Its been 5 weeks, 6 days and 10 hours…

. …since we returned, and I have really missed writing this blog. As somebody who religiously keeps a diary, the desire to write about the minutiae of my life was clearly already there, but writing a blog gives it a bit more structure, and means you cannot be too over-indulgent. Jon and I have talked about whether we keep this blog going, probably not to record the ins and outs of our everyday lives (mainly far too tedious), but certainly as a record of future adventures – two trips to France are already on the horizon this summer.

A weekend in Rutland (at Mike & Tamsin’s)

It has certainly been a real rollercoaster ride since we returned. By the end of our third week back we were all going a little bit mad, I wasn’t back at work and the children weren’t back at school, so I think we felt we were living in a bit of a void, an odd grey area between the amazing and random experience of travelling and the routine of normal life. But thankfully that passed and it’s actually been a pretty momentous return to reality…

Charlie has started a new school and absolutely loves it (a huge tick in the ‘right decision, thank goodness’ box), and has also started to teach himself to play the piano…

Joe is also back at school, and is now deep within preparation for SATS, and rueing the fact that, for his schoolfriends, the novelty of him having gone travelling has worn off.

Jon has discovered his inner domestic god, and has become a fully fledged house husband and is absolutely loving it. Have to admit so do I!

 

I meanwhile have returned to work in an organisation which feels the same, but at the same time has changed beyond all recognition in 6 months, doing the same thing but in a different job with a different boss (make sense of that if you can); and with possibly a completely new job in the offing!

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It has, as we thought it would be, been absolutely brilliant to catch up with our friends and family, each and every one of whom has greeted us with a bottle of bubbly of some description and the exclamation “Has it really been 6 months?”. It’s a relief to now be able to admit to people how much I didn’t really want to go travelling before we went and how terrified I was, but objectively how much I realised it was something I had to do and how glad I am that I’ve done it. My fear came from the fact that I quite liked my life as it was, and was scared that somehow leaving it for 6 months would mean that everything would change and our lives would not be the same again. Somewhat over-dramatic perhaps, and actually I now know that it’s quite possible to step out of your life for a period of time, and it will all be waiting for you when you come back. Well, sort of anyway. Yes, our house is still standing and our cat is alive, and we have slotted back into our old lives, but some things will never be the same. Dad is still in hospital, and thankfully recovering slowly, but I’ve now found out that he nearly didn’t make it, and that’s a sobering thought.

  

What has also been great about being back is being able to cook again, to go out and walk around London (we’ve been doing a lot of that), to get space from each other and to inhabit our own space (without continually needing to pack up all our stuff in a suitcase and go somewhere else). There is also the feeling that we actually did it, yes we’re £35,000 the poorer, but (if this is not too much of a cliché) so much richer in other ways. It may be too early to really understand how much the trip has changed us. Certainly Jon is happier than I have seen him in ages. We’ve definitely got an easier relationship with the kids – although their feral travelling ways continue to take a while to wear off, so it’s not been the easiest adjustment. I am definitely far more laid back about most things, and situations don’t get to me in the way that they did and I don’t feel the need to control every aspect of my life in the way I did before. I hope I can hang on to that one.

  

Of course there is also the joy that we came back in one piece, without any major disasters happening to us. This feeling was brought into stark relief last week, when I read a news item about a Welsh BBC journalist, who had drowned in Laos when the boat she was on hit a rock and literally split in two. It was the very same slow boat journey that we had taken down the Mekong from Thailand to Laos only a couple of months previously. A very strange feeling, and probably not something we’ll share with the boys!

Our therapy, whenever we miss the wonderful experiences of being somewhere different, and that is still every day for me, is making a film of the pictures we took on the trip. It’s been brilliant to relive our experience, remember things about the trip we’d forgotten and live vicariously through the suntanned smiling happy family in the photos (was that really us, there, doing that!?). Films to follow soon on this blog page (you have been warned!).

When I was travelling, I had a recurring dream that I would wake up and find myself back in England, the trip over, with this feeling that it was too soon and I hadn’t done everything that I wanted to. That’s probably the best way to describe how I’ve felt almost every day since I’ve returned. Although the travelling part is starting to feel more like a dream now, as I learn to embrace the reality of now and look back on those 6 months and think “How brilliant were they, where next…?”

The best… and the rest

 

So, just over a week back in Blighty now… and already it’s feeling like the trip was something that happened to some other family a long time ago… The UK has greeted us with grey skies and temperatures a solid 30 degrees lower than we’d grown used to. Oh, and presented us with colds too. Still, at least we were back in time for the solar eclipse (what solar eclipse?). We really did miss friends and family, though, and catching up with them, and a little bit of domestic normality has actually been wonderful.

This week has involved a lot of cleaning, sorting and organising, inevitably. It will take some time to rationalise the 6000+ photos we took (Don’t worry – no-one will be subject to more than 1000 in one sitting…), but we have already had a go at metaphorically boxing up our memories in the lists below.

Best towns and cities

* LA, USA    

* Christchurch, NZ    

* Queenstown, NZ    

* Oamaru, NZ    

* Sydney, Australia     

* Broken Hill, Australia     

* Adelaide, Australia    

* Kuching, Malaysia    

* Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia 

* Chiang Mai, Thailand    

* Luang Prabang, Laos     

* Hoi An, Vietnam     

* Hanoi, Vietnam     

Best towns that are anagrams of each other

* Hanoi          * Hoi An

Best accommodation

* Campervanning New Zealand! 

* Hot Water Beach (rental house), Coromandel Peninsula, New Zealand

* Brides Chalet (rental house), Margaret River, Australia

* Good Times Resort, Kanchanaburi, Thailand

* Lanta Residence, Ko Lanta, Thailand

* Chatrium, Bangkok, Thailand   

* Suntisook Resort, Ko Yao Noi, Thailand

* Four Seasons (not the luxury chain!), Hue, Vietnam

(The last two were two of the cheapest places we stayed, but with undoubtedly the best, most personal service.)

Amazing (often unexpectedly) places

* Kuang Si Falls, Laos – extremely tough climb, rewarded by amazing views at the top

* The White Temple, Chiang Rai – insane Buddhist wedding cake fantasy

* The Getty Centre, Los Angeles – just beautifully done, a building amazing to walk around even without the art

* Ancient Bristlecone Pine forest, California – 4000-year-old trees

* Auckland Art Gallery – we were jet lagged, and had low expectations

* The Waterworks, New Zealand – bizarre collection of water-related games and exhibits, kept us amused for hours

* Oamaru & the Steam Punk Museum, New Zealand – not an obvious sightseeing destination, but we loved it (and it was also the place where we found Kattee mk2!)

* The Moeraki Boulders, and Castle Hill Rocks, New Zealand – beautifully bizarre freaks of nature

 

* Busselton Jetty, Australia – the 2km pier that keeps on giving

* Conspicuous Beach, Australia – those amazing sand dunes

* The Treetop Walk, Australia – as good as Bill Bryson said it was

* Flee 60, Penang – bonkers escape room fun

* 7 Levels waterfall, Langkawi – cooling off was never so necessary!

* Mu Lanta National Park, Ko Lanta, Thailand – along with the roller coaster bike ride to get there

* COPE Centre, Vientiane, Laos – life affirming and impressive

* An Bang Beach, Hoi An, Vietnam – serious contender for best beach of entire holiday

* Night Market, Luang Prabang, Laos – best market of the trip (and believe me, we went to a few!)

.  * The Citadel, Hue – a mini Forbidden City

* The Ho Chi Minh complex, Hanoi – slightly bonkers but fascinating

* Lumpini Park, Bangkok – a mini version of NY’s Central Park

Best wildlife

* Giant monitor lizard, Ayutthaya, Thailand (close on croc size!)

* Assorted other monitor lizards in Malaysia and Thailand

 

* Orang-utans, Borneo, Malaysia                                  * Long-tailed macaques, Thailand

      

* Tree vipers, Langkawi, Malaysia

* Dugite (snake), Cape Naturaliste, Aus (disappointingly the only deadly creature we saw in the wild in Oz!)

* Wallaby, Broken Hill, Australia                                      * Emus, Outback NSW, Australia

  

  * Yellow-eyed Penguins, nr Dunedin, NZ

 Best trees

* South-west Australia (The majesty of those giant Karris, Jarrahs and Tingles lives with us still…)

  

Bravest food moments

* Jon & Sel eating brains congee (a sort of rice porridge) and Joe and Charlie eating chilli-packed giant snails in Hoi An, Vietnam

  

Where would we love to return to?

Not many places – we’re not really returners, but… we’re already dreaming of going back to…

* New Zealand – in 10 years time. Believe the hype.

* SE Asia, generally… We thought we’d had our fill of pho a week or so ago, but we’re already thinking wistfully about those wonderful landscapes, the warmth of the people, the balmy climate, the fabulous food… Next time: Cambodia, Burma, Indonesia…

…and where would we not?

* Langkawi (Nice enough, but proof to us that we’re really not ‘resort people’; in fact, we would definitely have reduced the length of our ‘island hopping’ leg given our time again)

Comedy/nadir moments

* Almost missing our Milford Sound cruise because the campervan got stuck in mud; it took 3 hefty NZ-ers to help shift it, and we made it with minutes to spare

* Sel’s two -hour leg wax on a Thai Beach, cold wax heated by hairdryer (not very efficient really!)

* Being welcomed at our Hanoi Airport guesthouse by an owner almost incoherently drunk on whisky (‘You are English. You must get me Wayne Rooney shirt – not a copy, only original!’)

* Day 1 of our Laotian Mekong cruise – Sel was extremely annoyed at the lack of family provision in the seating arrangements; if looks could have killed, only half the passengers would have made it to the half way point of Pak Beng

* Charlie throwing chopsticks across a restaurant in Hue, Vietnam, in fit of pique (though perhaps only in retrospect!)

 * Walking into our sub-hostel room at Phil Inn, Singapore; Sel immediately bursting into tears and making us leave to find the nearest bar

 

Magic/zenith moments

* Seeing our lovely friends Jim & Elaine and Lesley & James again (after almost 10 years in both cases!) in California, USA

 

* Joe learning to boogie board at Stinson Beach (notorious for sharks!), California

* Morro Bay, California – morning mist, the untamed Pacific, boys running into the waves

  

   * Universal Studios, LA – not just for the kids!

* Being miraculously located by our Kiwi friend Kyra in a random campsite on the edge of Lake Dunstan in New Zealand

* The entirety of the campervanning experience in NZ… just do it!!

  

* Zip-lining in Chiang Mai, Thailand

    

* Powerboating in Queenstown, NZ

 

* Many wonderful, life-affirming walks – Mount Aspiring, Glenorchy and the volcanic Waimangu Valley in NZ, Sentinel Point in Yosemite, USA, and the short trek in Khao Sok National Park, Thailand (because it far exceeded expectations!)

