The final post of our travel blog

Ode to Travel

We’ve flown in ten airplanes and in a hot air balloon,

We’ve listened to orchestras and to a gondolier’s croon.

Through Prague, Pammukale, Paris, Venice, Versailles,

We’ve had wonderful adventures: to relate them, I’ll try.

To travel in winter, we were sure to have snow.

The temp, down to minus fourteen it did go.

Then off came our jackets when we went through a door

Or the heat of a sauna we’d have to endure.

To the yuletide markets in Europe we went,

And there, with delight, lots of money we spent.

The lights, oh how pretty, the crowds –what a crush,

Drinking their gluwine in the snow and the slush.

Our feet over thousands of cobbles have walked,

With people from dozens of nations we’ve talked.

In rooms huge and tiny we’ve laid our tired heads,

And with sumptuous banquets we’ve amply been fed.

We’ve sailed on a ship, on ferries and boats,

Down the canals of Venice we were excited to float.

Tall towers we have scaled, down tunnels we’ve squeezed,

And to float over fair chimneys we were ever so pleased.

Tales of great valour and sadness we’ve heard tell,

Of death and disease and of cruelty as well.

Of civilizations and their ways of life,

Of kings and of queens and of people in strife.

We’ve used forints and krone to pay for our fare,

Euros and pounds, even lira here and there.

Swiss francs and Thai baht no one else wants to own

So with them we are lumbered and we’ll take them all home.

Downstairs and upstairs, across bridges we’ve gone,

Pulling our too heavy luggage along.

When we’ve lucked it for lifts, moving walkways or such,

The load seemed much smaller and light to the touch.

The dome of great buildings we’ve admired with such awe,

And spires of huge churches as to heaven they soar.

The gilding, the marble, great frescoes, mosaics

Roger stands and admires as photos Mim takes.

In England the graves of our forebears we sought,

But most of our effort alas, came to naught.

Not deterred, we pressed on, down the lanes, along roads

To view and admire the sweet English abodes.

Now our travels have ended, we fly home with relief,

To have wandered so far without coming to grief.

To those many friends who have followed our blog

We say thanks for your company as with us you’ve trod.

Days 40 nd 41: Part 2 - Bangkok Drama

Days 40 and 41:  Thursday, January 20^th and Friday January 21st   Part 2:  Bangkok drama

A sad tale of scarves, jewellery, tuk tuks and motorbikes

Alternative title:               And she says she teaches maths!

(The complex part of this tale is probably best told as a playscript.)

  Most of the scarves that I wear with my turbans have been bought in Bangkok, at a particular market type of place called Nayura Phan (I’ll just write NP).  Each time I visit, I like to go and buy a few more and this time was no exception. Roger and I went to one of Bangkok’s large shopping centres, Paragon.  I had in my mind that NP was just opposite, so I left Roger in the cool of the shopping centre while I just ‘popped over’ to NP.   I walked and walked but didn’t find it, so returned to Paragon so that Rog wouldn’t be worried about me.  I knew that NP was just near a particular place in the city, Erawan Shrine, so I asked one of the door attendants at Paragon which was the direction of Erawan Shrine.  Sure enough, I had gone in the opposite direction.

So off I went again  for another ‘half hour’, this time leaving Rog at Starbucks at Paragon.  He, by the way, was feeling quite wretched with a combination of jetlag and a heavy cold – at least his shoulder wasn’t so sore any more.

I walked and walked again, but again no NP.  I was aware that there was a lot of new building going on as a result of the buildings being burned down in last year’s riots and I began to wonder if maybe NP wasn’t there any more.  So, once I was absolutely certain that I had gone well past where NP would be, I turned back and headed to the shrine again.  By this time, I was very hot, tired and footsore.  It was past the half hour mark and I was now about a fifteen minute walk away from Paragon.

I determined that rather than walk back to Paragon, I would catch a tuk-tuk or a taxi.  As I crossed the road ready to hail one, a Thai woman got talking to me, admiring my scarf.  I told her that I buy them from NP and that I cannot find it.

Thai woman:     Oh no Madam.  NP has gone.   But I know where you can buy scarves of the same cality (quality).  Have you a map?  I will show you.  You are lucky because they have had a 30% discount but it finishes today.

She proceeded to show me on the map where the government gems and handicraft shop was.  I had been there before, so was quite happy to take her advice.

Thai woman:     You take a tuk-tuk – easier.   I will call a tuk-tuk for you.

Mim:                     No, I have to go back to Paragon to get my husband first.

Thai woman:     I will tell the driver to wait for you to get your husband and then take you to gem and handcrafts shop.

She went over to a tuk-tuk with me in tow.  She conversed with the driver and told me she had negotiated 40 baht (about $1) for the trip. 

