Russell and Margaret's travels in 2019

A small but welcome sleep-in before breakfast before heading up to the project which consists of a school, the original house that was used as home for the orphans and the prayer Room.

First stop was the schoolrooms as the kids had been waiting for us for ages and they weren’t allowed their breakfast until after we turned up. There were three classrooms with the kids ranging between three and a half and five. In each classroom the kids sung to us and in return we had to sing to them. That’s possibly another story on its own but we managed. We then passed over some books we had brought and read the stories. I think there was almost a few tears on our parts to see these little faces all clean and in uniform. Hard to describe the emotions it brought on but I think Margaret could have adopted 120 kids there and then.

We help hand out the children’s breakfasts and then went up to the house for refreshments and a tour. The house was the original building and was picked up cheap back in 2005 as the original owners went broke. It had a lot of marble and was well kitted out. The school was built next on a site five minutes away then they purchased the block of land out behind the house and built the Prayer room on it. The roof leaked a bit so the they built another roof over the top of that which gave them a big open space on top. A space was also provided next to the auditorium for a sewing room kitted out with old treadle sewing machines just like mum used to have.

Back to the hotel for another very short rest before coming back at 4pm to the Prayer room where the kids were putting on a concert for us. A 30 minute break while we waited for the power to come back on before we could start, apparently a regular occurrence. They had a band with older musicians and singers before the kid all did their bits and yes we got to put on a bit of a performance as well. The kids did a great job putting us to shame and it was a lot of fun. Everybody was then feed and watered before we were able to slip back to the hotel.

We settled in for a ten plus hour plane ride. I watched a movie called Blue Moon filmed around Motueka, very very disappointing. It featured Mark Hadlow as the lead character. A wasted 90 minutes. Richard managed to take in three movies. The meal was a chicken Curry and Kapiti Ice Cream. The ice cream was great and curry not bad. Margaret was full from the pizza so only asked for an ice cream. She was given two so I helped her out. Sleep was hard to come by so read a lot of my book. A Sandra Brown one. Breakfast was far from exciting and I only ate the scrambled egg and the fruit & yoghurt. I think Air NZ standards have dropped considerably, poor meals, no hot towels in the morning. Very disappointing.

Arrived in Singapore on time at 6.30 am. And boarding 8.15 for Bengaluru. This airport is massive and we caught the skytrain around to Terminal 2. Had a really good coffee, discovered the girls had cleaned up the Aussie girls in the netball World Cup. Elated well done team NZ.

We are now on an old Silk Air B747-8. No movies unless you have their App. But they did give us a cold wet towel on take-off which was great and refreshing. Looking back on Singapore is amazing as we take off and seeing the 100’s of ships anchored and moving off shore. I remember being amazed by this when I first came here in the early nineties. I’m getting my book out. A pleasant four-and-a-half hour flight, an enjoyable meal of chicken curry and we land in Bangalore on time just after eleven, We breeze through immigration, customs is almost non existent but we did have a bit of fun getting our bags, We come down the stairs into baggage claim and there are a bunch of guys in red coats. Three of them attach themselves to us and demand out baggage tickets (from Wellington). Waited ages for our bags but finally got them onto a couple of trollies and were taken over to this counter where after a lot of consternation we were asked for about 1700 Rupees. When we we asked what this was for we were told it was for the trollies, We said we don’t need the trollies and were quite happy to carry our own bags. We were begrudgingly allowed to go with the trollies.

We walked out of the airport with no custom check or anything. We were probably a head of time and had a half hour wait for Steve and Pauline with our trusty “First Class” van. A new hi-Ace van decked out with plush seats. Two off them even had in-build massaging, a 40inch TV, a fridge, Dough Boy you would have been really impressed, People were and it created a bit of interest from passersby and the police who thought the driver may be a soft touch for a bribe, he wasn’t, he had some commissioners phone number in his pocket who he had probably paid a bigger bribe to. It was great to have that sort of vehicle for the ride ahead as driving in this area was a special experience you would not like to be the norm. Steve told of an experience one of his Indian mates had hiring a car in NZ. He was being served by an Indian and asked him what the road rules were in NZ. He was told they were the same as for India but in NZ you had to obey them. A lot of the roads did have three lane (each way) but mostly the lanes we not marked, they just took their place and drove, No keeping left although the motor bikes and Tuk Tuks tended to stay in the left lane. It was nothing to see cars coming toward you on your side of the road again mostly but not always in the left most lane. Nobody minded everyone just made room for each other and generally kept moving. When i think about it I liken it to walking down the footpath on Lambton Quay. Everybody generally keeps left but not always. Then you had to allow for cows, they had the right of way and often just decided to rest in the middle of the road, Then horses, dogs and people. It made for some very interesting driving. A surprising amount of the roads were unpaved. There were road works every kilometre or so with diversions around the work. A bit hard to call it work as there wasn’t much if anything going on at most of them. Oh and I forgot the judder bars at a lot of the diversions bringing you to an almost stop. They would have 3 or 4 of them close together.

We arrived at our Hotel in Hubli well after nine to be greeted by the folk from the Share and Care Ministry, Samual, Sylvia, daughter Sharon and Son Solomon. We were presented with Lei’s and goody bags and taken in for dinner. We were treated like Maharajars. The Share and Care Ministry was our reason for visiting India. Margaret & I had been donating to it for many years and have been planning a visit for a long time.

The ministry was set up in 2005 as project to help children from the slums in Hubli. It was the vision of Samual and Sylvia Dhaval and when they met our good friends Steve and Pauline Lowe in HongKong the vision started to become a reality. It started by being an orphanage for five children (who have a good education jobs and are now out in the big wide world) but has developed into a school for a 120 odd children. It includes sewing classes for young adults to give them a usable skill which almost guarantees them a job. We heard many heart wrenching stories.

5 Days to go and we met with the travel agent today.  It has been a bit of a mission as Tracy and her mum got hit by a car last week outside Wellington Hospital.  Tracy, battered, bruised and concussed spent one night in hospital but mum ended up with broken bones and is still in hospital along with dad who they were visiting.  Hence it wasn’t Tracy we were going through the tickets with, it was Joanna who was all new to it so it took a while.

All sorted though and we have nearly all our tickets.  The River Cruise guys have been a bit slow coming up with the goods

Coming Up in 2019

We are half way through the year and have done a lot already. The overseas stuff started last weekend with a trip to Somes Island and a catch up with old friends

This Saturday we are off to Rarotonga with the kids and all the Grandies. Really looking forward to it and should be a load of fun.

Then 21st July we kick off to Europe via India.

Tell you more as it happens………..

Thank goodness we are organised. We received a txt from Air NZ that they were placing us on an earlier flight as our original was expecting to be late leaving and put our connection in Auckland at risk. Phew we were packed and ready to go so we were able to shift forward two hours but it meant a long wait in Auckland International. Even although we sat on the ground in Wellington for 3/4 hour as they had a loading paper work issue and had to reload some of the luggage. Margaret and I shared a pizza in Auckland that was so yummy we ordered another large one washed down with Peroni and wine. Richard and Donna settled for a McDonald look alike burger and chips.