Summer hols 2010 - Itinerary to date

July 4 Cecile leaves for Geneva for the annual UNHCR Resettlement powwow

July 6 Us boys head to London with a quick stop in Paris which went very smoothly because the flight transfer was in the same terminal!
Lengthy wait for the bus to get to the hotel, Night spent in a Travelodge without the planned rendez-vous with our friend Annabel. Quel dommage!

July 7 Bus to Chepstow and pick up by Auntie Margaret soon to be 87 and still whizzing around in her Rover.

July 8 - 10 Builth Wells, Wales with visiting Grandpa Canada now 85, took in the Zippo’s circus which was quite fun and with no animals involved (but the humans seems to be trained and treated quite well). Boy's and Daddy-oh got their new scooters which I'd ordered online. Micros.






July 10 Grandpa Canada and Auntie Margaret to Manchester by train for Dad to take his plane back to Alberta (with escort)

July 11 Auntie Margaret returns, the boys and I spent the day in Brecon browsing a second hand bookstore, lunch locally, chasing sheep and hide-and-seek in the ferns on the Beacons.

July 12 Drove to Bristol with my 2 illiterate navigators to pick up Cecile, her flight from Geneve arrived an hour late but not too late to make a quick tour en famille round Bristol Zoo on the way home. Arrived back to find sister Felicity, Malcolm, Tabitha (celebrated her 13th birthday!) and Timothy had arrived. Full house! Went to the pub up the road for dinner.





July 13 A morning kicking around Builth with the sister and the boys loving being around their cousins taking in the Grow, the ‘swing’ bridge (that doesn’t swing since renovation in the ‘80’s sometime!), Zaki had the oddest allergic reaction and took him to a doctor when his finger joints suddenly started swelling although originally was taking him to see the doc because of the return of the family diarrheal curse that started with a bout of salmonella 10days ago. The Royal Welsh Show, the largest annual agricultural show in the UK was about to kick off under rainy skies but we escaped that yet again. Worthy to note is that in 2004 on our tour du monde with Zaki we were also in Builth at the same time as Felicity et.al. so this was a bit of a ‘déjà vu’ only this time we had two boys.

July 14 Packed up and said good-bye to Auntie M. (who at 86 insisted she would sleep on the couch in a sleeping bag while we were all there!!) and headed to the Cotswalds and a visit with cousins Jean and Douglas in their new (1yr ago) home in Fairford where the Royal International Air Tattoo was getting underway with the sonic blasts of various jet planes overhead practicing whatever it is they have to practice in preparation for the show. The UK in the summer…..one big festival.


July 15 Visit to the Cotswalds Wildlife Park.

July 16 Visit by cousin Marian who I apparently hadn’t met since I was 2yrs old!

July 17 Early departure with the rental car to London and to Hackney to stay at Peter Kessler's place backing onto a great canal across from Victoria Park where the LoveBox concert weekend was kicking off.

Brunch with Cecile's friends Evan and Bernard who we haven’t seen together since mid-Malaysia years and picnic with now Londoners Cathy (Mulloy) and Tony and Frank at London Fields with the kids whizzing along on scooters. Late dinner with Peter and his new wife Rachel.

July 18 Another early departure to St. Pancras International for the Eurostar to Paris, Staying at Ariane and Alain’s place in the 13th.

July 19 Picnic in the Park Floral with Ramon and his kids, Vietnamese dinner with Joseph and Beatrice who are on holiday from Nepal.

July 20 - 23 Train to Orleans and St. Pryve for time to relax, eat and sleep with the Fradot’s

July 23 - 26 Weekend at Center Parcs water park with the whole Fradot clan. Les cousins (Geoffrey, Anthony and Samuel, Zaki and Kasem) swam like seals and thoroughly enjoyed the slides, the jacuzzis and the wild river!

July 26 - 30 More eating and sleeping some shopping at the Fradot’s. Saw two movies, Inception and a chick flick , visit to Zoo Beauval and a nice Thai dinner with Cecile's friend Miriam, the only one of our mutual friends to have ever slept in the Vilcabamba house!

July 30 Cecile and I to Geneve on TGV to stay with Tilman, Lucia and Leo who are all waiting for the arrival of their new brother!

July 31 Vespa buzz for a a hike and BBQ with erstwhile humanitarians Sally and Jeremy at their place in the paysan then returned for a BBQ with Tilmann, Lucia, Leo and their friend Ursula.



August 1 Cecile returns to Beirut, I spend the day with Terra Mack meeting up with Kahin and his friend Judith in the Park who provided a picnic then dinner with Sri Lankan former expat Meriel and her kids in Crozet, a wet and wooly vespa ride away from Ferney!

August 2 Return to Paris-Orleans to reunite with the boys

August 3 Repacking for the phase 2 of our Summer Escape from Beirut

August 4 Departure to Ecuador via Orleans – Paris (train, met Kavita for the station transfer)Paris – Amsterdam (3hr fastest train in the world (TGV) Amsterdam – Bonaire (Plane 8.5hrs, boys slept 7hrs!)Bonaire – Guayaquil (Plane 4hrs, boys watched vids) Guayaquil – Cuenca (25minute air-hop) Cuenca – Vilcabamba (4hr taxi, boys were amazed to hear Daddy speaking his bad spanish...slept 3hrs!) 3 planes, 2 trains and a taxi in 29hrs AND NO MELTDOWNS!

