As you have read in my last post, “Stay at Home” has been in place for the last 2 months. Bailey flew up here from Canberra to our place on March 23. He had a return ticket on March 30 back to Canberra, but the Covid 19 virus put a stop to that. All borders into and out of Australia were banned on March 25 and the Queensland - NSW border was also closed on the same day. This meant that only essential workers would be travelling between states and therefore Bailey was stuck here with us on the Island. All residents, throughout the country, were told to stay home unless going out for essential shopping. All non-essential stores were shut immediately including cafes, restaurants, clubs and pubs. Hairdressers, nail salons, department stores and malls were all closed. Governments stepped in to address the increased number of unemployed. They swiftly offered social security to those without work, offered a job keeper payment to businesses still operating, whose income suffered a loss of more than 30%. This ensured that ‘every’ Australian citizen could survive through the next few months. Testing was offered to anybody who had any flu like symptoms and social distancing became the new buzz word. During our early time together, Bailey and I made a trip over to my doctors on another island and I had the flu jab as a precaution. The ferry was the only way to travel and seats had been closed off to 60% of the passengers. Everyone was kept at least 1.5 mtrs apart. The trip was an eye opener as to the weeks ahead and although masks were not essential it seemed scary. The trip was quick and we returned after getting the jab and a few top-up groceries. We all would often take Archie down at the water’s edge and park for a good run. It was a good way of getting out of the house to stretch our legs and not go stir crazy. Despite being stuck in the house together, we all got on well together. Often Bailey would go off for a walk by himself, to the ferry and pick up takeaway lunch and to top up on milk and bread etc. for us. No doubt he’d pick up a drink and chips from the shop as well, for his walk home. Every now and then I’d go with Bailey on my scooter just for a bit of exercise. I’ll talk more about my scooter later. It must have been hard on Bailey to be totally stuck with us two for so long with no respite. He had his Uni assignments and lectures often, so he’d disappear for a few hours to complete these. In the down time he and I, would crank up the Wii and continue on our rivalry tournament that we’ve been having over many many years. Bailey's bowling game is outstanding and scores of 250+ are a regular feat for him. Mine only hovers around the 200 with plenty of choked games. He, on the other hand will bowl 7 strikes in a row and his highest has been 11 in a row. It’s all so close to the perfect game. It will come one day. My golf game is much better and I will give him more of a challenge and once in a while, he realises who is better. The 3 of us would also have card games nightly after dinner and again we would get very competitive, though Janet wasn’t too fazed. We have kept a book with the results of all our games together, with each date and the place where we were. This has been happening for the last few years in Brunei and Malaysia and beyond. Having Bailey here was also good as he was there to help us around the house. We accomplished many projects together. He helped with all the heavy lifting and taking trips to the tip. Together we were able to clean and tidy the old tool shed, cut my new door ramps so they would fit into the doorways, clean down the BBQ, set up a charging station for my scooter, wash and clean the car, as well as replace the bonnet struts. We also did a great job installing grab rails in the shower. Restrictions were eventually eased for some travel, so at the first opportunity, Bailey booked his flight home. The prices to fly to Canberra within the first 2 weeks available, were astronomical. These initial prices were around the $600 range, but by waiting 20 days, the flights came down to only $250. We decided to wait. I’m sure those 2 weeks were slower for him than the previous six. He has now returned to Canberra and temperatures there plummeting to single figures. His apartment is centrally heated though, so I’m sure he’ll be fine. He’s already back into working three or 4 days a week and I’m sure he’s getting together with a few people for a drink whenever he can. His University is planning on going back to face to face in August, but actually being around fellow students, would make the study process online easier for him. The last few weeks for us have been relaxing. We’ve been able to get over a few times to the mainland. We had a day at IKEA and I took my wheelchair around and was able to see everything without getting tired. Normally I would have given up and sat out the front waiting. We spent 3 hours in total there. We had another trip a week later and we went to the mall. We were able to have haircuts, Janet had some glasses fitted, and we did a trip around Woolies and also Harvey Norman. This time I was able to hire a scooter and again Janet was free to browse anywhere she wanted and I was not stressed walking around. The system here in Queensland at the malls, works like this. You go to the service desk and they offer a free service for wheelchairs and scooters to the elderly and disabled. I had to fill in a form with ID etc and now I’m in the system I just rock up and ask for a scooter. There’s a 3 hour limit but that’s plenty of time. I’m sure if you needed more time just return to the desk and request it. If any of you have difficulty walking and getting around, especially around these gigantic malls, don’t be shy, enquire at the service desk and try it. Your shopping experience will be a completely different one with no sitting and resting. I got to see so much. As Janet was looking around, I was able to shoot off and find something more interesting without pressuring Janet to hurry up. On both of these shopping occasions, we were racing back in time to catch the ferry home. On previous outings we would have arrived with an hour or more to spare and totally exhausted. The day trip over to ‘Australia’ does take it out of us and we need a day to recover …
Life is good …
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We settled down on our little plot in paradise and the Australian bush fire catastrophe was finally being brought under control. Land, houses, people and animals were all affected in one way or another with a huge loss of property. The Australian economy would take years to recover as crops, stocks and income had been crippled. It was a financial disaster which would affect every Australian, in one way or another for many years to come. Our daughter Kelly had returned home and decided that as Viking (her oldest boy) who had missed out on the trip with his mum and two brothers, should come up to visit us here on the island. It was a great idea and he would be able to help us around the house and garden. All we had to do was to agree on a date that suited everyone. The news was travelling around the world that a virus had ‘escaped’ from China and many people were dying as it progressed. We had been through the SARS epidemic when living in China, in 2003. We both had a strong feeling that the statistics coming out of China were not realistic. How bad was this going to get? Bailey had been in contact with us frequently, and news of virus was spreading, and becoming a serious problem. There were talks on closing businesses and people were being told to self isolate and go into some form of lock down. The University of Canberra was cancelling face to face lectures and learning was going 100% online. Bailey’s flat mates were moving out, as the government was recommending everybody return home. We recommended as he might be alone, that he fly up to us on the island, for a week, till it blows over. Canberra had started offering a drive-through CoVid testing service, so he and his friend thought it best they get tested before travelling anywhere. A day later, the results came back clear, so flights were booked and he took leave from his job with BWS. He flew up the next day and after being here, with us for only 2 days, the Qld government started closing borders to travellers. Kelly, by now had booked Viking on a flight to arrive on Friday. On hearing about the closures of the QLD border, we were unsure as to whether he should come or not. It wouldn’t matter if Viking was with us for a week or two, as well as Bailey. It’d be good fun. The day before he was due to fly from Sydney, the airlines cancelled all flights, for unnecessary travellers, so the trip was abandoned and a credit was arranged with the airline. In hindsight it was a good thing. Over the next 2 days all travel interstate was banned and Bailey's flight back to Canberra was also cancelled. It looked like he was going to be stuck here in Queensland with us for, who knows how long. No one was allowed to cross from QLD to NSW and visa versa. As the virus spread and grew worse, and with cruise ship passengers spreading this out of control, total lockdown had to be enforced across the whole country. Shopping centres were closed up, pubs, movie theatres, parks, beaches, etc. were all being shut down and social distancing was becoming a regular expression. Our ferry system became a risky way to travel, as 200+ people would be in one place for more than 30 minutes. The ferry operators reduced the number of passengers per trip and taped off every second row of seats. Chains went up keeping the crew isolated and they created a one way system for loading and unloading to keep people “social distancing” with a 1.5 mtr perimeter. It all became a bit risky for us so we were very cautious and did not travel anywhere. We arranged to order online and get home deliveries of groceries, but so had everyone else, and as soon as a delivery window became available, it was quickly snapped up. It would be another 2 weeks before Woollies would put on extra delivery vans. Government guidelines designated travelling for groceries as an essential outing, so we booked onto the car ferry, and drove the car over to the mainland. We spent the whole day out, not only shopping for groceries, but we filled up the car with a Bunnings shop, and we ran a number of errands including a visit to the Department of Motor Transport. We also had a fast food lunch, but we were denied in house dining. Can you believe it? This was unheard of … back in those days! We had to sit in the car in the carpark! As the weeks passed, the CoVid 19 virus was spreading wildly around the world. Countries like Italy, Spain and the USA were recording continual record spikes of infection and deaths. Australian infection numbers were fairing very well, and most of the recorded CoVid 19 cases arose from a number of returning Cruise Ship passengers, who were released to roam unrestricted throughout NSW and Victoria, before their screening tests were completed. The Aussie public behaved very well, and the "stay at home rules", had been more or less obeyed, with only a few rebels bucking the system. Here in Queensland our numbers have been reasonably low, compared to NSW and Vic and certainly compared to many countries around the world. Our health care system here in Oz is one of the best in the world, so our hospitals are well equipped and testing has been available to anyone who is showing any kind of flu symptoms. As I write this our overall infection cases have numbered just over 7,000 and we have had 100 deaths, so compared to other countries we are very fortunate. The UK at the moment is averaging 3000 infection cases a day and the USA is 20,000 cases a day. Australia is now slowly coming out of its lock down period and has a 3 month plan, to slowly open retail businesses, restaurants and pubs, and recreation facilities etc. This will be done gradually with regular monitoring for outbreaks with contact tracing if any occur. Many Australians (about 25%) have downloaded a “COVID Safe” App on their phones that can track if you have been near an infected person. When someone is diagnosed all people who have been close to them, are notified immediately, for voluntary lockdown and testing. In the last few days, an employee at a McDonald’s outlet, tested positive. This employee was linked to a delivery driver who also tested positive so 12 stores were locked down immediately, halting any further spread. This was precautionary and 12 cases were linked to him and no further employees have tested positive. The next saga continues soon.
Please leave a comment or a like and notify others who might be interested. As many of you would know, or have heard, Australia suffered a very dry and hot summer and through the months of September through to March, was devastated by many bushfires. During December and January, Australia suffered its most devastating fire season on record. It was not just in only one area but every state and territory was affected. Over 18.6 million hectares (46 million acres; 186,000 square kilometres; 72,000 square miles, destroyed over 5,900 buildings (including 2,779 homes) and killed at least 34 people. An estimated one billion animals were killed and some endangered species may be driven to extinction. At its peak, air quality dropped to hazardous levels. Apparently smoke from the fires travelled across the Pacific and affected the air quality in Chile and Argentina in South America. We were safe here on the islands which enforced a total fire ban all summer long. No fires or open flame were allowed anywhere. Apparently adult supervised gas BBQs were allowed but we didn’t risk it. Peter and Bev, our shed builders, by this time, had travelled to Victoria and were spending Christmas and New Year at a home stay resort on Phillip Island for 6 weeks. Their accommodation was in a 2 bedroom house so in early January, they offered an invitation for us to spend a week or so with them in the house. The bush fires and smoke by this time were causing havoc right across the East Coast of Australia and we weren’t sure if we could get there, however they assured us there were no signs of fires near them. We looked at airfares and found cheap flights to Melbourne so jumped at the risk and opportunity and within days we were on a plane and flying south. We landed at Melbourne airport with very little signs of smoke, except on the horizon where the winds were pushing it eastward. We were picked up by Peter and Bev who drove us the 150kms or so to Philip Island. There were no signs of danger anywhere so we were set for a great holiday. Bev had an tourist itinerary worked out for us, with things to do on and around the island including, the little penguins, museums, chocolate factories and even the “Puffing Billy train”, oh and of course the occasional game of cards. If you ever get to go to Phillip Island, the fairy penguins are a must see. 1000’s of little fairy penguins come up from the ocean each night, just after sunset, to return to their burrows, after being out fishing for the day. There was a lot of walking involved, as with other places that we were to visit, so unbeknownst to me, a wheel chair was hired for me. It turned out to be the best decision as I was pushed around by my 3 helpers and it not only saved my legs but we were able to get so much sightseeing done. I normally would have stopped halfway and missed out. I guess I have started to accept this next stage of my illness. I have video of our time away which I am still struggling to edit and post to YouTube. I will place a link here as soon as they are up and running. We were able to do everything that Bev had planned, plus a few extra things we found on the way. It was great to be travelling again and seeing new places and experiencing new things. I’m sure, and this proved, that we have a lot more travelling miles still left in us. We spent about 10 days with Peter and Bev, before heading back home. Archie, by the way, had his own little holiday in a pet resort near home and he was away from any of the fire risk as well. He was so excited and was glad to see us when we picked him up. In February, our daughter Kelly, along with the two youngest grandsons, was able to fly up from Sydney, for a long weekend. It was great seeing them again, I think the boys were a little bored here on the island, but we ventured out and about each day to do something. We only had a short time together with them, but Kelly had to get back to work and vowed she would return again in the not too distant future.
