We headed out of the lodge today on a long meander to a river. Along the way we picked up 8 children who were delighted to see us and show us around their village. They accompanied us down a steep cliff to a huge valley below. Along the way we met a sheep and goat herder dressed in native attire. Eventually we reached the bottom of the valley and the river. It was wasn't the cleanest water in the world - but it was running and most of the kids … [Read more...]
Ancient Bushman cave paintings
Just returned from a fantastic outing on the horses to see ancient Bushman cave paintings. We rode through expansive fields of mostly corn until we reached a viewpoint overlooking an impressive gorge. From here it was on foot down a very steep rocky trail to the first of the caves - called "echo cave". It was obvious why this cave took its name after we shouted ourselves hoarse, practicing our new found Lesotho words including "dumella" - a … [Read more...]
Malealea Village
We met a local in the nearby village and had an hour tour of the surroundings. It is nice to be able to talk to the locals in English - this is not always something you can do around the world. The village is very spread out and home to about 500 people. The homes are traditional, mostly stone and mud with thatched roofs collected from wild grasses and reeds that grow nearby. The village is overseen by a chief - he is elected for a lifetime. … [Read more...]
Malealea Lodge, Lesotho
Greetings from Malelea Lodge in the remote hinterlands of the "mountain Kingdom" - the landlocked county of Lesotho (not pronounced how its spelled, rather phonetically you say "Lesootoo"). The country has the highest mountains in Southern Africa and receives significant snowfall at the higher elevations in the winter. There is even a small ski resort in the eastern part of the country! We drove in from South Africa crossing the border at … [Read more...]
Exhausted in South Africa
We arrived in South Africa with no plans. A quick scan of the airport revealed a number of name brand car rental companies - so we bee-lined for the only Internet Cafe we could find and used one of the online car reservation companies. Within 40 minutes of making our reservation we had signed countless forms and were sitting in our almost brand new Nissan Sentra. This was the only "automatic" transmission vehicle we could find at the entire … [Read more...]
Continent Hopping!
We jetted from Bangkok to Addis Ababa yesterday on Ethiopian Airlines. I wasn't too impressed with the two planes we were on - they were just plain old. Both times I used the restroom the broken doors swung in on me even though it said "occupied" on the outside. The video/light control console was broken on both flights and on the second flight my seat had a scant view of the video screens. But, they just joined Star Alliance in late 2011 so more … [Read more...]
Fishing Time
Every year around this time the villagers drain one of the local ponds into an adjoining rice field. This takes all night - a couple guys stay up all night with the pump. Then in the very early morning about 15 people gather at the banks for a mud infused assault on the fish. This is not clean work - they jump into the mud, sinking up to their waists and crawl around with small nets and buckets collecting all the fish. By mid morning its … [Read more...]
Changes in the Village
I've been coming to our village in Eastern Thailand every at least once a year for the past 10 years (we own property next to the village). Things change so fast here. In the last 4 years we now have land line service and a 10mb Internet connection (that's 4x as fast as we have at our place in California). Oh and we have 24/7 running water. Prior to this we had to walk 5 minutes to the local pond, turn on the pump for water and then walk back … [Read more...]
Village Updates
Our niece Puk Boong shows up promptly every afternoon around 4pm dressed in her school uniform. She is attending a private school where English is taught at a younger age than a public school. The scope of her English so far is in song - she can vaguely sing the words to a number of songs - and has perfect tone. Today, the 29th of December apparently was Christmas Day at her school. She had to wear the "Christmas" uniform and happily performed a … [Read more...]
Bangkok Day Tripping
We are always going into Bangkok for something. This time for yellow fever vaccinations - I had mine last year for Cote d'Ivoire (good for 5 years) - this time around for Syy for our January trip to Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique. Its not easy getting Yellow Fever vaccs in Bangkok - only available on the weekdays - hospitals don't offer it so we ended up going to the Red Cross Clinic at the Snake Farm. This time of year Bangkok is … [Read more...]
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