Rosemary Phillimore

Rambling Rose

Rosemary Phillimore

November 2013, here we are as guests at the wedding of Nick and Els , the weekend before we leave for New Zealand via India. What a wonderful last party before leaving - thank you Scotties and Houlsbys. So tomorrow, Novmber 25th we leave the Uk and fly to Mumbai. We will spend 4 weeks travelling by train,plane, bus and bikes round India before heading onto New Zealand to arrive on December 22nd. This will be our travel blog which with the help of my iPad I may be able to keep updated as we travel.

Some folk really enjoy travel blogs and for others they are tedious monologue of other people's fun.
The beauty is that you can chose to read or ignore them.

To get notification that the blog has been updated you will need to hit the 'subscribe' icon below this entry and supply your email address. After that you will get an email from 'travelblog.org' each time I add an entry which is likely to be about every two weeks or so (n.b. it may go to your junk mail in the first instance - perhaps aptly)
It's up to you then if and when you read it - for the family it is compulsory with a written test in April.

For those who are not familiar with blogs they are written from the bottom up so the earliest entries are at the bottom as you scroll down - can you tell I've been a teacher!!!

Bye for now, have a great Christmas if that is your celebration

Rosie



Asia » India » Kerala November 24th 2013

Well not there yet but by this time tomorrow we will be on our way to New Zealand via India.... read more

Asia » Indonesia » Kalimantan » Derawan December 4th 2008

To look into the eyes of ‘Princess’ - a rescued and rehabilitated Orang Utan in her home environment was a spine tingling, magical experience. She is one of over 200 Orang Utans that have been returned to their natural habitat by rangers working at Camp Leakey deep in the rain forest of Borneo. Truth be told ‘Princess’ has not been fully rehabilitated - she had too much contact with humans in her early days of rehabilitation and now tends to hang around the camp. She was once part of an experiment to see how much language Orang Utans can master - she has a vocabulary of over 140 words in signing. She is mother to a baby of 6 months, which still clings to her, and a juvenile of 6 years who still stays with her ... read more
2-Son of Princess
3- Tom Sulking
4- Feeding Platform where Tom should be sitting

Asia » Indonesia » Timor November 23rd 2008

Today we are leaving Kupang to travel in Indonesia before returning home to the UK on Decemeber 12th. It is with mixed feelings we leave - so sad to say farewell to some great people, relieved to get away from the heat and noise, satisfied (even smug) about what we have achieved , amazed at what people can and will achieve when given the opportunities, intrigued by the resourcefullness of people when there are no 'health and safety regs' to inhibit enterprise. We will miss the smiles and endless greetings of 'Hello Mister', the friendly interchanges (assumed) , being stroked by strangers who just want to feel the skin, Any way a few photos gives a better impression than my ramblings. Just a small selction form my collection of 265,765. This is the last blog from ... read more
Colin's team
Connect 4
Gifts

Asia » Indonesia » Timor November 18th 2008

Its official - Colin is married to an old fossil The thing they removed from my ear was a deposit of calcium!!! (if this is the first time for you of reading this blog you need to track down the entries for the ear saga as this is a follow up report) The theory is that a chronic infection in the outer ear that went on for so long caused the body to lay down cells to surround the infected area but it misread the cell coding master sheet and lay down calcium cells instead of soft tissue - if left unchecked it would have kept growing and turned to bone eventually. I can’t make sense of it but I know nothing of cell biology or any biology for that matter. So the good news is ... read more
The entertainers
Line Dancing
Not in a line dancing

Asia » Indonesia » Timor November 12th 2008

The saga of the Kupang ear. November blog For me this month has been dominated by an ongoing ear infection. For Colin it has been a very productive month working with the suppliers to install the new hospital computer system - all is looking good with the project at the moment. You may chose not to bother reading the rest of this self pitying, whining blog entry which is all about me and my ear The saga began 4 weeks ago when I went for a celebratory swim on the Friday afternoon of the final day of teaching my 5 week ICT course, this was at the pool of Hotel Krystal, by Kupang standards a 4 star hotel by European standards - fairly dire. The next day I swam in the private pool of an Australian ... read more
Camera Shots
left ear normal
Right ear with abscess