We were not to know what was to come ahead of us at the time, were we? The weather was getting warmer, by this time and it was too hot to do much outside after 9 am and before 5 pm. Peter and Bev did actually return again, this time without work in mind, as there was a lot of cards to catch up on. They are both energetic people, and during their stay, they got into to weeding our side area. They layed sheets of newspaper then mulch, to create a stunning garden bed, between the shed which they had built and our front gate. It looked stunning as the mulch was a striking red chip and with green plants, it looked incredible. We were also able to catch up on a few drinks, a huge amount of cards and another Trivia Night. This is the Karragarra Island autonomous bus. This is Queensland’s first driverless bus and Karragarra was selected for a 6 months trial. We were able to be there on "launch day", along with the TV crews and the council members and Government officials. After listening to all the speeches we were one of the first passengers to be given a ride. The 4 of us, along with the TV presenter and camera man took a ride around the island. A chaperone driver was also on board for safety reasons, in case the system failed. We watched as the evening news was filmed and the chaperone interview explaining how the system worked. It was an interesting ride and insight to back stage shenanigans of those TV community broadcasts. The girls got their heads on national TV and we all had a bit of fun having participated in a little bit of future history. My little sister and brother-in-law also dropped in for a few days, as they headed past on their travels. Linda has been working at Adele’s Grove, a tourist resort in the middle of outback Queensland, and her hubby Peter, is a Coach driver taking trips in and out of Mount Isa. Adele’s Grove had a massive fire in July and the kitchen and restaurant buildings were destroyed along with a lot of their tourist income. Linda was there as it happened and they quickly evacuated people to safety. Fire services were able to extinguish the fire without loss of life. The resort was still able to operate during the months from July to September with temporary sheds for reception and the kitchen. Linda was finally able to get away in October for a little relief. The resort closes through the wet summer months, so repairs would be able to be made then. We have also, over the last 6 months, travelled south to see family and friends on a couple of occasions, staying in Grafton, Port Macquarie, Sydney and Canberra. Bailey actually turned 18 at the end of August so we were able go to Canberra, and celebrate that milestone with him. Bailey, by the way is still staying in his Uni accommodation. He has a part time job, is enjoying his life and is getting through his studies without too much trouble (we believe). Over the months from June to November we were setting plans to have some special friends visit us here in Oz. For those of you who have followed my YouTube channel, and for those who haven't, we made friends with a special couple and their daughter back in 2011 in the UAE in Al Ain. Ferosa and Iqbal along with their daughter Haadia, lived in an apartment there below us. We became good friends then and have remained friends ever since. We travelled far and wide across the UAE east to west, and some of these trips can be seen on my YouTube channel. Just follow the links https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMGNvbjF07M&list=PL39A04413F82B831D. We have also spent a number of weeks with them, on a couple of occasions in their home country. We visited their home country of South Africa in 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMGNvbjF07M&list=PL39A04413F82B831D,and 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1KaUiPh8WM&list=PLiXREf-wCw2o_wj9NsvQyEYgLfxkQrhXX. As luck had it, the 3 of them were also able to get work in Brunei and on hearing this, moved in as our neighbours for 2 years in 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI_mnjpZGdQ&list=PLiXREf-wCw2oebZvpEu8oDzAWkubX8ke5,. It was now their turn to fly to Australia to visit us at home, for 4 weeks for the month of December 2019. They applied for their Aussie visas in early August and sent in their application. It was a pre requisite for approval to have pre-purchased Airfares so these were booked. We also planned out our itinerary for their time here, which included 2 weeks in a motorhome spending time on the Gold Coast and travelling up and down the coast to Sydney. This was going to be a great holiday. By late October, they had not received their visas and had heard nothing from the Australian Embassy. The flights had been paid for and we now had to be made full payment on the motorhome. An email enquiry told them their visas should be issued shortly so payment was made and everything was in place. We were all excited and they would be flying into the Gold Coast on 8 December. In the last week of November they finally received a letter from the visa office, telling that their visa application had been refused. No reason was given, along with a message saying to not ask for a reason, as one will not be forthcoming. We were at an all-time low on hearing this news. They have travelled with us through UAE, South Africa, Malaysia and Brunei with us over 8 years yet the Australian Authorities think it is best not to grant a visa. They have a current job to return to, they own a home in South Africa, they have funds backing them, but Australia says they are not eligible to enter on a visitor visa. If anyone has connections to Peter Dutton’s office please let me know, so we can contact them for a reason why they were refused. We don’t want to believe it’s because they are South African, but as an explanation will not be given, what are we to think? Besides this utter disappointment, the airfares had been paid and full payment on the motorhome had also been made, however these monies could not be refunded. On explanation to the motorhome company we were able to negotiate a refund for all except for the 25% deposit. They also offered a super discount if we booked again in the future. The airline just said “tough luck”. We had bought ticket insurance but the small print would not allow visa approval as a viable reason for a claim. If they had claimed sickness, feigned injury or some other BS excuse, it might have been a different story. That sucks! We are so embarrassed about our Australian Immigration Office! We ended up spending the month of December here on the Island and spent Christmas day and Boxing Day with some friends on the Gold Coast. Our New Year’s Eve was spent at home. The Island Recreation Club, often put on community functions including Melbourne Cup Day, New Year’s Eve, Australia Day etc. and many of the local families attend. They are great days and a good way to get to know new people. We feel at home here on the Island now and have settled into the slower way of life. Here on the island, if you don’t have time today, you can do it tomorrow ... or the next day! How good is that? I’m now sad again, so I’ll sign off now x
Over the last 10 years or so, while we've been travelling, we have had all our household stuff in storage. When we purchased the house in 2016 here on the island, we moved everything out of storage and piled it into 2 rooms here, until the days when we stopped travelling. We had our entire dining room jammed full and piled high to the ceiling, with unused furniture and boxes filled with books, kitchen items, clothes, you name it we had it packed. The spare room was also half filled with office stuff and more boxes. When I returned, the plan was to empty these rooms and find a home for things. Plans changed however, as the task was too complex for just me to do and the fact I wouldn’t be able to find enough places to put it. After Janet returned and was settled, we started to put our plan for the house and its contents into motion. To renovate the kitchen we would need to knock down a few walls to create an open plan living area, so our boxes and stuff needed a new place to call home for a year or so. We thought about placing a shipping container in the yard behind the carport, however our council required plans and DA approval. It would need concrete footings and as we are on a corner block, it could not be within 6 or 7 metres from the road boundary. Plan 2: was to erect a couple of garden sheds, you know the pre fab store bought ones. These would need a concrete base as well and as we are on the island, getting Readymix concrete delivered is possible, but frightfully expensive, and we thought too difficult to organise. We had completed our raised garden bed project, swiftly and without hassle so we settled on the garden shed plan but we would use treated sleepers as the base. I calculated the quantities of 50mm x 200mm x 3 metre sleepers that were needed, including cross members as well as screws and concrete blocks etc. We bought everything we would need from Bunnings, including one 3 x 3 prefab shed and arranged delivery to our house over the vehicle ferry. Too easy! After looking at our brilliantly planned project lying in Situ on planks, we wondered where to start and how we would manage it. A week later, we had a phone call from some friends wanting to visit. Errrr? Visit? Errr? Yes! Why not! … Actually, we explained what we were planning to do and Peter and Bev were only too willing to help. Peter and Bev live full time in their caravan travelling this beautiful country far and wide. They’ve been up and down, round and round and are enjoying the nomadic lifestyle, occasionally calling in on family and friends, as they go. We arranged for them to come and stay for a week, which would give us plenty of time to complete the project and have plenty of time to catch up on a few drinks and games of cards. They could also join our team at Trivia on the Wednesday night. Perfect. Once they arrived we sat down over a few drinks to discuss our plan of action neither of us having any background in construction. How hard can it be? Next morning they were up at a ‘sparrows fart’ with shovels and picks removing weeds and old tree roots from the area. We had breaky and the construction process started. First we would need to lay the cross beams onto the concrete block and level them. With their tireless help we were able to get this done without too much trouble and when there was a hurdle, we all had a hand in how we could do things better. It did take a few hours in the heat, but within no time we were ready for the main base. We started laying the floor sleepers over the beams and screwed them down as we went. It was a while ago now as I write this so I can’t remember how long it actually took to complete these tasks, so Peter and Bev, I’m sorry but I do know you both worked your little butts off. I think we had a day off in between now and then as we did go to the mainland and island hop a few times and we did win at Trivia one of the nights you were here. It was now time to construct the shed. We watched a YouTube video for instructions and sorted the parts directed. We suffered minor problems as some of the labels for parts were illegible and we sometimes screwed one piece before we had joined another. These were only minor hiccups and we developed a system of "part, join, snap in place and screw". We had the four walls up and were ready for the roof. We had checked all the contents of the shed packages, on opening, before we started the actual build and all were there. However the bag of screw supplied, was only a single bag of 100 and not the 200 required. The solution was, at short notice, for me to shoot off to one of the neighbouring islands, to a hardware shop and buy a packet of screws. We were good to go. The shed is black, as are the screws, but these new ones were silver so we replaced the inside screws, with silver, so we had black ones showing on the outside. The roof was troublesome to say the least. We did not have the strength or 'height' so we called on a neighbour to help and with the extra hands and his knowledge, popped it on in no time. The week we had planned, turned out to be 10 days, but the job was done and we had a great time as well. Peter and Bev left with a “See you next time” but …. I’m not sure if they’ll return! JOB WELL DONE GUYS! THANK YOU SO MUCH Over the next week or so, we went through the dining room, emptying boxes that had been packed for years, sorting what we’d need now and what could be stored till the kitchen was complete. It was amazing the things we found in those boxes, many treasures but also a lot of “What did we pack this crap for?” We cleared a number of boxes and sorted the ones into a pile, ready to go to the shed.
Perfect. So winter had arrived on the island and when I say winter I mean 20+ degree days and nights down to 5 or 6 degrees C. I’m got used to the cold but instead of having the air con on 24/7 as we did in Brunei, I would put the heater or reverse cycle air con on most nights until bed. As I was by myself it’s easy to pop into bed early and I’d set up one of the TV’s in the bedroom and my Google Chromecast which meant the world was at my fingertips from the warmth and comfort of the bed. I tried to make it a routine though, to get up each day, normally in the morning, I showered every day, I wasn’t shaving though, so was looking a little scruffy. I did try to accomplish at least one major job around the house everyday. My Electric Mobility Scooter was now unpacked and charged, so I would try to get out and about at least 2 or 3 times a week. “Out and about” means either traveling up and down the island (about a 3kms round trip) or a trip across the ferry to one of the other islands, to pick up supplies and have a coffee or meal at one of the cafes. I could take the passenger ferry to the mainland, maybe a couple of times a month, it is then a short bus trip to the shopping mall, bank and fast food outlets. In July, Janet and Bailey finished up the school year, so plans were made for settling everything up, selling off any unwanted items, saying goodbye to everyone before spending a couple of nights in Kuala Lumpur. They arrived back in Australia in Sydney as Bailey had qualified and was accepted into Canberra University to start in August. Janet drove him to Canberra where they stayed for a few weeks to organise enrolment into the uni and somewhere to live, as well as go through the motions to receive Youth Allowance. Australia has a great welfare system and students are subsidised for attending further education. They found an on campus apartment that he would share with 4 other students. It was walking distance to the Uni and the township of Belconnen. We have some close friends who live nearby so they would be there for him in case of emergency or loneliness. Janet then drove back to Sydney while Bailey headed down to Adaminaby to catch up with his dad. He would start in a couple of weeks so was both a little excited and nervous. Janet was able to catch up with the grand kids and Kelly for a couple of days. She then decided to hire another car and drive north to the Gold Coast, an 850 km drive which ended up taking 11 or 12 hours. She arrived late at night and stayed with a friend on her arrival. I caught the car ferry the next morning to travel down to the Gold Coast to pick her up as the hire car would be returned at the Gold Coast airport. We finally met up with each other at about 11am, although she wasn’t by herself. She had picked up a passenger in Sydney and he was waiting with her until I arrived. His name was Archie, a black Labrador, 2 year old and very lively. It was then I found out that we had a new member of our family. We travelled back home with Archie on the backseat beside all the boxes and cases that accompanied them both. He travelled so well and once we arrived home settled in as easy as pie. He was a surrender dog, from a Sydney family, living in an apartment. The family was Nepalese so therefore English was not his first language. Janet having thought she had left the ESL lifestyle behind her, was wrong so Archie became her new student. Over the next few months life settled into a regular routine as we got to know local residents, join in with island festivities including a regular Wednesday night Trivia competition at the nearby recreation club. We do pretty good at the trivia nights and mostly compete as just a couple, although on occasions, have friends join us, either from the island or with visiting family or friends from the mainland. For the record we have won on a number of nights and regularly come 2nd or 3rd, normally in a tie-break. We have also made a few changes to our little piece of paradise. We have built some above ground garden beds, which I designed and with the help of Rose, our Gold Coast friend, erected in one day. There were two and we were all impressed with the finished product. The next task of course was to fill them. This was going to be a daunting challenge but the first thing we did was to empty our filing cabinets of old paper work used in our business that we had been keeping over the last 15 years. We emptied these into the garden bed before shovelling in soil on top. It was going to be a long process but we had all the time in the world. A day or two later our neighbour had a guy with a bobcat doing some work, so we asked and within an hour, he dumped 3.4 cubic metres of soil into the garden beds. Wow! What a time saver that turned out to be. Janet selected some vegies and the planting began, we set up tomato stakes, netting for beans to climb, strawberries, aubergine, lettuce and a selection of herbs. They grew like billyo and it wasn’t long before we were harvesting some vegetables. We also had planted, when we first bought the property a passion fruit vine along the front fence. When I first arrived back in May, the whole fence was overrun with vines and weeds so after clearing and heavily pruning back the passionfruit it opened it up to free growth and sunlight. This summer the vine has grown incredibly and its fruiting, literally by the hundreds. No sooner have the flowers produced fruit, more flowers appear and more fruit is produced. Archie has taken a likeness to being a fruitarian and during mango season, as one would fall from the tree, it was a race to see who got to it first. He won 99% of the time. Luckily he can only eat one at a time so we were able to get a few for ourselves. Everyday, he now wanders over to the passionfruit vine and selects the ripest one, picks it, walks back to where we are sitting on the verandah and starts eating it. When he’s finished devouring it, skin and all, he walks back and grabs another one and repeats the process. He will likely do this 3 or 4 times … every day. Fortunately, fruit is growing on both sides of the fence so we have plenty for ourselves. He’s also taken a liking to loquat fruit too. We have a number of these trees along our fence line so he has a constant supply. Also over the past few months we’ve caught him up on the raised garden beds looking for ripe tomatoes or eggplant. He’ll only take one at a time. Weird dog right!
