Singapore

I can describe Singapore with a limited degree of authority, limited to about 36 hours experience of the island.  It is not the aseptically clean place I expected from descriptions, where you could eat off the sidewalk if doing so weren't illegal.  The city is big and there is some litter, though nothing to rival San Francisco's.  I don't recall graffiti and only a few hipster street stickers amid the shiny skyscrapers and shopping malls.  There are beautiful and peculiar attractions and remnants of the British colonial presence as well as a lot of great food.

 We did not indulge much in Singapore's national activity of shopping. We did more wandering in attractions of nature -- the Botanical Gardens and the bird park; and in attractions of artifice -- the Super Trees and the Gardens by the Bay indoor cloud forest and waterfall.

Singapore is a great place for food and we loved the ubiquitous hawker centers -- food courts with many many stalls selling all varieties of southeast Asian fare.  One of the prettiest is the 19th century Lau Pa Sat market.  We passed an evening of sensory extravagance in Little India, in the labyrinthine Mustafa shopping experience -- everything from shampoo to celery to saris and a lot more; visiting a Hindu temple; and eating amazing Indian food at a down home place Mike Grafton had discovered.  Mike B. also spent time in Chinatown after I had flown back to the States.
 

 

From Sing we flew to Yangon and started our two week sojourn in Myanmar.