Back on Track from 10th April

It has been several days since we last blogged on our journey but our last mission took us from north of Mandalay back to the Waikato. Boydie, my Dad, had been admitted to hospital and during our journey back his condition deteriorated. We arrived back to find him comfortable in the Matamata Poulen Hospital for palliative care. Sally had been wonderful support but had seen him fade rapidly but he knew we were home. Boydie passed away on 2nd April, in his 87th year, with his family at the bedside. While this will remain a sad but inevitable moment, Boydie was not in a good place toward the end. At his funeral the following Saturday we recalled some of the good times and met with a number of good friends who celebrated and recalled some fun times over those past 87 years. While it wasn't the best excuse to have a family get together it was good; it has been many years since Sally, Simon and I have sat down around a dinner table together...hopefully we can find another reason to do it again soon.

 

Following the funeral and tying up of some loose ends, Diana and I departed NZ, heading to Asia. It was good to know that Sally and Simon would be on hand to complete the wind up of Dad's estate. We flew out of Auckland on 10th April as Blair left an hour earlier for Vancouver and Hayden, an hour prior to that, back to Blenheim to man the rudder at the hostel. Such has our itinerary been of late, it is difficult to tell which Asian City we are in.....Mandalay to Rangoon and on to Kuala Lumpur, Hamilton, Phuket, Bangkok and now Vientiane.

So our first stop back was Phuket and not being great beach lovers we decided to stay in the 'Old Town'. Phuket is looking smarter and with far more cars and less tuk-tuks than we remember 30 years ago. It was good to catch up with Claire Connell on our first evening in town, three years to the day that she had arrived in Thailand to pursue her news reporting career.

We filled in the next day with a visit to the Tai Hua Museum which documented the history of the Chinese, some of whom were very prominent tin mining businessmen and benefactors in early Phuket. The families are still there today and assisted with setting up the Museum in a former Chinese School building.

After lunch we headed off on a Geocaching 'mission'. This was to the top of Monkey Hill, which we could see from town littered with various aerials and satellite dishes. It was, we discovered, a popular excersise route for locals with distances written on the path up. One lady appeared at the top in a PVC suit in 32*C!! We didn't need that to lose a few litres of sweat and unfortunately Rob was "close but no cigar" with the cache. It was elusive to a lot of others too but good exercise. The real live monkeys were present half way up but we gave them a wide berth.

14th April

In Thailand they have Songkran where for 3 days in mid April the entire population go crazy and spray each other with water. We escaped to Laos this morning to avoid Songkran and walked headlong into Pii Mai.....where the entire population go crazy and spray each other water and also any whitey from parts unknown. We joined in the fun and kept good humour for quite a while but I don't think this is going to be so funny in another 48 hours. We are led to believe that they will keep it up for 3 days.

 

 

We have had an afternoon in Vientiane which seems an interesting city. It is quite well set out compared to a number of Asian cities...I suppose the French should be given credit for something.....they also taught them how to make good bread and pastries! While out wandering we came across a geocache by an old stupa..self seen here in heavy disguise, nonchalantly replacing said cache. Good fun and no water bombers about....at that particular moment.

 

 

 

 

No, not Paris.....but Patuxai or Victory Gate (among numerous other names) I was particularly happy at this stage Because there were very few cars on the street, I was in heavy disguise and I had just located a very small cache on the upper level of the Arc de Triomphe....that structure behind me. Yahoo.

 

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"...there's a china girl awaitin'...."

22nd March

The Road to Mandalay was approached at 6.00am yesterday morning...awhile ago now but more of that later. The china girl......well she's still awaitin somewheres.

 

 

We spent 3 nights and two full days in Mandalay, a dirty smelly busy city that wasn't nearly as romantic as it sounded in Kiplings work...but then old Rudyard never actually went to Mandalay....if he had there may never have been a poem!! We walked streets, talked to locals and kept moving just in case we caught something, such was the squalor at almost every turn. A trip to a 200 year old teak bridge 11 kms south of the city was a fairly low, highlight. Following that Diana and I walked to the top of the Mandalay hill where a beautiful sun was setting, romantically (if it weren't for the fact that public displays of affection are frowned upon I may have given my bride a wee peck on the cheek!)

Accommodation and food in Mandalay were excellent and we enjoyed trying a few local dishes along with the odd home style dish just to ensure we didn't get homesick.

 

24th March

We took a taxi 70kms north with two of the locals, a share taxi, $4.00 each for a 2 hour ride, to a town called Maymyo. It is also known locally as Pwin Oo Lwin and is famous because the English knobs came hear to get away from the heat and no doubt the polluted Mandalay. There are still signs of the English with botanic gardens, a town clock modelled on Big Ben and several old colonial houses. We stumbled across the Governors House, not bad digs considering it is 100 years old. We spent most of the day on the back of a motorbike, we each had a driver that we trusted implicitly to keep balance and avoid the potpourri of other road users. No skin off so a good day had by all.

 

Our day trip included a 10km journey to a waterfall walk. The walk did not start well. The Burmese are only learning as far as offering services to visitors. With no negotiation it seemed we had obtained the services of 2 'guides'. They pointed to a temple and told us when we were halfway!! I can safely say Rob was not happy at all and kept trying to march away in front. Anyway we walked down a steep wide track for 30 minutes and in the back of my mind was 'this is going to be a little tough going back up'. The Anisakan Falls were beautiful even though the water flow was low. The walk back up was certainly a workout in the heat but did us no harm. The ladies followed us back up and I felt compelled to offer them something but it wasn't a comfortable situation at all.

 

On returning to our excellent lodgings we had a message from my brother and sister to say that my Dad has taken a turn for the worse and he will be hospitalised indefinitely. So our plans have changed dramatically and we took a taxi back to Mandalay airport, cancelled some internal flights and managed to get ourselves to Kuala Lumpur by 10.00pm. By the time we had sorted onward flights to Auckland and then looked for a hotel close to the airport it was just after midnight and considering that our gate opened at 5.30am we decided to see the night out in the KL terminal. Sleep was difficult to find among the bing bong announcements, the all night KFC clientele and the general hubbub of techno wizardry that keeps those places whirring. Right now it is 11.00pm NZ time and we are half way across the Tasman Sea...seems like we've been travelling for 40 hours! And the china girl is still awaitin.........Kiplings poem is worth a read if you've got time, I reckon.

 

 

 

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