Banneaux

My good friend, Uncle Linus, who lives in London said he'll be joining the annual pilgrimage of the Tamils to Our Lady of Banneaux in Belgium this Friday. He's been joining every year, that's how I met him seven years ago, when he joined the pilgrimage to Lourdes and Fatima. He was also a chatterbox like me.

In an earlier post, I said that it was one for the books. And indeed it was! For two weeks we went to Lourdes, France and Fatima, Portugal. It did not only feature really long bus drives but aberiyas along the way. We started off from the Netherlands; stopped in Paris for dinner then travelled overnight to Lourdes. We stayed in Lourdes for a week, we stayed at Secours Catholique, on the hill. Medyo layo2 pa from the grotto. But the food was good and we always had wine every meal. Feeling jud namo that we are in France! :-)

Upon leaving Lourdes, we stopped for about 30 mins coz something went wrong w/ the bus brake daw. I remember that we were in Tour de France territory, I saw the landmark there e. Yellow rings ba yun or one big yellow ring lang as in that of Lance Armstrong?

We stayed in Fatima also for one week, at the Pope John VI Centre, if I got the name right, only walking distance to the shrine. Gillian and I made sidetrips to Lisboa and Sintra, and Tomar. And la na mi kaagwanta, ngita na mi internet in Portugal! We found it in the post office, Correos de Portugal, after walking under the scorching heat for half an hour! 23opm gud to.

On the way back, we got stranded in Vilar Formoso, near the border between Portugal and Spain for eight long hours, from 2pm to 10pm! Then we got on a different bus and at 8am the next day, transferred to another bus in Bordeaux. With that bus, we arrived in Paris at 1630h. Ah, kahinay pud ato nga bus. Or that's just how far Bordeaux is from Paris, around 800kms I guess. Three hours gud ang express train, TGV from Paris to Lourdes. (TGV sad gisakyan ni Matt Damon in "The Bourne Identity" di ba? Hehe..)

Best of all, on our return to the Hague, since they dropped us off in Dordrecht, our taxi driver got caught by the police since we gave him the wrong direction and got him to enter a 'No Entry' road. That was alrdy 3am and just minutes after he did the crime, the police car was alrdy behind us! They let him off because it was his first time to drive in the Hague man and we told the police it was our fault, we insisted he take that road. The police then gave him the right direction. In Dutch of course...

Reminds me of our experience in PSA when I sent my brother and his crewmates to their ship after meeting up in Lucky Plaza for only two hours. We ended up in the wrong gate so the guard there instructed our taxi driver how to reach their gate. Mabait ang taxi driver na un, $10 lang pinabayad nya, $12.50 ung bill, since bago pa lng daw ako sa Sing. And to think he was Muslim ha!

God bless us all po!