This is a very rough first video from a shrine in Singapore.  We happened by during an evening ceremony.  I had no idea at the time and still do not know what exactly was going on.  It was fascinating and the sound was amazing.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AP5MoMdEJg

 

 

Finally catching up with ourselves so I thought a few random images from our first couple of weeks would be a good post.

OK, some long awaited food images.  Impossible to describe all of the great meals we have had and the experiences that have gone with them.  Nevermind that Ho Chi Minh is having his revenge on my gut right now and I am limited to rice and bananas.

While cruising down the Mekong after visiting elephants, a number of local villages and the Buddha Cave, we ended up inadvertently in an international game of comparing scars and injuries with our guide.  We noticed a small scar above his eye and he told us it was a shaving accident when he was studying to be a monk.  One of his brothers got a bit sloppy with the razor.  This moved on to various other scars and wounds that we all showed off in a sort of escalating back and forth exchange.  Finally, he pulled our his trump card, a huge scar running all the way around his index finger ending in a bump the size of a marble on the side near the second knuckle.

He proceeded to tell us that when he was four years old he lived in a village in the hills.  No power and no running water, needless to say no hospital of any kind.  Anyway, he was using a large knife and when the knife slipped it cut off his finger.  The finger dropped to the ground.  He quickly grabbed the finger away from the chicken that had grabbed it thinking it was a quick snack.  His parents took him to the local shaman.  The shaman had been taught many years ago how to put fingers and toes back on but this was his first real experience the reattachment of parts.  The shaman stuck the finger back in place wrapped it in some kind of medicinal plant and after what sounded like many weeks and months the finger was back in place and working, albeit with a large scar and the bump.

Stepping back a week or so, back to Singapore.  I thought I would post a group of images from one of the oldest remaining cemeteries in Singapore.  Many of the old cemetaries are being moved or destroyed because of development.  This one, called Bukit (meaning hill) Brown (being the former colonial owner of the property) is still intact and quite large.  Make that very large!  We touched on just a small section and it was very overgrown and in poor condition, which is not uncommon among chinese cemetaries.  They do not view upkeep of the garden style cemetery the same way we do.  They do however still make offerings and visit the graves.  It is an amazing place!

I am finding it very hard to set aside time to edit and post images.  So, my postings may lag a few weeks behind where we actually are on our trip.  There is just way too much to see and do.  We are in Luang Prabang, Laos right now and its is an amazing town/small city with a French influence in both the architecture and the food.  The people here are amazing, friendly and genuinely curious about our culture and happy to share theirs with us. So, I have decided to skip over many days of adventure and catch you up to where we are right now. I will try to fill in the gaps when I can.  All the best from Loas!

Oh, and did I mention, ELEPHANTS!

Welcome to Asia!

OK, so my blog is off to a slow start.  Our trip to Southeast Asia however is not!  We arrived in Singapore to a warm welcome from one of Jeanne’s old friends, Rachel.  She kindly found a very posh condo for us to stay in (see image below) and played holiday with us while we were there.  She was a gracious host.

Our deluxe condo building!

So far the highlight of the trip has been the food.

Fast food in Singapore.

There will more, much much more, about the food in latter posts.

That is it for now.  I will try to post more as soon as possible.