lost4good

Italics as always is Narda – though most of our blogs on this trip we will be doing differently. Narda will handwrite and add photos and drawings in her notebook then we will copy those pages into here. Incidentally, we used this same format a few years ago when we were in the Netherlands for three-months. See https://neuage.me/holland2022/

I was trying to sort how many times we have been in the Netherlands yesterday. I came up with thirteen times, for me with Narda, though I think there were a couple of more times. Of course, with her being born here it is a few more for her. Seven of those have been house exchanges. Others have been staying with Narda’s family and other times such as the time we came here with Narda’s parents to celebrate their 80^th birthday with lots of relatives from around the planet. That was back in 2008. Some of our travels to here have been from the States when we lived there 2002- 2009, some from China 2010-2014 and the rest from Australia. Always, a long ways from somewhere.

Starting in Adelaide. Adelaide has so grown up over the past 25+ years. When I first came to Adelaide in 1981 there was just a small airport. Now we look almost international. As our flight was not until 9.40 pm, Sunday we hopped the bus from in front of our house to the airport. We love that we can walk out our door and be somewhere – usually India, Europe, USA…a couple of dozen hours later.

Thirteen and half hour flight from Adelaide. We started this trip mentally at least last year. For the past decade we have been doing two trips overseas a year. Usually, one with a house exchange like in Europe or in the States and one in Asia. About three months each. This year, 2025, we started off in January with Vietnam for a month, India a month and Malaysia, Penang for a few weeks getting home early April. This current trip we have a house exchange in Utrecht, Narda’s birth home for seven weeks, a cruise from Athens to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It was supposed to be for fifteen days ending in Abu Dhabi. However, a few weeks ago we were told the cruise had been shortened to one week and we would be tossed out at Jeddah. We think it is because the cruise going through the Suez Canal was passing Yemen and floating about as a big target in the Red Sea at a time when folks have a bit of a disagreement. Today, Monday the 13^th of October it looks as if the hostages being held by Hamas will be released. We are in flight, three hours before arrival in Doha so I am not sure exactly what is going on down below the clouds. This flight began at 9.40 pm Adelaide and arrives in Doha at 3.40 am Doha time so it is all in the dark.

After a few days in Jeddah, we are flying over to Abu Dhabi for three days then onto Damman, Saudi Arabia to stay with Tyler for a few days. He was Narda’s fellow music teacher in Dalian, China and has been at the international school in Damman for about a decade. After that we will take a train through the desert to Riyhad for a couple of nights then to Phuket for a short holiday – we were there last year, what a great place to chill. From Phuket we fly to the island of Koh Samui for a week with Brendan and Sofia and the baby flying down from Lahore, Pakistan then Bangkok and of course, we will be the babysitters for New Year’s Eve so Brendan and Sofie can celebrate 2026 happening. And that is it after a week in Bangkok we are back home preparing for our next trip: UK end of Feb to start of April then over to the States for ever how long. I am hoping we can catch a re-positioning cruise back to Australia or to Europe in May. Narda’s next birthday in June I think we are looking at Bali with her sisters. Then our second trip for 2026 will be India to Pakistan and returning home before Christmas with Brendan, Sofie, and the baby.  That’s it. Not Doha.

Our flight to Amsterdam goes over but is not limited to Syria, Iran, Iraq…damn I forgot to bring my American flag to wave out the window.

Looking at the online screen now, there is no mention of Israel. Just the Palestinian Territories and Gaza.

We started preparation for this trip after being home for a few days, in April. Narda even brought out our big bags from the shed – the larger ones. Partly, my fault, I had bought a folded piano, full keyboard, just folds in half and I was a bit insistent on bringing it on the trip. That was a result of our great piano tuner, — giving us a Roland electric piano – with a plugin for earphones. Narda plays our piano – bringing relaxing music to our house. Me? Well, I had piano lessons between the ages of seven and something else. I even played in the Sunday school service at the Clifton Park Methodist church. My brother played the organ for the church service; my mother was in the choir in the front row and fell to sleep soon after the sermon began. I was always so embarrassed. To make it worse, my father sang next to me out of tune and loud. I never sang again in my life. I basically did not go to church again except when we visit Narda’s son in DC who is the pastor of a church there then I tag along in a husband-duty type of way. Anyway, I basically could play out of a Methodist hymn book. I also played trombone and was third trombone (there were three-trombone players in the band at Shenedehowa Central School – I was the worst). So, my music career is a bit tainted. Now with this electric piano I really wanted to play so now for this past six months or so I plug in the headphones, and I play first-grade music from the books Narda taught her classes from and some that I got from a thrift shop. I took the fold-up piano on our recent camping trip and played on it once so I had better do it more often on this trip or I may be frowned upon as it takes up more than half my suitcase.

We arrived in Doha at three am Doha time. It was about 10.30 am in Adelaide – our body clock time. The flight was 13.5 hours. Whatever.

Watching Qatar Airways Flight QR915 from the comfort of my seat – (or I need to find more to do here in the Netherlands than making Premiere clips of last week’s flight).

So, in summary, Qatar airlines has moved to the top of our favs. Why?

1. It’s sparklingly clean

2. It’s cheap.

3.  They include this lovely layover package.

4. The ground staff will go out of their way for you.

My only complaint……it’s a bloody long way to Doha.

Highlights: we had a great Indian meal in the mall including mango lassi.

And we had a nice little boat ride on the sea with speccie views.

See our introduction two-minute clip at https://youtu.be/91draneOp9s?si=zOPzMf9teCud8kpg

We were tired, having slept broken five or six or perhaps even seven hours. Sore bodies. Even my eyelids hurt. Business would have cost $7,000 each more and though we have done that before at a much lower rate the thought of $14,000 for less than 14 hours was ridiculous. When my books, Leaving Australia – available from Amazon or for free on my website, begin making a thousand dollars an hour I think we would consider it. Considering that I sold one, I think it was an e-book at $2.95 via Amazon in twenty years I believe it may be awhile before… I did sell one paperback copy and one hardback copy of each of my books, but that was me purchasing them and though the books look wonderful on my shelf at home they haven’t been very profitable. https://neuage.org/LeavingAustraliaBeforeTheAfter/ & https://neuage.org/leaving_australia/

The airport was oh so empty. It looks as if most people stop in Doha as a transit stop to the rest of the world. We did not see anyone else getting off in Doha. We got off because we had this great deal of three days, two nights (getting there at 3 am apparently counted as one night) free accommodation in a four-star hotel with Qatar. For a five-star it is a bit extra. See in our little video clip how empty the airport is.

We had thought of taking the metro to nearby our hotel. We dragged ourselves over to the entrance. It was four am when we got there. The metro begins at six am. A friendly Pakistani taxi driver brought us to the Holiday Inn for about $8 a great deal in our tired state. Of course, Narda told him her son lives in Pakistan along with the wife and baby.

I think we were asleep within minutes of getting to our room. The Holiday Inn was not only a comfortable hotel, but the staff were also all so good. I think in the States it is not rated as high. Narda even negotiated a buffet breakfast for the second morning for a big discount. She said we will take breakfast if you give it to us two for the price of one. They didn’t match that but lowered it from 120 QAR to 70 QAR ($31 USD to $18 USD). It was one of the best buffet breakfasts anywhere.

The first morning, after arriving at four am and sleeping until 5.30am and not able to go back to sleep we walked a few blocks to a sort of India/Pakistan/Bangladesh area and got a somewhat breakfast for $8 for the two of us. The breakfast was a hard-boiled egg in an onion sauce which was a very spicy mix – even with lots of yogurt included was almost too hot to eat, some bread, two coffees and a salad. The restaurant was called Kerala – which we were in earlier in the year and learned then that southern Indian food was much more spicy than northern Indian cuisine.

The nearest metro station to our hotel is Al Doha Al Jadeda. A very clean super modern system with three lines: red, green, and yellow. We bought a day ticket which was 7 QAR each ($1.70 USD) for 24 hours, probably the cheapest day ticket ever anywhere for a full use to anywhere on the metro.

We took the red line to Msheireb Station switching to the yellow line and getting off one stop later at Souq Waqif. Souq Waqif is great, especially in the morning if one wants to avoid crowds. Like the airport it was empty of tourists. I splurged and bought a fridge magnet – probably not any room on fridge for another magnet but we will squeeze it in.

From Wikipedia… Built on the site of Doha’s century old trading market, on the banks of the Wadi Musheireb, Souq Waqif feels like an anachronism, particularly against the backdrop of Doha’s dramatic modern skyline. With its mud-daubed buildings, the market harkens to a bygone era while remaining a hub of activity, where commerce and gossip collide. Souq Waqif’s winding alleys offer a tableau of traditional street life.

Souq Waqif was a market used for trading activities, the area used to be located immediately on the shore to allow for boats to access it from Doha Bay. Souq Waqif’s position relative to the bay was significantly altered throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s due to land reclamation for the Doha Corniche, which shifted the coastline approximately 335 metres

The souq was founded at least a century ago in proximity of the dry riverbed known as Wadi Musheireb. The phrase “Souq Waqif”, stems from the fact that traders used to set up shop at the gates to show off their wares. It was a gathering place where Bedouins and locals would trade a variety of goods, primarily livestock goods.

However, with the boom in prosperity in the 1990s, the souq fell into decline and in 2003, most of it was destroyed in a fire. This event initiated a restoration program by the government in 2006, with the purpose of preserving its architectural and historical identity. The first phase of restoration was funded by the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and his wife Sheikha Moza bint Nasser. Buildings constructed after the 1950s were demolished whereas older structures were refurbished. The restoration was completed in 2008. Traditional heating methods are employed by utilizing wood and bamboo imported from various areas of Asia.

