Where Are Ron and Ellen?
Indonesia: 30 November 2010 - 15 March 2011
Ron on the road to Geumpang, Indonesia, December 2010
Chinese New Year (Singapore) and Malacca, Malaysia
8 February 2011
Afton, Virginia, USADear family and friends,
Here is the last report from Ron on his solo travels. After having dinner and spending the night tonight with our daughter and her family in Charlottesville, Sharon or Derrick will take me to the Charlottesville airport (very early!) tomorrow morning for my 6:22 am flight - and I'm on my way to meet Ron in Singapore. I am not looking forward to the 30 hour trip, but am certainly looking forward to seeing him! We will spend a few days in Singapore, then go on to Sulawesi, Indonesia, on Monday 14 February for the joint part of our travels. We will be sending reports!
Love to all,
Ellen
To see photos from the Chinese New Year celebrations in Singapore, click on the thumbnail at the left.
8 February 2011
To see photos from Malacca, Malaysia, click on the thumbnail at the left.
Malacca, Malaysia Chinese New Year - from the insideHello, my dear,
Helen, in The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli, [the book Ron is currently reading, a novel set in Vietnam in the late 1960s and early 1970s, highly recommended by both of us] has just arrived in Pleiku, and I am contrasting my two trips to the Central Highlands in Vietnam while having dinner in Malacca, Malaysia, amid the old Dutch buildings repainted by the Portuguese, now decorated and lit up for Chinese New Year, with a young German engineer, in her late 20's whose eyes, chin and overall face reminds me of my sister, as she tells me she doesn't usually tell people she is from East Germany and I remember that the records to my genealogy, on the border between Germany and Russia were destroyed in WWII and wonder if she is some long lost relative. Most of my gear I left at my Chinese American friend's home in Singapore; I first visited Singapore on R&R from Vietnam. Connections, memories and links going in circles.
And of course you would like a report on my activities. But what is my story line from the jumble above?
The number of homes I am invited into while traveling in a country has been one of the ways the success of the trip has been rated, and in Singapore in less than a week I visited three homes, so I will call this report: Chinese New Year - from inside. I remember celebrating Tet in Saigon in 1993 when everything was closed and I wandered the streets alone but this time I was included in family visits to celebrate Chinese New Year. A rare treat and valued experience. While Sonny is American and Florence is Singaporean, they are both Chinese by ethnic background.
I met Sonny in Nong Khai, Thailand, across the Mekong River, the border, from Vientiane, Laos in 1992 as I was trying to find people returning from Vietnam to learn about their experiences while my visa application was being processed in Bangkok. At that time it was illegal to make any of the arrangements from the US (under the dealing with the enemy act). When I came through Singapore on my way to India in 1996, Sonny and his new wife Florence took me for a ride and lunch along the boardwalk and his entire family visited us in 1999 in Afton, and he visited alone on another occasion; we visited them in Kuala Lumpur after we were in Bali in 2003. So Sonny is a memorable part of my travel history and I value his friendship.
I arrived in Singapore from Java while recovering from a stomach illness, which made my last couple of days in Jakarta my "Chinese soup days" with nothing remaining in my stomach for very long. The food in Singapore is fantastic and Florence kept cooking wonderful dishes and I gradually recovered as I enjoyed the feast.
While I could not join in some of the family visiting over Chinese New Year, I was invited to go the family of Sonny's Godmother, and it was an authentic view and taste of a new cultural experience for me. I was also invited to the party given for Florence's family at their home, and later invited to walk around the corner to her sister's home for a visit.
Some highlights: the large shredded salad with everyone gathering around the table with chopsticks to toss the salad to symbolize throwing our lives together for the new year (I think I have that correct). The pond and large coral aquarium at Florence's sister's home (the pond because I will be building one when I return, the coral because it was incredible). Meeting and talking to Florence's aunt's husband who turned out to be a famous writer of history as well as a retired Vice Chancellor of Hong Kong University. We had an interesting discussion about why Ellen's astronomer friends were on the left politically and my engineer friends were on the right. He told me about the studies which indicate engineers are more likely to become terrorists. Has to do with seeing things as black or white. Or in Bill's terms, it either works or doesn't work. Take note Bill and go study theoretical physics! He also told me one of the reasons for Singapore's success: nothing is free, all departments of government with the exception of Foreign Affairs and Education must produce a profit and they hire the very best to work in government, Seldom do I meet someone I like and enjoy talking to as much. A memorable experience.
There have been lots of others I have been interacting with in Singapore and Malacca: A Belgium guy I met on the plane, and met later for an evening of conversation. An older woman from England who has been traveling in Asia for 9 months and had just arrived in Singapore for her first interview as a physical therapist. We met having soup in a restaurant near the metro in Chinatown on Chinese New Year and spent the rest of the night exploring Chinatown. When I left to catch the last metro and bus home, people were packed in so tight it was difficult to move. There were three women gracefully swaying like large birds on the top of tall poles. It looked like real fun and was extremely graceful, but my physical therapist was looking at how they were gripping the poles with their legs and said they were really strong. A woman grabbed me at Satosa, an Island resort off the tip of Singapore, and wanted me to take her picture in front of a large rabbit made out of flower petals. It is the Year of the Rabbit and for some reason this was a very important thing for her. I have yet to receive her email address to send the pictures. Just finished a long conversation with a couple, she is American of Chinese and Philippine background on a 9 month trip and he is Dutch and has been traveling for a year and a half. They met in Nepal. And there is a French couple staying in my guest house who are on a year trip around the world and will be in NY in the fall. Of course I am trying to get them to visit Afton.
Malacca is full of tourists and travelers. The days are hot and humid, and the traffic is oppressive, but the nights are wonderful, lit up with hundreds of red ball-like Chinese lanterns, cool - and the traffic disappears. There is a walk along the river where there are no signs but lots of colorful lighting effects. Unusual. The old buildings are lit up with colored lights. I love just walking around.
The owners of the guest house give a welcome drink to the new guest, like lemonade but made from lychee fruit, and because she knows how much I liked it, just sat a glass in front of me as she took drinks to the newly arrived guests. Earlier I wandered around with my netbook as they were testing a new Internet booster. It didn't work. So the Internet signal is only strong enough to work on the first floor. Their floors and walls are solid thick concrete.
Love and miss you, and look forward to returning to Singapore to meet you at the airport. Just a couple more days!
Ron
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Last updated: 18 March 2011
