Thailand

Dad always wanted to travel Asia, writing:

“Another year.

Most of my time in 1969 was split between doing Mr Wisdom’s Whopper crossword puzzles in The Australasian Post and reading historical novels.

I approached such books with gusto, not only for the sake of increasing my understanding of world history and the interplay of diverse ideologies and cultures but to expand my vocabulary.

Whenever I encountered a word whose meaning was unknown or obscure, I either looked it up in the dictionary then or jotted it into an alphabetised list in a notebook for later consideration. When I did my looking-up, I scanned the dictionary entries surrounding my target words to absorb their meanings as well. As an aid to memory retention, I added a meaning to each listing.

I became obsessed with the idea of following the ‘Hippie Trail’ that would involve travelling to India then Kathmandu in Nepal where I would join the free-spirited trekkers roughing their way to London. How I would accomplish such an ill-advised expedition, I did not know; I was going to do it anyway, so I secured a passport and bided my time until an opportunity arose.

Momentous events were occurring not only on the far side of Earth but on that of the moon. America launched a spaceship called Columbia, destination: the moon. Without the benefits of a television broadcast, Mum, Lenny and I listened to an ABC Radio rendering on 20 July 1969.

We were riveted to some emotion-charged voices portraying how astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin alighted from their Eagle landing craft and took some tentative steps there while Michael Collins circled above.”

In February 2011 Dad went to Thailand: