Kati & Mattes: China beats India in Singapore

Friends, family and all - helloooo!

We're on beautiful Bali by now, but we will try and keep this chronologial and start with a little Singapore review...

We only had about 24hours there, arriving with the long flight from Zurich and leaving the next evening with Jetstar to Denpasar on Bali.

These first few days we've been spending some points we still had from working days, and must thank the Hilton Singapore bc it was just beautiful there - roof-top pool, invitation to the lounge on the 20th floor for free breakfast, dinner (yummy yummy sushi!) and cocktails and right in the middle of town.

We obviously spent most of the time outside the hotel, though, mainly checking out Clarkes Quay and the river at night and Little India and Little China during the day.

The Quays were a nice walk on our first tropical night, but too 'fake' for us to really feel at home... so we only stayed for an hour or so.

The 'Littles' are truely amazing... In Little India you ONLY see Indians and in Little China you ONLY see Chinese! They truely split themselves into the respective areas.
In L. India the Hindu themples were the nicest - they have amazing scultures covering the roof and all corners of the temples, the areas around them are full of little shops selling flowers which they drape around figures of their gods and seem to be full of life all the time, with people eating, praying, chmating, talking. They lay flowers and fruits before the statues and chant together with 'chant masters' (anyone with and insights into Hindu rituals, please add info here!), and then the 'chant master' lights an oil candle, melts some colors and paints a dot on their foreheads.

We preferred L. China, though! First of all, we were the only Westerners around, which was great. The food market and court was turbulent and for a food/junkie like me pure bliss!!! The dishes are mostly only written in Chinese, so we had no idea what we were eating - But there were about 10 people queuing at the stall so we figured it must be good - and it was!!! spicey noodles with fish balls - as a girl told us afterwards. In general the people there were really nice, happy to see us there trying their food, e.g., an old Chinese couple sat with us and with hands and feet complimented me on my chop-stick-skills (hurrah!! ;-)) and in the metro (MRT they call it here) an man could stop smiling and pointing at Mattes' hair, which he obviously liked alot. So happiness all around. And a 5-floor wooden temple with a golden room full of chanting people and 100.000 buddhas on the roof!

We finished the afternoon with my first Durian in 10 years (shout out to Chrissy right here, thought of you all day!!!) (Oh, and a shout out to Sarah in NY - I still remember when you were reading about Durians in that food travelling book and wondering how it tastes!!). For those who don't know this fruit, it is spikey and STINKS and is filled with wonderful creamy/cheesy/fruity/stringy/leeky mass which you suck off the big seeds inside the pods. Luckily we bought it ready-peeled and it was great to taste that taste again which I'd had in my head over all these years...

That was Singapore! We took the MRT to the airport and off we were to Bali!
Ah, and of course the 'westernized' part of the city is super-sized, super-clean, super-organized, etc. Nice to be back for a day :-)
k&m*

************Pics Little China:**************