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Lockdown countdown

Goodness!  It seems the last time I updated this blog was April. And now it's nearly July.  And I don't even have a good excuse like 'we were in the middle of the ocean with no internet connection'.  Oops.  The NHS midwife in me says that, as it's not written down, May did not happen.  But that is obviously nonsense, because in May all sorts of things happened.

For example, Kit’s birthday.  We know Kit had a birthday in May, because we were reminded about it.  Every.  Single.  Day.  For weeks.  If anyone's wondering, by the way, what Kit would like for any future presents, the answer is the most garish item of clothing you can find.  I did my middle -class duty and tried to steer him in the direction of the Boden catalogue, pointing out all the applique/sequined wildlife motifs, but no, he wanted a pokemon hoodie.  And not the nice(ish) looking yellow one with a pickachu face on it.  No, he wanted the one that looked like someone had exploded a luminous paint set on it.  If it had come in shellsuit material he would've been even happier (it feels nicer, apparently).  B-day was also pokemon central (thank you Sarah, aka Queen of Party Decorations) - we had pin-the-tail-on-picachu, a pokeball pinjata, and inflatable pokemon balloons (oh, I can hear the pedants saying 'but all balloons are inflatable' - well, yes, technically, I suppose they are, but, be honest, you knew what I meant - I meant the ones with helium in, that float away while children wail when they inevitably let go of them. We actually still have a pikachu (no idea how to spell it, so I'm trying a few versions) stuck on the living room ceiling over a month later - there are threats to try to shoot him down, but that seems overly violent for a kids' toy - besides, I like seeing where he's wandered to from one day to the next...)

Kit's was not the only party in May though - Sarah and I were supposed to be celebrating her hen do on a 3-day, no-kids jolly with some other lovely ladies in a villa in Ibiza with a cocktail man.  I even bought a new bikini.  Instead I decorated a room here with more balloons and a giant inflatable flamingo (I had to blow it up bit by bit with rests in between - good thing I'm not a smoker or he would have been a very flaccid flamingo indeed).  There was also bunting to put up - but all the glittery letters fell out of the packet in a heap jumbled up - undeterred, I sent a photo to the other hens to ask what the letters were supposed to spell - quicker than Carol Vorderman, Hilde replied, but I shan't tell you what the answer was as it was too rude!  (Were rude words allowed on Countdown? Charlie once had a 7 letter word in Scrabble that was too rude to put down against his parents...)  We managed a 2 hour zoom call with 13 people - was lots of fun.  We had a brief discussion about how to play charades on zoom - private messaging, uploading photos, presentation mode - before giving up and deciding to go low tech - everyone closed their eyes while I showed the clue to the person doing the acting.  Then everyone else opened their eyes. Shhhh, don't tell Charlie - he thinks I'm a luddite already...

In other news, Roo made up for lost time and had 4 teeth fall out in the space of 10 days - he is very gappy and quite lispy now.  (Apparently, one of his friends was so worried by social distancing they left their tooth for the tooth fairy on the other side of the room...) And we had a home-made boat competition for Charlie's birthday.  Roo and I decided early on that we weren't going to win on engineering, so we went all out with decoration instead.  Charlie was hoping that this event would banish the memories of having been robbed in the home-made boat competition on board a Holland America cruise ship in 2008.  Alas, no.  He was beaten on coke-can carrying capacity, and on aesthetics.  We're trying not to mention it.

Home school has been going well - we talked about BLM and activism (very depressing to hear a 6 year old say 'but mummy, why would anyone do that, it's just so mean', but more hopeful to get them to figure out ways of changing the world. We tried to make it relevant to them - what would they do if no one under the age of 9 was allowed to use the metal detector - they said they'd ask the grown ups to change their mind and get the other kids on their side (like writing to your MP and starting a petition?)  The metal detector was great btw, we found a rusty nail, a copper button and two boats.  Well, BOATS - bits off a tractor.  We've now finished re-watching all 3 series of Detectorists (and found an extra Christmas special we didn't see first time round - very pleased about that) - haven't found anything to replace the end-of-the-evening void yet...

Right, have to go - I pinky-promised that I would read HP to the boys in front of the fire if they went to check the post.  Which they've done.  But apparently Kit 'might' have let one of the chickens into the kitchen when he came back in.  So I need to check that first.  (How do you 'maybe' let a chicken in?)

Much love to all

Hxx

Oh, I nearly forgot - this post is called 'lockdown countdown' because the countdown is on - flights to Spain on July 7th!  Gulp.

Lockdown blues

Be thankful I didn't write this this morning - I woke up with a large dose of lockdown blues (if this blog had a facility to have sound I'd add harmonica at this point.  In fact, it probably does have that function, I'm just too much of a technotwerp to figure it out.  Where's a teenager when you need one?).  Guess it had to happen at some point, and 4 weeks in isn't too bad (or is it 5 weeks?)  Probably not helped by two large rum and tonics last night and staying up late talking to Charlie about the futility of life without a purpose and whether we'll ever be able to travel again anywhere ever. There was a small high point in our discussion when we found out that friends in Spain have, yesterday, been allowed to take their kids outside for an hour (woo! first time in 6 weeks) - this is a positive sign that things are improving, and might mean we could finally get to our boat.  Charlie is all in favour of heading out to Spain as soon as we possibly can, so he can start being Captain Daddy as planned.  But I am feeling uncharacteristically pessimistic about it all. What's the point in going if all the quirky cafes and quaint old buildings are closed and we can't explore the secluded bays an beaches. What happens if it all totally shuts down again?  So, I was wondering if maybe we should just postpone the whole trip for a year, as our friends have postponed their wedding, on the basis that a decision, even if not the outcome that we wanted, is better than being in limbo as we currently are?  At least then I could go back to work and feel useful.  Charlie was less keen on this idea as a) it would mean being further away from our adventure and b) if I went back to work he'd have to look after the boys on his own.  I'd like to say a) was the greater influence on his thinking but I'm not entirely convinced...

So, after all that, we went to bed feeling grumpy and tired and disillusioned and impotent (hmm, possibly not the best adjective to use in the same sentence talking about going to bed?  I meant in terms of not being masters of our own destiny as we are waiting on other people's decisions, obvs)  But I've been for a run in the sunshine now (current favourite soundtrack is Christine and the Queens, but the French versions, not the English ones, as it makes me feel much more cultured - I'm not really that cultured though as I spent the whole run daydreaming about being a Musketeer - 3 series (I refuse to call them seasons) on iPlayer - you can thank me later).  Feeling much better now - who says I have no purpose in life?  I just built the Spinjitzu Monastery out of a cereal box for a delighted 5 year old.  (He did point out that it ought to be red and black, not red and purple - I told him he should take it up with Kellogs)  I was due a parenting win though - last week Roo and I were learning about codes and ciphers in school - he was being mighty annoying so I wrote him a code that said 'it's no fun doing school with you if you don't concentrate'.  So then he wrote a message back to me in code that said 'I love you'.  I felt really bad :(  Actually, he's been lovely this week - I've been reading them Winnie the Pooh, and was totally unprepared for the last chapter, where the animals are aware that Christopher Robin is going away for some unspecified reason (going to school?  growing up?), so they make him a poem and say goodbye and - well, that's as far as I got before I couldn't read anymore - the tears were streaming down my face and I was sobbing - Kit asked me if I was 'happy sad' or 'sad sad' and Roo said 'it's alright mummy, I'll read the rest' - so I cried some more at that point as Christopher Robin takes Pooh to an enchanted place in the forest and explains that he'll always be with him even if he's not actually there.  Took me all day to recover!  

Happily, Charlie is also feeling refreshed and motivated - you can tell this as we have hardly seen him the last 3 days.  Instead he has been mostly...videoing himself in the garden with a selfie stick - yes, you read that right, he has bought a selfie stick.  But, it's all in a good cause.  He's been thinking about how to reach a wider audience with his pilates teaching for years, and wondering about putting classes online, but he's never had the time - not an excuse anymore.  So, he's recorded, and edited, his first lesson and it's on YouTube now - go there and like it/subscribe and give him feedback (do you like his trousers?  can you hear and follow the instructions? should he do the whole thing in lycra? more/less banter?). The first lesson's not very exciting - lots of small movements and breathing - but it's important to get the basics right so you don't hurt yourselves.  After he posted the video yesterday we had hourly updates about how many likes/views/subscribers he's got - edge of the seat stuff, I'm telling you.

What else have we been up to?  We felled a couple of trees, had a couple of BBQs and a takeaway (cause of excitement in this house - I'm in charge of rations and hate waste so we're never allowed takeaway unless there's nothing else to eat - yesterday there was only BBQ left overs for dinner and we'd already had that for lunch and dinner the night before, so I relented, much to everyone else's delight).  No more Dead Things to report on this week either.  

I might go and have a cup of tea now.  As ever, do let us know how you're getting on.  No one's been brave enough to use the comments yet - go on, you know you want to...

Hx

PS how could I forget?! I've got lockdown hair - I joined in with the communal hair dyeing project and now I look like the woman from Roxette....still wondering if that's a good thing or not...

Lockdown hightlights

Ahoy there! Update from me (Helen) today instead. We are the picture of a modern loving family just now - all plugged into our individual screens! And to think I thought this adventure would bring us closer together... Ah well.

It's been a while since we last wrote on the blog, as neither of us was really sure what to write - we are acutely aware that for most people, lockdown has been/is really hard, so it didn't seem fair to write about what we've been up to here, where we are actually having a really good time. But, then we agreed that the whole point of the blog is to write about our lives and our adventures, and no one wants to hear about boring stuff, so here, after all, are the highlights of the last few weeks:

 - lots of dead things - we found loads of badger setts on a walk - we know they were badger setts and not fox dens as we also found a dead badger. Sadly, I've still never yet seen a live one. The dead one was fascinating though. The children were a bit more hesitant in their appreciation! Which is why, when I found half a dead frog (with a bit of spine exposed) and a whole, fresh dead shrew (vole?) yesterday I suggested we dissect them in homeschool. I had visions of that being the prompt for the children becoming surgeons or the next David Attenborough. Charlie, however, vetoed the idea and said I'd give the boys nightmares instead. Now my housemates think I have an unnatural obsession with dead things...

- Margaret - and just to prove I'm not obsessed with dead things, we rescued a bee and stopped it from being A Dead Thing - we found it (well, her, as we discovered all male bumblebees die at the end of the season and it's only the females that hibernate, so we called her Margaret), looking a bit woozy in the garden - think the poor thing had just woken up a few days too early, lulled into a false sense of security by a day of warm weather. We gave her some sugar and water (we grew up with Blue Peter so knew exactly what to do) and watched her lap it up with her tongue. Amazing! She had a little rest overnight, then started cleaning her wings and we released her the next day.

- homeschool - OMG - how are any of you doing homeschool while still working? We are managing 1.5-2 hours a day and that's exhausting enough when we don't have anything else to do! We've done experiments with lemon juice/baking powder (produced C02 to blow up a balloon), made a castle (with working portcullis) out of toilet roll, practiced guitar, and tried to work out why we have eggs and rabbits and chocolate at Easter (needless to say reading the bible didn't help with that). Thankfully the 'bigger boys' are arriving tomorrow (age 12 and 14) so that will entertain our smaller boys - Kit will ask from the second he gets up when will they be awake (they are teenagers, so the answer is always, after lunch), and then he'll follow them around like a groupie all day. It is quite endearing. And they are *so* patient with him. Thanks boys!!

- pilates - C has been teaching us all pilates - every 2 or 3 days we've been having lessons and I'm happy to report, we're getting better. Even managed one lesson outside. I've been running, and C tried a bit, but he's had to stop before he injured himself. Not to be deterred from getting his hour of daily exercise though, he found a bicycle in a outbuilding, fixed a pump in a Heath-Robinson style, and went cycling without bibshorts, fancy pedals or shoes or even a bike computer. Who knew such a thing was possible?! He came back a happier man though, so all good (he's been pretty down the last week as the reality of 3 more weeks of lockdown hit and the possibility of getting to LG slipped further away)

- raft - having said that though, we did manage to get afloat last week! There is an ornamental pond/lake here, with pontoon, so C and the others built (again in a Heath Robinson style) a raft, out of pallets and old containers and bits of rope, and we spent a happy few hours rowing the thing up and down (only let the children go on after C had taken his phone out of his pocket and taken his shoes and jumper off, just in case...)

Right, think that's all for now. Actually, no - I nearly forgot! I've been to hospital! With the world's most pathetic injury. I fell and got a thorn in my hand (well, I assume it was a thorn - I didn't actually see it - given the after effects though I'm wondering if it was, in fact, the lesser spotted blue fang tooth hairy spider or similar. It was pretty sore at the time but got worse all afternoon until I ended up calling 111 at about 2000 as I couldn't move my little finger or index finger and my middle finger and wrist were beginning to get in on the act too. Happy to report that one out of hours appt (hospital was empty, very hard to put on face mask/hand gel with a dodgy hand, staff couldn't have been kinder) and a couple of days of flucloxocillin later, it's nearly back to normal :) (C and I were pondering, on the way to the hospital, does anyone ever phone 111 and not get an out of hours appt? Every time we call we get an appt - is that just because we only call when we're actually sick? But if everyone always got an appt there'd be no need for a phone triage system. So what does everyone else call them about?)

Right, that really is all for now. I can hear the dulcet tones of the boys next door arguing about who's turn it is on the game boy (they can't find the charger for the other one). I shall have to intervene, but I'm loathe to do so as they might suggest playing the same game as yesterday when I spent over an hour with them pretending to be knights with helmets and swords, rescuing a princess from a dragon in the dungeons and then building a den in the time honoured fashion out of cushions and tables and blankets. I was Sir whinge-alot (whose accent was most west country, but slid into yorkshire and then irish for some reason), Kit was Sir eat-alot and Roo was Sir sleep-alot). Wish I could hand on heart say it was fun - I've just never been into imaginative play - I simply don't get it :( they thought it was great though and that's the main thing. 

Do send your news - apparently Comments is now turned on apparently

Much love Hxx

Sailing around the world: week 1

Well, this isn't quite how I'd planned out our first week of sailing around the world. Helen and the boys were due to arrive at Lucky Girl in A Coruña on 23rd of March, I was to be there with the boat in the water waiting for them. As it turns out, all the stuff we sent to the marina from our house in boxes (clothes, toiletries, cooking utensils, THE NINTENDO SWITCH, board games, card games, stacks of reference books for school etc...) are waiting for us in the marina office. The marina is closed, so they can't put our boat in the water (there are a few practical reasons why it's really not ok to live on a boat out of the water, esp. with 2 small boys. I'll leave that to your imagination), and it's unclear whether the flights are running. If they are, would we be allowed into the country? I think we could argue the case that the boat is where we live, therefore we're not tourists coming on holiday, but it would be a big risk to take, turning up with the boys uncertain of whether or not we would be allowed in. Even then we'd be living in Spanish lockdown and there's pretty much nowhere we could sail to, I'm in a facebook group for sailing families all over the world and they're all reporting that they're basically stuck wherever they are. 

On Monday night when Boris announced his 'this is not a lockdown' lockdown, we were installed at Grandma's house. This situation was not ideal for a number of reasons, not limited to:

1. She's accustomed to living by herself

2. She has spent a lot of time and effort clearing up her house to make it look nice

3. She has many delicate things she cares a lot about (eg. white leather antique chairs)

4. The boys are very ... 'energetic' (ahem)

5. I am not good at sticking to other people's rules if I don't understand/agree with the logic behind them

6. Grandma is 'vulnerable' because of her years. Us being there meant that with the best will in the world she was exposed to more risk. 

This combination of factors meant that when it became clear (to me, probably after it was already clear to others) that the 'not a lockdown' was going to last weeks rather than days; we took up our friends' extremely kind offer of weathering the storm at their large house in Scotland.

Boris finished his 'not a lockdown' speech at about 2040. Helen came rushing downstairs and said 'we need to go; now'. She had said out loud what I think I was denying inside my head - that there was a good chance that by the next day the authorities wouldn't allow us to make the journey from Kent to Scotland. By 2110 we had packed up the car, lifted the children out of bed elbow-bumped our goodbyes and were on the road. En route, we only stopped to charge the car and have a pee. I drove all night and arrived at 0530 the following morning. I was incredibly grateful for Tesla's autopilot which kept us safer than my sleep-deprived brain could do on its own. 

So now we're holed up with incredibly kind, easy-going and generous friends in a very large house, in very large grounds. We are sticking to the rules - none of us are going off-site except to get supplies. It's mostly possible to exercise without leaving the grounds, although it turns out I did run over the boundary, briefly yesterday. I know that the lockdown is extremely stressful, and hard for most people, it makes me feel a bit guilty that were here having a nice time together, with enough space that we don't tread on each others' toes too much; and with good friends to stop us going too crazy.

We're now a few days in. The boys have been enjoying the company of 3 other kids. I am much less stressed, and have mostly stopped shouting at the people I love! Homeschool is up and down. Today, we did some mindfulness at the beginning of the lesson where, even with my eyes closed, I could tell when Roo's concentration started to wander! Because it was just the two of us, I was able to gently remind him to bring his thoughts back to what we were focussing on in the exercise. At the end I congratulated him on managing to bring his focus back. It was then a skill I could keep reminding him about when his mind started to wander during the subsequent lesson.  I spent some time with him looking at the pilot book for our Atlantic trip. He wanted to look at the Straits of Gibraltar, so we looked at the tidal-streams atlas and worked out what would be the best time to enter the med from Cadiz. Then we looked at the marina in Tenerife, checked the harbour rules and made sure there were no places we might run aground. Everyone has been asking me for the last few months how we're going to homeschool the boys, and I have become comfortable with our plans for this. Ironically now everyone else is thrust into it, without the months of anticipation we've had. The internet is awash with people sending each other links to various online seminars, museums, classes, zoos etc... so far I'm happy when I can get Roo to recognise when his focus is wandering and bring it back to the subject in hand!

We've done a couple of video-calls to friends and family with more planned, there's an enormous jigsaw on the go, and I have ordered the next one: a picture of people at the table in the living room doing the current one. I've had a Spanish lesson, with another one booked early next week, my tutor has almost no slots available - I guess everyone else is taking the enforced-downtime opportunity to learn Spanish! 

The boat feels further out of reach than she did a week ago, to me at least. I must be coming to terms with the fact that we're not doing what I thought we'd be doing (who is!?). For a while I felt like I had a right to be more disappointed than everyone else about the situation - they were all just expecting to go to work; I was expecting to start a new life. Now, I'm aware that if we were on the boat right now, we couldn't go anywhere or do anything anyway, so better to be where we are.