Asia » Indonesia » Timor October 30th 2008

3 weeks on from the fire and we are back on track. We have a new computer training room and managed to salvage 5 computers from the fire and have 3 others that have been donated by VSO in Bali. So 8 useful computers - some with burn holes in the cases but they work!!! Immediately after the fire we met with the hospital management who were really keen that we re-establish the training room. So that is what we have done. They still plan to buy the Hospital Computer System in November as the money that has been allocated and will not be diverted to re-building the burnt out building. Buildings come cheap here -land and labour is cheap but technology and expertise is in short supply so they are keen for us to stay ... read more
New training Room
laundery drying outside of training room
New training Room

Asia » Indonesia » Timor September 30th 2008

Sunday 21st September… …….. had been a hot, sticky, lackluster day and we had hid away in our room most of the day. At 6 pm we went out to find somewhere to eat with not a lot of success as our favorite watering holes were shut - as we wandered the noisy broken street of Kupang concentrating in the dark on spotting the broken pavements in order to avoid falling into a storm drain Colin took a whack on his head from a low tree branch. It knocked him to the ground dazing him and causing him a scalp wound. After Rob’s experience with minor wounds last year in Thailand I decided to get him home (that is worrying I’m now calling this room Home!). I bathed his head stemmed the bleeding and as ... read more
Patients breaking out
Admin block before
Admin block ablaze

Asia » Indonesia » Timor September 20th 2008

4 weeks later…… Been here 4 weeks nearly and feeling quite settled - funny how things which were so strange to start with I now don’t notice. In my first week I was terrified of falling down a hole in the pavement into a storm drain -now I’m used to jumping holes, dodging scooters in the road and have abandoned the foreign concept of a safe pavement. Can’t say that about the rubbish strewn everywhere - Kupang is one massive fly tip zone. Folk keep their private patch clean but no one cleans up the public spaces and where locals once tossed banana skins that wrapped their food and rattan baskets they now toss plastic wrappings and bags. Colin and I live in a room in a small compound within the hospital complex. We virtuously reuse ... read more
Compost goat
Goat with waste disposal
Choosing our fish

Asia » Indonesia » Timor August 30th 2008

So here I am in Kupang, West Timor, Indonesia (arrived July 28th) - living in an en suite - no bedroom just an en suite. Can’t complain ‘cause I don’t speak the language. Actually it’s not so bad - it is one large tiled hospital room usually assigned as doctor’s quarters. In the room is the sink and ‘Mandi’ (sluice and toilet) and we have curtained off one end where our beautifully carved teak bed sits in contrast to the rest of our furniture. Not the subtle, muted tones of Laura Ashley here - we are more into lurid lime green nylon curtains, bright vivid red vinyl sofa tastefully offset with yellow plastic cushions. Still no worries about spilling the red wine on the sofa eh??? I arrived in Bali after a great flight (two) ... read more
Keeping up appearances
Shower and wet room
House goat

Asia » Indonesia » Timor July 30th 2008

Blog 0 - July 2008 Our travels in 2008 have brought us to a noisy, busy seemingly chaotic town Kupang on the dry dusty island of West Timor at the eastern end of Indonesia. The nearest town you’ve probably heard of will be Darwin, Australia, approximately 1000 miles SE of us. Colin and I are here, in Indonesia with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) to help install a hospital information system in the town’s public hospital. The project was initiated by the German Overseas Development agency (GTZ) and Colin worked with them last year for 6 month doing the systems analysis and strategic plan. This project is the follow up to that work. It may seem strange to you (it did to me) that money is being spent on ICT Training (my job) and installing hospital information ... read more
Admin block
Village folk
Records 3




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