Category: Uncategorized

Such a very small country with outsized influence, wealth and heft, a city in a garden, guarded and outgoing, audacious and cautious, incredibly modern and beautiful, traditional (with a question mark), meticulously well kept, orderly and kempt, vulnerable. Nice place, Singapore.

Weighing in at just under 280 square miles (a quarter the size of Rhode Island), Singapore has maintained very walkable neighborhoods well integrated with new construction, including public housing (in a country where 80% of the population lives in “public housing”), and stitched together with a remarkable public transit system. The answer to “how do I get there” invariably is, “well you could walk,” perhaps in some combination with the MRT (an easy to navigate subway system with nearly island wide coverage).

Having dropped our bags at our hotel in the heart of the colonial district (not far from Raffles Hotel), we headed out on foot for Chinatown.

Sri Mariamman Temple

It may seem odd that the first stop after walking to Chinatown is a Hindu temple, but this is the oldest Hindu temple in Singapore and was founded by Narayan Pillai, who came to Singapore in 1819 with none other than Sir Stamford Raffles who struck a deal with a member of the sultanate of Johor’s royal family to lay claim to the island as a trading post for the East India Company.

Built in 1827, its imposing entrance tower or gopuram is from the 1930s, but it is best known for a fire-walking ceremony.

Buddha Tooth Relic Temple

Just up the road from Sri Mariamman is the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple housing the purported left canine tooth of the Buddha and constructed in 2007. We happened to show up during a service, stayed a few minutes to listen to the singing and moved on.

Gardens by the Bay & Marina Bay Sands

Still getting our hang of Singapore, we took our hotel’s advice and headed off to the Gardens by the Bay by MRT, planning on being there for the evening and gradually working our way home on foot.

First, Singapore does public spaces really well (although the Flower Dome, shown here, and the Cloud Dome charge admission). The huge area covered by the Gardens is quite beautiful and engaging. Even in the shopping malls you don’t mind being five stories under ground.

As night fell, everyone gathered for the sound and light show starring those truly gigantic living gardens, the Supertrees. All were in good humor even though we had to occasionally unfurl our umbrellas.

Some spectators must have felt like they were in the middle of an enormous stage as a very robust sound system brought beautifully romantic opera swirling through the Gardens.

We made our way from the Gardens with throngs of people over the Dragonfly Bridge, enjoying the nighttime scenery . . .

making our way to . . .

and through the now iconic (since 2010) Marina Bay Sands (featured, of course, in that final scene of Crazy Rich Asians with the giant infinity pool up top) . . .

then over the Helix Bridge to cross the reservoir to the colonial district on the becoming-a-bit-long walk back to our hotel.

Raffles Hotel

Famed for its clientele and invention of the Singapore Sling, as well as its Sikh doormen, the Raffles Hotel was just down the road from our hotel. It has a rather nice gift shop, just like any respectable museum. Tourists are kindly asked to not use the main entrance.

The National Gallery

The featured exhibit when we visited The National Gallery was a retrospective of the work of Lim Tze Peng, referred to as the 101 year old artist by the friendly guard who helped us when we couldn’t find our way. Actually Lim is said to have been actively painting in 2021 when he was 99.

In any case, it was nice to see an artist’s range of output over such a long time scale.

We spent a lot of time in the galleries, become just a little more familiar with the art of the region and enjoying it quite a bit. It was interesting to see how artists in the region were influenced by western artists and visa versa. There seemed to be multiple conversations going on at multiple levels.

The National Gallery, in two adjacent buildings, is connected by an atrium, an out of the way spot to lounge and have a chat.

Around the Corner and Across the Road

Singapore just seems so oddly convenient. Look out a window at the National Gallery and there’s the Marina Bay Sands (that photo way at the top). Exit the main doors and there’s St. Andrew’s Cathedral where they were having some sort of conference with people flooding in (30% of the population happening to be Christian) practically the whole time we were in town (watching the comings and goings from our hotel room across the road).

Then, deep down in the shopping center that somehow seemed hidden away a three minute walk from either the National Gallery or our hotel, well below the street level entrance with bike lanes running through it, was a very well patronized climbing wall, as well as an Indian restaurant we quite enjoyed and where we again indulged in panipuri.

It’s a densely designed city that doesn’t feel that way.

Orchard Road & Emerald Hill Road

Just off Orchard Road, the stretch of opulent shopping that makes you wonder if there are more Gucci stores or 7 Elevens in Singapore, is Emerald Hill Road, a mostly residential, visually beautiful reminder of the colonial past with some Chinese elegance thrown in.

Kampong Glam, Haji Lane & Arab Street

Another walk from the colonial core, this time heading north (Chinatown being south and Orchard Road west), we’re in the traditional Muslim quarter that’s packed with colorful and quirky boutiques and shops of all kinds, especially on Haji Lane.

Reputedly Singapore’s grandest mosque (“nothing short of enchanting” our guidebook assures us), we picked the wrong day – Friday – to drop by Masjid Sultan, just off Arab Street, as it was closed to non-Muslims all day.

The neighborhood surrounding the mosque was nonetheless fun to explore.

Little India

A few blocks on foot and we’re in Little India.

From the on-site “heritage trail” signage: “Built in 1900, the former house of Tan Teng Niah is the last surviving Chinese villa in Little India. It embodies an often overlooked story of the days when small Chinese industries operated alongside the cattle and rattan businesses at Little India. Tan Teng Niah was a towkay (Chinese businessman of good standing) who owned several sweet-making factories along Serangoon Road that used sugarcane to produce sweets. Behind the house, Tan had a rubber smoke-house for drying rubber which used the by-products of sugarcane as fuel for its furnace.” The restoration received an architecture award in 1991, although we don’t know if the paint colors and design were faithful to 1900 or a tourism friendly innovation, for it’s the paint job that makes it special.

Little India’s main Hindu temple, Sri Veeramakaliamman is devoted to Veeramakaliamman or the goddess Kali, a fierce incarnation of Shiva’s wife and the Destroyer of Evil, as well as ignorance and disorder in the world. In the 1850s Tamil lime pit workers erected a shrine dedicated to Kali. A temple was then built by Bengali laborers in 1881 and the temple has fallen into disrepair and been rebuilt a number of times, the current temple looking much more prosperous than photos from the 1980s, for instance.

Most temples we visited were alive with activity, people coming to pray with families, with friends, or alone, often with priests helping them with rituals and ceremonies.

Time for Food

There’s again a mixture of the familiar and the not so much.

Of course, there’s a satay and a satay sauce, but also rojak, a salad with pineapple, mango, cucumbers and shrimp paste, quickly an Amanda favorite.

Then there’s a masala thosai, thosai being the equivalent of “dosa”, but closer to the original Tamil word. Masala meaning stuffed with spiced potatoes. Another yum.

A not so enthusiastic thumbs up for the oyster cake, though this is one of only two places remaining in Singapore where you can find them. Not so hard to figure out the reason for declining popularity.

Our guide is choosing ingredients for our next dish, a stir fry with fish cakes, morning glory, and so forth and so on, at a food stall in a coffee shop. Coffee shops are similar to hawker centers, but smaller having perhaps 8-15 food stalls, rather than the up to 80 in a hawker center. Both came to be because the profusion of takeaway food sellers was getting out of control in Singapore and the government was concerned about sanitation and, this being Singapore, the disorderliness of it all. So, they organized the move of the businesses into centralized spaces with proper facilities.

Whatever you want to call these places was fine with us as we enjoyed someone else finding all the good food and bringing it to us. And, actually, having a hot chai in a plastic bag may sound unenlightened, but it’s pretty convenient if you’re on the go (and tastes real good).

As We Wandered

Wandering the streets going from place to place to sample different foods also provides a good opportunity to look around at the street, the gorgeous buildings and also the realities of the city. So, where do people live? As already mentioned, 80% of people live in public housing, so there in those buildings behind or in other buildings scattered through the city (or, country, if you will). We’re told there are the same problems of affordability as we face, scarcity driving real estate prices so that young people have a lot of difficulty acquiring a first home. So, like everywhere, Singapore also has issues still to be solved, including how to reduce its dependence on other nations for practically everything, even the water it drinks.

Before we thanked our food guide and went on our way, she asked the priest at Thekchen Choling if we could step inside, as they were hard at work preparing for an event. It’s a small Tibetan Buddhist temple founded in 2001 that promotes “non-sectarian” Buddhism (and, yes, that’s a photo of the Dalia Lama). We saw but a sliver of what seems to be quite a substantial place, essentially a store front that’s grown to have “over 5,000 devotees” and open 24/7.

Singapore Botanic Gardens

It starts quietly enough, nice paths along ponds with turtles and a monitor lizard opening up to a network of paths leading to various themed garden areas. It ends in sum a stupendous place, for us temperate zone folks a fantasy world where all the exotic plants are growing profusely out there in the open! In February!

That’s not wisteria, it’s orchids. The Gardens are really a wonderland where it’s hard not to take one more photo . . .

. . . and there’s more! Inside greenhouses, the Gardens have even more rare and exotic fare. No wonder this was the only place in Singapore where we noticed cruise ship tour groups. Fortunately, it’s such a vast place that it never seemed crowded.

The only thing we wondered was how expensive it must be to live close to the Gardens in the area where most expatriates make their homes. It would certainly be tempting.

Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall

On our final evening in Singapore we walked over to the Victoria Concert Hall for a performance by the Singapore Symphony, various fanfares featuring the brass section and then Bizet. It was a very nice evening and we enjoyed the performances.

Providing a slight glance back to where we’d been on this month long adventure in four countries, there was a monument commemorating the first time a Thai monarch had ever visited a foreign country – in 1871, although traveling was a lot more difficult in his time.

Finally, we end this posting from Singapore where we began it, with a view of that symbol of the assured and audacious side of Singapore, the Marina Bay Sands. Singapore is certainly a more complex, thoughtful, down to earth and human friendly place than that symbol suggests, but it also is true. On balance, there’s a lot to like.

Street art, street food, and a vibrant mix of old and new, clearly skewing to the old and artsy. That’s George Town, Britain’s first outpost in Southeast Asia, named for our George III and founded in 1786 when Francis Light purchased the island for the East India Company from the Sultan of Kedah (who was interested in a bit of protection from the Siamese), literally hacking it out of the jungle.

He built a fort and, as they say, the rest is history. It became a thriving commercial hub and people came from all over Asia, plus a lot of Europeans to pursue trade and commerce or to wonder at life in the tropics, early world travelers. We decided to stay at the storied Eastern and Oriental Hotel in the heart of downtown, among whose previous guests were Hermann Hesse and W. Somerset Maugham (more recently a character in Malaysian novelist Tân Twan Eng’s latest).

Hin Bus Depot

Grabbing a ride share to the edge of downtown, it felt like the essence of George Town was being announced to us as we arrived at the Hin Bus Depot, a bustling place with an art gallery exhibit of interesting prints, lots of vendors with crafty wares (some nice jewelry, a necktie, or perhaps a tattoo?), a fortune teller, inventive foods on the go (Lebanese, Belgian waffles or a pancake burger?), music and a very friendly vibe among a multiethnic crush.

Colonial Architecture

George Town has its handsome colonial buildings. The clock tower commemorates Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee and was donated by Cheah Chen Eok, Esq., a local businessman. It’s slightly cockeyed, having been damaged by bombing in WWII.

Pinang Peranakan Museum

As with the Baba and Nyonya Heritage Museum in Melaka, the Pinang Peranakan Museum celebrates Peranakan culture, although the gentleman whose home was turned into the museum was a Chinese who arrived in Malaysia too late to qualify. Having been careful to eat sparingly, we met our food tour guide outside in the courtyard.

Food, Of Course

And, we were off to make our way through Chinatown and Little India, conveniently across the road from each other.

One of our favorite street foods is panipuri, first encountered by us in India. A fried shell is filled with potato, chick peas and other good crunchy stuff, a full flavored vinegary liquid is added and you open real wide to pop it in whole. It has to be experienced.

A Firefighter Museum

The firefighting bicycle and motorcycle were a revelation. The outside of the station on the other side of the building was completely covered with scenes of past rescues told in vivid wall murals. This is, after all, an active fire station.

On the Street

In addition to the street art, the streets of George Town are full of shop houses, typically two stories with an overhanging second story that provides a five foot covered walkway for pedestrians, shelter from both heat and torrential rain. Generally there would be some sort of retail in front and the family would live behind and above.

Khoo Kongsi

A kongsi is a Chinese clanhouse, established to provide a safe place for extended family in the immigrant community, including housing and employment. They were very powerful institutions and the British looked on them skeptically as secret societies.

An Opera stage stands across the courtyard from the Clanhouse.

Chew Jetty

In mid 19th century George Town, impoverished migrants from China chose to build their communities on pilings over the water rather than pay a rather stiff British land tax. The largest of the 6 remaining clan jetties (which function a bit like a clan house for the less well off) is Chew Jetty, a ramshackle village of 75 homes, a few temples, and a lot of tourism fueled by the quaintness of it all.

Some homes are really attractive, others less so, as you’d expect in any longstanding neighborhood. Some residents work off the jetty, others have a small shop or food business in the front. We felt fortunate to be wandering around in an ebb of tourism.

The jetty really is an extension of the city, specifically of Chinatown, but with boats.

