Jerusalem

Hi everyone,
Sorry, but our posts have not been very successfull from the boat. We are now in a total in Jerusalem, and will try again. Yesterday we saw the old city, visiting many of the religious sites and experiencing the Sukh. We were not too impressed with the way the churches have handled the so called holy sites, but it was interesting to see all the treditions. The Garden Tomb was very convincing, but I am glad it is not important that we should be able to identify the correct sites.
Today we went to the new city and saw the holocaust museum and the museum of the book. It was nice to see some Qumran originals at the latter. But the holocaust museum was disturbing. On the way back we came across a bus th5 was searched with a robot because of a bomb scare. We also saw many traditional Jews go to synagogue. Traffic almost disappeared and at the hotel they had a nice festive meal to celebrate the Sabbath.
Tomorrow we hope to see Massada and swim in the dead sea. The tour is so packed with events that it is hard to keep track of them all. BUt we are sure enjoying it. We hope the photos speak for themselves.

From Holland

Hi Everyone,
i will try once again, using another program, as my last three posts are held up. We have arrived in the Netherlands, but only the mist gives that away as there is little else to see. Yesterday we bussed fro Cologne to Maastricht where we saw the old town and Andre Rieu's castle (from afar). Then we returned to the boat. Next we visited Noah and his family on the Ark. We had plannned to see the half scale model of the ark in the Netherlands, but by chance discovered it was moored one km from our own ship. This model did not really show how the ark might have been set up, but instead of animals it had tableaus of many bible scenes and would be a great place to take children. However, being on board did bring to mind how big the original ark must have been.
Today we hope to arrive in Amsterdam and see the city, but tomorrow we will have to disembark. We have rented a car and hope to visit some friends before flying on to Israel.

Hungaria and Slovakia

Finally we have some free time (without missing out on tours) and an opportunity to try and get up to date. The difficulty now is remembering what we did where and when.
Our first day on board we spent in Budapest, my favourite city up to now. Maybe that is because it was our first reaquaintance with old world culture, but I think it may also have been because Budapest has such a rich mixture of cultural treasures. On the Buda side of the river were the fortresses and churches of the wealthier people of yesteryear, when the Pest side was flood prone and left for the peasants. More recently buildings have arisen on the Pest side, which became the commercial centre. The people on both sides of the river love their statues and monuments and it would be hard to find a spot where you cannot see one or more of these on squares, in parks or on building fronts. we were also able to visit a beautiful Reformed church on the Buda side, right opposite the Parliament house on the Pest bank. We heard that it had some 500 people come for worship every week.
During the night our boat sailed on to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. Here we went on a "communist tour", where the guide in a humerous way  informed us about the blessings of communism. Fortunately the communist era bus we were to have taken refused to start in the 40 degree heat, so we got an airconditioned modern bus instead. Bratislava was a poorer and paler version of Budapest. Like the latter, most churches were dedicated to St. Stephen, who was (one of?) the first to bring the Gospel to the area. Slovakia is mostly Roman Catholic.
The pictures below are of Budapest and Slovakia.

Some photos from Siem Reap

We had a great time cathching up with Stan and Nicole in Cambodia. Here we visited the orphanage they have been aiding, a war museum, the famous Angkor Wat temple, and the markets. At the market we had fish clean up our feet.

Getting on board

It's embarassing, but since we came on board we seem to find little time to attend to our blog. There are daily excursions and activities, and we have also been trying to catch up on our sleep. The latter because we first boarded our ship after 3 in the morning. Our journey from Kuala Lumpur had been relatively smooth, except for a long wait in Dubai. However, in Prague we changed airlines and Malev Airlaines cancelled our flight. Instead, hours later, they flew us to Warsaw, 180 degrees the wrong direction, and from there to Budapest. Here the airport was virtually empty, with everything closed and no representative from the travel company to greet us. Fortunately we were able to find a minibus that took us to the harbour and allowed us to pay for it by credit card, as we had no Hungarian forints.

Budapest is a lovely city; I liked it best of all the places we visited. There are some vary imposing castles and palaces along the river and up the slopes of the Buda side of town. We were moored close to a Reformed Church, built on the river bank opposite government house, and we had an opportunity to look around. It was more high church than our churches, but apparently they have a weekly ateendance of around 500. Their program looked encouraging, with a lot of emphasis on youth work. We had a long walk through the city, enjoying the sights, though it got pretty warm - just under 40 degrees.

Sorry, but I am still having difficulty uploading photos (and they are out of proportion), but hope to have some more posted next time. Here are a few I managed to uploao from our Cambodian venture

Stan and Nicole show us Siem Reap

An unasked for massage

    

After this little boy (Pal) gave me an unasked for massage I thought he deserved a reward.

Melbourne to Siem Reap

We will add photos later if we can get the ap going. Wel arrived at Siem Reap airport, a pretty place where the passengers started taking photos as soon as they got of the plane. SR is in the middle of a swamp, lusciously green and the people so friendly.We were welcomed by the tuktuk driver Hong, sent to pick us up by Stan and Nicole. It was good to see them and to find them up -they have taken to really relaxing and ten am was abit too early. It wasn't long before they introduced us to the orphans they have been teaching thesef last few months. They are obviously well loved as the kids came out yelling with glee. Since Stan and Nicole bought the sign the little orphanage has had some tourists come by and give lessons in english. one, named Alec, even built a chicken house out back. While the chicks are growing 'pa' has to sleep out back to guard them. I don't envy him. Muddy pools of water filled with mossies. They are so poor but even they've been victims of robbery. Pa and mum look after 27 children, some orphaned, some with parents too poor to take care of them. Stan and Nicole took us via tuktuk to war museum to meet Sinath whose sad story is in stannicoleblogspot. Yesterday we toured the Angkor Wat temple complex. Fascinating and tiring.

Preparations

You may wonder why we would want to leave a place like our home, but the picture you see is what it is like in summer. It is a lot cooller and wetter now, and we're looking forward to some time in the sun. We invite you to follow us in our travels. We hope to start out in a couple of weeks (Aug. 16), and our first destination will be Kuala Lumpur, in transit to Cambodia. There we hope to catch up with Stan and Nicole and see some of the beauty of the country before we go on to Europe. Here we will spend two weeks travelling on European waterways and a few more daysdriving around Holland before we go on to spend a week in Israel. Lastly we will spend some days in Malaysia before returning home again.