Update from Bali

Kuala Lumpur and Bali Arrival

Jane this time,

It's interesting, the business of communication. Because we've had some very sketchy wi-fi in places, I've been putting the odd photo up on Facebook in cafe wi-fi grab moments. Almost immediately, someone 'likes' my post, and I can end up with 20/30 comments in 24 hours. Now, this blog isn't getting any comments at all.

So, a bit of research; if you are reading this blog, and enjoy what we're writing, please would you send us a comment?

Myanmar was the start of this 7 month epic. A full-on start, but chosen intentionally, to avoid the monsoon. Definitely a good idea. After Burma, we flew back to KL, and from there we've backtracked even further to Bali. We'll go from Bali to Singapore, and then we start moving West.

Myanmar is Buddhist, Malaysia is Muslim and Bali is Hindu. I am very aware that, in each of these countries, there's a sense of Spirituality, which I'm linking to patience, acceptance, calm. I'm also making a big judgement that the lack of excessive alcohol consumption in all these countries is contributing to the gentleness and sense of safety that I'm experiencing. I hear the locals use the word 'respect' and think "hmm, is respect a feature of life in Australia?" I'll continue to watch this as we travel.

KL Twin Towers - Tallest in the world!

It was my first visit to KL, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Certainly, it's busy, but it is clean and efficient and there's lots to see. We were lucky to stay with young expat friends, and their two small children. I'd forgotten the joys of the maid; the extra pair of hands that never offers an opinion. It's a marriage saver.

In my counselling rooms I see so many burned-out, unsupported families. I know it might be considered politically incorrect in Australia, but low cost domestic help is an effective working model in place all over the world.

33rd Floor of Traders hotel in KL.

So, we played surrogate grandparents, and were even trusted with the 4 year old, for a day on the hop-on, hop-off city tour bus. And we shopped, which is an Asian cultural pastime. Everything looks prosperous and booming. This is the Asian Century for sure.



Very impressed with KL's new airport, and $10 express rail link to Sentral in the CBD. Very Schmick.

View of the gardens from our breakfast table in Bali.

4 days later we were on a flight to Bali.

Now, Ian has never been to Bali.  I spend an idyllic month here 39 years ago. We were both stunned at the development, and the traffic. Fortunately we are based in a haven of tranquility, which is fortunate since we're here for 18 days. Ian's cousin who is based in the US, owns a property in a compound of only 5 properties.

The owners built here 20 years ago, and many of the 15 staff have been employed for all that time. Only one house is permanently occupied. Everything is beautifully gardened, the large pool is pristine, breakfast is ready every morning, and Ian has great difficulty prizing me out of here!

We have just returned from a 4 day side trip to Ubud. Pleased with our choice of hotel, in a quiet village outside Ubud, with huge rooms and antique furniture and pools with goldfish. And both outside and inside showers!

There was a shower inside as well!

Very interested in the town and surrounds. But, it is also heaving with traffic, tourists and touts. In places. Then, just a street away, is a tranquil walk through rice paddies, and all is forgiven. Ubud is a Balinese cultural centre, and we saw some wonderful art, and enjoyed some very proficient cultural dance shows with full gamelan orchestra accompaniment.

Too much choice for food. We particularly liked a restaurant called Fair Warung Bale. Great food, and more importantly, all profits go to a medical clinic providing free health care for the Balinese. There's also a whole community of Westerners living there; lots of yoga and meditation. Rather like a steamy, exotic Byron Bay.

On the return trip to Sanur ('Sanurty'), we drove up into the mountains to see a lake in a volcanic crater at Bedugul. Many Indonesians from Java, visit this significant spot. At one point we passed about 30 huge buses all lined up at a rest stop. The population of Indonesia is massive: 240 Million. I will not complain about traffic congestion in Australia again.

Ducks in a rice paddy, Yummy..........

Unfortunately the weather was cloudy that day so the views from the top of the mountain pass to the seas and adjacent volcano peaks were just not available. But we did pass many hillside terraces with  a fantastic selection of mostly rice but also lots of other veggies growing.

