Kuala Lumpur

G'day mates!

This story will be a short one but one with a few shocks!

We always have a stopover on our way back from The Netherlands to Australia just to have the opportunity to pull ourselves together after all these busy months and of course the say goodbye's.

Needed a drink after leaving our family behind and the goodbye's. Unfortunately we couldn't find our favorite bar anymore which was "Old Amsterdam" (or something like that) and after asking someone we learned it was gone and on that spot was an extra security area! Crikey what a shame!! At the whole Airport was no Belgium beer anymore, what a disaster! 😈😠

He seems to be happy but isn't really!
(a poor alternative)

After the first shock about the vanished bar we got the second one;

You can take booze into Australia, even a bit more then 2 liter but you have to buy it at the last port before entering Australia so we couldn't buy anything at Schiphol!

We love Strohrum and know you cannot buy it at Kuala Lumpur so that was the second shock!

Bye bye Strohrum

Normally the Emirates Airline is fantastic but this time and we don't know why because there wasn't bad weather or something else, but we had to wait about 2 and a half hours before we got something to drink! And I don't mean booze but water or juice or whatever, that wasn't very comfortable.

Further the flight was OK, lots of entertaining;

Because we have been in Kuala Lumpur before and we then did all the sight seeings, I now only have a small movie about us eating on the street as that is why we wanted to go back to Kuala Lumpur for;

First some pictures;

OMG that food is to die for!!

If you want some sight seeing, go to my previous story about Kuala Lumpur, the only thing is, lucky for the Dutchies, sad for the rest of my readers, it's in Dutch as that was written in my previous Weblog; tamfredinkangarooland, anyhow, the pictures are worth visiting 

http://tamfredinkangarooland.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/kuala-lumpur.html

The third and last shock;

I've never seen a human being like this, you wonder if he has been born that way or maybe has a disease;

In my movie you can see how he is making a living but also us watching the world go by;

Movie time!!

See ya soon, back in Australia!

Cheers.

The continuing story.........

G'day mates,

Continuing our bike ride in The Netherlands, more specific; in the province Brabant, we rode from Tilburg back to our hotel, passing an old Monastery ; “Koningshoeven Abbey”, of the Trappists (Order of the Cisterians of the Strict Observance) founded in 1881 in Berkel-Enschot.

Here our (hubby and I) favourite beer is brewed; “La Trappe” triple, and of course we stopped there for a drink.

If you want to know everything of this lovely Trappist beer;

http://www.latrappetrappist.com/en/

Totally exhausted from the long bike ride and all the emotions and experiences we had along the way, we enjoyed our dinner at the Hotel wondering what it would be today.

As you can see I didn't lie in my previous episode that the portions are not too big....

Normally I'm, as well as Nicole, not really desert people but this time we ate some of it, being afraid to wake up in the middle of the night with rambling bellies...

But honestly, everything tasted really good!

Next day we decided, before leaving back home, to do a walk close by and again we passed the most beautiful/remarkable spots...

We saw this nice cafe in the middle of the bush and decided to have a drink, mind ya!! Me having Tea...

Well, of course I couldn't drink beer at only 11 o'clock and besides that, I still had to drive... 

It's called; Boscafé "De Rode Lelie" and it looked like they also had some special accommodation...

also for cats.....

and horses.....

After our walk and on our way back we had a stop and visited Nijmegen, just for some browsing and a drink overlooking the "Waal".....

We ended up in Zutphen of course and even at our favourite cafe from the past, we've been  here a lot in our younger years so it brought back memories.....

(as far as we could remember haha) 

They have nice food too!!

Last but not least here is the promised; "Mooiste ommetje van Gelderland" 

It starts in Wichmond at the "Ludgerusgebouw"

If you want to know more about this walk;

http://www.wandelbeeld.nl/wandelen-bronckhorst/wandelroute-ockhorstroute-vorden/

We ended this walk in our caravan and Nicole and Els spoiled us with a terrific fish platter!

It was outstanding! 

This was it again folks, I think I don't have more from Holland so my next story will be;

Kuala Lumpur!

Cheers

Zutphen, Oisterwijk, Tilburgse Kermis (Fair) Soooo much to tell and show....

G’day mates!

This story has various items. I spent some time with my friend Nicole with whom I am friends already 51 years! Crikey, now I see it in writing I'm shocked how old I am already, we were both 6 when we became friends at school, blimey!! (Don't you dare working out my age now!).
My first time back to Australia trip in 1980, was together with Nicole.

Anyhow, she made me a nice dinner at her home, we went a few days to Berkel-Enschot in Brabant and we had a nice walk which is called; de Ockhorstroute and is classified as; "het mooiste ommetje in Gelderland", (the most beautiful walk in Gelderland) it was about 8 k's and indeed as beautiful as mentioned.

Let's start with dinner, she spoiled me with salmon, veggies, baked potatoes and a great salad!

May I introduce; Nicole!

That's not the only thing I want to show you because look at the scenery!

Isn't it great to live at this spot! It is in Zutphen, the nice city I talk a lot of because it's my favourite, here we are overlooking "The IJssel".

We booked our three days trip through a special ad in the newspaper, included was breakfast, 2 nights meal and 1 day a bike for free. The hotel looked very lovely in the ad and presumed it was situated in the middle of the bush. When we arrived we saw it was indeed in the middle of something; A roundabout surrounded by HIGHWAYS!

Once inside our shock disappeared and it seemed to be OK after all, except for the view; oeps….

Nicole insisted I took a picture of my shoos because she laughed her head off as I had 5 pair with me for 3 days, that's not much is it? Hey, I did wear them all!!

After being settled in the room we walked to the town Oisterwijk close by and had a drink.

Looks like a lovers lane....

After this long, but very nice walk, we were hungry and went to dinner, unfortunately despite the fact that the food was very tasteful, it wasn't very much (maybe it wasn't that bad at all in my case!). Luckily we had nice weather so we could sit outside;

Next day we decided to take the free bike because actually we only had one full day out of the 3 days arrangement. I worked out a ride of about 32 km in which we would come to Tilburg, were at that moment the Tilburg Fair was on which is the biggest of the Benelux and of course we wanted to see that.

It turned out to be a very special day with laughs, cries, holy and scary moments. Come and join us on this special day ;

Brabant is beautiful and the things we passed on our way were very special;

Normally we would stay far away from these Storks, but nah, we don't have to anymore

Means; "Dogs Bar"

We also passed a small Chapel, we decided to look inside and suddenly I had the feeling I had to burn a candle for my 3 recently deceased relatives and while doing that I couldn't help but had to cry.

We stayed there for a little while till I felt better and continued our journey!

Finally we got to Tilburg and also that was a very special experience and such a contrast with the little Chapel.

If you enjoy enormous fairs, you can't afford to miss Tilburg Kermis. This is the largest fair in the Benelux nations offering between 230 and 250 attractions every year. It's also unique in that the whole city centre is closed off to accommodate it creating a fairground 4.5 k's long.

We need a break after all this violence......

Each year the Tilburg Kermis attracts more than one million visitors which makes it one of the best attended events in the Netherlands.

It wouldn't be a total package if you didn't get a bit of the feeling, so......

Its Movie time;

I think this story is getting too long so I’ll take a break here and will finish it next time, so look out for the rest, f.i. the promised walk, somewhere next week;

To be continued.....