Final thoughts

I think anyone that gets to go on a trip like this one to countries on the other side of the world, comes home with a new appreciation of life. When you see how trivial our "problems" are here in N America, how much excess we have, how much we take for granted and compare that to people whose sole purpose in the day is just to survive another day you, can't not be affected by that. I'm going to try and not belly ache the next time I have to wait more than 2 mins in line at Tim's.

I was troubled part way thru that some back home had some disparaging remarks to make about my trip. That's partially why I stopped updating my blog. Some didn't like that I got to go under the umbrella of the church. I did initially post a blog telling those people what I thought of them, but thought better of it and removed the post before anyone could see it. For the record, I paid my own way, out of my pocket, out of my vacation time from work, away from my family. People are quick to criticize without knowing the whole story mostly because they have nothing better to do.

Overall it was a great experience and I'd do it again if I could. It was interesting to experience the different cultures, now I can see where all the crazy taxi drivers come from. It was a wonderful experience of faith for me, to see people who appreciate their faith and are willing to make sacrifices for it. And of course it was a once in a lifetime experience to spend a few days with the Chief. I'm thankful that I still get excited at my age to see him and shake his hand.

This blog has at least accomplished what I hoped it would. It gave me an opportunity to keep track of what I did on the trip and to keep those memories more vivid. I hope you enjoyed reading it.

JB

Day 21 – the final day

The last day was a long one. Remember how I talked about how much extra space was on the Cathay Pacific flight on the way over…3 seats for everyone? Well they fixed that problem on the way back. Both the flight to Hong Kong and then to Toronto were packed. No wiggle room, that's manageable for a 3 hour flight to Florida but it's a little uncomfortable on a 15 hour flight to Toronto. It was interesting to me to see on our tickets that we were leaving at 4:05pm and arriving after a 15 hour flight, 3 hours later in Toronto….crossing the international dateline does that I guess. I counted down the time in about 2 hour chunks because that's how long it took to watch a movie. Which I think I watched 4 or maybe 5, plus some Monty Python flying circus episodes, a dirty job episode and maybe something else….can't remember now. Anyway we made it right on time…maybe a little early. There were times as we flew up across Japan, to the Aleutians, to Alaska and across northern Canada that we were going over 1000km's an hour. I didn't think they went that fast in a commercial aircraft.

We arrived back in Canada to a sign that told us that our luggage was still in Hong Kong….. So needless to say we made it thru the airport pretty quickly and headed home.

I don't sleep very well in moving objects so I didn't get much sleep on the flights so my transition to Eastern time was pretty smooth. I went to bed at 11pm in my bed and woke up at 8 and felt great. I didn't really experience any jet lag coming back which was nice.

Day 20

It's time to head home. Why is it easier packing when you are heading somewhere then when you're heading home? Things just don't fit into your luggage as well when you're returning home. But after a lot of packing and re-packing it all fit and we headed to the airport for out 1:30 flight to Bangkok.

Security procedures in these countries are a bit different. You have to put your luggage thru an X-ray machine, but I'm not quite sure that it works because they never stop anyone, then you can check in. Luckily we're just under the weight limit for the bags and I get a window seat on the left hand side of the plane. Left hand because IF the weather is good we should be able to see the Himalaya's, but there was only 1 time that you could see any mountains. I took a couple of pics and of course I'm going to say that it was Everest because it was the only one I saw poking thru the clouds.

We got to Bangkok and check into our hotel at the airport because our flight to Hong Kong didn't leave until the morning. We had decided that we were going to go downtown to do some shopping in the markets because someone told us they had just been downtown a week before and everything back to normal after the riots they had there a couple weeks before. I was feeling a bit uneasy about the plan because we were heading downtown at night, during the day I wouldn't have had an issue, but at night….. Before we headed down we grabbed some supper and met DAP Hebeisen who was heading home later that evening. We told him our plans and his first comment was "well aren't you courageous!" So that just added to my uneasy feeling about our shopping plans. Just for some perspective, we finished eating around 8:30pm so by the time we left to go downtown it was 9pm. When we left he his words of warning were " remember the later you stay the more dangerous it is". This coming from someone who knows from living in the Philippians for most of his life would know….

If you've heard stories about Bangkok, you've probably heard that there are all manner of people and persuasions. So it wasn't a surprise to me that our taxi driver probably spent his off duty hours dressed like a woman. I'll leave it at that. Anyway he/she took us to a night market, that because of the problems there and that lack of tourist, were ready to sell their wares. So we got a couple good deals, got ripped off by the guys selling us T-shirts and sweated a lot. It was very humid and hot but we returned safely from our adventure….of course after being asked if we wanted girls, smoke and hash….not all at the same time.

