And So It Ends . . .

*** Nancy’s Trip Photo Album *** now added

https://photos.app.goo.gl/qjD38pceLugDgV189

Home to a beautiful sunny warm early Autumn Vancouver day

Some final thoughts on “The Next Train to Singapore”

We could not have expected this trip to turn out as wonderfully as it has. The daunting thoughts of 16 hour long flights, visiting with friends we met years ago and haven’t seen since, a long train trip through the middle of “Can’t get there from here” Australia and visiting the Open Air Street Steam Baths of Asia made us wonder if we had bitten off more than we would be able to chew.

Turns out we had nothing to worry about. Our Aussie hosts Karen, Bobby, Anne, Peter, Celine and Vanne were just terrific, it was like the years apart vanished and we picked up where we left off in a Panama Canal lock or riding in a Mekong River ox cart. We are the luckiest people to meet the most wonderful fellow travellers wherever we go. From lunch in the Gong to lawn bowling with those weird not actually round balls in North Sydney, we were treated like special guests and we so truly appreciated the best hospitality in the world. . . . Aussie Hospitality!

That wonderful Aussie hospitality continued and our fortuitous meeting with Sam & Keith in the ship boarding process in Freo, where we jointly “dealt with” a queue jumper, has cemented my belief “when in doubt travel with Aussies (and a transplanted Scot!)”

If you can work it in your Bucket List plans, take the train across Australia. Sitting in the Indian Pacific lounge car watching the endless horizon of the Nullarbor seemingly never get closer makes my inner geographer’s heart go all pitter-patter and really, really happy to have experienced that trip. 110% unique✅✅

Bali, Phuket, Penang and Kuala Lumpur were all interesting places to visit but Singapore upstaged them all. We could easily have spent another week++ in Singapore and still just made a few surface scratches. I am already deep in the depths of intense noodle withdrawal pains!

Some people live to travel. With age and a modicum of water under the wisdom bridge, I have come to understand we travel to live, to see and feel and taste and smell, to experience what is new and different, but most of all to meet people, to smile and say hello, to look up and blurt out “Hi, we are Nancy & Paul from Vancouver, where are you from ?” and then just let ‘er rip😂😂

Of course you meet a few duds as you go, but the good folks far outweigh the bad ones and like a good cruise ship, you keep moving on to the next port and make friendships that hopefully endure the passage of time

I know I speak for Nancy as well when I say thank you+++ to all our Travel Friends.

So about your plans to visit Vancouver ???

Until the next “And So It Begins. . . .”

Yaletown Pablo signing off
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