    

* Charlie’s infatuation with acoustic guitar duo Brittany and Georgia, and sublime pizza, in the Church Bar in Bathurst, Australia

* Day 2 of the Mekong cruise, we bagged a table and all was right with the world

* The awesomely desolate Dubbo to Broken Hill drive through the NSW Outback – the joys of the wide open road

* Unexpectedly finding the most amazing Thai food in a tiny café in Sangkhlaburi, and watching the owner cycling off to pick up beer and groceries for our meal (we were the only customers)

* Driving the astonishing coast road from Hue to Hoi An – rightly dubbed “a deserted ribbon of perfection” by Jeremy Clarkson

* Stargazing in the Outback with Linda from Broken Hill

* Sunday morning spent with Mina learning to cook the Thai way, in Ko Yao Noi

* Scuba diving in Thailand (Jon & Joe)

* Releasing Chinese lanterns into the night sky over the River Kwai with the boys and another Charlie, the lovely owner of Good Times Resort in Kanchanaburi

* Swimming in the Andaman Sea off Ko Sukorn on Christmas Day

* The night train to Ayutthaya, watching Dr Who with the boys and seeing the sun come up

* Supping Singapore Slings in Raffles Hotel, Singapore (a much needed antidote to the Phil Inn catastrophe – see above)

* Dancing around our suite (free upgrade!) in the divine Chatrium hotel in Bangkok

Most annoying moments/things we WON’T miss

* How low the convenience of pedestrians is ranked in parts of SE Asia (Georgetown, Hanoi, etc)

* The ubiquity of litter, and the obliviousness of the locals to it in most of SE Asia

* For Joe: Being (repeatedly) asked if he and Charlie were twins

* For Charlie: Being (repeatedly) photographed by SE Asian tourists/locals because he is “So cute!!!”

* For both boys: Being (repeatedly) hailed with “Hello baby!” (“I’m NOT a baby. I’m 10 years old!”)

* For Sel: trying to buy a bra and being laughed out of a department store in Chiang Mai when they couldn’t find one nearly big enough!

Biggest mistakes

* Assuming that island hopping up the Andaman coast of Thailand would be cheap and easy; it was complicated and expensive

* Not realising that Lunar New Year knocked out half the transport options between Laos and Vietnam, necessitating expensive flights

* Not clocking that we needed a visa for the US (you all know that story by now), nearly scuppering our trip before it had started

* Getting the public bus from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng in Laos – took almost twice as long as advertised and Sel spent most of it being sick

* Sel’s baggy trousers (we said “You can’t touch those” – she didn’t agree!)

Currencies used

* Dollar (US), Dollar (NZ), Dollar (Aus), Dollar (Singapore), Ringgit (Malaysian), Baht (Thai), Kip (Lao), Dong (Vietnamese)

Most ridiculous currency conversion rate

£1 = 32,000 Dong

No of times, in Thailand, we said ‘What do you expect, it’s Thailand?’

We lost count…

Illnesses

(We got off very lightly)

Sel: 1 cold (subsequently passed on to Joe & Jon in USA)

Joe: 1 cold (USA); ear infection (resulting in interesting ear syringing experience in health clinic on Ko Lanta, Thailand); projectile vomiting one night in Hue (Vietnam), recovered by the morning.

Charlie: 1 slightly poorly tummy (Thailand)

Jon: 1 cold (USA); 1 inexplicable temporary blindness/dodgy stomach/weird heat rash (Malaysia) (quickly recovered!)

Things lost

* 1 Catty (replaced with Kattee mk2); 1 hairbrush; 2 T-shirts; 4 teeth (Joe); 1 tooth (Charlie); 16 kg (Sel)

 Things acquired

* Soft toys: 5 (doubling the already high initial toy quotient – Charlie can be very persuasive…)

* Sel’s clothes: also doubled (she packed light for a reason)

* 4 Chinese lanterns, 6 reclining Buddhas, one waving cat, one wooden spatula, one block of wood (source of an ongoing Sel/Jon debate: ‘Why exactly are we lugging this around?’), 5 fridge magnets plus assorted presents

Modes of transport taken

* Flights: 15

* Hire cars: 7 (including one campervan)

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* Boats: many (including 6 ferries, 1 slow boat down the Mekong, 1 power boat and countless longtails)

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* Buses and minivans: 12

* Songthaews and tuktuks: countless (including motorbike tuktuks – bonkers, dangerous but quintessentially SE Asian)

* Taxis: countless

   * Elephants: 1

* Bicycles: 2

 

* Motorbikes: 5 (would have been more if Sel hadn’t fallen off her 5^th bike while travelling at below walking speed and deciding she’d had enough)

  

* Gondola: 1  

The best of times, and sometimes the worst of times too…

  

But we’d do it all again like a shot!

Here’s to planning the next trip…

Back to life…

It’s been exactly 72 hours since we touched back down on British soil… and I can still hardly believe we are back. The British weather, the greyness of everything, the lack of lovely smiley women serving up delicious food on street corners, the sun (where’s that exactly?), I was expecting that. But what I wasn’t expecting to feel was this nagging sense that we shouldn’t be here, that in a day or so time we’ll be packing up and going somewhere else. No idea if this is normal, but being here certainly doesn’t feel like my reality at present.

Our homecoming, the details of which we’d talked through with the boys as a distraction when we were feeling particularly homesick on our trip, was amazing.

