The first few months in Australia...

Thought it was probably about time I wrote a new blog again, it's been about 4 months since the last one and I guess no one's checking for updates anymore! Colm and I arrived here on the 2nd March at about midday. We thought we might have a hard time getting through the notoriously strict Australian border security but we breezed through and got a bus into Melbourne. We headed to St Kilda, a Melbourne suburb on the seafront. We only stayed one night at the first hostel we found, it wasn't a great place and they only had space for us for the one night. The next day we moved hostels, seemed like a nicer place on the face of it, the rooms were bigger, the kitchen seemed clean enough, foxtel and decent showers. We met up with a few of Colm's mates over the next few days who'd been in Australia for a while. We spent a few days applying for all sorts of jobs but not really getting any worthwhile replies. We finally rang the harvest line number and they put us in touch with a campsite who got us a grape picking job so we thought we'd give it a whirl. Got the train up to Swan Hill for $30 and had to wait around for 4 days because it was raining. When we did finally go picking we were on a shocking wage, worked out at about $4.50 an hour which is about 3 quid, slightly below minimum wage we thought so we only stayed for a couple of days. While we were up there Colm rang another Colm he knew and got us a job in Melbourne with him so we hot footed it back on the train to the bright lights of Melbourne and started work the next monday. The night before we started work Simon turned up at the hostel, a day earlier than we were expecting him, bit of a miscommunication somewhere, still not sure how it happened. Colm and I started work the next day at Entertainment Publications sending books conhtaining money off vouchers out to all the kids in Melbourne schools and if they didn't want them they sent them back. It was easy work and fairly good money for what we were actually doing. Simon tried looking for jobs over the next few weeks but didn't really get anywhere, in the end we managed to get him some work with us when it was busier for a few weeks. We managed to do a few things whilst we were in Melbourne, we went to the Australian Grand Prix in Alfred Park which was pretty cool, and we caught the end of the Melbourne comedy festival for Simon's birthday. I flew up to Brisbane for a weekend to see Ian which was a bit wierd but we had a great time. After that I carried on working at Entertainment and Simon and Colm went up the QLD/NSW border to work on a farm for 6 weeks seeding wheat and Chick Peas. By the time they got back to Melbourne I'd been there for nearly 4 months and since the boys had the car for getting to the farm we decided it was time to leave and see a bit of the country. So we packed up everything and off we went west towards Adelaide, Perth and Simon's unsuspecting relatives.

The Asia leg ends....

We headed south from Koh Phi Phi in Thailand, down to Penang in Northern Malaysia. It was a spot that both Colm and I knew very little about so we were sort of following Kris at this point. My first impression of Malaysia was that it seemed very prosperous and developed. Travelling around parts of Penang I think you could be forgiven for thinking you were in a city somewhere on the Mediterranean. There were two main things we wanted to do whilst we were in Penang, there was an 800m high hill to climb that offered brilliant views over the city, especially in the evening, however the first item to cross off the list was the snake temple. It’s more of a museum really although there is a small temple at the back of the complex. These days there are hundreds of snakes that are given full roam of the temple, you can wander about with pit vipers just sitting in trees at eye level with no sort of barrier at all. We also watched a snake attempting to eat a mouse although the two actually never met whilst we were watching. I did stroke a golden python from head to tail, which is apparently good luck according to the sign. We got back from the snake temple and found out that the funicular railway that climbed the hill was shut. We decided that it wasn’t worth sticking around just to climb the hill. The next port of call was Tamal Nagara, Malaysia’s rainforest national park. We had a mad dash to the ferry to get from Panang to the mainland and then a run to get to the station before the last train to Kuala Lumpur left. We made it just in time and sat in seats overnight to KL. The next morning we got a bus and then a boat to the national park. We decided not to do an organised trek in the jungle but just do our own thing, we were going to do a canopy walk and a trek to a hide, we’d then stay in the hide overnight, looking for animals while we were there and then do some more trekking the next day. We took Colm’s main bag with us full of sleeping bags and food and water but we still ended up having to get some more food and water on the beginning of the second day, this meant we could leave the big bag behind for the second day which was nice. We saw quite a few different animals in the end, a Monitor Lizard, giant millipede, wild boar, praying mantis, giant squirrel, a deer (from the hide overnight) and Kris saw a snake, plus numerous spiders, bugs and butterflies the size of your hand. Had a really good time out there although it was extremely hot and sweaty! The next day we got a local bus back down to KL again at 1/3 of the price it cost us to get up. KL is a nice city, although there isn’t much to do in the way of sightseeing. We got up at 6am one morning and went to the Petronas towers to get a ticket to go on the sky bridge. It was free but they only give out 1600 a day so we had to queue up for an hour to get the tickets. Our time slot wasn’t until 2pm so we went and got some breakfast and then went to a bowling alley for a few games. It was good fun and something we hadn’t done since we left. We got onto the sky bridge after watching a promotional video telling us how brilliant the Petronas company was. It was a good view from the skybridge (45 floors up) but for the amount of time we were up there it was a good thing we hadn’t paid anything. I got a rush of blood to the head that afternoon and ended up buying a laptop which I’m writing this blog on now. It was our last night with Kris as well so we had a somewhat pricey night out. Colm and I were going to get up the next morning and go to Singapore for the night but unfortunately we didn’t get up anywhere near early enough so we saw Kris off and then did very little for the next 24 hours until our flight to Australia. We did experience some torrential rain though that came through the roof of the hostel, Colm was rudely awoken when a stream of water started pouring onto him whilst he was in bed. That’s basically the end of the Asian leg of the trip, it’s been just over 5 months for me and I’ve had a superb time, now it’s time to top up the coffers in Australia. Will be meeting up with Ian while I’m there and we’ll also be welcoming Simon back soon enough.

Bangkok and the Islands

We spent a very hot few days in a stuffy but cheap room in Bangkok. We spent a day looking around the city and the royal palace. We had to pay for trousers to wear though as shorts weren't acceptable, they didn't make for a particularly good look but we certainly weren't the only ones wearing them! We spent a couple of hours walking around the different temples and then went to little India to have lunch. That night we went to watch Mai Thai boxing, ended up paying about £35 to sit ringside. We had a really good evening and it was worth paying the extra to see all the action up close, although it is a brutal sport. We met an american girl there and the 4 of us went out on Kho San Road that night. Took us a while to get going the next day after our night out so we didn't get a huge amount done. We did take a boat ride around in the evening though to see the city at night. We paid about £20 on it between us and none of us were too impressed with it, but it was quite relaxing for an hour. From Bangkok we got a bus to Katchanaburi which is where the bridge over the river Kwai is. We only spent a fwe hours in the town but it was a very imformative time. The Japanese forced thousands of prisoners of war and immigrant labourers to build a railway from Burma down to Singapore. 16'000 prisoners of war died building the railway along with 100'000 labourers. We had a walk across the bridge and back which was a little odd in itself, walking along a railway line that still has trains using it! We also went to the cemetry for the POW's that died building the railway, they were buried in the jungle but the bodies were moved and identified after the war. From there we got an overnight train down to Surat Thani to get a boat over to Koh Samui. We only spent the one night on Koh Samui, none of us were too impressed with it though so we got the boat across to Koh Phangan. This is the Island where they have the full moon parties on the beach but unfortunately we weren't there at full moon. Its a really nice island though, with a very nice beach. We stayed for 2 days. All these Islands were on the Eastern side of thailand, it took us a full day to travel from Koh Phangan to Koh Phi Phi on the Western side. We didn't stay too long on Phi Phi because we were all running low on cash and didn't really want to go to the cash machine and incur the charges just for a small amount. We had a cheap night out because people were handing out flyers for free drinks in the evening. The next day we hiked up to the view point to look back down on the beaches. The viewpoint wasn't very high but it was a very hot and sweaty climb to get there, definately worth it though, we had spectacular views. The morning after that we got a boat back to the mainland and then a minibus to Panang on the West coast of Malaysia, breezed through the border with no problems and got a 90 day stamp for free, although were only there for about 10 days!

4.5 months and finally we've been robbed!

It nowhere near as dramatic as it might seem though, there was no desperate struggle in a dodgy Bangkok backstreet or anything like that, Colm and I just got a little careless on the bus! But I'll tell the story in order. We got the boat across the Mekong to Thailand, my first border crossing by boat, it only took a few minutes and it was all done. Free Thai visa for 15 days aswell which was nice. From the border we took a minibus to Chiang Mai in the north of thailand. We got to Chiang Mai and decided to have a nice productive few days. The evening we arrived we got dinner and then went to a travel agents and booked two things, we decided on a days cooking course which was something I'd been wanting to do since I left home and for one reason or another we just never got round to it. For the second day we booked a trek to see a waterfall which also involved elephant riding and also a ride on a bamboo raft. We also went to see some minority villages but we've done this quite a few times in different places so that wasn't too exciting. Anyway, first day first, we set off to do our cooking course, none of us really knew what to expect from it really. It cost us about 15 pounds and was well worth the money. The first thing they did was get us to choose the 5 things that we wanted to cook and then they took us to the market to buy the ingredients for the dishes. The 3 of us were with a small group of people on an intrepid tour of thailand for 2 weeks. I chose to cook chicken and cashew nuts, Chiang Mai noodles with red curry paste, mango sticky rice and a coconut curry. We spent all day cooking the different things, and obviously once you've cooked it you've got to eat it aswell, we were all stuffed by the end of the day. The following day was an early start and we all pretty much went back to sleep in the bus that took us to the trek. The first thing on the itinery was the elephant trekking. We were on them for about an hour and I don't think I'd have wanted to be on for much longer than that, it was quite uncomfortable but really cool at the same time. They weren't as big as I expected them to be but Asian elephants are supposed to be quite a bit smaller than their African cousins. Colm was put on quite a cheeky little elephant, ended up spraying people on the backs of other elephants when we got to the water. After the elpehants the bus took us to a minority village where they tried and failed to sell us their handicrafts. Then from there it was the trek itself, 40mins later and we were at our destination. wasn't the hardest trek we've ever done. We messed about in the waterfall we'd reached though, no rope swings this time, it was quite shallow which meant it had some power behind it and it became a bit of a challenge for us to get to the fall. After this we were taken for lunch and then it was onto the bamboo rafting. We half jokingly told our guide that we wanted to do the rafting on our own without the guide to steer the boat and we were somewhat suprised when we got to the river and they sent the 3 of us off with a pole on our own. It was fairly easy on the slow parts of the river, you use the pole to punt along and also to push the front from side to side, the back just sort of follws the front. The rapids we went down however were a little trickier, some of them were easy enough but both Kris and I managed to bounce off a rock or 2 a few times! We got to the end of the river and that was our day done, we were dropped off back at Chiang Mai, we had a bus booked to get to Bangkok and we were being picked up by the taxi 15 minutes after we were dropped off by our trek bus so we made use of the first McDonalds we'd seen since China and ran back to the guesthouse. The taxi turned up just as we finished eating. We got to the bus and were pleasantly suprised, had plent of leg room, comfortable chairs and blankets provided, couple of films were played aswell rather then the usual karaoke rubbish. We got to Bangkok at 6am and went to sleep for a few hours. When we woke up Colm realised that he had $50 missing from his bag, I checked mine and I was down $65. The only place we can think of it going missing was when we were on the bus and the bags were down in the luggage hold. The way the money was hidden in our bags suggests that someone was sat down there going through all the bags on the off chance. We probably weren't the only people who had a problem and it has taught us a bit of a lesson and nothing important was taken so its not all so bad. Will talk about Bangkok and the Bridge over the river Kwai in the next blog!

Talk to you all soon

Paul, Colm and Kris

Laos...

Had a relatively straight forward run up to the 4000 islands from the Laos/Cambodia border. We stayed on an island called Don Det in the middle of the Mekong river, spent about 10 mins in a boat threading our way through other, smaller islands and got off on the beach at Don Det. Its a pretty small island, about 1.5x0.5km and all the accommodation was in bungalows. We found one with 3 single beds in it for 75'000kip, which is about $9. We had all sorts of grand plans of renting kayaks and renting bikes but unfortunately Rob was right, the island is just too good a place for relaxing and doing very little so thats pretty much what we did, we met a couple called Rich and Sue from Crawley and we ended up spending most of our 4 evenings with them. We finally dragged ourselves away from all the relaxation and booked a boat and then a bus up to a place Champasak about 3 hours North, in the end we kind of wished we hadn't. We got up early, got the boat back to the mainland and then got in the 'VIP bus', basically an oversized tuk tuk with bench seats and about 15 people in it. It wasn't to bad, we got there, or so we thought, we asked at someone and it turned out we were about 12km from Champasak. The plan was to go to Champasak and see a temple and then get the night bus to Vientienne. We flagged down an articulated lorry carrying wood and he said he take us as far as the river. I sat in the cab while Colm and Kris had to stand behind the cab, don't think they minded though! We got to the Mekong, again..., paid to get across to Champasak and then walked 2km toward town in sweltering heat, after the 2km we decided to stop at a guest house and have a drink. We left our bags with them and walked the rest of the way into town to go to an cash machine, we were all running low on money, but the cash machine was closed for some reason! By now we were all pretty fed up and then we were told that the busses to Vientienne only left from Pakse, so we decided to cut our losses and got a tuk tuk the rest of the way to Pakse, got there by about 4pm and by 8pm we were on the night bus to Vientienne. Found ourselves a room with 3 beds in for $18, more than we wanted to pay but it did have a TV which meant we could watch the final of the Melbourne Open. The next day we did a walking tour that was in the lonely planet, it was supposed to take 4-6 hours, we managed it in 1, dont think our hearts were in it really. The following day we got the local bus for 4 hours up to Vang Vieng. We spent 3 nights there before we managed to get it together and go up the river for a spot of tubing. Had a really good time and drank far to much as you can probably see from the pictures. We all ended up with a few cuts and bruises from the river and I needed a new pair of flip flops when I ended up with 2 right feet ones at the end of the night (think that pair number 5 now). After that we spent 6 hours on the bus going from Vang Vieng up to Luang Prabang. When we got there we realised we were only going to be in the country for a few more days so we had to start rationing ourselves so that we wouldn't have to go to the cash machine again and its not a partiuarly cheap place to stay. We managed it though, went to visit a waterfall which was really cool, they have loads of asiatic bears that they've rescued from poachers who keep them for they're bile which is used in Chinese traditional medicine, they seemed really well looked after. The water fall was really nice, I haven't ever seen water that was that colour before, we spent an hour or so walking around it and climbing to the top and then after that we went for a swim, the water was freezing! It was good though, did the rope swing and jumped off the waterfall. If you left your feet in the water there were little fish that come and nibble at them, that was quite a wierd sensation. The day after the waterfall we had a day walking around Luang Prabang (see the buddha for each day pictures) and that evening it was a seater bus over night to the Laos Thailand border.

About to leave Laos, time to write about Cambodia!

