Next year in January I will be cycling the 440km from Saigon in Vietnam to Angkor Wat in Cambodia.
The ride takes a total of 5 days and will be raising money for MAG, the Mines Advisory Group. MAG is a charity that spends it’s time clearing unexploded mines, bombs and other explosives from current and former war zones. They have projects in many countries around the world and I’ve seen their work first hand in Laos when I was there a few years back. Whilst their work directly saves the lives of people who may accidentally trigger these dormant explosives, it also helps to hand back land to local communities so that it is safe enough for them to use again. They also educate the local populations about the dangers of these devices and provide employment for many people in these countries. You can read more about them here.
I have photos from my visit to Phonsavan, they help to give an impression of the scale of the problem. The explosives surrounded by sand bags in the scrap yard are yet to be made safe and could still kill.
More details about the bike challange are available here.
If you wish to sponsor me you can do so at my Just Giving page. If you’re a UK tax payer don’t forget to tick the gift aid box and the government will increase your donation by over 25%.
Back in March we finally found a house to buy in an area that we really like. Because of the current market there isn’t really a lot on but after a few months searching we found somewhere that was ideal. It had enough space, needed no immediate improvement, nice garden, good area and backed onto a park. The expansion potential is also very good.
We made an offer, had it accepted, got a mortgage and a solictor and waited for things to happen. Within a week the vendors had lost the property they had an offer on. This did not bode well but we figured it wouldn’t take them too long to find a new property. Three and a half months later we got back from holiday to find a letter from our solicitor, the chain was complete and things would start moving. Hurray!
I phoned the Estate Agents to get confirmation, yes they were buying an empty house with no chain, excellent. I then phoned the solicitor to ask what we needed to do and was told to just wait for the draft papers to come through. Three weeks later we’d not recieved anything, phone the solicitor again to ask what was up and she said she hadn’t heard from the vendor’s solicitor but would get in touch with them.
I figured I may as well phone the estate agents, our usual contact was on holiday so I spoke to another agent who said the vendors were still looking. “What? We were told they had an offer on a house”, this seemed to be news to this guy who said he’d contact the vendors and find out. Five minutes later he called back with the news that vendors no longer had an offer on the house as it required to much work to update so they’re looking again.
Well thanks a bunch for letting us know! It’s a shame you have no choice over estate agents when it comes to buying a house because with service like that I’d drop them and go elsewhere.
We’re now back where we were 4 months ago with an offer on a house who’s vendors have nowhere to go. It wouldn’t be so bad if the market was good enough for us to pull out and get another house but we keep looking and there is just nothing that matches what we’re looking for. When we first had the offer accepted we thought we might be in by now, at this rate it would be nice to be in by Christmas.
“Hello, I’m called Li Shan”
On monday I started Mandarin evening classes. Two days a week, 2 hours per class. I have 5 weeks of classes in an intensive course that I hope will give me a good foundation that I can continue with the next level of classes.
When I was in China I picked up a number of words, phrases, and characters, but never really had any foundation to my “learning”, so it was hard to get it right and remember things correctly. After the first two lessons I’ve found a lot of what I picked up now makes more sense to me.
In the class last night I had to pick a chinese name. The teacher wasn’t too keen on the name I’d used with my Students in China, xióng mao (Panda), so we settled on Li Shan.
I’ll be back in China in June and look forward to practising what I’ve learnt.
Update: I did have the proper chinese characters rather than pinyin, but they just failed in wordpress.
I’ve been a rugby fan for sometime now but last weekend was my first trip to watch a game at Twickenham. We went to watch the Barbarians Vs New Zealand match.
Firstly i must say how impressed I am with the stadium. We were quite high up but had an amazing view over the pitch. The game itself was great, much better than the boring England Vs NZ game two weeks previously.
At Christmas we’re off to watch Harlequins Vs Wasps which should be a great game and today i bought a load of weekend tickets to the London Sevens next May. Can’t wait.
Travels are over. I’m back in the UK.
The last 4 or so months since we finished teaching in China have flown by. We spent 6 weeks in Malaysia, 6 weeks in Indonesia, and 4 weeks in Koh Samui with a quick trip to Singapore for the F1 GP. We loved it all, however Bali was a bit of a pain as we found ourselves there at the height of peak season. Can’t get back to SE Asia.
During the that time I suffered health problems that resulted in a diagnosis of Hypothyroidism and a warning that it really was time to take care of my diet and health. I also missed out on the life of my nephew Adam who was born in March but sadly passed away in September.
I took the doctor’s advice and completely changed my diet, lots more fish and vegetables, very little fried food. I started regular exercise and even took part in a 5km fun run when in Koh Samui. I’ve been taking thyroxine pills for my thyroid problem for over 3 months now and feel much better.
I’m back working at 1stContact on their php projects. The first day back was a little weird as it really felt like I hadn’t been away, stopping off at the same tube station, going into the same office. It was hard to believe it had been 2 years since I was last there.
I miss Asia, especially China and Koh Samui as we made a lot of friends in our time there, but I seem to have fallen back into working quite easily. The one thing that I haven’t got used to is the cold, no matter how much I wear I’m always cold.
Been meeting up with friends and family the last week and this weekend we’ve got to get down to the joys of house hunting. However I will always be looking for the next opportunity to get out to Asia.
The date is set. We fly back to the UK on the 10th October. It’s quite strange to think we’ll be back “home” almost two years after leaving for our 1 year travels.
Back to the rat race. I’ll need to find a 9 to 5 job, a place to live and worst of all pay the same for one pint of beer in a pub that I could live on for a day in China.
It’s still 5 months away so hopefully the worst of the recession might be over by then. I’ve been keeping myself busy and in practice with freelance PHP work, so it shouldn’t be too bad trying to find a job.
Once the job is found I’m looking forward to some house hunting. Its clearly time we settled down and started a family, so we’ll be looking for a nice house with a garden somewhere green, but still within easy commute of London.
Other things I’m looking forward to are getting back to my Xbox 360 (sad I know) and using a nice powerful desktop PC with a decent size display. I love my Thinkpad x61s to bits, but web development can be a bit of a pain sometimes on a 12″ display.
I will sorely miss Asia. Luckily we’ve got 4 months of traveling planned between when we finish teaching in June and when we head off in October. The final month of which will see us staying in Koh Samui doing absolutely nothing but relaxing.
It’s been a great adventure, but it had to end sometime. We only planned to be away for 12 months and will have ended up being away for 22, so can’t really complain.
Here’s to the next 5 months.
