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More Photos of Laos
East Asia
Laos - More Photos of Laos
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- Written by: Richard_McKie
- Parent Category: Travel
- Category: East Asia
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At the end of February 2016 Wendy and I took a package deal to visit Bali. These days almost everyone knows that Bali is a smallish island off the east tip of Java in the Southern Indonesian archipelago, just south of the equator. Longitudinally it's just to the west of Perth, not a huge distance from Darwin. The whole Island chain is highly actively volcanic with regular eruptions that quite frequently disrupt air traffic. Bali is well watered, volcanic, fertile and very warm year round, with seasons defined by the amount of rain.
There is an obvious sub-text to my short story: The Secret, that I wrote in 2015 after a trip to Russia. Silly things, we might come to believe in, like 'the law of attraction' are not harmless.
The story is also a reflection on the difference between American and Australian stereotypes, that were evident from conversations on the cruise.
I lived in New York for some time and my eldest daughter was born there. I have visited the US fairly regularly since. It is, in many ways, the closest country to Australia that you will find, outside New Zealand. So, I have often been surprised by how different it is in other ways to Australia, given the great similarities in the median standard of living, shared popular culture and immigrant demographics.
I have come to the conclusion that this stems from our different founding origins.
Now that every adult in my extended family is vaccinated is my family safe from Covid-19?
The short answer is no. No vaccine is 100% effective. Yet, we are a lot safer.
It's a bit hard to work it out in Australia as, although we are familiar with lockdowns, we have so little experience with the actual disease.