August 5 - 29 VILCABAMBA! First week was getting over jet-lag, second week building a new playhouse and tenant Christina and baby Keola returned from Quito, third week learning how to not have a plan, last week chilling, being and leaving party.

August 29 Vilcabamba - Quito - Panama City, great time spent with former Beirutis Pablo, Clara, Melena, Maya and greeting baby Iago.

September 2/3 Panama City - Amsterdam - Paris - Orleans, what to say. we made it, again without meltdown, the last trip by auto-navette which is definitely the way to get to Orleans from CDG!

September 3-5 Orleans

September 5 Orleans - Paris (again the auto-navette)Paris - Beirut (4hrs) Finally home, Kasem had his only transportation meltdown of the entire trip getting on the plane to but probably a total emotional release since he had been talking about going home to Beirut for 3weeks. Cecile there to greet but then returned to Pakistan on Emergency mission for the floods.

AND YES THERE ARE LOADS MORE PICTURES.....TO BE FOUND ON FACEBOOK AS THEY ARE TOO MUCH OF A PAIN TO LOAD HERE.

Summer hols - 2010, Escape from Beirut

Lest anyone think we are being extravagant taking 7weeks of holidays away from Beirut….let them spend July and August in the torpid depths of our Paris in the Middle East before judging. Its true that we haven't spent the summer in Beirut yet either (this is our second summer) but from what our friends say and the fact that all of them, Lebanese and expats alike leave town or country for these 2 months was for us enough of a measure. I returned from mission in Chad in early June and our departure for points west seemed imminent and indeed by July it was starting to get steamy in the city and by early July we were gone.
It is not only the combination of coastal heat and humidity that sweats things up but the airborne pollution that enters the mix. They say the city swells 2X its population in the summer, but that sounds more like a tourism board exaggeration, but suffice it to say the population increases considerably and with it the number of cars goes wild and with that the smog becomes intense. Arabs from the Gulf have become disenchanted with Europe as a holiday destination and with the relative calm in the region and the less than welcoming atmosphere in traditional countries of summer visitation like France (where it will soon become illegal to wear the hijab), they are looking at Beirut as a much closer to home alternative.
Beirut of late has become the haute couture destination of choice and all the top brands have outlets in malls throughout the city including the newly opened Beirut souks. The Beirut souks were once the commercial heart of the city where you could buy anything from langoustines to lamborginis and everything in-between. The souks bordered the 'green line' dividing the city east and west along factional lines during the civil war and were bombed and bombed and bombed to bits. In their planning wisdom developers (well, one in particular) have re-constructed the souks not according to their former ancient plans but according to someone's desire to pull in the 'Gulfies' (as wealthy Arab neighbours are known) and it has become a high end shopping mall where normal Beirutis come to gawk but cannot even afford to stop for their ubiquitous tea and nargile (and only then if they can afford to park their car). Such is life in the new 'money first and get it nownownow' orientation of modern day Beirut.
Methinks I digress from my point and that was the pollution. The part of development that has been overlooked by city planners (if they exist) is the traffic circulation and it is appalling. Imagine also that it is not as if the Gulfies come and rent an Echo or some kind of Micro car, oh no, where would you put your 3 wives and 27 children (and mother, sister-in-law, etc? No, you rent a Hummer or BMW X6 or the most popular SUV on steroids of choice this year seems to be the Rangerover. Its amazing. Check the AVIS rent-a-car site for Lebanon and you'll see….its Top Gear heaven.
There are then two primary compounding issues in my deconstruction of Beirut pollution forgetting the out-dated street layout and chaotic one-way system that causes unending grid-lock, the illegal double parking that jams things up, the arrogance of people who feel they can stop anywhere anytime and discharge their passengers or buy cigarettes from the street vendor, greet their old high school buddy they see on the street, etc. The first issue is the fact that (probably due to the heat but also the cultural characteristic of entitlement which is quite complicated to unravel), Lebanese and the Gulfies prefer not to walk, so they don't. Valet parking is a huge summer employer in Beirut and if you can't park within 30m of the shop or restaurant then you leave it with the Valet…..this means endless circulating looking for parking for some and of course then it also means the valet has to drive off to park your car who knows where and later retrieve it from who knows where when you need it back…..both adding to the traffic.
I think the major contributor to summer pollution, the second compounding issue, are the single person vehicles that are driving around…why so many single person vehicles? because anyone with any money at all has a driver. The lack of parking and the non-walking culture then requires the driver to simply circulate having dropped off his clients and wait for his phone to ring so he can pick them up again and go to the next place. What a mess. Time to leave and so leave we did the first week in July. Did I mention Zaki’s asthma and the fact that he was hauling on his ventalin inhaler at least once/day in the weeks before we were leaving?