 

Stepping off a 14 hour flight, less than 10 hours sleep had between us, we were emotional and far too excited for exhaustion. Despite getting in an hour early, our parents (sadly minus my dad) were there, and whisked us back home to welcome home banners on the door, flowers, gifts (even though I thought we were supposed to be the ones bearing these!), a fully stocked fridge and a full English breakfast.

Later when Jon’s brother and family arrived, plus our friend Philippa (who done an amazing job keeping a close eye on our house and checking our post during our absence), the champagne came out. I remember looking at the clock and feeling slightly puzzled that it was actually still 10.30am.

But it’s nearly 5.30pm and beer o’clock in SE Asia a sad voice said in my head. Then, because we’d decided that our first day back shouldn’t be a day for reality and normality, as soon as everyone left, we headed over to another friend’s house for lunch (roast dinner and a cheese board – something we’d all been craving – thanks Sarah & Xav) and more fizzy stuff. We lasted until 6pm, then suddenly we all crashed, went home and went straight to bed.

Our old friend jet lag has certainly reared its head with a vengeance, probably contributing to my ongoing slightly spaced feeling of unreality… Still, the 5am starts have done wonders for our productivity, even if we continue to be ready for bed by 7pm, and there’s a lot of sort out! Mountains of washing and unpacking, which 3 days later we have still not finished. Another challenge is sorting out a house, which doesn’t feel quite like our home anymore.

We’d rented to a couple and their young daughter for 3 months, and 4 girls for the rest of the time, so it was hardly surprising to feel that nothing was quite where we had left it, and it was a real challenge to try to remember where on earth we put everything we had packed away – it took poor Jon 3 days to locate his slippers, which I am sure we had deliberately put somewhere they would be easy to find!

Then there’s the car to get back on the road, school places to reapply for (a whole other story of complicated red tape in itself), haircuts (and beard trimming!), dental and health check-ups to arrange for everybody, a boiler to get serviced… all extremely exciting, and exactly the kind of tasks we’d gone away for 6 months to escape.

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The boys of course are in their element, they are just delighted to be back – as we knew they would be. They can run amok and make noise without worrying about hotel neighbours – our first afternoon back at our friend Sarah’s, who has two boys the same age, Jon and I were wincing at the sheer amount of volume created by 4 excitable boys, and Sarah reminded us that this was in fact perfectly normal!!!

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Then there’s Sparky… we are all utterly delighted to see our 5^th (or should I say 6^th along with Kattee) member of our family again. Contrary to my fears he did not ignore us, or spend the first few days sulking and giving us the cold-shoulder. He’s clearly been well-looked after, and we’ve quickly been reminded of just what it is about him that melted even Jon’s hardened cat-loathing heart. Although, I had also forgotten about the sitting on my head at 5 in the morning thing that he does!

 

And how are we easing ourselves back in to reality? Well, with daily 5am starts (although Joe slept in until 7am yesterday), we’ve got lots of time on our hands. We’ve done a walk around Forest Hill – one legacy from travelling and exploring is that we are all very used to long ambles around places and the boys being a bit more interested in their environment. We’ve been to see my dad, the toughest part of our homecoming as none of us recognised him and I wanted to run weeping from the ward, but had to hold it together because I could tell the boys were extremely shocked. We’ve shopped – Charlie was dying to walk around our local Sainsbury’s (!?), and cooked – something we all missed, and cleaned and tidied.

So if you see me in the next few days, I’ll be the one grinning and yawning, and with a faintly perplexed expression on my face.

Thank you…

Day 1: 16 September 2014 – LA

…To each and every one of you who has read even just one of our blogs over the last six months; to all of you who have taken the time to comment; to everyone who has shown any interest in what we’ve been up to. Writing this blog has been hugely useful to us in terms of making us really THINK about what we’ve been doing and why and what it all means. Yes, in one sense (well, OK, in most senses) it has been one massive self-indulgence (both the blog and the trip), and we’re under no illusion that it may have been fairly annoying at times to read about the latest place we’ve been or experience we’ve had. Thank you for your patience.

View from our balcony at the Chatrium, Bangkok

Today is our last day in Bangkok. This evening, at 6.30pm, we’ll be boarding a plane to take us to Singapore, and there changing to another to return us home to Heathrow for 6am UK time on Sunday. Our amazing parents (sadly minus Sel’s dad, still in hospital) will be there at Terminal 2 to meet us! Tears will most definitely be shed…

 We are all feeling immoderately excited now about being back with our family and friends. It’s been tough at times, particularly for the boys, to be away from the familiar for so long, but, right now, we’re all choking down the lumps in our throats at the prospect of our adventure being over. So long and complex in the planning, so thrilling and tough and surprising in the execution. This time together, just the four of us, has been a unique experience in all our lives and one that will always live with us.

Day 180: 14 March 2015 – Bangkok

 We’re planning another couple of blogs to round everything off – something on what we’ve learned from the experience, and a summing up of all the most memorable bits, the highs, lows and comedy moments (although this blog may live on once we are back in the UK, in one form or another). Until then, once more… thank you for accompanying us on this odyssey.

 

One more pack until London

For the past few weeks, every time we move to a new place, I have calculated the number of times left that I have to re-pack our bags. That’s not to say I have been desperate to return home, or have been counting the number of days until we arrive at Heathrow; more that I am fed up to the back teeth of getting all our stuff together and cramming it into our rucksacks (over 50 times at last count)!!

