Category Archives: Tettie

The Most Useful Thing We’ve Taken Travelling Around Asia: Waterproof Cast Cover

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By Scarlett Hadley (Age 9)

We didn’t exactly take a waterproof cast cover, but…

Well the story really started when we began to climb for the second time in the Anapurna region. After 3 days of trekking it happened.

I broke my leg. Luckily, a helicopter came, soaring into the air with all five members of our family inside, and at last came to rest in Kathmandu, on Vayoda Hospital’s helicopter landing place. When we left Vayodah (me and Mummy in ambulance, Daddy and my sisters in a taxi) my leg had been set into a big full length cast.

Scarlett Onboard the Helicopter

Scarlett being a big, brave girl in the helicopter

The waterproof cast cover was delivered several weeks later in Chitwan National Park, where elephants are the great kings.

After one and a half weeks in Chitwan the cast cover because useful. My sisters were off to wash the elephants, my Nepali friend had to go to a funeral and so me and Mummy had to stay at our hotel, Travellers Jungle Camp. We went to the bathroom ad for the first time put on my waterproof cast cover. Woops, splash, the showers got out of hand! Water – war!

Me and Mummy had a waterfight until my sisters came home and we all played cards. It began when I threw a bucket of water at Mummy, big mistake! She threw one back at me. The bathroom got soaked as water went flying back and forth, having quite an adventure. Splashing back at Mummy all I could see was thousands and thousands of tiny droplets of water soaring to and fro around me. A lot of fun was involved in the weird and wonderful water fight. At last, after 2 and a half hours, both dripping, we left the flooded bathroom to drain, just as my sisters and Daddy came home.

Our Room Name (Rhyming SLang?)

Our room in Chitwan where we stayed a total of 41 nights while Scarlett recovered

Sublime Swimming

On the first day in Thailand we swam in the Hotel Malaysia’s big, deep swimming pool. Me and my sisters played mermaids and used the rubber rings as boats, sailing around and often falling off…

The swimming pool was 3-4 metres deep and very fun. The cold refreshing water had a well tiled floor, which was painted a light shade of turquoise, as were all four walls. My cast cover floated, allowing me to plow easily through the water.

Waterproof Cast Cover in Action

Scarlett in action with the waterproof cast cover

Sandy Samui

After I had my cast changed there was a different tale to tell…

This was swimming from Mummy to Daddy in the wild raging waves of Ko Samui. The water was deep and green but yet my waterpoof cast cover floated above the surface, bobbing gently with the waves. We had a very good time in Ko Samui. I could not get in the sea without help. I could not do this because I only had 3 legs (when I was on all fours).

Scarlett Literally Island Hopping

Broken leg on the beach, Ko Samui

Bad Bubble Maker:  Waterproof Cast Cover is Good.

When we went to do a bubble makers course [an introductory scuba diving course] it was a disaster!

The air tanks were too heavy and the wet suits were too big. I only had one flipper, but the cast cover didn’t sink. It floated along like a good little cast cover and we managed to swim the huge distance (Mummy pulling me half the way). My waterproof cast cover saved me that one big day.

Ready to go diving

Nothing stops Scarlett joining in, not even a broken leg!

Hua Hin

In Hua Hin, I had my cast taken off but my leg was so sensitive it couldn’t touch the water…

Hua Hin was an extremely nice place with an open, public swimming pool right next to our hotel. As my leg couldn’t touch the water I put on my waterproof cast cover. Then we all swam. We played for a very long time until I could take off the cast cover and slowly swim without it. YES! I didn’t have a broken leg!

Scarlett enjoying the freedom of no cast on her leg!

The early days of freedom!

Five Things I’ll Miss About Travelling Around Asia With My Family

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Hero in a Half Cast

By Scarlett (aged 8)

  1. I think I’ll miss having a broken leg because of all the special attention. Still, I wish I hadn’t had the accident. I say this because it was very painful at the beginning, also it went on and on and on for 2½ months. It never saw the sun, consequently it grew paler and paler.
  1. I think I will also miss having a lot of time with my family. I will miss having nearly all day with my sisters to play. Also having little school as you will hear about in the next paragraph. We do not have much time at home because of all the different things that we do not do here such as Mummy and Daddy’s work, going to school, and diving lessons.
  1. Homeschooling I will also miss because it is much shorter than normal school and still I think I learn just as much.
  1. I will miss trekking because it is good fun and it is an amazing maze of cliffs and steep drops. At first it was tiring to the legs and shoulders but it got easier and easier as we walked. The places to stay were cheap and an exciting experience.
  1. The views of Nepal are stunning as are the birds of prey. We saw golden eagles flying below us, great blue-looking mountains soaring above us and scraggly, old, dying, dead-looking trees grew around us. Beautiful views stretched out surrounding us. Views appear all over the place: sunsets, beaches, mountains, jungles and islands.

