Singapore-Vietnam

At sea: Chennai to Singapore

At the post=port reflection group, as I was telling of my experiences in India this time, I realized that I had a much better impression of the country than I did last time.This was partially due to the fact that we went to a beautiful part of the country, and partially because we had much more information before we arrived than we did last time. We had more information on the Hindu religion and belief in reincarnation, for example,This makes it understandable that people are not so anxious to move up in the caste system . This will happen if they do good deeds in this life (at least that is how I understand it).

This was a very short trip. The ship kept watch for pirates through the Straits of Malaca.

Singapore: SundY, October 31

Singapore is a very beautiful city. According to our Global studies class and to various lecturers, it ranks very highly on all measures. It has one of the best education systems, infrastructure, economy etc. in the world.. It is clean, has many parks and trees, wide streets, and nice shops( It is very expensive, by the way!) In many ways it is rather like San Francisco without the hills.

I went with my India companions, Kathy and Dave, to the new Sands Hotel, built by the Las Vegas company, and looking exactly like Las Vegas It has a roof garden extending from one building to an other with an "infinity" swimming pool i.e. it has glass sides so it looks as if people are swimming over the edge. Quite something!

We then went to lunch at the Raffles Hotel Long Bar, where we had the required Singapore Sling for a lot of $$'s.

It would have been nice to spend more time here but we only had two days.

Spring Alums: Mary Jeanne Jones joined us in Singapore. ()She gave me permission to print the reason! You won't believe this! She got a d.u.i. and can't drive for 3 months decided so decided to cruise instead!

At sea again for two days and we reached Vietnam.

I remember Saigon from last year as being a very unappealing city with a lot of slums.dirt and pollution. However, I think this was because it was my first exposure to a third world city. I had not seen India or Ghana at that time. This year it does not appear so bad. However, not somewhere I

would like to spend much time.

Mary Jeanne and I decided to go to Hanoi and to the Ha Long Bay which had been highly recommended. We found a very helpful travel agent at the airport who arranged for a hotel and the drive to the Bay. Hanoi is a very interesting city. Most of the buildings are from french eroded limestonecolonial times They are about one room wide and 3-4 stories high with very ornate balconies and different colors. Our hotel was in the old section of town where the street s were very narrow and crowded and very dangerous to try to cross.(The trick to crossing streets appears to be to wait until there is a break in the cars and then stride out at a steady pace across, paying no attention to the motor bikes which will go around you as long as you don't flinch or stop). Our hotel was new and small with very helpful staff. It had a free bottle of wine in each room. The bus picked us up early in the morning and took three hours to reach Ha Long Bay where we boarded a junk for the 5 hour trip around the bay. The bay reminded me of Guilen , China with eroded limestone mountains rising out of the river. The rocks that were scattered throughout were also of limestone. We were able to kayak for awhile too which was wonderful. One of our SAS students rowed with me to provide some strength so we would progress and of course it took several people to lower me into and pull me out of the kayak.Then a long bus ride back to Hanoi.

The next day we had some time to sight see in Hanoi. We went to the big market and drove around in a bicycle rickshaw. Then had a lovely lunch at the Metropolitan

Hotel. Then back to Saigon and a day of rest before we leave to Hong Kong.