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Getting yourself from one place, one country, one continent to another is difficult enough; doing it with a husband and 2 small boys, and all the associated ‘stuff’ in tow is another challenge entirely. The responsibility for our possessions and their transportation around the world has, for this entire trip, fallen solely at my feet. This was, I have to admit, my choice. I decided when we set off that if I wasn’t going to be a control freak about what we were doing and where we were going (and, believe me, it’s been good for my psyche to not be), then I needed somewhere to channel my slightly obsessive, some might say neurotic, tendency to want to control situations. Looking after our worldly goods for 6 months seemed a good place to focus my energy, because, let’s face it, Jon wasn’t that keen and left to the boys it just wouldn’t have happened. It did pay off – we have only lost a hairbrush and 2 T-shirts during the course of this trip. As long as you don’t count the passport (that was found) and Catty who ‘regenerated’ anyway! (See ‘Worse than losing a passport, or forgetting a visa’.)

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Of course, this was made easier by us packing reasonably light in the first place. This was on the basis of advice we received (not sure from where now) that, however long you are travelling for, pack like you are going on holiday for a couple of weeks. Boys are easy in this sense – my kids would happily wear the same clothes day in day out for months at a time, until they became more dirt than clothes, and Jon can cheerfully rotate the same two outfits. I took more items of clothing than the 3 boys combined, but it was still very little – and I am proud to say that I have worn the same pair of shoes for 6 months (Teva sandals – I cannot recommend you highly enough, but you will be going into the washing machine the minute we get back!).

       

Our gigantic stash of malaria tablets took up almost more space than our clothes. But, in fact, I don’t think there is anything we took that I regretted (apart from a clothes line that we never used), or anything that we left behind that I wished we’d had with us (apart from a spare bra perhaps; that’s another story!!). To be honest, in packing so little myself, I was working on the premise that if I moaned enough about how bored I was with my clothes, I’d get to buy more, because, “Clothes are MUCH cheaper here!” (wherever ‘here’ might be). (This tactic worked.)

       

But, if on this one, my boys were very supportive, in other ways I perhaps got the short straw in being the lone female of the party. Boys don’t do tidying up or organising, or at least my boys don’t; and when you are on the road for 6 months, staying in different places, what helps is creating order and calm in the places you stay. I certainly noticed that, as time went on, we ‘inhabited’ the places we stayed more and more, we spread our stuff around, tried to make each place ours, even if we were only there for a night or two. Making the grimmest of hotel rooms feel like home was my job, and, to be honest, it was helpful therapy for me, particularly at the times where I was most acutely homesick or just utterly fed up with the rest of my family.

Joe and Charlie would certainly say that the hardest part of this trip has been staying in different places all the time, having to get used to different rooms, different beds and everything else that goes with being somewhere new (and this was despite us deliberately planning it so we stayed for a good few days in most places). So creating routine and normality for them was pretty important, and something we tried hard to do.

   

What Jon has found difficult has been the lack of privacy and personal space. We very quickly learned the importance of a room with a balcony or some outside space for him to go to when he got up earlier than the rest of us in the morning, as he invariably did, or when he just wanted to do a Marlene Dietrich on the rest of us!

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For me, other than my obsessive worry about our possessions, the worry that something would happen to one of us, or something would go wrong at home was constantly at the back of my mind. For us, we got off lightly – nothing much worse than a handful of colds (in the US – I blame the long haul flight), an ear infection (for Joe in Ko Lanta), some short-lived vomiting (Joe again, in Hue) and Jon’s bizarre temporary blindness in Kuching. However, back at home my worst fear was realised when Dad was diagnosed with cancer in January, for which he had to have surgery in early February. One operation turned into three, followed by a month long stint in Intensive Care, where he remains – thank God for Skype, and Dad’s very sympathetic consultant, who reassured us that he would be OK eventually and on no account did I need to cut the trip short and come home; although I was sorely tempted at times.

 

Now, here we are in Bangkok, one final pack away from coming home, and I can I hardly believe it. The massive space left by the malaria tablets (now all taken, thank goodness) has been filled by my new clothes. Plus an extra rucksack purchased for presents, and random stuff we have bought for ourselves – the duvet cover (from Laos), 4 lanterns (hopefully not a foolish purchase from Vietnam), and various prints and wall hangings.

 

Here, in our last destination, it feels as if we have all let out a collective sigh of relief. It has been helped (hugely) by being in a 5-star hotel on the banks of the Chao Phraya river (thanks Booking.com for giving us a price, unbelievably, on a par with the hideous Phil Inn in Singapore – ‘Nearer but still very far away‘), and being upgraded to a suite (I take the credit on that one, aided and abetted by the hotel slightly messing up our booking).

   

   

But Bangkok has exceeded our expectations, perhaps because we know this is it, our last stop on a very long and incredible journey. So we need to make the most of it, and we are. Cruising up and down the river, some light shopping at the myriad of malls and markets, wandering through shady parks, popping into a temple or two, checking out Jim Thompson’s House, and, of course, swimming, eating and drinking – the mainstays of this trip, the activities that have always been guaranteed to make us feel better.

   

In two nights’ time I’ll be cramming our 6 months’ worth of possessions into our ever growing number of bags for the last time. Jon’s promised me a glass of champagne while I do it – well earned for sure, but I think it will also taste kind of bittersweet…

Roadschooling

Electing to take Joe and Charlie out of school for six months wasn’t a decision we made lightly. How would missing two thirds of the school year affect them? Would they miss their friends? Would they be behind when they returned? But I’m a teacher. Surely I could help them make up the deficit on the road. And wouldn’t seeing the world give them a great deal more than they would lose from not sitting in a classroom for two terms?

