Kristen & Clare Travelling

London Town

2008-04-11T09:39:00.000-07:00

Here are some randoms of our time here in London.
Catching up with my good old mate Henning.

Australia Day goes off over here as there are so many of us.

Ah familiar faces! London, Amsterdam & Paris

2008-03-10T10:58:00.001-07:00

Well just after Christmas it was lovely to have a visit from some familiar old faces Prue and Amy who did a whirlwind tour of Europe. They came to stay with us in London for a few days before jetsetting around the place! We had a girly trip to Amsterdam which was hilarious and a weekend in Paris and in general a whole lot of fun.
Eating dogs in the Dam.
Haidee (2nd from left), a friend from Bendigo who married a Dutchman (3rd from left) happened to be in Amsterdam when we were! So they showed us around. Was amazing to have our own little tour guides!
Ah the canals! How romantic!

And Paris: Unfortunately Clare couldn't make it to this one! She had already been to Paris on a different trip though so Kristen took the opportunity to go for a visit.
Snails taste like chicken.

Croissants for breakfast!

The Eiffel Tower.

Kristen's lovely friend Deb came along for the ride!

The Louve

The original Mona Lisa - it looks very small is real life.

And can you believe we found karaoke in Paris!?

On our last night we went to the Moulin Rouge! We had the BEST time, it was so amazing. I will add photos later.

Christmas in France - spoilt rotten!

2008-01-15T10:33:00.000-08:00

Although we were missing family and friends this year at Christmas Claire and her family made every effort to ensure that we had an amazing Christmas in France! It was our first cold Christmas and cold it was! It was -10 degrees at some points and even threatened to snow a few times! Lots of frost on everything so it was still a white Christmas! Claire and Clare (yes it does get confusing) were sporting some nice bruises having slipped up on the stairs one morning (Claire's Grandad did much better simply stepping past the girls lying on the floor whinging).

Pressies all round!

One thing is for sure - Claire's Dad Graham is one hell of a cook and so we thought the additional of the food diaries part 2 was required for this post! So here goes:
bubble and squeak
yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
mmmmmmmmmmm

Ok so it didn't snow but we made our own
Yes ice on everything!

Under the English channel returning to England from France

Merry Christmas All!!!!!!!!!!

2007-12-21T04:47:00.000-08:00

Well this year we are far from home and we will be experiencing a cold Christmas for the first time! And cold it will be - we are going to a little town in France which is near Lyons and it's meant to be about -7 at the moment! Something to look forward to!
We are lucky really to have such nice friends to spend Christmas with when we are so far from our families.
We will really miss everyone this year!

An Update

2007-12-12T09:47:00.000-08:00

Well it's been ages since we have posted anything on this blog! Mainly this is because we have been standing still in London. Well not really!
Since we last posted we have been to Cardiff (capital of Wales), Spain, Gibraltar (tip of Spain but is actually part of England), Bath and Leicester which is not that impressive given it's been a few months. We have also been to many a fancy dress party - in fact this seems to be all we are doing at the moment. It's so much fun! And we have had some friends from home and Norway over to visit which has been lovely! Here are some random photos from the past few months.

Spain was amazing:

Checking out the Gaudi art museum in Barcelona - amazing! If anyone visits it they will see Kristen's name in the guest book.

These hams were hanging absolutely everywhere!

The beaches - heavenly

Sangria - yum!

The Rock of Gibraltar - was so weird finding this little part of England in the middle of a Spanish holiday.

English fish and chips in the middle of Spain... weird
And now the dress up parties! Toga...

And dressed up as Christmas trees:

This was a villains and baddies party and we dressed up as cops to round them up...
Kristen even arrested some poor guy

This seems to be a lot of what we do these days in the cold...

Hel and Paige came for a visit and it was so nice to see them!
What the is going on with Clare's hair??!!!! So funny... The gals having a boogie in the kitchen at our flat

Wales - do we need our passports??

2007-10-02T04:57:00.001-07:00

Deb organised a trip to the capital of Wales for a girls weekend. We packed the night before and had the following conversation:

Kristen - "Clare this may be a dumb question, but do you think we need our passports?"

Clare - "I don't know! I guess it's another country so maybe"

Kristen - "Yeah we should take them just in case"

Deb organised a lift with Eddie, one of Kristen's managers and after Kristen held him up for 2 hours to meet a deadline we finally got on the road. We were like kids in the back seat -

"Oh my god Clare, I didn't bring my passport!!!!",

"Oh my god ME NEITHER!!!",

"Eddie? Do we need our passports for Wales?"

"Yes of course you do" - carried on talking to Deb in the front

"OH MY GOD we have to get them to let us out!!"

"Eddie? Are you kidding? Debs, do you need your passport for Wales!!?????"

"Yes Kristen you do...."

"Guys we are idiots and have forgotten them! Can you just let us out when you can Eddie? I'm so sorry for holding you up and now we can't even go!"

Anyhow, passports or no passports (blonde or brunette) we arrived and had a great weekend!

Birthday Caravan Fun in Minehead

2007-10-02T04:43:00.000-07:00

For Kristen's 26th birthday Debbie, an amazing friend from her work organised a weekend away in her uncle's caravan. We caught the bus there Thursday night and it was Kristen's birthday on the Friday. Kristen loved opening pressies from her family and friends in the morning before rushing off for the bus!
On the way

Debs made an Aussie style birthday cake!

Debs in the kitchen - this caravan was amazing! Paul kept saying that we were camping but there was nothing rough about doing it this way! It had 4 bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom with a shower that completely out does any one I've ever been in!
On the beach which had brown water!! Deb said "it's only about half an hour into Minehead from here" - 2 hours later we called a taxi...

Clare and Kristen fell asleep while everyone else picked on them and put things on their heads etc...

Get Loaded in the Park

2007-09-03T09:47:00.000-07:00

Our first festival! Was soooo much fun! We saw heaps of bands but the highlights were Peter Bjorn and John, DJ Yoda and The Streets! Love them!

When in Rome!

2007-08-07T05:54:00.001-07:00

Clare and her lovely Dad John went off travelling for a couple of weeks last week and I went to meet them for a weekend in Rome, my first taste of Italy! We saw all the major sights and ate a lot (if not too much) pizza, pasta and gellati! It was amazing food...

At the Trevi fountain

Kristen on the top of Palatine hill in front of a fantastic view of the Roman Forum - the centre of Rome for 1000 years.

Clare and John map checking on the Spanish Steps.

At the Vatican

In lies the Sistine Chapel...

Mmmmmm real Italian Gelati

A prince took this photo!!!!!!! He was spray painting a vespa (which of course sparked John's great interest!), we asked him to take this pic and then we asked him for directions...
He unlocked the gate to this massive palace and led us through as a shortcut... We asked him how he had the keys and he said 'because I live here!' - it was truly the most amazing palace!!!

The Colosseum was amazing!

We decided to prove the saying 'money can't buy you happiness' and bypassed the 300 metre long line with the purchase of a tour guide. She was fantastic and a crack up!

There were men dressed up as gladiators outside the Colosseum posing for photos with tourists (could you think of a worse job?!).

Our legs got a big workout! Look at the grotty mess which was Kristen't feet by the end of a day!

Stavanger, Norway to find an old friend

2007-08-01T10:40:00.000-07:00

Well we had a great weekend with Kristen's very special old friend Henning in his home town Stavanger. Henning looked after us like queens! It was just so nice to catch up.
Henning cooked us an amazing breakfast with awesome Norweigen cheese and fresh shrimps every morning! What a sweetheart he is!

We set off on a trek to dangle our legs over the a massive cliff 604 metres above Lysefjorden famous Pulpit (prekestolen) rock. It was the most amazing feeling!
Look closely at Hen's face in this photo... He he

On the ferry transporting the car

Nice bum! Ha ha - Hen was setting his camera up on the edge!

Henning, Kristen and Clare
Kristen and Christine, another Norweigen who had come to bendigo to study years ago came from Oslo to Stavanger for the weekend so we caught up with her too!

A big group of us partied at Hennings and then moved on to a Carribean music festival which was amazing!

Because Henning volunteered to help with the festical, one of the musicians, a Jamaican called 'Jah Bobby' made his way to Hennings! Yo Man! What a crack up

At Old Stavanger was amazing and full of gorgeous little cobble stone streets with tiny little sailors houses. One of Henning's friends lived in one and invited us in for a look!

Brighton - fish 'n chips and pebbles on the beach!

2007-07-16T00:53:00.000-07:00

We had the best weekend thanks to our mates Marc and Claire! They took us to amazing Brighton on Saturday for the day as they won't be here for our birthdays. So Saturday was our birthdays all day! It is the most gorgeous beach town.

How weird is this photo?? We buried Clare in the pebbles - was a bit of a mistake choosing to bury the only person wearing white!!

Look at Claire and Marc in the background...
Nice!

First English Fish 'n chips experience

What can I say - we have changed a lot... ;)

Living in London

2007-07-03T09:51:00.000-07:00

Well we are living and working in London! That's right we get the tube to work! How weird...
Here are some photos from out time here so far.
A good ol barbie in our backyard.

One of the highlight so far has been catching a glimpse of Prince Charles and Camilla at a war parade ceremony to mark the 25th year since the Falklands war.

This air show was amazing!

This is our room and bathroom. This photo does not do justice to just how big our shower is! It's literally another room!

Hanging out with our darling friends that we met in Asia on our last trip and who have looked after us so well here! Thanks so much guys!

Nice undies (or as they say here "pants") Bec!

On the tube on our way home...

"I'm in London Still" - nah we just got here!

2007-05-29T06:53:00.000-07:00

After a nightmare day of travel from Berlin to Frankfurt (as usual we took the cheap option of travel and so this caused us the hassel of changing trains 5 times before hitting the airport!) we boarded our last leg to London. Claire and Marc, a couple that we met in Asia a few years ago who were fortunate enough to visit Bendigo and enjoy one of Kristen's mum's roasts on their travels in Australia picked us up and we have been occupying their couch ever since! It's been great catching up with our mates from our last trip! We haven't yet really had the chance to see much of London as we have been job and house hunting ever since we got here.
We are living in South West London with 5 others and are sharing a massive room with two big beds (meaning that we will no longer have to spoon each other) and our own bathroom (that becomes the communal one when parties occur).
And we are both working now which is great as we are earning the pound. God it's so expensive here! We have gone being millionaires in India to being completely skint here multiplying every pound by 2.4 to see the real price of that coffee... Yeah it's not nice knowing that you are forking out a 6 dollars for a coffee!
We have been having fun catching up with old travel friends and just wandering around but haven't really done the touristy bits yet. We'll put heaps of photos up in the next post and show our house, house mates and other things.

Back to Beautiful Berlin

2007-05-29T06:18:00.000-07:00

After returning from Prague we arrived back in beautiful Berlin where the amazing sunny weather was waiting. We had a nice few days visiting markets, having picnics in the park and generally loving ourselves sick! Here are a few photos:
Our picnic in the park with lovely Carolin and Steffen.

Out for dinner with Steffen Friday night.

Bratwurst after bratwurst. Guess what? We found that they don't actually eat saurkraut on their bratwursts! That is just our attempt at throwing all things German in one meal apparently!!

Ampleman can only be found in East Berlin.

Weird bins can be seen everywhere.

TV tower in Alexanderplatz, our neck of the woods.

Kristen with a few random German bears.

Prost is the German Cheers!

Strange war memorabilia can be found on almost every corner in Berlin, including gas masks - yuck.

Clare trying on some animal.

Sipping lattes on the waters edge in the sun. Heaven!

Ciao Czech! 'Popping over' to Prague

2007-05-19T02:16:00.000-07:00

We are loving Europe in that everything is so close! We were able to just pop over to Prague for a visit from Berlin and back again which is such a nice feeling. Ok it wasn't really 'popping over' for us as of course we took the cheap option and found ourselves on yet another long and painful bus journey but popping over is possible for those who have money to spend on luxuries like train rides or flights. Anyhow, we're not complaining...
Prague was absolutely stunning!

Europeans call it 'Europes favourite city' and we would have to agree that it was pretty amazing. We spent our 4 days there just wandering around admiring the architecture and visiting the sights.

Look at this view!!!!

The famous St Wenseslas Statue.

We stayed in a backpackers 14 bed dorm and so the both of us had weary eyes most of the time as we had a rude awakening the first night as a group of drunken girls turned the light on and decided to discuss the whole nights events at 4am! Then the next night the top bunk right next to Kristen and above Clare was shaking violently under the pressure of probably the worst snoring that a bed can endure. Our tiredness of course had nothing to do with the 21st birthday party on a boat that we incidently got an invite to and attended happily! It was pretty amazing - 2 bars on deck, a nightclub on the top deck and a nice place to chill out underneath.

Here is a photo of us as we arrived...

Czech's love their beer and can be found guzzling any time of the day

This was us wedged in on an overcrowded bus. You literally have to push your way in and then its a real fight to hold your place as the bus turns brutally around corners. You'd swear the bus driver was giggling to himself playing dominos with his passengers. At one stage Kristen went flying forward into Clare who in turn headbutted a poor undeserving woman.

Guten Tag Europe!! Germany here we come!

2007-05-09T03:27:00.000-07:00

We had a fairly painless 12 hour flight to Frankfurt and hung about in the Frankfurt train station for a few hours before boarding one of the two trains we were to take to get to Berlin. On a Sunday morning at 6am we were greeted by many party goers who were heading to Maccas before home after a hard night which was interesting.
The train ride was a little painful as at this stage we were feeling a bit of jetlag and got quite restless. We managed to stay awake though because the scenery was just beautiful.

We thoroughly enjoyed being able to buy a salad roll for lunch!
Lovely Annie (our best mate Hel's Mum for those who don't know) was awaiting at us at the station where we arrived and has been spoiling us rotten ever since.
So far we have done a load of washing (a luxury after 3.5 months of hand washing in random sinks and buckets - it never quite smells the same), had a bath, been fed some juicy home cooked food and even made a meal last night! We had almost forgotten how to use a kitchen.
It's really cold here at the moment and we are loving it as we realised that we have been in hot hot weather for 6 months now after the summer at home before we left. So it's just awesome to rug up and drink hot drinks and sit in front of the heater.
Clare relaxing in front of the heater.
Kristen, Annie and Dorothea in the loungeroom.

Hmm you would think that someone has moved in here... Clare is in here somewhere believe it or not!

Annie and Dorothea polishing their dessert after eating a meal of salmon cakes we made them.

Kristen in Annie's apron. What a novel sight!

