Hester's Head

We have left Singapore behind us and have traveled through the Straits of Malacca. This is the world's busiest sea-lanes and also the site of a large percentage of the acts of piracy committed each year. Yep, piracy is alive and well into today's oceans - There were almost 400 incidents of piracy and armed robbery against ships worldwide during the 12-month period 01 Jan-31 Dec 05. Pirates propensity for violence remains high, 35 percent of incidents involved some degree of violence with more than 550 persons killed or injured and almost that many taken hostage in 2005. Piracy in the southern and SE Asian region accounted for 65 percent of worldwide piracy in the year. Piracy in Indonesian and contiguous waters was 45 percent of the worldwide total in calendar 2005.
But back to Singapore. It was a good visit. It was just so damn hot. Their record low was 19.4 degrees Celsius recorded in 1934. At 8 in the morning it was already 25 and, thanks to 94% humidity, felt like 39. It was hot. There was lots of haze in Singapore caused by fires in Indonesia. It dominated the news while we were there; I guess it dominates every year at this time. Indonesia is burning its forests to clear land as well as getting rid of waste. I was told that the haze also contributed to the extra heat. At least it didn't smell like smoke. It didn't smell at all. And made the sun look like a red glowing ball.
I did not do a whole lot other than walk around, take some pictures, look around, and eat. I checked out Chinatown and downtown and walked along the Singapore River. The first evening Mark and I walked along the river checking out the sights and taking pictures. I had no real plans other than try to book a hotel room and find some chilli crab. I could not get my wireless connection to work anywhere, after three or four tries and a stop in at least two Starbucks. My laptop became an anchor I had to lug around. We did find a Jumbo Seafood Restaurant and stopped to get some dinner. I had hoped to find this place and order the chilli crab. So I did. $3.30 for 100g and they asked me if I wanted 2 kilo. I asked for a smaller one - I got the 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 kilo one. It was incredible. Delicious. And just as messy as advertised. Two chopsticks, the nutcracker tool and a pick. I asked for some tips on how to eat it and they said just dig in. I went to town. I think they were messing with me because the waitress would smile at me each time she came by. I was a mess - the chopstick was used to keep the sauce from dripping from my elbow and for wiping my forearm. I ate every bit and even licked the carapace clean. The sauce was delicious and there was a gallon of it. I had two man-tou dumplings to soak it up - they should have given me 20. I went to clean up, in the long trough with three faucets for it. While I was gone Mark said the waitresses were giggling as they were cleaning up my mess - another reason for me to believe they were messing with me. I had had a mind-crushing headache all day so I wasn't able to finish the sauce - it really was far too much anyway - so I finished up, left Mark as he was going downtown, and headed back to the ship.

The locals often speak a form of English known as Singlish. I thought they were messing with me. I could only hear half of what they said and the other half made no sense. Three of us went to get hotel rooms the next day and I stopped at Starbucks again. I ordered a grande americano. The girl says, "Something, something, something," followed by something that sounded like "cheesecake?" I said, "I'm sorry?" and she replied, "Would you like something to eat?" "No thanks." I should have asked her what she said the first time. They did have cheesecake there - '15 blueberries on a cheesecake', which I checked to make sure there were 15 blueberries. There were. The first time I ordered the grande long americano the girl came to my table to ask me, after I had my drink, what "long" meant. I told her what it was and even demonstrated how you make a long. She said "Oh, our grandes come with four shots of espresso." Very nice. That's one more than they give us at home and is why I ask for the long.
We had some lunch at Burger King. I had the Bembang (?) burger - it has some type of curry/gravy sauce on it and some onion chunks. I also had the taro pie - which was very good, and purple. I can't describe it any better than that. Keith and Mark went to the pool while I headed out to Chinatown. Narrow streets, packed shops, lots of tiny shops. I had some BBQ'd pork at one shop - a flat 4" X 4" sheet of it. It was mid afternoon so it wasn't very busy. I did have some "Ah balling peanut soup." It seemed to be peanuts that had been boiled. Looked like pale peanuts and they were very soft. I had some peanut balls put in too - some ground up peanuts in a soft tapioca like ball. Like a steamed Chinese pastry, only smaller, perfectly round, and boiled. It also was very good. Another shop had some snow ice, so I tried the coffee flavour. They had some toppings for it and they asked me what I wanted. I wondered if I was the first person that had ever ordered the coffee flavour because I asked them what topping they recommended and they had no idea. So I picked the red bean topping. Might not have been the best choice, it wasn't exactly complementary, but it was good.
