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Our
adventures in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus continue....
 
Today Joan and I left for China and will not be back in the office, so to speak, until 20th June 2007. Please hang on to any e-mails until after this date or else our mail box will just clog up and you may get missed.
We will be updating with views and comments out of China so anybody interested please still log on.
See you all soon and thanks for hanging in there.
After a long day and night we arrived in Beijing at 1 p.m. and took a taxi to the hotel, all really in need of fresh showers etc after trying to sleep on the plane overnight. John was very generous in Instanbul airport as he decided it was his turn to buy the drinks. Bryan and I had a beer each and these were charged at 12 YTL each. Oops, sorry John, but no doubt Stewart will be amused when he reads this.
We got our first financial shock this afternoon by arranging to meet in the coffee shop. They did six special Blue Mountain coffees, despite the request for Nescafe and then tried to charge almost £5.00 each for them.
As we were all fairly tired we just wandered down town a little to get some basic supplies, like tonic, beer, Nescafe etc as the hotel prices are silly then went for dinner. We found the food court in the hotel to be excellent value. Six different dishes, fried rice, four large beers and a couple of cokes all for £20.00 the lot. We just refrained from asking for coffee any more.
One thing that really stood out whilst we were walking the streets was the outstanding workmanship of all the electric cables. This lot makes TRNC Kibtek look positively proffessional.
Having recovered and had a good nights sleep, Joan and I got up with Pat & Bryan to have a 7 a.m. swim. Lovely 25 mtr swimmimg pool on the top floor of the hotel and we for sure needed the exercise after the flight.
After breakfast we were going out to look for one of the modern shopping malls, when we saw this dragon dance outside. These dancers lead a white stretched limo which firstly revealed the groom who got out to the delight of the waiting family and then proceeded to lift his bride to be out of the back seat. At the request of many the bridal pair stood in front of the car so that the many professional and amateur photographers could take advantage of the photo opportunity.
The dragon dancers then conducted their finale for the wedding guests and this included the lead dancer, who was no spring chicken, doing the splits on the parking area by the hotel steps.
After this we spent a day walking around areas of Beijing in the direction of the main square. From the top of a road bridge you can see the permanent smog which prevails over the whole city. Also it was very noticable that everywhere we look there is massive development going on, with huge new bank and office buildings and underneath almost everyone, an underground shopping mall. These stretch for miles and miles and seem to be constantly busy with shoppers. Clearly this is now a very affluent society.
In the evening we all six walked out to a traditional local restaurant, which we had spotted the evening before. We thought we were going to have to cope with John's phrase book and very difficult pronounciation, when we were very well aided by a young lady customer who spoke excellent English. She proceeded to organise a huge variety of dishes for us, so much in fact that we could just not eat it all. Unfortunately a lot of it was quite spicy and not to Jewel's taste. We were very surprised to find that once again the whole groaning table full came to only £20.00. Delicious stuff for most of us, but guess tomorrow we will have to go back to where we can get sweet and sour prawns.
Tomorrow the Americans join us and the tour proper starts, so its off to bed and an early start.
Official start of the tour date. The Americans arrived looking jet lagged having flown in overnight, got to the hotel at 6 a.m., only to find their rooms not ready, and then set out at 8.30 for the first part of the tour. Are we glad we arrived two days ago, especially when we heard that one couple's luggage was still in L.A.
We started our city tour by visiting The Temple of Heaven and its vast grounds which are frequented by local people for their morning exercise. A meeting place for friends were they gather to talk, dance and play. Some of the dancers were working with these spectacular streamers which are beautiful to watch when done really well.
Beijing has a number of Temples built in the 1400s, each is surrounded by acres of beautiful gardens. The first of our visit was the Temple of Heaven which was considered as a supreme achievement of traditional Chinese architecture. These temples where used at specific times of the year by the Ming and Qing Emperors with all their wives and concubines. Some of the decorations on the roofs were of very strange animals, the more animals on each roof the more important the building. In the whole of this complex a considerable amount of restored decoration is visible, but have to admit that it is very tastefully done. One of the finest of the buildings was the Hall of Prayer of Good Harvests with its triple roof, glorious glazed tiles that symbolise the colour of heaven. From the interior you can see that the whole is supported by large columns and apparently built without a single nail.
