A month in Ireland is never enough and this time was no exception. Ireland on the other hand did exceedingly well out of us - between the travel vaccinations for the hugely exotic Japanese Encephalitis and also common or garden flu, the parking fees in Dublin, the private clinic fees (known as a private hospital anywhere else), plastic surgeon, pharmacy etc... there must surely have been an Irish economic uptick for the month of November. We are quite possibly the most risk averse risk takers we know - so whilst A$1000/€610 might seem a bit extreme for a posh vaccination, it is, unfortunately, a bit of a risk in every single part of Asia we’re about to travel to. Particularly the riverside boondocks of Laos and Cambodia. The small print, easily ignored in our travel insurance also points out that if you get a nasty bug and there was a vaccination that you chose not to have (for whatever reason...) well, don’t come crying to them. Fair enough. So it was two visits to the lovely folks at the Travel Health Clinic and we are now quite possibly the most resilient travellers in Asia. Shortly after we had the first of the two required shots we felt a tiny bit vindicated as there was apparently an outbreak of Japanese Encephalitis in Bali, Indonesia. We don’t imagine many Australian budget travellers will bother getting vaccinated, but the odds are shocking - of people who catch it, 1 in 4 die.

It was a huge month of multi-tasking altogether and before we got into the serious drama we had a visit from one of my oldest friends, who was actually in Wellington, New Zealand with us the night James and I met - all the way back in 1994. Despite November being incredibly mild this year, the morning she was due to arrive was absolutely freezing - minus something and a hard frost on the road when we left home at 6.30 am to trundle into Dublin Airport. Being so early and so very cold we didn’t really run into traffic until we reached the outskirts of the city - simply can’t imagine commuting and the headache of that traffic every day, twice a day. It was however worth all the traffic when she popped through the Arrival Gate as we’ve not seen her for 5 or 6 years. It was a chatty 4 days and we shared some of our favourite scenery in Co. Wicklow - The Military Road, Sally Gap, Glendalough and it’s monastic settlement and of course Blessington Lakes Reservoir just near the cottage (Baltinglass Abbey at sunset is pictured). We were also lucky enough to have the monthly Laragh community market/car boot fall on the Saturday when she visited - so we bought up hot and spicy homemade soups, sausage rolls and cake and enjoyed them on our scenic jaunt. We finished her visit with a morning in Dublin, a look around the shops and Leo Burdock’s legendary fish & chips in Temple bar before we headed to The Blackrock Clinic and she took off to the airport.

Why, pray tell, you might be wondering, were we off to a private clinic/hospital in Ireland - not as though the scenery and ruins would be good. Well. Back in August/September I noticed a freckle/mole thing on James’s shoulder had gotten very dark, almost black in parts, seemingly overnight - though realistically probably over the course of a month or two. As I’m too pale to live above ground myself, and knowing he’s toasted himself in the sun in years gone by, I launched into gear. Georgia’s medical system, even their ‘private clinics’ leave a huge amount to be desired, so I emailed the private Whitfield clinic that I went to in Waterford last year and got in touch with their Dermatologist (sent photos). He said it definitely needed removing, but he’d be on holiday for all of November when we arrived... so try this other clinic - Blackrock near Dublin. Tried the head of the Dermatology department there and she also said it definitely needed removing - but she couldn’t fit him in until January. Seriously hit ‘Google’ and found an Australian GP working in Dublin who specialises in doing skin checks and referring people on as necessary for further care (bit like our own GP in Sydney). Anyway - he took a look at the photos and immediately referred us to his plastic surgeon mate who does all his excision work at the Blackrock Clinic. So we had an appointment a week after arriving in Ireland (first week was getting first round of vaccinations for Japanese Encephalitis and the flu shot. Also visiting the eye doc for a check up in Waterford). Our plastic surgeon was a lovely man who took a look and then booked him in for 2 excisions - one spot not so worrisome, but the other almost definitely Melanoma. So that happened at the two week mark - two weeks later he took the stitches out and it looked lovely - but he couldn’t give us test results as the lab was being very slow and hadn’t signed off on them. It happened to be a Friday so we were going bonkers with worry all weekend. (Well more bonkers - as we’d been quite worried all along.) Our surgeon phoned us up on Monday morning with the good news it was a Melanoma - but hadn’t spread - they’d gotten it all, nevertheless they needed to do another surgery to put a good border around it. He knew we were leaving on Wednesday for Vietnam - but we could do it when we got back... Had to explain that we wouldn’t be back in Ireland for a year. So he went above and beyond the call of duty and rearranged all his surgeries on Monday to fit us in. The assistant he had with him at the first surgery was still working on her poker face and she was amazed to see James back - she apparently thought he would have been down in Oncology (!!!) They seem to think another month and it would have been into his lymph nodes etc. The Travel insurance company will be getting a claim in due course but health would be cheap at 10 times the price and against all the odds we managed to get on our flight to Vietnam on Wednesday evening as scheduled with the stitches to be taken out in Saigon. Life is definitely good. Getting old is fabulous and face it, so much better than the alternative (thank you Michael Caine for that amazing quote).