Another reason that I returned to Australia ahead of Janet and Bailey is the main reason. On 4th June 2019, my parents who are in their 90’s celebrated their 70th Wedding Anniversary. Yep, 70 ( that’s Seventy) years married. My sisters had arranged to have a celebration up in Port Macquarie for them where the family would gather for the special day. I caught the car ferry over to the mainland and headed down to NSW catching up on a few friends on the way. I arrived a few days early to help with the any arrangements. Winter was coming and it was getting colder. It was a lot colder than what I had been used to in Brunei. Fortunately I had bought down some warm clothing with me and it took a little time to get used to. Mum and Dad live in an apartment by themselves and are very healthy. They do have a little home help that comes in once a week but everything else they do themselves. They have a little garden on their verandah with great views over the water. They keep themselves busy, one way or another, Dad is very computer literate, having been very innovative in the computer infancy and although his eyesight is not the best nowadays, it’s made a little easier with his 46” monitor. Mum has recently been learning more about her digital technology and it’s quite common to receive text messages with memes and Emojis attached and she can shop online. People started arriving from all places around the world, all of who were related in one way or another. There were people from many places including America, England and most states in Australia. Having started in England, The family lineage has spread its wings all around the planet which include Children, Grandchildren, Great Grandchildren, nephews and cousins. They hired the local racecourse restaurant where we all gathered for the celebratory lunch. I played MC and we had a few speeches, cutting of a cake. There was also a video show piece created by most of the families who attended including others who were unable to attend. Each person had send their self-recorded videos to my nephew Aaron, who gathered, coalesced and edited each piece to create a piece of history in video form. My older sister had also gathered photos and messages from friends and relatives and created a coffee table book for mum and dad to reminisce over. The afternoon ended after my little sister brought out a load of books which she had had edited, and printed. The book was a story of dad’s life which he had been writing and working on for the last 30 years. The day was a huge success. I stayed a few more days, having met up with people I had not seen in many years and left for home with a couple of overnight visits with friends on the way. So it was back to our little island paradise. The car hadn’t missed a beat, 300,000+Kms , but after such a long sleep it might do it good to have a specialist take a look just in case there’s any potential problems. So I had a drop into the supermarket to stock up on a month’s worth of food before settling into winter.
Hi guys, I’M BACK Well where have I been? I know. It’s been ages since I posted a blog or video. Let me catch you up as it’s been over 12 months, actually 15 months since my last appearance in the digital world. I am now back in Australia and I returned to our house in Queensland, last May 2019. The house had been waiting for our return and despite having a gardener looking after the garden and lawns, it was in need of a little tender care, actually quite a bit of tender care. I returned alone as Bailey and Janet had to finish off their school year back in Brunei. It was good, as it gave me the chance to get the house into a liveable state, as all our stuff had been packed away while we had been travelling. My main job firstly, was to get the garden into shape and I had bought a power sprayer to wash down the house and driveways and car port. It took me well over the first week to achieve this. Actually it was more like 3 weeks but I was on a do a little a few hours a day and not go flat out. I guess that’s my normal way of life as some of you would already know! The house inside was remarkably in good condition with no signs of ants, spiders or rodents. I had given the place a good spray with “Baygon” bug spray, before we left and it certainly did the job. The outside wasn’t too bad either except for a number of spider webs and lots of ants nests through the lawn. There were little mounds of soil piled up, like miniature volcanoes with a lot of activity. If you disturbed them with a foot or a mower they would double their efforts and start rebuilding. It took many weeks to reduce their occupation of our land. Even today, 12 months later, whenever it’s about to rain, the mounds come out again. The concrete on the driveway and through the carport was black, stained from the dirt, rain and mould. Under the high pressure of the Karcher, the concrete spruced up real nice. The car, which had been left under the carport was absolutely filthy, dirt in every crevice with leaves and twigs which had blown in during storms. The glass was more or less opaque with dust which had solidified and glued itself to the surface. The Karcher made light work of most but it needed a big bucket of hot soapy water to bring it back to life. The battery was in good shape as it had been hitched up to a solar panel which trickle charged topping up it power. I gave it an oil change a quick once over and it fired up first click. The tyres still had plenty of air although had flat spotted slightly where it had stood still for so long. A small drive around to warm them up and the squeaks and the bumps disappeared. This is going to be a long blog to catch up 12 months, so I’ll break it into separate parts.
I’ll be posting the next bit very soon …. I’m back in the digital world!!! Hi January has just flown by and we are in the middle of February already. Today is Valentine’s Day so ….Wow… happy Valentine’s Day to all the lovers reading this. This will be a quick Blog this time as January was just an ordinary month here with nothing happening much at all. A new shopping centre however, opened near Bailey’s school and despite us knowing differently, we had high expectations. The Grand Opening was on the 27th so we did not go near it, due to the amount of crowds. Crowds are not the problem but the cars and parking are. We waited till last week when it was quieter. This centre is just like all the others here in Brunei. The roads in and around it seem to be backwards. The lanes in and out are confusing and there is no logical system. There is an underground parking area but to get to it you need to pass the shopping centre on the road, make a Uturn left up a ramp, on a one lane road, with parking on the right, nose in, maybe 10 slots only, so any cars coming out or those waiting, for a space to park, hold up everything behind it. You then lap the building and enter the underground car park with what seems plenty of parking. There are however one way systems in place, going in what seems the wrong direction, i.e. anti clockwise and 3 isles going in and only 1 coming out. Anyway it’s so confusing and the 'planning' seems to have been converted from the Left Hand Drive system. The ‘up’ ramp to the second storey parking however seems to be quite normal though, entering on the left, clockwise driving around and you then return down the exit ramp on the left hand side. The shopping centre itself is bright clean and there seems to be a number of shops already operating, whereas the Aman Hills centre that opened 3 km from us last year, still have more than half the shops empty, which have never had tenants. The 'One City' centre supermarket, looks bright and well displayed however there is the arse-about system in place again. You circle the supermarket anti clockwise as with most of the shops here. I'm not sure of why this is, but to me, it is so confusing again, maybe, mimicking the European/USA system. Once in the shop the aisles go left, right, and sometimes up, down, and there’s no easy flow. Whether this is the design nowadays to make people shop slower, I’m not sure. The Frozen Food fridges go entirely around the outside walls therefore making double back movements regulars and disrupting or double lapping the store if you collect frozen last... Crazy! The other shops, that are in the centre, are exactly the same as most shopping centres here, food/café shops, phone shops, material shops but nothing interesting enough, to want to enter a second time. The centre is 2 storeys in all and the top floor hosts a Department store and a Cinema but we did not venture to see it. There is actually no website for the Cinema. If you want to see which movies are screening however Facebook does have a page, but the pictures of movie times are posted a day late, so we can only see movies and screening times … that were on yesterday. Crazy! I have been busy editing movies through January and still editing some at the moment. My main job has been editing our Cambodian movies which are available to see at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiXREf-wCw2r7yfRVZgm-2BCnyKtjDu-k There are still a few to come online still so keep your eye out. My How to videos are going up weekly as well so if you haven’t had a look, do it now. Have you got lots of photos hanging about on your phone or computer. Maybe some videos too? You don’t want to lose them, so back them up to a portable hard drive or back them up online. You can learn ‘How To’ get unlimited storage on Google Photos without paying a cent. If you have family videos you can learn ‘How To’ easily edit them and save each one as a video file to watch in years to come. Ever heard of ‘Google Home”? Go to https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiXREf-wCw2rSJy6hHzuQEvXoYmrzmbCL and see if there’s anything of interest. I said this would be a quick blog, so that will do for now. If you have any questions about computer matters that you need answered, leave a comment either here or on YouTube. I’ll try and help or even make video for others to see.
Talk to you next time, keep smiling and stay safe and well
This will be my final part of our Cambodian experience and it will a little emotional as we travel to “The Killing Fields”. Most of us have probably heard about these killing fields as it happened fairly recently as time goes, and certainly in my life time. We also heard about Hitler and the murder of the Jews during the 30’s and the 40’s but as this happened in the 70’s it seemed to hit home and more reality than the Holocaust. We ordered an early morning pick up by the Hop On, Hop Off bus from our hotel. It was due in at 8am but did not arrive till 9.30am. A great start to out 4 hour tour! The bus was red like all HOHO buses around the cities we’ve been to, but that’s all it had in common. It was a 20 seater coaster style bus with a driver and tour guide. The tour guide was not a guide at all, but maybe a customer relations guy that told us where to get off and when to return and where to buy tickets for entry to the 2 places we’d see today. We all boarded the bus and had a quick drive through the City and 20 minutes later we were parked outside a place called Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide also known as Prison S21. Prior to 1975 this place was a high school for Cambodian students, however when Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge party took over the country this place was converted into a prison. It was now a museum for everyone to be able to understand these terrible few years in History. Pol Pot, a Cambodian citizen, whose education in France, was financed by the Cambodian government, secretly built up a revolutionary army in the forests. He wanted Cambodia (which in these days was called Kampuchea, to be run by a communist government. In 1975 his army attacked the city of Phnom Penh and within days had captured the city and evacuated all residents to the countryside. Anyone who refused to be evacuated was thrown in prison. Anyone who was educated, lawyers, teachers, government official, doctors etc., were automatically incarcerated as they were considered a huge threat to the new regime. Within weeks the prison was full and these gruesome leaders started executing the prisoners. They were tortured and forced to sign false confessions before being beaten, bludgeoned or electrocuted to death. Photographs were taken as proof to the Khmer Rouge leaders that the job had been carried out. School classrooms had been converted into cells with crude brick walls built around a 2m x 1m floor space. Soldiers and/or wardens who objected to the behaviour were reported and subsequently found themselves locked up. For those who would like to know more, I have a YouTube video at https://youtu.be/RmsyRAGgrPo but it might be a little heart wrenching to watch as I walk around the prison. Places to bury the bodies were becoming in short supply, so any new corpses were trucked out of town. Eventually, living prisoners were trucked out to a place called Choeung Ek. Anyone found not obeying Khmer Rouge’s rules and not bowing down to the new leaders were also captured in their truck loads and shipped out to Choeung Ek. After about 1 hour (our time was cut short due to the late start, we boarded the bus and 30 minutes we arrived at Choeung Ek. Choeung Ek is also known as “The Killing Fields” and we soon learned why it had been given this name. My video on Choeung Ek is also uploaded to YouTube at https://youtu.be/FLWJ-GiVOSQ . Again, viewer discretion is advised but it certainly opens one’s eyes to what can go on behind closed doors. We paid our fee and entered the gates. We received a headset and recorder which directed us around the historical site in an orderly fashion explaining the history at each stop. Between 1975 and 1979, truckloads of people were brought into this place daily, usually at night. They were led to a particular spot in the field which had been excavated into a huge divot and each prisoner was systematically executed. Not by gun, as bullets were too expensive and the noise would have been heard from neighbours. No… they were beaten, bludgeoned, stabbed, macheted, electrocuted, even strangled to death. They even used palm fronds with serrated edges to cut their throats. You name it whatever got the job done. They were then drenched with chemicals including DDT to stop any stench and to also ensure those who might still be alive, weren’t. The piles of bodies were then covered with soil in mass graves so the next people arriving could not see their upcoming fate. There were so many truckloads arriving daily that the executioners could not keep up with the task and often prisoners had to wait till the next day before meeting their cruel end to life. Hundreds of graves have been excavated since this horror was uncovered. Many mass graves with naked women, bludgeoned children, babies that had been bashed against “the killing tree” and decapitated bodies have all been found and there might still be many more around the area. Excavation has now since ceased and the ones still undiscovered will remain where they lay. During the wet season however, after heavy rains, body parts, clothing etc. rise to the surface or their top layering gets washed away. There are no accurate numbers of how many people were murdered during this Pol Pot Genocide but figures between 1.5 and 3 million people are estimated country wide. That is 25% of the population at the time. It truly is an emotional experience and seeing it first hand, certainly sends the message of how awful these people were. It still pains me to think about my experience today, especially as I write these words down. Janet and I visited Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany in the 90’s where 41,000+ over 12 years, were murdered by the Nazis under the rule of Adolf Hitler from 1933 to 1945. The Khmer Rouge were only in Power from 1975 to 1979 and their atrocities in Phnom Penh and the number of innocent people who lost their lives, with immediate family members who are still living today, in my book, was far, far, worse and still not as well known. This kind of persecution is also still happening in other countries today while the world turns a blind eye. I’ve recently found out that Pol Pot, during the genocide of millions of his countrymen, which at that time was unknown to the rest of the world, had a seat in the United Nations and was being supported by the U.S.A., China and Japan Places like North Korea, Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Myanmar, Somalia, Ukraine, Yemen, Burundi, Columbia, Nigeria and others are all suffering at the hands of their governments. I can certainly understand why victims are fleeing their “homeland”, they are walking 1000s of kilometres, they are boarding rickety, unseaworthy boats and trying anyway possible to find a safer life elsewhere. If governments were monitored more closely and held accountable to the outside world there would be no refugees seeking asylum . So to wrap up this Cambodian blog, we spent a few days in the Capital and spent zero dollars in the Casino. Over the 8 days in the country, we saw good, very good, some bad and some very bad, but we leave gladly knowing a little more about the world, achieving a few ‘bucket list’ tasks and understanding more about Cambodia than before On a happier note, I have recently updated my 10 year old Sony Video Camera with a new Panasonic one so I am back making a few more videos. A new set of “How To” videos are coming out shortly so keep an eye out for them. My new playlist is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzOBMiQ5_Qo&list=PLiXREf-wCw2rSJy6hHzuQEvXoYmrzmbCL including my ‘unboxing’ of the HC V180 and also how to set up my preferred settings. If you have any requests for any future videos, please let me know either through this blog or via YouTube comments. Keep smiling everyone, try to make this world a ‘happier’ place and stay safe from harm.
Back to Brunei … PART 3 Welcome back! Our next part of this holiday is to leave Siem Reap and travel down to Phnom Penh. We could have done this trip a number of ways. The three of us could have flown, for $100+ each and the trip would have been 1 hour plus arrival times and exit times. The second alternative was by bus, a 6 hour trip at $15 each but we decided on the option of hiring a private vehicle and driver at $80 ($27each), still a six hour trip but with the options to stop anytime for toilet breaks, food stops or whatever as well as door to door. The driver turned up at the hotel at 8 am in a Lexus 7 seater. We were soon on the road with luggage packed in, me in the front and the two ladies in the back. The traffic was awful getting out of the city but it wasn’t long before we were on the highway south. I say highway, but it was just a main road, one lane each way. There were many trucks and bikes and often we would make a middle lane for overtaking. At times it was a little daunting but we had seat belts and airbags all round so I guess that was a good thing! I have a video of our day trip posted at https://youtu.be/8tmFn_sfbjs The day was a little cooler and with the air-con on and windows up it was a quiet pleasant trip all the way. We passed through many small townships, with school children walking or riding to and from school, past rice fields, market stalls etc along the way. An emergency stop to the toilet for me at a servo proved the private cost all worthwhile. We stopped at a tourist stop along the way for morning tea and a view across a lake with the option to buy snacks and souvenirs. The trip went by fast and it wasn’t long before we were only 1 hour away when we stopped again in a town called Skuon, nicknamed Spiderville. Skuon (pronounced Skun) is known across Cambodia as the spider eating town. They have huge tarantulas that live in the rice fields and apparently this is the only area in the country where these spiders are found in abundance. During the terrifying reign of the Khmer Rouge, people here were short of food and were able to survive on eating these abundant arachnids. They would fry them and munch them down. Nowadays fortunately there is more nourishing food available and the town still cook these spiders and passing tourists are encouraged to have a try. Believe it or not I plucked up the courage to have a nibble. Janet and Lizelle were not interested in the idea but for 75 cents, I bought one and had a taste. The legs were crunchy and crispy, with very little taste, a little like fried prawn legs at a Japanese Teppanyaki bar. The body on the other hand had an initial taste of the flavoured oil, then a squishy inside side that my mind has now forgotten of the actual taste. I guess I was glad that I had tried it but it’s not on my list to try again. I have a video here https://youtu.be/B1PZqqZ60hY and as i ate a little girl came up to show me a live one which she confidently placed on my hand. The fangs, as they are poisonous, were removed. This is done immediately on catching each one so there is no risk of getting pinged. The small girl was a little cutie so we gave her a tip for the effort she made. I guess this is why she is hanging around and probably makes a good living for her family doing exactly this. We continued our trip and it wasn’t long before we reached the city limits, the roads became wider, there were signs of more life and the building grew higher. Within an hour we were crossing the Mekong River into Phnom Penh. We passed a few monuments, the Palace and markets before arriving at our Hotel. The driver helped the porters with our luggage and we realised that we had chosen the best option for us, arriving fresh with little stress and effort. We would certainly choose this over the other options again. The NagaWorld Casino was the name of our hotel and had predominantly Chinese clientele. We entered through metal detectors and felt a little uncomfortable but confidently safe as these precautions were taking place on everyone. We walked to reception through a 50 metre entry hall with glistening chandeliers, bright light, pretty girls and on either sides, slot machines and gambling tables. One could easily see which nation has the most disposable cash in the World. As a side note, these tables operate 24/7 and literally $100’s are wagered on each table on every roll of a dice or turn of a card. The room however was not s extravagant as down stairs, with “smokey” rooms throughout and not much room in each. I guess it’s financially viable to try to keep people out of their rooms as long as possible. We felt a little tired after our day trip but found enough time to have a look around the hotel, have a meal and investigate a few things to do while in the Capital City. Tomorrow we will go on a tour to see the “Killing Fields” and learn about the Khmer Rouge and their impact on Cambodia as a communist government. We decided to call it a night around 10 or 11 and would be up for breakfast at 7 in the morning. Catch the emotionally upsetting and saddening experience of Prison 21 at Tuol Sleng and The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek in my Part 4 blog next time. ….maybe tomorrow That’s all for now, stay safe and thank heavens that we are able to live the kind of life we have had and that we were born in the right time and more importantly the right place.
It was Christmas Eve so this year Janet organised a dinner and show evening at a restaurant in Siem Reap. Janet has surprised us in the past, over the last few years, with a Christmas Eve outing. In 2011, Janet and I were at the Hilton Hotel in Fujairah, UAE, 2012 and 2013 I was home in Australia with the family. In 2014 we were at the Hilton Hotel in Kuantan, Malaysia with Lizelle, 2015 we had a Christmas feast at The Holiday Inn in Penang, Malaysia, again with Lizelle and also Bailey. In 2016 we were back in Australia, 2017 we spent it at a place called “dining in the dark” in Kuala Lumpur, An incredible experience that everyone should put on their bucket list. That dining experience can be seen at https://youtu.be/Oa5WlEIL_a0 . This year was, although very interesting, not as exciting or memorable as some of the others. It was though, cultural and the food was good, and we ‘were’ in Cambodia. I have a YouTube video uploaded at https://youtu.be/MwARU_UmcJs . The show was drawn out for a fair while but it was interesting and after 2 hours or so we were in another Tuk Tuk on the way back to our hotel for a couple of drinks. Christmas day was a relaxing day, with a sleep in, a late breakfast and we just enjoyed not having to do anything too exhilarating. We all booked into have a massage on site, so Janet and Lizelle went off to get theirs, in the massage rooms, and on their return, arrived with two young ladies for my “four handed” massage to be done in my room. At 4pm our van arrived as we had planned a sunset trip to Tonle Sap Lake. The drive took nearly 45 minutes, before we hopped onto a boat for a trip along the river to the lake. The road trip took us into the country side, past many little villages, with plenty of stalls along the way catering to all the tourists, like us, who pass by every day. When we arrived at the river there were 100s of boats, long boats with a thumping engine at the back, linked to a long prop shaft that hung out the back about 2 metres. This I assumed was because the water was shallow and therefore this minimised the boat’s draft. https://youtu.be/u9z7Ld3HtPI We had the boat to ourselves and most boats only had a few people in each. The boats were big enough to seat 20+. Our boat captain, I will just call him the driver, was 17 years old, had left school at a very early age and had been driving these boats for the last 2 years. The river trip took us past many stilted houses. The large 3 bedroom homes stood 10 metres above the water level, some having 2 stories. Supporting them were fairly thin wooden poles, much, much, thinner than a telegraph pole. There were about 20 – 40 poles all braced together under the houses. In some cases there were stacks of firewood stored underneath, as well as boat parts, canoes, toys etc. These villages are 100% reliant on the lake and the river for their livelihood. Fishing is the main industry with most of Cambodia’s seafood supply coming out of this fresh water lake. Many of the fish are cleaned at the water’s edge, the heads are removed and sun dried, the fat is boiled and soap is produced and many of the fish are salted for preserving. Our boat driver passed by trees growing in the water, small forests of trees, and there were signs of life amongst these trees. On reaching the lake there was supposed to be a floating village, but as it was dry season, theses homes had floated off in another direction, 20 odd kms away, until the next wet season returns. The house owners, once fishing stats again, tie baskets from the craft, hang them in the water and moments later haul out hundreds of fish a day. There is a fishery management system in place and fishing during breeding season is banned. There were many boats filled with tourists (the other main source of income) bobbing up and down on the lake waiting for the sun to set over the vast expanse of water. The lake, while we were there, was in dry season and it only covered 2500 sq. kms and we were told that the average depth is only 1 metre. However during the monsoon season the Mekong River, from the north, fills this Tonle Sap Lake until it covers 16,000 sq. kms with an average depth of 10 metres. Now we know why those stilted houses were so high up and therefore water would be lapping their door steps after the summer rains. The sun was bright in the sky and as e floated in the heat, it didn’t seem to move much. Time lapse on the floating boat didn’t work as we bobbed and drifted down stream quite quickly. After about 30 minutes we decided not to wait another half hour or so for the sunset and head back upstream back to the car, and hopefully missing the mad exodus as it got dark. Once back in the air conditioned van we hit the road before finding a perfect spot, overlooking the rice fields, for the sun to go down. Christmas Day had turned out to be another splendid experience. I'll wrap this part up too as it’s getting a bit long. Check back soon for Part three when we move onto Phnom Penh. Keep smiling and we’ll chat soon again.
HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone This is my first blog for 2019 so I wish each and every one of you a healthy year ahead, with very few troubles and disappointments. Let’s hope a few of your dreams come true, your life heads in a good direction, and that happiness appears every day in some form or another. So the last time I wrote, we were heading off for our Christmas Holiday break. We flew into Kuala Lumpur on the 20th December and spent 2 nights at the Aloft hotel. It was a great time to replace a few of my Polo shirts and a pair of shorts, with a quick trip to Jalan Petaling. A video I made a few years ago on these Chinese markets can be viewed at https://youtu.be/-m2L5m8oY54 . There’s nothing like this in Brunei. After a day, our friend Lizelle arrived here from Doha, Qatar where she now works. It was great to catch up as we only seem to catch up annually nowadays. Having said that, Janet did catch up with her when they took a trip to Vietnam last July. So Lizelle arrived, we had dinner and a few drinks then had an early night as we’d be flying out at noon to Siem Reap, in Cambodia, the next day. There’d be plenty of time over the next 8 days to catch up and socialise, We arrived at the airport on 22 Dec, excited about the days ahead. The main problem with travel is, the down time waiting for check-in, flights, customs etc. A two hour flight soon turns in to 4, 5 or even 6, between arriving early for check-in to landing and arriving at your destination. The ‘positives’ way out perform the negatives though. It was dark by the time we left Siem Reap Airport and after 8pm before we arrived at our hotel. Our hotel The “Solitaire Kamreuk” was a small boutique hotel, with only 16 rooms and only 5 minutes to the city centre. The rooms were large, a huge bathroom with an outside, open air, bath. Breakfast was included and a small bar area adjacent to the dining area. Before calling it a day, we checked with reception on how to see the temples and any other interesting places to see. We organised a private air-conditioned car to take us to Angkor Wat in the morning. As it was late I hit the bedroom early whereas the two ladies headed off to the markets by Tuk Tuk. I have uploaded a video of our arrival at https://youtu.be/62iVor_1pRg . The next day we were up early ish, had breakfast, a great meal sitting in the garden area next to the road. Our driver arrived at 8am, a Mercedes 8 seater van, just for the 3 of us. Perfect. Today we are going to Angkor Wat, a stone temple built in the early 12th century by the Khmer Empire. There were many temples in this area built around the same time and after the 15th century collapse of the Empire, many buildings disappeared for many centuries into the jungle. Angkor Wat, one of the World’s largest religious monuments, is one of the best preserved temples and is famous for its sunrise photographs taken by 1000’s of tourists, with its 5 pagodas silhouette, overlooking the lake. Again I have a video at https://youtu.be/MKN8jL45hFI . There is a long walk from the drop off zone to the actual temple along a dirt road, but as I had my disabled permit, the driver was able to take us in the ‘back way’ and right to the temple itself. It saved a lot of walking and in the days heat, it was well worth it after the hour or two up and down steps. Angkor Wat was amazing and, on learning about the history, the architecture and seeing the physical size, compared in our minds to Stone Henge, the Greek Temples, Baalbek and Aanjar in Lebanon, and even the Pyramids of Giza. The day was very hot so today, we only stopped at the one temple and went back to the hotel for an afternoon rest. A couple of hours rest replenished our energy for a night trip to “Pub Street”. This was a night club area with plenty of pubs and restaurants as well as the touts working their charms on the tourists. We grabbed a Tuk Tuk back to the hotel and were in bed by 11.00pm The next day we were up again as today we would be off again in a private van to visit another couple of temples. The first one we went to was Ta Prohm. Ta Prohm was a temple that has literally been taken over by nature with Strangler Figs covering many of the walls and roofs. It was made famous in the movie Tomb Raider starring Angelina Jolie. The place is being renovated in places but it has been decided to leave all the trees and fallen stonework where they lay as it’s now a World Heritage listed monument. Once again we were able to drive right to the temple along a pathway scattered with walking visitors. It was difficult once inside as there were fallen boulders and tree roots everywhere and many, many trip hazards. There are no OH&S regulations there, although walkways and barricades are being built to stop tourists climbing and disturbing the environment. You want a video? https://youtu.be/AGjkogAKkf4, I’ll leave this blog right now, as it’s getting a bit long and I will continue the trip to Cambodia in the next part. Talk to you soon, keep smiling … END OF PART ONE
Hi This will be my last contact before Christmas so I will take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to our many friends from other parts of the World. We trust that you all stay safe, are able to catch up with family and friends and enjoy as much time together as you can. We desperately miss our families at this time of year, and also reflect on the family and friends who are no longer with us. Unfortunately we have lost a few, this year and although they will stay in our hearts forever their time on Earth will surely be missed. These last two weeks have been very quiet for the two of us, relaxing most of the time, watching TV, sleeping and enjoying our time together. Bailey returned back to Oz a while ago now, and most neighbours have disappeared to their respective holiday destinations. We had been cat sitting for the first week alone and we had the cat living with us in our house which made life a lot easier than visiting it a couple of times a day. There is now a couple who have moved in next door to us, who are now house sitting and the cat has been returned to them. We have had a few get-togethers with them and also with a local family up the road as well. We are the last in our street, of those going away, to leave on holidays, which for us, will happen tomorrow. The neighbours will run us to the airport then we’ll be off to Kuala Lumpur for 2 nights before heading to Siem Reap in Cambodia where we will spend Christmas. On the 27th we will then head down to Phnom Pehn for a couple of days before heading back to Brunei through KL arriving on New Year’s Eve. When we look at our Christmases over the last number of years, it all seems surreal. We’ve spent different years in many places, some of these in Abu Dhabi, Oman, Kuala Lumpur, Kuantan, Janet had a Christmas in Saudi Arabia, and this year we’ll be in Cambodia. We are so fortunate to be able to have these adventures together but they do come with the cost of not spending the time with immediate family. They have also grown up though and now spend their time with their growing families so I guess time moves on. This does look like this will be our last year away from Australia as the plan is to settle back home next year. I hope to have a video up on YouTube shortly, quickly reminiscing all those years that have passed. Anyway… I’ll now head off to pack my bag, sort my passport and tickets, and ensure all the pre-holiday chores have been done. So … wherever you will be this Christmas, enjoy life, celebrate with care, look after each other and I’ll catch up with you in some form or another in the New Year. xx
Hi guys. A few things have happened this past month, some good, some not so good. The end of the year here is approaching quickly, Janet finishes on Thursday this week and Bailey on the 7th December. These last few weeks have gone by so quickly and I guess as we get closer to the end of the contract it’ll go even faster. Anyway, let’s recap what’s happened. I have had the flu pretty badly since my return from Labuan last month. I’m all good now as the holiday approaches. I did have a visit to the doctor’s clinic recently. I am 62 and wake every night for the dreaded pee, so off I went for the digital inspection. The doctor was very gentle and his diagnosis was, I should visit the specialist for a swollen prostate, however from his “probing” he didn’t think there was anything serious. I went to book an appointment with the specialist, located in the main hospital. I was told it would take maybe 2 weeks before I heard anything. 3 weeks past and I hadn’t heard so this week I popped back in to find out what was happening. Apparently they had sent me a text message and I had missed reading it, causing me to miss my appointment. I claimed stupidity (which they didn’t even question) and was given an immediate ultrasound on my bladder and was sent for a blood test and then given an appointment next month for a full ultra sound and a specialist appointment. During the same evening, I received a text message telling me my appointment had been brought forward to the very next morning. What the? Maybe it was the blood test? Maybe it was serious after all? I didn’t sleep much through the night with a mind racing overtime. I was up early to get Bailey to school and then off to the clinic. After a 30 minute wait, I went into see the doctor, a young female local doctor, educated overseas. Her English was perfect and was very informative explaining my situation. My PSA was in the average range but high on the scale. With my swollen prostate and my regular nightly jaunts it was decided I would start on a course of tablets immediately and if there were no major incidents after my 3 December comprehensive ultrasound, I would return to see her in a few months. Here in Brunei, we live in the 4th richest country per capita, however the hospital, although having top doctors and facilities, are run down with very little maintenance. The “comfy” seats in waiting areas are uncomfortable, worn, sagging, and in many cases, they are plastic (Bunnings like) stackable chairs. In the clinic I was in, the ceiling in places was covered in black mould, the air conditioner vents were dripping with water, many lights were not working, desks were old and crappy, walls needed painting and floors were old and worn. I doubt if there is much funding for maintenance in this hospital. It’s a shame, but the country does have a very cheap medical system with subsidised medicine. It’s very good and compares well to Australia and is well in advance of many countries around the world. It’s not just the hospital that lacks in maintenance. Many building, hotels, offices and housing that are starting to fall down, are often abandoned, new ones are rebuilt while the old just get left to go to ruin. As it’s the end of year there are also many parties happening at different places amongst the Expats. It’s an impossible juggle to try and get to every invite but we have been to a few or more. Tuesday was Prophet Mohammad’s birthday so it was a designated Public Holiday. Some friends of our had a Christmas party, with Christmas Tree, Santa Claus, presents, a trivia quiz and a dance off, kids vs. adults. We had a good feed, a lot of fun and a great time. Our breakfast club held an afternoon BBQ at Maura beach on the weekend just gone and we all had another great time. The kids were off playing with footballs, volley balls, water balloons, etc., while the guys cooked the BBQ and everyone chatted. We were able to sneak in a few beers too as, by 2pm, most other people had gone and we were the only ones left, more or less. The weather was remarkably cool, maybe 27 or 28 deg with a threat of rain but it stayed away. We’ve been to a few weekday evening parties as well, and our last one is on Weds, because many people will start to fly out on Thursday night. Everyone we know here is leaving the country to go “somewhere”. Janet and I are also off to Cambodia, but only over Christmas for a week and a bit. We are heading to Siem Reap firstly then down to Phnom Pehn. Bailey will head back home to Adaminaby for Christmas with his dad. It is quite a weird way of life in reality here, as we all speak about travelling here or travelling there, come holiday time. It’s as though we’re saying, we’re just having a quick trip to the beach, if we were back home. Some people are off to 3 or even 4 different countries over the 4 weeks in December. Back home we would talk about popping down to Sydney or Victoria or up to the Sunshine Coast, and here they talk about popping over to Japan or Sri Lanka, or Vietnam, or South Africa, Great Britain, Italy, New Zealand, Australia, Europe, you name it, it’s so easy. Anyway I’ll fill you in on our trip when we return. So, that’s the catch up for November, well see you soon, on paper that is, unless you are going to Cambodia too Stay safe and well over the Christmas Holidays, enjoy time with your friends and families and smile as always.