Day 19

Today everyone was packing, Except for 3 of us. Some were heading home by various routes, others were heading to Cambodia for a couple of days. We were staying the extra day to clean up the accounts etc.

After the goodbyes were said and the buses headed off to the airport we decided that we should pick up some gifts before heading home. So we brought Ap Jacob with us and hailed a taxi. Describing the taxi driver, who thinks he understands English but doesn't really, where "that place" is can be a challenge. You know "that place" where there's shops, but close by there's some old buildings, and also close to "that place" is a small monkey temple. What does the driver get out of that description? Monkey temple. I'm not sure the religion it is but they have these temples in Kathmandu that are filled with Monkeys and there's a big one that all the tourists go to on a hill on the outskirts of town. Of course this isn't the one my father in law was describing, he wants the one by "that place" So after 15 mins heading to the wrong place we finally convince the taxi driver to take us to where all the shops are. Which he eventually does in a round about way to extend the cab fare that ends when he got stopped by the police for driving up a vary narrow one way street…the wrong way.

If you haven't experienced buying goods in countries outside of N America then you're probably going to get ripped off. That's where Ap Jacob comes in. We negotiate a price in English then he rips into them in their language and we save another 30%. After getting a bad deal on our own on some baseball hats, Jacob tells me the trick to negotiate. If they ask 1000 rupees, you laugh at them and offer them less than half, say 400. Then they'll come to 750 and you work out a price that normally is around half the asking price and you only get that after you've almost walked out of their shop 3 times. Its quite an interesting system.

Even though we left the first shopping location and headed to a second one we did see some very old buildings and temples but none of them had monkeys. We still don't know the real name of "that place"…..

Day 18

Sorry about the lateness of these final posts.

So Day 18 is the big Chiefs service. We were up early to meet with groups of people to practice where everyone had to stand and where to go and what will happen when. Just last minute prep. The service was scheduled for 11:30 to accommodate anyone that might get stuck in traffic etc. I should mention that its Saturday. In Nepal the religious day is Saturday so for our members this is normal but for us it was a little weird. After breakfast we still had plenty of time, which was good because the hotel guys were rearranging the chairs in the hall for the fifth time. All the buses started arriving with member around 10am or so and by 10:30 pretty much everyone was there.

Included with the group for the service was a young lady from the U.S. I had said Hi to her in the hall earlier in the morning and didn't think anything of seeing another white westerner in a hotel. It turns out that Maria was from Madison, Wisconsin and she had only been in Nepal for 2 days. She was in Nepal visiting a friend, which accompanied her to service, that she worked with in the USA. As the story goes, her parents weren't too keen on her traveling to Nepal on her own and as she was doing research into whether there was a church in Nepal, she came across the Chief's list of countries that he was visiting and noticed that Nepal was on the weekend that she arrived. This sealed the deal with her parents. I'm not sure how she found out where exactly it was but she got a front row seat for the service. After hearing her story, I asked if she had been to a Chief's service before and she had been in Colorado for DOTY several years before but had never got to shake hands with him there. SO….we made her day. Not only did she get a chance to shake his hand, but also to talk with him several times, she got pictures with him and her friend and finally she got one of the bibles that we lugged over from Canada with signatures of all the Apostles on it to take home. Needless to say she was overwhelmed.

We all shared lunch together on a big patio just outside the hall and the Chief got the chance to go around and say hello. That was after I found a translator to walk around with him because there's not too many that speak English. The formal part of the day finished with an impromptu youth concert that he really enjoyed.

It was a great day and the weather was great…meaning warm….meaning I probably shed a few pounds from sweating so it was off to the pool before supper.

Day 17

I really hope that my days are actually counting up correctly because if not I'm going to think that I missed a day somewhere.

Today we are off on a tour. We're heading to a place called Nagrakot. It's located just outside of the city of Kathmandu, but its up on top of one of the hills. If the weather is good and clear we should be able to see the Himalaya's. We're crossing our fingers though because the weather has been pretty hot and humid and there's always been a haze or maybe that's smog…probably smog around Kathmandu.

The first thing we had to do is get out of the city, which is a challenge. The traffic always seems to be pretty bad so it was a slow ride…in a bus that was supposed to have air conditioning. Did you catch the "supposed" word? Of course its only "discovered" that its not working about 30 mins into sitting in traffic. The only problem with opening up the windows is the exhaust fumes. The thing I think when I see all the pollution is how much the gov't in Canada goes after us for car emissions and in reality how clean our exhaust is compared to most of the rest of the world…..they should spend some time cleaning up emissions on this side of the world.

I was trying to get a couple pictures of how they do wiring here. Here's a picture.

I'm not sure how they figure out what is going where. I'm sure that they just keep adding new wire without taking down the stuff that's not working, because that would take too much time. But I'd hate to be a cable guy in this town. I had to take picture with a high speed setting on the camera because we were bouncing around so much on the roads there that it was impossible to take a picture…at least I could get some pictures before I flew off my seat.

Another interesting thing was the size of the shops. I managed to get a picture.

These places are as small as a closet and people man them all day long, trying to sell something to make a living. Its not just one or two of these shops, there are literally hundreds of them, selling everything from food to clothes to plastic wear, there's machine shops, welding shops, motorcycle repair shops. None are bigger than 12 ft by 16 ft. And then there's the farmers working the oxen, its pretty tough work.

So after 2 hrs up to the top of the hill to Nagrakot….it's cloudy. So we collectively imagined the Himalaya's in the distance, had lunch and did the 2 hour return drive back to the hotel. A nice swim in the pool capped the day off for me.

Day 16

June 10. The weather continues to be good, nice and clear. The chief and special guests were arriving at 1:30pm from Bangkok. But before they arrived the Bishop, Tim and I, had the job to inspect the rooms that were assigned to them and put some welcoming gifts in their rooms. This sounded easy but didn't turn out to be that easy. Firstly they gave us room keys and we went to check them out. For some reason they were putting most of us on a smoking floor, so you can imagine that the people that were in the rooms the night before were smokers. After we checked out the rooms, the only smoke we saw was the smoke coming out of the Bishops ears….. Lets just say that Tim and I got to see a little bit of "Fred" come out in the Bishop when he was dealing with the Hotel. So the hotel moved people around and got some decent rooms.

We finished just in time for the official welcome. My job thru the visit is to be the official photographer so of course I had to get the welcome group picture. The rest of the afternoon was open for the guests to relax after a long trip. They had already been to a couple of other places in Asia so the downtime was much appreciated. We had an early dinner and most headed off to an early bedtime.

Day 14 &15

I'm trying to think what I did on these days or even what dates they actually are. I'm think June 8 & 9. For the most part pretty un-eventful. Meetings and then more meetings. We toured the hall and made some arrangements for the service and for the dinner after. The weather is pretty good especially since its supposed to be a rainy time of the year. Nice warm temps around 30 with sunny skies, hopefully that holds out for the rest of the week. I wish there was more to report but its all boring stuff for the most part.

Day 12 &13

Today we went back to the Colombo church for service and a quick meeting while the accounting guys were there then spent the rest of the afternoon packing and getting ready for our trip to the airport. We met up with Ap David who returned from the northern district of Sri Lanka. He said that its quite a depressing area because during the war the south pretty much destroyed anything that was the Tamils and they all live in tent cities. The conditions aren't the best.

We headed to the airport at 11pm because our flight was scheduled for 2:10am to Bangkok. It was a pretty full flight and we arrived on time for a 3 hour wait. The Bangkok airport is one huge mother of an airport. There are lots of shops and "duty free" stores but probably not the best prices. Our flight to Nepal was on time as well and I made sure that I was on the right side of the plane because I was told that if its clear then you can see Mt Everest. So I got to my window seat on the right side of the plane but I'm sitting in the first row in the back section of the plane. The seat is right at an exit door just past the wing so THERES NO WINDOWS!! I could look out the window that was just at my head but was mostly for the seat behind me. That was OK until the lady closes the blind. So my only option is the exit door in front of me but I have to get up and lean over to look out. So my kind father in law came back to visit me and tells the stewardesses ( just a side note: did you know that stewardesses is the longest word that you can type only on your left hand ?...but I digress) and they come and get me and more me up to a window seat in the section in front that has no one in it. There's only 2 problems 1. is that its directly over the wing! The only thing you can see is the wing and bits in front and back of it 2. About 2 mins after they move me the guy that was sitting there returns….. So back I go.

The weather was clear but the Himalayans are pretty far away and they only appear as we're descending into Kathmandu. So here I am taking pictures out of the port holes in the side and the back instead of being strapped into my seat. It's not my fault because another lady that was taking pictures told me to go to the back of the plane because you could see them better. I took a bunch of pictures but I'm not sure how they'll turn out.

I just checked the pictures and I got a picture of Everest! I only know that because the picture is pretty high res and I was able to zoom in.

