Rituals

The Vietnamese people love to celebrate. Every occasion whether solemn or festive there is lots of noise. Mourners wail, monks chant through an amplified microphone, wedding singers blast away, karaoke is on every street corner.

This past week we have been part of them all.

Two doors down a woman of only 49 years passed away. There were three days of ushering her through the death process with much recorded and amplified chanting. Bruce and I irreverently joked that she probably would pass just to get away from the cacophony.

This ritual was practised because death was near but the days were not favourable. These were not lucky days to die so the chanting was to prolong her life. Should she die on an unlucky day however, the chanting and vigil would help her soul have an easier time getting to heaven.

We knew that she had died three days ago when the funeral began. Music, chanting, gonging, drumming and the clacking of clackers went on almost 24 hours a day, beginning at 4am.

Quyen came over so that we could pay our respects and make a small donation towards the expenses of the very elaborate funeral. We were greeted, as were all mounters as they entered the gate, with a loud boom on a drum like this one.

Guests arrived every few minutes late into the night and the thundering noise shook our bed. This morning the funeral precession was announced to neighbourhood at 4am. The mourners followed the hearse through the streets to the cemetery where they will say their last goodbyes. We do not know yet if her soul left her body on a lucky day or not. I am sure that the neighbours will let us know.


Mid-Autumn Festival had also been bubbling to a climax on Full Moon night, Sunday. This traditional celebration has left its roots of being thankful for the harvest into some kind of madness. Supposedly it is for the children who drum and dragon dance. In the cities there are very elaborate displays, but we like the neighbourhood variety. Teams purchase the costumes, rig up their drums on a cart and roam the village streets, dancing and drumming. Like our Hallowe'en treats are expected and money is preferred (so that they can pay for the costume which they have purchased at the market.

These guys marched right into the garden of the restaurant where we were having dinner. The proprietress shooed them away with a discretely offered money note.

Down town Hoi An becomes one huge traffic jam with everyone crowding into the town centre for dragon dancing, games and musical performances. We avoid the mayhem but I do miss that lanterns and floating candles. The candles are meant to float your wishes down the river and out into the universe. We can do this though just about any day of the week.

Next Saturday we journey to Da Nang for the wedding of an old colleague. There will surely be some stories as it will take place in a gigantic wedding hall and there will likely be about 500 people eating, drinking beer and sweating..at least we will be!

Bye Bye Singapore

Our plane banked sharply on take off from Changi Airport, making a sweeping arc over the harbor. At last Bruce could see the evidence of the shipping industry which is the backbone of the Singaporean economy. Forty or more freighters lay at anchor waiting their turn at the docks to be loaded or unloaded at the enormous gantries…. modern monoliths which have taken the places of the early equipment which helped build this city state.

We had tried to walk to the waterfront the day before and were frustrated by miles of freeways, overpasses and few sidewalks all made the more treacherous and bloody inconvenient by miles of fencing and road closures in readiness for the upcoming Formula 1 road race scheduled for the weekend. We knew about the race and had planned our trip to escape before the full onslaught of madness, but had foolishly not envisioned the massive undertaking the transformation of the city core would be.

But, as always, as we like to say, “we landed on our feet”.  This time the Marina Sands Complex caught our attention.  Our little cameras could not capture this amazing piece of architecture. A roof that sails across the top three massive towers is designed to replicate cascading decks of cards.

Inside these towers, soaring atria bring light to the broad walkways. Beneath the hotel is a massive casino, where gamblers pay $100 to enter. Or $2000 for a yearly pass. We gave it a pass! After miles of concrete walking we were really looking forward to a chair in the lobby to watch the people streaming by, but were foiled. There are no chairs...none...zero...other than those in the coffee shops and restaurants. "Don't stay unless you pay" seemed to be the message. This was also true at the venerable Raffles Hotel, where one can have a drink in several verandah bars, but the lobby is off limits to other than paying guests. Too many Lookie Lou's....like us!!

The other architectural phenomenon which we found on our second attempt to see the waterfront was the Vivo Centre. This incredibly huge shopping centre is right at the waterfront from which we had a hazy view of Sentosa Island....a Disneyland kind of development. Singapore loves to shop!

All of the above pictures are actually "lifted" from the Internet....as we were hampered by the smog from the fires in Indonesia, an annual health hazard in Singapore. It was a shame that we did not get a clear view of this stunning skyline with innovative architecture.

We also wanted to see "how and where" Singaporeans live. An aim of the government is for everyone  to own their own home. To accommodate this objective on a tiny island where 4.5 million people live, row upon row of high and low rise apartments have been built. Many are called "shop houses" to describe the commercial space on the main floor with residences above. In our four days in the city, we captured a few examples of housing alternatives.

A most interesting place, Singapore. 

Now off to Hoi An, where we will continue to blog (if we can work around the usual blocks). 

Adventures will be posted here. Our work reports will be posted on http://ebtovietnam.blogspot.com.

Stay tuned!!!

Buddha's Tooth

When you head out for breakfast at 6:00 am in China Town in Singapore, you never know what you will find.

The streets are strangely quiet and it is hard to imagine the chaos of mid-day on the same block.  A few pedestrians are stirring, shuffling off to their places of work.