Well we’re close to the end of October. Time sure is passing quickly. The trip to the dentist and the rebuild of my filling, which I had done at the beginning of the month, read here (https://michaelwithms.weebly.com/michaels-travels/my-day-at-the-dentist) has turned out to just fine. The ISB international school had their mid-term break last week, so the children all had a week off, while the mums still worked. This left the ‘stay at home’ dads busier than normal so three of us, decided to take a small trip to Labuan with the kids. Labuan is a small island in Malaysia about 40 kms off the North-East tip of Brunei. It’s a $15 ferry ride which takes about 1.5 hours. We took a trip there back in February as a whole family and we took a speed boat from the ferry. You can catch a video of that trip on YouTube at https://youtu.be/qgjrA5JPQko. The trip was awful and cramped in the bowels of the hull and the fumes were quite nauseating. So this time we booked the car ferry with no car. This trip was to take about 2 hours, but we were told it was a more comfortable ride. Well that’s what we were told anyway! The boat was due to leave at 9am and we arrived at the terminal on the Wednesday morning at about 7.30 am as the wives who dropped us off, had to get to work. We had booked into the Palm Beach Resort and Spa at the top end of the island which offered a free half hour shuttle ride to and from the city at regular intervals. This was going to be a great idea, giving the kids a little adventure and us guys a bit of a relaxing time too. At 9 o’clock we cleared customs and boarded the ferry. It was a large ferry with a top deck for the passengers and the trucks and cars parked on the water level deck. After a short climb up about 20 steps we entered a huge air conditioned seating area with heaps of room. It was clean the seats were foamed covered lounges on the side and plastic seats in the middle. There was a movie screening on the large screen TV and it was nice and cool. There was a snack bar located in the middle but as we had bought snacks and drinks with us this was not important, but it was there all the same. As we left the dock there was no more than 20 people on board (including the 8 of us), the seas were calm and the sky was blue. It was the perfect day and this was so much better than the other boat we took last time. There was plenty of room to walk around with a large deck outside when you needed to stretch your legs. The kids settled in to watch the movie, munch on nibblies, and just have fun. They could venture outside for a run around and although the trip was a fair bit longer, it was definitely worth the extra time. We came across a part of the sea where two different waters met. It was very strange. One side the water was a bluish colour and the other a dark greenish one. It was like someone had drawn a line in the water, like a border control line. We couldn’t work out if it was caused by tides, depths or even pollution from the oil rigs nearby. The latter seemed the obvious but there was no sight of any oil in the water.. We approached these oil platforms, located in the sea, and negotiated our way around them. There were also many cargo ships lined up waiting to unload or reload. We docked at Labuan at 11am and our shuttle bus to the resort was due at 11.30, so we cleared customs in less than 5 minutes and ventured over to duty free where we bought some alcohol and munchies for our stay. When the shuttle arrived we were loaded up for a good few days ahead. On our way to the resort we asked the driver to stop off at a supermarket where we bought a heap of meat and sausages for a planned BBQ. It was not a problem as there was only the 8 of us on the bus. We arrived at the hotel for the 12 pm check-in time. We received our room keys with all 3 rooms next to each other more or less, on the top floor. Each room overlooked the pool and the ocean. The rooms were a little dated but they looked clean and were very spacious. Each room had 2 double beds, a huge bathroom, TV a desk and an outdoor verandah set. It looked very comfortable however the bathroom suffered a little from a lack of maintenance and the shower grout was showing signs of mould. We gathered at 2pm for a late lunch in the restaurant and we arranged for the BBQ tonight. “No, we don’t hire out BBQ’s here”, “It’s not possible” we were told. “Your website clearly states BBQ’s are available at extra charge”. “We want see the manager”, was our immediate reply. Shortly afterwards the manager came and spoke to us and he clearly didn’t know about the website listing either. After a considerable amount of negotiating he came round but with an astronomical charge. Further negotiations, both civil and with a little anger we came to an amicable arrangement which included plates and cutlery as well as a cook to help us. Apparently the amount they wanted to charge us for the BBQ hire was clearly more than staff wages for the night. At 6pm the staff came and lit the BBQ, set up our table and a spot light so we could see, and before long we were ready to start cooking. We ordered a drink each from the bar, and the plan was to sit on the same drink all night, all we had to do was keep topping it up from our own stash. It wasn’t long though before management kept returning to see if all was ok, but it was so regular they were obviously checking on any outside alcohol. At one stage they saw our bottle of wine and with a bit of quick thinking we started making a marinade for the meat, which they approved of. We told the chef, who they had supplied to help, that he could leave and return after work for a drink. The kids played, kicked a football, and ran around, then we all sat and ate. It was a good night and everyone enjoyed themselves. All in all, it worked out well and as the evening went on, we moved inside where there was a dart board and pool table for the kids (and adults) and the chef returned for his complimentary drink. The next day we ate our complimentary breakfast, took the shuttle into town, walked around the shops, before heading back to the resort a couple of hours later with takeaway pizzas which we all ate in our room. We all had a swim in the afternoon for a few hours and despite needing a sleep, we all soldiered on to the evening were the chef from the night before heated the meat for us that was left over from the previous night. We added a couple of side dishes and our meal was complete. Somewhere in the afternoon we were also able to get a game of Uno in, where we all played together. Another successful day, The following morning we had breakfast and all return to our rooms to pack and Bailey and I actually had a nap till we checked out at 1pm. We were both feeling as though we were catching a cold. The shuttle took us all back to the Mall in town where we had a bite to eat for lunch before making out way to the ferry terminal for the 4pm ferry back to Brunei. We arrived at the Brunei terminal at 6pm where the girls picked us up, we said our goodbyes and headed home. By morning, I had been hit by a sore throat and headache, runny nose and sniffles. It was a day in bed with a dose of Panadol. It’s now more than a week later, I still have traces of the flu, which I have passed onto Bailey and no doubt Janet will end up with it as well. The nights seem the worst and as soon as the sun goes down I just feel like dog doo doo and just want to sleep. Our fortnightly breakfasts, where the expat husbands get together, have been disrupted lately with the holidays but we were able to get together last Thursday. Taz had organised for a new friend to come along. He is a local guy. born here in Brunei, who has just retired from the military after reaching Major status. He was 44 years old when he retired and is now a stay at home dad as well. He still has his hand in many different projects to keep him busy and was interesting to have a chat with. Obviously, his 5 kids, aged 3 to 17, don’t keep him busy enough and … he doesn’t even have an Amah (housekeeper/maid). So there’s a Halloween party on tonight for many of the teachers but I am having to call it a night as this flu is knocking me around too much. Stay safe, keep smiling and I’ll catch you next time
I had an old filling fall out, more than a few months back, but as it was not causing any pain I obviously did not do anything about it. After chatting with a friend, he told me to go the medical clinic and for around $35 Bnd, they’ll do it on the spot, no appointments necessary, just turn up early and you’ll be in, in no time. Perfect , I’ll do it, so a couple of weeks ago I turned up at the clinic at 7am only to find that it was not open on Friday mornings and would not open until after 2pm. I turned back home and would wait till another day. The problem being with the school and Janet early morning drop off, I can’t manage to get back to the clinic till after 8 am which would mean the wait to see a dentist would be agonisingly long. Well… on Thursday the stars aligned, Janet had a school nearby to Bailey, so the drop offs were only a few minutes apart and I was able to get to the clinic by 7.30. Perfect… so I planned on getting my filling fixed. After parking the car in the near full car park at the clinic, I walked into the clinic at exactly 7.30. The dentists started work at 8am so hopefully I would be one of the first in line. The 3 storey building is only fairly new and looked great. I walked in through the main doors and approached the information counter. The place was huge. The lower floor was for people seeing doctors and I was directed to the first floor to see the dentist. I caught the lift and found the dentist reception just to the right. The place was chockers, about 50 people were sat waiting. Oh boy this was going to take ages. Never mind I was here now so approached reception where I placed my medical card into the in-tray and sat and waited. At 8 am the receptionist started calling out names and eventually got to mine and I received a booking ticket number. The number was 1012. I looked around at other numbers which I could catch a glance at, and some read 3000’s and others 1000’s. This did not give me any insight to how long I needed to wait, but I was at least 12th in the 1000 line. I took a seat again, pulled out my mobile phone to occupy my mind for the next few hours. At ½ hour average for every patient, I could be here a while. I sat opposite the ticket number board and opposite the door to the dentist’s rooms. It seemed there were 16 or more rooms, so maybe this wouldn’t be as long a wait after all. As I slowly watch the numbers disappear from the overhead screen and after a few games on the mobile, my number was finally called by 9am. I hopped up and walked to the door and when I opened it, I was amazed at the enormity of the set up. There were rooms both left and right of the hallway and patients and dentists in each room. It was a total production line and well organised, something I was not expecting having spent the last 18 months in this country. I was in room #4 and when I approached a female dentist and a male assistant welcomed me in. Everything was remarkably clean and bright, the chair, the drill, benches were all spotlessly ‘sterile looking’ and exactly what one would expect in a ‘western’ country. The dentist, obviously Bruneian, addressed me in perfect English with a slight American or even a slight Irish accent. It was difficult to tell, but it showed me that she was obviously educated and trained overseas. I sat in the chair with complete confidence and as she reclined the chair and enquired about my problem I felt comfortable. She handed me a pair of protected glasses turned on the overhead lamp and proceeded to inspect my teeth. In Australia, whenever you see a new dentist, the first thing that happens is, your mouth is inspected and details are recorded for a new set of dental records, i.e. any previous extractions or fillings, bridges, and as the dentist examines each tooth, the assistant jots down the details. This record is important for future visits and in rare cases forensic evidence and identification. There was none of this in this surgery today, however the procedure that I had done today, I’m assuming, would be recorded on the system somewhere for future reference. After inspecting my cavity I was told that it was quite deep and was given an estimated cost of between $30 and $60. I gave the go ahead and the suction hose was inserted into my mouth, and as the water jet pulsated bursts of air and water to clean the tooth and cavity of debris, I closed my eyes and relaxed. The drill started chipping away at old and decaying parts of the tooth, making a clean, decay free, cavity ready for the filling compound. At this stage the assistant left the room and I was asked to hold the suction hose in my mouth, to assist the dentist. For another 5 minutes or so she prepared the area then removed the rubber wedge, which had been placed between my jaws to stop my mouth from closing. She proceeded to tell me that the tooth was in real bad shape and I had 2 choices. She could obviously remove the tooth or reconstruct it with a white dental compound, which would leave it looking and working as normal, however the latter cost would now be $90. My mouth, as some of you may or may not know, is a mess and I really can’t afford to lose any more teeth at my age. I didn’t have the full amount of cash with me, as this was far more than I had planned, so I asked the dentist if I could return in the afternoon with the rest of the payment. It was agreed, so I decided to go ahead with the ‘fix’. The rubber jaw stopper was repositioned and I was given the suction hose to hold, once again. As she worked on modelling and filling the tooth, I held the suction hose collecting all the moisture and bits of gunk, stopping me from choking to death, as the assistant had still not returned. She prepared the filling compound herself, awkwardly held the bits and pieces with only 2 hands, where she really needed 3 or 4. She had a mask and rubber gloves but wore no protective glasses and when she used the ultra violet light to ‘set’ the filling, there was no use of a blue light shield … she just turned her head away. As she was finishing sculpturing, grinding and polishing the finished product, the assistant returned, sat on his stool and grabbed the suction cup from me. I was then instructed to rinse, removed my glasses and sat up. Job well done! All this work by the way was done without an anaesthetic needle and I suffered no pain at all, as it was obviously not near a nerve. I had previously asked for a needle but was told I would not need one. Despite my disbelief, she was right! I approached the reception desk to make payment and I was asked to return at 1.30 pm with the final payment. Janet had a 2pm meeting in the afternoon so the timing worked perfectly with getting her to the meeting on time afterwards. Janet drove me back to the clinic and the plan was that she would “lap” the car park, for the few minutes, while I was inside. I got to reception at exactly 1.28 pm and into the reception by 1.30pm as promised. No one was in sight. Not a sole. The place was deserted except for one lady, who sat at a desk through a set of doors. I approach her and was told that everyone was at lunch till 1.30. It was now 1.35 so I was quite stroppy by this time, and told her I was asked to be here by 1.30 and demanded someone take my money as my wife was waiting to return to work. She told me to take a seat till maybe 1.45 and I said “No”. “I was told 1.30, so they should be back at work!” She made a phone call, found another person, who appeared and also told me to sit and wait. I said “No!” once more and said “I won’t pay you now, you can wait till next week!.” Within minutes, the receptionist returned from lunch. I chastised her as she was the person who had asked me to be here by 1.30 and I told her she’d now have to hurry up and give me my receipt as I had to go NOW! She told me that she had had to collect her kids and was very apologetic but in reality, she couldn’t really give a toss! Finally, after all this palaver, my tooth had been fixed, I got Janet to her meeting at 2 pm, and my anger and stress had subsided. All was good once again. All in all, I was impressed with this country’s health care system and the medical professionalism except for a few OH&S issues. The admin staff however were not at all professional with their obvious lack of customer care and assistance at reception.. Anyway, that was a quick insight into my day out at the dentist, here in Brunei. I’m not sure nowadays how Australia would compare! Please let me know. Keep smiling and catch you next time.
