Africa to South East Asia

Chiang Mai and scooter trip to Pai

2019-04-28T05:41:00.000+03:00

Hmmm too often I think, I wish I had taken some photos of.... In this case it was the Sunday night market in Chiang Mai, which was enormous

I have borrowed a photo from a website called expique.com for which many thanks :)

Thank you expique.com for the photo ;)

We arrived in Chiang Mai on Saturday, Luke (another FMS pilot) was visiting his parents in law with his wife Amber on the outskirts of Chiang Mai and we were making plans to meet up. On Sunday afternoon we met them for a drink and discussed ideas re a motorbike trip to Pai, part of a common route that people do from Chiang Mai on motorbikes.

Later we went to the night market, we wandered around it for hours. I finally found a badge of the Tanzanian flag to sew onto my backpack, Gwyn had a massage, I tried 'bubble tea' for the first time - which confused me because it doesn't have any bubbles in it. We ate various bits and bobs from street vendors and enjoyed the diversity of the market and the thousands of people there.

Having breakfast in the place we stayed in Chiang Mai

In various cities in Thailand one can rent these bikes by the half hour using an app on your phone, which also tells you where you can find one.

An area in the parking of a shopping mall, parking for motorbikes only....

Luke and Amber rounding one of the 723 bends on the road from Chiang Mai to Pai

Photo of some more bends...

Luke, Amber and I at a stop we made along the way

Sunset at Pai - the 'official' place to see the sunset there :)

At the Pai night market this elderly couple were 'busking' and Gwyn gave them some money - then they insisted she have her photo taken haha

The day after we arrived in Pai we visited a hot spring

On our way back to Chiang Mai we stopped at a waterfall

This sign had me laughing out loud!

We went to see another water fall very close to Chiang Mai, there wasn't much water there, but there were some beautiful butterflies :)

View of Chiang Mai from up on high

The temple that was on the top of the hill that gave us the view of Chiang Mai

So that is the majority of our trip to Chiang Mai, we said our farewells to Luke and Amber after the scooter trip to Pai and the next day set off to return Norbert to Bangkok.

Chiang Kong to Chiang Mai

2019-04-20T10:09:00.000+03:00

We made it back to Thailand around midday, took a bus to Matt and Pen's house picked up Norbert who had enjoyed the time off and after saying our good byes left for Chiang Mai via Chiang Rai.

After finding our accommodation for the night we went to look for the White Temple to the south of Chiang Rai.

Matt was sure that first thing in the morning would be the best time to see it - we were close to it so thought we'd scope it out for the next day. We had a look around and thought that maybe the next morning we would pay the entrance fee to go in.

The Chiang Rai white temple

We left our accommodation pretty early and arrived at the White Temple before 09:00 and the crowds of people there were impressive, Matt got that one wrong. We decided not to go in, it appeared that the best part one can see from the outside anyway, so we went for a coffee instead in a funky converted bus coffee shop.

The coffee bus :)

There was some weird stuff there, this was just by the entrance to the temple.

A bridge I saw near to the temple

Cool variegated leaves on a plant by the bus coffee shop

This is one of the large, loud geckos often heard in the evening

An amazing 'transformer' harvester we saw close to the White Temple, later while driving somewhere we saw a very similar one harvesting rice - the Thais like to make things pretty

Along the road to Chiang Mai we saw huge erupting geysers, one on each side of the road. We stopped there and bought a little basket of quail eggs that had been cooked in the water from the hot spring

Onward to Chiang Mai, we arrived in the afternoon and checked into our super budget box with a bed in it accommodation - in the evening we went for a walk around the centre of the old town, and poor Gwyn was very disappointed that she didn't recognise any of it.

More from Luang Prabang

2019-04-19T16:27:00.000+03:00

A bit more from our Luang Prabang trip....

A beer with some crunchy mushrooms we bought, a little like biltong or beef jerky for vegetarians :)

We went to a language exchange, an NGO that has been set up for book writing and printing - I had the good fortune of spending and hour and a half with this young 'Novice' who's English was great but wants to practice more - I learnt a heap from him :)

We also went to a story telling performance, which was very cool, learning more about the Lao culture

Here's a dragon fruit, amazing to look at but doesn't have much flavour

On our return trip up river we stayed two nights at the half way point, giving us a day to explore and go and visit an elephant project. Run by a French lady, with just 4 elephants, 3 rescued from the logging trade in the forests and 1 that she is in the process of buying, it had been on the side of the road for sale for more than a year no one wanting to buy her because she has a hole in her trunk - poor thing when she tries to trumpet she sounds like a squeaky balloon.

Gwyn losing control of her elephant... That's a tasty tree apparently

We spent a good amount of time with the elephants and it was just the French lady us and the mahoots, a very special experience

en route to the Mekong river for their daily bath

Checking the water before full immersion

Sunset over the Mekong after our day of visiting the elephant sanctuary

Now back to Matt and Pen's house to pick up Norbert and onwards towards Chiang Mai

Luang Prabang

2019-04-09T14:46:00.001+03:00

Ooooh I have a lot to catch up on…

I don’t remember where I was up to.

Somewhere in Laos

This will mainly be photos and just a little text.

Luang Prabang

What an amazing place, really although very touristy somehow it didn’t feel overrun with them.

Typical street in Luang Probang

We found a pretty cheap place to stay, an old building much of it constructed with wood – in the afternoon our room was baking hot, so we made sure we weren’t there then.

Luang Prabang town is gorgeous, not surprising there are so many tourists there, being a unesco world heritage site due to the mix of colonial and old Laos architecture. Many of the buildings made from a dark wood in a very charming style.

Luang Prabang from up on high

The first thing we had to do was to change some money, which took us on quite a tour of the town. We came across the night market, passing an Indian restaurant along the way.

We were tired and didn’t feel like the hustle and bustle of the night market, so after changing money went to the Indian, the food was great and we returned happily to our accommodation.

Next day was spent exploring the town more and we ended up renting bicycles for the next day. There are so many small streets with heaps of flowers and plants outside almost every house – and if the house wasn’t a guest house or hotel it was a restaurant.

Our plan was to ride the bikes to a waterfall we had read about in a guide book, about 30km away. Leaving early before the heat of the day, take food with us and return in the afternoon/early evening. We hired a couple of very new looking mountain bikes (recommended from the guide book/blog post we’d read) and spent the rest of the afternoon zipping around town.

Up earlish and off on the bikes, google maps helping us along the way to leave town at least. The ride was really good, a couple of steep climbs and mostly rural giving us a good insight to typical life in Lao.

A girl working with cotton before weaving cloth

The waterfall was very impressive, although it is the dry season there was still a good amount of water, and plenty of tourists, predominantly Asian we think Chinese.

We hiked to the top of the falls and swam in a pool there as well as taking a bamboo raft ‘trip’ to the ‘source’ of the waterfall. I didn’t realise that it’s normal for bamboo boats to be partially sunk, when I first saw it I thought it was an old abandoned boat.

The bamboo 'boat' . . .

Gwyn and I at the 'source'

Somewhere in-between we happily at our sandwiches we had bought from the very friendly sandwich lady in Luang Prabang and the fruit we bought to go with it.

On our way back to the gate of the waterfall, there was a bear sanctuary. We stopped there to watch the bears and learn more about them. Most of them had been rescued from cages where the Moon Bears are prisoned with needles permanently inserted in their gall bladders to extract bile which is used for traditional medicine. Poor things… Now they still live a captive life, but with much more freedom and no longer being abused.

Bears.... they seem to lie in the strangest positions, and look comfortable....

We also saw this guy while visiting the falls...

The ride back to LP was great, a lot easier because there was only one long climb. En route we stopped at a bamboo built basic restaurant for an iced tea and enjoyed the view over the Mekong.

2019-03-21T14:14:00.001+03:00

20th Feb

Slow boat towards Luang Prabang. The boat is that slow it needs two days to make it to Luang Prabang.

We were told it sets sail at 11:30 so we were a little confused as to why we were being picked up from our guest house at 09:30

After breakfast overlooking the Mekong (eating something that looked like tofu but we are pretty convinced it wasn't) trying a Lao coffee - the first and last one of those I'll try haha, we packed our bags and waited for our tuktuk to the ferry.

Breakfast overlooking the Mekong

The tuktuk came at 09:45 and after 15 min we were at the slipway looking for our boat.

One of those was ours, 0121 was the registration

The inside of our boat, little bar in LHS of the photo

The day cruising down the river was very peaceful, after the first hour or so the scenery started to change and before long the river had mountains on both sides of it for as far as we could see, a very dramatic landscape indeed.

We saw this strange 'temple' soon after leaving on the Thai side of the river

Having a glimpse of typical river life along the way was fun too, as well as seeing plenty of water buffalo along the shore, both black and white/pink ones. . .

The black and the pink/white water buffaloes

Some refreshments for the trip

The boat was pretty full

It was obvious that many people live on the boat they work on

Fisherman with his gill net - they are used everywhere.

Some on board refreshment

Typical view along the river

A fast boat passing us - usually with a 2 liter plus car engine running on bottled gas, very fast and very noisy!

By the afternoon a few of the passengers around us were getting rather "merry" under the influence of too many Beer Laos... An Irish guy behind us started belting out oldies tunes at the top of his lungs and quite out of tune - he seemed to be under the impression that if he just sang louder and found the right song, the entire boat would start singing along with him! The Thai passengers were giving him very confused looks, while most of the tourists were either laughing or rolling their eyes.

More scenery along the river

By the time we got to Pak Beng, our overnight stop, we were ready to be off the boat (and away from some of our fellow passengers!). We found a tout advertising a cheap guesthouse at the pier and followed him up the hill to a rather old and shabby, but charming little place. Our room cost only $6 but the whole room was definitely leaning at an alarming angle towards the river!

A beautiful sunset from our accommodation

We awoke early to a misty cool morning to get back on our boat by 8. To our surprise, it was a completely different boat - apparently we change boats for each leg of the river.

Mist on the river

A typical house by the riverside

Some notes Mike made while on the river:

Chugging along in a different boat today, this one somehow seems less fancy - although it has a V8 diesel it still vibrates enough to almost spill my coffee if I leave it on the table. I am sure it's not the engine at fault but the prop shaft.

It was cold this morning I don't have enough clothes with me, somehow I left my long sleeved tee shirt in Bangkok, so I was wearing my arm socks (usually for sun protection on the motorbike) and my packable rain jacket. From the dining area of our modest accommodation we could see a couple of elephants at the rivers edge, two people with them. Part of the Mekong Elephant Park, opposite Pak Beng where we spent last night.

Breakfast was good and only a little expensive. Laos doesn't produce much itself almost everything is imported, so our room cost 50,000kip for the night (just over 6USD) and our breakfast was 60,000Kip. Admittedly the room was basic, but it did have an en suite and sloped very notably towards the Mekong.

We considered trying to stay the day in Pak Beng to go and see the elephants (a sustainable project where they don't ride them) our guesthouse owner said that we could try speaking to the boat operator re changing the ticket, but communicating seemed to be particularly difficult.

Today's boat is a little louder and this morning it's a lot colder too. The mist when we left made everything seem extra atmospheric and beautiful, I glance up to see sandy beaches and mountains rising high up from the river on both sides. The sun is breaking through the haze above and warmth is on its way.

Finally, around 5pm we arrived in Luang Prabang after another day of beautiful views and the gentle rolling of the river.

2019-03-08T12:17:00.000+03:00

19th Feb

Today we managed to take the bus almost to Chiang Kong and then cross the border to Huay Xai - buy tickets for the slow boat to Luang Prabang and that was about all we did....

at the bus station, eating a literal ice cream sandwich :)

Our Quest House in Huay Xai

Before retiring we found some street food, which appeared to be more expensive than Thailand, and a can of Lao Beer, the beer was maybe a little cheaper - liquid diet in Lao???

Up early tomorrow morning to catch our boat :)

2019-03-08T12:06:00.000+03:00

17th Feb

Matt and Pen's house.

Our night in Utarradit was a good peaceful one, in the smartest room we have stayed in yet. It was above a gym and had air conditioning, TV, full sized fridge as well as an en suite bathroom and a little balcony, oh and breakfast included, all for about 11 USD

We left sometime around ten o'clock and made it to Matt and Pen's house around mid afternoon.

The last leg to their place was a long one, our backsides certainly thought it was!

Gwyn and Matt did their CELTA course together some 10 years ago in Chaing Mai (Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults)

We ended up staying there for two nights before leaving Norbert at their house and taking a bus to Huay Xai (just the Lao side of the Mekong from Chiang Kong) and then the boat down the Mekong to Luang Prabang.

After breakfast the morning of the day we spent there we went to see how the local people make sugar and toffee from sugar cane they have harvested - I'm annoyed at myself for not taking any pictures of it. Then we went to go and see some land that Matt and Pen have bought

Crocodile we saw at a small croc farm near to Matt's house

Matt and Pen showing us the rubber plantation they recently bought Mila kneeling on the ground closer to the car

After the tour of the land we dropped Pen and Mila (their youngest daughter) back home and went to hike up a mountain near to Phu Chi Fa - in Matt's opinion a better mountain to hike up. It was a tough couple of hours to make the summit, with amazing albeit rather hazy views from the top.

Crazy vines in the forest we hiked up to summit the mountain

The hazy view from the top - Lao to the left of the photo

Flowers on a bush on the way down

Warm water fall at the bottom of the mountain we hiked up

Gwyn had to be back at Matt's house in time for a skype interview for a possible position in Myanmar - while she was doing the interview I was catching up with some blogging....

Pen cooked delicious food for us while Matt, Gwyn and myself drank a couple of beers and entertained Mila and Nishe - they were both very shy at first but slowly slowly decided that we aren't so bad.

Tomorrow off to Lao! Yuuiii, and the slow boat down the river - sounds great!

Khao Yai National Park

2019-03-08T11:41:00.000+03:00

15th Feb

So today it's off to Khao Yai. Sounds like a great place to visit. Breakfast was rice and eggs for me and Gwyn had a Pad Thai made by an elderly lady who's colleague was apologising for her being so slow...

I guess we left around mid morning, only a couple of hours ride to get there. Leaving Ayutthaya wasn't as easy as it should have been, and after having to make a few u turns, we stopped at a Tesco Lotus (by the logo etc it seems to be a derivative of UK's Tesco) and I decided we need an Internet pack on the phone. Google maps seems to work so much better than Maps.me a monthly basic pack was only 10USD and well worth the reduction in stress it will give us. From there on navigation has been easy. Driving to the park became really very hectic at times, multi lane highways with trucks crawling along and other vehicles moving at high speed, anyway we survived and I was happy to get off the major roads as we came closer to the park. I saw an amazingly overloaded Toyota Hilux, seriously I could not believe how many bales of straw had been stacked on it - the most impressive overloading I have seen so far...

Off one of the smaller roads was a sign to a winery (vineyard for Pa) we went to check it out and found one of the most famous vineyards in Thailand which has won awards internationally. We were invited to taste a couple of their wines, which were very good, but everything that they sold was budget breaking for us.

Onwards to the park, little Norbert had to work hard climbing up some 20km of steep switchback road as we made our way to the park visitor centre. We stopped at the centre briefly and then went on to the camp site. As it was a Friday afternoon we wanted to go and organise a tent etc before the Bangkok weekenders would arrive. The guidebook had mentioned that the campsite usually fills up on the weekends.

Some of the others we shared the camp site with

There were plenty of these cheeky fellas around the camp site as well

They had everything for rent, tents, sleeping mats, pillows, blankets, sleeping bags everything you wanted, it is like an a la carte menu each thing has it's price. After pitching the tent and making our nest we went to see the famous waterfall that was used in the filming of The Beach, due to it being the dry season there wasn't so much water there and very disappointingly swimming is not allowed...

The waterfall was interesting to see, it was so long since I had seen the film that I don't remember it. Here's another picture of it for good measure:

We had plenty of time before sunset so decided to go to the visitor centre and then to the viewing platform we had seen sign posted on our way in. The visitor centre was a little disappointing, probably much better if one could read Thai, though there was quite a lot of info in English.

At the viewing platform, about 15min walk from the road, we didn't see anything but decided we would be there for sunrise the following morning - that wasn't hard given our nights' 'sleep' in the tent.

16th Feb

We returned to the viewing platform and were a little surprised to find 3 people there before us. The platform overlooks a pond on one side and cleared forest on the other, we had hoped to see elephants and other larger 4 legged beasts - but no luck...

The walk to the viewing platform at sunrise

We stayed for a while at the platform, while we were there we heard an undignified 'SPLOSH' into the water which turned out to be an otter - this was as much as we could see of it:

Otter swimming across the pond

One of the other guys had an enormous lens on his camera and told us it was an otter.

The 'otter' pond

We did see a lot of elephant footprints around it, but they were shy the day we were there

Gwyn had some information of trails we could walk, so we set off on one hoping that we wouldn't get lost - one book said you have to go with a guide or you will surely lose yourself...

We didn't get lost and we saw several gibbons, which was fascinating an really wonderful to see them. We also saw some pretty impressive birds and a ton of fauna, with a little flora mixed in.

A very fancy woodpecker we saw

The first gibbon we saw, spotted by Gwyn

Giant fig tree along the trail

Later we saw a bunch of gibbons, one with a baby

I'm so happy with the huge zoom on my pocket camera :)

An amusing sign at the trail head

Another furry friend we saw in the trees on our little hike

After the morning hike we returned to our camp site, packed our gear and left to make our way to Matt's house. It was too far to go in one day and we stopped at Utarradit en route.

to Ayutthaya

2019-02-20T09:16:00.002+03:00

13th Feb

Ayutthaya, and don't spare the horses :)

We left about mid morning, only a couple of hours riding to do - not like the 300+km we ended up doing the day we went to the waterfalls

The drive was just fine - we stopped for lunch en route at a little roadside place, more and more we are finding people who do not speak any English at all. Gwyn remembers a little Thai, each day a little more, but ordering food is quite a challenge.

We arrived in Ayutthaya mid afternoon, seeing various temples while looking for accommodation. Somehow it wasn't as easy as we hoped to find accommodation, in the end we went to a coffee shop had a coffee and used their internet connection.

Gwyn found a place that had recently opened and we had a clean room with a fan for just over 10USD, ideal.

In the afternoon we went for a walk and saw several temples from the outside, and one of the major ones after dark, which was really well lit up and looked great.

14th Feb

The visitor centre opens at 08:30 in Ayutthaya, the time I had been told we ought to be there. Fortunately we were there at about 10:00 :) haha seems more reasonable to me. The place looked deserted from the outside, but a very helpful lady gave us info and invited us to have a look at the exhibition upstairs that was free and nicely air conditioned. Had I mentioned that the temperatures have been every day 35 degrees or more (95F) and very humid to go with it? So walking around in the evening, or finding air conditioned places is a bonus.

Throughout the day we visited more temples, there are an overwhelming number of them, so we went to just one of the ones you have to pay to go and see and a couple of others.

photos....

Almost all the temples in Ayutthaya are in ruins, and are 600 to 800 years old.

This is called a 'Stoopa'

The Buddah in the tree

He looks quite comfortable

Here he is, almost on my shoulder

This is called a 'Prang'

We went to look for one temple, which we didn't find, but while roaming around the back streets of Ayutthaya we found a food shack, where Gwyn had a delicious noodle soup and I had my next best Pad Thai yet :) both were very generous helpings at 30BHT each (1USD)

The roadside lunch food shack

A temple on the outer edge of Ayutthaya

We also saw these giant cockerels there, we never figured out what significance they have with Ayutthaya, but we saw heaps of them.

Ayutthaya's TukTuks are quite unique, more like mini cars, they have steering wheels too

Sunset at one of the major temples that we inadvertently found a back entrance to, well done Gwyn!

Learning about the history of Ayutthaya was fascinating - the ride there too was very interesting, miles and miles of paddy fields as far as the eye could see, a completely flat landscape.

Ayutthaya is the old capital of Thailand, I guess it would have been Siam then. It is surrounded by water the 'island' in the middle being 3km by 2km each king who came seemed to build their own temples and or add to existing ones.

Tomorrow onwards to Khao Yai national park

10th, 11th, 12th of Feb

2019-02-20T08:30:00.001+03:00

Kanchanaburi - home to the bridge over the river Kwai

I remember watching the film many years ago as a child, but never knew anything more about the bridge and it's history.

10th Feb

We decided to spend today visiting a museum and generally familiarising ourselves a little more with Kanchanaburi. Learning about the history of the bridge and the railway that was built to connect what was at that time Burma to Thailand was very shocking - on leaving the museum I was extremely close to tears - the way the prisoners of war and forced Japanese labour were treated was unreal.

View downstream of the river Kwai from the museum

Statue? Just close to the war museum at Kanchanaburi - a water horse for mum :)

In the afternoon we took a bus to a place who's name I don't remember so we could take the train back to Kanchanaburi, and cross the famous bridge. The bus took about an hour and a half, we arrived at the train station with just 15 minutes to spare before it left.

Transport we took to the bust station in Kanchanaburi, having left Norbert at the train station for our return

The bus that took us to the train station

Our train going back to Kanchanaburi

View of the river Kwai from the train

Crossing one of the small bridges en route to Kanchanaburi

Admiring the Thai scenery

Mountains in the distance

Crossing the famous bridge itself

Norbert was there at the station awaiting our return, I think he enjoyed the day of rest and was happy not to have had us on his back all day.

11th Feb

Gwyn has read about some waterfalls not too far away from Kanchanaburi about 45 minutes ride away. When we hired the motorbikes we had met some guys who had been there, they said it was good, but there were a lot of people. They also suggested some other falls, equally as good, a little further away but with very few tourists around - so those were the falls we headed for.

It took at least an hour and a half to get there - we stopped a couple of times en route, to look at some huge Buddahs, to take a selfie with a giant tiger, and to potentially look around a cave (but it was too expensive for our budget, and we met a cool cat instead.

I had to stop and take a photo with this cat....

The cool, albeit a bit freaky, cat we met while stopping at the cave we didn't look around

The Huai Mae Khamin Waterfalls were superb, 2.5kms of them, in seven distinct tiers. We had brought a packed lunch with us, some weird salted eggs and quite a few rose apples. Our swimming gear was a must and we jumped into the water at the earliest opportunity.

