Trekkin

Day 7 – Wednesday 20 December

Wide awake around 5am & breakfast at 7am before another walk with grandchildren along the shore of the Dead Sea.  We can just make out the mountains of Lebanon through the mist & haze across the water.  While walking along the beach I was very tempted to smear myself in mud again.  It is unbelievable but after yesterday’s mud therapy my skin feels so silky smooth.  I told the boys I should fill up a big jar & take it home, maybe I could smooth out my wrinkles, but Ron, not wanting me to feel disappointed, said that not even a truck load could do that miracle.  I will just have to accept the wrinkles gracefully.  We departed around 9am & head off on the scenic route along the shores of the Dead Sea towards Petra.  To think that the Dead Sea is the lowest part of the world at 430 metres (1,400 feet) below sea level. The rugged mountains around the shores of the Dead Sea tower above us, bare of any vegetation.

Now & again we pass a wadi, a small valley in the rocks carved out by water over countless centuries.  Some of these had a few palm trees clinging to life amongst the rocks.  The landscape has a rugged beauty, the shores of the sea have a white rim of salt along them & bare of any vegetation.  Now & again we pass a military observation post looking out over the sea & the mobile phone towers with microwave dishes at regular intervals.  We travel more than 100km before the landscape starts to change a little as we get towards the southern end of the sea.  We pass some very large salt evaporation complexes for harvesting the abundant salt from the Dead Sea then a large potash plant & a little later a large bromine plant.

Along the way we come across some tent campers, it’s hard to tell if some of these people are refugees (because on some of the tents we notice UNHCR written on them) or just some Bedouin tribes who are trying to carve out some sort of life before moving on with their herds of goats & donkeys.  We also drive past some green fields or rocky patches that are used for growing vegetables, this area must be Jordan’s food basket.  Along the side of the road there are some rickety stalls where people are selling very healthy looking onions, cauliflowers, eggplants, fruit, olives (they reckon they have the best olive oil in the world –they better not tell this to the Italians, Greeks or Spaniards).  Now & again we drive through some small towns & see some bigger towns in the distant hills.   We wonder what are these people living from?  We are stopped several times by police or military guards at the regular police checkpoints but when they see us they wave us on, we mustn’t look too threatening.

It is a long hard drive for Charles – we turn left & start climbing out of the Dead Sea valley, always heading higher & higher into very high barren hills.  The barren beauty of the mountains is like something from another world, there are lots of huge crevices & deep inhospitable barren valleys.  I don’t know if they ever have a lot of water (which I doubt) there could be wonderful waterfalls.    We eventually reach the top of the plateau & breath a collective sigh of relief, the road up has been full of dangerous bends & drop-offs. We drive through some towns & Google takes us on a few interesting detours, it is very interesting to see what life looks like off the beaten track.  Again, we have no idea what these people live from.  The road starts to improve & we pass some more military barracks, checkpoint complete with a serious machine gun in a tower pointed down the road & soldiers armed.

As we got into Petra a little misguided tour of Petra courtesy of Google again & a bit more serious Police check – passport & look in to the back & waved on.  At Movenpick, our hotel we get the usual check of passport, our names to see if we have bookings at the hotel & the usual swab over steering wheel, car, suitcases to check for explosive traces. After that bollards are moved & we are waved through.  At the front door guards & the usual metal detector check.  Jordan is a safe country.  People are nice & friendly.  This hotel has an Arabic décor, beautiful furniture & lovely Christmas tree, decorations & Christmas carols.   We have to wait as we arrived before 2 pm check in & our rooms had to be cleaned.  We are seated in the beautiful lounge & served apple juice, tea & biscuits/cakes are there for us as well.  I cannot help thinking about those poor souls living in those tents on that barren rocky land.

Charles is wonderful, he drove about 3 and a half hours up & up those mountains where he really needed his wits about him at all times, never losing his cool with us.  Not even when they didn’t have 3 rooms for us all, that’s OK they put a bunk bed in each room for the boys.  From our room balcony we can see the entrance to Petra & the start of the Petra wadi.  The front door of our motel is only about 50 metres from the ticket office entrance.

We went across the road to the information office & museum, where the museum was modern & had a comprehensive explanation of the history of Petra & had a great collection of some interesting artefacts to see.  Outside there were a few stalls selling souvenirs but we were too tired to look.  Back in our rooms we veg’d out for a while before we all went down to the lounge where Charles & Ron had a well deserved beer & we played Uno until dinner time.  Lovely Arabic & Western food with very yummy deserts.  I (Ron) had my fill of the Arabian food, it is certainly a different taste experience & delicious, particularly the desert, Um Ali.  Charles couldn’t wait for us to finish, he was too exhausted & needed to go to sleep.

It was another good day to see the wonders of this country & to share it with the family.  Everyone is asleep except for me (Tereza) – we all need a big rest because tomorrow will be a huge day.

Day 6 – Tuesday 19 December

I was wide awake at 5.30am as dawn started to light the sky & by 6am I was writing our blog until breakfast.  Our destination this morning is Jerash, a bit over an hour north of Amman.  The drivers are just as erratic on the highway as the city & the small towns we pass through where the road narrows was even more interesting.  Jordan is very mountainous and we are forever climbing then descending rapidly.  The countryside is very desolate with rocks and barren land everywhere, however, there are lots of sand coloured houses built all over the place, some substantial, some not so.  There is also a fair bit of hovels made from sheets of tin, plastic sheets & anything else they get their hands on.  The poverty outside Amman is a lot more evident, there is also rubbish everywhere strewn along the sides of roads, down hillsides & in ravines.  Now & again there is a scattering of olive trees & the occasional olive grove near houses.

The signposting in Jordan is not all that easy to follow, with most of the signs in Arabic & most of the major ones in English, there is usually not that much warning that you need to turn off anywhere.  We find the Roman ruins in Jerash by stopping at a set of traffic lights & seeing the ruins directly ahead of us, that made it a little easier to find the turnoff & a place to park.  Jerash was also known through the ages as Gerasa & also Antioch.  Jerash was originally occupied by the Greek Alexander the Great during the 4^th century BC with the Romans taking over in 63 B.C. for another 400+ years.  The Romans built the ancient city that is seen today after being discovered & painstakingly excavated from centuries of decay & earthquakes.  Hadrian’s Arch is the main entrance to the site & is an imposing sight, built around 130 A.D.  Inside the Arch the ground is littered with large pieces of ornately carved stone, remains of pillars & capping stones.  The next major structure is the Hippodrome, built for chariot races it is 265 metres long by 50 metres wide & could accommodate 17,000 spectators, another imposing structure that was repurposed many times over the ensuing centuries.  Everywhere we turn there are imposing ruins, arches, columns, stairs & we wander around impressed by the amazing amount of work that has gone into building this huge city.  The Temple of Zeus holds a commanding view over Jerash, looking down onto the large circular main open plaza of the city.  The Roman theatre behind the Temple of Zeus is another very imposing structure & very complete, still able to seat thousands of people.  Today there were 3 locals performing with drums & a bagpipe for some Chinese tourists, one of the band took a real shine to Tereza.  Ron has been put on notice.

We reach the Temple of Artemis, within sight of the other city gate & turn back to follow the main Roman road through the city & come across the site of a stone saw machine, powered by water, built around 550 A.D. & is the earliest machine found in the world to date.  We continue walking back to Hadrian’s Arch & are continually amazed by the size, number & beauty of the ruins of this ancient city, there are small details visible everywhere, the Romans certainly were great builders & engineers.  Lot of the destruction happened because of the frequent earthquakes.

We took the scenic route to the Dead Sea, following old twisty roads down steep mountains & through very old small towns that are desperately poor.  At one stage we wondered what had happened, we turned a corner & all of a sudden all of the houses were large, majestic & well-cared for.  This did not last that long before returning to the hovels & shacks that housed most people.  The road seemed to be following an old goat track down the mountains into the valley of the Dead Sea, there were herds of goats scattered around everywhere, mostly with an attendant close by, we had to stop as one herd of goats crossed the road in front of us.  How them & the man tending them didn’t get killed by an impatient car driver speeding down the hill I will never know, overtaking us at speed when we were stopped.  As we got lower down the valley we started following a small stream & there were small farms scattered around.  We saw a man & woman with a donkey ploughing a small rocky field with a wooden plough.  Finally we were out of the hills & on the flat valley floor of the Dead Sea & farms stretched out on either side of the road, a lot of them with what seemed to us very poor temporary shelters as housing.  We eventually spotted the vastness of the Dead Sea & not long after reached our destination, The Crowne Plaza Hotel, an anachronism of overstated wealth considering all the poverty we had seen along the way.  The hotel is very large & grand & after we check in behind a very large group of Chinese tourists we quickly change into our swimmers.

The motel has a number of swimming pools, some very large, scattered around the complex & also forming a major feature in the middle of the hotel complex.  We make our way down to the private beach on the waters of the Dead Sea, there are around 100 Chinese tourists smearing themselves with the health mud &/or swimming/paddling.  Tereza smears herself with the healing mud whilst the rest of us take to the water.  It is a bit rocky walking in, the swimming sensation is weird.  The very high concentration of salt makes us very buoyant in the water & it is difficult to swim like we know it. It is extremely easy to float, in fact you can float standing upright with the top part of the chest out of the water, there is that much buoyancy.  Tereza & Monica find it difficult to put their legs down because they are naturally very buoyant. There is the upside of not being able to put your head under the water, a few of the Chinese women got salt water in their eyes & the pain must have been bad, lifeguards rushed out with bottles of fresh water to flush the salt from their eyes.  Any small cuts we had became painful & stung like crazy.  Tereza & Austin suffered real bad because they had some open cuts.

That experience out of the way we had a quick rinse with fresh water on the beach before heading back to our rooms for a shower, we went to the lounge for some drinks & a few games of Uno then dinner.  More xmas trees & decorations around the hotel.  Another great day.

Day 5 – Monday 18 December

An early start & breakfast before we catch the taxi out the front of the apartment complex to the Abu Dhabi airport, out in the desert & surrounded by sand.  We have a 2 hour 40minute flight to Amman, Jordan departing at 10.45am on an Etihad Boeing 787-900, a brand new plane.  We stop in the lounge & relax with a coffee & some food before making our way to the gate.  It is then a 10 minute bus trip across to the other side of the airport to catch the plane (I really felt my age when an elderly lady got up & insisted on me sitting down on her seat – maybe it was my grey hair).  The plane was parked on the tarmac & we walk up the long flight of mobile stairs, haven’t done that in a while.  Abu Dhabi Airport is big & they are in the process of making it much bigger. Our flight to Jordan is comfortable & uneventful, a few bumps as we pass through the cloud belts before catching sight of the land below, very barren & not too many buildings in sight.  The airport is in the middle of the desert & plenty of sand & rocks around but once again very surprised by the big Christmas tree & decoration that greet us in the airport.  We pick up a Kia Carnival car from Thrifty & we all fit in comfortably with luggage.  Charles drives us the 25km into Amman & the impression is that Jordan is not as well off as the UAE, the housing & infrastructure is old & the cars are old as well.  All the houses & buildings have the same sandy colour, or some raw concrete unfinished, deserted or just neglected.  As we get closer to the city the traffic gets heavier & the manner of erratic driving by the locals becomes apparent, I am certainly glad Charles is driving.  We start to see a very big polluted city from the distance.  In front of the hotel there are guards & spikes on the road.  We have to stop to make sure that we should be going in there & the luggage is looked at & then the gate is opened & the spikes on the road let down. We have to go through security & metal detector – we are assured that this country is very safe. Our hotel is the Amman Rotana, the tallest building in Amman & a very beautiful 5 star hotel, once again beautiful Christmas decorations everywhere.  Our luxurious room is on the 31st floor – fantastic day & night view of the city.

After settling in we catch a couple of taxis to the ancient citadel complex, about 15 minutes drive away in the old city area.  The traffic is very heavy & intense, it’s peak hour traffic at 3 pm as the working time is 8am – 3pm.  The locals have their very own way of driving, they make lanes where there are none & merge by just moving over, the driver must be so alert.  There is lots of horn honking.  Our taxi driver is an amazing font of knowledge & very friendly with great English, he lived for 26 years in the USA.  He mentioned that the villas in the new part of the city sell for more than US$2 million, we are amazed.  The Citadel is located on the site of ancient city of Rabbath-Ammon & has remains from the Greek, Roman, Byzantine & early Islamic periods.  Limestone caves on top of the Citadel show evidence of human habitation dating back many thousands of years before then.  It is truly an ancient site.  The most prominent ruin is the Temple of Hercules.  The ruins of the Umayyad Palace stand off to one corner of the Citadel hill.  There is also a cemetery with the remains of Ottoman Turks that occupied the country for hundreds of years.  At the very top of the hill is the remains of an ancient mosque, no doubt built on top of some preceding structure.  There is a lot of evidence of recycling building materials amongst all the ruins.  Near the top of the hill is a very large Roman water reservoir & some Roman baths.  Next to it is the ruins of a Byzantine church, with mosaic tiles evident on the floor in one of the rooms.  The Jordan Archaeological Museum is on the other side of the Citadel Hill & displays lots of artefacts from Jordan that date from prehistoric times to the 15^th Century.  Outside the museum are some remains of a statue of Hercules, some fingers & an elbow, based on that they estimate the statue was 15 metres high. The Citadel Hill overlooks the ancient Roman Theatre of 6,000 seats built into the hillside in the old town, it is still in use today & is a very impressive sight from above.  There is a great view of the old city & we are amazed at the sheer number of houses clinging to the sides of the hills in all directions & off into the distance before they fade into the haze of air pollution.  We don’t have time to go & see it up close as the sun is setting & the gates of Citadel Hill close.  Once again armed guards are seen at the gate.

Another taxi ride back to our hotel, the traffic is less frantic.  The taxi driver said that the city has three & a half million inhabitants – in the last 12 years the city & the country doubled in population because of all the influx of refugees.  The view from our 31^st floor room over Amman is splendid as the sun is setting.  We overlook the Boulevard, elaborately decorated with all manner of xmas lights, trees & decorations so we walk out & explore.  The Boulevard is crowded with all manner of Jordanians out enjoying the xmas decorations, it is a really splendid sight.  There are lots of people dressed in the traditional muslim garb enjoy the elaborate display, getting photos taken with Santa & the elves with a huge xmas tree as a backdrop, all the while with xmas music in the background.  Totally not what I had expected from a predominately muslim country.  We find a spot of dinner, the appetite of the kids seem insatiable.  The mall is very large & modern, beautiful interior & lots of glamorous shops. Our walk back to our motel is just as enjoyable, soaking the atmosphere in.  The long day has been compounded by losing another 2 hours in the time zone change, so we are now 9 hours behind Australian time, our body clock is totally out of whack. That didn’t stop us enjoying a great day.

Day 4 – Sunday 17 December

Another slow start, I slept in, I think I have now adjusted to the time zone difference.  This morning we are off to see the Abu Dhabi Louvre, a partnership with the Louvre Museum in Paris.  First impression of the large dome roof is stunning, the architects have really done a great job.  We arrive only 15 minutes after the Louvre opens & plenty of close parking & not many people.  The museum is not crowded & they have a small number of quality examples of culture & art from the Asian, Indian, Arabian & Mediterranean cultures, with some examples from the Incan & Mexican.  It is very well laid out with examples from the same time period from different cultures side by side to show how these cultures were progressing equally.  An interesting exhibition is on mapping, exploration & celestial navigation.  There is a large globe of the world on display from Venice, Italy made in 1697 with Australia about three quarters mapped.  Also on display is a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, bought recently by the Abu Dhabi Louvre for US$450 million. The modern art on display didn’t impress all of us & some of us walked quickly past it.  Outside we marvelled at the intricate 7 layered open air dome roof filtering light through.  The Louvre is built with water surrounding on 3 sides & the water theme has been integrated very well externally, bringing the water vista into the museum.

