Kuala Lumpur and Singapore – Why Not?

After spending 3 weeks in Bali I was ready for something different; and still having almost 8 days until my flight home out of Singapore, I decided to take a cheap flight and do a quick stop in Kuala Lumpur (or as all the cool kids call it, “KL”) and then head south to Singapore for a few days before my departure from Southeast Asia.

My hostel in KL was in a great location – right across the street from Chinatown and the street markets with tons of food stalls.  I spent the next few days exploring…shopped the stalls in Chinatown, many selling authentic faux Gucci, Tommy Hilfiger and Louis V items; visited the outdoor Petaling Street market and the indoor Central Market; ate delicious vegetarian Indian food at the highly rated MTR Restaurant while sharing a table with a curious young Indian man who quizzed me about my travels, fascinated that I was traveling alone; and I got a manicure in one of the many ginormous shopping malls in the downtown area. ( And FYI – this ain’t no Vietnam for manicure prices! I had loved paying $7 for a gel/shellac mani in Vietnam…the one I got here in KL was $24 (less than the US prices of $30-35, but still…!)

So many people have told me I am brave taking this trip.  I don’t feel especially brave traveling to the other side of the world alone, but here’s an example of me being brave – I finally tried durian. ( I guess I had tried it once before—when my daughters and I were in Thailand a few years ago, Maura and I tried a spoonful of durian ice cream and decided one taste was enough, thank you.)   Durian is a weird, spiky fruit, extremely popular in SE Asia. In KL, it was for sale at so many of the street carts that the smell permeated the air. The inside is white and creamy and sweet – but.  And this is a BIG but…the fruit stinks.  No, it more than just “stinks” – it reeks.  It has a stench. A foul odor.  Like a dirty diaper, smelly feet and rotten meat all mixed together.  It smells so bad that it is banned in hotels and public transportation.

(Notice that the sign doesn’t even mention the fine? It must be outrageous.)

And yet, someone back in historical times, someone brave! Or maybe just very hungry, decided to pop a bite into his mouth and see how it tasted, even though his nose must have screamed “nooooo!!!”.  Famous travel guru and eater of nearly everything, Anthony Bourdain calls it “indescribable, something you will either love or despise…Your breath will smell as if you’d been French-kissing your dead grandmother.” I was semi-brave – I tried a durian tart, which was actually delicious (but still stinky!)

While in Kuala Lumpur I visited the beautiful Butterfly Park – the largest butterfly garden in the world, with over 80,000 square feet of beautifully and naturally landscaped gardens with waterfalls, koi ponds and fresh water turtles 🐢 – enjoying the peace and quiet of the humid, beautiful canopied outdoor space with over 5,000 exotic butterflies and moths (don’t know the difference? I didn’t either, until I went through the tiny “Lepidoptera museum” which showcased many gorgeous specimens and information about these beauteous creatures.)

One afternoon I spent a few hours at the Bank Negara Malaysia Museum & Art Gallery.  A most unusual museum dedicated to the history and progression of money and currency, specifically in Malaysia, but also showcasing monies from all over the world.  It was interesting to see coins and trinkets used for trading and currency from centuries ago. I was able to take a picture of the twin Petronas Towers, quintessentially Kuala Lumpur.  Taken through the dotted glass of the museum, the photo has a pixelated look I like.

They also had a beautiful collection of batik art in the museum, and after creating my piece in Ubud, I had an appreciation of the process and the work that went into these intricate pieces.

What I really liked about KL was the juxtaposition of modern and old. Hindu and Muslim. Indian and Malay. Chinatown and the bustling ultra-modernistic Petronas Towers and downtown. This city has energy!

After 4 nights in KL I was moving on to Singapore – not only a city, it is a country as well. And an island.  In fact, it’s the only city/country/island in the world,  A very prosperous, savvy and cosmopolitan city/country/island indeed.

