More memories to pack away again

A lazy day today. Very lazy. The morning TV from the sofa turned into most of the day on the sofa. Just watching programmes about people buying $million houses in Mexico, renting a house in the Queensland jungle, diving to a shipwreck in the Marlborough Sounds, motorbiking down the South Island of NZ, and a Food Truck in Davenport.

I eventually roused myself for an hour or so of packing. I have been putting off sorting out the cupboards containing kitchen stuff and glasses. But I think we’ve got what needs to be chucked sorted now. None of it. We need to keep it all. You never know when you will need a different shaped glass. Though how we ended up with two kitchen whizz things I don’t know.

I came across this Youth Hostel Card from when I was travelling. (Wow! Lots of thick brown hair!) I see by the dates it was in 1975. Some hostels in NZ, then the big overseas trip. Top right, clockwise (though not in order of travel - we would have been very lost if it was!) :

Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia
Isfahan - Iran
Pulau Pinang - Malaysia
Wisma Delima- Jakarta
Katoomba - Australia
Ferdowsi Tehran - Iran

I can’t remember much of it. I SO wish I’d been blipping then. Or even kept a diary. The two pals I travelled with (and still owe money to) remember different bits, so sometimes we can piece together a few more memories.

One thing I do remember, while travelling through Malaysia, (hitch-hiking. Three of us) people we met talked about Kayell. It seemed a great place to visit, but I kept looking on maps and not finding it. But we went to Kuala Lumpur. When I eventually realised they were the same place, I didn't let on that I hadn't known. But they'll know now...

We also went to Laos because a Laotian friend suggested we should. We had to cross the Mekong River in a small barge in the dark, for some reason. At the mouth of the same river in 1975, the Khymer Rouge had captured Phnom Penh, and had begun to systematically kill millions of Cambodians under Pol Pot. Of course we knew nothing of this.

And really, it was just as well that contact with parents was almost non-existent, so what they didn’t know, they didn’t worry about. Which was our motto too.