Next was a drive into the main part of Abu Dhabi city centre & again marvelling at the amazing architecture of the large buildings.  We stop at another mall for lunch, eating at a traditional Arab restaurant & feasting on local food, a new taste sensation.  Again we eat more than we should, it really is delicious.  We can see the Sheik’s Palace from our dining window & after lunch we go for a drive up to the gates of the palace, a truly impressive & elaborate group of buildings.  The Sheik has his equally impressive motor yacht moored nearby. More impressive buildings on the drive back home.  Again it is very good to take the shoes off & relax after another big day.

The weather is warm with a cool wind.  The days always have a haze.  We are truly impressed with this country’s achievements, their architecture is amazing.

Day 3 – Saturday 16 December

After a slow start to the morning we head off to visit the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque and it truly is grand.  This is a very large & imposing white marble & tile mosque.  At the entrance we must go through security & the ladies have to wear shawls & cover their arms.  We all remove our shoes before entering the mosque, I can understand as the white marble floors are inlaid with intricate flower designs.  The main prayer room has the largest single carpet in the world covering the floor & lit by massive coloured chandeliers, truly impressive.  The roofs & walls are covered in amazing designs. Even the toilets are marble everywhere & beautiful.

We drive to Masdar City Mall (a futuristic city) past the Canadian International School where the boys go & past the concrete data centre where Charles works. We have a great lunch at Joe’s Kitchen, so much to eat & great coffee to boot.

We drive back home.  A short change of shoes etc. & we rush off to Yas Mall where Charles, Jackson & Ron go to the movies to see the new Star wars Movie, The Last Jedi.  Monica, Austin & I go Christmas shopping – I am so amazed the amount of BEAUTIFUL displays of Christmas decorations in most shops & I cannot stop saying that “Those do good doers in Australia should see this Arabian country put on such a wonderful show.”  In all the years in Australia (58) put together I haven’t seen so many beautiful Christmas decorations in the shops.  We wander around from shop to shop & I think we got all the presents we need (Austin & I are very tired).  In the centre court they have a wonderful Christmas village with Santa & even Emerati people are lining up with their children to get them photographed.  As part of the celebration they had .traditional male dancers & musicians – how wonderful is that.  We went to a huge grocery store, where Monica shopped.

The 3 movie watchers came out with huge smiles – they enjoyed the movie.

Back home & a well deserved rest after so much walking.

We cannot eat dinner but the grandsons even manage desert.

Day 1 – Thursday 14 September

Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates to visit Monica, Charles & our two grandsons is our destination & our journey begins leaving home at 3.15pm.  Our neighbour kindly drives us into town to catch the Murrays coach to Sydney airport, a non eventful trip in chauffer driven comfort.  We sat behind the driver, John, was a jovial talkative man, he told us about the rigorous training they have to go through every 3 months.  The new bus we travelled on was 4 month old & that it already had 70,000 Kms on the clock & that it knew its way to Sydney.  After the bus driver fell asleep & feeling reassured we had about 2 hours of shut eye too.   We arrived at the front door of the international terminal a bit after 7pm & join the queue to book onto our Emirates direct flight to Dubai.  More queues through immigration & security then the long walk to gate 57, at the far end of the terminal & wait for our 9.45pm departure. An announcement that our flight has been delayed due to the diversion of our incoming plane to Melbourne because of bad weather at Sydney airport.  We are oblivious to the weather conditions outside.  Another announcement, our flight has been delayed further until 11.30pm and they are looking for another plane to take us to Dubai, we will depart from Gate 8 so another long walk to the other end of the terminal building – good we did need to stretch our legs.  Another announcement, there is not enough fuel & we will have to fly to Melbourne to refuel & must leave before 11.30pm to beat the Sydney airport curfew on flights.  Still waiting at 11.30pm & fearing that our flight has been cancelled & that we will have to sleep in Sydney then another announcement, we have been given special exemption to depart at 12.30am & the plane is being cleaned & refuelled.  We eventually all queue again to board & quickly as it takes a fair while to load all 600 people, the plane is just about full & we eventually take off at 12.35am, nearly 3 hours late.  There are a lot of people going to miss their connection.  Monica & family are in a motel in Dubai to be there for our early arrival tomorrow – they can have a sleep in tomorrow.

