By now we are safely leaving Bangkok airport….all four of us (we thought it might be minus Daniel with his passport hiccup – all good though).
It has been a massive trip of Ulyssesian proportions, leaving Auckland and landing up in Cairns; traveling all down the Australian east coast and out of Melbourne; into Bangkok, then up to Chiangmai Mai; further north again into Hanoi and our first Vietnamese experience; we then snaked our way south, through Vietnam, Hue, Saigon and the greater Mekong region; before entering the poorer Cambodia and Phnom Penh; we dallied in Sihanoukaville, Siam Reap and finally Battambang before returning back to Thailand. Whew! I am dizzy thinking about it, and it will take me time to let it all sink in. We have seen so many sights, met so many people, smelt so many things, tasted so much delicious food. Experienced exotic (to us)and fascinating days in an array of environments.
The kids are really ready to settle down a bit, and are super excited to be heading for Ireland, although they remarked yesterday about how much they miss New Zealand (while coming across their going away cards their classmates gave them) and had a private discusion with each other about all the things the miss….bless their cotton socks!
Although the picture of the wild geese above was taken in Australia in August, it symbolizes our flight back to Ireland, and also reminds me of the beautiful words that Fr. Ollie spoke when we got married on that icy crisp blue skied January morning in 2003 – he shared with us the finer details of his journey from St. Johnston to Letterkenny on that morning to marry us. He said a flock of geese flew overhead, and used that as a nice analogy of myself and Daniel heading off in life together.
So these two brace of wild geese are returning in 2015 and have a lot of gaggling to do! (That’s what being in confined constant shared space with each other has done….we all now crave fresh company to regale our stories!).
Please excuse any recently developed idiosyncrasies!
I am ready to stop travelling, and take stock of all we have done. These two songs spring to mind…….although they are rather incompatible with eachother! First my loss of wanderlust is embodied by this (click here); and my excitement to be reunited with family and friends, (click here).
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