1. The other bestie - Snehi, arrived from Mumbai this week. Having recently started work with Facebook, she was in Singapore all week long for training. Her husband and daughter joined in a couple of days later as well, making this into the perfect summer vacation for themselves and a very lucky streak for me - who got to see all the three of them in our neck of the woods for the first time ever!
2. We took a very drowsy Snehi for happy hour drinks to Kinki (a fun rooftop Japanese bar in the Customs House area). While Snehi wasn't really sure what we were up to going to a place named like that, she seemed happy it was nothing more than just drinks, going by her jet-lag from the previous two weeks, spent in California. Our other local-expat friend who we've recently met through our other house-guest, joined in too and the evening was spent hashing out (No prizes for guessing this...) another series of start-up ideas and business plans. Hubster had a very participative and attentive audience to his 'new ideas' talk and the happy hour - which was a welcome "2-for-1 drinks" special, helped keep us animated in our discussions for the rest of the evening.
Post-drinks we walked over to Sabai Thai, a few steps away from Kinki, for a fine-dining Thai experience. (After having had splendid and reasonably priced Thai restaurants in NYC all these years, at our beck and call, finding similar set-ups in Singapore has been a challenge of sorts. You would think one would easily be able to find good Thai places here, it being Asia. Perhaps one can, it's just that we haven't come across any "incredible" Thai restaurants here yet - other than the usual Thai food stalls at the various food courts which do a great job with the cuisine, nonetheless. Besides as is always the case - once you've tasted 'real' Thai food off of the streets of Thailand, it gets difficult to accept anything else that does not match-up!)
The food at Sabai Thai was delicious and came close to being pretty authentic, so we were happy with our choice of place, for the evening.
3. Snehi, Atit & Ira came over for dinner at our place on Thursday night. Ironically, in all these decades of being good friends, this was the first time they were coming over to our place. Until now, we had always been their guests, considering our frequent trips to Mumbai.
Zoe had been prepped in advance - for Part Deux of her 22m birthday celebrations with her yet another beloved Maasi & Little Ira. One day, I know she's going to look back at these pictures from her monthly birthday celebrations of the first two years of her life and love the fact that so many different people were part of her 'candle-blowing cheer' every month. In my own way, this is how I'd like to include all our family and friends in being part of her big day celebrations. With so many of them spread all over the world, it is going to be difficult to get everyone to be part of her annual birthday celebrations. Hence these monthly madness sessions at our place, which ensure that everyone gets to see a very excited Zoe blow out candles repeatedly on her birthday desserts and help make tiny memories in the big picture, of the first two years of her life!
The evening passed by too quickly, for friend's who've known each other for life. We indulged in a humble spread of Cous Cous Salad, the omnipresent guac & chips at our place, a smoking, spicy and hot Thai Red Curry Stir Fry & the Sticky rice with Mango dessert - all cooked by yours' truly for her special guests. Snehi said she has more work trips to Singapore coming up in the near future, so for now we are keeping our fingers crossed that she visits us often, while we are still based out of here.
4. The Weekend was a long one, as Friday was the 'Vesak Day' Holiday. This annual holiday observed by Buddhists all over the world, especially in Asia (also known as "Buddha Purnima" in India) commemorates the birth, enlightenment and death of Gautam Buddha. We packed our selves in an Inter-State bus to go to Malacca, Malaysia for the three day weekend. This was our first 'road-trip' after ages, considering most trips in this city-state are really 'air trips'.
Going to Malacca from Singapore takes about 3-4 hours by bus, depending on the time taken at the two immigration posts that one needs to alight at, for visa clearances. Still, this trip is best made by a bus as against a private car/ taxi or even train, since the lines for buses are shorter and quicker when it comes to paperwork processing.
On leaving the Singapore border, one senses the beginnings of another country, with the uncontrolled, dense foliage that suddenly sprouts up along the highway. Even though Singapore is more than 50% green, there is a marked difference in the wild, unmanicured foliage that greets one, as you exit the city-state to enter into Malaysia. The drive is beautiful, as it winds through many plantations and tea-gardens, all of which provide a scenic backdrop enroute. The bus seats are extremely comfortable (flat-bed in some buses and almost flat in most others) and even have more leg-room and unlimited baggage requirements, when compared to low-cost airlines. Besides for most budget travellers it is a win-win on account of cheap fares. No wonder then the bus is a more preferred option when visiting Malacca from Singapore.
5. Malacca State is the southernmost state of Malaysia, next to the Straits of Malacca (as you might recall from your history/ geography lessons in school). The Malacca city centre has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, since July 2008.
Malacca is a mixed pot of religious and cultural assimilations - It used to be part of a Malay Sultanate, was founded originally by the last 'Raja' of Singapore who was Hindu, colonised by the Portuguese in the 1500's, later seceded to the British in the 1800's and also served as an important port for Chinese trade. This city has thus historically been a confluence of multiple cultures, making for some interesting influences that can be seen in it's food, art, architecture and people.
6. We spent our two days in the city, visiting various points of interest that I had researched to draw up a customised itinerary for ourselves. These included small bits and pieces of the various cultural influences that can be found here - such as St. Paul's Hill & Fort A Famosa (Portuguese forts), Melaka Chinatown (a blend of Moslem-Chinese surroundings), Villa Sentosa (A living museum owned, run and inhabited by a grand old lady, who grew up in the house and has frozen it in time to convert it into a cultural walk-through experience of sorts), Red Square (A Dutch-style city square with a clock tower to sit and relax in, in the middle of the city) and the infamous Jonker Street (the quintessential must-do on a visit here, especially for antique shopping, late-night weekend markets like those that can be found only in Asia and some quirky modern-day curio picks). We also took the Melaka river cruise, that navigates through the Melaka river, winding it's way through it's various inner hubs. The high point of this cruise is how it provides for an art-gallery like experience, as one makes their way through multiple homes, shops and eateries all happily displaying huge, large-scale murals on their facades. Melaka being a small city, the cruise is a great way to cover the maximum length and breadth of the city, if constrained for time.
7. Random observations made on this trip were -
a) Almost everyone seemed to have a 'Note' or an 'Ipad' on them, clearly thrust in our faces each time people held up these massive devices to take pictures. (I find it hilarious when people take pictures using their Ipad's BTW). These gadgets were so omnipresent I began questioning their originality. But then again this was Malaysia - a booming economy may possibly have led into newer indulgences, perhaps? Having said that what with Asia's buzzing marketplace that thrives on fakes and 'Made in China' goods, there was a big chance that not all of these were the 'real thing', too.
b) Among the regular demographic that one can expect to find in Malaysia, the one that stood out over all others was that of our very own Sardars! At first we thought, we probably just happened to be in an area which had a 'gurudwara' in it. (Gluttonous images of 'langar' popped up in our heads, in no time).
Our taxi driver told us that this weekend was also a celebratory one for the Sikhs, who from all over Asia (Indonesia, Thailand, other parts of Malaysia, Singapore etc) had flocked here to one of Asia's largest gurudwara's to offer prayers. And sure enough, on both the days that we spent in Melaka, we saw large and small groups of 'Sikhs' all over the city. While we were aware that this is a demographic found frequently in every part of the world, it was still a little surprising to see Sikhs abound in Malaysia of all the places, where the only kind of 'desi' one expects to encounter are really Tamils.
c) Speaking of which, the Tamils living in Malaysia have their own little unique identities as well. Most Malaysian Tamils are successors of Indian or Sri Lankan Tamils, who migrated here during the British colonial period. The Tamil Muslims and Malacca Tamilians (called as the Chittys) abound in Malacca.
