11 December 2011 - Malaysia and Indonesia

This week, classes came to an end and I had the opportunity to travel to Singapore for the International Computer Science Education conference.  Since it was much cheaper to fly in before the weekend, I found myself there with a few days to explore before the conference began.  Here is a view of Singapore from the train platform.

Near my hotel, I found a place where I could sample the local cuisine.

Here's another restaurant near my hotel.  The clarity of the owner's advertising was lacking.  I wasn't sure if this was a place for Muslims to go eat, or where you go to eat Muslims.  Maybe that confusion is why I didn't eat here.

Speaking of advertising, each day when I walked from my hotel to the train station, I felt like I needed to buy some paint.

Singapore's fine bakeries were simply no good for my diet.

Singapore is not really very big -- it is an island nation surrounded on one side by Malaysia, and across the straits on the other side by Indonesia.  I spent my first free day in Malaysia.  Here is a large mosque I found.

It is a mosque that is not to trifled with.

While I was exploring, I found a little shopping district that was decorated with traditional Chinese lanterns.

To get to Malaysia, you take a bus across a short causeway bridge.  This is a view of Singapore looking back across the water from Johor, Malaysia.

Malaysia is primarily a Muslim country, but is tolerant of other religions.  This was a particularly ornate Buddhist temple I found on my walkabout in Johor.  It's the rainy season over there right now, so when the afternoon rains came, I headed back to Singapore to my hotel and went to bed for the night.

The next day, I took a ferry boat to Batam, Indonesia.  This shot is looking back toward Singapore as we left the bay heading toward Batam.

Here's the boat that brought me to Indonesia.  It was about a 30 minute boat ride through one of the busiest shipping channels I've ever seen.

This is one of the first places I saw when I got off the boat.  There was this very pretty, lily pad covered lake with a walkway around it.

I rented a motor scooter to cruise around and check out the island.  My scooter was like the little ones pictured here and cost me $3.10 for about an hour.  Indonesia was much dirtier and more impoverished than Singapore.

Another mosque, this one in Batam.

After a day in Batam, it was time to head back to Singapore to get ready for my conference.  At the boat dock waiting for my ferry, this water taxi guy with his pink parasol made me laugh.

Back in Singapore, it was pretty easy to get to sleep.  Not only had I spent most of two days walking and exploring, the time difference was also 13 hours from Eastern Time, so I was all out of whack.  I was glad to get back to my hotel and crash for the night.