour.  Eight years ago, none of this even existed.

A popular activity is apparently letting fish eat the dead skin off your feet.

One of the coolest parts of the trip was that another one of our high school classmates, Lark, was going to be in Singapore for business during the tail end of my stay.  One of the highlights of my trip in 2006 was a visit to Raffles Hotel and the Long Bar to have a famous Singapore Sling, the birthplace of the famous cocktail.  I wanted to recreate the experience, and this time, our little Singapore Sling club added Lark as our third member.

Here we are in 2006.

And here were are in 2014.

About the only thing that has changed at Raffles is that the drink glasses are smaller and the price of a Singapore Sling has now doubled to about $30 a piece!  But you can't put a price on friendship and a mini reunion with Lark made the experience all the more fun!