Happy Birthday Mummy

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By Tettie

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Today is Mummy’s Birthday!                                              

So happy birthday Mummy!

A really happy birthday to you!

You are a wonderful Mummy!

I can’t believe I am so lucky!                                

You are always so kind to me!

Travelling has been so much funner with you!

Special Times

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by Scarlett Hadley

On the second day of our excellent boat trip I had two wonderful experiences, the first with Daddy and the second with Mummy.

The boat trip was set in Borneo, the third largest island in the world, on a long winding river, named Sungai Sekonyer, flowing all the way down to the wide, rippling sea. This first event was early in the morning whilst our boat was speeding along and the engine was rumbling quieter than the bees buzzing under the sun-shelter just behind us. Me and Daddy were sitting on the only cushioned seat on the 45 foot boat when I got up and sat on one of the two white benches one foot forwards and two foot to the side on left and right of us. Daddy followed me. He sat down behind me.

He put his arms around me and laced his sausages. I unlaced his sausages and Daddy SQUEEZED me! I quickly unlaced his sausages for him again and he relaxed. This game went on for some 15 minutes. Just then we arrived at the first orangutan feeding station and the game dwindled into nothingness. (His sausages were actually his fingers).

The second experience will take less time to read.

Mummy had been playing the ukulele for around 5 minutes when I came up to her and she said we should finish with her playing and us both singing. I agreed. We began.

I felt happiness flooding through me as we cuddled together. I could hardly hear the rumbling of the boat’s engine. We sang Brown Eyed Girl.

When we finished it was time for lunch and we settled round the table for the second meal of the day. We had 3 per 24 hours. I love our special times.

 

Me and My Lucky Landings

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The spirit shrine where Scarlett came off her bike

The spirit shrine where Scarlett came off her bike

By Scarlett

My lucky landings have served me well over the whole of travelling.

At KC’s at Chitwan National Park a piece of bamboo treehouse fell at me. It was the tallest one and was about six metres. Luckily, instead of landing on my head, it landed very close – on my shoulder. So when we went trekking again, I didn’t have to carry my own rucksack.

The second time was, just as my shoulder healed, when I had my big fall in Nepal. I fell five metres and instead of breaking both my legs I only broke one! And I didn’t have to carry my rucksack. Again.

The third time was a week after I had an x-ray saying I could run and jump again. I had a bike crash. I was going downhill on a rented bicycle and my brakes weren’t working. I kept going faster and faster and couldn’t stop. I was very, very, very, very, very scared. Daddy was urging me on. My sisters were going slower because their brakes were working so there was just me and Daddy there. I managed to get round about five or six corners before it happened…

A corner came up and hit me. Or more like it hit me all along the side of my bike. I went flying. My bike came after me. I think I landed before it.

What happened next was a mystery. One minute I was on the ground, the next minute I was in Daddy’s arms. Well, things like that do happen when you bump your head.

The rest of the family arrived a few minutes later. But that time, Daddy’s t-shirt was a little bit bloody. Mummy asked me whether or not I was alright. I said, “yes”.

It was lucky because instead of landing in the undergrowth and wild places where snakes could live, or the big drop further up, I landed just in front of a spirit house on the softest bit of earth I could have landed on.

Mummy found my shoe eventually. And even though she doesn’t believe in spirits she did a little pray to them to say thank you. Daddy found me a little plastic superhero with moving arms on the floor and I called him Squiddo the Superhero. I think both of them working together saved me from breaking anything.

The Shell Sprouts Legs!

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Hermit Crabs at Had Farang, Koh Mook

By Scarlett

One night, here at Ko Mook, we found a mass of hermit crabs under the Thai massage hut.  They had all different shells which made them look pretty.  Coming back the next morning, we found they were all gone!  Had they all died?  But the next night, they had come back.  I picked up a supposedly unused shell which immediately sprouted unexpected legs!  I was terrified.  I dropped it.  Do you think you would have dropped it too?

An Adventure in a Sea of Emerald Green

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Emerald Cave

By Scarlett

Today we went to Emerald Cave on a longtail boat.  The engine was loud but we put up with it.  When we got to Emerald Cave, there was a long tunnel we had to swim through.  So, leaving the boat and putting on life jackets that rubbed our arms off, we jumped into the water.  Mummy first, them Evie, then Mima, then Tettie, then Daddy.  We followed our guide into the tunnel.  The water washing on the tunnel wall made an echo like ghosts howling.  At the end of the tunnel there was a beach surrounded by cliffs.  The emerald green water lapped gently against the sand.  The only opening was the tunnel we’d come through.

We were silent gliders for a while, before going back on the same longtail boat.  Silent gliders is a game that we play when we are wearing life jackts.  We move really quietly towards each other…and attack! (Splash each other).  We enjoy it a lot.

[Scarlett and her sisters all wrote about our trip to Emerald Cave as part of homeschool. You can read the other accounts here and here.]