Wrap up of the Myanmar trip

Myanmar - the second post

Yes we know, its been a long time coming, but hey, we have 7 months of this, so we have to pace ourselves.

Firstly, did you go back and relook at the last blog post yet, as we have added some photos of Maynmar now we have a better internet connection here in Bali.  We have now also added  few more photos of this earlier part of the trip below. 

All teak and originally golden, the last bit of the Mandalay Royal Palace. Very "King and I".

Above is a picture of the last remaining part of the Royal Palace in Mandalay. All teak and originally gilded, the majority of it burnt down in the Japanese and Allied fighting there at the end of the 2nd WW.

They make lots of beautiful lacquerware in Bagan, mostly using strips of bamboo. We did succumb to a few bowls, but it was really too early in the trip to be buying too much stuff.

At Mingon.  Worlds 2nd biggest ringing bell! 90 tons.

In charge of the drinks trolley in a lacquerware shop in Bagan 

There were so many things to see and do that we really did not have time to do them all justice in the few days we were there.  And everywhere you go there were inevitably the tourist souvenir stall and sellers, with everything from sapphires rubies to "antique" bronze statues and "temple pants"for the ladies to wear when visiting the temples.

The tour girls bargaining over the temple pants.  Jane bought the ones she's holding!

The previous post was uploaded as we were arriving at Lake Inle in eastern Myanmar, getting up into the mountains at about 1,100m altitude.  The weather there was much cooler and less humid, say 30C during the day. Our hotel was on the shore of the lake and our actual room was in stilts over the lake itself.

Our room, 3rd from right

Not unsurprisingly, most of the trips we made from this place were in a long tail boat.We visited various markets around the lake and workshops for making cigars, boats, silk and lotus silk fabrics, and a blacksmiths.

There were whole villages and event temples precariously perched on stilts all around the place.  And they have even perfected a way to grow fantastic vegetables on literally floating gardens made from a waterlily weed and lake bed silt.

House and floating garden. This one was a bit scruffy. There were acres of floating tomatoes!

A few of hundreds of ruins of pagodas at Indein.

One day we went by long tail boat bus again up a stream to Indein now a village, one a kingdom capital city in the 15C.  Again we found hundreds of smaller shrines and pagodas, each with their Buddha's in place, most in ruins, dotted around the main functioning temple in reasonable nick.  

Long tail boat bus.

More ruins! Count 'em.

There was also thriving new winery Red Mountain Winery, but that was not on the lake it was in the surrounding hills.  Made a very drinkable sauvignon blanc. The shiraz / tempranillo needed a bit more work however.

Mayanmar Red Mountain winery.

On the last day there we had a Shan style banquet in the hotels massive dining room, just the 10 of us in the group.

Hotel dining room, built for hundreds, catering to 10.

The hotel was nearly empty.  Half of the guest rooms had burnt to the lake in a fire the previous January and they were still rebuilding.

The last day of the tour we flew from Heho back to Yangon, where the monsoon had started in earnest.  We whizzed to the grand old Strand Hotel for tea and scones, visited the museum house of the national hero father of Aung San Su Chee and then stood in awe in front of the massive reclining Buddha.

Reclining Buddha. Difficult to photograph something 65m long close-up.

The next morning the 1 hour drive to the Yangon airport took two and a half hours in monsoon rain (300mm had fallen overnight) and we thought we would miss our flight.  But no - were were back in a Malaysian Air (!!!!!) plane headed for KL.

For what happened next see the next Post..............

Day 10 - D day plus 2

We started this post three days ago when we were in Bagan, on the western side of Central Myanmar. It's now Sunday evening and today we flew to be here at lake Inle.  I will finish this post now and upload it but it won't contain any photos yet as the internet is pretty slow here.
Also Internet is playing up so not sure this is going to work !

If it all seems pretty scrambled, sorry. We will fix it up when we can.

Written previously.
So here we are in Bagan, in central Myanmar, watching the D-day rememberance event on a French (!) TV channel in our hotel room after (another) day of sightseeing and sunset watching.

