A day to make the mind boggle

Oh yes, today turned out to be quite a day, despite the fact that we spent most of it in bed (Alfred: Well, of course, it is .... forget it, sorry). We got up at 0930 and grabbed breakfast just before they stopped serving (though I got the feeling they would have hung on anyway!). Then we went straight back to bed again, me only pausing to write the blog entry for yesterday. We finally arose at 1600 or so and headed out. We decided to do a tour of the lake and as we got there a voice said: 'Ruairí, is that you?'  Now, we are all used to the phenomenon of bumping into people where we least expect them and this seems to happen to the Irish more than most but the last time I saw Heloise Allan was in 2009 when we were both VSO volunteers in Rwanda and now we run into each other in Ha Noi. Small world.

After dinner, which was memorable in particular for Martine's minced beef soup and the morning glory fried in garlic (Alfred: Yes, my American friends, morning glory is something you eat over here and it is delicious!), we came back to the hotel and found our room had been decorated as in the photo below, with chilled white wine and a special honeymoon cake. And then we broke the corkscrew trying to open the wine and they had to send someone down the street to find another corkscrew! But it was so so sweet of them, really heartwarming in what is a very middle-of-the-range hotel. Must get on to the Tripadvisor site and write them up!!

   

Twenty-four hours upside-down in a backpack (or Why does Ruairí have to go abroad to find people who will spell his name properly??)

INITIAL OBSERVATIONS
Driving in from the airport in Ha Noi Martine and I began the processs of acclimatizing ... no, reacclimatizing ourselves to Asia. Of course, everywhere is different so what could the drive of about 40 minutes in from the airport tell us?   Well, firstly, the area around Ha Noi is a mass of big, enormous and truly stupendous building projects, including a gigantic bridge across whichever river Ha Noi lies on. Secondly, everyone seems to observe the speed limit rigorously (Alfred: Actually, he's serious; this isn't one of these Ruairí things where he is actually, oh-so-cleverly saying the opposite of the truth and - rather condescendingly if truth be told - trusting the faithful to figure it out. Six lane highway from the airport to town and virtually no-one drove over 60 kph. And everyone on a motorbike was wearing a helmet. It was like being back in Rwanda ... well, kind of). And, thirdly, car indicators are for decorative purposes only, for use at Christmas and national holidays or whenever Ha Noi needs to floodlight an area cheaply! One reason for this is that using the indicator might interrupt the texting that all drivers indulge in
while they are driving around Ha Noi.

(Alfred: I have to use one of my infrequent interjections here to highlight how unbearably smug Ruairí has become since he realised - rather belatedly - that the capital of Vietnam is written as TWO words (Ha Noi) Please do notice therefore just how often he manages to work the name of the city into his sentences!)

Having visited Vietnam in January, it was interesting to compare our memories of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) with our initial impressions of ... em, Vietnam's capital. Some things are the same - incessant traffic, dominated by motorbikes and some bicycles, tall but incredibly thin buildings in a bewildering melange of styles, friendly people, an air of hustle and bustle. But, at first glance, Ha Noi does seem a little more laid back, less intense (Alfred: he's been here less than 24 hours and spent most of that asleep. Please treat these 'insights' with the respect they deserve.)  And they do love eating! Maybe it's because Vietnamese eat out so much compared to at home but it really is striking to see so many people eating in public and so many places for them to do it!  Our first meal was in a little restaurant on the street where we had - what else - two different kinds of pho (Vietnamese soup) and it was great! (Alfred: Apart from Ruair* ... where is the key for the fada? I have never seen a keyboard with so many accents on it but where is the one for writing Ruair*'s name properly? OK, open Word, type Ruair, insert symbol í, copy and paste here. Ruairí. Anyway, Ruairí decides soup will not be filling enough and orders an additional noodle dish. This turns out to be another soup, so three large bowls of soup arrive for two people, to the obvious bemusement of the staff. Ruairí, of course, does his usual imitation of 'this is what I meant to do anyway' which, given how often he has had to do it over the years, he now has down to a fine art).  The restaurant was on what looked like a little alley between two main streets but this meant there was a constant stream of motorbikes whizzing past our table, which would have been fine if not for the waiter's unnerving habit of grabbing at the sleeves of the passing motorcyclists to try and persuade them to stop and eat.


QUICK RECAP
So how did we get here? Well, we spent the last few days in Ireland in an orgy of packing and throwing stuff out. It really is amazing how much stuff one can accumulate in a house after nineteen years of living there! Sunday and Monday saw our diet restricted to whatever was left in the fridge a we were forbidden from buying anything new. This led to some interesting salads and sandwiches (Alfred: I suspect Ruairí may never eat anchovies again) but the Chinese dumplings with burdock filling did end up in the bin. Then, we packed our bags. Our weight limit is one 30kg bag each plus one cabin luggage and a laptop or handbag. And we actually ended up weigh below that (Alfred: Oh, please!). One suitcase of 17kg each, one backpack of maybe 6kg and my laptop. And that's it for the next two years! Then my wonderful friend Éamon arrived at 4 a.m. to bring us to the airport (Alfred: Coddayn Gale ger 'masochist'?) and off we went. And it was a pretty uneventful, if exhausting, trip. Dublin-Heathrow with British Airways (forgot how nice BA are to fly with) and then Malaysian Airways London-Kuala Lumpur or twelve hours or so. A few hours in KL and then on to Ha Noi - well, almost. Apparently something went wrong while they were refuelling the plane so, even though they had already loaded everyone on board, we all had to get off again  and wait for a different plane. But nta kibazo as we say in Rwanda (Alfred: A phrase indicating you are frustrated and pissed off but far too cool and laid back to show it).

And I watched films!!! Ed Byrne once made fun in a sketch of people who say of holidays 'getting there is half the fun' - "they must have really shite holidays!" But for me watching loads and loads of films in a row is heaven, especially films you would have baulked at paying ten euro to see at home. So I watched (in chronological order of watching) Man of Steel (very good), White House Down (had its moments but, really, a ten-year-old girl doing an impression of Mel Gibson from the end of The Patriot?), World War Z (uh), Unknown (Liam Neeson, really liked this, probably because the twist caught me completely by surprise and, unlike most such twists, was completely plausible) and The Artist (a delight).

(Alfred: I would like to point out at this stage that I spent the entire period of almost twenty-four hours upside down in a backpack, sharing this space with a Canon Rebel camera and case, changes of t-shirt and underwear, assorted documents, and whatever other random objects were from time to time shoved in. The outstanding moment of the trip from my point of view was that Ruairí decided in Kuala Lumpur that he didn't need to change his underwear, a decision that may or may not have met with the approval of his beautiful travelling companion and fellow travellers but saved me from having ... well, you get the picture).