So off I went in the tuk-tuk.  He pulled up at Paragon and indicated to me where I should wait for him to return.  As I paid him the 40 baht, I wondered if I would see him again.  I hurried into Paragon, found Roger, told him I would explain on the way but that he had to either stay there or come with me right then.  We ‘hurried’ in Roger fashion back to the spot we were to wait for him and sure enough, in a minute or so, he arrived, wearing a big smile, waving and calling ’Madame!’ .

Now to ride in a tuk-tuk is much akin to playing Russian roulette.  One feels very vulnerable in this open vehicle with traffic attacking it from every direction.  On the way, I explained to Roger what had transpired and where we were going.   The tuk-tuk pulled up outside the shop and we tumbled out, very relieved to have finished the journey in one piece.

As is the usual custom, a uniformed man opened the door and saluted as we entered the shop.

Elegant shop lady at the door:   Welcome Madame.  Can I help you?

Mim:                                                     I have come to find some scarves like this one (indicating my scarf).

Elegant shop lady:                           Second floor Madame, but first come and see some jewellery.

Mim:                                                     No thankyou.  We only came for scarves.

Elegant shop lady:                           Oh but Madame, just look at some of our beautiful jewellery.

Mim thinks of the beautiful gold earrings she saw in Turkey but did not buy because they were too expensive.

Mim:                                                     Can I have a look at some gold earrings?

Elegant shop lady:                           I’m sorry Madame but we only have jewellery with stones.  Maybe you would like some earrings that match your amethyst ring?

A tray of rings was brought out and immediately I spied a pair of lovely earrings which matched my ring beautifully.  I admired in the mirror and then asked the price.  She did a calculation of the price with the 30% discount and turned the calculator around for me to see it.

At this point I need to explain the Thai currency.  They have Thai baht and the current exchange rate is around $1 = 3.3 TB.  So, with their prices often being in thousands of baht, I just knock off a zero and divide by 3.  So 1,200 TB = $40 approximately – easy isn’t it?

Armed with this superior mathematical knowledge, I used her calculator to do a quick calculation of the price of these lovely earrings in Australian dollars.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that they were $55 – a price that I thought was very reasonable and maybe I could splurge just one last time before I go home.

Mim:                                     What do you think Rog.  Can I get them?

Roger:                                   Up to you – it’s your money.

Elegant shop lady:           Sir, you buy for your wife?  They are very beautiful.

Roger:                                   It’s not up to me.  If she wants them, she can have them.

So I said that I will have them.   All the rather complex Thai paying procedure was carried out, during which time elegant shop lady made comments about how they can be heirlooms.  I thought that was a bit over the top but made no comment.  As well as the receipt, I had to wait while a guarantee was prepared – ’impressive!’ I thought,  as I popped it into my handbag, along with the earrings in their little pink bag.

We were driven to the nearest railway station in the shop’s car, for which we were very grateful , given the weary nature of our feet.  After getting off the train, we found ourselves thoroughly confused as to which way we needed to head home.  We tried several alternatives before finally (with both our tempers rising), we asked in a shop and headed to the right intersection.

At the intersection, a man was taking a shot of the many motorbikes lining up to race off when the lights change. I made the comment to him that it is one of my favourite things to photograph in Bangkok. Although I already had such a shot from this trip, I quickly whipped my camera out of my handbag and took this shot too.

At last we reached the apartment, both of us a bit grumpy because we were feeling so wretched with the heat and the fairly long walk.  I had a cool shower and then lay on the couch for a couple of hours.  Rog took no time to flake out under the cool of the airconditioner. 

After eating the delicious lasagne that Noi had cooked for us, Roger flaked out again for another couple of hours.  At some point during this time, I went to my bag to look at my earrings.  To my horror, they were not there!  I turned my handbag inside out and investigated pants pockets and all other possible places, but sure enough, they were gone.  At first I thought that they must have been stolen, but then it dawned on me that they probably popped out of my bag when I pulled out my camera.  They would have probably been on top of the camera strap and flipped out with the strap.

Oh my beautiful earrings.  Gone before I have even worn them!!

With them in a bright pink bag on one of Bangkok’s busiest intersections, I knew it would be  pointless  going back to look for them, now that several hours had passed. 

In a style which is reasonably typical for me, I decided that it would be best to keep this horrific discovery to myself. 

Mim thinks:                        After all, Roger won’t notice that I am not wearing them.  He will have forgotten that we even bought them.  What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

Later Mim thinks:             Maybe I’ll go back to the shop tomorrow and buy another pair.  If I tell them my sad story, they will hopefully give me the discount again.

Feeling very folorn, I headed off to bed, knowing that I would have trouble sleeping.

Mim thinks:                        Those earrings will be equal to about a week’s wages for some Thai person who picks them up.  As Mum would be thinking, I hope that whoever finds them really needs the money.

