To go to the latest message, click here.
[Paul Crate, well known Evershot resident, is on a round-the-world tour and has promised us a word or two from time to time. Here's the first instalment from India.]
Monday 2 February 2004
ALL of the madness!
ok, the internet in india is quite suspect, this is the third time i've
tried to send this e mail, generally i've given up because the service
disappeared but also i've had to endure power cuts, running to the lavortry
in record time and almost passing out with heat exhaustion before the guy
running the shop said 'you no want air conditioning on?' Anyway, onwards...
flight out of S.A. was extremely uneventful - nice to have something that
way for a change - and air mauritius was pretty good, no wobbly wings or
smoking engines, the food was nice and the only gripe we had was the fact
that they were showing tomb raider 2 as the in flight movie (thats the
fourth time we've seen it in the last three flights!).
Landed in mauritius to find out we weren't allowed in to the country as we
didn't know where we were going to stay, hmmm ok wasn't expecting that one,
but not too much trouble as we swiftly sent zimb to chat up, er i mean chat
TO, the nice lady on the information desk and she sorted us out a hotel for
about fifteen quid each, much better than the 120 pounds (note - no pound
signs on indian keyboards) per person we were quoted before we came out,
just about twenety times over our budget then. The hotel was quite nice,
fairly clean, air conditioning and you only got small electric shocks off of
the taps in the showers, which gave it a nice kind of russian roulette feel,
character building i'm sure. Spent the day on the beach in mauritius with ALL
of our bags, although we're not doing bad in the tanning stakes, we were at
a local beach without any touristy places nearby and the locals thought we
were very interesting indeed, frisbee is apparently equally as exciting as a
spaceship landing on the beach. Mauritius is officially the most humid place
in the world (so far) and i just about won the sweating competition by 3 and
a half litres per hour, then we went to the airport, killed the massive black
and white stripy spider that had concealed himself in my rucksack somewhere,
and caught our plane to india.
Ate the last meat on the plane that we were going to taste for a LONG time,
watched the sketchiest bollywood movie with a very random storyline that was
in no particular order and slept a bit before we landed in the madness.
Mumbai (bombay) airport didn't seem that random to begin with, we collected
our bags, then had a small skirmish with a squadron or two of mosquito's (we
won the battle, but the war is far from over) before booking a taxi and a
hotel with a small lady in a broom cupboard that directed us out the back
for our cab. We got out to where the pre-paid taxi rank was to find a field
about the size of four football pitches with around four million taxi's
heading towards the gate nearest us as if they'd just been poured in to a
funnel,all of them looked a bit like the old trebants we used to get in the
60's or 70's? So we find our taxi number which has got a bloke in it who's
about ninety and looks not dissimilar to a walnut, he opens up the boot
which you could have probably squeezed one of our rucksacks in to and then
closed, as he starts to load all three bags in to the boot we get a little
worried, 'we can have a couple of the bags in the back with us if you want
mate?'........'mate?'..........'they probably won't fit in there
eh?'....'HELLO?' 'HELLOOO?' we give up as he starts to tie the boot shut (or
more like open) with a length of bailer twine, hmm safe enough, i'm sure.
Then we crawl in to the taxi and realise there was no way we were ever going
to get any bags in the back with us aswell, so we'll have to trust him. As
he starts the engine and try to pull away it feels as if the crank shafts
about to come through the floor of the taxi, the entire world vibrates for
about 15 seconds and then we shudder in to some sort of
movement,ok.............
I've never been on a taxi journey like that in my life, not only does nobody
put their lights on (which i find can be quite helpful when its dark) but
theres just no bloody rules to driving, i thought the undertaking that went
on in S.A. was a bit hairy but if theres a gap that you can't quite squeeze
your vehicle through then you can have a go anyway and at the last minute
somebody will hopefully move and you'll survive for another 30 seconds! We
just about worked out that there is some sort of unwritten hierachy of
whoevers biggest gets priority, so from least important to most it goes
:dogs(loads of wild dogs in india, and quite alot of dead ones too), people,
bikes, scooters and motorbikes, rickshaw taxi's, cars, buses, anything
bigger than a bus, cows. Yes, all of the madness, cows everywhere, it can be
9am rush hour on a motorway the size of the m25, but everyone stops because
daisy's decided to have a small snooze in the middle of the road, imagine
walking around the centre of london and there's a couple of hefers (no, not
essex girls) eating out of a skip, they're not wired up right i'm sure!
Other insanity includes a four lane motorway where the inside lane is for
children on rollerskates (going to school maybe? you tell me!), locking up
the back wheels to get round a corner you nearly missed, and traffic lights
that are constantly on amber! honestly i'm not making this shit up! it was
all good fun though as it took our minds off of the fact that our wordly
possesions were being dragged along behind the cab on a length of bailer
twine.
Just mumbai itself is an assualt on all the senses, you go from little huts
and shacks the size of a punch and judy show, to massive great big building
with worldwide brand names like HSBC (zimb goes all misty eyed) and fed ex,
you smell the most amazing food being cooked followed by a massive river
that doubles up as an open sewer and hits you in the chest like a mallet,
its absolutely amazing. and mad.
We finally arrive (alive AND with all our stuff, who would have thought it?)
at the hotel in colaba, the touritsy part (although not quite the costa del)
of mumbai where all the hotels and resteraunts are, to find that our room
price has magically risen over the duration of our taxi ride (but then we
were kind of expecting it anyway) but its about eight in the morning and
we're all shattered as we haven't slept properly so we go upstairs and crash
out(on a very suspect looking porn bed with black shiny sheets but we didn't
care).
We woke up around lunch time and went for a mooch about, everyone we'd spoke
to for advice on india said mumbai was very expensive and we should get out
as soon as possible, so we had just enough tme to see the gateway of india,
(which had some sort of india appreciation thing going on which entails
james getting a flowery wristband from a small girl who then wants to either
kiss him or marry him - mad), see the taj mahal hotel, get ripped off a
couple of times, see more cows, wooden scaffolding thats tied together with
bailer twine (obviously a big market for that over here), some old geezers
smoking opium very openly on the streets about thirty people crowded round a
tv in the road watching cricket and then buy a train ticket to goa for the
next day.