Kapitan Keling Mosque

Kapitan Keling Mosque is the oldest in Penang, initially built by East India Company troops on their posting to Penang around 1801. “Kapitan” is an honorific for an Indian leader and “Keling” was a term used to refer to Indians, now typically considered offensive. The present edifice was constructed in 1916. The digital clock is used to keep track of the precise times for the five times per day call to prayer, varying as they do according to sunrise and sundown. As was the case in every mosque we visited in Malaysia, we were welcomed and provided with an explanation of Islam and how it relates to other Abrahamic religions. This time, it was even more engaging with an intelligent exegesis of Koranic scripture and a somewhat magical chanting of the basic tenets of faith by our young guide. Even though we weren’t “in the market,” it was a delightful experience.

Acheen Street Malay Mosque

A wealthy Arab spice trader and member of the Aceh Sultanate’s royal family on Sumatra relocated to Penang where he built the Acheen Street Malay Mosque in 1808. From the mid nineteenth century, due to George Town’s strategic location on the Straits of Malacca, the Mosque became a favored spot for pilgrims on the Hajj to gather, perform their religious duties and prepare for the ongoing journey. When airplanes overtook ships as the preferred way to travel to Mecca, the Mosque became a reminder of the past.

Thean Hou Kong Temple

Dedicated to the Taoist Deity Mazu, protector of seafarers, Thean Hou Kong was built in 1895 by the community of Chinese immigrants from Hainan Island. It developed into the base for a clan association to support that community.

The Blue Mansion

The Blue Mansion was the favorite of several homes of Cheong Fatt Tze (1840-1916), a rags-to-riches Hakka entrepreneur. Arriving in George Town penniless at 16, he rose to become a Consul General of China’s Qing dynasty (1644-1912), as well as Special Trade Commissioner for South-East Asia and a director of China’s first modern bank and its first railway, his death acknowledged with flags flown at a half-mast by the region’s Dutch and British colonial Governments.

Feng shui reigns among the 38 rooms, 5 courtyards, and 7 staircases, meticulously restored to its eclectic glory, fit to be a film set. In fact, it was indeed among the locations featured in Crazy Rich Asians, along with Khoo Kongsi. Although it fell on very hard times post-war, it was spared occupation by the Japanese in WWII because it was mistaken for a temple, that misapprehension abetted by the household staff shaving their heads in the fashion of monks.

Penang Hill and The Habitat

It’s noticeably cooler up here on Penang Hill, roughly 2500’ above the city after a five minute 2 kilometer ride up the funicular to the pedestrian-only biosphere reserve, already busy before even mid morning. There’s a kind of resort with quite a few attractions, a mosque, a temple, a simulation of earthquakes and typhoons for the under-stimulated, restaurants, very helpful volunteers to get you pointed in the right direction, and a place called The Habitat.

That’s where we head, escorted by one of those really helpful volunteers.

The Langur Way Canopy Walk is the longest two-span stressed ribbon bridge in the world (although we’re not sure what that means) and the Curtis Crest Tree Top Walk is even scarier (per Jim) getting you up beyond 2600’ walking in a circle back to your starting point. Both do provide stunning views.

We searched fruitlessly for the lemur a ranger had seen sleeping on a tree trunk, but did spot an eagle in a tree and thoroughly enjoyed wandering the park.

The Black Giant Squirrel (the size of a house cat) was the sighting we were most interested in and we met success just before leaving the reserve, nicely capping our time in George Town and Penang, one more place it was sad to leave.

But, leave we must, back down in the funicular with a motley group, down to George Town, a Grab ride into town. We noticed that the young woman with the purple handbag was coming back to earth without the young man with whom she had had a raging quarrel in the Habitat. Life goes on.

At 1,677 square miles, Taman Negara is the largest national park in Malaysia, four times the size of Singapore (as only a Malaysian would point out), and it’s primordial rainforest – the oldest in the world we’re told – a vast thick jungle.

The most important gateway into the park is by ferry across the Tembeling river from the small town of Kuala Tahan where our driver dropped us at the dock after a long drive from KL (a more attractive option than a van ride or taking a small boat). There is a hand operated luggage funicular of sorts to raise suitcases up to the bluff, the park headquarters and the Mutiara Taman Negara resort, the only actual lodging within the park.

Home, Sweet Home. It was a bit of a walk from the restaurant, above, but close to a trail junction and an elevated observation blind we often visited. One of the housekeepers confided that the monkeys were nobody’s fool and the tigers draped over everything were no longer effective.

Exploring on our own

Although most of the trails in the park require a guide, those closest to the resort could be explored on our own.

a walking classroom

We joined a nature walk that exceeded expectations. Here, the guide demonstrates the use of a particular leaf as an antiseptic, producing a lotion.

Here, an insect repellent.

A natural body paint.

The ipoh tree sap to poison your darts.

A sort of potato which must be properly prepared to avoid being poisoned.

The tree for drumming a message that doesn’t alarm the animals you’re hunting.

While, if you look closely, here is an elephant footprint (okay, it doesn’t really show up in the photo – trust us). Someone had spotted an elephant near the resort a few days ago and now we’re beginning to understand all those broken sections of boardwalk.

. . . as night falls . . .

A baby monitor lizard.

A scorpion.

A chameleon.

Another scorpion.

A spider of some kind (if we’re remembering correctly).

A huntsman spider (who catch their prey by hunting, rather than in webs). This male is about 5 inches across. Females are even bigger.

At night, the jungle seems even more alive, many insects and other animals being more active in the comparative coolness, and the trails near the river landing become crowded with guided groups jostling their way along the narrow boardwalks. The ferry service runs until 11 pm to accommodate them. We feel fortunate to live so close. We did see some deer from the elevated blind near our cabin with the help of someone’s spotlight.

a hike to a view

Starting easily enough, the trail became ever steeper as it turned into interminable stretches of boardwalk stairs (someone said 1,278 of them?) in the soggy tropical heat.

Looking around, there was a certain pride in being the oldest people up here.

a boatride and short trek

On our first venture onto the water we traveled upstream.

Got out to see a tree.

Spotted some wary monkeys.

Trekked to a swimming spot (looks nice, but no thanks) along a very dodgy rollercoaster trail clogged with ill prepared people in flip flops desperately clinging to makeshift rope handrails. Yikes.

Discovered why we have that man in front.

And enjoyed the trip back down to the crossing.

visit to a batek village

The Batek people are one of the 18 tribes among the semi-nomadic hunter gatherers, the indigenous people of Peninsular Malaysia, known as the Orang Asli (“orang” meaning “people”).

They hunt monkeys and it is prowess with a blowpipe that makes a young man marriageable (it’s cooking “potatoes” that don’t kill people for young women). They make all their own equipment and, of course, harvest the poison for their darts from the ipoh tree.

