The end was nigh.....and the end came sooner than planned!!

Wow, what a trip! The end of our Asian and African journey came to an abrupt end in North Western China and we're now back in the UK! In fact, we arrived back in the UK on Monday 28th April, 2 weeks before our planned (and paid flight) back to England on May 12th! Why did this happen....details to follow!

Before that however, I wanted to share some stats with you to round off our 6 month trip from October 30th 2007 to April 28th 2008 and how impressive (I think) but completely insignificant from a global point of view they are:-

6 month trip from UK to Asian and African countries
- visited 12 countries in 2 continents
- went to 110 cities or towns in those countries broken down as (roughly):
Country Number of cities/towns visited
- Thailand 30
- India 30
- Africa 25
(South Africa, Botswana, Zambia and Nambia)
- Laos 6
- Malaysia 6
- Cambodia 5
- China 4
- Vietnam 3
- Sri Lanka 1
- took 14 flights
- did 4 months independent travel and 2 months on 3 'organised' tours
- went to 17 South Western Thai islands
- saw 12 caves in Laos
- did 8 extreme sports activities
- was at 10,000 feet twice (excluding flights of course)
- of course used planes, trains, buses, tuk-tuks, mopeds, boats, ferries, trucks, cars, ropes, bridges, rafts, walked and swam to get around!

And the dredded top/bottom ranking countries. Not necassarily good to name and shame but this is only a personal opinion (of Terry's).

Top 3 countries: Thailand, Namibia and India
Justification: Each of these places were extraordinary for natural beauty, had excellent food choices for veggies and the people we encountered were astoundingly friendly and receptive to foreigners. Or we managed to see such amazing things its indescribeable!

Bottom 2: China and Vietnam
Justification: We did not enjoy our experiences in either of these countries for a variety of reasons ranging from the food simply not being suitable for veggies (that we encountered) to the people really not enjoying our company, that is not to say the countries were beautiful in their own way because they were. More to come on China though as this was our last country visited.

After sharing the stats we'd like to point out that overall our trip was amazing. We absolutely fell in love with our top 3 named above. We loved the animals, extreme sports and the astonishing rocky mountains of Spitzkope in Namibia. We couldn't physically chill out anymore than we did in Thailand on the deserted South Western islands that were part of a national park where we pitched a tent on the beach and ate pineapple rice alongside the wild monkeys, hence why we stayed in Thailand for 2 1/2 months! And we simply couldn't ever replace or surpass the hospitality of Indian people. The fact that there were 500 million veggies here also helped somewhat!!! haha. But in India we experienced true local life, saw the Himilayas at 10,000 feet and watched the sunrise at the Taj Mahal!

So....the reason why we came home early....the bottom two of our 'bottom two' above sugget that we didn't have the best time in China...that would be correct, lol. We had a calamity of errors from the moment we touched down in Beijing when we discovered via email that our airline had gone bust = pay £500 for new flight home. Most of the problems however originated from the tour operator failing to co-ordinate with the local tour providers (from Beijing to Chengdu) resulting in us experiencing 21 separate issues! Not awesome at all.

China is a very overwhelming country to visit as a young, backpacking Westerner. For starters, English is not spoken (which we expected)...but its not spoken by anymore than 1% of people..at best. And so, communication was a massive problem. Secondly, it is most definitely not veggie friendly as the locals find it hilarious when you ask for a dish without meat/testicle/heart/foot etc etc, lol. Thirdly and most significantly for us, the country is not geared up to the backpacker market. We did notice an improvement in this in Chengdu...the last place we visited...but its still a majorly overpriced country to visit as someone on a budget. If you're over 40 and you have the kind of money to spend that you would in Europe...go visit China. If you're on a budget you'll find it extremely difficult!

I do know people who have had an amazing time in China but they were not veggies for starters, lol. And they didn't do a tour...piece of advice to all those backpackers considering China...allow a big budget and start practising the language in preparation.

China had alot of beauty to offer for me (Terry) with the great Wall and the sights in Beijing. But the experience we had here was just that...a government approved experience. We didn't get to see the real life of the people here at all. But I guess thats our fault for choosing the tour option. Overall I'd say if you are considering China you should definitely see it...but good luck!!

So we endured 48hours of no sleep and 3 flights and touched down on English soil in the form of Heathrow Terminal 4! WOW...what a relief! Apologies to all the regulars out there (all 2 of you) that we haven't updated the blog...this is due to government sensorship in China and the blocking of blogspot.com...but thats all a thing of the past! We can update as much as we want now!!! Of course it wont be interesting anymore as we're not travelling....or are we...

The next step is to seek employment in the UK up until July 28th and then we fly to amazing sounding Canada for 3months! Yay! We finally get to see it. From all the talks with our Canadian friends (Jim and Janie) we met in Laos and in fact, since forever, we will get to smell the fresh Canadian air.

All in all I've had an amazing time on the trip. It flew by. Too quickly in fact! We saw some truly astonishing things and saw ways of life that would be best described as surviving only. We saw heights in the form of mountains, we experienced near death in the form of dive accidents. Experienced extreme sports, travelled very dodgily over dirt tracks and marvelled at ancient man-made endeavours. We were welcomed, we were hated (it seemed), we were conned and we were shown fantastic hospitality for free. I think its safe to say we now know much more about Asia and Africa than a million books and documentaries could've taught us because we've seen it first hand.

Life is hard in the countries we visited, much harder than it is in the UK. Our 6 month trip has mostly taught us to appreciate our way of living in the West and be thankful for the fact that we probably wont ever have to be the guy who walks around Mumbai wading through rubbish bins to collect plastic bottles, or the amputee singing and playing his instrument on the streets to survive on a few rupees a day. We wont have to do that and we will respect that man for doing what he needs to do to survive.

That aside, what travelling mainly does for you, in my opinion, is give you a taste for more!! The travel bug is now alive and kicking inside me! I would love to visit South America and New Zealand and go back to Africa to see the Eastern and Northern parts....I'd go in a heartbeat. Of course my wallet wouldn't allow me to!!


A lush piccy of Jen in Xi'an


Our local guide in Xi'an posing behind the first China Olympics mascot with Jen behind the second one

The terracota warriors and a huge tower that actually looks quite small in this piccy!

So for now its goodbye. We leave you with a few piccies of China and a phrase from a wise, chilled out French guy we met on his little island in Thailand if you're going to go....."go slowly"...loved that dude!!!!

See you in Canada!!!!

Leaving Beijing

After our guide left us on our own from the 16th April we've pretty much got skinnier and skinnier ovet the last few days due to the food situation! It hasn't improved, in fact it has sickened us more and more (as veggies) to learn that they have 'ox heart', 'fortified chicken intestines', 'testicles' and meat in every dish FOR BREAKFAST! Yep, you read correctly and it basically means that we have no choice but to continue eating bread for every meal, lol.

However, we've now become pretty familiar with the local supermarket (after buying all of their bread stocks up) and have discovered that noodles (less the sachet of dried meat that is in EVERY NOODLE PACKET) are a great evening meal. You're probably thinking 'why not have a pizza hut or western restaurant meal every night'.....the expense! We are currently a lot of money down due to our airline going bust and so have set a budget for every day of between 50 and 100 Yuan (roughly 3.50 to 7 pounds a day). Laughable I know as you can barely get a bottle of water and a pack of noodles in Beijing for that!

The last three days on our own have allowed us to experience the excellent public transport system here in Beijing, or rather the subway system. It is mostly immaculate and costs 2 Yuan per person to go anywhere in the city (15p), which is fab! Over the last few days we've been to the Beijing Planetarium,which was good but not in English at all, so kind of pointless. Having said that, although we paid 70 Yuan (nearly 5 pounds) to see a 22minute SGi film of the Universe on a hhhuuuggggeeee overhead screen, we managed to cheekily get a refund as it wasn't in English! SWEET!

We've also seen the preserved remains of Chairman Mao, who was a really important figure in recent Chinese history at his morsuleum in Tian'amen Square. That was very interesting and eerily quiet as nobody is allowed to speak whilst walking past his body in the massive building. Worth the 10 Yuan cost to store our bag whilst going round (free entry).

We had also planned to visit a few lakes and free parks over the last few days but ended up chilling alot as we both haven't been feeling too good. Probably a mild state of malnutrition as a direct result of only eating bread! (Note: must resolve this by eating more plain noodles)

So, not much happened then as you have read, but today (19/04/08), we go on an overnight train to Xian in the North West of China. We have a 'hard berth' bed which should be interesting! Lets just all channel our positive energy for Terry and Jen to be put up in a Western hotel in order to prevent them from wasting away (like the guy in the pot noodle advert, haha, love that advert).

End of India pics (sorry its after the China blog)

After visiting smelly-Delhi, we headed north to Rishikesh in the foothills of the Himilayas! There were monkeys everywhere in the town. This guy was enjoying some Roti we think on a bridge!

Jen on the same bridge crossing into Rishikesh town, with the moutains all around here. Rishikesh is where the Ganges river meets the Himilayas....awesome!

This piccy is mainly for Jens dad to illustrate the building techniques (or lack of) here in India. This is their scaffolding! Hilarious or what...

In Rishikesh we met a really nice (and armed with a 1950's rifle) local police guy who spoke great English and let me have my piccy taken with him. Good work dude!

Whilst in Rishikesh it'd be a sin not to visit the Himilayas, or get as close to them as possible! So we took a tour up to 8,500 feet and then hiked up to 10,000 feet to get a lush view of the snow capped mountains. This is about 30 mins before on the car journey up to that point. Such beautiful scenery it was almost worth crying about...well, not me cos Im a bloke!


Once I'd pulled Jen up the mountain to see the amazing Himilayas, we were lucky enough to get a view of them. It doesn't happen very often and in fact the view wasn't totally perfect due to a bit of fog, but in the distance there you can see them. We could've stayed up there for hours!

And I couldn't believe it! Perched on a ledge up there was a small family of marmite jars doing exactly the same as us, taking in the view and smelling the fresh air! I mean, how did they get up that friggin mountain? We had a short conversation with them, shared a sandwich and then headed back down to our driver - who was asleep. ASLEEP!! In these amazing surroundings, how very dare he, lol.

Ah, thats a nice piccy isn't it. Jen, looking stunning as usual. The Himilayas just about in the background. I loved it up there, I really did!

China and all its cleanliness compared to India

We're here in Beijing! And its blemin clean compared to any other country I think. Actually, probably on par with Malaysia and Kuala Lumpur specifically...that place was clinical! So we arrived from a mental flight from India involving 4 hours to Sri Lanka (6 hours in the airport), then 4 hours to Bangkok, Thailand (1 1/2 hour wait), then 4 hours to Beijing...so 18 hours in total!! We were pooped!

13/04/08 - Beijing arrival

Luckily upon our arrival we were met by a representative of the tour company we booked online with (Focustourchina.com)...as we'd had understandably had reservations about only doing it online it was a big relief! So, the guy was all suited-and-booted...very professional. He proceeded to take us to a private, secret services type, blacked-out-windows, people carrier with our own private driver!!! What the hell have we gone and booked this time we thought?!?! Andy spoke very good english (with an American type accent which was odd) and gave us a great intro to China. Obviously we were knackered and so went straight to our posh hotel, but didn't fail to notice that Beijing is sooooo clean and tidy its refreshing, very American looking!
It was evening on the 13th and all we could plan was a nice big sleep ready for sight seeing the following day. We managed to drag ourselves out of our room to explore our environment and discovered that not a single person within a 1000 mile radius spoke English and there wasn't one thing we could eat (mainly due to the fact that ALL menus were in Chinese and involved meat..oh yeah, lots of different types of meat as well)....I take that back...we had bread and slices of crappy cheese for our dinner that night...delicious! Luckily for us we'd brought a new jar of marmite before leaving Delhi...thank god for the black stuff once more!!!

14/04/08 - Not such an Oasis

Our itinery detailed that we'd have 2 days with our guide Andy and then 3 days on our own, which was a good mix. Day one of our sightseeing was fantastic as we got to see the Forbidden City, Tian'amen Square in the morning and the Temple of Heaven in the afternoon; all driven there in our secret service vehicle!

Tian'amen was huge, its the largest square in the world and the Forbidden City shockingly beautiful with gorgeous gardens. It was quite plain to see as well that the Beijing games have profoundly affected public policy on how they are looking to portray the country and especially important monuments such as these.

Or maybe they always wanted to make it all look gleeming and VERY secure with a million police and stuff around. Well they succeeded nevertheless.

We also shared our airspace that day with at least 500,000 Chinese tourists (it seemed) all with their colour co-ordinated hats to keep them with their group! Hilarious!

For lunch on day one, we were taken to a very posh restaurant, perfect for all you meat eaters, we on the other hand had major problems (due to the vegginess)...and ended up eating plain rice. For some reason they put this sticky jelly type stuff on all their veggies....what the hell?!

The afternoon was very smoggy and quite scary for this reason. It felt like we were under some kind of toxic cloud, lol. That was the only downside so far for China, Beijing is surrounded by mountains and has over 30 million cars, theres no where for the pollution to go. You can see a clear smog over the sun everyday. Our guide took us to the Temple of Heaven in the avo which was gorgeous. The architecture over here in China is stunning, just as you'd imagine it in the movies...but so much better in real life as its on a huge scale! The Temple of Heaven was no exception and was colourful, spiritual and extremely historic, which we loved the whole time hearing about.

Interestingly, and further to my previous point about the portrayal of China to tourists, the guide took us to a 'Government approved' silk factory, where we were shown how silk is obtained from silk worms. Interesting, but poor little silk worms are just thrown away. Actually, I personally think they're sold to a local food market guy, as we saw them fried up later ready for sale!

That evening we decided to get dropped off on the way back to our hotel in the city centre shopping area. Not for shopping, no, but due to the fact that we discovered last night that our friggin flight company (for Hong Kong to London return journey), Oasis airlines....HAD GONE BUST!! Check this website out to see; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7338424.stmYep, so we didn't have a flight to come home, lost out on 300 squid and then had to BUY ANOTHER FLIGHT at a cost of 500 squids = 800 squid down! Rubbish! So we decided that a Pizza Hut was in order to make life better again.....which it did (for a reasonable 100 Yuan = 7 pounds ish). I know, I know, we shouldn't have, but we were still seething from Oasis!

Once we'd managed to find a cab driver who had heard of our random hotel road (as 6 so far hadn't), we got dropped off near our road and somehow stumbled across the right place! Knackered and still a bit sore from our loss of dosh we hit the sack to watch the one English channel on the TV.....a 'Government sensored news channel only detailing things about China'....great!!

