Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand

Now I'm going through countries at breakneck speed. It has been a little dizzying, but fun.

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I had a delightful day and a half in space-age Singapore, thanks to the Keegans. We visited the Asian Civilisations Museum and Orchid Garden, both spectacular, and did the ridge walk at dusk with beautiful views over the city. Of course my favorite part was the Marina Barrage pumping station, complete with museum, green roof for kite-flying and fountains (first picture).

Then it was north by train to Kuala Lumpur, where I spent a couple of days visiting the city, including the Petronas Towers which are very impressive, especially at night.

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To get to Bangkok I had to change trains at Butterworth with a 7 hour wait, which gave me plenty of time to take the ferry to Penang. Apparently it's a great place for Malaysian food, but I got there at 8am, not a great time to sample the culinary delights. Still, I had a nice time exploring the markets, which was where I saw the frog vendor pictured. Mmm.

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I wanted to avoid all the unrest in Bangkok, so got a train ticket north to Chiang Mai on the same day I arrived, Saturday. That still gave me about 9 hours, so I wandered around the areas near the station, which included quite a few temples, like the one where I saw this buddha. I didn't see any sign at all of trouble, but a woman on my Chiang Mai train wasn't so lucky. She had been at the bus station, but all buses out were full and taxis were charging an arm and a leg to take her across town around the trouble.

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Chiang Mai is getting ready for Songkran, the Thai New Year, which starts tomorrow. That seems to involve getting a bucket and an abundant supply of water and drenching everyone else, especially in passing traffic. The best place was clearly next to the moat (shown left), but a fair number of people were riding around in the back of pickup trucks with barrels of water. There are throngs of backpackers there, too, who were really getting into it, although their water guns weren't as effective as the buckets. After the first two or three soakings I was less amused, but it definitely helped against the heat.

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I spent one night in Chiang Mai and then headed north again this morning to the border with Laos. This involved an AC bus to Chiang Rai and a non-AC bus to Chiang Khong (don't know what Chiang means, but it's popular here), merry villagers showering us with water all the way. Then I took a ferry across the Mekong (the Mekong!) and now I'm in Laos. :0)