Arriving at the airport led us to the wonderful world of taxi and hotel scams. I had, of course, prepared diligently for the trip  by reading all the tourist guide information available and all of them harped on about the dangers of taxis at the airport pretending to be from your hotel but actually bringing you to a completely different hotel with a fake name on it providing a crappy service at extraordinary cost. This sense of insecurity was added to by the Hanoi City Palace Hotel sending us a secret code by email which we were to use as verification with the taxi driver who was picking us up and UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES were we to get into a taxi with anyone who didn't have this code. (Alfred: the code was HP-858, in case you are interested, which you aren't. But you may have noticed that the hotel is the Hanoi City Palace, not the Ha Noi City Palace. Indeed.)

WHY DO I HAVE TO GO ABROAD TO GET MY NAME SPELLED PROPERLY?
Of course, when we got there, there was no driver because our plane was three hours late but a phone call to the hotel soon put that right. So the driver turned up and he had the best code of all: my name on a notice, perfectly spelled. Not since I flew into Phonsavan in Lao and was greeted by my hotel owner with a placard with my name on it have I been so impressed (Alfred: though the guy in Phonsavan did scoop the jackpot by saying 'Conas atá tú, Ruairí, conas a bhí an turas?', the fruit of some diligent research on the Internet. If you want attention to detail, the Vansana Hotel in Phonsavan is your man). Seriously, I am pushed to remember the last time someone in Ireland spelled my name properly so this made a refreshing change (Alfred: Rant over, let's move on).

SETTLING IN
The hotel is lovely though we did have to negotiate for a better room - the original one had no window but for $28 a night in the centre of Ha Noi's Old Quarter that's hardly surprising. Anyway, for an extra $10 a night we have a giant room with two beds, the smaller of which is the size of our double bed at home and the ultra-king size (Alfred: maybe Emperor-size) we could sleep sideway on. Balcony on the main street and a charming bathroom which, when I posted an image of it on Facebook, caused a certain amount of bemusement.

I posted it because of the wonderful design of the toilet and handbasin, which I described as a cross between French Third Empire and 1920s Art Deco but obviously many of my Facebook friends had not encountered an Asian toilet before and were puzzled by the hose attachment. The practice of using sheets of paper to wipe oneself after going to the toilet was essentially invented in the USA in the nineteenth century as a way of ... recycling the innumerable catalogues that were then in circulation. From that came the invention of specific toilet tissue. But, for the rest of the world and especially in Asia, it seems a dreadfully unhygienic way of cleaning and they use ... water, a little water jet after which you dry yourself and head off fresh and clean!!

ADVERTISING AND CULTURAL REFERENCES
At Ha Noi Airport as we waited for our taxi, we saw these four large billboards advertising a brand of Vietnamese coffee. Can you recognise the faces, at least some of which came as a bit of a surprise!

Answers in the next post!!

Back in harness

So, it has been quite a year! Amazing holiday in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, got married in April, did lots of travelling to friends and relatives during the summer (as well as Martine getting her CELT qualification) and now we are all off to Laos for a couple of years! (Alfred: Yes, ALL, me too. I mean, you saw the mess Ruairí made of the blog he was supposed to be writing from Asia in January: what hope would there be if I didn't come along for this experience!) And we start off with a week's honeymoon in the Hanoi City palace Hotel in ... Ha Noi, of course!

So, between us, Alfred and I will try and churn out the same high-quality fare that made our Rwandan blog so loved and appreciated by the ... dozens (Alfred: was it really that many?) of you who read it. First installment when we arrive in Ha Noi on Wednesday: meantime here are some photos of the wedding in April (try and spot Alfred in the huge crowd!)

Ken Goodwin and Marion Grace Woolley were our witnesses (both had been VSO volunteers in Rwanda with us). And then there was Martine's son, David and the master of ceremonies, Alfred!

Strewth!

(Alfred: Pardon me if I remain standing for the duration of this entry (Ruairí: that could have been more gracefully phrased) but having received a number of rockets up the arse for neglecting my faithful (if irascible) public, this entry is taking place under a certain amount of duress. And, let's be honest, I've been lazy. South-East Asia has the ability to ooze itself into your pores and induce a quality of langour and relaxation that makes other considerations seem irrelevant. But we are back in harness and updates should be more regular. Of course, we face the 'slight' problem that the last entry saw us in Da Nang on Day Three or so (and written on Day at-least-in-double-figures). Now we have travelled through Hoi An, Siem Reap, Vientiane, Phonsavan and are now at our last destination, Luang Prabang. So I think edited highlights for the moment but, rest assured: Ruairí has been keeping records. Between the two of us, all important aspects of this holiday will be dealt with. You may be reading about it by a pool in Marbella in August, but it will get there eventually!!)

So, let's just pick out a few highlights so far - not easy, because it has been an amazing holiday, even more incredible and enjoyable than I think any of us had dared hope.

1.  Guides:  in Phonsavan, we had hired a car and guide for the day at what seemed an exhorbitant price of $150 to visit the Plain of Jars and various other sights (Alfred: Surely you mean 'sites'. Or do you? Actually, OK, never mind, need to think about that one....). Turned out to be a bargain. Some of the roads were as bad as I remember from Africa so a sturdy 4x4 made all the difference for the seven hours of our trip. And our guide, Tey (Alfred: and don't forget you promised to write about him on Tripadvisor and still haven't) was fantastic. We visited three different sites with hundreds of ancient jars scattered around (many badly damaged by bombs during the 'Secret War' but others, I suspect, also harvested by villagers for various reasons over the years) in what is truly one of the world's most amazing archaeological sites (Alfred: or even 'sights', eh? Ok, I'll shut up). Even more staggering was the realisation that this entire area, now relatively flat with little growth other than some struggling eucalyptus trees - was originally heavy jungle before the spraying of vast amounts of Agent Orange that completely - and pretty much permanently - transformed the landscape. Eucalyptus is good at removing Agent Orange from the soil so that is why they are planting these.

Tey also took us to a village where they make stuff from the remains of downed planes, bomb casings, discarded auxiliary fuel tanks and other suitable war debris and another where a 72-year-old woman was still making rice whisk(e)y (Alfred: My brackets) after 55 years. And it tasted good.   And Tey talked - about everything! The War, the ongoing UXO-clearing programme (UneXploded Ordnance), Agent Orange, relations between the Hmong (who fought on the American side) and the other Laotian ethnic groups now that the war is over, (Alfred: As you may guess, all is now OK. Tey assured us that there has been complete reconciliation and there are no tensions between the Hmong and the rest of Laotian society, even though the Hmong were working as mercenaries paid by the CIA to fight their own government. Mind you, the Hmong would say they were fighting for the Royalist cause against the Communists, the old terrorist-freedom fighter argument. No tensions at all. None), the complicated (to say the least) state of relations between Laos and Vietnam and much, much more. The guy was brilliant and much recommended and, had there been four of us rather than just two, the price would have been a giveaway.

(Alfred: Ah yes, Tey was great but in Siem Reap we actually had as our guide the Great Lord Sauron himself. We all wondered what happened to Sauron when Frodo threw the ring - with Gollum's help - into the fires of Mount Doom and the Great Eye collapsed in ruin. Well, he seems to have been reincarnated as a happily-married Cambodian tour guide with a wife and two beautiful children. It kind of gives the lie to the idea that if you are evil in one life, you will be reincarnated as, say, a woodlouse. Actually, now that I think of it, it may just be a coincidence of names but it was cool having a guide called Sauron (even if he actually spelled it Saron). Now, Saron had the advantage that we had him for three days as opposed to Tey's  seven hours, so he had longer to impress us but, sweet Lord, there was nothing the man didn't know! And, believe  you me, Martine and Ruairí tried! Among the topics covered were current salaries and earnings for various groups of Cambodians, Khmer proverbs and their meanings, the structure of local government, wildlife in every conceivable form (including all the Latin names), ethnic issues, the Khmer language and alphabet, population issues, family size and contraception, the price in a local market of any given item of foodstuff, the history of Cambodia right back to the dawn of time, Hindu mythology, the interaction between Hinduism and Buddhism over the centuries, the Khmer Rouge and their (problematic) reintegration into democratic Kampuchea, the structure of the primary education system... seriously, the most informative guy ever!).

2.   Litter: now this is one big area of difference. Vietnam was spotless, Cambodia was clean (but we only saw Siem Reap) but Laos is une autre bouilloire de poissons, as Martine so enchantingly puts it (Alfred: You know she is going to kill you when she sees that? I know YOU think these mangled translations are both humourous and witty but have you ever thought actual French people may not feel the same way?). Strange to see rubbish and plastic bottles and other garbage thrown around somewhere as beautiful as Luang Prabang. Maybe it is just a lack of rubbish collection (not forgetting Laos is much much poorer than Vietnam and we only saw one small touristy area of Cambodia) but this needs working on.

3.   Menu Highlights (most of these have been photographed and can be posted as verification if necessary):

Roasted Shrimp Baby with Salt
Oil Minor Repairs
Vitamin Fruit Labels
Special chef salad, served with Dijon mustang dressing

Classic Bugger
Hun Bugger
Bugger with Cheese  (all under Buggers & Sandwiches)

Apologies for a rather abbreviated entry (Alfred: and, let's face it, that section on 'Litter' wouldn't even be considered as a page-filler in the Metro!) but there is lots of good stuff to come:  we promise we will be more diligent (Alfred: forthcoming highlights include more great menu items - I especially like 'Minor pork in seven styles' - recipes with toads and cockroaches, Ruairí and Martine's strange determination to see if they can become the first people ever to put on weight while on a 100% Asian diet and loads of great things about monks, including spanking monks, monk wet t-shirt contests and keeping minature monks in a hamster wheel!

Behind schedule .....

(Alfred: Bugger. Day fourteen or so of the holidays and we are already as far behind in our blog as Alex Salmond is likely to be in the polls once they kick off the Scottish Independence referendum campaign. Then again, the upside is that we are having the MOST AMAZING time, which is why there hasn’t been time for the blog. One can think of the length of a holiday blog as being in inverse proportion to the quality of the holiday. I mean, if you have a spare couple of hours each day to craft a detailed, witty and skillfully observational blog, one has to wonder why you didn’t bother staying at home and writing a novel.


So, just a few high points to keep us ticking over and make you all realize the eventual entries will be worth waiting for:

 
• Classic buggery in Siem Reap

• Flirtatious Thai monks

• Khmer proverb #1: He dies as a snake, he lived as a frog  (Answers on a postcard to ...)

• The life story of a Cambodian who fled the genocide (otherwise entitled ‘How the UN actually did a damn good job’)

• Youth Defence and the friezes of Angkor Wat

• Frogs and their uses

• Khmer proverb #2: If you are nasty, be it so that one respects you; if you are stupid, be it so that one feels compassion for you.

• Dependent and independent vowels in the Khmer language

• Morning glory – the greatest vegetable ever

• How household gods fly to heaven on carp at the new year

• Competitive archaeology

• Food, glorious food

• Khmer Proverb #3: The mountain is high, but the grass on its summit is higher still.

• Martine running amok in Siem Reap

• The joys – and subtleties – of soup for breakfast

• A little corner of the USA in Cambodia

• Khmer proverb #4 (subtle, this one): The raised rice stalk is empty; bowed, it is fruitful.

• Pronouncing my name

• Begging

• Rude Cambodians, litter and flies

• Khmer proverb #5: don’t argue with a woman, don’t trade with a government official, don’t begin a lawsuit with a Chinese.



And there you are. I promise I/we will get around to all of this – notes are being kept. Oh, and there will be photos. So far, Ruairí and Martine have taken over 2000 of them. Scary.

Ho Chi Minh City (Day 2) and Da Nang

(Alfred: In real time, we have just finished our five days in Hoi An so Ruairi is falling further and further behind in this blog. So it may be more a question of highlights only, and a la Premier Soccer Saturday on Network 2 rather than Match of the Day, if you get my drift. Oh, and in case you hadn't figured it out yet, this computer doesn't do accents - in Vietnam of all countries!!)

Day Two in Ho Chi Minh City was still part of the recuperation process. But we did walk a lot and saw a lot of things, as well as practising our road-crossing skills. But first ... our first Vietnamese breakfast! (Alfred: Probably a good point to mention that if you are not into food, I suspect this blog is not for you. As I personally don't eat you can rely on my contributions to avoid this topic - for the most part - so maybe just stick to the sections in italics. Just a suggestion ....). Giant buffet containing fruit, various fried rice and noodle dishes, rice porridge (come back Irish porridge, all is forgiven - this looked vile), spicy breakfast soup (which subsequently became our favourite breakfast dish), eggs cooked as you wanted them, the usual bread, croissants, bacon, sausage etc. And so on. A very welcome introduction to Vietnam!

We wandered around for a few hours, eventually ending up at the river where we sat at a tourist-trap cafe: I ate a sausage which cost me 20,000VND (75c) - an horrific price here! Martine amused herself with Birds' Nest, a white fungus health/energy drink (I kid you not) which had a small amount of real birds' nest in it (Alfred: The truth and nothing but the truth .... but not the whole truth. 0.1% of the contents was birds' nest. 'Small' he says ...). She has also developed a taste for Vietnamese cakes made - as far as I can tell - from the foam used to stuff cheap furniture that has been dyed various implausible colours (the foam has been dyed, that is, not the furniture). 

Eventually we fled into a restaurant, as much to escape the noise as anything. And here we had our first real culinary experience as this was a Chinese restaurant that served real Dim Sum. And it was fabulous! (Alfred: Yes, a posh restaurant but one that served its beer in 330ml cans. Strange ...). Then off we set again, taking in an impressive skyscraper (whose visitor deck we decided to skip in the end) and a Hindu temple dedicated to the goddess Mariamman who is associated with floods and smallpox. And then back to the hotel where we continued our (mostly futile) quest of trying to combine the technologies of my Kindle, my Android phone, Martine's new iPad and the camera.

Dinner was to be in the hotel's restaurant .. or so we thought. People eat early in Vietnam but we hadn't realised how early. Down we went a little after 9.30 and ordered a pile of food. The waiter smiled, took our order and muttered something incomprehensible that included the words 'room service' before bringing us our beers. Then, bang on ten, he told us the restaurant was closing and the food would be brought to our room!

