POSTSCRIPT

Alan had planned and organised a wonderful itinerary for our travels in May-June this year (2013). Our travels were to include (via China as usual) Pakistan, Italy, Tunisia,
Algeria and Morocco. We were gradually heading further west and out of our comfort zone of Asia.

To our disappointment, our planned destinations of Peshawar and Swat Valley in Pakistan were deemed as "No Go Zones" by our Australian Government. Furthermore, we were strongly advised by our authorities to take out Kidnapping Insurance! We did not want to take the risk again of having travel insurance deemed void, nor did we have the mere AUS $1million each to act as a our "travel insurance excess"! Sadly, we had to postpone our travels to Pakistan.

Algeria in early 2013 played an unwilling host to terrorist attacks on westerners working in the
country's Sahara oilfields and our travel agent called to say his company had immediately cancelled all travel through the Algerian Sahara. To our disappointment this visit was "canned" as well.

In place, we decided to travel to Kazakhstan. We had enjoyed our previous travels to most of the Central Asian 'Stans and had often thought about touring this huge former Russian nation. Anyway, we were flying right over the country and in harsh reality, we needed somewhere else to visit on our way home that was somewhere between Tunisia and China!

It was not a good return home. We arrived back in Australia to face family illness and a resulting family crisis. Just two weeks prior to our departure this year Alan was diagnosed with aggressive bladder cancer which meant immediate radical surgery to remove his bladder, prostate and lower lymph nodes. Our 2013 travels of course had to be cancelled.

Alan's traumatic ten hour surgery was however very successful although optional chemotherapy was advised to mop up any possible remaining cancer cells. Alan did not get to the end of his treatment. Just after Cycle One, he suffered an almost fatal bowel haemorrhage - thought to be caused by his treatment. On an awful July evening after being air lifted by helicopter to the wonderful John Hunter Hospital at Newcastle, his life was really touch and go.

Thankfully, due to the wonderful skills and amazing care of his surgeons and nursing support, he has fully recovered and we are both back to an almost normal life. The cats also joined in, taking turns to be "nurse" and giving appropriate "Cat-mo-therapy"! And now we are organising an overseas trip to similar destinations for 2014.

And so, our ever patient readers, these are just a few of the hiccups we have experienced on a long but definitely not enjoyable journey since our last travels and we trust a plausible reason for me taking so very long to complete this blog.

Thank you so much to all our readers who have been so caring about Alan and so positive in encouraging to me to complete this travelogue.

Watch this space for our next travels!