Good news bad news. That was the recurring theme as we set off. Having finished our chores and getting excited about starting the trip we then had the anguish of having our final return flight cancelled at the last minute. Then it was the euphoria of finally getting to Spain to see Clive and Karen’s villa to the embarrassment of finding that the hotel we booked for us all on the way to Madrid was infested with cockroaches....hey, life does have its ups and downs!
We were just about to head off to Spain via Gloucester and London when we were casually informed via text that British Airways had cancelled our return flight in April. Obviously the route from Chengdu was not profitable so it was closed indefinitely. After several frustrating calls to BA, when all we got was ‘you can always get a refund’, we did some homework on our rights and finally got some sense so we have been rerouted from Chengdu back via Hong Kong. The silver lining here is that we are flying back with Cathay Pacific which, for those of you who don’t know, must be one of the most expensive airlines on the planet. We are expecting something very special especially as the two seats we have been allocated would cost £5500 if you wanted to book them direct with C. P. Splurgetastic. There’s also another silver lining to this story – we get around 2hrs to make the most of the C.P. Business Lounge in Hong Kong –result!
Logistics sorted we set off to Gloucester to see Roy and June and leave the car before heading off to London so stay with Alex and Freddy for a few days. Over the weekend we met Bill & Sue for lunch and finally got to meet Freddy’s parents over a lovely meal at the Hospital Club. Then it was off to Gatwick for our flight to Spain to visit Clive & Karen and to see their new home, a hillside villa in the village of Alcalali which is about 20km inland from Denia. It is lovely, with great views and a superb pool. They’ve settled in well – lots of new friends from various parts of Europe, taking Spanish lessons, joining the Harley Club, Zumba, golf and a little bit of DIY.
For some reason Cheryl has been attracted to tacky places and after the excitement of Grimsby and Skegness last summer she obviously wanted to go to Benidorm so C&K took us on a day trip. We think we found the Solana and have to admit it wasn’t as bad as we had expected, and even had some pleasant bits. Yes, it did have some pretty horrific visitors, and a number of perma-tanned geriatrics on mobility scooters, but, in the main, it wasn’t as gross as we anticipated –shame really but of course, it was out of season!
We had a wine tasting at a local Bodega in a nearby village which was great fun and fantastic value plus it converted us to Spanish wine which, until now, we have limited to Rioja – it was a revelation.
The four of us then set off to Madrid which included an overnight stop in the forgettable town of La Roda. We had booked a hotel based upon the reviews and the price only for Clive and Karen to walk into their room and find a cockroach to welcome them – we left, quick! The silver lining was that the alternative hotel we had originally looked at was so much nicer and didn’t cost very much more.
Madrid is spectacular and the apartment we booked was stunning (phew, as after the booking we made in la Roda we were getting worried about the booking we made in Madrid). It was less than 5 minutes walk from the Royal Palace, had 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, kitchen and living space – the real silver lining was it cost us £40/night per couple – a steal! We hit the Changing of the Guard at the Royal Palace spot on – the 1st Wednesday in the month. We also exploited the free entry for EU citizens after 4pm and enjoyed looking around the opulence of the interior. We finished up in the superb armoury admiring the full sets even for the horses when suddenly the alarm went off. Yes, you guessed it, there is always one, and it was Neil pointing at a strange piece of metal on the armour and piercing the infra red beam across the display at the same time....ooops. We also enjoyed the dining in Madrid which was excellent and amazingly cheap at around £10 for a lunch comprising a starter, main, desert, bread, an alcoholic drink and a superb setting of The Plaza Major.........we highly recommend Madrid if you fancy a city break. If you do come, then you must do the very touristy 15 Euro guided tour on a segway........what a great way to see the city and have a ball in the process.
The weather in Spain was pleasant at around 23C in Alcalali and 20C in Madrid. It was a bit of shock to backtrack to Bristol to endure a high of 8C and a low of 2C. However, it was to attend the wedding of the year, Paul and Miranda, and it went off brilliantly. Of course despite our meticulous planning and buying of formal wedding outfits there was a last minute crisis. The day before the wedding Neil was just about to polish his shoes when they literally fell apart in his hands......damn.......more bl**dy shopping!
We agreed on a schedule to get us all showered and ready to go on time. Neil said he would make the early morning tea and set his alarm on his phone. He forgot one thing – his phone mysteriously thought it was in another time zone so we were woken at 5.30am!! Despite the very early start we had a superb day with the kick off in the very intimate registry office in Bath Guildhall, followed by a delightful lunch at The Pig and all topped off with a party at The Manor in Keynsham which was attended by more friends and family. The Pig is set in an old manor house where we were able to really enjoy a season that we usually miss – autumn. We do miss the seasons by travelling so much so it was particularly nice to see the colours of the trees as they change for winter. Unfortunately we enjoyed ourselves so much we forgot about taking a lot of pictures so you will have to wait for the official pics to see just how posh we looked.
Wedding over, waking up to the first frost of the season – hey, time to get on a plane! Posh clothes packed away next day armed with our full rucksacks we backtracked to Madrid to catch our flight to Goa and warmth..........watch out for the next instalment.
Never could you imagine how eventful life can get in just a couple of days.
There was nothing eventful about the backtracking flight from Bristol back to Madrid after the wedding. The Crowne Plaza Hotel at Madrid airport was just as expected. The flight from Madrid and our connection at Heathrow was slick. In fact, our splurge was mighty comfortable as we had our own little pod in the centre of the plane. The food was excellent and the drinks plentiful and the staff even gave us some miniatures and snacks to take off the plane for our wait in Mumbai for the uneventful flight with Jet Airways to Goa.
But, and here’s the but........just before the BA flight landed at Mumbai one of the flight crew told Neil that his rucksack didn’t make it onto the plane. He was chilled about it having had plenty of fine wines and port with his cheese. When we arrived the ground crew were very helpful saying that the bag would arrive on the same flight next day, flown to Goa and would be delivered to our door within 72hrs. Neil was still chilled at this point as there wasn’t any point in getting angry....it wouldn’t make it arrive any faster, it wasn’t the ground crew’s fault in Mumbai and, anyway, all he needed to do was to buy a couple of T-shirts for the beach........72hrs would fly by! As savvy travellers we normally split our clothes so that if a bag does go missing we are covered. We didn’t this time and Neil knew that he was going to regret it.......Cheryl’s pants were going to chafe a bit!
We got money from the ATM at Mumbai, headed for our connection to Goa, hassled for a taxi to Benaulim and our swanky 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom town house that overlooks the pool at the front and the paddies at the back. The house was very clean by Indian standards so we headed off to get breakfast and some wifi to let family know we were OK. We started to meet old friends, had a delicious dinner at our favourite curry house, C5, and slept soundly that night.
We woke up to find that Trump had trumped Clinton – how did that happen? We then discovered that India had trumped Trump in terms of shock breaking news. Whilst we were asleep, at midnight, the Indian Prime Minister announced that all 500 and 1000 rupee notes (the equivalent of £5 and £10 notes) were ‘history’! This was aimed at reducing the amount of ‘black money’ in the economy which was earned by corruption, terrorism, counterfeiting and money laundering. It was also intended to make a cash driven economy, where hardly any taxes are paid and incomes are hidden (less than 1% of the population pay tax), into a modern accountable society where salaries are paid into bank accounts and transactions are auditable via electronic payments. The 500 and 1000 notes are about 86% of the currency in circulation so we knew that this was going to be mayhem!
So, it was a S**t moment with a capital S. We had a wallet full of useless Ghandi emblazoned toilet paper taken from the ATM in Mumbai. No problem, the Times of India and the BBC news said that we could get them changed into the new 2000 and 500 notes at any bank at the rate of 4000R/day....but only in 2 days time as the banks were closed so that they could prepare for the onslaught......... and onslaught it was. The official announcement also assured that you could get 2000 each day at the ATMs, about £25, so all we could do was wait until the banks and ATMs re opened.
Fortunately, many restaurant owners who knew us kindly offered us credit and most were still taking old money even though it was technically illegal. We heard that the new 2000 rupee notes that had been promised had arrived on day 3 and we managed to change 4000R each at the local bank after queuing for about 30 minutes, not so bad we thought. Next day we headed off to the nearest large town, Margao, thinking it would be easy if we went to the ICICI Bank where Cheryl had an account. Although it was as crowded as Wembley on Cup Final day we were ushered through and told to go upstairs. The ATM had no money so we asked for some money from the account using the debit card and we were told that we needed to write a cheque! Who has a cheque book these days?.....we certainly don’t. ‘No cheque book, no money’! All the other banks and ATMs either had massive queues or none at all which meant that they had no money. By now we were losing our sense of humour and decided to get the bus back to Benaulim for a beer and some lunch to catch up with other people’s stories.
Then we hit on the ruse that if we exchanged sterling and dollars for old notes at the money changer we could get lots of new money just by getting to the bank early each day and queuing. It was important we got new money as Neil’s sister June and her friend Barbara were arriving very soon and would need currency to go on their 5 day trip to Kerala and their 7 day trip to Rajasthan. Next day we went back and we queued again only to be told that as we had changed money the day before we would have to wait another 15 days. ‘What the ****’! ‘The Government said we could change money every day’. We were again told ‘no’. Knowing that bank systems here don’t talk to each other we went around the corner to another bank and queued yet again for 40 minutes. We were then asked if we had a receipt. ‘No, we got it from an ATM’ we lied. He replied, ‘I’ve just had a phone call from H.O. and no receipt means no new money’. Damn, we had just exchanged $100 and suddenly we were lumbered with old money we couldn’t change. So, we headed back to the money changer to get a receipt. At this point we were getting hot and bothered and didn’t fancy queuing yet again so we headed off for a beer and some lunch. Hey, what the heck, all our favourite restaurants were giving us tick and/or taking old money and we came here to relax not stand in queues. Can you see a pattern forming here? – queues, frustration, empty banks & ATMs followed by a beer and some lunch!
Next day we headed off to Colva which is bigger than Benaulim but is smaller than Margao. All the banks and ATMs were empty so we decided to get the bus back. As the bus went past one of the banks we had tried earlier, Neil spotted a queue at an ATM. We were learning fast, a queue at the ATM means money in the machine. We stopped the bus and leapt off to join it. Then Neil had the idea that if the ATM had money then the bank probably had money.
Cheryl queued in the sun for the ATM and Neil headed into the bank. There was no queue inside so he wasn’t hopeful but, bingo, ‘yes you can change money’. The night before the Government announced that the withdrawal limit at ATMs had gone up to 2500R but not at this bank....the stern bank official (she looked like Hattie Jacques in a sari) overlooking the withdrawals said 2000R only so Cheryl didn’t dare argue. Anyway, 2000 was better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick and inside the bank we were getting 5000Rs of old notes changed not 4000Rs......we didn’t know why but by now we had come to the conclusion that despite the Government announcements all the banks were operating by different rules – hey, welcome to India! Then the nice but incompetent lady announced that Cheryl could only have 4500Rs. ‘Why’? We asked. ‘It’s because she has an OCI visa’ - that’s an Overseas Citizen of India. ‘But she’s NOT a Citizen of India, she was born in the UK and has a UK passport’. She was having none of it so we didn’t argue. About 1.5hrs later she told us to go upstairs to collect our money. For this 1.5hrs all she had to do was get us to fill in the exchange form and for her to check and copy our passports, money change receipt, visa and entry stamp, get us to sign each copy and then she had to stamp them and sign them herself. Hence, the ‘incompetent’ label......1.5hrs for something that should have taken 10 minutes! Upstairs we were told that despite what we had been told downstairs the system would not allow Neil to have 5000Rs only 4500....the same as Cheryl but we didn’t argue. The whole process took us more than 2hrs! We also had a serious sense of humour bypass by the end of it but couldn’t show any signs of frustration in case they said no money. Hey ho, we’d missed lunch but we headed back to Benaulim for a beer and a chat and to tell people we had won the lottery!
You had all forgotten about Neil’s bag, hadn’t you? Ha, well to cut a long story short it didn’t arrive in 72hrs, it arrived in Goa in 4 days. Despite being told by the ground crew in Mumbai, the customer service staff on the telephone and the many emails telling him of the status he was finally told that he would have to go to Goa airport to collect it. ‘How can I collect it, I have no money, the ATMs are all empty, how can I pay for a taxi’? After several phone calls, buckets of frustration and pointless blood boiling he gave up and we were lucky to get the lovely neighbours that we met last year to take him to the airport to collect his bag.......finally a result for everyone as frankly he was beginning to pong a bit!
