Happy Anniversary…(KL and motorbike tours)

One year and 2 weeks since we left Oz, Happy Anniversary to us!!! Still loving the lifestyle we have here and will continue to enjoy it for some time yet. The boys just returned after 5 days away with the school, they visited  Dalat, Madagui & Saigon. In Dalat they camped and took part in adventure training including rope courses and other adventurey stuff, then of to Madagui where they competed in an adventure race running and cycling around the mountains (Jack being very Jack-like stacked on the downhill cycle section). Part of the reason for doing this was to raise money for a community playground here in Hoi An.  You can read more about that here. (If you could spare one or two dollars for the cause, I know the kids in H0i An will benefit from your generosity!) In Saigon they visited the War museum and Cu Chi tunnels as part of a school project on the American war, then Dam Sen waterpark for a bit of fun. They were exhausted and excited when they returned saying, “It was the best school camp ever!!”.

Caitlin is starting to get excited; her best friend Emma, sister Toni and boyfreind-in-law Darcy will arrive at the end of the month for a 3 week visit. I’m sure Caity and Emma will cram as much as possible into the time they have together doing all the girly BFF stuff she has been starved of lately. We arw all looking forwards to catching up with Toni and Darcy. Caitlin isn’t overly impressed with the school of distance Ed start times, with the time difference she wakes at 4.40 am ready for a 5.00 am start, with hours like that she would make a good truck driver!

Due to a Visa hiccup, I got to spend 3days in Kuala Lumpur with Sue (child free). The motorway from the airport to KL city centre is just like any in Brisbane, seemed very orderly with everyone staying in their lanes, obeying the rules and no nonstop honking. Sitting on 100km/hr took a bit to get used to, around Hoi An you’re lucky to reach 40km/hr and on a trip to Da Nang 60-70km/hr is pretty quick going. We stayed in Batik Bintang surrounded by shopping centres that looked like highrises, food stalls and street touts trying to lure you into their establishment for a ‘special massage’. Next time we go we will stay in the same area as it is within walking distance to shops and monorail, plus it’s a fun place any time of day or night to have a wander around. Sue found a tattoo supply shop in China town that stocks genuine brand name inks and equipment, when we left the shop Sue’s purse was unusually light and I looked like a sherpa carrying all the ‘must have’ supplies. It didn’t all go Sue’s way though, I dragged her along to a muay thai fight club, the club was on the 4^th floor of a building that looked like a good place for hobos and addicts to squat until the demolition team arrived. One look inside the elevator and I was all for the steps, Sue decided it was too hot to walk anywhere so the elevator it was, accompanied by the mandatory guy having a smoke. The gym was fantastic, all the gear was fairly new, they had a full size ring plenty of bags and heaps of space. Most of the guys are fulltime fighters, training 3hrs am and 3hrs pm 6 days a week, I did all the skipping and bag work that goes along with any fight training then got called into the ring to do some pad work with one of the trainers, I wanted to show them how well a fat middle aged white guy could go but went out too hard and ran out of gas. I enjoyed the few rounds I did then back to the bags for combo work. The next day I went back and the same trainer showed me some clinching techniques, these guys are awesome, 20kg lighter than me and he was throwing me all over the place like a rag doll, keen to go back in May and train for a week or two. The Slideshow below has some KL pics followed by the latest motorbike tour.  Enjoy.

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I have dropped one Uni subject this semester freeing me up to do more motorbike tours and still keep the boxing club going. Did a two day tour up to the minority villages in the mountains west of Hoi An, stayed in traditional stilt houses in the village then spent most of the next day riding up, down, over and around forested mountains with barely any other traffic and great roads, it doesn’t get much better than that. If the work keeps coming I will do the tours til early May then concentrate on more Uni subjects and boxing. At the moment the club has Norwegian, French, Aussie, British and Scottish members, training times are 6.00am & 6.00pm Mon. Wed. & Fri., and 6.30am on Sat. Most people train 2-4 times a week depending on how well they are enjoying the ex-pat lifestyle of drinking, drinking and more drinking, if everyone who talked about it showed up I would be well off, but sadly most just like to talk about it between beers and fail to show up. Reminds me of a quote I read the other day, ‘Suffer the pain of discipline or suffer the pain of regret’.

Anyway we still  love it here and continue to squeeze a bit of life out of each day, aware that it’s all about the journey, not the final destination.