From here we then went on a rickshaw ride through one of the older villages known as Hutongs which originally made up Beijing. Each of these Hutongs has a Bell Tower at one end and the Drum Tower making up the other. These were used to tell the people in the village the time during the working day. The Hutong we visited, had a full working Drum Tower but with incredibly steep stairs to get up to see the the interior and the views. The most striking of the views was the contrast of old with new, below you see the roofs of the Hutong village and in the distance the ultra modern that Beijing has now become.
Next visit was to The Forbidden City from where the emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties ruled their kingdoms for 500 years. Much of this city is still under major restoration, but the immense scale of the whole is something to be seen as it is made up of more than 9,000 rooms. We came out of The Forbidden City via the south gate and under the portrait of Chairman Mao which leads on to Tiananmen Square. Guess we all remember those scenes on TV many years ago with one student defying the whole Chinese army. Again the whole vast expanse is something to be remembered and only by visiting do you realise just how vast is vast.
We were all totally shattered by the end of the day and managed a swim in the hotel pool to relax and then dinner in the Food Court we visited on the first night.
Today we set off to visit the Great Wall, but on the way we were taken to a Jade factory. The workmanship by the people responsibles for the carving was quite something to see, as apparently every piece is carved from a single piece of stone. Just as with all these sort of stops the shop is the main attraction for many. Not really for Joan and I this sort of thing but her travel bear enjoyed his visit, this guy gets taken everywhere and tries not to miss a photo opportunity.
After the shop visit we finally set off for the wall. Here the the Cyprus group managed to climb up a reasonable length of the wall, but it is steep in places and in the heat of the midday sun, quite an effort. China's Great Wall is really something to see and it just goes on and on in every direction and is a tremendous feat of building, especially when you consider just how many years ago it was started. All around this tourist area there are traders trying to prise money out of you for everything that is either real or copied, even the coffee was £2.50 for a cup, but this was real.
At lunchtime we stopped at what is known locally as a Friendship shop. Think John's reaction was not another jade shop!. At this stop we found another demonstration of the local skills, this time some beautiful vases. Have to admit that some of this stuff was quite lovely to see, made of a copper vase decorate in superb colours and designs and then fired to glaze the enamel. Joan and I were almost tempted by one of the vases, but just not quite tempted enough.
On our way back to Beijing, we pased by the new Olympic stadium which I guess we are all going to see lots of next year. It just looks like a huge bird's nest. The Chinese are very proud of the fact that they are to host the 2008 Olympics and this is to see in the whole city. The cleanliness and general order is something for them to be very proud of. Before going to a special Peking duck dinner this evening we had an opportunity to attend a show. Kung Fu has been translated in to a tremendous dance show and we were very glad to have got the opprtunity to see this. I mangaed to sneek this one picture, without flash, before I was spotted and asked to put the camera away.
Last day in Beijing, this afternoon we fly on to Xian, whch is the old original capital of China and the place where the Terracota Army is located.
We were collected early this morning and taken to another of the old emporers palaces. This one is known as The Summer Palace and is like all the others huge. These emporers of old, who reigned supreme from 1420 to 1911, for sure looked after themselves. This was made up of hundreds of acres of palaces, ceremonila courtyards and private quarters. Right in the middle was the lake, a huge manmade thing with islands and bridges. We walked along the longest wooden corrider in the world, 728 yards long and stunningly decorated. At the end of this was the Marble boat, created as a place of serenity and according to ledgend, so long as a boat does not turn over on the lake the emporer would be granted long life.
Today is actually Saturday 16th June and we are already in Shanghai, but it is the first time i have been able to get internet connection.
First day in Xian and we started our tour at The Wild Goose Pagoda, a Tang Dynasty landmark. This pagoda was built in 652 AD and our Xian guide Amber ably detailed the history and reminded us of the book “The Journey to the West” which chronicled a Buddhists walk from China to India and back again, unaccompanied. In the gardens of this pagoda we were all encouraged to rub the tummy of the stone good luck Buddha.
From here we were to be taken to the greatest archaeological discovery of modern times. The Terra Cotta Warriors which have guarded the tomb of the first Chinese Emperor for over 2,000 years. On the way we were taken first to a shop were they officially make models of the warriors, John wanted to pose as General John and this was an ideal opportunity.
