Day 14 (Christmas Day) - Andrew

Quite a start to Christmas Day. At 3.48am my phone rang. A contact in NZ wanted to tell me about a story for the Herald. Seconds later David announced he was feeling sick. Fairly non-stop vomiting and diarrhoea followed for the next two hours. We got some drugs into him after 6am and everyone managed to sleep for a few hours, more or less. We exchanged presents (it's quite challenging to buy for people when you're all shopping at the same bazaar but we did well) and had breakfast. Sightseeing was considered inappropriate for Christmas Day so the girls and I found some chocolate treats for lunch and we blobbed in front of TV movies and had drinks and read our books on the rooftop terrace. It was all a bit subdued - especially for poor old David - but we had a great Christmas dinner at a rooftop restaurant round the corner, decorated in strings of flashing lights so the Westerners would feel at home. It did the trick for us for a few hours. You can see the effect it had on most of the family.