September is here and gone already. Time just seems to be passing so fast. During the first week, Janet was off on school holidays. The local schools were having their term break, but Bailey on the other hand, as he attends an international school, had to go to school. As many of the teachers/coaches from overseas have children attending the international schools, many of the families did not go away for the 10 days off, so it was good to have all the spouses at home in the neighbourhood. We received many cakes, desserts and even main meals almost daily, so it was like a holiday for me too. I had just about filled all the pages in my Passport and only had one page left, so at the beginning of August, I applied at the Australian Embassy here in Brunei, for a new one. After completing the forms, getting the photographs and parting with more than $350, I was told the procedure would take up to 4 weeks to complete. This was going to be a slight problem as my Visa was due to run out on 30 August. On the 1st September I was notified that the passport was back, so I scurried in to collect it. Once I picked it up I rushed it into Janet’s work office for the new visa renewal. After waiting a week and not hearing anything, I contacted the office on the 10th September and was told “Oh, I am picking it up today!” The next day I went into collect it and was told that I should have been fined for being late, and, I was now an illegal immigrant I have attached a copy of the letter that I received. Here's the translation to English : Well only the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs, the important bits!! This letter basically says if I am here as an illegal immigrant I will be fined, imprisoned and if I overstay longer than 90 days, these punishments increase, which includes a whipping of not less than 3 strokes of the cane!!! Seriously, 'there it is' - in black and white!!! A little barbaric for the 21st century don't you think, but none-the-less a bit scary. Wow! Makes travelling in Islamic countries a bit daunting and although it never came to that, it was certainly a possibility. On receiving my new passport, I had expected another permanent visa but it was only a 3 day tourist visa which meant, I had to leave the country and re-enter before Thursday and pay $20 for another 1 month visa. This was easy enough, as 20 kms away is the Malaysian Border at Kuala Laura. I left at 9 am for Malaysia, after dropping Bailey at school, and I thought I could also stock up on duty free alcohol at the same time. This of course did not go to plan, as all the businesses over the border were closed until late afternoon. Apparently they had been raided, a week or two earlier, for illegal sale of Alcohol and Cigarettes, without the proper licencing. It turns out there is only one legal liquor outlet in the border town, however a few months back, every café and restaurant, would sell it to you. As there was nowhere to eat or shop, I quickly returned back to Brunei, having a slight hold up at the border, completing the visa requirements, paying the money, getting the stamp and I was back home by 12. This new pass gave me a 1 month visa. Absolutely crazy! Once home, I returned my passport to the CfBT office and asked for my extension. Again this took another week and the passport was returned with a 3 month tourist visa which expired in December, ½ way through our long holidays. Absolutely crazy! I complained and Janet returned it to the office and now finally, I have a residents visa once again, but only until March 2019. We’ll need to sort that I guess when March comes! This coming week I now need to complete and renew my IC (Identity Card) which hopefully will be just popping in with the forms, taking a photo and returning as legal resident of Brunei, even if it is temporary. The rest of the month has been a little quiet, as everyone has now returned to school, the boys have had our first Thursday breakfast morning since returning and last Sunday we had a meal and a few drinks across the road. It was lucky that the house was only 30 metres away, as I'm not sure I would have been able to balance for much further. One thing is for sure, we are not getting any younger and recovering from a belly full of grog is a lot harder than it was a few years back. Monday was “Teachers Day” so it was another day off for all of us, hence the reason for the party, so let me just say, it was a “very quiet” Monday in our house. The school days are once again, a lot longer for Bailey heading into this term, as he completes extra school activities at the end of most days. Part of the IB program is to do voluntary community work and at the moment he is helping with after school sporting activities, for the younger years at ISB. He has a 7 am start on Sunday as well this week and he volunteers for the Bi-Athlon mustering and marshalling or something to that effect. He also has a big celebration this week as it's his 1 year anniversary with his girlfriend. OMG, do you remember young love and how precious those early years were. Well done Bailey and Grace. So anyway guys, that’s our September, come and gone… I can’t believe it… keep those smiles shining for everyone to share!!
Well the end of August certainly hit us with a celebration, a warm welcome from the past and a knockout blow. First the happy news! Janet and Bailey both celebrated their birthdays this past week. Bailey hitting 17 and Janet, well she turned … let’s just say she had “another” birthday. We celebrated with a party on the Friday night with a few close friends here in our street and a few of Bailey’s mates from school. It’s a shame the legal driving age here in Brunei is 18, as we would now otherwise have a driver who would be able to chauffeur us around, but alas this is not to be! More happy news. Eighteen years ago we were living in China. It was our first overseas living and teaching experience and Janet’s posting was to a small town in the middle of Hubei province called Wenquan. Janet was a teacher there at a medical University where she had many students. She became friends with many of them but two in particular were, I guess, the favourites. A boy called Pan Jiao, known as Bruce Pan and a girl called Yang Mai. They were in their early 20’s at the time and became tour guides and interpreters where ever we went somewhere. We had planned on bringing them back to Australia on our return for an 8 week holiday and after clearing it with their parents applied for their visas to visit. After completing many forms, including personal details about family and finances, and attending interviews with the Australian Consulate in Shanghai, both their applications were rejected even after we had offered a bond guarantee that they would return to China. It was heartbreaking and we all vowed that one day we would somehow meet again for a reunion. If you are a regular reader of this blog you may remember that last year in April, Bruce Pan was able to visit us here in Brunei. It was an emotional but very pleasing reunion. Bruce now in his late 30’s, had worked his way up through life to working around China including volunteering for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, before getting an overseas posting in Ireland and from there, the UK. After 5 years of working in the UK, he was able to apply for UK citizenship and now travels the world on his British Passport. You can catch a video or two on my YouTube channel of Bruce here in Brunei starting at https://youtu.be/g-Am4ILLB0Q So the new exciting joyful news is that this week Yang Mai flew in to Brunei airport and our final Chinese reunion was complete. 16 years ago we had said goodbye to her, maybe never to meet again, but here she was. She will now spend a bit more than a week with us catching up on old memories. Yang Mai is now a cancer research doctor in Fuzhou, in the South East province of Fujian. She too has been able to travel and has been to a number of countries including Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and now Brunei/Malaysia. We will now spend the week sightseeing, talking and eating. Already we have seen the sights and had afternoon tea at the Empire Hotel. We still have the water village cruise and beach tour to go. Yang Mai has brought a number of varieties of Chinese tea with her so no doubt we’ll be drinking a few Tea ceremonies as well. I think we, well mostly Janet, can take credit for installing the possibility of world travel into these two young heads all those years ago back in a small town university. The fact that they were rejected, probably due to the wealth and location of their families, from travelling to Australia with us, did not dampen their dreams and persistence paid off in leaps and bounds. Our next vow is for the 4 of us to meet in Australia, front up to parliament house and give the middle finger salute to bureaucracy. Look out for that photo in the next 15 years or so (hopefully sooner) …. So now onto the second bit of news, which unfortunately has no happy ending.... If you remember from an earlier blog, Janet’s father had a stroke and a major fall, last February, and his life, from that day forward, was to be spent in a nursing home, where he could get regular care and monitoring. Sadly, on Friday night he had another severe stroke and passed away on Saturday morning. Help was there immediately for him but there was no luck this time saving him. This week is also the anniversary of Bailey’s mum’s passing 3 years ago. So we have had a pretty rough couple of days. It’s going to be tough here this next month or so and hopefully the pain Janet and Bailey are feeling will ease over time. On Monday we picked up Bailey from school. On the way home Janet removed her sunnies and noticed her eye was bloodshot. It was as though she had poked something into, or had hit it or been hit. Instead of going home we rushed to the hospital in case she had ruptured any serious vessel behind the eye. After a few hours, it was diagnosed in the eye ward that it was not eyesight threatening but the blood vessels had broken but time was the healer. The cause was not diagnosed but maybe stress, tiredness or lack of sleep maybe had a hand in the cause. The doctor gave her a few days sick leave to rest her eyesight however no eye patch is needed. It could take up to 4 weeks to completely heal. Next week Brunei Schools have School Holidays once again so Janet will get a week off. Unfortunately Bailey, who is at an International School, does not get the same time off and will have to attend as normal. I know it’s a horrible cliché but life goes on and we must be strong.