We have spent the past few days wandering around Berlin and went on a small scale shopping spree for winter clothes as its freezing here at the moment. We were expecting things to be so expensive here but they're not! The main expense is travel. It cost us €89 to get from Franfurt to Berlin on the train which was a very short distance. The same trip in India would have cost less than 2!
Berlin is an awesome place. It's huge really! We have been exploring one district per day. We are staying in the best and currently most popular district called Mitte and went to the old favourite Charlottenburg yesterday. We are going back there today to visit the erotica museum and will also go to a holocaust war memorial museum. We went on Monday but it was shut. It will be amazing seeing the damage hitler caused not so long ago.

Here are some pictures of the past few days in Berlin:

Clare in the rain at the holocaust war memorial.

Enjoying coffees out of the rain...

Kristen's first real German bratwurst.

We have even been able to get our eyelashes tinted and are planning on a haircut some time soon. It's so much cheaper than home for this sort of thing!

Back to Singapore

2007-05-09T02:54:00.000-07:00

We went back to Singapore from Melaka which was funny as we were going through immigration on a bus and got lost. We finally found our bus and the driver and everybody else was laughing at us as we did the walk of shame down the aisle... Only we could manage this...
While we were in Singapore we checked out the awesome, massively pokey Bugis Street market which was amazing. Of course most of the clothes etc were for warm weather so no purchases were made but it was fun nevertheless. Pretty full on too.
We went to the Singapore zoo too for the night safari which was amazing. We saw lions, leopards, tigers, bats, hippos, pelicans, rhinos, elephants, giraffes, deer, small cats, otters, hyenas and lots of native Asian animals which was cool. It was good to see the nocturnal animals going about their business.

It was so funny at the 'Creatures of the Night' show as when the hyenas appeared on top of the cliff behind the stage one proceeded to "do it's business" right at the tip giving the audience a most unpleasant show (the host was oblivious and continued the show probably wondering what all the laughter was about). The show was aimed at children and at one stage they pretended to have *lost* a massive reticulated python in the audience. A man in front of us took it seriously and fully panicked, grabbing his wife by the arm and preparing to bolt. It was so cute too as this guy that was in our group said when we asked him how he liked the show "well I just can't believe that they lost a python in the audience! That freaked me out, it was under someones feet!"... We just bit our tongues in quiet amusement.

In front of an aquarium full of bright fish and coral.

In front of the safari bus.

It ended out being quite a late night because our driver didn't turn up to pick us up and after 2 hours and many phone calls he arrived with sleep in his eyes. Turns out he had fallen asleep waiting for us... This was quite unexpected in orderly and organised Singapore!

Malaysia - Melaka - The Food Files

2007-05-09T00:22:00.000-07:00

After an awful bus ride from Cherating we arrived in Melaka - an awesome historic city. The best thing we found of course was the variety of good food! We sampled all sorts of local cuisine and took photos of all of the meals and so we present to you 'The Food Files':
First and foremost is the favourite Laksa from a restaurant in China town called Nancy's Kitchen.

Then a close second comes 'top hats' which is a Melaka specialty and are a taste sensation! They are shaped like a top hat, hence the name and are filled with jicama, shrimps, egg, chilli, corriander and fried onion.

Can't remember what this little number was called but there are many versions of it available. It's was tastier than what it looks!

Then comes the famous Malaysian dish Nasi Lemak which is delicious. It's rice with a spicy sauce filled with anchovies and peanuts.

Satay is big in Melaka and we lined up at a very popular satay restaurant for half an hour to trial the food. This place in unique in that you cook the food yourself. You choose as much or as little as you want from this fridge full of skewered goodies like seafood, veggies, meats, wantans and other little packages.

This is our selection which turned out to be way too much for two! As usual our eyes are bigger than our bellies!

Then you stick it all in the cooker which is filled with the satay sauce until cooked and then scoff! We have a photo of us scoffing but it's quite unpleasant so we'll just leave that one out...

It's funny because there's a huge gas bottle at every table. This was taken from the front of the line out the front.

This was a weird one. It was really tasty and we ordered it by pointing at a random spot on a menu. It was basically really salty eggplant in a yummy sauce.
This is the renouned Portugese 'devil curry' and accompanied the eggplant dish above.

Now we come to drinks and desserts:
Another weird one - we saw people ordering it and so said "I'll have what she's having" and put in our order.
It was meant to be a dessert which was weird because the sauce was savoury made from soy or something. It basically consisted of cucumber, apple, pinapple, orange and other fruits mixed in this sauce and covered with peanuts! We didn't manage to polish this one off...

Ahhh Ais Kacang! We ordered this one wherever possible as it was so good. It's made up of coconut milk, sugar cane syrup and ice and comes with a whole heap of strange surprises like green jelly balls, corn and beans! They give you a spoon and an extra wide straw. It's a strange (yet rewarding) sensation sucking solid things through a straw.

This was a heavenly dessert made from much the same as the drink above.
Really good on a hot day...

Apart from eating we went to a circus, visited a martime museum and another museum with an exhibition called 'Enduring Beauty' where the pictures and other exhibits reveal the differing concepts of 'beauty' as practised by different cultures. Among the different concepts of beauty exhibited are skin tattooing, stretching lips by the insertion of round discs, moulding heads into oval shapes and restricting the growth of feet. Pretty interesting stuff!
At the maritime museum.

Exploring...

Beautifying...

More exploring...

Malaysia - Cherating - Under the Wing

2007-05-01T02:24:00.000-07:00

We were sitting in a floating restaurant in Taman Negara filling in time before a trek to a bat cave that we had planned on doing that afternoon, reading our books when we had a realisation that it was time to move on (you just feel like that sometimes) and suddenly had a mad rush to pack, make check out at noon and get on a the boat taxi and get on our way to our next point of call...

So we took a 2 hour boat taxi (wooden long boat that we both managed to doze off to sleep on), a minibus, a local bus and then finally half an hour in a taxi to get to Cherating. It was quite the trek but we were glad that we didn't leave it to the next day! We found a guesthouse in the guide book and arrived in the dark. This is where we met Steve and Fay - the owners of the guesthouse called 'Shadow of the Moon at Half Past Four' (bit of a mouthful that one - try getting this one across to the taxi driver who doesn't speak any English). As soon as we arrived they organised us to eat with them for dinner which was an amazing meal of curry and rice. Half way through munching it down Fay said "You know what type of meat that is?"..................Uh oh......Of course we stopped chewing momentarily and asked "what?" though a mouthful and continued hoffing in when she said it was wild boar. Well it could have been worse! It was actually fantastic and really tender meat and a home cooked meal and a night on the couch watching trashy television was exactly what the doctor ordered for both of us. Exactly what we had been craving. They even had make it yourself cups of Milo and coffee which was awesome (Milo is everywhere in Malaysia as are Twisties believe it or not!).

This is us with Steve.

This is Kristen standing in our view from the room. Pretty nice!

And Clare standing on the verandah of our little hut. It would be nice of we could say that it was just as nice inside but I'm afraid we cannot... It was a tiny little hut with many other creatures to keep us company including a dinner plate hundsman that Kristen found as she was using the toilet! We fiercely debated about how and who was going to deal with it for quite a while before Clare resolved the issue by pouring water on it which caused it to run up and under her legs which in turn caused frantic body movements from Clare and both a scream from her and Kristen who was watching from the sidelines.

Cherating was a nice place to visit for a short time as it was pretty much dead as the tourism there has plummetted this year for some reason. There were monkeys in all the trees and a nice beach which we strolled along early in the morning and as it had been raining we got some relief from the constant sweating heat which was nice. Here are some photos of us fluffing around on the beach. It was not unlike a Victorian beach actually with long stretches of sand and cold(ish) water

We really did feel like part of the family when we asked Steve for some directions to a turtle farm and he offered a lift there and made a time to pick us up too! It was like a surrogate Dad for a day.