View over a little of the Sinakharin reservoir on our way to the water falls

Our first bathing spot, and where we had lunch.

I will apologise here, because now comes a huge bunch of photos, the falls were so beautiful I just couldn't stop taking pictures, and these are just a few of them...

Relaxing in the lunch spot water fall

The place is really well set up, with board walks and stairs alongside the water almost all the time

Gwyn having a neck massage

We decided we had to swim in each of the seven tiers :)

Another massage spot

One of the largest falls

The top and final tier

Looking on the map we could either go back to Kanchanaburi the way we came, or take a ferry and return on the other side of the reservoir - we opted to take the ferry although we knew we were a little tight on time. Ideally I wanted to make it back to Kanchanaburi before nightfall.... hmmmm well it's always good to have plans

Norbert waiting for the ferry to land

When we arrived at the ferry spot, there was no sign of anyone. After calling around 'sawadeeka' 'sawadeeka' (hello in Thai) we found someone, managed to put across the message that we wanted to take the ferry, the lady looked across the reservoir she told us it would be 35 min. So we had some noodle soup while waiting and realised at this point that there was no way we would be back in Kanchanaburi before dark.

The impressive ferry with the sun setting as we chugged our way across the reservoir

The ferry was wonderful, a most ingenious use of a lorry engine and steering box adapted to power the floating raft of oil drums welded together to make a 'ferry'

After the cars drove off, we helped the captain of the ferry unload the remaining cargo, principally boxes of tamarind before we set sail. Using the gearbox he could put the ferry in reverse and steer using the steering wheel, some grinding of gears and lots of dabbing of the throttle persuaded it into a forward going gear and we settled into traversing the water. There was a piece of string to tie the steering wheel in place so the captain could lie back and rest or dismount his drivers seat to inspect the engine - which Gwyn found somewhat disconcerting.

The whole ferry wobbled along in time with the turning of the propeller and the 45 minute trip was just fantastic, the waterfalls were superb, but this was an equally (if very different) good experience.

After riding Norbert off the ferry the driver offered us a floating house to stay in, had we had all our gear with us we would have undoubtedly spent the night there, but it was all back in Kanchanaburi and Gwyn had a skype interview the next day as well.

The rest of the return journey to Kanchanaburi was hard work. The visors on both our helmets are dark, great for daytime but no good for night time. It took a good couple of hours to return with many many insects in my eyes or bouncing off my eyeball. I was very happy when we finally turned into the Bluestar Guesthouse entrance.

12th Feb

A rest day, thank god for that! I have been loving our travels so far, but was definitely ready to have a day of rest and catch up a little on some more sleep and also to document some of the trip so far. Gwyn had her interview with VSO in the afternoon and spent quite a long time preparing for it. Unfortunately the people with whom she was meant to be speaking never turned up on skype, and after several emails back and forth with VSO they just asked if it could be rearranged for a week later. No apologies and no reasons reasons given.

The internet connection at Bluestar Guesthouse was excellent so it was an ideal place to catch up with internet related things.

Sunset - bridge over the river Kwai

Kanchanaburi sunset

Chinese dragon on a temple just next to the bridge

Tomorrow off to Ayutthaya . . .

9th of Feb - a day of travel

2019-02-20T07:18:00.001+03:00

So today it's time to leave Bangkok, we'd done research on the internet and decided on a company to use to hire motorbikes. A one hour bus ride and a then a short taxi ride took us to 'Emma Motorcycle Rental' which as it turned out is run by a Welsh guy who has been there for 13 years.

Repacking our gear to fit into one larger backpack, Norbert (the scooter) behind Gwyn

We could both hire motorbikes, the original plan was one each, as we had two larger backpacks, but Gwyn doesn't have an International Drivers Permit, so for her she would be basically driving without insurance and we would need to leave a large deposit and run the risk of being uninsured should anything happen.

At this point I was very happy that I had made a special trip to Dorchester when I was last in UK to get a new IDP - so in the end we hired one larger scooter, repacked our bags so we just have one larger one with us, and the smaller one fits under the seat of the scooter. The other bag being stored with Steve of Emma Motorcycle Rental.

Leaving Bangkok was somewhat of a challenge, but with a very capable navigator sitting behind me giving me directions it all worked out.

We were happy to leave the mayhem of Bangkok traffic as we made our way to Kanchanaburi.

The little 150cc scooter seemed to do pretty well with the two of us. Unaccustomed to riding a machine with such small wheels I was a somewhat wobbly at first, and just a couple of times I unintentionally did an emergency stop while grabbing for what I thought was the clutch, but is actually the rear brake....

We arrived in Kanchanaburi, just before darkness and made our way straight to a guesthouse that Gwyn had read about in a guide book. Bluestar Guesthouse. The owners both very welcoming, and the only room just with a fan was the one below:

Our room in Kanchanaburi up on stilts - for 10USD per night

We went out for something to eat at the weekly night market, I had the best Pad Thai I have had so far in Thailand, and then an early night.

2019-02-14T18:12:00.001+03:00

8th Feb still in Bankok

Today it was my turn to choose what to do and where to go. I had had a little look on the internet and decided that I wanted to see the 'Reclining Buddha' and a place called Asiatique.

Well it's always good to have plans, but also always good to be flexible...

On our way to the reclining Buddha the ferry 'bus' dropped us at Wat Rakang Kositaram temple (Wat means temple, by the way) which we weren't expecting. So going with the flow and all that we decided to have a look around that temple. It, like all of the temples, was extremely impressive. We spent quite a while there and had a good look around the area. There was a boat across the very crowded river to the other side for just 4 Baht each, about 15 US cents, that took us to the Reclining Buddha. When we arrived on the other side we found a little shack to eat in and had some noodle soup, before visiting the giant Buddha.

The Cloisters

This was a guardian to one of the entrances.

The three headed elephant was at least 2/3rds of the way up the temple

Found a horse for Ma :)

Crossing the busy river...

Some of the river traffic

A long tailed boat - powered by a huge turbo charged diesel engine

Gwyn enjoying noodle soup for lunch

So after lunch I went in to see the Reclining Buddah - there was a ton more to see there as well. The entrance fee wasn't small and because Gwyn had seen it before she opted to stay outside and wait for me. I took a ton of photos, here are some of them.....

The Buddha is 15 meters tall

and 45 meters long

his feet are most impressive...

One of the inlays, there are 183 of them representing the deities of Buddha

Some of the surrounds of Wat Pho (the temple where the Reclining Buddha is)

There are meant to be 9 'main' Buddhas in the temple

Uffff I'm pretty exhausted just looking through the photos again. Anyway from the Reclining Buddha we walked a ways to catch a 'bus' boat upstream, for just 15 Baht, 50 US cents - we took it almost as far as it goes and then chickened out because we were a little worried about catching one back again.

Another 15 Baht took us all the way back to 'Central' where we could take a free transfer to Asiatique, which we did. So in total almost a 2hour boat ride for 1 USD each, great value :)

On arriving at Asiatique we realised exactly what it is, a giant modern shopping mall - I expected something more cultural from what I had read on the internet, more research needed next time, it was interesting enough to see, but Gwyn and I walked right through it and found a little food cart for something to eat. I managed to order a mushroom soup that was delicious if extremely spicy! The lady asked if I wanted it spicy and I said 'just a little' I wouldn't have been able to eat it had it been any hotter!

From Asiatique we had an interesting bus journey home - Gwyn is so good with figuring out public transport and in Bangkok it is far from easy. We went in some buses that looked as if they had been pulled out of scrap yard somewhere in the back of Japan and bullied into running again. The first one we went on I especially liked as it was driven by a small Thai lady who was definitely in charge of the bus lane.

On a side note, I couldn't help but notice the cabling that goes on, apparently in most Thai towns/cities - here are a couple of pictures of it:

So tomorrow, off to rent motorbikes and get the hell out of Dodge !

Goodbye Tanzania, hello South East Asia...

2019-02-14T17:03:00.001+03:00

After four years flying with The Flying Medical Service in Tanzania, learning heaps about flying and many other things along the way, the time has come for a new chapter - starting in Thailand ! :)

Many leaving parties later we arrived in Bangkok on Wed 6th Feb, it had been a long but comfortable journey full of mixed emotions. We were a little concerned as to whether or not we would have problems getting into Thailand, some of our research had told us we need a ticket of some sort to prove onward travel. Well my immigration guy literally didn't even look at me, I greeted him politely & he took my passport without falter or pause in the conversation with his colleague, flicked through the pages, glanced at the screen on his computer to check the image of me from the camera on his desk, stamp stamp, & handed my passport back, honestly not even a millisecond of a glance at me,Gwyn was being 'processed' by the colleague of my guy- so her experience was much the same.

From the airport we took a bus to Bangkok, Gwyn had done research & knew there is a cheap bus, soon enough me found it, it was 60 THB each (2usd) for the one and a quarter hour ride to town. We got off it perhaps one stop early, but it gave us the chance to stretch our legs a little & within 10 min we were checking into our hostel.

New Joe hostel, a clean place with a large enough en-suite room for just under 20usd. After dropping our bags we went out for food & a beer before a siesta. My first Pad Thai, it wasn't bad, but not as good as the one I had in Granada some 5 or 6 years ago.

First Pad Thai

An hour or so siesta, then my first Thai massage - I never imagined a massage to be such a work out or to be so painful! Gwyn had a lady & I had a guy, mashing my muscles with his elbow & stretching limbs that weren't so keen to be stretched. I was happy I had tried it, but don't have a strong desire to repeat the process - next time I'll have a beer while Gwyn goes for a massage.

After the massage we went for a walk in the famous Khao San road, which was now much more lively. The street is lined predominantly with bars and some restaurants, some accommodation and the rest of the street pretty much full of little stalls selling street food and beer. There were snacks the likes of which I have never seen, many insects, scorpions, spiders, worm looking things, crickets all sorts.

We wormed our way along the street and then up another quieter one and found a little restaurant to eat at. I have always enjoyed Thai food, and of course in Thailand it's the best it's going to be :) I had a green curry and Gwyn had something equally delicious - it cost us about 5usd and most of that was the cost of the beer!

7th Feb - time for some sight seeing, starting out with a trip on the river 'bus' to central and then a trip on the 'sky train' (elevated rail transport system in the city) to more or less down town Bangkok where we made our way to a park, picking up a green papaya salad at the entrance to the park - it was good, but seriously spicy!

Wat Rakang Kositaram temple on the side Chao Praya (the river passing through Bangkok)

on the river en route to Central - down town skyline.

This guy came along while we were eating in the park.

From the park we then slowly made our way to a skyscraper, the Marriott hotel conveniently arriving in time for happy hour on the 49th floor, a cocktail on the roof top bar and watched the sunset.

After our cocktail we made our way back to street level and looked for something to eat before returning back to our lodgings. What a start to Thailand !!!

Easter Ethiopia trip 2018

2018-04-20T12:48:00.002+03:00

Easter Ethiopia trip 2018

Here are a heap of pictures from our visit to Ethiopia this Easter. We were there for the Ethiopian Easter, which is a week later than Easter in most of the rest of the world...

