Arrived safe and sound in Singapore!! Great news on the leg front…swelling has diminished substantially in legs and feet. So very happy I will now be able to get into a bathing suit without looking lopsided…I promise that the rest of my trip will be incident free. I will be lounging on beautiful beaches in the out Islands of Thailand for the next 2 weeks….Although, I am going to try rock climbing and Sea Kayaking…but most of the time I will be walking carefree on the beach and reading trashy novels.

Singapore is a stark contrast to Nepal. It is exceedingly clean and efficient. The Airport is amazing…I could live there! So easy to navigate it. We could learn a lot about efficiency from Singapore…everything runs on schedule and is so smooth.

Getting out of Nepal was a feat in and of itself. Security was very tight…women and men get separated into 2 different security lines and once your luggage goes through XRay, you get put in a makeshift cubicle and very intimately frisked down! If I smoked, I would have needed a cigarette after (-:

I was so sad to leave Nepal. I cannot recommend it high enough for people to visit. It is a unique and wondrous place with exceptional people. I will mark it high on my list to return. I promised our lead Sherpa that I would try for Everest basecamp one day… Of course, that is after I can determine IF altitude or allergy was the real culprit of my bodily expansion. One Doctor says blood clot(the US One…that will kill me IF I don’t go to each country’s emergency room and get Cumidin)…One Doctor says it’s not the old clots but doesn’t know…And a Sherpa who told me it was an Allergy and to take Benadryl…which I did and he seemed to be the true voice of knowledge…since the swelling is down AND I am NOT dead!

Back to Singapore: It is a very Modern City…It reminds me more of an upscale and very clean LA…more so than NY…But it certainly has NY qualities…Lots in a compact space.

The people here are incredibly friendly. I took a bus…a very different experience than my bus ride in Nepal…but the friendliness of the people was similar…I got on and didn’t have the needed exact change…so people, no less than 4, jumped up to pay for my ride once they saw I was struggling…A woman got to the pay area and paid for me…I tried to pay her back but she smiled and waved my hand aside.

I showed the map of where I was trying to go and she told me which stop to get off…then a few people got off with me JUST to show me which directions to walk in…If I didn’t know any better I would think the people on my bus to Baktapur in Nepal let the Singaporean people know my lack of direction issues…These people are beyond helpful.

First thing you notice is how clean the streets are. I have not seen a beat up car…not one…Singapore is in an economic crisis but you would never know s a visitor…Today there is an election…Fun to see how they broadcast their election…One station is used to show the ballot and how to use it…We could have used this in Florida!!!

There is lots of great shopping…and I don’t even like to shop…I went to a few museums and am going on a night Zoo safari tonight. Going to Chinatown, Little Malaysia and Little India tomorrow.

I leave for Thailand on Monday AM and then head by train to the southern parts and the Islands.