We saw the cutest little 2 day old turtles there that were going to be released into the sea that night.

As we were checking out, Steve and Fays friends dropped in and we said hello and goodbye before making our way to the bus stand where we were going to get the bus to Kuantan to get another bus to Melaka - the next destination.

We were sitting in the bus stop when Abdul and Helen with their two children Leon and Kristeen (and their driver!) pulled up and offered us a lift which we gratefully accepted. It was nice to be in a car that wasn't a taxi! We squished in with Helen and the two kids in the back and again got treated as part of the family when we arrived in Kuantan and Abdul told us to take a walk on the beach while they organised the pram for Kristeen and then we would meet and go for lunch. We had an amazing meal of some of the best western food with German wine and coffee and cake for dessert! All on them! We couldn't believe our luck! They then ordered their driver to drop them at a shopping mall (where this photo was taken) and we got cheuffered in style to the bus station in a brand new BMW. It was nice to have a taste of the good life for half a day.

The rest of the day was spent on a nightmare bus ride that took 2 hours more than expected. Back to reality... ;)

Malaysia - Taman Negara National Park - Leeches, Wild Pigs & Tiggy

2007-04-28T03:06:00.000-07:00

We arrived in the Taman Negara National Park (the oldest jungle - the ice ages didn't even effect this one) on a hugely comfortable minibus (almost too easy compared to the bus rides in India) and had dinner with a group of people from all over, and had an early night ready for the activities of the following day.

We woke early (ish) and made our way into the jungle and trekked until we found the famous canopy walkway. It was amazing walking so high above the jungle on swinging ladders. We then attempted another trek which tured out to much much steeper than was expected to a nice view over the jungle.
This is us at the top. Well, what we thought was the top at the time. We were informed later on that we had only made it half way but this was good enough for us! It was so steep that you had to pretty much rock climb with the provided ropes along the way.

This is Clare's war injury. We were told that there were heaps of leeches but as we don't have much trekking gear had to make do with crocs. A man ran past after she had finished flicking it off and after rudely mimicking her shrieks "eeehhhh! what is it?" said "give it to me, ooohh yessss it has got heaps of your blood, nice and fat it is now!" She was pretty horrified. We also saw a snake and a family of wild boar that presented themselves with a huge chorus of "ooooiiiinnnnnnkkkkkkk" along our path. Turns out that we scared them just as much as they scared us.

There were heaps of floating restaurants just near where we were staying. It was hard to get used to being bouyant whilst eating.

We did 'rapid shooting' that afternoon. The flyer read something like: "Be thrown about in one of the local long boats in the exhilerating white water rapids along the river. Be prepared to get wet!" So we did prepare to get wet and it was a good thing we did as the guides took it on themselves to thow buckets of water over our heads along the way as it turned out that the rapids weren't so exhilerating afterall. The highlight for us was when we stopped to swim in a local water hole and the teenage guides painted our faces with sandstone rock paint. We were then talked into playing 'tiggy' with the youngest guide (much to the disgust of the older one who knew that it wasn't meant to be in the itinerary). All in all it was heaps of fun though and we did return very wet as promised...
This is us leaving on the water taxi.

Malaysia - Perhentian Islands - Heaven on Earth

2007-04-28T02:20:00.000-07:00

Well we made a visit to heaven on earth - the Perhantian Islands (Kecil island) in Malaysia and it was absolutely amazing. Picture perfect beaches with white sand and the clearest water ever! When swimming we could see our toes clearly! We met up with our mates from England Charlie and Lyndsay and met a Canadian couple Katie and Brad who stayed in a beach hut opposite us and hung out with them for the best part of a week. Basically our days consisted of an early start (the power cuts out at 7am and so the whole beach wakes at the same time as no-one can stand the heat without the fan!), breaky at one of the many beach restaurants, lazing on the beach and swimming and then meeting again for a dinner of cheap fresh seafood followed by a free movie! Of course a few days differed from this but this was the general plan.

We did an absolutely amazing snorkelling trip where we saw 6 or so reef sharks on our first stop, followed by a lot of coral and fish and the higlight for us was the huge sea turtles. We got so close that Kristen was able to dive down and give one a pat on the back! It was beautiful and heaps of fun.

Believe it or not we had taken our snorkel masks off and this was the mark left!

This is us on our way over to the island on a speed boat. As soon as we got there we had to haul our oversized backpacks along the beach (and believe us it's a good work out doing this on sand!) to find some accommodation which is always rather trying in the heat. We had just plonked our exhausted bodies in the water when we heard "hey there are the Aussie chicks!!" and got bombarded by a huge group of Aussie guys doing their training for the Australian army in Malaysia - "hey were you two the ones in the yellow t-shirts hauling your huge bags along the beach earlier? We heard your Aussie twang when you said 'my god, how good is this water?' and knew immediately that you were Australians." We have accidently been caught wearing the same clothes a few times...

Malaysia - Penang to Kota Bharu

2007-04-26T05:18:00.000-07:00

After the cool climate of the Cameron Highlands we headed to Penang where we wandered around for a few days sweating and trying to find places of relief as we had lost all energy as it was just so hot! That explains why we can tell you more about the shopping centres in Penang than much else (bring on the air con!)...

We weren't that bad - we did manage to find a local food market to get amongst. It was the heat of the day and so we decided to get some relief and catch what they call a 'trishaw' (basically an enlarged pusher with a push bike attached where the driver sits) to the next station of relief.

So as usual we bartered the price - starting from 10 ringitt we got him down to 4 and hopped in quite pleased with our decision. We then found ourselves turning crimson as the 95 year old or so driver peddalled us spring chickens in the steaming heat for about 5 kilometers at a 'slower than walking' pace whilst yelling at the top of his lungs to any passer by something like 'five ringett, five ringett' followed by a string of Malay that we could of course not decipher and a huge hysterical fit of laughter. We thought that we were going to kill the poor man in that heat and so gave him something that resembled his original price in the end. Who knows if he was gloating about the price or commenting on how tight we were being!

Here is a pic of our lazy feet kicking back - note the lovely DIY nail polish...

Another reason that were absolutely exhausted this day too was our disaster of a start to the day:
Try this: being awoken by some extremely *inconsiderate* individual in the room next door praying and chanting in what seemed a very angry manner on the dot of 6am... waiting waiting waiting, "clare what the hell is that?", "tell me about it, it's driving me mental, hurry the hell up!"..... waiting, waiting... "my god it's quarter past and he's STILL going! what is that beeping noise anyway?", waiting, waiting, waiting, "he could at least turn the light off...now he's doing something with a plastic bag or something"................silence waiting waiting, door open, door closing, door being locked........... "hey ok he's gone let's go back to sleep..." ...........................................................................beep beep beep "my god that thing could go off all morning in his absence, we're outta here!". So we enjoyed an unusual and unwelcome early start to the day that day. We changed rooms to one equally *special* with a bed that was shaped like a banana. Beggars can't be choosers. Clare was lucky enough to be able to hook her leg over the edge to keep from rolling into the middle where she would have had to spoon hot and sweaty Kristen who had the side next to the wall and so justified snuggling into the cosy dip all night.