Ethiopia has a curious calendar system, dissimilar to the Gregorian one.

On arrival to our hotel in Mekele we were welcomed with the tradition Ethiopian coffee ceremony, where the coffee is roasted in front of you.

We arrived in Addis Ababa in the late evening of 9th April, eventually our taxi from the airport managed to find the budget accommodation that we had booked online. It was a short visit to Addis, leaving the next morning before sunrise to go to Mekele.

Pony and trap in Mekele, quite a common site throughout the parts of Ethiopia that we saw.

Our first juice, in a tiny 'juice bar' in Mekele

Our first beer in Ethiopia, St George :)

typical little place to eat/drink coffee

en route to the volcano

our porters for the volcano trip

Erta Ale, the volcano we climbed - during the day 46 degrees Celsius - we climbed up at night...

On the crater rim

At Erta Ale, the volcano we climbed up

Base camp, before climbing Erta Ale

en route back the Danakil depression

Salt lake at Danakil, nearly 1000 foot below sea level

View across the salt flats

Camels loaded with salt, leaving the salt flats

they were very photogenic...

me standing int he salt lake, probably taking the next photo

sunset over the salt lake

the next morning, after a wet night, on our way to Dollol

Parking at Dollol, are they protecting us? or making sure we're not going to cause any trouble???

Entering the crazy environment of Dollol - walking in a cauldron

Incredibly bright colours caused by minerals bubbling up from 1.5km below us

More of Dollol's colours

Fascinating formations

We took literally hundreds of photos here

Close to Dollol, salt mountains

On our way back from the salt mountains there was this pool of salt water, the crust had broken through

We were told we could swim in it, I couldn't resist.... One is so buoyant it feels like one ought to be able to stand up !

en route to Tigray churches

The church we climbed up to, in the middle of the huge rock columns

The part of the climb that needed a rope - to be safe at least

Remains of previous priests to welcome us . . .

View from the church

Having climbed up to the church

ceiling inside the church called 'Abune Yamanta'

Paintings on a wall in the church

inside the church, which has been carved out of the rock and holds approx 40 people

Just outside the doorway of the church

On our way to Axum, spectacular mountain ranges

On the way to Axum, we stopped for coffee

The village where we stopped for coffee

our welcome to Axum

the largest of the obelisks' in the stelae field in Axum

Stelae field Axum

the basement floor of our accommodation in Labilela, a 'Tej' bar :)

Tej - honey wine, served in these glass containers and drunk from them...

Some young friends we made in Labilela

Traditional houses in Lalibela

St Georges' church. A monolithic church hewn from solid rock

St Georges' church again

Inside St Georges' church

Another paining inside St Georges' church

Bete Aba Libanos - the 'house' or church of Libanos, one of our favourites

Inside another church

Another of Lalibelas' churches, there are 11 open to the public, 2 more being restored.

Bread being baked at the largest of the churches

The largest church, the door from the above picture can just be seen on the right hand side of the picture.

Gwyn and friends grinding coffee

Stopped for delicious coffee in a mud hut half way up a mountain :)

A quality welder being used at our accommodation in Lalibela

Grass or hay, appears to often be stored in trees in the area, to keep it away from livestock, this tree lends itself to being a good place for a swing as well.

In Addis Ababa, visiting Lucy, the oldest remains of a human

Tej, honey wine, delicious and suitably strong !

The Tigray church we visited in Ethiopians' (the airline) magazine

Typical Ethiopian food, delicious !!!

Anther beer :)

Friends come to visit...

2017-10-24T16:56:00.004+03:00

Finally it happened, Sam and Kate came to visit us :) It was SO very good to see them here in Tanzania, and to explore with them, and show them some of the places we have been to in the past.

One of the first things that had to be done, after trying out the Kilimanjaro, Safari and Serengeti beers, was to take Sam and Kate out on clinics.

Sam came with me on the Tuesday and Kate bravely (she doesn't get on well in small planes) came with me on the Wednesday.

Obalbal clinic with Kate, Pat dropped Sosy our medical officer off on the way back from Ndutu clinics. A rare occasion to see both our planes on one airstrip.

Kate setting herself up for a selfie with a Masai lady

Sam and Kate arrived at the end of June, I apologise if I muddle the sequence of our adventures...

I went off for a day to fly the Bumblebee with a friend of the owner who needed to go to the Serengeti both North and South for some work. The return leg to Dolly (the Bumblebee's home) proved to be exceedingly nerve wracking for me, as the engine oil pressure was dropping steadily causing us to divert to Arusha where we landed with the pressure gauge just in the red... The engine was burning huge amounts of oil and so far has not been fixed :(

While I was flying Sam and Kate went for a day Safari to Tarangire national park, where by all accounts they had a wonderful time.

Walking out from the mission, looking back towards Mt Meru.

Our next little adventure was to drive out from the mission to circumnavigate Mt Meru, camping one night on the way and spending the second day in Arusha national park.

We borrowed a car from one of the St Constantine teachers, as the little Suzuki Jimny that I have the use of with my job, is a. rather small for 4 people plus camping gear, and b. very bumpy on dirt roads that we were going to be driving on most of the time.

Sam and I picked up the car the day before leaving, it was very low on fuel (fortunately) so we drove straight to a petrol station. On the way both of us smelt hot engine smells, but the temperature gauge was fine. While filling the car I checked under the bonnet to find that the top radiator hose was disconnected! A plastic pipe that the rubber hose connects to had failed, I had my leatherman tool with me, and within a few minutes had it connected again - phew! that was a close shave!

The next day we set off on our little jaunt. The camp site wasn't so far away, so we left the mission sometime around midday.

The car behaved on the drive, I think I only checked under the bonnet about three times! and we were welcomed by the Masai running a basic camp site.

Kilimanjaro showed itself for us whilst en route

We walked up a hill from the camp site for a 'sun downer'

The mlinzi (night watchman) lit a fire close to our tents and I think slept there most of the night guarding us.

Next morning we set off to the East side of the mountain and to go for a drive in Arusha national park.

We saw plenty of animals, I only have a few pictures

Crested crane

Selfie of us all, with Momella lakes in the background - the sun was quite bright!

Black and white Colobus monkey

Our return from the park was uneventful and I was happy to deliver the car back to it's owner in one piece the next day.

Next on the itinerary was a trip to the coast. Initially I was going to fly us there in the Bumblebee, but in light of recent events, that was definitely not on the cards.

We took a commercial flight to Mashado, and then a comedy taxi from Mashado airstrip to Ushongo beach.

On approach to Mashado airstrip.

The tiny taxi that took us from the airstrip to Ushongo beach, about a half hour ride.

We stayed at the same house that Gwyn and I stayed at during our previous visit to Ushongo. Solomon, who looks after the house, gave us a huge welcome and quickly arranged a crate of beer to be delivered to us :)

Having breakfast on the veranda of the house

View from the veranda

Looking down the beach to the North

Cooling off, with our house in the background.

A passing fisherman, during an evening dip in the sea

We arranged for Gwyn and I to go diving again, with the lady who did our 'refresher' course on our previous visit, and for Sam and Kate to go snorkeling at the same time.

Just like before, the sea life was fantastic, we all saw heaps of fish, and I think we all saw a turtle as well.

The sand island, which is the centre of Maziwe marine reserve, these days it's underwater at high tide. The only picture I have of it, the camera must have had water on the lens.

Lion fish, very appropriate to see them off the coast of Tanzania :)

Tons of coral, that were usually swarming with fish

View from Emayani beach lodge, where we went for a drink post diving/snorkling

Evening view from Tides lodge - a five minute walk from our house.

From the coast we flew back to Arusha. This time the taxi to the airstrip was a minibus with air conditioning!

A couple of days later Sam and Kate were on their way back to the UK. It was most wonderful to have them come and visit and we're looking forward to their return :)

Easter Adventure....

2017-05-27T09:01:00.004+03:00

Gwyn had plans for an Easter trip to see more of Tanzania, and between us we made it happen.

With all the thanks in the world for the generosity of Miguel Van Hoof, the kind Belgium owner of the Found Expedition that we traveled in, who lets me fly his plane whenever I like - I just have to put the fuel in it and pay other associated costs.

We left Arusha a little later than planned, mostly due to the weather being somewhat inclement, which also gave us more time to finish packing etc.

Preparing to leave Arusha, the weather wasn't looking exactly perfect, a little British one might say :)

There were four of us on the trip, Gwyn, myself, Rich, and Lyndsey - on the way to Mwanza (our first stop) we had Melanie along with who wanted a lift to Mwanza.

Gwyn, Rich and Melanie (Lyndsey was my copilot on this leg) - Rich was wondering where we were going :)

The weather was a little tricky around the Ngorogoro crater, which I had hoped to overfly relatively low, but it was covered with cloud to the ground, so I ended up having to turn away climbing and fly way over the top.

Our track to Mwanza took us over the Serengeti, where we saw parts of the migration of Wilderbeast and plenty of elephant as well. Our track wasn't exactly direct as we felt compelled to have a closer look at some of the game, as such several circles were flown along the way :) Melanie even saw lions at one point.

Migration of Wilderbeast in the Serengeti

More Wilderbeast, looking like ants, there are a lot of Zebra as well.

Arrival in Mwanza was straightforward, and even paying the landing, navigation and passenger fees didn't take too long. Melanie's boyfriend kindly picked us all up and too us to our posh hotel where we stayed for the next three nights.

Our first views of Lake Victoria

I think we arrived in Mwanza early afternoon, yes I'm quite sure we did. After checking into the hotel we went to have a look around and find something to eat - I was tired and very hungry (i.e a bit grumpy) eventually we found a place to everyone's liking that served chipsi mayai (which is chips (or french fries) mixed with beaten eggs and cooked together, and we washed it down with a pilsner beer that we had never seen before - it tasted pretty weird !

Then we returned to the hotel for a siesta before going into town to look for a place to have a drink watching the sun set over the lake.

Sunset over Lake Victoria (from a Chinese restaurant we went to one evening)

We opted to take a 'daladala' to go into town - the super crowded super cheap mini buses that everyone uses to get around. While on the daladala I was, as usual very aware of my belongings and happy to disembark with both my wallet and phone with me. I paid the driver, put my wallet in one trouser pocket and the phone in the other - within walking ten paces something felt like it was missing, I checked my pockets and sure enough, no phone! I had been pick pocketed by some skillful person close to the daladala. We spoke to people there, offered a 'reward' but nobody was forthcoming, and eventually we left Rich's phone number with a suitably dodgy looking character and went to look for that drink. The phone was new to me at Christmas, but I did my best not to be upset about it and was happy that I could tell it to delete everything from itself by connecting to it via the internet.

Some of the rock formations on around Mwanza.

The next couple of days in Mwanza we spent some time exploring the city, it's very spread out around rocky hills making it a curious city. Time was also spent sitting around the swimming pool relaxing and reading.

Walking around the suburbs of Mwanza, Lyndsey in the foreground.

One afternoon we went on a boat trip in the lake watching the sun set from the boat, and then later while eating an amazing lightning storm way off in the distance, watching the clouds light up, seeing huge streaks of electricity, but there wasn't a sound to go with it.