And so it was and it was gorgeous!  Five spice pork with noodles (very good), crab and asparagus soup (good but a bit like what I would have had at home), seafood noodle soup with prawns (amazing) and squid (a little rubbery) and ... water spinach. Now we have no idea what this plant is called back at home but it is absolutely gorgeous, like a cross between spinach and asparagus, possibly the best food we have discovered since we got here (Alfred: And that is really saying something. And, if anyone had bothered asking me, I could have told them the plant is Ipomoea aquatica, also known as Water Morning Glory. But no one ever does ). And it had the most amazing fresh herb with it with a strong taste that was faintly anise-like to me (later turned out to be Thai basil). So it was a great night - I always feel getting room service food is a really decadent thing to do, so it felt like the holiday had really started!

Off to Da Nang the next morning. (Alfred: By the way, any of you - especially those not interested in food - hoping to regale yourselves with stories of chaotic airports, crazy and dishonest taxi drivers, and other similar travel-related mishaps and anecdotes, sorry: so far (Day Eight) every single aspect of travel by air, car, minibus and boat has gone absolutely flawlessly, punctually and without a hitch. And if anyone from Ryanair is reading, or any European airline for that matter, have a look at VietJet's way of doing things! We especially liked the way the stewardess gave a special separate safety talk to those of us in the emergency rows, including an admonition that if we thought something was wrong, we were NOT to open the emergency doors until told to do so by the staff!! One has to wonder what particular incident prompted that addition to the routine! ). The Domestic Terminal in HCMC was very posh and absolutely huge! They had interesting stuff for sale too - loads of fresh fruit (Martine bought what she thought was a custard apple but it turned out to be what is called a milk apple and VERY messy to eat!!), the usual duty free and a wide range of jade, birds' nests and some kind of what looked like dried chillis that were incredibly expensive (I mean hundreds or even thousands of euro) - if anyone can recognise them from the rather blurred photo below we would love to know what they are!

Da Nang is not a great tourist destination so it was a good look at a fairly typical Vietnamese city. The hotel, the An Nam, was lovely: the staff had enough English to cope but not much more than that, the room was lovely, bathroom clean and bed exceedingly comfortable and huge (Alfred: Actually, I'm going to butt in here on this one. So far all the beds have been huge. This in a country of - let's be honest - quite diminutive people. At first we thought it was because they had overestimated the size of foreigners but this hotel in Da Nang is probably as much for Vietnamese as it is for tourists. So the only answer is that the Vietnamese believe you need to be pampered from time to time. We can so relate to these people!). The only thing is that the windows were all sealed shut! (Alfred: Or maybe they kick like crazy when they sleep?)

We wandered around a bit but had no real experiences worth repeating until we eventually decided to eat in a street cafe. Now that was an adventure ... but it will have to wait for the next episode. 

Can't do captions due to ... never mind. Photos are:

1.  Wierd blurred expensive somethings in airport

2.  HCMC streetscene outside restaurant on first night (from previous blog entry)

3.  Inside restaurant (from previous blog entry)

4.  Diminutive waitress (from previous blog entry)

5.  Cocktail list in Da Nang (or maybe I am just behind the times in cocktail titles).

Good Morning, Vietnam!

(Alfred: I swear to God, I really do, someday I am just going to up sticks and find someone more worthy of my creative contributions. Weeks to think of a title and all he can do is recycle a second-rate title of a second-rate movie that paints the Vietnam conflict as a merry jape in which automobile breakdowns constitute the major threat to life and limb.)

I have wanted to visit Vietnam ever since 1998 when I visited a holiday fair in the RDS and got a brochure for a cycling holiday from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City (Alfred: OK, I wasn't around then but I have it on VERY good authority that Ruairi presumed the tour would go south from Hanoi and not north from Ho Chi Minh City .... because it would be easier cycling down!) Yeah, right. Anyway, the idea has always stuck with me and when I decided to take early retirement from Rathdown I figured this was my chance to finally put my dream into effect, (Alfred: Horrible phrase, come on!) especially as Martine was equally keen to visit Asia. The decision of Martine's daughter Amanda to emigrate to Australia with her husband Dave meant we were able to plan a co-ordinated holiday whereby Martine went to Melbourne for Christmas and then we would meet up in Ho Chi Minh City (hereinafter referred to as HCMC) in January.

So, preparations. I like to be prepared (Alfred: 'I like to be prepared'!! Ha! Ruairi is the one who put the '-anal' into 'travelling'. What, I hear you say, there is no '-anal' in travelling? You haven't travelled with Ruairi!!) so I spent a good while sourcing locations and hotels on the internet and put out an APB on Facebook to former pupils and colleagues who might be able to help. And guess what - there are people EVERYWHERE!! On holiday, journalists in Phnom Penh, film crew in Vietnam, holidaying in Laos and so on. (Alfred: This is where he is supposed to say 'Thank You' to everyone who gave advice but it looks like I will have to do so on his part). So, by Christmas it was all worked out - four weeks in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos (and a lot more of it in Laos than originally intended based on the advice from visitors there) and a minimum of travelling by spending longer periods of time in fewer places. New passport, visa, extra passport photos, no inoculations (Alfred: Glad he mentioned that, an opportunity for a massive 'I TOLD YOU SO' later in the blog depending on how events transpire, though we obviously hope it doesn't happen - being around Ruairi when he is sick is a pretty miserable experience for all concerned and both Martine and I deserve better), some new clothes and a pair of walking shoes and off we go!!

Martine's flight had been eventful enough with her original itinerary of Dublin - Dubai - Singapore - Melbourne suddenly including Colombo for reasons far too complicated to get into. I was with Aer Lingus to Paris and then Malaysian Airlines Paris - Kuala Lumpur - HCMC and to my surprise and pleasure my luggage got checked all the way through! As I usually fly Ryanair to Edinburgh and elsewhere, I had forgotten how nice it is to be flying with an airline that makes a little more effort to be civil and helpful! (Alfred: And how come the airport was so crowded? Who in their right mind travels on New Year's D... ah, never mind).

The trip was pretty uneventful, to be honest. Wierd spongy escalators in Paris CDG that made you think they were collapsing under you and an interminable check-in for Malaysian Airlines as most passengers were coming home from Christmas and New Year shopping in Paris and had several kilotonnes of baggage each. Bought an inflatable headrest (which I then never used) to replace the one that exploded when I tried to inflate it (Alfred: Eurosaver quality ain't what it used to be). Twelve-and-a-half hours to Kuala Lumpur during which I watched the following films:

Rise of the Planet of the Apes:  good, had wanted to see it in the cinema anyway.
The Losers and Max Payne: both of these are films based on graphic novels. The Losers was a so-so run-of-the-mill film but quite watchable (Alfred: It has Zoe Saldana in it, of course it is 'quite watchable') but May Payne was great - I love films that really capture the graphic novel feel and successfully transfer it to screen.
The Expendables 2: appalling, gave up after 20 minutes
The Campaign: not quite as appalling as The Expendables, I lasted almost forty minutes.
The Bourne Legacy: really good!
Some Korean film based loosely on Top Gun involving defecting North Korean jets. 30 minutes was enough.

