The thought of flying through the night, losing seven hours in the process and still getting up and touring hard the next day would be inconceivable for us now. But 25 years ago (as I write in early 2026) that is exactly what we did.
…then [we] go off to tour Angkor Wat.
Cover whole complex in a great deal of detail.
Dig the Naga features.There’s nothing like tits and bums sculptures to up the visitor rate at a site like Angkor Wat – in the same way, such photos up the click rate on a web site like OgblogUp and up we went.Intrepid – that’s the word for climbing explorers like me. Iantrepid even.The site at twighlight.
Daisy struggled to get the difference between Angkor Wat the temple and the rest of the old City complex!
I don’t suppose Daisy’s new biker boy friends explained it to her either.
[We] go to souvenir shop and then on to market before we realised how tired we were.
As usual, Daisy (Janie) got some superb market photos
Back to hotel for a splendid meal of mixed delights and early night.
Now, 25 years on, it is time to complete the Ogblogging of this wonderful trip. This page is NOT a highlight. But the following pages, touring the wonders of Cambodia (not least the well-toured Angkor Wat and several other lesser visited places) most certainly are highlights.
4 February 2001 – left London 9 am – by 3:30 am London time the next day we were in Siem Reap! Event free journey – almost pleasant.
5th February 2001 – our guide Khouch drops us at Sofitel – we sleep a while – then we go off to tour.
Janie and I were running around like nuts working that week, ahead of our trip to Cambodia, Laos and Thailand.
Janie’s diary notes a brief visit to Auntie Francis in the St John & St Elizabeth Hospital a few days before she died. I think Janie made that visit solo, as I do not recall it.
My diary page for the relevant week is missing. I think I took it out of the Filofax on the funeral day with the relevant details scribbled on it and never returned the page to the diary. Very rare error from me, that.
But for sure I went to that funeral, as I recall it for three particular things that are ingrained in my meomory.
The first of those things was the rejigging that I had to do in order to attend. I had an important meeting scheduled with a difficult client, which I needed to reschedule quite late in the day in order to attend the funeral and visit the client. I got the logistics of that right, just about, and received sympathy and gratitude from the client at my obvious efforts to fit everything in, rather than the annoyance I half expected from them at the resulting need for a late in the day meeting.
The second of my memories relates to the minutes before…and just after…the start of the funeral. I got to Cheshunt with a good 20-30 minutes to spare. I mean, you don’t get to funerals late, do you?
But there were no signs of Mum, Dad, Michael and Pam as the funeral hour approached. The funeral started. Still no sign of them.
I was a little worried that something might have happened to them. Only a little worried, because I remembered mum telling me that they would be coming as a family pack, via Pam & Michael’s place.
About 10 minutes into the funeral, all four of them sneaked in at the back. Mum had a mixture of embarrassed face and angry face. There ought to be an emoji for such a face. Dad had flustered face. Michael and Pam looked…like Michael and Pam.
Pam and Michael, seemingly unbothered, August 1975
Precise timings isn’t really what Pam’s about.
The other thing I so clearly remember about that funeral is the “stock eulogy” that the Rabbi delivered in honour of Auntie Francis. After the standard facts list of dates (birth, marriage, my cousin Angela’s birth)…the Rabbi eulogised about the kind, gentle, warm-hearted mother that stock eulogies are all about.
I cannot have been the only person in the funeral hall who was thinking, “this doesn’t sound like Auntie Francis”, who was, bless her, a tough old bird, for whom the phrase, “on the lung, on the tongue” might have been written. She was one of only two or three people I ever met who induced fear in my mother.
At one point, Angela was struggling to keep a straight face during the eulogy, which made it even harder for me (and probably several others) to maintain our composure as well.
I resolved there and then to ensure that, in any situation where I had some influence over the funeral proceedings, that stock eulogies delivered by someone who didn’t know the deceased would be off the menu.
Writing 25 years later, I have only recently delivered what I think might be the most challenging eulogy I’ll ever have to make – eulogising Auntie Francis (who had endearing as well as challenging qualities) would be have been a doddle compared with the perils of Pauline:
On the Friday – 2 February, Janie and I had dinner with Kim & Micky at Monty’s Nepalese Restaurant in Ealing – thus spake Janie’s diary. My page is missing in action, remember?
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