On the boat, what a bunch of tourists!!! left to right, Gwyn (red hat) Lyndsey, our boat Captain, myself, and Rich who has very fair skin and was hiding from the sun :)

More rock formations seen while on our boat trip

Lyndsey managed to capture a moment of the lightening storm...

Leaving Mwanza...

An island on Lake Victoria, no so far from Mwanza

Our next stop was Mahale, on the shore of Lake Tanganyika. A small grass airstrip, approaching over the water and landing uphill towards the bottom of some mountains. An airstrip that one has to be reasonably committed to, but not as much as some of the ones I'm used to flying whilst on clinics.

The Mahale airstrip - thank you someone for taking the photo, I was a bit busy at the time :)

Everything worked out very well there. Gwyn had been busy arranging things and we were expected, there was a boat there to take us to the Mahale National park, where we would stay the next two nights and go looking for Chimps during the day.

Arriving by boat to Mahale National park, our Bandas were set back in the undegrowth

A little later, after a swim and having been able to find something to drink our wine out of ...

The 'Bandas' that we had booked to stay in were surprisingly comfortable and clean, each with an en suite bathroom. There hadn't been any other guests for days, as it was low season, but unfortunately for us, later in the day 9 other people turned up, including some very loud South Africans.

The sunsets from there overlooking the Congo, were stunning...

The next day we were ready to set off at 08:00 in search of Chimps - the South Africans were SUPER loud, having fun, but making such a racket. In the end we spent the whole morning hiking in the jungle, we saw plenty of flora and fauna, including a lot of interesting looking mushrooms :) but no Chimps. We returned to 'camp' and had lunch a swim in the lake and a bit of a rest and then set off again looking for the Chimps.

Some of the many mushrooms we saw

Some of the wildlife, a Golden Baboon.

I can't remember how far we walked that day but it was a LONG way, and all of it up and down, climbing over this and that, it was a great day and we enjoyed it very much, but we couldn't help but be a little disappointed at not seeing the Chimps.

Walking from our Banda to the beach - the Congo on the horizon.

Myself and Rich, relaxing in the gorgeous water of Lake Tanganyika after our day of hiking.

The next day at some time before dawn I was woken up by the noisy South Africans and a while later there was peace - they had left super early which meant we had the park to ourselves :)

After breakfast we set off in search of the Chimps again, we had until mid afternoon before we had to leave, and our guide was very keen for us to find the Chimps this time.

We walked quite a long way, and then while stopping to drink some water, we heard the Chimps... Well we heard something and our guide explained that it was them. Now we had a good idea of where they were, so set off in that direction.

We hiked at least another hour or so, and didn't hear them again. The guide set off on his own to have a look up a steep part of the jungle and a little later made his 'woooo woooo' call to signal us to come and join him.

Clambering up through the jungle on a little track, trying not to slip down and take someone else out on the way, we eventually reached our guide.

He had seen a Chimp, way up high in a tree - with my binoculars I could just see it's bottom and a few moments later it moved somewhere else in the tree and we couldn't see it at all. I sincerely hoped we would have the chance to see them better than that.

I thought if I went in under the tree and bashed my way through the undergrowth to the lower side of it I might be able to see the Chimp better. I set off tramping through the eight foot high undergrowth, Rich followed a way behind me. Standing there looking up in the tree, I could hear the Chimp moving from time to time but couldn't see it - then suddenly we heard a crazy loud 'Huuuu Huuuu Huuuu Huuuu' noise obviously coming from a Chimp, but another one. It was so loud and very aggressive. I didn't know what to do, then Rich shouted 'Mike! It's coming your way !!!' at which point I properly started bricking it - there was no way I could run anywhere so thought I should just stand my ground. I heard repeatedly the 'Huuuu Huuuu Huuuu Huuuu' sound along with a lot of crashing through the undergrowth and it was coming closer to me quickly...

When it was about six foot away from me I could see the big black furry guy, and fortunately he was on his way up a tree at this point. I had been shouting to our guide, who apparently was sprinting through the bush to get closer to me to be sure everything was alright, to ask what I should do. When the Chimp had climbed about half way up the tree everything settled down, and our guide didn't seem at all perturbed.

Optimus - the alpha male.

The viewing rules for the Chimps were to be at least ten meters away from them at all times, to wear a face mask, and only to be with them for a maximum of an hour. The guide was very strict about the second two rules, but we ended up being so close to them that we could have easily reached out and touched them.

They were just fascinating to watch

In the end we saw three males and a couple of females. This was obviously one of the males !

They seemed to spend a lot of time looking for parasites, both on themselves and each other.

Our guide Raymond was fantastic, and so knowledgeable. He knew all of the Chimps instantly by name, and had known most of them for many years. As such he filled us in on a lot of their personal history, how Optimus came to be the alpha male and some the antics he had seen them get up to. For example, one running into a group of tourists for protection while being chased by another.

Our hour with them passed all too quickly, all of us felt like we could have spent at least a whole day with them, and I can well understand why someone would dedicate their life to researching them.

We returned to camp triumphantly, all of us elated to have seen the Chimps, and somewhat amazed to have been so close to them - I certainly never expected that.

We packed our bags, had some lunch and then set off on the boat to return to the airstrip. While being at the lake we were initially somewhat concerned about crocodiles and soon realised that there aren't so many about. Gwyn really wanted to see one, at least, and a couple of times we had walked down the beach looking for them (I found that kind of scary...) On the boat trip back to the plane, we rounded a corner and saw a huge crock sunbathing on a little beach, before we could take a photo of it, it slithered into the water never to be seen again... Gwyn's wish had been granted :)

The Mahale mountains from our boat on the way back to 'Bumblebee' (the plane)

The plane was exactly as we had left it, we loaded up, pre-flighted it and set off for kigoma.

Gwyn had found on the internet a place called Jackobsons beach in Kigoma. Kigoma also being situated on the shore lake Tanganyika about an hour north, flying, from Malahle. The reviews for the beach made it sound lovely and we were all looking forward to spending a couple of nights camping there.

En route to Kigoma

On initial contact with Kigoma tower, I was asked for all the usual information, plus the controller wanted to know my name, marital status, inside leg measurement, how long I had lived in Africa and whether I preferred Gin or Whiskey... I exaggerate somewhat, but he did want my full name, by the time I managed to convey that to him I was on short finals to land !

For all the information they wanted from me, the people at Kigoma airport were very friendly indeed. Landing at small airports, the guys don't have much to do and as such are very welcoming when someone does arrive. One of the ground crew who came to welcome us, then went on to be a taxi driver for us taking us to town, and then onward to Jackobsons beach.

We arrived at Jackobsons beach, were shown around by the owner, who had been there for some twenty years. There was a great communal kitchen we could use, some good flat ground for pitching the tents and two lovely little beaches. We went for a swim, pitched the tents and settled in.

Celebrating our arrival at the best fresh water beach I have ever been to

Oh did I mention the Zebra on the beach?

The water in Lake Tanganyika is crystal clear and a idyllic temperature, not too cold nor too warm.

Shoals of colourful fish

Again we did some hard core relaxing at the beach, and fortunately had brought enough food with us that we didn't have to leave to buy supplies.

Teem Bumblebee goes a little bonkers :)

The girls taking a dip :)

It was such a lovely place to disconnect and for the first day and night we were the only people there.

Cheeky Vervet monkeys - the kitchen was monkey proof and there was a little monkey proof storage place for us campers as well.

All too soon our stay at Jackobsons beach came to an end and we were making our way back to the airport for our return journey to Arusha.

On the way back we had to stop at Tabora, to buy fuel for the plane. In Tanzania there are only a few places that sell Avgas and one has to plan flights extra carefully when it comes to fuel. On our approach to Tabora the controller asked if we would be stopping for the night. I told him that we would be there just for fuel and to have something to eat. I also asked if there was any kind of restaurant at the airport. His reply was that there is food but not the sort 'you' would like. An amusing reply, I asked him what there was and he replied with a short menu of beans and rice, meat and rice and meat skewers. So I asked if there was chipsi mayai (the super common tortilla type thing) He said there wasn't but he could order it from town if we wanted. Amazing all this from the controller. I asked who wanted what and put in an order for four chipsi mayai....

On the ground in Tabora, refueling the plane and ourselves

Soon after landing in Tabora a guy comes along on a little motorbike with a black plastic bag. It was the controller with our chipsi mayai ! What service, and he didn't charge us anything extra for the chipsi mayai either.

The flight back to Arusha was uneventful, and I guess quite smooth:

Lyndsey and Rich recovering a little from the stressful holiday :)

The visibility was great on the way back, we passed just to the north of Haydom where I fly quite often with Flying Medical Service and had a good view of Mt Hanang which Gwyn and I climbed with Rich last year.

Mt Hanang with it's 11,000ft summit

So that was our Easter trip - again I can't begin to thank Miguel enough for the use of his plane. It was a most wonderful trip, with great friends and was so good to see a whole lot more of Tanzania.

Finally in the air again ! ;)

2017-04-19T08:47:00.000+03:00

So here I am lying on the sofa, loving my bluetooth keyboard (wireless keyboard) and the large monitor I have.

At last flying again!!! I flew clinics last week after having not been fit to fly for the best part of a month.

Back in Oleparkashi

Mother and child in Engaresero

On Tuesday I took Tita, our nurse, with me so I would have someone to help and someone who could sit and vaccinate the babies if I couldn't sit for that long. It worked well, and Tita and I made a good team. I did most of the weighing and preparing vaccines and Tita did most of the vaccinating.

Weighing under the wing before being vaccinated

Tita making friends in Engaresero

I got on OK, having some pain while flying and happy not to be in the pilots' seat for longer than I was. Once on the ground, working was fine, I left the others to load and unload the plane and did what I could to help while still being vertical.

En route for Monik

Approach to Monik, spot the airstrip???

Titas' friend at Monik, and Shakirs' girlfriend Naema the Masai dwarf

Lunch under the wing, around Lake Natron it is never less than 30 degrees Centigrade

Naema is a very amusing, and sometimes annoying character - Sosy and Babu believe she is about 60 years old, though I think she is considerably younger. Whenever we land she always wants us to give her food, and typically we do - even if her big tin cup is full of food she will persistently ask for more - and that is when one of us will most often offer her an egg. The Masai hate eggs, they come from the back end of a chicken, which traditionally they don't like either... Or if we don't have any eggs with us and we do have hot sauce Sosy will add a load of hot sauce and enjoy watching Naema eating the food and the expression on her face while she tries to deal with the spiciness of the chilies.

The last clinic on Tuesday, Napandi

Clinics were very quiet, I think on Tuesday we saw less than 30 children in total - five different places.

Wednesday, on the other hand, was somewhat busier, the fist clinic we saw 57 children!

Artistic Napandi shots - many thanks Tita :)

Returning to Arusha, the dust cloud is being made by rain falling behind it

Landscape to the north of Monduli, and the mission

Some typical erosion seen all over cultivated areas in Tanzania

'Babu' (Ezikiel), and Sosy our Medical Officers who almost always come on these clinics with us - stars courtesy of Tita :)

This was also the week that Castissima, the lady who cooks for us at the mission told me about the police who had made it to national news having been caught in Dar es Salaam stealing more than 400 litres of aviation fuel... I don't know what happened to them, but it goes to show the level of trustworthiness of the police in these parts....