We left Siem Reap to head for Kratie to find Rob and some dolphins, we were successful on both fronts! We expected the bus to Kratie to be nice and straight forward and to start with it was, got on your average Cambodian coach, nothing special but nothing out of the ordinary. Spent 6 hours on it going to Kom Pong Cham, when we got there they told us we had to get off the nice big bus and get into a Toyota Camry (The Cambodians favourite car, they all have them). Again we thought this wasn't really a problem until they told us how many people were going to be in this saloon car. They put 8 of us in it, 4 in the back, 2 on the passenger chair and 2 on the drivers chair. It was an interesting 3 hours but as everyone keeps saying, its all about the journey and we survived the journey so it wasn't to bad. Got to Kratie in the afternoon and thought rather than just sit around we'd get on and go and see the dolphins the same day. Got a tuk tuk for 30mins out to the place on the Mekong river with the dolphins. Luckily we went past Rob and Mao on their motorbike on the way so they followed us, we had a quick reunion and then Colm, Kris and I went out onto river to spot the illusive dolphins. They're not so illusive, we saw loads of them, and they breathe out when they get to the surface so their even telling you where they are, even so, as you'll see from the pictures, they are extremely difficult to get a decent picture of. But we did get to see them so it was mission accomplished. That night was our last night with Rob, we all had a romantic candlelit dinner because the whole town was out of power. The next morning we all met up for breakfast again and then Rob and Mao left South for Kom Pong Cham again and we headed North East to Bang Lung. The journey up to Bang Lung was another bone rattling one in a minibus but as we went on a few people got out and we ended up with a reasonable amount of space. Bang Lung (in Ratanakiri province) seemed to have very little going for it when we first got there, our bags were absolutely caked in dust from the road when we got there. The following day we got on a push bike each and cycled out to what we thought was a volcanic crater lake but some people have told us it was a meteor crater lake, we're still not sure which it was but we had a great time there, it was a pretty much a perfect circle of really nice water. People have built platforms around the lake aswell, we managed to find one of these to ourselves and proceeded to spend a good few hours swimming about, jumping in off the platforms (hopefully the video's worked the other day) and chatting on the deck. That afternoon we cycled the other way back through town and went to a couple of waterfalls. They were both pretty nice and again we pretty much had them to ourselves but we did all sort of wish we'd spent the whole day at the crater lake.The next day was another bumpy ride in a minivan to Stung Treng and then from there another minivan up to the Cambodia/Laos border. Got across with no drama's and from there it was off to Don Det in the 4000 Islands (South Laos).

Sorry its late, again...

We're no longer in Cambodia but I'll try to finish off the blogs from then! In the last entry we were beginning our temple marathon. We left Kom Pong Thom to head for Siem Reap, got there early afternoon and I wasn't feeling too clever so it ended up being quite a lazy day, we did however organise ourselves to go to Koh Ker the following morning. It was 120km to get there in a 4x4 and it was only the 3 of us going. The main temple there was really impressive, a 40m high pyramid in the middle of the jungle, unfortunately we weren't allowed to climb it but just seeing it was pretty cool, and because it was so far away there was nearly no one there. They only finished clearing the Khmer Rouge mines around the Koh Ker temple complex quite recently, they were still getting rid of some of them in 2007. We spent about 3 hours around the Koh Ker area looking at all the other temples (camera ran out of battery so not many pictures). Got back to Siem Reap that evening and decided we'd be healthy for a few days and use bikes to get around the Angkor temples. We bought a 3 day pass to the Angkor temples when we got up early the next morning to go and watch the sunrise over Angkor Wat, unfortunately it was drizzling the whole time we were there and there was no sign of the sun at all, it just slowly got lighter. Got a tuk tuk back to Siem Reap for some breakfast and to pick the bikes up, unfortunately we had a bit of a lie down and it ended up being about 11am before we got back out on the bikes. We decided that seeing as Angkor Wat is supposed to be the main event as it were, we would look at all the other temples around Angkor (There are a lot) and then finish up with Angkor Wat as the grand finale. The first main one we went to was Bayon in Angkor Thom. This is quite a big building and its covered with the faces of the king who ordered it to be built. Apparently all of the temples were deconstructed and the stones were laid out in the forest, its only recently that they have reconstructed them, some of them are still in the process of being reconstructed. There are a lot of different temples in Angkor Thom (a walled region) so for day 1 we stayed around there and tried to see all the temples that it had to offer us. Cycled about 20km and after our early sunrise start we were pretty tired by the end of the day. Got soaking wet on the road back into Siem Reap but it did cool us down if nothing else.
Day 2 started with much better weather, although we couldn't be bothered getting up for sunrise again. Hopped back on the bikes again and did some temples that were a little further afield. This included the temple that the tomb raider film was filmed at, and for myself and Colm that was our favourite one, it was much less polished than the other temples we had seen and generally seemed to have more charachter than the other ones that we saw. We finished the day at Angkor Wat for sunset and realised that it wasn't really the best place to watch the sunset (couple of unseccesful days as far as the sun was concerned). Angkor Wat was impressive, it is definately the best preserved of the temples and its massive (Biggest religous building in the world I was told), but as I said before, it wasn't our favourite, just didn't quite have the charachter that some of the others did. We managed another 30km on day 2 and decided that we were pretty much templed out and didn't see the need to stay for the last day of our 3 day pass so we headed to Kratie to see Irawaddy dolphins (fresh water) and to meet up with Rob!

Hopefully all is well at home, sorry if photobuckets annoying anyone, its annoying me, keeps putting the pictures in daft orders and changing it around with me telling it to!

Will try and do the blog for the rest of Cambodia soon!

Its been a while...

Seems like the last blog was from when we were still in Vietnam, I didn't realise it had been such a long time! We got the ferry off Phu Quoc to Ha Tien and got on the back of a moped each to get across the border into Kep on the South Coast of Cambodia. You can immediately see the difference in development between Vietnam and Cambodia, here only the main trunk roads between a few towns are paved, the rest of them are dirt tracks ranging from smooth to near enough inpassable, although the busses still manage to fly along the supposedly inpassable roads. Kep was really quiet, we met up with Kris again there (Spent Christmas and New Year with him) and have since decided to all carry on together as we're all on a similar time scale! From Kep we took a trip out to Rabbit and Snake Islands, we snorkelled around snake Island, not something Colm or I had done before, it was good fun, although I found it a bit disconcerting when it got almost too shallow to swim over the top of the coral, had visions of getting stuck...! From there we went back to Rabbit Island (There only about 15mins off the coast, and about the same apart) and spent the night in 2 little bungalows! It was really nice and personally I preferred it to Phu Quoc. The next day we left Rabbit Island and headed to Kampot, spent the night there and booked ourselves onto a tour to Bokor Hill station. Cost us $22 (Pretty much everything is done in dollars here rather than the local Riel) and they took us to the bottom of the hill, we then trekked up for about 4 hours, getting in a truck at the top to be transported along the top of the hill to the hill station. It was built by the french in the 1920's as a retreat to get away from the heat, it was a very sweaty climb up but it was noticebly cooler at the top. Spent a few hours there and then the truck bought us back to the point it picked us up from and then we trekked back down again, only took about 2.5 hours on the way back down. That evening after the trek we left for Sihanoukville. We spent 2 full days there and had all sorts of grand plans for going to a national park and doing some more trekking, that sort of fell by the wayside in the end though, we ended up spending our 2 days drinking in cocktails in a bar on the beach and going to bed early! Had a good time though, being pestered by people to have bracelets made and buy fruit (we did both in the end). On day 3 we got up at about 6am and got the bus out of town to the capital, Pnomh Penh. Rob met up with Mao when we got there, the Cambodian who took him around last 2 years ago last he was in Cambodia. He took us for a Cambodian barbecue, you basically get the food (Beef and Seafood we had) bought to the table along with the veg and you all cook it together on a gas hotplate in the middle of the table. The picture of Rob and Colm is on the way back to our guest house after the BBQ. The following day we had a trip out to the shooting range where Rob had a pop with a rifle but the rest of us decided it was a bit too expensive. On the way back Rob went to see Mao again and Colm, Kris and I went to the National museum and the Royal palace. There are a lot of Hindu and Buddhist statues in the National Museum that have been removed from temples around the country for safe keeping, (The Khmer Rouge damaged a lot of them during their rule) most of the temples now have replicas in them. The Royal Palace was quite impressive however at this point I wasn't feeling too well, was having stomach cramps and the like so I probably wasn't in quite the right frame of mind to appreciate it fully.

