Luang Prabang

Laos, and Luang Prabang in particular, are places I have long wanted to visit. We made it these holidays and we were very excited to be going.

The old town part of Luang Prabang is a world heritage area. Having been to Hoi An in Vietnam, I was interested to see how the area had coped with 20 years of being listed as a world heritage area.

Our hotel was the Belle Rive, which looks over the Mekong River. It is three beautiful old buildings, with lots of teak. The furniture, floors and trims were all teak. It was situated in the old part of town which meant we could pretty much walk everywhere.

It was the hottest part of the year which meant the temperatures were hitting the high 30s/low 40s during the afternoon. The evenings and mornings were quite chilly, dropping down to around 15. Basically we spent the mornings out visiting temples and other places, had lunch then went back to the hotel to chill out in the air conditioning until the late afternoon.

The temples in Luang Prabang look superficially like Thai temples. However the colours and decorations were a little more subtle as opposed to the garish colours in Thailand.

The temples are all working temples in that they have monks living there. Every morning there is something of a procession, as the monks walk through the streets to collect alms from the townspeople. What is kind of sad is that it has become a scene of conflict between the monks, townspeople and tourists. It's to the point where there are signs in lots of places asking that people be respectful towards the monks.

The other thing about our trip was the haze. March and April are when the farmers burn off the rice stubble left behind after harvesting. Because was hotter and drier than usual, the haze was horrendous, consistently sitting over 100 on the PSI scale. This was another reason to chill out in the hotel in the afternoon as the haze became worse as the day wore on. It was a shame, because the countryside would have really beautiful in clearer weather.

Perhaps one positive of the hot, dry weather is that the bougainvillea were flowering strongly. Which made for very colourful scenes along the streets and pleased Matilda no end.

I should point out that I started writing this post in April and as usual, didn't get around to finishing it. So now that I have started again, I can't really remember exactly what I was going to say. Never mind. Anyhoo, here are some more photos of Luang Prabang's old town. Enjoy:)

Borobudur

Having visited places like Angkor Wat & Bagan, I was very keen to check out Borobudur, in Central Java. And I wan’t disappointed. Being able to watch the sunrise between two volcanoes from the top of Borobudur, with the growing light revealing the mist and smoke shrouded trees and villages, was very cool.

Borobudur is contemporaneous with the construction of the temples around Angkor , making it around 1100 years old. I find the fact that there was no cement used in the construction totally amazing. Part of the attraction was the mystery associated with its construction, as there is very little mention of the whys & wherefores in the written histories of Central Java.

Making the trip to Borobudur satisfied some of my curiosities, but learning about the area has created new ones. I found out that there are two other temple complexes (Pawon and Mendut) in the area and together with Borobudur, make a straight line stretching about 3-4 km. Something to investigate on another trip? I was also hoping to visit Prambanan, which is a 10th century Hindu temple closer to Yogyakarta, but didn’t get the time. Definitely enough reasons to come back. Next summer, maybe:)

The End of the Year!

Tomorrow is the last day of school and I'm more than slightly amazed that we have been in Singapore for three years now. They have just whizzed by and this past six months have been the most frenetically busy I have ever known. It's been great but, wow, it has been busy!

I've done some pretty cool stuff at school this year. I lead two overseas trips. One with Year 9 to Sabah which was brilliant. It was really rewarding seeing kids responding to being out of their comfort zones so positively. We have a lot of mainland Chinese at our school and they were not impressed with sleeping in hammocks in the jungle and having to prepare their own food. But by the last day they didn't want to leave, which was pretty cool. I also took a group of kids to Bali to look at volcanoes. This was the second time I've done this trip and this year was as good as last. Kids get so much out of seeing the real life version of the stuff we talk about in class. Although this group were sort of 'too cool for school', individually they all said they had a great time and would do it again. There were other things too, but I won't bore you with that.

Early start at Changi

Jungle Camp

View from hotel at Kintamani, Bali

View from Mt Batur, Bali

Our school has grown a lot over the three years we have been here. In August 2012 we had 317 kids from Nursery to Year 13. At the end of this year we have over 800 kids and we look like hitting 900 by the time we come back in August. The growth hasn't been without its issues but we have managed to pull it off. Even though we are dead knackered and looking forward to the holidays, I am already a little bit excited about next year. Our staff is fairly stable now and that means we can organise things with more continuity. Our department work well together and we have done some really good stuff this year. Hopefully we can consolidate that and then build on it next year.