The trains over here are actually very well organised, once you get used to
the way they work its really quite logical which is unlike india! each train
has a name and number and goes to the same place at the same time every day
- we obviously weren't used to this coming from england but once we got
passed all of the people trying to tell us 'that train is full, you can come
on my bus' or that 'your service has been cancelled, i give you camel ride,
cheap price!' ok, not really a camel ride but people will honestly tell you
anything so that you either go with them or so that they can organise your
ticket for you and then they'll stick some 'commision' on top, we got a 3
tier sleeper train down to goa which basically means theres three levels of
beds up to the top of the carrige, sounds crowded but its not and they're
actually very comfortable. you get breakfast and lunch brought round to you,
then the waiter tries to charge you three times what he said it was going to
cost in the first place until you laugh at him and pay him what he told you
the first time (worth a try i suppose!).
You weren't allowed to sit on the roof of the train but you could hang out
of the doors to see lots of fantastic scenery, LOADS of people playing
cricket, cows (of course), and quite a number of people all pooing in a
stream along the side of the track, nice.
Unfortunately at this point in your 10 hour train trip, you meet kevin.
Kevin is a scouser.
AND he's a scaffolder.
That would probably do as an explanation because he's just short of a shell
suit, a moustauche and some gold chains to be the most stereotypical scouser
you could ever meet, he just asked the time as he was wandering through the
carrige to start off with but when he heard we were english he stopped for a
chat, he wasn't too bad at first because he had been to india before and was
telling us some nice places to go, where to stay, what not to do etc etc,
but then he went and got all of his stuff and sat with us for the rest of
the journey, THEN he decides to get off at our stop and tag along with us as
he's travelling on his own (we now know why), the bloke just would not shut
up, everything anyone said he had done it and was great at it, he'd met
every famous person you'd ever heard of and many more you hadn't, and
insulted every single one of them, if you'd seen a band, he's been to one of
their gigs and got in free, AND got backstage. he spent a hell of a lot of
time saying how glad he was that all the terrible english tourists that ruin
holiday places for everyone (like majorca, ibiza, costa del sol etc etc)
hadn't found india and goa yet, YOU ARE THOSE BLOODY TOURISTS!! evrywhere we
went he just had the loudest voice and swore every other word, even to the
point of some people in a resteraunt blatantly leaving because he was
bugging them. And yes muggins here took one for the team and shared a room
with him.after he'd woken me up at 6 am to tell me he couldn't sleep because
of the sound of the waves - duh. well if you're in a shack RIGHT on the
beach you're probably going to hear some waves! - it was all too much and we
explained the situatiuon and left, QUICK!
Goa itself is proper gorgeous! all the massive sandy beaches, lined with
palm trees, the sea's warmer than the shower in your room and its usually up
around the high twenties early thirties, top place to relax after frantic
flying,manic mumbai and scarpering from scousers! We've been to arambol,
where we left kevin, then chapora, vagator and now anjuna where they have a
massive market every wednesday selling allsorts, and all the haggling is
part of it (gourds are optional apparently), it can drive you up the wall a
bit though because as soon as you get near to agreeing a price they try and
chuck something else in with the deal (d'ya like dags?) and push the price
up a bit but its all part of it.rossy got stitched up a treat by all the
beach sellers too, these two indian girls came and set up their 'shop' on
his towel, told him ross was a lovely name and he was very handsome and
before he knew it he'd bought enough to fill a warehouse, unlucky!
other news involves me spending a day in bed �because i was inquisitive
about whether or not i'm still allergic to banana's - i am. Zimb being very
sick indeed due to a dodgy resteraunt and me having a birthday, i'm sure all
the presents from everyone will arrive soon yeah?
Yesterday was pretty cool though, its always been freezing on my birthday so
i got up and went for a run on the beach (shock horror!) then we went for
fodder, chilled out under some palm trees and then in the bar before having
a few light ales (in handled glasses - it WAS sunday after all!) in the
evening, not quite the same as getting shitfaced in bridport, but then i'm
sure it'll still be there when i get home!
now we're waiting for em dyke and em hill to come down and meet us as they
fly in today, then we'll probably jaunt a bit more down the coast before
heading to bangalore, hampi, and maybe over to madras on the east
coast.(eastside massive)
heard you all had snow at home, that seems mental but i'm sure it was all
the fun and i hope evryone got snowed in to the pub!
ciao for now
international
if-this-doesn't-send-this-time-i'm-going-to-throw-it-out-of-the-window
cratey
p.s. Harry, can you ask smudge to send me over his heaviest lump hammer in
case we meet up with kevin again? i know he'll appreciate its for a good
cause!
p.p.s. the footy coverage over here is shocking, theres all the cricket tho,
but transfer news would be appreciated, did utd get saha?
Friday 13 February 2004
We've not done a great deal since last i wrote but i'll only start
forgetting stuff and not include it in my next one if i don't write now and
i'm quite keen to keep you all up to date with the complete freaks we keep
meeting so i thought i'd write anyway (and its a bit TOO hot to lie in the
sun today so a nice airconditioned computer room was too much to resist -
not that i want to rub it in at all!)
we visited the anjuna flea market again last week, i got some nice reebok
(honest guv, they're not fake!) 3/4 length trousers for about one pound
seventy, after which we went to a large outdoor bar called '9-bar' they have
big pyramid structures with some massive speakers in, and the centre
dancefloor bit is surrounded by steps that go up like a ampitheatre and then
the top is lined with palm trees on the edge of the cliff leading down to
the beach, very nice! they always have two djs on that play one tune after
another kind of like the 'vs' nights we get back home, very large.
unfortunately we had to walk most of the way as the rickshaw we tried to get
broke down about a quarter of the way there, the driver was trying to wedge
a stick in to some sort of lever on the engine but we decided we needed the
excercise (and to survive the journey in one piece!) so we walked the rest
of the way, stopping for fodder about half way in a random resort in the
middle of nowhere!
as they've brought in laws that stop music being played out doors after 10pm
(this was to stop all of the free parties and full moon parties that kept
happening everywhere) 9-bar closed at ten and we had to go on, we did hear
about a club just up the road from us that opened at 11 so we mulled around
for a bit, got a couple of drinks and then went to investigate. Found it no
worries but were a bit shocked to hear it was Rs200 to get in, we stopped to
question this and they said, 'oh, you're english? you can go in free!'
random. The club was quite large but also quite expensive so we started off
just chilling having a couple of quiet beers and a look round when some
sketchy guy comes up to our table and introduces himself, he's canadian and
called dylan, at first seems fairly sound and we're chatting away, where've
you been, where are you going etc and it turns out he's travelling on his
own (we later find out why...) so after about 10-15mins of general piffle he
starts on religion and his beliefs and which parts of the bible are true and
why jews are wrong (?!) and starts asking us all what we believe in...ok my
beers disappeared suspiciously quickly (i must've had a sudden thirst for
some unknown reason) and we make our excuses and leave, but not before he
makes it clear that apparently i've 'got a very good soul'! Freeeeaaaaak.
thursday night we met a random dutch/italian bloke called david who looked
like he'd had more than his fair share of illicit substances but he was
actually quite sound once he managed to get both his eyes pointing in the
same direction! and he did tell us about a full moon party that was going to
take place the following night (fri) problem was, as they were not really
allowed anymore (or downright illegal, whichever way you want to put it!)
they were very hush hush until the last minute. so there are about 3 or 4
different venues where it could happen and then mr policeman doesn't turn up
and pull the plug (not that he would've done anyway we found out later), so
friday we went to nine bar again, found david and he even WHISPERED the
venue in to zimbs ear (no, zimb says he wasn't trying any funny business
apparently!) on a massive loud dancefloor, talk about cloak and dagger!
turns out the venue for the one big full moon party in the whole of goa
was......about 400m from where we were staying - NICE! talk about
convinient, they must've realised we're on a budget and couldn't afford
large taxi rides everywhere, very kind.
so we mooched down the beach where there were some old temple ruins just
back off of the sand where the party was going to be, but who did we meet on
the way down there, no, not kevin but dylan, complete with very loud shirt
and a new 'friend' who was even camper than he was (we don't think they were
actually gay but if they went for a meal they would've had mince rather than
steak!) so we got dylan to show us these ruins and there was an ARMY of chai
ladies set in a large circle around a large black shape at the end of these
ruins, turns out the shape was a wall of speakers with a little dj booth in
the middle of them, and all the chai ladies had little mats around their
candles and kettles, anytime you went near one of them they'd shout at you
'CHAI? COFFEE? come sit! EGG? OMLETE? you come sit here!!' it was kind of
like when you go near an automatic door a bit too close and it opens even
though you're not going through it! stray too close and you were seriously
harrased! nothing was going on for a while so we ditched dylan and wandered
off to have a look round. drank some chai and some overpriced beer and
chatted to a few people and we found out that its mostly only the midweek
parties that upset the locals as they had to get up for work and the kids
had to go to school and stuff so very loud music until the next day wasn't
very sociable, BUT, at weekends and the full moon whoever organises the
parties just turns up to the local bobby in charge with a large suitcase
full of wonga and says 'can you go and put this in a safe place (ie - YOUR
bank account) whilst i go off and have a lovely party please constable!' and
everybodies happy!
the music started about 1ish maybe and was VERY VERY loud indeed, (no way
they could've done it on the sly with tunes that loud and large) you must've
heard it for miles around, then after an hour or so we saw dylan sticking
out like a sore thumb right down the front, covered in flower necklaces and
headbands, more glow in the dark tomfoolery than you could shake a stick at
and a very lovely mirrored sash (like miss world wears when she wins) over
his shoulder, he was dancing like a loon and everyone around him pissing
themselves but i suppose at least he was enjoying himself!
It was still going when the sun came up (which was gorgeous), and they had
to spray the floor with a hose because all of the dust in the air from
everyone dancing on the sand was going in to the speakers, after that they
chucked a load of water down every half hour or so as it was covering
everything! then the music went on a bit longer, then it got bloody hot
around 8ish, then the music went on a bit LONGER and everyone was still
absolutely mad for it, leaping about like lunatics!
we finally caved in and went home just after ten and the locals reckoned
they finally shut everything down around half eleven - nutters. i think the
highlight of the night (other than dylan, obviously) was a tune they played
around four or five in the morning that just slowed and stopped as if the
plug had been pulled before a loud voice came over the P.A. saying 'I"M
SORRY LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, BUT THE POLICE ARE HERE AND THEY'VE TOLD US TO
STOP THE PARTY' before a seconds silence and then a large baseline kicked in
and everyone realised it was just a wind up! top tune, and yes, we did shit
ourselves!
Next day we slept until the afternoon and then moved down to palolem which
has got the most gorgeous beach we've seen so far, its still got all of the
old wooden fishing boats working off of it and they drag them up the beach
every night when they come in and leave all of their nets and stuff in
there, there's not very many people hasseling you to buy beads or pineapples
or to give you a massage or clean your ears (eugh) so its well peaceful. not
only that but the seas a lot clearer here and theres no rocks or anything
hidden under the water that you could cut or break yourself on.
we've met up with em's hill and dyke too, VERY strange seeing people from
home all the way down here in india, and we spent a quality few days with
them, explored this little island just off of the north end of the beach and
hired some scooters for a couple of days. Actually the scooters were in a
class of their own, we explored north on the first day and had a look round
an old fort, and from up on the battlements you could see a little cove in
the distance so we thought we'd try and find it, after some very suspect
little dirt tracks and roads (that definately weren't designed for those
scooters) we managed to find a little path that led down to such a secluded
little beach it was untrue. the only other people we saw were two locals
cutting down palm leaves for the roof of their shelter, it was proper movie
type stuff, gorgeous. then we headed south on the second day found a beach
that was protected for turtle nesting, madness! we managed to get the
scooters back in one piece (and ourselves for that matter!) with only rossy
coming off when his front wheel slid in the sand. no blood shed or hidden
costs tho so no worries. the ems left the night we took the bikes back on a
sleeper bus but we think we're going to meet them again on the east coast as
we're doing south india in different directions.
Other than that all we've been doing is sleeping in a small bamboo shack
with a hessian roof just off of the beach (if you can see the 3 of us tucked
up in mossie nets on two single beds you should have a good laugh) but its
only just over 2 pounds 50 per night for all three of us, bargain! we've
also managed to get involved with footy matches that take place every night
on the beach from half five till it gets dark, then we have a quick dip in
the sea to cool off before going for some gorgeous fodder, i was saying last
night how weird it is that 2 yrs ago i didn't even like curry but now i can
see it being one of my highlights of india! its just a case of getting used
to the spices i suppose, maybe they wouldn't like fish & chips until they'd
eaten it a few times (or roast beef.....hmm then again, maybe not!)
We'll probably stay here till the sunday or monday and then head down to
gokarna where we're talking about getting some more scooters, riding
bareback round india is a top feeling, ALL of the fun!
better get back to the beach now, its a tough life you know!
hope everyones great, keep in touch.
international can-i-stay-in-goa-please cratey
p.s. no offence to anyone from canada, i'm sure its lovely!
p.p.s. (from my last e-mail) no offence to anyone from
liverpoo.....actually, bollocks, liverpools horrid!