I'll try and do another post in the next few days to bring everyone completely up to date with all our temple viewing, etc!

Hopefully talk to you all soon.

Paul, Colm and Rob.

ps. Simon, have you sold that van yet, you've been missing out lad!?!

Mekong and Phu Quoc

Just a quick post, tried to put some pictures on but the virus software on the computer I'm using just quarantined half of my pictures, taken me half an hour to get them back on the memory card, don't fancy trying again really!! We left Saigon for Can Tho spent a very hot 4 hours in a minibus but apart from that it was an uneventful trip. Decided that evening that we should still have enough time to get to the island of Phu Quoc for a few days. The next morning we were all up at 4.45am to go on a tour of the Mekong delta, had a great guide who made the tour for us, he took us up the river to a couple of different floating markets, showed us a noodle factory and then took us for lunch on the way back, I had 'Elephants ear fish'! We left that afternoon for Rach Gia which is the port town that the ferry to Phu Quoc leaves from. Spent the night there and then got the ferry the following morning, they were showing Rambo films on the ferry, something we weren't expecting. We're sharing 2 single beds between the 3 of us on Phu Quoc at the moment so its a bit cosy, the accomodation we've got is only 100m from the beach. The plan for today was to go on a deep sea fishing and snorkelling trip but unfortunately both Colm and I had some sort of bug overnight, both had bad diorrhea and vomiting, we both seem to be pretty much over it now though. Tomorrow we get the ferry off Phu Quoc to Ha Tien on the Vietnam/Cambodia border, then its onto the back of a moped each to get to Kep on the South coast of Cambodia. Hope everyone is coping with the arctic conditions back at home and Simon hopefully your throat is better, hopefully we'll see you back here soonish!

Paul Colm and Rob x

Chuck Mung Nam Moi.... (HAPPY NEW YEAR)

Got to Dalat on boxing day evening and got quite an early night, the Christmas celebrations had taken their toll a bit! Next day we hopped on mopeds again and headed out of Dalat to a waterfall first and then a bit further to another mountain pass, didn't ride the whole of the pass in the end as the roads were a bit dodgy and we were running out of time to get back to Dalat in the daylight. Had a great day though, the following day we decided to do a bit of walking, did a cable car ride down to a lake that the french made when they used to be in Dalat. Was really pretty, had some good food in a little place overlooking the lake. Went to a restaraunt in Dalat thatevening and had Ostritch for the first time, its really nice, well worth a try, will be looking out for more when we get to Oz!

Got up early the next day for the bus from Dalat to Mue Ne which is back on the coast again. Mue Ne was expensive, paid $25 for a room for the 3 of us, although they did have a nice pool which sort of made up for the outlay. Next day we went to see the sand dunes, off on the mopeds, again... The dunes were really good, there were 2 sets, Red Dunes and White dunes, got pestered the whole time by kids trying to get us to slide down the dunes on mats. Got back to Mue Ne that afternoon and we were straight on the bus, weren't too impressed with Mue Ne really although the dunes did make up for it. Got the bus from there to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City now) and arrived at about 10pm, went for a quick bite to eat and a drink and then to bed. New years eve the next day, Colm and I went on a trip to the Cu Chi tunnels, which are the tunnels the Viet Cong used when fighting against the Americans. The tunnels here are a lot smaller than the tunnels in the DMZ which were used to hide from the bombs.

Went to a few different bars for our New Years party with Chris and Hannah who we've met in a few different places now. Midnight was spent at a crossroads with loads of other people and lots of foam being sprayed about. Had a really good night. Today is new years day, been a fairly slow day, went to the Rex hotel (where Good Morning Vietnam was recorded apparently) and had a drink. The square where Top Gear started their Vietnam tour is just outside it.

Tomorrow were off to do a bit of sightseeing round Saigon and then it'll be off to the Mekong Delta we think!

Happy New year everyone, its going to be a good one!

Paul, Colm and Rob

Countdown to Christmas...

Encountered the rain again for the first time since the South of India in Hue, and it rained properly. The streets were flooded and Rob and I got absolutely soaked. The following day it was still raining, we'd booked ourselves onto a tour up to the DMZ (demilitarised zone) where we went through the tunnels that the locals used during the war. The tunnels were used as air raid shelters, they used to spend anything from a few hours down them up to 5 or 6 days! Came backto Hue that afternoon and decided to get mopeds to see the rest of Hue. Its definately the best way of getting about and seeing the place. The next day we were waiting for Colm to arrive so we could all head down to Hoi An together. He never turned up though, so in the end we hired mopeds again and went a bit further afield. When we got back we had an email from Colm saying he had stayed on the bus and was already in Hoi An. Rob and I decided we'd like to ride the 140km from Hue to Hoi An. On the route is the Hoi Van pass, supposedly the best bit of coastal road in Vietnam. We set off at about 10am and got to Hoi An at 5pm. The pass was spectacular, the pass itself is about 15km long and when we got to the other side we turned around and did half of it again. Met colm when we got to Hoi an. Hoi An is where most people get their tailor made clothes made cheaply, unfortunately because we wanted to be in Nha Trang for Christmas we only had the one day in Hoi An so only Colm managed to get stuff made because he'd been there the extra day! Hoi An is a nice little place and the beach is beautiful and there was hardly anyone on it! That evening we got the sleeper bus down to Nha Trang, got there at about 6am on Christmas Eve. Booked into a hostel and then spent most of the rest of the day with people on the beach. Being on the beach was an odd way to spend Christmas, its certainly different. We managed to find an all you can eat Christmas buffet that was doing turkey and the all the trimmings. Was ok but for an all you can eat they ranout of things very quickly, we still had a good time though. Went out for a few drinks after that and then rang Simon on skype when we got back, he made it home ok and should be back with us in a few weeks time if Tegan will let him leave again! Today's boxing day and we giot the bus to Dalat, its inland a bit and really hilly, the french used to come here because its cooler!

Will be back on again soon to keep you updated,

Happy Christmas everyone.

Paul, Colm and Rob

Re-united....for a day!

The last blog I made was back in China, neglected it a bit over the last few weeks but we're back on it now. I left the guys in China and headed off to Laos. Took 30 hours on the sleeper bus to get to Luang Prabang in the centre of Laos, was suprisingly alright, slept quite well. I met up with Kim and her friends in Vang Vieng. Spent a few days there with them tubing down the river and drinking too much. Then I went off on my own again down to the capital Vientienne. Shared a room with a guy I met on the bus, although it took ages to find a room as the Asian Sea games were being held in Vientienne. Met a Belgian guy while I was eating and we went out for the night with a dutch and american couple we met, ended up having a really good night with them. Was picked up from my hotel the next afternoon to get the bus from Vientienne to Hanoi. 24 hours on a normal bus (not a sleeper). Was stuck on the back seat with the rest of the travellers. Met Yvonne from northern Holland on the bus. Spent the next day with her seeing the sights of Hanoi, its a really busy city, the traffic is like being back in India but its suprising how quickly you adapt to it again.

That evening we booked a sleeper bus up to Sapa on the border of Vietnam and China to do some trekking. Colm and Simon turned up at the hostel just as we were about to leave so had a quick catch up with them before we left (They were more interested in watchin Harry Enfields Scousers sketch on youtube...!). Got to Sapa at 7am and by 9am we'd found a room, left our bags and gone off on a 2 day trek through the rice paddies. The views were spectacular and the weather was loads better than we thought it would be, everyone had told us to expect freezing conditions but it was boiling, needed the sunscreen! Had some really nice food at the homestay and got an early night after a hard days walking. The next day Yvonne and I got up and watched the sunrise at 6am, was well worth it, was spectacular and more succesful then the one we got up early for in Tiger Leaping Gorge. Walked back into Sapa that day and decided to stay another night so we could go to the Bac Ha market. Cost $10 dollars for the market day, the market itself was really good, bought a load of stuff and got my hair cut, it had been annoying me for ages. the rest of the day was a bit boring, they just wanted to find things to do to justify the $10. That night we were back on the sleeper bus again and back to Hanoi.

