So our first full day in Yangshuo and since the town is really just a tourist mecca we decide to mish out and see the countryside. So since i'm (we're?) not really fond of tour-de-france-type sightseeing we rent the only motorised thing a non-resident can drive – an electric scooter. It has a battery meter and everything, we also discover (once it starts to go a bit slow...it kinda starts dying like a torch battery..) that you can “charge it up” by not accelerating downhill, tho then you crawl a snails pace so its not like its really a viable option for the most part. it starts to rain and den being the driver gets this reat rain coat that covers the front of the bike and then goes over your head...means your hands etc are dry too. It has a nice lil cap too...with this on PLUS the bright orange helmet he is wearing, well he looks every part the dorky tourist and surprisingly neither the raincoat OR the dorky helmet last very long :P Anyways we head south and pass through a village embracing the tourist money and the starting point for one of the caving trips. den was most intrigued about these caving trips cos all the photos we had seen seemed to be bikini-clad young women covered in mud...
Anyways we find a dirt track and take that...right past the local dump! Nice but things pick up after that and we get some magnificent scenery of the karst hills wiyth rice paddies and lil villages, So beautiful i think this is one of my fav parts of china. Its like you see in pictures...or better! so my expectations are fulfilled and more. theres a big karst hill round here which is “famous” as it has a semi-circle hole in it, its called moon hill and the saying is that it looks like different phases of the moon depending on where you it from.
We headed south to find the like 5000 y/o banyan tree, took us a wee while but we should hve just spotted the tourist buses! tree itself was amazing, of a lot f the brqanches it had grown more trunks as to maintain holding its growing weight. however the place was SOOO touristy (for chinese tourists realy) and full of touts and worst of all, things like dancing dressed up monkeys, which just made me furious and worst part is all the chinese taking pictures and thinking its so cute. makes me sick. So we didn't stick around and decided to head back into the countryside again, this time on a more tourist track through the karst hills. Awesome scenery again, jsut winding through these blobs on the countryside and watching people tend their rice fields here and there. Tho...then the lil scooter slooooooowly starts to die. We get a few good down hills and "charge" it up a bit but it soon gets to the point where arn gets off and walks as it is going so slowly with 2 people! So i walk to town while den rides (don't worry he WAS a gentlemen and offered for me to ride it, but lets just say arn is not much of a scooter driver..!). Den actually makes it into town, but only just. What a fab day, one of my fav in china...or even the whole trip. SO wonderful to be out in the countryside and peaceful too! nice "western" dinner too :P
Friday 2 May 2008
Sunday 27 April 2008
21st April – Guilin – Yangshuo
Arrive Guilin about 12 so had a super nice sleep in and feeling pretty good! Some locals help us onto the city bus and a nice lady shows us the bus station. Its weird, sometimes they are SOO nice and helpful...real extremities. Anyways on the bus which was easy cos i slept most of the way...i never really sleep well on those trains....no idea why!
Yangshuo is surrounded by tall karst hill/rock/mound things which is really why we're visiting. Have a hostel in the tourist part...basically there is a western tourist part (complete with dodgy old americans finding local younger “girlfriends” YUCK) and a chinese tourist part, so we decided to avoid the chinese tour group and their walkie talkies and umbrellas and head for hamburger town! Nice lil place, only a few cobbled streets for us to get lost in, but lots of western food and we eye it up..only then i go have beef fried noodle...hard to break habits! quite a few touts here but nothing compared to India and we find it pretty easy really! have an easy afternoon chilling and wandering around. nice place, i like it here! strange to see so many white folk again!
Yangshuo is surrounded by tall karst hill/rock/mound things which is really why we're visiting. Have a hostel in the tourist part...basically there is a western tourist part (complete with dodgy old americans finding local younger “girlfriends” YUCK) and a chinese tourist part, so we decided to avoid the chinese tour group and their walkie talkies and umbrellas and head for hamburger town! Nice lil place, only a few cobbled streets for us to get lost in, but lots of western food and we eye it up..only then i go have beef fried noodle...hard to break habits! quite a few touts here but nothing compared to India and we find it pretty easy really! have an easy afternoon chilling and wandering around. nice place, i like it here! strange to see so many white folk again!
20th April - Kunming – Guilin
Whole day today before we head on the train so we headed up to the funky uni part of town and shopped and chilled out there for a bit. Off to the train station and once again its all pretty easy. top bunk...well you can't even sit cos you're so close to the ceiling! and dennis has a good time watcing arn trying to navigate the ladder up and down! its hard to get down where youve only got 3 feet to maneuver yourself in! but i snuggled down at lights out and even managed to do a late night pee without falling on the bloke below me...
19th April – Shangri-la – Kunming
UP early and to the airport which is some more chinese chaos and disorganised organisation. Have an argument with customs women who after she went through ALL my things and even sniffed the lip gloss on my phone, insisted i go back an check it in....GRRR. more waiting behind queue hopping chinese but finally get through and walk to the plane in sunshine with those beautiful mountains against a blue sky backdrop. Funny to watch the chinese on airplanes, they are SOOOO bad at following instructions and there is always (ALWAYS) someone who unbuckles themselves STRAIGHT after landing...EVERY SINGLE TIME! same thing during take off, they will often go to the toilet while the seat belt sign is on, so strange. the instructions are in chinese!! oh and its weird, they always have trouble getting their seat right, so you're always waiting for people to change. I'm not sure what it is about them, it happens everytime too! Think there are ways and means here that i am struggling with sometimes...well not struggling but it seems there is very little respect soemtimes (not always) for want of a better word, the common man. it really feels like everyman for themselves and soemtimes there are little manners or respect. Like queue jumping and playing their phone music out loud, smoking in public places even when it says not to, pushing and shoving their way down the street, YELLING into their cellphones everywhere (or just yelling in general), spitting and children tolieting everywhere (ON CARPET!). Perhaps sometimes the language means i am missing certain other customaries but i find myself getting really frustrated at the lack of consideration. The book i am reading atm, wild swans, is about the period under Chairman Mao and he did encourage people to NOT be courteous to each other, it was considered bourgeois. so perhaps this is a remnant of that. im not sure. other times they are surprising and respectful, and i am sure miss a lot...perhaps it is just my “western” standards.
Arrive Kunming and another battle to get train tickets...but we get there...18 hour train jounrey tomoro...on the top bunk! should be interesting!
Find a hostel, shared bathroom, meh. showers a bit pants but gooooood pressure and hot hot hot water, yummy! We have a look around kunming til we are compltely knackered but we have a good shop and its a nice city with good shops! Find the the funky uni part of town, will come back here tomoro, but get some english books...LOVELY! arn in heaven.
Dinner at Mama Fu's (like the name) warm warm beer (den had to get ice) but the food is good!
Arrive Kunming and another battle to get train tickets...but we get there...18 hour train jounrey tomoro...on the top bunk! should be interesting!
Find a hostel, shared bathroom, meh. showers a bit pants but gooooood pressure and hot hot hot water, yummy! We have a look around kunming til we are compltely knackered but we have a good shop and its a nice city with good shops! Find the the funky uni part of town, will come back here tomoro, but get some english books...LOVELY! arn in heaven.
Dinner at Mama Fu's (like the name) warm warm beer (den had to get ice) but the food is good!
18th April – Shangri-la
Better sleep tonight and wake feeling really good! we got a name of a small nepalese village about 7km from roses yesterday and so after 4 attempts we find a driver who actually knows the place (apparently taxi drivers don't get outta town much) and after a bumpy ride on a metal road we arrive. no idea how we're getting back cos its a full on farming village, not even a general store it seems. The women are all dressed in traditional dress tho the guys are in jeans. we met a couple of kids, they all have big wide faces with red windswept cheeks and snotty noses but they're super cute and the little girl thinks dennis is very funny, they can only say hello and giggle whenever we say it back to them. Have a walk around, all the houses are big cream 2 storied jobs but they have the most colourful window sills and shutters. Theres a lot of the drying racks everywhere and we find lots of chickens and some very big bulls. Everyone we pass (its not much on this dirt road) looks at us like what on earth are we doing there but we get big smiles and hellos from everyone and they don't seem to mind us. one old farmer on a tractor tray just stared at us with his mouth open after we said hello. start a longish walk back to town but end up hitching a ride with a rich bloke in his nice SUV. Spend the afternoon chilling out and catching up on blogs etc in warm cafe. Couple of yaks kebabs and feel like normal food tonight so find somewhere “western” looking, its sooooo toasty and have a gooood burger. we had a chat to the singaporean ownder, he said its been soooo slow there since the tibetan trouble...most people head onto tibet after shangri-la. He also interestingly thinks that the government are watching the chinese muslim communities as well...thought it apparently if one minority group can do it, so can others and they haven;t always been treated well...also worried that they could have a lot of help from neighbouring islamic countries. Who knows.
17th April - Shangri-la
Another bed hard to get out of but we'd been warned by the people we hd met the last night that it was bloody hard to get up and they reckoned (hoped) the cause was the altitude. Went for a walk to a monastry in the town. They have this massive prayer wheel there which we can see turning from our bedroom window. you have to walk it around 3 times clockwise and it DEF helps having a lot of people to do it! just a walk up the steps to the monastry leaves me completly gasping for breath. Inside the monastry the rooms where they pray are so colourful and full to the brim of colour with flags and paintins and gold everywhere, its really pretty and feels happy. the pictures of hell on the outside are not so happy...it doesnt look good!
We mish into the new town to pick up a present for dad – saw someone with something last night (obviosuly i can't mention it cos then he'd know what it is!!) and it cracked us up...the finnish guy had brought one too. So after this big walk around den's not feeling so hot and we're both completely knackered. You feel so stupid and lazy and putz but its so hard walking and talking that we're both silent and the small hill and stairs to our room requires a good 5 minutes sit down to catch our breath! We have a rest and then head out to the big monastry which is a couple miles outta town. Catch an old ricktety bus, th driver looks like he slept in his clothes and just rolled outta bed, this is completed by fag hanging out of his mouth. we add our 2 yuan to the literal cardboard box of other 1 yuan notes and do actually end up at our destination! The monastry is surrounded by a town with traditonal houses nd once again there is a lot of colour inside and gold paint. Its not opulant but just rich with colour. The walls on the outside are painted a shade of orange to look almost gold. The scenary is beautiful, all round are tall tall peaks, snow capped and you can see small prayer flag areas, like you always see on documentaries, dotted aorund the hills. Theres a few in town too. The monks are hanging around and seems to be a pretty peaceful life to be a monk! dennis checked out the kitchen, it was men only! he said it was nice and warm and smelt good! its pretty cold!
Head back to town den has discovered the Yak kebabs in the square. We sit and grb a couple of these and they are GOOD! nice and spicy yak ment intertwined with peppers. Yak meat is pretty good...mostly like beef but slightly different taste. and we headed to rose's cafe where apparently they have the best hot chocolate...and they do! YUM, its chocolate melted and milk! well good. We went to the square and at7:30 every night all the women of the town and quite a few of the men danced tradtional dances, in a big circle..music is played from speakers nearby. its nice and more and more women finished whatever they are doing and come to dance. Even the guys, unsually bit older are having a good time. Has a good community feel. Dinner we found a cosy place and i got Fried beef dumplings....they were sooooo good. They taste just like the sausage rolls you could order at primary school, i have a gooooood time eating again! dancing in the square is almost over, it goes for 2 hours and by this time the circle of people is taking up the whole square! we go back to our room and put on our electric blanket and get all warm and cosy. Even lying down you find your breathing is slightly funny!
We mish into the new town to pick up a present for dad – saw someone with something last night (obviosuly i can't mention it cos then he'd know what it is!!) and it cracked us up...the finnish guy had brought one too. So after this big walk around den's not feeling so hot and we're both completely knackered. You feel so stupid and lazy and putz but its so hard walking and talking that we're both silent and the small hill and stairs to our room requires a good 5 minutes sit down to catch our breath! We have a rest and then head out to the big monastry which is a couple miles outta town. Catch an old ricktety bus, th driver looks like he slept in his clothes and just rolled outta bed, this is completed by fag hanging out of his mouth. we add our 2 yuan to the literal cardboard box of other 1 yuan notes and do actually end up at our destination! The monastry is surrounded by a town with traditonal houses nd once again there is a lot of colour inside and gold paint. Its not opulant but just rich with colour. The walls on the outside are painted a shade of orange to look almost gold. The scenary is beautiful, all round are tall tall peaks, snow capped and you can see small prayer flag areas, like you always see on documentaries, dotted aorund the hills. Theres a few in town too. The monks are hanging around and seems to be a pretty peaceful life to be a monk! dennis checked out the kitchen, it was men only! he said it was nice and warm and smelt good! its pretty cold!
Head back to town den has discovered the Yak kebabs in the square. We sit and grb a couple of these and they are GOOD! nice and spicy yak ment intertwined with peppers. Yak meat is pretty good...mostly like beef but slightly different taste. and we headed to rose's cafe where apparently they have the best hot chocolate...and they do! YUM, its chocolate melted and milk! well good. We went to the square and at7:30 every night all the women of the town and quite a few of the men danced tradtional dances, in a big circle..music is played from speakers nearby. its nice and more and more women finished whatever they are doing and come to dance. Even the guys, unsually bit older are having a good time. Has a good community feel. Dinner we found a cosy place and i got Fried beef dumplings....they were sooooo good. They taste just like the sausage rolls you could order at primary school, i have a gooooood time eating again! dancing in the square is almost over, it goes for 2 hours and by this time the circle of people is taking up the whole square! we go back to our room and put on our electric blanket and get all warm and cosy. Even lying down you find your breathing is slightly funny!
Wednesday 23 April 2008
16th April – Lijiang -Quaitou (Tiger leaping gorge)– Shangri-la (Zhongdian)
We took a bus today to tiger leaping gorge which was on our way to shangri-la. Since we are not trekkers (or me rather) we decided for a quick squis rather than a 2-3 day hike, tho apparently its quite easy. The bus ride there is slow and windy, feeling not SOO good at the end, but negotiate a ride to the gorge via a cellphone with very good english who then relayed back to a taxi driver...good system! went to lookout and got good views and photos of the gorge, its really beautiful, but was stinking hot so glad i am not spending long out here!
Bus to shangri-la (after a stressful (me) wait for one!) was amazing as we climbed through the mountains and passed villages of wooden houses, yaks and very woolley cows and the big drying racks that scatter the countryside. it looks very harsh and barren, you can tell there is snow here for a lot of the year and smoke trickles from the chimneys. Massive drops on one side down to big gorges..looks like they are building some dams for electricity. Guess you can criticise the gov for this but with the climate out here, these peopl ereally need electricity! pass people herding goats and woman sitting and talking. All the women are in traditional dress like in lijiang, but with big turban like pink scarfs on their head, to protect from the sun and wind and keep them warm i suppose!
Arrive Shangri-la and traipse around and find our hostel. Thankfully the town is not very big cos i'm getting breathless! Find a small place for dinner and i have a excellent meal of beef and potatoes cooked with garlic, ginger and not-too-spicy chillies! Then spread with pita type steamed bread on top...was fab and perfect for the cold weather! Get chatting to this finnish couple and trade advice and several beers. a good night and great to chat to people who are thinking and experiencing similar things!
Bus to shangri-la (after a stressful (me) wait for one!) was amazing as we climbed through the mountains and passed villages of wooden houses, yaks and very woolley cows and the big drying racks that scatter the countryside. it looks very harsh and barren, you can tell there is snow here for a lot of the year and smoke trickles from the chimneys. Massive drops on one side down to big gorges..looks like they are building some dams for electricity. Guess you can criticise the gov for this but with the climate out here, these peopl ereally need electricity! pass people herding goats and woman sitting and talking. All the women are in traditional dress like in lijiang, but with big turban like pink scarfs on their head, to protect from the sun and wind and keep them warm i suppose!
Arrive Shangri-la and traipse around and find our hostel. Thankfully the town is not very big cos i'm getting breathless! Find a small place for dinner and i have a excellent meal of beef and potatoes cooked with garlic, ginger and not-too-spicy chillies! Then spread with pita type steamed bread on top...was fab and perfect for the cold weather! Get chatting to this finnish couple and trade advice and several beers. a good night and great to chat to people who are thinking and experiencing similar things!
15th April – Lijiang
Today OMG we did a bike ride to a village called Baisha. lonely planet said it was an easy 20-30 min ride, so 40 mins in and with the sorest arse on THE smallest seat EVER i am cursing lonely planet. Ride back was easier, turns out it was slightly uphill the whole way there. Easy my (sore) arse. Anyways we get there and have a good feed (of course) and a look around. they are quite geared up for the tourists as there were some shop stalls, but selling very different stuff than Lijiang! Den got a Mao Quote book...the famous little red book. Its been translated to english so i assume its possibly not the exact words violence-hungry Mao used..
We walked through the rural part of the town for a bit, big high snow capped peak in the background, so beautiful. Local seem slightly resentful of tourist, not so warm.
Bike ride back much easier with coasting most of the way, bum is SO SO SO sore.
We pyke out tonight and head to a pizza place...AWESOME food, they know how to make GOOOOOOD pizzas!
We walked through the rural part of the town for a bit, big high snow capped peak in the background, so beautiful. Local seem slightly resentful of tourist, not so warm.
Bike ride back much easier with coasting most of the way, bum is SO SO SO sore.
We pyke out tonight and head to a pizza place...AWESOME food, they know how to make GOOOOOOD pizzas!
14th April – Lijiang
Bed like heaven and struggle to gt up but of course the thought of breakfast pulls me through...we eat at a cafe alongside the river and watch hundreds of goldfish fight against the current and each other for bits of stale bread we drop in. watch stupid chinese tourists trying to walk on the cobblestones in high heals...duh! We spend the day walking round the lovely old town...it IS completely taken over by chinese tourist and tour groups... and at times you have to fight against the throngs to get anywhere. I also get my photo taken quite a bit which is always a bit disconcerting but den is usually pretty quick to photo the perpetrator which doesn't put them off but at least they look a bit sheepish. shame it is so busy, not den's favourite. We catch, by chance some old women dancing at the square...they're all in traditional dress of blue skirt and apron with this thing on their back that protects and pad them when they carry their baskets. quite a few have their grandchildren tied to their backs while they dance! (its not very rigourous) Old men watch all of this, i suppose its their wives up there. A couple have a bit of a chuckle with den, they seem really friendly. One old boy walks past in full communism dress; the navy big coat with matching navy trousers, belt and brass buttons and finally the typical cap.
dinner is good and we go to MAMA NAXI's which is crazy busy and typical chinese in that there is a busker inside with his amp on FULL so you have to yell at eat other but the food was good...simple sweet and sour chicken.
dinner is good and we go to MAMA NAXI's which is crazy busy and typical chinese in that there is a busker inside with his amp on FULL so you have to yell at eat other but the food was good...simple sweet and sour chicken.
13th April – Chengdu – Lijiang
Drag ourselves out of our comfy bed early to head to the panda park...the whole reason we decided to stop over in Chengdu...basically what this big city is famous for!
The adult pandas have just been served breaky when we arrive and one is enjoying it SOOO much, lying on his back right in front of us, happily chewing away. you can tell he is soooo happy eating! While he is munching away this other panda, in prolly what is a real energetic move for a panda, climbs a tree...unfortunately it becomes reeeeaalllly obvious that the tree is way to small for the weigh of this fat animal and about 2/3rds of the way up the tree starts to break and there is this massive cracking of breaking wood and like in a cartoon the branch bends til it breaks and the panda falls about 2 feet. SO funny.
after the adults were the “toddlers” which are aout 6 months to a year old. They were so much whiter and one keeper was playing with them, they were having such a good time rolling over and playing rough and tumble! They then got fed, looked like softened bamboo sticks...like what we put in green thai curry, which they seemed to enjoy and one was WAY more greedier than the others, jumping up to the keeper for more.
So cute, i want one!!
Hung round at the hostel, had a FAB BLT and then took our flight to Lijiang. All very normal and we arrive at our hostel about 8...its more of a nice guesthouse, big rooms and a massive bed! Lovely. We're in the old town too, but away from the madness which is nice. We head out for a meal and a look around, looks like a fairy town (apart from the chinese tourists and souvenir shops..) with all the red lanterns lit and the streams passing under old old wooden bridges. the stones of the street as SOO worn they are all slippery. Look forward to exploring here tomoro!
The adult pandas have just been served breaky when we arrive and one is enjoying it SOOO much, lying on his back right in front of us, happily chewing away. you can tell he is soooo happy eating! While he is munching away this other panda, in prolly what is a real energetic move for a panda, climbs a tree...unfortunately it becomes reeeeaalllly obvious that the tree is way to small for the weigh of this fat animal and about 2/3rds of the way up the tree starts to break and there is this massive cracking of breaking wood and like in a cartoon the branch bends til it breaks and the panda falls about 2 feet. SO funny.
after the adults were the “toddlers” which are aout 6 months to a year old. They were so much whiter and one keeper was playing with them, they were having such a good time rolling over and playing rough and tumble! They then got fed, looked like softened bamboo sticks...like what we put in green thai curry, which they seemed to enjoy and one was WAY more greedier than the others, jumping up to the keeper for more.
So cute, i want one!!
Hung round at the hostel, had a FAB BLT and then took our flight to Lijiang. All very normal and we arrive at our hostel about 8...its more of a nice guesthouse, big rooms and a massive bed! Lovely. We're in the old town too, but away from the madness which is nice. We head out for a meal and a look around, looks like a fairy town (apart from the chinese tourists and souvenir shops..) with all the red lanterns lit and the streams passing under old old wooden bridges. the stones of the street as SOO worn they are all slippery. Look forward to exploring here tomoro!
12th April – Chengdu
The morning of our train journey is pretty uneventful, tho i enjoy the “just-add-boiling-water” hot chocolate we have discovered. nice breakfast. we get picked up in Chengdu train station but not before we have had a chance to witness a screaming match between civilian woman and shop owner. By the looks of the other few locals we were not the only bemused onlookers. She looked quite normal but den had seen her hitting her own head 5 minutes previously...
So nice pick up and they pay the taxi ride to the hostel! pretty cool! End up SOOO pleased with our room and discover to my TOTAL delight the shower is good pressure with hot hot hot water. HEAVEN and i go all pruny :P they even give us a fruit basket! awesome. we head out on a mish to find some western food...sorry but sometimes you really need some. anyways find a DICOS which seems to be a chinese version of KFC, its packed and with lots of kids so seems to be a good bet. and its also spotless...i can see i like chengdu for all the wrong western reasons! gt a chicken burger and almost choke to death in my haste to eat it, but damn ITS GOOD. happy to provide good entertainment for the locals too. Spend the rest of the day wandering round the clothes shops which range from ridiculous to plain awful but its good fun to look at and i got a sweater for £1! woohoo. Our hostel is so fab we can rent DVDs for free and when i book our panda trip for the next morning, we get a free mini breaky of biscuits and waters! how nice is that! Watch a DVD and head out for Sichuan hotpot which is the local food. We end up getting the tourist version which is a pot of soup surrounded by the hotpot...good choice cos the chillies in the oil the hotpot uses are SO incredibly hot and have a funny aftertaste. Its good fun cooking our meat and veg and you dip it in a peanut oil/garlic/corriander mix afterwards. Its good but i find all the oil a bit much. den is loving the heavy tastes after food that he describes as too bland!
So nice pick up and they pay the taxi ride to the hostel! pretty cool! End up SOOO pleased with our room and discover to my TOTAL delight the shower is good pressure with hot hot hot water. HEAVEN and i go all pruny :P they even give us a fruit basket! awesome. we head out on a mish to find some western food...sorry but sometimes you really need some. anyways find a DICOS which seems to be a chinese version of KFC, its packed and with lots of kids so seems to be a good bet. and its also spotless...i can see i like chengdu for all the wrong western reasons! gt a chicken burger and almost choke to death in my haste to eat it, but damn ITS GOOD. happy to provide good entertainment for the locals too. Spend the rest of the day wandering round the clothes shops which range from ridiculous to plain awful but its good fun to look at and i got a sweater for £1! woohoo. Our hostel is so fab we can rent DVDs for free and when i book our panda trip for the next morning, we get a free mini breaky of biscuits and waters! how nice is that! Watch a DVD and head out for Sichuan hotpot which is the local food. We end up getting the tourist version which is a pot of soup surrounded by the hotpot...good choice cos the chillies in the oil the hotpot uses are SO incredibly hot and have a funny aftertaste. Its good fun cooking our meat and veg and you dip it in a peanut oil/garlic/corriander mix afterwards. Its good but i find all the oil a bit much. den is loving the heavy tastes after food that he describes as too bland!
11th April – Wudangshan to chengdu
Not much else to do in this sleepy town so we sleep in and pack up. Leave our bags with the lovely woman owner and sort of aimlessly walk around. end up spending a reasonable amount of time in internet cafe surrounded by people playing games and somtiemes watching porn. Nice. at least its warm!
Sleeper train to chengdu is nice. we Play a lot of bastard (and have our noodles of coruse!) and just as i'm about to take den on for the last championships, lights go out! 30 mins early. oh well. Bed HAS been slept in but since i'm in my clothes i;m not tooooo phased and i put my sarong over the pillow and im sussed. weird having some other bloke sleeping in his long johns on the bottom bunk about 1.5 feet away but oh well. Sleep better than on last sleeper train and its cosy and warm...and no cigarette smoke! yay!
Sleeper train to chengdu is nice. we Play a lot of bastard (and have our noodles of coruse!) and just as i'm about to take den on for the last championships, lights go out! 30 mins early. oh well. Bed HAS been slept in but since i'm in my clothes i;m not tooooo phased and i put my sarong over the pillow and im sussed. weird having some other bloke sleeping in his long johns on the bottom bunk about 1.5 feet away but oh well. Sleep better than on last sleeper train and its cosy and warm...and no cigarette smoke! yay!
10th April – Wudangshan
So another sleep in and now the toilet smells like festering pee which is weird cos i haven;t gone that much and i have good aim now. glad i showered last night but den gets a touch of warm water so not sure who is better off.
I copy some chinese characters cos we need to book our sleeper train to Chengdu and since this place is so small i wonder at how much english...there is no english anywhere else! But she had good english and luckily got us sleeping tickets, and now we now know the symbols for top, middle and bottom bunks and find ourselves in different cabins but same section so not a bad effort. The weather is looking decidely shite so we (much to my relief) decide to forgo the trek to the top and make like a rich chinese and take the tourist bus and cable car. Turns out to be a freaking HUGE way (and fair amount of money too!) but even on the bus there are great views and we really do steadily climb into the clouds. WE then take the cable car up which is really rthe steepest form of transpot i have EVER seen and that realllllly takes us into and then above the next layer of clouds. At one point it gets hard to see the car infront. Its up super high and the chinese bush is really beautiful, their trees are so different, often bent and twisted in funny shapes and sometimes the leaves are so fine, and then there are quite a lot of blossom trees too so you get this plot of pink amongst the green. At the top is this ancient monastry, its about 500 years old. its FREEZING here and were are right in the thick of clouds but you can see parts of the mountian and the lowr clouds in the gaps and its so beautiful. We pay (even more, SIGH) to get to the actual summit but its worth it as we're about the NEXT layer of clouds and can see the mist/clouds RUNNING over the ancient chinese buildings below. Smehow its how i imagine china to be so depsite the fact i'm compltely out of breath and it only 6 degrees its really amazing and almost satisfying to know you have found something out of a photo.
Have a strange dinner ...the tofu tastes like soap, but i brought some flat bread off the street and its hot and beautiful for dipping (in the other dish...not the soapy one!)
I copy some chinese characters cos we need to book our sleeper train to Chengdu and since this place is so small i wonder at how much english...there is no english anywhere else! But she had good english and luckily got us sleeping tickets, and now we now know the symbols for top, middle and bottom bunks and find ourselves in different cabins but same section so not a bad effort. The weather is looking decidely shite so we (much to my relief) decide to forgo the trek to the top and make like a rich chinese and take the tourist bus and cable car. Turns out to be a freaking HUGE way (and fair amount of money too!) but even on the bus there are great views and we really do steadily climb into the clouds. WE then take the cable car up which is really rthe steepest form of transpot i have EVER seen and that realllllly takes us into and then above the next layer of clouds. At one point it gets hard to see the car infront. Its up super high and the chinese bush is really beautiful, their trees are so different, often bent and twisted in funny shapes and sometimes the leaves are so fine, and then there are quite a lot of blossom trees too so you get this plot of pink amongst the green. At the top is this ancient monastry, its about 500 years old. its FREEZING here and were are right in the thick of clouds but you can see parts of the mountian and the lowr clouds in the gaps and its so beautiful. We pay (even more, SIGH) to get to the actual summit but its worth it as we're about the NEXT layer of clouds and can see the mist/clouds RUNNING over the ancient chinese buildings below. Smehow its how i imagine china to be so depsite the fact i'm compltely out of breath and it only 6 degrees its really amazing and almost satisfying to know you have found something out of a photo.
Have a strange dinner ...the tofu tastes like soap, but i brought some flat bread off the street and its hot and beautiful for dipping (in the other dish...not the soapy one!)
9th April - Xian - WudangShan
So my booking of tickets hadn't gone QUITE as well as i thought and it turns out instead of a nice normal train seat for 8 hours we were crammed in with the locals, in a smoking area, near the toilets on HARD seats. Yes they are padded but nly just. I can tell you my arse did suffer that day and no i did NOT use the toilet for 8 hours. Also think all the smoke possibly shaved a good year off my life. But wasn't totally unbearable once i accepted this and we had our noodles and snacks and played some last card. And arrived 8 hours later! Will be finding out the chinese characters for soft seat next time!!!
Nothing booked for wudangshan but all seems pretty close to the train station so we start looking for our place we had decided on...complete with backpacks, of coruse looking every much the western tourist. We apparently caught the eye of 3 american blokes who were training for kung fu which this area is famous for and possibly the birth place of, tho not being interested in ourselves we didn't really have much idea (tho we did have some good hongkong fuey jokes to ourselves) . So although we made it clear we were not on a spiritual journey to becoming a kung fu master they heplpfully took us to a hotel (all in chinese so we had not idea it was accommodation) and in chinese negotiated a price for us...which was pretty cool! They then went for a foot massge.
So the accomdation is v cheap and clean but very concerned about the shower which is basically OVER the squat toilet..i guess they tried to save on drainage but still...that and the cold water means i will be having very quick showers. (in my jandels). Headed out for tea and met our kung fu friends in place so had a nice chat to them about china and america etc. one of them has married a chinese girl training to be a nurse, they can't go back to america until they have been married 2 years, pretty harsh.
So found this chinese movie, old and weird but with english subtitles, which was odd but good! So quote of the day: “Step off my intestines, bitch”.
a lot of the words had us in a good fits of laughter. Found anoher channel playing pirated dvds! So watched the golden compass in english until we could;t stay awake...
Nothing booked for wudangshan but all seems pretty close to the train station so we start looking for our place we had decided on...complete with backpacks, of coruse looking every much the western tourist. We apparently caught the eye of 3 american blokes who were training for kung fu which this area is famous for and possibly the birth place of, tho not being interested in ourselves we didn't really have much idea (tho we did have some good hongkong fuey jokes to ourselves) . So although we made it clear we were not on a spiritual journey to becoming a kung fu master they heplpfully took us to a hotel (all in chinese so we had not idea it was accommodation) and in chinese negotiated a price for us...which was pretty cool! They then went for a foot massge.
So the accomdation is v cheap and clean but very concerned about the shower which is basically OVER the squat toilet..i guess they tried to save on drainage but still...that and the cold water means i will be having very quick showers. (in my jandels). Headed out for tea and met our kung fu friends in place so had a nice chat to them about china and america etc. one of them has married a chinese girl training to be a nurse, they can't go back to america until they have been married 2 years, pretty harsh.
So found this chinese movie, old and weird but with english subtitles, which was odd but good! So quote of the day: “Step off my intestines, bitch”.
a lot of the words had us in a good fits of laughter. Found anoher channel playing pirated dvds! So watched the golden compass in english until we could;t stay awake...
8th April – Xian
So today we went to the terracotta warriors, which was basically the whole reason for our trip here. We were good and caught the local bus...in the wrong way but soon realised and changed. From there it was pretty easy to get to the warrior but started pissing down which was particulary traumatic for me as i'd spent 10 minutes deliberating whether or not to take my brolly and decided against it. ARGH. But ended up buying 2 off some entrepreneurial bloke for a quid. Were lazy (and it was raining!) and took the electronic car to the site from the carpark...don't want to walk 1km in the rain thanks. Dutifully watched the movie which was kinda random cos you stand in this cylinder room with the movie all around you and it all joins up...made me feel carsick if it moved to fast! Went to the biggest pit first which is where they all line up. its pretty cool and they all noticibly different, some are even kinda fierce and some are almost happy, sme have facial hair, some have side burns!. You can see lots that have been destroyed after the qing empire collpased which was only a short time after the emporer had been buried with his army. Theres horses too.. Hard to believe this is all like 2000 years old, amazing. Pit 2 and 3 were not quite as spectacular but 2 contained horses set up in order and 3 had some generals and a bowman and a horse with his leader all on display and they were really in great condition. the horseman even has the reins in his hands and you can see the bowmans feet...the shoes have a sole pattern on them, so so intricate and so much thought gone into it. Shame the emporer was obviously a nutjob. Head back to our hostel and had a lazy dinner in the cafe there trying to decide our movements after Wudangshan. Enjoying the wireless!
7th April – Arrive Xian
Arrive Xian and our hostel comes to pick us up from the train station which was fab cos both feeling half asleep after not much train sleep. So we check in, they show us to our room (its only about 7:30) nd say have a good rest...so id say we looked pretty shot. Den still not great but hostel beds are comfy as...white duvets seem to be the norm here which is nice change from random indian blankets. the linen always seems super clean. Funny smelling toliet again and dodge shower but a funky hostel and nice cafe to hang out at. with coffee and toast! yum. den still not great today so spent the day catchin up on sleep and chilling out. Did vetnure out and buy our 8 hour train tickets to Wudangshan...dens pick, i have no idea what is there, but he can never remember the name. Hopefully the tickets are ok. Find the supermarket, very nice and i finally get some hand cream, YAY!! full of jackie chan endorsed green tea in bottles and chips displayed between the escalators.
Dinner tonight, well we got a tad lost , den still not got his internal compass right and ended up for an unintended long walk. ut found a dumpling restaurant which apparently Xian is somewhat a bit famous for. I've never ave dumpling befores...cept these duck things you get at Wagamamas and these chinese ones are all steamed so they're all pale nd you have NO idea whats in them. NO english and we had no idea what the woman was saying so randomly picked 2 lots from the menu and hoped for the best. the beer was right and cold. A chinese man across from us was laughing at us struggling and we all had a good laugh about it. dumplings turned out to be great and i pesonally really enjoyed them. Kind of like ravioli...its kinda of pasta with stuff. one had pork and spring onions and then the other was chicken with garlic and ginger..YUM! you dip them in this sauce with is chilli, vinegar and soy sauce. anyways i loved them but den wasn't entirely convinced. Feel really good we had some local food and the place was filled with chinese.
Dinner tonight, well we got a tad lost , den still not got his internal compass right and ended up for an unintended long walk. ut found a dumpling restaurant which apparently Xian is somewhat a bit famous for. I've never ave dumpling befores...cept these duck things you get at Wagamamas and these chinese ones are all steamed so they're all pale nd you have NO idea whats in them. NO english and we had no idea what the woman was saying so randomly picked 2 lots from the menu and hoped for the best. the beer was right and cold. A chinese man across from us was laughing at us struggling and we all had a good laugh about it. dumplings turned out to be great and i pesonally really enjoyed them. Kind of like ravioli...its kinda of pasta with stuff. one had pork and spring onions and then the other was chicken with garlic and ginger..YUM! you dip them in this sauce with is chilli, vinegar and soy sauce. anyways i loved them but den wasn't entirely convinced. Feel really good we had some local food and the place was filled with chinese.
6th April – Beijing to Xian
So today was our first sleeper train. As they always left lateish at night and check out is always 12pm you always have this time to kill, annoyingly. And not fab when you're not feeling 100%(den). So we went back to the funky hutong area and drank lots of coffee, tea and hot chocolate til it was time to mish back to grab our bags and go to the station.
Sleeper trains here are pretty good, cleaner than the indian trains, but since they're all bloody chimmneys here there was a smoking section...in the part between cars...and we were in the 1st cabin so spent a good 20 mins once i was in bed cursing smokers with my head under the duvet. But was actaully pretty comfortable, and there is a bottom sheet all tucked in in and a duvet which is great for me cos i used to get all tangled up in the indian blankets and loose sheets. Didn;t sleep great but no real reason...seems the chinese (despite the smoking) aren't really big snorers so one less thing to annoy me :)
Sleeper trains here are pretty good, cleaner than the indian trains, but since they're all bloody chimmneys here there was a smoking section...in the part between cars...and we were in the 1st cabin so spent a good 20 mins once i was in bed cursing smokers with my head under the duvet. But was actaully pretty comfortable, and there is a bottom sheet all tucked in in and a duvet which is great for me cos i used to get all tangled up in the indian blankets and loose sheets. Didn;t sleep great but no real reason...seems the chinese (despite the smoking) aren't really big snorers so one less thing to annoy me :)
Sunday 13 April 2008
5th April - Beijing
today was our great wall day but first we had to mish to the west train station to book our sleeper tickets for the next night (to XIAN). and it WAS such a mish. the tube is not fantastically plannd and its like at least 1km from the tube to the train station (west) so you have to walk for ages to get there. annoying. chaos when we got there but found an english speaking window and got our tickets...score! anyways some reason to celebrate when youre expecting it to be shit and really difficult.
So we found our great wall bus to a town and then had to find a taxi to th part of the wall we wanted to see. There quite a few parts of the wall to choose but we wanted a part that wasn't really restored and wasnt so touristy. SO our completely non-english speaking driver took us out there and well it was getting pretty late by now so arn (as i do) was getting stressed cos supposedly the wall “shuts” at 5. SO we hooned as fast as you can go in a cable car and THEN took a finicular even further up which was lucky cos the next 17 flights of old stairs were a freakin killer. But reached the top and there i was...standing on the wall!!! and it was amazing, hardly any people (but enough to know we weren;t getting kicked off) and after a while the mist cleared slightly and ou could see the wall twisting off up the net lot of ranges, JUST like in pictures and it really was perfect. Walked down it for about 1-2 kms, LOTS of steep steps (down mostly) and it was pretty unrestored. walked through the turrets, some are in better condition that others. Leisurely made our way down, took an over the top amount of misty photos and found ourselves back on the path to the carpark...past THE biggest flying fox ever. was even too much for den, just mental.
So we found our great wall bus to a town and then had to find a taxi to th part of the wall we wanted to see. There quite a few parts of the wall to choose but we wanted a part that wasn't really restored and wasnt so touristy. SO our completely non-english speaking driver took us out there and well it was getting pretty late by now so arn (as i do) was getting stressed cos supposedly the wall “shuts” at 5. SO we hooned as fast as you can go in a cable car and THEN took a finicular even further up which was lucky cos the next 17 flights of old stairs were a freakin killer. But reached the top and there i was...standing on the wall!!! and it was amazing, hardly any people (but enough to know we weren;t getting kicked off) and after a while the mist cleared slightly and ou could see the wall twisting off up the net lot of ranges, JUST like in pictures and it really was perfect. Walked down it for about 1-2 kms, LOTS of steep steps (down mostly) and it was pretty unrestored. walked through the turrets, some are in better condition that others. Leisurely made our way down, took an over the top amount of misty photos and found ourselves back on the path to the carpark...past THE biggest flying fox ever. was even too much for den, just mental.
4th April – Beijing
Feeling better today and after our mammoth rest yesterday decided to take on the summer palace. Its not too far from the city and we took cab out there. Its got this massive man made lake that the emperor decided he wanted, we ended up walking around it, which was lovely, as the sun was out, blossoms and trees were beautiful and it was busy but not mental! the grounds of the palace were amazing, the palace buildings were pretty similar to the forbidden city but we saw the palace stage and caught a performance of some acrobats then some girl dancers and finally a traditional orchestra, so that was pretty cool. some of the empress Dowager's robes were on display, the most beautiful one with butterflies all over its.
Caught a cab back home and it drove past the new olmpic stadium which was VERY cool and VERY impressive. The city really is gearing up for th games, new trees and roads are everywhere, builders aree working through the night to complete buildings and there is sort of a decided determination to get the city ready..perhaps at any cost, i'm not sure. lots of buildboards up saying “we are ready”. i hope they do it tho not sure about the pollution really.Headed to a funky part of town for dinner, tried to find some good chinese dinner but everywhere was so busy! ended up in a place that looked good (and chinese what with all the unreadable writing...) and turned out to be japanese! But oh well cos we had a damn good feed, was another jap cook-your-own and we BBQ'd our own strips of beek then you dunk them generously in this sauce stuff and OMG the beef was awesome. Really thin strips and SUCH good meat! den was in heaven and we ordered an extra plate of beef. left feeling FULL.
Caught a cab back home and it drove past the new olmpic stadium which was VERY cool and VERY impressive. The city really is gearing up for th games, new trees and roads are everywhere, builders aree working through the night to complete buildings and there is sort of a decided determination to get the city ready..perhaps at any cost, i'm not sure. lots of buildboards up saying “we are ready”. i hope they do it tho not sure about the pollution really.Headed to a funky part of town for dinner, tried to find some good chinese dinner but everywhere was so busy! ended up in a place that looked good (and chinese what with all the unreadable writing...) and turned out to be japanese! But oh well cos we had a damn good feed, was another jap cook-your-own and we BBQ'd our own strips of beek then you dunk them generously in this sauce stuff and OMG the beef was awesome. Really thin strips and SUCH good meat! den was in heaven and we ordered an extra plate of beef. left feeling FULL.
3rd april – Beijing
Home sick today! woke up and i was a bit better and roll over and den is cooking up. nice. i DID mish out to get some food, including some pot noodles for dinner...roast beef flavour, VERY good, highly recommended. Spend the day sleeping and channeling surfing in the hope of finding something thats NOT in chinese and NOT propaganda news they use to convert english speakers..
2nd April - Beijing
So today we mished to THE imperial palace, the forbidden city. Was crawling with people and is such a big area but we had a decent look around. Lots of buildings with old furniture in it...its better than it sounds! just was SOO tired at the end of it. amazing how much these people spent on stuff, but spose if you were stuck within 4 walls you would do a lot of home shopping.Got home and had a nap, woke up with a temperature and den had to go get micky ds for dinner (it was across the road!). yuck, feeling completely pants. Get to sleep early
1 april – Beijing
Slept in today was SOOO tired. looked outside looks like a massive amount of mist and turns out to be a hugely smoggy day...nice. Found a local bakery and got some flash looking buns and bikkies, and for peanuts, so cheap! walked to the tube, all being kitted out with automatic ticket machines fo the games, but for now, all tickets ad checking tickets done by people. tedious! Discovered that there is a massively mad rush for any free seats and you gotta get in there quick. Middle aged men seem to be the worst for this...
Got out at tianamen square, really feeling the communism! red everywhere and a lovely pic of chairman Mao across the road. nice. Don't you think if you were a massive dictator and were going to have your photo done, you'd get rid of the massive wart on your chin?? i know this is pre-photoshop days but surely there were a couple of good painters close by? Anyways THE Mao is pickled in a masuoleum in the square too..We had peking duck for dinner in this “duck” restaurant, so ccripsy duck pancakes and WOOHOO were they good. you could also almost buy like every part of the duck to eat...duck tounges anyone??
Got out at tianamen square, really feeling the communism! red everywhere and a lovely pic of chairman Mao across the road. nice. Don't you think if you were a massive dictator and were going to have your photo done, you'd get rid of the massive wart on your chin?? i know this is pre-photoshop days but surely there were a couple of good painters close by? Anyways THE Mao is pickled in a masuoleum in the square too..We had peking duck for dinner in this “duck” restaurant, so ccripsy duck pancakes and WOOHOO were they good. you could also almost buy like every part of the duck to eat...duck tounges anyone??
31st March - Tokyo - Beijing
Uneventful day today other than we got up early outta our capsules and headed to the fish market. It was completely pissing down and freeeezing so by the time we got there we were numb, luckily it was undercover. was huge, you can relly see how muhc damn fish and of how many types the japanese are consuming! the biggest tuna steaks ever (den wondered perhaps if it was whale??), ocotpus, squid and lots of ink everywhere, prawns, shrimps, crayfish, lots of fish eggs! big red fish with huge blugging eyes! so many i had no idea what they were. lots of people, perhaps chefs buying their dily goods. there was so much fiish but hardly any smell, it was so fresh.
anyways only so much dead fish and guts you need to see, so headed for a warm cuppa and breakfast!
Flew out to China that afternoon. Arrived beijing and passed the taxi drive our address for our hotel and he was cracking up, we had no idea til we got to “our” road and it was miles long! but we found it and we had a good laugh. Nice place, funny smelling toilet and hardest bed ever!!! But ahh sleep!
anyways only so much dead fish and guts you need to see, so headed for a warm cuppa and breakfast!
Flew out to China that afternoon. Arrived beijing and passed the taxi drive our address for our hotel and he was cracking up, we had no idea til we got to “our” road and it was miles long! but we found it and we had a good laugh. Nice place, funny smelling toilet and hardest bed ever!!! But ahh sleep!
sunday 30h march - Tokyo
Hell of a day today, spent an age finding a capsule hotel but finally did. had left our big bags at the ryokan and so once we hd booked in, headed off to shinjuku and enjoyed taiten (i think) which is a sushi on a conveyor belt. they all greet you when you come in and then you just take plates and they tally it up with your plates at the end! different plates had different values. Beautful salmon, so fresh and they add the wasabi themselves so i think you get the right amount for the particular fish. was lovely.
Capsule hotel was pretty different! i was on the womens floor and so after utting my things in a locker i had a shower (dens were fully communual so he stayed unwashed..) and went to my capsule. I had a bottom row one and it comes with a tele and alarm clock and light. Theres not door to close, you just pull down the shade. luckily in a room full of women it was pretty quiet. apparenetly the mens room was full of snorers. strange night.
Capsule hotel was pretty different! i was on the womens floor and so after utting my things in a locker i had a shower (dens were fully communual so he stayed unwashed..) and went to my capsule. I had a bottom row one and it comes with a tele and alarm clock and light. Theres not door to close, you just pull down the shade. luckily in a room full of women it was pretty quiet. apparenetly the mens room was full of snorers. strange night.
Saturday 29th march – tokyo
headed out of the city today to...ummm forget now, will have to edit this post later...
Anyways took the train out to some place and joined lots of locals for a walk around some temples, including this massive buddha we got to go INTO. it wasn;t as exciting as youd think in a buddhas belly but hey, how many people can say they;ve done THAT then???
Came back to tokyo and found a local(ish) restaurant that specialises in YOU making “japanese pancakes”. you sit on the floor with a table that has a hot plate in it. You pick a batter (egg and cabbage and batter and tempura bits etc etc) and then mix it all up. Put in on the hot plate and enjoiy your beer while cooking...flip and cook some more and then add this special sauce...YUM. was damn good.
