From the City of the Lion to the City of the Deity
We hired a taxi to take us to the Singapore airport, and we once again got to enjoy driving down streets lined with arching, gracious trees, a fitting farewell to an agreeable city. When we first arrived in Singapore, it was after 10 pm, and the trees were magical in the streetlights, their carefully pruned branches snaking, vinelike, to form a leafy canopy above us, those same branches cushiony with moss and crowned with ferns. The drive under afternoon sun was not as magical, but it still made me think the City of the Lion might be worth another visit.
Our taxi driver gave us a great tip by telling us of the existence of a staff canteen in the airport basement. It is open to the public, but you have to pay a higher price than the staff. The largest difference we saw, though, was only 50 centimes. The food wasn't the best we had eaten in Singapore, or the most copious, but it was the cheapest at 1.50 euros per person.
We flew into Thailand at a little after 4pm, local time. An hour later, we were out of the airport, and an hour after that, at our hotel. There were no beautiful trees like in Singapore, but glimpses of houses on piles, covered pedestrian overpasses with pointy roofs, golden domes, gilded larger-than-life portraits of the king, and altars everywhere promised more authentic, cultural things to see in this great, polluted City of the Deity.
I felt like the tiny, bobtailed squirrel I spied running along the power lines as I looked quickly right to left and right again, trying to take in the new sights. That's probably why I caught sight of the king's dairy cows, just on the other side of a spiked, wrought-iron fence, a man with a rifle standing guard outside, just a little ways down.
Three nights here--so much to explore--and then off to the north of Thailand...
Our taxi driver gave us a great tip by telling us of the existence of a staff canteen in the airport basement. It is open to the public, but you have to pay a higher price than the staff. The largest difference we saw, though, was only 50 centimes. The food wasn't the best we had eaten in Singapore, or the most copious, but it was the cheapest at 1.50 euros per person.
We flew into Thailand at a little after 4pm, local time. An hour later, we were out of the airport, and an hour after that, at our hotel. There were no beautiful trees like in Singapore, but glimpses of houses on piles, covered pedestrian overpasses with pointy roofs, golden domes, gilded larger-than-life portraits of the king, and altars everywhere promised more authentic, cultural things to see in this great, polluted City of the Deity.
I felt like the tiny, bobtailed squirrel I spied running along the power lines as I looked quickly right to left and right again, trying to take in the new sights. That's probably why I caught sight of the king's dairy cows, just on the other side of a spiked, wrought-iron fence, a man with a rifle standing guard outside, just a little ways down.
Three nights here--so much to explore--and then off to the north of Thailand...