It was SO good to be in the air again, and to feel that I have returned to being an active part of the FMS team.

The last couple of weeks

2017-03-07T17:40:00.001+03:00

After an amazing week on the coast life was back to normal. To be honest I was having the 'going back to school' feeling the day before leaving Ushongo beach. Of course stopping at Mkomazi made leaving the beach easier.

On Monday 21st Feb, I had a flight to take an elderly gentleman to Nairobi - I feel so very sorry for this man. He has been ill for four years now, and had been from pillar to post in Tanzania, one hospital to another from Dar es Salaam, Arusha even to Mwanza - everyone was telling him he had prostate problems and finally I think he had a biopsy, which told the medics that he didn't have a prostate problem. He eventually went to the recently established medical center in Arusha that can do MRI scans and discovered that all his problems were caused by a trapped nerve in his back. Four years! and almost all of those year in a wheelchair...

Melanie, the nurse from Arusha Medivac (a service being set up by a former FMS pilot, offering insurance cover and medical evacuation) came with me on the flight. Melanie was quite concerned about the infection on the mans' leg, and suspected that he also has diabetes...

The flight went well, and fortunately the immigration people in Nairobi were in a helpful mood, so all went smoothly there. We had lunch at Wilson airport and then I started the paperwork round and finally we were on our way back to Arusha again.

On Tuesday I was doing some maintenance on the plane that Luke wasn't flying, and while Pat was still at home feeling ill - poor Pat has been ill for weeks now.

Wednesday Pat was meant to be flying with Luke, to 'sign him off' on our two most challenging airstrips, but because Pat was still very unwell I went as a safety pilot for Luke, who did just fine flying into and out of both Olbalbal and Engovironi.

While we had been away on Wednesday arrangements had been made for us to bring the mis-diagnosed gentleman back from Nairobi, the hospital said the infection was too bad in his leg for them to operate, that there is extremely little circulation in his leg and he will have to have it amputated !!!

So on Thursday Luke and I flew to Nairobi. Luke flew there with me making the radio calls, then he came around with me to learn the ropes of the whole paperwork rigmarole.

We loaded the patient and returned to Arusha where some of his sons were waiting to meet him and take him to a hospital in Arusha for the amputation. All things considered the old guy appeared to be in pretty good spirits.

On the weekend Rich, a friend of ours who lives and works on a teacher training/farm project some two and a half hours away, came to Arusha to celebrate his birthday. We spent a good deal of Saturday around the pool at a posh lodge close to Usa River - the afternoon progressed and we made our way back to Arusha to continue the celebrations and returned home in the small hours of Sunday morning.

Monday 27th I was off flying clinics in Emboret, the weather was somewhat interesting, low cloud and rain around (great for the people of Tz) but not so low as to prohibit me from leaving Arusha and flying to Emboret a few hundred feet above the ground.

At the first clinic, fortunately while we were packing up, the heavens opened in a tropical way - after about fifteen minutes there was a break in the intensity of the rain and I was able to take off from a very waterlogged, muddy and slippery airstrip. On the short flight to Narakawo (the next clinic) I decided if there was standing water on the strip I wouldn't even try and land. The strip is quite short and braking efficiency on mud is almost zero - plus Elsa one time came off that airstrip landing on it when it was wet.

Anyway there was heavy rain very close to Narakawo, but only light rain on the airstrip itself and no standing water - so I landed, no problem :)

When we arrived no one was there. After we had had lunch a few people had turned up, so we started the clinic, then slowly slowly more and more people came and in the end it was more or less typically busy.

I had half a dozen or so ladies waiting with their children to be vaccinated, when my back started complaining. I decided to finish vaccinating them before stretching and seeing if I could appease it.

The ground was wet and muddy, so I climbed carefully onto the wing to do some stretches, lying down on the wing and then doing a movement similar to a press up, but keeping my hips on the 'floor' in this case wing. I did a few of these and it wasn't hurting me. So we flew back to Emboret to spend the night at the mission there as per normal.

My back just became more and more painful, and I had pain down the back of my leg as well. After eating supper I realised that it was a lot worse if I was sitting, and I could find no position in which I wasn't in pain... Oh dear!

That evening at the mission we found some new friends :)

The only way I was able to sleep that night was to take some Diazepam, which worked fortunately.

The next morning I had to decide what I should do. I had already told Pat about my back, and said I wasn't sure if I should continue flying the clinics or not. I spoke to him at 08:00 on the radio and said I would let him know after breakfast. During breakfast the pain in my leg became intense and my lower leg started feeling numb - this was the moment when I decided that someone else should continue the clinics, not me. So I called Pat and a couple of hours later he came with Luke. Luke finished the clinics and I flew back with Pat, lying on a stretcher... It was very odd to be in the position of a patient.

The 'selfie' I never wanted to be in the position to take....

So since Monday afternoon of last week I have sat down for a total of about one hour, I have to either be standing or lying down to be vaguely comfortable and not causing more damage.

I have been to a physiotherapist twice now and finally feel that we are making some progress. I am looking forward very much to being able to fly again, and to be useful again.

week ending 19th February - trip to the coast

2017-02-26T16:09:00.004+03:00

It took some time typing the last blog post with my tablet, but I succeeded in the end. The most frustrating thing was that I was unable to send the link to the group I usually send it to - for some reason it was impossible to do either from the tablet or my phone.

The two of us en route to Kwajoni

Some scenery along the way - to the south of a town called Same

The Usambara mountains.

I had booked us into a place called the Beach Crab resort on Ushongo beach. Having landed at Kwajoni airstrip and organised the guards to watch the plane we took a 'bodaboda' (little motorbike that works as a taxi) to the resort. The guy drove slowly for us, with both Gwyn and I plus our luggage on the one little bike. He dropped us off and while finding the reception there were at least a couple of dogs barking like crazy just near us. At this moment Gwyn and I had our doubts as to the quality of sleep we would get here.

The Pangani river, with hundreds of thousands of palm trees along it's banks

Kwajoni airstrip - as can be seen it's very close to the sea.

While checking in we aired our concerns to the lady, who seemed quite dismissive of them. We settled ourselves into the small but comfortable permanent tent. A wooden framed construction with canvass filling in the spaces and a typical palm leaf thatch as a roof. With facilities about twenty meters away.

The beach at Ushongo - not too busy :) looking to the North East, towards the dive center.

The resort is a charming place, with plenty of places to sit and relax, enjoy the beach and ocean view, while enjoying a cold beer or glass of wine.

This is actually a picture from the 'Tides' lodge, but close to the Beach Crab resort.

Unfortunately during our first night we were woken several times by the dogs, so after breakfast - on our way to the dive center - we stopped in at every place that looked as if it may have accommodation. Fortunately for us it was low season and soon enough we had agreed to rent a whole spacious house for a few dollars less than we were paying for our tent.

The house we rented for the remainder of the week.

After arranging the house we went to Kasa divers to meet Kerstin, the lady who runs it. We had a chat about our previous diving experience and when was the last time we were diving - for me it was a little scary when I actually calculated how long ago it was... When I come up with numbers along the lines of 'over twenty years ago' I don't find it very pleasant hearing myself say it...

So we agreed that it would be best to do the course right from the beginning and left the dive centre with a bunch of multiple choice questions to go through and a PADI Open Water book to revise.

It was all pretty straight forward and fun to be getting involved with diving again. Monday morning we went to the dive centre to review our homework, then go over all of the gear and get in the very shallow swimming pool to do some the 'skills' we had to do go over before diving for real in the sea. By about mid afternoon we were all done and making our way back down the beach to our house via a bar or two :)

One bar on Ushongo beach with a 'roof balcony' - Health and safety in UK would have a fit! ;)

This is why the Beach Crab Lodge has it's name - there are literally thousands of them on the beach.

One night on the way back from eating at one of the lodges some local guys told us there was a Whale fish on the beach, we had a good look at the poor guy and several days later discovered that for sure it was a Pilot Whale. Unfortunately for them they are renown for being washed up - I have no idea why...

The washed up Pilot whale...

Our only concern about the huge bites that had been taken out of the Pilot Whale was what made them? and whatever it was, whether or not it likes humans... Anyway we never found out the answer to either of those questions, fortunately...

One of our first dives, the water was beautifully clear

Tuesday morning we met at the dive centre quite early, to be at Maziwe marine reserve for low tide. Our first dive was with stunningly clear water and after about ten minutes of doing skills and exercises we were off swimming around the corals at a depth of about 12 meters (36 feet)

After the first dive we went to the sand island, that is only above water at low tide for a snack and a rest before going for the second dive. The second dive was the same routine, skills and then off around the corals.

There were SO many fish, and other sea critters to be looking at, it really was very special indeed. Also we were the only people diving in the area, as this part of the coast has hardly been developed at all.

I have only put a few of the photos here on the post, so as not to bore people - if you want to see all the photos just click here and you can see all of the photos from the trip. Also here is a 5 minute video of photos and video clips that we took while we were on the coast and diving.

I liked the way these fish were 'hiding' under a coral tree

The colours in reality we SO vivid. With a simple camera it's hard to capture them

Wednesday was our last day diving, the skills we had to do only took a couple of minutes at the beginning of each dive, leaving us plenty of time to be looking around and admiring the beauty of the underwater world. On the first dive we went down to 18 meters, so left the camera behind for that dive, as it is only safe to take our camera to 12 meters.

Getting out of the water after another beautiful dive

The Captain and crew of our dive boat

A juvanile Lion fish

Our dive boat, moored close to the sand island where we would go for a snack and a break between dives.

Sunset at Ushongo beach, taken from the house we stayed in.

Thursday was our last day on the beach, which was a day of 100% relaxation just reading, relaxing by the sea and soaking up the peacefulness of Ushongo. On Friday we were leaving to go and visit Tony Fitzjohn on our way back in Mkomazi national park

N350EX, the 'Found Expedition' parked at the airstrip close to the beach where we were staying.

The plane had been guarded all week by a couple who live close to the airstrip, it was just fine and fortunately didn't have a puncture - I was a little worried about punctures, as unlike the FMS planes, there is no equipment in this plane to take a wheel off, let alone fix a puncture.

Ushongo beach from the air, at the top right of the photo one can just see a lighter patch in the sea, that's Maziwe island where we were diving.

The flight to Mkomazi was beautiful, flying alongside the Usambara mountains, this time to the North looking at the other side.

The Usambara mountains on our flight to Mkomazi

Mkomazi isn't a typical national park, and the only reason we could go there is that I now know Tony Fitzjohn personally and he had invited me the last time I had been there, which was to help bring his plane back from Arusha after it had had it's annual inspection. Tony Fitzjohn used to work very closely with George Adamson in Kenya and had now been running a Rhino sanctuary and breeding program for 27 years in Mkomazi. He also has a breeding program for African wild hunting dogs that were coming all too close to extinction.

Unfortunately for us both, he had only just returned from having been away in Kenya for a week and was still rather busy. But he had time to take us out on a drive in the evening and proudly show us most of his Rhinos. He specifically asked us not to post pictures on Facebook of his Rhinos, so I have decided not to post photos of them here either.