To keep my hands busy while we waited for results, I started investigating something to do when we finish up in Asia on 1 March in Bagan, Myanmar (that’s the spot with all the temples - over 2000 of them). Since we will be in the vicinity, we thought ‘why not’ and started investigating India and Sri Lanka. We are not generally ‘organised tour’ people, but thought how nice it would be to be looked after and we took advantage of the Black Friday sales (25% off), previous traveller discount (5%) and we got a lovely lady in the UK tour company office to put the booking into GBP/@ (vs € or even A$) - which saved us almost A$1000 more. So now we’re off to India on 3 March - heading down from Delhi to Rajasthan to see the tigers in Ranthambore National Park under our own steam and then joining a tour in Amritsar on 11 March and followed by Sri Lanka on 23 March - finishing on 30th March. We have April to ourselves and are rather hoping to end up housesitting in Japan or Hong Kong (both easy to get to from Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Aside from worrying ourselves into the ground prematurely and sending the credit cards into conniptions with travel bookings (it will be our 25th anniversary of meeting each other... pretty good excuse really...) we kept busy with an early Irish Christmas. A couple of the local villages had Christmas markets which really got us into the festive spirit. We even won first prize in the raffle at one of them - a €50 supermarket gift card. Our friends in Wicklow think there must have been a case of mistaken identity - as you’ve usually got to be a fifth generation local before getting a look-in in a village hall raffle. Whilst in the Christmas spirit and not sure of the likely options in Saigon, we went and bought a turkey, loads of veges, cranberry sauce, nice wine, an iced Christmas cake and a Christmas pudding. ‘Twas the weekend of ‘waiting for results’ and keeping busy - so we had the beastie birdy stuffed and ready to go in the oven at about 2 pm (fresh garden sage, onion, apple - yum!)... and then, and then, the oven wouldn’t work, despite having worked perfectly the night before. Aside from anything else, there was the risk of 7 cats on the prowl eyeing off said beastie on the bench. We are essentially lucky people and make our own luck when the fates allow. It just so happened there was an electrician onsite doing some work for our friends elsewhere on the property. We hoofed down the back garden with a pitiful look in our eyes and he came up to the house to take a look. After the oven was hauled out of it’s cubby and various things tested it turned out that a switch had died - so despite the lights and fan working perfectly, the power couldn’t get to the element. He very cleverly bypassed the mode-switch, and hard wired it to fan-forced mode. Within an hour, the beastie was in the oven and ended up being the best turkey we’ve ever had.

So as said initially, our month in Ireland was a rollercoaster ride and we could have done with a month to recover... but instead of doing that we made it to Dublin Airport on 28 November - rip snorting, ready to go for our next adventure - Vietnam for the next 2 and half months. Ireland - see you next year!