We hit the ground and went thru the totally whacked procedure at the Nepal airport and headed to the hotel. In Sri Lanka the roads were filled with all kinds of Tuk Tuk's. In Nepal its filled with all kinds of motorcycles. I've never seen so many on the roads and the smog is pretty bad too.

So after a nice supper and close to 40 hours awake sleep came quickly…..

Day 11

Day 11

This morning we headed to the home of Angus, or Agnes as the Bishop called him about 20 times. How a Sri Lankan got a name like Angus I don't know but there is no Scottish blood in him.

Man is it hot and humid today. It rained early this morning and even though we're by the ocean the humidity is a killer. We finally found his house and got the official tour. It's a typical solid concrete building with 2 rooms, a front room where he had set up for the service and a kitchen and "bathroom". Angus has a couple palm trees and he had already cut down a cluster of them. He proceeded to cut us up a couple, popped some straws in them and were served fresh King coconut water.

After meeting with the group we headed back to Colombo. On the way we stopped for lunch at a great sea side restaurant. I noticed on the wall on the building as we were leaving a line about 9 feet up that marked how high the water was when the tsunami hit in 2006. They had some pictures of the restaurant after the waters receded.

It took us about 4 hours to get back to Colombo. I was pretty excited mostly because I didn't have to sit in the front seat the slowest van on the road…a wide open, smooth road and the driver wouldn't go faster than 60KM's!! It was painful. I was happy to go swimming at the pool, even though it started to rain soon after we got to the city. We met up with Tim (the accountants on an Asian tour) and Madu (who looks after the overall admin for Sri Lanka) for supper.

Day 10

Day 10

Our time in the Up country is finished so today is the dreaded trip to a place on the ocean called Galle. We’re going to see retired policeman who met someone from Germany and he’s interested in having services in the area. I call it the dreaded trip only because of how long its going to take. The trip should take us pretty much south around 240km. But we’ve been told that the road is washed out in certain areas because of heavy rains the week before. I’m not sure that I mentioned it but its actually monsoon season here. We’ve been really lucky and had no rain at all, but apparently the week before they had very heavy rains. So that means our trip takes us back towards Colombo, then over to Galle. So instead of 240km’s, according to google maps its still only about 285kms. Remember they don’t have good roads and our driver doesn’t go faster than 60km’s, lets average it out and say he’s driving at 40kms. ….so how long did it take? Google maps says 4 hrs…..we left at 8:30, stopped to look at a suspension bridge and we got there around 5pm….so with lunch around 8 hrs. To go 285KM’s!!

Interesting drive when we went down Galle road. It’s a road that runs right along the coast. The same coast that at 9:46 am on Dec 26, 2004 got hit by the backlash of the tsunami. There were lots of remnants of houses destroyed because they were close to the water. We finally got to our hotel and had a chance to stick our feet into the Indian Ocean.

Day 8 & 9

Day 8 & 9

There’s no internet up here anywhere, so I can write these entries for the blog, but I can’t post them. Day 8 & 9 were spent mostly driving in the Up country. All the tea plants are on what they call here as Estates. Each estate owns land and grows tea on it. Each estate has villages that the workers live in on the estate. All the tea, and it’s a lot, is hand picked. The areas are picked once a week because they only take the tips of the tea “bush”…that’s really what it is, a bush, are picked. It’s really hard to fathom hand picking all the tea bushes that we’ve seen, even harder to fathom is how steep and high these hills are and the back breaking work these people do. I’ve been told that they used to make 100 rupees a day and they have to fill their bags with 20kg’s of tea. Now they get around 400 rupees a day. But lets consider what they’re doing and then consider that roughly 100 rupees is 1 dollar. Actually 1 US dollar right now is worth 113 rupees. So this work is being done for $4 a day. This should makes you appreciate the next cup on tea you drink.

Day 8 was spent going to a small congregation on one of these estates in Rapahanock. The plan is to build a church for the members on a piece of land that the estate has given the church. Considering the road we came in on I honestly can’t imagine how they’ll get building materials up there. The church that they are in now in is basically…..a shed. It’s maybe 16 x 16, made of anything that they could get their hands on. It was a little stuffy for the 30 or so people but it was an interesting experience to say the least. We drive back to the hotel was interesting because the roads that were scary and treacherous in the daylight were more so in the dark. At least a consolation was that you couldn’t see how far down you’d crash to your death…..

Day 9 was off to another estate area close to Upcot, Village. This area, that is above 5000ft, is considered where the high tea is grown. We were at about 2400 meters or about 8000ft. Again the church is located on a tea estate and it was the first church building that they we had in Sri Lanka. The most interesting thing is that there is no road that goes right up to the church, so we parked in a field and had to walk thru the tea plants to get to the place. I’ve never done that before.