We decided to catch the night bus to our next destination and after learning that it was booked out had a look online to see if we could get a flight! We got one for about 10 dollars more each and booked it and by that night we were on our way to the Perhantian Islands! We arrived at the domestic terminal with our bulging backpacks patting each other on the back for finding such a great alternative to the bus when the lady at the check in counter informed us that domestic regulations are such that 15 kilos is the limit and that we weren't even close to that. We were in fact 270 ringgit (100 AUD) away from that limit. (How money makes it better we can't work out...)
This obviously created quite the predicament, and after minutes of scratching our heads we found ourselves with our ever so carefully packed backpacks sprawled out on the airport floor (with the usual gathering of interested onlookers) shoving all heavy items into our carry on luggage. Back and forth from the scales we went until we reached the perfect weight of 14.95 kilos with 10 minutes to spare (of course all the extra weight was essential purchases)!

In Kota Bharu we seemed to have no luck as we trekked around all day in the heat to a cultural centre to see some kite making and were turned away as it was the only day that it was closed for the week (typical) and then spent the night searching for a market that doesn't exist! We did however come across an awesome food market where we trialled some of the local cuisine including chicken skewers (could have chosen between 'nuggets', 'liver', 'wings/necks', and 'body' and strangely enough went with 'body' hoping that didn't include any chewy bits), noodles, and an interesting array of Malay desserts (strangest one being what looked like a piece of watermelon but was like jelly and has the weirdest texture in the world and tasted nothing like the fruit).

They have all these weird but wonderful drinks over here - this is Kristen trying her luck with one (after pointing at a picture). It was amazing - tasted like musk with little black jelly pieces (weird texture) and a big dollop of icecream in the middle, yummmm

Malaysia - Cameron Highlands - Steamboats and Butteflies

2007-04-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

We spent a couple of nights in the Cameron Highlands in an awesome backpackers that has juicy things like a big TV to watch one of 800 movies for selection and a bonfire every night with a pool table and a juicy little bar. The bonnie was really nice (reminded us of home) and there were people playing guitar. It's such a beautiful place surrounded by mountains and tea plantations (not unlike Munnar in India!) and it had a very welcome cooler climate. We enjoyed rugging up in jeans again, having hot showers and having a break from the constant sweating!

We met a couple from England Charlie and Lyndsay that we spotted and exchanged glances with in Chennai in the Malaysia airway ticket office and who we have been accidentally stalking ever since! We have seen them everywhere so we finally introduced ourselves in KL and then went to the Cameron Highlands on the same bus the next day by coincident too which was weird! So we have kind of been hanging with them.

We had an awesome meal the night we arrived in the Cameron Highlands - a Malaysian Steamboat - they bring out a big cooker with tom yum soup (or other soups) and then about 10 plates of various uncooked foods like noodles, bok choy, chicken, fish, beef, tofu, squid, wontans, fish balls and heaps of other items that you don't recognise and you get your chop sticks and put them into the liquid, put the lid on and wait for them to cook. It's awesome.

Today we went to a nearby butterfly farm and saw all sorts of creepy crawlies like scorpions, tarantula spiders, snakes, turtles, birds, beetles, camouflaged bugs that took us a long time to spot and of course butterflies!

The most interesting was probably this bug which looks like a human face (look at this picture upside down).

This one is called a Rhinosaurus beetle.

There were also some amazing gardens with some interesting flowers! It's just SO green here...

This is Clare waiting patiently for the extremely late local bus that was meant to pick us up and get us home in order to check out, gather our things and get to the bus stop to move on to Penang, our next destination. About 5 seconds after this photo was taken it started pouring rain and the both of us got soaked, missed the stupid bus and ended up hailing a taxi at the last minute and screeching in to only just make it to the bus station...

Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur - 'Shop till you drop'

2007-04-16T07:02:00.000-07:00

We arrived in KL in Malaysia and found that it's probably the best city ever for shopping! It's also extremely easy to navigate with a great public transport system and we spent a few days sight seeing and wandering around and of course shopping! We had to limit our purchases though for two reasons - firsty there is the budget and secondly there is the issue of shoving anything that we buy into our overcramped and increasingly heavy backpacks! Somehow we are managing but the shopping has simply got to come to a halt! You can imagine the long discussions of justification we have before each and every purchase!
Another issue we had was that we had to ask each and every shop attendent "um do you have this on extra large??" as the clothes are all miniature and just don't cater for gals like us!
By the end of the day we were shouting in frustration "ok then where is the Big City Chick store in this place then?"!!!!!

KL is an awesome city and we really saw the difference coming from Chennai in India - it's prestine and we noticed on the bus to the Cameron Highlands that all the way the gardens are manicured!

Here is a pic of the Petronas Towers. We lined up at 7am to get a ticket to go to the viewing floor and waited 2 hours before realising that we didn't have enough time to do it as we had to check out of our room at 12 noon and head off so we are going to do it on our return to KL on our way to Singapore.

Another highlight to being in Malaysia is that it is Monsoon season so we're experiencing real rain for the first time in so long! For us Victorians this is a real treat. It wasn't so funny when we have been caught out in it though. We just forgot what umbrellas were and what to do with them!

Oh and we're loving the choice of new food! Noodle soups all the way! There are heaps of Indian restaurants here too but it's sad to say that we won't be eating it for quite a while as 3 months of the stuff calls for a good break. Back to mastering our chop stick technique for now! Heaven...

We stayed in a backpackers in Chinatown and just around the corner there is a charasmatic pokey market with everything from fake Dior wallets to fake purfumes. We went to the movies on night too and watched the new Hannibal Rising movie which was pretty disturbing!

Another little plus is the number of opportunities to meet other travellers.

Farewell India

2007-04-10T07:20:00.000-07:00

So here we sit at the airport on our way out of India... Weird...
Our original plans had not been to stay this long, however after our initial reservations and perhaps you could say 'culture shock' we fell in love with this country and it's people and had to see more.
So we guess it's time to reflect... India has presented to us many sights, sounds, smells and tastes that we would never had dreamed existed.
Here are some of our observations along the way:

