note - images not showing in this file all show beautifully at https://neuage.me/OMG
Dec 05 to
8 Overnight 3 nights Jeddah
Dec 8-12 Abu
Dhabi XD Cosy Apartments 4 nights
Blog title OMG
Narda’s notes in italics – the other few scribbles are Terrell…oh wait I have been prodding Narda to write more, actually, anything. Let’s hope for some groovy notes.
We disembarked from
our wonderful cruise of the Suez Canal – see previous blog into the Saudi Arbia
city of Jeddah.
Historic Jeddah is situated on the eastern shore of the Red Sea. From the 7th century AD it was established as a major port for Indian Ocean trade routes, channelling goods to Mecca. It was also the gateway for Muslim pilgrims to Mecca who arrived by sea. These twin roles saw the city develop into a thriving multicultural centre, characterized by a distinctive architectural tradition, including tower houses built in the late 19th century by the city’s mercantile elites, and combining Red Sea coastal coral building traditions with influences and crafts from along the trade routes.
Dec 05 to 8 Overnight 3 nights Jeddah
We had/have no choice in life but to move
forward. This is what specialises travel. At home feeling crap we just pull the
blanket over our head and suffer in our special bubble. An absolute bubble.
Travel so changes the context. Here we are in Jeddah. Off a wonderful cruise. Absolutely ill. Weak, can barely swallow, headache, burst bubbles. We don’t have a sim card yet giving us no interpretation of where we are where we are going who we are. An existential issue – without ChatGPT telling us about our position in life who are we really? Both of us. We see these ads about eSim – one sim for anywhere in the world. Oh wait! Our phones even though a year old and costing $800 don’t take eSims.
We share a Career Uber type car service to Sherry’s high-class hotel, her phone takes eSim - Ritz Carlton and get a salad consisting of lettuce with very little anything else for $75 USD. We use the hotel’s Wi-Fi and ring a Career Uber type car service and show where we want to go. We haven’t gotten any Saudi play money yet and the taxi dude wants funny money to take us to our flat, an Airbnb Narda found on Booking.com. He gets us to an ATM which gives 4-500 domination bills (500 Saudi Riyal=$126.55USD) which the driver doesn’t have change for. We try a petrol station who doesn’t have change, but who sells us some drinks on our credit card and gives us enough cash to get the driver whistling Dixie or some sort of happiness response and we are deposited to somewhere, where the driver thinks we want to be. Actually, he says Insha'Allah – which is what Muslims like to say. My issue with that of course is – hey just drive the bloody taxi to our building we don’t really need divine intervention – damn! We have a GPS – so Google willing we will find our address.
Allah willing" is the English
translation of the Arabic phrase "Insha'Allah" (إن شاء الله), meaning "if God wills,"
used by Muslims and Arabic speakers to express that future events depend on
God's (Allah's) permission, signifying hope, humility, and acknowledgment of
divine will over human plans. It's used for future plans
("I'll see you tomorrow, Insha'Allah") or
can sometimes casually mean "hopefully" or "maybe," though
sincerely it's a statement of faith (Google) Terrell says
“Google willing”.
The flat is fine. It has two bedrooms which is good as we are constantly coughing sneezing complaining. We just go to bed though it is only four pm. A couple of hours later we drag our sorry asses out of our sick bay bubbles and head outside in search of food.
Luckily a couple of blocks away we find Pizza Hut. Not quite the Ritz Carlton but affordable.
Back to our flat. Yeah! He has large screen TV with YouTube, so we watch an episode of our Super favourite show, itchyboots then cough sneeze complain ourselves to our personal sick wards.
We did stop at a pharmacy after Pizza Hut and got pills. Like two prescriptions for antibiotics which are supposed to be from a doctor but why be concerned with such stuff. We got other stuff too. Of course, weeks later nothing had helped.
