den Haans in southeast Asia

Another stunning day in Singapore. We went to Gardens by the Bay which is a huge conservatory featuring pretty much all the climate zones in the world.  Words cannot describe the landscaping brilliance with the city as a backdrop. Every degree of vision was a picture with many carved animals added to the flora. I recommend a trip to Singapore just for this.  Once again makes the VanDusen Gardens look like a backwater excavation. This evening we said good bye to our Singaporean friends Mike and Elena Lowe and Hua Soo and Sweet Ming Kee.  Our Lowe-Kee team.  They have been with us for 3 weeks and have acted as our travel guides.  They arranged all our hotels, rides, meals and activities.  How spoiled we have become and how gracious and kind they have been!  No, we did not hire them.  They work for ReSource and took this upon themselves. Leaving tomorrow morning af 7 am,  One final blog to come.

Singapore!  What a city! Here it's all about big buildings, shopping and food. The architectural skyline is vast and sublime.  Get this, the opera house is a giant durian!  Now durian is a fruit from the durian tree but it is stinky and nasty to the max.  It wrecks every fruit stand and is actually banned on the transit in Hong Kong.  To like it is an acquired taste and Singaporeans pride themselves in this.  So much so they mimic durian in their architecture. Our Singaporean friends took us for lunch, set us free for the afternoon and then took us for supper to the waterfront and a light show.  Wow! I've not seen anything like this.  Water, lights and pumps.  And music.  It was glorious and the crown of Singapore. After our friends insisted on dessert.  Shaved ice with drizzles of sauces and fruits (no durian). Tomorrow--last day.  :(

Ah yes.  This city never sleeps.  Some streets literally convert from a red light district to tourist/shops/stalls between 6 am to 6:30.  One moment there are drug dealers and escort services along with beer cans and garbage lining the streets and the next it is open for tours, mangoes, ca phe and the street itself is clean ready for the endless stream of scooters. We walked an upscale street that shut down in the evening for pedestrians.  I am still amazed at what I saw.  A fashion show with at least 50 girls modelling traditional viatnamese dress.  Beautiful music, gorgeous colours and lighting.  The biggest outdoor sceeen I have ever scene and then dancing.  The models joined with men and began a fantastic dance.  Everybody on the streets was enjoying themselves.  It was beautiful and warm and stunning.  I could have stayed out all night but we had a 7 am departure in the morning. The entire scene makes Vancouver feel like a ...

We are 2 days into this city.  Very similar to Hanoi.  A little less dirty.  A little more upscale.  But just as chaotic and busy.  15 million people live here--half the population of Canada. We moved to a quieter hotel. Yesterday we did a Meekong river tour.  This river starts in Tibet and goes through 6 countries--China, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Malasia and dumps into the ocean via Vietnam.  Vietnam has a river culture and we learned all about it.  At one point we loaded into smaller boats and trawled up some tributaries.  We were reminded that this is how the war was fought. Today, after church John, Siebe and I toured the Cu Chi tunnels.  These are tunnels made by the Viet Kong in the civil war.  20,000 soldiers lived in this maze of 260 km along the Saigon river.  Fascinating in their tactics to elude the americans.  They made booby traps with spikes, made booby traps to catch american dogs, went to great lengths t...

Well here we are back in Vietnam.  Good grief!  who booked this hotel?  It is 1 a.m. and we're next door to a street party that goes until 3 a.m.  Right now it's blaring "Happy Together"  Some irony in that.  Boom boom ta da boom boom.  At least the air conditioner works. Airplane ride was unique.  Somehow I believe we paid twice. Our luggage suddenly was too heavy so we all had to check them in (for a price) and then we weren't even offered a glass of water on the flight.  Oh well, we've had first class treatment until now.  This knocks off our sense of entitlement.  Probably good for us. We did encounter a divine appointment on the streets of Hong Kong.  More about that later... So here we are on the streets of Hong Kong.  Only 6 million people live here and who should we run into but Glenn and Carolyn Noort!!  Friends from church.  Now just how does that work? We finished Hong Kong by riding the travelat...