I went in a camera shop to see if I could buy a mini-SD card for my cell phone. I came out with a new camera. And a tripod for it, an extra battery, mini-SD card, and an adapter for the mini-SD card for my laptop. Damn it. It was a nice camera and he offered to exchange my old camera. He offered me more than I had paid for it so I was sucked right in. It is a very nice little camera that is easy to use with one hand. I went back to where I ended the day before and continued my walk along the waterfront, taking pictures, pictures and more pictures. Two girls stopped me on a bridge to conduct a survey. "How do I feel when I am in Singapore as opposed to at home?" Strange and weird questions like that. The questions were brutal. The one girl doing all the talking (they were both writing) mentions that I have the same camera as her and I tell her I just bought it. I told her I would show her what I had taken pictures of but I didn't know how to do that. Of course she can show me how. I'm less than pleased to discover I had taken exactly zero pictures but I did have some video up my nose or of me looking into the lens. Delete, delete, delete. I had taken the card out of my old camera and put in the new one - those were the only pictures I had. It was getting dark so I took a few more pictures and went back to my hotel room.
Here's another interesting tidbit. The north and south poles get six months of day and six months of night each year. As you get move away from the poles, the days during the summer are longer and the nights during the winter are longer. Until you get to the equator. Do you want to know what happens there? I'm glad you asked. They get twelve hours of day and twelve hours of night each and every day. The sun comes up and then goes down twelve hours later, at the exact same time, every single day. For Singapore, it was shortly after 7 AM and 7 PM.
The shower in the hotel room was incredible. I have never had so much water that was so hot - I had six showers in two days. I had showers for no reason. The air conditioning was good too. I had it set to 20 and found that too cold in the mornings. The bed was cool and comfortable and hard to get out of. I spent most of the third day in the hotel room, avoiding the heat and watching TV. I went out long enough to find more food. I wanted to find the typical Singapore breakfast of toast, coffee and runny eggs. I had given up and had some lunch instead. I was standing in line at Ed's Fish Shop, but was probably closer to another shop - they were only about 10 feet wide. They asked me what I wanted and I ordered there before discovering I wasn't ordering from Ed's. I took a picture of the name of this shop because it wasn't the least bit English. I also took a picture of the menu because I asked for "Set 2" because I didn't know what to get. The girl gave me some tongs and told me to pick some stuff, but I just asked for set 2. I recognized the fish ball and nothing else. I really like fish balls - they are a favourite of mine. There were also some vermicelli style noodles, and some other things. A spring roll like thing, another thing, and one other thing. One of them was bean loon. Don't ask, I have no idea what it was or even which thing it was. It was all very good though. For S$4.50. Not five minutes after that I accidentally walked into the breakfast place in the mall. So I got in line and ordered breakfast. The typical Singapore S$3.30 breakfast. I had the kopi coffee - very strong and sweet, almost a Vietnamese coffee with the sweetened condensed milk. And kaya toast - thick cut bread that is toasted on a grill, and then cut to make it thin cut toast and spread with kaya. Kaya is a coconut, egg, and sugar spread that is very good. The girl then put a stick of butter - like the gum that used to come with hockey cards - in the middle and cut it in half. Then I got the runny eggs - VERY soft-boiled eggs. I broke open one and it stopped me in my tracks. It looked barely cooked as I poured it out of the hole in the shell. They had given me some stuff - one looked like soy sauce, but was much more viscous. Looked like and tasted like a blend of soy sauce and marmite. I don't like either and I didn't like this so I didn't use it. The other stuff was a small pile of powder which might have been a mix of salt and pepper, but appeared much more homogenous. It tasted kind of like salt and pepper so I used some of it. It tasted like any other boiled egg. Just didn't look like it. I wondered if I was eating that wrong too - I was near the entrance to the mall and one girl went "ahh" (in surprise, not understanding) as she passed my table. After looking at the mall map, I went looking for "Pizza Walker" and "Nude Restaurant." I took a picture of Pizza Walker and considered asking if I could have one of their pizza boxes, but what the heck would I do with that? I walked around, looked at the map, walked around, looked at the map several times and finally determined that the Nude Restaurant was in the process of becoming a Gap store. Shush. I can hear you from here. As if you wouldn't go look at a restaurant called "Nude Restaurant." Sure. Uh huh. I believe you. Millions wouldn't, but I believe you.
