Category Archives: Uncategorized

After 554 nights sleeping in a 6 meter van (minus a couple of weeks visiting the family in America) I am ready for a bit of luxury. Our 18 month road trip covering a good bit of Europe plus Türkiye and Morocco was a whirlwind of history and culture, and while there are big differences between Belgium and Bulgaria, Marseille and Mostar, it’s all Europe, variations on the themes of Roman conquest, medieval architecture, and religious oneupmanship.  I was ready for a change of scene. We generally live by our Travel Rule #1: Don’t Go Back, but lately we find ourselves returning to familiar places where we can take a break from figuring out the currency and transit system and street food. We also need affordable medical and dental care. So Malaysia it is, for now. 

We arrived at our semi-lux hotel in Kuala Lumpur near midnight and fell into a deep sleep in a bed where Jack didn’t have to climb over me in the middle of the night to use the loo. The breakfast buffet includes fresh papaya and dragonfruit plus tropical juices like green guava and mango. After the fruit course I loaded my second plate with roasted potatoes and scrambled eggs from the western side of the buffet, then smothered them with vegetable curry from the eastern side and added a side of spicy fried noodles. That was before hitting the pastry table for a croissant. I love these multicultural buffets. 

We hightailed it over to the enormous Pavilion Mall, an old favorite, not to buy anything but to indulge in wide-eyed window shopping. Our feet took us unbidden to Auntie Anne’s for a soft pretzel (I’m still a Philly girl) and because we’re in Asia I got mine with seaweed.

We happened to arrive on the eve of two big events, Diwali (known here as Deepavali) and the ASEAN Summit which will be attended by many world leaders, causing complete havoc in the city center area with increased police presence, rolling street closures and more than the usual traffic snarls.

We first experienced Diwali in Trinidad in 2013, and try to find the local celebration wherever we are. Jack and I think it’s a bigger deal in Penang with its more prominent Indian population, than here in KL. The mall did have a pretty impressive sand painting.

It’s good to be back in a world where there’s never a 4th floor and durian is both desired and not desired, like Schrodinger’s fruit.  

The next day we started our dental appointments and a few days later visited a clinic we’d been to before for flu shots and general consultations.

We’ll follow up with a couple of specialists in the coming weeks. Mostly we’re enjoying our week in a fancy hotel before we move to cheaper digs for however long we’re here. 

We first visited Kuala Lumpur back in 2018 when we sailed in company with other yachts in an organized rally. We docked in Port Klang, the nearest harbor to Kuala Lumpur, then went by bus for a tour of the city, ending at the Batu Caves. To commemorate that first visit we again visited the Batu Caves and once again climbed the 278 steps into the cave temples. We’ve climbed more steps elsewhere — Meteora, Pai, a few more — but these are steep and straight up and with annoying macaques.

It hasn’t changed a bit, and it’s good to know our knees are still up to the task.

For the past couple of nights the Petronas Towers were lighted in colors for Deepavali and we heard fireworks off and on overnight. On the last night of the festival there was a display right outside our window. What a great welcome back to SE Asia. We’ve missed it!

Our day begins with, let’s call it a last servicing of Escape Velocity and its Escapees. It’ll be a while before either gets any restorative attention and the toilet cassette is full so…well you know. We’ve spent the night on a high ridge at a pastural camp site in Tollymore Forest, swathed in what the Irish call a rising damp. Packing for what we call the “fly away season” is not going well. Normally we find a motel where we can spread out but in this posh rural community a posh-ish campsite will have to do. We Escapees are usually pros at this but compressed into our six meter campervan we’re finding it, let’s just say, challenging. For my part, I’m blaming our new very adult matching electric blue Osprey rolling duffels meant to replace our $19.99 single road warrior duffel. R.I.P.

Next on the list is a 45 minute drive featuring sad farewells at the end with our lovely friends at their estate in Kilkeel.

Alan, one of our oldest sailing buddies, is always the first to jump up to help, and has drawn taxi duty to deliver us Escapees to the cute bus station in Newry.

Another sad farewell and 15 minutes later he saves us, returning with our blinking tracker which we hadn’t yet discovered was AWOL. Bless you, my friend.

The Goldliner Bus has plush seats, the kind you could hopelessly pray for in your next airliner seat, and if our driver wasn’t trying to set a new land speed record to the Dublin airport, this would have been a pleasant hour long journey in the rain, but it only lasted 45 minutes!

Relaxed scrutiny at security, featuring my first “patdown-free walk-through” since replacing both my knees (thank you Dr. Lim), and before we were ready for it, we found ourselves wedged into the Dreamliner’s interpretation of adult seating befitting a seven and a half hour flight to Abu Dhabi.

