New blog February 2019

It has been a long time since I wrote my last blog.

In fact, it was May 2018.

I think procrastination is sometimes also giving time to reflect and think about most effective topics to write about, and also best ideas to include.

As I was saying to a friend recently, I have become less focused on blogging per se, and more interested in writing essays or articles. If you look at my previous blogs, you will see that many are in fact fairly detailed writings on different subjects. While I have enjoyed writing about different experiences and reflections that come about, I also enjoy writing and thinking about subjects in a way that seems more academic rather than general chat.

My plan for my writing in the next month or two, is probably to continue to publish my writing in this blog page, but I will also be publishing in various pages that are more academic- article like.

Some of the topics which I wish to write and reflect about are ideas that have been germinating for over five years. I have actually written the beginnings of eBooks on various subjects. These include education, entertainment and its ability to improve our lives and the world, various issues to do with the developing world, poverty, human rights, environment. I have also been writing but not yet publishing about my ancestry.

Today, I will write a little bit about the last nine months since my last blog.

As I mentioned, at the end of the last blog, I was about to leave the Dominican Republic in May 2018 and fly to Europe and then travel back to Australia. This was a great experience in most regards, with good experiences and a few challenging ones.

When I left my apartment in Sosua in May 2018, I traveled down to Santo Domingo, and then the next day bused to Punta Cana, where I caught a night flight to Brussels. There are some good priced tickets from the Dominican Republic to Europe and vice versa if you do some good hunting. From Brussels I caught a bus up to Amsterdam and then stayed the night there at a backpackers I had stayed at the year before. I had the next day in Amsterdam as well, exploring lots of places, going on a boat cruise and in the evening caught a bus back to Brussels for an early morning flight to Tangier, Morocco. It is great being able to travel like this. Europe is generally very expensive for visits, so I tend to keep them short. It is great being able to flit from one country to another so easily & experience such different places, locations & cultures.

It was great to be back in Morocco, and I had about three weeks to stay there, similar to my visit a year earlier. This time, I did not go to Marrakesh, but stayed more in the north. I always enjoy spending time in Tangier. It has an amazing history and lots of interesting buildings and things to see. From there I went to Chefchauen again, then down to Fez, and then across to Oujda. Chefchauen is a fantastic town sitting under the Mountains with fresh clean water everywhere. Most buildings are painted blue. It is beautiful, I particularly enjoy sitting on the rooftop of the hotel I usually stay at there when all the mosques do their evening call to prayer.

My previous visit to Fez a year earlier had been challenging with a stay in a house of a family where the father yelled & screamed at his boys, sounding like WW3. This time I was aiming to spend time in Fez & have it be ok & it was. Food was great and easy to get as Fez really is a big tourist destination & the tourist historic area, makes money serving food to tourists, most of whom were not fasting.

From Fez I caught a train to Oujda, a town I had never heard of before, but which had cheap flights with Ryan Air back to Europe. Oujda was an interesting place as it is right on the border with Algeria, and not many tourists go there. Because of its French colonial history, there is an amazing collection of art deco buildings which have always interested me. There are also huge numbers of cafes. Moroccan Coffee is very good.

The only real negative in Morocco was that I was there during Ramadan, the month of fasting. Everyone had told me how great Ramadan is, but I would add to that, if you are Muslim. I found that there were some places where you could buy food during the day, but really you could not eat except back in your hotel room. I was told by one friend that a Muslim can be arrested if they eat in front of another Muslim during Ramadan. The same rule does not apply to other people, but of course it feels very impolite to eat around people who are fasting. My favourite restaurant in Tangier were not open during the day. But at night, they were not open either! So at that point of the day, when the fast breaks, you really need to be with family or friends for the great food. Another learning experience! I will visit Morocco again, but not during Ramadan.

From Oujda I flew to Brussels then connected to another flight to Sofia, Bulgaria. The cost of air travel in Europe can be so cheap, as were these flights. I had a couple of days in Sofia, which is a nice city with lots of beautifully restored buildings including the famous church. From Sofia, I caught a bus to Bucharest Romania and had a few days exploring such a great city with many beautiful old buildings. I also had a day trip to Transylvania visiting two wonderful castles which the story of Dracula is based around.