Got to Hanoi at 5.30am and in a bit of a mad rush again booked a Halong bay tour and we were back on the bus again at 8am after a rushed breakfast. Got to the boat at lunchtime and got to know the rest of the backpackers on board. Spent the afternoon jumping off the top of the boat into the water (a lot higher than it looked) and then we went kayaking to a cave. The cave wasn't great but the kayaking was fun and the sunset (left) was really nice. Had a great evening partying on the boat and then the next day we were off to our own deserted Island to stay another night. Went tubing around the island (They tow you around on a tube behind a speed boat, I'll try and get hold of some videos that were taken, was great fun though) There were less of us this time and the generator packed up at about 6pm so we all played a few drinking games by candle light! The next day we came back to Hanoi, I was expecting to see Colm and Simon around somewhere, the one person I wasn't expecting to see was Rob, who jumped off the back of a bike in front of me having just come from the Chinese border. We found Colm and Simon and the 4 of us were back together again. Unfortunately Simon had just found out that his Gran had passed away and he decided to head back to the UK for a week or 2. Yvonne's trip was coming to an end aswell so she headed back to Holland, then Colm headed to Halong bay on his own so it was just myself and Rob heading South to Hue.

Hopefully I'll be back on to tell you about Hue sooner rather then later. We meet up with COlm tomorrow morning to head further South to Hoi An!

Love Paul

Ship Hanoi

Hurray......we have some nice shorts and t-shirts weather!!

Got here in the evening time, and took us a while to find the hostel. Dropped off the bags and went for some lovely local food. Enjoyed the free beer for happy hour (8pm til 10pm), until we drunk them dry, then off round town with a couple of guys we met at the hostel.

Up early for the free breakfast, met a sound guy called Roger who gave us a lonely planet guide to Nam. Off to the Ho Chi Minh palace which was nice and colourful. The mausoleum was closed so we had to go the day after. That night we met up with a guy we met in Guilin. Again made full use of the happy hour int hostel then off into town. Our first stop was full of very friendly boys, a proper working mens club. We met a sailor, which was quite odd as we were miles away from any sea. One in there then moved on, although the music was good!

Mausoleum to see Uncle Ho himself, then on to the army museum. They had a Huey!!!! Simon was happy. And loads of other crushed metal and tanks. The centrepiece was a load of wreckage from a US B52 bomber.

Luxury night train north to Sapa. Cabin to ourselves, I whipped Colm at poker.......he lost 30,000 Vietnamese dong. About 1 pound

Got to Sapa around 7am, quick bite to eat then off on a 25km trek. Saw some rice fields and nice hills. Hired a bike the day after, Colm had a go and did well. Then night train back to Hanoi..........

Rest of south China then on to Vietnam

Problems with accessing the blog in China meant we have struggled to post recently. So now we are in Vietnam we can give a quick update on what we have been doing the last few weeks. Prepare for a whirlwind tour.

After leaving tiger leaping george, we stopped for a couple of nights in Zhongdian (affectionately renamed Shangri-La by the locals for the tourists sake). Hired the old push rods and went exploring.

Then it was on to Kunming to get to Guilin via the train. We met the best dressed man here. He was a don. Paul departed our company in Kunming to go to Laos to see Kim, who we met in Goa, for about 10 days.

In Guilin we met Kristine who stayed with us for a few days (so back up to a full quota of people). After Rob fulfilling his constant desire for western food (especially McDonalds), we got a bamboo raft along the Li river to Yangshou. Arriving in Yang Vegas (as we named it) we had a surprise. We had some good times here, and managed to worm our way into teaching English for a couple of nights. This was in return for free food and dirt cheap accomodation. Only catch was 1 hour per night. The students just wanted to chat and drink so fine by us. They brought in moonshine, beer and fruit. Bonus. They entertained us with cards and after class took us to KTV which is a karaoke bar.

I (Simon) would have liked to stay here for a long time, but unfortunately our visas were going to expire soon. Rob and Kristine stayed here as they had loads of time left on their visas. So back on the road again. Off to NAM Colm and I went. A quick hop to Nanning then across the border the day after.

That was fun. At first the Chinese border guy told us we had overstayed our stay by 1 day, thus wanting more money. Finally we got it through to him that there were only 30 days in November!!!! Then on to the Vietnamese officials. Even though we had payed for our visas they wanted more money......10 dollars in fact. We blagged our way through because I had only a 50 dollar note. We were the only people on our bus that didn't pay!! Nice bit of corruption there then.

So on to Hanoi......................

Tiger Leaping gorge and the bamboo forest

We left the Tea horse guest house at about 9am and got up to the point where we were in the sun at about 10am, as soon as the sun gets on you its t'shirt and shorts weather again. Our second day of hiking wasn't as tough as the first day but still definately a challenge. We stopped at a few other guest houses on the way just for a break and a cup of green tea. Got down to Jane's guest house, which is the end of the main trek, in time for lunch. Had a bite to eat there and then decided we would take the ladders down to the river at middle tiger leaping gorge. We had to pay a pound each to get down the ladders which as you've probably seen from the pictures, they wouldn't be allowed in the UK. They were fairly sturdy though and it was definately worth the climb down to see the gorge from the bottom. Unfortunately its hard to see the scale of the gorge from the photo's. Its 2000m from the river up to the top of the peaks!

We carried on back up out of the gorge to Sean's guest house, stopping on the way for a quick dip in a pond to cool off! The original plan was to leave the next day but we decided to stay instead, we hiked up to the bamboo forest, we had a guide from the hostel for the first section and she took us to her grandparents house for a cup of tea. It was the grandfathers 73rd birthday and they invited us to stop on the way back down for dinner with them. We got up to the waterfall at the bamboo forest (suprisingly little bamboo) and had a little paddle in the water to get some better pictures, the water was cold enough that it physically hurt when your feet were in it.

We went back down to the hostel, bought a few bottles of wine for the birthday boy and climbed back up to the party. They had slaughtered a goat for the meal, see pictures. The food was amazing and they kept plying us with the local wheat moonshine. It was a little too easy to drink and Paul and Colm were a little bit merry on the walk back down to the hostel.

The day after we didn't really get much done apart from a little walk. It was nice just to relax in the gorge itself though. The day after that we got a minibus back to the start of the trek to pick up our bags and then it was on to Shangri-La. We had been warned that it was absolutely freezing there but it wasn't too bad. We hired bikes again, its definately one of the better ways to see areas. Some americans in the hostel we were in invited us out to a local bar with all the local tibetan dancing going on, we had a go at it but it was a lot harder than it looked, had a great time there though.

Finally out of the city...

Its been a few days since the last entry, still having trouble getting onto the blog so were doing it in a roundabout way. We caught the sleeper bus from Chengdu to Lijiang. The driver was quite happy to put his foot down on some rather uneven roads. We got the back 5 beds between the 4 of us and it was actually suprisingly comfortable, was very bouncy though, got ourselves a bit of sleep but we did all hit the beds above us during the night on some of the stronger bumps.

We got to Lijiang at about 9am, 2 hours earlier than we were expecting, which was nice, although we were all pretty warm and comfortable in bed, didn't really want to get off. We found a nice cheap hostel in Lijiang old town (2.50 each for the night). It was nice to get somewhere that wasn't a big city, it seemed a lot more relaxed so we hired a bike each and went for a bit of a cycle around. The bikes had certainly seen better days so we took it easy and took the first aid kit with us just in case one of them fell apart. All the bikes survived and we all had a good time on them, was nice to have a change from walking or getting a taxi.