When we entered the first of the pit areas where The Terra Cotta Army was first discovered we were confronted with the most incredible sight. Rows upon rows of soldiers and horses many of which had unfortunately been damaged 100s of years ago. It is believed that this was done to steal all the weapons which were also left there originally. Some restoration work has been done to enable visitors to see the extent of the entire tomb. A full count in this pit alone revealed over 6,000 figures. This army must have been created from moulds as every one is different, individual figure with a different shape and different facial expressions. One of our customers, Tommy “Transit” Bassett wanted us to dedicate a picture of a Terra Cotta warrior to him, so please accept this with my compliments Tommy, here the detail shows and I didn’t say it looked like you Tommy. There is one area at the end of this pit where the archaeologists are trying to restore still, the repair area it is just like one huge jigsaw puzzle. There are some individual figures which have been found intact and these have been especially presented for the visitors to examine the detail, for example this warrior with horse.
For WOW factor this had to have been one of the most incredible sights we have ever seen and to think that it was all create over 2,000 years ago.
This evening we were taken to a Chinese Opera house restaurant with a full theatrical performance of Chinese songs and traditional dances. This was followed by a full speciality dumpling dinner, eighteen different dumplings a real stomach full, but very enjoyable.
Today we transfer to the Yangtze River Cruise vessel. Before flying to meet the boat we had time to visit two more things in Xian. The first was The Shaanxi History Museum and then the city walls.. We were welcomed to the walls by a welcome to Xian show local traditional performers and dancers who perform hourly for visitors. The city walls are the best preserved in the whole country and encircle the entire old city.
The journey to the Yangtze was not the best yet as we had to fly to a distant airport and spend four hours on a coach to reach our boat. We were however treated to another very nice Chinese dinner on the way. Guess by the time we get back we will be looking for a plate of fish and chips, all riced out.
After a very early start up river we had breakfast on board and then moored up at a place called Sandouping. From here we were taken by bus to the site of the Three Gorges Dam. This is a huge engineering project, probably one of the largest in the world, which is designed to prevent flooding of the Yangtze delta and provide enough hydroelectric power to keep most of China in electric. When completed, in 2009, the scheme will generate electricity to the equivalent of 18 nuclear power stations. Unfortunately we are experiencing some very overcast weather which makes the photos unclear. We were however taken to a model roomwhich clearly shows the entire 17 year project.
You can see the dam area on the top left of the model and above this the water is 195 meter higher than the Yangtze originally. In order to still be able to navigate the upper reaches they have built a lock system seen on the right. Five chambers, to get a boat up stream and a further five, for the downstream route. Just slightly to the left of this they are also building a ship elevator which will be capable of lifting a 3,000 ton ship to the upper level in 45 minutes.
When we set off again after this visit we entered the locks, which were to lift us a total of 195 meters, through a series of five separate chambers. The whole lock process took over three hours and then we were cruising in the first of the three Yangstze Gorges. You can clearly see here the different levels between summer and winter. We are still plagued by misty weather and enquiries suggest that it is going to remain like this for the next few days.
In the evening we attended the Captain's welcome banquet followed by a crew show and disco a fun evening.
Today we left our cruise ship quite early again, to board a smaller motorised sampan for a trip up a side tributary known as the Shennong Stream. The scenery here is quite beautiful, tall rugged mountains and suddenly we also come across deep caves at the waters edge. From this sampan we then transferred to something even smaller, a narrow wooden sampan which was called a “peapod” for obvious reasons. Here we all had to wear life jackets and some of us very jealous of Jewel who even got a whistle on hers.
This very narrow stream had some more beautiful views, but eventually the water became so shallow that our boatmen had to get out and pull us upstream. We had been told about the lives of the local people by our guide and how they made their living to some extent out of tourism in this beautiful part of the world. We came across cheerful people who traditionally carried their babies in baskets on their backs and were happy to try to sell us their market trinkets.
Back to our motorised sampan again we travelled back down the stream to even more more wonderful scenery. We were shown how years ago the local people traditionally put their dead in coffins as high up the cliff face as possible. The nearer to heaven the better the chance of a good life in the after world was their belief.
Back on our cruise ship we steamed through the second of the three gorges. China is rich in coal and the mines are in the mountain areas close to the Yangtze. The coal is brought by trucks to hoppers above the river and then sent by shute, down to the barges waiting to be loaded. We dropped anchor mid stream and were taken by ferry to the shore to visit an island, created by the intervention of the dam. On the way, we saw a practice run for the annual dragon race. To get the best views from this island we had to climb over 400 steps. After the first stage we could clearly see where the final water level is going to be in 2009. The steps you can see here will be fully under water, a further 25 meters of rise. The climb was worth it if only for the views, in the mist of course.