Anyways took the train out to some place and joined lots of locals for a walk around some temples, including this massive buddha we got to go INTO. it wasn;t as exciting as youd think in a buddhas belly but hey, how many people can say they;ve done THAT then???
Came back to tokyo and found a local(ish) restaurant that specialises in YOU making “japanese pancakes”. you sit on the floor with a table that has a hot plate in it. You pick a batter (egg and cabbage and batter and tempura bits etc etc) and then mix it all up. Put in on the hot plate and enjoiy your beer while cooking...flip and cook some more and then add this special sauce...YUM. was damn good.
28th march – tokyo
The most important day of the year...my birthday!!!!!!! so we headed to a mall where there is this massive rollar coaster. den went on it, it looked awful but was heaps of fun to watch him. turns out in the stadium next door was a big concert that night for a band called X...apparently these are pretty hardcore heavy metallers cos the square was filled with hundreds of goth-ly dressed individuals. spent an hour wandering around staring and taking photos. long coats, teased red hair, copious light foundation and eyeliner seem to be pretty standard! spent the rest of the day shopping in other areas and finished off at a funky italian underground restaurant. had writing all over the walls, very funky.
27th march – tokyo
Den suffering from post-disney-fatigue today so we took it easy with a mish round the city. walked through harajuku and tho we didnt see anyone massively weird looking, there were some definite camden rivals. changed from our hotel boxroom to a traditional japanese ryokan...which was awesome! fully kitted out with tatami mats and futons, we even got cotton kimonos to wear, so cool. Found some original pot noodles for dinner (yep we were that tired) and, took a punt on the flavour and had on e seriously tense situation after opening that perhaps we had seafood flavour...obvisouly the worst one. however seemed it was just the tiny freezedired prawns in it that gave it that apperance and tasted gooood. even better was the hagen das icecream. you can get green tea flavour (tho of coruse i didn't).
26th March 2008
Disneyland!!! complete chaos just a seething mass of people and queues. still was a fun day, and got on all the good rides...thunder mountain is still the best! was made to go on splash mountain RIIIGHT at the end of the day and almost panicked my way out but did it and survived. (yes i'm a chicken and i know it!)
Fell into bed near 11pm after an exhausting day
Fell into bed near 11pm after an exhausting day
25th march 2008
So turns out we are paying top dollar for our teensy room is because the blossom festival is on! randomly excellent and worth the extra millions of pennies cos its a REAL big deal here...den caught the “blossom report” on the news last night...looks liike they're all gonna be out in full on thursday. Everything is pink and floral and a real celebration of spring is happening.
So after our mecca of shopping and disoreintation yesterday we decided to have some CULTURE. Headed to our local shinto shrine in asukusa. den brought a fortune which was almost the worst one...small fortune! figured i could beat that, i got my own (you randomly pick bits of paper with them on it) and got the worse one! bugger. had to tie my up on a clothesline type thing to “allow the wind to take the bad luck”. heres hoping it worked..ended up at a sushi place in roppongi for dinner, eveyone yells and greats you when you walk in, its pretty cool. we had no idea what to get and wanted to have an “experience” so ordered an array of sushi. The tuna and salmon were good, the eel was ok but highlight of the night was when den (on a dare) ate the entire salmon roe sushi..thats salmon eggs. google a picture of them, they;'re big and orange! den has advise apparently they explode in you mouth...nice. anyways he couldn't finish it and i was crying with laughter. so never again. you'll be impressed to know he DID complete the herring roe one but wouldn;t recommend it
So after our mecca of shopping and disoreintation yesterday we decided to have some CULTURE. Headed to our local shinto shrine in asukusa. den brought a fortune which was almost the worst one...small fortune! figured i could beat that, i got my own (you randomly pick bits of paper with them on it) and got the worse one! bugger. had to tie my up on a clothesline type thing to “allow the wind to take the bad luck”. heres hoping it worked..ended up at a sushi place in roppongi for dinner, eveyone yells and greats you when you walk in, its pretty cool. we had no idea what to get and wanted to have an “experience” so ordered an array of sushi. The tuna and salmon were good, the eel was ok but highlight of the night was when den (on a dare) ate the entire salmon roe sushi..thats salmon eggs. google a picture of them, they;'re big and orange! den has advise apparently they explode in you mouth...nice. anyways he couldn't finish it and i was crying with laughter. so never again. you'll be impressed to know he DID complete the herring roe one but wouldn;t recommend it
24 March 2008
so being the good woman i am, first thing i have found are the shopping malls and the biggest stationary shop in tokyo. sweet. den is not as excited as me.
We head to breakfast and go for the “morningu settu” which wa strrrronnnng coffee and cream, thick white toast with butter and a hard boiled egg. excellent. plus they give you a moist towel after eating which is v considerate. The cafe seems real old school, all dark and cute and the chairs are really low.
so we scout round our local area, Asukasa and take the metro to Ginza. This turns out to be all expensive designer shops and malls we can't work out how to get into BUT find the fabulous stationary shop, itoya and spend a looong while drooling in there. brought cow shaped paperclips (couldnt help it!) plus quite a few stickers (of sushi..).
Poor den has had enough of paper and pens by now and we headed to shinjuku where the massive department stores are (who put me in charge of the lonely planet..) they are soooo big and also connect up with one of the biggest metro and rail stations in tokyo so we spent ages trying to fnd the food halls and somewhere to sit. Find the halls find with amazing food, but nowhre to rest our feet...argh. finally find a cafe...The department stores were too mental so we head off to shibuya which is home to the big famous crossing...which we crossed! and just sosososo many people and so chaotic. electric advertising everywhere. Checked out a Pachinko slot place...seems to be a gambling thing with metal balls...the rooms are smoky and music on full, its really a massive assault on all your senses!
We head to breakfast and go for the “morningu settu” which wa strrrronnnng coffee and cream, thick white toast with butter and a hard boiled egg. excellent. plus they give you a moist towel after eating which is v considerate. The cafe seems real old school, all dark and cute and the chairs are really low.
so we scout round our local area, Asukasa and take the metro to Ginza. This turns out to be all expensive designer shops and malls we can't work out how to get into BUT find the fabulous stationary shop, itoya and spend a looong while drooling in there. brought cow shaped paperclips (couldnt help it!) plus quite a few stickers (of sushi..).
Poor den has had enough of paper and pens by now and we headed to shinjuku where the massive department stores are (who put me in charge of the lonely planet..) they are soooo big and also connect up with one of the biggest metro and rail stations in tokyo so we spent ages trying to fnd the food halls and somewhere to sit. Find the halls find with amazing food, but nowhre to rest our feet...argh. finally find a cafe...The department stores were too mental so we head off to shibuya which is home to the big famous crossing...which we crossed! and just sosososo many people and so chaotic. electric advertising everywhere. Checked out a Pachinko slot place...seems to be a gambling thing with metal balls...the rooms are smoky and music on full, its really a massive assault on all your senses!
23 march 2008
So left NZ today, very sucky, hate goodbyes and havin g spent a wonderful month in NZ this was the hardest one so far i reckon. But onto the next thing!3 flights later, including 1 budget 9 hour flight WITHOUT personal TVs (shock horror!) we arrived in tokyo. metro to our hotel and yay they hve our boooking so arn can stop stressing as per normal. Find THE smallest room EVER but is so cute and dinky, i like it alot! has everything you need, including fridge, tv, wireless, jug, tea and coffee plus thngs like toothbrushes ans toothpastes. tho basically it seems we are paying like 4 pounds per sq centimetre its all good. bedtime and yay cant wait for tomoro!
New Zealand
beach, sun, family, wedding, beer, wine, driving! wendys, fish and chips, fresh snapper, black sand, hot weather, sunshine, french toast, breakfast outside, shopping, waiheke, taupo, tauranga, auckland, hamilton, raglan, smashing pumpkins!!, house, yogi, hot showers, washing machine! bacon and eggs and beans and toast, chartwell square and new market, house buying!!
Tuesday 19 February 2008
19th Feb - Kochi
So today we had planned as our shopping day...head to the mainland and the city and buy some stuff! headed out for our breaky....to find every shop closed, no rickshaws or taxi...tourists wandering aimlessly. Strike day! hadn't realised all businesses, even private ones, would be closed! found a cafe that WAS open tho trying to be a bit discrete and closed the shutters. At least we had food! looked like there were only a couple open! all of kerala shut today...and no transport. Almost feels like a lot of peer pressure to stay closed, as those that were open were discretely and had said they could hve trouble from locals if they were open. Group of young men gathered round at an intersection makes you think there is something abou india, in these situations that is almost fragile...like problems maybe caused by poverty, infrstructure issues or maybe even government corruption, fueled by some supression, that issu could arise even in this peaceful tourist village by the sea. very very slight sinister feeling tho perhaps i have just read too many books!!! anyways now in our nice cool room, dennis is watching the India vs sri lanka one day-er...india not doing so good! Good chance for me to catch up on my blog anyways! Wow i am ALLLLLLL up to date, i am soooooo good!!!!
18th Feb - Kochi
Rented a motor scooter today and hooned round the island. Breakfast at local bakery...best vege puff! Stopped off at the “dutch palace” which wasn't very dutch at all, tho has very pornographic images of shiva and milkmaids that i'm sure the dutch did appreciate...
Checked out the jewish town nearby and a fw antique stores which were unbelievable! full of REALLY old things like MASSIVE, handpainted wooden doors and big wooden horses, brass and copper fountains...really really old and very expensive! think i prolly could only afford a tile :P
Zoomed around and looked around the locals part of town...no tourists...and then got stuck in the school rush which was a bit nerve racking, and prolly not helped by me that i grabbed den hard each time we got bit close to stuff! poor den, lucky i never did go on that motorbike with him! Really interesting architechture, very portuguese, but badly maintained.
Did some internetting and really a bit of sightseeing but another quiet day. Had some snacks on th promenade. Decided for a bit of a change for our tastebuds and choose an italian restaurant (dry so luckily we'd had a special tea before hand!) and had a Awesome meal...best bruschetta EVER, so good and really proper italian. good choice and funny how we didn't realise we were missing any food until we had that! nice to have something different.
Checked out the jewish town nearby and a fw antique stores which were unbelievable! full of REALLY old things like MASSIVE, handpainted wooden doors and big wooden horses, brass and copper fountains...really really old and very expensive! think i prolly could only afford a tile :P
Zoomed around and looked around the locals part of town...no tourists...and then got stuck in the school rush which was a bit nerve racking, and prolly not helped by me that i grabbed den hard each time we got bit close to stuff! poor den, lucky i never did go on that motorbike with him! Really interesting architechture, very portuguese, but badly maintained.
Did some internetting and really a bit of sightseeing but another quiet day. Had some snacks on th promenade. Decided for a bit of a change for our tastebuds and choose an italian restaurant (dry so luckily we'd had a special tea before hand!) and had a Awesome meal...best bruschetta EVER, so good and really proper italian. good choice and funny how we didn't realise we were missing any food until we had that! nice to have something different.
17th Feb - Kochi
after being rudely awaken by the guy from the front desk checking that we were definetly checking out today...the obvisouly wanted the room asap, i was feeling QUITE murderous. the pillows were also all lumpy, dennis was a sweetie and took the worst one...prolly to shut me up :P
Anyways after a walk off the main roads we found THE perfect place to chill out for 4 days...big light room (v rare in India), WITH aircon and a balcony! Soft bed and nice bathroom. perfect. feeling good about living here for the next 4-5 days so celebrated with a good breaky of fresh baked bread, butter and chai. spent the rest of the day being VERY lazy in our nice cool room, watching the cricket between India and australia, plus a bit of a nap...was knackered! Headed out for a beer (in a tea pot..) and then a big dinner of fish moilee (fish in coconut milk and keralan spices, V good), rice and pappadums.
Anyways after a walk off the main roads we found THE perfect place to chill out for 4 days...big light room (v rare in India), WITH aircon and a balcony! Soft bed and nice bathroom. perfect. feeling good about living here for the next 4-5 days so celebrated with a good breaky of fresh baked bread, butter and chai. spent the rest of the day being VERY lazy in our nice cool room, watching the cricket between India and australia, plus a bit of a nap...was knackered! Headed out for a beer (in a tea pot..) and then a big dinner of fish moilee (fish in coconut milk and keralan spices, V good), rice and pappadums.
16th Feb - Munnar - Kochi
off back to cochi today, so after a FAB breaky (scrambled eggs!) in our nice place (finally a soft bed and lights that work!!!) we headed to the bus stop. ots of tourists on this bus to cochi and met a lovely woman from Israel – Orit. Very interesting and we exchanged addresses...she has convinced us to go there one day and looks like we would have a very good tour guide! she was amrried with a 6 year old boy and was going to try and get a polish passport (her mother was polish) so she can work in europe easily, and travel more easily (she wants to go to morroco and apparnetly Israelis cannot do independent travel there..). Also because if things in Israel do get much worse, her family can leave. tho life there seems to go on as per normal...or normal for them.
Bus trip was a bit tougher this time, driver wasn't quite as confident (or crazy) with the corners and braked heavily just before them. poor den was white by the time we got to the bottom of the valley and my tummy was NOT feeling good.
Finally, THANKFULLY arrived in kochi and lack of accommodation didn't leave us with massive choice but no worries. very busy. Had a good feed (more onion pakora...YUMMMMMMY) and accommodation hunt set for tomoro morning. Disgustingly ate an icecream on the way home!
Bus trip was a bit tougher this time, driver wasn't quite as confident (or crazy) with the corners and braked heavily just before them. poor den was white by the time we got to the bottom of the valley and my tummy was NOT feeling good.
Finally, THANKFULLY arrived in kochi and lack of accommodation didn't leave us with massive choice but no worries. very busy. Had a good feed (more onion pakora...YUMMMMMMY) and accommodation hunt set for tomoro morning. Disgustingly ate an icecream on the way home!
15th Feb - Munnar
We decided to completely let go and splurge by having night in a much more expensive place up in the tea hills. Ooooo i had such a good time!!! arrived and our room wasn't quite ready so we sat out on our lil proch and were brought some masala chai, YUM. in a themos jug, no less! so yum. lots of indian mags in english...almost the equivalent of an indian Time magazine, so interesting to see a bit of political and social pieces. Den managed to get the a couple of the guys to teach him how to use a motorbike and then go off for ride, so he was so happy. despite his 20 minutes of experience i decided NOT to double with him and to stay with my books and mags for an hour! lovely! Had a chat with a manager type thing of the sister homestay, about all sorts of social issues, mostly between guys and girls. his opinions seemed to be that despite being happily married with a lil girl, that the segregation of men and women and arranged marriages and not ebing allowed girlfriends etc, was not healthy for society. interesting to hear his point of view. Also about the communist party, apparently elections are every 5 years and it does seem to alternate between right and left wing. he seemed to be a bit anti as its not good for industry, he thought that it held Kerala back a bit.
So den came back all very happy and we headed into town for some food. Also for a bit of a shop, i got some Munnar grown black tea and an indian womans magazine in english of course...kinda like cosmo. Amazed if there really are tat many liberated indian women...where are they?? deifnetly is of the minority. Also got some classic indian mouth freshner (wuith seeds etc, i tried some its AWFUL. den quite liked it. i had to spit it out!) and some snuff! a v small packet for my scrap book, strange, never seen it sold before!!
Back at the hilltop homestay we we served a ice cold kingfisher outside and then went and watched a cooking demo. Almost more interesting to watch some of the other guests trying to take everything in. dinner time and it was GOOOOOOD. yum. Sat with a older british couple who were very interesting thnk goodness. The husband (dave) was a musician and even had a guitalaelee (half guitar, half ukalaelee) and was very very good so a nice night tho den drunk far too much kingfisher!
So den came back all very happy and we headed into town for some food. Also for a bit of a shop, i got some Munnar grown black tea and an indian womans magazine in english of course...kinda like cosmo. Amazed if there really are tat many liberated indian women...where are they?? deifnetly is of the minority. Also got some classic indian mouth freshner (wuith seeds etc, i tried some its AWFUL. den quite liked it. i had to spit it out!) and some snuff! a v small packet for my scrap book, strange, never seen it sold before!!