The following day we got a bus from Lijiang to Qiatao. This is where we were going to start the trek along the tiger leaping gorge. It was something we had all been looking forward to and we certainly weren't dissapointed byit. We left our bags at a hostel at the start of the trek and just took the basics with us, food, water, towels, toothbrushes, etc. We actually had to dig out the suncream aswell which made a nice change. We set off at about 1pm, later than we'd planned but still enough time to get us to a decent place to stay for the night. We walked 2 hours up to the naxi family guest house where we had a bit to eat and a drink. After that we walked another 3.5 hours up the "28 bends" which are a set of hairpin bends on a very steep path. We made it the top though and views were certainly worth the climb. Stayed the first night at the Tea Horse guest house. It was very basic but a really nice place to stay, and again the views were amazing.

The following morning we got up at 7am to go and watch the sunrise, we should have asked the hostel owners though, they were laughing at us when we left, we came back at 8am with still no sign of the sun, they told us then that the sun doesn't get over the peaks at that point until 9.40am.

I've wittered on quite a bit now and Simon's put hundereds of photo's up which I've got to start captioning so I'll stop there and let you all know the rest of our Tiger Leaping Gorge experience tomorrow!!

Paul, Simon, Colm and Rob

Warriors and Buddhas

Well... had a mammoth post all set up and was feeling quite pleased with myself for getting on the blog, unfortunately I tried to save it and it vanished so here we go again with a more condensed version this time. We left Beijing on monday after collecting our vietnamese visa's, was all straight forward. Got on the train down to Xi'An with our panda hats, a few beers and some music, went quite quick for 12 hours.
Got to Xi'an and booked a train straight out again the next evening which only gave us 36 hours, should have spent a bit longer there really but never mind. On the second day we went to the teracotta warriors which were really spectacular. Farmers found it in 1974 when they were digging a well and since then they have unearthed 2000 different warriors and pieced them back together. They were built and buried to protct an emporer after his death.
That evening we got the train from Xi'an down to chengdu where we went to see robs highlight of the trip, a 71m high buddha built to protect people on the river beneath, was really impressive, well worth the trip down there. Yesterday we got up early and went to see the panda's at the research centre. personally i thought it was a bit of a let down, was nice to see the pandas but they were letting people into the enclosures for 50 pounds to stroke and hug the panda's. Today we're heading to lijiang on the sleeper bus, takes 23 hours which should be an experience....
Paul colm simon and rob

China, Beijing!

Hello everyone!

Sorry that we haven't been updating the blog recently but the Chinese government has blocked the website (and facebook). We landed in China with no problem whatsoever, (we were expecting them to be really strict but it was easier than getting into India. Simon and I met up with Colm and Rob at about 11pm after being ripped off by a taxi driver, he was the only driver there and he got out the motor and turned the engine off so we had no choice bu to give him what he asked for!! It was really nice to meet up with the guys and its definately completely different to travelling with just the 2 of us!

The next morning it was up and out to get the visa's for Vietnam, the one thing we hadn't sorted before we left. When we finally got round to getting to the embassy they told us we couldn't pick them up again until Monday (5 days later). It wasn't a bad thing really because its meant that we've seen loads of different sights in Beijing. The first thing we went to was a section of the great wall. Walked all the way to the top and then back down again, which took about 1.5 hours. We got lunch and a trip to Mings tomb included in the price.

The following day we went to the Forbidden City which was really close to Tian'amen Square which is in turn really close to the hostel. It was quite good looking round but it was really cold, the wind is the worst thing, I've had to buy a coat and Simon's bought a hat and a pair of gloves. We did walk to the top of a hill that gave us a really good view over the city. We also went to the national stadium (Birds Nest) which was really spectacular and then when the lights came on at about 6pm it got even better.

We're hoping to get some pictures uploaded pretty soon but for some reason it doesn't seem to be working.I'll try and get up in the morning and put them up if I can manage it (its a bit tricky working out wha the computers telling me when its all in Mandarin characters)

Paul, Simon, Colm and Rob (uploaded by Richard)

Pictures on photobucket tomorrow (hopefully)

The final few days...

So, as Simon mentioned he didn't have the best of times on the train up to Delhi, after 24 hours in bed he was well enough to the next morning to move hotels, so, having spent 50 pounds on one night we went back to the more familiar grounds of a 5 pound a night room. Simon spent the rest of the day in the room again although he did make it out in the evening for a little bite to eat.

The following day we had a train ticket booked to go to Chandigargh. This is one of the thigs that Simon has wanted to do throughout the whole trip so we decided that we would go even though he wasn't feeling 100%. The main reason for going was the rock garden. A man called Nek Chand started collecting rubbish and stone that no one wanted for about 15 years he built a garden on government land that no one else knew about. When they did eventually find out they made it into a tourist attraction which is now the second most popular attraction after the Taj Mahal. Its all incredibly impressive that one man can build all those sculptures with no-one else knowing, have a look at the pictures we put up of it. The other thing we liked was Chandigargh itself, it has no culture or history whatsoever but its a brand new city, built on a grid system like the american cities but because its new, the roads are all very good and there isn't the usual rubbish and sewage in the streets like we've come to associate with india. The train back took 5 hours but was fairly uneventful.

The next day we stayed around Delhi and did a bit of sightseeing, unfortunately the city was smothered with smog which got into your eyes and also visibility was really bad, not good for photo's! We went to the national railway museum and the gateway of India, that was about it though, we were both fairly tired and the smog was getting to us so we just played on the internet and watched a film or 2 in the hotel.

Day 5 round here was another early start (about 5.30am) to go down to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and the red Fort. It was definately worth the early start, we got a car and guide to take us around a few different sites, although we did have to play along while he took us to local handicraft sites.

Today was our last day, we took it fairly steady and didn't get up to early, we went to the Delhi fort but as the pictures will show you, the only day in the week it is shut is a monday, and guess what day we tried to go! We spent the afternoon at Huammans tomb instead which was very impressive and made up for not getting into the fort. Now its time to go for a bit of food and then its our last night in India, tomorrow is another early start to get to the airport in time and then its off to China to meet up with Rob and Colm.

we get there at 2pm GMT and we're both really looking forward to it, although its really going to be a shame to leave India, we've really enjoyed our first six weeks, only another 4.5 months till we get to Australia...

Paul and Simon

Done Varanasi, now in Delhi

So we eventually arrived in the cess pit of Varanasi after our nightmare train of 27 hours (was meant to be 14 hours).

We had a guy who free rode our rickshaw, got ripped off by our "guide" (we didn't even want one) for the rickshaw journey, and then got taken to a rather nasty but exorbitantly priced hotel. So good first impressions. And of course it was late, with the festival of lights (Diwali) being held that night so no room any where else etc etc etc. I am sure you get the picture of our pretty disastrous day. A couple of beers then bed.

An early rise to visit the Ganges, we took.

Along our stroll along the river front (with steps down to it or ghats). Saw a few of the cremations taking place (around 250 to 300 bodies burned here everyday, but only at certain places along the river). Very smoky and quite weird. Once the body has been burned for 3 hours they put it into the river. It is not completely ashes, i.e. the mens torso or the womens hips are not burnt yet, so alot of human remains are in there!

Then there are the locals washing in it, just next to where a dead body is. Thats India for ya.

Then to the train station to catch our carriage to Delhi. During the train I got sick, came down with sickness and diarrhoea, which was fun. My problems started getting worse towards the end of our journey (which involved a lot of toilet action), so I asked Paul to find the nearest hotel, in the guide book, to our arrival station. He did. We made a hasty trip to our destination hotel, money no object. I would of paid everyting in my bank to get back onto a toilet. To be honest it nearly was everything. Only 'deluxe rooms left sir......'. Fine by me, the hotel was amazing!! Hot shower, big plasma telly, comfy duvet cover, the works! I stayed in bed a full 24 hours, r and r. But it was time to move on, mainly the cost but also the room was booked.