We’re now 2 weeks into our trip and whilst Neil has his rucksack the complaint to BA remains open and we’ve heard nothing about his claim for out of pocket expenses. The money crisis continues unabated with ATMs and banks, in the main, empty. Whilst the withdrawal of the large notes was a bold move the logistics behind getting the new money into the system has been, well, typically Indian.........pretty incompetent and needlessly bureaucratic. The first note to be issued was the 2000 (and we have yet to see a new 500) so no one wanted to take one as pretty soon there was a shortage of 100R notes for change. The ATMs need recalibration so for now can only take 100R notes so are quickly emptied once they are re-stocked and restocking is very hit and miss as they haven’t organised enough security staff to deliver the cash. The Finance Minister has made a comment that recalibrating the ATMs will take several weeks so things aren’t going to improve until after Christmas at best.
Tourists have been left high and dry with many unable to spend or change the amounts they exchanged at the start of their holidays. Some new arrivals haven’t been able to get any rupees at all. The only option for tourists who didn’t bring a debit card, or when the ATMs are dry, is to change $, £ etc into old notes at a money changer and queue up at the bank to change 4000R into new notes. The money changers occasionally have new notes so we are changing sterling and dollars but only in dribs and drabs of £10 on a normal day or £50 on a good day. They still have old notes which we still take but we are being cautious with this as, for sure, very soon businesses will not be able to bank the old money so we only get enough for one or two days at a time. Despite it being illegal to use old money, if it hadn’t continued we’re pretty sure that India would, by now, be in a state of anarchy with pitched battles at all banks and ATMs.
All in all it has been an interesting experience despite the frustrations. It’s a strange feeling to have money but not be able to get your hands on it. It’s a really strange feeling to be given credit from people who can only dream about having even half as much money as we do....it’s extremely humbling. We get excited when the ATM makes that satisfying whirring noise which means money is on its way. It’s just like seeing 3 cherries on a slot machine and you jump for joy at getting your daily allowance of £25! We even got a couple of bread parcels from our lovely Indian neighbours.
We’ve been coming to India for a long time now.......so long that nothing really surprises us, it’s just Incredible India. However, this time it’s very, very different. The Government changes the rules almost daily as the owners of the ‘black money’ discover loopholes in the Governments ill thought out master plan. Then the banks respond to the rule changes by operating different rules to each other so nobody has a clue what’s going on.........this is India on Acid!
What’s on your top ten of things you really should not do? Now, that’s got you all thinking hasn’t it but, sorry, you’ll just have to read the rest of the blog to find out what this is about!
The cash crisis is still with us and is unlikely to get much better before we leave in February. Not letting this get us down we’re enjoying being back here again especially our first morning chorus. Our body clocks were not quite back to normal so we both woke early on our first day here. We sat in bed with a mug of tea and watched the sun rise and listened to the birds, monkeys, buffalo, pigs, firecrackers, the distant sound of the train and the church bells and the singing at morning mass – it’s absolutely fantastic to be back and who cares if we have no money. The rent was paid in the UK and we could both do with losing a bit of weight.
This year we’ve rented a 3 bedroom town house with balconies at the front overlooking the swimming pool and at the back the paddies. It’s in the same development we’ve stayed in for the last 2 years so we’re beginning to get to know more and more people. The advantage is we can have people to stay and Neil’s sister June and best friend Barbs were due to arrive just a few days after us. We got on with planning the rest of their trip and working out how they could pay for things without a wad of cash in their purses. We took them on a boat trip to see dolphins and eat gorgeous garlic prawns and kingfish plus plenty of G&T. They enjoyed time on the beach and Barbs found time to apply some much needed first aid to Neil who slipped in the shower and managed to slash his wrist on the edge of some tiles. Then they were off for 6 nights on their own for their trip on the overnight train to Kerala including the backwaters and tea estates. They had a ball, ate too much and came back with lots of goodies like strawberry jam for us to devour.
They arrived back at midday to find Cheryl banging and crashing about as she swept the stairs and June quietly asked Neil why was Cheryl cleaning today? This was just as he spotted it on the calendar whilst closing down the computer. That was an almighty ‘oh sh*t’ moment – yes readers, he had forgotten Cheryl’s birthday! His mitigating circumstances were concentrating on making sure we all had enough cash to get by plus ensuring that June and Barbs got back from Kerala OK. It had completely slipped his mind – ‘oh sh*t, oh f**k, oh b**llocks, Neil you’ve really gone and done it this time you pillock’! So, blunt rusty knife in one hand, balls ready on a plate in the other hand ready to be surgically removed he went upstairs to beg for mercy. Fortunately for him whilst this was a gargantuan error of judgement Cheryl decided it didn’t warrant the removal of his precious gonads..........but it came pretty close. Keen to make amends, Neil quickly ordered a taxi and we went off to Martin’s Corner for cocktails, a long lunch and a relaxing walk back down the beach just in time for sundowners. Cheryl mellowed a little after her fourth Margarita.
We had more beach time for June and Barbs, a final candlelit dinner on the beach of lots more fish and prawns before they headed off to Rajasthan. We had planned them a trip to visit Udaipur, Jaipur, Fatepur Sikri, Agra and then finally to Delhi. Our plans went like clockwork until they had one of India’s famous experiences – the late train! The final leg of their journey was from Agra to Delhi which normally would take 3hrs.......their journey was 3hrs but unfortunately the train was over 5hrs late arriving to pick them up.....ho hum! Anyway, they finally got there and had a good time exploring its many sights – J&B it was great to have you stay and we’re already planning your trip for next year!!
Everyone here is always looking for different things to do and, mostly, they tend to include alcohol. That’s why the boat trips are always a winner, we had yet another one, and why the wine tasting that Sue and Andy arranged was oversubscribed. It was a great afternoon sampling a number of Indian wines, nibbling on all sorts of goodies and then carrying on into the evening. Some of the wines were reasonable, some ok and two bottles were only fit for pouring down the drain! In between all of this we’ve managed to cram in some beachtime where we just read, swim, eat and watch the activity on the beach.
Now, who wants to come to Goa? We have lots of space and we’re here until February 8th. We have also secured the house again for November, December and January 2017-18 so if anybody wants to come and visit we have 2 spare rooms. C&N’s Best Exotic Tours can also put together a tailor made package to suit your requirements!
We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year wherever you are in the world. Have a great festive season whether it be in the snow, rain, slush or a BBQ on the beach.
Hey, now don’t we scrub up well when we make an effort?! We got the pictures taken of us at Paul and Miranda’s wedding. Neil dressed in his suit with collar and tie and Cheryl looking absolutely fabulous - we could pass for a real celebrity couple on the social circuit.
Sadly, we must report the passing on of Cheryl’s cat Bruno. After 17 glorious years he finally succumbed to old age. We know it’s not of much interest to most of you but for us he was a gem.......even Neil was a tad choked when we heard. After we started travelling 9 years ago Neil’s son took him on and then when he moved out of the house after 4 years a neighbour and her family adopted him and gave him a loving home for his final few years. We didn’t come across anybody who didn’t find a small slot in their heart’s for him......he was such a loving and amusing cat.
It’s been the usual build to Christmas and New Year with a social calendar befitting anybody famous. The pictures tell it all but in summary we had a superb lunch with Priti and Aditya our neighbours in Micon who came to Neil’s rescue when British Airways lost his bag. Hopefully we’ll be seeing them in the UK during the summer as Aditya passes through on his Triumph Bonneville during his round the world trip.
Then it was the obligatory Santa Special on the dolphin boat – 32 people in the party. Hugh was magnificent as Santa as you saw from our previous post and it all got very messy when some in the party started to moon at another boat! Neil didn’t start it but he’s easily led! It was a fantastic day with superb food, great company and maybe one or two drinks, followed by a lot more drinks.
Our calendar took a slight deflection as we went for drinks one evening with a new neighbour, Niloufer, and her friends from Bombay (that’s what they call it and for this blog entry so will we!). It was such a laugh and they also had friends from Quebec who brought some superb Canadian Gin made from a recipe originating from the Inuits. One of the party was a very striking 6ft girl of 15 years old who is studying music. Her and her mum gave us an impromptu Christmas Carol concert in French..........some people get camera envy, some phone envy but for us it’s voice envy........they were just so harmonious!
Talking of envy, we’re about to give you Christmas Day envy. We had the day on the beach and Francis cooked us a delicious lunch of fish and huge tiger prawns all washed down with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc......just take a look at the pictures if you dare!! We had amazing quality Skype calls with our children and family, the video was the best ever, and then it was cocktails with friends at sunset. Finally, we made our way home, showered and had yet another bottle, this time a slinky Zinfandel Red, to go with our blue cheese pizza at our favourite Italian.....sorry readers but you should really come and experience our Christmas day to fully appreciate just how good it is.
Then, of course, we had the traditional New Year party at Rex’s beach shack. No photos as we decided to travel out very light – money to pay the bill (and we didn’t take enough) plus the key to get back in. The fireworks started at 11.50 and went on with such vigour until 12.15. We paddled in the sea to look down the beach in both directions and the sky was ablaze with fireworks for as far as we could see......who needs Sydney Harbour Bridge? What a great night, staggered home at 4am with Cheryl hiccupping all the way, and now Neil is nursing very sore calves from too much dancing to Madness and Cheryl is nursing a delicate head after far too many G&T’s.
The Goans love to party too and they make us look like real amateurs. We left the beach at 3.30am and having been to Mass they were just arriving in their stunning suits and party frocks. We’re typing this at 11.30 am and we can still hear fire crackers going off and the local church is playing Konkani music that can be heard for miles around.......do the Goans never go to bed?
We hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year celebration, today is New Years day and we’re having a very lazy day at home in the cool but we’ll be back on the beach tomorrow!
Here we go again, another thing to **** the tourists off – will India never learn? Please read on about Government edicts, elections, police interpretation, curfews, corruption, rules that are just not enforceable and the public’s ingenuity at getting over ‘totally inept government’.
Now, here’s a question. Is our favourite beach shack becoming like Benidorm? There are many characters who frequent the shack during our three month stay, some more colourful than others. Most are quiet couples who like to chat a little but mainly enjoy reading and the tranquillity of our usually uncrowded and haphazard shack. This year we have our first transgender, a lovely person from Dublin called ‘Sean or Heather’. Heather has a lovely selection of bikinis and dresses and, as you might expect for a Barrister, a great sense of humour. Sometimes the overall effect of the delicate outfits is spoiled a little when Heather sits puffing on a very large cigar! We have a bag lady – well she turns up with plastic bags on her feet then heads down to the sands to top up her mahogany tan. Let’s not forget ‘Frenchy’ a very elegant high maintenance lady with a delightful sing song French accent and her gentleman friend ‘Swede’ who are a couple in their 70’s who use English as their common language. He starts at 10am with a beer before they both hit the vodkas and they openly bicker like there’s no tomorrow.
Then we have the ones we are less keen on. We have the German ‘dog feeders’ that are also the last of the big spenders. They sit at a table and read for about 3hrs over a pot of tea and a bottle of water....100R’s or about £1.10! The normally laid back dogs get growly and snarly at any approaching dark skinned people as they demonstrate they are protecting their feeders. This is hugely annoying as the German couple sit back instead of training the dogs to behave. We also have ‘child bride, granddad and brat’ who are a very young Nepali girl with a 70 something German husband and an annoying 18 month old child. They rarely speak to each other, and both often leave the brat to run wild expecting everyone else in the shack to be babysitters.....but not us miserable old gits!
Finally, and this has driven us to leave Francis after 10 years, we have ‘Rabbit’. She arrived in January and has a very loud and annoying voice, ‘it’ doesn’t have an off switch and ‘it’ only has three subjects to talk about making her conversation with people (definitely not us) extremely repetitive. Her husband is fine, quiet, probably because he can’t get a word in but she’s also got a friend at the other end of the shack, ‘lonely’, who has also got a very loud and annoying voice. She gets bored so heads off along the beach to visit her friends in other shacks (hurrah – an hour of peace!) Unfortunately as soon as she is back she gives a blow by blow account of her conversation with her friend to her husband. One of her favourite repeated sayings is – ‘that shack that so and so uses is so crowded and noisy and you can’t see the sea!’ Oh the irony – it was quiet here in Pescador until you got back motor mouth!!! As we said, she finally ground us down and even loud music on headphones couldn’t drown out the inane ramblings. We couldn’t take any more and left Pescador Beach Shack for our last two weeks and became ‘shack tarts’ trying out different establishments. We’ll will go back to Pescador next season until ‘Rabbit’ returns.
We’ve had a number of events, a very enjoyable quiz night where our team of 6, called Universally Challenged, won! John and Sue, Clive and Linda and us two competed against a dozen other teams .....our prize was a small box of Smarties each......amazing! Wine tasting again, birthdays to celebrate and we’ve spent quite a lot of time with Aditya and Priti who have now gone to Mumbai before Aditya sets off on his round the world tour on his Triumph Bonneville. Hopefully, we can catch up with them when he passes through the UK. John and Sue had some friends arrive from France so we were forced to join them on yet another dolphin trip. This time it was much more reserved although there was still plenty of beer flowing.