Tamil is the educational language of Malaysia, meaning there are a lot of schools that have their premier medium of instruction as Tamil. That explains the number of Tamil school children we encountered over the weekend, that were out on educational day trips with their school teachers. Also, a South Indian 'dhaba' equivalent across the street from our hotel, was reflective of a hard-core rural eatery straight out of a Tamil Nadu village (on the outskirts of Auroville or Pondi, as I recollect from my time living there).
d) The Chinatown in Malacca is probably one of the most unique Chinatown's that I've been to this far. It was as non-Chinatown-ish as it could get, if you know what I mean. The lack of vendors thrusting fake goods in your face, as one encounters in the American Chinatowns' was evident. On an Asian level too, this was a quaint Chinatown that seemed to take pride in it's age-old dwellings and shop-houses that abound on it's inner streets. As we wound in and out of these, the everyday life of old Chinese-Malay men and women was on display for us, right outside their front doors. As we walked past them, peering in and trying not to intrude, they sat right peering out and happily waving out at us. Traditional Chinese temples abounded in these streets and now and then a quirky little contemporary store would pop up, conveying the dynamism of this quaint little neighbourhood.
e) Malay food is delicious as hell, but as is known to most, extremely fatty. The ingredients used in most of their dishes are loaded with butter, lard, coconut milk, thereby making for sumptuous fare, but the kinds that ranks high on the calorie-consumption chart. A lot of Malay food is also a beautiful blend of various styles of cuisines - as experienced by us when we ate the Mutton Biryani (Indian/ Mughlai influence), the Chicken Rendang in Coconut gravy (Thai/ Bangla/ Malay blend) or the mouth-wateringly delicious Laksa with Assam fish that Hubster ordered, which was really the most soulful bowl of non-vegetarian 'rassam' - with a snapper in it. And of course the classic Malay coffee shops abounded everywhere we went - the 'Kopitiams' that are probably Malaysia's single most famous cultural exports to their neighbour - Singapore!
f) It amazes me to see how English has lent itself as a 'starter' language for so many other languages in the world. Malaysia is one classic example, where one sees signage in Malay which liberally draws upon the English alphabet and even vocabulary largely, to craft their own words.
Examples of these are as follows - Bus is 'Bas' in Malay, Lorry is 'Lori, Immigration is 'Imigresan', Taxi is 'Teksi' and so on and so forth. There are other languages that take off from English too - Spanish and French are classic examples as well, but atleast they add their own 'accents' (as in the 'acute', 'circumflex' etc)
Being an English language Nazi, it sends shivers down my spine to imagine Malay children learn in school, what can easily be construed as 'Broken English' in the other parts of the world.
g) The pleasure of travelling in Asia is how light everything on the pocket is, when you compare it to the Western world or the Western currency for sure. The Malaysian Ringitt is another one of those currencies, that does not hold it's own in front of the US or Singaporean Dollars, thus making this another country where one's dollars go far.
h) The Trishaws - a.k.a one of the oldest forms of transport in Malaysia, captured our intrigue, what with their overtly gaudy and crowded decorative embellishments and loud music that blared from speakers kept under them, in specially designed racks. These are tiny 'rickshaws' with bicycles attached to their lateral sides (as against in front of them as seen in some Indian towns). Trishaw rides are fun, but cannot be sustained for long distances especially as they can get a bit too tight (a family of two and a half barely fits in one). Racially discriminated yet again, this time too our Trishaw driver automatically played his 'Bollywood' CD the moment we sat in - hoping to make us feel at home. Having had this 'treatment' meted out to ourselves several times before on our travels, we are now used to it and actually do not mind it anymore! Besides nothing makes the daughter groove more than a pukka desi number, so why not? is our logic! Sure enough, half way through the trishaw ride, we had her shimmying to 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai', much to the entertainment of everyone around us. Traveling with a public entertainer, we always are!
Two very hot and fun-filled days later, we got back into Singapore, via road. It being a long weekend, our return journey took longer than expected and was different - in that, we rode a SBS Transit bus (Local Singaporean transport bus) all the way from Johor Bahru (just across the Singapore border, on the Malaysian side) to Woodlands MRT station. There on, it was the ever-dependable Singaporean Comfort cab that brought us back home, by 6 pm on a Sunday evening.