Covid stopped play

Today is the day the boat was booked to lift-in. I was supposed to wake up in a hotel room in A Coruña, and then Dave and I were to walk down to the marina, finish installing the diesel stove, inspect the hull, maybe install the new house batteries, make sure the engine turns over, then drive away from the lift-in to begin life afloat. Gosh that sounds nice. What I did instead was wake up at my mother-in-law’s house (thank you Susan), do 2 hours of home-schooling with the boys in Grandma’s dining-room, have some lunch, trawl a couple of supermarkets to scrape together the ingredients to see the house through the next few days and go to a garden-centre. Years of preparation came to a head last Friday morning when we finally got the last of our possessions either into storage, sold/given away or boxed up and handed-over to UPS to await our arrival in Spain. We emptied and then departed our house of the last 10 years and handed the keys over to the letting agent with a Tesla packed to the gunnels with all the things we hadn’t finished sifting through, plus clothes and toys to see us through a week of goodbyes before our flights. A couple of days on and it was clear that we shouldn’t visit my parents as planned, as my dad would be classed as ‘vulnerable’; so we headed to Helen’s old family home to stay with her mum instead, obviously this isn’t ideal as Susan is also in the vulnerable age-bracket, but she doesn’t have underlying health conditions to add into the mix, and we do need to stay somewhere, as we are now homeless. I’ve been learning Spanish for the last few months, so I’ve exchanged a few emails with the marina, sail-maker and battery shop. I’ve also (virtually) met another parent whose boat is in A Coruña - she is now stranded in the UK while her partner is on the boat in Spain! The reports are that no-one is allowed out, the only open shops are supermarkets and they’re only allowing 5 people in at a time. The marina says that customers aren’t allowed into the yard and they wouldn’t lift our boat in. Now our flights are cancelled and the next available booking with the same airline is May 1st (should I book that?). The situation with Spain’s border is not clear to me at the moment - if we could get there, would they let us in, on the basis that we’re homeless in the UK and our home is now locked up in a yard in A Coruña? I’ve written to the Spanish embassy in London to see if they can provide us with something we could show at the border to let us in, but they haven’t replied - I guess they’ve got other stuff to worry about right now! Here we are then, self-isolating with Grandma for an indefinite period. She has been very kind and generous, and the house is plenty big enough, with a big garden for the boys to play in. It’s still not where we should be though, and we are all (including Grandma) on our best behaviour. I’ve found today particularly hard to deal with, and I’m afraid my family has borne the brunt of this in the form of shouty-daddy. Hopefully I’ll manage to be more patient tomorrow...

Here we go again

I'm sitting in a cold living-room in Edinburgh, with three and a half weeks to go until we set off again. It's 13 years since we last set off to live on boats. This time we'll have the boys with us - Roo and Kit have already spent several weeks living on various boats during holidays. They've sailed from Edinburgh to Orkney and back, Edinburgh to Sweden and last summer from Edinburgh to the Scilly Isles. We've worked them up towards being able to live on a boat over the years. I think we've succeeded, and at the same time prevented them from realising how unusual this is and how lucky they are. A couple of years ago, Roo's friend Harris came to see Lucky Girl. As they were climbing up the stern ladder past the name, Roo said to Harris: "Our boat's called 'Lucky Girl', what's yours called?"

Things still on my to-do list:

- sell the tumble dryer (yawn)

- sell both cars

- organise insurance for the stuff we're leaving in storage

- alter our bank accounts & credit cards to our forwarding address

- arrange for proxy voting

- ship all our stuff to the marina in Spain

- take our 2 original paintings to Gareth and Sarah's house

- book flights back for Gareth and Sarah's wedding

- switch mobile phone plans to get more data (yawn)

- organise the boat lift-in for the day I arrive in Spain

We've booked onto the ARC (sorry James), so we now know we'll be leaving Gran Canaria on the 22nd of November bound for St Lucia. We would like to be in the Canaries for a month beforehand as a few people have said they'll visit us there, so we need to leave Gibraltar in the last week of September. As the boat is in A Coruña in NW Spain at the moment we have to do roughly 100 miles a month to get there. That doesn't seem too arduous. I didn't want to do the ARC because it is expensive and I feel we, (and our crew) have the experience and skills to be just as safe without it - if we depart on the same day as it does, then we still have the safety of other boats crossing at the same time. However, Helen is nervous about ocean crossing in a way that she can't rationalise right now (I'm sure she'll feel better after we've lived aboard for a while) and the ARC has a kids' club which will give the boys a definite opportunity to spend some time with other children in Gran Canaria and St Lucia, and also give them some people to talk to on the VHF during the crossing. I think that we and the boys will meet plenty of sailing families between A Coruña and the Canaries, but this is a guarantee. 

We get asked a lot about schooling for the boys. We've spoken to their teachers and got their advice, I've just picked up £150's worth of Usborne books to accompany the ones we've already got. Helen thinks I'm being too organised. My plan for starting out is to sit down with the boys and work out together what skills they need to acquire and practice (eg. reading, writing, maths), then we can list some topics they'd like to cover (eg. volcanoes, fish, the Spanish Armada), and we can make sure that as we go through them, they cover each of the skills - it's all subject to change, so we'll see how it goes. I think it'll be good to agree a plan with them so that when I say to Roo: 'hey you haven't done some maths for a while', he has a record of it, and he can see for himself that he needs to spend some more time on it, rather than it being what Daddy reckons. 

I am looking forward to having the house all packed up and arriving in Spain ready to start a new chapter of our lives. 

Still alive

Helen: HELLO!!! We still exist. Really, we do. We've just been sucked back into the real world of work and mobile phones and now seem to have no time to do anything other than sit in front of a screen. Bugger. BUT, having said that, we are enjoying being back - so much so that we've actually gone and bought a house. Moving date is July 31st so come and help us celebrate on Aug 7th (had to explain 'housewarming' to our Swedish friend Joel - guess it is a weird expression). The house is literally one minute's walk away from our old, fabulous, flat - it has a double garage with a proper workbench, a wood burning stove and a flower bed that's all my own. C is busy brewing a 'Homecoming Stout' for the party...it's bubbling away in a corner in the kitchen (we've regressed about 10 years and are currently staying in one room of a shared house with our friends. Having a designated shelf in the fridge makes us feel like students again...)

Edinburgh is still beautiful, although they have dug up all the streets in aid of the huge waste of time, effort and money that is the Tram project, so the traffic is truly awful and it's not quite so pretty as it was a year and a half ago. Also, annoyingly, they seem to have closed most of the city's cultural landmarks, museums and galleries for refurbishment - probably in time for the Olympics. So, while I've been singing the city's praises all round the world for being an architectural and cultural gem, it seems to have regressed to its student days as well. Oh well, at least the festivals are nearly upon us - I have brochures for all of them (Book, Film, Jazz, Fringe and International) and want to try to go to at least one thing at each, which means a lot of reading bumf. Or not, if you're Charlie and can't be bothered.