After the fire and dart making demonstrations we were offered a chance to try our lungs with a blowpipe. After a few bumbles, Jim finally hit the target with one of the non-poisonous darts. The little piece of “cotton” goes behind the perfectly balanced dart loaded from the back end, probably evening out the pressure from your breath (?), but also keeping you from inhaling the dart if you inadvertently inhale.

a last visit to the blind

The final evening in Taman Negara we went one last time to the elevated blind where an elephant had been seen perhaps a week now prior (ever hopeful). As dusk deepened we were rewarded with the jungle sounds we often imagined, hooting and cawing and howling and croaking, first very close then moving and moving again all around us. It was magnificent. Then, overlaying it all, the call to prayer announced from the village across the river made it a transcendent moment for us both.

Melaka, as in “the Straits of Malacca,” was in many ways the most important of the Malay States in the 15th century as a very important maritime trading center controlling the strait and essentially the gateway through which Islam spread through the peninsula. From the very beginning of the century the Chinese nurtured Melaka as a control point through which its treasure fleets could safely venture into the Indian Ocean and beyond to Arabia, protecting it from Siam. In 1511, however, the Portuguese seized control of the city, abolished the Sultanate, sold into slavery or massacred its Muslim population and effectively ended its role as the defender of maritime trade. The Dutch, with the help of the Sultan of Johor, wrested Melaka from the Portuguese in 1641, turning it over to the British in 1824. Independence, of course, came in 1957. Having lost its sultanate, Melaka has a Governor appointed by the Malaysian Head of State.

masjid selat melaka (malacca straits mosque)

We arranged with our driver to make Melaka, his wife’s home town, a day trip from KL. Before dropping us at a rendezvous point to see the sites on our own, we swung by a beautiful mosque right on (literally) the water. It’s also known as the Floating Mosque because of the impression it gives at high tide.

porta de santiago, st. Pauls hill & church

All that remains of the fortifications the Portuguese put up in 1512 is this gatehouse at the Porta de Santiago. What wasn’t destroyed by the Dutch was destroyed by the British.

After a succession of chapels and a school founded by St. Francis Xavier on the site, the Jesuits erected this church on top of the hill in 1566, calling it Our Lady of the Annunciation. When the Protestant Dutch took over they renamed it St. Paul’s Church and used it as such until building a church at the bottom of the hill in 1753, deconsecrating St. Paul’s and employing it as a powder magazine (which the British concluded was a good use for it). It’s a scenic place with lots and lots of graves and tombstones and a man selling his paintings on the side of the stairway leading to the top.

melaka sultanate palace museum

The museum is a replica of the Sultan’s Palace filled with dioramas and explanations of those times and cases of artifacts. As you can see, it’s quite a substantial place.

proclamation of independence memorial

Right by the Porta de Santiago and the Sultan’s Palace is the Independence museum focused on the 15th century and then the struggle for independence from Great Britain and subsequent developments. For everything in between there is a reasonably good museum in the old Stathuys on Dutch Square. The black and white photo shows the first Prime Minister addressing the crowd in a KL stadium in the pose that was the inspiration for the design of Merdeka 118 (see the post on Kuala Lumpur).

chinatown

We spent the rest of our day in and around Chinatown, first looking for a restaurant specializing in Baba and Nyonya cooking, that fusion of Chinese and Malay traditions, for lunch, then continuing our treasure hunt for interesting places to explore.

kampung kling mosque

There are a Chinese temple, a Hindu temple and a mosque on what people call Harmony Street or Temple Street in this multicultural city in a multicultural country. The Kampung Kling Mosque (1748) reflects this blending and borrowing with Chinese, Corinthian, Hindu, Sumatran, Malay, Moorish, English and Portuguese influences (and Koranic verses in Arabic) there to be seen or imagined. The pool is, of course, there for the mandatory ritual cleansing prior to prayer, when the soul is symbolically purified and the mind focused on God.

cheng hoon teng temple

Also along Harmony Street is the oldest functioning Chinese temple in Malaysia, with the site established at least as early as 1645, with some sources suggesting beginnings even into the 15th century. The multi faith temple serves the followers of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. The main prayer hall is dedicated to the Goddess of Mercy, Guan Yin (“The One Who Perceives the Sounds of the World”), who is of Indian Buddhist origin but has also been incorporated in Taoism and Chinese folk religion. Of the other smaller prayer halls, one is dedicated to ancestor tablets.

baba and nyonya heritage museum

This was the late 19th and early 20th centuries home of the Chan family, who are still the owners of the property and run the house museum. The Chans are Peranakan Chinese (or Straits Chinese), meaning they are the descendants of Chinese who came to Malaysia prior to the 19th century and intermarried with the Malay community, Peranakan essentially referring to old “Straits Born” people, so that there are also Peranakan people of other ethnic mixes. The honorifics Baba and Nyonya refer to a man and a woman member of the Peranakan Chinese community. And, yes, it’s quite the house. The central enclosed courtyard is especially lovely.

We were startled in 1996 when we learned that the tallest building in the world was now a pair of 88 story (1483’) towers in Malaysia. The Petronas Towers retained that title until 2004 and remain the world’s tallest twin towers. Photos at the time made it seem as if they had been built in the middle of a field. However, they now simply blend into the skyline and are overshadowed by even taller buildings in Kuala Lumpur (aka KL), a decidedly modern and prosperous city that we greatly enjoyed.

Malaysia is a complicated country with a complicated history fundamentally transformed by the needs of its colonial occupier, Great Britain, that brought Chinese to work their tin mines and Indians (primarily from Tamil Nadu) to work their palm oil plantations, both Indians and Chinese remaining substantial minorities in this Muslim country dominated politically by Malays. Adding to the complexity, there are also substantial numbers of so-called Straights Chinese or Peranaken Chinese who came early as traders and intermarried with Malays prior to the beginning of the Islamic era in Malaysia (and whose first language is often English).

The current tallest building in KL is, by the way, Merdeka 118, shown here looming behind a prominent colonial era building, “Merdeka” meaning “independence,” and 118 referring to the number of floors. It’s currently the second tallest in the world. There is some debate as to whether the pinnacle reaching above the building should be counted in the contest for altitude, although the architect counters that it is integral to the design of the building because it represents the upstretched hand of the first prime minister in an iconic photograph taken as he declared independence in 1957. The tents, by the way, were part of the setup for a marathon the following day.

sri maha mariamman

On the edge of Chinatown, the oldest (and reputedly the wealthiest) Hindu temple in Malaysia began as a private shrine for the Pillai family in 1873, was transferred to community control in the 1920’s, then underwent various demolitions and reconstructions through 1972. As with most religious buildings in Asia, shoes are left outside.

Hindu temples function as a gate between the heavenly and earthly realms, as well as the literal homes of living deities in the form of a murti or sacred image. Although there is no ritual obligation to visit a temple and the temple does not provide a congregational experience, worshippers come to see and be seen by the murti and be blessed by that experience. The central enclosure here houses the primary deity, Mariamman, a manifestation of Parvati who protects devotees from unholy or demonic events and is popular with overseas Indians.