Wednesday 3 March 2004
Get the rifle willie ...
Haven't written for ages but i'll try and remember to get everything in the
right order, finally left the beach footy haven that was palolem and headed
south to gokarna, got stared at quite a bit on the train so we've obviously
still got a bit of work to do on the tan before we can pass as locals! From
the train we had a very interesting rickshaw ride to om beach where we were
going to stay, it was kind of reminiscent of the dakar rally only on a much
worse road and with the three of us, and all of our rucksacks in a space the
size of a small wardrobe we gave a small cheer everytime we rounded a corner
and stayed on three wheels! Om beach itself was very nice, we had another
little bamboo shack which didn't have any power but it was nice and cheap so
we weren't fussed. The showers were four walls, no roof, and a bucket and
tap,whilst all the toilets were indian squat ones which wasn't ross's
favourite feature of the place to say the least, it was here that i first
experimneted with the infamous 'indian wipe' which disgusted the others no
end, it didn't actaully go as bad as expected although i did spend the next
20 minutes doing my best lady macbeth impersonation with the soap!
after the exceptionally suspect rickshaw ride over we decided to get a boat
taxi back to town which was very nice on the way there but by the time we
came back the waves had got up quite a bit and there were twice as many of
us in the boat, we got properly drenched and after some frantic bailing we
set foot back on dry land with all lives still intact, (there was a period
of about 15 minutes when this didn't look 100% guarenteed when i must admit
i was seriosly looking for ballast to chuck out of the boat, zimb must weigh
quite a bit you know!)
The town was just preparing for a festival so we got to watch them building
some very odd wooden structures on wheels that were too high to get past any
of the cables running between the buildings but they didn't seem too
bothered by this and built them on wheels anyway. the festival itself wasn't
anything too special and we left after the first day, heading down to fort
kochi, a little island on the west coast. we nearly never got there though,
as the train we caught at about one in the morning must've had their
carriges in the wrong order because we got on the wrong one (can't have been
our fault surely....), then all of the interconnecting doors were locked so
we had to jump out at the next station, run down the platform with all of
our bags and get back in the right car, simple. problem was that someone had
locked the doors from the inside and when we tried to get in they wouldn't
budge an inch, nor would the ones on the next carrige either, or the next
one. So after a small amount of soiling myself and having visions of being
stuck on a platform god knows where in the middle of the night, we finally
found a door that was unlocked and fell over each other to get in the door,
just as the train started pulling away! close one.
Fort Kochi itself was ok, if a bit scuzzy, they had some very impressive
chinese cantilever fishing nets along one side of the island that just
dipped in to the sea at high tide and then about four blokes would pull on
rope attached to a weighted counterbalance that lifted the net out of the
water to see what they'd caught before the birds came in and ate all the
fish. genius! we managed to have a go at pulling them in too which wasn't as
difficult as it first looked, quite clever when its all made with tree
branches tied together with wire and the weights were just large stones
taken from the beach.
They had a nice little fish market just back from the beach where you could
buy the days best catch and then take it to the resteraunt next door for
them to cook it for you, we decided against it though as the resteraunt look
pretty minging and we didn't fancy the following day running to the toilet.
Seems these indian gods are just as sarcastic as all the rest though as i
promptly spent the next 24 seperating myself from some napalm that i REALLY
don't remember eating whilst zimb and rossy went out to explore the island
on some puch bikes they hired. they did cheer me up when they came back in
the evning though as everything they went to see was closed and they were
also quite probably the two most tired and sweaty people in the world, seems
this travelling lark doesn't really keep your fitness up.
from gokarna we caught an eight hour backwater cruise down to quilon, we
managed to get some seats right on the back 'balcony' type bit of the boat
which were class, it was really chilled out cruising down some really slow
rivers in the sun, past loads of little local villages with people washing
their clothes or swimming in the shitty water, mmm nice! It was quality
though and we got to see a massive shoal (school? herd?) of jelly fish as
the river widened out to the sea and then a massive field of the fishing
nets they had at kochi came in to sight, it was well impressive, kind of
like something out of war of the worlds crossed with jason and the
argonauts, much better than another train ride. Quilon was absolutely
disgusting, you stood on a cockroach every other step just walking down the
pavement at night and you should have seen the size of the rat we saw from
our balcony, it had a bloody saddle on it it was that big! Anyway we got out
of there pretty quickly and caught a train down to kanyakumari, the southern
most tip of india, its a really big pilgrim destination apparently and the
only place where you can watch the sun set and the moon rise in the same
place at the same time, although we couldn't get our heads around why
(possibly tourist piffle?). We watched it anyway (and they did) and then
read the very interesting sign about the three bodies of water that met at
that point (bay of bengal, indian ocean and the arabian sea) before getting
lost (for a change) on our way back to the guest house we were staying at.
Next day we visited a massive statue that had only recently been built
(between 1990-2000) which was to celebrate 133 'proverbs' from hindi
religious texts, it was really impressive and they'd even built it 133 feet
tall (d'you see what they've done there?) but when we got to the foot of the
statue we pretty much got mobbed by indian tourists! they all wanted to
shake our hands and ask us our life story, then we must've had our photo
taken about a million times and we even saw one of them filming us with his
video camera, it was like being a celebrity! We managed to escape this
madness and caught a ferry over to a temple on another island close by that
had some really intricate marble carvings and ornate decorations on one side
of a big courtyard and a stone that looked a bit like someones foot which
people kept throwing money at on the other side, even more madness!!
From Kanyakumari we headed north to mamallapuram which is just below chennai
(madras), its main source of income is through stone carvings and statues as
they have an entire road lined on both sides with stone masons and their
shops. It was really good to watch everything being done the old fashioned
way, after seeing the work done at blaise with all the air tools and CAD
drawings and then watching the masons here heating up their chisels in a
coal fire on the side of the road and drawing them out themselves it made
you appreciate how much of a skill it is, mind you i did see a dewalt mini
grinder on one stall so things are catching up over here!
We just randomly bumped in to Em and Em at the end of this road too which
was quite unexpected (they were fending off some guy trying to sell them a
karma sutra carved ball that was so graphic it would've put playboy to
shame) so we had dinner with them and caught up, turns out Em Dyke had been
quite ill and had to spend a night in hospital which was pretty nasty but
she was ok again by the time we met up with them and they were both on good
form.