The first thing you need to know about Central Myanmar in June is that it is hot.  Like 40+ degrees hot.  And dry. no rain for months. The monsoon has been late coming this year, which has been good for us, but the full days out and about looking at the fabulous ancient sites have been pretty exhausting. Plus we are still recovering from the preparations before we left.

Leaving Coolangatta at 8am on the 30th we arrived in KL via Air Asia. 9 hours but a pretty good flight.  There is a new low cost terminal just opened in KL that has an express rail link to the city for about $10, great service .........

one of 8 lions guarding the entrance to the Shew de Gon Pagoda

After a quiet day in a friend's apartment near the station in central KL we boarded our Malaysia Air (!) flight to Yangon (Rangoon) where we were met at the airport, so no problems there. Out of the door, and into the heat. 40C plus, like a really bad summer day in Brisbane.

Good hotel with efficient air conditioning overlooking one of the Yangon masterpieces, the Shwedegon pagoda.  We met the rest of the group of 9 (7 assorted Aussies, one Swiss lass, and a New York gal. Great mix!

Up early the next day for a visit to the pagoda, and back again through madly weaving traffic to the airport for the "flight to Mandalay".

The orb and vane on the top of the main pagoda comprise 1/2 ton gold and 3,000 gemstones!

Mandalay was, if anything, even hotter than Yangon.  A very busy city, traffic, cars, motorbikes and bicycles everywhere. Set out on a perfect square grid of streets around the central Royal Palace and surrounding moat, it was all you would expect of a bustling Asian commercial centre.



Our hotel was brand new and close to the centre, and terribly designed, but full of very willing staff. As an example they had a servery to manage breakfast from and the waste from the sink crossed the floor in a duct staff had to step over to get to the kitchen!?


We had two days visiting the local sights including the pagodas on Mandalay Hill and a Raj style hill station out if town with the most beautiful botanic gardens.

Flower market outside Mandalay

Difficult to grasp scale, all brick, -it's 50 m high!

A boat trip one morning took us across the Irrawaddy to the largest pile of bricks in the world, see photo above, a massive unfinished temple, only 50m high, one third of the planned total.

An earthquake in 1830 stopped work, and also toppled a 90 ton bell (2nd biggest ringing bell in the world - all the facts here!), rehung by the British, and still there.

The  Irrawaddy river level is very low, awaiting the start of the monsoon, so the planned slow boat to our next stop, Bagan, 200km downstream was off, replaced by a flight. Roads out of the cities are generally pretty poor, so it would have been about 10 hours by coach we were told.

The Irrawaddy before the monsoon.

Bagan is truly one of the most wondrous places in the world, literally thousands of mostly Buddhist temples, pagodas and monasteries, spread across the sandy plains. At peak they say there were 10,000 structures.  The local dynasties ruled Burma from here around 10th & 11th centuries AD.

Many temples had 4 different Buddhas inside.

Jane in the pool in Bagan. The water was 38C!

  The weather in Bagan was up to 44C but the hotel did at least have a swimming pool to fall into at the end of the days sightseeing.

We did see some wonderful sunsets, blazing red sky's over the pagodas in the plains, or from the terrace of bars overlooking the Irrawaddy.

Sunset over the Bagan plains.

Sorry but the photos at Bagan do not do the place justice, as you simply cannot get the skyline "view" of all of the pagoda rooflines in any picture that I took.  They has stopped the hot air balloon flights before we arrived, so the opportunity of an aerial view of the plain was not to be.


Next day we awoke at 5am (!) for breakfast before an early flight to Heho, the airport for Lake Inle where we are for the next few days.  The weather here, on the fringes of the "Golden Triangle" zone of Burma/ Laos / Thailand is mercifully cool, about 22c at present, with showers forecast for our stay.

Note : Photos added 18 June.

Here we go again!

The Leaving

So here we are, sitting in Stephen and Emily Thomson's beautiful flat in Kuala Lumpur, thinking back over the whirlwind of activity of the last 6 months and looking forward to the next 7!