The hardest decision was not down to what they would miss, but more to how we would get them back into the education system on our return. Their school (understandably, perhaps, but not very helpfully) had been unwilling to hold their places for them and we were told we would have to apply again from scratch when we got home. What if we couldn’t get them back in to their old school? Were we being unthinkingly reckless by putting their education on the line in this way?

In the end, though, we thought it worth the risk, with the potential benefits outweighing the possible problems. Perhaps that was somewhat reckless, but, projecting ourselves into the future, we genuinely couldn’t believe that we (or they) would ever look back and say: ‘Thank goodness we never went travelling!”

What we hoped would happen

This is REAL education, surely! No sitting in rows in a dull classroom doing exercises from a book for hours on end, but actually being out there having first-hand experiences in new and exotic places. Getting to know the locals, trying the food, learning the language, imbibing the culture, living the history. Classroom-based education can only give a child so much, and, if the point of education is to prepare a child for living in the real world, surely being out in that world seeing and doing new things is the ideal of what education should be.

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One of the main reasons that we’ve taken this trip when we have is because I have become heartily disillusioned with what mainstream education in schools has become… a cart before the horse exercise in guessing what Ofsted want to see rather than thinking about what children really need. Imagination, fun and thinking outside the box is seen as increasingly dangerous. Teachers have become disempowered and deprofessionalised to such an extent that I’m seriously unsure whether I can face returning to it at all.

So what a golden opportunity to experiment with how it could all be so different. We had visions of wonderful projects on Aboriginal art and orang-utans and Thai temples and Vietnamese food. Of our boys’ eyes being opened by the richness and diversity of life and culture across South East Asia and Australasia.

Yes, but what about multiplication and spelling, I hear you asking? Well, obviously not everything that we need to know can be experienced directly. We weren’t totally naïve about the completeness of experiential learning, and brought along with us a series of ‘workbooks’ to try to keep the kids’ maths and English in line with what their peers would be up to back at home. And I’m a teacher,  so I know how children learn and how to motivate them, right?

What actually happened

They didn’t want to do any projects. They didn’t want to do any research into where we were going. They didn’t want to do workbooks. They missed their friends. “I hate roadschooling!” was a sentence heard, sadly, on more than one occasion when, for the 100^th time I attempted to get just a half hour of solid work out of them.

As a teacher, the children of others tend to do what you ask them to do, just because you’re a teacher. As a parent, ours tended to rebel, because I was just their Dad, and to not give a stuff what I did for my day job. And I did find that, disappointingly, I have a lot more patience with children when they are not mine and I’m being paid to be nice to them.

There was an awful lot of frustration all round in the early months. It rapidly became clear that the idea of ‘projects’ was out of the window at an early stage. It could be just our kids, but they simply refused to even contemplate them, and no amount of encouraging and cajoling could shift them. Even persuading them to write a travel diary became a major issue. (‘Don’t you want to remember all the amazing places we’ve been and things we’ve done?’ ‘Not if it means I have to do writing.’) We ended up abandoning the attempt with Charlie – he wasn’t to be persuaded; while Joe required Herculean efforts of will and patience from his Mum to persuade him to write even a couple of sentences about each day.

The workbooks? Generally, Charlie became surprisingly enthusiastic about doing these. He responded well to their structured nature (“I’ve done two pages today!”). For the first half of the trip, Joe was extremely reluctant to do anything that smacked of imposed learning at all. And anything new and/or tricky he shied away from in particular. Slowly, ever so, painfully, slowly, though, his attitude has changed as the trip progressed. He has stopped the kneejerk oppositional stuff, and is starting to relish a challenge. This is a big step forward for him.

Motivating the boys to work was an ongoing issue. We tried numerous tactics, finding that, somewhat guiltily, tieing ‘work time’ done to ‘computer time’ earned worked the best. Should we have even brought the boys’ Kindle Fires with us on this trip? We debated it before leaving. My idea was that they could use them primarily for research and reading. A touch naïve. They wanted to play games (and read occasionally). Was this wrong? We’ve come to think not. Being stuck together 24/7 with your family, frequently moving around and being in new places, doing an awful lot of walking about… we all need some down time and ‘normality’. Overall, we managed the computers OK. An hour a day maximum seemed a fair price to pay.

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 So what have they (and we) learned?

1 That learning isn’t always neatly quantifiable.

In truth, we don’t yet know precisely what the boys will take away from this trip, but we do know that their eyes have been opened to many aspects of our world that were unknown to them before setting off. For example, our first-hand experiences connected with the Vietnam War and its aftermath that we’ve had in Laos and Vietnam have had a major effect on both of them, and how they understand the lives of others far from their own home and comfort zone.

2 That learning can’t always be planned.

You have to go with the flow to a degree when travelling. Flexibility and adaptability have been necessary for all of us, and, in fact, developing these capacities has ended up being a key aspect of how we’ve all moved on during this trip. A lot of what we’ve all learned over the past months hasn’t necessarily been what we assumed we’d be learning. We never anticipated, for instance, that we’d have quite so many fascinating and deep conversations with the boys about religion and belief (all those temple visits clearly weren’t such a trial!). Could there have been a better way of fostering understanding of difference (and fundamental similarities) between peoples and developing tolerance than this? We think not.

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3 That learning isn’t just about acquiring information.

