48 Hours in Singapore

Merlions and Tea Time: Singapore, the Southeast Asian curveball

Just when the cheese cravings subsided again, the sound of farang-farang! being called out from every passing motorbike became a familiar white noise; just when I'd re-resigned myself to the normalcy of finding cockroaches in the dry oatmeal and bicycling to work through ankle-deep flood water every other Monday; just when I thought I'd seen it all in my travels to Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Vietnam - I landed in Singapore.

Way to really throw off my Southeast Asian groove, SG.

Am I still in Asia??! Is this still 2011?? Am I going to get arrested for the pack of Trident Splash gum I forgot to take out of my purse? These are the things I had to wonder as Katie and I observed shiny rows of designer shops and restaurants, tourists teetering in 4-inch platform heels with shopping bags slung over their tiny arms, fingerprint scanning machines ping-ing Singaporeans through lines, and Asian people actually forming lines... It wasn't like any version of this continent I'd seen before. And it was just the Customs line at Changi airport.

Marina Bay Sands: doing what's never been done
with a boat before

Katie and my 48-hour vacation in Singapore a few weekends ago was a blissful melody of high-end (window) shopping, eating (heavy emphasis on the eating), and hanging out with a whopping 14-plus English-speaking foreigners our age all at once (What?! More than all of Nan province combined!).  We owe the success of our trip to our amazing host, Andrew, who guided us through the shiny squeaky-clean interiors of modern city buses and the MRT subway, the neon-colored nightclubs of Clarke Quay (you mean that club song isn't Thai??) and stunning silver panoramic views of the marina, lined with collossal and ambitious feats of architecture. (The Marina Bay Sands hotel stands front-and-center: an enormous ship stacked on top of 3 sky-scraping towers - and the Esplanade theaters loom above the waterfront like a giant aluminum durian fruit). Singapore didn't just transport us back into a western way of living - it catapulted us into a futuristic Asia leaps and bounds ahead of neighbors like Laos and Cambodia, and even Thailand. This is, after all, a city-country where efficiency and cleanliness are next to godliness, crime and disease are virtually non-existent, and even a landfill is a tourist attraction.

Soup inside dumplings. Sign me up.

We Nan-ians found that, despite its gleaming shiny new exterior and being famous for national pastimes of "Shopping and Eating" (the Singaporean PiAers couldn't refute it), Singapore boasts its own unique splash of Asian swag - it just might charge extra and make you clean up after it. But let no hater hate on a country with an official national pastime of eating when it offers the kind of feasting we partook in that weekend. Butter chicken masala, garlic and CHEESE naan, chicken rice, popiah spring rolls, fresh red apple carrot juice, soup dumplings, barbecue stingray, "carrot cake" (made with neither carrots nor cake, but a whole lot of other fried deliciousness), mozzarella sticks, Indian chaat with chutney, samosas, ice cream sandwiches on flaky-baked bread rolls... we even threw in a 5 am McGriddle at the 2-story 24-hour McDonald's (which also offers delivery), just because we could. Did I mention I was only visiting for 48 hours?

Giving Singapore a sweet farewell.

In between eating copious amounts of food and attending my first theme party since college (alliterated, as all good theme parties are: "Hipster n' Hood"), we were able to cover a pretty huge chunk of Singapore's "must-sees." Katie, Andrew and I walked Arab Street and the Sultan Mosque, visited the British-instated Raffles Hotel - where the Singapore Sling was invented - and grab an overpriced beer at a modern rooftop sports bar. We passed signs celebrating Singapore's 40-something birthday, stocked up on English-language magazines from the convenience stores, and waited in long organized lines for taxi cabs downtown. The three of us compared notes on teaching and students (Andrew teaches Chemistry to university students... a little different than the nose-picking-hand-holding-ice-cream-licking Bosses and Juniors of my daily routine), as well as impressions of our respective Asian hometowns. Andrew told us that Singapore is such a safe place, people will often leave their wallet or car keys to save a table at a hawker food court - everyone is so well off, and the punishment for theft so severe, that no one would bother stealing it.

Little India

On Sunday, mild HnH hangovers in tow, we walked through Little India under a sweltering Singaporean sun, past trinket shops and restaurant hawkers calling out their specialties - "Hello miss! Tikka masala! Paneer!"; we ducked under the umbrellas of food stall alleys, where Tamil men watched cricket games on a television set while sipping tall cans of Kingfisher beer; we passed the colorful Veeramakaliamman Temple, closed momentarily to visitors but crowded along the sidewalk with photo-snapping tourists. As Andrew pointed out, Little India isn't so much a mini India in Singapore - it's more Singapore's idea of what India should look like, in Singapore. I guess that idea pretty much sums up this place: a designed city, a city of what cities "should" look like. 

