Where Are Ron and Ellen?
Indonesia: 30 November 2010 - 15 March 2011
Ron and Ellen in Bau Bau, Sulawesi, Indonesia
Singapore to Bira Beach, 11-15 February 2011
16 February 2011
To see photos from Ron and Ellen's time together in Singapore, click on the thumbnail at the left.
Bira Beach, Sulawesi, IndonesiaDear Family and Friends,
Ellen's trip was Charlottesville to Washington DC, DC to Seattle, Seattle to Singapore (with a stop in Tokyo), about 31 hours door to door, all flights on time -- and something like 65 degrees F difference between early morning departure in Charlottesville (20F) and late night arrival in Singapore.
In Singapore we stayed with our friends Sonny and Florence and their three children, who were wonderful hosts to us throughout our visit. Friday morning we took a neighborhood walk (Ron, having already been here, knew the area), then went out for to lunch with Sonny and Florence for a Singaporean specialty, steamed chicken and rice with a ginger sauce on the side. The description may sound a bit bland, but it is steamed with some seasonings and is absolutely wonderful. After lunch Sonny and Florence showed us a part of the city with beautiful old houses, multicolored and tiled, in an area where descendents of Chinese traders who married Malay women developed a distinct culture and cuisine. We picked up their son Preston at his Montessori pre-school before heading home. The girls, Savannah and Rea, come home from school on their own, Rea on a school bus, Savannah on public transportation (and Preston usually comes and goes on a bus).
We were boggled by our introduction to Singapore schooling. Kids have very long school days (both girls start around 7:30 and get home around 5). Most kids are also from an early age enrolled by their families in weekend tutorial schools in Chinese and a variety of other subjects. Expectations are high, and Sonny says there is great pressure to keep up, and if kids aren't in tutorials they fall behind other students in their exams. As an indicator of the importance of doing well, outside the building where their kids have tutorial Sonny showed us a stall where one can buy packets of the prior year's examinations from many different schools on all topics. All for review and practice and "cramming." We had mixed feelings about all this, with the pressure and cramming going counter to our philosophy, but, on the other hand, recognizing that Singaporean students are among the tops in the world, while students from the US come in at somewhere around 25th in all areas. Where is the balance point?
On Saturday we spent the afternoon exploring some of the downtown area, lots of interconnected air-conditioned shopping malls (remember, it is very hot and humid in Singapore all year), lots of very high end luxury hotels with gorgeous lobbies, the convention center (we looked at furniture in a home show), and an arts center with an exhibit area and several theaters. The architecture is spectacular, especially along the waterfront, with many remarkable high rise buildings, including a new science museum shaped like a giant lotus flower and an amazing building that has three towers with a crosspiece on top -- and a swimming pool and palm trees and sky park area on the crosspiece. That building is a casino, ans also has a large shopping mall in it, with an ice rink on the bottom level, surrounded by a food court where we had wonderful steamed dumplings for dinner. The waterfront was still all decorated, as it was the last weekend of the Chinese New Year celebration. We finished the evening by watching part of the annual New Year's parade, with elaborate floats and costumes and dancers.
Sunday we and the whole family, including Florence's mother, went for a traditional dim sum lunch (wonderful food) before dropping all three kids for their tutorials, and explored some other malls while we waited for them.
Monday morning Florence dropped us at the airport, which is only about 10 minutes from their house, for our flight from Singapore to Jakarta and then on to Makassar, the large city in the southwest of Sulawesi. In Makassar we had arranged for a driver our friend Thierry had met when he was there in December, and he took us to our hotel (thus saving us from what Ron refers to as the "taxi mafia." Our hotel was near the waterfront, and after a wonderful grilled fish dinner (one surveys the fish on ice to make your choice, and then they grill it), and some tasty ginger cake at a nearby bakery, we wandered along the waterfront esplanade, which was packed with people, also wandering, talking, picnicking. We talked with a travel agent to find out times for flights from Makassar to Bau Bau, where we will go after Thierry arrives, learning that there is only one flight per day, and that it leaves before Thierry's flight arrives, so we and he will spend the night after he arrives in Makassar before going on to Bau Bau the next day. Having worked out that piece of logistics, we realized when we woke up the next morning that there was really no reason to spend another night in Makassar, so we got ourselves organized, took a taxi to the appropriate bus terminal, and took a minibus to Bira, the beach area on the peninsula off the southwestern tip of Sulawesi. The distance is about 180 kilometers, but it takes 6.5 hours because sections of the road are so bad that drivers can only go about 10k/hour. We were hot and thoroughly jounced and bounced by the time we arrived!
The minibus delivered us right to the hotel we'd picked out of the guide book, an interesting place on a hilltop owned and run by an American expat, with basic rooms, shared baths, breakfast included, and two different terrace levels overlooking the beach and the water. We had an excellent dinner there, served family style, chicken grilled over coconut husks (which gives a smoky flavor quite different from charcoal), rice, jackfruit curry, fried tempeh (the owner is vegetarian, hence the several vegetarian options), and fresh fruit. Tonight we are also signed on for dinner - grilled tuna, plus other things to be discovered.
We lazed around on the terraces after breakfast this morning, then headed down the hill into Bira village to have lunch at a hotel that has a restaurant (most of the hotels include breakfast and will prepare dinner for guests on request, but only a few have restaurants). Bira is tiny, with very few travelers, and our hotel owner says there are many places that only open occasionally if booked ahead of time. The restaurant is on a terrace overlooking the beach and water, and we watched a storm coming in. We were going to walk around and explore some more, but realized we were going to get wet if we did, so headed back to our hotel. We arrived just in time, mere moments before the torrential downpour and wind, which lasted about an hour. Now it has cleared, so we may go out walking again. Lazy beach days!
Love to all,
Ellen and Ron
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Last updated: 5 January 2011