As a family, we have ALL had to become more tolerant and understanding of each other during our six-month sentence together. It has been seriously hard at times, and we’re all quite looking forward to a break from each other, to be frank, but we’ve come through it in one piece, and truly believe that we have become stronger as individuals and a family unit as a result.

4 That we’re braver than we thought.

There were so many aspects of this trip that seemed daunting and scary before we set off and as we proceeded. One fairly profound thing we’ve all learned is that we’re not afraid any more. Most issues can be sorted, most people are kind and trustworthy, most places are interesting and understandable given time. The unknown can be challenging, but there is nothing to be scared of. (As one minor example, both boys were keen to try giant snails smothered in garlic and chilli on a street food crawl of Hoi An a week ago. We simply couldn’t conceive of that occurring a few months ago!) Nothing really seems that daunting to us now. That one achievement, if it stays with us (and we are sure it will), makes this whole trip worthwhile.

 

And what do the boys say about their experience of learning and ‘roadschooling’ over the past months?

Joe: “I found it hard to work from books in the beginning because it was so different to how it is in school, but then, as we went on, I started to find it easier to focus, and I started to learn a lot. Even though we only did one hour a day, I think I learned a lot more from that one hour, plus all the history of these places, than I would have learned in 6 hours of school a day.”

Charlie: (Charlie was unavailable for comment.)

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‘Roadschooling’ has been a great deal tougher than we ever imagined. For us, at least, it has required an adjustment in just what we consider education in this context to be. It took a long time to find some kind of rhythm in the formal learning, but we made it eventually, and it just goes to prove that there’s more than one kind of journey you embark on with a trip like this. And we 100% stand by our original belief… There is simply no way we will ever say “We wish we never went travelling”.

I’m in Hanoi I am!

  

Hi everybody – Kattee here speakin’ loud and clear all the way from Hanoi!

Now I am goin’ ta tell ya about ma day out with Charles.

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Today we left our Hotel, Splendora in tha old quarter and I wanted ta go on me bike ta explore Hanoi but Charles wouldn’t let ma, so we had ta walk and there was a lo’ of traffic which I wernt happy about.

I had ta find pilchards immediately because I was ge’ing very hungry and I’m also sure I saw a pilchard tart in tha bakery we parst but Charles dragged ma away before I was definart about it.

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Then wa went ta a big church – you norm’ly don’t get those in Asia; and then a temple, which ya do.

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Next wa went to a lake an’ I was tryin’ ta hide from the troll I thought was under tha bridge, but Charles said they don’t have ‘em in Vietnam.

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When we got across tha bridge, I had to rest on ma stool, before we explored the islarnd and the temple. There wern any pilchards, although there was a tiger and a turtle. Back safely across tha bridge, wa went to a coffee place for a little drink. I loves me coffee, I do!

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  I tried to get inta a museum, but it were shut, so we wandered around a bit more.

For lunch wa went ta a place that sold stuffed baguettes called “Bahn Mi” – but no pilchard ones. Fortunately, Charles did have pilchard juice packed away for ma.

 

After lunch wa went ta a prison museum an’ I almost got trapped but Charles rescued ma.

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Then ma day out with Charles had come ta an end… Hanoi is certainly a big city for a small cat like ma!

.   Lot O love Kattee xx

(Editor’s note: Kattee received some assistance in writing this blog from Charlie.)

Tales of the Unexpected: Buddha Park

I liked Buddha Park despite the horrible one hour long bus journey from Vientiane to get there.

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Its real name is Xieng Khuan, which means spirit city, and it was built in 1958 by a monk called Luang Pu Bunleua Sulilat who studied both Buddism and Hinduism. That’s why both religions are shown in the sculptures, which are made of reinforced concrete.

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Kattee also really enjoyed the park, even though she did almost get eaten by a giant crocodile!!

  

I loved the reclining Buddha, which is massive and is 120 metres long.

But my favourite bit was the ‘pumpkin tower’. It’s only 6 metres high, which it doesn’t sound so tall, but it looks and feels tall when you’re on top of it. There are three levels – hell, earth and heaven – and you enter through a metre tall demon’s mouth.

   

I also liked the sculpture of the elephant with 3 heads. This has a special meaning in Buddhism and especially in Laos, the land of the million elephants.

It was all amazing and beautiful, and the five of us (me, Joe, Mummy, Daddy and Kattee while munching her pilchard) loved it.

   

Luang Prabang

It’s impossible not to love Luang Prabang. Yes, it may now have it’s own international airport and draw in tourists by the slow boat-load, but there can be no town in South East Asia in which its easier and more pleasant to waste away a few days… The queen of the Mekhong was once the royal seat of power in Laos, and later a favourite spot for French colonialists to while away the time at a more agreeable altitude than the capital Vientiane. The French influence is still strong, from the low-rise villas lining many of the central streets to the baguettes and crepes available everywhere. We passed 5 nights here with minimal effort and could have managed double that…

    

        

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The slow boat to Luang Prabang

 

Sounds very romantic doesn’t it? A leisurely two-day cruise down the Mekong from the Thai border to the fabled former royal city of Luang Prabang in Laos. An overnight in a remote Lao village, nothing to do but sit back, watch the stunning virgin scenery slip by and daydream…

The guidebooks imply that the slow boat is virtually a compulsory item on any South-East Asian traveller’s itinerary. We were completely sold on the idea; it was a ‘pillar’ of our planning from an early stage (despite the nagging doubt that two lively boys confined on a small boat for two solid days might be a potential recipe for disaster…).