The temple also, by the way, houses a silver chariot (obviously, not this one) that is used during a festival to transport a statuette of Lord Maruga (god of war) to Batu Caves (see, below).

chan see shu yuen clan house

The Clan House got its start in 1894 when a wealthy businessman and philanthropist was invited to the opening of a clan house in Guangzhou, loved the idea and organized the effort to establish one in Kuala Lumpur. It’s not a temple, but more of a community center and educational academy for the extended Chan clan, which includes surnames such as Chen, Tan, Chin, Ting, and Tang.

There’s a clear educational component.

But, it’s all about family, kinship . . .

. . . and lineage.

sin sze si yah temple

Founded in 1864 by Kapitan Yap Ah Loy, but constructed 20 years later and dedicated to patron deities believed to have helped him defend Kuala Lumpur during the Selangor Civil War, this is the oldest Taoist temple in the city. [Taoism is, of course, not a kind of Buddhism, but a completely different religion founded at about the same time in China, whereas Buddhism was founded in India. To us, it’s much easier to understand the differences between their belief systems than the differences in the temples. (And, for the curious, “Kapitan” is a title from the Dutch colonial days.)]

chinatown and petaling street

Time to jump into Chinatown and Petaling Street to see the markets, shophouses, and some street art.

Sultan Abdul Samad Jamek Mosque

The Jamek Mosque was designed by a British architect, funded by the Malay community with a contribution from the colonial government, and officially opened by the Sultan of Selangor in 1909 on the site of an old Malay burial ground at the confluence of the Klang and Gombak rivers where the city was reputedly founded.

This was the main mosque of the city until 1965 when the National mosque was built. During our travels through Malaysia, whenever we entered a mosque we were welcomed warmly and provided with an overview of Islam, complete with visual aids. Attendance in the mosque is required for men each Friday; for women it is optional. Our accommodations in Malaysia consistently included a discrete arrow on the ceiling pointing west (from our current location).

national textile museum

The National Textile Museum’s building was designed by the same architect who designed Jamek Mosque. The collection is interesting and well presented.

batu caves

Less than ten miles north of KL, Batu Caves is a major complex of temples within a series of caves, a hike up flights of steep colorful stairs (272 in all), and a major draw for both the faithful and the curious.

It was good to have arrived in good time in the morning. This area was a mass of people later in the day as we were leaving.

The monkeys were insistent with anyone carrying food. The man climbing the stairs seemed to be well known to them.

A place of awe and wonder, the temples here make the caves a pilgrimage site and the venue for festivals. We visited just a week after the Thaipusam festival when the grounds inside and out were still strewn with trash, for which our Malay driver blamed the non-locals, of course.

Ramayana Cave, a Questionable Choice

A short walk from Batu Caves, Ramayana Cave is a commercial venture featuring dioramas from the Ramayana inside a plastered cave. We gave it a hurried look before finding our driver and heading back into KL.

the national museum of malaysia

Carefully dodging tour groups, we visited the National Museum which does a credible job of covering everything from geological processes to the struggle for independence and the time since.

Numerous Malay kingdoms came into being, beginning in the second century, on the Malay peninsula, coastal Borneo, Sumatra, Java, Celebes, the Moluccas, other islands in modern Indonesia and the Philippines, and also parts of Indochina (Funan and Champa), the Malays being in origin a maritime trading people. More recently, from the 15th century, their identity was greatly transformed by the influence of the most prominent of those kingdoms, the Sultanate of Melaka (Malacca) and conversion to Islam which began in Melaka. The formation of Malaysia as a country required the assent of these hereditary rulers who still retain certain privileges. The nine hereditary rulers (a Raja and a lot of Sultans) elect the Malaysian Head of State from among themselves every five years, contributing to the greatest complexity we’ve encountered in trying to understand how a country is governed.

The most important component of Malay national dress is the tengkolok, which is not only a headdress, but a symbol of its wearer’s social status through the use of shape, color, pattern and fabric, varying even by function and event. It is created by folding an individual piece of fabric.

Not a piece of street art, this bicycle is a reminder of the rapid overrunning of Malaysia by the Japanese in WWII – by bicycle. The British were never forgiven for their refusal to believe the country could be taken and their rapid abandonment of any defense while they piled onto departing ships, leaving the country to a traumatic occupation, especially for the Chinese minority.

islamic art museum malaysia

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but sometimes words must do when your humble photographer is at a loss to capture the essence of what we’ve experienced. A sizable room in this superb museum is dedicated to large models in plexiglass cases of perhaps twenty mosques from around the world (including New Mexico) with descriptions of their architecture. They are surprisingly evocative. Some we had visited, many we had not. As you may know, mosques are considerably less splashy than Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, and many Christian places of worship.

This late Ottoman period (1820) reception room is from Damascus. Divided in thirds, the areas closest and furthest from the camera are where guests would be received. The built in cupboards and closets would store carpets and pillows when not in use.

“Talismanic shirts made of cotton or linen were part of a soldier’s attire to provide psychological and spiritual protection. They were worn underneath protective metal armour in parts of the Muslim world. This light shirt bears inscriptions and symbols, including Qur’anic verses, the ninety-nine beautiful names of Allah, and talismanic magic squares.”

and now . . . The food!

On our way through, a market is the best place to start recognizing unfamiliar produce. There’s an unshelled and shelled black bean used to make a tonic, a green bean used to help along certain bodily functions, ginger flowers and banana flowers.

At our first stop for something to eat, learning a new skill on the fly.

This is serious food.

We wander into a foodie neighborhood that certainly looks fated for development.

That’s nasi lemak, the national dish, served in a banana leaf to impart a bit of flavor, complete with peanuts and the least fishy tasting anchovies we’ve ever encountered (genuinely enjoyable and from some island we’d never heard of, of course). Upper right is rendang chicken, lower right . . . all delicious.

More cooking in banana leaf, this time a fish paste.

Finally, some fried bananas . . .

. . . as the night settles in . . .

. . . we take the elevator up to the pedestrian bridge and cross over the highway, making our way in the pleasant temperatures of the evening to our hotel next door to the Petronas Towers where we had enjoyed a Valentines concert with the Kuala Lumpur Symphony Orchestra a few nights before.

We based ourselves in a leafy B&B nestled in the thick of a bustling neighborhood a few minutes walk across the Ping River into the heart of the city (recommended by friends from our trip through Patagonia). Directly across the narrow street were a bakery and a tiny storefront with amazing noodle soup. Towards the end of the day, the bakery seemed to always have a sign advising that their coconut cream pie was sold out, so we tried it and were delighted. It was a superb execution of a classic American pie.

