Archive for category Welcome
Floating down a river
Thurs, 9 April 2009 – Tues, 14 April 2009
Our river trip down the Tsiribihina River was magical! It took 2 days and 2 cars to get to the river, but the scenery on the way was spectacular. Similar terrain and vegetation to SA actually (apart from the rice paddies!), which just shows how slowly things have changed (or not!) in the 162million years since Mad was part of Africa.
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The Tsiribihina trip was essentially a 3 day float down a river in a piroque (dug out canoe). We had 2 boatmen and a guide and didn’t have to lift a finger. We had gorgeous freshly prepared meals and slept in tents on the beach. We did have to spend time spotting wildlife along the river banks, which was very exhaustingJ! We stopped at a few of the fishing villages along the way and discovered that even in the most rural locations, beer can be purchased (Madagascan THB is very good!!)
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We spent out last night staying in one of the fishing villages. It’s amazing just how much you can communicate as a human being without using verbal language! It was a very happy place. We’ve tried to find the village on the map since, and we couldn’t… there are dozens in the area.
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Madagascar – Welcome to our coup!
Tues, 7 April 2009 – Thurs, 9 April 2009
So we arrive in Antananarivo (Tana), expecting to see tanks and infantry, but were almost disappointed to find only pushy taxi drivers and insane traffic. (We did actually see the strike of the Central Bank on our second day there, but since there were only about 30 people demonstrating, it looked more like an extension of the market.) While most of ’les manifestation’ were based around Tana, it was all very low key. However, we were still keen to get out of town ASAP. Our hotel recommended a travel guide (details), who was great and pulled together a 6day river trip for us.
However, we still had to wait 2 days for cyclone Jade to pass, so we spent some time taking in some of the local Tana sites. But there aren’t many.. Tana is a strange place…. Urban crazy, with beautiful old colonial buildings in various colours and markets everywhere. No structures are maintained, and taxis are all 20 years old…. Yet there’s a reluctant charm about the place.
Mauritius – The stop over
Sat, 4 April 2009 – Tues, 7 April 2009
Since there were no direct flights to Madagascar, we had to fly through Mauritius. Air Seychelles kept changing their flight schedule, which meant that we’d stay in Mauritius for 3 days between our flights. While we could have tried to change our connection, we decided to spend a few days in Mauritius to find out more on what it’s about.
Admittedly we only stayed in 2 areas during the 3 days, but we did feel that for once, the Lonely Planet was right, unless you’re staying in the expensive hotels, Mauritius is not the dream destination you expect. Not that it was bad (in the evenings things sure livened up and became very festive!!), we were probably just expecting it to be a little more exotic.
Seychelles…. Yeah baby yeah…
Mon, 30 March 2009 – Sat 4 April 2009
Hooray, hooray, we finally blasted off to paradise the next day. And yes, it totally was paradise (thanks again, Nick… and again and again!!)
With all those facilities at your doorstep, you just have to enjoy them. And enjoy them we did! Lots of swimming, eating and sleeping… the perfect way to re-energise after the wedding!! (Although on day 3 we did feel like we needed to do something more active than lifting a pina colada, so we hired bikes and cycled (uphill!!) to the next ‘village’ for some snorkelling. At least we knew our legs still worked!!)
Honeymoon in Benoni
Sun, 29 March 2009
Yes, yes, Charlize Theron is one of the local gals, but who wants to go there on honeymoon? Apparently Air Seychelles had a word with the universe and realised that we needed an extra day to organise and repack our bags, so kindly delayed our flight by 12hrs to enable us to do so. It wasn’t too bad actually, being newlyweds, we got a larger room (which meant that we also got a couch….um…. thanks Air Seychelles.)
Learning about Laos
Posted by sally in Holiday, Laos, Pics & Movies, Updates on August 14th, 2007
While Luang Prabang may not be the most developed town from an economic perspective, it certainly is geared up for the tourists! Internet cafes everywhere and loads of cute restaurants, coffee shops and massage places (although the Lao acupressure massage is extremely painful and NOT recommended!) We decided to explore the outer limits of the town and went on a trekking excursion to nearby villages and then on to the Xiang Si waterfall.
It was a truly amazing day! The village tour was fascinating. We were taken through 2 villages on foot by our guide, who explained how people in rural Lao villages live… brace yourself for Discovery Channel interlude….
The Lao are divided into 3 ethic groups, depending on what altitude they live at: Lao (river people) ; Khamu (lower highlands); Hmong (upper highlands/hill tribe). The first village we visited was a Khamu village. People are subsistence farmers, growing rice in a rotating fashion on land for which they need governmental permits to use. From the age of 5, children have to work as well, on the fields, or carrying water etc. Fruit and vegetables are generally picked from the surrounding jungle. The men go into the jungle every few days to catch wild boar and birds. Buffalo and cattle are kept, but are more a source of money from trade than a food source. The villagers believe in ancestral spirits that take care of you (specifically each person is cared for by their deceased father or mother. Once the next generation dies, the ’spirit minders’ are released from their duties and can then go and be reborn again.) Each village also has a Doctor Spirit who is able to communicate with the spirit world and from whom villagers will always seek advice first, before trying anything Western. I was really amazed by the similarity with Southern African beliefs and customs!
The Hmong village was 200m further up the mountain and while the houses looked a little different, the rest of the village and way of life was the same as the Khamu. What really struck me was how phenotypically different the people looked in the different villages and that despite their proximity to one another, there is no intermarriage between peoples of the 2 villages. (End of educational interlude!!)
The rest of the day was a gentle 3hr hike past rice paddies and through jungle, ending at the top of the Xiang Si Waterfall, which cascades down several drops into beautiful blue pools. We swam at the bottom in one of the bigger pools just before the monsoon rain hit!
We trekked with Green Discovery (www.greendiscoverylaos.com), very good company for anyone else interested in outdoor activities in Laos.
Wakeboarding
So, after spending a day doing very little of anything, I decided that we should get off our asses and do something constructive. I decided it’d be a great idea for me to have my second wakeboarding lesson, the first one having been in Singapore 5months earlier. It’ll be easy right? After all, I was a natural…
Peter did a fantastic job of getting up on the board and pulling some stylish manoevers… it WAS easy after all!! (he also managed to put his back out for the next 4 days though… something about an old injury and a bad boat driver…. old age as well maybe 
?)
I also managed to stand… once… and wave (hand, not water) … for about 3 seconds…. but spent most of the rest of the time swallowing water and trying to keep my head from disappearing inside the massive life jacket.
We both limped home later like 2 wounded soldiers… bodies and pride in serious need of TLC….
Explorations
Posted by sally in Holiday, Pics & Movies, Thailand, Updates on July 27th, 2007
After our very exciting visit to Tesco, we went to see one of the marvels of the island… the Nam Meong (sp?) waterfall…. 80m high from top to base. It’s in the middle of the island and took us nearly an hr by bike to get there. We managed to escape from the very persistent elephant trekkers at the entrance to the falls and made our own way to the bottom of the trail (which did in fact require that I get off the bike the few times, because the automatic just wasn’t gonna make it!!)
The falls themselves were great to see – not hugely spectacular, but not bad for a small island! We climbed to the pool near the top and swam with a bunch of other tourists. I managed to make friends with a few very unfriendly rocks, since the water was far too cloudy to see through… why do I always do things like that??
The trip home was fairly uneventful, and no…. we didn’t visit Tesco on the way back…..
The River Tour
Posted by sally in Holiday, Pics & Movies, Singapore, Updates on July 19th, 2007
We decided to spend our last day in Singapore in a fairly relaxed fashion.. a quiet lunch followed by a leisurely boat cruise along the Singapore River. Was a great way to see the city, but we certainly could have done without the ‘I-forgot-to-take-my-lithium’ recording that they insisted on playing at full blast above the roar of the engine…. ahem…
Off to Ko Samui in Thailand tonight… hooray!!
Lookie-look: the naïve Dutch man
Sal crashed in bed and was not planning to move. The jet-lag had seduced her and taken her away. I just had to answer some email regarding my latest job opportunities and since the Hotel Internet machine was occupied by a overweight Chinese 9-year old who was playing online poker games I thought is was wiser to find a Internet bar outside.
