Pitre - Outside the box

Been home for a little over a week...Ottawa is BLOODY COLD! Travelling seems like a ling ago dream. Soon, I will write about our recent wanderings.

Currently in Cambodia. Visited Phnom Pehn and Angkor Wat. Now lazing on a beach on an island called Koh Rong. Soon heading to Kampot and then back to Phnom Penn. We fly to Vancouver on Feb. 12 and back to Ottawa on Feb 22. Travel is great!

We are currently in Nepal. Guy was out on a short trek and we are currently staying in Kathmandu. I really need to get writing....right?

Some pictures of Bali and Flores, Indonesia.

I guess it is about time that I get going on this blog or some might think I have fallen off the planet. Here is the beginning of the “Mom and Dad Run Away From Home Trip” AKA “They are leaving us with the house-- PARTY TIME!'” Oh dear – will it still be standing when we return?

June was a pretty exciting month for Didier. Within the space of two weeks, he appeared with a lovely girlfriend, graduated high school, got a job and passed his driving licence. Wow! Graduating high school and getting his driver's licence were important events for us, as this meant that he had met personal goal and also that the children would have a means to go and buy groceries when necessary. We spent July saying good bye to friends and family and setting things up for our departure – ensuring that life would not be too rough for our young adult children.

August 9th arrived and we woke up early to get to the airport by 7 A.M. Unfortunately, my ADD husband left his carryon bag at home so he and Didier raced back to Orleans to get it. I got us our boarding passes but couldn't leave the luggage until Guy returned. Magali bought me a Timmies while I worried as the minutes passed and our boarding time approached. Fortunately, they made it back and after a tearful good bye, we boarded our plane for Toronto. Travel without the children is difficult for me. I love those silly brats and am missing them, sad to be unable to share this new adventure.
Our flight to Toronto was uneventful – and our layover of a couple hours passed very quickly. The international part of the airport is really modern. When we travelled last time, it was just another airport – blah blah. This time, instead of the traditional rows of chairs there are high tables with hundreds of ipads for passengers awaiting their next flight. There were actually very few plain chairs and most people had their faces glued to one of those ipads – doing whatever it is people continually do whenever one is available. While waiting for our flight, I tried to talk to some people around me but was met with strange looks – maybe they thought I was a dangerous predator. LOL. I will undoubtedly be making comparisons to my past travel experiences – so my observation here is that in the past, people in these waiting spaces talked to each other – connected momentarily – shared stories and laughed. Obviously, I am not adverse to using technology, but I refuse to be a slave and perpetually live in a virtual space inhabited by those I have already met and “Friended”. I travel to learn and meet people. This is becoming increasing difficult as it seems everyone is opting for a virtual life and virtual interactions rather than face to face exchanges. Is it better? I guess we will know the answer to that some time in the future when the impact of the web will become more evident...but I digress.
Our flight to Seoul was long and actually not very pleasant. We were squished into the middle seats with no room to put out arms. Guy was between me and a man on the other side so I tried to lean into the aisle and put my arm out there but any relief from that action was short lived as the food carts and people needed to pass. It was a very long flight but we made the best of it by drinking lots of beer and wine and sleeping on top of each other. When we arrived in Seoul, we searched for a place to stretch out for the three hour layover and caught a brief nap before boarding the final leg of our journey to Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia. Once again, we availed ourselves of the beer and wine and snoozed as best we could in the cramped seats. The time difference is exactly 12 hours from home – so that in addition to the usual fatigue which accompanies 27 hours in transit – actually more like 30 hours if you include our having left Orleans at 6 A.M. meant that having to deal with the line ups, customs and baggage retrieval left us at wits end. Leaving the airport in Denpasar, we were funnelled into a line up of taxi drivers who were trying to get the “ignorant tourists” to pay almost three times the usual fare from the airport to the local hotels. We knew better and headed for the door. Unfortunately, Guy being Guy, felt the need to be polite and exchange a few words with these guys and in doing so became the victim of a pickpocket. Immediately upon our arrival at our hotel, we contacted Magali to cancel his cards and put the experience down to our rusty travel-wary habits and our weariness. This is not the Bali, we had encountered on our previous trips.
We stayed at the MaxOne Legian hotel which is not actually in Legian but Seminyak, north of Kuta and Legian and a little too far from good restaurants. We had to take taxis to get to Legian to get decent food and on our third day there, while taking a taxi back to our hotel, the cabbie tried to scam us. He pretended to be lost – being who we are we reassured him that he would get his fare despite our having been driven around and around. Finally it was just too ridiculous so we told him we were getting out and giving him the three dollar fare that it should have cost for us to return to our hotel. When we refused to pay the almost $18 fare he was insisting we pay, he spat in Guy's face and yelled words that we suspect were not too kind. I would not recommend staying in Seminyak...or even in Legian or Kuta. August is “high” season. Perhaps the tourists who are there for two or three weeks are used to paying whatever is asked rather than engaging in bargaining or being aware of tourist-prices. Apart from the nasty cabbies (with their nimble fingers and their spit filled vitriol) the short time we spent was fine for us because what we needed most was a place to sleep and acclimatize to life on the other side of the globe. We rested, swam in the pool, and watched some Netflix – Vikings -- :)
We then returned to the airport – this time more attentive to our belongings – and flew to Labuan Bajo on Flores, another island in the Indonesian archipelago. Leaving the airport was as usual a battle of wits – bargaining with cabbies wanting our business but trying out hugely exaggerated prices before coming down to a more reasonable “tourist-price”. We arrived at Golo Hilltop Hotel, a true oasis of jasmine scented, flower and plant filled garden walkways to sparkling clean rooms with aircon and attached bathrooms set atop a ridge overlooking a sea sprinkled with tiny islands and boats. The sunset was amazing and a quick walk down the hill brought us once again to the Paradise Bar where reggae music, performed by a local band charmed our first evening. The next day was spent talking to other visitors, mostly from Holland, basking in the pool and making arrangements for a three day, two night sejour on a fishing boat to some of the most renown snorkelling and diving in the world. Peter, our usual middleman whom we met four years ago, arranged the trip for us but the price has skyrocked. When we were here in 2012, for the four people and one night it was a total of $120. This time, for just Guy and I, the cost for two nights was $500. Labuan Bajo has been discovered by the Europeans and as a result, the town has changed dramatically with an huge increase not only in prices but also in construction, traffic and garbage.
After confirming our trip with Peter, both Guy and I noticed that we had taken too much equatorial sun for our northern lily white skin. On the boat the next day, I wore a long sleeved hooded top over my bathing suit and firmly attached my trusty Tilley whenever outside the water. Unfortunately, despite applying sunscreen, the back of my legs turned a deep purple and we had to return a day early. This meant finding lodging in the town as Golo was fully booked. Peter helped once again but the place was dank and soulless. The proprietor was not very nice and breakfast inedible. We first showered off the sand and sea water, cranked up the air conditioning, swallowed some ibuprofen, applied copious quantities of aloe vera cream to the burned skin and slept the day away waking only to go to the night fish market where for $11 we had a huge quantity of fresh red snapper, rice and veggies.
Today, we have returned to our Golo oasis where we paid $6 for their amazing breakfast and view over the sea. They got us into a room as soon as they could and Guy has gone for his usual daily walk while I am typing up this blog. He has the camera with the memory card so I will try to post some pictures later.
We are here for another two nights and then will be travelling to Bajawa to visit our friends, Marie and Henke of the Hotel Happy Happy.