Our ship steamed right through the night through the narrowest of the Three Gorges. The water seemed very high and the current very strong. We docked in the morning at Fengdu, the “City of Ghosts”. Once again this would have been a very steep climb so we took a cable car to visit the top of the hill. From the top you could see where the entire city of Fengdu has been demolished and now rebuilt on the other side. A city of 90.000 people all moved to new properties. This has happened in many places along the Yangtze as in some places the peoples old homes are already under water.
The "City of Ghosts" has temples and shrines dedicated to the gods of the underworld. Here you see some of the figures of the underworld. China is a country full of beliefs and superstitions and many people come here to light incense in front of the big boss of the underworld to ward off evil.
In the evening we docked at Chongquing and were treated to a farewell banquet before retiring to the ballroom area for a talent show with entertainment from the crew and the passengers. Some of our own group were lead by John in a performance of “On Ilkley Moor Ba Tat”, believe you me the Americans in the group were totally confused by the whole thing.
Before flying off to our final destination, Shanghai, we were taken around the old town area of Chongquing, out to another museum, this time the very interesting General Stillwell museum. No pictures allowed, but many of you will remember General Stillwell's contribution together with his Flying Tigers, to the Chinese defence against Japan. The Flying Tigers opened up the route over the Himalayas to bring supplies in to China from India. The stories around this were very interesting especially the mention of the flights in and around Burma, because this is where my father was shot down, only 8 weeks before the final end of the second world war.
Before going to the airport we were taken to the Chongquing zoo and Panda breeding project. Here we saw Giant Pandas enjoying a huge breakfast of bamboo and looking just a cute as one would expect them to look, until of course you see the size of their claws. In one enclosure there was also an eight months old all alone and probably being prepared for the return to the wild.
We started our formal Shanghai tours by being taken to a high rise in the clouds. We went up 88 floors of the Jinmao Tower to the observation deck. Unfortunately when we got up there, in a lift which took 45 seconds, we were in cloud and could not see anything. From the inside it was possible to look down to the 50th floor which was the reception floor of the Hyatt hotel, the tallest hotel in the world. If you look carefully you can see people sitting having coffee down there.
From there, we spent 2 hours in the Shanghai museum. This was divided into sections of bronze, porcelain and paintings etc. I have dozens of pictures but no space to show you them all but have selected a couple, firstly 400 year old bronze castings and if you consider how long ago these had been cast and look at the detail shown it indicates how far advanced the Chinese where and some of the porcelain beauties show their artistic skills. The girls were very impressed with the size and style of some of the wine containers.......
From here we went on to visit the 16th century Yu Garden which was an incredibly tranquil place spread over 4 acres and even more amazing was that all around had been built a huge shopping mall. This was immediately identified as a place to visit on one of our two free days in Shanghai. I wonder why?
In the evening we went to a show by the Shanghai Acrobats. This was truly amazing, with all the usual balancing acts etc a couple of strong arm guys, but the finale was something else. You have all seen "The Wall of Death" acts in fairgrounds, with guys on motorbikes going round a circular wall at high speed. Well this was a spherical cage, first one guy went in and showed his skill, then number two, then number three, then number four and just when we thought the sphere was a little overcrowded in went number five. A superb sight to see and very skilfull. We bought the DVD but have yet to see if it works.
Our last day of official guided tours. Today we boarded our coach to be taken to Suzhou, a 2,500 year old city to the north. Here we transferred to small launches to view the "Venice of the East" as it is known, from a better angle. The Grand Canal was apparantly hand dug 1,500 years ago at the cost of many lives and now links this city to Beijing, almost 600 miles away. The city became famous for its silk production and in olden days everybody wore garments made of silk.
Obviously part of the trip included a visit to the No 1 Silk factory in the whole of China. Here we started off by seeing silk worms munching their way through mulberry leaves. From these worms comes the fine silk thread, only 27 days later and this is then woven into fine silk cloth as seen on these garments in the fashion show. From the fashion show guess were we went? Just for a change in to the shop, but this time even I have to admit there was some absolutely beautiful garments and because this silk is so light, my argument about excess baggage fell on deaf ears. At the end of the day Joan was quite kind to me, but she did manage to buy some lovely items.
