christmas

So after waiting for a couple of hours, we finally got checked in to

our room. It was a nice little hut but we were expecting something a

little more fancy-schmantzy considering how much we had paid... Roz

decided to go and have a word with the management and got us a serious

upgrade! After unpacking and a well needed shower we signed up for our

scuba course, but I needed to get a checkup from the doc so we headed

into town. After being certified (sane) by dr dive, we went for a swim

in what can only be described as crystal clear water! You can still

see your feet when you're up to your neck! As it was Xmas eve, we

thought we'd go take a look round the shops for presents, but

everything in the shop was same same... So we spent our money on a

couple of beers and sat out by the pool!

After tea, we wandered around town for a couple more drinks, watched

some fireworks, and headed to bed. It had been a looooong day!

Christmas day! Neither of us could believe it was here already,

doesn't seem like 2 minutes since we first landed in India when

Christmas was miles off! We wanted xmas dinner but after seeing the

prices we decided against it! We heard rumours that a bar down the

beach was serving turkey, stuffing and cranberry sarnies so raced down

there to get our fix! After a belly full of turkey and a few beers,

and hours sunbathing and swimming, we did the obligatory family phone

calls then got showered and headed back out to finish of the night

properly! We eventually ran out of money so stumbled home singing Xmas

songs, and home alone was on tv! Perfect Christmas day!

trip to ko tao

Another long day of travel before we reached the shore of chumphon, (a

sleepy little town which revolves around sending forangs off to ko

Tao.) we got onto our boat which was set to sail throughout the night

and reach the island at 5am. As we got on the boat it felt like more

of a cargo boat then anything else, we were all crammed into a little

room with bunk beds and pillows on the floor. It was all very cosey

but a bed nonetheless!!!

We met some weird, crazy pot heads from England. I am sure that the guy had fake dread locks which made him even more pathitic! When the boat set off we all went to the top of

the boat for a few drinks and some stat gazing. There was litterally

everything on this boat, mopeds, crates of water, metal tables stacked

up so high and not tied to anything and great big tanks of gasoline.

We only had about 1m2 to sit, when the boat reached the open ocean, it

all got extremely rocky and we all got very sick. Some were sick over

the side and we all went to bed sharpish! I woke up at about 3 with a

Thai man snoring in my ear who had rolled onto my bed and too drunk to

notice. All in all it wasn't the romantic boat trip we had in mind but

hey this is Thailand, anything can happen.

When we reached dry land we found our lux apartment for our special

Christmas treat and watched the sun rise on our lovely little island.

a bridge over the river buffalo..?

We left bangkok, where the budget was totally blown outta the water, and heading to Kanchanaburi for some final sight seeing before we head for the beaches. We got to the bus station (which was more like an airport) and got a cheap bus for a quid each, had a ham and cheese toastie.. because we could! and settled in for the 3 hours ride. we got chatting to an american girl who was a teacher in korea, and was taking a break in thailand. when we got to the town, we took a recommendation to head for the jolly frog guest house, which was amazing!! it's got a well nice garden, overlooking the kwai river, hammocks swinging in the breeze, and a bed big enough to swing 2 cats on it! and all for 3 quid a night.. where do i sign?! we got settled in and headed to the bar for chang time (cheap thai beer) and some food, then did an evening walk down to the bridge over the river kwai. taking care not to pronounce the name wrong

after that we met up with carleen again, and hit a few bars in town, then got well sozzled on sangsong and coke, drank gracefully using half a cut updrink bottle as glasses! classy...

morning came way too soon, and the usually haze of the night before soon desended.. snagsong is baaad stuff.. we know this already but yet we keep drinking it!! after a good greasy breakfast we went round the kwai museum, which was surprisingly well organised and quite interesting.. then walked back down to the bridge for sunset photos! it's a big tourist attraction so trying to get some decent photos was hard work, but when the train came across you had about 10 seconds to get a clear photo before the bridge filled up again! the best thing we saw though, was a rude-boy monk with a mobile, ipod, massive slr camera and smoking a fag!! i may have just lost some faith in these guys..!

we got ice cream and headed back to the guest house.. only to realise that all our money had falled out of roz's bag and now we had nothing left! we retraced our steps for about a mile but of course the money was long gone.. just hope it was picked up by someone who needed it and not a tourist!

waterfalls tomorrow, maybe hire a moped again.. easy rider!

ps rock on rage!! best christmas number one ever!!

boozy bangkok

We landed from our white water thrills at Mai Hong Son (a cosy little village that hosts one of the most spectacular temples we have ever seen on the side of the lake.) It lights up at night and is the main hot spot to send your wishes off with lanterns. We enjoyed our tranquil stay a lot but there is only so much relaxing to be done and since we had a 38 hour trip to our xmas destination we thought we had better break it up gradually moving down.

We endured a 15 hour local bus ride back across the mountains and round the 1000 bends and corners, then we jumped straight on a bus to sukhothai (another 6 hours) tired and hungry we reached our destination late at night and had the usual street food sat on plastic chairs on top of a gutter.......what can i say, its the cheapest! we got up the next day and headed straight to the old city. sukhothai used to be the capital of Thailand and still has the ancient temples with many many buddhas! we learned about buddhism at the museum then went snap happy with our cameras.

The next day, we headed back for Bangkok for some ultra speed full frontal fun!..... cant remember much of the first night until being very sick in our stinky hostel toilet!.....nice......day two we decided to slow it down and go for a beer and to the cinema. we are off out again tonight after a lovely day of looking round many many markets some were floating and others weren't.

Our plan is to go to kanchanburi tomorrow where we plan to visit the bridge over the river kwai (or river quare as the Thais pronounce it as quai means buffalo and they find it very funny if you say this to them.)

rafting to Mai Hong Son

After a couple more nights of Sangsong fun we began to feel like an episode of shameless so decided we needed to get out of there! We wanted to get to Mai Hong Son and the nicest way was to go via white water rafting! Two full days of rafting, waterfalls, mud baths, caving, jumping off rocks and camp fire fun!!! Can it get any better?

We set off on our raft after a grueling hour and a half journey across the mountains where I literally felt the urge to regurgitate breakfast! We would be spending the next two days with a couple called Jeff and Vic (a nice pair from Leeds) and our pro rafter guide called V!

For the first day we just drifted down stream watching the jungle pass us and getting to know each other better. It was really relaxing but there was no white water in sight! We passed a hollow tree and V pointed out a python that lived inside. It was huge! We stopped at some waterfalls and had a dip. Then we pressed on to camp. It was a really urm…… authentic? Camp we were literally sleeping under the stars in a mosquito net on a mat. Very stupidly, the conversation before bed was mainly about snakes, spiders and other creepy crawlies so I lay awake for the majority of the night shivering in my boots at everything that made a noise. We were woken up in the middle of the night by a man with a flash light walking through our camp with a shot gun! I thought we were set up and we were all gonna be mugged and killed out here! But it turned out that one of the villagers had gone out hunting a few hours before, and brought back his catch for our breakfast!!! Talk about hospitality. The next morning we were woken by a local 5 year old running around the camp screaming, he was making a fire, playing with his pet chicken on a string, and firing his catapult at a plastic bottle. He was a really cute kid called “Dow” or star (which was the name given to me by woody on our trek!) he picked up English very well! We taught him hello, cool dude, ants! And elephants go bruuuuuuugh! He also already knew 1,2,3,4,5. He was fascinated by our camera and liked to see the pictures of the Taj. We also made some videos of him doing his best elephant impression and he stared in amazement! “is that really me?” we went for a short trek into the jungle to see the tiger cave then set off down river to the hot springs. They were amazing, the water was at least 60 degrees and too hot to bathe in! The mud surrounding is enriched with natural goodness so we were told to cover ourselves! It made our skin real soft! We washed off just in time for a big group of 4 other boats filled with brits and Thais. They joined us for back up in the rapids I suppose… We all set off after having some lunch; our boat was at the back but soon made it to the front just in time for a massive rapid which nearly turned the boat over! Some others fell in but we all managed to stay in our boat, then another then another, people behind us were dropping like flies! It was great fun and we proved that we were the stronger, faster team!

i love pai!

We recovered from our trek then set off for Chang Doa, an hour and a half north of Chaing Mai. in complete contrast to the bustling, busy streets of happening Chaing Mai, Chang Dao is a little community embedded into a magnificent lime stone cliff where you can explore vast caves full of shrines and carved buddas. It was really beautiful and thanks to our guide I know know how to say mind your head in tai!

We rocked up as usual completely clueless with nowhere to stay and not a clue where to start, after discovering that all of the guest houses were full (a whole 3 of them) we settled for a really budget smashing luxury hut on a complex so mind blowingly beautiful we felt like we were on our honey moon. In fairness the room only cost 20 pounds but nonetheless, this was the most that we had spent. We decided to only stay for one night to justify it. We spent the evening snug round an open fire chatting to a couple on their holiday. I think they pittied us when we started talking about all our rough experiences and tight budgets so they insisted on buying us a bottle of wine. They were very sweet and we all sat round for what felt like forever but when we looked it was only like…. 12:00 everything calms down so early out in the middle of nowhere!

The next morning, we packed up, received our free bottled water, showergel, shampoo, sewing kit, detergent, shower cap, and little home made jammy dodgers and left luxury behind! We jumped on a bus which dropped us in a dodgy little town who odviously hadnt seen many tourists and was a mix of tai and hill tribe folk. We walked aimlessly down the dusty road and found some people who appeared top be waiting for a lift to Pai (our next destination) we set up camp and sat by the side of the road for a wile until a man in a mini bus came. I expected a bus so was supprised when all of the twons people hopped on, we soon found out why it was a mini van…… someboy told me that there were 1000 corners on the mountain route to Pai and I would say that this was accurate! I was litterally planing my escape route to be sick!

3 hours later we made it to Pai in one piece. It’s a great little place, really good, happy atmosphere, it has the coolest little bars dotted around, we met a couple who got us drinking Sansung and coke. We would basically walk into a bar, buy a bottle for 2 pound, get a bottle of coke and your away. We sat round the fire (again)  getting nicely toasted and drunk!!! We both woke up this morning with booming hang overs!

hill tribe treck

When we got to chaing mai, we found it very difficult to keep our money in our pockets! Everything is just spend spend! On the second day Dan did a cooking course which sounded great! And also means lots of lovely Thai curries for me when we start to cook for ourselves again!

We met two really nice people in our hostel called Claire and Ed who were doing a 3 day hill tribe trek the next day so we decided to tag along, we spent that evening getting to know them, shopping for supplies and eating pancakes of course! Claire and Ed had been traveling in India and Nepal and had done a 12 day trek to base camp on Everest, as you can imagine I was nervous about my abilities!

The next day we set off and picked up our fellow trekkers there was 11 of us. Me Dan, Claire, Ed, Emily, Jamie-Lee, Mat, Rodney, Jane, Justin, Anton and of course our legend of a tour guide......Woody! We all got along very well cramped into the back of a little taxi! We stopped at a market on the way to the jungle to get supplies and necessities like pretty fabric water containers! Some of us fell for it but me and Dan stayed strong and resisted the urge!

We arrived at an elephant camp at around mid day and enjoyed our first part of the trip, an hour long elephant ride across steep, muddy terrain. Then we went on on foot up the mountain which in all honesty was the hardest thing I have done! Everyone was so fit and fast and left me behind, I really thought that I would give up but Dan kept me going. When we got to the top everybody was really supportive and impressed when they found out about my hip!

We were going to be sleeping at the red Laho tribe village, Woody taught us to say “a boy jah” for hello and thank you, the tribe migrated from Burma and don’t have Thailand visas so don’t really belong anywhere. They used to survive by selling opium but the king came and cut down all their crops so the result to giving travelers massages and selling hand made trinkets. It seems like a nice way of life and the village is well made. Our hut was just to the side of the village and we could see the opposing black laho tribe across the other side of the mountain. A few of us went to see the sun set which was so beautiful (see the photos) while Woody cooked dinner by candle light. He is a great cook and kept us all well fed!

We spent the evening sat round the fire playing games and solving Woody’s endless magic tricks and puzzles. One of the tribe men joined us but didn’t say a word just sat there smoking opium with a big smile on his face!

The next day it was all down hill which was better then up hill but still challenging and everyone’s legs hurt by the end of it. We went to two beautiful waterfalls for a swim and met a cute little tribal girl who was fascinated by our digital cameras and sunglasses. It was a real reality check. On the last stretch it got really slippery and me, Anton and Woody fell in the river. We then trekked down to our camp which was looked after by two tribe women who didn’t speak a word the whole time but cooked us dinner, served us drinks and snacks and kept the fire going all night. We all sat round and go very drunk telling jokes, drinking games and listening to Rodney’s legendary stories. It was a really great night!

After, not much sleep we got up and set off for the rafting centre which was just down the valley a little way. We walked out of the dense jungle into an opening where there were cows grazing and the tallest trees I had ever seen! We spent about an hour white water rafting which was so much fun but not too hard going so we all decided to jump out and float for a bit. We got back in just in time for a real level 3 experience! After this the river settled and we were tolled to get onto bamboo rafts and float the rest of the way. We all we stood balancing on these 5 men rafts trying not to fall off and we got the most legendary photo of Dan, who had just fallen in pulling on the back of the boat so that it sank and we all fell down.!

That was the end of our trip but we are all staying in touch and some of us are even meeting up for New Years Eve….. Can’t wait!

bangkok a-go-go!

Penang wasn't really on the schedule, but we got stranded waiting for a train for a couple of nights, so headed out on the ferry to georgetown and landed on what was actually a pretty big island with a big smelly city to welcome us!

After swerving the rip-off taxi drivers, we walked into town to find some accomodation and got a right cushy spot in the middle of town for about 4 quid! it was a bit of a hovel, but it is just a place to sleep (with free fleas...). this was a first opportunity to sit and sink a couple of beers but at 3 quid a pop we had to go home pretty sober :(

the next day we took a bus across the island to the national park, where a guy we met on pangkor and penang said the the beach at the edge of the park was really good. we started on what was advertised as an easy walk about 3km, but they neglected to let us know you had to be like tarzan to swing across the cliffs and like spiderman to climb all the bloody steps!! after a sweaty hour and a half in the jungle, we finally landed at monkey beach, which was a really great little beach, but there were a few people there so we headed to the quiet end and had a swim in the very warm water!

we hadn't eaten a lot all day so we decided to go see what the guys were rustling up n the bbqs. but the robbing bastards wanted $30 per person!! and i mean US dollars.. they should be wearing a mask!! so we told them where to stick their tasty looking kebabs, and tried to get a boat back, but he wanted $20 for that!! robbing theiving malaysians. so getting really fed up and very hungry we trekked back through the jungle for 2 hours, and were about to pass out with dehydration when we got back to the entrance! luckily we stopped at the nearest roadside canteen and our faith in human kind was restored by a lovely lady who cooked us noodle soup and chatted to us for ages!

After all the fun of the day, we got back, showered up and went out for a decent meal and half a beer!

The next day we had a lazy start the headed to the train station to get the 24 hour train to Bangkok.. yeeaeaah! We got chatting to the family who were sat around us who told us loads about thailand, as they had a business on one of the small islands near bangkok, and also chatted to a dutch girl called inika, who was also going to the big city. the trains were sooo much more clean and comfortable that the indian ones.. and no scratty beggars pulling on your trousers for lose change!

we finally got to bangkok at 11 the next day, and it was really hot and humid. we wanted to steer clear of the tuk tuks as they get bad reviews from most people, but after failing to get anywhere near the right bus stop, we gave in and took a mental drive across town in the turbo powered shopping trolly!! then we saw the amazing koh san road...

it is like camden market, mixed with delhi, a bit of amsterdam red light district and then throw in every nationality from the world buying tshirts and 'ray bun' sunglasses! it's awesome!! our accomodation is right on the main strip but set back a bit, so we can sleep pretty well, and there is even a swimming pool on the top of the hotel! so we went for a quick dip (rude not too) before heading out into the throng for some retail therapy!! 3 tshirts and much money later, we walked to inikas hotel (which had spectacular views of the city), and had a well deserved beer with her, some great pad thai (fried noodles) and then got chatting to a couple from london, who had just arrived from england. we drank the night away in spectacular style, and promptly passed out.. well, i did, but roz was woken up when some pissed guy let him self in our room, cus he thought is was his!! think we forgot to lock the door on the way in...!

the next day we booked our christmas holiday (!!) in Koh tao, which is meant to be one of the worlds best diving locations, and also is very handy for getting to koh phan nga for the full moon party on new years eve! wooo! then a bit more shopping, and a long walk down to the mega malls of siam square (Gucci + prada + Lousi vitton = roz's paradise).

tomorrow we go to chiang mai, hill tribe treks and elephants... but that's another story for another day.. i'm off for a beer!

Palau pangkor paradise

After our lovely little stay in Malaka (a legend of a town!) we made our long journey to Palau Pangkor. It was only a 6 hour coach journey over night and if it was anything like the one to get from Singapore to Malaka, we would be laughing!!! 

The seats didn't massage, I could cope with that.... but it was colder then the north pole, to the point where if you fell asleep you might not wake up! And the bus driver played 3 rambo films consecutively... nightmare! What's worse was about 1 hour away from our destination our bus broke down and we waited 3 hours for another coach. It all worked out ok though in the end; the 3 hour delay meant that we arrived in Lumut at 6:00 am instead of 03:00 am which would have meant that would have to wait around for 4 hours for the ferry to open. 

We got on the ferry after enduring yet another dish of chicken fried rice at a little 24 hour cafe. I just cant get enough of the south east asian food! We were heading to our first island "paradise" and it was a beauty! Unfortunately it was a Saturday so it was pretty packed out with the local karaoke crowd.... playing long into the night and sounded like chalk on a blackboard! But our guest house was amazing!! Totally made up for the noise from the streets. Our room was a little wooden tent dotted between palms, the beds were matresses on the floor but still managed to be really comfy! There was a good communal area and you were free to cook your own food, and veg out in the hammocks watching satellite tv with all the other friendly people from around the world (mainly french). 

The beach was only a two min walk and on our 3rd day we hired a kayak and some snorkels and paddled out to a little remote island where there was lots of coral and even more fish. The visability wasn't great but all the same it was a real thrill until one fish bit me on the arm really hard and scared the life out of me! 

We left our little island today after a trek into the jungle to the waterfall, we are in Penang for 2 days then we get the train to Bangkok. Hurahhhhhh!

malaka

We arrived safely in Malaka at 04:00 pm, got settled into our second hostel (not as good as betal bug but never mind). Looking around me and Dan agreed that it looked like a little french village in china! How strange??? Again, all the streets are spotless, everything is illuminated at night as if in a museum or something, its nice to see how proud people are of their surroundings. It is so well manicured you are affraid to step in a way that might offend!

We did the norm, ate, drank, slept... nothing exciting. The next day we decided to do the sights in the proper tourist way! We jumped onto a trishaw covered in flowers and relaxed while Danu (our driver) pedalled us all round town. its a strange mix of ultra modern and very authentic buildings. Strange but good, it's a bit like being in a theme park I suppose. Not at all what I imagined but I am quite happy with this ultra sleak theme park! We ate at one of the traditional food halls in the evening which is a fraction of the price of a normal meal. It is basically an open air eatery with lots of park benches under a big Chinese roof, little shacks around the outside serve all sorts of weird and wonderful things from pigs arse holes and pigs organ porridge to sweet and sour chicken (well, I hope). they are great places to go and soak up some atmosphere!

After tomorrow I think we will be hitting the desert islands, starting with Palau P, P, er I can't remember the name right now but it looks amazin!!

Express ticket to malaka!

We set off for our bus to Malaysia at 08:30 to find that our bus left at 08:00 DARN!!! This meant that we had to lug our back packs around the centre of singapore at rush hour. Not pleasant! An hour and a half later we found the tourist bus station and parted with 20 pounds for a ticket to Malaka, a town over the river from singapore along the coast. When we got on the coach we realised why it was so expensive!! We had lounge seats that went all the way back into a bed! And the best thing it was a massaging seat!!! A week ago i did not dream that i would be indulging in such luxury! They started the movie and we layed back to relax until we got to the border crossing and had to get off :-(

I was unsure of the proceedure of crossing borders from a coach so i just followed the rest. The couple in front of us left all their stuff on the bus so we left our bags just taking our passports and proceeded to the desk....... After coming through the other side we were told that we had to swap buses so we jumped back on to get our day packs. Then we thought...... what about our back packs? When we got on the coach, we noticed that the baggage compartment had been emptied and the coach we were about to get onto was also empty. The other couple had thought the same so we all went scrambling to find someone who could tell us where are bags were??? our bus driver looked at us and said "did you not collect them? they are on the pavment in singapore...." ahhhhhhhh we had to rush back through (all 4 of us!) and luckily as a bus moved out of the way there were our bags, just left on the side of the pavments. We picked them up in a huff, shocked at what had just happened and i noticed that someone was laughing at us! The moral of the story is..... that if you dont know what you are doing, dont assume that other tourists do!

Singapore in a day or two

We had a nice early start in Singapore on our first morning. Our hostel offers free toast and coffee galore so we took full advantage of that! They even have smooth peanut butter for me and marmite for Dan!!! What a treat for the taste buds indeed!

We were told by our really helpful Chinese friend in the hostel called Tom, that there are 4 different races that make up Singapore; Chinese, Indian, Eurasians (a mix of europeans and asians) and Malay. They all live in different comunities and with different architecture, different religions and different ways of life. He set us up for our entire day of free touring! Anyone wanting to go to Singapore? stay at betal box youth hostel.... its great!

We set off to find the underground via the post office which is spectacular and kept us gasping! who needs a water fountain as big as a tennis court in a post office??? On our way to the metro, we got talking to a guy called Markus who was also staying at betal box (it's where all the cool kids go obviously!) he was off in the same direction as us and had been in singapore for 5 days already so we tagged along for the ride and the useful tips.

I have never been to new york but i imagine that it is like singapore city central..... oh my gosh the buildings are huge!!! and it is so clean!!! it's refreshing to be able to walk down the street and not get poked at by some blind homeless person or to look up at the architecture and not have to worry about walking into a cow! I do feel slightly out of place though. All the women are wearing top designer clothing and high heels, all the men are wearing levis jeans and clean shirts and then there is me and dan.........

we chose the more modest approach: My shoes were falling apart, (my feet are sore with blisters) we are both wearing allibaba pants that cost 1 pound each and scraggy tops stained by sweat and other questionable residue picked up on our travels, and this was our best attire!!! We cant afford to buy new clothes because all they sell is Gucci, Prada, Dior, or fire trap for the boys!