Back at the hilltop homestay we we served a ice cold kingfisher outside and then went and watched a cooking demo. Almost more interesting to watch some of the other guests trying to take everything in. dinner time and it was GOOOOOOD. yum. Sat with a older british couple who were very interesting thnk goodness. The husband (dave) was a musician and even had a guitalaelee (half guitar, half ukalaelee) and was very very good so a nice night tho den drunk far too much kingfisher!
14th Feb - Munnar
Neither of us realised it was valentines day til we arrived back for the day getting ready for bed! no advertising for it here, tho you get a tiny bit of it on tele, so that was quite refreshing, so possibly not v romantic :P
den was really keen to find a scooter or motorbike to ride round the hills but we really struggled to find anything so we gave up and took a rickshaw to a view point. and christ then did we walk. bout 6km ...luckily most of it was downhill and we had a few crisp breaks. the scenary was awesome, all the tea is chopped off the top so everything the same height its so beautiful! met a tea picker on our way, they seem to be always women, and they basically just use secuters (sp???) with a bag attached to one end. they have to lift massvie bags of the tea so its quite ahrd work but sounded like there was quite a lo of gossiping going on! so with no english she showd us how they cut it and den asked her for a picture which she happily obliged with the most loveliest smile. Den gave her 5 rupees and her and her bemused workmate just giggled and laughed as we walked off! we later found out that they only get paid 70 rupees a day so spose it was a bit of a bonus! TATA is the tea company and seems that they are starting to take over India – cars, tea, phones, trucks, buses plus all these other random unrelated things. The tea women apparently get quite god hours, 10-4 with 1 hour lunch and TATA also run the local schools and provide a special school and post-school work for disabled children of the tea workers. So perhaps they are better employers than most in india...or that the communist state government as something to do with workers rights...
anyways the waterfall was nothing amazing but lovely to stick our hot feet in the COOOLLLLD water. yum. then we had a monumentous climb back up...personally i blame the altitude for the struggle. (we're about 1000 metres). once i'd got my breath back (the cursing didn't help...) we caught the local bus back.
Dinner was an interesting affair, it took at least 1.5 hours to get our dinner! I'd almost passed out even tho we are getting used to indian relaxed service, and then inhaled my food once it arrived. Even den (who you'd think is used to me) was amazed with how much i managed to put away and then got scared and moved the food away...
den was really keen to find a scooter or motorbike to ride round the hills but we really struggled to find anything so we gave up and took a rickshaw to a view point. and christ then did we walk. bout 6km ...luckily most of it was downhill and we had a few crisp breaks. the scenary was awesome, all the tea is chopped off the top so everything the same height its so beautiful! met a tea picker on our way, they seem to be always women, and they basically just use secuters (sp???) with a bag attached to one end. they have to lift massvie bags of the tea so its quite ahrd work but sounded like there was quite a lo of gossiping going on! so with no english she showd us how they cut it and den asked her for a picture which she happily obliged with the most loveliest smile. Den gave her 5 rupees and her and her bemused workmate just giggled and laughed as we walked off! we later found out that they only get paid 70 rupees a day so spose it was a bit of a bonus! TATA is the tea company and seems that they are starting to take over India – cars, tea, phones, trucks, buses plus all these other random unrelated things. The tea women apparently get quite god hours, 10-4 with 1 hour lunch and TATA also run the local schools and provide a special school and post-school work for disabled children of the tea workers. So perhaps they are better employers than most in india...or that the communist state government as something to do with workers rights...
anyways the waterfall was nothing amazing but lovely to stick our hot feet in the COOOLLLLD water. yum. then we had a monumentous climb back up...personally i blame the altitude for the struggle. (we're about 1000 metres). once i'd got my breath back (the cursing didn't help...) we caught the local bus back.
Dinner was an interesting affair, it took at least 1.5 hours to get our dinner! I'd almost passed out even tho we are getting used to indian relaxed service, and then inhaled my food once it arrived. Even den (who you'd think is used to me) was amazed with how much i managed to put away and then got scared and moved the food away...
13th Feb - Kumily - Munnar
So today we needed to ish to munnar. bus to go in the afternoon so after breaky we did a wander and did some interneting...not very exciting. bus trip was another nice easy one, the seats are SOOO small tho, a seat clearly made for 2 people really would only seat 1.5 people...no wonder those big americans hire taxis all the time..
Esay to find the bus this time, the ticket collecter (there is always the bus driver who you never see and tciket collector who has a real knack for remembering who is new on the bus and hasn't paid...plus he doesn't get bus sick!) seemed to be finding any whitey's and pointing them in direction of his munnar bus. brought some snacks and braved the local bus stop toilet...which are never QUITE as bad i expect, you pay 2 rupees, and they are all “squatters” but soemhow that makes it much cleaner and i'm quite grateful for no western toilets in public places. found some LOVELY cupcake for about 20p for 6, YUM. like opa cake but in a lil cupcake. went down a treat. Bus usually starts off with all seats taken but after driving for about 40 mins we had passed several local bus stops and school was out so it got completely JAM packed. like sardines. den had a good conversation with a couple of kids and got their addresses so we can send them some stamps. they're so polite and lovely but still ask such personal questions about salary and stuff! which is kinda funny for a child to think about that sort of thing anyways. well we think it is. he was 14 and the school they went to was obvisouly quite good. mum was a teacher and they had a bit of land and dad worked in mumbai. They only saw him about once every 1 or 2 months, which i thought was quite sad. He played cricket of course and basketball, table tennis and football. And of coruse he wanted to be a software engineer, he said he would like to work in germany one day which was interesting! one of his friends was a bit appalled that dennis couldn't speak any other language at all – he could speak malayam (kerala's language), english, some hindu and spanish... DOES make you feel a bit stupid! but they were lovely kids, so polite and confident.
Apparently girls play handball!
the ride was a long one and by the ime we arriveed in tea country the sun was setting and we only got a very short look at the tea fields, SO beautiful and much much more than kumily. was prolly just as well that the sun set as the bus driver was a MANIAC round the corners and probably it was better that i couldn't see wtf he was doing! so we arrived in munnar somewhat a bit dishevilled but found our accommodation ok which seems a good choice for 2 nights. the owner had a great hand drawn map for us which was pretty good. had some eats at a food court type thing...another example of massive over-employment which i always find weird, but really good (surprisingly good!) fried rice and mushroom masala! found a movie channel and watched some american tele, great stuff!
Esay to find the bus this time, the ticket collecter (there is always the bus driver who you never see and tciket collector who has a real knack for remembering who is new on the bus and hasn't paid...plus he doesn't get bus sick!) seemed to be finding any whitey's and pointing them in direction of his munnar bus. brought some snacks and braved the local bus stop toilet...which are never QUITE as bad i expect, you pay 2 rupees, and they are all “squatters” but soemhow that makes it much cleaner and i'm quite grateful for no western toilets in public places. found some LOVELY cupcake for about 20p for 6, YUM. like opa cake but in a lil cupcake. went down a treat. Bus usually starts off with all seats taken but after driving for about 40 mins we had passed several local bus stops and school was out so it got completely JAM packed. like sardines. den had a good conversation with a couple of kids and got their addresses so we can send them some stamps. they're so polite and lovely but still ask such personal questions about salary and stuff! which is kinda funny for a child to think about that sort of thing anyways. well we think it is. he was 14 and the school they went to was obvisouly quite good. mum was a teacher and they had a bit of land and dad worked in mumbai. They only saw him about once every 1 or 2 months, which i thought was quite sad. He played cricket of course and basketball, table tennis and football. And of coruse he wanted to be a software engineer, he said he would like to work in germany one day which was interesting! one of his friends was a bit appalled that dennis couldn't speak any other language at all – he could speak malayam (kerala's language), english, some hindu and spanish... DOES make you feel a bit stupid! but they were lovely kids, so polite and confident.
Apparently girls play handball!
the ride was a long one and by the ime we arriveed in tea country the sun was setting and we only got a very short look at the tea fields, SO beautiful and much much more than kumily. was prolly just as well that the sun set as the bus driver was a MANIAC round the corners and probably it was better that i couldn't see wtf he was doing! so we arrived in munnar somewhat a bit dishevilled but found our accommodation ok which seems a good choice for 2 nights. the owner had a great hand drawn map for us which was pretty good. had some eats at a food court type thing...another example of massive over-employment which i always find weird, but really good (surprisingly good!) fried rice and mushroom masala! found a movie channel and watched some american tele, great stuff!
12th feb - Kumily
woke up and after some lovely homemade brown bread from the homestay next door, the coffee inn, we walked a couple of kms to the periyar national park. of course lots more extra charges for foreigners and the peaceful forrest noise poluuted by more auto rickshaws.
Got to the main part of the park...you can't just wander round by yourself (there ARE apparently tigers and definetly elephants) and so really only option is the boat ride. these are at scheduled times so had just missed the boat, and plus its so popular (mostly indian tourists!) that you need to book like at least an hour in advance. Decided to mish to town and check out a spice plantation, so went and moved into our tree hut and had a snack of our new fav crisps...kurekurme or something, YUM. like curried twisties! The spice garden was almost just that, not excactly a plantation but bits and pieces here and there. we ad a tour with a young girl, about 17 or so who definetly didn't hide her disdain of north indian tourists...apaprently they pick everything and then throw it away and they don't listen and retain any information. quite funny hearing her take on them, she wasn't impressed at all! we seemed to be accepted tho and asked the right questions. Despite the north vs. south she really knew her stuff and told us about (and showed us) pepper, cocca, vanilla pods, corriander, several types of basil, jack fruit (which is the biggest fruit in the world), pods that make toddy a sweet drink that is also made into an alcoholic drink (she didn't seem to approve of that either!), coffee beans, rose apples (v yummy and only grown for personal consumption), pineapples, bananas and probably a whole lot more i'm forgetting. we also saw a flower that only blooms ever 12 years! you'd think you'd get a whole good flower for that but not so...so puny lil thing that looks like a weed. and they use it for ornimental use only! didn't really see the point there but oh well. got her address to send her some new zealand coins as she collects them. oh and also got some sugar substitue! from a flower that is like 1000 time sweeter than sugar and with no calories and cholestoral. sounds like a bit of me, so hoepfully i can get it into NZ! is called stevia.
Went back to the park and got our boat ride which wasn't amazing (didn't see many animals, only deer and wild boar) but was very pretty on the lake. The lake is man made for a damn so there is dead tree trunk poking out everywhere and the banks are very grassy so it looks quite prehistoric, which was quite cool. for the rest not sure what all the fuss was about.
Headed to a local joint for dinner and both order thali (a mixture of dishes) and defintely were NOT allowed to order anything else WITH the thali...jsut cos you don't do that...the waiter wouldn't let us! but anyways was MORE than enough for dinner and very nice. Getting used to eat off those metal bowls and plates...its kinda prison-like but efficient. Also still not really eating (ok not at all) rice and curry saucey stuff in my fingers...gott have a spoon. I'm bnot a great eater with my fingers anyways...i like my utensils thanks very much!Den popped to the drugstore for cream (for his pinkness) and i had a good nosy at all the fairness cream and hair blackner and then all these herbals pastes for your face. give lewins a run for their money perhaps mum?
Got to the main part of the park...you can't just wander round by yourself (there ARE apparently tigers and definetly elephants) and so really only option is the boat ride. these are at scheduled times so had just missed the boat, and plus its so popular (mostly indian tourists!) that you need to book like at least an hour in advance. Decided to mish to town and check out a spice plantation, so went and moved into our tree hut and had a snack of our new fav crisps...kurekurme or something, YUM. like curried twisties! The spice garden was almost just that, not excactly a plantation but bits and pieces here and there. we ad a tour with a young girl, about 17 or so who definetly didn't hide her disdain of north indian tourists...apaprently they pick everything and then throw it away and they don't listen and retain any information. quite funny hearing her take on them, she wasn't impressed at all! we seemed to be accepted tho and asked the right questions. Despite the north vs. south she really knew her stuff and told us about (and showed us) pepper, cocca, vanilla pods, corriander, several types of basil, jack fruit (which is the biggest fruit in the world), pods that make toddy a sweet drink that is also made into an alcoholic drink (she didn't seem to approve of that either!), coffee beans, rose apples (v yummy and only grown for personal consumption), pineapples, bananas and probably a whole lot more i'm forgetting. we also saw a flower that only blooms ever 12 years! you'd think you'd get a whole good flower for that but not so...so puny lil thing that looks like a weed. and they use it for ornimental use only! didn't really see the point there but oh well. got her address to send her some new zealand coins as she collects them. oh and also got some sugar substitue! from a flower that is like 1000 time sweeter than sugar and with no calories and cholestoral. sounds like a bit of me, so hoepfully i can get it into NZ! is called stevia.
Went back to the park and got our boat ride which wasn't amazing (didn't see many animals, only deer and wild boar) but was very pretty on the lake. The lake is man made for a damn so there is dead tree trunk poking out everywhere and the banks are very grassy so it looks quite prehistoric, which was quite cool. for the rest not sure what all the fuss was about.
Headed to a local joint for dinner and both order thali (a mixture of dishes) and defintely were NOT allowed to order anything else WITH the thali...jsut cos you don't do that...the waiter wouldn't let us! but anyways was MORE than enough for dinner and very nice. Getting used to eat off those metal bowls and plates...its kinda prison-like but efficient. Also still not really eating (ok not at all) rice and curry saucey stuff in my fingers...gott have a spoon. I'm bnot a great eater with my fingers anyways...i like my utensils thanks very much!Den popped to the drugstore for cream (for his pinkness) and i had a good nosy at all the fairness cream and hair blackner and then all these herbals pastes for your face. give lewins a run for their money perhaps mum?
11th feb - Varkala - Kumily
Heading to kumily today so mished to the train station and took a train to kottayam and then onto our bus to kumily...4.5 hours on a local bus! but was actually alright...the scenary was amazing and the definite coolness once we got more up into the mountains was lovely. saw tea plantations as we got closer in, which look so cool! they trim the tops of the tea so all the bushes are the same height. some plantations are really tickety-boo and all lined up nicely too, across the hills which makes it look very picturesque.
got another hut at a nice family homestay and booked a tree hut for the next night...so den very excited. ( am too...but perhaps less so...) the tree hut does over look the periyar park tho which is a plus. Dinner just down the road overlooking the park also. Got beer which is a bit funy as most of these places don't have licenses...so to avoid detection they serve an entire kingfisher in a teapot and you drink it out of coffee mugs that usually have a cheesy motif on the outside (“mom is the best” or “visit beautiful cornwall”)...good indian ingeunity and very funny to see what looks like people drinking tea with their dinner at 7pm :P
Nice home cooked curry and more pappadams, yum! dennis tried chicken biriyani which is fragrant fried rice with chicken inside.
got another hut at a nice family homestay and booked a tree hut for the next night...so den very excited. ( am too...but perhaps less so...) the tree hut does over look the periyar park tho which is a plus. Dinner just down the road overlooking the park also. Got beer which is a bit funy as most of these places don't have licenses...so to avoid detection they serve an entire kingfisher in a teapot and you drink it out of coffee mugs that usually have a cheesy motif on the outside (“mom is the best” or “visit beautiful cornwall”)...good indian ingeunity and very funny to see what looks like people drinking tea with their dinner at 7pm :P
Nice home cooked curry and more pappadams, yum! dennis tried chicken biriyani which is fragrant fried rice with chicken inside.
10th feb - Varkala
Yes i have screwed up my dates, this is now correct...but really can't be bothered chnaging them atm! sorry peeps!