Our last stop in Thailand was Chiang Khong, a one-road border town, entirely unremarkable apart from the fact that it is the jumping off point for most slow boat travellers. (It is possible to do the journey in reverse, incidentally, travelling up from Luang Prabang to Houay Xai, Chiang Khong’s Lao counterpart across the river, but this route is far less popular, partly because it takes longer sailing against the current.) It’s not a beautiful place, although, sitting on our hotel balcony gazing out at the muddy Mekong sliding sedately past, with the tantalising sight of Laos on the opposite bank, it was easy to forget the slightly bedraggled and uninspiring town lying behind us. We could even see the slow boat pier in Houay Xai. Little did we imagine at this point that it would take five hours from leaving our hotel before we were on the boat and chugging past Chiang Khong en route for Luang Prabang…

What a torturous start to the journey it was. First, into an overstuffed songthaew (a converted pickup truck with two rows of seats in the back) we hopped for a round of pickups of fellow travellers and their luggage from different guesthouses, and eventually on to the Thai border. Then a slow shuffle through border control to the no-man’s land between Thailand and Laos, followed by a bus to Lao border control where we endured two more chaotic queues to apply for and pay for our visas-on-arrival.

Another sardine-like journey in a songthaew took us to a dilapidated shack, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, that was, as it turned out, the ‘office’ of the travel company through which we’d booked the trip. We were greeted here by a very smiley Lao who did at least explain what was happening and what to expect. A freshly made baguette for our lunch with our choice of filling was a nice touch, though being told we needed to handover our boys’ passports to ensure they had ‘priority’ seating was a little unnerving. We never worked out quite why this was necessary, but, obviously, being British, we mumbled about being a bit unhappy about this and just went along with it anyway and hoped for the best. (The passports were later returned to us, by the way, as promised!).

Then back into the songthaew for another shortish ride to another ‘office’/shop/house, which was actually at the top of the road leading to the boat pier. Hurray! Almost there… but another long wait ensued before finally being issued with our tickets and herded (the appropriate word) down to the boats.

It was a this point that it became clear to us just how the ‘slow boat’ industry here has mushroomed in recent years. We’d read about the ‘daily boat’, but there must have been upwards of 300 grumbling tourists milling around and a long line of (extremely basic-looking) boats awaiting them.

This was so far from our idealised vision of civilized river cruising that we were not surprised when the promised priority seating did not materialise and all the more desirable places (four seats around a table) on the boat were snaffled by nimble-on-their-feet backpackers. We were moved around like tins of beans on a supermarket shelf by the effortlessly brusque boat crew, ending up sitting on narrow (SE Asian size) seats, clearly salvaged from a superannuated bus, on either side of an aisle at one end of the boat. Sel’s icy stares at the young folk cracking open their four-packs of Laobeer (ready for essentially a ‘booze cruise’) went entirely unnoticed. Could we really deal with two days on this pile of junk? Could this experience in any way trump getting a bus and being in Luang Prabang in half the time?

The answer to both those questions was, unequivocally… YES. True, Sel continued to fume and curse for quite a while after we finally got underway at midday, but slowly, ever so slowly, as the breeze started to waft through the boat’s open sides, and the staggeringly beautiful forested hills of Laos slipped by, the Mekong started to work its magic on us. Soothed by the gentle chugging of the engines we were gradually lulled into a state of contentment, helped on our way by a couple of Laobeer of our own, and the company and conversation of four extremely amiable Dutch youths and a cheery Brazilian couple.

After six hours we arrived at our overnight stop: the tiny Lao village of Pak Beng, which exists almost solely to service the hordes of tourists making their way up and down the river. As pit stops go, it was a pretty decent one – our guesthouse was clean and had (a rare thing in SE Asia) super-comfy beds, and there was a decent curry house opposite. What more could you reasonably ask for?

The following day we planned our strategy in detail and were down at the pier by 8am to grab the much sought after table seats. We figured that most of the backpackers, who no doubt had been drinking beer until the early hours, would be falling out of bed and getting down to the pier just before the boat was due to leave. Which is exactly what happened. As passengers boarded, we greeted each other like old friends – there’s nothing like a shared (and, in some ways, adverse) experience to draw people together. (Indeed, throughout our subsequent stay in Luang Prabang, we were frequently bumping into old boat mates and exchanging hearty hellos.)

From the vantage point of a table, comfortable seats and a far better view, Day 2 of the journey was completely magical. An endless unfolding vista of lush green hills and sandy riverbanks, punctuated by the occasional village of wooden stilt houses or group of lowing water buffalo or crouching fishermen.

The Mekong becomes surprisingly narrow and shallow at times, becoming hemmed in by large groups of rocks, and creating gentle rapids to add a frisson of excitement, and a realisation that the boat’s captain really does need to know this river to prevent disaster.

Every hour or so we’d draw up to the riverbank, seemingly in the middle of nowhere to pick up or disgorge a local. There are no roads in this area – the river is the only means of getting from one village to another, so the slow boats act as a bus service for the local people.

Eventually, eight hours after setting off from Pak Beng we arrived at our destination. Or, rather, we arrived at a sandy riverbank, 10km from our destination. For reasons that can only be connected to giving extra work to songthaew drivers, the slow boats decant their passengers here these days, not in the heart of the town as previously.

   

It had been quite an experience, a journey in every sense, and proof that the appeal of travel (for us) is as much in the getting there as the final destination… As to the destination in this case, though, Luang Prabang turned out to be every bit as special as its reputation suggested it might be. See a picture blog coming soon…