Part three This next part … I’ll be talking about our possessed car. As you may remember, we bought a Dodge Caliber as our commute car here in Brunei, last April 2017. Since buying it with only just over 100,000 kms we have had continual problems. The usual regular problems and out of the ordinary ones too. The car now, as of today, has over 140,000 kms, so we have asked a lot from it. Since its purchase, we have always had a vibration from the motor on idle. When we bought it we were told, easy, just tune the engine up a couple of 100 revs and it’ll disappear. I turns out, that cars nowadays have electronic ignition and do not have a normal carburettor and throttle screw like the cars I use to work on. After asking the mechanic to up the revs, he informed me you can’t do that nowadays. The vibrations come from the engine mounts which all need replacing. There are 4 mounts on this vehicle and it’s not a simple procedure of just replacing the rubber bushes. Each engine mount is a sealed unit and they are all sold as one piece, rubber and metal mountings. The cost to replace is over $1000, so needless to say we drive around with this idle vibration, which at the moment is safe enough, just annoying. We seem to have had constant repairs on the demonic car ever since day one. Janet went to start the car one Monday morning and the battery was dead flat. After jump starting the car, driven her, I then called into battery shop and bought a new one. 3 months later it was flat again. I returned to the battery shop, where they checked out our electrical system and came to the conclusion that the battery was cactus, so they replaced it at no charge. 3 months, or thereabouts later, it was flat again. They insisted this time that something was wrong with our electrical system and would not replace it. I approached a few auto electricians who told me they could find no fault and that the battery was the problem. I returned to the battery shop with the diagnosis in hand and they installed another new one at no extra cost. The car’s air conditioner had only ever had 2 slow speeds instead of the 4 it was supposed to have. It was now getting hotter so we needed to get this fixed. We were told we could buy the switch from the US but that was going to be $300, so our mechanic had an electrician engineer rig one up from the original switch, which now works fine. However it was still not cooling the car down enough, apparently because the compressor was not switching off and would freeze up from the condensation and stop the cooling process. This was going to be another expense which we were going to have to repair, as it is so hot over here. On inspection, they replaced and engineered a thermostat, rewired the compressor which had been wired incorrectly, which was draining the battery!!!!, and they replaced the air conditioner’s filter. Now it blows like a snow storm in the car and it is so efficient, we often have to raise the thermostat up. The roads here in Brunei are awful. Even the highways have bumps and potholes and they are punishing on a car’s suspension. There are speed humps everywhere, even on major roads, if there are schools nearby. The roads are constantly repaired but only with temporary filling and not a complete repair, which of course doesn’t last long and can make the road surface more uneven. This being said, it wasn’t long before there was a suspension knocking in the front of our car. Up to the mechanic it goes, and on investigation, we needed new ball joints, king pins and sway bar bushes. All this was on video from the mechanics phone so another necessary repair was made using his engineer and not expensive original parts from the USA. After another 1000 kms or so, the motor developed a new rattle and on investigation we were told we needed to replace the ‘harmonic damper pulley’. The mechanic we use is very good, he uses his phone to photograph and send to us the problem before getting approval to proceed. We replaced it as suggested and this seemed to fix the noise. Another noise has now appeared and is now annoying us again, but I think this one is now the mountings getting worse. There are no grease nipples anywhere on this vehicle so we cannot slap a bit of grease in where it rattles. It’s crazy, I say bring back the old days. We’re not finished yet! The rear wheel started to make a noise, a bit like the tyres were wearing and whistling. On investigation, once again, the right hand rear wheel bearing was on its way out and by the time we got it to the workshop, maybe over a couple of months, it was very loud. This would surely be an easy fix with a $10 to $20 bearing, pop it out and press in a new one. This is what I had often done in my younger years, especially on our 6 foot ride on mower, which we had at the Big River Ski Lodge. But alas, it wasn’t to be! It too is a sealed unit and the whole housing needed to be removed and replaced. This car remember has only got 140,000 kms on the clock and they are, the original miles as the registration papers record all yearly distances. Our old Mitsubishi back home has over 300,000kms and at its old age, has never needed to have the bearings, ball joints, suspension, pulleys, engine, air conditioning repaired. On explaining this to our mechanic, he tells me it’s hotter over here all year, which of course is total BS. It’s not just our car that has these troubles. Many people we have spoken to, have had at least one or more, premature, major problem with their cars. Just recently, our ignition had not been working correctly. We would go to start the car and click, nothing. We would turn the key, off, on, off on, and away it would start. It must be the starter motor or regulator so off to the mechanic it goes. He agrees and dismantles the starter motor to find metal filings all through it, however no worn parts could be seen. After a clean, reassemble and reinstall, it worked just fine, for a month or so anyway. The problem returned and this time, it had to go into the Dodge dealer for diagnostics. This by the way would be its 3rd visit to the diagnostics computer for professional diagnosis. Well I say “professional” anyway! I dropped the car off and left it with them. An hour later I had to return to the dealer as they needed the spare key, so they could reprogram both keys. I received a phone call a couple of hours after that, telling me I needed to replace the WIN box. Turns out the “Wireless Ignition Node”, was on the fritz. The dealer would not be able to fit us into their workshop until the following week, so we headed home for the weekend. 3 weeks on, after that diagnosis, touch wood, the ignition had not missed a beat, so needless to say we had not booked it in for a repair. Last week however, the car demons started exposing themselves once again. When we turned the key, the lights came on and after starting, the indicators, windscreen wipers, high or low beam and the horn were not working. The WIN module would finally have to be replaced I thought, so off to the dealership I went. “Leave it with us” they said. It turned out not to be the WIN but the multifunction switch on the steering column or so they thought. “How can that be, the wipers and other things are not on the same switch” I asked. “We don’t know” was the reply, “but that is the problem”. They replaced it. That was the day before yesterday and everything is working well now, at this stage. Sorry to bore you with my frustrations once again, please send your good vibes over our way and maybe there will be no more vehicular annoyances!!!!
Stay safe … keep well …. And keep smiling …. I am! Hi once again, continuing on from my last post Bailey arrived safely after his harrowing ordeal and if you missed that episode click here https://michaelwithms.weebly.com/michaels-travels/baileys-flight-home . He now had 10 days before school returned but there was a lot to do and prepare before it started. His first job was clearing all the crap out of his room including all the old clothes that no longer fit him, his books and notes that are no longer needed after last year’s exam year and he needed to tidy up the wardrobe and start a new year with a clear beginning. He has finished his major IGCSE’s and moves into Year 12 and the International Baccalaureate (IB) program so over this next year, a serious effort is needed if he wants good results for higher education. He also needed a new school uniform for his senior year so this was on the ‘to do list’ as well. The uniform is actually very relaxed this year with no tie or collared shirt. His uniform consists of black trousers with a school emblem embossed polo shirt and black shoes. Too easy! His results from the IGCSE’s were being published online and over the next two days, so stress began to escalate as he dreaded the worst. I don’t know why as he was so certain all went well after each exam last term. At 1pm on Wednesday the online went live and within 3 minutes he was cheering with joy after I read out his results (he was too nervous to read them himself) and his school life was going to continue. To celebrate his success he spent two days in Kuala Belait with his GF and family. Janet has had a busy month too. She attended the BELTA International Conference over the weekend, a couple of weeks ago. BELTA is an acronym for Brunei English Language Teachers Association. Janet was selected as one of the few to deliver a workshop to attendees. She also gave a lecture on another day and was chosen for a participant on a discussion panel on the last day. This was over a 3 day weekend which meant she actually worked 15 days straight and had many late nights in preparation. It turned out to be a huge success and maybe she has made a few connections which could lead to another adventure somewhere. Who knows? As we all know, anything in this family is possible. I’ve had a few things going on too with a couple of trips with the boys over the border for the evening , there’s been a few boys nights watching the Rugby with Australia getting flogged by the Kiwis but it’s all been good fun. There’s been a few birthday parties to attend and life has had a bit of western normality about it. We also have a breakfast club organised now where we house husbands, meet fortnightly for a cheap feed and a get together. This week we have two birthdays ahead of us for this household. It’s not my birthday so I guess you can work out who are the two who are getting older! We will spend the first one quietly with just a few friends over and Bailey will have a few friends over as well the following day. Maybe we’ll join them both together on the Friday. Bailey informs me that even though Brunei does not condone alcohol, the legal drinking age here is 17. He turns 17 on Thursday!!! It’s a strange rule as driving isn’t even allowed until the age of 18 in this country. Oh, while I think of it, we returned from an evening out, a few weeks back to find a gigantic snail crawling across the floor of our carport. When I say giant, it was half the size of a size 8 thong! I’ve posted a video of it if you want to see at https://youtu.be/sBshZyqFLZ0 . Anyway we’ll call that part two and finish off this month in a few days with part three
Stay safe and healthy and keep that smile on the dial. Hi everyone once again Another month flies by and it’s been ages since I last put pen to paper although it’s finger to keyboard, I guess nowadays. So much has happened over these last 4 weeks. So let’s start where I left off. If I remember correctly Bailey was still back in Oz on his Summer Holidays, we had just returned from Miri having spent just one night there with friends … I was a little frustrated with the Bruneian ethical business practices … so we’ll continue So bailey is now back with us and back into the routine of school. He had a few problems on his solo flight back to Brunei so we’ll start this blog there. As he is only 16 and travelling alone we had him booked on a slightly dearer flight from Canberra to Melbourne via Virgin and the Melbourne to Brunei direct through with Royal Brunei Air. This way there was only the 1 change and a 2 hour wait between flights. This was all done on the one booking ticket although his luggage had to be rechecked in Melbourne for the international leg. This is somewhat strange, as normally, the carrier books the bags straight through to the final destination. Anyway it wouldn’t be a problem for him, as he has now had enough experience, to complete the procedure. As many of you know we have been setting him more difficult tasks along our journeys as he’s travelled with us, to give him the knowledge and ability to solve any problems as they appear. In hind sight it turns out this was a wise choice in learning. Bailey left his hometown early on the Friday morning to catch his 1st leg to Melbourne from Canberra. Arriving in plenty of time he checked his bags in, said goodbye to Steve and proceeded through to wait for boarding. The day was cold and there was a big fog covering the sky. It turns out the fog was so heavy that the planes were all delayed for an hour or more. He spoke to the Virgin desk and informed them, he had a connecting flight to make in Melbourne. They assured him it would not be a problem and would phone ahead. After boarding the plane, there was an extra delay due to the weather and by the time he was in the air, they were delayed 2 hours. He was obviously worried and spoke to hostesses on the plane and they eased his worry at the time and said Melbourne knew of him and his delay. He landed safely in Melbourne, collected his bags, however the Brunei flight had already gone so he had missed it. After talking to us on the phone we explained what steps to take and despite how panicked and worried he must have been, he handled himself very well. He approached “Virgin” who sent him to the “Brunei Air” help desk (as they were the booking carrier) to explain and rebook for Saturday as there is only 1 flight per each day at midday and therefore he would have to spend the night in Melbourne. The Royal Brunei advised the fault was not theirs and he would have to arrange a hotel through Virgin the “delayed flight” carrier. So he goes for a trape back to the Virgin counter, who agrees, and books a hotel with breakfast and free Wi-Fi, near the airport for him, including a free shuttle and $50 for dinner. He then is a little happier and less stressed and returns to “Royal Brunei” to book onto tomorrow’s flight. On arrival at the counter he is told that Saturday’s flight is fully booked and there are no seats available. He rings us… not to worry, we’ll claim another night and book Sunday. It’ll be fun! So he approaches them and books on Sunday…. Nope, first available seat is Monday … another phone call … book Monday, there’s no way round it. He booked a seat on Monday’s flight after asking if there was any other airline he could fly with. So by this time, you can imagine, Bailey is stressed, angry, tired and probably upset. He is fine though and has been fully trained to cope for this scenario. He leaves the airport with bags in hand, fortunately, it turns out, as he was going to need clothes for a few days. He could not find the hotel shuttle amongst the hustle and bustle, was not I the mood obviously to ask anyone right now so jumped in a taxi. $20 later and 2kms down the road he checks in to the hotel, who are absolutely fabulous to him and assures him all is OK. Once settled he was able to relax and so were we. We spoke about arranging a bus tour around Melbourne and a visit to the MCG and would talk about it in the morning. For now it was a room service meal in the evening and he was ready to collapse. In the morning he was unable to arrange an MCG tour as it was the weekend and games were being played and bus tours didn’t pick up from the Airport hotels. He would have to make his own way into the city if he wanted to catch a tour. He did get out eventually, he tells us but we haven’t heard much detail of where his ventures led him. There were plenty of fast food outlets near the hotel and with the Wi-Fi and cable TV he could catch up on his weekend sport. Monday Morning at 8am he was at the airport ready to check into his 12 noon flight. His phone went flat before boarding, so we never actually knew if he was on the plane, until he landed back in Brunei. Wow what an epic journey and another feather in his travelling cap. The boy is bullet proof … although that is the last thing we need to test!!! Wow… this has really taken up a lot of your time so I’ll wait a few days before continuing this last month here in Brunei Take care, stay safe and keep up that big smile!
G’day I can’t believe its August already. This past month has disappeared so quickly. We have actually accomplished a fair bit this month, been a few places, and had lots of rest. It’s actually the middle of summer here and although the temperatures don’t vary much between summer and winter, it certainly feels hotter at the moment. Last year I was amazed how much and how often it rained. This year there has not been half as much rain falling and I'm not sure which was the unusual, the last or this. It’s still the ISB school holidays here, but all the local schools are back and our spouses are working. Bailey is therefore still back home in Oz and he actually sent a couple of videos of the snow falling at his hometown. I know that weather change is good but I'm afraid, at this stage of my life, snow is not in my envelope of pleasure. It will still be another 4 weeks before Bailey returns to school, although he flies back in a couple of weeks. Our little street of neighbours have been having a few outings together, going to dinner, going to the movies, swimming at the Polo Club and just a few general get-togethers. Over the last month or so the “stay at home men” have also been getting together for a breakfast club outing once a fortnight. We head off to a variety of cheap local restaurants , a different one each time, for a feed and a chat. I also tripped over the nearby border to Malaysia with a couple of the lads, for a stock up on alcohol and a quick legal drink and feed. Medicine is also half the price over there so it was good to stock up on that too. Last weekend Ryan, one of our coaching group, went to Miri, in Malaysia, as his wife, daughter and parents in-law were flying in, having been on a week’s trip to Kuching located on the western end of Borneo/Malaysia. Janet and I actually went to Kuching a few years back and you can find a couple of videos at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiXREf-wCw2o011oWekMW9s0AD7uVRCYh . We tagged along with Ryan in a two car convoy and spent the Thursday night and all of Friday in Miri with them. We stayed at the Marriott Resort & Spa, a fantastic hotel just out of town on the waterfront. It was only a short time, but the time away felt like a week. We ate, drank, swam and shopped although the shopping in Miri has no comparison to Kuala Lumpur. Our shopping plans on clothing and technology therefore went out the window but the break away and the great company made it an enjoyable time. As I couldn’t find what I wanted in Miri, I hit the technology shopping sites on the net when I got home, where I was able to buy what I needed in Oz and I’ll get Bailey to bring it back on his return. Brunei is not in the game at all when it comes to technology. There are very few places that deal in modern electronics and fewer that actually stock anything. The pricing is sky high and the enthusiastic staff have no interest in dealing with something they know nothing about. There are plenty of Mobile phone shops and cable, ear phones and charging stalls but not much else. Very few, and I mean very few places have websites and there’s very few stores that have online sales. If you Google anything in Brunei be it hotels, restaurants, computers, car tyres, car or batteries, used cars, clothing stores, kitchen supplies, anything etc. then 90% of the time you come up with a Facebook page or Tripadvisor. No Web Pages in sight, businesses don’t seem to have websites. It’s the same with mobile phone apps. The exceptions I guess are businesses like cinemas, pizza shops or international franchise groups that have moved into the technological era. There’s no such thing as online grocery shopping with home delivery which I certainly miss. There are many advantages though with living here in Brunei, some of which are security, healthcare, the lack of any kind of road rage, no speed cameras, no breathalysers, cheap fuel, cheap water and electricity, so many things that make life easy. I think people here are very laid back, nothing seems to stress anyone… but this leads to the lack of punctuality, caring or commitment. In western countries we make appointments, eg haircut, car service, home massage, air-conditioner repair etc. and we expect that firstly they’ll be more or less on time, and that the job will be done in the time quoted. Here on the other hand, you can’t get a commitment for time, availability or any kind of commitment. For example we had a recall on our car recently for the “occupant restraint control (ocr) module”. We booked it in at 9am and were told it would take 1 hour. At 11am we went to pick the car up. It had not been touched. On enquiry we were told “we are very busy, sir” and was told it would be ready in 20 minutes. We waited in the waiting room and having seen no action on the car I enquired once again. “Oh, everyone is on lunch break”. I was so angry and told them it needs to be done NOW, as I had other commitments. It was done immediately and took only 10 minutes. The same is now happening with my masseuse. I want her to commit to a time for my next massage and cannot get a specific day or time. My enquiry gets a response of “I’m so busy, sir”. If they are busy that’s great but why can’t I be booked 1, 2 or even 3 weeks in advance? Commitments don’t seem to be important in this country; maybe people are waiting to see if something better will come along. I just don’t know how people run a business with such mis-management and survive. Maybe it’s just that everyone, the customer and the business owner, are so laid back it doesn’t matter to any of them. As you can probably tell, I am a little frustrated and over this last week or so, it’s come to a head. I am so frustrated at getting anything done. Do I resign myself to the fact that this is the way of life here, or do I take my business elsewhere from this day forward, instead of tolerating these lacksadaisy business ethics? That is the 64,000 dollar question. What do you think? Leave a comment below! Anyway, thanks for reading on this far and I apologise for my little rant. I’ll catch you in a week or so Bye for now and remember keep smiling, I am believe it or not!