15/04/08 - A new day involving The Great wall of China

Yep, you guessed it, today we planned on visiting the Great Wall of China baby!!! After our breakfast, where we opted not to eat the testicle and chicken intestine Chinese option, and chose the safe option of toast, we headed with our guide to the Great Wall. This time however we were taken to another Government approved factory outlet, this time making Jade items. And although it was interesting to see...dude, WE'RE BACKPACKERS...seriously, no way gonna buy anything. But again another way to portray China in a certain way!

We arrived at the Great Wall only to discover that we had less than 2 hours there! You had to be kidding right...2 hours! I wanted to see the Wall ALL DAY! Every bit, every step, every sight...this is the Great Wall. But luckily it didn't matter too much as the smog was so intense we couldn't even see the mountains around us. So 2 hours would be fine.

The Great Wall was pretty damn impressive and full of tourists. We were taken to the main part about 45kms out of Beijing and loved the experience. The Wall is built on the edge of the cliffs and took some climbing to get up there! I think this part in particular had been rennovated as our Canadian friends told us they'd been to a part that was mainly mud and stuff...this was all shiny brick and concrete, but we didn't mind too much.

Lots of piccies and me trekking to the top later (with Jen chilling a bit further down due to exhaustion), we had another belly-filling/rice-filling lunch to look forward to. And yes, it didn't fail to live up to expectation...we had rice for lunch! But this time there was the promise of spring rolls. Er, no, they were sweet filled spring rolls. Random! There were also plenty of slime-covered veggies to eat....er, no thanks dude. Lol.

After lunch we visited the Summer Palace here in Beijing. It was beautiful and spread out over a wide area. It was where the 'Dragon Lady' lived, who was a slightly-crazy-sounding Emperor type chick in the 1900's I think. After walking down the 'longest corridor in the world' (Andy'd claim not mine), and after a nice, Dragon Boat ride back to our starting position, we headed off to our hotel via a 'government approved tea shop'. Agh, thats interesting, I wonder why they took us there!!!! Yep, another attempt to portray Chinese culture in a certain way. Again, enjoyable though as we got to try out lots of different teas.

That concluded our time with 'government approved' (not even kidding) Andy and we hit the local supermarket in the evening to buy our nutritious dinner of bread. We also tried our very hardest to find an internet cafe.....to no avail!!

The building in Beijing designed to look like an olympic torch...succeeded. It is the main building next to the national stadium (the birds nest) below. Also heads up the olympic village which is parallel to it. Check out the smog all around it.....scary or what!?!

The national stadium, aka the Birds Nest, which we got to see on our way back from the Summer Palace on Day 2 of our trip.

16/04/08 - Independence day (1)

So now we are on our own and don't have a clue what to do! Haha, we're fine though as we're armed with a Beijing map (bilingual) and some leftover bread from last night. Today, however, we pretty much didn't do anything other than planning the next few days and eat stale bread. Our guide had told us that it was 'too unsafe' to use anything other than a government approved taxi to take us everywhere. Also, if we wanted to go anywhere we should hire an approved driver and car for the day...he mentioned something about 600 Yuan as well!!! 600 Yuan..I dont think so dude, thats crazy money (80 dollars!!!)...so we'll be taking public transport everywhere.
The only major concern of ours is now money. Up until now I've managed it just fine to the extent that we had a surplus....but nothing else can go wrong otherwise we'll be like that Chinese guy from the old proverb:

'Ching-chong China man went to milk a cow. Ching-chong China man didn't know how. Ching-chong China man pulled the wrong bit. Ching-chong China man got covered in sh*t'!!!

(P.S. We just saw on the BBC website that a bus in India had fallen off a bridge, 40 people dead, very eerry considering we were using these buses just a few days ago..we are definately counting our blessings...check it out...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7350086.stm

Taj and the Himilayas....the last of India!

Welcome to our last blog entry in India. We are heading back to Delhi today (Thursday 10th April) where we will be checking out the sights for the next 1 1/2 days and then we'll be on a flight to Beijing. Unfortunately, this will be the last part of our trip but we're really looking forward to our last month travelling.

Since our last entry we have seen Agra and the Taj Mahal, Delhi and it all its smelliness and the amazing Himilayas further North in Rishikesh.

05/04/08 - We left the Pink City and headed to Agra. Along the way on our 4 hour journey though we had a planned stop off at a cool Fort (that I cant remember the name of). Jen went in with the rest of the group as it was a crazy 260 rupees entry for foreigners (roughly 5 dollars 50) but a mere 20 rupees for locals...hate that bit of discrimination! I opted to go around the outside of it and explore on my own, which was a great idea as it had tons of ruined sections at the back you could climb and explore for free! Then once Jen had come off the tour she went in a really impressive and huge mosque on the site. Now I would've uploaded some pics of these two but 3 of our 4 memory cards seem to be playing up!!! So thats crap!! Will have to work on it.

We arrived in Agra early that evening and discovered our hotel was next door to Pizza Hut and below (and behind) Costa Coffee...but we were staying strong and so after we'd freshened up we went for a curry. Had an ok biryani this time but it tasted a bit odd. Nevertheless, it was a 200 rupee dinner rather than 600 for Pizza Hut...so doing well!

06/04/08 - Early start today! A five am start meant that we could go to the Taj Mahal for sunrise...what a beautiful prospect. However, big however, it costs 750 rupees each (20 dollars!!) for us and 20 rupees for locals to get in!!! OUCH! I know, I know...'its the Taj Mahal, you should just pay it as you'll never see it again'...thats what you're all saying right now. BUT, Im a man of principals and so will stand by them! lol. Also, we actually were sick and tired of tour guides and decided to buck the trend and take a tuk-tuk (for 175 rupees) and see the sunrise from the back of the Taj. Awesome choice! No tourists, lush view. Only unfortunate thing, a man doing a 'number twos' right outside the Taj Mahal....lol...hilarious!

So we were finished with the Taj and back to our hotel by 8am...great! We chilled for a few hours and then checked out ready to head to Delhi on a train later that day. Luckily the hotel could keep our bags for us whilst we went out sightseeing. We only managed to go and see a local 'bazar'..or row of shops, had lunch (good Thali for 60 rupees), purchased a few cool souvenirs and then headed back for the 5pm deadline to meet our group. On the way back though, this old man pursuaded us to take his rickshaw (one you peddle). I felt totally guilty as he must've been like 147 years old and so told him to pull over and sit on the seat next to Jen and I'd ride us back!!! Brilliant! It was actually quite enjoyable.

A 6.45pm train to Delhi that night meant we'd arrive around 10pm, which was actually on time! Good show. The train, as with all the travel on this trip was very comfortable. No food this time so we managed with a few veggie samosas picked up along the way.

Our arrival in Delhi was nothing short of shocking! A shocking amount of people in one place best describes it. Organised chaos is also another good description! Man, there was a lot of people around us. Delhi has the same population as Australia...over 20million people!!!! Luckily we had our last bit of organised travel, a car, to the hotel. It was cccrrraaazzzzyyy on the roads!! Pure craziness! But we arrived at our semi ok hotel ready to say goodbye to the group and the tour leader. Nothing special, just yeah bye then and we were back on our own again!!!

07/04/08 - The previous nights sleep was ok but we needed some peace and quiet again already! So we decided to take an early bus up to the Himilayas baby!!! Get in there! I was seriously excited by the prospect and Jen seemed to be as well...which was surprising as we might need to do some trekking. We negotiated our way into an auto-rickshaw and got to the Inter-State Bus Stand, got on the right bus and 400 rupees later (altogether, between us) we were sitting in a lush guesthouse overloooking a foothill of the Himilayas in Rishikesh!

This place is nothing short of inspiring. All around are mountains, as far as the eye can see! By the time we'd arrived there it was 6pm and so we were ready for eats! Our guesthouse, 'Bhandari Swiss Cottage' is really nice, clean and in a great setting overlooking where the Ganges river meets the Himilayas....incredible! So we eat at our guesthouse too and it was really damn good food! Great so far!

08/04/08 - Its the 8th April already! No way! But today was spent walking around the town and looking at the sights. Luckily for us as well (or maybe not so lucky for us), it was a holy time, a festival that it seemed every tourist in India had come to (Indian tourists). So there was a sort of electric buzz in the atmosphere which was cool. After walking around some we got back to our guesthouse and had more great food.

That evening after doing some research whilst in town, we found a really well priced tour booking office and I pursuaded Jen to do a bit of car/trekking up the mountains in the surrounding area. We planned to hire a car for the day where we would get to see a lush mountain top at 3100 metres, roughly 9300 feet! (nearly the same height we did our sky dive from!!!). The price was good and the itinery looked full, so we went for it!

09/04/08 - The big morning arrived and we were on our way to see the Himilayas! A 7 am start , our driver took us around all of the mountains that were inhabited by villages upon villages in the hills, was very impressive to see them growing vegetables and surviving on such peaks. We drove for around 3 hours until the driver stopped. He kept saying lucky lucky as we approached the most amazing view of the day, the snowcapped mountains of the Himilayas, it was a very impressive sight and we stood there for ages in ore of it.

We drove another hour to reach the Sehvi Devi Temple. We walked for an hour and a half up the mountain to reach the top, it was definitely worth the hike as the view from the top was incredible and there was a religious ceremony at the top so bells were ringing when we reached the summit! Unfortunately once we got to the top we discovered there were no toilets and we both were desperate, so we went in the open (as the Indians do, they don’t care!) on top of a himilayan mountain, one for the memory bank!!

We drove through the mountains for most of the day, visiting local towns and eating our marmite sandwiches in the car. We went to Kempy Falls, a waterfall, half as impressive as the ones in Thailand but still nice to view Indian people’s holiday choices! We got home around 7pm, exhausted from all the mountain driving that nearly caused us heart failure as there were absolutely no barriers from us and the edge of a mountain cliff, and we just relaxed outside of room for the night, to the view of the hill villages and the ganges river. Off to Delhi today to explore the town and then get to the airport for China, we will both be sad to leave India it has definitely left a big imprint on both of us.

The wonderful marmite found in the desert

So here it is...the North Indian, Thar desert hill. We arrived at our desert camp near Jaiselmer in Rajesthan and decided to take some picccies of the lush surroundings. For some reason and I dont know why, but I noticed a yellow lid in the sand....

Once I had dug for about 30 seconds it revealed......a LOVELY, JUICY, JAR OF MARMITE!!!! OH YEAH!!! Soooooo amazing its untrue.

Ok, ok, the above is all a lie! It was in the desert though served to us after a sleepless night in our pretty damn open tent! LUSH OR WHAT! Jen was so happy about it that she had to celebrate by posing in the sunlight....lol...again a lie, this pic was taken the night before also...haha. We've since run out of the lushious black stuff and have just this minute purchased a new jar in a random convenience store down MG road in Agra...this country rules!!!

Piccies from North Indian tour (27/03 - 02/04)

No, I wasn't being a peeping Tom and hiding behind a bush taking pics of women, haha. I took this pic of a lady collecting some water from the local lake in Chandelao (which looked quite clean ctually). Pretty good pic I reckon!

On my way back from the lake it happened to be finishing time from school which meant that every student wanted to have their piccy taken..and were competing for centre stage!

As you can see, the kids here are amazing and have to work pretty damn hard to survive. They of course had time to stop and ask me to take their piccy, which I gladly obliged. They're not saluting either, the sun was very bright behind me!

A pic of Jen in our room in the fort of Khejarla. Beautiful room, stunning location...friggin windy which meant not sleep that night as we were the equivalent of 4 stories up with only partial windows!

Khejarla was where we had a fantastic real local family experience. Here, im posing with about half of the guys that were sitting around us, chilling, chatting in broken english and showing us their house...big family eh?!

We told them in Khejarla that we were recently married (as its easier than 'engaged'). They insisted therefore that Jen wear the traditional red saree and have her piccy taken in the air conditioned vodafone unit in their back garden....so random, so funny!!

The fort behind was pretty damn impressive.A pretty foggy Jodphur was its location and I hate having power lines in my pics! Always try to avoid that, sometimes not possible though

This guy was sat in a fort smoking his pipe which traditionally would've had opium in it!

.....actually, it looks like the same dude as the pic above...hang on, whats going on here! Im pretty sure its a diff guy, defs at a diff temple at Udaipur. Pretty cool pic of this old timer

Mahatma Gandhi. Picture taken in Udaipur where he used to live for 13 years

Jen audio-tour-guided up at the Blue City fort tour. Somehow she always knows how to smile in pics and I haven't got a clue..so weird

Same fort, same place, but this guy is a local security/turban-wearing demonstrator for the tourists

Stunnig view of the city from the fort walls I think in Jaiselmer..so hard to keep track!
Part of our Indian extortion experience! She was threatening to throw paint on his windscreen if he didn't pay her 20 rupees...even though she looks quite happy about it!!! (worryingly)

Take one of Jen on the camel ready for our 2 hour trek into the desert near Jaiselmer....look at the state of her hair though, haha

......the camels thought it was hilarious and couldn't stop cracking up at her hairdo.....

Take two....much better Jen! Camels are quite literally, like 100ft tall. Check out the smile on his face though, they always seem happy!

Once we arrived at our desert camp we had some time to chill before our Indian buffet dinner and so I attempted (and failed) to take a good pic with my beautiful girlfriend

Extortion, 'desert-marmite' and Vodafone sarees

I can't believe its been 9 days since we last blogged! I know, I know, you've all missed our thrilling adventures, so I wont keep you waiting too much longer, lol. We've seen and done tons in the last 9 days, including 2 fort stays, a 2 hour camel trek to a desert camp, a meal with a local family and experiencing Indian style extortion....by kids!!!

27/03/08 - On our drive to Jodhpur (Rajesthan’s second largest city), we visited a few Jain temples along the way around the town of Ranakpur. These lush, intricate, marble temples were beautiful. In particular the Chaumukha temple which dated back to the 15th century had stunning architecture and 1400 hand carved pillars in marble! Very impressive indeed. Took some piccies here!

Extorting (and semi-entrepreneurial) little sh*ts!!

After seeing the temples we headed towards Jodhpur in the ever intensifying heat of Rajesthan only to discover that in this part of the country they were still celebrating the Holi festival (a festival of colours where everyone throws industrial paint powder over each other for some reason, somewhere in the state somebody decided to concoct a new powder, silver in colour and put 3 people in hospital with facial burns!). This continuation of celebration meant only one thing of course in the villages....extortion! Yep, extortion. Every 100 feet we were met by sometimes angry groups of either girls or boys (never mixed) who had placed massive rocks across the road to prevent any drivers from passing in the hope that they would pay 10-20 rupees as a kind of road tax! What the hell!?! And our driver would literally have to pay it as well or risk having rocks thrown at the bus. Craziness! So, 200 rupees lighter (at least) and 7 hours later, we got through all the road blocks and made it to Jodhpur. I think I would've killed at least 10 people if that had happened in the UK! Everyone concurred on the Oz-Belg-Uk bus!

I’m blue, da ba dee ba

28/03/08 - Jodhpur, also known as the 'blue city' was a pretty impressive city for one main reason, the huge Meherangarh Fort in its middle dating back to 1459. Surrounding this massive complex were houses painted in blue, which was an awesome sight. They were painted like this traditionally as indigo acts as a good insect repellant and keeps the house cool in the summer. Good thinking batman!
An audio-tape-fort-tour and a few turban trials later and we were ready to head to Jaisalmer.

We didn’t really like Jaisalmer as it smelt pretty bad here, probably the worst we’ve experienced in India in our whole 5 weeks here, so many ‘holy’ cows everywhere along with their smelly poop but nevertheless it was still a cool fort town from the 12th century. We also had a pretty lame hotel this time which was 2kms out of town as well…just cant catch a break can we, lol.

I stand firm on un-necessarily paying 50p!

Jaisalmer is surrounded by the Thar Desert which makes it friggin hot. People actually live in the fort as well which made for some pretty cool piccies. A very touristic city, we had some time to explore its medieval qualities. I even had to trek for 4kms in the blistering heat into town and back to the hotel to change an 80p bag that we’d brought for our photo albums just because I refused to pay the 50p tuk-tuk drive into town! We saw our first camels here too!!

30/03/08 – Very exciting day to come as we were heading into the desert to meet our camels ready for the trek to desert camp tonight!

Don’t ‘go loco’ and eat local: said the posh boy

Yet again our guide informed us that there would be ‘no choice’ but to eat at a crazy expensive desert hotel where the food was a shocking 300 rupees (7.50)…but we bucked the trend! Oh yeah! After being advised not to eat at a local place along the way by our guide (posh tw*t), we took a chance and had a great Dum Aloo! (Potato curry) 1-0 to the student posh boy!…although we’re not students anymore…got to get used to that!

Once we arrived at our desert destination it was kind of a crazy sight to see 5 camels chilling there waiting for our fat asses to get on, but we did it! Note to self: camels are not comfortable to ride and friggin hell they’re bigger than I thought!

Buckaroo me up Camel

The damn thing buckaroo’d on me! What the hell! I could’ve died! Probably not, but it did freak out for some reason and go off by itself for what seemed like ages but actually was about 5 seconds. Jen thought it was hilarious!

Two hours later and we arrived at a beautiful tented desert camp. Great buffet-food (included in the price of accommodation…love it), less the ladybird in jens Capsicum dish and we finished off the evening with a game of cards.

Killer Bees

We got back to our tent and readied for bed but decided to watch the stars for a few minutes. Whilst sitting at two seats outside our tent we heard the sound of the killer bees and they happened to be nested in the side of Jen’s chair, there must have been 20 huge bee’s inside!! It took me about an hour to kick them all away!

There was no way we were getting any sleep though! The aussie on our tour saw a scorpion in her tent next to us so scared the crap out of Jen. We decided to play it safe and sleep in all our clothes….friggin hell it was hot! I reckon I lost 5 pounds just that night! We made sure we were wrapped tightly in the covers to stop any poisonous insects from crawling in and getting us!!

Theres’a’ marmite in these desert dunes there is

31/03/08 - So, sleepless night in the desert later and Jen jokingly said the only thing that could make it all better was marmite on toast for brekkie…but no, not here in the desert, surely……YES INDEED IT WAS!!!!! Not even kidding, there was marmite on toast for breakfast in the friggin desert!!!! What the hell!!! Im totally emailing the piccy I took of the jar on a sand dune to marmite.co.uk….and they’d better reward me for it too!!! GOD WE WERE HAPPY!

Too expensive for my taste thanks dude!

Chandelao was our destination today. Here, we stayed in a 300 year old converted dining room that was seriously beautiful once more. I have to say, this trip has certainly taken us to some places we would never have stayed due mainly to their cost. In this case, Chandelao being a tiny little remote village, would’ve meant theres no way we’d go here. One downside to the posh accommodation though being the posh food…or rather, expensive-and-actually-not-so-posh food! The dude was charging 300 rupees for dinner…er, no thanks, we’ll go hungry! But we wont though will we as we’ve come prepared! Yep, we had snacks and so were defs not going to die of starvation.

Lizards and catch

In Chandelao I took a tour of the village myself and got some great pics. Especially the kids as they love having their pic taken! I also saw a friggin huge lizard chilling in his bush. That evening Jen and I played catch with some local kids. There was one boy in particular, aged about 12, could speak fluent English and was a seriously cool kid! He took us around the town to meet all of his friends, we were hand held by tons of kids fighting to be next to us and it was a really nice night.

01/04/08 – 1st of April….you’re kidding, its not April already is it!!! Fraid so. That means not long till back to the UK. After declining a half day, 500 crazy rupee price jeep tour of a few other villages, we had a nice lie in and were heading to Khejarla.

Vodafone me up baby!

Only 40kms from Chandelao and we arrived at Khejarla where we were to stay in a fort once more. A massive complex. For some reason we were also given the biggest room in the place overlooking a swimming pool courtyard. Bering a couple we always seem to get the nicest rooms! Once we arrived in the fort we saw this huge balcony with stain glassed windows and it happened to turn out to be our room, we were so shocked! Unfortunately the pool was gross, but our room was spectacular. I found out from a guy working there that it costs 4500 rupees a night!! WHAT? That’s 100 dollars basically. But to be fair, in the UK you’d be lucky to get a basic hotel for 50 smackeroonies! This place was truly magnificent, it had a four poster bed, a lounger, a separate room with a pink lounger, a separate shower room and a separate room for the toilet. We thought we had died and gone to heaven it was so superior!

But…big but, they were also charging a crazy, yes a crazy 350 rupees for a basic buffet! Er, I don’t think so. And no we wont be going hungry tonight…im off to find some local family to feed me for a better price! Our guide informed us quite firmly once more that there were ‘no other options’ than to eat here….WRONG! I managed to smooth talk my way into a local traders house that evening.

Seven pm came around and Jen and I left our group to pay their extortionate dinner fee and headed out of the fort back to the stall where I’d met the dude. After some masala chai (spicy tea), some locally produced sweets and Jen being stared at by around 30 men, we were escorted by the local English teacher to the guys house where we were greeted by at least 5 million people!!! We love the fact that Indian households are all so together. Everyone in the family lived next door to each other. There were at least 30 kids and 20 adults all amazed by the two Westerners that wanted to eat with them. And we were also the first to do it…pioneers baby! For some reason we were the only ones that ate and Jen wasn’t really given any airtime for speaking by the men all night. We were served chapattis and the local vegetable with a very very spicy sauce, was really good until the man decided to show us how to really eat Indian food and chushed all the Chipati in his unwashed, used to wipe his butt hands!! So we slowly finished some of the untouched bits and left the rest, damn ruined that one! And yes, India people do not use toilet roll, the use their left hand, and yes there is never ever any soap let alone water to use afterwards!! Yuk at the thought!

Vodafone and the saree

After dinner they decided to show us the massive Vodafone phone tower in their back garden. It was 170 foot and had a small air conditioned room for the equipment attached. They told me that when it gets too hot they all go and chill in there, lol.

There was also another surprise…Jen in a lush red sari. We’d told them we’d recently got married as its easier than saying boyfriend/girlfriend and so they put Jen (the ladies did) in a gorgeous red sari which ladies wore once married. Hilarious it was as she had to sit in the air con room with the WHOLE family watching whilst I took some pics. They loved it, one man kept arranging her in all these different poses to take pictures! Very strange dynamics though because only the men were allowed to watch the photos being taken, the women didn’t dare to come over and see.

She’s gonna blow……agghhh

We said our goodbyes and went back to the fort where we were most definitely not getting any sleep as there was a storm brewing! Mental winds, and I mean mental winds, shook all the doors and fittings in our room all night. No sleep once more, lol. It felt like someone was in the room with us trying to get out..or in…

02/04/08 – Pushkar, the lakeside, hippy town was our next town. Blimey we were hitting quite a few places weren’t we! So 3 hours of driving got us to this mountainous town. I was loving the scenery and wanted to climb every mountain. And we’d seen at least three Italian restaurants on the way, so plenty of choice. Pushkar was pretty small but very touristic. The streets around the lake were filled with everything a tourist could wish to buy. When its holy time here, October/November, thousands of pilgrims attend a Camel Fair which is one of India’s most famous festivals. We just found that it was full of flies, but had tons of character.

Another storm’s a brewin!

After eating in local restaurant for 100 rupees (not bad Biryani) we were looking forward to a night of TV only to discover that this place was also blemin stormy and would have at least 20 power cuts!! No TV for us then! The storm was mental and defs not a lame UK one we’re used to! This time we decided to eat dinner in the hotel as it was reasonably priced! First time for everything.

03/04/08 – Another 3 hours of driving and we arrived in Rajesthans biggest city, Jaipur! This place is called the pink city as the Hindu colour for welcoming is pink. A huge but well planned city, Jaipur provided us with a really nice hotel to stay in. The afternoon here consisted of a tour of the cities huge Amber fort at the top of a hill. Very impressive indeed.

Pizza Hut me up baby!

That evening we had…..Pizza Hut!!! Oh yeah baby!! But to be honest, it was pretty lame in my opinion. So not worth the money at all. Pizza Hut over here costs about 600 rupees (I know, I know, I wont pay 350 in one place but will in others…this is Pizza Hut though). A great nights sleep and a successful clothes hand washing mission later and we were ready for the 4th April.


A free day today so not much going on as Jen isn’t feeling too well, her eye is the size of an elephants butt as she got bitten by a mossie. Tonight we eat cheap again..make up some of the deficit from last night. Tomorrow we head to Agra where the Taj Mahal is….OH YEAH!!!!