(Alfred: Having a ten-year-old Malaysian schoolboy sitting beside us proved invaluable as both Ruairi and his Australian neighbour from Brisbane struggled with the video controls and the trick of rewinding the cord that attached it to the seat. Turns out you press the button that says 'Rewind'. Who would have thought......)

Kuala Lumpur airport is magnificent (the largest in Asia), a lovely, light-filled building of glass and high ceilings, immaculately clean and not crazily crowded. (Alfred:But nowhere to buy water, which our erstwhile hero could really have done with at this stage, having refrained from drinking on the plane because of being stuck in the middle of a five-seat centre section and surrounded by sleeping passengers he was unwilling to discommode - so, no water, no need for toilet breaks. This is what passes for logic in Ruairi's head). 

And so to HCMC, arrived on time, luggage also arrived, as did Martine two hours later and we got a taxi straight to the hotel. Same people changed our money and sold us SIM cards and all at standard prices (Alfred: Ah now, the taxi was a bit more than a regular taxi fare would have been  but the difference between $7 and $10 when you have just travelled for 30 hours is not worth the hassle!)

Arrived at the Saigon Star Hotel - $30 a night including breakfast, clean, good WiFi in the room, and an amazing range of services. Plus you could buy anything in the room as a souvenir. The high point had to be the health spa - read the ad below to get the full flavour.

(Alfred: Cultural Observation #1: attitudes towards the elderly. Our preparatory reading on customs in Asia had led us to believe that there was a high degree of respect for the elderly .... in the queue for Immigration (which was fairly slow-moving but not crazily so) there was an elderly woman who was finding the standing tiring. So she asked the Canadian girl behind me, and me, if it was OK to skip forward. Of course we obliged but when it came to the two Vietnamese teenagers in front of me, no way. One marched up to the Immigration Booth and when she tried to go next, the second teenager actually elbowed her aside and walked up instead. Not what we had expected!!).

First impressions of HCMC: crazy traffic (80% motorbikes) but that operates with an inherent logic that works - crossing the road takes a subtle blend of courage and common sense: don't step off the kerb if an oil tanker is bearing down or a dense pocket of bikes that will not be able to part to accommodate you, but otherwise walk slowly across and traffic will pass on either side of you.Two people need to cross side by side - one behind the other is too big a target! The noise levels are incredible - constant honking of horns, engines running, can get a bit wearing after a while! A lot of people, especially those on on bikes, wear masks (Alfred: Actually, it is all women. We are still trying to find our first man wearing a mask - though, given that they are masked and all rather diminutive, it can be hard to tell.). Many of them keep their masks on indoors, giving a rather sinister look as if a 1970s IRA funeral has just broken up.

Parks everywhere and people actively using them - as we walked around, there were people doing meditation, calisthenics, playing games (including badminton and a version of keepy-uppy with a cylinder weighted at one end that was new to me), a group of teenage girls developing a dance routine and - in one charming instance - practising the tango (see photo below), all utterly unself-consciously. And trees everywhere - on every possible street there are gigantic trees, with fences cut away and walls rearranged to suit the trunks as they grow out of place.

Old and new completely mixed - nice modern buildings (and there are some very nice ones) mixed in with old, decrepit buildings whose balconys are covered in chickens, ducks and plants. And people ignore you - not rudely, but there is no staring, no sense of being obtrusive and - above all - no begging. (Alfred: To jump forward here. As I dictate this entry to Ruairi, we are actually on Day Six of the holiday: not once have we either been asked for money or seen anyone asking for money. There are people with disabilities selling lottery tickets, chewing gum and newspapers and others selling items of relatively little value from whom you might buy something, but no one is begging. Even one old lady in Da Nang we thought was begging on the side of the road turned out to have a weighing scales in front of her and was charging for people to weigh themselves).

That night we found a simple little cafe near the hotel with only two other customers in it (see final photos). The girl had virtually no English but had photographed all the menu items with her mobile phone and scrolled through them so we could find something we wanted! And this was when we found out just how cheap food and beer are here in Vietnam. Dinner for two with four beers for seven euro.  Lucky the food isn't too fattening!


And, as Zebedee siad, time for bed. The hours and hours of travel had scrambled our brains quite a bit so bed was welcome. And that is that for now. Next instalment: Dim Sum in HCMC, the boat that looks like a shark, first Vietnamese breakfast, Hindu temples (Alfred: Yes, he goes to Vietnam and the first thing he visits is a HINDU temple!) and the amazingness of water spinach.

(Alfred: Jaysus - whatever combination of Windows XP and Google Chrome this ancient computer is running has really screwed up the interface for photos - apologies for the mess!)

And a new age dawns .........

It has been a while, folks, apologies all round. I thought that when I retired from Rathdown I would have loads of time to restart this blog but events proved otherwise. Friends and family will know that it has been a tough nine months but now that 2012 is behind us, time for a fresh start!! Plus Alfred's incessant nagging and hectoring about how his wit, sarcasm and humourous observations are going to waste without a creative outlet proved a telling argument (Alfred: I think 'incessant' is a bit over the top; the occasional polite reminder and delivered always in a supportive and encouraging tone. And as for 'hectoring' (a phrase that is in itself an unfair slur on a great hero of ancient times) - I may look like James Reilly but that doesn't mean I behave like him).

So, quick recap: retired from Rathdown in March 2012, started a course to get a qualification as a proofreader (Alfred: this has kind of stalled for the moment but Ruairi ensures assures me he will get back on it in February) and spent four weeks in November-December doing my CELTA training to get my certificate so I can teach English pretty much anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, Martine quit her job in Edinburgh in November and spent Christmas in Australia with her daughter Amanda who recently moved there. The plan was for me and Alfred to meet up with her in Ho Chi Minh City on January 2nd and begin a four-week tour of South-East Asia, something I have been dreaming of for a long, long time (Alfred: Hmmm, hope it lives up to expectations because ... ah, who am I kidding, you know I am writing this after getting there so expectations have already either been lived up to or not. But wait and see, we have been having an amazing time in so many ways!!

                          

            

   






Alfred                                                         James Reilly

(Alfred: you can tell which one is James Reilly because he is the one wearing the cowboy hat ......)
And apologies for the layout - rather an ancient computer so WYSINWYG (Alfred: Ruairi showing his age there, does anyone under the age of forty remember this?)

Retirement

And so I am back. As soon as I returned from Rwanda, and more to the point, as soon as I started working in Rathdown again, it became obvious that maintaining a blog wasn't really going to be feasible, given the nature of my day-to-day work. Alfred did make occasional efforts but even he found it tough going.

But today I announced my impending retirement after 29 years in Rathdown School. I will probably finish on the 29th of February (though I may stay on for a few weeks if a handover is needed) and then ... well, I suppose the world is my oyster (Alfred: Within reason - and you are allergic to oysters).