Our second day we just lay about indulging ourselves with shades of living intruding on our feelings of death warmed over. Though we did get a taxi to a shopping centre to get a Sim card for internet for two weeks. Seven US dollars for 14 days and 5 gig of Wi-Fi. The shopping centre was horrible. Big, spread out in-personal. We even bought some almost non eatable lunch. Narda seemed more effected by the almost totally covered up women with barely slits for eyeballs to peer through. Saudi Arabia hits you when not used to such a culture. Women walking behind men totally covered in black men in white. Like the wild west American movies with the good in white then comes along the Lone Ranger and shoots all those in black leaving them laying on the shopping mall floor with blood and dreams pouring in rivers of illusions.
Now that we had sim cards we were free to travel and explore and do wonderous things, like know where we are and where to purchase a fridge magnet. Our one tourist experience was going to old town, Al Balad.
Day three we dragged our sorry asses out into the Jeddah world.
Al Balad is the old deal. It is the historic centre of the City of Jeddah. We explored a house that allegedly was/is 500-years old – see our slideshow below.
Besides the slideshow – stop and check out some of the
photos – there is a photo of me on the phone, of Narda drinking something,
perhaps tea or coffee that 
she
didn’t like and a general photo of Narda chilling thinking of the future, like
when do we leave?
We stopped in for a coffee at a
friendly looking café. Three young folks invited us to sit with them. We had
long conversations. Apparently, they are uni students
studying tourism. Here is a photo of us having a laugh…
that is
me in the back having the biggest laugh though I do not recall what. The boy
spoke very good English, the girl on the left was leaving Saudi to marry a
German and move out of the country though she was a bit unsure about whether
she should. We told her she was very pretty and should finish uni and not rush into something like marriage. The third
person, girl on the right, spoke little English but we communicated via Google
translator and had lots of laughs over miscommunications or the fact that I am
just funny. Insha'Allah.
A humorous moment in Al Balad whilst waiting
for a ride home. We made it perfectly clear to the mob that we could not take
them with us amongst a lot of whining and remorseful sounding clicks along with
stomping their hind legs and growling. Even to the extent of throwing things at
Narda out of their pouch including marbles, pencils, photos of me, clowns,
sandwiches, prayer rugs…
As we are in the Corniche area, we had planned to walk along the shore, but two things
prevented it. One we were super sick. Two we couldn’t walk across the highway
in the area we lived. Google says - A "Corniche" area refers
to a scenic waterfront promenade, popular for recreation, featuring walkways,
beaches, parks, and dining, famously seen in cities like Abu Dhabi, Jeddah, and
Doha. We did the Corniche thingy in all those cities. Especially in Doha as you
would of course have had read in the Doha blog http://neuage.me/doha 
Dec 8-12 Abu Dhabi XD Cosy Apartments 4 nights
We were to get a Careem Uber type taxi to King Abdulaziz International Airport
Sidenote: everywhere one goes in Saudi Arabia it is obvious some king (maybe a prince or princess) has been in the area as something will be named after them. For example, King Abdulaziz was a Najdi statesman and tribal leader who became the founder and first king of Saudi Arabia, reigning from 23 September 1932 until his death in 1953. So of course, the airport is name after him, King Abdulaziz International Airport. And as most of you would know (though I must admit I was in the dark and did not know) there are a few other places named after King Abdulaziz.
· King Abdulaziz Center For National Dialogue
· King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture
· King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology
· King Abdul Aziz Historical Centre
· King Abdul Aziz Hospital, Mecca
· King Abdulaziz International Airport
· King Abdulaziz Medical City, Riyadh
· King Abdulaziz Medical City, Jeddah
· King Abdul Aziz Military College
· King Abdulaziz Mosque, Riyadh
· King Abdulaziz Park, Riyadh
· King Abdulaziz Public Library
· King Abdul Aziz Road, Kuwait
· King Abdulaziz University College of Health Sciences
We arrived at Zayed International Airport,
also known as Abu Dhabi International Airport (no king names here) in the
country of the United Arab Emirates. Here places are named after sultans. The
main one is Abu Dhabi features many places named after its revered founder,
Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. including the iconic Sheikh Zayed Grand
Mosque (a wonderful place to visit more of that later), the Zayed National
Museum, the Founder's Memorial, Sheikh Zayed Sports City, and even Sir Bani Yas
Island (established as a reserve by him). Other prominent sites, like King
Salman Street, honour ruling sultans from neighbouring Saudi Arabia, while the
Sultan Bin Yousef Mosque recognizes local Al Nahyan family members.
Being a different country, again no sim card. The airport is one of the largest in the world and is quite the thing to look at though not when sick and not having a sim card.
Darkness was rapidly closing in on us and us on it upon arrival. Some people foolishly suggested that we could easily hop a bus for little of the local funny money, but we needed cash. Being amongst the elite of the ATM clowns we gleefully shoved our credit card into where the sun refuses to shine which spit out lots of Dirhams. At the bus stop hanging out with all the other losers looking for a way to save a Dirham that’s the name of the AED currency, we were told the bus we wanted 2A would arrive in seven minutes so I ran to some random though proper counter and got two plastic bus cards with ten shits on each $2.61USD which apparently was heaps. Ran back. Bus barely stopped and went on. Why? Some said it was the third not to stop due to being already full of losers trying to save their funny money. If we waited another half hour and we’re extremely lucky we might get on. Being exhausted close to collapse, really, we went to the Uber/Career car share area and paid the $35 USD to get to town an hour away. We got lucky, a new big BMW.
That was the easy part. With ten minutes to arrival, I asked Narda if she had the instructions to get into the flat. She had no idea. We had no Wi-Fi. Panic. Fortunately, the driver overheard us, bloody eavesdroppers, and offered his Wi-Fi. I sent urgent notes to Booking.com and lucky for us the flat host answered and as we arrived we received the instructions of where the apartment was and the door code to get in.
We were too tired and sick to complain except Narda was adamant that this did not look like the flat in her booking. We had a small flat with a small bed in a small room and a poky kitchen and a little area with a dining table. On our third night we found our booking and the image with a large living room was through a door locked from the entrance area. After contacting the host, he came by opening the door. We complained a lot, bottom line, by six pm of day three we got one night with a proper apartment.
The door to the closed area which we had paid
for keeping us in a small area with a bed so small I slept on the floor.
On the last day the owner opened the door giving us at least one night with some room and a sofa to sleep on. Definitely be careful when paying for an Airbnb with a photo that is different than what one gets.
We managed to get sicker if that was possible. On day two we
did walk to the Corniche Area which was the waterfront area and that was great.
On the way we had tea and sweets at an Indian place, seems we are in the Indian
area, lots of folks from Karla here. 
Anyway,
Narda got chatting with a person from Bangladesh and told her story about her
hand being in Bangladesh last year. The story is toward the end of this blog https://neuage.me/2024/06/18/guwahati/
We took lots of photos of the World Trade Centre Building on the way to the Corniche - The Abu Dhabi World Trade Centre complex has two main towers: the residential Burj Mohammed Bin Rashid, 381-382 meters (1,251-1,253 ft) 92 stories, and the office tower, the Trust Tower, at sixty stories. Burj Mohammed Bin Rashid is the tallest building in Abu Dhabi.
The
Corniche is a very long waterfront promenade, 8-kilometer (5-mile),
alongside the Persian Gulf (also known as the Arabian Gulf). We had
thought of walking far enough to have stated we walked a long way but got about
a block before sitting down. 
After Corniche we walked, dragged our sorry asses, home. On
the way we stopped at Lulu Hypermarket and gathered food for dinner and
breakfast. Lulu is huge. 
We
liked Lulu shopping centre in Koche India too. The 99 story World Trade Centre
two of them tower over the market. Lulu has one of the widest varieties of
foods from so many 
places
I have ever seen.