Day 2 – Friday 15 September

Once settled into the flight we receive dinner at around 1.30am, we are hungry & tired.  Dinner is a choice of chicken or beef, not that tasty but we are hungry.  We sleep & are woken a few hours later to be given a beef pasty, not tasty at all.  About 8 hours into the flight we get another announcement, the plane could not take on enough fuel in Sydney to make it all the way to Dubai, they had to stop refuelling at midnight in Sydney due to fuelling regulations.  We are now going to land in Colombo, Sri Lanka for a refuelling stop & will be on the ground for around an hour & not disembark.   It is foggy & raining when we land at Colombo & the plane taxis to an isolated part of the airfield & the fuel truck pulls up & we wait the hour, during which time daylight catches up to us & the sun rises.  In the air again & after another hour we are given breakfast, a choice of omelette or scrambled eggs with baked beans, again not that tasty.  It is another four hours to Dubai & we land at 9.15am local time, more than 25 hours after we left home & not a lot of sleep.  We queued at immigration for ages & our bags were some of the last ones left to be collected.

Monica, Charles & our two grandsons were thankfully waiting with big smiles as we exited the Dubai terminal, hugs all round, so good to see all of them again.  Seeing them gave us a new lease of life & we are ready for site seeing, we must get used to Abu Dhabi time quickly.  They drove us around Dubai & showed us some of the amazing buildings of all different shapes & sizes, most architectural masterpieces.  We drove around some of the large expensive motels along the waterfront and marvelled at the massive amount of money that has & is being spent to convert the desert sands to a modern city.  A few more sights before stopping at the Dubai Mall and being amazed at the sheer size & opulence of the mall & the shops.  Most of the shops in the mall have xmas decorations up & there are xmas trees with presents beneath around various parts of the mall, we are surprised.  Charles told us that the sheikh made a ruling that all religions must be inclusive in the Emirates.  We wandered around & looked at the waterfalls inside & the aquarium before moving outside to look at the fountains & the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa at 828 metres. Very impressive.  We wander back inside the mall for a quick lunch & then off by car to Abu Dhabi & the waterfront apartment building where Monica & Charles live on the 9^th floor.  We kick off our shoes at last & relax the rest of the afternoon, getting in a few games of Uno.  The sun looked impressive as it set over the city & Charles cooked us a delicious roast dinner to welcome us to Abu Dhabi.  We eventually got to bed around 9pm, so, so tired.

Day 64 Sunday 24 July 2016

We were gently woken around 4am Sydney time for breakfast, another great meal, more than you want for breakfast. However, it was only 2am Hong Kong time, so that meant only 4 hours sleep on the flight. As we descended into Sydney the first faint tinge of sunrise appeared as we turned to line the runway up. We touched down at 6.05am & by the time we taxi to the terminal & disembark it is 6.20am, we pass through Passports fairly quickly & our bags are some of the first on the luggage carousal & then we pass through Quarantine after a lengthy queue, the flight that landed just before us is lined up. We are out of Sydney Airport at 6.50am & walk the short distance to the bus terminal to see if we can catch the earlier Murrays Coach to Canberra, we are booked on the 8.15am coach. It is 7C & a slight wind so we are a bit cold. Thankfully there is space & since I had purchased a flexible ticket we are on the 7.15am coach. As we wait 3 busloads of Japanese schoolkids appear from the terminal & board the other buses next to us. Our trip to Canberra is cold, the outside temperature is around zero as we travel through the southern highlands around Mittagong. There is lots of water pooled on the ground & all the rivers & creeks are running strongly, there must have been a huge amount of rain recently. There is ice on the edges of the pools of still water. Lake George near Canberra has a lot of water in it & still has lots running into it, when we left it was dry.

