Correspondence and the odd FaceTime flowed between us in between my two week trip to Cambodia and then a longer seven week trip through Asia, Europe and Turkey. As I had a already planned a sojourn in the United States we both decided it would be worth a detour to Burlington, Vermont where Annie was spending the summer. Everything was organised we would meet at the airport.
There was one small problem in that my backpack with all my clothes and accessories had gone "missing" on a flight from Munich to Paris, so I arrived in Vermont with just the clothes I was wearing. http://www.discoveramerica.com/usa/states/vermont.aspx
My first request of Annie was to drive me to a store so I could buy underwear. A fantastic start to any relationship! We didn't allow that spot of intimate shopping to dent our relationship and we went on to spend a wonderful three weeks together in Vermont, Montreal and New York City.
Lake Champlain Vermont
We bade each other a sad farewell in mid-September with my ticket already booked for a return journey to St John US Virgin Islands in mid-November. In the meantime I completed three trips as a tour guide taking American folks around Australia for two weeks tours.
After a mountain of emails and FaceTime calls the time came to set off to meet Annie at St Thomas. It was a long haul around 27 hours of travel and worth every minute to be with Annie in the beautiful islands. Our first night was spent at a beach side resort on St Thomas which was spectacular, gleaming white sands and swaying palms.
Early in the afternoon we took the short four mile vehicular ferry ride across to St John, a lush tropical island http://www.visitusvi.com/stjohn/homepage which is just seven miles long and three miles wide with a population of a little over 4000 people. As two thirds of the island is a National Park the vegetation is lush and construction restricted. St John is ringed by beautiful beaches which are often devoid of people whereby you will only have to share the beach with a few local pelicans who put on a great show diving into the clear waters in search of a meal.
Annie is a well-known local artist (www.anniecaswell.com ) who has been creating stunning works of art in variety of mediums for the 10 years she has been on St John. It is impossible to travel anywhere on island without someone singing out a greeting or throwing out an enthusiastic hug or handshake.
Whilst I have been gallivanting around Australia Annie has been busy packing up her house and either selling off, sending away or giving away her possessions as when Annie leaves St John she will only be taking two suitcases. Each day some other item or two leaves the house which means we are living a very minimalist lifestyle.
The biggest concern is what to do with all of Annie's accumulated artwork, paintings, pottery, ceramics, jewellery and a whole lot more. From time to time we will be placing items on this blog in an attempt to move some of the items.
To date we have an AirBnb https://www.airbnb.com place booked in central Chiang Mai http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Mai for 8 days and in that time we hope to find a place to live. At the moment they are the only firm plans we have, it is all wing and a prayer stuff. That said we are both supremely confident that we will make a go of it.
It is no easy thing to stay for a long period of time in Thailand and we are working our way through a mire of rules and regulations around visas. It is rather confusing. Initially I will enter Thailand on a 30 day visa and Annie on a 60 day tourist visa http://canberra.thaiembassy.org/visa.html. I have to leave Thailand in late January to return to Australia to conduct two tours which will take me away from Annie for a little over seven weeks. In that time Annie will set up house and start a Thai language course or something similar.
In the coming days, weeks and months both Annie and I will write about our progress, our trials and tribulations, our triumphs and defeats as well as a description of our travels and the folks we meet along the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment