Discoveries in Jodphur Park

Two exiting things happened yesterday! Apart from general organisation of the flat in the morning, we discovered the mode of transport that I will be using from now on: the underground metro.
I have to stop here and make the comparison to the London Tube. The Kolkata Metro is a very efficient underground train system that we can use from the flat to the city for 5 roups...equivalent to 15c for a 15min ride...as opposed to the pounds you spend riding the tube. Also interesting to note that the stairs down to the train were so so clean and there were no beggars in there. India has also got a security check on the way in, which I was absolutely blown away with. Up until now we've been using the taxi service which costs over 100 roups to get into the city.

The other exciting find from yesterday was climbing the rest of the stairs to the flat to find out that we have a tiled rooftop above that seemed relatively clean when I viewed it last night..will have to check today to really see if it is clean. So that will be very cool to use for some quiet time. Wesley brought a swing yesterday, kind of similiar to hammock, so we might be able to set it up up there and use it for some quiet time if necessary.

On another note, there is no getting away from the spice here. We were eating chicken nuggets for lunch which were kindly left in the freezer from the previous mission flat occupants, and they were so tasty. There were unfortunately some members that prefer less spice.

Today we were mean to be training out to begin our first trip to the villages but instead there is a strike, so we've had to put it off till tomorrow...which is also supposed to be a strike, but the papers are saying that some forms of transport are still running, so we'll wait and see. Everything is rather random in this country!

Kate and Cals left by train this morning for Hyderabad. So I'm really excited for them to be able to go there and help out until there are others to take over. So our paths have separated again...although not for long. Jen and I are heading down to Bangalore next weekend and then will be training back up to Hyd before she flies out on the 16th.

That's it for now.

Mission Flat

Thanks to John and Roseanne Dangerfield we have an elegantly furnished very western mission flat now in Kolkata.

So we're going to have the most comfortable existance I've ever experienced doing mission work before for the next 2 months whilst we're at the flat. Quite a few of the ecclesia's take many hours travelling to, so we'll be out and about quite a bit of the time as well. It hasn't been so comfortable up until now as we've been sharing 4 between 2 beds, but when we get back next weekend, we'll be relooking at claiming bedrooms for the next little while. The only problem is that there is 2 bedrooms with onsuites and a study, which we need as a bedroom, so the occupants of the 3rd room always have to interupt those of the other rooms to use the bathroom as there is no bathroom in a central location.

Tomorrow Cals and Kate are training to Shunem and Mum, Dad, Wes, Jen and I are setting out to West Midnapur. There was a really lovely brother and his wife at Bible week (Akash Kumar Suhw) who has offered to build a meeting house on his land, and he wants us to visit and help organise, and while we're in the area, we have to visit a family (Das') who lost their house in the recent monsoons, and help them find another situation. So it looks like we'll be on the road most of this week visiting some of our very favourite people:-)

It's been nice to have some time to make the flat feel like our own after the 3 elder brothers left on Saturday evening, and we had a meeting yesterday afternoon with a family who lived in the area which brother Bappy led.

Every year some brothers get sent across by the mission from Bangladesh to help with translating for the BW, and this year we had Bro King Kong, Bappy and Mithun (Ronnie's younger brother). After the bible week we took our friends to a little restaurant called Flurry's which was quite interesting, because the restaurant doesn't just sell Indian Cuisine, and they decided to try sometime more our style and went for the lamb chops and definitely didn't appreciate them as much as we did a meal without rice. :-)

So King Kong left Sat morn, Mithun Sat eve, and then we've had Bappy for a couple of extra days which has been nice to spend some extra time with him and he left this morning.

So today is prep for the week on the road.

I'm getting quite excited about heading down to Bangalore to attend the next Karnataka Christadelphian Youth (KCY) weekend and spend some time with some very good friends of mine down there.

Kolkata Bible Week

Wow, our first week in India is already over and the bible week went amazingly well. There were 15 children and approximately 60 baptised brothers and sisters in attendance.
The foreign visitors included bre Wesley Butler, David Caudery, Milton, Brian Winter, Kate Barr and my family.
During the week the bre spoke on the theme of building up the ecclesia's and building our relationship with God and Christ. I think we had a really helpful format this year as the class first thing in the morning was followed up by a discussion group, and we split the bre/sis for 2 of them. One of the topics was about our individual roles in ecclesial life, and the other one for the women concentrated on teaching their children about having a healthy respect and helping them show their love for him by their actions. (some of the classes had been a bit distracting!!) I'd have to check with Dad what the men discussed.

During the week the sunday school classes were on Moses, and us sisters shared the classes and activities around, and Cals ran the drama with support from Kate and Bappy & Mithun (Bangladesh brothers). It was really cool to relook at the lessons from Moses again after studying the topic for Manitoulin.

Previously all contacts had been invited to the bible week, and we would spend every spare minute in the afternoons giving baptism interviews and have the exciting time at the end of the week with an evening full of baptising and exhortation.
This year we decided that the bible week should be designed specifically for encouraging and upbuilding the bre and sisters, and so we are planning a separate truth camp in December for the contacts who are ready for baptism, and it is our job in the next month or so to visit the villages and check on the contacts and give some studies.

One of the things we found out during the week is that because there hasn't been an consistant mission presence in Kolkata, some of our doctrines especially on the Kingdom / heaven and hell haven't been properly understood. So we'll be spending a lot of time working on these topics.

There was a funny moment during our goodbye meeting. Bro Milton was in the middle of his exhort and we were interrupted by the hosts who told us that if we didn't finish in 15mins we wouldn't get any lunch. Milton shuffled through many more pages, and then brought the meeting to an end, with promise to resume later, and everyone filed out for lunch!!! Everyone ate lunch, and then some time later we all headed back in for the emblems. It kept us in fits of laughter all day! Could it happen anywhere else but in India??

During the week we had free time every afternoon which has been a change to the last few years which was refreshing. We did spend one afternoon bringing all the sisters together who teach sunday school and we had a bit of a session asking them questions as to how it is going, and we gave them some suggestions on activities, and ways to keep the children engaged. It's going to be mum's job with my support to get out to all the ecclesia's and follow up with a visit to each sunday school and provide the necessary books and equipment for the children. The sister's are all really excited to have us visit their sunday school.

It was just such a change having time to sit and try and communicate with the brothers and sisters and get to know them and the children as opposed to other years where we've tried to fit in at least 4 baptism interviews during that time.

We had a really lovely week of fellowship and since then we've had a couple of calls from people letting us know they really loved the bible week. So it was an encouraging beginning for 2 months in the area.

Life in Kolkata

Suddur St is still the same, there are still many beggars, many rich filling the streets.
It's always quite difficult on your emotions walking through the streets. On the one hand you want to help everyone, but if you did, you'd be left destitute yourself..which might be a good thing, but wouldn't leave you in a good state to try to work for the long term goal.. to help these people find the real bread from heaven..the bread that will give them eternal life.
We spent our first day in the markets buying nick nacks for the bible week and getting some clothes sorted..and then 2nd day once mum and dad arrived much the same. Jen arrived in Kolkata and needed to buy a wardrobe of Indian clothes...so we set to, and achieved.

Then it was off to Seva Kendra to the venue for the bible week and to have a night here to set up before the guests arrived.

And now there is internet here...which is pretty cool, cause it means we dont' have to make long taxi rides if we do need to get in touch with anyone. So it's time to go.... and get started with the Bible week. Please pray for our work here this week.

Final flight through Bangkok before flying again

We had left some of our luggage in a hotel in Bangkok cause the luggage allowance for air asia is 15kg and our luggage for the rest of our time was 40kg's between two bags... so we had 4 hours to get out of the airport and check in again. Our flight was delayed in Cambodia for an hour, so we were cutting it a little fine if there was a lot of traffic on the road.
The drivers on roads in Bangkok, especially taxi drivers are crazy. They wind in and out of traffic, and when going 100km/h don't leave more than 1 car space inbetween the cars. Jono said this doesn't change in wet conditions either, or going round corners. On the previous trip they'd got up to 130 km/h and at times I just had to close my eyes. Indian drivers are exceptionally good mergers, but they are never travelling at such high speeds.
But we got the slowest driver ever when we needed the quick ride to the hotel. We managed and had time to repack our bags...which we had been charged 80c for the storage for the week, and then our hotel ladies gave us the option of a personal car back to the airport. It was lovely. We had a lady driver, who knew the quickest route and also provided us with candies to munch on to enhance the pure luxurious experience.
And then we were flying... flying back to India...to the big black hole of Kolkata...to wait in a long long line, many long long lines for customs and money changing...to be picked up by Wesley Butler....then we were badly ripped off on the taxi as we'd arrived at 3am and it was our only option... and then the hotels were all closed cause it was so late, so we went to the hotel the taxi took us to.
It had to be the most expensive hotel in the whole of Kolkatta, cause it was over 4 times what I would normally pay. Once again, we had no option as the information about our hotel and which one had been booked hadn't been communicated to us before we arrived. So it was an interesting arrival in India. But the point remains, we had arrived. We are here in India.

Surmisings from 1 week in Cambodia

The visa story is all over now, and we are very thankful to God for giving us an entrance into India.
We went back on the Tuesday morning expecting to pick up our visa's and we had to drop off our passports and pick them up the same afternoon. Why we couldn't drop off our passports the previous week I'm not sure!! The only unfortunate thing is that the visa's are for a limited time of 4 months and are only single entry visa's. But we have them, and are consequently here in India!!! YAY.

So after a week in Cambodia what is there to tell?

You can order French Fried on any menu in Cambodia, Air Asia is the only airline that I've been on thus far that has free seating, and the only flight that in my entire trip that stole my nail file when I went through the x/rays, you can buy ready to cook frogs in the supermarket in the meat section, I had an excessively scrumptious chocolate brownie from a restaurant called 'jars of clay' (didn't work out if it was scriptual or not though), and Cambodia has the perfect environment to consume banana sundae's.

One afternoon we took a cruise along the river and were introduced to the way that the Vietnamese live in shanty houseboats on the river. Their whole existance is based on the water. I think I'd like to try it for a while, the only thing I'd be worried about would be the mosquito's. Although I'm not sure if I could fish so well as to earn a living by it.

That evening we went to a restaurant that supported an orphanage, so during the evening the children from the orphanage used the front of the restaurant as their stage for their Cambodian dancing. They do a lot of their moves with their fingers and bend them right back. Typical Cambodian dancing is very slow.

A couple of us walked along the river until it started raining and then jumped into a Took-took for shelter for quite some time until we realised the rain wasn't going to slow down and so got out and found a cafe to dry off in. It was quite the rla.

During the last few days the contacts arrived back from their holidays and we began classes again. I gave a class on believing in Jesus (from John 3v16) and it was good for me just to get back to the basics and realise that the way we show we believe is through showing love to those around us. So simple, so basic, so true. So good for me to relook at it just before the time in India. Our gospel is so simple.

The night before we flew out we invited all the contacts back for dinner. Now at the moment, all the contacts minus two are men and they are all between the ages of 20/25 so we had quite a male dominated meal. Loy the housekeeper (21) had also returned from holidays and she and Dad got cooking and made the most amazing Cambodian / Indian meal. Quite a treat for all those attending. Mouth watering dishes like Ginger Chicken, and Butter chicken were made in abundance. But while the meal was being prepared, we had everyone in the living room playing the biggest game of Emperor Scum ever!! I think we had 18 people playing and it was just so funny. Most of the contacts could speak at least some English, and others were very fluent so it made the evening quite easy in terms of language.

The morning we flew out, we packed our bags early and then left for the LCDI centre. The Leadership ... Development Centre houses about 200 young people who choose to go there for 3 years to further their skills in English, Accounting, Computer studies, Marketing, etc. Every week Melinda and Sarah volunteer to teach classes for a morning to help out. So we divided our family into groups of 2 and we all took an English class for the morning. It was amazing. As they are all about to go out and look for jobs, I thought it would be a good thing to write resume's with them all. It could've been a lot harder than it was! I think I found the hardest thing was to get them to write down what they were thinking onto paper. They could articulate themselves reasonably well, but then had the difficulty writing it out.
We had a break after a couple of hours, and then were shown round the grounds. It is very primitive living. One large barn sized building for guys and one for girls with mezzanine floors.. no bed, only matts on the ground for all.
After the break, some of the guys gave me flowers picked from the garden which was very sweet!! Didn't let them off the work they had to do though. I really enjoyed the morning. I don't teach classes of 30 young people everyday:-)

Heading back to the flat we had our last lunch at Asian Spice before we headed to the airport. Asian Spice has some of the best flavours that I've tasted in the whole of Cambodia..besides Loy's cooking which was amazing. It was sad she was only there for half of our stay. We're missing her and the rest of the family already.

Strangely enough they were selling NZ icecream at the airport. But thought it best to have an apple before I arrive on floury apple Indian soil.

Then we were back on Air Asia... the only airline where I've ever had to extend my seatbelt as well... didn't make me feel thin, and then flying back to Bangkok.

Finally, ended all of our wanderings and journeys to the Indian Embassies round the world

I believe that after many stressings, on the 12th October, 2007 after quite a flurry at the Indian Embassy in Cambodia, we now have Indian Visa's being processed. I don't quite like to think it's all over just yet, because you can never fully just these places.
But on Friday Jono drove Cals on the Moto = motorbike, and I was put on the back of some random mans moto who was driving down the street (it's normal here apparently, i thought it was a bit of a lark until I realised today that that really is an occupation, so you get asked so many times as you're walking down the street if you want a lift, drawback is it's not free, and sometimes feels dangerous!!!) and we ended up at a house in the backstreets.
It was a nice looking house, and had one window opening out onto the drive, so we knocked and handed our papers. He decided he didn't like what we'd already filled out, so we took chairs outside the window, and began again. Then at about 10 mins to 11 he tells us that we need copies of our Cambodian Visa's to get our Indian Visa's... good grief. Thankfully Jono is waiting outside the gate with the moto, so I rush out with the passports, and give him the urgent errand. The urgency was that the embassy is only open from 9-11 each morning. Why wouldn't they?
So i wait outside the gate, while Cals is inside smiling at the man and begging him to keep his window open so that we can hand in our passports and get them processed just in time.
Jono gets back and we rush to the counter, and the dude is still there, thankfully didn't need to be bribed, because I think I would've done it to get the visa's through. We pay the fee and he tells us to come back 2 working days later. I think that's why i'm still a little skeptical. Maybe this Indian was born in Cambodia??? It's just not very like Indian service that sometimes you can receive in India. I did tell them we were flying out a day earlier to make sure we'd get our visa's on time, and he's been so kind as to provide them even a day earlier than that. So feeling quite thankful at this point in time.

This morning we went to the markets and bought some Cambodian garbe. It is quite hot, and unfortunately all my punjabi's are locked up in the Sing airport, so the thick long pants I was wearing in Canada in the snow are no longer appropriate.

We sat in a little coffee shop this afternoon and waited 1.5 hours for the food for all 8 of us to be bought out. It was amazing. We actually had to tell people not to come in as there were already 3 other tables waiting after us that had arrived within 2 mins of our table. It's all interesting. Jono ordered Spaghetti Carbonara and recieved the yoke of a raw egg in half a shell on the top as a garnish.
Icecream is good here.

How do I describe this city?

From the airport I thought it was going to be a relatively clean city! The vehicles that you use around here are called took-tooks, and I'll aim to post a photo of one.
They are about double the size of an Indian auto, and although you can fit more luggage inside them than an auto, they charge extra per weight.

Back on the road I didn't know what to think. Driving on the same side as America & Canada, and yet in a took-took. Traffic wasn't nearly as bad as India, but they employ the same roadrules. Or more like it, they make them up. To cross across the coming traffic you drive in the opposite direction to the oncoming traffic until you can find a break in the traffic to swerve through.

The weather is quite humid. We didn't notice it as much on Koh Samui because whenever you were hot, you just swam, here you just drip!!

At the airport Cals and i changed our Baht for their rehm (or something like that) and realised straight away that they have an awful lot of notes going round. I don't think they have any coins at all. I think the smallest note they have is worth 2.5c Australian. But the strangest thing that I'm finding is that they also transact using American dollars. So you might go to pay and you can use either currency. It messes with your head, especially when the total for an evening meal can be $3.50 and you've eaten western food. It's just so funny being charged so little with the dollar currency.

Dad and Mum are staying at the mission flat, and Cals, Jen & I were discarded across the road!!! Not quite, but all the beds were taken so we had to find other accomodation. Sara Rose Pogson is here for 5 months, and they have a lady who helps out with cooking and translating that lives onsite who we are yet to meet. The day we arrived was a public holiday, and this is apparently the holiday week where a lot of people go and pay their respects to their ancestors. So all of the contacts are holidaying and we get to meet them on Tuesday. Means that we can help with other admin work before things get busy again. They are currently writing some ss lessons to be translated into the Khmer language, and they all need editing, so that'll be our work for the next couple of days. Plus Kolkata BW starts a week tomorrow, so we're needing to work on the drama and organise the activies while we have time before we get there.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

I don't think I'll ever get used to the spelling of this city. It just goes against the grain. I guess if I didn't know how it was pronounced it would be different.

Well, taking a step back into last week... we had such a lovely time in Thailand. Truely relaxing, and it was cool to do some driving round the island, we had a safari adventure one day where we started off with an elephant ride, then moved on to monkey and elephant shows, hopped in a ute to be taken to a dirty river to canoe on and then back to the origin for rides on atv bikes. 4 wheeler bikes. Oh, and I forgot. There was a hike to a waterfall and I managed to do the sliding rocks thing again.

It wasn't quite as easy as Samoa to get up there, and didn't go for half as long, but it is quite cool to slide down the waterfall.

The only thing that wasn't fab on the island was the fact that Jen's atv bike turned over her. I watched the 3 second show and it was quite scary. But thankfully she only ended up with a few bruises and quite a few grazes. Could've been a lot more serious. I think going go-karting in our country would be a lot safer. They didn't even have people posted around the track. Poor Jono, he thought he would be trecking through some mountains on an adventure and was confined to the area within the tyres.

Ko Samui, Bangkok

Having left the visa issue in God's hands we tried to forget all about it. And it was quite easy to forget when we made our way to our air conditioned huts 15 m's from the beach, and dumped our luggage and enjoyed the refreshing coolness in the sea. So blue. So amazing to be safely all together with family. Such a biazzre fact that we were in Thailand, on an island. Such a blessing.

The Thai people are so lovely, and so helpful. Oh, but they want to sell you so many things.

The first afternoon on the beach we were immediately accosted by people selling us icecreams, cooked corn, jewellery, sarongs, etc. That was good for a sample. Then we understood the rudeness of the people around us on the beach. They kept coming, and kept trying to sell you things. Now we're used to it. Also getting good with the bartering.

I've been waking up at 6am each morning...naturally. Weird. Yes. No alarm. And use the time to go for an early morning swim / run. so cool. I'm enjoying the sunrises. The funny thing is I'm understanding the naturally morning people now. The people who get tired in the early evening. I've been exhausted before 9pm. So strange.

We took a day excursion on a boat cruise to another island and spent the whole day in the water going from island to island snorkelling. I love watching from above and viewing the different coloured fish swim by. Also when they swim in a school with you. As if they can't tell that you are a human and treat you as a fish instead. I loved the rainbow colours, and the little neon blues, and canary yellows the best:-)
I might be able to get some photo's up here because Jono has an underwater digital camera. I just can't believe how cheap it all is. I think less than a 10th of what it would be to do in Australia.

Last night we went out for dinner to a lovely restaurant overlooking the water to celebrate the girls birthdays... Jens 18th & Cals' 21st. Very special.

Today the others hired jet ski's (if that's what you call them) and we had the 3 of us girls on one, which didn't work so well, and we'd already fallen off once before I decided I wanted to get off, so I got them to drop me off and I started walking my way along the shore. One of the guys noticed that I was no longer with the others and came searching for me!! Then I was on the back of his craft, and going faster than the whole time with the others and doing a 360....Woooaaaaah Yes, I was slightly scared, plus I lost my cap and he had to go back and find it. So I think I got the best deal, as he really knew how to use it.

We're half way through our week here, and it's been amazing. A chill time that I'll be thankful for when I get to India and meet many challenges, that's God Willing if we get our visa's. We might just have to hang around Cambodia for an extra week and meet up with the pars after the bible week is over. We'll wait and see and keep trusting. Whatever is God's will.

Visa saga continues

So here we are in Bangkok, ready for action. NOT. Felt disgusting after the flight. Couldn't sleep so well after the first 7 hours... and so we were headed to the Indian Embassy in Bangkok.

We arrived there and there is a sign on the gate 'closed for Ghandi's birthday'.
What to do, what to do?

There was only one option so we did it. We made our way back up the road, with our suitcases, on a humid Bangkok day, to the post office. It was like being in an Indian post office. Noone could understand what we wanted, and tried to tell us that only US citizens could make out a money order...and then told us to go to the embassy...so helpful.

After some time we were shown up to the managers office... and many phonecalls were made, and then THEY told us that we should go to the embassy. Then they called and told us that the embassy was closed today. So helpful. Anyways, after such a long time we managed to let them let us go ahead with creating a money order for the visa's, and we posted the application, with a copy of the passport. I was ready to give anything a try.

We found a hotel for the afternoon and slumbered wearily while Jono & Linz went out on the town. Then it was time for some more walking with the cases and luggage through the backpacker streets of Bangkok, on our way to find some dinner and then onto the bus to the ferry terminal.

The first part of the bus ride we were highly entertained by some friendly UKians. Thankfully they fell asleep quite quickly, and then we tried to.. 10 hours later, we were at the ferry terminal, enjoying salad rolls. The best I've had in a long time. I'm not sure why I trusted it. But can you go wrong with bread, & cheese (which is taken from a fridge in front of your eyes), and tomato which you've seen being cut. the lettuce was the dodgy bit, but I think my stomach is used to bad things now, and it was such a nice meal. They had fed us lasagne for brekky the day before, and i couldn't stomach that, so it was quite nice to be eating something that was a bit more *standard*.

After some waiting for the sun to come up and a 2 hour ferry trip we were at our resort, and being greeted by the family who we hadn't seen for over 3 months:-)

Sister's fellowship day

So Ruth Laben being off work headed round to the Lewis' and brought with her another amazing sister, Colleen Uiga. We decide to cook dinner and head out to the shops when an amazing smell hypnotises us.. we instantaneously decide we're doing takeaway Thai instead!

Then we were driving on a Friday evening, on busy LA roads to Irvine, to meet up with many sisters from the LA area for a Sister's weekend on the topic of prayer.

We had such an amazing time. Was amazing to meet so many more sisters and to be encouraged by them. We brainstormed our questions, and then discussed, and then concordanced the word 'prayer' and summarised our findings. We still have to match the questions with our summarisings. It was a good experience to have so many people's perspectives.

The weekend was hosted by Elissa Brinkerhoff and it was cool to catch up with her again after emailing, but not having seen her for over 6 years!



Nathan Lewis did the exhort in the LA ecclesia and we had refreshments straight after followed by ss. We joined Ben Brink's class on love which was well done. They have a birthday custom at the meeting where you all put into a jar the amount of cents you have turned. One lady had just finished with the cents custom and through in triumphantly a $1 bill. Wow.

We had an amazingly healthy ecclesial lunch. There were no hot dogs, hamburgers or pizza to be seen...but lashings of salad, homus, chicken & fruit.

... we enjoyed gorgeous weather in LA... was like our Australian Adelaide summer.

More goodbye's.

We spent the afternoon playing Emperor Scum at Starbuck's with Nathan & Susanna, Meaghan Vaughn, Ruth Laben & Colleen Uiga before we had an emotional parting.



Then we were at the airport... and getting on board the Thai airways flight with bright purple, pink, yellow and ? seats for the 17 hour flight to Bangkok.

The night continued forever, and then we were alighting, and shocked to find ourselves at 6:10 am in the arms of our brother and sister-in-law.

Next Stop LA

At the Vancouver airport when filling out our customs forms, I suddenly realised there was an item missing from my handbag. Reasonably vital, as reasonably expensive. Thankfully when I called it, somebody answered and the dude was able to tell me that I'd left it on the bus. I must've been holding my phone and then let it fall to the floor as I got off the bus. Not so good. But at least it wasn't stolen. Just a little more hassle than we needed 5 minutes before we were about to board. The dude was coming back to the airport, so I tried my best to get out of customs and pick it up from him, but I was at the point of no return. The story ends well. It was couriered to the Lewis' apartment.

Also the pickup from LA was interesting because Susanna Lewis was available, and we had told Kristen LoBello that we could catch a bus to somewhere that was closer to her school for her to pick us up after school hours.... but they were talking to each other and getting in touch with us, and that didn't quite happen. and then at the other end, we couldn't get in touch with them as they were both at school. So we soaked up the environment at the airport for a bit before we finally got through and Susanna could pick us up!!

Then the next saga began!!! No disclaimers. I'll begin now in saying that I'm not good at reading the fineprint, and tend to wing things more than I should!!
We arrived at the Lewis' apartment in LA and worked on a plan for the 2 working days we were in LA. We really wanted to see the Heritage Christadelphian School and the other day we needed to set aside for heading into the Indian Embassy for a same day visa.
Getting on the net that night to check on the address for the Embassy it was in fact in California yes. But unfortunately San Fransisco was the address, and not Los Angeles. The two cities being 7 hours apart or more depending if you catch bus, train, or car!!!

So the next day we headed off to the school quite nice and early as it was about an hour away and the traffic isn't the quietest in LA as you can imagine.
Arrived in time for morning assembly, and loved it. It was so cool seeing another school at the starting stage. They were in their 3rd year, but everything was still being set up, and they had 24 pupils which was really cool. I got to help out with a spelling test, and loved it. Think I could probably stay there as well and volunteer. During the morning we tried to get in touch with the Indian Embassy, but then worked out from more thorough reading on the web...(there is a trick, more thorough reading needed from the beginning!!!) but they weren't answering their phones, only between 2pm & 4pm, so settled back into semi crazed state and Ruth Laben suggested that we could go with her to San Fransisco the same afternoon if we needed to.
Then it was calling and calling and calling, but of course, why would the Indian Embassy pickup their phone's? It certainly wasn't a good 'winging it' day for me. between 3 & 4 we had to decide whether or not it would be a fruitful journey to San Fran if we couldn't do a same day visa stop, and still couldn't get through by phone... so we decided to leave it. Would've been a fun, adrenaline pumping experience, but we had no way of telling if it would've been in vain or no. We had found a sentence on the internet saying that the same day visa's were for US citizens only. I think that sentence held some sway for me as well as the fact that we found out there was an embassy in Thailand.

Getting back to the apartment that night we did some more searching and found some relatively cheap flights to the embassy in Thailand, 10hours travelling time by land from where we were flying into. So we headed out to Santa Monica and enjoyed the lights and sights:-)

Next day we booked the flights and then Jono and Melinda called us to tell us that there was an Indian Embassy (which we hadn't found listed on the Indian Embassy site on the internet) in Bangkok. Handy information really. Story to be continued!!!

Vancouver Island

We *mosed* our way across to the island, actually, I enjoy the game now that I've played it so many times.

Aunt Cindy Higgs knew what to do. 4 girls travelling? She brought two cars to the airport to pick up us and our luggage:-)
It wasn't quite that bad, but we fitted so much more nicely into 2.

Friday night was CYC at Victoria ecclesia. Such a nice sized YG. I think we met everyone that night. They had a class and some games. It was so weird being at their opening class for the year when it was September. Was really cool to be there and spend some more time with the Higg's who we had met at January Youth Conference in Perth, and also Jeff Hibbs.

We toured 'downtown' Victoria, climbed some peaks and enjoyed the views, visited the world famous Butchart gardens, enjoyed a spot of horseriding with the Bennett's and during our last hour on the island I achieved my goal of canoeing on another lake outside of Manitoulin Island in Canada.

Everyone in Victoria was so friendly, and we were invited out everyday. It was really nice to be staying with a family who were half Australian, because they understood exactly what we meant, and we didn't really have to explain anything. We even learnt the art of shuffling cards... have to add that to the list of things I've learned since I've been away!! I think Aunt Cindy is now hooked on Mose!!!

I'd love to go back and spend some more time at that ecclesia and get to know people a lot more:-)

5 long days later, Cals and I were parting from Shann and Kate and loading our things back on the ferry.

The moon was rising above the sunset as Natasha & Kristen Jackson, and Clare Erbert picked us up the other end.

Was really cool to catch up with some Vancouverians for dinner, some of whom had driven over an hour to have the unexpectedly expensive dinner with us:-) Cals and I are very thankful to Wes Butler who took some of our luggage of us and will take it with him straight to India. With a standard baggage allowance of over 40kg on all of our flights, we would've been slugged for the internal flights which only allow 15kg's in Thailand & Cambodia!

Driving & Driving

Here I am at the free Internet Cafe at our resort, and I thought that I would be able to download photo's to make the blog more interesting, but it's not working for now. So I'll continue with the travel story.

Thursday morning we headed out to see Mount Robson, as I'd seen some beautiful photographs and thought it was a worthwhile stop, but it took us about 2 hours out of the way, and there was a massive long and steep drive to the top of the mountain, and when we got to the top, there was just a mountain there with snow on it. Beautiful, but quite dissapointing. I think the postcard shot must've been taken from the air, and in the season of spring!!

We got back in the car and drove and drove and drove... and 5 hours later, we were still driving, and finally we arrived in Kamloops. We were exhausted, and our hostess (Lori Sargent) had gone all out with cooking Lasagne for dinner, and then we had some of the Kamloop ppl join us for readings afterwards. We did the names in Chronicles, which was rather a wipeout, cause we were all so tired, and someone began to giggle, and it was contagious. Unfortunately.

Another LLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG drive followed on Friday, and we were very thankful that we hadn't chosen to travel via Prince George, as it's not so fun travelling for hours when you've got time deadlines .

We got quite lost trying to locate the entrance to a petrol station, and had to go round the block, which turned out to be blocks worth, and then had to ask someone to help us back. Thankfully everyone knows where the airport is, and we disposed of the car that had become our friend for the previous week.

Then, feeling not so fresh, we hunted round the airport to find the way to the ferry station for the trip across to Vancouver Island.

More lakes

wednesday we stopped at maligne Canyon, which really wasn't worth looking at and I've already deleted my photo's. Might've been good if we'd had some hiking supporters, but Cals was my only supporter, so we had to make the stops reasonably quick.
Medicine lake we stopped at. It has a weird story - during summer the lake is fall and by fall it dries up??? The Indians were confused by that and assumed that it had healing properties so gave it it's current name.

Maligne lake was the lunch stop and Cals and I took the walk right around, incredible. Amazing. Magnificent. What more can I say except that we arrived too late to get on a cruise to the Spirit Island. Only thing that I regret, but you can't do everything can you, and it was nicer to walk round anyways!!

That's it for now

More Rockies

It seems like we got lost a few times, but it really didn't feel like it as we were forever seeing more amazing scenes, so they all just blended in to be part of our sightseeing experience.
Cascade Ponds was the 1st left instead of the 2nd, and we just stopped in awe. It wasn't as early in the morning as it could've been, but the sun wasn't very high in the sky and there were about 5 or 6 ponds in front of us showing perfect reflections of the bridges, and mountains around them.
We stopped at Lake Minnewanka (weird sort of name) and I found the perfect picnic spot... at the edge of a lake with loads of picnic tables all set up for a fun opportunity!!
We followed the road up and up till we got to Lake Peyto, and then it was a really stiff climb, in very cold conditions, and I was wondering about my asthma, but it wasn't a long walk, and then we were at the top, viewing the bluest lake I've ever seen in my life. Incredible. Another moment of awe, to stop and ponder on the creative powers of our God. We picniced at the lookout and as we were finishing..
it started to SNOW.
Yes, we were in the canadian rockies, in the fall, with the tree's just turning red from yellow, with massive mountains behind us, and the bluest lake we've ever seen in front of us, what could be more perfect in this life than snow falling from above?

From there we drove to the Columbian Icefields. Shann did all the driving, and I'm thankful for it, cause it isn't something that I really enjoy, and she did a fab job:-) I was the navigator... now you're knowing why we got lost...actually we spent all week driving and got to Vancouver Island and back without a proper map. There was only one spot where we tried to get petrol on the other side of the road and did a massive detour and had to ask someone the way to the airport, but apart from that, most of the week I was fine!!

Climbed up another large hill, and saw large piles of ice, and there was a walk you could do on the ice and large posters / signboards telling about how many ppl have died from going off the trail, and my shoes were already slippery, so I let the others do that one. We so weren't prepared for the cold. It started snowing again....and the internet is just about to logg me off so I'm giong to save this safely before it does.

ps - Athabasca falls was the last stop for the night and they were incredible. Will live long in my memory for the volume of water and length of falls..plus a little trip we did in bear country behind the falls to see the lake behind:-)

From Ko Samui, Thailand

Yes, I've gotten further behind again!!

But I'm here for 7 days, so there should be ample to time to update and get back into gear:-)

So the last couple of posts were from the rockies. What an amazing place. Every view was just so incredible, and even if we just drove through and didn't follow the tourist marks, we would've still seen so much. Alberta was beautiful.

We spent the first 2 nights in Banff and then had 2 in Jasper.

Monday we saw the Johnson Canyon... our only real walk. It was incredible. Usually you go to a waterfall to see 'a' waterfall. This place, the further we kept hiking, the more we saw, and I think there were a total of 7 on the track, and the last one came gushing out of a rock about 30 metre's up. It was thin, but long, and impressive.

It was our lucky day as when we went to pay for our gifts in the tourist shop, they had a game to play. If you pulled any card besides a joker or ace from the pack of cards you received 30%, but for the others you received the gifts for free. Cals pulled the 30% card, and then the lady was like, oh well, you're from Australia, I'll give you a 2nd try if you don't tell anyone and then I pulled the joker...that was quite a neat thing!!

We took the wrong road and decided to follow it and ended up at Lake louise a day early so stopped there and enjoyed a picnic lunch in front of the lake. I thought that it was going to be an overrated tourist destination, there were lots of people there, and a massive building behind it, but looking straight at the lake and the mountains behind was truely an amazing sight.

The girls went for a coffee while I went for the walk around the lake. So amazing the amount of different nationalities of people, all there to view God's amazing creation. The lake was so serene, and I was the tourist. I took loads of photo's. Not that I'll ever forgot what it looked like!!!

Then we were on to Morraine lake for the sunset. The lake had 10 mountains rising around it which made it another spot for photo's. I think I overdid the stops for photo's, but who knows when I'll ever make it back there!!

And then it was the drive back, through more mountains, and into town for a fun chinese dinner, a game of mose, and we were sleeping on our feet!!!