So our last few days in India..............

Simon and Paul

Been and left Darjeeling, now in Varanasi

After our big trip to Zero point, the highs and lows (literally and geographicaly)

Its been a while since the last post, Simon wrote this one last night but the computer packed up and got rid of it so I'm having another go while he is in bed!

As we said before, the trip to Zero point in Sikkim was amazing, best thing we've done so far. From Gangtok we took a jeep up and down some very impressive inclines for about 4 hours to reach Darjeeling. The origonal plan for Darjeeling was that we'd only be there for 1 full day and 2 nights, after that we were going to get the train down to Varanasi. But... as we have realised on this trip "the best laid plans...". We couldn't book the train we wanted which meant 3 nights and 2 days in Darjeeling, and the only class we could book on the train was sleeper, more of that later!

We weren't holding out too much hope for Darjeeling, the people we met on the trip to from Gangtok said it was very dirty and dusty. We thought it was ok though, although the rubbish here was just as bad as everywhere else. The Friday in Darjeeling was a very productive, woke up at 3.30am to go up to Tiger hill where you have a spectacular view of Katchenzunga appearing in the sunlight, later on we had a walk down through the botanical gardens (they have loads of orchids there) to the Happy Valley Tea estate, it was quite interesting to see how its all done, its really quite straight forward. We bought some tea from them and were pursuaded to buy even more from a woman just outside the factory who sat us down and apparently made us the best cup of tea in the world!!

After that it was a walk up the hills to the zoo and the mountain instute, the zoo is doing a lot of conservation work for himilayan animals and the zoo had loads of exhibits about mountaineering in the himilaya's, mainly about attempts on Everest, including Sir Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay, the first people to the top.

The saturday was quite a slow day in contrast, sent some parcels and the like but that was about it. The day after we had a quick jaunt on the toy train and then it was back down 7000ft to NJP where we were getting our train to Varanasi. This trip was due to take us 14 hours, we got on at 5pm and didn't get off in Varanasi until after 7pm the next day, over 12 hours late, it was apparently due to a damaged track which meant they had to detour us an extra 400km!

I will be back on later this evening to add pictures and let you know how we got on in Varanasi and our trip to Delhi!

Paul and Simon

PS. Finally caught up with some photo's again!

Bone rattling worth it for stunning views

So we set off on our big expedition to the summit of Everest (well it felt that far), but really only 120ish K's to a place called Lachung. This was a place high up in the Himalaya mountainous region at approx 8800ft. We set off at around 11am on the tuesday, arriving in the pitch black to our hotel around 7pm. With only a couple of stops along the way this was some serious hard core off roading. Both Paul and I respect the people who do the Paris-Dakar rally a bit more now after our measly 2 day effort, and we have the aches and bruises to prove it!

So our shared 'Mahindra Marshall Maxx' 4x4 jeep with a capacity of 10 plus driver was brimming with passengers, fuel and luggage. I happened to glance at one of the tyres on one of our short breaks - mistake.... it was just showing bare wires! Anyway it made it.

The places we saw along our trek gave hope for the future, including 3 hydro electric power station projects and road building on a large but somewhat crude scale - they lay tarmac in flip-flops (cringe). We often reached places where the road had only recently been subject to a landslide and drove precariously close to the edge.

But it was all worth it!

We awoke the next morning around 6am to some stunning, clear views from our hotel (we arrived in the dark). So from there it was another journey higher, through more and more military check-points (it is very close to the border with Tibet and China) to Zero Point at 15000ft. Along the way we saw a couple of wreckages of jeeps that had failed to make it. A rather stark reminder. In fact the one shown in the pictures (in the middle of the track) only crashed the day before!! Not nice.

The guys in our jeep were all very friendly (some a bit too friendly) and all of Indian origin, we had a few drinks with them on the first night. They gave us advice on our "eating with your hands" technique, but failed to understand the hand alcohol gel to wash your hands with - they thought I was a proper scruff.

Hope I have not waffled on too much but both Paul and I agree that this single two day excursion has been the highlight of our journey so far, so it was worth a decent narration!!

Oh and please LOOK AT THE PICTURES

Simon and Paul

PS. Internet is a bit slow, got loads of pictures but have only been able to upload a few, will find somewhere else tomorrow hopefully for the rest!

Finally made it to Sikkim!

I took us 72 hours, 3 different trains and a 4x4 to cover nearly 2000 miles but we have made it at last. I (Paul) had a minor mishap in calcutta station when the solitary bottle of beer in my bag smashed cover all my clothes in beer and glass so what with that and my tablets wearing off I wasnt the happiest of people for Simon to be with. A few more tablets and a reasonable nights sleep on the train and everything was alright in the morning though. When we got off the train in New Jalpaiguri we met 3 philipino volunteers who had in turn met someone on the train who was going to help the get a 4x4 to Gangtok in Sikkim for a reasonable price. When we got off the train we were still unsure as to whether we were going to Sikkim or Darjeeling but we decided we couldn't turn down the offer of help so Sikkim it was. It cost us 300Rs for 4.5hrs in a 4x4. The roads in a lot of places were pretty good and they're working on the roads where they're not good but there were still some places that seemed to have just been washed away and the drivers insist on going as fast as humany possible. There a loads of road safety messages all along the road including "Better late than Never", "Safety on the road means a safe tea at home" and the favourite "It is not a rally, enjoy the valley!" Despite all this we made it safely, crossing the border (picture) was a mere formality and we arrived in Gangtok about 5pm. Today we looked around at a few of the local sights, cable car, waterfalls, viewpoints, etc while they are making up some permits for the two of us because tomorrow we are off on a 2 day 1 night trip up to the north of Sikkim to a village called Lachung (google it and check it out). We'll be back in Gangtok on Wednesday evening and then thursday we'll take a 4x4 over to darjeeling if all goes to plan, which it usually doesn't!

I've uploaded a few more pictures so have look at them.

Hope everyones well at home and Simon says Hi!

Paul and Simon

39hrs down, 10 to go

Just a quick hello to let you know what we're up to but no pictures, haven't really taken many while we were on the train. We left Cochin for Chennai. That was an overnight train and took us 12 hours. spent two hours waiting in Chennai station and then it was back on the trains again for the 27 hour slog to Calcutta. It was all relatively uneventful although while simon was sleeping like a baby I have unfortunately been dashing backwards and forwards to the toilet. Have since taken a few tablets though and hopefully it should be ok now. We got into Calcutta at midday today and at 2345 were back on the train overnight again, heading up to Darjeeling or Sikkim, whichever one seems easiest to get to when were there!

We'll hopefully get some pictures up in the next day or two when we finally get off the trains!

Paul and Simon

The anticlimax after our big excursion

So, after our big day out on the backwaters around Alleppey in our chartered houseboat for the day (a full 24 hours) we have moved up north to a small place called Fort Cochi.

The boat trip was absolutely amazing, we were waitered on hand and foot, had 3 fantastic meals prepared for us and had a brill time. Right is a picture of our floating palace. We even bought some huge king prawns which they prepared and cooked for us as a starter to our main meal at dinner time (see the pics). The only downside was the heat during the night, I don't think either Paul or I slept much at all......one of the rare occassions we wish we had not been tight and paid that extra for air con (although we probably spent 3 days budget on just hiring the boat)! We moored up twice during the voyage, the first time for our lunch (which was a feast) with beautiful views of the padi fields and then stopped again for the night. We ventured into the narrower backwaters, during our second mooring, in a canoe which was fun. We haggled them down to 200 rupees (about 3 quid) plus a beer which had them all in fits of laughter. As they say a picture tells a thousand words so check them out, Paul is currently trying to get some uploaded which going on past experiences may take some time but we will push through.