Not sure what else to tell - work is hectic - back in at the deep end. C had his first day of work today in 2 years. Was very pleased with himself as his commute was 10 mins each way, he got taken out for lunch and they're giving him a new laptop!

Hxx

PS our friend Harold who we met in HK and Beijing is visiting at the moment - we had a hilarious evening with him and his Chinese friend who doesn't speak a word of English last night - I think the Chinese friend got a bit of a surprise when we told him the pub we were in was full of gay men...

The Last Post?

Helen: We're back. Can't believe we're back. It's been grey and wet all day. That I can believe. Feels very odd, and totally normal, all at the same time. Nothing has changed (apart from C's parent's kitchen of course, which looks fab).
Denmark was fun...but prohibitively expensive. £8 for a pint. We saw Hamlet's castle, rode a tandem round Copenhagen (first 10 minutes were a bit tense, but after C stopped shouting it was fine - Copenhagen is a stunningly beautiful city), and saw some ancient Viking ships, so I think we got Denmark pretty well covered.
I'm sure there's more to tell. Just don't know where to start. Plan for tomorrow is to finish wading through the mountains of our mail that have accumulated over the last year and a half (and that's after Laura and Bob have thrown out the real rubbish) and buy a car. Oh, and to try to fish out some clothes from the bags that are currently in my parents' attic. Will be so nice to have some different clothes!
Will post again when we've done something more newsworthy, like found a place to live!
hx

ps. will be in london on friday evening. not sure where, but planning a pint or two somewhere - let us know if you'll be around :)

Mongolia is like the Lake district on steroids

Helen: It's how i imagined NZ was going to be. Honestly, it looks like something from LoTR. Except, up close, it's not quite as impressive - it's sooo dry and dusty. it's just the end of winter here, and everything's just beginning to recover from being under snow for the last 6 months. It'll probably all be green and gorgeous in a few weeks - before the temperatures get up to 40 degrees! I just don't know how anyone manages to live here - the climate is so extreme. but they do - in little white felt covered gers. and they are so hospitable (probably because the climate is so harsh). we stayed with families this past week, or in tourist camps which weren't properly open yet, so we had a real insight into Mongolian life in the countryside - mostly it was just us, our guide who spoke english, our driver (who didn't) and some leathery skinned, toothless herders and their families. Mongolian life in the countryside seems to involve a lot of vodka. but you can't just drink it. you have to dip your third finger of your right hand in it, and touch your forehead (for you) and then flick some vodka in the air over your head (for the sky) and then four flicks around you (for the corners of the earth). then you have to down it. girls are allowed to drink less, but men get funny looks like they might be pansies if they pass. c went off with the driver and a herder to drink when the girls had given up. they came back the minute the vodka was finished though. not at all like sitting around with a pint for hours! it's all about the vodka...
felt like townies the other day - we went for a romantic walk along the shore of yet another stunning mountain lake on the morning of our (6th!) wedding anniversary, and on the way back we found a sheep. It was obviously not a happy sheep as it was on its own. Sheep are never on their own if they can help it. And it didn't move when we went closer. Turns out it was stuck in the mud. Literally. So we walked all the way back to the ger and asked them to come and help us get it out (it really was stuck and was going to die if we left it there). Our driver essentially told us that one sheep wasn't worth the effort as there are so many in Mongolia. One of the herders did come with us though (in a standard shopping car, over rocks and bumps, balancing his 1 year old daughter on his lap). He just manhandled the sheep out of the mud by grabbing it by the neck. C and I felt like such townies - we'd expected that it was going to take machinery or at least 3 people and a lot of time. The country way was so much easier and quicker! We drove past the sheep later in the day and she was doing normal sheep stuff (munching on grass) so all was well in the end.
Back in UB now - thankful for the end of the week long meat diet (no goat testicles, but we did get presented with a bowlful of freshly boiled sheep innards on our last day. I was brave enough to try the smallest bit of stomach lining but it just smelled too bad to eat much before wretching. C refused (which is a bit whimpy I think, considering the day before I'd even eaten a whole cherry tomato). And our Mongolian guides looked at us like we were passing up chocolate brownies as they tucked into blood pudding, heart and lungs.)
Not having the greatest day today though - wanted to buy boots at the market (it's closed), go to a free folk music gig this evening (it's sold out), and sit in our favourite cafe while we use the internet all afternoon (internet's broken). Oh well. Meeting up with a friend we met in Bangkok this evening for a curry, and then it's up at sparrow's fart to get the plane to Denmark tomorrow. No one mention trains...
hxx
ps have a good example of Cyrillic for you: PECTOPAH transliterates as RESTORAN - no prizes for guessing what that means!

Blue skies at last!

Helen: we were in china and hk for over 2 weeks and it was overcast pretty much the entire time. must've been pollution - 30 hours on a train to get to ulanbator in mongolia and all of a sudden the sky is a brilliant blue. the view from the train was stunning - first the gobi desert - flat sand as far as you could see with the occasional ger (yurt - felt tent) camp and a few horses, and then rolling hills with spiky mountains in the background and melting snow everywhere. and then, bam, the city of ulan bator. it's got such a lovely vibe to it compared to beijing - probably on account of its size (1m as opposed to 14m) - but also the people. they are v friendly and don't stare as much as the chinese. ub isn't going to win any prizes for architecture, and it's very grey here (not much grows in a desert so there's barely any trees and no grass, and most ofthe buildings are soviet inspired), but the food has been great (all european so far - we're stocking up as we're expecting nothing but goat meat and curdled cheese for the next week when we head out into the countryside). we visited a buddhist monastery this morning - was full of monks (with jumpers under their robes it's so damn cold here - we're both wearing our down jackets, thermals and hats - what a difference fromthe last year in the tropics!) but there were also loads of people in suits and on mobile phones, and wearing traditional costumes, just coming to pay their respects. felt like a living working place, not just for the tourists like in beijing
our guest house is crazy - we seem to be living in a (well estalished) shanty town on the outskirts of ub - its like the nomads just moved their lifestyle to the city - you can live in western appartment blocks and wear fashionable sunglasses if you want, and lots of people do, but here, they live in gers and family compounds like they always have. there is even a delightlful nibbly kid goat running around our place (its mother, which belongs to the owners in-laws who live in the countryside, abandoned it, so they are hand rearing it til it can rejoin the flock). c is impressed at their resourcefulness - they have just taken out the engine of a land cruiser in the yard, without a crane, and replaced it with another!
so, we're off for a tour in the countryside tomorrow, back on the 18th. will be our 6th wedding anniversary while we're away! (believe it or not, but we think we're going to buy an original Mongolian modern artwork as a pressie for each other - i know modern art isn't what springs to mind when you think about mongolia (more goat testicles, horses (we've had to impose a moratorium on Horse while we're here - there are just too many!), and furry boots), but we really liked it. picture to follow...
bye for now
hx