From mamallapuram we got the death run bus to chennai (on which we again
held celebrity status) and then got the night train to Bangalore. Bangalore
is called india's silicone valley as most of the computing and software
firms have set up there, its also where all of the big companies back home
are moving their call centres to. Because of the big money injection and
western influence its become extremely westernised as a city, big billboard
adverts everywhere, most people wearing western clothes, they've evn got kfc
and dominoes pizza! Also with the western influence has come a pub culture
which is quite mad because you can be in the pub for an hour or two with
pool tables, sport on the tv's, and hip hop blaring out as if you're in a
town at home and then walk out of the door and the roads are still crazy
with rickshaws and cows fighting off buses and mopeds with four people on
them! Talking of the roads, they are well scary and we've found the safest
way of crossing them without running through the traffic like a headless
chicken is to 'rickshaw hop'. this basically involves walking in one side of
a rickshaw and then straight out of the other on the premise that if you're
in a rickshaw your chances of being hit by another one are a lot lower, it
confuses the hell out of the poor driver your passing through though!
As Bangalore was so westernised (and has happy hour from 10:30am until 6pm,
class!) we thought it would be a good place to spend zimbs birthday, and it
was pretty eventful! spent around five hours trying to buy some more
travellers cheques before finding out foreigners can't buy them unless their
leaving the country in 7 days (FIVE HOURS it took us to find this out, we
got told a million different stories and eventually managed to piece the
truth together!), so we then spent another hour trying to get money out of
the cash point before realising we'd got our maths wrong and were trying to
withdraw 2000 pounds worth of rupees, and this was before we'd got to the
swiller!
Finally sorted ourselves out, made last orders for happy hour and then went
to a resteraunt we'd been recommended to go to that did good steaks, mmm,
meat. after 5 weeks we were really craving a large steak and a bottle of red
wine or two, but when we got to the resteraunt we found out it was alcohol
free, oh dear. Pretty much inhaled the gorgeous steaks they brought us and
as things were getting late headed for a club we'd heard about called zero
g, it was only open until 12 but thats pretty impressive in india anyway so
we went in and had to get in a lift to go to the top floor where the club
was. As it was monday it was pretty dead but we didn't have to pay to get in
so we were well happy, we were even happier when they sold red wine, albeit
very expensive (even more expensive than bottles at home). there were quite
few blokes behind the bar and zimb was chatting away to ross when he paid
for the bottle before they came and sat down, we drank most of the bottle,
talked for a bit and even played a bit of cards as the place was almost
empty, then a waiter came and cleared the bottle off the table before one of
the barmen came over and asked us to pay our bill, zimb explained he'd
already paid the bill but the barman said 'no you can't have done, its not
been crossed off' the problem was zimb hadn't really looked at the bloke
he'd paid and so couldn't tell them who it was. Zimb definately had paid as
we'd split the cost of the bottle when he sat back down and he'd had the
change from paying when he sat down, but rather than saying they must've
made a mistake they started saying how trustworthy all their staff were and
theres no way we could've paid. Another barman came over and started to get
involved and then they began to get quite arsey about the whole matter,
saying we should pay the bill as we owed the money, we tried explaining what
had happened again but they were still getting a bit chewy, then the second
barmen started pointing out camera's we hadn't seen up near the ceiling
pointing almost exactly where zimb had been stood at the bar, 'you pay, we
have security camera's here you know!' they said to which we replied
'excellent, lets go and have a look and it'll not only show that we've paid
but also WHO took the money' then they started talking to each other in
hindi, before the first barman walked off and the second man stayed and
started insisting we should pay again, 'hang on lets go and look at the
film' we said and it'll clear it all up but then he started saying that what
was on the cameras was none of our business, we told him of course it was
our business as it would prove our innocence, after which he told us they
were broken and didn't work! hmmm, i asked him who's fault that was and he
said it was the managers fault so i asked to see the manager, he then told
me he was the manager and the cameras weren't important and we should pay
our bill, then he disappeared and the first guy turned up again, more
disagreeing and banging our heads against a brick wall followed before an
enormous guy in a suit turned up who was obviously the bouncer and had no
idea what was going on, they said he was the manager and that we should pay,
then a couple more waiters turned up on the scene and started interfereing,
and then the first so called manager started asking other blokes at the bar
what they thought we should do, one of them siad, the first rule of
hospitality is not to involve the other customers but another one (maybe in
his 50's) who was drinking with his rather large son (mid 30's) started
getting a bit lary saying how he thought we should pay up anyway, how we
were english and probably drunk and couldn't remember, and anyway you all
earn so much you should just pay up! i explained to him that a) we weren't
drunk as we'd only had a couple of pints before we came in and b) did he
really think it was fair that we should pay twice, to which he replied yes
we should pay twice! i half joked that he was probably drunk and his son
tried to go for me!! it was becoming pretty clear that we were being
stitched up as all the staff kept changing their stories, trying to say that
we said one thing when we had said something else and it was at this point
rossy said fine, we'll call the police in and they can sort it out. they
said ok and ross got on his mobile, he got through and explained we were
having some trouble at zero g when he got cut off, then every time he phoned
after that there was no answer, strange. he went back to the bar (different
member of staff) and asked them to call the police, to which they said oh
don't call the police, that'll just cause more trouble!
then the son of the older guy was talking to the bouncer and they grabbed me
by the arm and said, come on we'll go out the back to the service lift,
judging by the way he had hold of me, and the fact that there was about 8 or
10 staff around it looked decidedly like we were going to get a good
kicking, not fancying this very much i managed to wrestle free from the
bouncer and thought it was time to leave, i got in the lift which they stood
in the way of the door to stop it, zimb had been given a bill whilst all
this was going on and i came in just as he was explaining that the bill was
for a different amount to what our bottle of wine cost so it was obviously
bollocks, they'd also being telling him that he was a liar which didn't go
down very well and things started to get really quite shitty. We tried to
leave again and they started holding zimb back and puching him, he told them
that this was assualt and they should either phone the police or just let
him leave, to which they replied your english laws don't count here, in
india you have to pay!