Then, like a thunderbolt it struck me – I miscalculated the price!!!   I knocked off two zeros instead of one before I did the dividing.  The price was $550 not $55!!!!!

Needless to say, I did very little sleeping that night.  I wanted to get up and double check everything, but I didn’t want to alert Roger to my dreadful mistake and my loss of the earrings I wouldn’t have had in the first place if I hadn’t been so stupid!!!

At some time during the night, I thought of our travel insurance and that eased the pain somewhat.  Hopefully they will be covered.  I determined to check the insurance policy first thing in the morning.  And with that, I managed a few hour’s sleep.

On checking the insurance policy while Roger was in the shower, I read that the loss must be reported to the nearest police station within 24 hours and a copy of a written  police report has to be sent with the claim.  Oh that would be easy to achieve without Roger knowing, in a city in which I have not the foggiest idea about how to even find a police station, let alone communicate my problem to them!! 

Remember that guarantee that I was handed when I purchased the earrings?  In the morning I took it out and read it for the first time.  They were 14 carat gold and had 5 carats of amethyst in them!

By the time Roger was showered and dressed, I had decided that I really had to confess all.  I   forewarned him that he would be really, really, really cross with me, by which time he told me to stop beating around the bush and just get on with it.

I’m relieved to report that Rog wasn’t nearly as cross as I had anticipated.  I am sure he felt just as devastated as I did, but he rose to the occasion and really helped me through the rest of the day, in which I felt quite numb and grief stricken.

At Noi’s suggestion we had Panom drive us to the police station and he came in with me and did the talking.  That was such a help and one for which I am truly grateful.

So now, this is the end of my sad tale.  I have for my $550, a huge new debt on my credit card and a police report all hand written in Thai,  but no amethyst earrings.   The scarves they had there, by the way,  were not the colours I was looking for, so I don’t even have any new scarves.  The shot of the motorbikes, which I will paste below, isn’t even very good.  One that I took earlier is much better than it. 

On relating the tale to Alan, he said that I fell victim to a typical tourist trap.  The friendly lady at the traffic lights will have probably benefitted from my stupidity to the tune of 20% of the $550 and the tuk-tuk driver would also have his 10% cut.  He said though that the gems bought in this way are genuine and of very good quality and true value, so I guess that is one consolation.

 If, some time in the future, you see me wearing some beautiful earrings which match my amethyst ring, you can be sure that they are synthetic amethysts set in  gold plated tin!

                                                                ********************************

Now we are back in Melbourne.  We will be back at home thisafternoon  and my blogging has finished.  A few days ago, when I was feeling a bit chirpier,  I wrote a piece of rhyming verse which I will type out and post later as my very last blog.

Thankyou to all who have followed our travels.  We have had about twenty people following it, although most have emailed rather than post comments on the blog as they had difficulty posting comments. Of course now will come the photo books but they will have to wait for a while as I need to turn my attention to school and TAFE preparation.

We will be interested to see what state Avoca is in.  The floods have not come near our house, although Mo, who has been looking after it, has been quite worried.  She came from England especially to sit for us.  It was her  first trip to Australia and she saw it as a good opportunity to spend some time here.  We prepared her for the unlikely event of bushfire but didn’t dream that we should have prepared her for flood!

Days 40 and 41: Bangkok Part 1

Days 40 and 41:  Thursday, January 20^th and Friday January 21st   P1:  Bangkok description

If you are wondering what happened to Wednesday, so am I.  I think it was eaten up in the plane trip somehow.  All I know for sure is that we left Dordrecht on Tuesday and it is Friday now.

I will run these two days into one blog because after I have described these wonderful surroundings in which we are currently luxuriating, I have one last story to tell and it runs over the two days.

This is my fourth trip to Bangkok and Roger’s second.  From the very first time I was here, I have loved this city, so we knew it would be a great place to relax, unwind and get rid of much of our jetlag.

Many blog readers will know Bangkok well, but some not at all, so I will try to explain it as though I was seeing it for the first time.  In saying that I love it, I am well aware that when I visit here, I have the ultimate benefit of living an ex-pat life for a few days.  I am sure that if we had to go each night to a tiny little house or hotel room without air-conditioning and all the mod cons, I would feel far differently about the city.

Beth and Alan live now in the fourth different place in the ten or so years they have been here.  All have been in much the same area of Bangkok – Sukhumwit.  The streets here are numbered rather than named, so you will maybe get the picture if I say that they lived first in Sukhumwit Soi 33 ( 2 different apartments there), then Sukhumwit Soi 39 and now Sukhumwit Soi 16.  This apartment is as beautiful as the other three – modern and elegant with beautiful timber features.  The floor in this apartment is highly varnished timber – stunning!!   I dare not think that it is probably teak from Thai forests.

The apartment is on the twelfth floor of a high rise block.  It is one of the many high rise buildings in this area and one of the hundreds in Bangkok.  There are beautiful views from every window, each one offering a different aspect of the city.

