We’re all back in Addu and what a time we had! So many firsts for Hasna, Sharu-u and Sarey – first long haul flight (the novelty waned rapidly and by the Doha – Seoul flight the ‘are we nearly there yet?’ questions began to come out – all now hate long plane journeys), first escalator – going up and down them helped pass the four hours in Qatar airport, first time being in air cold enough to see your breath (check out Sarey in his coat!!), first bus ride that lasted for three hours and we had still not reached the end of the road and of course the hills and mountains. Highest point in the Maldives being 2.3m!
A note on the food here – thankfully despite missing fresh tuna and ‘proper rice’ the food was deemed by all to be edible and even in some cases tasty (praise indeed!). Happily for the dustbin on the team, I had no problem and was glad the others would try everything once before a decision as to whether they liked it or not was made. Unfortunately, for Hasna she discovered that gummy rice dumplings with gooey unknowns in the middle were not to her taste while a bunch of sweet Korean ladies were doing all they could to entertain us in the accreditation office. She stood behind me and retched and gagged and pulled funny faces until it went down. Then as food was being plied on us grabbed a load of mentos to keep the ladies at bay!
That afternoon, Brian having announced to the whole camp that the weather and water conditions at Chungju were spectacular and perfect, the wind had picked up into a biting cross and the water was covered in lovely waves. So with strict instructions regarding the circulation pattern Sarey and I launched our two little athletes to go and complete their first ever 4km on a proper course. General heart attacks ensued as Sharu-u decided the dead lane was the right one to be in and convinced Hasna he was right. So Sarey and I ran round and cadged a lift with the Korean coach and Anna our lovely translator. We caught up with them and then really confused them by making them come off the course out of the way of all the others while they got the hang of the finer boats. The four km was completed with both boats being blown all over the shop – they felt better about it all when they heard all the other athletes complaining about what a horrendous outing it had been.
Ok the rest of the tale I hope to put up tomorrow all things going my way!
x Tash