In less than a week, Guy and I will once again be "Outside the box" off to wander Bali, Flores, Lombok, Indonesia for a few months. Unfortunately, time marches on and it is time for the children to set up their futures so, they will not be with us on this sojourn. They will be missed and our adventures not quite as sweet because they will not be with us. I am glad that technology will allow us to remain in close touch unlike our first 12 month trip in 1993-1994 during which, our parents had no clue where we were for months on end.
We are excited and yet a little sad, but such is life.
I will try to keep this blog up to date so those of you with inquiring minds, will know our location on the globe and any recent discoveries filling our minds with new knowledge and wonder.

Turn this up loud!!!!! Magali just showed me my new ANTHEM!!!!!
LOVE THIS!!!!!!! GETTING READY TO RUN AWAY!
108 Days until we board a plane to Denpasar, BALI!
TURN THIS UP LOUDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SING WITH ME!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSJhrO2Ydao

Renegades | X Ambassadors | Lyrics ☾☀ Released | March 3rd, 2015 Disclaimer | This video is for entertainment purposes only and no copyright infringement is intended.

Spent today booking a return flight from Kathmandu to Southern India for next mid-Jan to March. I believe it will be somewhat warmer than last January. :) We will stay a few night on a beach and then wander for a about 6 weeks before heading back for some spring trekking in Nepal.
http://www.beachflora.in/kovalam-hotels/

KOVALAM HOTEL BEACH FLORRA INN | Hotels in Kovalam

We have booked our tickets from Bali to Kathmandu on October 20th! While surfing the net, found an island, Nusa Penida, that we might visit during our stay in Bali.....It is sooooo much fun to dream of the sun and snorkeling on a dreary Canadian March day.