The money situation has improved but there are still times when the ATMs are empty. However we have a brand new annoyance. It’s election time in Goa and there is a strict code of conduct applied as Indians are not allowed to drink alcohol in the build up to and during the voting. The Government decreed that for most of the month of January the sale of alcohol stopped at 11pm, even in restaurants, which often became 10pm if the police decided so. Then during the peak 3 days before and during the voting they have shut all bars, and have prevented restaurants from serving alcohol and generally they have made the lives really difficult for the already beleaguered tourist industry of Goa. The police even entered one restaurant at 9.30pm and told people to leave and shut the place. Half consumed food and drink was left on the table and people left straight away leaving bills unpaid.......obviously this bar owner didn’t pay his baksheesh (bribe). The crazy thing is that we have, like everyone else, just stocked up.
However, at one point the police changed the rules once again and without saying anything to the general public all liquor stores were shut 2 days in advance of the ‘dry days’ before the vote itself. We hadn’t bought enough gin and Cheryl had a middle class crisis as there wasn’t a single bottle to be found anywhere in the village! Luckily, Aditya was back at Micon to pick up his bike and came round to our place with a bottle from his stocks as we had plenty of tonics. So, as usual, we found ways around the restrictions. Some people had take out parties on the balcony, some carried neatly disguised drinks to add to the mixers that you can still buy or drank straight from fresh coconuts with a straw having added a shot of rum........yes it is, once again, proving to be ‘Incredible India’!
We spent our last few days finalising plans for the rest of our trip to Thailand and China plus our week long journey to Delhi with John and Sue to go wine tasting and sightseeing. We also made sure we went to our favourite restaurants to say ‘goodbye, see you next season’. Our trip for pizza and red wine at Luna proved to be particularly eventful as we had some Spanish Flamenco dancing to enjoy.......well not really. A young couple of Spaniards came in at about 9pm and they were obviously very drunk. The girl was singing and generally being annoying. Everyone in the restaurant did the right thing and just chose to ignore the attention seeker. Then she got out her castanets and started dancing but it wasn’t long before she fell comically backwards onto her arse with her legs in the air and her man had to pick her up. Unfortunately at this point a bemused group of young Russians politely applauded!!
She then proceeded to go and annoy the chef at his open air pizza oven which forced Ingelisa, the dotty foreign lady who helps run the place, to intervene. She asked the Drunken Spanish girl politely to please sit at the table and be quiet. Our cabaret star then proceeded to be abusive and accused Ingelisa of being German and rude, she’s actually Danish and very meek, which then forced the hands of several men, including Neil, plus Cheryl to go to her rescue. ‘Get out, you’re not welcome here’ we shouted and without any fuss, just verbal abuse, the couple left! Well, what an evening!
We do have a bit of good news. We’ve managed to secure the same house for next season and you’re all invited to join next year’s madness......but not all at the same time! We have 2 spare bedrooms, a pool to share and a plentiful supply of restaurants offering most types of food. Plus an array of colourful characters, surreal experiences, government ‘surprises’, wall to wall sunshine and temperatures in the early 30’s. How can you resist?
That’s it for lazing around on a beach doing ****** all. Next we’re off for some proper travelling so watch out for the next entry.
Last days in India, travelling with our friends John and Sue. Highs and lows, fabulous wines, sightseeing and technology rescued us twice. Plus we all picked up a bug – well this is India.....it’s inevitable.
We put together a short trip acting as tour guides for our friends. Overnight train to Nasik for some wine tasting and then to the World Heritage sites at Ellora & Ajanta, and a meteorite crater at Lonar for sightseeing. Booking the train turned out to be the usual Indian headache, Cheryl & John managed to get 2 good seats, Neil & Sue were on a waitlist – but we eventually had confirmed seats together just hours before the train departed.
We arrived in Nasik just before lunch time and we got to the hotel which had deteriorated in the usual Indian way since we were last there. Hard beds, grotty pillows and grubby marks on the walls. Time for a quick shower, and then off to Sula Vineyards for a tour followed by a tasting session. We negotiated a ride with 2 tuk tuk drivers and then pulled into a petrol station where the drivers consulted an English-speaking Indian lady who could explain that they had not realised how far we wanted to go and they decided they wanted substantially more money than they had agreed to. We parted company amiably and then had a ‘what do we do now moment’. John decided this was a great time to try Uber in India and after a 5 min wait our taxi pulled up for a bargain price – result!
The short tour and tasting at Sula was interesting. We then headed for the balcony to have some tasty snacks of cheese, olives, nuts, bruschetta and, of course, several half bottles of wine. Sue & Cheryl decided to indulge in the desserts – warm chocolate fondant & cardamom crème brulee. Both were excellent. Suitably refreshed we blagged a ride to a nearby vineyard called York. Here was much of the same, hic, with the bonus of a free baseball cap with the tasting session. We then settled for a delightful bottle of their flagship Merlot to go with our dinner. We all slept soundly that night.
Next day it was slightly less of the same as we were all feeling a bit jaded, especially Cheryl who had had a very bad night (both ends…….too much information?). This time we chose Vallonne Vineyard, which had the most enthusiastic and knowledgeable young Indian winemaker. It is also situated above a huge and beautiful lake in the middle of nowhere. Finally, on to Grover Vineyard which was nearby. Both these vineyards are around an hour or so south of Nasik. When we got back to the hotel, Neil was feeling bad (no ends involved just shivery) and missed out on dinner.
The following day we discovered John & Sue had had an interesting night (both ends). Cheryl however, was feeling on top form and was irritatingly bouncy. Morning train to Aurangabad where we were met at the station by our driver, Salman, in a very clean and comfortable car. We headed straight to Ellora Caves. Ellora has around 30 caves cut into solid rock built at differing times by Buddhists, Hindus and Jains. The most impressive sight here is the Kaillash Temple which is the biggest temple hewn from one solid lump of rock. After our sightseeing, Salman took us back to our hotel, JP International, which had surprisingly stylish rooms, comfy soft mattresses and a very quirky feature in our room – you must look at the pics. Our night was marred by a ‘domestic’ on the same floor as John ‘n Sue’s room. It kicked off at around midnight and took some time to resolve, including some Indian men threatening to punch John after he had the audacity to ask them to keep the noise down.......all very sad considering that everything else about the hotel was superb.
On day 2 Salman took us to the Ajanta Caves. These are also cut into rock but the site is fairly remote and peaceful, and the paintings inside the caves are very well preserved. We enjoyed a pleasant afternoon before we got back the hotel for a roof top dinner and several bottles of KF Strong.....mmmm! Top tip for travelling – join in with anyone singing ‘happy birthday’ and you will get a slice of the cake.
Day 3 started with quick visit to what is known locally as the ‘mini Taj’. This was followed by a long drive to Lonar where we visited the Lonar Crater. It was formed thousands of years ago, when a meteorite crashed into the earth and it’s the third largest salt water lake in the world and it’s 7 times saltier than the sea. The crater is 6km round and is an amazing site especially when you see how small the temple at the bottom looks.
There was only one hotel in Lonar, run by Maharastra Tourism. The rooms were surprisingly good and we all looked forward to having a good dinner on our last night as we were all better now and feeling hungry. Unfortunately the food was appalling, the menu was useless as everything we asked for was ‘no have’, so we were forced to take whatever was on offer – bony, salty fried chicken, salty bony chicken curry and a greasy bony chicken biriyani. Neil managed to get an omelette and that was at least edible. There was also a ‘permit room’ which is India speak for licensed premises and that was a series of outdoor private drinking rooms – all very bizarre. However, it did sell a strong beer called Cannon 10000 which went some way to making up for the lousy food. Amazingly, it all stayed in with no surprises the next morning!
We went for an early morning walk round the tiny village and viewed the crater from a different angle. We were the only foreigners and this was rural India a far cry from the ‘economic miracle’ of the major Indian cities. We skipped breakfast and a 3hr drive brought us back to Aurangabad Airport where we had to bid farewell to John ‘n Sue as we were going to Delhi and them to Mumbai. We had a fabulous week with them always finding a laugh to get us through the down moments. Thank you J’nS, we really enjoyed your company.......it was a brilliant week.
Our Delhi Hotel turned out to be an absolute winner. Airport hotels the world over are never great and Indian hotels are amongst the worst. So, unless you really want to up the budget to 5* then you might as well take the best of a bad bunch……it’s always a lottery and you’re usually disappointed. We chose a new small hotel with reasonable reviews – however we needed the help of Google Maps on Cheryl’s phone to help the taxi driver to find it as it was down a tiny alleyway. We arrived late in the evening, checked into a fine room with soft bed, the guys got us some KF strongs, we slept soundly and the included breakfast in the morning was excellent. The minus point was that it was 45 minutes by taxi from the airport but even when you added in the taxi it was still good value at 2500R all in (about £30).
The flight with Air India to Bangkok was surprisingly good. It was a new Dreamliner with excellent IFE and when we asked for G&T we were given 2 small bottles each of Beefeater gin and lots of wine to go with the meal. After drinking Indian gin for 3 months when you get the ‘real McCoy’ it just slips down beautifully……so much so that Cheryl was forced to have a third!
Thailand makes you realise just how incredibly shitty India really is. It’s cleaner, the people smile, you’re not greeted in the mornings by the hordes defecating in the fields, people queue nicely, everything works and is maintained, the traffic is gentle, quiet and isn’t out to kill you.
Our hotel in Bangkok was excellent with probably one of the biggest beds we’ve ever had. The view from the 6th floor wasn’t exciting but at least we can have the huge balcony door open without anybody peering in at us.
We came to Bangkok to apply for our visa to enter China on March 24th. China is extremely pernickety about having things all confirmed. We needed to provide copies of passport, our old visa from 4 years ago, the immigration stamp for our entry into Thailand, confirmation of flights in and out of China, hotels all booked for our month long visit, explanations for this, explanations for that, what colour underwear we’ll have on when we arrive, when is our next haircut due….you name it, they want it. Anyway, with just one abortive journey, partly our fault and partly an extra item they demanded, we finally got it!
We’ve also been catching up on our ‘business’ things at home like pensions and properties plus final plans for our remaining 3 weeks in Thailand, our week in Laos and cancelling lots of the plans for China and made new ones that fitted our requirements better. One of the advantages of Booking.com is that you can cancel with impunity so once we had the visa granted all the ‘hoop jumping’ was cancelled! Of course, we also did a bit of sightseeing, shopping and generally enjoying the much more relaxed vibe of Thailand. We took our usual trip on the river ferry which, for about £1.20 is a fantastic way to see the city on a 2hr return ticket.
Next stop was to pastures new, Chiang Rai in Northern Thailand. We really liked it, our room was excellent albeit a 40 minute walk to town and it had a much more relaxed feel than Bangkok. The night market was a wonderful experience. As well as many colourful stalls selling clothes and trinkets there was a huge food court. It had about 250 tables surrounded by vendors offering all sorts of food and drinks and a stage that offered free and sometimes dubious entertainment. The show we really liked was the collection of lady boys dressed like Shirley Bassey prancing around the stage and miming to ‘boy band’ music……we just cracked up! Outside of the city was the White Temple, a bizarre place which may have been influenced by Gaudi. Chalermchai Kositpipat was the architect and builder and he opened it to visitors in 1997. It’s now one of the most visited temples in Thailand and the site also boasts a gallery of some of his paintings………even Neil enjoyed that!
We decided to take a bit of a tour to visit some places that are slightly less travelled. Firstly, it was off to Chiang Saen which was once in the centre of the world’s production of opium. It was as little as 20 years ago that the drug baron Kun Sa Mong surrendered. He controlled the area known as The Golden Triangle with his private army of 20,000 armed men making this part of Thailand an absolute ‘no go area’. The triangle is at the confluence of the Mekong and Ruak Rivers where Thailand meets Myanmar and Laos. The CIA were here helping remove the drug barons and now it’s a major tourist attraction. With the help of lots of money from the rest of the world the 3 nations have now turned this area into a kitschy photo opportunity with a few attractions that include a couple of Opium Museums.
We spent 6 blissful nights here with a super room giving us the view to die for across the mighty Mekong River to Laos. Please watch the video, it shows the sunrise that we were privileged to see every morning…….absolutely breath-taking. Watching people meditating first thing in the morning with the sun rising made this place feel very spiritual…….even Neil felt it! The river is the life blood for so many people by providing work transporting goods, ferries and food. The river is home to many varieties of fish including The Giant Mekong Catfish, sadly endangered, which can grow to almost 9 feet and weigh over 600lbs.
Next we decided to head to the hills…….Mae Salong in fact. It’s about 1300m above sea level and it’s renowned for its Oolong tea plantations. Mae Salong is not easy to get to unless you pay buckets of money for a taxi. It was time for a bit of proper travelling, and we are flashpackers so we decided to use local transport, which we quite enjoy as it gives you a slice of local life. It took us around 4hrs to do using a rickshaw, minibus and a songthaew to cover about 40 miles and cost us 230TBH (about £5.50). We hadn’t expected the journey to take so long, but the local songthaew went the longest way possible round to Mae Salong, and included a 30 minute break halfway.
We had yet another room with a stunning view and four nights just enjoying the cooler air and the ‘Chinese Vibe’ that it has. About 50/60 years ago the defeated Chinese army that had been fighting the Communists fled and settled in Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. Mae Salong was one of the places that they settled in and Thailand granted them land and a right to settle. The Chinese influence in the food, ambience and features of the people is extremely strong. In fact, the place where we stayed was owned by a Chinese family who also owned tea estates and the very quirky giant tea pots and Mongolian Dogs that you can see in the photos.
We walked through the village, the plantations and also up some long winding lanes, followed by more than 700 steps, to the temple that sits on top of the hill and at night you can gaze up several hundred meters to the beautifully illuminated pagoda. Inside the pagoda roof is a small shrine and it had lots of coins standing on their edges at the base. We decided that we should join with this tradition and when we succeeded a local told us with delight that ‘this good luck’! It wasn’t until next day that we realised just how right he was! The day after we placed our coins on the shrine and got our ‘good karma’ we were told by Yee our hotel owner that her brother was going to be going to Mae Chan to make a tea delivery on the day we were leaving. Mae Chan is a transport hub where we could get a bus back to Chiang Saen. He took us the short way in his very comfortable pick up, dropped us at the bus stop and 10 minutes later a bus arrived which meant that we got back to Chiang Saen in just 2hrs and at a cost of 100TBH (about £2.50)…….result!
We’re now back in Chiang Saen with the beautiful view across The Mekong enjoying lush Thai food, cold beer and making our final plans to get to Laos and to get back to Thailand for our flight to China…….that’s coming up next!
Have you ever done a runner from a restaurant? We have…..twice!
We hadn’t realised how difficult it was going to be to move onto Chiang Khong. It turned out that there was only one songthaew per day at 11am. We were warned by our hotel that despite it only being 50km away, the road was very bad meaning it would take at least 2hrs. We got to the bus stand about 30mins early just in time for Cheryl to grab the last available seat and for Neil to sit himself on top of 2 sacks of chicken feed with his feet hanging off the back. It was fine, a little cramped, but with rucksacks planted on the roof we set off early.
By the time we got to about 2/3rds of the way we were the only ones left and the driver, smelling money, informed us in Thai that this was as far as he went. We argued and then he came out with a new term, ‘taxi, 500THB’. We argued some more, and a little more and a couple of local people from the village tried to intervene with their slightly better English. We sat still and wouldn’t budge until eventually another man with better English tried his luck. We knew we were stuffed, it’s the classic tourist scam, but we held our ground for as long as we could before settling on 300THB. We thought the proper price would be between 60-100THB each so we weren’t unhappy about the extra 100THB or so. Off we set and at much greater speed until we reached the part of the road that was meant to be bad……it wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t there yet………it was in construction and very, very dusty. We bounced and bumped for the rest of the journey and arrived caked in dust – just as well our clothes were in the schedule for the laundry.
Thanks again to google maps – which tracked us without having data on the phone, we shouted as we arrived in Chiang Khong and were dropped right by our guesthouse….bonus!! Our room wasn’t as fancy as the Mekong Riverview, but once again we had a superb view over the Mekong. We set about getting our bearings and also filling in immigration cards for Laos in advance as they were provided by the hotel.
We came to this border town to get the slow boat down the Mekong to Luang Prabang in Laos. It was a 2 day journey with a stop-over at Pak Beng. We could have done it on the cheap using the public boats favoured by the backpackers, but decided to pay about £40 extra each to take a luxury boat. This boat didn’t cram lots of people in, included pickup and drop off at hotels, took care of your bags and walked you through immigration. What a breeze and well worth the extra money. Our boat took no more than 25 people, the public ones can cram in over a 100 on bad days, but we were only 14 which made it a very sociable affair. We had another Brit, Swiss, German, Belgian, Australians, Thai and a Dutch…..quite a mix considering we were only 14. We spent most of the time chatting to a young German couple on a 3 week holiday and the young Brit lad who had joined with the young Swiss girl to travel together for a while. We had a great time, laughing, joking and exchanging stories about various travels. We made a few stops on the way to the traditional villages, a bit of a human zoo, and also to a set of caves housing more than 4000 Buddhas. Our overnight stop was good, well it was for us as we had one of the best rooms (Lucky is Neil’s middle name!), a curry in the evening followed by a few beers in a bar playing OK music.
The scenery was fabulous and watching the buffalo, goats, pigs, small villages and other boats was quite mesmerising as the boat made its slow way along the river. Finally we pulled into the pier, an unfriendly 10km from town, to be met by the tuk tuk guys waiting to pounce. Our tour included transport so we were placed into minibuses and whisked off to the centre.
Neil’s luck ran out as we pulled up to our chosen hotel, Kinnaly Guesthouse. There was a building site opposite and they were enjoying using their power tools. Luang Prabang is very touristy, and attracts a more up market crowd so prices are high. We were paying £39/night and thought that would get a good room but we got a dud. The lobby wallpaper was peeling and the room followed the same tired theme. It was also tiny and not the 25 square metres as advertised. We had booked for 5 nights and decided this was not the place to relax in as we could barely get round the bed, there was no glass in the windows so the window shutters had to be closed to run the a/c leaving the room in near darkness. We gave the bad news to the girl on reception that we would be leaving next morning, and she wasn’t happy.
We walked around and ‘lucky’ Neil managed to find a bigger room with a balcony overlooking our old friend the Mekong, with glass in the windows, and for about £11/night less – result! By this time we were tired, hot and in need of a drink. We stumbled upon The Opera House who had a happy hour and the best Margaritas we’ve had all trip.
Now the reason we booked Kinnaly Guesthouse was that the two balconies at the front overlook a street used by the monks on the early morning route around the town collecting alms. We were up at 5.30am and were rewarded by the sight of monk after monk in their bright orange robes silently walking along directly beneath us. There is a street in the centre of town which is the classic photo op for the tourists as the monks pass by a huge white wall, but this can be a bit of a circus, with some unruly tourists poking camera lenses into the faces of the monks and townspeople. On our little back street we could observe the local people doing what they do every morning with no other tourists in sight.
We had breakfast and of course, an argument as we left as the owner wanted payment for 2 more days. We refused and walked off. We later had an email from booking.com saying the hotel reported us as a ‘no show’! We explained what happened and eventually got the link to leave a review – hah!
Our last days were taken up with a little sightseeing in the mornings around the beautiful town and meandering in and out of the wats and temples. Lunch by the river then afternoon in the room with the a/c on max. We met up with the guys from the slow boat most evenings for dinner, and as it’s a small place we kept bumping into all of them around the town. We had great fun with them and hope they all enjoy their travelling wherever they end up.
Our last night was on our own and what better way to end than with the best Margaritas in town at The Opera House? Lucky scored again as it was Monday – the specials night! We succumbed to the lure of Lasagne and we were glad we did as it was excellent, and a decent glass of red wine was buy one get one free so we had to indulge. Neil carefully counted out our remaining Kip and declared we have enough for another wine – hurrah! We got chatting to a young English couple and as it was getting late we all left at the same time after paying the bills. We were then chased after by the young waiter –‘Sir, Sir, not enough.’ Neil had counted two 20,000 notes as 50,000s – well they are the same pinky red colour and it was dark in there and he didn’t use his reading glasses! He opened his wallet and we counted out what was left, it was all small notes and we were still 10,000 short – that’s about £1. The town was shut – everything closes early as the locals get up at 5am for the alms giving so we asked if we could pay them tomorrow. That was ok but they didn’t open until 5pm and we were leaving at noon.
Now we do have form where doing a runner is concerned. Neil did it once when he was young and we are both guilty when we did this a few years ago in Bangkok. We got a shock when our bill arrived and we found we didn’t have enough in the wallet to cover it. The restaurant was also a long way from where we were staying but we did have skytrain passes to get back. It wasn’t short by much and the restaurant was quite busy so we just left all the money we had and left sharpish, actually once we were out of the restaurant we started to run down the road. We’re still feel guilty about it and here we were again doing the same – but in a town packed full of monks and positive karma it felt worse.
Early next morning Neil got some more money exchanged and posted a 10,000kip note under the door of the Opera House. Karma restored, we backtracked to Bangkok for a couple of days revisiting some of our favourite places.
Tomorrow we fly to Kunming to start our travels in China.
We had no Chinese money, couldn’t speak Mandarin and the ATM at Kunming airport wouldn’t take our card. Oh ****, looks like we could be leaving China earlier than planned if things didn’t improve!
Anyway, things did improve. We arranged a car from the hotel and the driver was waiting with a sign in English! It was easy for him to spot us as we were the only foreigners in the airport. We chose our hotel because the reviews said that Rebecca Yang at the hotel spoke really good English…..she did and with an Aussie twang! We had emails from her confirming the taxi, train information and all sorts of other stuff but you can’t actually type with an Aussie accent so it was something of a surprise. She told us where to get food, train tickets, how and where to catch the bus into the centre and what to eat or not to eat! She also walked us to the nearby Bank of China ATM which was good enough to cough up 3000CNY (just over £300)…………we breathed a sigh of relief……so did she as we could now pay her for the room and the taxi!
Our first observations of Kunming are that for a massive city of over 6m people it’s a pleasant enough place to live. There’s virtually no English spoken, all the scooters are electric and are unnervingly silent as they fly past you from all directions. There are lots of rubbish bins so there’s hardly any litter, the traffic is quiet, people are dressed well, we haven’t seen too many beggars and most of the cars are imported from Japan and Germany. There’s also a huge amount of building going on – ready mix concrete trucks queuing to get into a site at 8.45pm on a Sunday evening. On the massive site next to the new metro project there’s a construction going on 24/7. People are very friendly and helpful although our lack of Chinese does make it difficult when people try to help us.
Despite all the modernisation there is still space for the little man and his shop outside our hotel. We went in to buy a beer and some milk, nobody could understand what anybody was saying, and suddenly out comes his phone and he spoke into it, pressed a button and hey presto a voice from the phone said, ‘yes, that carton milk’! So you can speak into it and get a translation or you can type into and get the same. Cheryl now has an app that if you scan some Chinese it will translate. Obviously it does make life simpler but it doesn’t always work so sometimes we just have to smile, say xie, xie (phonetically cher cher which means ‘thank you’) and walk away. Everybody has been really helpful including an old guy in our favourite grocers on our second visit. We were trying to find out how much something cost and he tried to help with surprisingly good English. When we left with our ‘xie xie’ he replied with a huge grin on his face ‘you’re welcome’.
We were in Kunming for 4 nights exploring the city but more importantly getting set for the rest of our trip. Rebecca was brilliant giving us written translations for really common things and arranging taxis etc. In addition, which wasn’t in the plan, we had to buy some warmer clothing aimed mainly at our planned walking later in the trip. It started off here at about 23C which was lovely after the sweltering 35C of Bangkok but it suddenly plunged to about 4C overnight so buying coats was essential. Ordering food has proved to be almost impossible as very few menus contain any English or pictures. Most of the restaurants we’ve found offer buffet hot pots which tend to be quite dull. Instead we’ve concentrated on food courts where the variety is huge and there are pictures that you can point to. That way you’ve got a much better chance of getting somewhere near to what you thought you had ordered! Food courts don’t have much ambience but sometimes needs must.
We did some sightseeing to a temple and the big lake in the centre. At this point it was grey drizzle so we were very glad of the coats. We were amused by the groups of people, mainly elderly, dotted around the park dancing, singing, playing instruments or playing cards and mah-jong. Most groups bring their own large speaker system on wheels and we passed several groups all within earshot but each sticking to their own routines. What a great way to socialise and keep fit and active.
We moved on by train to the preserved town of Jianshui. It was an amusing journey as we were the only foreigners and we had the Shopping Channel brought right to our seat as train employees did a selling job on sweets and flexible toothbrushes of all things. Jianshui has some colourful old buildings and is a good place to stop off on the way to our ultimate goal, The Yuanyang Rice Terraces which is a Unesco World Heritage Site. Our onward journey was by local bus which proved to be something of an endurance test as men here seem to ignore no smoking signs and happily turn buses into smoke filled boxes – including the driver! The journey wasn’t all bad as we did have lots to amuse us as we switched buses in Nansha for the final leg of our journey. We had planned to get to Xinjie and then take a minibus to the terraces but as we got off the bus in Nansha another bus driver suggested we take his bus to Duoyishu. There aren’t many foreign tourists in China, and any that are in this area are all heading for the rice terraces so it wasn’t surprising that this driver approached us. Cheryl had a quick look at Lonely Planet, it was close to where we were headed, and gave him the nod.
The bus took us to our original staging point of Xinjie and when we tried to get off the driver said we should stay put. When we say ‘he said’ it was all done by sign as he didn’t speak any English. Off we went again, passing through a number of villages before getting to a small town where we stopped to let people off. Then our rucksacks that had been in the storage place at the back of the bus appeared inside the cab. What followed made us laugh so much as we became surrounded by boxes of food, snacks and all sorts of other things. The driver attempted to move on but the small town was gridlocked by double parked vehicles blocking the roads and we sat there for almost an hour while the traffic cleared. Nobody got angry…….it was amazing.
After a while the driver asked Cheryl for her phone again so that he could read the translated name of our guesthouse. We have been using booking.com and the app works offline to show the address of the hotel in the local language. There was a tense moment for us as he and his nearby passenger both looked puzzled and there were a few head shakes. He intimated that we should call the guesthouse but Cheryl, using her best sign language, explained that we did not have a Chinese sim. He called the owner and before very long we stopped, he told us to get off, and after a lot of shouting down the hill we were miraculously met by a small van that took us right down to our guesthouse……thank you lovely bus driver!
Have we mentioned before that ‘Lucky’ is Neil’s middle name?
As soon as we arrived at the Yuanyang rice terraces we were whisked off in shared minivan to see the sunset from one of the viewing points – what a mixture, French, Brits, Canadian and Japanese.
Our choice of Timeless Guesthouse turned out to be exactly what we had hoped – very sociable and with an owner who knew so much about the terraces and planned each day for all of us as soon as we had eaten breakfast. He joined travellers together so we could all enjoy the beautiful scenery and chat about it as we walked the terraces on the good days and visited markets. On the bad, cold damp days we sat in the guesthouse, hogged the only fire in the place and drank coffee and beer as we solved the world’s problems and learnt about each other’s countries. During the next couple of days we became great friends with Han and David from the UK, Eden from Canada, Gimena from Argentina, an Ex USA marine called Megan and a Portuguese lady who we never found out her name as she never sat still long enough.
Getting to and from the rice terraces was a long and difficult journey but it was oh so worth it. It’s a Unesco World Heritage Site covering 12,500 hectares and is home to many different minority tribes that all come together on market day. It’s a photographers dream to watch the colours change as the sun rises, moves across the sky before finally setting giving stunning reflections. The terraces were hewn out of the landscape by the Hani people centuries ago and today continue to provide extremely fertile land where many vegetables are grown as well as rice.
Our four nights on the terraces flew by and it was soon time to back track to Jianshui for one night before catching the overnight train to Dali. The Soft Sleeper was excellent and clean and we were very lucky to be sharing with 2 young Chinese girls who were very quiet. Dali proved to be a lovely place with well-preserved/restored buildings and lots of places to eat including Bakery 88 which offered excellent bread, cheese, salami, prosciutto and wine- all the things we had been missing for the last few months. Sadly, many of the bars and restaurants catered for the mainly Chinese tourists by pumping out music loud enough to wake the dead!
After a couple of nights we managed to share a taxi with a family to our next destination, Shaxi (pronounced Shassi). This was another preserved/restored town but it was so much more sleepy and relaxed than Dali. It is one of only three surviving caravan oasis from the old tea horse road between China, Tibet and India. Less well known than the silk road, it was just as important for trade and at its peak 20,000 Tibetan horses were traded for 1.5m tons of Yunnan tea. Horse rides are still provided for tourists through and around the village - quite evocative to hear them clip clop on the tree lined cobbled streets. It’s not surprising that it’s such a popular location for movie sets. Many of the guesthouse, including ours, and restaurants play very chilled Chinese Jazz – all this place needs is a Waitrose!
This was a place made to just chill out and relax and that’s exactly what we did. We headed to the quaint village square each evening and sat in one of the many cafes to enjoy a couple of very strong G&T sundowners. We then followed the reviews in Tripadvisor and headed to The Hungry Buddha for dinner which offered excellent vegetarian and vegan food. Yes, you read this correct, we were eating veg and vegan! This place was set up by a Michelin starred foreigner chef who trained the local people who are excellent chefs, their skill and attention to detail was incredible. There are only 10 barstools set around the tiny open kitchen and it was just mesmerising watching them work as we chatted to other guests. In addition to the delicious food it offered excellent wine – result! On our last day we went to the huge market which was fascinating to walk around, take pictures and just enjoy the lively atmosphere as villagers came from far and wide to fill up their shopping baskets, grab some food and catch up with friends before heading home.
We make no apologies for the excessive number of photographs of old people, animals, colourful ethnic costumes and cute kids – these are our reflections of Chinese life.
Yes, it’s true, we stayed in the same guesthouse as Michael Palin when he was filming his TV series ‘Himalaya’ in 2004. We were trekking in Tiger Leaping Gorge and happened to choose the same one, Halfway House G H. The owner, Mr Feng de Fang or Frankie, proudly displays a simple hand written sign advertising the fact. Our room, which cost about £17, had a wall of glass giving us a view of the mountains which Cheryl made full use of that evening. Her bed was so close to the window that she could lay in bed and watch the moon rise over the snow-capped mountains……..wow!
Tiger Leaping Gorge gets its name from the legend that says in order to escape from a hunter, a tiger jumped across the Jinsha River at the narrowest point and there are 2 large rocks where this is said to have happened. It’s one of the finest treks in China through some of the most naturally beautiful and diverse landscapes China has to offer. The 24 km trail runs high on the northern side of the gorge passing through quiet villages, shady forest, blustery precipice and verdant terraced farmland. The snow covered peaks of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (5596m) and Haba Snow Mountain (5396m) shadow either side of the gorge making it a dramatic scene.
Day 1 started with a 2hr bus journey with fellow trekkers to the park ticket office before we set off uphill on a concrete road. Unfortunately, the road was noisy and dusty from construction traffic. We’ve already mentioned in previous blogs that China is one massive building site and this beautiful gorge doesn’t escape the march towards China becoming the largest economy in the world. It’s investing phenomenal amounts of money on infrastructure and in particular its high speed trains that travel around 360kph (200mph). We travelled on one a few years ago from Shanghai to Suzhou and it was unbelievably smooth even at such high speeds. Travelling so fast means very few bends which inevitably means that the lines go through numerous tunnels rather than around mountains. Tiger Leaping Gorge is no exception meaning that the train will hurtle out of the mountain tunnel, speed across a 660m long 250m high bridge over the gorge before thundering into the tunnel on the other side. We’ve calculated that this will take about 6.6 seconds from the time the nose exits one tunnel before the nose enters the next tunnel (maths freaks please feel free to put us right on this one). We’ve also managed to find an artist’s impression of what it will look like when it’s finished in 2020.
Anyway, having negotiated the concrete road we finally found the poorly signed path and headed up the hill. It was 1.5hrs of relentless uphill before reaching Naxi G H where we had lunch. We were off again within 45 minutes to attack the infamous ’28 bends’. Infamous for 2 reasons – firstly, there are many more than 28 and, secondly, it was more of the same but this time it was 2hrs of muscle numbing slog. Across the top we walked around 4hrs to Halfway GH. It should have been 30 minutes less but at one point the path was so poorly marked we chose the wrong route twice before finally plumping for the correct one…..the one in the middle! By the time we arrived Cheryl was absolutely knackered from the day’s exertion which wasn’t helped by a stinking cold. (As we write this Neil is now suffering from man flu). After a few beers, chats with fellow trekkers to raise our spirits and some excellent food we went to bed, watched the moon rise and slept soundly.
On day 2 we rose late, had a massive trekker’s breakfast, and set off towards the end of the path. At first the route was a good rough road before it became very narrow. At some points it was a tad scary as there was nothing to prevent you tripping and falling far enough for rescuers to need several small boxes to scrape up the scattered body parts to enable repatriation. With the vertigo overcome we moved on to a very severe downhill section which was very punishing on the joints. After about 2.5hrs we reached the end of the upper trail and we both came to the reluctant conclusion that to head down even further to the river on day 3 would be a massive mistake. We decided to cut our trek short by one day and walked into Tina’s GH where, with real sadness, we booked a ticket on the bus that afternoon. Trek over.
We thoroughly enjoyed the stunning scenery but, sadly, we didn’t enjoy the trek. The really annoying thing was that we had done the hard part and the steep 3 to 4hr walk down to the river should have been relatively easy. However, Cheryl’s knees were gone so it was game over. The main problem was that the path was nothing like we have been used to in Nepal or in the UK for that matter. It was rough with many trip hazards, gullies that required total concentration to avoid twisting an ankle and dust and pebbles on the steep down hills where you could so easily have your feet go from under you and land on your backside. We were permanently staring at the path so that we didn’t come to harm. We were very sad to quit but decided to be cautious as we still have one more week of sightseeing before we fly home.
There is an upside to this tale. We met some fellow travellers from London, Han and David, when we were in Dali. They came to Lijiang a few days before us and checked out a restaurant called LaMu’s House of Tibet that serves excellent Tibetan food, superb western food as well as the usual Chinese favourites. They also offer a good measure of Gordon’s gin and tonic with ice and a slice plus a very large glass of pretty decent red wine. Obviously neither the excellent food nor the drinks were cheap but after weeks of Chinese food a decent beef chilli, dried fried yak meat, spag. bol, or pizza washed down with a dry red takes a lot of beating. Yes, we know we’re home soon but give us a break – we ache like hell, have man flu and, anyway, we deserved it! We had a regular booking at a window seat that made us feel like the old guys from The Muppets sitting in the gods and watching the world pass by below.
After the visit to frenetic Dali we weren’t expecting to like Lijiang as it has an even worse reputation for Chinese tourist madness. However, we actually enjoyed our stay and you can see from the photos that we spent each evening walking back from LaMu’s taking photos of the twisty narrow streets, small rivers, and the myriad of shops offering drums, clothes, hats ‘n cats, bric-a-brac and much more. It was great fun asking the young Chinese tourists dressed in their funky clothes to pose for us. Also, take a look at the picture of the fire engine – that will show you just how narrow the streets are here in this very pretty ancient city which is surprisingly large. It’s not just firemen that get a mention here. Check out the video of the rubbish collectors that come around in a small truck twice a day. The vehicle plays a very loud Chinese tune that is really quaint for us to lie in bed with a cup of tea and listen to as they pass below our balcony. However, it must be totally maddening for the workers who have to listen to it all day, every day!
Tomorrow we fly to Chengdu for our final stop before heading back home.
Confucius say ‘when man flu become more serious then man get deep husky voice like Keith Richard’. That’s exactly what happened to Neil when his common cold turned into something more debilitating and his voice turned into a deep gravelly monotone grump. Not much change there then.
It might not have been so bad except for the fact that our flight from Lijiang was the first we’ve been on where the seatbelt sign was never turned off and delivery of drinks by the flight crew was suspended due to the extended turbulence. To make it worse, during the final descent into Chengdu the pressure in Neil’s ears didn’t equalise due to his head cold. This left him with a thundering headache and deafness that lasted until next day……….he went to bed at 8.30pm.
The following morning the headache was gone, the deafness was gone but the rasping sore throat and ridiculously deep voice persisted forcing Neil to do something he never does – seek medicine – Chinese medicine. Well, it had to be Chinese medicine as Neil declined advice from one of the receptionists to see a doctor and without a prescription he couldn’t get antibiotics. He loaded up in a pharmacy with all sorts of capsules, lozenges and ‘dripping pills’. His nose, whilst not red or sore, finished up feeling like a piece of sandpaper. Within a couple of days he was starting to get better although his voice took a little longer to get back to normal. Cheryl being the caring person she is kept reminding him that ‘it’s just man flu, get on with it………..I had it too but I didn’t complain……..much’.
Cheryl decided to choose our hotel based on its silly name. The Lazybones Templeside Poshpacker Hostel is in essence aimed at 30 somethings who want a better standard than a backpacker dive, but still want the friendliness & fun atmosphere of a hostel. Whilst this name actually makes a bit of sense, we have noticed a number of shops, restaurants, hotels and many more things which have used a strict translation from Chinese that leave us scratching our heads as to what they mean. People wear clothing like T-shirts etc with the most insane comments on them probably because it’s cool to have an English slogan. We’re sure this also works in reverse when foreigners buy clothes with exotic Chinese/Japanese/Sanskrit adornments. You may wish to check if your clothing is having a quiet laugh at your expense!
We try to avoid doing too many touristy things at weekends as they tend to be dominated by the Chinese. We also like to observe real life in a country so on Sunday we decided to visit what is reputedly the biggest shopping mall in the world with 511,000 square meters of purchasing opportunities. We’re not sure of this is true but it was so big we couldn’t fit it all into the camera lens. It was pretty awesome and contained zillions of shops, eateries, coffee shops, 5* toilets, an IMAX and cine complex, an ice rink, waterpark with flumes and a mini seaside resort with wave machine and both concrete and sand beaches. The whole thing is overlooked by a huge Intercontinental Hotel having rooms inside the dome with views over the swimming pools and seaside resort. We didn’t do any shopping but then just taking in the sheer size of it was tiring enough! Neil did enjoy riding the escalators that reminded him of David Niven in ‘Stairway to Heaven’ – they were endless. Oh, almost forgot to say, it has 24hr sunshine!
We came to Chengdu in Sichuan Province in the hope that we would get great food – it is renowned for its hot and spicy flavours. Well, it is hot and spicy which we enjoy but it’s also incredibly salty and ridiculously oily which we don’t enjoy. When we asked at Poshpacker if this is normal we were told ‘yes’ so with their help we created our own menu - we decided want we wanted to eat, wrote it down and the guys behind the desk translated it into Chinese characters. Armed with our flashcards we started to get some food we could eat especially as we got them to translate ‘no salt’! Simple unadulterated and delicious roast duck and vegetables that taste of vegetables.
We’ve done a bit of temple-ing while we’ve been here but you can’t come to Chengdu without seeing the Panda Breeding & Research Centre. To get there before the crowds we took a taxi for CNY30 (about £3.50) in time for the opening at 7.30am. The taxi man had obviously been watching the recent Grand Prix as he drove like he’d started from pole position rather than a set of traffic lights. We arrived very early, got ticket numbers 3 and 4 on the day, and had a fabulous time watching pandas. They are the icon of the WWF and they are extremely funny to watch, especially the young ones that seem to want to run, play, climb and play-fight all day long. Considering that many Chinese tourist attractions charge very high fees this turned out to be excellent value as we spent around 7/8hrs there. The entrance fee for both of us was CNY118, taxi CNY30, bus/metro home CNY8 so all in all, less than £20.
Pandas are seriously endangered and we were given a number of reasons why this is. Obviously, we humans have had a lot to do with it. However, the female is only on heat for 3 days a year. To make things worse, the males still think their piece of equipment is just for peeing through – unlike most wildlife that can’t get enough. It appears that pandas prefer chewing on a piece of tasteless bamboo over a bit of rumpy pumpy! Also, a female will normally produce twins and abandon the weakest – this is nature. However, the centre staff have come up with a wizard idea that is now saving almost 100% of those that would have died. Pandas don’t seem to be too bright so the staff rescue the abandoned baby at birth and keep it in an incubator. Then, as many as 10 times a day, switch the babies over with the mother. Mummy panda doesn’t notice and she unwittingly rears 2 babies – we said it was a wizard idea!
Pandas also live a very solitary life in the wild so even when a female is ready to mate there is very little chance of finding a male who isn’t concentrating on his next piece of bamboo. Whilst not a reason for being endangered, the centre staff don’t know if a female is pregnant or not, well not until little Peter or Pamela Panda literally pops out. All females will share the same body changes during this period even though they may not be pregnant so it does keep the staff guessing. Actually, maybe the females aren’t that daft, as they get extra rations during pregnancy.
We’ve had a good time in China and although we have an outline plan for Chapter 10 we are probably going to come back one day. Here are our Top 10 observations, both good and bad:
1. The language is a barrier, no doubt, but we have got by with the help of a very friendly Chinese people and translation apps. We didn’t always get what we thought we were getting but that’s when a sense of humour steps forward.
2. China has to have some of the worst public toilets in the Universe. Some are good but many are, mmm well, we won’t describe them in case you read this eating your dinner and, just maybe, you may choose to visit yourself and we wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise. We can tell you over a beer when we get back.
3. The public transport is excellent and simple to use even with the language barrier.
4. We have been in some remote areas and most people seem to be sharing in the new wealth being created.
5. The amount being spent on infrastructure is breath-taking.
6. Young girls love to express themselves with fashion, especially shoes, and hairstyles.
7. Middle aged women need to take some dress advice instead of dressing like western tarts but even these girls are having fun.
8. Most men of all ages smoke, everywhere, even where there are signs saying don’t……it’s treated like the provision of hot water, a human right to smoke when and where I want.
9. There’s a lot of rich people here driving Bentleys, Porsche, Ferrari, Maserati and even your average Joe seems to drive a BMW, Mercedes or definitely a Japanese car.
10. It seems to us that it’s a good country in which to be old. It’s like Last of the Summer Wine everywhere you go, in the parks, playing cards or mah jong or just singing and dancing together. They are not locked away at home isolated from society.
We have liked China a lot, it’s been a real challenge but then we haven’t really had a challenge since we came here 5 years ago.
We fly home tomorrow, both of us looking forward to seeing everyone again and catching up with people we haven’t seen for some time. We have lots on this summer so please keep following.
We have no news other than we made it home in luxury, visited family and friends, did a few property jobs and now were in glorious Somerset in the caravan enjoying country walks and seaside before heading to Sussex for the wedding of the year.
An outdoor wedding in the English Summertime – what could possibly go wrong?
With two weeks to go before the big day we still had serious shopping to do as Cheryl hadn’t been able to find that special outfit. The event was to be held over a weekend on a farm with converted cottages, a large barn, wooded glade for ceremonies and a glamping field. Dress code was informal, which made it harder to know what to wear, and if the weather turned out to be really bad the outfit would have to look good with wellies!!
We finally hit lucky with the outfit whilst staying near Ilminster in Somerset where we also visited Lyme Regis, Crewkerne, Beer and other pretty places, before moving on to Sussex in readiness for the event. Cheryl took a couple of days out to head to London for the registry office legal bit at Islington Town Hall while Neil babysat the caravan. Cheryl’s son Alex and his partner Freddy had always considered the wedding weekend at Hawthbush Farm as the main event and regarded the legals as a formality. They were totally unprepared for how moving and emotional the short ceremony would be. It was also one of the hottest June days on record so with 5 days to go before the wedding things were looking good.
Friday arrived and it was time to head to the farm. Our first job was to collect the wine from Freddy’s sister who lives in Eastbourne. Then, having loaded the white and the bubbly into the fridge we set about helping Alex, Freddy, Lawrie and Jackie with the wedding venue. Bunting was strung up, lights draped in the trees, table runners were cut, family photos stuck on walls, glasses arranged, and other helpers greeted. Guests came from Osaka, Hong Kong, New York, Prague, Germany, Spain and, of course, all over the UK.
Alex’s best man Lawrie is an events manager so he was able to keep us on schedule. Mr Bouncy Castle arrived followed by Mrs Deckchairs. Tables and chairs were set out in the barn, fairy lights strung to guide the glampers to the camping field and LED uplighters that change colour to light the trees near the hot tub. Nothing was left to chance with blankets provided in case the evenings got cold, umbrellas in case it rained and plenty of wood for the campfire. To keep the 100 guests amused over the weekend there were games including table tennis, croquet, a bouncy castle, inflatable instruments for air guitar/sax and microphone for the wedding party and a giant jenga. For early risers and those that couldn’t sleep there was a yoga session early on Saturday morning in one of the fields.
The caterers arrived and for the Friday it was just the Illustrated Chef (he was heavily tattooed), Darren, with his helper, a tall bloke with a splendid beard that WG Grace would be proud of. They lit a huge BBQ before starting the slow cook of the whole lamb…….mmmmm…….it smelt so good. The guests started to arrive and adopt their accommodation - cosy tepees with beds, swanky barn cottages and safari tents that slept 6, had a wood burner and kitchenette……very nice! Of course, we had the caravan with our own private facilities but we also managed to have virtually private use of a steaming hot shower which, unlike the caravan, has endless amounts of water pumping through.
The lamb continued to cook and a beer tasting was set up with beers from Gun Hill, the micro-brewery that’s run by the farm. There was also a local English white wine which was very good and guests were given name badges to help break the ice. A relaxed evening and a great start to the weekend.
We woke on Saturday morning to grey skies, which was OK as the forecast was cloudy, but soon after breakfast the rain started, light at first, but then it got heavier. With 10 minutes to go, and no message that plans had changed, we decided to head for the glade. It was a bit of a walk, and Neil decided he would drive Cheryl in her heals down the lane, along with the Japanese girls who were wearing kimonos. The glade was beautiful despite the drizzle and the drips from the trees. Guests assembled, put towels on the soggy benches and put up their white umbrellas.
The grooms arrived and the ceremony started. It was moving and emotional, especially as same sex marriage was only legalised 3 years ago. As the celebrant said, this was a union of two people who love each other, and what can be wrong with that?
Alex & Freddy left the glade and instead of confetti all the guests were given bubbles to blow at them which looked wonderful. Cheryl held it together well, but, when asked to lead the way after the happy couple, the floodgates opened as she walked past all the guests. Thumbs up for Boots waterproof mascara – it really works!
The rain stopped, it was still grey and chilly, but that really didn’t matter. The Illustrated Chef, plus staff, did a wonderful job with the food. The speeches were long, and there were a lot of them, but, they were moving and entertaining. Instead of a traditional cake the boys opted for a ‘croquembouche’ which is a French desert consisting of choux pastry balls filled with flavoured cream piled into a cone and bound with threads of caramel. You don’t ‘cut the cake’, you wallop the top off with a samurai sword!
The evening finished off with an all-girl band, more drinking, dancing, crowd surfing for Alex and Freddy, silly games, bouncing on the bouncy castle (only one minor injury), campfires with chubby bunnies competitions, chatting and hot tubs. A fantastic day despite the great British Summertime weather and even Neil, who doesn’t ‘do’ weddings, had a great time.
Alex, Freddy, it was a wonderful day.........Enjoy your hubbymoon in Koh Samui.
Regular readers will know we have a week each year on a canal boat. This year we got ambitious and decided to challenge ourselves to complete both the South Pennine Ring and the Cheshire Ring in 3 weeks. It’s only 156 miles, but the boat moves at an average speed of 3 miles an hour, and as the route crosses the Pennines twice there are a total of 254 locks. Travelling through grim industrial areas as well as stunning rural landscapes using 8 different canals, and we would be going through the longest, highest and deepest tunnel in the UK. It was going to be tough but with our friend Gail the three of us were up for the challenge.
Before getting the boat we had an early setback when trying to book passage through Standedge Tunnel – we were told the boat was potentially too big. However, the marina assured us it had already been through, albeit it sustained a bit of damage. We did consider a Plan B by backtracking (!!) to Manchester after reaching the summit.
In the week before the trip we had a few days on The Wirral at a campsite where we were greeted by the friendly owners with a plate of freshly baked scones with jam and cream. We explored the area and had an unscheduled meeting in Liverpool with our friends from Goa, John and Sue who live in France. We were going to Liverpool where Neil was a student and by chance read on Facebook that they had been to see Jackson Brown in the city the night before. We only had a couple of hours with them before their flight home but it was great to catch up. Not much of what Neil remembered from 1972 existed other than the ugly building that he knew in Tithebarne Street.
On July 1st we met with Gail, picked up our boat ‘Sun Conure’, and set off at 2ish for our 3 week trip around The Pennine and Cheshire Rings. We had a couple of easy days to start with which included catching up with our friend Ian who we met whilst couch surfing in Sri Lanka. Lunch at The Swan with 2 Nicks, what a great name, followed by a visit to National Trust Dunham Massey Hall.
Now the real hard work was to begin as we headed towards Manchester, passing right by Manchester United’s ground. There was a slight hiccup in the city centre where we went right into a non- navigable arm before having to reverse out before we got stuck. We got lucky, that is Neil’s middle name, and finally found ourselves onto the unsigned Rochdale Canal. Cheryl had done a lot of research so we didn’t linger long in the centre of Manchester, but we made many new ‘friends’ including a cheery and helpful, toothless wino and a comatose druggie in an underground lock shortly after he had finished shooting up and left the syringe on the beam of the lock gate…….so sad, he badly needed help but it would appear he didn’t want any. Even more sad to think that some unfortunate policeman would probably have to fish him out of the canal one day. Some graffiti on one wall said, ' welcome to our home, please wipe your feet on the way out'…..that said it all. Finally, we found how to get into New Islington Marina which was safe, almost pleasant but with good showers.
Next day there were no other boats to share the flight of 18 double locks which took us through the outskirts of Manchester, so Cheryl and Gail had to work hard as all locks were set against us. They developed a highly efficient system including running ahead to get the next lock ready which meant we caught up with 2 boats who were being assisted by Canal Trust Volunteers. There was nothing scenic about this part of the Rochdale Canal. It was grim, grim and even more grim. The canal was extremely shallow and with lots of hidden debris making it very difficult and stressful for Neil. The locals looked odd but were friendly enough when talked and we’ve never seen so many people with the local fashion accessory – a fighting dog. True to form, many of the owners just looked like their dogs – ugly and threatening. There was lots of dog shit on the towpath and rubbish in the canal including a dead rat, 9 shopping trolleys, used syringes, a washing machine and a fridge door. The only thing we didn’t see was a dead body.
Next day the scenery was still grim to begin with but soon got better. There were no other boats and we were on our own again through every lock. At one lock we met 3 lovely retired guys who walk every Wednesday round the canal and we chatted with them over a cup of coffee for 45 minutes. The locals outside the famous chippy, Grandma Pollards, looked in need of some advice on what to wear but we did meet a lovely 80-year young lady who worked in the mills when she was younger. She had some great stories and we wish we had lots more time to talk to her. That evening we moored up in a superb location and had a visit from a few members of the Bacup Camera Club who soon jokingly decided that we were having a ‘middle class BBQ’ - must have been something to do with the fancy Gin Cocktails that Cheryl and Gail were drinking! We now proudly appear on their website listed under David Greenwood…..take a look. Next morning we made it to The Summit, the top of the Rochdale Canal, where we moored and had a lovely canal walk before lunch. The sun was shining and the scenery was beautiful but the village looked very run down.
The journey through Manchester had been incredibly hard work as all the lock paddles were stiff and the gates were heavy. The scenery was grim and the locks were full of weirdos and smelt like urinals. At this point we decided that playing safe and backtracking would not be the option for us. It was back to the original plan and we were going to go for the tunnel. We also came up with a cunning plan to make the boat lower in the water………find some big people to sit at the front!
We arrived in Hebden Bridge and moored up at the quieter end of town. Neil made new friends with a party boat full of young couples out for the day, and then with Rowan the owner of the spectacular wide houseboat moored next to us. Rowan was a quite stunning lesbian and she invited Neil to have a look around. When he didn’t return for quite some time Cheryl and Gail started to wonder what was going on. Next morning we had a walk to Heptonstall which was gorgeous – there was an open studios event on so we had a peek into some of the old buildings and cottages.
We had agreed to meet with more friends from Goa, Tony & Brenda and Roger & Ann at 2pm at the boat. The drinking started but Tony was the hero of the day by paddling in the canal to rescue the bottle of pink fizz which slid off the boat and into the canal - what a star! That evening we had a pub crawl around HB which is lovely town. The girls had fun chatting up the cocktail barman at Callum's Bar, the chippy ran out of food at 6.30pm so that really pissed on our chips and so we went to one of the pubs which turned out to be an excellent choice. Really good food with excellent 2 litres jugs of gin, elder flower and berries. We ended the evening in The Trades Club to listen to the strange band before returning to the boat. T&B stayed overnight, we played silly games of charades and Tony peaked too early and fell asleep sitting up.
Next day we got lucky once again when we were chatting to the people on a boat alongside us in a lock in Sowerby Bridge. We didn’t know we needed a wooden hand spike to operate the locks on the next stretch of canal but fortunately we were passing a marina so we were able to buy one. That afternoon we had to call our marina as a water pump failed. With his phone on speaker and his head deep in a cupboard Neil managed to switch to the spare.
We left the Rochdale Canal to join The Calder and Hebble Navigation and Neil was very smug as he nailed the very sharp right turn into the lock in one go. He was not so smug when he realised how small the locks were and he had to go in diagonally. It was difficult to exit but we soon found a system involving pulling the boat across to the open gate using the rope - just more hard work and more time consuming. For a number of reasons, that evening we were finding it hard to find moorings but then we stumbled upon an old mill working on the opposite site of the canal to the tow path which had an excellent tree covered BBQ area. After our food and fizzy wine Cheryl went off to bed very exhausted while Neil and Gail had a camp fire to celebrate another successful day.
We got delayed early next morning by a pontoon blocking our path while repairing a bridge damaged by the horrific floods that affected the area. The workmen were more interested on their tea break than shifting it so we were delayed almost an hour. That evening we moored in Aspley Basin in Huddersfield and took the opportunity to top up with gas, diesel and get a pump out for the toilets. We’ve never done a pump out before so it was the blind leading the blind – one mistake and we could all be wearing a new suit of shit! That evening we had a great time with Donna and Rob, friends from Wakefield, in the pub adjacent to the basin.
Next morning we set off and negotiated the first lock only to find that the following pound was very low. The usual remedy is to release more water from the next lock but there was a sign saying it couldn’t be accessed from the towpath. Cheryl set off to investigate and found the only way in was to climb a 6ft anti vandal fence. Aided by an old pallet and 2 traffic cones she managed to get in without impaling herself on the spikes but still couldn't get enough water into the pound, and there was no way to get back over that fence. Meanwhile Neil contacted the Canal Trust and Colin came to the rescue. He released Cheryl from the fenced in lock but not before giving her a severe ticking off for doing such a risky thing. He did then use her to help let in more water from the lock further up, while he went even higher to get more water into the system. We finally got moving 2hrs later and after 22 locks and several miles we moored in Slaithwaite.
It was a short day before we arrived at the famous Standedge Tunnel just after 2pm. Why is it famous? Well, it’s the longest, highest and deepest canal tunnel in the UK, it’s around 3 miles long, it took 17 years to hack out mostly by hand and cost the lives of at least 50 men plus it takes approximately 2hrs to travel through with an engine! As there was no towpath in those days they would have had to legit through taking around 4hrs.
We filled up with water and piled as much heavy stuff (Neil’s beers) into the front cabin. The boat was measured …….and we passed – yay! Next morning aided by our chaperone, Rick, Cheryl steered the first section and managed to clout the boat a couple of times but no major damage (that’s what she says!). Neil took over after 2/3rds distance (and had a wider section to navigate according to Cheryl!) and we exited the tunnel after 1.75hrs……not bad. We also gave a ride to Alastair a canal enthusiast we met the day before who loves riding through. He was also useful ballast.
The next stage we were slowed by 2 different boats – the first one stopped to empty the toilet and have showers so we managed to pass - yay! We also caught up with the second boat at Stalybridge when we both stopped to shop at Tesco. Neil hurtled around the store like a Tasmanian Devil determined to shop and leave before them – with the aid of a call to Cheryl to prepare the boat to leave he just made it – more yay! Shortly after leaving we took a very sharp turn left onto the Macclesfield Canal and decided to go through the Marple Flight before mooring. After a very long day we finally made it to the top at 7.30pm and after 30 locks - phew! Well done Cheryl and Gail, you worked your socks off that day!
Next morning we set off for more National Trust at Lyme Park. It was a very pleasant afternoon where one of the room guides, who can only be described as gran, beckoned us to sit down with her while she told her tales in the library. We also met members of the Jane Austen society and took surreal photos of them taking selfies! Lyme Park was used as Pemberley in Pride and Prejudice with that infamous scene of the dripping Mr. Darcy emerging from the lake causing both Cheryl and Gail to almost swoon at the memory of Colin Firth in his sexiest scene ever.
We were making good time and our 3 week tour was going to plan. Then there was an almighty crunch and clatter so Neil hit the stop button. He tried it in forward, crunch crunch, and then reverse, crunch crunch. A helpful cyclist managed to pull us towards the bank and as it was so shallow Neil tied us to a tree using the gang plank to get to the path. Neil tried to clear the propeller but he immediately concluded that this time he couldn’t shift whatever had brought us to a halt. We called for rescue and had a few drinks with lunch while we waited. Our latest hero, Trevor, arrived and spent over an hour cutting a huge fishing umbrella which had wrapped itself around the prop.
Next day we had a leisurely day before mooring in Congleton to meet with more fiends from Goa, Derek and Jane, who live in nearby Leek. Good food and good company made it an excellent end to the day.
Next morning we moved on for more National Trust - a superb 45 minute walk to the top of Mow Cop followed by lunch then a short walk in the other direction to Little Moreton Hall which must be the most quaint, crooked but well persevered building of Tudor times.
Our last couple of days were full on in terms of cruising. We had travelled this stretch of canal before and it wasn’t very scenic so we just ploughed on to get back to the marina for Friday evening.
During 3 weeks of quite heavy activity you might expect to get one or two injuries and our party was no exception. Firstly, Gail was struggling with one of the heavy lock paddles and called to Neil from the deck to help. He did manage to get the paddle to rise but the windlass slipped causing it to whizz round at an alarming speed clouting Neil’s wrist. Normally the safety ratchet stops this but it had been lifted off by Gail originally to help work it loose. It’s not unusual for people to break wrists when this happens but fortunately after lots of expletives and a bag of frozen peas it was apparent that it was just going to hurt for a few days (lucky is his middle name). Cheryl also had a mishap caused by being polite to a guy standing on a bridge watching her. She missed her footing and fell flat one side badly bruising her hip, thumb and forearm. The thumb swelled up in seconds giving us all a shock but, again, the frozen peas came to the rescue….phew!
What a fabulous 3 weeks – great scenery, physically and mentally tiring but rewarding, fantastic time seeing friends, weather 8/10, a few traumas, 4 rescuers, first Tony, second Colin (take a look at the picture – Gail was smitten) then the peas and finally clever Trevor and, of course, lots and lots of laughs.
Thanks to all who helped us with planning and logistics, especially the Morton brothers for sharing their experiences and equipment.
To recover from the boat trip we spent two weeks in the Lake District to enjoy the spectacular landscape and a Blues Music Festival. Apologies to our chums from ‘Oop North’ if any of our comments cause offence, but hey, sometimes we felt like Aliens observing life Jim, but not as we know it.
We’ve also experienced more traditional British summertime weather, wet, windy and cold. We did get some walking in but the weather wasn’t good enough to make the effort to get to the top of Ska Fell Pike…….if we had gone up all we would have seen would have been low cloud! We’ll have to leave that to another day and make do with lake walking and some lower level fell walks. It is very beautiful here but this is the second year running that we’ve been disappointed with the weather. We always compare the weather with Bristol and it’s invariably around 3Deg cooler up here in The Lakes and a whole lot wetter! The weather might not have been great but we did see a red squirrel which was a first for Cheryl. It was a fleeting glance but welcome all the same. We’ve done a lot of walking over the years but we’ve never seen or eaten so many wild raspberries….they were so delicious!
Our weekend in Maryport was excellent and, as we did some homework via youtube on the performers, we enjoyed it even more than last year. We really love the mix of main stage and pub venues through the town. Standout performers this year were Aaron Keylock (watch out for this young man……we think he has a great future), Andy Fairweather Low (at 69 years he’s still rocking and had everybody leaving at 11.45pm singing his old songs), The Stumble (what a front man), Earl Thomas (wow, an American with an amazing voice and a great showman), Howlin’ Mat (a real blues man with his homemade cigar box guitar), The Jar Family (such energy and versatility from 6 guys of which 5 of them are singer/songwriters), Henrik Freischlader (fantastic German guitar player and Neil loved his tribute to Gary Moore), The Jack Kilner Band (great throaty voice), Crosscut Saw (gruff voice and interaction with the pub audience especially as it was midday after the long night before) and the final show on Sunday evening The Mersey Delta Blues Band (they produced a great atmosphere in The Sailor’s Return where we sat high up on a windowsill to get a better view).
Much to our amusement life in this Northern town turned into a jungle on a Saturday night especially at Festival time. The guys and the gals come out to party and, of course, the gals liked to put their glad rags on. Sadly, for many of the 50+ gals the glad rags meant something that would have been questionable 5 years ago and generally worn by gals around 30 years younger. Unfortunately, the very worst examples also favoured the Tango orange tan which didn’t really compliment their time ravaged faces which were giving up the battle with gravity, slowly sliding southwards like melting wax. There was a huge amount of dimpled and wobbly flesh on show as they were well hardened to the climate, thankfully some of it was covered up by tattoos of all shapes colours and sizes. It really wasn’t pretty, sometimes we had to look the other way and they always seemed to travel in a trio with mouths wider than the Mersey Tunnel. To be fair, they were just out for a good night out and they were determined to have one but many didn’t show respect to the performers or other Festival goers who actually wanted to listen to the music……they just gossiped, loudly, without pausing to draw breath! Also to be fair, when you looked at them and heard them it’s no wonder that all the men were in a different pub!
There was a very disappointing side to the Festival that seemed to be worse on Saturday night as lots of young folk descended on Maryport just to sit around the streets and chat, shout, eat snacks and, of course, drink. When we left the main stage in the Marquee at close to midnight the streets were almost deserted as the cold and damp weather drove them into the pubs. Devoid of people the extent of the carnage left behind in the streets was appalling despite their being lots of biffa bins for the rubbish. It was shocking but by midday on Sunday morning it had all been removed.