Farang-exclusive!

The next day, Katie and I made the 3-hour flight and 6-hour bus trek back to the N-a-n. I found out that a year-old paparazzi photo of me and Aj. Emily Hebner had emerged in a center-spread Thai magazine article about Nan city; my favorite waitress at Phufa Coffee dropped it on my table with my order and then ran away giggling (typical reaction to me). 


So, even though I left behind the bumping nightclubs, international cuisine at my fingertips, and Orchard Road boutiques as our AirAsia flight took off from the gleaming city nightlights of Singapore - at least I know I can still live the life of a celebrity, right here in my own Asian backyard.

Lights, Camera, Bieber!

If there's one thing that Thailand truly excels at, it is performance art. Stage theater, skits, karaoke, choreographed dance numbers... You name it, Thais bring it - often with a feather boa and some sequins. This past week was no exception at Bandon Sriserm, with the first biannual "6/1 Idol" competition of the year in my advanced sixth grade class, and a Mother's Day assembly today, in honor of the Queen of Thailand's birthday. 

 

The Theat-or: Some can't handle it.

Now, when I took my first stab at coordinating "6/1 Idol" way back last July, I timidly brought in a number of English song selections and lyrics for the kids to listen and practice to... The Beatles, N'Sync, Miley - how the heck should I know what kids are listening to these days? 90 percent of my selections were quickly shot down, in favor of Jason Mraz, Australian pop, and soundtracks to the Disney movie Anastasia and a 2007 Drew Barrymore-Hugh Grant flick I vaguely remember seeing at the Princeton Garden Theater. So this year, I knew: never try to reign in the creativity or randomness that is Thai pre-teen taste in English music

Groups this year had to come up with a band name, design their own album (complete with a photo from a Teacher Caitlin-coordinated photo shoot), and dance to go along with their singing performances. Band names ranged from "Popular Girl" to "Last Vegas," and costumes ranged from cowboy hats to clip-on ties. Needless to say, the judges and I were thoroughly impressed. Here's a video of my personal fave, "The Arena." 12-year-old boys who can memorize AND choreograph to The Biebz??? A+.

This morning, the student shows continued with an all-school Mother's Day assembly. After rising to sing the Queen's song and honoring a lifesize photo of her with a bouquet of jasmine (the national flower of Mother's Day),  every grade from Kindergarten 1 (4-5 year olds) to Grade 6 put on a song, dance, or skit for the hoards of parents and ice-cream licking siblings present. Some mothers were specially honored on stage, and came to school dressed in beautiful traditional Thai skirts and full hair and makeup. Other mothers showed up in a more everyday outfit of flip-flops and board shorts, and crowded at the bottom of the stage to photograph when their child came out to perform.

Because nothing says, "I love you Mom!" like sequined chickens.

Again, there was no real rhyme or reason to each performance. Some featured traditional Thai dancing, while another appeared to be a skit about how bad boys who get in trouble with the law will dishonor and disappoint their mothers. The Chinese language class sang "Que Sera, Sera," and the 3rd grade girls came out and danced in sequined body suits and chicken headpieces. The 4th graders dressed in Hmong village tribe outfits and danced with moroccos, drums, and fake crossbows, while the Kindergartners mostly just swayed from side to side and tried to comfort the occasional crying classmate on stage (the pressure to be a star at such a young age can be too great sometimes).

After the assembly, I gave the 6th graders an easy class period of finishing Mother's Day cards. While they didn't feature quite the same charms as last year's cards, they were equally loving and creative.

MOM does.

So, Happy Thai Mother's Day, America. I'm off to Singapore for the holiday weekend... tales of the Lion City when I return!

Ancient Ruins, Medical Emergencies, and Harry Potter: A Standard Thai Vacay

The rainy season persists here in Nan - our mornings spent bicycling to school in soaked-through plastic ponchos, our nights filled with thunder that cracks and trembles over our tin roof, and afternoons at school with downpour outside the classroom windows so loud that I can't hear my own voice giving lessons. The sun does come out now and then and beats down heavily for a few hours - only to be followed moments later by a waterfall of clattering rain. It's the unpredictable, and yet very predictable, ebb and flow of summer here.

For the Khao Phansa - start of Buddhist Lent - holiday weekend last month, my roommates and I were able to briefly escape the rain, for our first official vacation of the year. After just one quick visit to the Emergency Room (for a mysterious allergic reaction that left almost as quickly as it came), and minor sunburns for all (sorry, Mom), we survived an incredible trip to the ancient city of Ayutthaya and Ko Si Chang, a quiet fishing island along the gulf coast of Thailand.