the son was still trying to get us to go out the back for a scrap, the
waiters were now pushing pinching and generally being quite girly in trying
to provoke a reaction and it was all getting a bit much so ross got out his
mobile to try and call the police again and the bouncer nicked it off of him
and put it in his pocket! ross pointed out that this was really very
juvenile of him and although it was almost funny, he really couldn't do
that, but he said you can only have it back if you pay, so by now we're so
pissed off, not only by the fact that we know we're being pumped but because
we can't do anything about it or even leave we get together to weigh up our
options, the only two guys of any reasonable size were the bouncer and the
son in his 30's but there were still loads of scrawny waiters and barmen
about and basically we realised that we weren't really up for fighting and
if we did, what would the police do if they then did turn up, a free nights
lodge isn't to be sniffed at but i don't think indian cells are as comfy as
our hotel room! So i took lots of photo's of them all (which really pissed
them off) and we paid the cheapest bill and got in the lift. just as the
door was closing the bouncer stopped it and got in, he kept asking me to
take his photo again but i said that i was alright actually cheers mate, and
then rossy spotted him press -2 on the lift panel, still not keen for a good
shooing ross managed to press 0 and the lift stopped on the right floor and
we walked. happy birthday zimb, that red wine was very nice if a little
pricey!
we're still deciding if we should write to the lonely planet or anyone and
warn other people as it didn't seem like it was the first time they'd tried
it, but for now we've moved on to Hampi which is exceptionally gorgeous and
full of temples and ruins and friendly indians who want to know our life
story again, hurrah!!
Next on the list is the taj, a tiger park and some caves that are supposed
to be jaw dropping.
hope everyones all well and good, keep in touch.
International the-steak-was-nice Cratey
ps
Sunday 7 March 2004
i forgot to mention last time, a) we met a guy from netherbury called mike
peck who owned the kings arms in bradpole a few years back, he had a broad
dorset accent so we spotted him a mile off in a resteraunt in goa! anyone
know him? and b) when we hired scooters out in mamallapuram, we went looking
for a nice secluded beach and instead found the indian atomic nuclear
testing plant, they had large spikey gates and two blokes with big guns who
didn't want to pose for a photo, nice bit of sight seeing that one!
cheers, bye.
Thursday 11 March 2004
Hampi was proper quality, oodles of exteremely old ruins and temples,
monkeys everywhere, it looked like something off of a travel program! we
walked to see some ruins and an old enclosed temple on the first day we were
there, as we strolled past a 60-odd year old farmer tending his cows in the
middle of nowhere he was having a bloody good stare at us, so we stared back
until one of us had to break, we caved first and had to break the silence so
we smiled and cheerfully said 'hello' to which he replied 'you want
marajhuana?' after pissing ourselves for a while and then declining we
realised that this was obviously where british farmers have been going wrong
all these years! we hired some scooters out on the second day and toured
some more ruins, one of which had some still very intact elephant stables
which were well impressive, then we visited a temple dedicated to hanuman
(the helpful monkey god, but i'm sure you all knew that already) where they
put some dodgy orange paint on our foreheads and made us climb about a
million steps to the top of the world before smearing us with more orange
stuff and making us eat sugar and look at monkeys privates. On the way back
rossy got a puncture and found out his spare was flat, useful, so i gave him
a very wobbly backie back to the hire place where they told him it wasn't
their problem and he should go and see the mechanic, seems when it gets very
hot nobody can be assed to do anything and everything gets delegated, so i
left rossy to it and delegated myself a cold drink in a resteraunt whilst he
sorted it out!
We also looked round a bat infested temple that had 'musical stone pillars'
which were pretty impressive, they were all different widths, heights etc
and made different notes when struck, the guards weren't overly impressed
with us testing them out though as only 'registered guides' were allowed to
touch them - oooooooohhhhhhh!
from hampi we spent a day and a half getting three trains, to aurangabad,
trains can be pretty social though, we met an isreali girl who pissed
herself at my dorset accent everytime i said ANYTHING (it ain't that bad sn,
be it?) a mad scotsman called steve who sang to the locals in hindi and made
them nearly fall off of their seats and some sadhu sikh chaps who were
sharing their contessa rum around like it was going out of fashion, they had
a 'friend' with them who was passed out already so they considerately dumped
him next to the toilet to sleep it off, must've been beautiful to wake up to
that smell first thing in the morning!
we got to aurangabad in the middle of the 'Holi' festival which apparently
involves covering everyone and everything in purple dye (even the
politicians were covered with it on all of the news channels) and then
dancing spasmodically in the street to 'saturday night' by whigfield (didn't
see the suits doing this on the tv and i'm not quite sure what religious
significance whigfield holds but then we're used to the madness by now so we
kept on walking).
from aurangabad we went to the Ellora caves which were absolutely amazing,
over a section of cliff 2km long, the buddhists, hindu's and jains's
basically decided to hack some temples in to the side of the rock rather
than build them from the ground up.Even more impressive bearing in mind they
date from around 600 to 1000 AD so its not like they had any handy tower
scaffolds to wheel around and carve from, the hindu ones were the most
impressive as they were all built from the ceiling down over different
generations, so many of the people who started them never got to see them
anywhere near finished, and there was no room for any mistakes either, you
can't suddenly magic back a large pillar that you accidentally hacked down
because you had your great grandfathers plans upside down! all of the
statues and carvings and story panels were really detailed and even the
massive flat ceilings were all done with a hammer and chisel, you could
still see the individual strike markings.The best one though was just silly,
it was the kailasa temple, built by some emporer whose name i can't remember
and is the largest single 'sculpture' on earth, they dug three MASSIVE (and
i mean massive, about 100ft deep) trenches around what would eventually be
the temple, and then carved the temple out of the rock that was left, its
bloody enormous, i've seen it and i still don't reckon they could do it! it
took 150 years to finish and they removed 200'000 tonnes of rock to create
it according to some guide i earwigged in on (cheap at half the price), but
the only thing was that as i'm wandering round looking up at all this
magnificent carving and taking lots of photo's, every corner i went round
there were twenty indian tourists wanting to take MY photo! i kept trying to
shift the conversations back to the temple and how clever it was, but they
just weren't interested, one guy even replied, 'yeah, well they didn't have
jobs to go to in those days, where in england are you from?!' so i did a
runner and found ross and zimb outside being pointed at in amazement by some
more locals, madness.then we got a taxi back to the hotel in a jeep about
the size of a landrover discovery, us and 15 others, yes it must be a new
record, 18 of us in a jeep, pats cabs in bridport need to recalculate their
fares i reckon.
the following day we went to some similar caves in ajanta but the main
attraction with these was the paintings in them which were pretty much past
any recognisable pictures so they were a bit of a let down after the
impressive ones from the day before, so from ajanta we got the worlds most
crowded bus (a family of six on one double seat, say no more) to buldhana,
shitting ourselves the whole journey as our bags were on the roof, not tied
down and the road was similar to the one that neil armstrong landed on,
before getting a slightly better bus to akola.