The weekend was still not done though...to be continued in the next week's update....so stay tuned!!
Love,
Shweyta
2. We took a very drowsy Snehi for happy hour drinks to Kinki (a fun rooftop Japanese bar in the Customs House area). While Snehi wasn't really sure what we were up to going to a place named like that, she seemed happy it was nothing more than just drinks, going by her jet-lag from the previous two weeks, spent in California. Our other local-expat friend who we've recently met through our other house-guest, joined in too and the evening was spent hashing out (No prizes for guessing this...) another series of start-up ideas and business plans. Hubster had a very participative and attentive audience to his 'new ideas' talk and the happy hour - which was a welcome "2-for-1 drinks" special, helped keep us animated in our discussions for the rest of the evening.
Post-drinks we walked over to Sabai Thai, a few steps away from Kinki, for a fine-dining Thai experience. (After having had splendid and reasonably priced Thai restaurants in NYC all these years, at our beck and call, finding similar set-ups in Singapore has been a challenge of sorts. You would think one would easily be able to find good Thai places here, it being Asia. Perhaps one can, it's just that we haven't come across any "incredible" Thai restaurants here yet - other than the usual Thai food stalls at the various food courts which do a great job with the cuisine, nonetheless. Besides as is always the case - once you've tasted 'real' Thai food off of the streets of Thailand, it gets difficult to accept anything else that does not match-up!)
The food at Sabai Thai was delicious and came close to being pretty authentic, so we were happy with our choice of place, for the evening.
3. Snehi, Atit & Ira came over for dinner at our place on Thursday night. Ironically, in all these decades of being good friends, this was the first time they were coming over to our place. Until now, we had always been their guests, considering our frequent trips to Mumbai.
Zoe had been prepped in advance - for Part Deux of her 22m birthday celebrations with her yet another beloved Maasi & Little Ira. One day, I know she's going to look back at these pictures from her monthly birthday celebrations of the first two years of her life and love the fact that so many different people were part of her 'candle-blowing cheer' every month. In my own way, this is how I'd like to include all our family and friends in being part of her big day celebrations. With so many of them spread all over the world, it is going to be difficult to get everyone to be part of her annual birthday celebrations. Hence these monthly madness sessions at our place, which ensure that everyone gets to see a very excited Zoe blow out candles repeatedly on her birthday desserts and help make tiny memories in the big picture, of the first two years of her life!
The evening passed by too quickly, for friend's who've known each other for life. We indulged in a humble spread of Cous Cous Salad, the omnipresent guac & chips at our place, a smoking, spicy and hot Thai Red Curry Stir Fry & the Sticky rice with Mango dessert - all cooked by yours' truly for her special guests. Snehi said she has more work trips to Singapore coming up in the near future, so for now we are keeping our fingers crossed that she visits us often, while we are still based out of here.
4. The Weekend was a long one, as Friday was the 'Vesak Day' Holiday. This annual holiday observed by Buddhists all over the world, especially in Asia (also known as "Buddha Purnima" in India) commemorates the birth, enlightenment and death of Gautam Buddha. We packed our selves in an Inter-State bus to go to Malacca, Malaysia for the three day weekend. This was our first 'road-trip' after ages, considering most trips in this city-state are really 'air trips'.
Going to Malacca from Singapore takes about 3-4 hours by bus, depending on the time taken at the two immigration posts that one needs to alight at, for visa clearances. Still, this trip is best made by a bus as against a private car/ taxi or even train, since the lines for buses are shorter and quicker when it comes to paperwork processing.
On leaving the Singapore border, one senses the beginnings of another country, with the uncontrolled, dense foliage that suddenly sprouts up along the highway. Even though Singapore is more than 50% green, there is a marked difference in the wild, unmanicured foliage that greets one, as you exit the city-state to enter into Malaysia. The drive is beautiful, as it winds through many plantations and tea-gardens, all of which provide a scenic backdrop enroute. The bus seats are extremely comfortable (flat-bed in some buses and almost flat in most others) and even have more leg-room and unlimited baggage requirements, when compared to low-cost airlines. Besides for most budget travellers it is a win-win on account of cheap fares. No wonder then the bus is a more preferred option when visiting Malacca from Singapore.