The Signature Indian head wobble - it's hard to describe but is not unlike those miniature dogs people put in the back of their cars but a sideways version - it can apparently mean yes, no, maybe, unsure or a combination. As you could imagine this was frustrating at times but believe it or not we developed our own little versions by the end of our stay. We never quite mastered understanding exactly what the answer was but had progressed.
People everywhere - this is no understatement! No matter where we were, even if we were driving in the desert or farmland there were people to be seen.
Awesome chai tea - chai stands everywhere - at first it was like a shot of sugar as they put so so much sugar in everything but we soon got used to it and ended up with an unhealthy obsession!
Coconut stalls - the owner will slice a green coconut with a machete looking tool with such ease and hand it to you (while you watch scared for the safety of his/her limbs), wait for you to drink the juice from a straw and then take it back off you, slice it up and give it back - ready to eat the flesh - delicious.
Urine and poo smells - not unlike the rest of Asia I guess but we never quite got used to the sight of people doing their 'business' in front of us.
Women Dress - bindis, numerous pearcings, hennae, colourful saris, toe rings and a general abundance of bling each and every female exhibits
Male Dress - 70's! - mustaches, flared jeans and brille cream are all the rage. In a state of extreme boredom on one of the unnecessarily long train rides we actually invented a game called "Spot the No-Mo" that we were very unsuccessful at.
Everything is deep fried and full of sugar.
The use of the horn is imperative in Indian traffic - they even have "HORN OK PLEASE" and such phrases painted on the back of vehicles - blinkers are non existent and each and every vehicle exhibits remnants of where the mirrors used to be - they just wouldn't last 5 minutes!
Dogs that have pieces missing from their ears mean that they have had their rabies vaccine
Red hennaed hair - not a good look
Personal space is simply non existent - "Where you going?". For example - whilst using an ATM you have about 10 onlookers determined to check out our bank balance at any cost - this includes pushing for a front row seat. The same thing happens when buying train/bus tickets, ordering food, eating,using the Internet (personal emails are just not personal in India) and reading books etc.
On the personal space topic - we were constantly being stared at with no shame whatsoever and would sometimes get so frustrated that we would start unrelenting staring competitions with our onlookers and just never win...
Religious stickers, statues and posters everywhere
Alcohol is named 'Pop' on the bill where sold without a license (which was most places as a license is apparently extremely costly)
A typical landscape consists of colourful saris dotted along barren land, dirt and rubble.
Rubbish piles everywhere - often you will see women sorting the rubbish for resale.
Cows can be found everywhere - grazing on rubbish even in the most cosmopolitan cities and lazing on the beaches.
Traffic consists of the usual cars, trucks and buses but Indian drivers must give way to camels, elephants, pigs, dogs, donkeys, monkeys, buffalo and the almighty holy cow - god forbid an accident with ones of these - those who hit animals are demanded to pay upfront a hefty fine to the villagers (and some are beaten on the spot for the same crime).
So many times we found ourselves the only customers in a restaurant and still had to wait for hours clutching our starving stomachs for our meal. Clare - "what if the restaurant was full!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" (clutching). On top of that there were always an abundance of staff with 'seemingly' nothing to do.
No assumptions here - we had to ask for everything - "can we please have a menu?", "and another one please", "can you please take my order?", "can I please have some cutlery and a plate?", "can we please have the bill?"
Technology mixed with tradition - a common sight was women in the complete traditional dress clutching a state of the art mobile phone and laptop whilst zooming along the highway on a motorbike.
The food! - masala dosa, thali, chappathi, naan, parotta, idly, tandoori, peanut brittle, chai, curries - butter chicken, kofta, paneer - not all that healthy and we had forgotten what vegetables looked like but tasty all the same.
Sugar coated aniseed and toothpicks after each meal.
Some common sayings directed at the *tourists with money* -

"Come look my shop"
"Looking is free"
"You want tuk tuk?"
"Rickshaw?"
"Taxi?"
"Bananaaaa, pineappleeeee, watermeeellloooonnn, coconuuuuut, papayaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa???"
"Chai, chai, chai, chai, chai" - monotone chant frequent on buses and trains that would brainwash us to the point of "must have chai, must have chai, give me some chai"!
"Where you coming?", "Which country?", "Where from?", "Country?"
"Ahhhh Australia....... Ricky Pontinnnnnggggggg, Brett Leeeeee, Shane Warnnneeee - problem with the ladies??"
"Ahhh Australia!!! Doing well in Cricket World Cup. My favourite... India is very bad. I hate India team. They make me so angry I throw mobile phone and buy another one... Sachin so selfish!"
Children - "Helloooo madam!", "One school pen? One rupee? Chocolate??"
"You give me good price, you my first customer, you give me good luck" -
"even though it's half past six???"
"No problem, everything is possible in India"
"Not possible Madam" - for example Clare really wanted her coffee in a glass not a mug and she pointed to the glass - a seemingly simple request and was furious at the stubborn response of "not possible madam".
Clare - "but, but, but, can you please just make it and put it in the glass?"
"Where you going? This way shortcut. Shortcut to spending money"
"Feast your eyes..." - shopkeeper says whilst seductively pointing to his shop front
"You want your mineral water hot or cold?"
"You come to my shop and look at my cheap rubbish?"

Strange pickup lines in broken English -

"Hey beauty - you want to buy watch?"
"Which country is having to cope without you right now?"
"You have nice figure" - this one left us dumbfounded with mouths wide open as it was exclaimed by a 12 year old who we passed in the street! Now that is just wrong!

Mamallapuram - Easter - no eggs to be found

2007-04-10T02:48:00.000-07:00

Well we had an ok Easter but it was nothing compared to Easter at home of course. We searched for days upon days for anything even resembling a chocolate Easter egg or bunny but resigned to the fact that it is to be expected in a predominately Hindu country and that the only egg we would be eating was a boiled one on toast for breakfast (like every other morning)...
We were lucky enough however to be in a state with a mostly Christian population and so joined in with the locals as they walked the 'way of the cross' just like at home.

On our walk we dropped into a local orphanage run by a gorgeous couple. The home comprised of 11 bubbly children who greeted us on the road with the promise of 'dancing madam, games! Come inside pleeeaaasssee'.
We watched them sing and dance excitedly for us (in a Bollywood fashion of course) and then played a number of games with them (most of which we sucked at). We went back the next day and brought toys and chocolates and a donation (the couple had no government assistance like the other orphanages in the district and so rely heavily on donation).

Clare playing Dog/Cow with the kids.

Easter for us (consumeristic beings) is not easter without chocolate so we did oourselves the favour of buying some for each other and hiding it in our hostel room before we went to bed. Yes we felt like losers - "Ok Clare, you go outside while I hide mine for you and NO PEEKING!" and then in the morning: "Kristen, enough already!! Where the hell have you put it? I have looked everywhere! Just give it to me!!!".

Mamallapuram - Yoga, Crocs and Holy Cow Steak

2007-04-05T08:50:00.000-07:00

We are in our second last stop before leaving India - Mamallapuram (what a mouthfull!). It's like a mini Palolem beach with cheap accommodation, good seafood and a reasonable beach. We haven't swam in the beach as it's very dangerous (apparently 9 locals have drowned in the past few days!!!) so you can understand us making preferance for the hotel swimming pool to cool off. It's just so hot here now so the pool provides a little relief (only a little - the water is almost as warm as we are!).

We tried a Yoga session the other day and found ourselves with our eyes closed, cross legged listening to a pre-pubescent Indian teen chanting "Reeelllaaaaaarrrrks, bend your baaaaaarrrrrcccckk, focus your miiiind" when the only things we could focus on were the rather large mosquitos taking advantage of our stationary state, our degree of inflexibility, trying not to laugh and what we were having for dinner (never far from our minds). Speaking of dinner it is official - we have sinned beyond belief - we have had the best steak of our lives right here in India - a holy one!!! We found ourselves sitting like deviates in the corner of a deserted restaurant chowing down on steak and chips.

Unbelievably steak in Tamil Nadu is actually completely acceptable and is on most menus as there are more Christians here than Hindus so we took full advantage to supplement our iron levels (and our appetite).

We visited a crocodile and snake farm today. It was amazing to see so many different species of crocs and alligators in one place. We thought that they may have been a little overcrowded in their small enclosures though which was a bit sad but some of the crocs had way more space than they needed in other enclosures so we thought that maybe the ones in the over-crowded one had been naughty?

It was quite a different experience from a visit to an Australian Zoo where you can meander about knowing that your safety comes first. In this place there was only a fence less than a metre high separating us and the HUGE animals which was quite daunting.

We also wandered around the rock carvings that this town is renouned for. Here is a pic of us in front of Vishnu's 'butter ball' - so named because the Hindu god apparently ate a lot of butter. There was also a butter pot believe it or not!!!!!!!!!????????
...Or at least that is what we deciphered from our guide.

Chennai - Lights, Camera, Action!!