Maryport Festival was fantastic but the organisation of the bar and food outlets at the main stage was so amateur. Despite having a capacity of around 1000 people the bar couldn’t cope with demand. Friday night was Andy Fairweather Low night and whilst at the bar Cheryl heard the bar staff tell a roadie that A F L was not going to get a red wine as they had run out. Not sure if he is a Diva but I wouldn’t want to be the one to bring the bad news. The worst thing was it wasn’t replenished all weekend! By Saturday the white wine had also gone leaving the sickly sweet Rose. Cheryl took to bringing her own wine and as we planned an afternoon at the main stage on Sunday she went armed with wine and tonic water to at least be able to enjoy a G&T. Of course by this time they had no ice. Then the ice arrived, and then they realised there was no gin! Eventually, success and Cheryl had a couple of doubles with lots of ice in quick succession before they ran out again.
There was little in the way of choice for food…a separate van parked outside serving poor quality burgers, chips and hot dogs and on Sunday there wasn’t even that……all shut! Cheryl realised she needed carbs to absorb the hastily quaffed gin and had to run back towards the nearest small snack shop where the only savoury snack was some awful XL cheese crisps. She also had to run back to get away from one of the creepiest shopkeepers she has ever met. ‘You’re a pretty lass’ he oozed, ‘you’re not from round here….are you?’ and worse still, ‘If you want something savoury you could lick my arm’ eeeew!
The whole food scene wasn’t a complete disaster. We needed dinner on the Sunday and the pubs were just too busy and noisy to be able to sit down and enjoy a reasonable meal. Neil kept talking about the Indian restaurant but we had always shied away from them having had so much of the real thing. Cheryl wanted to go to The Golden Lion but it was packed and a burger was definitely not going to happen especially as it was shut! So, the Indian it was and……..mmmmmmm……it was very, very good indeed! We did pledge to go back but then decided that ‘you should never go back’ as it’s never the same.
The last week was spent recovering from the late nights of the Festival and taking as many walks as the dodgy weather would allow. We soon realised why there were so many lakes – it rarely stops raining! On the upside, it’s incredibly lush with more than fifty shades of green as well as the browns and purples of the peaks. In fact, we think it looks better under the contrast of grey and moody skies.
Edinburgh and The Fringe next followed by a real treat for Neil on his upcoming birthday.
How do you like your humour? Stand up, sketches, slapstick, characters, poems, magic, hypnosis or witty songs? We had a week of varied experiences ranging in size from the huge tent for a BBC recording of ‘Just a Minute’ to being the only 2 in the audience for an intimate performance by Boris, a Russian themed magician. We also think we went to pretty much every different type of comedy performance you could imagine as well as a couple that don’t fit in with any definition.
We needed a good laugh after the moody weather and scenery of The Lake District so we headed North to visit the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Our campsite was just a 20-minute walk to the nearest train station and the train took just 10 minutes into the centre of the city.
We chose to visit ‘free’ venues where there is no charge to get in but you are asked to donate some cash into a bucket when you leave. The standard varied enormously but, in general, it was very good and we often left with tears rolling down our cheeks.
We are big fans of BBC Radio 4’s ‘Just a Minute’ hosted by Nicholas Parsons. He is now 93 years old and has been hosting the programme for 50 years. The BBC tent was huge and felt like a theatre inside. It housed many shows including the recording of two episodes of Just a Minute during the week when we were there. We were lucky enough to get one of the few tickets held back from the online lottery for the day for the later recording. It was hilarious and we were treated to an excellent performance from Paul Merton. This show will be aired on Radio 4 on August 28th.
By contrast we had a show to ourselves when we went to see Vodka Spy hosted by Boris the ex KGB mind control agent….well that’s what he said! The venue was off the main track and was a pretentious joint charging buckets of cash for a simple Magners Cider. This might explain why we were the only 2 people in the audience which guaranteed us his total attention as he performed some obvious tricks and a few that were actually very clever.
We also discovered that Cheryl is not open to suggestions. Earlier in the summer we laughed when the losing contestant on Ken Bruce’s Pop Master Competition on Radio 2 was asked if he wanted to say ‘hello’ to any friends and family. The contestant was Ben Dali and he launched into a shameless bout of self publicity about his upcoming show at the Fringe. His show was called ‘Take a Trance on Me’ and he asked for 10 volunteers to take part. Neil was tempted but decided to watch the antics rather than be a guinea pig. Cheryl was just as shameless as Ben Dali and rushed to be one of the first onto the stage………just another wannabee!
What followed was just amazing. Several of the volunteers were quite clearly hypnotised whilst some were possibly faking it. They performed some really amusing antics which were ‘fun’ rather than being embarrassing. However, Cheryl just didn’t go under and after laughing and signing to Neil that ‘nothing was happening’ she was the only volunteer who was asked by Ben to leave the stage like a naughty child and told to return to her seat next to Neil……….we just sat and giggled for ages.
Neil enjoyed poems, yes, you read that correctly…..poems! Porky the Poet, AKA Phil Jupitus of Never Mind the Buzzcocks fame, gave a performance along with a couple of guest performers. Neil’s not generally a of poetry lover but having given Attila the Stockbroker a try at Glastonbury a few years ago he decided to give Porky a go. He was excellent with some very thought-provoking poetry as well as some very silly stuff.
We saw The Northern Power Blouse, an all girl sketch show featuring 3 very talented young women that had us rolling around. We especially liked the inspired James Bond themes where they changed the lyrics to fit in with their role as cleaners with songs such as ‘Dysons are Forever’ and ‘Mop and let dry’ as they suggestively cleaned the stage…brilliant!
We had more audience participation as we were watching a solo stand up comedian in a very small room upstairs in a nightclub. Part way through the performance an extension socket bar attached to the wall and used for a spotlight up in the rafters came adrift and nearly hit us. Neil found himself re-attaching it to the wall with gaffer tape much to the amusement of everyone else. It got more laughs than the comic and even more laughs when it fell off again and we decided to unplug it and leave him performing in twilight!
There are a few venues where several performers can showcase their main shows. Highlights from these were a character comedian who performed as a Noel Coward type making sense of the modern world - watching Formula 1 racing will never be the same again. Two other great shows were The First Annual All Black Comedy Showcase which included General Ojambo an African Leader who ranted and raved and had Neil gasping for breath between gags. The LOL Word featured five lesbian stand-up comics and a 95% lesbian audience in a very small nightclub room, almost uncomfortably intimate, but very, very funny! Even if they hadn’t been funny we wouldn’t have been brave enough to heckle.
We even went to shows where we had no idea what was on offer other than an interesting title. Who could resist ‘My Dad Wrote a Porno – behind the scenes’? - especially when it was in the BBC tent! We’ve since discovered it’s a very successful and popular podcast – look it up.
Edinburgh is an extremely attractive city and venues for the Festival are scattered around the centre with the majority just off The Royal Mile. It’s also on a lot of tourists’ tick lists so it’s usually packed in Summer and we lost count of the different languages that we could hear around us. Add to that the numerous buskers and street performers, the countless people handing out flyers to promote shows and people just stopping to look and generally getting in the way making it almost impossible to move around.
Having fun was getting to be hard work. We saw at least 4 shows a day and it would have been rude not to have a drink each time, plus there were breaks for brunch on some days or just plain lunch, and as we found a fantastic and quiet Wetherspoons in an old well-preserved cinema you get more drinks included. To cap it all on 2 days we had to run for the train home catching them with less than a minute to spare……phew!
We’d earnt a rest so after a week we headed to Crieff in Perthshire. On arrival we set up the caravan and then went to lunch with Colin and Margaret who we know from Goa. They live in Perth and came across to say hello. Thanks go to them for paying for lunch – Colin’s way of showing that not all Scots are stereotypical!
The weather over the next few days was very Scottish - bloody wet. However, we managed a couple of days walking around a couple of the zillions of Lochs. It really was very beautiful and just sitting looking at the scenery whilst we had our picnic was just so relaxing.
We came to Crieff with purpose – it was to celebrate Neil’s 64th birthday at the oldest distillery in Scotland, Glenturret, which is part of the group that owns Famous Grouse. We had an extremely good lunch in the restaurant before taking the 2.5hr Whisky Blending Course. It started with a tour of the distillery, then to one of the bonded warehouses where we sampled 4 different varieties of single malt with one being 65% proof! We were very surprised that the measures were good sized tots rather than just a drop in the bottom of the glass. Having had a couple of drinks whilst we chose our food at lunchtime, plus a bottle of wine with the food, we were beginning to float.
Next stop was the blending room and back to the school science lab……..ha, if only the labs at school had been stocked like this! First, we had 10 different smells in bottles that would tell us what sort of odours excited our noses. These were related to the 6 different varieties of single malt that we were to use to make our own blend and we were to take home in our own small bottle. This, of course, involved even more tasting as we went along, yippee!! We now realised what a good idea it was to travel by taxi!!
After we had booked our trip to Crieff Neil remembered that an old friend of his from school and the scouts lived somewhere near. Somewhere near was something of an understatement – he lived on the fringe (ha ha) of Crieff and his Forestry Company was located less than a mile from where we were staying. Whilst we had lunch at the distillery Alan popped in for a beer and to tell us exactly where he lived. Thursday night was to be drinks and dinner at his house where we met his wife Heather. We had a few beers, reminisced and put the world to rights, had an excellent dinner and then lots more chat over an entire bottle of single malt…….oops!! What a great evening and we’d liked to say a massive thank you to them both for a wonderful time although we’d also like to apologise for not waking up early enough as it was 2am before we got to bed. This meant Alan was a tad late for work but, hey, he’s The Chairman so who’s going to argue?
We left Crieff for our final week in Scotland on the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond. Our simple caravan site of just 5 caravans was magnificent. We had a stunning view of the loch from the front window and the surrounding peaks at the side. What’s great about our caravan is that we can open the blinds at the front and sit in bed having our early morning cuppa just gazing at the wonderful scenery. It’s amazing just how the Scottish weather changes so dramatically and so quickly but we did have enough dry days to walk the banks of the Loch and The West Highland Way choosing a different location to start each day. This included the walk up to the top of Conic Hill where we had a magnificent view of the Loch and our wee caravan way in the distance.
We started our journey south at the end of August stopping off in Lancashire where we hosted Tony and Brenda in a caravan couch surf. We had a great weekend which included BBQ’s and a visit to the local Beer and Cider Festival. It was cosy with the four of us in the caravan which gave us a lot of laughs and, as usual, Neil and Tony made several trips to the glass and tin recycling bins.
After an excellent weekend we said our goodbyes and we headed to The Cotswolds. We’re still looking for that dream location to buy our joint home and we spent a week or so checking out places like Stow-on-the-Wold, Chipping Campden and Cirencester amongst several others. We’ve yet to find that ultimate location but there were a few possibilities that joined the ever-increasing list.
Our final destination before getting back to Bristol was to Neil’s sister for a family party for the four siblings, their children and grandchildren. Sadly, Neil’s nephew Ian couldn’t make it a 100% turnout but it was a great day nonetheless to have so many of the family together at one time. June is considering making this an annual event but probably earlier in the year as the late British summers have, over recent years, become summer monsoons!
Back in Bristol it was time to catch up with Leanne and Paul, get on with a few property jobs and make the final arrangements for our next trip which starts on October 4th. We’ve also been reckless and splurged on a new caravan. It’s the same size but the bed layout is very different and should make life much easier for us especially when we have people to stay. We pick it up in May 2018.
We also made a flying visit to London to have lunch with Aditya from Goa. He's part way around his around the world trip on his Triumph Bonneville and after much tooing and froing we managed to fit in one date to meet. We took him to The Red Lion in Whitehall which was one of Cherles Dickens favourite watering holes. It was great to see him.
As this will be our final posting in Chapter 9 we’ve been trolling through our photos to pick out some of our highlights. We started with the trip to Spain with Clive and Karen quickly followed by Paul and Miranda’s wedding. Goa was, as usual, an absolute hoot, with the added bonus of a visit from June and Barbs which was great fun. Then there was the debacle of the Indian Governments Demonetisation which left so many people without any cash. Our trip to parts of Thailand that we have never visited before was absolutely superb. We had a ball on the 2-day boat trip down the Mekong from Northern Thailand to Laos and enjoyed the company of some young fellow travellers in Luang Prabang.
In China we explored the Yuanyang Rice Terraces which were stunning even though the weather was a tad cold, wet and generally bloody miserable. Trekking Tiger Leaping Gorge was rewarding and beautiful but extremely tough on our knees. A short flight north brought us to Chengdu where we were treated to an amazing display of ‘toddler behaviour’ by the tireless pandas that seemed to playfight all day long. Once we got back to the UK we had Alex and Freddy’s wedding quickly followed by 3 weeks on the narrow boat crossing The Pennines. Then it was time for Maryport Music Festival, The Edinburgh Fringe and Neil’s birthday at the Glenturret Distillery in Scotland. To top it all we met up with lots of friends and family along the way. Chapter 9 is over but, wow, what a lot we’ve crammed in during the last 12 months including seeing two of our sons get married.
We hope you’ve enjoyed reading about our year, we’ve enjoyed writing it, so watch out for Chapter 10.