We were heading towards the China Town Complex, where the Lonely Planet guide book had suggested that we could find good cheap food.

Few stalls were open at this hour of the morning, much to our surprise. Singapore does not get up as early as Vietnam! But there were a few lights on and we did see a guy with a cup of coffee. He showed us the way to his favourite coffee spot tucked away in a corner.

The coffee was so good that I asked the vendor what label it was. Turns out she makes her own. She roasts beans with a little butter added...then grinds the beans and adds sugar. It is brewed in a long basket filter, then poured into a cup with 1/4 inch of sweetened, condensed milk in the bottom. Talk about a jolt...especially for two decaf drinkers!!

Then it was on to the food. This place looked good.

But what to do...how do we order? What are all these items?

Lots of gesturing and pointing helped us to learn:

1. Pick five items
2. Use the tongs provided to place them in your bowl
3. Choose between three different noodle types or rice or a combination of any of them
4. Hand your bowl full of chosen items to the proprietress ( I chose braised tofu, eggplant stuffed with fish cake, fish cake, pork wonton and bok choy)
5. Mrs. cooks the ingredients, chops them into bite size pieces and pours broth over the top with chopped green onions to season on the top.
6. Mr. puts the chopsticks on the top, and adds the ramekins of hot sauce.
7. Mrs. takes your money...$5.00 for two. Who says Singapore is expensive?

Sated we walked out onto streets now bathed in smoggy grey light. We have arrived in Singapore just as the air becomes heavy with smoke from slash and burn fires in Indonesia. But through the fog we spied the entrance to the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple.

We approached cautiously, unsure about whether "walk ins" were welcome. An attendant was indeed welcoming and even suggested that we could take pictures. 

Alone in this overwhelmingly beautiful place with elaborate statuary and hushed silence, we could only wonder at our good fortune at having stumbled upon this treasure a few steps from our hotel. 

Three floors of prayer halls and religious art were ours alone and we were somewhat overcome with the sacredness of this fortunate find.

from wikipedia:

"The temple is based on the Tang dynasty architectural style and built to house the tooth relic of the historical Buddha. The ground breaking ceremony was conducted on 13 March 2005. Costing S$62 million and 2 years later, a soft launch was held to coincide with the 2007 Vesak Day celebration."^[2] It is claimed that the relic of Buddha from which it gains its name was found in 1980 in a collapsed stupa in Myanmar.^[3]

Since opening, the temple has become a popular attraction within Chinatown. Simple vegetarian fare is served in the basement of the temple, though donations are accepted.

If It's Monday, This Must be Singapore

My body knows that it is noon Sunday back home on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia. But here we all are, my body, my mind and my travel buddy Bruce all wide awake in our comfortable, crisply- sheeted bed in the Bliss Hotel in Singapore. It is 3:30 am Monday morning. In the complete dark in this windowless cubicle we are trying to sort out why this is so much fun.  The room could be described as "minimalist" but in fact has everything that we need and is clean. Once we brought out our skills in operating in a compartment on a train or in the main salon of our boat we found a space for everything. We did hear our neighbour on his cell phone a few minutes ago....very clearly, but in a language we did not understand so we were not eavesdropping.

the clothes closet

the shower and potty closets

The best thing about this hotel is that it is right smack dab in the middle of China Town where the rapid transit train from the airport spit us out yesterday after 30 hours of uneventful travel on clean airplanes with courteous flight crews. We rocked and rolled through Singapore, clutching the overhead straps with our luggage between our ankles, while 30 Somethings plugged into their devices occupied  the seats clearly designated with graphics for disabled, injured, pregnant and elders convenience. We certainly thought that as a couple in our 70's, haggard after miles of travel qualified...but they did not move nor did we look beseechingly at their seats. The view of the passing city of massive apartment complexes, laundry strung from the balconies and broad,treed  avenues was better from a standing position and we were charged with adrenalin..a little puffed up with pride that these two old farts were still upright.

Bruce risked letting go of his strap handle to snap this photo.

Despite little sleep over the previous 36 hours, we set out for a stroll along Pagoda Street in China Town after we had unpacked in our tiny room.

The busy street offered many feasts for the eyes and the tummy! This sculpture of an ancient woman in traditional costume caught my fancy but not until I got home to see the shot on my computer screen did I realize the irony in the image. In the rear there are people waiting to get into the Chinese Heritage Centre  who are assuming almost the same pose!! 

The architecture too has been preserved and these colonial era buildings all have have bright beautiful shutters.

Each restaurant tried to lure us in with food photos and intriguing items!!

 With building appetites we opted for a fairly benign looking little place. It was early, perhaps five o'clock, but this is what the heat was doing to us and a beer sounded really good!

We ordered pork and greens and tofu and vegetables. It was tasty...but we will have to refresh our skills with chop sticks AND remember that, here in Asia, napkins are often just a roll of toilet tissue on the table.  Bruce ended up with little bits of tissue fuzz on his stubbly beard.

By the time we were leaving the little place was jammed with locals. One man was tackling a huge mound of the advertised pig bones with sauce.  On his left hand, in which he held the hefty bone he wore a latex glove, in his right he used chop sticks to remove the meat and gristle. The bare bones and puddles of sauce decorated the table in front of him.

Stay tuned for Little India!!