The old city was protected by moats and a substantial wall (significant portions of which remain) with four gates, of which Tha Phae Gate was the most important and through which monks, traders and diplomats would enter. Within are 40 temples and hundreds more outside the moated walls, an extraordinary density, so that the essence of Chiang Mai seems to be simply temples, food and tourists enamored of both.

Wat Chedi Luang

The chedi (very similar to the ones we had seen down in Ayutthaya and, of course, an alternate term for “stupa” or a mound in Buddhism in which typically there are relics) was built to enshrine the ashes of a king, completed in 1475 after nearly a century of construction, it was heavily damaged by an earthquake in 1545 when it lost half its height.

Wat Phan Tao

One of the few remaining all wood structures of its kind in Chiang Mai city (within the province of Chiang Mai), the assembly hall is a teak building from 1876 constructed from the disassembled parts of a royal residence from 1846. The temple originated in the 14th century.

Wat Phan On

The Wat was founded in 1501, but the very striking Chedi is quite recent: 2007.

Wat Pha Lat

Halfway up Doi Suthep, the mountain overlooking Chiang Mai city, is a temple complex tucked into the forest.

It was founded in 1355 to commemorate a sacred white elephant who stopped to rest here before continuing on to the much more famous Wat Phra That Doi Suthep at the top of the mountain.

Now it seems to be mostly used as a retreat for monks and is a very mellow place to visit. They were setting up for some sort of event while we were there.

Wat Phra That Doi Suthep

Near the entrance to the complex is the sacred white elephant. The legend is that a monk from Sukhothai had a vision about finding a Buddha relic. He followed the vision and found what was taken to be a fragment of the shoulder bone of the Buddha with magical powers. At a particular Wat, it magically split in two. Not knowing what to do with the larger half, it was placed on the back of a holy elephant who walked up the steep slopes of Doi Suthep (stopping, of course, for a bit of a rest at the site of Wat Pha Lat), trumpeted three times and dropped dead. Taking this as a sign, a chedi was built to house the relic and the Wat was founded in 1383.

It’s a very colorful scene around the chedi! In fact, the overload of gold was pretty much blinding in the midday sun.

The story of the temple, in relief.

Doesn’t every Mom feel misunderstood?

Wat Lok Molee

The first known mention of Wat Lok Molee, now that we were back in central Chiang Mai from Doi Suthep, is from 1367 when the King invited 10 Burmese monks, housed in the temple, to come and promote Theravada Buddhism, the dominant form of Buddhism in Thailand and a very conservative form (whatever that may mean) of the religion.

The chedi was commissioned by the King in 1527.

The Assembly Hall was added in 1545.

A very busy place, Wat Lok Molee seemed to be the most vibrant temple we visited, filled not just with tourists, but with local people taking instruction or learning a dance or otherwise engaged with the life of the temple.

Wat Ton Kwen

Revered as a surviving example of classic Lanna wooden architecture, Wat Ton Kwen was established in 1852 and the viharn or assembly hall was built in 1858. Being in an out of the way rural area outside of the city and lacking the pizzazz of gold dripping all over everything, it’s seldom visited by foreign tourists but is beloved by the locals who often come for wedding photography. Our driver decided it would be a nice place for us to see while we were venturing out with him to see other sites. We agreed. There is a great tranquility to this spot chosen and enshrined as a rest stop on the route taken to process a Buddha relic. The open wooden cloister is unique to Wat Ton Kwen.

Doi Inthanon

Yes, another “we made it!” photo from a national park, this one in Northern Thailand, a long day trip from Chiang Mai.

To set the context, this is no beach resort; this is the highest point in Thailand: 2,565.334 meters (8,416.5 feet) according to the signage – a bit cooler than the city and more of a challenge for our sea level lungs.

Kew mae pan nature trail

It may be uncharacteristic to hike a cloud forest in such beautiful weather, but we hadn’t a single complaint. Our Hmong escort was very good natured, pointing out various plants and birds, and the landscape was amazing.

wachirathan waterfall

We have low expectations for waterfalls, having seen plenty of them, but our driver convinced us to give this one a chance. He was right. It’s a very nice one and, hopefully, the photos do it justice.

the royal chedi

Near the summit of Doi Inthanon the Royal Air Force constructed two chedi, each to honor the sixtieth birthday of King Rama IX and his Queen, respectively.

The gardens are beautiful and the chedi quietly impressive . . .

. . . especially the Queen’s.

Finally . . . the Food!

Going on a food tour means moving from place to place, watching, listening, tasting, eating, but not too much, as there’ll be much more as the night goes on and then a bit more. It’s normally a pretty chaotic scene. In one of the restaurants a patron at the next table mentioned that he flew to Chiang Mai from Singapore solely to eat this meal. It’s a food city and there’s lots to try. We move around the city in the back of a red truck with facing benches, like one carrying soldiers, fire fighters or farm workers. It makes for a certain camaraderie.

To our taste, Thailand is hard to beat for food. The quality of the produce is first rate and the spicing is amazing. We did find a restaurant with doors and air conditioning that we loved, an ambitious chef with a cheerful and hustling staff. We even paid a second visit. Chow Chow, for those who might be in the area.

It had been 20 years since we had seen Aidi (or “Eddy”), 30 since she had stayed with us and two then-little boys as part of an exchange program when we lived in New Jersey.

For a very long time we had told ourselves we would drop in on Aidi one of these days. So, we (more precisely, Amanda) planned a trip to begin in Hong Kong.

What struck us immediately was how three dimensional the city is, with the world’s longest outdoor covered escalator run (or some such thing), spread over surprisingly mountainous terrain. Ascending the escalator piece by piece is a great way to spot interesting shops; walking down the steeply sloped streets works well for losing your way (quickly regained with Google maps).

The University Museum and Art Gallery (University of Hong Kong) was a short uphill walk from our hotel. Everywhere seems easy to get to in Hong Kong, whether on foot, by streetcar, ferry, subway, double decker bus or car (if you can find a parking space), making it a surprisingly convenient city (and, apparently, a retirement destination for people drawn to an urban lifestyle).

Off we went for a day of exploring with Aidi and Emma, crossing Victoria Harbour by ferry from Hong Kong Island to Kowloon to visit the Hong Kong Museum of Art and Kowloon Park where there’s a permanent homage to cartoon and anime characters.

Having picked Thomas up from school, we headed to the mall for something to eat (and Thomas to work on his homework) and found that a Dragon troop was performing store to store to bring a year of good fortune where their sign had been hung, a once a year event we were fortunate to see, pulling crowds along as they went.

Nikolay picked us up at our hotel and five of us drove up to Victoria Peak for a look and a walk in nature, while Thomas went to his music theory class and practiced for a recital.