We went from station to station, sight to sight, played in some water fountains, it was great fun! We also saw the Christmas lights on orchard rd which are so spectacular but surreal because it is so hot, even in the evenings!

The next day we ventured out to the nature reserve only a short bus ride away but a million miles away from the hectic, cosmopolitain city! When we got there, there was a steep hill.... i mean...... lincoln steep hill x2!!! We were taking our time (I) huffing and puffing our way up when 2 around 50 year olds came running past us! Then more, Then more. there were loads of these superhuman fitness freaks not even there to see the ancient forests, the lizards, squirrels and best of all the wild monkeys! No, they were just keeping fit and hats off to them because i was so proud of myself for walking up let alone running up!!!! people are fit in singapore, thats the other thing, there is so much vibe about how fit you are and how healthy etc... its just not natural!

singapore!

We spent our last day in Mumbai. Its an amazing city and completely different to the rest of india which was probably a good thing because it prepared us for the contrast of going to singapore!!!! Its so clean and we havnt been approached by people wanting to sell us anything.... not once!!!! ahhh peacefull bliss.

Its still abit overwhelming but it seems like a really cool place. will wait and see what the next few days bring.

rainy, rain, rain and more rain!

We never got round to watching 'i am legend' it started raining at 03:00 pm on Tuesday and didn't stop for 2 days straight. Its wasn't the pathetic little droplets of rain that you get in england either! we watched the monsoon for ages just sat on our little porch watching the waves (biggest i have ever seen) cascade against the rocks! After a bit, our next door neighbors Jim and Johnny came back and we all decided to dash to the nearest place that sold food and beer and have a  night of drinking and cards.

Didnt get much sleep as we have a thin roof that echo's every drop of rain. I spent most of the night hoping that the flea market would still be open the next day........which it wasn't!!!!!!! our landlady said that it is the first time that the market was not on, (that she new of!) just our bloody luck!

As we walked around there were so many tourists with disappointed looks on their faces. We also saw that a huge palm tree had fallen down just outside from our home-stay! lucky escape from that one! There was so much devastation around all the beach bars and shops were demolished (not surprising since they were made from bamboo sticks and palm leaves!) and all the sun lounges were swept away. The beach was full of dead fish and rubbish. It was a crazy sight!

The weather has been brilliant since then and i even got sun burnt! oweeeee!

We are off to Mumbai today, should be there by 06:30 tomorrow then catch our plane on Sunday to go to Singapore! role on stage 2 of the trip ding ding.

Anjuna villa!

We have just spent the last couple of days hating panjim (the capital of goa) in a stinky, dirty, overpriced room in a gloomy, smelly city!

We have now arrived in Anjuna though which is lovely! We have found a place that is nearly half as much as we were paying last night (rs330) and it has a choice of 3 bedrooms, a entrance room, good bathroom and a porch!!! all for just me and dan! honestly, its a little gem! we looked at loads of different rooms all just your usual modest rooms, hard beds, shitty bathroom and we couldnt find anything like this for under rs400! then we stumbled upon our one and well...... i thought she was kidding! did i mention that we have a see view as well! so we happily paid rs1000 and this is where we will be until the long journey up to mumbai.

We have found a cool little bar which have a big screen and are playing i am legend tonight.... lucky us!!! havnt seen a good movie in so long!

we are both also ready and raring to get to the Wednesday Anjuna flea market tomorrow with all the rupees we have been saving!!! 

Hampi baby!

We said our good byes to johanna and chris and started our epic journey......

5 hour taxi drive across mountain tops with cobble roads and shear drops,

12 hour sleeper train where somebody  had taken our bed!

9 hour bus journey across the rockyest terain i have ever witnessed.

30 min  rickshaw  ride  in the pitch black with little to no headlights.

I think its fair to say that we deserved a good cup of chai! we got settled in our room then hit the town to see what hampi had to offer? we found a nice restaurant which to my delight served burgers! halelulia!

Since then we have been doing all the sights, see about 20 temples all stunning! Its really bizar it is not like the rest of india at all! the temples look mexican and there are strange mountainous rock formations everywhere which you can see from the pictures!

Went out shopping today and did some haggling that even an indian would be proud of. we have found that the best trick to play is to get an amount out and say that that is all you have! always works!

Anyway we are disturbing our hosts dinner time. happy reading!!!!!

The southern peaks of india

We find ourselves now with our new found friends in munnar. A beautiful hilltop town where the weather is cool and the food is fantastic and the views well see for yourself. Me and dan went off walking today and lost ourselves in the tea plantations covering mountains with dotted temples and waterfalls all round us.

It is the most beautiful, spectacular place i have ever seen and it is also nice to have this kind of experience in a place where you are not sweating from head to toe.

after the last few days of frantic sight seeing and socialising it is nice to sit back and enjoy the view. johannah and chris came along for the ride also.

we will be going our sepporate ways tomorrow, us to hampi and them down further south as they have another 5 weeks left!!! so jealous! i will be so sad to say good bye but i guess thats what this travelling malarky is all about.

Swedish elephant washing...

We spent another 4 days in cochin, there was so much to do we havnt stopped until now!

We did a backwater trip on a rice boat, which is apparently one of the things to do before you die... but is more likely to bore you to death!!! Well it wasn't that bad, but once you have seenone palm lined river, you've seen them all! But it was a good social trip with about 20 others on board, most of whom were staying in cochin too. We started talking to some swedish, Chris and Johannah who we tapped up for checking out the elephant trip the next day, and hoped they would turn up in the morning or we'd end up footing the bill!! they did turn up and we got chatting for the whole taxi journey to the elephant sanctuary, which was amazing! We arrived and there was a small group of tourists standing on the rocks by the river, but this wasnt enough for Roz and she rushed down into the water, grabbed a coconut shell and started scrubbing the elephants with glee!! She was particuarly love struck with the baby elephant who was 3 and a half years old, who's name was asha.

Later on we got some photos then walked them back to the reserve where we got our second eephant ride but this time it was right on the back of the big mama, rather than in a basket on top, so you could feel her shoulders moving under you!

We spent the rest of the day visiting waterfalls, having a bracing swim in the river, nearly getting swept down stream in the current and having a great time getttnig to know Chris and Johanna, and the 3 frenchies who also came, Francois, Alice and Jose.

In the evening we found a cool cafe where they smuggled beer to you in a teapot (not licenced!) and we whiled away the evening getting nicely toasted!

The next day was a chillout day, so we met up with our international posse for coffee and breakfast, went shopping in jew town, where there were so many fantastic antique shops I swear I could fill a ship with everything to fill a house for less than it costs to buy a Lee Sinclair original! But of course they would lack the care and attention put into every well crafted piece!

Our evening was taken with a stunning art performance, the likes of which I never though I would see in India; a really modern expression of women in india, and the artist left us speechless, with so many emotions having been brought up in the 1 hour show.

Then after some tea with the usual suspects, plus some wayward aussie lads (Dusty & Banjo?!?) from adelaide, we went for bed! What an exhausting but fantastic few days!!

a fun filled day in cochin!

After yet another sleeper train we find ourself rock up in cochin at 3:30 am with nowhere to stay........... after contemplating sleeping on the street in true homeless style cuddled up with a stray dog our rickshaw driver felt sorry for us and started banging on all the doors until someone agreed to let us kip there! 5 hours later we were up and out! off to find our homestay. A nice little place costing us about 2 pound each in a good location with lots to do.

After a short walk around, we were invited to help pull in fish using those great big chinese fishing nets that line the coast line of cochin. It was so much fun pulling down on the rope to counter weigh the huge nets and after all of our efforts we only court one tiny little fish!!! oh well i dont think we will be changing our careers just yet. It was hot work though i dont know how those men can stand the heat!!

After this we felt the urge for an explore! we sampled everything that cochin had to offer from a great big beautiful church a synagogue and a real indian spice market! it was a great day and i hope to upload the photos in the next week or so.

It has also just started to rain which is like heaven after all the heat!

ommmmmmm......

We made it to kanartaka after a terrifying train journey where we both had to leap onto the moving train and jump 6 foot to get off. fun times. We are now at om beach just round the coast from gokana or "gok wan ah" as i keep calling it. We are staying the the coolest little beach huts made from weaved palm leaves with a bucket shower and a squat toilet. No home comforts here! but at rs 75 a night (1 pound) we're laughing!!!

we did a hike early this morning over the coast into the town which was lovely. its very picturesque and religious with lots of westerners learning how to be Hindi or follow hare Krishna. we are thinking of giving it a go but will be traveling to Mangalore later today to see what is there.

very sad to hear that Stephen Gately died!!! Thanks for keeping us up to date with all the important news....!

Goa'n chillin...

Lovin goa! It's well hot, the beaches are amazing and there is even a hint of surf! Roz seems to be coping better with the heat now but even so she has now got a touch of prickly heat and is now varnishing herself in camomile lotion to help with that!

food is getting better too, we are now feeling bold enough to go for fish and chicken so a whole new world of choice has opened up! Also, we're in a place called palolem at the moment which has a few decent bars so we're also sampling the local cocktail making abilities.. which aint that bad!