The gardens inside the walls of the apartment building offer a cool retreat from the tropical muggy heat.  In the latter part of the day, children are often playing on the small lawn under the watchful eye of their nannies.

Now this is the part where I feel like royalty.  If in Alan’s car which is driven up the drive of the apartment block by the driver, Panom, it has to go through a gateway which is opened by a man in uniform (they love uniforms over here).  As the car goes through the gate, the uniformed man salutes!   I just cannot help givinga royal sort of wave at that second – it just seems the natural thing to do!  We had the same treatment today, when Panom dropped us off at Emporium, one of the large shopping centres.  The entrance took us past Gucci, Dior etc and there too was a uniformed man who not only saluted as he opened the door for us but he also clicked his heels and stood to attention!!!

The other lovely luxury is having the services of B&A’s maid, Noi.  She is a woman about my age and she told me yesterday that she leaves home at 6:30am to be here by 9am!  Now that none of the children live here (all are at uni/school in Australia), and Beth spends a lot of her time in Melbourne, Noi really only has Alan to look after.  She speaks English quite well and she cooks a mean lasagne.  I think that over the years, Beth has educated her to cook European food very well.  At Alan’s insistence, we gave Noi our considerable pile of washing to do.  She would have ironed it too, except I couldn’t bring myself to expect her to iron it, so I asked her to just wash it and dry it for us.  We found it when we got up thismorning, all neatly folded for us – what a joy not to have to take home dirty winter clothes.

Now once we reach the front of this apartment block, which I think is occupied entirely by ex-pats from a variety of countries, Bangkok is a very different scene.  Side roads are narrow, with traffic of all sorts tearing up and down.  Main roads are continuously clogged with an unbelievable volume of traffic.  We have come from a proliferation of bicycles in Holland straight to an even greater proliferation of motor bikes in Bangkok.  Add those to the cars, the taxis, the buses and the tuk-tuks (three wheeled motorised taxis), and it is a very scary experience to be on the roads, either driving or walking.   The shot below shows what happens at traffic lights.  As the cars queue up, waiting for the lights to change, the motor bikes come up one by one, to the front of the line.  By the time the lights are green, there are usually about a hundred bikes ready to roar off ahead of the cars.  It is really quite an experience to watch them and one which I love to photograph.

The motorbikes are a particular fascination to me.  Few carry only  one person.    Often there are three or even more.  Today we walked past a man who was putting his children on the bike with him  - the girl about eight behind him and the little toddler on his knee.  None of them wore helmets!  It is common to see a young girl, dressed up for work, complete with stiletto heels sitting side saddle behind the rider.  I have even seen a girl putting on her make-up as she rides along this way.  They carry all sorts of goods on the motor bikes and on other trips I have grabbed some good shots.  Today I saw a fellow who was obviously delivering wreaths to a funeral.  He had two huge wreaths, about a metre in diametre, one over each shoulder.  There he was weaving in and out of the cars.

 Add to the obvious danger of being run over, the danger of the lack of footpath in some sections of  side street and the large chunks of pathway that are either missing or coming away, and you nearly have the full idea of what it is to walk down the street.  Now you need to add the noise, the smells, the heat and the sights and they complete the picture.  The noise is usually that of the roaring traffic.  The smells and the sights belong largely to the street vendors who sell all kinds of wares on the pavement – usually, but not necessarily always, on trestle tables.  Much of this is food, which they cook on the portable stoves which they bring along too.  They set up under umbrellas,  plastic tables and chairs on the footpath.  This is how many, many Thai people eat.  Apparently what they can buy in this way is so cheap that it is not worth their while preparing their own meals.  About now, at the end of the day, all these thousands of street vendors will be packing up their food, their stoves, their plastic bowls in which they wash the dishes, their tables, chairs and umbrellas and they will be loading them onto a hand wheeled cart or onto a cart which is pulled by a bicycle, to store them for the night.  First thing tomorrow, they will be back in the same spot, doing it all again.

Something that is not in the mix this time are the dozens of mangy dogs which I have seen on other trips here.  I think it must be that there has been an effort to get rid of them or at least not allow them around the street vendors.   Beth – can you please fill me in on this?

Blog readers who are unfamiliar with Bangkok may think from my description that it is all shabby, dirty and not at all nice.  Not so.  There are plenty of large shopping complexes which, albeit very westernised, are just lovely to visit: cool, light and airy with many shops which are familiar to us, especially the food outlets such as Starbucks, Burger King and of course good old Maccas.  They also have a good range of other stores including well-priced  department stores and also the usual range of luxury stores which I only walk past.

