Happy Lunar New Year!
This is the year of the Pig/Boar
The 2007 year of the pig is supposed to be very auspicious indeed; not just a Pig year but a golden one to boot. And apparently, depending on whom you speak to, these come around only every 60 years or even 600 years. The Chinese health authorities are bracing themselves for a sudden demographic spike in births. Therefore, seeing as we're out here, it made sense to join the party.
My basic recommendation, based upon experience is: avoid Singapore during New Year. Having said that, it is pretty fantastic.
First the bad: everything shuts down. When you've got a bicycle that needs a box, and a plane to catch, one can get just a little panicky, when one goes to find five or six bike shops that turn out to be closed for the holiday season. Fortunately, we found one that was open - that had no boxes, and only lavender bike-bags for sale. That solved the box problem for Becky. Fortunately, the very helpful and nice janitor at the brothel that we were stating at managed to point me in the direction of a very local shop that was still open. So now, with a lot of packing tape, I'm hoping that the bike will last to enter the Argus in Cape Town.
And then the shops. It seems that if there's one thing more holy to the Singaporeans than shopping, it's new year. On a number of occasions, we went to shopping malls that were essentially ghost towns. With only other zombie-like tourists for company, staring into the distance in shock at there being no Guccis or Versace for sale. I was considering getting a new laptop, but that was out of the question.
And now the good stuff. When Becky and I turned up at Chinatown around 19h30, we thought it was going to be another ghostly shopping centre experience - there was no-one around. Two hours later, and it seems, this was definitely the wrong impression. Most of Singapore, and the hoards of tourists and expats had descended on the main drag.
We were entertained by all sorts of acts on a stage, from singers to tumblers to all sorts of enacted storytelling. The stage itself was hardly visible, and certainly not accessible, thanks to the security barriers. This was reserved for all the local dignitaries. The proles (and tourists) had to make to with the admittedly adequate screens set up along New Bridge Road to show the goings on.
Come midnight, scores of deafening crackers were set off. We were standing under a bridge, which amplified the cacophony even more. Then huge fireworks displays, then more singing. And then the inevitable: millions of people scrambling for the public transport - we walked a bit out of the way and managed to catch a relatively empty MTR (Mass Rapid Transit) back to our rather seedier Geylang Street.
Up to the Cameron Highlands
Doing the 3rd stage of le Tour de Langkawi
Cycling Stats
1400km done
28th Jan - 43km to Nibong Tebal homestay with David.
30th Jan - 64km, av 20.4kph. Very tough day not helped by four hours sleep the previous night and a 12mph headwind the whole way. Taiping.
31st Jan - 90km, 21kph. Ipoh. Another headwind the whole way, plus somehills in the first 40km that saw our average at 19kph. Luckily I was there for Richard to draft off of for the final 30kms so that brought our average back up again :-)
3rd Feb - 91km, 12.4kph. Tanah Rata. This was our day cycling up into the Cameron Highlands. The road starts to rise at KM20 and doesn't really quit for the next 70km of Cat 1. climbing. The only two real descents are unfortunately then followed by having to regain the height lost up more climbing. Richard will be writing a blog entry about this.