We caught up with him later at the performing arts center and were astonished by his masterful performance of the Third Movement of Kabalevsky’s rather daunting Violin Concerto in C major.

On our last day in Hong Kong we rendezvoused with Aidi and her family on Lantau Island to ride a cable car up to see a giant Buddha, the Tian Tan Buddha, the world’s largest seated, bronze Buddha that’s located outdoors (well, it is pretty large and impressive) that requires climbing 300 some steps up the mountain after a 25 minute cable car ride. For such a densely populated place, 70% of Hong Kong is nonetheless rural with lots of rugged terrain, hiking trails and the like. Lantau is where you’ll find Disneyland, the stop just before ours at the end of the line. You get a good view of the airport from the cable cars and when we left the region with a transfer through Hong Kong, we looked up, saw the cable cars glistening against the mountain and knew we missed Hong Kong already.

This is not a pig; the authorities are quite adamant. Pigs are eastern hemisphere animals and javelinas (that’s an initial “h” sound, amigo) or “collared peccaries” are western hemisphere animals, their ancestries having diverged 40 million years ago. But, they sure look like cute little pigs, although the Ranger is very wary of them, having been chased up a tree as a child by a scavenging mob of these very short sighted desert and grassland dwellers from here south to Argentina who keep track of each other with a keen (though not very refined!) sense of smell, thanks to overactive musk glands. We were delighted to eventually spot some ourselves, but alas no photo of our own and no wish to get too close.

A frontier military post, Fort Davis protected freighters, mail coaches and other travelers on the San Antonio- El Paso Road, as well as settlers and villagers against raiding by Comanches and Apaches passing through the area from 1854 to 1891. Few Indians lived in the Trans Pecos, but raiding was part of their lifestyle when they were passing through. The Fort was largely abandoned during the Civil War, but regained its mission in 1867, this time with Buffalo Soldiers comprising infantry and cavalry to conduct the Indian Wars.

At its largest extent in the 1880s the Fort counted 400 soldiers. By 1891 it no longer had a purpose.

They continue to make history at the McDonald Observatory in the Davis Mountains (part of the University of Texas at Austin) where there’s more than one way to look into the universe. Even after a visit, we’re not sure of the number, but perhaps eight telescopes, including 3 major ones? It was impressive.

This little 107” beauty (that’s the mirror size) is housed in a room that’s kept at nighttime temperatures to avoid wasting the time needed for thermal adjustment. The principle mirror is so large that the black devices you see on the bottom are there to correct for the deformation of the mirror from gravity as it is maneuvered into different positions. The light, after bouncing around among mirrors, travels down through the arm holding the telescope to a room below to be put through an enormous spectrograph. Although capable of taking awe inspiring photographs, the various telescopes here are focused on spectroscopy through which they provide information about the distance, movement and composition of the phenomena they study. This telescope was also used to bounce a laser off mirrors left on the moon, a laser range finder. From these observations, it was found that the moon is moving away from the earth roughly 1.5” per year and has a bit of a wobble in its rotation. The mirror of the telescope is fused silica and has an incredibly thin layer of aluminum which is cleaned with dry ice and removed and reapplied frequently.

Specially built for spectroscopy, with its 433” mirror, the “HET” doesn’t have a barrel aimed at the sky. Instead, the mirror rests on a sort of bed at a 55 degree angle which is rotated to take in 70% of the nighttime sky. The mirror can be seen in the first photo and is made up of 91 hexagonal components, such as the one in the display, that are made of a material that is thermally neutral. Looking again at the first photo you can see the honeycomb-like surface. That’s the mirror (on which are reflected structural supports). Among the projects the telescope is currently working on are an effort to identify planets in a habitable zone and to look back over 11 billion years to determine if dark energy has been changing.

From exploring outer space to plumbing the deep within – we headed to the Carlsbad Caverns where the bat viewing amphitheater was empty because they were either down in Mexico for the winter or snuggly hibernating (depending on species).

Taking the “Natural Entrance,” rather than the elevators installed in the 1930s, down more than a mile into the cavern provides only the most tame sense of what it must have been like in the 19th century. As it is, the path is very dimly lit, so that it occasionally feels like fellow hikers down into the depths are phantoms in the netherworld. Glowing signage either explains your surroundings or offers assurance of rescue if things go wrong.

What distinguishes Carlsbad is the immense size of the subterranean rooms (the largest of which is the largest in North America) and the way in which they were formed. Due to the presence of petroleum deeper down, hydrogen sulfide rose through the limestone forming sulfuric acid which aggressively eroded the rock, forming enormous voids. The gases then vented up through what is now the Natural Entrance. There are numerous caverns, but only one that can be visited.

Carlsbad Caverns are in the Guadalupe Mountains, but a separate National Park reminds us that there is more to see than a cave.

Before there was the Pony Express, Butterfield Overland Mail had stations 20 miles apart from St. Louis to San Francisco; this Pinery Station is the last remnant anywhere near a major highway and was the station at the highest altitude (5700’). Not much left here, but a good reminder of how difficult communications were not all that long ago (given that Jim’s grandfather delivered mail on horseback back in rural Pennsylvania).

Pretty much contemporary with that grandfather, John T. Smith founded Spring Hill Ranch in 1906 (the family is posing in 1914) because a number of springs would provide essential water.

It was a very nice hike up to the highest of those springs (Smith Spring) where, coming down, we happened on this tiny snowman left for us by a fellow hiker.

and, it’s off to New Mexico . . .

White Sands is an exceedingly rare National Park where you may wander where you want, on trail or off because, as a Ranger agreed, there’s hardly anything to hurt, except yourself. There’s also an exceptional density of warnings focused on hydration and getting lost. With tracks, mostly human, going every which way, it’s difficult to find your way back to your car if you’ve gone any distance and you’re not paying close attention. Trails are quite comforting, as is sledding right at a parking area (sleds are rented and sold in the store).

The White Sands Missile Range (formerly the White Sands Proving Grounds) surrounds the National Park. The Park is frequently closed due to activity at the Missile Range and, indeed, a significant portion of the Park was a “do not stop your vehicle under any circumstances” zone during our visit due to a plane crash some six months prior in the Park.

When the Manhattan Project folks were ready to test the first ever nuclear explosion, this is where it happened, not at Los Alamos. The first use of a nuclear bomb, dropped on Hiroshima, was delivered by Fat Boy. And, bringing us more up to date, that’s a Patriot missile and launcher.

The small base museum is quite a good museum, covering a very wide variety of subjects, but solidly – everything from geology and prehistoric times through settlement and the Indian Wars to the beginnings of the space age. Pictured is how we used to keep track of scheduling before the computer age.

Finally, the grateful sound guy at Lucas Films presented Darth Vader to the Missile Range as a special thanks for being able to record authentic missile sounds for Star Wars, making us wish all of this capacity for destruction were fictional.