The luxury tent that we stayed the night in at Mkomazi

and it's view :)

There was a lot of wildlife scampering around at Mkomazi, including this guy. We also saw Dwarf Mongeese which were great fun to watch and Rock Hyrax, which although no larger than a typical rabbit are apparently most closely related to Elephant.

Some of Tony African hunting dogs in one of their pens

On the drive we did to see the Rhinos, with the vast fences separating off various parts of the park. It reminded me a lot of Jurassic Park. The Land Rover has no windows in whatsoever and Tony was frequently bombing along at 90+ Kms/hr - I was happy I had sunglasses!

Here are two Elephants that Tony is looking after, the one on the left is 5 years old, and Mr Tembo on the right is just 7 months old. On a previous visit to Mkomazi I was able to touch them which was absolutely fascinating.

Sunset from Mkomazi...

Another of the frequent visitors, especially while eating, at Mkomazi. A Genet, often referred to as a Genet cat, but it's actually more close to a Mongoose than a feline.

Readying ourselves to depart from Mkomazi back to Arusha, via Kilimanjaro airport to drop off another guest of Tony's. Tony is to the right of Gwyn.

So that is the end of a fantastic half term week. I am incredibly grateful to Miguel the owner of the plane for letting me use it. It was a super week allowing us to completely disconnect for our 'normal' life in Arusha, and wonderful to be diving again. I can't wait until the next time, I will be sure it's not in another 20 years!

Week ending 12th Feb...

2017-02-13T22:26:00.001+03:00

Last week was quite a busy one , though now it seems a long way away... Monday was almost a full day of maintenance, N30MS was due a 50hr service. When there is maintenance to do on the planes I prefer to make an early start avoiding the hottest part of the day, I had tried to contact our faithful helper Richard, but had had no reply from him before leaving the mission.

Pat was very surprised to hear me on the radio at 08:00 (our first standard radio call of the day) and asked where I was. After I explained that 30 was due it's service it all started to make sense to a sleepy boss. He said he'd make his way to the airport after the Monday morning vocational school meeting at the mission, and that he could give Richard a lift as well.

Richard contacted me while I was on the radio and said he would make his own way to the airport. By the time Pat finally made it Richard and I had all bar finished the service ;) The engine was cold so the plane needed flying before changing the oil. That morning, unusually, there was fog & then very low cloud in Arusha, so we did other things until around 10:00 until the cloud had lifted sufficiently, and then flew a circuit with Richard and one of the guys who works for Puma, the fuel company. He was very excited to come and filmed almost the whole flight on his phone - it was his first time to fly, even though he's worked for many years at the airport.

Both on Tuesday and Wednesday I was flying clinics, I took Charles (the doctor who works at the dispensary at the mission) with me on Tuesday. He had been asking me for ages if he could come on clinics sometime. He was a great help and really enjoyed the experience.

Dr Charles flying N36MS ;)

Kerimasi, a mountain on the way to our first Tuesday clinic. Behind it on the slopes is the second clinic on Wednesday - Engovironi...

A curious sink hole close to the base of Oldonyo Lengai

Overflying Oldonyo Lengai, to show Dr Charles, especially as it was his first time flying ;) - Kerimasi is in the background.

On the ground at Oleparkashi the first clinic of the day.

Taking off from Oleparkashi, a rough airstrip, the com2/nav2 (2nd radio) fell out of the panel, luckily I caught it and then just handed it to Sosy, the medical officer sitting behind me... In the past I would have been rather concerned, this day I just laughed, another day at FMS ;)

Tuesday evening, rainbow over Mt Meru, taken from Olkakola.

Wednesday mornings flight to Olbalbal (the first clinic) was stunning. Clear air, smooth conditions meant I was happy to fly low over the Ngorogoro crater and edge of the highlands. Between us we saw Elephant, Buffalo warming themselves in the morning sun, Zebra and Giraffe - all while 'on my way to work' ;)

A typical Maasai 'boma' the cattle can still be seen in their enclosure where they would have safely spent the night.

Looking from the western rim of the crater across to the Serengeti

Olbalbal, as often happens the wind picks up during our clinic, and often we're swamped by dust. One time it was so bad I couldn't see even half way down the airstrip and we had to wait 4 hours until I eventually decided to to take off. That take off ended up being my most scary moment so far in my flying career...

Damn stupid 'safety' boxes we are given from the government. Below the red 'A' of biohazard you can see a needle that had come through the box - luckily this one didn't pick me, I noticed it in time. So I pulled it through with my leatherman tool, bent it over and poked it back in again. This is the fourth time this has happened to me so far, and the box was far from overfilled...

Engovironi airstrip, one of my favorite places, once I've safely landed there...

Thursday was a quiet day, catching up on post clinic rest and paperwork... Even after 2 years flying clinics is very tiring, they are busy days flying in and out of the little air strips, weighing and vaccinating babies and almost always doing that in temperatures well over 30 Celsius.

Friday morning over coffee I made a list of all the things I needed to do in preparation for our flight to the coast for Gwyns' half term break and our diving course that I gave her for her 30th birthday back in July. After I finished my coffee, and the list, the phone rang re an evacuation flight of a lady who was in the south of the Serengeti and had been suffering with severely high blood pressure for two days. After about 27 telephone calls, and a dozen text messages the flight was confirmed, so Luke (our most recent member of the FMS team) and I made our way to the airport to ready N36MS for the flight.

While changing and collecting my flying things together I organised a nurse to come with us on the flight. It transpired that she had been in contact with the safari company (one of the high end ones) re the same patient since she fell ill, which was helpful as Melanie, the nurse, already knew her case.

So off to Serengeti South we went, Arusha, over the Ngorogoro crater and onwards. It was my first time to fly there, and it would appear to have been N36MS 's first time too as it wasn't in the GPS - having looked at the map I knew pretty much where it was and Luke programmed the GPS while we were on our way.

We saw plenty of animals along the way, all the usual suspects, Zebra, Wilderbeast, Buffalo, Giraffe and Melanie also saw Lions - at that point I figured I shouldn't descend any further....

At the moment we are on a beach called Ushoto near Pangani. I flew Gwyn and I here on Saturday afternoon in the plane that I have so kindly been lent. We are doing our PADI open water diving course again, as it was such a long time since we last dived.

The beach is divine, I will post photos and stories at the end of the week

Typing blog posts using my tablet is a complete nightmare, the amount of swearing that it has taken to make this post is a little excessive, but anyway I hope it has worked....

More soon!

Week ending 5th February

2017-02-05T16:58:00.002+03:00

This week was a good one for me, I flew on Monday and Thursday and spent quite some time doing maintenance on N36MS - it was due a 100 Hr service.

On Monday I was flying some contractors and Arch Diosese people to Endulen for them to check the new Doctors houses that had just been finished.

The flight was a pretty one, and landing at Endulen gave me a strong cross wind to deal with which kept me on my toes, as Endulen has a very narrow airstrip which is quite rounded with almost ditches on either side. Anyway all went well, even though the wind was trying to blow us across the airstrip upon touch down.

This is the Western rim of the Ngorogoro crater, on our way to Endulen.

While I was waiting for my passengers to finish their work (I was there most of the day) several Giraffe came to visit - this was one of them. It was only about 20 meters away from the hospital.

On our return to Arusha - one can see the Ngorogoro airstrip and the crater behind it, with the lake now nicely full of water.

The beginning of this week saw quite a lot of rain around which was such a relief and especially for so many people who have been suffering seriously with the drought. There was heavy rain all around Arusha and Kilimanjaro as well.

Moshi had so much rain that several houses were washed away and people injured. As the week has progressed the rain has subsided and all too quickly everything is dust again. Pat spoke to the guys in the Met office at Arusha airport and apparently there was a large low pressure system over the Indian ocean, causing moist air to be pulled in from central Africa which gave us the rain - no sign of the long rains arriving early :-/

The Eastern rim of the crater, with plenty of cloud around, giving us some rain :)

A wall of dust about 10 Nautical miles after the Eastern rim, about to swamp Lake Manyara airstrip and Karatu.

Lake Manyara airstrip about to be engulfed.

On Wednesday I continued working on the plane, trying to complete the 100hr service I had started the day before. Although when we left the mission it was dry, soon after removing all the spark plugs the heavans opened in no uncertain terms.

Richard, on the left, comes and helps us work on the planes whenever he can. He is the son of Castissima who cooks for us at the mission. He is a great help and hopes to be a pilot one day - he certainly has very good potential.

Soon after the rain stopped, Mt Meru decided to poke it's head out of the clouds :)

On Thursday I had a flight to pick up some Austrian Doctors who had been visiting and working in Loliondo for three weeks. In theory it was going to be an easy flight, Arusha to Loliondo, pick up the Doctors and then drop them off at Kilimanjaro. Soon people heard that there was an empty plane going to Loliondo and in the end I took a lady with her handicapped daughter to Malambo (en route) and elderly gentleman with some serious leg problems came with me to Loliondo, then I picked up the Doctors and also a patient plus his brother who was accompanying him. The patient, a middle aged Masaai man, had been beaten so badly by a 15 year old boy that his jaw was severely broken and he was only semi conscious.

Overhead Lake Natron. The lake looks different almost every time I fly over it. This to me looked like a piece of art. In the center to the left one can just make out a flock of Flamingos - it looks as if they are returning to Lake Natron now it has some more water in it.

These are some lakes in Arusha national park (to the N-E of Arusha) The East side of Mt Meru is always much greener than the West side.

A small volcanic crater, also a part of Arusha national park, now about 15Nm away from Kilimanjaro international airport.

En route from Kilimanjaro international airport to Arusha. Lake Duluti in the bottom left of the picture.

Inside N36MS with both front seats removed for maintenance.

Next week I will be doing maintenance on the other plane on Monday, flying clinics Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, Friday I have no idea :) On Saturday I will be flying the aircraft I have the use of down to the coast to a place close to Pangani to do the diving course I gave Gwyn for her 30th birthday present. We will be there all week, and looking around on the internet a little, it appears to be a beautiful place :)

Last week of January...

2017-01-31T17:44:00.000+03:00

I was going to do this update on Sunday, but my computer decided otherwise...

In the end I spent almost half the day trying to fix the computer - and I think/hope I have succeeded.

Last week was a quite week as far as flying was concerned for me. I only had two flights, both to Haydom (click here to see it on google maps) Taking Norwegian Church Aid people, travelling with two Norwegian members of parliament who were visiting Haydom hospital to see if they will help it with some government funding. I took them there on Thursday morning and went back collecting them on Friday afternoon.

Pat took N30MS up to Nairobi on Monday to have the EGT fixed, plus a couple of other things. After my little excitement last week in N36MS (the other plane with a working EGT) that began running very roughly about five minutes after take off. I could see on the EGT that there was a definite problem with one of the cylinders, I had to return to Arusha and land and swap planes.

This is the EGT (Exhaust Gas Temperature) gauge that we have fitted (and now working) in both our planes. With it we can see the exhaust gas temperature from each cylinder.

The problem was caused by some kind of lint having passed the filters and then partially blocking one of the injectors. Having the EGT made it easy to diagnose, plus the fact with it we can run the planes at their most efficient fuel burn, N30MS had been without a working EGT for at least 6 months.