Singapore is known for the strict rules it enforces upon its citizens and visitors.  Here are some examples –

• Everyone seems to know that chewing gum is illegal in Singapore…technically, the ban is against bringing it into the country or buying it there, but still.
• Did you know that you run the risk of being fined for not flushing the toilet in a public restroom after doing your “doody/duty”.  $150 as a matter of fact.
• And don’t connect your phone to an unsecured WiFi network – you’ll get in trouble for that as well.
• Jaywalking?  Don’t even think about it.  You can be fined and caned.  Yes, caned.  As in, beaten with a stick.

One of my greatest enjoyments in a new place is to just walk out the door of the hostel and start walking, with no real destination in mind.  Doing this one afternoon, I ended up at the Masjid Sultan, (Sultan Mosque), one of the most important mosques in Singapore.

Nearby was the Malay Heritage Center at Sultan Gate in the Kampong Gelam precinct.  An interesting museum, it highlights the culture and heritage of Malay, Singaporeans through stories of its people.

I was walking around the Serangoon neighborhood in Singapore after dinner one evening and I stumbled right into a “grand opening” of the Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple which had undergone massive restoration and was having a welcome celebration.  Hundreds upon hundreds of shoes lined the sidewalk outside the temple as there are no shoes allowed inside.

Celebratory Hindus crowded the temple, where there was chanting, praying, eating, laughing and lots of children playing and enjoying the warm evening.

Stopped off for a beer near the hostel at a small bar called The Druggists.  I ordered a pint of craft beer, and almost fell off the barstool when he asked me for $19 dollars Singapore (which is approximately $14 USA).  Singa-poor for sure!  You’re looking at maybe $6 of beer in this photo below—

Another afternoon of walking about led me to Chinatown.  Shops lined the streets, filled with booths selling scarves, magnets, chopsticks, tee shirts, toys, jewelry, tea and everything imaginable.  Around the corner was a large, ornate temple called the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple.

I was thrilled to see that there were monks (men and women) and laypeople chanting, playing instruments and praying in a ceremony of some sort inside the beautiful gold and red temple replete with Buddhas of all shapes and sizes.

After enjoying this, I began to leave but a man outside informed me that the temple was 4 stories tall and had an orchid garden on the roof and a Buddhist museum that were open to view, and wouldn’t I like to take a look? The orchid garden offered many benches to sit and reflect and gorgeous flowers to view. On one of the floors, the temple offered a small museum which presented the story of Buddha, complete with ornate and varied statues of Buddha. Very informative and interesting…but the highlight was Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic. In the center of this floor is a golden stupa displaying a tooth believed to be the Buddha’s. Around the room were pillows and benches on which to meditate and rest. It was a really cool way to spend the afternoon (and escape the stifling heat of the day!)

But the highlight of Singapore for me was the Gardens by the Bay.  I was a bit hesitant to shell out the $20+ for the ticket, thinking it was going to be a fabricated, static type of botanic garden exhibit.  Wowza.  Was I ever wrong!  This place was absolutely, incredibly, amazingly spectacular.

The Cloud Forest and the Flower Dome contained specimens of flowers, trees, aloe, cacti, and who knows what else – things I had never seen before in such proliferation and such well-planned displays.  Baobab trees from Africa.  Arizona cacti.  Flora from Australia.  Award-winning orchids in sizes and colors unimaginable.  There were teeny tiny orchids, displayed with magnifying glasses positioned over them so you could see the intricacies of these gorgeous flowers.

Wow and double wow.  There was a special presentation of tulips – thousands of brightly colored flowers arranged to look like a giant sculpted family was awakening from slumber within the flowers.

Always a sucker for a good pun, I loved the “Aloes in Wonderland” collection of aloe plants, with sculptures of the Queen of Hearts, Alice, Cheshire Cat and others placed strategically throughout the plants.

Outside the amazing domes housing the Cloud Forest and the Flower Dome are the Supertrees.  Over 162,900 plants with more than 200 species and varieties of bromeliads, orchids, ferns and tropical flowering climbers are planted on the Supertrees.  These trees, some of which are 16 stories tall, are embedded with environmentally sustainable functions like photovoltaic cells to harvest solar energy.

