The heat that keeps on giving

We are currently enjoying ourselves in Bangkok. We have been joined by our younger brother Phil, who adds a new and exciting dimension to our travelteam. Since we met up we have felt like we have been going non-stop. This is because it is almost 40 degrees celsius every day and the sun robs us of all will to walk more than 30 feet between spaces of shade.

Here in Thailand, we have been learning quite a bit about Buddhism, and getting chances to see it first hand, even more than in Cambodia. Charlie has been reading about Buddhism in his new book A History of God, while Julia is filling in the two guys from what she remembers from her courses in University.

There are many things about Buddhist spirituality that are beautiful and uplifting, but other aspects will obviously take more cultural understanding to really understand and appreciate. We struggle with Buddhism's position on women; in order for a woman to be enlightened, she must first be reborn as a man, which strongly goes against our personal beliefs. Also, we have been hard pressed to find the good in the worship of idols and statues; there is a large number of resources that we see going to these shrines, which don't do much to further the country's development.

While we were here we visited two royal palaces: the royal palace in Bangkok, and the summer palace in the old capital of Ayuttayah. The palace in Bangkok was amazing. It was similar to the Phnom Penh palace, but about triple as nice. There was gold and diamonds on everything, but the part we all enjoyed the most was the ceramic tiles used to decorate the outsides of buildings. It was something we had never seen before, and it was very beautiful. The old palace was equally as amazing. It was started in the 17th century, and was a mix of European and Asian building styles. Which we felt went together very well. Judge for yourself...

Viva Pilipinas

We're a little behind on our blogging, so we are writing about the Philippines from Bangkok! It is incredibly hot here and we're having a great time. We had a wonderful visit with Grace, a co-worker of Charlie's from Backcheck, who is now working in Manila.
We visited Intramuros, the old Spanish fort on the river in Manila. The Spanish colonial architecture was really nice.
Manila wasn't our favourite, it has a few nice spots, but on the whole we didn't really like it as a city. The bast part of the Philippines, for us, was a tiny town in northern Phillipines called Sagada. It's nestled in the mountains and has great things to do.
One of the things we saw was a "cemetary" of hanging coffins. The hilltribes in the region "bury" their dead in coffins on the sides of cliffs, where the are in plain sight of the community. They do this for many reasons: they do not want to carry the earth, they want the earth to carry them; and they believe it is important for the dead to remain present in the community. Our guide told us that it is the village chiefs decide how a certain person will be buried (other options include cave burial or ground burial) and that many people in the community are now Christian and have been for generations but do not have control over how their family members will be buried. He said it is difficult for people not to have a say over their own funeral rites.

People in the mountain province are mainly agriculturalists, and rice is one of the major crops. They plant the rice in terraces dug out of the sides of the mountains and avoid erosion by making small patties enclosed in brick walls. The bus ride through these mountains was long, uncomfortable, and beautiful!

We spent many hours one day looking for a small waterfall we heard of. We finally found it and had to walk through the rice terraces to get there.
We hiked up 1600 meters to the top of a mountain and saw a magnificent panoramic view.
We went caving one morning for a few hours, down 150 meters into an underground river. On the rock formations we took off our shoes and our feet had lots of traction on the rock.

I Heart Singapore!

We've been on the road for a week and a half and yes! we've been busy! We are now in Manila, the capital of the Philippines. Here are some of the things we did in KL and Singapore.

Kuala Lumpur...

- The Lake Gardens & the Orchid and Hibiscus Garden

- Islamic Art Museum: we saw two beautiful exhibits, one on Islamic architecture and a photography exhibit on Muslims in the UK. The latter was inspiring and thought-provoking.

- Petronas Towers: tallest twin towers in the world and actually really beautiful. The view from the sky bridge is magnificent and even though I'm (Jul) not really afraid of heights, my finger and toes got tingly looking down!

- Fish spa: OMG!! A super fun spa treatment whereyou put your feet in a huge tank and these special fish suck off the dirt and dead skin. VERY ticklish for the first ten minutes, then really nice.

Singapore...

My goodness we were spoiled in Singapore! We were hosted by friends of the family, Barnabas and Hwee Huan, and they were amazing, gracious, and generous hosts. We absolutely LOVED Singapore and decided we could live there when we're rich and famous. Until then, we'll be content with the occasional shopping trip there!

- Singapore Flyer: the biggest ferris wheel in the world, from which we saw all of Singapore and even over to Indonesia! The capsules we sat in were completely closed up so it wasn't scary at all.

- Singapore Zoo & Night Safari: the most amazing zoo we've ever seen and they really know how to do zoo! We were able to see many animals at their feeding time, including white tigers, polar bears (whose favourite food was watermelon!), probiscos monkey, a strange breed of monkey with an abnormally large nose (which serves no other purpose than to sexually attract females), and, of course, white rhinos!

Here are Charlie and Hwee Huan by the orangutans!

The night safari was really interesting, too. We saw a couple shows and took a tram ride around the park to see the nocturnal creatures in their "natural habitat"; well, not really, but they are more free ranging than in the zoo and a little scarier! Charlie was also chosen to participate in the Tribal Dance Performance, which he did very well! At his desperate pleas, I have not included the dance video, but just so you know, I have one :) Here he is performing a different "task".

- Singapore Botanic Gardens & National Orchid Garden: this was definitely a highlight (but, really everything was). The orchids were so beautiful I can't put adequate words to the task. They also have an orchid hybrid program and have named these new orchid after famous people who have visited the garden. So we saw orchids named after Nelson Mandela, Queen Elizabeth, the president of Jordan, and so on... this one is the Margaret Thatcher orchid!

- We ate and ate and ate!! We tried many of the local dishes and, yes, we have now eaten chicken's feet! They call it, more eloquently, phoenix claws, and it was quite tasty, as long as we didn't think too much about what it was. We also had delicious crab by the waterfront one night, along with the most succulent, moist, life-changing chocolate tart of our lives!

- Singapore River Cruise: Barnabas came along one day and took the cruise with us, which he had never done. It was a nice way to end the trip.