Early in 2015, Daniel and I got invited to go to his friend’s wedding in India (she worked at Dell and lived in the States, but both her and her fiancé's families were from India, and they were doing a traditional Indian wedding in the town where her parents lived). When we were first invited we didn’t think we’d be able to go, but then we decided to turn it into a big combination trip and visit Singapore (where Daniel served his mission) and Malaysia (where my older sister and her family were living) at the same time.
We asked my brother and his wife if they’d be able to stay at our house to watch our kids while we were gone, and once that was worked out, we started planning. Daniel had done a lot of traveling for work, and we’d traveled a lot together in the States, but this was my first international trip, which was exciting.
Singapore
Our first stop was Singapore. It’s an amazing city! Daniel lived here for one year when he was serving his LDS mission (the rest of the time he mostly lived on the island of Borneo, in Malaysia). It was neat for him to be able to show me around and see what was different and what was the same.
We loved our hotel. Every morning we spent about an hour just eating breakfast, because it had the most fabulous buffet we’d ever seen. Every kind of food possible! All the normal breakfast things, plus curries and fried rice and sushi and ice-cream.
The hotel also had this fun pool:
Other things we did in Singapore:
Ate dumplings at Din Tai Fung:
Rode on the MRT. The public transportation system is one of the fantastic things about Singapore. Very clean and organized, and lots of cheerful messages everywhere about how happy it makes us feel to stand in organized lines and not rush crazily into the cars.
We saw lots of cool buildings:
It was weird and fun for Daniel to be back in Singapore after almost 20 years.
We visited the Cloud Forest and Gardens by the Bay:
And walked around Chinatown:
Where we got some of the coolest worst dessert in the world – ice kacang. It really is horrible, but somehow awesome at the same time. Daniel used to get it all the time on his mission (I don’t know why, because I’m pretty sure he hated it then, too), so we knew we needed to find some so he could show me how bad it was. This is how bad: shaved ice with flavored syrups, plus some sweetened condensed milk (I know this isn’t sounding too gross, but just wait), then add in some weird jello lumps, and then lots of kidney beans, and THEN just to be sure it is gross enough, top it all off with some canned cream corn. Just sliding down over the top like creamy corn lava. Fresh out of the can.
It all melts down into a delicious looking bean/jello/corn/icy broth.
After that we went up in the Singapore Flyer (like the London Eye), and got some great views of the city:
We also saw this gorgeous tiger at the Singapore Zoo, and ran through a torrential downpour to get to this Indian restaurant where we ate delicious food off of leaves.
Then it was time to get back on a plane for a short little trip to Malaysia:
Malaysia
My oldest sister’s husband works for the State Department, and for one of his jobs they (and their six kids) lived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for 3 years. My sister and I were both really excited that I got to go visit her while they were living in such a fun place.
Something funny: a few weeks before our trip, all my sisters and my mom kept passing around this funny video of a guy dressed up as a mom doing the “cleaning up like crazy before a guest arrives” routine. It made us laugh so hard, because it was ridiculous, but at the same time totally true. He’s yelling out crazy stuff (“throw out your beds if they aren’t made, because it’s too late now! I want seashells taped to every doorknob!”) , and he’s constantly spinning around and around because there are so many things to get done.
Anyway, like any proper sister would do, Laura taped seashells to the doorknobs, just for me. Here I am admiring and appreciating, and here she is demonstrating some of the frantic spinning that always goes on when prepping for company:
In case you want to watch it:
It was so fun to see Laura’s house and the way that they were living in Malaysia, because in all seriousness, she actually does keep her house super clean and she is one of the best organizers I know, plus she is fabulous at interior design/decorating, and I always love her style. And we’re sisters. So basically, we had to spend the rest of the night just walking around and talking about every single thing.
The next morning Laura and I went running together. Going running in Malaysia is a bit more of an adventure than here in Utah. It was like an obstacle course, with everyone following different rules that were hard to guess. I just stuck close to Laura and she warned me about any sudden dangers, like motorcycles coming up the wrong way on the sidewalk or giant holes that appeared in the middle of the street.
After that we went to downtown Kuala Lumpur and visited the Patronus Towers.
We also went and did some batik painting at a little place they go to a lot with their kids. It was the perfect activity – fun to do, easy to talk during, we got to experience one of the unique Malaysian things they do as a family, and we ended up with a cool souvenir to bring home.
India
After our day in Kuala Lumpur, it was time for India. We flew into Kolkata late at night (same place as Calcutta, it’s just spelled differently now), met up at the airport with some friends who were also going to the wedding, and then got a few hours of sleep at a little hotel in a slightly scary area of town. We got up really early the next morning and headed to the train station in Kolkata. That place is crazy! People in our group getting lost and separated all over the place, and no cell-phone coverage, which was tricky.
Here we are about to get on the train. It was a four hour train ride to get to Jamshedpur, the little town where the wedding was. It was such an interesting and neat way to see different parts of India.
Here’s a map that shows our train journey from Kolkata to Jamshedpur; even though it felt like we were going deep into India, we were still pretty far east.
