Singapore

How nice it is to be in lovely clean Singapore! We stopped over for a couple of nights and went to Sentosa Island, Orchard Road and did the Red Lantern Walk (red light) in Chinatown. Sentosa Island is party island with beaches, resorts and soon to be opened Disneyland and casino. We went up in the Tiger Tower and checked out the museum of Singapore's beginnings. A nice walk along the beach and then back into Chinatown for the Red Lantern Walk. Since we did not actually see any prostitutes (it is illegal to solicit on the street) and since the area we walked through looked very trendy, we have our doubts as to the actual existence of a red light district. Prostitutes and Singapore seem kind of incongruous. However, the talk about the past lives of Chinese male and women settlers was very interesting and it would appear that in the late 1800's, 1/2 the Chinese women were prostitutes (3000) who catered to 20 times as many men. Most were slaves or tricked into this existence and never escaped. Opium dens were abundant.

On a much lighter note. Singapore really knows how to turn on the Christmas lights.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!!!!!

Snaps of the dirty bits

Along the way during our travels I took some quick snaps of interesting cultural differences. The cows enjoy grazing through garbage together with dogs, pigs, goats and chickens. In Rajistan we saw cows being fed grasses and grains bought by Hindus to worship the Holy Cow, but elsewhere they were either being herded or left to wander the streets and roads, rummaging. Our driver and all others avoided hitting them and the many dogs who just stand on the road. Although I have seen quite a few dogs limping. The owner at a restaurant we frequent in Bangalore 'Sunny's', donates 10% of his profits to the Protection of Animals Society - so there is hope and Hindus are very kind people and do not intentionally harm animals.

When leaving Jaipur we passed the Bangladeshi refugees still camped in the Muslim part of town. They were apparently shipped there from the camps on the border to do some work but when that finished the Bangladeshi government refused to take them back as they did not have papers so it was claimed that they were Indians trying to get into Bangladesh - how sad.