5. Malacca State is the southernmost state of Malaysia, next to the Straits of Malacca (as you might recall from your history/ geography lessons in school). The Malacca city centre has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, since July 2008.
Malacca is a mixed pot of religious and cultural assimilations - It used to be part of a Malay Sultanate, was founded originally by the last 'Raja' of Singapore who was Hindu, colonised by the Portuguese in the 1500's, later seceded to the British in the 1800's and also served as an important port for Chinese trade. This city has thus historically been a confluence of multiple cultures, making for some interesting influences that can be seen in it's food, art, architecture and people.
6. We spent our two days in the city, visiting various points of interest that I had researched to draw up a customised itinerary for ourselves. These included small bits and pieces of the various cultural influences that can be found here - such as St. Paul's Hill & Fort A Famosa (Portuguese forts), Melaka Chinatown (a blend of Moslem-Chinese surroundings), Villa Sentosa (A living museum owned, run and inhabited by a grand old lady, who grew up in the house and has frozen it in time to convert it into a cultural walk-through experience of sorts), Red Square (A Dutch-style city square with a clock tower to sit and relax in, in the middle of the city) and the infamous Jonker Street (the quintessential must-do on a visit here, especially for antique shopping, late-night weekend markets like those that can be found only in Asia and some quirky modern-day curio picks). We also took the Melaka river cruise, that navigates through the Melaka river, winding it's way through it's various inner hubs. The high point of this cruise is how it provides for an art-gallery like experience, as one makes their way through multiple homes, shops and eateries all happily displaying huge, large-scale murals on their facades. Melaka being a small city, the cruise is a great way to cover the maximum length and breadth of the city, if constrained for time.
7. Random observations made on this trip were -
a) Almost everyone seemed to have a 'Note' or an 'Ipad' on them, clearly thrust in our faces each time people held up these massive devices to take pictures. (I find it hilarious when people take pictures using their Ipad's BTW). These gadgets were so omnipresent I began questioning their originality. But then again this was Malaysia - a booming economy may possibly have led into newer indulgences, perhaps? Having said that what with Asia's buzzing marketplace that thrives on fakes and 'Made in China' goods, there was a big chance that not all of these were the 'real thing', too.
b) Among the regular demographic that one can expect to find in Malaysia, the one that stood out over all others was that of our very own Sardars! At first we thought, we probably just happened to be in an area which had a 'gurudwara' in it. (Gluttonous images of 'langar' popped up in our heads, in no time).
Our taxi driver told us that this weekend was also a celebratory one for the Sikhs, who from all over Asia (Indonesia, Thailand, other parts of Malaysia, Singapore etc) had flocked here to one of Asia's largest gurudwara's to offer prayers. And sure enough, on both the days that we spent in Melaka, we saw large and small groups of 'Sikhs' all over the city. While we were aware that this is a demographic found frequently in every part of the world, it was still a little surprising to see Sikhs abound in Malaysia of all the places, where the only kind of 'desi' one expects to encounter are really Tamils.
c) Speaking of which, the Tamils living in Malaysia have their own little unique identities as well. Most Malaysian Tamils are successors of Indian or Sri Lankan Tamils, who migrated here during the British colonial period. The Tamil Muslims and Malacca Tamilians (called as the Chittys) abound in Malacca.