ps amusing ourselves no end by just wandering around trying to decipher cyrillic words on bill hoardings. often if you can transliterate the word, it makes sense. often, of course, it's nonsense, but it's fun trying. half their letters are backwards,which explains why it sounds like talking backwards when they speak. somehow, even though we can only understand a handful of words (cafe,internet, bank) it feels much less foreign and more inviting than china where everything was just squiggles. c made a good point - he said this place feels more familliar to us because it's a mix of asian and european - pity we won't see the culture change all the way back to europe...

Incognito rock stars

Helen: We've spent all day saying 'ooh, don't forget to put that on the blog', so I'm afraid there's only one thing for it. A list. So, in no particular order, here's what's made us laugh and groan over the last few days:

- we have eaten soooo much. It seems to be the mark of a good Chinese host to make sure that there is food left over at the end of a meal. So they just order, and order and order. And you eat and eat and eat. And then, just when you think it surely must be at an end, more food arrives. It's nuts! (but very yummy)
- people have been taking pictures of us. Lots. And not just in the serupticious way they did it in Vietnam with camera phones. No, since we got to Beijing people have been sitting beside us, plonking their kids next to us, even accosting us in the street and insisting that we shake hands and have photos with every person in their group. At first I thought we were special, and that maybe they thought C's silly hair/beard/sunglasses/hat/tattoos combo meant he was a rock star incognito. But, sadly, no. We're photo worthy just because we're tourists. You would think that Beijing, being the capital city, would be pretty cosmopolitan and they'd be used to seeing people like us. Maybe the people taking pictures of us are Chinese tourists on their hols from the countryside who can now go home proudly with a picture of the foreign freaks? Or maybe they aren't as exposed to Western culture as I thought - our guidebook says only 10 Western films are approved for release every year in China...
- in a similar vein...we were dumbfounded last night when we were having dinner with an old school friend of mine (yes, I know, Old Senockians are everywhere) and his Chinese girlfriend, and we were talking about how odd Cambodia 'after what happened there' and she, quite straight faced said 'what happened in Cambodia?' Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge meant nothing to her (she's pretty much our age). Wierd what state censorship can achieve!
- we got horribly lost when we arrived to Beijing. Our taxi driver didn't know where our hostel was (surprise surprise, although at least he only charged us 20 ickeys - C was very proud of himself for avoiding the taxi touts who wanted 180 for the same journey - that's why he's in charge of the cash - I probably would have gone with the first guys!) Anyway, we got dropped off next to the right block for our hostel...but unlike other cities on grid systems, the old part of Beijing is arranged into 'hutongs' - each big block is subdivided into lots of little alleyways which are mostly pedestrian/used by bikes. It's really charming - usually grid systems are souless, but this way the traffic can still flow and you still get a really intimate feeling. So, we got dropped off 'near' our hostel, then walked in circles for a good half an hour carrying our heavy bags before I went off on my own armed with only my guidebook. Eventually a security guard and his mate at the local hospital helped me out - they took me to a doctor on the 6th floor who spoke a bit of English and then escorted us to the door. Predictably, only 5 mins walk away! We managed to have a great conversation - he spoke Chinese and I spoke English and neither of us understood a word of what the other said, but somehow it worked!
- final point, before my fingers fall off from typing too much - C wants me to tell you about Chinese tour guides - they all have headsets with microphones, attached to loud-speakers that hang from their waists, so it seems that they are shouting from their tummies. And they use the speakers even when the person they're talking to is standing next to them. Very amusing to watch!

OK, nearly out of juice. (had a wonderful day at teh Great Wall today - awesome scenery, good hike, almost totally deserted. Totally opposite to yesterday at the Forbidden City. Swarming with tourists and lacking in information.)

Hx

China

Helen: Apologies for the lack of posts for a while. This has been due, unusually, to lots of late nights and drinking. It's mid-day now, and our party of 4 has just about surfaced and made themselves respectable, so you see what I mean...
We're in HK at the moment, staying (in the tiniest flat - it makes London living look palatial) with Mike, an old friend from school, and he is doing a fabulous job of showing us around. It makes such a difference having a guide - we've been to so many places we just wouldn't have known existed (bars and restaurants (and a gym)) that are on the upper floors of tower blocks - they have no signs at ground level to let you know what's upstairs, you just have to know! And often to get to a bar, you have to enter through a shop in a mall. But, usually the view is worth it - we had drinks last night from the balcony on the 8th floor with the HK skyline lit up behind us.
HK has been a true delight - I was expecting just the skyscrapers, and was only coming here to visit Mike. We both figured that it would be another Singapore or KL and we'd want to leave after 2 days. But we've just booked our train tickets to Beijing and we're staying over a week because we're having so much fun. It turns out HK isn't just HK island - there are lots of outlying islands, the whole of the New Territories and it's easy to escape to the hills. Yes, hills. Well, mountains really. Yesterday we climbed Lantau Peak, which is a Munroe at 934m. It was steps all the way up. Hard work at the best of times, but especially bad the day after a session at the gym (Mike goes regularly and C really wanted to go, so I went along for a laugh. Now everything hurts. My stomach. My quads. My neck for goodness sake.) The hill was awesome. At the bottom there is a 'giant buddha', a disney type village with a starbucks and hordes and hordes of tourists. But we only saw 5 other people on the trail. Was blissful. It was like Arthur's Seat in as much as you could look one way and see the airport, but if you looked the other way it was as if you were well and truly out in the countryside. Wonderful :) And today we're going to Macau, which is supposed to be totally different again - long Portuguese colonial history, forts, cafes, pastries. Will report back.
Hx

PS. Hmm, don't seem to have mentioned China at all yet - we only spent 3 days there before coming to HK - was ok - rained a lot! Had a few language problems, but the people were super friendly and we were always helped out by English students who wanted to practice with us (in fact, we've just got an email from one we met in Nanning who wants to be our penfriend). The landscape was pretty similar to N Vietnam - we went to see some stunning terraced rice fields. Oddly, the other tourists on the trip weren't western backpackers, but domestic Chinese tourists from Beijing. They travel en masse and all buy the same souvenirs and take the same photos. Very bizzare. And, at the top of the hill...there was ice cream and beer! We always joke when we're hill walking in Scotland that there will be beer and ice cream at the top (an insipring thought when it's cold and wet and you're wondering what you're doing on the hillside). Of course there never is. But in China, oh yes. And postcards, souvenir shops. The works!