Got up earlier today (8!!!) to have breakfast with the french couple who we leaving today. Walked to the other end of the cliff since josephs le routard book said the last plac had a great traditional kerelan breaky...and it sure did!! I got the wheat puttu which comes out a roll of wheat stuff with coconut, its warm like porridge and with a thicker consistency. its served with milk and honey and banana...and was great! BUT too big to finish, you could have one between 2 people! much nicer than a curry type dish for breaky (still can't REALLY get my head round that...). taste very similar to flapjacks that you get in the uk.
said goodbye to our new french friends and now have somewhere to stay in Rouen, which is very sweet.
Since den was still teletubby-ish (also possibly due to the big dinner last night...) we had a laxing day in the shade on our deck reading and chilling out. Somewhat tried to have a healthier lunch of sandwich and salad...go arn. A small swim and we HAD to go back to the funky art cafe for dinner so after a shop at all the tibetan shops (which seemed slightly pointless as we go there for real in a couple of months..). seems there are a lot of tibetan refugees in varkala as a settlement is not tooooo far away and they make more money out at the coast. apparently 55 hours to get back home and most of them can't go back. theres still more coming too, very sad really. I wonder how we will find it.
Fish was even better, blue marlin tonight and stuck to the easier kerelan spices...so good and so full!
Got up earlier today (8!!!) to have breakfast with the french couple who we leaving today. Walked to the other end of the cliff since josephs le routard book said the last plac had a great traditional kerelan breaky...and it sure did!! I got the wheat puttu which comes out a roll of wheat stuff with coconut, its warm like porridge and with a thicker consistency. its served with milk and honey and banana...and was great! BUT too big to finish, you could have one between 2 people! much nicer than a curry type dish for breaky (still can't REALLY get my head round that...). taste very similar to flapjacks that you get in the uk.
said goodbye to our new french friends and now have somewhere to stay in Rouen, which is very sweet.
Since den was still teletubby-ish (also possibly due to the big dinner last night...) we had a laxing day in the shade on our deck reading and chilling out. Somewhat tried to have a healthier lunch of sandwich and salad...go arn. A small swim and we HAD to go back to the funky art cafe for dinner so after a shop at all the tibetan shops (which seemed slightly pointless as we go there for real in a couple of months..). seems there are a lot of tibetan refugees in varkala as a settlement is not tooooo far away and they make more money out at the coast. apparently 55 hours to get back home and most of them can't go back. theres still more coming too, very sad really. I wonder how we will find it.
Fish was even better, blue marlin tonight and stuck to the easier kerelan spices...so good and so full!
9th Feb - Varkala
Ahhhhh sleep in (tho really kinda feel like a SOFT bed would be nice round about now...) and breaky in our new fav cafe (on account of te pakora of coruse) and off down to the beach for some sun and surf. sand was burning hot so den got us a nice umbrella. sea was calling, so jumped in and did more exercise than we were barginning for...those were some big waves! Life guard on duty...but seems they have more of a “preventative” method than lifegaurds we are used too...which means blowing on whistles when swimmers get beyond their hips and waving big red flags...so we soon found THAT out. apparently the big surf and MASSIE undertow was a result of a small erth quake and tsunami in indonesia??? so perhaps they were more vigilant than normal...tho think it is quite a military operation. not really surprised for communist kerala. Anyways spent a few lovely hours chilling out in our tiny spot of shade, taking small life threatning dips when it got too hot.
Headed back when it was a bit too much and discovered we were a tad sunburnt...was grateful for our cold shower. Den was a bit like PO teletubby...the red one...
Headed to the funky art cafe for dinner and got 2 fish in banana leaves, on was with coconut milk and kerala spices, which was devine. The other was with green curry and tasted LOVELY...but so hot it brought tears to my eyes! had to declare myself defeated over that one! an ice cool kingfisher on hand at least :P
watched a “bollywood dancing” which turned out to be a troop of local kids from a dancing school. some of them were just soooo cute and there were a couple who were really talented, so we had a good time watching them. So cute!
Headed back when it was a bit too much and discovered we were a tad sunburnt...was grateful for our cold shower. Den was a bit like PO teletubby...the red one...
Headed to the funky art cafe for dinner and got 2 fish in banana leaves, on was with coconut milk and kerala spices, which was devine. The other was with green curry and tasted LOVELY...but so hot it brought tears to my eyes! had to declare myself defeated over that one! an ice cool kingfisher on hand at least :P
watched a “bollywood dancing” which turned out to be a troop of local kids from a dancing school. some of them were just soooo cute and there were a couple who were really talented, so we had a good time watching them. So cute!
9th Feb - Alleppey - Varkala
onto varkala...was a bit of a long bus ride and we were a bit silly not to train it there but oh well. so much to see out of the bus window, i love llooking at all the people and their shops and what theyre doing. drove along the coast for a while too, white-ish sands with palm trees and loooong waterways streching to the sea...heaven! seems they have a prob with erosion on this coast as there was often a large hand made stone wall between the houses and the sea...perhaps flooding too?
Arrived in varkala and to our lil hut. Not really a typical beach place but tall red cliffs, with sand and surf below and then all along the top of the cliff are the restaurants and cafes and accoommodation and shops. So lovely to wander along the top, with the ocean expanding out below. we stopped off at sunrise cafe which was next to our hut place and had oohhhh the nicest onion pakora and garlic naan! went for a walk and the sea is SOOO nice and warm and checked out some of the shops. Realised we had eaten too much for our late lunch...whoops :P so no dinner and early to bed for us!
Arrived in varkala and to our lil hut. Not really a typical beach place but tall red cliffs, with sand and surf below and then all along the top of the cliff are the restaurants and cafes and accoommodation and shops. So lovely to wander along the top, with the ocean expanding out below. we stopped off at sunrise cafe which was next to our hut place and had oohhhh the nicest onion pakora and garlic naan! went for a walk and the sea is SOOO nice and warm and checked out some of the shops. Realised we had eaten too much for our late lunch...whoops :P so no dinner and early to bed for us!
8th Feb - Alleppey
Jumped on board our boat at 11am, with our driver and our gummy cook. he was missing his four front teeth...ironically there was a phamplet for dental work on board...do you think they used him as motivation of how NOT to end up?? we set off down the waterways and watched the backyardds of the locals as we went past...people washing in the waterways and doing their laundry. But so tranquil...yes heaps of ther tourists doing the same thing but i rather enjoyd looking at the large 3-7 bedroomed boats which made our lil 1 bedroom so puny...some were just so huge! nihal (the gummy cook) served us up lunch of fish they had picked up at the markets, YUM! cooked in a cury crust type thing. and then some rice and coconut with cabbage which was SOOO good. some pappadums (YUM my fav!) and chutneys of coruse, plus a few other curry dishes i didn't know what they were but oooo they were good. anyways (i go on about food a lot don't i) filled the gap way too much so everyone had a nap afterwards! a guy in a canoe siddled up wondering if we wanted to buy prawns. not a massive praw fan and den was still a bit cautious over some dodgy ones he'd had so gave it a miss this time, but talk about fresh!
Once we'd all recovered and woken up, our driver took us off down some bigger waterways past massive rice fields and poorer locals who seemed to have their little shacks in between 2 massive waterways on only perhaps 2-3 metres wide worth of land.
for afternoon tea we were served up a chai and some fried bananas...still hadn't recovered from lunch but of coruse managed to get it down :P
Dinner was more fish and currys and even better than lunch.
We moored up and me and den had a few good games of last card before i discovered possibly the biggest cochroaches ever in our lil room. Den was too slow (and possibly not VERY keen...kinda like killing a fast mouse on your wall...) with his jandle, but the driver was a pro...1 damp rag and a deadly flick...and presto...bait for his fishing line! they were quite amused at how i managed to get as far away as possible. few more incidents of this variety but seemed cochroach free for bedtime. still i tucked the mozzie net in sooo tight. Not a great night sleep cos it was SOOO hot but served up a good chai and breaky helped us get on our merry way off the boat and onto the next thing.
Once we'd all recovered and woken up, our driver took us off down some bigger waterways past massive rice fields and poorer locals who seemed to have their little shacks in between 2 massive waterways on only perhaps 2-3 metres wide worth of land.
for afternoon tea we were served up a chai and some fried bananas...still hadn't recovered from lunch but of coruse managed to get it down :P
Dinner was more fish and currys and even better than lunch.
We moored up and me and den had a few good games of last card before i discovered possibly the biggest cochroaches ever in our lil room. Den was too slow (and possibly not VERY keen...kinda like killing a fast mouse on your wall...) with his jandle, but the driver was a pro...1 damp rag and a deadly flick...and presto...bait for his fishing line! they were quite amused at how i managed to get as far away as possible. few more incidents of this variety but seemed cochroach free for bedtime. still i tucked the mozzie net in sooo tight. Not a great night sleep cos it was SOOO hot but served up a good chai and breaky helped us get on our merry way off the boat and onto the next thing.
7th Feb Kochi - Alleppey
Headed out early this morning (aafter our complimentary continental breakfast of coruse) and rickshawed our way to enarkulum. from there and atfer ton of confusion over different bus stations we caught a bus to alleppey.
Found a hotel through one of the touts who approach the bus and it turned out to be a good thing, they were so friendly and the place was perfect for us...plus nice and cheap. we went to the indian coffee house for lunch which seems to be bit of a fav with locals and so of coruse lots of stares but alos lots of friendly smiles, especially from a couple of lil kids. tried a masala dosa which seems to be pretty staple down here. like a pancke with tomato curry sauce stuff and other veges lilke potatoes, served with a couple of dipping curry sauces thing. plus my first “real” indian coffee (as opposed to a commercial chain type one)...which was strong and full of suga and milk...so really as they say, not too different from the tea!!
After some too-ing and fro-ing our accommodation hosts found us a boat to view so we mished out and had a look. found 1 aussie and 1 brit on it, completely stoned so thought it seemed relatively relaxing and decided to go for that one! pickup tomorrow at 11.
chilled out and spoke to a guy from oxford (botley!) who had done south china before he did india, he was pretty well travelled and made us a great map of some of his fav places in south china! score!
Found a hotel through one of the touts who approach the bus and it turned out to be a good thing, they were so friendly and the place was perfect for us...plus nice and cheap. we went to the indian coffee house for lunch which seems to be bit of a fav with locals and so of coruse lots of stares but alos lots of friendly smiles, especially from a couple of lil kids. tried a masala dosa which seems to be pretty staple down here. like a pancke with tomato curry sauce stuff and other veges lilke potatoes, served with a couple of dipping curry sauces thing. plus my first “real” indian coffee (as opposed to a commercial chain type one)...which was strong and full of suga and milk...so really as they say, not too different from the tea!!
After some too-ing and fro-ing our accommodation hosts found us a boat to view so we mished out and had a look. found 1 aussie and 1 brit on it, completely stoned so thought it seemed relatively relaxing and decided to go for that one! pickup tomorrow at 11.
chilled out and spoke to a guy from oxford (botley!) who had done south china before he did india, he was pretty well travelled and made us a great map of some of his fav places in south china! score!
Sunday 10 February 2008
6th Feb - Cherai Beach
Woke up reasonably early today after a hot (tho i'm not complaining, its SOOOOO nice and warm here!!!) night on hard bed. took the ferry over to vypeen island and then the local bus (rickshaw people wanted 250 rps, bus 2rps each) to cherai beach. possibly the funniest part of the day when den remarked on someone having very bad "asparagus veins"...he meant varicose veins. Haha! still makes me laugh. after walking in sun for like an hour and hardly anywhere to stay, had to end up forking out a fair bundle for a small resort crappy thing, but oh well! ou win some you loose some. had a lovely day spent on the beach sunbathing and a couple of swims. massive cross current and rips so was good exercise getting into the water. one serious dump and spent a lot of time later getting sand from places it should be....
discovering the food in the south is far different from the north, no (authentic anyway!) tandoori food which we both love and the attempt at masala today was something out of a packet! bit disappointing but looking forward to some fish. and missing my onion pakoras already! as the sun set we walked along the beach to he main pat where a lot of indian tourist had gathered to paddle. really nice to watch the families and the women enjoyed the paddling...there were a lot of shrieks and laughter so despite being all in full sarees they don't mind getting a bit wet and a couple even fell right over! a van load of nuns pulled up, young and old and they all had a great time some hitching their habit to their knees to have a really good wade. not much choice in terms of food, so had some bready snacks followed by a much wanted icecream, yum!
discovering the food in the south is far different from the north, no (authentic anyway!) tandoori food which we both love and the attempt at masala today was something out of a packet! bit disappointing but looking forward to some fish. and missing my onion pakoras already! as the sun set we walked along the beach to he main pat where a lot of indian tourist had gathered to paddle. really nice to watch the families and the women enjoyed the paddling...there were a lot of shrieks and laughter so despite being all in full sarees they don't mind getting a bit wet and a couple even fell right over! a van load of nuns pulled up, young and old and they all had a great time some hitching their habit to their knees to have a really good wade. not much choice in terms of food, so had some bready snacks followed by a much wanted icecream, yum!
5th feb - Delhi - Cochin
a nothing day today, flew to kochi, which was a 3 hour flight and delayed, so had spent a good 3 hours in delhi domestic departure terminal. which is nothing to sing about, tho v clean and tidy, was packed.
arrived kochi and drove to fort kochi. got in late had dinner and then den got delhi belly! poor den.
arrived kochi and drove to fort kochi. got in late had dinner and then den got delhi belly! poor den.
4th feb - Varanasi to Delhi
Quiet day today and caught a flight out to delhi in the evening. arrived delhi airport, great airport, so many things to keep the touts away from hassling the tourists, very easy. turns out the accommodtion we had booked was closed for renovation, despite talking to a bloke 3 days before! randomm but was in a good spot and easy to find a place. headed into town to our previous delhi accommodation and treated ourselves to a meal there which was fantastic and LOVELY COLD kingfisher (non-existent in holy varanasi) and pappaums with THE best mango chutney and raita (my FAV combo) with garlic naan and chicke tikka, oone of my fav indian foods. so we had a damn good feed and returned back to our v strange hotel nice and full.
3rd feb - varanasi
Got up before dawn tody (for real) and took an early morning boat ride along the Ganges which apparently is a must-do. wasn't massively impressed (things where i have to get up while its dark have to be REALLY good) and was kind of overshadowed by the massive row den had (he's my money man) with the boat dude. They seem to try and do this thing where you arrange a price for 2 of you and then afterwards they try nd say it was for only 1. v annoying. so den refused to pay him any more at which point the man (stupidly i thought) shoved den back the money. so no our problem, took the money and went back to our hotel. aha but the saga doesn't end there, apparently the boat dude then regretted this impulsive attempt at a guilt trip and hung round our hotel...as did his rower and someone who i think was his wife! so den had another fight with him. we happened to e moving hotels that day anyways siince our one was full and we couldn't gt an extra night. approached on our way out an indian guy with good english who wanted to know what had happened (honestly it really did go on and on) he seemed to think the boat dude was a bit of a nut job and we went about our merry way. a piss off though and leaves a bit of a bad taste in your mouth, even though you do nothing wrong. think just all of that stuff and the touts and beggars etc etc leaves you feeling a bit negative. in light of this we stopped by at a market (btw new hotel VERY nice and no hint of militarianism) and got sonme peas in their pods and sat down along the ghats and ate them. some little kids came up trying their usual thing so gave them a pea pod each and they all seemed very happy with this...and the goats and THEIR kids munhced up the pods VERY happily as well. had a chat with a 15 y/o guy with very good english. he did think i was far too old to not be married and have children. tho i spose 25 sounds old to any 15 year old, women in varanasi tend to be married at 17...men at 22. though there seemed to be no problem with den being almost 30 and not married! in most places i have been referring to den as my husband tho (NOT IN A BUNNY BOILER WAY!!) and you tend to get more respect and less questions. funnily enough den wasn't too sure about this at first :P but is seeing the merits in it now. moved ourselves and our peas to some higher steps and watched some young guys play cricket. if you hit it into the water, you're out! and then you have to grovel at one of the bathers to go and get it for you.