Leaving the mall turned into a chore too. I had come up an escalator to get in and found another escalator coming up and in at the other end. I walked around and finally found some stairs - but they reminded me of being seasick - they were very hot, humid, and smelly and almost made me ill - they made me feel ill. I got out of there fast. I went back to the Singapore River, for attempt #3 at taking some pictures. I had the camera figured out and took the pictures I wanted. Twice I asked people to take pictures of me - twice they took no pictures of me. So it wasn't only me. If you push the button halfway down the camera will focus and go black before going back to normal. It doesn't take a picture, you just think it does. I had to check their work and then demonstrate again how to take a picture. I finally got two pictures of me before beating it back to my hotel room to escape the heat. I sat in my hotel room watching the Discovery channel and drinking a couple Tiger Beers before venturing out one more time - for dinner. I wanted to try the laksa. I went to the closest mall, made it past the lady who wanted to make me some shoes and then past the shop that wanted to make me a suit. I asked them for directions and then they offered to make me a laksa shirt for S$125 and ship it to me. It was a great pattern, and silk, but I said I would think about it and get back to them. They told me to find the Sunflower Restaurant on the fifth floor. I made it there and then had to make it past the reflexologist lady who didn't know where the "Sunflower Restaurant" was. She pointed though, I went, and there it was - thirty feet away. I also told her I would come back after dinner. I had the Hot Wonton Laksa and I had to take a picture of that too. It was steaming hot and scorching hot. With a drink and a glass of water it came to S$9.50. Three meals for S$17.30. The laksa was delicious - vermicelli noodles and a coconut and curry broth with some vegetables and a couple wonton. I took a different route out of the mall to avoid the reflexologist and the suit makers and went back to my hotel for the night, and a shower. I was able to choose from a couple soccer games, including an Arsenal game. Invisible Theo Walcott finally started a game. He had been selected to play for England at the World Cup despite never having started for Arsenal, and then didn't see a single minute of play in the World Cup. It had really made John wonder why he had been selected to play at all.
We have a lot of exotic fruit on board from Singapore and I've tried most of it. Jackfruit, star fruit, dragon fruit, lychee nuts (or is it lychee fruit?) and some others as well. The jackfruit was strange looking, but it was very good. There were parts that were good to eat in between sections of sticky, stringy stuff. I was turning into a tar baby eating it, I had strings of this stuff from both hands to my mouth - it could stretch for several feet and was very hard to get off. Soap and hot water did nothing; I ended up spending the afternoon rubbing it off. Good as it was I avoided it after that. It's not often I learn from my mistakes.
I was duty on Sunday and ended up being a driver escort. I had to escort vehicles through the gate into the naval base. And it meant I got to go for some rides. I feel asleep in one vehicle without air conditioning as we were tooling along at 50km/h. I woke up as I was reaching out to grab something - like a pole - in front of me. I have no idea what I was dreaming about. The driver didn't notice, maybe he was dozing off too. If you go to a local coffee shop you can buy a bag of coffee - hanging from two little wires and drink it through a straw. It seemed like a recipe for disaster to me. We also stopped at Seafood Village and bought some take out chilli crab for dinner. He didn't say so, but I'm pretty sure I bought his too. This was at the East Side Park where they have water skiing. Without boats. It was getting dark and hard to see through the trees, but there appeared to be some type of wire structure strung around the lake that towed the skiers. There were jumps and obstacles for those willing to try, otherwise, if you fell off you were on your own and your handle would go bouncing along through the water. It looked like fun and seemed to be very popular - judging by the long line-up. The driver had to stop for gas, so I went in to look around. I had some Singapore dollars left so I bought a jar of kaya. What I could gather from the driver is that I have to use a very clean spoon, not even any water, otherwise the kaya will spoil within hours. Most of those who spoke Singlish could speak English when they wanted to, but some could not. I really struggled with the drivers.
Now we are back at sea, today we sailed over the epicenter of the earthquake that caused the tsunami two years ago. We are heading toward the Indian Ocean and a rendezvous with King Neptune and his court on Friday.