Yesterday was our free day around Shanghai and we spent most of it in either the Old Shanghai Bazaar or up the Nanjing Road shops. It was quite a tiring day for Bryan and I watching the girls spending money, but what is interesting is the amount of haggling that goes on. You never accept the first price and always offer a price around 25% of their original and usually after much discussion end up paying about 40%. I suppose that some people just think that's cheap and pay the first price, but part of the fun is the bartering. Bryan and I did find the best bargain of the day, BOGOF beer at lunchtime.
There is some real tat to be bought but there are also some nice stuff at very reasonable prices. We negotiated for some IPOD machines that were shown as 8GB capacity and we bought these for $24.00, but when we finally got them home they turned out to be only 1GB, but what the hell at only £12.00 they still record a reasonable amount of music.
This evening we are due to fly out on the overnight red eye and we all six wanted to do different things, like go back to the Bazaar and do some more shopping. After a little while Joan and I left the others and went to the TV tower as the clouds were much higher and there was some visibility. In no time the lift shot us up 200 meters and we were able to get some pictures of Shanghai from above. From one side you look down on the original Shanghai side, of the very busy river and on the other side you can see the newly developing business district. There are billions of dollars being invested here at this time and every building is higher than the last one. Altogether a tremendous city, but not one I would like to live in, maybe if we were 40 years younger things would look different.
Our flight out tonight is not until 8.30 p.m. so we decided to take advantage of the time by checking out at 2 p.m., having a leisurely Chinese lunch at a restaurant near the hotel and then taking a taxi to the train station, so that we could go via the Maglev train direct to the airport. This was one heck of an experience, the thing reached a maximum speed of 432 kilometers per hour and reached the airport in only 7 minutes, 36 kilometers out of Shanghai.
Well we made it back after a 17 hour flight from Shanghai to Beijing and the Beijing to Istanbul, followed by our final flight from Istanbul to Ercan, which was an hour late due to fog at this end. Yesterday was written off as with the flight and the 6 hour time difference we were totally shattered. Susan, bless her, had cooked dinner for all six of us as she had rightly guessed that this would be very welcome.
Now that I have had time to reflect I think I should highlight some of the overall thoughts on this trip. Firstly, the company we travelled with in China, an American based company called China Spree whch we found on the internet. They did us absolutely proud and the whole tour was very ably directed by our local man called Jeffrey. Good hotels, good food, good knowledgeable local guides and everything ran like clockwork. Well done Jeffrey and thanks to China Spree.
Lasting impressions of China.
A rapidly developing country with obvious billions of dollars to invest and much of it seems to be being well spent, such as on the dam project. The obvious down side is the increasing gap between the have and the have nots, the local papers reporting an increasing retail spend.
A huge tourism industry with much to offer.
The Great Wall was very impressive but for us, the WOW factor came when we saw the Terracota Warriors. It is very difficult to comprehend how all these statues could have been conceived and built 2,000 years ago and remain undiscovered until 1974. The archaeologists believe that there is much more yet to be uncovered in the area.
The many high quality museums show how advanced China has been and maybe how far ahead of the western world they were, in years gone by. I was in fact prompted to buy a single book, from one of the museum bookshops, which discusses China from the early Emporers, through the three major Dynasties, until 1984. I shall enjoy a good read.
For all six of us, the ultimate highlight was the Yangzte river cruise. After being impressed by the dam project and the locks we travelled through, the scenery that awaited us up the Three Gorges was absolutely stunning and we are all so very glad that we made the choice to include this in our trip. We were a little unlucky with the weather, but it did not take away the beauty of the whole area. If anybody is wanting to consider China as a trip then don't forget to include this in your itinery.
IMPORTANT MESSAGE.
O.K. we are now back in some sort of functioning mode and almost awake.
I have a number of e-mails on the system that I will respond to over the next couple of days, but. When I finally got on to the server in Shanghai there were 748 e-mails clogging up my server. Mostly these were offers of things that I would not want, re-mortgage, huge loans, viagra pills, cialis pills and at 69 years old next week I don't want to consider a penis extension. So I did the only thing possible and got my server people to clear the whole lot at source. During the early days I received some mail which now awaits answers and since the 16th I have been receiving my own mail. So if anybody has been sending mail between the 4th and the 16th please re-send and I will respond.
Today Joan and I were invited to attend the very first Speech Day arranged by Sunny Lane School. A total of 800 attend the new Mercure Hotel in Kervansary for what was to be the school's first English-style speech day. There are now 250 pupils at this school and they were all waiting anxiously to see who was to be awarded prizes as individuals or as a part of a house team. Prizes were presented by Ministry of Education officials and sponsers from the worlds of business and finance.