When we got to akola we realised that we'd found a route that wasn't
frequented by tourists, none of the hotels would let us stay, (the
receptionists looked like rabbits in headlights as soon as we walked through
the door) and when we finally ran out of places to stay and had to stop
people to ask, a small crowd would gather around us in a matter of seconds,
i mean i'm used to people thinking i'm a bit of a freak but this is getting
silly! one guy even went home and got his son and then came back out with
him so he could see us and say hello, we sent rossy in to the last hotel we
could find as we thought he looked most indian (ok, he's got dark hair) and
they immediately said they had no rooms, he told them we'd be gone first
thing in the morning, before 8 as we had a train to catch which started a
long, hushed discussion in hindi before they said they did have rooms after
all! the staff there did some very impressive goldfish impersonations as we
went upstairs before two of the bell boys brought us up a rose each to say
thank you for choosing their hotel.......after being quite freaked out for a
while, we said thanks and then spent the next couple of hours deflating
rossy's head and convincing him he's not famous.
Although its quite intersting to see everybody's reactions when they've
never seen a white person before, it is a bit strange and i'm quite looking
forward to getting amongst some more tourists tomorrow in agra so they can
have all the attention. got the train here to nagpur this morning where
we're having a 7 hour wait for our next train (which is a 16hour sleeper)
and i don't feel as if i've slept properly for a couple of days so sorry if
this is a bit disjointed in places, from now on we've got a night on a
train, followed by a night in a hotel, then a night on a train....etc etc,so
its going to be pretty hectic until we fly to katmandhu on the 22nd where
it'll hopefully be a tad less insane!
hope everyones wild and groovy
international travel-tastic cratey
Tuesday 23 March 2004
I've bought some nice new trousers ...
We arrived in Agra armed to the teeth with different shields and deflective
devices for any sort of scam, stitch up or invitations to go in anybody's
shop or rickshaw, but when we got there we found it actually wasn't too bad,
you can see why everybody warns you about it being tourist central because
there really were large Americans in ill fitting t-shirts holding video
cameras everywhere, so the touts and hawkers had more money to aim at but it
was nowhere near as high pressure as people had been telling us. We checked
in to our hotel and went for a drink on the rooftop resteraunt whilst
watching the sun set on the Taj Mahal, it seemed extremely surreal that we
were actually there but it was very pleasant indeed. Next morning we got up
at silly o'clock in the morning and went and watched the sun rise on the
Taj, took a few photo's, unfortunately there was no water in the fountains
leading up to it as it's they were doing some repair work or something so we
couldn't get THAT photo with the reflection and everything being symmetrical
etc but we did have enormous fun with a mad local who was encouraging us to
lie upside down near one of the pools that had a puddle in it and try and
half climb in the pool to get a 'puddle shot', realizing this would make us
look extremely silly we of course obliged although quite how the photo will
come out I don't know as we were all wetting ourselves from our mans special
technical instructions!
Had a good look round the taj which is beyond words, some of the detail and
accuracy of the inlay work and just the sheer size of the whole project was
absolutely staggering, to build a huge mosque on one side of the main
building and then an exact replica on the opposite side just so it looks
balanced - even though its useless as a mosque because it doesn't face mecca
- is a class act, definitely no corners cut here then! (boring fact
352:actually some of the best stone masons had their thumbs chopped off
after they had finished work on the taj so that something as impressive
could never built again, so although they didn't cut any corners?.)
Saw some gardeners cutting the grass with a cow drawn mower and then had a
good giggle at the people with funny 'shoe-socks' on because they didn't
want to take their shoes off (I mean, they're feet can't have smelt any
worse than mine surely?) and then we went to get some breakfast. �Then we
got a boat over the river to see the proposed site of 'the black taj' which
never got built and then went to see the baby taj (can you spot a bit of a
theme running through agra at all?) which was still quite impressive even
after we'd seen the daddy (the baby taj was built first, bit of a practice
run by a queen who's name I've forgotten, then yer man the emporer decided
to show her how it was done and just go crazy, he obviously hadn't heard
that nobody likes a smart ass!). after the baby taj we went for a look round
one of the bazaars which made the crowds for christmas shopping look like a
walk in the park, so we decided to dive in to a small watch shop and watch
the rest of the cricket (India V Pakistan - a very close second, if not
equal first with religion in the 'scale of important things' over here) on a
small black and white tv with about a dozen old Indian fellows who didn't
know whether to stare at us or the tv.
Got a train to varanasi [see photo here] and went straight down to have a look at the
gangees, wandered up and down looking at the various Ghats until we came to
the one where people are dipped in the water and then cremated on the banks
once they die, there were three people being burnt when we turned up which
was a bit of a shock but after thinking for a while you could kind of see
that this was just business as usual for them, one of the 'untouchables'
(people who actually do the burning) actually gave me a large, not very
toothy, grin as I stood there doing my best goldfish impression.
Next morning we again got up exceedingly early, this time to experience what
it was like to miss the sunrise by five minutes, and went got a rowing boat
'cruise' up and down the river to see everybody having their morning wash
and prayer session. �I don't want to appear too cynical, but it really can't
be very good for you going in the water in the gangees, its apparently 100
times more polluted than the recommended level for swimming in the uk, all
of the sewage from varanasi pours straight in to it via large two foot wide
pipes all along the banks and theres more than the odd carcass floating
around in it, either cremated or otherwise! (we actually rowed past a new
species of dog that has developed a way of breathing underwater and I think
he was hunting for fish at the time?).
People who are easily disgusted should skip to the next paragraph, NOW. �We
actually got conformation that bathing in the gangees is not good for your
health when observing a young chap going for his early morning number two on
about the third (excuse the weak pun) step up from the river bank, I won't
go in to too much detail but he could have painted the german flag on the
concrete - not a well boy. I know this is all pretty gross but you have to
understand that whilst he was doing this people less than twenty feet away
are gargling with the water and brushing their teeth with it!! We should let
the lightweights return to the conversation now,
The rest of the day we looked around the various temples and forts in
varanasi, nearly getting rabies and a nasty bite mark in the monkey temple
(a well named place if ever I saw one), and in the next temple seeing one
man trying to beat another man to death with a stick, following it up by
throwing bricks at him because he was caught getting keen with his
girlfriend in the temple gardens, great entertainment!
After varanasi we caught a (21 hour - madness) train to jaipur (got off at
the wrong stop but managed to get back on again before the train pulled away
which was handy) which was a great city, a kind of fort/city with really old
quality buildings inside a massive walled surround, went to an observatory
with ludicrously large and complicated astronomy instruments (a 30ft sundial
and lots of other things that looked like I shouldn't be allowed anywhere
near them). �Went and looked around amber fort which we got an elephant ride
to the gates of which was quality, then got lost and explored little
passageways and tunnels that made me feel as if I was twelve years old again
(I said feel not act, before you start!).
We then met a man who wanted to know what percentage of british people were
racist, he accused zimb of being racist as he's got a shaved head so I quite
wanted to talk to him and explain that he'd got it all wrong and that we
were all quite nice chaps really! He then started to act quite strangely,
saying we should go for chai and then a beer later, and then wanted to take
us to a fort we were going to later in his car, when he turned up at our
hotel he was acting even stranger, wouldn't stop outside and kept driving
quite quickly and signaling to meet him up the road, we then saw he had a
rather large unpleasant looking 'friend' in his car so we decided not to
take him up on his extremely gracious offer, bearing in mind he was a
complete freak show.
Went to the tiger fort under our own steam, by rickshaw actually but its not
far off steam driven, with the worlds horniest rickshaw driver, every other
word he said was either 'pussy' or something meaning pretty much the same
thing - you get the picture. Watched the sun set over jaipur, which was a
lot bigger from the top of the cliffs than it looked from the ground, and
then got a cycle rickshaw back towards the center of town. �About halfway
there the road turned in to a bit of an incline and the poor chap on the
front of the rickshaw was having all sorts of problems with us three fat
bar-stewards on the back, so I thought I'd jump off and push to give him a
hand, I pushed till the road levelled out and he got a bit of steam up and
then, taking careful aim to avoid the cog and chain on the back axel jumped
on to the frame of the rickshaw for a rest, unfortunately, as it was quite
dark, I'd not seen the line of bolts about six inches to the left of the cog
and chain which were whirring round like a combine harvester, they got on
extremely well with my left trouser leg and the two items decided to get
quite involved with each other. I had enough time to worry about what was
going to happen to my leg when my trousers started to come down and although
this solved the problem of me losing one of my limbs I was still stuggling
to visualize how I was going to remove my trousers whilst balancing on the
back of a speeding rickshaw (and before you ask, no, of course I didn't
shout stop or anything sensible). Then to my great relief (and the woman on
the rickshaw next to ours' great amusement) my trouser leg ripped at the
knee - hurrah, I was free! I now remembered how to formulate words and
sounds and got our driver to stop, he was VERY confused to say the least and
hopefully will have some class facials in the photo we got of me and him
with the offending piece of trouser!
We wandered around the streets for a bit getting some quite strange looks
and not more than a few offers to come in to shops to buy trousers and then
some helpful sikh chaps lent me a hand and hacked off the other leg to a
similar level with a rusty pair of scissors, I'd had enough of being laughed
at by now so we went back to the hotel and packed up ready for our train
journey the following day to Sawai Madhopur.
In the time it took for us to get the train from jaipur to sawai, someone
had obviously done some pretty damn snappy livestock dealing and swapped all
of the cows in India for brightly painted camels which was a bit of a
surprise, we took it in our stride though and looked for a hotel whilst
trying to ignore the fact we'd stepped in to some sort of scene from star
wars. Met some friendly isreali people outside one of the hotels and they
said it was clean and cheap inside so we stayed there, getting up at half
four the next day for a three hour safari in to the ranthambhore tiger park.
� The safari was unfortunately pretty crap, about thirty of us crammed in to
a massive noisy, rattley open top truck that had less chance of sneaking up
on a tiger than a steam engine, we saw a few deer, some monkeys (poor
desolate monkeys with no temple of their own!) and a wild boar, and that's
about it, we were going to go on an afternoon safari too but after seeing
the first one decided to save our money. We did however, nearly get roped in
to being head of a festival procession in a nearby town, the owner of the
hotel said he'd give us a free camel ride if we wanted one, so we got on an
extravagantly decorated camel and cart and went off with a driver who
couldn't speak a word of enlgish, when we arrived at where the procession
was meeting there were decorated horses and elephants and a few brass bands
all lining up, we worked out we'd been duped and quickly darted in to the
nearest chai tent and watched the small black and white tv they had perched
on the table which was showing the next match in the India/Pakistan series -
result!
It would've been nice to get involved in the procession but we didn't know
how long it would last and we had a train to catch, also we'd been up since
half four and a few hours on a camel being pointed at wasn't high on our
list of priorities.
Got our last train in India to delhi and got a rickshaw to a hotel, it gets
lots of bad press as a city, (most notably the fact that its so polluted
that wandering round for a day is equivalent to smoking 20 fags, and if you
get involved in the rush hour traffic jams it rises to 40 - not silk cut
diet fags either I might add) but I thought it was pretty good as large
cities go.
The first underground in India wasn't finished yet which was a bit of a
disappointment as it was bound to be a whole tube full of insanity, but it
was quite interesting observing the madness surrounding the areas where
they'd just pulled up massive sections of the city center to put the tracks
and cables in!
Rossy and I spent 4 hours trying to send parcels home, ALL of the
conflicting rules and regulations and general red tape to deal with and then
we went to see the India gate which is a large arc de triumph type thing
that commemorates all of the Indian casualties in the second world war.
The following day we went on a tour of all things delhi, saw where Gandhi
was cremated and went to the biggest mosque in India where rossy and zimb
had to wear nappy's because they had shorts on, got some great blackmail
photo's for the future!
Mooched round some markets for a bit, had a nice chap in a chai shop sort us
out with a tasting session for tea spices to send home, and then went back
to sort ourselves out for the flight to Nepal on the following day.
And that was the end of India! As a country it defies definition, its very
huge and very random and should by all accounts by several country's,
sometimes it wears you down and gets to you a bit and other times you can't
believe how fantastic it is and how great some of the people are, but
basically what everybody told me before we came out was true, they said
'expect the unexpected' which you can never do and that's why its so great.
We're now in Nepal where we've got two weeks to cram in as much as we can,
we've booked up a five day trekking and white water rafting trip that takes
us on to the 'anna purna' circuit and makes us realize how incredibly unfit
we've become since we lost our regular footy practice slot in palolem, so at
the moment we're in kathmandu waiting for Thursday like kids waiting for
Christmas, I'll let you know who survives and what state their underwear's
in if I make it back in one piece!
International do-I-write-too-much? Cratey.