CONTRIBUTED
Cowra Evening CWA President, Ros Ryan welcomed members and guests to our May monthly meeting at Club Cowra and introduced the guest speaker, former Cowra teacher, Karen Garling. Karen’s topic was her recent 3-month trip to South- East Asia.
Karen’s luggage consisted of one 7kg suitcase and a 400gm backpack for her travels through the highlands of Laos, Vietnam and Thailand. She did not want to do the tourist thing but preferred to go by local transport (bus and boat) and find local accommodation so she could experience living among the local people. Wherever she stopped and stayed, she would be given accommodation with a family and treated like a guest. Not speaking the same language was never a major problem. Karen said that if you were genuine in appreciating the natural beauty of the land and the people living in it, they would go out of their way to help you enjoy your travels. She felt safe with the rural folk who never took advantage of her. They were poor yet food was plentiful. Occasionally she would meet up with another traveller or group and they would share experiences and keep in touch. Karen was drawn to places where she could go kayaking and we saw many photos of lakes and mountains and local people. On beautiful Ha Long Bay there is a cruise ship.
Karen visited the capital city of Vietnam, Hanoi and visited their Victory monument commemorating the battle of Dien Bien Phu against the French colonial government. Like other capital cities, Hanoi has major traffic congestion. Traffic there flows in many directions because they don’t follow agreed road rules. When Karen needed to walk across one busy road, she felt nervous. Fortunately, an old lady appeared and walked Karen safely across this road teeming with cars, bikes, carts, pedestrians etc. The old lady then confidently walked back across that same busy crowded road! Everywhere the kindness of strangers. However, tourism over-development has begun and is threatening the natural beauty of some of these places by the clearing of land by multinational companies for resorts. In Laos a charitable organisation is using trained rats to recover land mines from the Vietnam war. Ann Apthorpe then thanked Karen for being our guest speaker with a floral gift.
In other news Rowena Casey reported that CWA ladies at the Sydney Royal Easter Show made 42,620 scones. Everyone was delighted to wish member Pat Macheledt a very happy 90th birthday from a couple of days earlier. The next branch meeting will be on Wednesday 11 June, at 6pm for a 6.30 start at Club Cowra. Visitors are welcome. To book your meal with us, contact Treasurer, Cinda Millard, at least 3 days in advance, at scrubbyrush@gmail.com
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