I do find watching the Dreamliner’s bendy composite bouncing wings entertaining, while unbending my cramped legs and straining to tie my shoelaces with my face smashed into the seat ahead after landing, less so. Now Marce is a fast walker while I’m not so much, especially after basically not moving for seven and a half hours. The walk up a jetway is always a challenge in the best of circumstances, but always better if someone isn’t repeatedly saying, “Will you not hurry up? We have a tight connection!”

Next on the spreadsheet is a 7-hour triple seven to Kuala Lumpur and a reckoning with the time zone gods. Shuffling past the luxurious first class I saw the lumbering mass of someone in 31B with whom I was to become quite familiar. After climbing past this immovable human I found myself wedged and jammed into the window and fuselage wall. While his body continued to manspread and I suppose feeling quite relaxed and among friends, he fell soundly asleep. At first he slumped towards me and then he suddenly would jerk his massive head up and in five seconds he would be out cold and slumping towards my shoulder again. Is he doing a bit? How is it possible to jerk one’s head up and then repeatedly fall fast asleep every five seconds or so. Seven hours of this. It’s unendurable. We hadn’t even started the engines! I began to shove him back to a more or less upright position and in a while it seemed like I was making progress in training his subconscious mind to do what I wanted. This made me wonder if there were other things I could train his subconscious mind to do. Cooking? French? or maybe Piano? He never made a sound. I respected him for that.

Other than adventures in the subconscious and only one meal, the flight was mind-numbing and as we approached KL, dusk began to settle over the city.

I could see cloud to cloud lightening flashing through piled up thunderheads.

As the big jet began to let down I heard the landing gear thump into place, air racing through the wheels, and moisture laiden clouds stinging the outside of the fuselage. After landing we seemed to wander around the colorful lights of the absolutely dark airport for at least a half hour. I’m thinking well, now the pilot’s lost, but eventually we found our gate and disembarked. My special friend offered me a mint, turned and left with his friends. I like to think that he will remember me fondly in the future.

We bumfered around trying to find our bearings and Marce said, “Give me your passport.” I reached into my pocket but found nothing. I knew instantly that my passport must have come out of my pocket when I pulled my phone out to photograph our approach into KL. Every traveler’s nightmare. We ran to the info desk but there were so many people around that it was hard to impress upon them to get the turnaround crew to find my passport before they loaded the plane and it took off for parts unknown with my passport somewhere in the vicinity of seat 31A.

She called the gate while we raced back. The next lot of passengers was getting ready to board. We grabbed a crew member who told us to wait while she found the Right Person. The Right Person said they didn’t find anything and we should “go over there and look through your knapsack.” I knew it wasn’t there but Marce and I took turns searching the bag while we tried to think how to proceed without a passport. That’s when the gate crew came out and said, “Mr Jack, is this yours?” Yes! Indeed it is!

We ran back through the terminal only to find the same crowd jammed toward the driverless train that takes you to the other terminal building and Immigration. We noticed how markedly the crowd had grown and that’s not good.

The sign promised a train every 2-1/2 minutes. It didn’t come. After about ten minutes a train came and we all surged toward the doors but the doors didn’t open and the train left, empty. Technicians in hi-viz vests scowled. Back and forth, back and forth, the little train came and went but refused to open its doors. It was getting ugly. With the arrival of every plane, more and more people were compressed into a finite space with no relief valve.

Eventually they got the thing working and we jumped aboard. With a well armed populace…well I’m sure you can easily imagine an outcome, but in Malaysia it’s a smile and a please take my seat sir. But then they couldn’t get the doors closed. As more and more frustrated passengers tried to squeeze into the three cars one of the mechanics got the doors to close and we were finally off to Immigration.

The whole thing took so long that our new electric blue bags were on the floor beside the carousel with mountains of black suitcases. We raced to the bus terminal and got the last two seats for the 10pm bus to the city. When we got to the station, in a gesture as familiar as anything in Southeast Asia, Marce pulled up her Grab app and got a driver in an instant. Nine Ringgits later—that’s $2.13—we were at our posh-ish hotel, featuring whatever type of pillow your imagination can come up with. I went with firm.

If you haven’t been here for a while and are checking in to see what’s up, scroll beyond this post. We’re trying to catch up and we’re logging posts by date. We’re currently in the UK but we hope to tell all the stories about our journey through Europe, Türkiye, and Morocco. We’re determined to get it all down, and we’re kicking ourselves for falling so far behind. Sorry about that.

We left our beautiful parkup overlooking a reservoir and headed for a filling station that has LPG on tap. We’re not desperate to fill up but we’ve learned to take advantage of services when they’re nearby and convenient. Google maps predicted a fairly direct 17 minute drive.