10 December Wednesday
Abu Dhabi hospital
– Feeling beyond normal we went to the LLH Hospital which was a couple of
blocks away. We spent a good amount of time there – getting swabs and blood
tests and I had an EKG. We got some scripts and dutifully went off to the
nearest pharmacy where the pharmacist filled our script and then said we should
take a high dose multivitamin which we bought. Only after getting to our flat did I look at the bill. The bastard sold us vitamins for
$75USD per bottle. As we had already taken one, I couldn’t take it back. I
curse him every day when I take one even now back in Australia a month later.
Is there something wrong with me? We went back a couple of days later and got
our results and everything seems to add up to a throat infection probably
bronchitis and it gradually away.
11 December Thursday
We did one super tourist thingy. We hopped a bus to the Sheikh
Zayed Grand Mosque, constructed between 1994 and 2007. It was an hour ride but
well worth it – and cheap too. It was about a USD buck to get there. I believe
there is a free shuttle, but who is going to spend the day for something free
when they can get it for a 
dollar. The mosque holds about 41,000 worshippers. I
only saw a handful of tourists going ‘wow’ the day we were there. See our clip at https://youtu.be/QSmZGZ3zn0g?si=zG67Fm7n8fhlDYpM
Of course it is small compared to Masjid al-
Haram,
also known as the Sacred Mosque or the Great Mosque of Mecca which holds
four-million Muslims. We were not allowed to go to Mecca because.
Narda had to purchase a dress to cover even her ankles (I always thought she has such sexy ankles that they should always be covered from the perverted gazes of whatever pronoun is in the area at any given moment). Some shop tried to sell her one for about a hundred bucks USD, but we managed to get one that was about $12.
Some fun facts for the groovy Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque - one of the only few in the region to be open to non-Muslims:
·
Home
to the world's largest hand-knotted carpet and some of the most elaborate
chandeliers adorned with gold.
·
Features
82 domes, including the largest dome in the world.
· Largest chandeliers made from 40 million crystals,
· Sheikh Zayed was buried here after his death in 2004,
· The courtyard, with its floral design, measures about 17,000 m2 (180,000 sq ft), and is the largest example of marble mosaic in the world
And lots of other stuff that makes it all worth while
Abu Dhabi airport
Sitting at Abu Dhabi airport listening to “Someday we will be together “Supremes, takes me back to December 1968, now is December 2025, 57 years like yesterday. I was at the airport in San Francisco with my friend, Carolann and her daughter, Desiree, age one. It’s a complex story; we were living at the airport in a child’s change room. We put a blanket over the window so we wouldn’t be seen. We were in the cafeteria serving flight and airport crew, no-one stopped us. We did this for two or three days then I don’t remember but then we had the money to fly to Honolulu where Carolann’s brother met us. A week later we were in the strange cult Order, The Holy Order of MANS (masters illuminated knights of spirit). Damn! I was trapped in that for more than a decade. It still gives me the heebie-jeebies. See my story of this at https://neuage.org/LeavingAustraliaBeforeTheAfter/Hawaii.html. Other songs have transportation effect on me too. Like Janis Joplin takes me to 1968-1969s San Francisco and Dylan to mid-1960s Credence Clearwater to New Orleans days and so on and so forth. Simply put I like experience repeats which is what music does for me. About the only time I listen to my old music is when I travel. At home I listen to classical stuff if the radio is on. Sixty years of travelling and still only living in the sixties.
Dammam – Tyler
12 December Friday
Flight Abu Dhabi to Dammam,
Saudi Arabia 2.15 to 2.45 Tyler collected us from the airport.
Narda’s music co-pilot at Dalian
American School in China has been a music teacher at Saudi Aramco School
(SAES) for the past seven years. He has three children one of whom Narda taught
at Dalian School. Tyler’s wife died a year ago and at the time Narda said we
will come and visit which is how we added Saudi Arabia to our trip after our
six weeks in the Netherlands. At the time we were just going from Utrecht to
Dammam for a few days then back to Adelaide. 
One day I
saw a good price for a repositioning cruise to Aba Dhaba which is close to Dammam and I thought that would be a good way to see Tyler
then go home. Two-week cruise. Then of course, the second week got cancelled as
rambled on about in the previous blog due to naughty folks shooting stuff at
ships in the Red Sea. So, the chip tossed us at Jeddah leaving us to figure out
the rest of our trip. Which obviously, we did and now we are in Dammam. Aren’t
you glad you asked? And why the hell didn’t I get ChatGPT to write this in a
concise and easy to follow way? Never. I have tried these various AI re-writes
for various things: poems, age-reductions, make me sound sensible etc. and it
all sounds stupid so bear with me.
Arriving at the airport Tyler met us. The landscape is like
South Australia desert. Looking for camels like visitors to Australia look for roos. Did not see any. 
Tyler’s
home reminds me of the movie The Truman Show. Very neat – spotless streets –
houses all looking the same. We were told how easy we could get lost so one day
when Tyler went to work, we walked around the block, fearful of getting lost.
13 December Saturday
Damman- with Tyler - out to lunch Shakshuka
is a popular one-pan North African and Middle Eastern dish featuring poached
eggs nestled in a simmering, spiced tomato and bell pepper sauce grape leaves - hummus - falafel. to
Lulu groceries afternoon - Narda feeling ill still mainly head stuffy – 
14 December Sunday 
Damman - Narda slept a lot -
out to dinner for pizza
15 December Monday
Damman
Train Saudi Arabia
16
December Tuesday
Riding train through Saudi Arabia who could have guessed such a caper. Listening to Dylan to Leadbelly to Joplin women across from me totally covered in random consciousness black and narrow slit for eyes staring at me with obstructed thoughts probably wondering if a 78-year-old American/Australian would be a good... I stare back shaking my head no and they turn to look interested in the thoughtless desert passing past window fast, alarmed that Allah would allow such thoughts. I did try to make contact. Smiled even thought of telling them one of my very funny American jokes (transparency – don’t know any) but no response. That is the most difficult thing in Saudi Arabia there is little communication through facial expressions. Even males I found very dead pan – no emotional response. Saudi Arabia is the first county I have been in that I don’t try to be funny. Of course, folks seldom think I am funny in any other country but I laugh at my jokes whereas in Saudi I won’t even tell them. Even if I could remember the punch lines.
Whilst looking for wi-fi access – no free ones
but our sim card from the week before that we got in Jeddah worked fine. I did
see one connection for “thanks my allah” but as
thankful as I was it didn’t work even with my password-guesses.
Final analysis of a train ride through Saudi Arabia. Boring – food like the view outside the window is quite bland and no one smiled (that I could ascertain) and it is an average train. Cleaner that an Indian train, much less interesting – otherwise probably like Amtrak in USA.
Riyadh
Riyadh
Airport = King Khalid International Airport. Back to an airport named after a
king. Full Name: Khalid bin Abdulaziz
bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud, which is what I say when I am in a hurry.
As everyone (except me) knows, King Khalid refers to King Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the fifth King and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia, who reigned from 1975 until his death in 1982, with the major international airport in Riyadh named in his honour to recognize his role in modernizing the kingdom. He was the son of the kingdom's founder, King Abdulaziz, and was known for overseeing significant development and infrastructure projects during his rule, like the airport itself.
Our video clip for Riyadh is at https://youtu.be/sVQIKMDi95A?si=m2GuDVl6ZjUE-Oa0
this shows the metro and much of the museum.
We only spent two days here. Took random buses ended up at a bit of a strange restaurant – walked for a while – saw a big museum and spent the rest of the day there. It was very impressive and free which made it more impressive.
At the museum, they had many of King Khalid’s cars on display. He is referred to as the people’s king. A very humble and moderate dude. Here are a few of his cars. Obviously, what the common man (women couldn’t drive) would scoot around town in.