We played lots of games of rummy, and also used these sweet toilets (that hole leads straight down to the train tracks whizzing by right under you):
At the train station in Jamshedpur:
As part of a traditional Indian wedding, the bride’s parents had arranged for us to have Mehndi artists decorate our hands with henna. I had never seen how it worked before – they paint the designs with a blackish/greenish paint, but then that dries and you rub it all off, and the design is left on your skin. Here’s what mine looked like right after getting done:
All the guests stayed at this hotel close to where the bride’s parents lived, and then they hired drivers to take us over to their apartment complex each day to attend different ceremonies and events before the wedding.
Daniel and Anwar, one of the bride’s cousins. He followed me and Daniel around and we became the best of friends.
The bride singing with her family. The guy playing drums to her left is her brother; he is a professor of neuroscience. Daniel and I had some super interesting conversations with him about brains and kids and learning.
The bride dancing with her cousins:
My hennaed hands and more special ceremonies:
Putting turmeric paste on the bride:
Anwar putting turmeric paste on me:
The bride’s mother had ordered custom saris to be made for each of the special guests coming from the States, and we were taken to a fun little Indian hair salon to get all ready for the wedding. An expert aunt got me all wrapped up in my sari (I am sad to say that I will never be able put it on myself), and an expert cousin did my eye makeup (I am even more sad to say that my eyes will never look that fancy again):
At the wedding:
Hanging out with Anwar:
The wedding was amazing and beautiful. I’m so glad we were able to go, because it really was a unique experience to see and learn about all the things that go into a traditional Indian wedding.
The next day we took the train back to Kolkata. Here is Daniel at the train station with a cow.
Most of the group split up at that point, but we had arranged to stay at the same hotel as our friend and her husband, and we booked a tour of Kolkata together. Kolkata is a crazy city. It has some really fancy and extravagant places surrounded by complete poverty. It was weird to see the contrasts.
Here is a crooked picture of us at a temple. Our tour guide was wonderful and kind, and every single picture she took of us was very crooked. It became one of our favorite parts of the tour.
Visiting Mother Teresa’s house:
The most interesting place we visited was the Kolkata Flower Market. It’s considered to be Eastern India’s largest flower market; there are hundreds of stalls and people sitting on the ground selling flowers and men walking around with huge garlands of flowers around their necks.
Here we are with our tour guide:
And in front of the Howrah Bridge:
One more crooked picture to end the India section, just for fun:
Singapore
After India, Daniel and I flew back to Singapore for one more day. The order that we visited the different countries on our trip made it really interesting to compare: first, Singapore, which is the cleanest and most organized city I’ve ever seen. Then Malaysia, which had a mix of big city feel in Kuala Lumpur and also lots of randomness and craziness. Then India, which just seemed like complete chaos. We loved all of the places we stayed, but going back to Singapore was a great way to end the trip. I think our flight left India really late at night, and it was already morning when we got to Singapore. We were so tired. I remember laying in bed planning to rest, but we ended up watching the Seahawks game on our phones instead.
The best thing about this part of our Singapore stay was that it involved swimming with dolphins! Just south of Singapore there is an island resort place called Sentosa, with tons of fun things to do (Universal Studios, waterparks, beaches, etc.). We had gotten tickets to have a “dolphin adventure” on Dolphin Island, part of Adventure Cove Waterpark. I cannot even explain how excited I was for this! I have wanted to swim with dolphins my whole life! We were part of a small group, and after they gave us wetsuits they had us listen to a short talk explaining all the rules and what to do/what not to do (which of course made me panic that somehow I was going to break all the rules and do everything wrong and poke a dolphin in the eye just because they told us to make sure not to; I don’t know why this is a thing I do, but it is). Daniel noticed the freaked out look on my face and gave me a pat and assured me I was going to follow all the rules perfectly. Then they took us to the pool area where the dolphins were. We got in the water and they introduced us to the dolphins (we got to pet them and hug them and give them signals to do tricks). After that was the best part! I got to swim out into the water with a kickboard, and then two dolphins swam over, and each put its nose under one of my feet. Then I just had to straighten out my arms and hold onto the kickboard, and they started swimming, pushing me all the way across the pool. They actually went pretty fast, and at one point during it I started to wonder if they weren’t going to stop and what should I do if I started to crash into those rocks you can see in the bottom left of this picture. But they stopped, and I didn’t crash, and it was wonderful and amazing.
The only bummer about the dolphin swim was that we weren’t allowed to take any pictures or videos. They let us know that they would be taking plenty of pictures of the whole experience, and we’d be able to buy any pictures we wanted afterwards. We knew they would probably be too expensive, but we still went over to the desk just to check (imagining that each picture might be $20-$30 and maybe if there was a super great one we’d cave in and buy it, just for the memories). But then the pictures turned out to be more than $200. I’m not even joking! So we decided we could remember it just fine on our own.
But I did get this quick video of some of the dolphins jumping around. Now just imagine them zooming me across the pool!
And this is us right after our swim. After that we went and ate at Din Tai Fung again, because we loved it so much the first time around.
Then it was time for the long flight back to Utah. Here is my sister-in-law with my six plus her two (the boys are wearing bow-ties that Lizza made them). I know it was a huge job, but it was nice to know they were in such good hands while we were gone.