Anyway, blogging will be resumed on a more regular basis with occasional interjections from Alfred whose comments, I gather, are occasionally even more highly regarded than my own (Alfred: 'occasionally'. If only you knew ........).

Hello again!!

Alfred: Well, hello fans!! After a prolonged hibernation I have emerged again to annoy and entertain and confuse you. Ruairí is mostly occupied with work and his website (which, I reluctantly have to admit, does have some interesting and amusing stuff on it: the stuff on tardigrades is AWESOME! Imagine an organism even more amazing than me!!) so I have decided I need to get my sh*t together and get this blog back up and running. Look out for more very soon!

Harbourne Hall revisited!!

Alfred: And would you believe it, he brought ME!! OMG, so much to tell, life is SO exciting at the moment. Will try and find time but am flying to see Alphonsine in Edinburgh on Saturday and I am SO EXCITED!!!!! Hope she will forgive all the Alfred groupies I met in Harbourne but can it be my fault that I am so popular???

Ursine greetings from wintry Ireland!!!

(Alfred: And greetings to you all from your ursine correspondent here in windy wintry Ireland. Just as well the Rathdown School girls designed me with a nice thick furry outer coat to keep out the chill, given that my lord and master will only turn on the central heating if he can see his breath in front of his face indoors. Maybe he thinks I am a polar bear?

And what have I been up to, I hear you cry, you legion of my followers who have been no doubt grief-stricken at my long silence? Well, it turns out that from my point of view, life in Ireland and life in Rwanda are remarkably similar. Sitting in Ruairí’s bedroom in Gisagara for weeks on end staring at the back of the closed bedroom door wasn’t the most thrill-a-minute experience in the world but there was always the distraction of occasional visitors – Gustav the mouse, Jeremy the bat, various anonymous flying and crawling things that never introduced themselves properly, Alexandré to make the bed and collect and return laundry and, at night, the festive sounds of all-night partying from the wildlife in the attic. I still find it hard to sleep at night without the soothing chittering of bats just above my head.

Whereas sitting on the kitchen table does offer a wider range of things to look at during the day and more activity in the evening, once his nibs eventually decides he has had enough of the office. During the day I can gaze at the cooker and wonder at Ruairí’s continuing belief that dragging a slightly damp cloth across an oily and greasy surface somehow constitutes an act of ‘cleaning’. Glancing to my right I behold the grandeur of the ‘garden’ whose unchecked growth has only been restrained by the wintry weather as opposed to any action on Ruairí’s part. Occasionally, the fat long-haired white tomcat will walk through, wandering slowly through the grass as if in an LSD-induced trance and leaving an erratic wake, rather like a warship frantically zigzagging to avoid a U-boat. If I am very lucky indeed, I may get to see him empty his bowels, producing a dropping so immense that for a long time they were blamed on some errant dog that had somehow managed to enter the garden and leave again.

The fun begins in the evening when he gets home. First, there is the ‘what are we going to eat tonight?’ flurry of activity as fridge, freezer and cupboards are thrown open and the choice made more often on the basis of what needs to be eaten soon as opposed to what one might actually FEEL like eating. Then (out of my eye line but easily deduced by the sound) is the watching of whatever Star Trek episodes that have been downloaded in the past few days. And then to bed (that’s a quote from someone, isn’t it?)

The newest wrinkle is doing housework in the morning. One thing that has definitely persisted since Rwanda is his habit of getting up at ridiculously early hours of the morning when there is no need to. I mean, what was the point of buying a house so near the school if you still get up at 0600? Well, the answer seems to be, to do housework!! Dishwashing, laundry, sweeping, tidying, recycling, everything except hoovering (too noisy). No cooking, at least not so far. I swear, if he starts getting up at five-thirty to peel carrots, make soup, chop onions or the likes, I am heading back to Gisagara.

But I think he is gradually settling back in to life here. He does find the national mood here difficult to take – not that things aren’t desperately bad (they are, even if it hard to convince all those Rwandans sending emails looking for scholarships/funding/donations etc of this fact). It’s that Rwanda was so POSITIVE, even unreasonably so. This is a country with little or no national resources, recovering from one of the most gigantic (if, admittedly, self-inflicted) disasters any country has ever experienced, with a demographic avalanche hovering over its head ... and everyone is upbeat, positive, working for the country’s future (on the surface anyway). Here, the country is also trying to recover from an (again, admittedly, self-inflicted) disaster but no-one seems to have any confidence or hope or esprit left in them. Contrast Rwanda’s determination – rightly or wrongly – not to allow itself to be dictated to by outside forces, countries or organisations with the situation in Ireland where (and I don’t think this is an exaggeration) most people seem to feel that the IMF or the EU or whoever would be preferable to letting the gang of incompetents and self-serving chancers in Dáíl Éireann do it. Listening to the radio the other night, I thought Ruairí was going to put his fist through the wall listening to either Lenihan or Cowen explaining why it was important not to get a bail-out at the moment because we had enough money for the next 6-12 months. And then what? Well, THEN we can go to the IMF because it’ll be the other shower who will be in power and we can maintain it is all their fault!!! Of course, by then the country will be even deeper in what our long-haired tomcat is so liberal with in the back garden but, hey, as long as FF are off the hook!

Hard to imagine that happening in Rwanda. Admittedly, there is no opposition and only one person who can make any kind of decisions but you did at least feel that some people, some politicians did care about the country as a whole and about its future. Very little sign of that here. If he does head back to Rwanda in the near future, that’ll probably be the main reason.

Hmmm, must be getting at least some of this right, he’s interrupting me with any sarcastic comments like he usually does.

As for me, I will of course go where my master goes. Though I must admit I would prefer a little while longer to get more settled back here (like, a few years) before heading off again. Though a little trip to Edinburgh to see the beautiful Alphonsine wouldn’t go amiss, must get working on that. Hope the cold, bleak Edinburgh weather hasn’t paled the golden lustre of her skin (What? You don’t know who Alphonsine is? Well, you are going to have to trawl back through the blog then, aren’t you!!!)

Thought I might get a word in here. Life has been good recently – work is much, much more under control, went to the UCD Symphony Orchestra the other night with three former pupils participating (good Shostakovitch apart from the first bit where the brass was a bit woeful, nice Elgar ‘Sea Changes’ with a wonderful singer, and a very very dodgy Brahms 2^nd Symphony), off to Birmingham tomorrow morning for a Returned Volunteers’ Weekend, will catch the new Harry Potter en route, Lidl’s are stocking ostrich and springbok steaks, had a sort of day off today – brought six students into the Four Courts for the day – impeccably behaved, looked after by a parent while I made myself unpopular by taking the only table in the Four Courts canteen that has a socket by it, plugging in my laptop and working there for five hours flat!

And so it goes......