I have a short video of it as mentioned above @ https://youtu.be/91draneOp9s?si=zOPzMf9teCud8kpg

We spent a couple of hours in the market. It is quite vast. I bought a fridge magnet to add to our almost completely covered fridge at home (plus a large board full of magnets on the kitchen wall) and we bought a drink and latter ice cream as our contribution to the market’s profitability. From there we took the metro one stop over to the National Museum. We were so tired we almost went home instead. We spent an hour at the museum – well worth the visit – and the price of about $15 USD for two. I have a video of that too…

After our visit, or near the end of it, I realized that I had lost my sunglasses. These were prescription, with an Aboriginal design costing $500 Australian. They were a replacement for sunglasses I had lost back in March in Penang, Malaysia. Fortunately, our travel insurance paid for the replacement minus two-hundred deductible.

We retraced our steps in the museum; told everyone we came across that looked in charge. Finally, a staff person said she would walk over to the metro station to see if we had lost them on the train. Narda is opposed to me saying we when I way too often lose stuff, but hey we are together, so it is easy to say we. So, this helpful woman got us to the station master, she even camp back with a bottle of water for each of us. We filled out a lengthy form and walked off. Narda said we should check the stations we were at. We went back one stop and looked on all the seats on the platform. We went to another stop, looked at all the seats at the station at one end. Narda said I think we were sitting at the other end waiting for the train. I walked to the other end and saw something on the seat, after a few very quick steps, there was my glasses case with my beautiful glasses inside. We went back to the station master at the previous stop and told him, but it was too far, we were too tired, and it was too hot (34 Celsius) to walk back to the museum. I wrote a letter and sent it to the museum’s email thanking the ‘wonderful person’ and giving her a cyber-hug (is that appropriate for a male to hug a female in Qatar?).

Don’t know if she got the message or not. I got no response. Of course, that turned out to be the easy lost item. Read on.

Whilst packing up our stuff in our hotel I noticed, damn – my Kindle Reader was nowhere to be found. It is not the Kindle – they don’t cost much, but I was fifteen minutes from the end of fried green tomatoes at the whistle stop café by Fannie Flagg.

Narda has an extensive Kindle library, like a zillion and a half books, that she shares with my Kindle, which is named Kindle Three. Narda went to the front desk at our hotel, they helped her get in touch with Qatar Airways, we filled out the form. The taxi to the airport was only about $5 USD. At the airport we spoke with a wonderfully helpful woman who tracked down my Kindle. All we needed to do was go fetch it. Narda was sent off to do the fetching. Our flight was boarding in less than an hour. I was left with our carry-on bags. With time running out, me sliding into panic mode, I asked someone to go find Narda and tell her to forget the Kindle, our flight was boarding. I saw her running toward me and she said someone would bring it to the gate. Sure enough just as we were boarding a man rushed to our gate and handed us the kindle. He said I should listen to my wife, and we tossed back and forth some jokes about wives.

Having a Narda is good. Of course, I was reminded of several other left behind items; most notably my hat in Colombo Shri Lanka several years ago. I had left it at a restaurant the night before we were leaving the country. Luckily, a neighbour of our AirBnb place almost ran the whole way from our flat to the restaurant and got someone to open up about six am and retrieved my hat minutes before our departure to the airport. Narda too has left things for example a suitcase at the airport in Phuket and we didn’t realize it until we were unpacking in our hotel. Another time I was carrying Narda’s bag and we left it in the security thingy at the Delhi train station and that took lots of phone calls from our suburbia train station to the main station to our returning and finding it at the train security station, I did lose my sunglasses earlier this year but that did not have a happy ending. We have quite the list of misplaced things. Not to be outdone by myself, I discovered this morning that I lost my ear-pods at security in Doha. I am not even going to try and track them down. Luckily, they were only about $45 Australian. It is when we empty pockets and pull things out of bags at those airport security scanning places that things get lost. I have had many things in life gone missing, and most have found their way back. I have even lost myself frequently…but that is a given.

From the internet….The National Museum of Qatar is a national museum in Doha, Qatar. The current building opened to the public on 28 March 2019. The building was designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel who was inspired by the desert rose crystal, which is found in Qatar.

In the evening we went to The Doha Corniche, a seven kilometre promenade overlooking Doha Bay,  we did the 20-minute boat thingy for 50 QAR for two ($13 USD).

We were hustled into taking a boat ride. We kept saying no, but the person was persistent. It was only 50 QAR or $13 USD for the two of us for twenty-minutes. I am happy we did it, though they had large speakers blasting out something – perhaps young people music as everyone on the boat was young and most were teenage girls who danced to whatever the noise was.

See our video with the annoying loud so-called music, loved by the young ones on the boat at https://youtu.be/iHxYXFTShZQ?si=KzXMvIVsuCNBDu2H

Our flight to Amsterdam was much easier. Only seven-hours. However, we arrived at 11 pm and holy guacamole, what a difficult time. We took the train to Utrecht Central, then to our suburb and at midnight with no sim card to follow a GPS to our house we had no idea even which direction to go. Some folks walking by pointed to a street up ahead and said to go left on that. The rest of how we got there is a nice story with a Ukrainian young person, probably in his twenties, helping us but that will be in the next blog which no doubt will not manifest until around the end of February.

Thanks for sharing the first part of our three-month adventure.