Like I said, we are in Palolem right now but will be heading further south in the next few days to Patnem Beach and then Gokarna.. not that any of that will mean much to anyone, but think sun kissed, palm fringed beaches and you won't be far wrong!!

Hope all is well at home, is there any news that we might have missed? Has gordon brown been locked up in the tower of London yet? Or is MJs body going to be exhumed and taken on tour with Pat Swazey?! Sorry, too soon?!

Love you all,

dan & roz x

paradise!!!

So after a few more days in the hot smelly desert of Jaipur, we decided to be a little more spontanious and jet down to the fresh, palm covered white sands of goa. To be honest i was still feeling like hell with delhi belly and an allergic reaction the the medication and needed a complete change. This suited us both though, we have been here a few days now just hopping further and further down the coast, finding the cheapest places to stay, napping in the day, swimming in the afternoons and feasting in the evenings. We are both very happy with the way of life here and feel alot more comfortable. We will be passing through the border into kanartika in a couple of days which is full of culture, fishing and beauty! Rajastan was an experience but this is what we have saved all that hard earned money for!

jaipur

We are on day 6 of our travels through india and all is well apart from my tummy. I (roz) have been in bed for two days with delhi belly and am lookin alot skinnier because of it. Seem to be over the worst of it though. dan got a course of anti biotics to clear it up.. he is good to me!

We are currently staying in a place called sunder palace which a friend (thanks chris and barb!) recomended to us. it is beautiful with hand painted ceilings and walls, art works, massive comfy bed and all for 600rs (7 pound) well worth the money when you feel as bad as i felt! we went shopping today in the most amazing place like an indian camden market we bought two tunics, two baggy pants, two scarfs, some bangles, some hair dye and transport to and from for under 15 pounds!!! had to do some good haggling though! it was good cop bad cop all the way.

we have a tour booked tomorrow to see the amber fort, monkey fort, the pink city and jantar mantar??? mantar jantar ??? a big art sculpture/star charter in the centre of jaipur. i am looking forward to getting out of my room but it is going to be very hot outside so its factor 50 all the way.

hope you are all enjoying reading about our travels. we appreciate all the comments as we are both missing our loved ones and it has hit home that we will not see anyone for a year! so keep them rolling in please!

escape from Delhi...

Delhi was well...... a multitude of sins! in all honesty, both myself and dan did not enjoy it one bit!! after being hassled and led astray more times then you could shake a cow at, we made it to the tourist train ticket office. our favourite place yet! sad i know but after the heat and the dust and the smells and the beggers and the poverty and the pure money grabbers on the outside, this place was heaven. air conditioned, friendly HONEST! people, and best of all, other travellers who were all just as shit scared as us! we met 3 Londoners who had been in Delhi for two days and believe it or not were even more clueless than us about what to do!

when we got to booking our train ticket, Varanasi was completely full..... big shame! so we decided to skip ahead and go straight to agra. we spent the day mooching around the red fort in Delhi. it was really peacfull however the glares from all men women and children put me off looking around, instead i spent most of the time looking at at ground!!! i was covered up completely so i dont know why everyone was so interested. hehe Dan tolled some guy off for taking a picture of me!! that was funny.

it was such a relief to get to agra! the hotel that we are staying in cost five pounds and it is luxury. it is set back from the street where no cars can get down, in amungst the beautiful plam tree garden with a peacful cafe and all the makings of paradise! we really like it here but are going to push on to Jaipur where it is cheaper and there is more to see and do. by the way, the taj mahal is amazing! better than any book or photograph describes it!

1st day in Delhi! Namaste!

We're here! Well tired after the flight but managed to get about 3 hours kip inbetween rickshaw horns and mooing cows...

Staying in a place called Paharganj in the middle of Delhi, it smells like rotten meat but apart from that it's mental!

Hotel is basic but pretty clean, and the rooftop restaurant is well good. Roz is playing it safe with a nutella pancake for breakfast... hardcore!

We're about to go for an explore to see if we can find a ticket out of Delhi, but we will see if we like anything about it or if we want to kick back for a bit.

Well that'll do for now, but will blog again soon!

Dan & Roz x

The first post...

Hi, this is our blog while we're away! It's the place you can come to and catch up on where we're at (if you're really that interested...!) and hopefully make you suitably jealous!

There isn;t much to say at the moment apart from we're desperately unorganised, and with 2 weeks to go we need to get ourselves going. Having said that we are full of rabies jabs, and the money is in the bank, and passport in hand. What more do we need?!

Let the countdown commence...  13 days, 11 hours, 4 minutes and 57 seconds...