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Bin Tan, Indonesia

When Steve was putting all the travel plans together months ago, a few days rest at the end of all the activity certainly seemed a good idea. - it has actually proved to be exactly that! I can't say that we have done anything more exciting than get in the pool, have a swim in the sea and start to get rid of our bugs, but we are both feeling a bit better and are now able to look forward to going home and seeing our loved ones.

View from our window at Bin Tan

Yesterday we heard terrible news aboutLangtang  Village where we spent a couple of very happy days during our Nepal trek. The entire village which was home to around 400 people was completely wiped out in the earthquake and following Avalanche. The news has left us feeling devastated, especially as this was where we had made a connexion and friendship with Sonam, the nurse who had so proudly shown us her health clinic. We had both felt she was something special and has planned to look at sponsoring her wages as we were so impressed at the way she was trying to help her community, although she would have been able to earn do much more in Kathmandu. We had also met her boss  and even her Mum which somehow seemed to make the relationship stronger. It is heartbreaking to think that the life of such a special person has been cut short like this. There are no words. Just overwhelming sadness and incomprehension.

Sonam at the Heakth clinic in Langtang village. A truly special person who touched our lives.

So now we return home after seeing, experiencing and learning more than we could possibly have imagined. So much of life seems to depend on a lottery of circumstances and We find ourselves are so fortunate and blessed. Valuing what is truly precious in our lives, especially our family and friends, trusting that God knows what He is doing and will remain our Rock, ( even when we can't understand) and doing our best to touch and help the lives of others where we can seems to be the only things that really make any sense. To those of you who have read our blog and journeyed with us, thank you so much- we really appreciate you taking time to follow what we have been doing and value your friendship muchly. Looking forward to catching up very soon in person over a glass of wine or two!

Vietnam

This photo just about sums Vietnam up:

a vibrant thriving capitalist economy ruled by the Communist Party who keep control and suppress freedom of speech but are otherwise happy to reap the benifits of a free market economy. The whole country is a market place with endless shops lining almost every road. Cambodia was famous for its insect market - this times it was snakes and rats for sale to make a tasty stew - not as nice as chicken I understand.

Vietnam is much lusher and more photogenic than Cambodia or Thailand with picturesque unbelievably green paddy fields stretching for miles in every direction throughout the very fertile Melong River delta.

We have been riding shorter distances (50 a 60k) but it is still extremely hot. Our health has started to suffer with Sarah well below par with a fever and cough which she kindly shared with me. I've had my own problems with prickly heat which more or less covered me at one stage. I tried steroids and antihistamines but really the only answer (and what I would have told my patients!) is to hide from the sun which I'm now doing. I didn't come half way round the world to hide in a bus though!

Another highlight of the trip was a night in a home stay in the Mekong delta where all the houses are built on stilts to reduce the risk of flooding in the rainy season.

We were treated to fantastic hospitality as always including a home cooking lesson Vietnamese style followed by a fantastic meal which unfortunately Sarah was too poorly to enjoy. The evening ended with Chai our guide picking up the guitar and leading us in the elephant song dance! I' ll try and include the YouTube video link when I find it. 

It was with some sadness and considerable relief that we came to the end of the cycling part of our tour with a 35kph peleton sprint for the last couple of miles. The ride has been fascinating in parts but very challenging especially when our health started to suffer. The group has been excellent and the support teams outstanding. Just to give an idea of how exhausting it's been we've been ready for bed after the evening meal most nights and Stuart's pack of cards for playing Weetabix remains unopened.

We arrived in Saigon to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the 'liberation' of South Vietnam by communist North Vietnam. There was an excellent firework display staged from the helicopter landing pad of the Betaxa tower an iconic skyscraper near our hotel.

Just as Cambodia will be forever associated with the Khmer Rouge genocide, Vietnam will always be linked with the Vietnam war ( or American war as they call it). We went to see the Cu Chi tunnels 60km outside Saigon from which the Vietcong repeatedly attacked and infiltrated Saigon. There are over 200 km of tunnels. They are a testament to VC ingenuity in defence - they made the tunnels too small for a GI  to follow or tapered them so the GI's got stuck - and in attack - some barbaric traps with barbed spikes covered in human shit to guarantee festering infected wounds. It must have been hugely frustrating for the Americans with their everwhelming firepower to be unable to gets to grips with a hidden and resourceful enemy. The end of the trip was a 100m tunnel crawl through a tunnel especially enlarged for westerners.

So reflections on the cycling tour - it has been a hugely varied and interesting tour with fascinating highlights. Angkor Wat was every bit as impressive as I'd hoped and great to explore by bike. Vietnam was great and probably the most enjoyable for me of the 3 countries.The cycling was very challenging and I think Sarah and I will limit our cycling to more temperate climes in future and reserve Thailand and Vietnam for a chillax with Aunty Helen. Off now for a well - earned rest in Indonesia..

Genocide

No trip to Cambodia would be complete without trying to find out more about the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge regime led by Pol Pot.  In 4 years 1975 - 79 he managed to exterminate almost a quarter of his population by a combination of executions and starvation achieved by the forced emptying of the cities and moving millions of people into the countryside to create a perfect agrarian economy - and break up any dissent of course. It really was the most pointless genocide ever - and against his own people!! We went to the execution camp where over 30000 people where executed

Including children and babies. Bits of bone were sticking up out of the mud together with articles of clothing of the victims. Perhaps the worst was the killing tree against which the guards beat children and babies to death.

It was a gruesome experience made worse by the total pointlessness of it all.This was followed by a trip to S21 a former secondary school converted into a torture centre where victims were tortured into confessing crimes they hadn't committed prior to being sent to the execution camp. There were still bloodstains on the floor of several of the cells. There are of course parallels with Dachau and Auschwitz in the depths of depravity to which human beings can sink.

Ankle shackles in a torture cell at S21.

Sorry to have dragged you through that with us. 

On a brighter note we have just crossed the border into Vietnam. This was a complete contrast to the frantic Thai border crossing. It was a 200 yard walk on a quiet stretch of road with beautiful views past bougainvilleas to lush paddy fields stretching towards the Mekong river. The main traffic was motorbikes overloaded with huge piles of recyclable trash heading for Vietnam, and equally overloaded huge cart of fresh vegetables heading in the other direction to Cambodia. Very photogenic but we received a stern warning from the border guards for getting cameras out.

Meeting the new Vietnam Exodus team of Chi,  Li and Mr Long just after crossing the border

A green and pleasant land after the relative aridity of Thailand and Cambodia. First impressions of Vietnam are of a much greener thriving country. Kids are great rushing out to greet us with loud 'hello's' and trying to high 5 us. 

Cambodia

I'm We've just crossed the border into Vietnam after 5 days in Cambodia. One plus for coming in the hot season is that queues are much less than in the high season so we hardly had to queue. No mans land between Thailand and Cambodia was a chaotic gambling metropolis full of casinos as gambling is banned in Thailand. we had to walk through while someone wheeled our bags through on a hand cart.  Fortunately we were reunited with them and with our Cambodian Exodus team of Channi and Wan without any hasssles. 

Cambodia itself was more developed than I expected and appeared to be thriving although still well behind Thailand. The lanscape was totally flat with fallow paddy fields extending for miles in every direction. Our first stop was Siem Reap which was a lovely shady old French colonial town which was the base for exploring Angkor Wat temples. The first we went to was Ta Prohm which was the setting for tomb raider.

An amazing temple from the Khmer empire (9th to 13th century I think after which they moved to Phnom Penh as they got fed up of being invaded by Thailand) with huge trees growing up through the masonry.

Next up was Bayon temple in Angkor Tom which was my personal favourite. We reckon it would be a great site for a fashion photo shoot for Anna when she is rich and famous and can get someone else to pay the air fare. 

The group is bonding well so starting to generate a few unoriginal team poses:

Smiling Buddhas everywhere to help you on your way to enlightenment..

The last and grandest was Angkor Wat which was hugely impressive but less intimate than the other two. We went there first in the sweltering afternoon, but it was much more atmospheric to see it a dawn - well worth the early start.

Coach transfer to Phom Penh uneventful except for a stop at the insect capital of the world - fried insect of every description. I tried a fried grasshopper but drew the line at eating a cockroach.

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Thailand

We've just finished the first leg of our Exodus cycle tour having ridden through parts of eastern Thailand in blistering heat and crossed the border today into Cambodia. We had an easy journey from Delhi to Bankok where we met up with Clare and Stuart and the rest of the Exodus group as well as Sue and Lucy Rocke who were in Bangkok at the same time. The Exodus support team of Chay Nut and Not have been great as well as hilarious at times, always ready to give a surreptitious shove up the occasional hills we've come across. The first day was memorable for losing Pauline - a super fit Dynamo from New Zealand who had missed a turning and gone 10k in the wrong direction. Fortunately she had the contact number of Chay so he could send the support lorry on a rescue mission to retrieve her. 

The second day was memorable for the heat - we rode 90km in up to 43 degrees in the afternoon which was exhausting and would have been impossible without copious supplies of water, electrolytes and ice. Fluid replacement and keeping body temperature down was a constant challenge - we regularly got through 40 litres of water between 10 of us, and that doesn't include generous supplies of Coke and Sprite. In the afternoons when it really hot they prepare ice water buckets for us to dunk our arms in, pour over our heads etc. Neck scarfs and bras doubled up as ideal receptacles for ice cubes! One of the group Naomi got heat stroke so we had to play doctor and nurse - she narrowly avoided hospital and is fortunately much better now.

The first day we came across a Buddhist celebration of Songkran - a water festival. We joined in the dancing procession and got soaked by a water cannon which was great

and a much needed cool down.

The landscape so far in Thailand has been unspectacular with loads of tapioca fields and rubber plantations.

 This should change now we are in Cambodia although it is their hot season so a lot of the paddy fields are lying fallow.

We sadly said goodbye to our great Thai support team yesterday and are really looking forward to Angkor Wat tomorrow.

Crossing the Thai Cambodia border

Sanjay

Yesterday we had the great privilege of meeting Sanjay the 10 year old boy we have been sponsoring through Compassion. He lives in a fairly grim slum in North Delhi which looks like the trash and transport capital of Delhi with a massive mountain of waste 100 times the size of the one at Crittals Corner, smoking away and casting a pall of smoke and dust over the surrounding area. It was teeming with rag pickers, goats and vultures - and no doubt rats. Across the road was a large shanty town of temporary shacks - homes made of tarpaulin roped together which must be dire in the rainy season.

Sanjay and his family are struggling with the serious illness of his father who is in a coma in the local government hospital following surgery for brain tumour. His mum has rarely been allowed out of the slum and is unable to work to support the family. So the future for the family is very uncertain as they may lose the main wage earner and there is no welfare state to fall back on. Sanjay has 3 younger brothers, the oldest being Rahul aged 8 who is a bright spark. He recently took his mum on a 1.5 hour double bus journey to see his dad in hospital and remembered the two buses numbers and where to change buses, and which floor his dad was on.

Sanjay is relatively shy but has a lovely nature and engaging smile. This is a selfie taken by him!

We started off meeting the Compassion team then Sanjays schoolmates. Sarah was once again a star leading them in action songs and we rehashed acting out the Good Samaritan story again. Next time we come we'll be a bit better prepared with a activities (Jerry Nelson we need you!).

From there we went to Sanjays house to meet his family - again all gorgeous kids with a large extended family of cousins. Once again we were touched by the hospitality and generosity of people who have very little. The day ended with ice cream and praying for Sanjay and the work of the Compassion team who have been faithfully working in this community for 15 years. 

The state school operate a shift system with girls in the morning and boys in the afternoons. Compassion supplement this with extra lessons and a square meal at lunchtime to ensure adequate nutrition for the children who have been selected for support as they are vulnerable to malnutrition.

So reflections on India... It is a rapidly developing country, the whole of which seems a massive building site. The two things most widely advertised are cement and mobile phones. Standards of sanitation and the transport infrastructure have improved hugely since we were last here. The Delhi metro is a pleasure to use and far better than London Underground. You can now eat ice cream and not fear Delhi belly nearly as much - although I would still avoid street food unless it was freshly cooked in front of me.?

A consequence of all this development is a rapidly growing middle class. There's a shopping mall near us with almost identical shops - and prices, as Bluewater. The gap between rich and poor is huge and getting wider and much more obvious in Delhi as rich gated communities exist right next to slums rather than the poor living in ghettos miles away. The caste system and the position of women in society is very slowly changing. Community health volunteers we met talk with pride of no longer having to cover their faces and being listened to with respect. However in the villages the pace of change is very slow and will probably take more than a generation. People in Delhi talk quite openly about the bus rape tragedy and people we've spoken to welcome discussion as necessary for a change in attitude - although we have probably spoken to the more enlightened. We met a delightful young women called Usha who translated for me in a couple of clinics who grew up in a slum, did well at school and through Asha who had great struggles persuading her dad to allow her to have an education. With the covert support of her mum she succeeded and has now graduated at university and is one of the stars of Asha's student ambassador program.

 It is still a country of great spirituality, generosity and hospitality. Many times we have been humbled by open hearts and homes from people of all walks of life. Sanjeev and Anita who run the Grace Home guest house deserve particular mention for going way beyond the call of duty keeping the fridge stocked with beer, taking us out to concerts, inviting us for meals. So too do Paul and Maliki parents of Anurag who organised our program at Asha brilliantly; they had never entertained westerners before and were so anxious to please and make sure we enjoyed our time with them. So too do numerous slum dwellers and community health volunteers who opened their homes to us.

Definitely major lessons for us to take home with us. In fact so many experiences, friendships, and lessons that will take time to digest. the great thing about having a sabbatical is that we will have time to do this. So with some sadness and fantastic memories we are leaving Delhi- on to Bangkok for the next leg of our adventure.