9. Singapore

Mon, Oct 20 Singapore

The difference between Ho Chi Minh City and Singapore is more vast than any two places on Earth that we could imagine. Although we took 2 days to sail between them, you could fly it in 65 minutes. HCMC is squalor, chaos, and poverty; Singapore is civility, refinement, and prosperity. Both cities were ashes after the War in 1945, but HCMC has hobbled and suffered continuously, especially for 30 years between 1955 and 1975. Singapore, on the other hand, broke free of its colonial harness in 1963, and evolved over the following 45 years to become a regional powerhouse for finance and management. That different leaders made such significantly different political choices to fulfill their visions about what each of these two places should be, and then, as a result of these choices, SO affected the lives of millions of people for either the better in Singapore, or the worse in Viet Nam, is a concept we will not forget. Imagine Viet Nam without years of occupation and war, and instead a vision had been put into place to organize agriculture, manufacturing, and tourism. With those revenues, education and social institutions could have been built, and people would have had hope and opportunity. A 65 minute flight, and worlds apart.

Singapore [literally Lion Island in Malay language] is a mere one degree above the Equator, and is a sovereign city-state, which means the city and country borders are the same – like only Monaco, San Marino, and Vatican City. More comparisons: Vietnam is 86 M people over a land mass that is one half the size of Ontario; Singapore is 5M in an area slightly bigger than Toronto! Singapore has the world’s 5th biggest GDP at $50,000 per person (just behind Qatar, Luxembourg, Norway and Brunei, and just ahead of the USA’s $47,000; Canada is 12th at $38K). Vietnam languishes at #128 with a GDP of just $2,600 per person.

It also is an international hub of shipping container traffic with over 400 commercial vessels a day dropping or picking up cargo there. Our cruise ship docked in the commercial port because we were too large for their present cruise port, and the entire horizon was filled with working cranes and hydraulics moving the world’s cargoes. They also had a vast range of high tech security to inspect the arriving cargoes quickly, and accurately. When we asked one of the port officials if there ever were inappropriate cargoes when shippers knew about this security, he said more often than you would think. What dangers could befall us by not having these security measures in our home ports?













From the dockage, we took a modern subway system over to the famous and beautiful colonial masterpiece Raffles Hotel - home of the Singapore Sling, incidentally - but even in 90 degree heat, could not get in wearing shorts!

We had a brief city tour by taxi with Steph and Peter, with the main highlight being the rebuilt chapel from the infamous Japanese prison camp called Changi, near the modern-day airport. A museum and a well-messaged bulletin board attest to the atrocities endured and bravery sustained of the British POWs held captive there by the Japanese. When asked about the present day attitude towards the Japanese, our taxi driver blithely responded that people in Singapore get along because they don’t harbour grudges. On the way to Changi, we noticed very close by, a private Japanese school which prompted us to ask about the unusual proximity. “Madam,” he said, ‘while we do not harbour grudges, we also do not forget!” This attitude of common sense and adherence to the rule of law typifies much of why this city state has been so successful.

For lunch, we met up with Travis Chernichen, one of the sons of Calgary friend Nina [see Vancouver entry]. Lovely lunch – the best chicken satay with peanut sauce we have ever had – right along the river bank in sunny, humid Singapore. Travis is with Scotiabank in Singapore, lending big money to companies. Smart, smart young man. Even in extreme heat, he and other people here are attired for business. Very disciplined and orderly. Very little crime. No homelessness.

A quick hike around the waterfront to the Merlion, a half mermaid, half lion statue/fountain - and the Singapore Tourism Board’s trademark symbol - quickly confirmed from the architecture along the waterway that this was a city who knew where it wanted to go, and had already arrived. A very impressive place.

8. Vietnam

Fri, Oct 17 Nha Trang, Vietnam

Vietnam is another world. A world of people earning a few dollars a day for a whole day’s labour. Our pictures will say it all. This is a country of poverty – not as desperate as Saharan Africa, but still poverty, of idle men sitting in groups at the side of the road or in roadside shacks, of literally millions of scooters and motorbikes, of chaos on the often very wide but always poorly maintained roads. But, it is also a country of a lush and beautiful landscape. Vietnam has 86 million people living in a long slender land mass that is one half the size of Ontario (which has a population of 13 M). The rural habitation is like nothing you would see anywhere in Canada. When the US military left South Vietnam in 1975, the country was unified into a closed Communist state with a capital, Hanoi, in the north. About 20 years later, however, Vietnam realized the benefits of some capitalism, and began sharing its natural beauty with visitors from around the world.

The Open Communism policy created opportunities for international investment and considerable very inexpensive tourism.

Nha Trang – which means White House - is an oceanside city of 1 million, with beaches and lush vegetation, but major squalor. Our friends, Stephanie and Peter, had pre-arranged a private driver and tour, so we boarded a surprisingly comfortable air-conditioned van to tour the region. As in other parts of the world, big and small tour operators are given money by factories and businesses to bring prospective clients for “rest stops”.