From Bucharest I traveled back to Athens where I had arrived in Europe the previous December. A day in Athens’s exploring some sites again, and then flying to Singapore with a connecting flight to Bangkok. The previous year, I had not enjoyed Bangkok much at all. A major reason was the heat and humidity, and staying in a hotel room with out air-conditioning. It had also been in a very touristy area which I actually found quite depressing. But this time I had a much nicer room in a non-touristy area near the central train station and also close to many shopping areas. The heat in Bangkok in June is incredible and so arriving with jet lag, my focus was totally on rest, showers, drinking lots of water and iced coffee and air-conditioning. I took my time adjusting to being in Bangkok, in balancing time outside with time in air-conditioned locations. Over the week that I was there I became more skilled at balancing my time in the heat and becoming more able to tolerate it. I now have a great appreciation for Bangkok as an incredible city which I will be visiting again in about four months.

From Bangkok, I caught the train to Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is full of temples with many Buddhist monks all over the town. Some people come here to study meditation. I enjoyed spending time in the various temples. The food in Chiang Mai was fantastic and the people are very friendly and kind all over Thailand. From Chiang Mai, I flew with Air Asia to Kuala Lumpur and had two days there before my flight to Sydney. I did not really enjoy Kuala Lumpur. I found many places to be dirty and disorganised, and it did not feel like a friendly inclusive place to be. I like travelling with Air Asia, and they have great prices on travel, so I am sure I will fly there again, but next time just for flight connections to other places.

One of the wonderful things about the Internet, is being able to organise various things in any part of the world.  I was able to find a room to rent in Sydney, while I was still travelling in Thailand. This meant that when I arrived back in Sydney, I was able to go immediately to my new habitation. Two friends who had helped store my things in my absence, helped me move my things in and then I was set for my next period of time working in Sydney.

I arrived back in Sydney just before the July school holidays, so there was no work for me immediately. It was a bit funny really, because having been on a break for six months, I was now returning to Sydney in time for the school holidays!

But once Term 3(winter term) began, I had a couple of days work each of the first two weeks, but from week three, I was working every day up until the next school break. In term four I worked most days, so that was good for the bank balance!

During the October School break, I went over to New Zealand to check my things which I have in storage there. My last remaining uncle passed away three days before I was due to fly to New Zealand, so I was able to change the travel plans, and instead of flying through to Nelson, I got off the first plane in Christchurch, stayed the night with relations there, and then went to stay with my cousin in Ashburton before the funeral. It was great to honour Uncle Jack; many people attended the funeral. I then traveled up to Nelson and stayed with my good friend Adrienne. We had a lovely time catching up and seeing lots of familiar sites in my hometown.

In recent years, travel between Sydney and Los Angeles has been expensive and on my previous two journeys back from the Dominican Republic, it was cheaper to fly back to Australia through Europe and Asia, than to fly from Dominican Republic through LA to Sydney. 

This time however, I found some good price tickets with Fiji Airlines, so in December after a few months of teaching & feeding the bank account, I flew Sydney via Nadi to LA.  I had one night in LA staying with friends, and then the next night the red-eye flight from LA to Miami then flying down to Santo Domingo the following morning. A grueling journey with lots of time changes and lost sleep.

I have learnt a thing or two about travel in the last year or two. Staying one night in LA and then having a night flight and more to the Dominican Republic is not the best arrangement. Two days minimum is best with so much travel, to break the journey up.

I have been back in my apartment here in Sosua DR since December 10 and will stay here till May. Then I fly back from Santiago, Dominican Republic to Los Angeles and have five days there before returning to Sydney. Based on my experience of the last two years of arriving back in Sydney at the end of June just in time for the school holidays, I decided that this time given that I will be back at the end of May, work is not guaranteed, I may as well go somewhere for June and the first half of July. Consequently, I picked up cheap flights up to Asia. So, when I return from Los Angeles, I will have two days in Sydney and then I catch a flight up to Vietnam. I have about five weeks to travel around before the flight back to Sydney from Bangkok. My plan is to visit some of Vietnam, visit Cambodia again, and then travel across to Thailand. I think it will be another great trip.

At the moment, there have been major problems in Haiti. In my next blog I plan to write about what I have learnt and understand about Haiti, its history & current situation & the connections of past & present and some of the strategies for remediation of problems that were created hundreds of years ago.