The hotel handled the total of almost 800 guests quite well by dividing the lunch between pupils first followed by guests. This gave us an opportunity to have a pre-lunch drink and I found myself amongst the happy hookers in the bar area. Their choice of subject for the photo not mine.
After lunch we were treated to a performance called "The Spirit of Africa" by all the pupils in their turn, from the three year olds in creche, through to the graduating students. As a finale the entire cast of more than 200 pupils took to the stage to sing the theme songs of "Wimawe" and "Jambo" much to the delight of the entire audience. A successful day, for what was probably the first ever Speech Day by a school here in Northern Cyprus.
This evening saw nine of us go down to The Sunset Club for a jazz evening and a BBQ. Joan and I joined this club a couple of years ago and they have some good evenings during the summer months, but it also a good place to just come and relax by the sea.
Now that we are back it is time to start looking at the local newspapers again. The first article of interest is about a triple increase in water prices, promised from January 1st next. You thought you had inflation back in blighty..... The government say that this is needed in order to make the investments to the infrastructure here. Lets hope that the money is wisely spent
The Orams case is is set to go on for a long time yet. Three London Appeal Court judges ruled that crucial Eurpoen Law issues can only be resolved by the court in Luxembourg. This probably means another two years before the case reaches Europe.
CTA, my favourite airline, have sacked their boss, the General Manager. The man was a former primary school teacher appointed by the government to run the state airline. His legacy was a 19 million YTL loss at the end of the last finacial year.
Whilst you have all been basking in torential rain we are promised a week when temperatures are set to soar to 42C and above, what a crazy old world. Despite the promise of price increases we are getting regular water cuts and have had to get a tanker in a couple of times to top up the tanks.
To close the week off, Barbara invited Joan and I together with Pat and Bryan, to have a Sunday evening supper with her. It really is nice to see her coping so well with the loss of Michael.
Once again we had received an invite to attend the Army Benevolent Funds band concert and picnic Shakespeare House. Ann & Jeff are both ex-army and Ann is still involved with the Benevolent Fund, so we get the opportunity to participate in one of these events each year. The music is tremendous and it is great fun preparing the picnic tables, with funds raised going to a good cause.
Oh dear, this one was the 69th. Happy Birthday was the wish from many of my friends, who joined us on what is one of our favourite days out, a boat trip out of Girne old harbour. We have done this every year since my 65th and always we end up booking a few more daays out whilst we are on board. Our captain insisted on showing us a rope trick which meant Joan and I getting entangled before we could release ourselves. Guess next year for the 70th we are going to have to think of something different.
This evening was the annual BRS Summer Party. This year it was held at The Denizkizi Hotel, who did a good job with the buffet food etc but they ran out of good wine and were offering warm beer at 8.30 p.m. Would you not realise that when there is likely to be an attendance of 200+ people there might be a need for a little booze, strange attitude these people have with many missed opportunities for profit.
The whole evening was another fund raising event with many people and companies donating to prizes which could be won on the tombola table. Our table had a quite successful evening as you can see when you look at this pic of Jeff and his tombola prizes, although I am not so sure that Jeff can see too well with those oversize specs on. Another fun evening with a great crowd of friends, but Joan and I have promised ourselves a quiet evening in tomorrow. Having said that Joan won, a dinner for two at Jashans as a tombola prize but we aare still going to let the dust settle first before taking that one up.
Hot, Hot, Hot, say the headlines and they are right and there is no let up during the coming week. This has been one of the hottest Junes ever recorded with temperatures reaching almost to 44C during the week. I am writing this blog at 5 a.m. and the temperature in the house is already at 34C.
More government promises on permissions to buy. Apparantly 4,000 of these permission to purchase files have been found at The Ministry of the Interior, gathering dust and so far not processed. Surely some heads should roll for this sort of mis-management. It seems that the Military as well as some top politicians are now invloved and making promises in relation to these permits. The Homebuyers Pressure group are the ones who have managed to get some action on this situation and in addition have received a pledge that complaints against some lawyers will be investigated by their professional association. More complaints against lwayers have been lodged than against developers, builders and estate agents. I have recently recieved mail about another group setting up to protest, but can't see the point. If the HBPG already has the ear of top officials and is slowly making progress why re-invent the wheel.
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