Well it is past eleven pm now and I need to be up at 5am for our trip to the airport.  I have no time to relate my tale of the last two days, so I will do so while we are waiting for the plane tomorrow.  I will just whet your appetite for yet another of my stories by giving you the title:

A sad tale of scarves, jewellery, tuk tuks and motorbikes

Alternative title:               And she says she teaches maths!

Now if that doesn’t make you tune in to my next blog, nothing will!

Day 39: Dordrecht to Bangkok

Day 39:  Tuesday, January 18^th     Dordrecht to Bangkok

Sadly our last day with Robyn (we said goodbye to Damien last night) and our last day before we begin our homeward journey.

We had arranged to go to Robyn’s school and spend a little time in her classroom at the end of the day.  We did the long suitcase drag –hopefully for the last time – from our B&B to the station at Dordrecht.  Yesterday Robyn had helped us buy tickets and track our route, so all we had to do was to carry it all out. 

Her school is at The Hague – past Delft but not as far as Amsterdam.  It is a long journey for her each day.  She leaves at 6am and isn’t home again until after 7pm and at this time of the year, it is still dark when school starts for the day.  On that note, R&D were telling us that suicide is the most common cause of non-natural death in The Netherlands and the Monday closest to Jan 21 is statistically the day on which most suicides occur. Why?   It’s a Monday for a start.  Christmas and New Year celebrations are over , there is still so much of winter to go,  there has been very little sun for weeks on end and much of the  waking time is spent in darkness.  We in Australia have so much to be grateful for.

So, off we went to The Hague.  We booked our suitcases into lockers at the station, had a very nice lunch  and then walked to Robyn’s school.  We would have to say that we weren’t very excited by The Hague, although Robyn tells us that there are lovely parts of it.  It reminded us of Canberra – very much an administrative city, with mostly office or government buildings.  We walked through a small shopping area but shops certainly didn’t predominate it the part of the city that we saw. There wasn’t  much for me to photograph really, but this ribbed structure through which the tram runs caught my eye.

By arrangement, we arrived at Rob’s school at 2:15.  The school, the name of which I have no idea, is a multi-campus British school.  The campus at which Robyn teaches is the  International campus.  All the teaching is done in English and they (not Robyn) teach  Dutch as a second language.  Rob’s class is equivalent to our Grade 2 and she has 20 children in the class.  One of the things that she likes best about it is that over those twenty children, she has twelve different nationalities.  Most are children whose parents are in the diplomatic corps or who are ex-pats in international businesses.  Her summary is that they are children who lack not much in tangible terms but who could, in many cases do with a bit more family interaction.

We had a delightful time with the children – oh how nice it is to breeze in as the day’s special surprise and to again after half an hour!  We showed them on maps where we live in Australia – (no our house isn’t flooded)  - and where we have travelled.  We answered their questions which Miss Peck had previously vetted for appropriateness – nothing about age, hair or hats!  One little boy, who asked us when we began teaching, was astounded to hear that we began in the year before his dad was born.   I read them “Who Sank the Boat” and then it was pack up time. 

Once the children had gone Rob showed us around her school.  It was quite an eye-opener.  The library of this school for which the parents pay quite considerable fees, is a collection of a few shelves and maybe a couple of hundred books in a foyer area that has been partitioned off to form a library.  Forget comfy bean bags or quiet reading corners – there is room for about three children at a time to sit infront of the shelves on the tiled floor.

Rob showed us the computer lab –there are no computers in the classrooms.  The lab has about a dozen laptops which are about fifteen years old.  She tells us that they take a full 45 minutes to boot up and that when her class has computer after lunch,  she has to start booting them up at the beginning of lunch time.  Next was the art room – for grades 4- 6 only.  Younger grades have only the art that they do with their class teacher.  Rob’s class will be OK because she loves teaching art and took it as her major at uni, but they’re lucky they haven’t got me – art came second only to phys ed in the subjects I avoided like the plague!

From there we went to the playground – a walled concrete area about the size of a narrow house block.  There are a few pieces of climbing equipment, a small court marked out on the ground for ball games and the rest is non-specified space.  That’s it.  No grass, no plants, no shady trees, no shade cloth area, no place to play ‘hidey’.  The childen are given chalk that they are allowed to use to mark or draw on the walls or pavement, but apparently the chalk budget for the year has been spent, so no more chalk for a while.

As you can imagine, all this was a bit of a shock to Robyn’s system initially, but she has become used to it and she really likes the school now.  She is hoping to have the same grade level next year so that she can consolidate/repeat/revise as needed for what will be only her second year of full-time teaching.

Robyn came with us to the airport – another 45 minutes or so by train on from her school.  Although it was sad waving her goodbye, we will see her again at Easter when she and Damien come home for their wedding, so that made it much easier.