A guy asked me whether he could help me and I said that I needed the Internet. “Ahhh” he said “Lookie look?” “Yes” I said “lookie look”. He was leading the way and before I knew I was standing in a large room full of naked big breasted (fake I assumed) Asian ladies. I said again to the guy “I need Internet you know, lookie look at email!” He said “but this is real thing … much better you know!” So I gave up the quest and walked out in the street suddenly realizing that we slept in the Singapore red light district: all the places around me looked like the one I just visited.
After some precarious querying I finally found a Internet bar where most of the screens were occupied by guys scanning for porn … I guess its’ cheaper. Suddenly the concept I learned at my INSEAD MBA of choke price made more sense.
Blooming marvelous!!
Posted by sally in Holiday, Pics & Movies, Singapore, Updates on July 18th, 2007
What do you do when you are on holiday in a city that you’ve lived in?? The touristy things of course! So we decided to go and visit the Orchard …oops Orchid Gardens, which, for those of you interested in visiting at some point in the future, are situated in the Botanical Gardens and NOT near the zoo as the Singapore maps suggest.
Was all very stunning. Did you know that the Orchid family of flowering plants is the largest in the world, comprising 10 percent of all flowering plants? And that bananas belong to the ginger family? Very informative trip indeed! Thereafter we had Singaporean hotpot for dinner at Dempsey road, where we basically had to boil all our own food, veggies, meatballs, the lot! (Did you know that the bright orange prawns that you eat are actually purple-grey in their uncooked state??) Was kind of fun, but think I’d rather pay someone else to do the cooking!!
Business is business
“Dear KLM Customer Service Manager, I’m writing this from row 14 on board your Boeing 777, which, if you knew your plane layout, IS NOT NEXT TO AN EMERGENCY EXIT! We kindly request that you refund the 2 train trips to Schiphol that we had to take in order to secure our requested seats THAT WE DID NOT GET ALLOCATED. Either that, or surprise us with some creative solution…” Fortunately, the air steward creatively bumped us up to business class, so Peter’s friendly ranting never needed to be sent off!! After our pampered flight and some luxurious sleep, we arrived safely in Singapore. Of course, the 6hr time difference meant that we were suitably jet lagged, so we were wide awake during the evening and spent the time walking along the Singapore River, before we had our first Asian meal at a floating restaurant on the river. It sure is great to be back in Singapore!
The holiday begins…
We woke up bright (and not so early) on Friday, to finish off the packing and to get onto the road to start our big post-INSEAD adventure! Of course, the fact that Thursday had been the grad party and the evening had been late and bubbly meant that packing lacked any real enthusiasm or speed. We eventually got on the road only an hour late bound for the ferry at Boulogne.
Unfortunately the car had other plans. After an hour it started to breakdance intermittently and strange fuel vapours seeped into the vehicle. It then VERY CONVENIENTLY decided to conk out completely when we were only 20km from the port. NICE! Of course, I had a road plan with Citroen, so we called them and Peter calmly explained that ‘le car (carre?) ne function pas’ (thankfully Spanish was his exit language 
!) and Citroen sorted everything out. Very impressive actually… we got to picnic by the side of the highway and explore the service roads of Berck in a tow truck – highly recommended! (We actually have some excellent pics of this great day – unfortunately there’s back in Europe with the other camera. We’ll have to post them in Sept when we get back!)
All goods have since been safely brought across the channel and are now sleeping peacefully in a Wimbledon storage depot.
And so the adventure begins…..
Hello world!
Welcome to the website dedicated to Sally Pawson and Peter Bakker adventures on the face of the planet. People who know us longer then a few hours just know that this is a life full of rumbles, stumbles, f*ck-ups and loads of fun. This is our first post … more to come ver very soon!
When Sally stole my Parrot
Posted by peter in France, INSEAD, Pics & Movies, Welcome on September 22nd, 2006
Well that is how it all started. After the first dinner I was invited to, Sally and I met again at the pirate party. Sally stole my parrot there, which is in pirate law a heinous crime that should be punished viciously and so I did! I made her talk so loud during the pirate party that she lost her voice and then I asked her out again and made her listen to me all night. That is a proper punishment!
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