"Welcome to my pages" Alain_Smeets's Profile

Selena found some Dora clothes, mama these .....

I'm Alain Smeets and am living in a small village Molenbeersel (Kinrooi) in the North-East of Belgium in the province of Limburg. If you want to know more about my hometown Molenbeersel, check out the travelogue under my hometown Molenbeersel"Molenbeersel beschreven door Rik Beynsbergen +" it's written in the two languages of my hometown: Dutch and "Bie'sels".

I'm married to Imelda and we have 3 children Rocel, Selena and Chloe.

I work as a mechanical engineer for UTC Fire&Security, an American company since 2008, before that I worked for Philips since 1989 and Jabil bought our factory in 2003. For my work I also spend some time in places like Singapore, Hong Kong, Vienna, Eindhoven, ....

Limburg is known as the province with the best bike paths in Belgium, so if you ever get there, rent a bike and take a ride across the bike route network, were almost 80% of the track is auto free or only occupied by a small amount of cars.

I caught the travel bug in 1996, the first time that I went on a holiday together with a friend to Florida. And since then I try to go every year on a longer holiday and to do a city trip.

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Friends in Pinar Del rio (photo: Wim Rijckmans)

I like to travel to different places, to see the sites, to get an impression of the way of life and also to meet, to see and to talk to the people who live there.

Every country that I visit is an experience, it gives you the feeling that we are small compared to nature. It gives me also the possibility to find new friends in fellow-travellers and local people. A person can't have enough friends in his life.

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Holguin Me writing my traveljournal (photo Jean)

After being a silent member for a long time, I started to build my pages since May 2003. I had hundreds of pictures scanned from myself and had pictures of my fellow travellers and I decided that it was time to build me some pages on this great forum. So here's the start and I will try to update them now on a regular basis.

I don't want to use the VT-travel pages solely to make hundreds of tips and must see activities about the places that I visited. It's also not my attention to tell about the history of the places that I visited. This information you can find on the Internet and much better explained. My personal preference is on the travelogues where I can put my own personal experience about the places that I visited or the people that I've met. When you browse through my pages, you will see that I have a few tips on each place, but that I add my own stories in the travelogues so that I can use these pages to share my experiences or personal stories with my friends out there in the big wide world. VT is my way to tell the story behind my trip. People who want to know the whole travel journal can go to my personal home page where the Dutch travel stories are kept or just drop me a e-mail.

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Sydney, Opera house at night

My best page at this moment I personally think is Roaring excitement at Victoria Falls ! and this because of the travelogue about our rafting experience: Rafting on the roaring Zambezi

Another good travelogue is my personal impression about the 1th May celebration in Havana, at that moment was the question Elian also very much alive. We felt so lucky being in Havana at that moment, but this trip also changed my mind about Cuba and the embargo. You can read a bit about it in my travelogue: 1 May celebration in Havana

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Shenzhen: hotel Xin Ming Zhu (photo: Geert)

One day a father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the firm purpose of showing his son how poor people can be. They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.

On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, "How was the trip?" "It was great, Dad." "Did you see how poor people can be?" the father asked. "Oh Yeah" said the son. "So what did you learn from the trip?" asked the father.

The son answered, "I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night. Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.

We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight. We have servants who serve us, but they serve others. We buy our food, but they grow theirs. We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them."

With this the boy's father was speechless. Then his son added, "Thanks dad for showing me how poor we are."

Too many times we forget what we have and concentrate on what we don't have. What is one person's worthless object is another's prize possession. It is all based on one's perspective. Makes you wonder what would happen if we all gave thanks for all the bounty we have, instead of worrying about wanting more. Take joy in all you have, especially your friends. Pass this message on.

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Molenbeersel: Keijersmolen

The photos on my pages are made by myself or by fellow travellers (and then their name is mentioned).

I hope that you enjoy travelling as much as I do.

I read this quote in Japan and there is a lot of truth in it:

To dream of the person you'd like
to be is to waste to person you are.

Some personal quotes: