Singapore, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea

  November 29, 2022 Bali   I had not planned to post anything today, but starting tomorrow we will have very limited upload bandwidth and I have a video to share. Up at 5:30 this morning Singapore time, and we got to the airport in plenty of time for our flight to Bali.  Of our group, it turns out nine of us were on the same flight from Singapore, some had just arrived and had transferred after the long flight.  Flying time to Bali was 2 ¼ hours.  We were met by a National Geographic/Lindblad representative and taken to the Bali Hyatt where, at the entrance, was this musician: We checked in, rested a while, and then had a meet and greet cocktail party and dinner.  It was lovely, and the people on the trip seem delightful.  The boat holds a maximum of 110 people, but it seemed like there were only about 70 at dinner.   Tomorrow we tour Bali and then, in the late afternoon, we’ll board our ship.   More when I can.   Victor

 Monday, November 28, 2022 Singapore Singapore has about 5.5 million people, of whom 3.5 million are citizens; the rest are permanent residents or guest workers.  About ¾ of the population is ethnic Chinese, and the birth rate is very low.  The population is aging.   Still recovering from the trip over, Joyce had a great idea: spend the day on the buses which tour the city.  They have on/off privileges, and the two routes cover most of the parts of the city we might want to see.  That’s what we did, and the photo gallery below is from the bus tour.  It took about three hours to cover both routes and see the amazing ethnic neighborhoods and the remarkable architecture.   The part of Orchard Road where we are, and where we picked up the bus, is shopping mall after shopping mall, with very fancy, high-priced establishments.  Example:  There is a section called “Little India,” a heavily Muslim area, an enormous Chinatown, and more.  Some of the street names might not be PC:  Here’s

 November 27, 2022 Singapore   With no luggage, we went to bed last night at 9:00, and we stayed in bed 11 hours, only sleeping some of the time and the rest of the time trying to.  We got up at 8:00 this morning, not particularly refreshed.  We dressed in the same clothes we had traveled in, and went across the street to the Marks and Spencer Café for breakfast.  M&S is a giant British department and food store, and their foods are just inside the café.  Pre-Christmas is really here, as bad as at home.  Here’s a surprise: Chanukah gelt repurposed as M&S Golden Coins and sold as “Delicious Stocking Fillers.”  In Singapore.  After spending about an hour on the phone trying to locate our luggage (no one knew where it was), we decided to go about our day.  We walked about a mile along Orchard Road, the primary shopping street, to the most famous Singapore attraction, the Botanic Gardens.  They are enormous and extraordinary, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  They are kept immaculat

Saturday, November 26 Somewhere over India   It’s wonderful when all goes as it should.  Our Uber arrived as scheduled at 4:15 AM, and our flight from Rochester to Newark was on time.  For unknown reasons they would not allow us to use the shuttle bus from terminal C to terminal B which meant we had to leave security and take the Air Train and go through security again, but other than that, all went well.  We are currently 14 hours into the trip, somewhere over India. This special Airbus A350-900 ULR (Ultra Long Range) has no economy seats, only premium economy and business class.   We sprang for business class.   The route map for this non-stop flight from New York to Singapore shows it going the great circle, going due north from New York, over the north pole, and south over Mongolia, China, Siberia and on into the Malay Peninsula to Singapore.   Well, that’s the shortest route, but we didn’t take it.   Clearly the winds determine the route, and we went east, over the Atlan

 We're off again!  On Friday, November 25, the day after Thanksgiving, we have a 6:00 AM flight from Rochester to Newark, and after a short layover, we'll take a non-stop to Singapore on Singapore Airlines, scheduled for 18 1/2 hours.  We leave at 9:45 AM and arrive at 5:15 PM on Saturday the 26th, with a 13 hour time change.  It's hard to imagine that a plane can take off with enough fuel to fly that long. It's interesting to visit flight tracking web sites and look at the route.  It must be quite dependent on the winds, as sometimes the plane goes due north over the north pole, and from there south over Siberia and China, while other times it goes more easterly, over Europe, the Middle East and India. We'll spend a couple of days in Singapore recovering from the flight, and then on Tuesday the 29th we'll fly to Bali, Indonesia, where we'll meet our National Geographic/Lindblad tour.  We'll spend a night in Bali and on Wednesday the 30th we'll board