We arrive in Canberra at 10.30am on schedule & our son James is there to pick us up, it is so good to see him after 2 months away. James takes us to his new house, they moved in while we have been away & Tereza has not seen the house yet. James picks up some pizzas on the way & we have a grand tour of his new house before lunch. Our grandson River is a little hesitant about us to start with but soon warms to us. He has grown so much since we have been away & now has no problem standing unaided, he is nearly 10 months old. We spend a few hours with James, Venetia & River before driving ourselves home, exhausted but pleased to be home after 64 days away. Our house is freezing cold. There is a pile of mail awaiting us & Tereza busies herself with opening that while I bring the bags in.

What a trip, we have visited 11 countries, Hong Kong, United Kingdom (including each of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, England), France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Germany, Holland, Republic of Ireland, Hungary & Serbia. We have ticked some amazing sites off our bucket list including the Eiffel Tower & Stonehenge. We have sat next to each other for so many days on the coach, experienced so much together, enjoyed so many breakfasts, lunches & dinners, laughed a lot & enjoyed being together. We had such a good time catching up with family again in Hungary & Serbia. Now back to reality, we have to cook our own meals, make our own beds, but also look forward to catching up with family & friends we haven’t seen for 2 months or more.

No more blog posts until our next big trip, it is such a good diary for us to remember our travels.

Day 63 Saturday 23 July 2016

Hong Kong is a beautiful 33C when we land at around 3pm & on schedule after around 12 hours flight time. After exiting the plane we go through the security process again then wander around looking at the Duty Free stuff for a while before finding the Cathay Pacific Lounge. We are in the air conditioned lounge & whiling our time away for about 3 hours, catching up on emails, Facebook, news, munching on a bit of food, a bit of red wine, a coffee, etc. When the flight details on the big screen show that our flight is boarding soon I wake Tereza & we start making our way to the boarding gate. It is a long walk from the lounge we are in, then down a couple of long flights of escalators, then catch the intra-airport train to the terminal that our flight is departing from, then up some more long escalators, then more lengthy walking, then some long travelators, I am starting to get concerned we won’t get to our gate before the flight closes. Our gate is at the very end of this terminal & we pass another Cathay Pacific Lounge on our way, if I had known this one was here we could have come to this lounge first. We get to the last travelator & some air hostesses are asking us if we are on the Sydney flight, they usher us onto the travelator & at the end of this we go through another security check, then ushered down onto the plane. We are in plenty of time, we are in our seats on the plane for around 10 minutes while other people are still boarding.

We depart the terminal on time at 6.50pm & as we are taxiing to the runway the sun sets over the mountains behind the city. Tereza gets a great view of Hong Kong & the setting sun from her window seat & we start to settle in for the next long haul flight to Sydney. The hostesses are soon serving us drinks, Tereza has a nice cocktail to start, then another delicious dinner with a very nice French red wine followed by a cheese platter & a glass of port. After dinner I settle in & sleep on the full length bed while Tereza settles in & watches some movies.

Another great day, we have gone this far towards home.

Day 62 Friday 22 July 2016

Awake at 3am from an Australian friend that did not know we are in Europe to wish me a happy birthday. A few more buzzes from the phone as messages were left on different medium during the rest of the night. A few pesky mosquitoes also kept buzzing in the ear all night so this morning when the alarm went at 6am I wasn’t exactly fresh & chirpy. We dressed & did the final pack & had our bags in the car at 7am, with a couple of more friends calling before breakfast. Gyorgyi had a fresh rose on the table for me at breakfast for my birthday as well as a fresh cup of coffee. How lovely is that? Again a very nice breakfast before it was time to leave so that we could beat the worst of the Budapest rush hour. Some very heart-rending farewells & we departed at 8am, with a refuelling stop on the way & dropping our rental car off we were in the terminal building at 9am. We were a little bit over anxious to make sure that we would be at the airport on time. We are keen to get home. We stood & waited for 2 hours before the check-in desk was opened, 2 hours before the flight was due to leave. We had a very well travelled sprightly 90 year old, she informed us that she was the same age as Liz (the Queen) entertain us with her witty encounters, unbelievable how well she looked, I think they must have secret well for youth at Nottingham. It was a welcome relief to sit & relax a little in the Platinum Lounge.

Once on the plane we waited in the plane for ½ an hour for a landing slot at Heathrow Airport in London before the engines started & we were in the air, at last. The flight was uneventful, Tereza slept a lot & I read the London papers, with a nice lunch & some glasses of red to celebrate my birthday & to ease the hunger pangs (serves him right for not eating much in the lounge). London was a little cloudy & wet when we landed & once through security again we spent a little time looking through the duty free before spending some time in the Admiral’s Lounge, a five hour wait for our next flight.

Our Cathay Pacific flight departed on time at 8.10pm & things were fairly bumpy for a while flying over Holland & Germany & it wasn’t until we were over Poland that dinner was served. Lobster tail & a very nice French Malbec, then marinated chicken, succulant pork & vegetarian dish followed by fruit of the season, lemon tort & a very nice cheese platter, washed down with a very smooth port. Then it was time for sleep, so push the buttons & change the seat, extend the leg rest out, flatten the seat, stretch right out, plump the doona & pillow & off to sleep. A long day travelling, not the perfect way to spend a birthday, but not bad. It feels good that we are on the way home.

Day 61 Thursday 21 July 2016

Back to a 6am alarm, today is the start of our travelling back to Australia. Bag packed & everything else sorted & Evike is here at 7am to have breakfast with us. We have another great breakfast of Hungarian sausage, smoked pork, cheese, fresh tomatoe & lots of chatting & laughing before Katica has to leave for the hospital again. We say our sad farewells & drop in at Evike’s house on the way out of town, call Bela to confirm our departure time so that he knows when to expect us & then farewells with Evike & her family. The drive to the Hungarian border was uneventful thankfully, a crazy bus driver overtook some cars so he was heading straight for us, Ron was braking hard & I had my foot down on the passenger side too, there was nowhere to go on the side of the road, there was a big ditch but thankfully we are here to tell the story, a few farmers with horse & dray to avoid, a few large trucks stopped on the road for no apparent reason, a few tractors, then in the little villages, lots of people on bicycles, to Serbian standards the drive to the Hungarian boarder was uneventful thankfully. The farms & fields are green & yellow, looking beautiful stretching out to the horizon. At the border it took around 20 minutes to get through Serbian passport control, pass through the no-mans land with its shabby collection of refugee shelters then around 14 minutes for Hungarian passport control. All the boots are opened & checked.

The motorway through Hungary is superb & it is 170km from the border to Budapest, more beautiful flat farms & fields, then a few small hills as we get closer to Budapest. Thankfully our Google Maps navigation takes us straight to Bela’s front gate & it has taken us 4 hours from Kikinda. Bela & Gyorgyi have been busy preparing BBQ food & Bela fires up the small charcoal brazier & cooks the delicious feast of csevapsz, marinated chicken & Hungarian sausage, with marinated paprika & potato salad. We all eat more than we can fit, my belly is bursting, then Gyorgyi brings out a plate of delicious Hungarian treats, poppy seed slice & cottage cheese slice. Time for a siesta after all that & we surface again at 6.30pm only to be treated again to another delicious Hungarian meal, plus wine plus palinka & more chatting & laughing. At 10pm I call it quits & pack our bags for tomorrow’s travelling back to Australia. It will be hard to get back to reality after all the wonderful hospitality we received. Another great day.