We turned onto a narrow road with a sign warning “Not suitable for longer vehicles.” We don’t consider our van very long and the sign didn’t specify any particular length.

As we entered the road, Jack said he saw another, smaller sign that said “Don’t follow SatNav, you’ll get stuck.” I didn’t see that sign, but as we drove a few meters the road looked more and more dodgy. 

“Stop!” I said. “I don’t think we can go there.” Jack was game, but I insisted he back out and after a vigorous discussion he agreed and backed out onto the street we’d turned from. We didn’t know which way to go. Google maps indicated the narrow road as our only option to get to our destination. 

“Wait here.” I said, and I looked around to find some local knowledge. There was no one about. The pub across the street looked like it might be open. I ran over and as I entered, six people turned to face the door. One woman gave me the local greeting, “Yahrite?” 

“No!” I answered, an inappropriate response that garnered confusion. “I’m in a campervan and Google maps wants us to go down that street,” I explained, pointing toward the skinny road. 

“DON’T GO THERE!” they all shouted in unison. A man asked where we were going, then said he’d show me how to get there. He walked me outside and with a combination of pointing this way and that, then showing me on my phone, he gave elaborate directions to get to a place that seemed so close, but was going to take a bit of savvy navigating to get there. At one point he had us going way west of our destination, but when I protested he said, “Trust me, this is the only way to get there.”

He told me the skinny road would have been ok for awhile, maybe even over the very narrow bridge.

At the bottom of the hill there’s a turn that we wouldn’t be able to make, he told us, and everyone gets stuck. It’s a narrow, tight, steep hairpin that a long wheelbase can’t manage. That’s us. We would have bottomed out.

“There’s a farmer down there who charges 200 quid to pull you out.” Apparently he rescues 2 or 3 vehicles a week whose drivers ignore the sign on the fence at the turnoff, like we almost did. 

I repeated the directions twice to make sure I had it right and then we were off.

The directions were spot on.

After miles of twisty one-lane roads and a construction detour, we finally reached our service station and filled up the LPG tanks.

It’s not unusual to get the “Don’t follow SatNav” warning from businesses or campsites or even the apps we use to find parkups. Google Maps wants to send you on what it thinks is the most efficient way, but apparently their programming can’t evaluate the suitability of a road for vehicles when suggesting a route. I consult several different mapping and navigation apps now. Most of the time.

What were we thinking?! One year exploring Europe; sounds like plenty of time. Ha! Our only plan was to wait out our Schengen time first in Türkiye and the Balkans, and again in Morocco. In between we only had a vague plan and decided almost day by day where to go and whether to stay longer in a place or move on. We made a few mistakes in planning, e.g. overestimating our distance to the ferry in Marseille, which caused us to unnecessarily cut short our time in Italy. All those blank places in the middle that we didn’t get to will be for next time, especially France, which we found so welcoming to motorhomes, unlike England, sadly.

The UK might break the bank, especially with the weakening dollar. We can’t return to the Schengen zone — most of Europe — until mid July. In the meantime we’d like to be someplace warm. It seems we’ve had The Year Without Summer except for a few weeks in Türkiye and a brief heatwave in Romania. We spent so much of the past 13 years in the tropics but this past year had us wearing holes in our wooly socks.

Still, look at that track! Twenty-six countries in one year. (For reference, we spent six months each in Scotland and Ireland alone.) Every mile was driven by Jack. And remember, he was driving a right hand drive vehicle on the right side of the road. Yesterday he drove onto the ferry in St. Malo on the right, and when we docked in Portsmouth he drove off on the left. Never a wrong move by my hero!

We don’t know what the coming year has in store for us. Like the rest of the world, and especially those of us from the US, we are on tenterhooks, adopting a wait-and-see approach. We’re aware of how fortunate we are to be able to travel, and we have our fingers crossed that we can continue to explore the world at our age-adjusted pace. There’s still so much to see.

Right now we have van maintenance to do, a safety inspection and insurance renewal to get through. After that we’d like to be someplace warm. We’d like to stay in one place for a while. We’d like to see family and friends. We’re working on it.

Yesterday our navigation system failed to fire up after more than two years of faithful service. We rely on it so much and without it I have to give Jack turn by turn directions from my phone, making every journey a shouting match and exhausting for both of us.

We found a nearby car audio repair shop today and they’ve determined it’s the wire to the ignition, and not easy to replace. We started with one guy working, then two, and eventually three guys poking around our dashboard and engine bay.

I have very little cash on me so I hope they will take a credit card. That’s if they can fix it.

Back in business and no, they didn’t take credit cards and no, I didn’t have enough cash. There was no ATM in the vicinity so I gave them all the local cash I had plus some Euros.

After being on the road for a while we noticed our house battery wasn’t charging. A little troubleshooting and that was fixed. But then the third shoe dropped.

We missed the highway exit to our parkup, a tree-lined lot promising shelter from the brutal sun with a pizza shop around the corner. Google maps delivered the bad news that the next opportunity to turn around and go back was 26 km ahead, almost at the Turkish border. It’s been a frustrating day. We were so looking forward to a cold beer and a pizza. I scrambled to look for an alternative parkup with an alternate pizza shop but in the end Jack drove the double cloverleaf to go back the 26 km. Thank goodness.

Tomorrow we are Türkiye bound!

I should have realized that something was up. Marce in the morning…well, let’s just say she lacks her usual effervescent twinkle in her eyes, at least until properly caffeinated. However this morning I find an unusually chipper navigator who has pre-programmed our destination into the GPS. Trusting but prudent, after the Google map blinks to life, I ask what’s a Novo Selo? “Not saying,” she says, “it’s a surprise.”

Well I’m game, at least we’re still in Bulgaria but as we pass through a small town called Novo Selo Google has us turnoff the gravel macadam onto a rough gravel “road”. Soon there is absolutely nothing within 360 degrees. Another turn and  now we are raising up a cloud of dust on a rough rutted dirt road that hasn’t seen rain in years. What could possibly be out here? As we struggle up a steep rise, what little is here has been burned and dried out in the hot sun. Another turn to the left and it’s clear that there hasn’t been anyone here in a very long time.

We waited for the cloud of dust, we had stirred up, to settle. We were met with an otherworldly scene.

Things are largely made of chicken wire and concrete, and yes those are eggs.

Could it be that this represents a fever dream of the history of man?

Looks like the dinosaurs have been used for target practice, but I still think it’s going to be an eerie hot night.

Sweet dreams.

We’ve been dealing with unfamiliar languages, strange currencies, and Schengen, but as we approach the Bulgarian border crossing we were hit with this sign. This is going to get a bit tricky.

In an hour we’ll be dealing with the Bulgarian Lev currency which is at 1.86 BGN for 1.00 USD as opposed to what we’re are now dealing with the Serbian dinar, which is 111.57 RSD for 1.00 USD. The alphabet is going to pose a bit of agro.

I suppose now is as good a time as any to come clean, dear Escapee’s, and admit that just like in Serbia, we don’t have any real plan or a clue as to what to expect in Bulgaria. You could say Bulgaria’s kind of just “in the way” of our destination, and it’s in Schengen so it’s bound to be a hit and run.

We find that our parkup is a subway ride away from Sofia. What’s in Sofia you ask? Don’t know, let’s go and find out.

Nice clean and modern Soviet style subway, but we still haven’t a clue where to get off so we just wait until most everyone else does. Don’t laugh it usually works.

Gulp, that’s a big one!

We emerge from the underground into a bustling city, staring up at a comely lass perched high on a pedestal holding a laurel wreath and an owl on her left hand. Turns out she is St. Sofia patron saint of the city.

Casting our eyes downward we noticed an old lady smoking a roll-up, sitting on some stairs that lead down to an entrance to an ancient stone chapel. She slowly stood up without a word, pulled out a large old key and, puffing away, motioned us to follow.

We didn’t know it but we had just run into St Petka Samardzhyiska church. Oddly enough this church was built in the 4th century on the foundations of Constantine the Great’s castle. Those of you Escapees paying attention will remember Mr C. The G. from our last installment.

Frescoes on the dome.

While walking down a city street we noticed a large gathering of well dressed people. We stopped and Yours Truly said. “It must be a wedding.” Oops.

After the crowd dispersed and the dear departed had…departed…we decided it was a great time to checkout the cathedral.

The Necropolis of Saint Sofia Cathedral is really something. The earliest church on this site dates back to the 4th century. Over the centuries a series of churches were constructed and subsequently destroyed by invading forces. The magnificent church you’re looking at was built in the 6th century and even did time as a mosque in the 16th century. I don’t know, maybe it was my mood, but in a possible violation of rule #2 (Don’t get jaded), I wandered around this magnificent Cathedral humming Peggy Lee’s old anthem to ennui “Is That All There Is?”

After wandering quite a while, as we reached the exit, the guy at the ticket kiosk, leaned over his counter and in a most conspiratorial tone said, “You’ll want to go down into the crypt. There are over 50 tombs down there from 5 different eras.” How much? Free for seniors! At that point, I’m all in.