Another week passes us by. Life goes on as usual and I’m finally fitting back in to the Brunei lifestyle after my long jaunt back home to Australia. Bailey is still away in Oz over his Brunei long school summer holidays. He had his exams last term which means that when he had finished ,the school year was over, whereas the rest of the school had another month of term left. So he hopped on a plane, as you do, and went home. It is 30 degrees cooler where he is, than here, so I hope he’s handling it ok. He also has himself a part time job so I hope he’s handling that ok. He is also getting a chance to get some driving practice in. As a teenager the only response we seem to get from him is “Yeah, I’m ok! So as I said in my last blog, my new computer is all up and running and I had many files I needed to extract from my old discs, as the old computer was totally dead. I was going to take it to a computer shop here but I was actually able to do it myself. It wasn’t that difficult in the end and I will have a video shortly on YouTube showing how it was done. Anyway this means I was able to retrieve all my files so that made me a happy chappy! Therefore, I have recently been posting movies to YouTube again and if you haven’t seen them via Facebook, you can go to https://www.youtube.com/user/michaelwithms/videos and have a look when you have a few minutes to spare. There’s a couple of older ones there which I found on my old discs, that I never got around to upload and a few of my newer up-to-date ones. I realise that to many of you they not very interesting but they are basically just snippets of my life here in Brunei. Speaking of my YouTube Chanel, I am very pleased to now have 4,600 subscribers (amazing right?) and I have now passed 3.9 million views and that includes 9.3 million minutes of watching time. It fascinates me, the numbers that are generated. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to my channel and also click on the notification bell to receive notification of my new uploads when they happen. While on the topic of videos, my neighbour, a keen fisherman, built a ‘Bait Launcher’. It’s a cannon like device which he fills with compressed air and it can launch the hook and bait well out past any surf for the ideal cast. I went with him and his young son, and created a quick video on that. You can view that at https://youtu.be/w_sx7i_qsMw As for my everyday life at the moment, I occupy myself mainly doing house work, cooking, washing, ironing etc… well maybe that’s not the main thing… my computer is getting most of my time. I also have a “Google Home Mini”, which I am slowly learning about and its autonomous abilities. I hope to maybe get to Miri in Malaysia and have a look for a few cheap compatible devices that I can incorporate to the futuristic automatized world that lies ahead for us. I also get to venture out and about, every now and then, sometimes alone and at times with others. I have also been getting together with other “stay at home” husbands, for breakfast once every fortnight. It is good to chat and realise that we all go through the same ideas and feelings as we send our wives off to work. My health has been pretty good lately overall and I will start getting back into my bi-weekly walks and Tai Chi on a regular basis. The biggest hurdle I have at the moment is Bailey is being away, as the need to get up early is not as urgent as before, therefore there have been a few lazy mornings. Also you may not be aware, but I have over the past 8 months been having a masseuse visit me on a regular basis. She is a qualified reflexologist and combines kinesiology to keep my body at its “peak” performance. Actually, I do feel as though I can conquer the world after a 2 hour session with her. Mentally I want to run and jump around and for a day or so my arm and leg feels as though I should be able to. She stimulates the blood vessels and nerve endings, starting at my feet and working her way up to my head, deep massaging ‘useless’ muscles and manipulating them into action trying to trigger off the nerves that control them. There have been no miracles yet but like I said I definitely think it is having a positive effect. I have asked her if I can video our session and she has agreed so we’ll see if I can get that organised. So If you got this far reading, please leave a comment below as to what else you would like to hear about or how I could make these blogs more interesting, remembering of course, this is just about how interesting my life is at the moment in Brunei. .So that’s about it for now, I have more work to do on upcoming videos so keep your eyes out for them. Keep smiling, stay happy, and we’ll talk again soon.
Here in Brunei and around the world the Muslims have been celebrating Ramadan. It is a month where total fasting is observed for all Muslims between sunrise and sunset. This means that there is no ingestion of any food or liquids whatsoever during daylight hours. It’s the ninth month of the Islamic calendar which is based on the cycles of the moon. To Muslims it is a time for "sacrifice and renunciation as well as a period of reflection and spiritual growth," The end of Ramadan, called “Eid al Fitr”, occurs once the crescent moon is seen by local religious scholars with the naked eye. The celebration of Eid demands, contact with relatives, kindness to parents, empathy for the poor and distraught, and compassion for neighbours. It is a day of visiting and well wishing, and some Muslims take the opportunity to visit family graveyards. They gather for breakfast, lunch and/or dinner, giving gifts to children and overall sharing love and happiness. I guess the equivalent Christian time of year is Christmas. In Brunei, the Sultan’s Palace is called the “Istana Nurul Iman”. After online researching the internet, I found that the palace is considered the world’s largest private residence and contains 1,788 rooms. These rooms include 257 bathrooms, a banquet hall that can be expanded to accommodate up to 5,000 guests, and a mosque accommodating 1,500 people. The palace also includes a 110-car garage, an air conditioned stable for the Sultan's 200 polo ponies, and 5 swimming pools. In total, Istana Nurul Iman contains 2.15 million square feet (200,000 m²) of floor space. Istana Nurul Iman has 564 chandeliers, 51,000 light bulbs, 44 stairwells and 18 elevators. The Palace is only open to the public 3 days a year. These 3 days happen directly after Ramadan when people are invited in to eat and visit the royal family. Together, with Ryan, Sarah and Lucy we visited this incredible palace. Following below is a run-down on how the day went. We had heard that there are literally 10’s of thousands of people who visit so we decided to get up early and start the queuing. We also had heard that women and men are segregated and that there are far more women than men who attend. Ryan dropped the girls at the gate at 7.30am and would then return to pick me up as I had an airport drop off run at 8am. Hopefully with the girls getting an hour head start on us we would be finished at the same time. Ryan and I arrived at 8.30 to a queue a mile long at the gates so he dropped me off to queue while he parked the car. After maybe 10 minutes in the line an official approached me and skipped me up the line to await an express bus up to the palace. I told him I was waiting for a friend and I sat in a tent area with pedestal fans cooling us “elderly folk” until Ryan arrived. I was not going to object obviously, as the thermometer was tipping 32 degrees already. I messaged Ryan to jump the queue straight to where I was waiting. We received a message from the girls to say that they had just reached the congregation hall. They had been queued for an hour already. The system at the front gate was simple. People would queue down the road and slowly move towards the entrance. At the entrance buses would ferry people up the hill to the palace. Now this has to be seen to be believed. There were literally 50 or more buses running up and down the hill constantly with 1000’s of people jumping on. There was no one coming back down at this stage. You can see a quick video on my YouTube channel of the ginormous operation. (As you read this, it is not complete and still has to be uploaded) Once Ryan reached me (he had to park at least a kilometre away), we jumped on a ‘special’ bus and were whisked up the hill. Arriving just a few minutes later at the palace, where we saw where all these people before us, were going to. There was a queue of people waiting at the entrance. There would have been enough people to cover half a football field packed together like sardines. It was hot, sweaty and tempers of irritability were brewing. Now we know why the girls took so long to get in. I skirted the outside of the pack, making my way to what I saw was a special entrance for women with children and the elderly. We arrived at this smaller line and within minutes we were inside and through the metal detectors to a gigantic hall. Inside this hall were 1000’s of people lining up for a free feed courtesy of the Sultan. A banquet hall so big, that it boggled the mind. Women were lined on one side and men on the other. After a few simple questions “where do I go” we were ushered into a short-cut queue to an area set aside for Senior Citizens. At this point we saw the girls still queuing for a table amongst 100’s of other women. Before we sat in this privileged area, I spoke to a guy and asked if the girls could join us. I posed as Lucy’s grandfather and he waved them over to us. Without this stroke of luck they might still be queuing. These are the times when it is good to be disabled!!! The buffet was another feat in itself. This hall was about the size of 5 or 6 football fields. It could have even been the size of a polo field. Men were congregating on one side, women on the other and we were in the centre and people here were allowed to have families all together. There were many buffet lines divided around the hall, with a large variety of food, including rice, white and savoury, chicken (not spicy), beef (not spicy), prawns, and maybe 4 or 5 other options. As we filled our plates fresh hot food was being replenished constantly. As a side note, when food it topped up at normal buffets the new dish goes in and what’s left of the last is placed on top. Here, the fresh food came in and the left odds and ends were returned to the kitchen. The food was very edible and there were a variety of cakes for dessert which we also got stuck into. By the way it was only 9.30 in the morning. There was plenty of orange juice and milo but I didn’t venture off to find coffee. We probably sat for 45 minutes or so all together, eating and gorking in amazement of the scope of the monumental achievement. Imagine if you can that people were still filing in the main doors and being ushered around in queues until a table to eat at, became available. We on the other hand, had no pushing, shoving, suffering and were fed and watered well before the ladies that Sarah and Lucy had been with were sat down. It was approaching 10 am so we left the eatery and ask where we line up for the visit with the Royals. Allocated visiting times for the Royals were 10am - 12pm and 2pm - 4 pm. I’m not sure why, but I was designated as the person to ask the questions! One simple question got us all to another fast track line and to the front of the waiting area where we sat in a row of chairs. All around us were queuing people as we were whisked past them. We only waited about 10 minutes or so in these seats, before us 2 guys were told to join onto another line, so we left the girls as this was going to be men only to visit male royalty and women only to meet the female royalty. From here we were ushered into another hall and once again straight to the front row seating. There would have been about 1500 or more people in this room all seated on chairs. Now even though male and female had been separated through different doors, we all ended up in the same hall but now facing each other and divided into 2 sections. There was no sign of Sarah and Lucy, even though the other women, we had been sitting with, had made their way to this hall. We were not sure why they were not here. We sat for a longer period of time here, maybe 30 minutes, as officials chose lines of people, to join yet another queue, who were making their way to the Royal Meeting room. The enormous scale of this exercise, and the efficiency of how it worked, was extraordinary and it was carried out with military precision. At one stage while waiting in this hall there was a minor scuffle between two people which got became quite animated. Immediately all the seated people were on their feet to watch what was going on. I commented on the situation as it was like 1000’s of those meerkats, all of a sudden being on the “lookout”. Within seconds however officials had squashed the situation. You can imagine how tempers boiled in this situation, as the wait for most of these people would have been agonising. We were ushered outside on our turn and again there were another 1000 or more people gathered for the next stage. I can’t stress the enormity of this accomplishment. By this time it was 11.30 and we finally reached the doors to the Royal line up. As a disabled person I was invited in first as the others in our line followed me, I approached the sultan and shook his hand as he said hello. The shake was more of him grabbing my fist than a manly handshake. By this time my body was tired from the moving around and my body was refusing to cooperate with the menial task of opening my right hand. (It is not good custom to shake with my left) Next in line was the Crown Prince who asked where I was from, and then another 6 who took it in turns to fist pump my hand with a quick “hello”. This all happened in a matter of seconds and it was over before we knew it. We were outside and it was nearly 12 o’clock and no sign of the girls. The Sultan show was finishing for a 2 hour break at 12, so we had only just made it. The 1000’s of others behind us would have to wait till 2pm I guess, if they wanted to meet the royals. We received our gift and proceeded to the outside at which time, we received a text from Sarah saying they were outside too (there had been no reception, internet or phone signal, inside the palace.) After queuing for a bus back down to the front gate, we were finally reunited with the girls. Apparently the girls had joined the queue to the main hall, but took a detour following somebody else instead and completely bypassed the hall we had been sat in. After they were quizzed by an official “what are you doing here?” and Sarsh's plea of “I got lost” they fast tracked that 30 minute delay and was chatting with the Sultana well before us. Ryan and Sarah were ‘dressed to kill’ and once outside had both been selected to be interviewed by a television crew. We are not sure if we will ever know or get to see if they appear on TV or not. I also think, having dressed up for the occasion, was the reason that, Sarah and Lucy were able to spend considerable time chatting to the Sultan’s wife who asked them many questions. This was a once in a lifetime situation for all of us. To try and put the meeting in perspective, it was like you see on TV when celebrities get to meet the Queen backstage, after the “Royal Variety Performance” at the London Palladium. The Sultan is ranked as one of the wealthiest individuals in the world, the wealthiest monarch in the world, and the second longest reigning monarch next to Queen Elizabeth, having just celebrating his Golden Jubilee. Despite us being one of 150,000 people who will visit the palace over the 3 days, we all had a feeling of personal exhilaration, having personally met these royals face to face. Unfortunately we did not get to see any private quarters inside the Palace, only the main public areas designated to dignitaries and world leaders. It was certainly a privilege to be standing, sitting, eating and walking around the “Guinness World Record’s” World’s Largest Residential Palace. Oh my God, I rave on, thanks for reading on this far…
Bye for now and keep smiling as always, till next time. |
AuthorI'm Michael, I have Multiple Sclerosis and here are my adventures travelling the journey within the journey called "life". Archives
May 2020
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