7
What I found most interesting
in the museum was the history of writing. Having done as PhD on chatrooms I
explored writing from thousands of years ago to now. This museum has a lot on
this.
For example, this is from my PhD “Conversational analysis of chatroom talk” at https://neuage.org/thesis/all.htm in the introduction (1.1 Evolution of
language from early utterances to chatroom utterances)
with a slideshow of some of the displays, with some original things – most
are in the Cario museum.
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We
took the metro around the place, a new opened a few months ago, setup. In 2025
we got to see two new metro systems just as they opened. The first was in
February of 2025 in Saigon. See https://youtu.be/5t6L4-cCEPI?si=2lKsq21ef8FwZgko
and the second new one here in Riyadh. 
We had a good hotel here for our couple of days, Golden Dune Al Malaz. Nothing extra fancy, probably about two and a half stars but an OK breakfast buffet and friendly staff. The main claim to fame was it is a few steps from the bus that goes to the metro that goes to the museum.
View from our room on the fifth floor. 
Narda
pointing the way to the nearest vegetarian low-carb organic Hindu-influenced Rabi-blessed
food court.
One of my goals, not Narda’s was to see their
super tall building. The Kingdom Centre (or Kingdom Tower) is
99-story skyscraper, known for its distinctive inverted arch and
parabolic opening, housing offices, a Four Seasons Hotel, luxury apartments,
and the Al Mamlaka Shopping Mall, featuring the
world's second-highest mosque and the Sky Bridge for panoramic city
views, symbolizing modern Saudi development. But not feeling well, we
decided not to go to the top, and instead went into Ibis Hotel and had lunch
and took the metro + bus back to our hotel. BTW the Al Mamlaka
Shopping Mall was crap. Only a McDonalds and a lot of lingerie stores which I
found interesting…of course, but to see women fully covered but for slits for
their eyes and all these shop windows displaying close to naked models (not
real, unfortunately) with their frilly underwear seemed strange. BTW I make my
own giggles by visualizing the males dressed in their fancy white sheets
wearing these lingerie thingies beneath their lily-white sheets. I wouldn’t
last an hour in one of those suits as I would spill food and strange thoughts
all over the front and people like me would just laugh at me.
Narda at the metro station.
18 Dec-21 Phuket
18 December Thursday
Fly Riyhad
to Phuket (Etihad EOU9YR) 10.30am -1.15pm (Etihad 554) arrives
Abu Dhabi (one hour stopover) 2.15pm - 11.35pm (Etihad 414)
18 Dec-21 Naiyang Park Resort 34/5 Moo1, Tambon
Sakoo< Amphour Thalang, Sa Khu Phuket
I thought they meant half of my clothing
because it was so hot – so I did. Because our first six-weeks of this
three-month trip was in the Netherlands I filled my suitcase with all the
winter stuff back in Australia and now I have to drag
it through the tropics. What I had planned to do, and did a bit, was leave
winter clothes behind. I left my winter coat hanging on a pole in Abu Dhabi last week and hope someone will make use of it in that
warm climate. Still, my suitcase was over full. Of course, Narda agreeing that
we toss some of winter stuff in Holland worked for a moment. Then she bought a
winter coat for six dollars at a thrift store and a large scarf. The winter
coat is twice the size of the tossed coat, so we are back to where we started.
Too much stuff.
Flights and airports were fine. My only
complaint was that the music playlist only had one Dylan album. Which of
course, is one more than I have ever seen on any flight. Ever.
This is our second trip to Phuket. Two years ago, we stayed in a different area of Phuket, staying at the Deevana Patong Resort which is more of the night scene. See https://neuage.me/phuket This time we just wanted/needed a quiet beach place and we got it.
We got to Phuket at midnight and saw only one taxi driver so we went with him to the Naiyang Park Resort https://www.naiyangparkresort.com/ and got to our room tired but no longer ill. Not much to say about this place where we stayed for three days. It was a great place, and we would happily stay at the Naiyang Park Resort again.