2nd feb - varanasi
today we walked the whole length of the ghats, which well was a reasonable walk. there is the burning ghat like i mentioned aboive and then also a main ghat where people tend to congregate and stalls are and people arre trying to sell you everything from a massage to a boat. there re of coruse (being a holy city) cows everywhere...and heeps of them too, and my favourite though are the goats and the kids (as in goat babies, not the children!) they are soooo cute. poor den had to take many photos of the lil things and put up with a lot of cooing.
so once we got to the far ghat, we took a boat at the way back and decided to stop on the other side of the river. really dens notion but turned out to be a bit of a good one. the other side is basically a huge long and wide beach, anyways so you get on there and looks like a bloody desert. you can tell i thought this was a heap of fun, but den then found a yellow shack thing and being the mn he is just wandered on inside. turns out was a babas house...baba is a holy man. so i got invited in to sit round the fire and have some coffee the baba was making. thought it was all very quiet and that the man wasn't reeeeeaallly teaching anything (he did bash on his drum into a mobile phone which was quite random i thought) but i got a business card (of a holyman! mobile number included, spose if i ever wanted some dr bashing over the phone..) and turns out he has taken a vow of silence for 12 years! at least no need for small talk. so had some coffee in disposal able cup (terracott ones they just throght out the door onto the sand) and had some photos and saw his photo album...apparently he used to be a singer or something. bit odd. but really unique and now i have THE best business card for my scrapbook. spent forever finding lunch and ended up eating round about 5pm! things are never served v quickly here either :P had a quiet night in.
so once we got to the far ghat, we took a boat at the way back and decided to stop on the other side of the river. really dens notion but turned out to be a bit of a good one. the other side is basically a huge long and wide beach, anyways so you get on there and looks like a bloody desert. you can tell i thought this was a heap of fun, but den then found a yellow shack thing and being the mn he is just wandered on inside. turns out was a babas house...baba is a holy man. so i got invited in to sit round the fire and have some coffee the baba was making. thought it was all very quiet and that the man wasn't reeeeeaallly teaching anything (he did bash on his drum into a mobile phone which was quite random i thought) but i got a business card (of a holyman! mobile number included, spose if i ever wanted some dr bashing over the phone..) and turns out he has taken a vow of silence for 12 years! at least no need for small talk. so had some coffee in disposal able cup (terracott ones they just throght out the door onto the sand) and had some photos and saw his photo album...apparently he used to be a singer or something. bit odd. but really unique and now i have THE best business card for my scrapbook. spent forever finding lunch and ended up eating round about 5pm! things are never served v quickly here either :P had a quiet night in.
1st feb (actually bout the 6th now so been a bit of slacker...)
So arrived in varansi after another clasic over night train ride. i'd been sick wif a bout of delhi belly a few hours before we were due to leave so you can imagine just how happy (not) i was to be on some public transpot. we were in a 3 tier set this time whicj obivosuly means..3 bunks high. thankfully i had one of the bottom bunks and den squeezed himself into a middle one. really struggled a bit with sometimes the lack of respect given by our fellow indian passengers (well to be fair i prolly wasn't at my most tolerant). one guy insisted on playing music OUT LOUD to himself on his mobile, then one bloke came to catch to his friends in our berth and sat on my feet. luckyily they all ended this before i got too wound up! anyways got a bit of kip, not as bad snorers this time! but still...never my fav place to sleep i think! tho i do really like the warmth of the trains!
So we arrived in varanasi and our accommodation had arranged to pick us up because apparently the touts are so bad here. after another harrowing rickshaw ride (i have takken to closing my eyes...) and then a seemingly endless walk throuh narrow streets that even the rickshaws can't go down we reached our hotel. great place to stay, spotlessly clean but run with suuch military pprecision that left me thinking perhaps they had forgotten that infact people staying here were paying guests and not their naughty nieces and nephhews. taken a bit far! anyways, loved the cleanliness! had a blacony overloolking the ghats too which was amazing...th burning ghats...marnikarnika is next door to us tho so soemtimes a bit smokey when the wind changes.... marnikarnika is a holy cremation site and is a really big deal to be cremated there. to die in varanasi means you are free from the cycle of rebirth. the bodies get doused in the river after being praded in gold coverings etc through the streets. the lowest of varanasis societies are the prye makers, they cart the wood and have a knack of organising it so that is burns efficiently. wood is weighed as it is so expensive and different ypes are the most expensive. sandlewood is the best to go for apparently. So watched these cremations for a while...not particulary pleasent, of course, but really is a different way of viewing death here, its vry out in the open and i gues in turn there really is closure of sorts. seems a bit more healthy that our tendency to supress these things sometimes. only stightly disturbed, worst part was a touts pick up line...”you want to see burning bodies? look dead bodies burning. “
nice. thanks for that.
walked along the ghats and there are locals everywhere washing themseles and their clothes and children. people are dipping their hands in and praying. there are monks and women monks too i think...they become a bit androdogenous..
the touts here are terrible, worse that agra. really no means nothing and i wanted to ask them what part of no don;t they understand but they just won't leave you alone. gets very frustrating.
So we arrived in varanasi and our accommodation had arranged to pick us up because apparently the touts are so bad here. after another harrowing rickshaw ride (i have takken to closing my eyes...) and then a seemingly endless walk throuh narrow streets that even the rickshaws can't go down we reached our hotel. great place to stay, spotlessly clean but run with suuch military pprecision that left me thinking perhaps they had forgotten that infact people staying here were paying guests and not their naughty nieces and nephhews. taken a bit far! anyways, loved the cleanliness! had a blacony overloolking the ghats too which was amazing...th burning ghats...marnikarnika is next door to us tho so soemtimes a bit smokey when the wind changes.... marnikarnika is a holy cremation site and is a really big deal to be cremated there. to die in varanasi means you are free from the cycle of rebirth. the bodies get doused in the river after being praded in gold coverings etc through the streets. the lowest of varanasis societies are the prye makers, they cart the wood and have a knack of organising it so that is burns efficiently. wood is weighed as it is so expensive and different ypes are the most expensive. sandlewood is the best to go for apparently. So watched these cremations for a while...not particulary pleasent, of course, but really is a different way of viewing death here, its vry out in the open and i gues in turn there really is closure of sorts. seems a bit more healthy that our tendency to supress these things sometimes. only stightly disturbed, worst part was a touts pick up line...”you want to see burning bodies? look dead bodies burning. “
nice. thanks for that.
walked along the ghats and there are locals everywhere washing themseles and their clothes and children. people are dipping their hands in and praying. there are monks and women monks too i think...they become a bit androdogenous..
the touts here are terrible, worse that agra. really no means nothing and i wanted to ask them what part of no don;t they understand but they just won't leave you alone. gets very frustrating.
Thursday 31 January 2008
29-30 jan
So from delhi, much too early, we took a train to Agra. thats where the taj mahal is basically! pretty much a must-see. So arrived at our accommodation and there it was! from the roof top terrace you had an amazing view of it, it is really so amazing to see in real life and it is so beautiful. we'd decided to do yet another early start (cos i'm so good in the mornings) the next day as apparently sunrise is amazing time to view it. agra is quite small and nice to escape the vastness and chaos of big time delhi. headed to agr fort where the dude who built the taj lived and then was later imprisoned by his son. nice. so that was another cultural notch in our belt, considering i'm usually more concerned woith the food and shopping...
Talking of which, had dinner in place called taj cafe, of coruse ordered and ate far too much, but was family owned and mum was cooking and kids were waiting, just the nicest people and good home cooked food too! still loving that butter nan!
got up at 6am, headed down to th taj. security was tight and the security ladies (as i was in the womens security check queue) thought my mittens/gloves were very strange...
anyways walked through and sat and watched it get light around the taj. so so beautiful and peaceful (until toursit bus arrived) and just amazing to be somewhere you have seen so many times. is so big , considering is just a tomb for the dudes second wife, she died during childbirth of her 14th child (did she not think to perhaps give up after 13???!!). but is amzing has all these flowers on it, well can't explain, go see for yourself. in great condition considering from 1600's...everthing here seems to be in good condition...perhaps building with marble or soemthing?
went for a walk to the local village, away from the tourist routes, all nice normal people again so good to gt away from touts and remind youself of the normal everyday people.
rest of the day was a bit of a writeoff for me, as ate something for lunch which REALLY didn't agree and had to retire to bed (and bathroom..). first case of delhi belly!!! guttered.
Talking of which, had dinner in place called taj cafe, of coruse ordered and ate far too much, but was family owned and mum was cooking and kids were waiting, just the nicest people and good home cooked food too! still loving that butter nan!
got up at 6am, headed down to th taj. security was tight and the security ladies (as i was in the womens security check queue) thought my mittens/gloves were very strange...
anyways walked through and sat and watched it get light around the taj. so so beautiful and peaceful (until toursit bus arrived) and just amazing to be somewhere you have seen so many times. is so big , considering is just a tomb for the dudes second wife, she died during childbirth of her 14th child (did she not think to perhaps give up after 13???!!). but is amzing has all these flowers on it, well can't explain, go see for yourself. in great condition considering from 1600's...everthing here seems to be in good condition...perhaps building with marble or soemthing?
went for a walk to the local village, away from the tourist routes, all nice normal people again so good to gt away from touts and remind youself of the normal everyday people.
rest of the day was a bit of a writeoff for me, as ate something for lunch which REALLY didn't agree and had to retire to bed (and bathroom..). first case of delhi belly!!! guttered.
27-28 jan
so my last post was done from the train. turns out the food we got was just supper and was then followed by a 3 course meal of soup and bread, an indian dish with naan and rice and 2 types of curries and then icecream, omg was SOO full by the time we got to delhi loved it tho! so arrived delhi, ripped off by a rickshaw driver (ok only like 20p but STILL it the principle!) and the place we booked was well...a dump. i know my standards are high but stil! yuck. anyways bunked down for the night and first thing got a nice new room WITH A HEATER and running hot water so that was lovely. Stayed in the tourist part of town and decided after a couple of hours of being hassled by touts, drivers, beggars and shop owners (what part of no do these people not understand we decided to head into new delhi to the shopping area. mished around there and was nice a peaceful, noone bothered us, all middle class people and also a lot less stares my way...ahhh peace! ended up having a great latte at one of the new age coffee shops gracing india...like indian version of starbucks. they are really keen to get themselves westernised. not really good shops, they are liking a lot of reebok etc and shoes are not good at all! dinner and died in our lovely warm room. i ad even done some washing!
net day we headed to old delhi and found the red fort, also a place where we just look like walking ATMs...
den led me on a wild goose chase to some ghats and we foind where gandi was buried, all closed and frankly v boring. arn had had enough. So tuktuk'd to the main bazaar rd in old delhi...never seen chaos like it! hundreds of people, cables and shit everywhere, tiiiiny lil alleyways for specific goods...we went down a camera one. really the place where normal delhites do this sort of shopping. den will have photos that explain old delhi better...can't put it into words...chaos and unbelievable. really was quite overwhelming. don't do this when you're hungry! (i should never do anything when i'm hungry)
net day we headed to old delhi and found the red fort, also a place where we just look like walking ATMs...
den led me on a wild goose chase to some ghats and we foind where gandi was buried, all closed and frankly v boring. arn had had enough. So tuktuk'd to the main bazaar rd in old delhi...never seen chaos like it! hundreds of people, cables and shit everywhere, tiiiiny lil alleyways for specific goods...we went down a camera one. really the place where normal delhites do this sort of shopping. den will have photos that explain old delhi better...can't put it into words...chaos and unbelievable. really was quite overwhelming. don't do this when you're hungry! (i should never do anything when i'm hungry)
Tuesday 29 January 2008
24th-26th jan
have had a few days off from the blog, mainly cos we've doing some cross-countrying and perhaps because i've been completely knackered as well!
Writing this from the train today...omg i love our lil laptop! been great and i am actually starting to beat the computer in tetris now..
so anyways writing from the train...executive class no less! i know you're thinking that sounds pretty typical from arn! but honestly i just didn't want to travel with every mn and his dog on wooden seats and dirty toilets! didn't ACTUALLY know this was like first class type thing. however not complaining as have these massive seats that recline, just had ome supper served to us...includding a samosa type thing, chocolate bar, cashew nuts, a fudgey thing and some spicy mix thingy which was really nice! they also come through and hand out water to drink. oh the best part, with the supper of coruse you get offered some chai (tea) but you get this lil thermos full of hot water! to drink at your leisure i guess. i got a lil “tea pack” full of sugar, milk and teas. sooo cool, am loving this executive thing. i was born for first class, people!
So the last few days have been actioned packed, on the 24th we mished around Udaipur for our lastt few hours there. did some shopping too which is always up my street. that night we took a sleep train to Jaipur. Slightly bigger tain this time from our last sleeper, curtains in stead of cabins and you have 4 on one side and 2 on the other (bunked). top bunks again but thats ok, these ones actually had ladders which is nice for unco's like me. anyways fell asleep, all good, and then couple hours (if that) woke up to the most atrocious snoring you have ever heard and that wa pretty much the end of my sleeping that night. i was like, are you kidding me???!!! thats ridiculous. i am surprised their wives haven''t stabbed them in their sleep. i personally could have taken out at least one.
So arrived jaipur tired and VERYgrumpy, and after a few false starts we managed to find some available accom, which was a relief. Chilled out and i organised our next trains. during breakfast met these very full on canadian girls who invited us to join them (i was't grumoy anymore btw, a hot shower helps) on a tour of some temples and despite agreeing it turns out that auto rickshaws can't take 5 people which ended up fine since we would do our own thing. gt our tickets for the remaining of our “northern states” part and hired our own driver to go to the palace and fort. Palace was really great, some of it in the most amazing conidtion, considering it dats back to like 1600's or something. lots of original doors woith artwork still on them. then climbed like 500 ft or some stupid up to the fort which wasnt so amazing tho you got an amazing few of a town below. wanted to die my legs were so sore. london does't exactly have many mountians to climb, and thank god for that.
saw like the biggest cannon or something but i liked th camel oil carrier from the 10th century...like how old is that!!! pretty cool.
stopped off at a monkey temple on our way home, heaps of monkeys tho i don't like them getting too close! you always se those types of monkeys on like infection movies... but den got some good shots. got some amazing photos of a family living on the side of the road, you're sposed to pay them so not really begging but still always makes me so sad, life is so hard for them. Den had no small change, 5 rupees is about 6p or something, so den gave the mother 50 rupees which is about 60p, nothing to s but you can buiy a surprising amount for 50 rupees. anyways she was really amazed and pleased so nice to do soemthing good. lots of beggars here, and they are SO persistant, you have to ignore them for about 5 mins before tey go away. always find it so hard to turn away but you do know not to encourage them, since they often stop working and take their children out of school for it, but i do find it difficult to ignore.
so came back to our place that night, fell asleep for an hour, was completely spent! had a bit of a revival and headed out an got some food. ended up complety stuffing ourselves but damn it was good. nice to have some good cold kingfisher!
SO today we headed to the pink old city. its painted “pink” because i think the maharaja (like the king) wanted a pink city...its not really pink anymore, more like terracotta. so we walked around there and climbed this big tower thing for a view of te old city. i am getting tired of climbing things!
den got some good photos of some of the local commerical streets, think that jaipur is far dirtier than udaipur or mumbai. alley ways just full of trash and crap, ugh. makes for some bad smells! alnmost got runover several times, it gets quite tiring to dodge all the motorbikes and scooter, and cows, goats (saw one wearing a mans shirt today,classic), poo, piles of crap, piles of dust, people, rickshaws, autorickshaws and beggars. nice to sit down now and let someone else navigate for a bit! good for some R&R. and nice to ha no horns tooting at you.