Mel is the co-ordinator of two core subjects for IGCSE and IB. This keeps her busy, and is both challenging and rewarding. She will be working full-time next year, which will be a big change for her and Matilda. I think she is keen to be working full-time, but she will miss the time with Matilda. We have been very lucky that they have that time together over the last three years. Mel and Matilda got to do lots of stuff together that wouldn't have been possible if Mel was working full-time. Matilda will also be at school for the whole day next year. This won't be such an issue as she asked if she could stay at school longer and has been doing full days for most of this term.

One of the things I really love about our school is the commitment to professional development. Mel and I both got to travel overseas for courses this year, which was awesome. Mel went to Phuket for Global Perspectives workshop and I had three days in Nanjing for a Geography workshop. We were also able to go to the annual Google Education Summit here in Singapore. I attended a workshop with the head guy for Google Geo Tech Education looking at Google Earth and Google Maps, as well as few other things which was quite geeky and cool. I also have a course in Bangkok lined up for September, which should be interesting.

Wearing daddy's hat at Melbourne Airport
the day we left for Singapore

Making 4th birthday wishes

Mel was looking at some photos yesterday, from around the time we arrived in Singapore. Matilda was still a wee baby; not long walking and just learning to talk. Tomorrow is the last day of her first year at school (she was in Nursery for half a day for most of the year). She really loves going to school which is awesome. We were looking at her report today. She has done quite well. She loves Chinese and swimming!
It has been amazing to watch Matilda develop from a wee baby into a little girl. She has an incredible imagination and makes up stories and songs about everything almost every day. She loves to draw and has done some interesting of portraits of Mel and I. She is very much the little princess that cares a lot about her clothes and shoes. But she also loves watching volcano videos and nature documentaries with her daddy. She also loves maps and flags:)

Matilda is very well travelled for a 4 year old. This year we went to Myanmar, Australia & NZ for Christmas and Perth for Easter. Myanmar was very cool and I am dead keen to go back. Christmas time is a much nicer time to visit both Australia and NZ. The weather is much better and everyone is mostly relaxed. Perth was great as we got to meet my cousin's little boys Zander and Jace and Mel and Matilda were able to spend time with her sister Rose out at Kalgoorlie. Matilda loves seeing her big cousins, Zoe and Emma.

Sunset over the Irrawaddy River

Shwezigon Temple, Bagan

Tilda singing to the Buddha

Sunrise ballons over Bagan

Big Umbrellas

With tomorrow being the last of school, we now have 7 weeks holiday. Yeah! We went to NZ and Australia this time last year and while it was good to catch up with friends and family, the weather is shit. Mel and I vowed we would never visit at that time of year again, unless it was absolutely, positively unavoidable! To bring things back into balance we will be heading for Thailand and Bali this year. We're heading up to Bangkok late next week for a few days. We are taking our helper, Lorie, with us so she can visit her son who teaches English there. In the last week of June, we are hitting Bali with Mel's sister and parents. It is Rose's birthday and good chance for Tilda to hang out with her big cousins for a while. I am going to Java for a couple days to visit some of the ancient Hindu/Buddhist temples near Yogyakarta and take geeky photos. In the last week before school we are spending a few days at a flash resort to make sure we are fully rested and relaxed!

I guess that's it for the moment. Being on holidays means I should be able to post again soon. But I probably won't:)

Ciao!

Myanmar

Visiting ancient places has always given me a feeling of … I’m not sure exactly. Excitement isn’t the right word, nor is interesting. Hmm … maybe fascination is a better word? Anyhoo, I have been fortunate enough to visit places such as the Great Wall & Ming Dynasty tombs in China and Angkor Wat in Cambodia (twice!).

Being sandwiched between India and China, South East Asia tends to be forgotten, despite the fascinating history of the area. I have been fortunate to have visited almost all the ASEAN countries and last week I finally made it to Bagan in Myanmar.

There are so many temples, pagodas and shrines on the plain in the area it seems as though someone has scattered a bucket of them. It is noticeable as you drive around, but more so when you get up high. Many of them are quite small but there are several large ones that are very much worth visiting. And although they are very old (perhaps 800-1000 years in some cases), there are some that are still functioning.

We happened to be in Bagan in time for the full moon, which is an auspicious time for buddhists. The day of the full moon was a public holiday and there were large crowds of Burmese people at some of the temples. In the carparks were many small trucks packed to the gunnels with people, with their belongings piled on the roofs. It was interesting to see, though my daughter Matilda become a little tired of the attention she attracted from local people.

Bagan is an amazing place and I would love to go back at some point. A balloon flight over the temples would be and taking the boat from Mandalay would be very cool.