I did not fly my drone in Thailand as there
are heavy fines for anytime anyplace of such fun. Of course, in Saudi Arabia I
didn’t consider it. For whatever reason that country scares me, so I just was
quiet and invisible (sort of).
The sunset was fantastic across the road
from our resort. The resort is in a national park with great beaches and a bit
of a somewhat forest or at least a lot of trees. The swimming pool was the
temperature of a warm bath. We loved the place but it
became time to move on to the main event of this trip. Christmas with Brendan,
Sofie and the baby so we were off to Koh Samui for a week then New Years and a
week in Bangkok with Brendan, Sofie and Arhun. Phuket to Koh Samui on Bangkok
Air was a decent flight, about two-hours.
Meals were good and
the 
resort was tricked out for Christmas.
Breakfast buffet was included and was really good with
a large variety of stuff good for a vegetarian and mystery meat and roadkill
for the non-vegans. 
21 Dec Koh Samui
We were lucky and had an assigned seat in the first row –
the exit row. And lucky for us they did not notice we could have been pushing
the elderly envelope as elderly people are not allowed in the exit row. Surely we can open the bloody door and jump out and hope
that the others follow us. 
I
liked the Koh Samui airport from the get-go (to use an American word that Narda
doesn’t care for). It reminded me of the Maui (Hawaii) airport in the
1960s-early 1970s. A small tropical unassuming airport. More outdoors than
indoors.
We were on a propeller plane just like the 1960s to Maui 
The airport is visible in our clip along with some other stuff from our week in Koh Samui https://youtu.be/-FnSLkNXy1I?si=YFuhRMFHtXKuMB2H
The main even – Narda meeting her grandson. We saw him last
in Lahore when he was four-months old, now he was getting old and will turn
two-years old in another month.
We had a beautiful room – cabin – whatever - 
and across the park was Brendan, Sofie and
Ahun. 
Six days. The beach was always there
and I went in a couple of times, Narda once…the waves were a bit big. 
This became our daily, morning hangout after a
good breakfast.
27 Dec Bangkok
oh look Narda started
writing….
Then came time to leave. We took a short flight to
Bangkok.
The hotel there was very nice, luxury by our standards.
We each had a room on the tenth floor. It was located on a street which took us
to a supermarket, and then to the train overhead which we made good use of.
Sometimes we looked after Arhan and one time he asked
“Where’s oma?” That made my day.
We ate the street food (I always had spring rolls much to
Brendans disapproval :)
Video for this is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7AfW8IZtC0
Wow – so much to say – and I have run out of puff so this
part will be short even though we had a full week of stuff. It could have been
a blog on its own, but now we are home preparing to go to UK for a month in
five weeks then USA for a month then probably Pakistan – who knows? So this will be cut short now on 22 January.
Our hotel was at Adelphi Grande Sukhumvit – we were on the
tenth floor down the hall from Brendan and Sofie and Arhan
our
street – good luck with trying to find this ever again
As seen in the video above we sent to the The Grand Palace. a complex of buildings at the heart of Bangkok. The traffic around the palace was shocking and the huge lines of people wanting to get in went for several blocks. Not sure how he did it but Brendan just went to the front of it all and got us tickets and in we went. being a very hot day there was no way we were going to wait in line for hours. Inside was amazing – see the video. We lasted for about an hour then Arhan a month away from the terrible twos decided now was the time to exercise his ability to perform ahead of time so home we went. that was quite the job getting through crowds and finding a taxi but we did, obviously, because I am here writing this a few weeks later.
sidenote here – we love buses and fantasize how to make one
into an RV and drive around Australia in it – so I took a couple of photos to
remember when we are home what we want…
·
This is our last photo together – breakfast together before flying off
·
· This is our lawn when we got home after three months
At
home – the lawn after three months away
Our
fridge with magnets from this trip –
See you in Truro (Doc Martin & Fishermen’s Friends) territory. next month.