Fort Cochi is ok but we cannot seem to get a feel for the place, although we did have a go with the local fisherman and their counterbalanced net (influenced by the Chinese). We caught some fish!!

Tomorrow we are going to head for the hills of Munnar to see some tea plantations and (hopefully) be in a cooler climate at least for a while.

Simon and Paul

Killing time in Alleppey

So we have arrived in Alleppey, after a 3 hour bus ride from Varkala - this time we had to stand most of the way as the bus was very full and cramped but it went quickly, we reached terrifying speeds on the pot-holed roads but managed somehow to get here un-scathed. We witnessed some one being ejected by his fellow travellers (an indian chap) because he apparently 'made a scene' which was all very interesting!

We are staying the one night at a rather nice Kerala government heritage accomodation site, that was reccomended to us by a fellow traveller we met in Anjuna (Goa), ready for the off bright and early tomorrow to try and find a backwater cruiser (houseboat) that we plan on spending a full 24 hours on. It's apparently on the Lonely Planets top ten things to do before you die (in at number 7) but we will reserve judgement until after the event. It's going to be expensive at around 20 quid but with meals included (apparently the fishermen come alongside in their boats and show you today's catch, which you choose - be it prawns, lobster, fish etc.) and hopefully a few beers, if our negotiation skills are up to scratch it should be worth it!!

After the day living on a boat we plan to move up to Kochin (or Cochi, it's old name) wher we will probably spend some time and then move up north.

Ciao for now,
Simon and Paul

Okey doke then,

few changes since the last post. We're no longer in Goa. We took a train from Margao in Goa, 17hrs and 1050km to Thivandrum, Kerela. We're now as far South in India as we're going to go. The picture was one taken a while ago in Goa of Simon under a Just Gents sign, (Just for you Paula). We'll keep an eye out for a hardressers with the correct spelling!! The train trip down here was actually really good, we were in 3AC class, a lower class than last time, but we were with 4 Indian lads on holiday to Kerela, they gave us some of their food and we kept them going with some good old ninties tunes, they loved Michael Jackson. We managed to get the camera working again when we were in Margao, cost about 18 pounds and they bussed it in all the way from Mumbai for us and it arrived about 5mins before we left for our train. The other little matter we sorted whilst we were in Margao is we finally managed to get around to unlocking my phone, (we have tried before, honest!). Got a sim card in it now and the number is 00919744873360 just in case anyone fancies ringing or texting us at any point! I dont have any numbers saved on the phone so send us an email or text so we have your numbers. Had a little stroll around thivandrum today and somehow managed to get ourselves standing next to the police with loads of communists on one side and anti chinese government protesters on the other side. It all went off quite peacefully though, bit of an anticlimax in the end. Had a look around the zoo here, has some quite cool animals in it although a lot of them looked extremely bored. Had a look around an art gallery aswell which had an artist called Nicholas Roerich in it, his son paints aswell and they both had really good pictures!

Tomorrow is all change again. We're going to make our way to the coast to a place called Varkala to let simon catch up on the beach time that he missed with his heat rash. After that were heading further up the coast to Cochin, hopefully doing a backwater cruise on the way if we can afford it!!

Glad you've finally worked out how to post comments Rob, wasn't too hard was it...?

PS. Just to remind you all leave us a comment with your phone nunmbers or even better, send us a text!

Talk to you all soon!!

Paul and Simon

Palolem and Patnem

Right then everyone,

hopefully people are still keeping an eye on what were up to. Its been a while since the last blog, been trying to find somewhere where I can upload photo's at the same time (really been struggling with that recently). Unfortunately, we have no pictures from the past few days anyway because something seems to have gone a little bit haywire in my camera. Hopefully its just a case of getting a new battery but we need a big enough town to get them.

Palolem is beautiful, and I do have a few pictures of it. Its still about two weeks before they're official holiday season starts here so its relatively quiet on the beaches, etc. We ended up spending 5 days in Palolem, which is a lot more than we expected to but we were having a really good time with the guys we met (hello and happy travels to Andy, Kim, Josh and Kerrie) It was a bit odd seeing them go, we've actually had more time as a group with them than we have with just the two of us. We went for a little boat trip up the river at the end of palolem beach and we swam to the island there aswell, you'll see it in the pictures when I finally get them up. We've been eating out, generally with the others and its been seafood all the way really, its hard to not eat seafood when your this close to the sea. All the restraunts have fresh shark, prawns, tigerprawns, calamari, tuna, the list goes on and we've been slowly working our way through it.

Now were in Patnem (only about 3Km down the coast) and its back to being just the two of us and it is quite a nice feeling to be back on the road again after quite a long stay in one place. Today is Tuesday 13th and tomorrow morning at 10 we have to be out of the hostel so the plan for this evening is some food and then a quiet evening in with the maps and travel guides to try and formulate some kind of a plan for the next few days.

Hopefully when Simon gets online in a bit he might have more luck uploading pictures.

We'll try not to leave it so long before we post again. 2 weeks down, 4 more to go in India!!

Paul and Simon

Arrival in Anjuna

Ok, been quite a while since the last post, tried using the internet a few times but it takes so long to load up. Simon and I left Mumbai at midnight on saturday night. Got the sleeper train down, we were in 2tier AC class which will probably make more sense when we can upload photo's, got loads by the way. We got picked up from Thivim by the hostel. Were staying in the evershine hostel in Anjuna, Goa. Paying 200Rs a night, its a really basic room, literally just beds and a table but the place is really nice and Sebastianna, the woman who runs it has been really nice to us. Goa is worlds apart from mumbai, they're still crazy drivers but there a lot less of them. Just to panic the parents a little we decided to hire a moped, its by far the easiest way to get around and all the tourists seem to do it. Met a group of 4 people here who had been here a day or two before us, been doing a stuff with them. Been to the beach a few times and had a look at an old 1612 fort on top of a hill in Vagata(Photo above). Tomorrow were off to the flea market which is mentioned in the lonley planet as something that you really shouldn't miss. I'll try to get some photo's uploaded asap.

Paul and Simon

In at the Deep End

So, we've got to india and we really were in at the deep end. We got picked up at the airport with no problems. Got to the hostel and really weren't sure about it, it didnt look anything like it did online but having been here for a little while now its really good, the rooms are clean and everything works, the staff here are amazing (I'm using their internet for free at the moment). Spent a bit of money yesterday having a buffet meal at a hotel, (I know its not real india but we were a bit dazed when we got here). Both of us sat in the room when we got here and we didnt have a clue what to do!! Half an hour later and we were stepping out into traffic thats flying along and hoping they'll stop for you, apparently people are supposed to have right of way on the road so we are trying to overcome 20 years of road safety by stepping out.

Took the train down to the centre of mumbai today (were about 10 miles out). Took us 45 minutes and cost us 7Rs which is about 10p (1 pound is about 80Rs). Had a look at the gateway of india, you should see that on the pictures, was built for king george's visit back in 1911. Tomorrow were going to elephanta island with a couple of kiwi's we me at the hostel and then after that were hoping to get a train at 23.05 down to goa, takes us about 12 hours so we might get a few postcards written so keep an eye on your post!

Don't know when we'll be back on the net but hopefully we'll be back in touch soon.

Ps. If anyone wants to leave comments then there should be a link at the bottom of each message!

Talk soon
Paul and Simon

Hello from Bahrain

Hello everyone,

In bahrain at the moment, managed to get here in one piece an hour ahead of schedule. Had a slight moment in heathrow when we got to check in and the guy said we wouldn't be able to land in mumbai with the visa we have (he was half asleep and his supervisor put him right). Got to wait for a couple of hours now until the onward flight to mumbai. We landed att 6.20 and it was already 34 degrees outside! We were well fed and watered on the flight, had 2 meals and complimentary drinks.

We'll upload a few pictures when we find a computer that can do it.

Paul & Simon