Lazy, No-Good Layabout...

Tuesday January 28. Misty, some showers.

We are cruising between Indonesia and The Malay Peninsula in the Malacca Straits. It sound romantic but the sea mist, or light fog rather dampens that image and it is just another hazy day at sea passing through oil rigs and container ships.

I am the Lazy Layabout that I refer to... That walk yesterday was harder on me than working for an entire day 10-hour day at home or in the shop. The heat is an unseen factor in fatigue plus the fact that I had my boots on instead of running shoes. They are tighter fitting than they should be and I underestimated the amount of walking that we would do.

We were in bed by 8:00 last night and slept till 6:00. 10 hours!!!  My day consisted of two talks, one on Myanmar and one on The Honourable East India Company, three meals, an evening performance, some reading and napping. And I have not one ounce of regret or shame!

Fellette swam again for a while this AM and had choir practice in the afternoon. Of course she is much younger than I am. I am going to leave the Cutler's out of the equation inasmuch as they have some very strange genes when it comes to walking.

Tomorrow we are in Phuket, Thailand where we four are in search of a beach day. That means a bathing suit, towel, water, hats and sun screen. Once again we are in a sentimental search of recreating a wonderful day we had here a few years ago. That is really not a good thing, [to have high expectations] on a day ashore when travelling because things always work out different than expected, however us four will make it a memorable day no matter what happens, I can guarantee that.

Coming up soon, two days after Phuket, is Myanmar. [Old Burma.] The speaker this morning on Myanmar presented us with a rather bleak outlook. Apparently it is one of the poorest countries in SE Asia: corrupt, poor infrastructure, rife with oppression of a minority and the complete opposite of where we just left: Singapore.

The speaker this morning also mentioned the reason for a lack of people out celebrating the end of Chinese New Year yesterday in Singapore. He indicated that this new virus in China has popped up around the world, including Singapore. It is not unusual to see Asians wearing masks, even in Vancouver. But yesterday we saw white folks, visitors obviously, wearing masks. I remember seeing two back-packers with masks and two white middle-aged folks wearing the same. I thought to myself, 'If it comes to that, why the hell are they sticking around sightseeing?' I likely should not have written that, but I did!

As of today we are 39% of the way through our vacation. It does not seem anyway near that to me, it seems like we have just started!

A tough day at sea in the Straits of Malacca.



No comments:

Post a Comment