It has been two months since my last substantial entry (Alfred: Obviously mine doesn't count as 'substantial'. Luckily my skin has toughened up over the last two years) and people have been wondering whether I was continuing or not. Well, to start with, settling back has been really hard, much much harder than I expected. I had - to a certain extent - allow for the change in climate, pace of life, missing friends and all the other things VSO warn you about when you are leaving (and their predictions were, for the most part, bang on the money). But all of them were more intense than I realised and are taking longer to resolve than I had hoped.



Add to that the fact that the job I am returning to has changed quite a lot as there have been so many things that have happened and changed here in Ireland since I left. The cutbacks mean that there are fewer resources in schools, fee-paying or otherwise, so many areas of school life that used to be covered by specific members of staff are now an extra area to be covered by ... somebody. Parents are struggling with fees, students can sense that the job market they are going to be heading out into is going to be a much more competitive and demanding one than previously, the pressure in general is a palpable thing you can sense every day.



So, as many people ask me, what is the most difficult thing about being back? I used to give rather glib, superficial answers (Alfred: Glib? Toi? Quelle surprise, mon cheri) - the shortness of skirts, the sight of people eating on the streets, the climate and the change in the length of daylight and so on. But now that I have been back for almost four months, there are more fundamental things that I realise are the real source of the difficulties I have fitting in.



One is the sheer frantic pace of life, so frantic that it often stops things getting done properly and efficiently because there are always so many other things waiting in the queue. And, to be frank, some of them seem so petty compared to what I was used to dealing with. I had hoped to get away from being in at 7.30 every morning, now I often find myself in at 7.00.



Having said that, my actual work day is probably much the same as it was in Rwanda but, second point, in Rwanda I had almost complete control over my work, within the very broad parameters laid down in my contract and by my superiors in the District (Alfred: Superiors? Can you remember ANY occasion on which they tried to lay down specifications on what you were supposed to do? Remember the first time you tried to convince either Francois or Alexis that they were actually your boss?). So I planned my days the way I wanted - inspections, visits, research, workshops, visits to the ministry in Kigali - whatever seemed most appropriate. If I felt it was suitable, I could spend an entire week or two on just one thing. Here, my life is completely spent responding to outside pressure, satisfying departmental regulations on statistics and returns and about 70% of each day is spent doing things I had no idea I was going to do when I came into school that morning!



And, to be honest, there is a status issue. In Gisagara, I was extremely well-known, the first ever muzungu to live in the district, friendly with the mayor, the executive secretary, the chief of police and army commander. For good or ill, I felt important. And, in another aspect to the same issue, the work I was doing felt important, it was work that, had I not been there, would not have happened. I could feel I was adding a definite extra something-or-other to the existing system. It is hard to convince myself that what I am back doing now carries anything like the same weight or importance.



And I miss my friends so, so much. I arrive home here in Glenageary from work and slump down on the sofa to watch reruns of Stargate and Star Trek (which is about all my brain can cope with at that stage of the day) (Alfred: You can tell it was a better day than most if he feels up to Law & Order). But in Gisagara I would be down in the new bar with Enock and Claude, maybe Joseph and Elie or some of the others, drinking chilled Mutzig (Alfred: He has switched to drinking cider here, of all things - claims that all the beers here are just inferior copies of the Rwandan beers) and discussing what is going on in the village. I miss Abraham in the craft shop in Kigali and his beautiful wife Alice and son Isaac (Alfred: Ruairí has never actually seen Isaac but we are assured he is beautiful), the crazy map-seller outside the UTC centre, the girls in the Sotra bus office in Kigali and Butare and their incessant questions as to when I am going to get married and which one of them I would choose, I miss being called 'Joe Cole' on the streets of Butare by people who have a vague idea of who I am but don't know my name and go by what was printed on the back of my Chelsea shirt (Alfred: If he does go back, they will be calling him 'Zola') .......... and so the list goes on.



But there are things I really really enjoy about being back. Above all the rest, by a mile, is actually being back in school and teaching teenagers again. In Rwanda I had no contact with students and, after all, that is what I became a teacher for. I only have a handful of actual class contact hours per week but those plus the general interaction with the girls is a wonderful experience which I hadn't realised I was missing so much.



And friends and family - this, actually, has been more difficult. Looking back over recent months, I realised that I made little or no effort to meet up again with friends or even, in some cases, family. Indeed, there are good, close friends, many of whom stayed in touch with me while I was in Rwanda whom I have not even contacted let alone met since I came back. At first, I think it was a kind of refusal to admit that I actually was back but I am not sure what it is now. But it is definitely still there. And, at the same time, I am someone who usually isn't the best at keeping in touch and I figure that whenever I run into people again will be time enough, so I was quite surprised at just how good it was to see my family again, especially my nieces and nephews in Dublin, Bristol and Munich. They say you don't realise how much you need something until you are missing it - in my case it was when I had it again I realised it!

The creature comforts are nice but, after the first few weeks, that wore off. I do still feel a childlike wonder every morning when I press a button and hot water pours down on me and I have to confess that I still spend considerably longer than is strictly necessary rinsing myself off! (Alfred: And, in case he doesn't mention it - because he won't - he is really loving immersing himself in old episodes of Star Trek and Stargate, to an extent an objective person might describe as obsessive!).

So today is Friday and we are beginning half term. Never in my entire professional life have I been so glad to see a holiday come. I spent three hours on a phone today to an IT support person trying to figure out why the statistical returns to the department kept generating error messages that meant they couldn't be sent. One reason turned out to be (Alfred: wait for it) because my keyboard was configured for US instead of UK it was inserting the 'wrong kind of apostrophes'. I mean. Really.

But my friends, especially my VSO/Rwanda friends, keep me going. Nidhi is visiting at the moment, Paula and Sonya will be home soon, Eric and Becky are around, I hope to get to Holland and visit Mans and Han and Berthe in the near future - it is amazing how the continued contact and communication with my former colleagues is so important, as well as hearing from Sarah and Emma and Brigid and Pauline and Steve and Pickles and Enock and everyone else back in Rwanda. So, onwards and upwards.

Don't expect too many posts, unless Alfred takes an executive decision to mount a coup d'état.

Oh dear

This is not easy. I figured (as I said before) the difficulty would come at the beginning and then I would gradually reacclimatize. NO. Life here is so hectic, so much more complicated than in Rwanda. And not just work, just ordinary life. So many choices to be made, so many things pulling at you from every side. So many friends and family to catch up with, a job where virtually nothing is under your own control, a house stuffed full of things that I can't remember ever needing or using ... but also getting used to the nice things about being back in Ireland (still amazed at the hot water in the shower, have had about sixty showers since I arrived back and each one is still a revelation!) - and most of all, being back in class with my students. Of all the things I missed in Rwanda (and, to be honest, there weren't many) it was the lack of contact with students that was the worst. Now I am teaching CSPE (Civic, Social and Political Education) and Computers and, for the moment, Careers and it is so so wonderful being back in the classroom with students instead of just working at admin or ministry level.