Toc That

Helen: We seem to have slowed somewhat in our whirlwind trip round SE Asia - we have been in Vietnam for nearly a whole week now. A whole week! Since the last post we took a bus to Phnom Penh (crazy crazy traffic - we sat in a bar and played motorbike poker - we were both tied with 5 people on a bike each, when C spotted a guy carrying, I kid you not, a full size wardrode. We also visited the Tuol Sleng Museum - the old school that was S21 prison during Pol Pot's time. Thousands of people were tortured and murdered there, and it's been left as a memorial to them. There are photos of them on the walls. It was almost too horrific to really take it all in. It didn't really seem real. The most interesting room was an exhibit by a Swede who had visited in 1978 as part of an official tour. Apparently communism was big in Sweeden at the time, and so when he visited he genuinely thought that the Khmer Rouge was a good thing. The exhibition shows the photos he took at the time with his thoughts from 1978, along with his thoughts from now (once the true details of the regime came out he changed his mind - just goes to show how people can be fooled by propoganda - even educated people who ought to know better).
Anyway, I got sidetracked. From PP we went to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) - stayed just long enough to get ripped off by a taxi driver (first time spending Dong so no idea how much stuff costs - we paid at least 10 times too much!) on the way to the train station, and then we spent 4 days in the hills around Hanoi. Wow. Wow. Totally amazing. Have a look at the photos on Flickr to see what we mean. Everywhere we've been so far that's been pretty has looked like Scotland. Not N Vietnam. It looks like nowhere else. Crazy limestone mountains, bright green paddy fields, people working the fields by hand with conical hats, cows that look more like elephants or rhinos. We stayed in stilt huts and traveled on roads that tourists never take - they were rutted, gravely, muddy - C did brilliantly with me on the back. You could tell that tourists never get to these places because every time we stopped to talk to the locals they would stare at C's hair. They would always ask if it was real ('toc that' means 'real hair') and they'd build up the courage to come and pull at it with toothless grins! Our guide Hai was great - he looked like a korean popstar, and was always flirting with the ladies, but he was a real gentleman. He really wanted us to like his country and went out of his way to make sure we had a good time. We stopped and had raw sugar cane juice and sticky rice cooked in bamboo. We saw chop sticks being made and he even took us to his house to meet his family (grandma had black teeth from chewing betel nut and didn't seem to mind that we didn't understand a word she said). We were so lucky - just the two of us and Hai for 4 days.
Right. Off to China tomorrow. Hope we have time to go and see Ho Chi Minh himself before we leave...
Hxx

PS thought you'd like this - we stopped to have lunch one day and a family invited us to join them. We had to decline their offer of home made rice wine (like vodka) but joined them for green tea (we've drunk so much tea in the last few days). We wanted to share with them so we offered them some chocolate. They ate it as if it was beetles, like they were only being polite! Actually, they didn't eat it like it was beetles, because the Vietnamese like beetles (we got served some the other night, and the only reason C ate one is because I ate one first). They eat grasshopers and snails and snakes and chicken feet and pig intestines willingly, but apparently not chocolate!

Angkor what?

Helen: Cambodia redeemed itself today - we bicycled all around Angkor Wat (sparrow's fart start at 4am, to avoid the crowds and heat, and see the sun rise, which, of course, we missed, because I had heavy mudguards) and it was magnificent. C, not known for his love of 'piles of stones' even said it was up there with Machu Pichu, which is saying something. Naturally, this didn't mean he actually wanted to spend much time there...but at least he was enjoying himself. You might, if you are lucky, be treated to all of our gazillions of photos of the various temples some time tomorrow - we're on the road again heading to Penom Pehn, to a hostel with, fingers crossed, free wireless. The temples really were awe inspiring (kept expecting Indiana Jones or Lara Croft to appear round the corner (apparently Tomb Raider was filmed at one of them, which might explain Ms Jolie's penchant for Cambodian orphans?) Anyhoo, just wanted to say that we had a glorious day - lots of smiley faces and barely any pressure from hawkers. What a difference a day makes!
More from the capital later (should be fun - tomorrow is Khmer New Year...)
Hx

PS interesting fact: most of the Angkor temples were built as Hindu temples...but they are now Buddhist, so they have Hindu and Buddhist carvings - in a world with too much religious intolerance, it was lovely to see folk just getting along!

Ripped off in Cambodia. Again. And again...

Helen: Even having been traveling for the last 18 months or so, we were scammed by all the scammers we'd been warned about today. Felt like newbies. Oh well, at least we got here (via buses that we'd paid for not being available and people insisting we needed their services to get price inflated visas). Not a good first impression of Cambodia. But, the good news is that we have bicycles sorted for tomorrow, and a route from our guest house owner to see all of the temples and avoid the crowds. Fantastic. Only snag is it means brekkie is at 0430. Better go and get some sleep now then.
More later
H&Cxx

Bangkok rocks

Helen: We both remember Bangkok being totally manic last time we were here...but compared to Singapore and KL it feels relaxed and chilled out! Maybe it's because there aren't many skyscrapers and you can actually see the sky? Or maybe it's the people - always smiling? Or maybe it's because they're all Hindus and Buddhists? Whatever it is, it rocks.
Got here this morning on the sleeper train from Penang (at the Thai border, v amusing sign saying no-one with 'hippie characteristics' (waistcoat with no under garments and long, dirty hair) would be allowed in - C immediately started smoothing down his dreads!) and...we're leaving tomorrow! Going to Angkor Wat in Cambodia. 12 hours on a bus. Better be worth it!
Right, time for bed. Early start tomorrow. Think we 'did' Bangkok pretty well today - took a busy commuter canal boat into town with the locals, (got lost - de rigeur for us in SE Asian cities at the moment), visited Kao San Rd (all the 18 year olds made us feel really grown up), saw a political protest, and went to a traditional puppet show this evening. Tick.