Ours included an embroidery factory where young women huddled over stretched frames using microscopic silk thread to stitch pictures painstakingly day after day. We succumbed and bought.

The other “rest stop” was a traditional home (shack)-based business making the omnipresent reed coolie hats – where we again purchased, this time 2 hats for $1.50 each, which had taken 3 women all morning to weave!

Colleen continued her practice of handing out Princess chocolates to children, when possible. Amazingly, whenever she did this, as much as the children were fascinated, they never asked for more even though they could see she had a bag full. Of course, back home, kids would always ask for more.

Our excellent tour also included a mid-morning fruit break at a rural home, seeing rice paddies and water buffaloes, up close, lunch at a wonderfully scenic and rustic restaurant on a river, and doing the streets of Nha Trang by pedicab! Quite a day. and all for a reasonable price, in good company.














Sat, Oct 18 Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Formerly called Saigon until the US military left in 1975, this madhouse city of 8 million had no redeeming features we could discern - other than our excellent lunch at the Inter-Continental Hotel. After a scenic few hours cruising up the deep-water navigable part of the Saigon River to our docking berth at a place called Phu My, we once again bought a Princess-led tour bus and had a 2 hour drive north into the city.











During our 3 hours in the city, we saw the famous Rex Hotel, from which news correspondents reported the War; the Reunification Palace, where the Vietnam War ended with the fall of this building on April 30, 1975; and the US Embassy grounds from which the last helicopter departed. (The embassy building itself, and its photo-memorable rooftop, were torn down and replaced).





One particular highlight: we bought a beautiful picture of 4 Vietnamese women that we will display somewhere at home.



One particular lowlight: the large covered Binh Tay market that we visited for an hour.

The images of gaunt, hopeless, stall-keepers selling the same jeans, shirts, fish, kettles, posters, tinware as their neighbours, and toiling away their lives for a dollar or two a day in ghastly, cramped, fetid, stinking conditions, still haunts our minds. Not our favorite day, but a real day in the lives of many Vietnamese.

7. Hong Kong

Tues & Wed, Oct 14 & 15, 2008 Hong Kong, China

Check off another of the 100 Places to Go Before You Die. We have now been to Hong Kong, and it was quite magical. Hectic, crowded beyond belief, noisy, frantic, and prosperous. Victoria Harbour is known as one of the most beautiful harbours in the world, and we can believe that. It has a mesmerizing skyline and level of activity on the water. Ferries, cargo ships, sampans, motorboats, fishing vessels, junks, all jockey for space in a crazy water ballet. But get away from the water’s edge, and the concrete hides all vistas. At least in SF and Vancouver, other contenders for best harbour, you still get glimpses of the natural beauty around you. In Hong Kong, the hundreds and hundreds of 40 storey slender towers block the views.

Our ship was too big for the inadequate docking facilities, so we anchored in Victoria Harbour and were transported to HK Island by 3 city ferries. We took a Princess-organized Introduction to Hong Kong Island bus tour, which included stops at the famous Stanley Market (disappointing souvenir junk), Victoria Peak (the main mountain with awesome views and a steep tram, for which we spent more time lining up than visiting), and Aberdeen fishing village (around which we took a sampan boat ride that was excellent). On our own, later, we left the island by ferry to transfer to the mainland side of the harbour – the city of Kowloon – and dropped in at the famous Peninsula Hotel (akin to an upscale version of Toronto’s Royal York), and searched for fabric and tailors… of which there are many. After sunset, still on the Kowloon side, we met up with friends Sharon/Hugo and Steph/Peter to view the laser light show that nightly plays out to music against the skyscrapers of Hong Kong across the harbour.
[This is a video. Click black arrow to experience the sights and sounds of Hong Kong harbour]

We ferried back to the ship at 9 pm, and squeezed in another quick meal and a fabulous 3 act folkloric show (Chinese musicians, dragon dancers, and a “face-changer” – an advanced art from the Beijing Opera where the performer changes masks at lightning speed) before retiring.

Day 2 in Hong Kong was on our own, and a group of us took a subway (sleek, clean and efficient) under the harbour to Kowloon’s Ladies’ Market, another multi-block souvenir site, it turned out, but with some nuggets. We prowled other dense, dense streets, then subwayed back to Hong Kong to ride the longest outdoor escalator in the world. Hong Kong has some hills akin to San Francisco’s, but in lieu of a cable car, a covered escalator ascends some 10-12 city blocks to ease the commute for mountainside city dwellers past narrow crowded streets where there is no bus service.

Hong Kong buzzes and teems: population 10M. In 2001, Hong Kong, Kowloon and the adjacent New Territories, reverted back to the People’s Republic of China, after Britain’s 99 year lease expired. Very little (by a further 50 year agreement) has changed; this beacon of capitalism still thrives in the new China.