The Other Side

I approached the 48 hours of transit with trepidation. I packed a book about one day in the life of a man imprisoned in a Siberian Concentration camp just so no matter what happened in those dreary lonely airport lounges I could be reminded that folk have had it a lot worse. Well, shock horror, I didn’t need the book. The travel wasn’t that bad! The food looked and tasted like cardboard drenched in fish sauce. No one spoke English. The seats were hard as bricks. But other than that it was perfectly bearable. And after an interesting stay in China – see previous post – we have made it to the motherland. We were welcomed with a shot of melt-your-gut strong coffee, stroopwafels, and a fridge full of beer and cheese… Heaven! It rained today but the overcast sky gave the quaint Dutch towns, pastures and woodlands an otherworldly feel. We ate poffertjes – the best I have ever eaten – in a near 200 year old establishment called De Haans, in Laren. The traditional and the best, just the start of things to come, I hope. Already I feel a familiarity in Holland. I have an eerie sense of deja vu but I’ve never experienced or seen any of this before. It’s like I’ve lived here in another long forgotten life and there is now a unique affinity with this land and its people.