Our trip is coming to a close!!!

With both sadness and anticipation, our Australasian trip is coming to a close.  The sadness is due to our leaving an incredibly vibrant city/state where something is going on all the time.  Naturally, we found a music festival with four days of live acts.  Bastian Baker is a singer songwriter from Switzerland who really knows how to work the crowd.

Another thing that shouldn't surprise most of you; we found the world's highest brewery.  Now granted, we aren't talking about a Colorado ski area brewery at 9,000 feet elevation.  We're talking about Level 33, which is a brewery on the 33rd floor of Tower 1 at the Marina Bay Financial Center.  It offers five of their own brews including a stout, an IPA and a porter.  Interestingly, the porter is a pour of one part stout and one part IPA, and it was good.  Level 33 may also be the world's only brewery in a financial tower that boasts its own elevator that whisks publicans from zero to 33 almost as quickly as one can say "I'll have another."  We were hot from walking around and decided to sit inside.  Here is our view from the top.

While the photo is a little washed out, it shows the four new financial district towers on the left (kind of blueish in color).  The shortest one in the front right is Tower 1.  It is hard to see, but near the top of Tower 1, just below where the roof begins to angle up to the right, is a row of large windows.  That is Level 33.  The Singapore Merlion is in the foreground, just above the stern of the boat.  The Merlion, not to be confused with a mermaid, is the symbol of Singapore.

This photo shows your humble bloggers being sprayed by the Merlion at night.

Here is part of the laser light show the Marina Bay Sands Hotel puts on every night. 

There is also some pretty cool artwork from mosaics, to street paintings (only in designated areas), to sculpture.  Check out this photo that shows part of a "chrome balls" sculpture on the left, and a living sculpture of different species of tropical plants planted vertically on the right.  If you look closely enough at the living sculpture, you can see why Singapore has such a global outlook (an maybe pinpoint your own home).

This lighted sculpture depicts someone seated hugging his knees. 

Last but not least is the following sculpture.  We don't know the artists who created the previous sculptures, but we did recognize the fellow who sculpted this "Homage to Newton."  Click on the photo and enlarge the plaque and see if you recognize the artist.

While we are leaving all this and more (including a long-term battle with traveler's tummy!), we are anxiously anticipating getting back to fresh air, clean water, mountains, much better beer, a lawn that needs mowing, (the usual food) and most of all, our great Bozeman friends.  We will be home Monday night!

For those who do not live in Bozeman, we hope to see you soon, too.

Last thoughts and photos of Vietnam

We made it back to Singapore for our last week, but I want to write a few more words about our trip.  Hanoi, Vietnam is many things. 

It is the capital of a third-world country - who needs a pickup?

It is surrounded by a tropical paradise - dip anyone?  This is the beach that we visited and the water in which we swam.

Motorbikes are ubiquitous - we've seen families of four with the mother riding sidesaddle, not really paying attention, and holding a baby.

The Vietnamese have really embraced the townhouse-style of architecture, even were there is no town.  Plus, since communications and power supply is not buried underground, the country is an electrician's dream/nightmare.

Finally, it represents a place of reflection for an American military veteran.  April 30 is celebrated as Reunification Day, or victory over America day.   All the boats in Ha Long Bay, like this one, all the government buildings, and many of the private homes fly the red flag with the gold star.

I'll keep my reflections to myself, but am happy to share them over a couple of craft brews.

Panoramic views of Ha Long Bay.

For those of you who are tired of the B.S. and just want to see some outstanding panoramic photos of our trip to Ha Long Bay, this post is for you!  Click on the photo to enlarge it, if you wish.

This is our home in the storm; humble abode; room with a view; lover's secret rendezvous; night's accommodation; etc.

This photo shows Cat Ba Town from the end of the pier.  Our hotel is the tallest one in the middle just left of the pier.  It is the Sea Pearl, but we like to think of it as the Black Pearl.

The next photo shows one of the three beaches near Cat Ba town with yours truly on the right.  The beaches are about a half-mile walk, or electric car ride, from our hotel.  We walked the first beach and then took the cliff walk high above the ocean that lead us to the second beach.  We were tired and skipped the third beach.  Afterward, one of our co-travelers told us of a nearly uninhabited, fee beach, that would have been nice.  I don't know if you can tell, but the water has hundreds of people in it.  The small fee cut the numbers at the third beach.

The following photo shows the panoramic view of the Cat Ba sunset from the roof-top bar.

Ha Long Bay on our return trip to Ha Long Town after our visit to Cat Ba.  We will miss it!

Cat Ba Island!

After a restful night on the boat, we awoke to a tropical thunderstorm.  It was awesome, and some of the boat captains anchored near us were unprepared.  I watched two boats collided in the wind, and we heard the many windows burst in another boat.  The rain changed plans for the day from a 2-hour bike ride to a visit to Monkey Island.  The following photo shows why it is named Monkey Island, as well as my new best friend.  He(?) is  retrieving the tomato our guide placed in my front pocket.  He was very gentle!

There are two family groups living on Monkey Island.  We were visited by one of them.  The following photo shows the youngest member of the family and its mother.  She got pissed whenever another monkey got close.

Before we left Monkey Island, Sandy and I hung ten (or is that twenty)!

Cat Ba Town is the main area of Cat Ba Island.  We docked over the hill from the town and took a small bus into town.  After the calm of being on the boat, it was a bit of a shock to be in the pandemonium of road travel again.  This photo shows your happy bloggers in front of our hotel near the Cat Ba pier with the Cat Ba harbor in the background.  In addition to being a local tourist destination, Cat Ba is a fishing village.  Those are some of the dozens (hundreds?) of fishing boats in the background.

Surprise, surprise, we found an outstanding roof-top bar that overlooks Cat Ba Harbor from which to watch the sunset.  Here is one of the many photos we took on that roof.

Ha Long Bay

Friday we left Hanoi on a bus for Ha Long Bay.  We were not sure what to expect, but after a workout at the Hilton Opera gym we were anxious to get out of busy Hanoi and on the water.

Ha Long Bay is 600 square miles of salt water off the north coast of Vietnam that is populated by some 1,969 islands (according to our guide).  The vast majority of these islands are uninhabited by humans.  Researchers have found evidence of prehistoric humans in Ha Long Bay as far back as 18,000 B.C.  Now it is a UNESCO World Heritage site and home to some 10,000 people, most of whom work in the tourism business.  The following photo shows our transportation into the bay and our first night's accommodations.  We were the residents of room 201.

There is far too much in Ha Long Bay to mention, and as you might suspect, Sandy took far too many photos to post.  The following photo shows Sandy with our ship's captain, Barefoot Captain Jack Sparrow, no less.  FYI, Sandy is the tall one.

Here is a photo of your happy bloggers with two of the 1,969 karst islands in the background.  This 600 square miles is a tropical paradise.

A karst is a landscape formed from the erosion of soluble rock, in this case limestone.  Since it is soluble rock, karsts usually come with some pretty impressive caves.  The big cave system in Ha Long Bay is now a tourist stop, but previously provided shelter from typhoons to fishermen and their families for thousands of years.  This photo shows what our guide called the "living room" of the cave system from the rear of the cave looking towards the exit.

  
After a swim on the beach of one of the islands, we dropped anchor for the evening.  The following photo shows sunset from our ship-birth's window.

 Following sunset, we had a delicious dinner that included rice (of course!), prawns, stuffed crab, squid, vegetables, fries and steamed Sea Bass.  Wow!  It was some of the freshest food we've ever had.

Arrival in Hanoi!

Driving in Siem Reap is pandemonium at 25 mph.  To get an idea of the difference between Siem Reap and Hanoi, Viet Nam, double the speed and quintuple the population.  The following photo shows the "occupants" of one of the tens-of-thousands of motorbikes on the road.  Note the passenger in the front "seat."

This is a photo from the taxi of the bridge over the Red River, which marks the north edge of Hanoi.  Those triangles in the distance are the huge supporting bridge archways.

Whodathunk we could do a little singing in far away Hanoi?

To those of you who think this is just a fun junket, this photo should prove that I have been thinking about finance and stock markets.  The bull is just around the corner, not in the previous sentence.

Tomorrow we are off to Ha Long Bay for some additional "research."  Believe it or not, I will have about five new projects underway as a result of this trip.  Stay tuned, Ha Long Bay is incredible.  In the meantime, check out the world's newest 2-millionaire!

Back to Singapore

Our trip to Siem Reap was eye-opening in many ways.  Our last full day was spent pampering ourselves at the hotel, which is also a spa.  Sandy and I did a two-hour couples massage, full-body exfoliating, and facial treatment.  As Shania might sing, "Man, I feel like a woman."  Actually, the petite Cambodian woman put a huge hurt on my muscles.  She had hands of steel.

I've read that the Siem Reap airport is the busiest in Cambodia.  Here is a view of the airport as we made our departure.  That is the actual terminal.  All of it.  Through that terminal some 2 million people pass per year!

Our new hotel in Singapore is the Riverview, which is aptly named as you can see from the following photo.  The river is the Singapore River.  That is a river taxi in front of the hotel, and the lines going up from the boat to the right of the photo are the supports for the pedestrian bridge across the river.  Just above the hotel's name is the hotel's fifth-story swimming pool.

This photo is a panoramic view Sandy took from the pool balcony.

 The following photo is of your friendly bloggers taken from just across the river from Clarke's Quay.  For some reason I can't both take a picture and smile at the same time.  I don't know why. 

Clarke's Quay is one of the major gathering points in Singapore, particularly for tourists.  It has restaurants, bars, night clubs, live music venues, and even hotels.  When I was here in 2012 they had live concerts.  The weekend after I left last time, one of the bands I have gotten to know in Montana was playing: Adrian and the Sickness from Austin, Texas.  I even had her t-shirt, which I bought in Montana!