Upon landing in Singapore after nearly 30 hours of travel time we were groggy, grumpy and far from ready to tackle a busy city. After a nap for Blonde (cure for everything) and a bath drawn by the butler for Brunette (we were staying at the St. Regis using SPG reward points) we were marginally refreshed. Brunette is the travel researcher and knew that our hotel was near the Singapore Botanic Gardens.
As is our custom we promptly got lost trying to walk to the Gardens. Thankfully a young woman we met along the way (not really, we weren’t along the way, we were along the wrong way) managed to provide directions simplistic enough for us to execute.
The Gardens were spectacular – colorful, well-marked, with over 1,000 pure orchids and 2,000+ hybrid orchids, a rainforest, a ginger garden and, to the delight of our excited gustatory receptors, a lovely restaurant.
Blonde declared the Gardens to be an “eyegasm” and they were. These palm fronds caught light and shadow, showed texture and pattern and were a nearly neon green. They were nature’s artwork.
We were more like aviation’s damaged goods but art can sometimes be best appreciated in juxtaposition to weary, colour-drained tourists.
Neither Brunette nor Blonde’s hair was doing well in the heat and humidity of Singapore but this poor bird was faring even worse with his bedraggled bottle brush coiffure. Luckily for him those saucy polka-dotted leg warmers made a fashion statement complimented nicely by his unblinking perma-red-eye. This bird could have been a design collaboration of Prince, the devil and Andy Warhol.
Although the photographer’s vision was blurry at the time this picture was taken, the blurred effect was done later and on purpose in iPhoto. Too bad iPhoto can’t take a person who’s feeling a bit blurry around the edges and sharpen them. Maybe if Steve Jobs had lived longer.
Maybe not.
Male frigatebirds are the same as guys of all species. They have an appendage where size matters. They differ from human males in that they won’t even bother to try to argue that size doesn’t matter. When Brunette and I were in the Galapagos Islands we got many giggles observing posturing make frigatebirds. When it’s party-time they puff up their red pouches and bounce around saying “Mine’s bigger than his is – seriously, it is“. And, as in all species, some of them are right about that and some are self-delusional or hope the girl bird doesn’t have enough experience or vision to know better. Or else the boy bird has a lot of bird money and the girl bird will agree that his is the biggest.
The non-gold-digging female frigatebirds have no doubt learned that there’s an inverse correlation between large red pouches and monogamy. You can see them thinking “that pouch could be fun but he’s probably full of himself. If I do this I’m outta here as fast as I can fly the and the minute I’m done”.
Darwin may have discovered the evolution of the species in the Galapagos but he missed the whole point that social behavior is unchanging and persists across the species. Bummer ’bout that.
Each day on our trip to the Galapagos Islands B&B, due to completely imagined peer pressure from the others on our ship, participated in a “nature walk” which we referred to as the Bhataan Death March. There isn’t any shade in the Galapagos, there isn’t any air-conditioning (what’s up with that?), there isn’t any mercy, no pity or rest rooms or Starbucks. There’s a lot of intense sun and heat. A lot.
Apparently this whale got separated from his tour group . Probably ten minutes later, here’s the poor bastard – dead, bleached but at least attractively arranged. In the end attractive remains are the best one can hope for.
At one time this was a beached whale, now only a bleached whale. RIP.
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These photos are entries in the contest: http://www.travelsupermarket.com/c/holidays/capture-the-colour/
The five fellow travel bloggers BlondeBrunetteTravel nominates to also participate are:
www.lolastravels.com (Lauren DiMarco)
www.bostoncanadatravel.com (Jeanine Buckley)
http://ilivetotravel.me/ (Raul Pino)
www.HerJourneyTo50.com (Molly Blaisdell)
www.WorldWanderlusting.com (Sheldon Christensen)