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