Pulau Ubin

Interesting weekend. First, I lost a battle with a ceiling fan (Erin prefers a story where I got attacked by a wild monkey, but the reality doesn't live up to her fiction). Then, after a quick trip to the doctor for some stitches, we hopped on a bumboat for Pulau Ubin (http://www.wildsingapore.com/ubin/index.html), a small island 10-minutes north of Singapore. Ubin contains a small town with bicycle rental shops, a couple of restaurants, a lot of fisherman, and not much else. We rented bikes and sweated our way around the island, catching sight of 4-foot high hornets nests, spiders the size of the kids' hands, large monkeys, banyan trees, and some crazy fish/eel type thing (still haven't figure out what they were). We came back Sunday, dirty and tired. We were running late so we had to take the taxi straight from the ferry terminal to Graham's soccer practice, backpacks and all. We finally made it back to our shophouse at around 5 PM, completely exhausted.

PS - For my camping friends, though hanging one's food in a "bear bag" is clearly a challenge, keeping it safe from the monkeys seems like a much greater intellectual feat. I'm still not sure I have a foolproof strategy.

Malaysia, then Back to Singapore for Thaipusam

This weekend we took the ferry to Desaru, a beach destination in the Johor region of Malaysia (http://wikitravel.org/en/Desaru). We made it back from our overnight trip just in time to witness Thaipusam (http://www.etour-singapore.com/thaipusam-singapore.html), a Hindu festival celebrating the birthday of the deity Subramaniam. During the festival, Hindus show their faith by piercing their bodies with sharp objects. Then, friends or relatives load something called a kavadi on the devotee’s shoulders, and he goes on a 4km walk of faith. In Singapore, the parade goes down Serangoon/Selegie Road, which is about a block from our house. The whole affair was really interesting, as thousands of onlookers lined the street, burning incense, and passing out candy and juice. Teams of musicians would beat drums, blow horns, and chant during the procession. Entire families would camp out for the day to lend support to those walking past. What was striking to me was how everyone attending was really festive and in a good mood. This was a celebration, not a spectacle. No one, except us, seemed to be grimmacing in pain as each devotee passed.