In the evenings you can see the free light show held here in the trees – I never did get back to the Gardens in the evenings in time for this but I’ve heard it’s fantastic.

After four months of travel and 3 nights in Singapore, I was ready to return to Colorado – to my kids, my new grandbaby, my apartment and friends…my flight was the next morning out of Singapore to San Francisco and then on to Denver.

I boarded the beautiful United DreamLiner jet, and waited to take off.  And waited. When the pilot came on to say we were having mechanical issues, I knew we weren’t going anywhere…and sure enough, after 3-1/2 hours of sitting on the plane, we were told the flight was cancelled.

Never have I seen such ineptitude – no organization, no lines were formed, no one from United took charge and assisted us in getting rescheduled, rebooked, and issuing hotel and food vouches. There was something going on in Singapore that week, and hotel rooms were at a premium – United was scrambling trying to find rooms for everyone.   Finally, after maybe 3 hours of milling around waiting for instruction, I was in a line with 3 men from the flight.  We were told 4 hotel rooms had been reserved for us with our names, and could we share a taxi there?  Sure, we said – we were all exhausted and just wanted to get somewhere to settle in until our flight the next day.

When we arrived at the swanky Carlton Hotel, the manager informed the 4 of us that there were actually no rooms for us – the four reserved rooms United had promised us had just gone to the previous 4 United flight passengers who had arrived 10 minutes before us.  She calmed us down,  offered us a coffee in the hotel’s coffee shop and set about trying to come up with a solution.  After about 25 minutes, she approached us tentatively and said, “I know this is unconventional and I TOTALLY understand if you’d rather not; but how would the 4 of you feel about  sharing the presidential suite?  It’s a two bedroom suite with a king bed in one bedroom, twin beds in the 2nd bedroom, and we can bring in a rollaway and place it in the office…”. We all looked at each other, burst out laughing, took about 10 seconds to decide, and said sure.  What the heck; why not?  Two of us had been traveling for months, staying in hostels – this would be the nicest accommodations we had experienced!  The other two were business travelers and were also happy to finally find a place.  (As I’m writing this I checked their website – that room goes for over $3000 a night.  Yowza!!!)

I got the king bed and room to myself; Jim the restaurant owner from Jackson Hole, Wyoming took the rollaway, and the other two guys shared the twin room.  We had drinks at the rooftop pool together, had a nice expensive buffet dinner at the hotel (thank you United) and thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company, laughing and sharing travel stories, family, relationship and background info and generally joking, eating and having a great night.  We all agreed it couldn’t have been a better group to get stranded with and have to share the night together!  (When life gives ya lemons…)  

The next day’s flight took off as scheduled and Jim and I traveled together all the way to Denver before he flew home to Wyoming (tthe other two, whose names escape me at the moment! Sorry guys! flew out to the east coast on a 630 am flight and were gone super early. )

Smooth sailing all the way to Denver, where my daughter Maura picked me up at the airport and my son Kevin and his GF Morgan met us at my place for a quick dinner, lots of hugs and kisses and then off to bed for me.

Impossible to believe that 4 beautiful, fantastical, magical months of traveling – Laos.  Cambodia. Vietnam. Nepal. Bali. Malaysia. Singapore – had come to an end.

Looking forward to the next adventure, as I get ready to spend August and September in Tuscany at a 15th century villa, acting as the ‘caretaker’ in exchange for free accommodations.  I may be making a stop in the Toulouse area of France 🇫🇷 to spend some time with a special someone before my Italy adventure starts…       Stay tuned to see what happens! 😉

 

The secret of adventure, then, is not to carefully seek it out – but to travel in such a way that it finds you.  Open yourself up to unpredictability.  You’ll discover adventure in the simple reality of a world that defies your expectations.        Rolf Potts, “Vagabonding”