2007-04-05T01:25:00.000-07:00

The other day we were asked to be extras in a Bollywood movie - something that we had the chance to do in Mumbai but couldn't because of a lack of time.
So we boarded the bus at 7am with 11 other tourists and drove 1.5 hours to a massive building where a Bollywood Tamil movie was being shot in Chennai. I don't know if any of you have had the exhilerating experience of watching a Bollywood movie but if not they are filled with enthusiastic dance scenes with middle aged male stars sporting impressive mustaches and very young gorgeous women dancing around energetically flirting with the camera.

The set was meant to be a Sydney nightclub - not sure if they will portray this too successfully as I have never seen a nightclub in Australia filled with weary, hot and sweaty backpackers wearing shorts, t-shirts and thongs. We have never been so hot and sweaty in our lives! There was no air-conditioning and not enough fans to go around (first preference goes to the stars and then us last) and we estimated that it would have to have been 45 degrees in there!

Here is a picture of us happy for the first time in the day for the fleeting 5 seconds we managed to steal the fan...

We were a sad contrast against the pristine appearance of the Bollywood stars and their group of too-tiny Russian dancers wearing clothes that would even make Britney blush!

The 'heroine' as they call the leading lady was also dressed in a revealing black mini dress with some serious cleavage.

However we noticed a strange white hankerchief device was threaded throughout her dress when not filming. We got chatting to her and asked her what it was (we asked if it was to catch the sweat that would have to have been dripping off her) and she laughed and told us that the filming crew require Indian female actresses to wear it, as it is not acceptable to show so much skin when off set - it is however fine in the movies. It's like their weird fantasy world. It was interesting to see the contrast between the group of western women who were 'expected' to wear as little as possible and therefore dressed that way, and the lengths that the Indian women were required to go to in order to cover up and remain 'respectable'. She was absolutely gorgeous and was interested in us just as much as we were in her! She promised to take us out in Mumbai if we ever returned.

The hero (male star) was like an Indian version of a cross between 'The Hoff' and Ted Danson. He only removed himself from his 5 star luxury pink trailor to appear on set when completely necessary and then strutted around the stage demanding the makeup man bring him a mirror and hair gel spray after every single take and meticulously groomed his hair like something out of Happy Days but actually serious! Go Fonzy!

Pondicherry - "Bonjour"

2007-03-31T22:58:00.000-07:00

Pondicherry is a pretty coastal French flavoured town where most of the Indians speak French and Tamil and some English. So we have gotten by but found it a bit strange to start with. Our usual Hindi "Namaste" greeting is met with bewildered stares here so we have kind of had to start again! It's been fun though. There are French and Italian food shops everywhere and the prettiest little French lanes. We went for a big walk along the beach and under the pier where we watched some local fishermen playing cards and then found ourselves in the midst of a local Indian village where we were received excitedly by the girls who thought that we were quite funny.

These are some cyclo drivers who yell "Hello Madammm..." when they see you - "Rickshawww??". They sit around relaxing under shady trees with their mates until potential customers come along.
This is the beach - it's not good for swimming but is nice nonetheless...

We caught a tuk tuk to nearby Auroville which is a community established to promote unity of cultures and countries and is a social experiment on group dynamics, community involvement and sustainability which turned out to be quite an unfriendly place. We were greeted by signs saying 'only residents and their visitors allowed entry' to which we ignored and strolled on through and we left shortly after arriving after being snobbed by the women working in the cafe.

Madurai - When in India

2007-03-28T09:21:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Madurai after a 7 hour bus ride from Munnar which was interesting to say the least. It was actually quite fun!
It's amazing travelling with the locals - you get on an empty bus and get comfortable thinking that it may not be very busy this time and are proven wrong each and every time as the trip goes on and the bus gets fuller and fuller until the whole aisle is full and there are about 5 people pretty much sitting on your lap!
Kristen held someones little baby almost the whole way - he played for a bit and then slept in her lap. Sooooo cute... Before the baby a mysterious package was brutally dumped in the vacant seat next to her whilst the owner had stern dicussions with the rest of the passengers and we think swore black and blue that the seat is already occupied and not to move the bag!
Nicky and Clare were sitting opposite overlooking the whole ordeal. Nicky said "umm, Clare did that bag just move?". Kristen peered in and found a startled chook staring up at her! "My god it's a chook!" she exclaimed.
After a while the chook was removed and a human passenger put in it's place and we stopped for what we guessed was a toilet stop (you can really only guess in situations like this). So we wandered around asking people left, right and centre as politely as possible - "toilet??" and were ushered around a corner behind a building with some other Indian women and soon found ourselves with no choice but to "when in India" - do as they do - so here we (Clare, Kristen, Nicky and some unnamed Indian women in Saris) were all lined up squatting over a gutter together admiring the view of palm trees and trying to avoid the row of interested onlookers. It was much easier for those who apparently don't wear underwear (yes you learn something everyday!). Not that we were looking.

Madurai is the weirdest city - a lot like Delhi - it's bustling at 10pm at night as people and cows alike are settling in everywhere for the night on the streets. It's very strange when you think that you freak when you see one person sleeping on the streets at home. There is a huge display of light and music that's purpose we can't figure out and there is an old cyclo driver outside waiting for us to finish so that he can peddle us home. His price is 'as you wish' which is always a tricky one. He is nice though and pointed out a great place for dinner - masala dosas (thin crunchy savoury pancake rolled up with potato masala curry in the middle and a selection of different chutneys & sauces to dip in) off a banana leaf, drinks and chai all for a meager sum of 90 Australian cents each. We love India.

Look at this arrangement of wires - 'safety always comes first'! Click on it to zoom in

Munnar - Up Before Sunrise - 2200 metres up

2007-03-26T00:19:00.000-07:00

By 5.30am this morning we were trekking up the third biggest mountain in South India on a 6 hour trek. We watched the sun rise on the way and had breakfast above the clouds on the peak, overlooking amazing tea plantations and other scenery which was pretty cool.
We had a guide with us and went in a group of 6. It was a definate test of fitness and one that we are ashamed to say we only just passed... It was amazing.
We are in Munnar in Kerala, a gorgeous little mountainous town absolutely surrounded by tea plantations - it's so pretty and the temperature is quite cool which is a welcome relief after the heat of Kochi. We actually used blankets last night and wore jeans and jumpers out for dinner! We had forgotten what that felt like!

We are going swimming in a waterfall swimming hole this afternoon and just finished an amazing meal off a banana leaf in an awesome restaurant here.

You would think that we were getting emotional or something in this last photo - we do love each other... ;)

We spent the next few days exploring the tea plantations and meeting the local workers who recieve 80 rupees for an 8 hour day in the fields cutting the tea.

Kochi - Keralan Kathakali Dancing

2007-03-25T23:41:00.000-07:00

We missed seeing the infamous Kathakali dancing whilst in Kochi last time and so coming back was a good opportunity to fulfill this. It really was amazing - first you watch them apply their intricate makeup with a tiny hand-held mirror mixing the paints as they go - the idea is that the dancer goes into some sort of meditative state whilst applying the makeup which makes the process really important. They could make it much easier and at least use a larger wall mirror and pre-mixed paint but that is not the idea.

The main idea of the dancing is the movement of the face so that the face becomes a stage and it was quite amusing as the dancers (very old Indian men) demonstrated the rolling of their eyes, twitching of their mouth and head wobbles (we happened to be sitting smack bang in the middle of the theatre at the front and so it made it even weirder as they was staring straight into our eyes - freaky!).

The actors went behind a curtain and came out looking like massively oversized chinese dolls with big skirts and hair! The narrator explained that the Hindu gods are just representations of people's imagination of god, as Hinduism just like any religion worships one god that has no form or figure. Hence all the different Hindu 'gods'. It made for a good evening.