Tamil is the educational language of Malaysia, meaning there are a lot of schools that have their premier medium of instruction as Tamil. That explains the number of Tamil school children we encountered over the weekend, that were out on educational day trips with their school teachers. Also, a South Indian 'dhaba' equivalent across the street from our hotel, was reflective of a hard-core rural eatery straight out of a Tamil Nadu village (on the outskirts of Auroville or Pondi, as I recollect from my time living there).
d) The Chinatown in Malacca is probably one of the most unique Chinatown's that I've been to this far. It was as non-Chinatown-ish as it could get, if you know what I mean. The lack of vendors thrusting fake goods in your face, as one encounters in the American Chinatowns' was evident. On an Asian level too, this was a quaint Chinatown that seemed to take pride in it's age-old dwellings and shop-houses that abound on it's inner streets. As we wound in and out of these, the everyday life of old Chinese-Malay men and women was on display for us, right outside their front doors. As we walked past them, peering in and trying not to intrude, they sat right peering out and happily waving out at us. Traditional Chinese temples abounded in these streets and now and then a quirky little contemporary store would pop up, conveying the dynamism of this quaint little neighbourhood.
e) Malay food is delicious as hell, but as is known to most, extremely fatty. The ingredients used in most of their dishes are loaded with butter, lard, coconut milk, thereby making for sumptuous fare, but the kinds that ranks high on the calorie-consumption chart. A lot of Malay food is also a beautiful blend of various styles of cuisines - as experienced by us when we ate the Mutton Biryani (Indian/ Mughlai influence), the Chicken Rendang in Coconut gravy (Thai/ Bangla/ Malay blend) or the mouth-wateringly delicious Laksa with Assam fish that Hubster ordered, which was really the most soulful bowl of non-vegetarian 'rassam' - with a snapper in it. And of course the classic Malay coffee shops abounded everywhere we went - the 'Kopitiams' that are probably Malaysia's single most famous cultural exports to their neighbour - Singapore!
f) It amazes me to see how English has lent itself as a 'starter' language for so many other languages in the world. Malaysia is one classic example, where one sees signage in Malay which liberally draws upon the English alphabet and even vocabulary largely, to craft their own words.
Examples of these are as follows - Bus is 'Bas' in Malay, Lorry is 'Lori, Immigration is 'Imigresan', Taxi is 'Teksi' and so on and so forth. There are other languages that take off from English too - Spanish and French are classic examples as well, but atleast they add their own 'accents' (as in the 'acute', 'circumflex' etc)
Being an English language Nazi, it sends shivers down my spine to imagine Malay children learn in school, what can easily be construed as 'Broken English' in the other parts of the world.
g) The pleasure of travelling in Asia is how light everything on the pocket is, when you compare it to the Western world or the Western currency for sure. The Malaysian Ringitt is another one of those currencies, that does not hold it's own in front of the US or Singaporean Dollars, thus making this another country where one's dollars go far.
h) The Trishaws - a.k.a one of the oldest forms of transport in Malaysia, captured our intrigue, what with their overtly gaudy and crowded decorative embellishments and loud music that blared from speakers kept under them, in specially designed racks. These are tiny 'rickshaws' with bicycles attached to their lateral sides (as against in front of them as seen in some Indian towns). Trishaw rides are fun, but cannot be sustained for long distances especially as they can get a bit too tight (a family of two and a half barely fits in one). Racially discriminated yet again, this time too our Trishaw driver automatically played his 'Bollywood' CD the moment we sat in - hoping to make us feel at home. Having had this 'treatment' meted out to ourselves several times before on our travels, we are now used to it and actually do not mind it anymore! Besides nothing makes the daughter groove more than a pukka desi number, so why not? is our logic! Sure enough, half way through the trishaw ride, we had her shimmying to 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai', much to the entertainment of everyone around us. Traveling with a public entertainer, we always are!
Two very hot and fun-filled days later, we got back into Singapore, via road. It being a long weekend, our return journey took longer than expected and was different - in that, we rode a SBS Transit bus (Local Singaporean transport bus) all the way from Johor Bahru (just across the Singapore border, on the Malaysian side) to Woodlands MRT station. There on, it was the ever-dependable Singaporean Comfort cab that brought us back home, by 6 pm on a Sunday evening.
The weekend was still not done though...to be continued in the next week's update....so stay tuned!!
Love,
Shweyta
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