Once on our plane, we sat for two hours before take-off.  The delay was firstly because we had to wait for some passengers to come off their flight from Toulouse (where is Toulouse?) and then there was a problem with the oxygen supply in the cabin.  Once the necessary part was fetched to fix this problem, it was discovered that the oxygen was now not suitable for a particular passenger, so he and his two travelling companions had to be off-loaded, along with their luggage which had to be found in the luggage hold.

Having arrived at Bangkok, we were in a queue for an hour getting through immigration.  There would have been easily a thousand people waiting to be processed and we inched our way to the front over a space of about thirty metres.  Of course the fact that we were still in heavy winter clothes in order to keep the weight in our suitcases down, didn’t help at all.

At last we met up with Panom, Alan’s driver, who had been waiting at the airport for us for hours.  It was great to be driven door to door for a change.  Panom was meant to be returning to the airport with Alan who was flying to Hong Kong, but because of our dely, Alan had to get a taxi.   Noi, Beth and Alan’s maid, was still there when we arrived at the apartment.  I had met both Panom and Noi when I visited in 2006, so it was good to see them again.

Description of our tiny ex-pat experience I will leave until the next blog.  Suffice to say that it will be very easy to take being treated like royalty for a couple of days!

After  enjoying the meal Noi had prepared for us, we went for a massage at the place where Alan goes on a regular basis.  This was an experience and a half, especially for Roger who had not experienced Thai massage before.  However, believing it will be good for his injured shoulder, we booked ourselves in. 

When I have had a Thai massage before, Beth has been with me and she has done the talking and guided me through it.  Not so this time as Beth is in Melbourne, so it was just Roger and me.  We indicated on the price list that was presented to us that we would both have a half hour massage and mostly through gesture, we indicated that it was our shoulder area that we wanted massaging.  I was a bit sorry that it wasn’t going  to include a foot massage because I had remembered how wonderful they are.  However, the owner/manager of the place was able to speak a bit of English and he told us that they would massage our necks, shoulders and backs, so that sounded more essential.

We were shown upstairs by a young Thai woman who was evidently appointed to look after us.  She told us through gesture to sit down and remove our shoes which she put in a cupboard.  Then she and another woman came with bowls of warm soapy water and washed and dried our feet.  We put on the scuffs that they provided for us and then followed them up more stairs and into a room with two couches.  They indicated for us to lie back on the couches and then they proceeded to give us the most wonderful foot massage.  First came the right foot, which, after ten minutes of pummelling, pushing, prodding and pampering was ceremoniously wrapped in a towel.  Then it was time for the left foot – more of the same but this took longer and I began to wonder when in the half hour, which was fast being eaten away, would they start on our shoulders.   All this was with dimmed lights and beautiful relaxing music.  If Roger hadn’t been laughing occcasionally from his feet being ticklish, I would have easily drifted off to sleep.

Just after the half hour mark, another girl appeared  at the door, crawling into the doorway so as to not disturb the atmosphere.  There was discussion between her and the two massaging girls – obviously there had been a commnication breakdown between the manager and the girls.  They managed to tell us that they thought they were to give us a one and a half hour foot massage!  When we explained that we were expecting a shoulder massage, off came the towels quick smart, a quick towelling off of the lovely massage oil and they told us to sit up.  They did five minutes or so on our shoulders and then indicated that it ws over.

As we were getting ready to retrieve our shoes and leave, the manager came to us and said that if we wanted the full back and shoulder massage still we could have it.  When we agreed, there was a bit of discussion between him and the girls who clearly were not pleased, but they graciously led us to yet another area and pummelled away at our backs, necks and shoulders for another twenty-five minutes.  Then it was back to our shoes, a cup of tea brought to us and they ushered us away with all the Thai grace and beauty that I love so much.  We have booked in for another massage on Friday night – a full hour this time!

Day 38: Dordrecht Day 3 - now with photos

Day 38:  Dordrecht  Day 3,  Monday  January 17^th

Happy birthday Beth – although by the time you read this, it will be well past your birthday.  I spoke to Beth on Skye just as it was turning over to her birthday in Australia, so I know she had a few pleasaant but low-key things planned.

We spent the day in Amsterdam, taking off at about 10am.  It’s really quite strange because to get places here, you seem to have to travel through several large cities – all by train of course, because not many people own cars.  So, to get to Amsterdam from Dordrecht, it was a journey of just over an hour in total, which we broke up with a visit to the city of Delft – of beautiful china fame.

We loved Delft.  It is nicknamed the city of spires and indeed there certainly are many.  Like all Dutch cities and villages, canals abound and those in Delft are lined with houses of various architectural styles.  We hadn’t realise just how prevalent the canals are – just as much as in Venice really, with the difference being that they are laid out in a more organised way and the streets between the canals are not narrow little laneways. 