Hx

PS thought you might find these Malaysian words amusing - see if you can figure out what they mean: kastam, imigresen, stesen, farmasie, notis, kaunter, basikal, motosikal

PPS a bloke came up to us at Butterworth train station to introduce himself - he'd been on the cruise ship too and recognised us...and he was traveling from NZ to Europe overland too! He was slightly more adventurous than us though, and is braving Iran...

Rain

Helen: We've been in Malaysia 3 days now. And it's rained every single day. Buckets and buckets and buckets. We are currently hiding in our hotel room (clean and friendly, but looks a bit Communist), waiting for the rain to stop so we can venture outside for supper (hmmm, shall we have noodles or curry? Had noodles for breakfast and curry for lunch, and both yesterday and the day before so it's a tough choice...)
Did manage a quick explore earlier though - went to a Khongsi in Georgetown (apparently the whole city is a World Heritage Site - there can't be many UNESCO WHSs that we haven't visited - everywhere we go seems to be listed) and got shown around by a very enthusastic little old Chinese man with bad teeth, a big smile and a smattering of English. He posed for photos with us and we promised to send him copies (he promptly pulled some business cards out of his pocket with his name and address on!) A Khongsi is basically a family compound - this one was beautiful and dated from 1820. There was a temple (lots of gold leaf and ancestral tablets (like gravestones) and living quarters - no one lives there now, but when the Chinese emigrated here in the late 18th and early 19th centuries they grouped together in clans to support each other. (The clans then evolved into Triads and they started killing each other...) Clan life is still v important today and we saw lots of people lighting incense sticks for their relatives.
After that we took the funicular railway to the top of Penange Hill - I've never made it up 800+m so quickly! Took us over an hour to walk down again, spotting monkeys all the way (specially cute ones with black fur and white eyebrows/round their lips. The macaques weren't so friendly. They barred their teeth and started growling at us and we were stuck for a few minutes not knowing how to get past them!)
Generally v glad to have got out of KL - too big, too busy, and no charm. Georgetown is much more appealing. Lots of nooks and crannies and streetlife. Most of the population of Malaysia seems to be Chinese or Indian - both look like they've just stepped out of China/India respectively (I say authoritively, never having actually been to either place!) I don't know quite what I was expecting - but I was definitely expecting the Malaysians to be a distinct culture rather than two imported cultures.
The countryside in between KL and Penang (as seen from the bus) was strange - lots of palm oil plantations (aren't they responsible for killing off orangutans?) and peculiar new build estates that seemed empty (no lights on, no cars, overgrown gardens). I swear the barrat box type houses wouldn't have looked out of place in the Rotherhithe and the Thames estuary. At the other end of the spectrum we saw a few lovely homes as well, at the top of Penang Hill where it's cooler so all the colonials built city retreats and sanotoriums. The houses were twee little olde English style cottages with picket fences and garden furniture like C's parents have in Surrey. And there was a red GR post box outside!! Bonkers.
Right, that's enough. Hasn't stopped raining, but my tummy's rumbling so will have to make a dash for it anyway. Off to Bangkok tomorrow on the train. Going to do a bit of pinyin practice this evening to make sure we don't starve in China.
Hx

F1 frustration

Helen: v quick post - am cold and tired so time for bed - but thought this would make you laugh - C and I went to the Malaysian F1 GrandPrix this afternoon, and totally failed to see any racing at all. It was so badly signposted, that by the time we'd figured out which entrance we had to use (involving much walking, bad directions and a dodgy shuttle bus) the action had been called off by a torrential Tropical downpour and we had to sit in our soaking wet clothes in the air conditioned bus all the way back to the city. Bugger! Still, managed to get the essential tourist photo of the Petronas Towers lit up like Christmas trees, so not a completely wasted day.
Glad to be out of Singapore - decided we'd 'done' the island yesterday - eaten in Little India and Chinatown, ridden the 'does what it says on the tin' "Mass Rapid Transport System" (tube), and had a (yucky, way too sweet) cocktail at Raffles (where we also managed a dance to a live band in front of the hordes of tourists who were herded into the bar by a guide to have their Singapore Sling in 15 minutes before leaving again. I'm not against taking tours...but come on people - do you really need a tour guide to take you to a BAR?)
So, now we're in Umpa Lumpa land. Saw lots of palm oil plantations on the road, and are relieved that everything seems to be getting cheaper! Thinking about heading yet further north tomorrow.
Right, off to sleep - C has dutifully checked the bed for bugs
Hx

Raffles here we come

Helen: Is Charlie the only person in the world who hasn't heard of Raffles in Singapore? When I told him that we had to go there this evening to have a Singapore Sling he looked at me blankly and asked why. I tried to explain that Raffles is as famous as Harrods in London or like going to visit the pyramid hotel/casino place in Las Vagas...but he still didn't get it. Never fear though, I shall make him wear one of his two presentable shirts this evening (and I'm going to wear the dress I just finished making) and I shall go to the ball tonight whether he appreciates it or not!
So, now we're landlubbers again and struggling to come to terms with life when we have to feed ourselves and work out what we want to do for ourselves - it's a bit like how I imagine a caterpillar feels when it emerges from its cocoon blinking in the sunlight trying to work out how to use the new flappy things its acquired... It won't surprise anyone to learn that the very first thing we did when we got here was go out in the heat and have an argument! Yup, nothing like the tropics and busy streets to get us grumpy (but no raised voices in the street - not the done thing at all apparently. Canoodling (sic), jaywalking, not flushing the loo properly and eating with your left hand are also all out.)
We've only been here a couple of hours, but have decided there are lots of places we'd rather see on our tight schedule than a busy city, so we're heading for Umpa Lumpa tomorrow.
Lots of love
H&C

PS a few thoughts from the cruise:
- we were harrangued several times by Americans from the deep south who told us we should read the bible and carry guns
- C didn't win the boat building competition :( General opinion is that he was robbed though
- they have hand sanitizers everywhere and the staff won't shake your hands even at formal dos for fear of the dreaded lurgee - guess it would spread pretty quick
- the security guards were out in force when we entered Indonesian waters - on the look out for pirates we reckoned...
- Bali was wonderful (lots of Indiana Jones style temples and gorgeous fabrics) Java was mental (C said they drove their cars like they were motorcycles, often filtering on the wrong side of the road...) but we visited an amazing 8th Century temple and got some good karma from the lucky Buddha