Pat's intention was to be back from Nairobi on Tuesday, but as is so often the case, he was there much longer than anticipated and finally returned on Thursday.

Tuesday and Wednesday Sharkir was flying clinics, which fortunately were uneventful. Tanzania only appears to become drier and drier and the people are suffering more and more.

There are stories that in some parts of the country cows are being sold for as little as 10,000 Tsh (5 USD) because they are on the verge of death, usually a cow is worth 750,000 Tsh (375 USD) upwards. The president refuses to admit that there is a problem and will imprison anyone who says that there is hunger in the country.

This week four people were shot and killed by the army for grazing their animals in the forest reserve behind Olkakola (where we live) another was shot in the back breaking the his spinal cord. We heard that in total eight people were shot, so I guess the other three had less serious wounds.

I find it hard to imagine how a Tanzanian soldier, can shoot a fellow Tanzania for grazing his starving cattle in a forest reserve. It seems exceedingly sad to me.

On the way to Haydom, at least it looks as if the weather might change soon, clouds are around and some starting to build potentially into thunder storms.

After passing the rift valley there is a sort of long 'mountain' range, today I spotted Mbulu airstrip, which one can see is pretty much right in the middle of a village. We rarely fly there but would of course in the case of an emergency.

Returning from Haydom overlooking a very dry Lake Manyara, again one can see clouds around.

Returning from my Friday flight to Haydom and back, this is Lake Burungi, just to the west of Tarangire National Park. There are some rain cells and strong wind on the ground blowing up the dust. At least there was some rain somewhere!

Sunset at TGT (Tanzania Game Trackers) there is a bar next to a rugby field there - all very much ex-pat. I stopped there and met Gwyn and a friend for a while enjoying the company and happy hour :)

Friday was Olkakola's celebration of Australia day, and farewell party for Elsa who has now officially left Flying Medical Service. Neither Gwyn nor I realised that it would be over so early and as such arrived rather late. After the party Gwyn, myself, Rich, Luke (our new pilot) and Amber (Luke's girlfriend) all went out in Arusha and finally returned to the mission around 04:30 on Saturday morning. The rest of Saturday was spent recovering !

This is why we always use a filter while fuelling the planes, especially if we are filling them from jerry cans.

Next week I am scheduled to fly on Monday and Thursday. Monday to Endulen, a short narrow little airstrip at about 6500 feet, close to Ngorogoro Crater (click here to open google map of Endulen Airstrip) taking some church people and contractors who are overseeing the building of new doctor accommodation at the hospital there. On Thursday I am retrieving visiting doctors from Loliondo and bringing them back to Arusha and Kilimanjaro international airport.

Apart from that there is plenty of work to do on the planes, N36MS will be due a 100 Hr serivce.

3rd week

2017-01-24T14:13:00.000+03:00

Monday and Tuesday of last week weren't really noteworthy - I was working on one of the planes one Monday and I think some of Tuesday.

Wednesday I had a transfer of a researcher from Moshi to Haydom hospital, having to wait for her to be finished and then fly her back.

It was a beautiful morning to fly, clear if a little hazy.

A view of Kilimajaro on my way to Moshi.

Now I'm closer to Kili and one can see snow on it, very little at the moment.

I had to have a photo with the plane and Kili in the background :)

Overflying Kilimajaro international airport, which now has a new taxiway all the way to the threshold of runway 09

An unusual view of Mt Meru, one can see the ash cone in the middle of the volcano that it was.

just to prove I was flying :)

Overflying Lake Burungi, to the West of Tarangire national park. The fuzzy looking stuff on the water are all flamingos !!! I was wondering where they had gone, as there aren't any at the moment on Lake Natron - most likely because it's almost 100% dry. There must be literally tens of thousands of them on the lake.

Walking from the airstrip to Haydom hospital

Some interesting information posted on the wall of the research building/lab.

On Wednesday afternoons usually we have an FMS meeting, but Shakir was away, I was landing late so it was cancelled for this week, I can't say I was disappointed :)

I was then flying clinics in the Loliondo area, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We spend the two nights at the guest accommodation in Wasso hospital.

This is the sunrise on Thursday morning, taken from the mission before leaving to go to the airport. (Mt Meru)

Most of the team I was working with on Thursday (apart from the guy taking the photo) Left to right we have Loishe, a young Masaai nurse, yours truely, Apaifura - hiding behind the strut and Rosie, our doctor that day was Jacob, he was taking the photo.

On Saturday morning the first clinic is Olemilei, this time there were heaps of flies around. At times it was worse than this and when the rainy season finally starts it will be much much worse !

Taken from Olpirikata. The faint mountain way in the distance is Oldonyo Lengai (photos of it in many other posts as well) Olpirikata is to the North West of it.

Flying back to Arusha, over the south western shore of Lake Natron, Mt Gelai in the picture and to the far right of the lake shore as you see it is Makat, one of the places we do clinics on a different round.

Makat airstrip, from this altitude it looks better than it is when you're on the ground...

Coming back from Loliondo on Saturday afternoon I had a Masaai mother with a 10 day old Spina Bifida baby to bring back, as well as some other passengers.

After landing in Arusha, refueling the plane, cleaning up the vomit that one of the passengers was unable to get into a bag, and unloading the med boxes, Gwyn and I took her ALMC hospital in Arusha.

ALMC has a free program to take care of Spina Bifida babies, but unfortunately not everyone knows it's free - so it took some time to register the lady, convince people we didn't have to pay, and then try and explain to the lady (who speaks basically no Kiswahili) that she would be taken care of. Later that night I had one of the doctors from ALMC calling me to ask how payment was going to be made for the patient....

Gwyn and I had a very quiet Sunday. Gwyn had been at a school swim meet all of Saturday (she and the head masters' wife coach the swim team) and all we felt up to was a walk. I noticed these roofs with intriguing use of a rusted out enameled bowls :)

This week I am not scheduled for anything. I am on standby all week (I think) and there's quite a lot of maintenance to do on the planes. The tuner for the HF radio in one plane has decided it's time to retire, so one job is to replace that, plus various other things to do as well.

2nd week of the year...

2017-01-17T13:00:00.000+03:00

A quick update of last week, mainly in photos...

On Tuesday I was asked to fly as safety pilot for our new pilot Luke, who is basically ready to fly on his own. So we flew day 1 of the 'Endulen clinics'

The ANC clinic hut at Oleparkashi, with Oldoyo Lengai behind

Typical clinic under the wings, still at Oleparkashi

Looking to the North West from the plane at Oleparkashi

Giraffe at Makat, the first time I have seen them there, always a welcome sight :)

Makat's airstrip, with it's dog leg and a reasonable slope...

Kitundu on the left (occasionally flies with us and works as a midwife monitoring progress of the pregnant ladies). Sosy on the right, who has been flying regularly with FMS for more than three years now, and is a GREAT asset to the team.

Leaving Napandi, the last clinic of the day. Around Lake Natron we almost always see dust devils. Tanzania has a pretty serious drought at the moment, everything ought to be much greener. People are suffering from failure of the crops they rely on cultivating during the short rains.

Close to the mission people are trading one goat (usually 150,000 Tsh to buy) for one bucket of maize (usually 19,000 Tsh to buy) unfortunately things are only going to get worse before they get better. Magafuli says there's no hunger in Tanzania, refuses to help his people and continues to buy new aircraft for Air Tanzania

So far he has spent 60 million USD on two planes and intends to buy 3 more larger planes.... Meanwhile there is no medicine in the public hospitals, nor gloves, syringes etc. Staff are often not paid for up to 9 months at a time. Also the public schools typically have a teacher to student ratio of one to one hundred and fifty ! But the education? is free...

Overflying the paddock that belongs to the mission. The rusty roofed building at the bottom centre of the picture are the classrooms for the vocational training center, the shadow of the plane is just touching the top of Christopher's huge veg patch, helping feed us and the students. The building with the yellow wall at the top of the paddock is a church, with the beginnings of a new church being built to the left of it.

King Oyster mushrooms I am cultivating, in a old freezer being temperature controlled to 14 degrees centigrade, I'm looking forward to them being ready :)

On Thursday I had two flights to Loliondo, overflying Lake Natron which is very impressive at the moment.

On return from the first flight there was an emergency, so I landed at Malambo and picked up a grand mother, mother and new born baby with spina bifida and took them to Arusha.

Recently we have had very strong winds blowing up the dust and drying everything that wasn't already bone dry to bone dryness. . . especially around the mission.

I had to rush back from the second Loliondo flight to prep the plane for an emergency flight to Nairobi, which Shakir did - I had already flown 5 hours that day. Here we are loading the patient, note the dust devil to the left...

All the dust makes for great sunsets ;) Taken from TGT an ex-pat place that has a bar next to a rugby field. The airport is about 2km away to the left of the photo.

On Saturday we went to check out 'Themi Falls leisure park' We had seen their brouchure which made the place look very impressive. The 'road' there was awful, and quite long, the place has lovely gardens and is well kept , but someone had done an amazing job with the brouchure! The staff there are first class though, very attentive and helpful.

Our two cats, Panda (the larger one) and her baby who we still don't have a name for, I can't believe she was comfortable...

So that's all folks, as I said before I will try and make regular updates.

Yesterday I was finishing a 50 hr service on one of the planes, for most of the day. Today is a quiet day (so far...) I will be preparing for my flight tomorrow - a medical researcher transfer, and for clinics on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

First week of the year...

2017-01-08T11:30:00.000+03:00

So my intention is to tap more regular posts that are shorter.... Let's see how that goes.

We saw the new year in by initially going to a bar at Sable Square, a little further West than the end of the runway, and then we moved into town to Le Patio. Le Patio is a pretty good place to go, although I don't really appreciate a lot of the music they play.

We had a great night, the fireworks from around and about were pretty good for Arusha and Gwyn and I made it back to the mission around 06:00

Luke, our new pilot, returned at about 07:00. Soon after his return he had to go with Pat to the airport and fly to Kigali on an emergency flight. Fortunately Luke didn't have to fly, but he had to be on the plane to make the flight legal... Poor guy!

The Kigali emergency was a mess, unfortunately Pat hadn't been furnished with all the patient information and the patient was being kept alive with several machines that we are unable to use on our planes. So the next day they returned with an emergency from Haydom to Dar es Salaam on the way back.

I was out on Emboret clinics, which were happily uneventful.

Part of Makami airstrip, we are always struggling to have the people there keep the strip clear of thorn bushes...

Although there has been very little rain for this short rainy season we did have some during the week and when it cleared Mt Meru had snow on it, although down at our elevation it was about 25 degrees centigrade !

A snow topped Mt Meru, and Pascual one of the vocational school students to the right in the foreground.

I am looking forward to harvesting these little guys, when they are bigger - they're some King Oyster mushrooms, I'm still experimenting and enjoying the results of my experiments. When I feel as if I know what I'm doing better I may consider increasing production somewhat. Hmmmmm yum!

King Oysters just starting to emerge :)

Unkas left us this week, and set off to Mwanza and then to go onward to Kigoma (on the shore of Lake Tanganyika) to take a boat around the lake. His trip to Mwanza was more than interesting, travelling by local bus in Tanzania is almost always a big adventure!

That's all for this week, hopefully I'll post again next week :)