 

We mainly aspired to purchase a small piece of Delft china, which we knew would have to be small because the price was sure to be large.  We went to one of the last three factories producing Delft china and were pleased to be able to see two painters at their work.  It is the particular painting style and colour which gives Delft china its distinctive quality.  The lady we saw at work explained that each of the factories  has their own distinctive patterns and they each have a slightly different version of the famous blue which they use for most of their work.  We found a very lovely small vase withing our price range so ith great pleasure purchased it and a small bell for the Chistmas tree.

Our walk back to the station took us past a church which has a lean of a full two metres from the ground to the top of its spire.  This took Roger’s fancy greatly and he took delight in finding the many dimensions on which this church fails the right-angle test.  I imagine this is a result of the non-solid subsoil on which Holland is built, but at least for the moment they don’t seem concerned that this church will fall over.

We were back on the train and off to Amsterdam, where our first stop was Anne Frank’s house.  What a wonderful and moving experience it was to see the house which became the subject of one of the best known and most poignant stories to come out of World War 11. No doubt all will be aware of the story of the two families and one single man, all of whom were Jewish, who hid from the Nazis for more than two years in the ‘secret annexe’ of a Jam warehouse in Amsterdam.  The young teenage  daughter , Anne, diarised the experience in such a well written and well considered form that her father was successful in having it published after the war, when he, the only survivor of the group, returned to Holland.  The family was discovered, probably as a result of the Gestapo being tipped off, and they were all sent to concentration camps.  Anne, her mother and her sister were all taken to Auschwitz  and later the sisters to Bergen-Belsen.  All three died of starvation and disease,  tragically the two sisters within a few weeks of the liberation in 1945.

The house in which the group hid was, in 1960, turned into a museum and this has now expanded to occupy not only the house but the three adjoining buildings along one of the canals in Amsterdam.  It is an excellent portrayal of the 761 days spent in hiding: the actual rooms they lived in, a scale model of how the rooms were furnished, short video clip anecdotes from some of those who helped to hide them,  items that were smuggled in to help the family survive, Anne’s actual diary and copies of the book in the seventy or so languages into which it has been translated.  It has all been very sensitively done.  Unfortunately, no photography was allowed, so I will be relying on postcards for my photos of it.

From chalk to cheese, we then walked to Amsterdam’s famous red light district.  This was quite an eye-opener!  I  had not previously  been aware that this is a red –light district with a difference:  the ladies of the night are not standing on street corners but parade themselves like living dress dummies in shop windows!  Even more astounding to learn is that the buildings in which they rent the ground floor as their ‘work places’ are owned and occupied on the other floors by regular Amsterdam families.  As we strolled past, looking with interest but certainly not lingering longer than necessary, we could see that commonly, a premises is occupied by two or maybe three women.  They have the window divided up into little cubicles and each girl stands in her cubicle until, I guess, someone indicates to her that he wants to engage her services.  While standing there, the women were doing a variety of things: some were adopting provocative poses but others were filing their nails, talking or texting on their phones, reading or just looking plain bored.  We could see that the area behind the cubicles seemed to contain futon type beds, but whether or not they are individually partitioned or screened will to us remain a mystery. During our stroll, from time to time, we saw a man come out of a ‘shop’.  In one case, at exactly the same time as he walked through the door, the girl was walking straight back to her window!

Robyn had given me a severe talking to about bringing out my camera and I was certainly not going to take too many risks in doing so.  However, as we walked along one of the canals which define the red-light district, some swans swimming in the canal looked so beautiful that I was compelled to bring out my camera.  While Robyn held her breath and crossed her fingers hard, I caught this lovely image, with the red reflections in the water being of course fromthe girls’ red lights.

It was an hour and a half before we were back at R&D’s again for our last dinner with them.   I had a preview of the work Robyn has done so far on her wedding dress.

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We have now arrived in Bangkok so I will post this for now and add photos later – we’re off to get a Thai massage.

Day 37: Dordrecht Day 2

Day 37:  Dordrecht  Day 2,  Sunday  January 16^th

With Roger’s shoulder feeling very bad, we took the early part of the day to just relax at Rob and Damien’s place while they went out for lunch.  Roger pretty much slept until 4:15.  We considered having  it X-rayed but decided that there wasn’t much use, because even it he has something broken, all he can do is rest it.   So we have fashioned a sling for him out of one of my scarves and that has helped him to rest his arm.   We think that he has probably torn ligaments or something similar.

About mid afternoon, Robyn and I went for a walk around their area of Dordrecht.  This gave me a chance to see the harbour of this city which is the oldest city in Holland.  The old gates from the harbour, dated 1418 are quite a feature, as are the colourful houses and the considerable number of house boats that line the harbour.  It was a lovely sunny afternoon and many people were out walking or riding bikes.

