One year later!

We're now in Montenegro - found the little border closed into Bosnia so not sure now if we'll go to Sariyevo. Probably just go through Croatia, Slovinia and to a house in Austria of some people who offered it for a few days. They are away!! Oh my goodness - have we met some lovely people on our trip. It's been a highlihgt in it's own right.

Albanian people were lovely. The country struck me as grey, somehow accentuated by the pea-green and bright orange houses splattered here and there. Apparently so painted as a conscious remark of their former communist days. And also the lack of historical buildings not quite, but almost anywhere to be seen. Montenegro however is obviously an up-and-coming toursist destination. Lots of money here - and a great country with some exhilerating and even dangerous hiking. We've met many austrians, italians and other europeans. Courtesy dictates that I withhold comment at this point! Except to say that it's interesting to note that our steriotypical image of different nationalities has either been re-enforced or challenged. For the record however, when asked that inevitable first question ... we now say that we're from South Africa!!

We have been thinking a lot about Hong Kong and comparing notes with each other being that's it's just over a year and a day since we left. Thank you so much to so many lovely people and such a beautiful little corner of HK. I can't start naming names - I'll leave people out but we were privilidged to spend such a rich chunk of our lives there. I was hoping our year away would take away some of the sting of having to leave ... I don't know.

Oh - the Channel 4 viewing is on Monday 20th September at 9pm.

Water, water

Greece was a great holiday destination, but we'll save it for a rainy day ... it was too hot and had too many tourists! So we didn't hang around apart from some amazing plunge-pools on the slopes of Mt Olympus and a waterfall walk complete with 5m natural slide. It didn't even hurt ... apparently. Oh - and we found some wonderful thermally heated pools- just locally used. So we lit candles and spent one evening warming up in the cool mountain air. But finally - I painted and I liked what I did, so hopefully there'll be less of a gap before I do the next one. So ever closer to our final destination, we're now in Albania on the shores of Lake Orchid, which is quite high up - and so cooler. Croatio and Slovinia in the next week. Not a lot of internet here again.

East Meets West

With a mixture of envy and distain, I watched the gleaming chrome kettle been carried across my line of vision through the deluxe campsite and the conglomerate of whiter-than-white Italian motor homes somehow jarring against our tried and tested kit. Here we are, the evidence of kettle and campsite, symbolising our move into western life again. (Was our kettle really ever that shiny – I don't remember anything other than …. well, black.) Our cutlery struggling to hold rank and number, the stoic Eazi-Awn roof top tent refusing to be daunted by car-roll or 40,000 km travelling, Swarovsky binoculars bringing us closer to an experience of Africa and the Middle East that we'll never forget.

 

Finally, we have tanned bodies the colour of homemade marmalade – as we relaxed at a lake with a chalky clay sand and azure blue waters, alongside Portia and Eden 's DIY 'mud-bath' in the shallow waters. As we left we got stuck pulling out the trailer. The soft clay under the sand again deceiving us – but the car winch pulled out the trailer to our great satisfaction. And here I confess our delight when our family discovered not only a 'hypermarket' (ie bigger than ususal corner shop) but one that is linked with Tescos and spent several happy afternoons browsing the shelves, joy of joys!! We loved the moonscapes of Cappadocia, the fig trees and apricot trees dripping with fruit and the people with their warm hearts. Today, we popped into Istanbul, by mistake. Or rather we avoided it by mistake – the gps leading us far and beyond the city walls (to the above abode), but we had to return to investigate our Green Card insurance. What a pleasant surprise – a particularly attractive city, which epitomises a country with layer upon layer of history.

 

Our final stop in Turkey was a few days spent at the Gallipoli WWI Battlefields which was very moving and really bought some of our recent history closer to home. So glad we made the effort to get there.

 

With something like five weeks travelling, 10 hours unabridged Huckleberry Finn, Of Mice and Men and more recently Mao's Last Dancer, and family after family of warm hearts, glass after glass of sweet black tea ….. indeed Turkey has lived up to it's reputation of east meets west, and the beginning of a gentle transition into the other world.