The descent down into the crypt went well due to the clever and handsome stairs and glass walkways they’ve constructed throughout the catacombs.

There are four or five stories of catacombs, tombs, and ruins of previous churches under St Sophia.

Ancient mosaics from a long forgotten church floor.

We are overwhelmed. And alone.

Painted fresco from inside a tomb.

Up from the catacombs among the living, St Sofia still surprises.

We heard that a famous heroic Soviet era memorial was not to be missed, mainly due to the decidedly non-heroic, non-patriotic graffiti that the Bulgarians relentlessly cover the monument in. I admit I was reluctant, the damn thing was all the way across town and after all, it’s a funky Soviet era heroic memorial and I can laugh at it from here. Need I remind you, dear Escapees of rule #3 which clearly states that the juice must be worth the squeeze!

So we take a flyer and it’s really a hike. It seems the Bulgarians are deeply into a major spring cleaning and have a protective corrugated metal wall around what looks like a massive city block of memorials.

The obelisk is a nice touch.

And here you can voice your concerns or love of Soviet propaganda.

The squeeze part of the juice was even more painful than I feared as we trudged back towards the underground.

But wait there’s more! We ran right into St George’s church thought to be the oldest building in modern Sofia. Originally built as Roman Baths in the late 3rd century, three layers of frescoes have been discovered, most notably the 22 prophets decorating the dome.

These frescoes are wonderful.

Now which direction is the underground?

I think it would be safe to say that we have a thing for mosaics. Especially ancient Roman mosaics. In another Serbian suprise I give you Constantine the Great’s Roman villa in Medijana, Nis, Serbia.

Built in 306, it’s hard to imagine how large and sophisticated this villa is, featuring heated floors, saunas, gymnasium, a water tower, a colonnaded courtyard, and more tile mosaics than I’ve ever seen in any one place.

The first thing you notice is the fantastic expanse of this beautiful and clever building erected to protect the villa. Although Roman artifacts can be found all over the flat plains of Mediana, we found it hard to keep in mind that this is just one man’s home, but then if you think about it, Constantine does carry the moniker, “The Great.”

One of the many brick fireplaces used to heat floors and water.

Endless permutations on geometric tile motifs.

Marce inspects the peristyle colonnade courtyard.

Six sided fountain room.

You could spend days in this place but time waits for no one and we have a date with a Bulgarian border crossing.

Many of the countries we’re traveling through have recently signed on to the travelers’ curse known as the Schengen Agreement. Those countries allow citizens of non-member countries to travel freely within the Zone for 90 days out of 180 days. Then you have to leave the Zone until you’ve saved up enough days Out before you can re-enter. If you overstay your allotted 90-days-out-of-180 you could get fined or banned from re-entry for a period of up to five years. So it’s good to keep track of your Days In. To find out where we stand on the Schengen countdown Marce consults several apps that purport to be the official accounting of our days left in Schengen land. It’s a rolling calendar, so you don’t have to do exactly 90 In/90 Out. And that’s why tomorrow when we cross into Serbia we will be leaving the Schengen Zone for awhile, and need to keep track of our Days Out.  

We’ve got a beautiful day for it and it’s not a big crossing so we’re expecting a smooth time of it.

Looks like mountain passes and rough tunnels are going to be the order of the day. We crossed the Danube River at the Iron Gates, a UNESCO Heritage site which forms the boundary between Romania and Serbia. This last gorge on the Danube also separates the Carpathian from the Balkan mountains.

This rock sculpture of King Decebalus is said to be the tallest rock sculpture in Europe, carved somewhere between 13,000 to 5,000 years ago, which I think pins it down pretty well.

Soon we find ourselves in the mountains again and when rounding a curve on a steep downhill slope we saw a view so magnificent that I quickly pulled over into a gravel roadside overview, covered in a cloud of dust.

It was a brakes don’t fail me now moment.

We decided that there was no other view we’d rather wake up to, so we stayed the night.

In the morning we selfied and paused a few moments to let this magnificent view soak in one last time.

Down the mountain we cautiously went.

Marce had found a small garden like parkup where there were signs extolling the virtues of the heroes of the battle of Cegar in 1809. We enjoy a good memorial so in true Escapee tradition we were off.

Turns out ya pays your money and you waits your turn.

It seems the Serbs badly lost the battle against the Turks, so they shot at their own powder magazine preferring an honorable death, being blown to smithereens, than slavery under the Turks. The Turks built this memorial in an attempt to frighten the Serbs but didn’t understand the mentality of who they were dealing with. The freedom-loving Heroes of Cegar.

But, funseekers, this is not even what we came for. Stay tuned for the next installment of fun in Serbia.