I haven’t yet mentioned the bikes here (apart from those that caused us grief).  They are just everywhere and everyone seems to ride them or to walk.  The area where R&D’s apartment is is the centre of Dordrecht and this area is restricted to vehicles, so people simply don’t own cars.  Robyn and Damien have swapped their Melbourne vehicle fleet of two cars and a motorbike to now owning three bicycles.  One bike does Damien for his ten minute trip to work.  Robyn has two bikes – one here and one in the Hague where her school is.  She rides down to the station where she locks up her bike.  Then, after the 45 minute train trip to The Hague, she unlocks her Hague bike, which is locked up at the station along with hundreds of other bikes and she rides to her school – about a ten minute ride.

It is quite common to see a bicycle just sitting in the street, not chained up to anything.  After we had passed one of these at about 11pm on the first night we were here, we asked Robyn and Damien if that was common.  They confirmed that it is and said that there is a sort of unwritten honesty code regarding bikes here.  If the bike is worth more than 100 euro, the understanding is that one probably shouldn’t pinch it.  However, anything of lesser value is really fair game and the owners of these bikes really don’t expect to have them long term.

After our walk, we all then set off for Rotterdam where we had booked on the ‘pancake boat’.  This is a one hour cruise on Rotterdam’s harbour.  Pancakes, both savoury and sweet are served on an ‘all you can eat’ basis – Roger heaven!!  It was about twenty minutes on the train to Rotterdam, which is a city with some wonderful contemporary architecture.  It was completely bombed during the war and so doesn’t have the wonderful old buildings.   There are many hastily built post war buildings which are really very ordinary, but these new ones are quite spectacular in design.

The pancake boat was great.  We had wonderful views of the harbour and its lights, including a wonderful bridge which is quite famous but which I cannot remember the name of.  There were quite a few children on board and after they had eaten, they found their way to the bottom deck of the ship which has been completely filled in with a huge ball pit.  I can imagine that this one hour cruise would be a great kids’party favourite.

Tomorrow we are going to Amsterdam.  We will stop for an hour or so at Delft on the way.  We have booked in to Anne Frank’s house in the afternoon.  We are planning to see the famous red light district in both daylight and early evening because R&D say that it is worth seeing for the beauty of the area in the day and the interst of the area by night.

Day 36: Dordrecht Day 1

Day 36:  Dordrecht  Day 1,  Saturday  January 15^th

After our sumptuous breakfast, for which our host brought in an array of yoghurt, fruit, meats, cheeses, boiled eggs, bread rolls, six varieties of other breads, freshly squeezed orange juice and coffee!!!!  (you can be sure we only did justice to some of it), we indulged in the luxury of going back to bed for a couple of hours. 

We met Robyn and Damien at their house at 12.30.   They had hired bikes for us so that we could all go to Kinderdyke, the area not far from Dordrecht which has nineteen windmills still standing.  These date back to the 1700’s, when their purpose was to pump water from the fields and channel it into the dykes which in turn flowed into the river. It’s all done mechanically now of course, so probably in years to come, windmills will only be a memory for Holland.  These ones are famous because there are so many of them together and because they are still being lived in and maintained – another of the many UNESCO Heritage projects that we have seen on our travels.

The trip involved a ten minute bike ride through the cobbled streets of Dordrecht, a twenty minute ferry trip and then a 4km ride to the area of the windmills.  Now most will remember that Roger and exercise don’t really mix well:  his tennis comeback in 2010 caused him to break his shoulder blade in three places.  Well we don’t think it is quite so bad this time, but  he has certainly quite badly injured his other shoulder – not to mention his ego.

We were riding down a gentle hill, going around a curve with quite a strong wind buffeting the bikes around.  Rog doesn’t really know what happened, but he remembers heading into a lamp post and down he went.  By the time I was able to get off my bike and get to him, he was on the ground groaning about pain in his shoulder.  A man driving a van pulled up immediately and a lady came out of her house.  They offered to call an ambulance but after a while we got Roger sitting up and he seemed to be OK and able to move his arm, so we decided the ambulance wasn’t necessary.  The lady took us all into her house for a cup of tea, during which time the colour returned to Roger’s face and he decided to try to continue the journey.

The rest of the trip turned out to be fine, with Roger able to ride OK without too much pain.  The windmills were very interesting and we were able to go inside one which has been set up to show how people used to live in them.  We were astounded to see a photograph of a family with about twelve children – most of them teenagers, who obviously used to live in it.  Goodness they would have been cramped!

It was dark by the time we got back to the house.   Rob and Damo’s friends Jeremy and Juni were coming for dinner, along with Jeremy’s parents who are visiting.   It was nice to do something normal like peel potatoes and make an apple crumble.  We had a good chat with Jeremy's parents who live in Woodend and who were also travelling in England last week.  By coincidence it happened that we were all on the same flights from Bristol to Amsterdam.

By this time Roger’s shoulder was really starting to stiffen up and to be in considerable pain. He dosed up with Panadol and I rubbed Tigerbalm into it, both of which helped hime to sleep.