March Break has arrived and Guy and I have been busy dreaming of our new upcoming adventure. It is with some mixed feelings (as we will be leaving the kids to freeze in Canada) that we booked the first of our tickets to Bali on August 9, 2016. We also booked our hotel for the first 4 nights in Legian/Kuta Beach and are beginning to plan our time in Indonesia which will include Bali, Flores and possibly Lombok. It is a really tough job -- NOT!

Retiring soon and dreaming of new adventure with my amazing husband!

Feeling sad.
This is my Christmas story.
I have a Nepali friend, Hom. We met him when we were rafting in Nepal in 2011. He is a really great man of integrity and kindness -- two qualities I value highly.
As you know, I will be retiring from teaching in a couple years and am thinking about my future. It would be my dream to be able to help Hom and the people of Nepal.
This April and again in May, Nepal suffered two huge earthquakes which killed a lot of people and caused a lot of property damage (including to Hom and his parent's house which is near the quake's epicenter).
Hom is a Certified Whitewater Rafting Guide, who in order to support his family has legally worked as a skilled laborer for the past four years in the summers in Japan. This year, because of the earthquake, he decided to extend his stay in Japan because the number of tourists likely to visit Nepal in the fall of 2015 was low and consequently his opportunities for earning money by guiding in there were minimal. In order to earn money to help rebuild the family home, he isolated himself for a longer period of time than normal.
So, what has this got to do with Christmas you may be wondering? Well, I figured that since he was unlikely to be able to earn money over the winter in either Nepal or Japan, I would invite him to come to Canada where, over the holidays, we could reconnect and discuss some plans for his future – perhaps the building of lodge in Nepal or his moving to Canada if that were desired and possible.
He was rather reticent – stating that getting a visa to Canada would be difficult. I reassured him that Canada was not like that and that getting the visa would not be a problem.
Because his English skills are not great, I asked a couple of former students who are now living in Japan to help him, but that didn't work out too well. Instead, I got him to give me his information, filled in the forms for him and couriered them to him in Tokyo. Because the Canadian government has outsourced the Visa work to the Philippines (a cost-saving measure, I suspect) when Hom received my package from Canada, he then signed the application forms, added his pictures and his passport and sent them off to Manila using the Japan Post courier service. To say that Hom was hesitant to be in Japan without a passport, even for the short period of time that the visa processing time should have taken, is an understatement. Nonetheless, I once again reassured him that all would be well and that he would have his passport back in no time.
Five days passed without news of his documents being received by the Embassy of Canada in Manila. We contacted Japan Post and they said that his documents would turn up.
We waited as long as possible before canceling his ticket to Canada (and another ticket he had previously purchased for Kathmandu) in the hopes that his passport would reappear and he would be at a minimum able to go home if not to Canada.
Some of you may be thinking, I am sure that the Nepali Embassy could help him....and you would be right. They could provide emergency papers so that he could go back to Nepal but that would mean that he would not be able to return in the summer to work in Japan – that he would lose his Skilled Laborer Visa for Japan. So, he waits. Japan Post has told him that they can't do anything for him. The Nepali Embassy has told him to wait a month before reapplying for a new passport – which he is doing – and after which time, it will take at least another month for him to actually receive the new passport.
So his Christmas has been spent in an unheated room, eating little food (as you know the costs of food in Japan are very high) and waiting. New Years will be the same.
He is sad that he couldn't come to Canada – that we didn't get to see each other and couldn't plan for his future in concrete terms. He is really homesick and heartbroken for the emotional toll his absence is having on his family never mind the forced expense which will reduce the amount of money he would be sending back to his family for the rebuilding of his house which could at any moment come completely down in strong winds or heavy rains.
I am sad too. Not just for the lost opportunity to me but for all the pain this has cause him and his family. We did everything right – barred no expense – and because the documents were lost, this is the outcome. If tears could help, the problem would be solved. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way – so these holidays have been pretty crappy.

Merry Christmas Nepal! I wish to celebrate with you again one day!

Travel brings all kinds of treasures -- sure, the well-known sites and yes, the common frustrations -- but it also brings moments that teach, change and sometimes come to define you. I miss the days on the road with our kids, the struggles, the play, the unknown, the adventure -- and most of all the freedom shared with those I love and cherish!