For our January visit to Big Bend National Park we flew into El Paso where we managed a snowy hike in the Franklin Mountains and dropped in on family. The bottom portion of the trail was rough going over a long stretch of scree. Returning at the very end of our journey we found ourselves in the middle of a mountain biking race and abandoned the mountain, greatly impressed that most of the riders managed to give us a friendly greeting.

On the way to Big Bend, we confirmed our American citizenship for the well-armed but (also) friendly Border Control people along the highway, noticed that impressive surveillance dirigible tethered due to the weather, and on the way to spending the night in the very un-Alp-like (but boasting a functioning restaurant, albeit in the bar, and wonderful murals throughout town) Alpine, we stopped by Marfa with its movie set vibe, best known for the Hotel Paisano where the 300 cast and crew for Giant all stayed in 1955, including James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson (how many to a room we didn’t ask). With the pedal to the metal numbing distances of Texas highways we were already becoming grateful for the upgrade to our big Volvo SUV when our ordinary rental turned out to have a not so slowly flattening tire while still in El Paso.

The border is where the center of the deepest channel had been in 1848, although the river has gotten a bit more shallow since then and is certainly not much of an obstacle to regular informal commerce (yes, that’s Mexico). It’s difficult to avoid road apples when following the trails close to the river on the east side of the Park in the area of the Park’s Rio Grande Village. There you’ll also find both the occasional seller of crafts and tamales, as well as many unattended displays of crafts with cash boxes. There is, by the way, a legal Border Patrol crossing where tourists cross to have lunch in a nearby village.

Being fans of those old cartoons, it had been one of our objectives to catch a glimpse of a roadrunner. In this, we overachieved. They were plentiful and not too shy, puffing up a bit if unsure of us fellow wanderers, relying on their amazing speed. And, they can fly, roosting in trees at night.

Although we were most drawn to the mountains and the greener areas along the river, we did keep venturing into the desert, as it was everywhere and, as always, a fascinating place. Here at Dugout Wells, where the windmill was essential for bringing up water, we saw the common prickly pear (the Englemann prickly pear) which is, of course, found all over North America, even on Cape Cod. However, the Blind prickly pear is only found in the Chihuahuan Desert and the Purple prickly pear is found only in the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts (who knew?).

Working our way to Hot Springs, still on the east side of the Park, we decided to park up where the RVs were required to stay put, rather than plunging down the iffy road, per the advice of fellow tourists just returned from the riverside. Not tempted to walk the road, we followed a seldom used narrow trail leading to a scramble down to a flood plain and found our way to an abandoned motel site from J.O. Langford’s early 1900’s homesteaded stake on a 105 degree thermal spring along the river where you can soak in the ruins of a bath house and admire pictographs on the limestone cliffs.

The only mountain range entirely within a National Park, the Chisos Mountains are largely composed of lava domes formed thirty some million years ago now rising nearly a mile above the desert floor. We stayed inside the Chisos Basin, an encirclement of these domes with a “window” to the outside, seen here on the left from the outside and, on the right, from the inside of the basin, the upper right photo being from a hike further up into the mountain on the Basin Loop Trail.

Our favorite hike was up the Lost Mine Trail in the Chisos Basin, a 1275’ climb in a 4.7 mile round trip (as far as we went on the ridge line). The photos don’t really do justice to the magnificence of the scenery.

Inside the basin the climate is much more lush and colorful than the desert surrounding it, even though most of the plants are the same.

A modest hike at the end of a little road off the Scenic Drive (created by the first Park director through the west side) is the Lower Burro Mesa Pour-off. Quite literally, the top left photo shows a water gouged and smoothed spout that conducts huge torrents of water from the Mesa above to a small canyon that opens to the desert floor. Up in that little canyon is clearly not the place to be when the rain comes on heavy. In the center of the montage is a formation known as Mule Ears. Ruins from ranching days, some partially restored, are throughout the Park.

Crossing Terlingua Creek, we made our way towards Saint Elena Canyon through which the Rio Grande flows beneath 1500’ walls before exiting the Park.

. . . and, there it goes. A fitting adios to Big Bend.

Chile is a country of major earthquakes and great changes, many in recent years, making us question the wisdom of the old saying “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” We experienced a minor quake during our stay with just a bit of swaying on the 13th floor, although enough to send others in our group rushing down the stairwells. We were surprised that this was a first for our Argentine guide, although it’s in Chile that the toughest standards for construction prevail, for good reason.

The US supported coup led to a very harsh 17 year military dictatorship (with plenty of “disappeared” people) which ended when General Pinochet consented to a plebiscite, and lost. What has followed has been a stable democracy with a vigorous, inflation free economy, the electorate evenly split between those who would be more rightist and those who would be more leftist, none apparently having an appetite for pushing further in either direction. Chile is a more or less pure capitalist country, with no social safety net, currently provoking resentment that the government is providing social support to a very large wave of immigration from the more troubled countries in our hemisphere, primarily Venezuela. Very serious riots and mass demonstrations in 2019 and 2020 were the consequence of the extreme disparities in living conditions generated by such an unforgiving capitalist system, dampened by the pandemic and currently in a state of calm. Indeed, our local guide Ivan, whose family went into exile after the coup when his Air Force officer father resigned his commission in protest, believes the pandemic saved his country from civil war.

Having spent a week here around 1980, Jim recognized nothing except the mountains, as the city has doubled in population in that time (to roughly 7-8 million or 40% of the country’s population) and spread out to those mountains. Gone were the lovely 19th century shopping arcades, everyone out walking with an ice cream cone in the late afternoon, looking forward to dinner at 11, and uzi toting men most everywhere. It’s now a bustling modern city with South America’s tallest skyscraper (in a country where doctors don’t need malpractice insurance, but architects do).

Having barely 48 hours in Santiago and its environs, we were fortunate to be able to visit two exceptional small museums of Latin American antiquities, which had been private collections. We were especially grateful for the chance to see the extraordinary pre-Colombian textiles and feather work, as the Andean region has produced some very unusual and wonderful work. Knotted strings, of course, comprised the written language of the Inca.

Although collected from across America, much was local, such as these Mapuche statues. Per the helpful English language signage: “These remarkable wooden statues were placed on top of tombs in ancient Mapuche cemeteries. They reflect the spirit (am) of those buried there and are intended to assist them in their journey to the afterlife. Chiefs and great warriors were sent to the East after death, to roam among the volcanoes of Kalfumapu, the ‘blue land.’ All others went to the West, to eat bitter potatoes beyond the sea.”

Our last stop in Chile and our adventure into Patagonia was an old winery where roses are planted at the ends of the rows as wary sentinels, like sacrificial canaries watching over the vines.

Then, renewed with a sense of wonder, it was off to the airport for an overnight flight to the other ends of the earth where Christmas in the chill north awaited us.