We also were able to drop off some medical supplies to a local hospital in the area. They appreciate any help we can give them. We spent a couple hours with the members and then headed out to our 4^th hotel in 4 nights. This place was on the side of a pretty large hill and it over looked a lake. Quite a beautiful view surrounded by tea.

Day 7

Day 7

We were scheduled to leave at 9 and ended up leaving at 11. We are heading in the Low Country with our first stop in a place called Avissawala where they have land to build a church. We had a van rented to take us around for our tour over the next 5 days. Here they hire a guy to drive the van and he stays in the same hotels with us for the entire time we need him. Luckily this guy is a cautious driver, because they thought it would be fun for me to sit in the front seat …..so that I could get all kinds of “good” pictures. The drive farther and farther out of Colombo was very interesting. The roads out there are about a lane and a half wide, yet somehow they can still get 3 vehicles across at the same time and that includes pedestrians on both sides…..not sure how but sometimes it can be very scary. The maximum speed that we hit was 60km/h. so we had to go about 50 or 60 KMs and it took us 2 hours.

We were to meet with a contractor so that he could price out a building. When we got there we found out that we had seen that contractor at the office on Monday so we just toured the site…which is just a lot, so not much to tour and of course the Bishop needs to get a picture of me standing with an empty lot of scrub behind me. We then met with the working brothers from the area and the Ap David and the bishop had some time with them.

At 5 we left for our 40 km trip out of the Low country into the Up country. First off, what they call the Low country is actually not that low at all, I think they call it that because its at the bottom to the Up country or the bottom of the hills. So off we go on narrow winding roads up into the mountains. I have to say that it is a beautiful country. As we got higher we started to see the Tea plants on the side of the hills which are quite high. We finally stopped at our hotel around 6:30. Did you get that? An hour and a half to go 40 km’s….. The “hotels” and buildings are called bungalow’s, and our was in a german theme. The unique thing about this hotel was that they have a large outdoor pool that sits on the side of the hills. We were out long enough and the clouds cleared enough for us to get an astronomy lesson from Ap David. It was nice to have a swim after a long day.

Day 6

Day 6

Monday was spent at the office. My primary objective was to create for the youth leaders a Youth Care Manual. The leaders have been requesting some discussion lessons that they can go over with the youth. I created a manual that includes the seminars that we did during their youth weekend. We added some basic notes on NAC and we also added several lessons plans for them to work on for the future. I made a couple of copies so that when we head to low and up country we can deliver to the youth leaders. The office was going to create more for the other leaders.

The bishop took me out to do some shopping in one of the malls here. It’s A little different experience than the malls in Canada. Everyone has their thing that they sell, some sell electronics with all the latest knockoffs, others sell fashions ( get the latest sarhi in any colour you want) others sell jewelry and cell phones. It’s funny because as we went into the mall, there’s a lady on the street begging, she has a 1 year old in her lap and she’s talking on the latest cell phone…. I bought a few things and my father in law who said he wasn’t going to buy anything…bought more than me.

Day 5

Day 5 – Sunday

I met the Ap. David Devaraj this morning as I walked out of the bathroom. He came to meet us for breakfast before we headed to the church. He had a very late flight in from India. We had the service in the church that started at 10. Mostly a youth based service and I was the first one called up. The best part was the I didn’t have to wear my suit jacket. Service included the youth as the choir. Even the Sunday School kids were part of it. They sang very well, some of the songs were in Tamil for one verse and another verse was in English. The group of boys played a couple of special songs with guitars too. They wanted the service done by 11:15 because many of the youth had to catch buses home…..when was the service done?….11:45. After service the youth were all given certificates for their participation in the weekend camp. The Ap, Bishop and I were all asked to hand out certificates as well, they had several little trophies for some of the youth leaders who helped organize the weekend. They had broken the youth into several groups and during the weekend there were many competitions. So the team with the most points was also presented with a huge trophy.

We all had lunch at the church together and the youth headed to the bus for their trips home. We headed back to the hotel with the Apostle by 3pm….or so. Later in the evening we got some rain so we had to stay inside. Ap. David gave me a lesson on cricket while we watched some on TV. I have the general idea, but I still need to look up some stuff. Did you know the original game of cricket created by the English was a 5 day event? Five days?!?!? The newer versions are only a day long and apparently they a huge following, especially in the betting parlours. We also were disappointed to figure out that we will miss the entire Stanley Cup final. Good thing that we have the internet so that we can keep up to date with the scores.