Writing this from the train today...omg i love our lil laptop! been great and i am actually starting to beat the computer in tetris now..
so anyways writing from the train...executive class no less! i know you're thinking that sounds pretty typical from arn! but honestly i just didn't want to travel with every mn and his dog on wooden seats and dirty toilets! didn't ACTUALLY know this was like first class type thing. however not complaining as have these massive seats that recline, just had ome supper served to us...includding a samosa type thing, chocolate bar, cashew nuts, a fudgey thing and some spicy mix thingy which was really nice! they also come through and hand out water to drink. oh the best part, with the supper of coruse you get offered some chai (tea) but you get this lil thermos full of hot water! to drink at your leisure i guess. i got a lil “tea pack” full of sugar, milk and teas. sooo cool, am loving this executive thing. i was born for first class, people!
So the last few days have been actioned packed, on the 24th we mished around Udaipur for our lastt few hours there. did some shopping too which is always up my street. that night we took a sleep train to Jaipur. Slightly bigger tain this time from our last sleeper, curtains in stead of cabins and you have 4 on one side and 2 on the other (bunked). top bunks again but thats ok, these ones actually had ladders which is nice for unco's like me. anyways fell asleep, all good, and then couple hours (if that) woke up to the most atrocious snoring you have ever heard and that wa pretty much the end of my sleeping that night. i was like, are you kidding me???!!! thats ridiculous. i am surprised their wives haven''t stabbed them in their sleep. i personally could have taken out at least one.
So arrived jaipur tired and VERYgrumpy, and after a few false starts we managed to find some available accom, which was a relief. Chilled out and i organised our next trains. during breakfast met these very full on canadian girls who invited us to join them (i was't grumoy anymore btw, a hot shower helps) on a tour of some temples and despite agreeing it turns out that auto rickshaws can't take 5 people which ended up fine since we would do our own thing. gt our tickets for the remaining of our “northern states” part and hired our own driver to go to the palace and fort. Palace was really great, some of it in the most amazing conidtion, considering it dats back to like 1600's or something. lots of original doors woith artwork still on them. then climbed like 500 ft or some stupid up to the fort which wasnt so amazing tho you got an amazing few of a town below. wanted to die my legs were so sore. london does't exactly have many mountians to climb, and thank god for that.
saw like the biggest cannon or something but i liked th camel oil carrier from the 10th century...like how old is that!!! pretty cool.
stopped off at a monkey temple on our way home, heaps of monkeys tho i don't like them getting too close! you always se those types of monkeys on like infection movies... but den got some good shots. got some amazing photos of a family living on the side of the road, you're sposed to pay them so not really begging but still always makes me so sad, life is so hard for them. Den had no small change, 5 rupees is about 6p or something, so den gave the mother 50 rupees which is about 60p, nothing to s but you can buiy a surprising amount for 50 rupees. anyways she was really amazed and pleased so nice to do soemthing good. lots of beggars here, and they are SO persistant, you have to ignore them for about 5 mins before tey go away. always find it so hard to turn away but you do know not to encourage them, since they often stop working and take their children out of school for it, but i do find it difficult to ignore.
so came back to our place that night, fell asleep for an hour, was completely spent! had a bit of a revival and headed out an got some food. ended up complety stuffing ourselves but damn it was good. nice to have some good cold kingfisher!
SO today we headed to the pink old city. its painted “pink” because i think the maharaja (like the king) wanted a pink city...its not really pink anymore, more like terracotta. so we walked around there and climbed this big tower thing for a view of te old city. i am getting tired of climbing things!
den got some good photos of some of the local commerical streets, think that jaipur is far dirtier than udaipur or mumbai. alley ways just full of trash and crap, ugh. makes for some bad smells! alnmost got runover several times, it gets quite tiring to dodge all the motorbikes and scooter, and cows, goats (saw one wearing a mans shirt today,classic), poo, piles of crap, piles of dust, people, rickshaws, autorickshaws and beggars. nice to sit down now and let someone else navigate for a bit! good for some R&R. and nice to ha no horns tooting at you.
Wednesday 23 January 2008
23rd jan
SLEEP IN! argh SOOO good. was soooo cold outside and we had all these open window/grating which using some kiwi ingenuity stuffed them with cushions and the bombay times. snuggled under our 5 blankets (tho no sheet...again. dennis is getting quite jealous of my pink sleeping sheet now..). 2 long sleeved thermals and my ridiculous (BUT WARM) hat (with ear coverings) seemed to do the trick for me and slept like a log.
Bit of breaky on the deck, enjoying the sun and headed into town. Saw some more ghats and soaked up a bit of the atmosphere. found a cafe about 27 flights upstairs (k well maybe 6) and devoured some butter nan which as become staple part of my diet here, along with a chai (another staple), and some Puri Baji...potato curry things with this fried...bread...stuff. LOVE the food here! i'd come just for the food! and really are the most friendliest people here...sure lots of touts and stuff but the average person and child is just so nice and just really interested in you.Chilling out on the deck again, had our laundry done, which is good, cos SOMEHOW den managed to get cow poo on his t-shirt. they're everywhere and one took a serious dislike to den and his water bottle today. very funny. today (IN TOWN) saw lots of cows, a big fat pig, some monkeys, some goats, a bloody bloke on an elephant and several donkeys. who needs a zoo when you have India???
Bit of breaky on the deck, enjoying the sun and headed into town. Saw some more ghats and soaked up a bit of the atmosphere. found a cafe about 27 flights upstairs (k well maybe 6) and devoured some butter nan which as become staple part of my diet here, along with a chai (another staple), and some Puri Baji...potato curry things with this fried...bread...stuff. LOVE the food here! i'd come just for the food! and really are the most friendliest people here...sure lots of touts and stuff but the average person and child is just so nice and just really interested in you.Chilling out on the deck again, had our laundry done, which is good, cos SOMEHOW den managed to get cow poo on his t-shirt. they're everywhere and one took a serious dislike to den and his water bottle today. very funny. today (IN TOWN) saw lots of cows, a big fat pig, some monkeys, some goats, a bloody bloke on an elephant and several donkeys. who needs a zoo when you have India???
22nd jan
arrived in Udaipur early in the monring, half asleep. got to a hotel...discovered this place is freeeezing cold...like 10 degrees...and we are in our mumbai clothes (where its 28 degrees). brrrr. showered (yes hot water but ummm...no cold?) and then passed out shivering in bed under 5 blankets.
so once we surfaced we headed to the lake to see this palace some rich bugger built like 500 years ago...its takes up a whole island on the lake. all very nice, but lots of touts and more tourists than we'd seen in mumbai. in the lil town, there were ghats...basically steps leading down to the water where people do their bathing and the woman do their washing...they do use soap but tend to whack the crap out of their clothes with these big paddles. cool to see, like something out of a documentary. so wandered around the town, avoiding the cows and their poo, the tuktuks, the scooters, the donkeys and just so many people.
very proud of myself, we went to the train station (again) to buy our next sleeping train ticket to Jaipur. no tourist queue here so filled out my form (they love forms in India)all by myself and all correct with train details and got our tickets no probs! another top bunk but know what to expect this time at least! walked back along the road past s a very very poor family, dirty children, so sad. they obvisouly lived on the side of the road. The young kids had a go at begging from us, but when the realised they weren't gonna get anything just wanted to shake our hands which I did and had to shake all of them, even the little toddler. dirty but lovely smiling faces and they were so excited about it. most kids just want to say hi or have a photo or shake your hand, most of them don't want anything else from you.
chilled out in the warm sun on the big communial balcony and enjoyed a nice chai (tea) as the sun set.
so once we surfaced we headed to the lake to see this palace some rich bugger built like 500 years ago...its takes up a whole island on the lake. all very nice, but lots of touts and more tourists than we'd seen in mumbai. in the lil town, there were ghats...basically steps leading down to the water where people do their bathing and the woman do their washing...they do use soap but tend to whack the crap out of their clothes with these big paddles. cool to see, like something out of a documentary. so wandered around the town, avoiding the cows and their poo, the tuktuks, the scooters, the donkeys and just so many people.
very proud of myself, we went to the train station (again) to buy our next sleeping train ticket to Jaipur. no tourist queue here so filled out my form (they love forms in India)all by myself and all correct with train details and got our tickets no probs! another top bunk but know what to expect this time at least! walked back along the road past s a very very poor family, dirty children, so sad. they obvisouly lived on the side of the road. The young kids had a go at begging from us, but when the realised they weren't gonna get anything just wanted to shake our hands which I did and had to shake all of them, even the little toddler. dirty but lovely smiling faces and they were so excited about it. most kids just want to say hi or have a photo or shake your hand, most of them don't want anything else from you.
chilled out in the warm sun on the big communial balcony and enjoyed a nice chai (tea) as the sun set.
21st jan
21st jan
Well our train ride was today and really was an experience in itself. Mumbai central train station wasn't as chaotic as you'd imagine but people were quite keen to talk to us. den had a somewhat silted conversation due to our complete lack of any Hindi, with a bloke from the army. he wanted to lift and see how heavy our bags were, nd it seems he was reasonabley impressed. a woman came pas sweeping the floor =, he told us she only earnt about 3000 rupees for the entire year...thats about..£37. i gave him a busines card and he was pretty pleased with that.
So our train came about 40 minutes before departure, bit complicated to find what carriage to get onto when its your first time, but got there in the end, and OMG the most chaotic scene ever on our carriage...mostly in respect to putting bags on the racks. anyways we found a space for ours and all was good. but then ended up getting into a fight with an old woman who was to sit next to me. She had brought her poor son on to load up her luggage and was telling him to take our bags off and put hers up. Anyways i defied all aspects of seniority and made it quite clear i wasn't having a bar of it. had a swiss couple next to us who seemed to be vetrans at this...they said sometimes physical fights can break out. wasn't sure if ii REALY should b fighting with someone who i'd have to sit next to for 8 hours but there you go. Seemed all was forgiven in the end when she offered me some of her food. she did do the biggest burps ever, the whole way there, which was quite amusing. offering of food seemed to be the norm and i sampled lots of tasty snacks! they all seemed pretty keen to see how i would react to the food. we sat opposite a couple with an 8 year old daughter who were relly nice. MUCH different from englnd where nobody talks...everyone is talking and sharing and laughing, was nice atmosphere. anyways arrived in ahmedabad at about 9pm, where we had a couple of hours to kill, crusty station with lots of homeless people sleeping inside and no chairs ANYWHERE..except in this small takeaway joint. found our sleeping carriage, we ended up sharing with this older couple who were ok...no burping or farting this time! got given blanket and sheets so made our beds...me and den had the top bunks. toilet was VERY ancient on this one. The last train was nicer and newer...but you basically still pee directly onto the tracks....very odd and kinda drafty. so lights out and discovered the aircon blowing direct onto my face and this annoying BLUE night light, hoodie up over my eyes and bundled under the covers...ended up quite cosy and did get some shut eye. poor den who didn't QUITE fit in the bunk, had a bit ore trouble getting cosy :P
Well our train ride was today and really was an experience in itself. Mumbai central train station wasn't as chaotic as you'd imagine but people were quite keen to talk to us. den had a somewhat silted conversation due to our complete lack of any Hindi, with a bloke from the army. he wanted to lift and see how heavy our bags were, nd it seems he was reasonabley impressed. a woman came pas sweeping the floor =, he told us she only earnt about 3000 rupees for the entire year...thats about..£37. i gave him a busines card and he was pretty pleased with that.
So our train came about 40 minutes before departure, bit complicated to find what carriage to get onto when its your first time, but got there in the end, and OMG the most chaotic scene ever on our carriage...mostly in respect to putting bags on the racks. anyways we found a space for ours and all was good. but then ended up getting into a fight with an old woman who was to sit next to me. She had brought her poor son on to load up her luggage and was telling him to take our bags off and put hers up. Anyways i defied all aspects of seniority and made it quite clear i wasn't having a bar of it. had a swiss couple next to us who seemed to be vetrans at this...they said sometimes physical fights can break out. wasn't sure if ii REALY should b fighting with someone who i'd have to sit next to for 8 hours but there you go. Seemed all was forgiven in the end when she offered me some of her food. she did do the biggest burps ever, the whole way there, which was quite amusing. offering of food seemed to be the norm and i sampled lots of tasty snacks! they all seemed pretty keen to see how i would react to the food. we sat opposite a couple with an 8 year old daughter who were relly nice. MUCH different from englnd where nobody talks...everyone is talking and sharing and laughing, was nice atmosphere. anyways arrived in ahmedabad at about 9pm, where we had a couple of hours to kill, crusty station with lots of homeless people sleeping inside and no chairs ANYWHERE..except in this small takeaway joint. found our sleeping carriage, we ended up sharing with this older couple who were ok...no burping or farting this time! got given blanket and sheets so made our beds...me and den had the top bunks. toilet was VERY ancient on this one. The last train was nicer and newer...but you basically still pee directly onto the tracks....very odd and kinda drafty. so lights out and discovered the aircon blowing direct onto my face and this annoying BLUE night light, hoodie up over my eyes and bundled under the covers...ended up quite cosy and did get some shut eye. poor den who didn't QUITE fit in the bunk, had a bit ore trouble getting cosy :P
Sunday 20 January 2008
Day 2 - 20th Jan - Mumbai
so I'll start with last night and move on into our Sunday chowpatty beach was brilliant, lots of music and l these hand powered rides...including a small ferris wheel...looked quite life threatening so stayed away from that. what would OSH think?? so had a bite here, was told to try bhel puri which apparently must be what ALL the tourists do cos they kept on yelling it at us. damn lonely planets. Anyways it was worth the touting and the suspect cleanliness of the outside table cos it was FAB. its all this crunchy stuff with onions and fried stuff. Google it ok? then mished to the festival which was PANTS. so we left that in a hurry and found a eaterie and had some Thali...which is kinda a Indian version of tapas...bits of this and that. well good. so this morning we were heading out in one of Mumbai's classic cabs (think...1950's, stick shift...with black light inside and tinted windows...and constant use of the horn) and got a txt that my opa passed away on Friday. so well fucking life's a right bitch sometimes. Thank Christ that massive sunglasses are in. Just all so weird and surreal to be in that total madness...talk about making you feel a damn long way from ANY home! at the train station den found a place of familiarity amongst the chaos... mickey d's and being the good boyfriend who knows me well...brought me some fries. Also, as a side note, we DID try to get a hamburger...yeah they don't eat cows in India..mc donalds is ALLL chicken, baby. so that was my morning...i've had better. just like to say am not one of those awful tourists who only go to mc donalds and KFC...perspective please! (oo i might be a bit grumpy..) apparently you have to be some sort of genius to work out the train system but ended up going to a different train station to the "tourist office" where a very nice, if somewhat abrupt woman helped us book our tickets. she was most concerned that we might have to upgrade (ooo thats my favourite word!!!) to first class since there were no shoddy sleeper seats or second class seats. it costs us about ?4 more and the total for 1 day train and 1 overnight train...?16 each. Hell i'm going first class everywhere!!! so got some lunch and headed out to Dharavi...which in the nicest terms is the slum. so bit of an eye opener. didn't smell as much as i thought despite the gutter clearly (and i mean CLEARLY) doubling as the neighborhood toilet. discovered how celebrities feel so people accosted us EVERYWHERE but they were so nice and friendly. the kids were the best, just big smiles and lots of giggles and thy love it when you take their photo. watched a game of something that is like pool...but with checkers..don't know the name, got offered food and drink and suff. awesome people. only issue was for me (not for den at all) was the guys (ALL the guys young and old!) have eyes for Christmas. clearly their mother never taught them it was rude to stare. and i had covered up pretty good. no hotpants for arn. pervy boys.still bit weird to come back and tho our room is NOT flash at ALL (a nice hovel would be my choice of words) but to have a bed and hot shower and tv, it did feel quite luxurious. and makes you feel very grateful. have never ever seen poverty like that and never seen such low standards of living...it really was like it was out of tv. and so many people all so crammed! and i guess they are the lucky ones, they have a place to call home ...the worst off are the people who just sleep on the sidewalk. hundred and hundreds of people just have blankets on the footpath, unreal. some have lil shacks set but a drive through the outskirts of Mumbai at night is a very very humbling thing. well...got a bit serious there. gonna eat some crisps now.
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