A Weekend Trip to Asia

Travelling tires me. Hotel beds poke at my tender bones and crick my neck. Food in foreign lands disagrees with my digestion and if ever I'm warned about drinking the water I generally head for home.

But last weekend I went to Laos and it was amazing. I wandered through colourful, spice-scented markets, lingered on bridges spanning fast flowing rivers, met countless locals. I even sat with a monk...

And all thanks to my very good blog friend, Jo.

I rarely write book reviews on this blog but I had to share with you the enjoyment I got last weekend from reading Bombs and Butterflies by Jo Carroll.

Jo is an amazing lady. She not only enjoys travelling alone to far flung places, she can convey that enjoyment to the rest of us. Not bad for a lady who I suspect is a similar age to myself, an age when our children expect us to be tucked up in front of the fire knitting bed jackets.

So, if you've never been to Laos, even if you've never had plans to ever go there, may I suggest you read Bombs and Butterflies. It's like being there without all the faff of getting there.

Jo Carroll's Hidden Tiger

“You’ll be surprised what you can do with a rhino behind you.”

Jo Carroll

This was one of my favourite quotes from Jo Carroll’s latest book, Hidden Tiger Raging Mountain. I suspect I would curl up in a ball and cry, but not Jo and so I had to invite her along to my blog and ask her a question or two:

Speaking as a wimpy, scaredy-cat, non-traveller can you explain to me why you go travelling, on your own, to such far-flung places?

That's a hard one. All I can say is that I love it - love that stomach-lurching dislocation of stepping into a new country, the not-knowing, the effort of trying to cast off all my western assumptions, begin from a place of knowing nothing and then trying to understand. I love the extraordinary efforts total strangers can make to help me feel at home. I love the smells of hot cities. I love the orchestra of the jungle. (I used to think I loved tigers!) 

Buddhists in Lumbini, Nepal

What is it about Nepal? It sounds as if it’s touched your heart like no other place.

I do, indeed, love Nepal. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I never quite get over how huge the mountains are! Even though we know the Himalayas are magnificent, it's still humbling to totter round their foothills. But it's more than that - I love the people, their humour, their generosity and their determination to grow their rice or open their businesses in spite of the weather or the terrain or the lack of electricity and governmental chaos.

Which was the one moment, standing out from all of those truly terrifying situations, when you really didn’t think you’d get home alive?

Coming down the mountain, in the dark, after the cyclone. Never again! (Never again to cyclones, that is - not never again to travelling!)

Jo on a wobbly bridge, foothills of the Himalayas

Do you have any future travelling plans?

I wanted to go to Madagascar in January because I've never been. I even bought the Lonely Planet only to find that it's cyclone season. Since I have yet to rediscover a sense of humour where cyclones are concerned, I decided to look elsewhere. So now it’s Thailand and Laos after Christmas but I'm not sure how easy independent travel is there. I shall have find that out when I arrive. 

Thanks, Jo, I think you're amazing, an example to all of us *polite cough* older ladies. I know that everyone reading this post wishes you an enjoyable and SAFE time in Thailand and we're looking forward to hearing about it. 

If you want to read all about Jo’s amazing trip to Nepal then click on the book cover to buy a copy of Hidden Tiger Raging Mountain:

And do visit her at her blog at Gap Years The Book.

An Unlikely Travel Writer

Traveller? Me? I don't think so!

I can’t ride a bike. I tip over sideways. I think it’s got something to do with my centre of gravity.

Flying scares me so much that I’d really rather stay at home.

And I don’t do walking. I’m the one who’s always trailing at the back of a group of walkers thereby allowing them time to sit and rest while they wait for me to catch up... and then when I’ve caught up they start walking again... until I trail behind and they sit and rest and so it goes on until I end up in tears, have to be escorted home and vow never ever to go walking again.

I don’t much like car travel either. It’s not that I get car-sick. It’s more of a ‘car-ache’. Two hours is about the limit of my endurance which means that most of our holidays, until recently, have been spent in North Norfolk in a small village called Blakeney.

The first time we ever saw Blakeney it was getting dark, the tide was out, we had nowhere to stay and The Blakeney Hotel overlooking mudflats was as good a place as any. In the morning I drew back the bedroom curtains and was overwhelmed by the glittering scene. Yachts and dinghies dotted the sea. Gulls swooped across waving salt marsh grasses. Children sat on the quayside, legs dangling, nets scooping unsuspecting gilly crabs from the creek. A row of boards advertised boat trips to Blakeney Point to see the seals. People were sitting at an open-fronted caravan drinking mugs of tea and eating freshly prepared breakfast baps. I couldn’t wait to get out there.

Pedlars Way stretches along most of the North Norfolk coastline. It crosses the quay at Blakeney where it becomes a raised pathway leading out to Blakeney Point. I know I said I don’t do walking but Blakeney is exceptional. In Blakeney I walk. The path passes between the car park and the duck pond and I don’t just mean any old duck pond. This duck pond is home to wigeons, shovelers, teals, pintails, mallards and what’s more they sound exactly like laughing Donald Ducks. The car park soon becomes a boat park. Duck laughter is replaced with clinking masts and the screeches and calls from the gulls, terns and avocets. One winter we even saw a flock of Brent geese from Siberia swooping over our heads. Those big birds are impressive but personally I prefer the tiny reed buntings that hop and twitter around the marshes, hiding in the masses of samphire, known locally as ‘poor man’s asparagus’.

As for accommodation, The Kings Arms is the most dog-friendly pub I know. It’s a Grade II listed inn and Josh-the-dog has spent many happy holidays with us there. They cook a mean fish and chip supper, larger than any plate can ever contain. They serve locally smoked fish and there’s even a dog biscuit box behind the bar. The pub sits just off the quay within minutes of salt marshes and shingle walks, nature reserves and bird hides. What more could a travel-phobe like myself ask for?

...until we discovered Eurostar but that’s another blog-story.