Epilogue

Well, we have been in Toronto 2 weeks now and it is strange trying to settle in such a modern city.  Everywhere we have travelled has been full of historical buildings with interesting features and stories behind them.  Toronto’s skyline is just full of towering skyscrapers and their old buildings are few and far between.  I think that the Melbourne town planners should come and visit Toronto and see if this is what they really want for Melbourne.

Still, it is nice to be in an English speaking country for the first time since we left Singapore (even if they do mangle it something shocking).  It is also nice to be able to drink water straight from the tap for the first time since leaving home.  Amazing what we take for granted.

I thought that it was time to reflect on our travels and recall some of the highlights of what has been an incredible journey.  I will include both Michael’s and my views of the places we have visited as invariably two people experience the same places in their own way and take away their own interpretation of events.

Happiest Moment

Me – Visiting the bear sanctuary in Cambodia.  Amazing to see such beautiful creatures being so lovingly cared for after being rescued from such cruelty.

Michael – Bayon Temple in Siem Reap looking at an advanced civilisation that had long gone.

Saddest Moment

Me- The Killing Fields in Cambodia.  I still cannot fathom the horrors perpetrated against their own people.

Michael – Auschwitz seeing the shorn hair piled up to be made into padding and material

Scariest Moment

Me – being medivaced out of Vietnam and wondering if this was going to be the end of more than our holiday

Michael – Watching Annette getting sick.

Funniest Moment

Me – Michael ordering two bowls of soup at a restaurant in Beijing.  When one bowl arrived it was large enough to bathe in and was obviously meant to be ordered for a table of eight or more people.  Therein followed a pantomime involving Michael and 4 non-english speaking waiters as he tried to cancel the other bowl of soup. 

Michael – Watching a bear cub try to get banana and honey out of a rubber toy

Strangest Place

Me– The Kostice Ossuary with chandeliers made from human bones.  Really creepy.

Michael – Crazy House in Da Lat Vietnam.

Most Touching

Me – Holding hands with a gibbon.  Such a beautiful animal.

Michael – Stories from Tony the TUk Tuk driver in Phonm Pehn

Most Awesome

Me – Bayon Temple in Siem Reap.  All of those temples have to be seen to be believed.  The shear scale and number of the temples is incredible.

Michael – Diving lake Baikal in fresh water and cold water.

Most Exhilarating

Me - Standing on top of the Great Wall.  Truly amazing as it was one place I never thought I would see.

Michael – Diving in Koh Tao Thailand and seeing lots of marine life.

Biggest Surprise

Me – How much Moscow has changed.  The people and shops bear no resemblance to the colourless, drab and poor that I remember from my last visit.  I have never seen such ostentatious displays of wealth from the cars people drove to furs and jewellery worn by the women.

Michael – Tiananmen Square. The size of buildings in China and being able to retain their perspective in grandness with roads and pavements also matching the scale.

Biggest Disappointment

Me – Unter Den Linden.  I have always wanted to visit there since learning about this magnificent boulevard in German lessons at school.  Unfortunately it was being dug up at the time of our visit as they are adding yet another underground railway link to the already superb Berlin network.  I shall just have to go back again.  The nerpas in Lake Baikal were also a disappointment.  They were so fat they resembled bowling balls more than seals!

Michael – None really, all fun and new

Best Place Visited

Me – St Petersburg.  The world’s most beautiful and fascinating city.  (Followed closely by Prague).

Michael – Siem Reap or St Petersburg, both were fascinating but for different reasons.

Wouldn’t go back there if you paid me

Me – Mongolia.  A filthy, polluted country with major social problems due in part to high employment.  I have never seen so many drunk people.

Michael – Mongolia, not the prettiest of places, but at least I can say I have been.

Best Accommodation

Me – Miss Sophie’s Hotel in Prague.  Lovely, modern apartment with the best cooked breakfasts.  Our apartment in the Marais in Paris was also good.

Michael – Miss Sohpie’s or the first apartment in Paris

Worst Accommodation

Me – The Happy Dragon Courtyard in Beijing.  Bed was damp and there was a permanent, strong stench of drains and sewerage coming from our bathroom.  To be fair, wherever we travelled in Beijing, the smell of drains was ever present.

Michael – Zenobia Hotel the first hotel in Singapore, good area just an old run down hotel with miniscule rooms.

Best Train Trip

Me – Moscow to St Petersburg.  Fantastic fast, modern train that travelled smoothly with excellent service.  Why would you fly Aeroflot?

Michael – Trans Mongolian there was something to see all the way.

Worst Train Trip

Me – Hard to pick.  The one from Hoi An to Danang with the screaming woman was a doozy however the excruciating 18 hour journey from Danang to Hanoi while being violently ill takes the biscuit.  The train guard kept locking the toilet every time we came to a station (which was frequently), just to add to my fun.

Michael – Enjoyed them all

Michael and I joked before heading off on our trip that we were looking for an epiphany.  I think that my epiphany came when I became so ill and it was simple really – life is short.

Michael’s epiphany - What’s an epiphany?

What I have learned

Dingo, our tour guide for Long Tan, was a boy in South Vietnam when the war broke out.  His family lost everything and it has been a struggle to rebuild a life when there is such discrimination from the victorious North Vietnamese.  He lost a sister who drowned on a refugee boat, which sank on the way to Australia.  He was amazed that Australians have the freedom and wealth to travel overseas, something that he could only dream of.  He said to us “Honour your ancestors because they chose a land where you are free”.  I have learned that Australia really is the lucky country.

Michael has learned that the world is a big place and he should have travelled sooner.  He intends to make up for lost time now.

Quotes from Michael

To lighten up after the deep reflections of the previous paragraph, I have included some classic quotes from Michael.

“How many hard faced Russian women do you have here?”

This was Michael speaking to our tour guide in Irkutsk. To be fair, Michael had just had his first experience with the Provodnistas on the Trans-Mongolian (they were scary).

“Stop that right now and speak English”.  This was Michael speaking to the ticket officer in Munich.  Michael had greeted him with “Guten Tag” & the poor man made the mistake of thinking that Michael could speak German, so responded with a mouthful of German.

Our estate agent was showing us around our apartment in the Marais in Paris when he pointed to the lounge and said “It is, ‘ow you say, sofa bed?”  Michael responded dead-pan,

“Sofa bed”. I thought I was in an episode of “Allo, Allo!”

Well, that about sums up our trip.  There is so much more that could be said and many more incidents and places which could be described however I don’t want to run the risk of boring you all.  I will say that I have already mentally started planning our next trip, which will go something along these lines:

England – one month (I am getting this in first as we missed out this time)

France – one month.  Paris briefly and then onto the French countryside taking in the battlefields and wineries

Russia – one month.  St Petersburg again (I love that city) followed by the Golden Ring.

One month in China & Vietnam.  This is mainly to see what we missed out on this time, chiefly the Terracotta Warriors and the panda sanctuary.  I also want to see Hanoi although Michael isn’t keen.

Only a four month trip this time (5 months is too long to live out of a suitcase).  Well, one can dream.