A brief synopsis to explain our justification for this reckless behaviour:  

The blood

Ian's platelet count was reaching record highs of 1,300 plus early in 2013, so it was time for action.  After many tests the original essential thrombocythemia (ET to friends) diagnosis was confirmed and oral chemotherapy was the treatment. Starting hydroxyurea in September by early 2014 the count was down to below 400 i.e. in the normal range, and the dosage was established.  Other than monthly blood tests as we travel, we hope this is now under control and the thrombosis risks are being well managed.

The neck

BEFORE - MRI showing stenosis

The stenosis in Jane's neck came to a head (sorry about the pun!) in July '13, when it was agreed the time for surgery had arrived.  Having held back for 10 years, all parties agreed the benefits had begun to outweigh the risks.

So in November 2013 Jane was very brave and went in to have the major surgery  to relieve the pressure.  The result was fantastic (just don't ask me to change multiple lanes while driving at speed). Six months had to pass before all could be signed off as as OK to travel, and that happened in May, so here we are. 

AFTER - X-ray of row and bolts

The pieces fall into place.

The gap year plan needed three major elements to succeed; robust health, money and time. The first had been managed; tick. Ian succeeded in subdividing our land and selling off a block. Tick number 2. In taking some time off to care for Jane, Ian decided he'd like a work break, perhaps for ever? Tick no 3.

We've left 5 young adults between 25-30 in the house. Their contributions will cover running costs, the dogs are looked after and we hope they have lovely dinner parties.

The Gap Year Plan - 2014

January - Ian give notice to RCP. Jane returns to work.

March -  Ian retires from RCP after more than 13 years of enjoyable and often challenging project  and development management consultancy work. Thanks guys, you were a great team to be part of.

April and May - prepared ourselves and the house for our exit. Jane continued working, and will do some work on Skype as we travel.

The travel itinerary as we know it at present is below:

Friday May 30	Depart Brisbane for KL
1 June:	KL to Yangon. 2 weeks in Burma/Myanmar
13 -16 June:	Back in KL
16 June:	KL to Denpasar. Nearly 3 weeks in Bali
4 July:	Denpasar to Changi. 5 days in Singapore
9 July:	Singapore to Dubai for 4 days
13 July:	Dubai to London
13 - 28 July:	Touring in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Lewis, Harris, the Uists, Barra and Skye
28 July to 15 August:	based in Fife. Jane’s family home. Edinburgh Festival, family and friends.
15 - 30 August:	French Alps with family; walking, eating, singing “Sound of Music”
30 August - 6 September:	Florence, Italy
6 – 13 September:	sailing in Croatia with friends from Brisbane
13 Sept to early October:	touring with same friends. Budapest, Krakow, Prague
Early October – end November:	South of England, 2 months (in a cottage pretending to be retired in UK, and hoping we don't like it, so we return to Australia content to end our days here)
Late November:	Toronto, 10 days
Early December:	New York, 2 weeks
Mid December to Jan 2015!	Orlando, Florida, 3 weeks (for Christmas and New Year with Ian's family)
Early January 2015	Fly home via UK and Abu Bhabi and Singapore Home to Brisbane on 9th January

The last week before we left was hectic with Jane working with clients on Tuesday and Wednesday as I was finalising the various arrangements pre-departure as well as sorting out the house for "the tenants".  So much to do, so little time.........

Don't Yoshi and Zoe look pleased that we are leaving!

Come Thursday evening we had a great take away Indian meal courtesy of Ayla, then a last cigar and Prussers rum with Simon and off to bed.
Next day up before dawn, breakfast, final cuddle with the dogs, see photos, and into the car for a fast drive trip to Coolangatta airport for the Air Asia flight to Kuala Lumpur.  Fine flight and we arrived, exhausted after the activities of the last few days but elated to be off at last. Thank you, Thomsons, for the pit stop for 36 hours. We're rested and ready.

Next stop Myanmar.  Off to the airport tomorrow morning. We may not be able to blog from Myanmar, depends on the wireless internet connections there.  If we don't we will post agin in about two weeks!

Cheers for now.