So what has been happening? Well, back at work, new boss, trying to catch up with friends and relations .... well, a whole litany of things. And also the question of what to do about the blog. Well, Alfred and I had a long chat (Alfred: Well, he did most of the talking - I was trying to watch the highlights of Everton - Man Utd). Alfred doesn't think he has the time so I am going to wrap the blog up with one long last entry and then that will be it. The question is, when will I have the time!! Off to County Clare this weekend to meet my cousins so maybe the following one. Weekdays are out of the question at the moment!!!!

Just about ready ...

Alfred: OK, I think I have him just about prepped. The last few weeks have been tough for him (in his sphere of reference) so it has been difficult to persuade him his public needs him!! And, to be honest, I don't fancy running this blog fulltime on my own (which is the only thing that has prevented me from launching a pre-emptive strike). So tomorrow evening has been set aside for blog update time. There is a lot to cover so it just MAY be a little incoherent. And I hope he isn't still on a rant about the short skirts issue! Oy vey!

Ça fait longtemps

And thanks to Alfred's nagging, here I am again. Three weeks since the last update, so my apologies. And then again, why am I still doing this? I set up this blog just before I left for Rwanda so its purpose would seem to have expired. But then, the process of reintegrating and readjusting is, in a way, a part of the whole experience, so I will continue for as long as it seems relevant. And then ... well, I suppose Alfred could always take over. (Alfred: Ha! That's right, dump it on me just because you can't be bothered.)

Being back in Ireland was fine at first, surprisingly easy in fact. And (Alfred: Whoa! I say, whoa there! You already said all this stuff in your July 25th entry. Stick with the new stuff, OK?)

Ok - good point. I keep forgetting what I said before. At least Alfred is there to remind me. So, how about focussing on the really good stuff recently. Well, one thing is the overwhelming desire and, to be more precise, need to meet up with and keep in contact with my former VSO Rwanda colleagues. I have spent most of my time travelling to England and France to visit family and colleagues. I already mentioned France. England - England was great!! Flew to Edinburgh, met Martine, her son David and Laetitia, a former VSO Rwanda volunteer in Rwanda. Then Martine and I flew to Bristol, met my sister Maria, my nephew and niece Pat and Kate and Hayley, who had been in Rwanda with us (and has the nicest boyfriend, a Buddhist personal confidence coach who drives a Merc, how cool is that!!!). Also met Marion for breakfast, then off to Birmingham to meet up with Els who lives at the coolest address (Thimblehill Road) and brought me to the absolutely coolest, most wonderful cinema ever. The Electric in Birmingham, couches to sit on, waiter service during the film (you text your order to the waiter and she/he brings the drinks/food to your table: how cool is that. Check it out here - www.theelectric.co.uk - the oldest running cinema in the UK). And we watched 'Inception' - which I had seen five days previosuly in Dublin. It was even better the second time.

And then on to Chesterfield where I stayed with my former colleague Thom Lee and we were joined by Andy Crow. Saturday was England v. Pakistan in Nottingham, my first time at a Test match. And what a day it was. The planning involved - OMG. Preparation of food and drinks the night before - four kinds of sandwiches (crab, corned beef, ham and pickles, cheese and ham), cornish pasties, pork pies, water (the beer etc we left behind in the end on the grounds of weight), early start for the train, walk to the stadium, arrive at 1005, eventually left at 1830. It's a MAJOR operation. Does anyone actually attend all five days of a test match (Alfred: Ha! When was the last time a test match actually lasted five days, eh?). Well, at £45 per day, not that many people, I guess.

What was surprising was how, well ... yobbish it was. Maybe because it was Saturday but where we were sitting was dominated by drunken costume-dressed lads who seemed to have little or no interest in the cricket. Maybe they weren't as foul-mouthed as soccer supporters would be but that was about the only difference. Eventually we moved to a cheaper part of the ground. Otherwise a great day, marred only slightly by Eoin Morgan's early departure, run out by Prior's bad call (Alfred: yeah, blame the Englishman - it was just as much Morgan's fault). And I can honestly say I have never experienced hospitality like that at John Lee's house (Alfred: though Chesterfield itself is ... well, how to be diplomatic ... quiet. I figure Ruairí's arrival, let alone Andy's, lowered the average age of the community by a considerable amount).

Anyway, the really, really big thing that happened was the gathering of former and future VSO Rwanda in Dublin! First Marion, then Mans, then Martine, then Andy, then everyone else!! On Friday 13th August (my birthday as it so happened) Mans, Martine, Marion and I headed to Glendalough - a 5th century monastic settlement in Wicklow, just south of Dublin. A wonderful day, started cloudy but the sun came out as we arrived there. Then lunch in the Avoca Cafe (awesome, as usual) and then into town for dinner with Becky and Mammy in Wagamama - a great birthday.

And then the next day - the Rwanda reunion!! Fourteen former or prospective VSO rwanda volunteers in my house. A great night was had by all (Alfred: That's a bit of an assumption. I mean, people are hardly so rude as to say to your face they had a crap time, eh?) and it was really nice to meet the volunteers about to head out, though the sense of envy was hard to control.

So, pictures below, more updates to come (Alfred: Yeah, right - the only double positive that means a negative) and my love and best wishes to you all!




WONDERFUL DAY IN GLENDALOUGH


Martine and Mans in the car park; door of the cathedral

Round tower; Mans and me; round tower

Marion and Martine; Mans and Marion

PARTY TIME!!!

Well, it was the day after the election: I downloaded the picture, Cathryn got it printed, Andy did the info sheet and Martine framed it. That's Cathy and Marion posing in front of it.

Martine and Karen posing with the newly-elected President; Marion, Mammy and Andy

Marion, Mammy, Martine and Andy; Marion, me and Mammy watching the 'Bread & Butter' video

Food (ham terrine, chicken and lamb liver pate, hummus, potato salad, green salad, smoked mackerel pate, salmon and dill pate, and a variety of alcoholic beverages); Becky, Mans, Andy, Marion, Eric and Cathryn

Judy and Alfred and Pauline. Judy is off to Guyana in February and Pauline to Rwanda (Ngororero) in September. Judy has been a fan of Alfred for a long time, strangely enough (Alfred: excuse me? What do you mean 'strangely'? Why wouldn't a beautiful woman like that be interested in a handsome guy like me, eh?); Becky, Mans, Andy and Eric

Cathryn, Brigid and Martine. Brigid is heading to Nyamasheke to join up with my wonderful friend Libby; Mans, Mammy and Brigid.

Cathryn and Mans; and the whole group! Guy at the back is Mícheál Boland, who was working with MTN in Kigali while I was in Rwanda. If any VSO volunteer ever starts banging on about the frustrations of working in Rwanda, stand aside for Mícheál.

General group and a really sweet photo of Martine and Becky

Back row: Marion, Andy, Eric, Cathryn, Karen, Mans; Front row: Me or Becky (depending on the photo), Mammy, Martine.

Mans and Andy experience hurling for the first time. Mans had researched it on Wikipedia and was able to instruct me about various aspects of its history.

Martine learns the tin whistle under Marion's tutelage; a new use for a winnowing ... basket? What is it called?