Ransacked City, Swollen Stephanie

Long before the city o' squala took rein as the bustling capital city of Thailand, the kingdom's center was Ayutthaya - just a hop, skip and today, a 20 baht (60 cent) train ride from Bangkok. The city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, for its series of sprawling ancient monuments and temple grounds - most of them crumbling and in ruin, a result of the Burmese invasion in the 1700s. (The Burmese decapitated Buddhas for sale to art dealers; burned libraries and art wares; and destroyed much of Ayutthaya's great monuments... Then peaced out, abandoning the ransacked Siamese capital a mere few months later).

The four of us arrived in Ayutthaya in the morning, after a 10-hour overnight bus ride - filled with the usual offerings of complementary prawn-flavored chips, and a bizarre Asian martial arts-horror-comedy-in-one flick played at an excessive volume. We settled into our guesthouse, grabbed a bite to eat, and in true Nan-ite fashion, rented bicycles to begin touring the city - a small, flat commercial town, surrounded on all sides by river, that just happens to have stunning historic ruins (and the occasional trained elephant giving rides to tourists) traipsing along its streets.

We spent the afternoon picking our way through the major temple grounds, taking our time in the sweltering heat and enjoying the shortage of tourists in most parts of the sites. At sunset, we hired a woman to take us out in her longtail boat for a river tour, then shopped and snacked on chicken satay and coconut slushies at the riverside night market.

On our way into our guesthouse room that night, Steph - who had been feeling a little unwell since we left Nan, and had sat out most of the temple viewing - felt something graze her head. She looked down to see that a tiny gecko had fallen on her from above - a very ominous sign in Thailand. We chalked it up to a belated forewarning of her feeling crummy on our only day in Ayutthaya... But of course, the gecko bad luck was still yet to come. The next morning, Steph woke up with her entire face swollen, forehead to neck, ears to lips. We panicked only slightly, packed up our backpacks, and had a tuk-tuk drop us at the Emergency Room of the Ayutthaya Hospital.

The "doctor" (or the semi-English-speaking guy wearing flip flops and oversized slacks who was woken from his nap to attend to the hospital's only morning patient) said Stephanie either had an allergy to all the Advil she'd taken for her headache the day before, a bacterial infection, or, possibly, dengue-fever... so prescribed medication for any and all of the above. When we got a hold of some Benedryl at the Bangkok bus station pharmacy later that day, Steph finally started to unswell and feel a little better.

Cozy Chang

Our next stop was Koh Si Chang - a small island in the Gulf of Thailand, south of Bangkok. It took us another crowded (and unexpectedly long) bus ride and a ferry to get there, but we were greeted by clear turquoise waters, quiet streets, green hills dotted with golden temples, and a town of friendly locals. We were some of very few western tourists visible, the island mostly filled with vacationing Bangkokians and full-time fishermen.

We ended our day on a beach along the western shore of the island, watching the sun set over a beach scene filled with banana-boating, fully-clothed and swimming, and beached-whale Vacation Thais - a breed all of their own. Katie and I attempted swimming, but quickly found that the mysterious clear-and-purple floating objects grazing us in the water were not in fact 7-Eleven bags, but hundreds of small jellyfish. We opted for cold Leos on the sand instead, and spent the evening chatting away with a group of middle-aged Thais from Bangkok, one of whom was a teacher. He learned that I could read a little Thai, and proceeded to have me read information from every ID card he could find in his wallet. "What is my name? ...WOW! Can you read this? WOW!" (This is the primary reason I study Thai).


The next day we took a day trip to an even smaller and more remote island to the south. Getting there required "bargaining" with the only boat owner hanging out by the pier that morning, who preferred to finish his nap and not go anywhere that day than to lower his price a little. Eventually, with the help of passing motorbike taxi driver who looked straight out of Starsky & Hutch, we found another fisherman with a slow boat who was willing to take us for a reasonable price... although he couldn't get us all the way to shore, and we had to be shuttled in the last 20 meters by a fortuitous Thai kayaker passing by. (And, despite being dropped off a mere foot away from sand by the kayak, I managed to trip over a wave while getting out and fall completely into the water anyway).  Travel in Thailand is never quite a "Point A to Point B" kind of situation.

On the way back to Bangkok, we couldn't resist that giant billboards advertising Harry Potter 7 scattered all over the big city - and so hopped off our bus at the first mega-cineplex we passed by. Backpacks in tow, we indulged in a rare afternoon of big city life - as experienced within a giant Asian super mall.

All in all, our trip was a success - and just as we get settled back in Nan, we're making plans for the Queen's Birthday (and national Mother's Day) holiday coming soon... details TBA!