Backtracking to Kochi (Cochin)

2007-03-24T00:25:00.000-07:00

We left Varkala yesterday and decided to come back to Kochi (Cochin) to have a bit more of a look around the Ernakalum area as last time we stayed in Fort Cochin which is much quieter (where the chinese fishing nets were) and then head to Munnar. Munnar is meant to be beautiful and there are wildlife sanctuaries & tea plantations that we are going to check out which will be awesome. It's also meant to be quite cool there which will be a nice change from the stinking heat. One of the guys from Funky Art Cafe where we were staying in Varkala took little Ozzie the kitten under his wing so we believe that she'll be ok - he kissed her little head as he walked away and promptly organised her some warm milk so we think that he'll be a good dad - at least we are telling ourselves that!

Here are some pics of the bustling part of Kochi - Ernakalum:

We are off to see a Kathakali performance (traditional Keralan dancing) tonight which should be fun.

Varkala - Mothering and Being Mothered

2007-03-22T01:20:00.000-07:00

We have been hanging out in an awesome little town called Varkala that looks out over a cliff edge to the beach down below. We said goodbye to a few mates and as we waved them fairwell we heard this tiny little bleating voice crying for help and looked down to find a tiny tiny tiny little kitten who had been abandoned by it's mother and was on the verge of dying. She would have only been about 1-2 days old and so was absolutely miniature and soooo cute as you can see in the photos!

We vowed to look after her for the next few days while we found her a suitable home - this was quite the chore in India as there are stray and mangey animals everywhere and people struggle for survival let alone animals. Some animals however are pets in areas like Kerala and get treated quite well. So we became mothers for about 3 days feeding tiny Ozzie every 4 hours and giving her as much attention as was possible. We used a makeshift nipple that we made by poking a tiny hole in the corner of a plastic bag and bought a seringue to make things easier for feeding.

This is our makeshift nipple...

Whilst on an outing from being a mother we got mothered by a charasmatic Indian women who called herself 'Mama' and fed us in a group of 15 at her home a banquet of the most amazing Keralan food. We arrived and found her husband cutting banana leaves from the banana trees in the backyard to be used as our plates.

This was something we always wanted to master - eating like the Indians do with their hands off a banana leaf. Kristen kept elbowing the girl next to her as she tried to conquer shovelling the food into her mouth with her right hand (the left is reserved for wiping after other bodily functions - you do not dare EVER use your left hand in India for eating!). It was an amazing experience yet was quite scary at the same time as Mama was very forthcoming at showing her disappointment with us for not finishing the whole 15 massive dishes of Keralan rice, curries and pappadams. We normally share one between the two of us and are left short of breath with extremely full stomachs. It was quite the feast! Dessert was Masala tea and a huge amount of amazing fresh pinapple. Sooo good. We didn't need breakfast the next day! It was nice to be mothered for a night.

Alleppey - Backwaters Cruise

2007-03-18T02:33:00.000-07:00

This was one of the most amazing things that we have done in India so far! We caught the train from Cochin - a nice 1.5 hour train and spent the night in Alleppey where we organised to go with a group of people on an overnight cruise through Keralan backwaters. We must say that it would not be the worst place to live! It was beautiful.
Look at this meal!

Cochin

2007-03-14T22:55:00.000-07:00

Well for once we decided to get organised and actually try to book some accommodation in our next destination as the overnight train arrival time was 4am! We made some phone calls to recommended hostels from Bangalore and Kristen spoke to a cheery man who said "which country?" followed by "ok then you will bring a bat and ball then?" when she replied Australia. You see they are obsessed with cricket over here and you simply cannot stop a conversation about the Aussie cricket team when they get started no matter how much of a hurry you are in - "Ricky Ponting, Shane Warne, alright Vegemite..."
Anyhow, we organised some accommodation with this man who said "yes you be bold enough to come at 4am and I will have some rooms awaiting"...

So 4am the next day we arrive in a tuk tuk packed full with backpacks and other luggage and go around the back as instucted and meet a not so cheery man with an inflated price in hand (3 times what we had arranged via phone) and tude to match. On principal we decided not to stay here anymore and sat with at least 2 hours of waiting in mind at the front of the guest house while the stupid cranky man steamed past walking his poor dog...
...And around the corner screeches another tuk tuk with a pep in his step after the sight of 5 weary tourists with a load of luggage obviously looking for somewhere to stay! Commission here I come! Anyhow he was nice and cheuffered us to his friends guesthouse which turned out to be really nice and within our price range.

It's stinking hot here at the moment and our skin is constantly wet! They have these massive Chinese fishing nets here and yesterday we all had a go at reeling them in. It would be such hard work - we were stuffed after one go!

Last night the boys bought some fish from the fish stalls on the beach and had it cooked in the Tandoori oven at a restaurant. It looked amazing! We are off to Allepey this arvo on the train - it's only a 1.5 hour ride this time which will be welcome.

They have really trippy Indian music on in this Internet cafe and I can hear a group of Indian men outside laughing like a bunch of women - there is one with a laugh like a chipmunk I swear! Because there are no public displays of affection between man and women here all the men hold hands, put their arms around each other and cuddle - they are generally very touchy feely with each other which is something so different from home... there is definatley no meaning to the word homophobe in India.

Bangalore - oh what a night

2007-03-12T01:52:00.000-07:00

Well we arrived in Bangalore after a night of rolling around on the over-night bus. It's nice here and we're with a great group of people. We have been shopping around and stopping at the golden arches and breathing in a lot of pollution as you do in these big cities.

We went to the supermarket here and bought a whole lot of goodies (in Indian standards only) and had a picnic in the park which was full on bamboo trees as you can see in the photo. As usual there were a few little kids and beggars hovering around awaiting our generosity - we gave the little boy in the photo a few sandwiches and gave another lady some food in which she prompty threw away and demanded money. "No no - 10 rupees". "Ok you're not getting anything then!"

We also wandered around for about an hour holding our starving bellies searching for a renowned Chinese restaurant - each of us swearing that it was 'this way' or 'that way' until the girls finally dug their heels in and got us there... ;)

Nice... We had an amazing meal - if you zoom in you will note the layer of sweat, swollen lips, runny nose and bloodshot eyes we were all sporting as the Indians had once again spiced it up!
We stumbled upon an enormous shopping centre full of items that we can't even afford and had a meal in the food court which was interesting to say the least! We went to the movies and saw 'The pursuit of happiness'. For a few hours it was like we were at home!

Hampi - Bikey Chicks

2007-03-10T05:14:00.000-08:00

We are leaving Hampi tonight on an overnight bus to Bangalore which should be interesting to say the least! Today we all rented motorbikes and cruised around the villages of Hampi checking out the scenery which was so amazing and so much fun!

Lots of tourists travel by moped in India but we have been real 'stick in the muds' up until this point but we decided to give it a go as there is no traffic in Hampi and the roads are very safe. We went in a group and were celebreties with the local village kids when we stopped for a drink...We had a ball!

Hampi - back into the real India

2007-03-09T01:20:00.000-08:00

Well we caught a 6 hour train to Hampi which turned out to be a 10 or so hour train which was typical but quite enjoyable as the scenery was amazing. This is 5 of us packed in a tuk tuk...

We did a day of temples and sight seeing and then walked up about 500 steep steps to a temple called the Monkey Temple which is inhabited with a huge amount of monkeys and watched the sunset. The view was absolutely amazing. You can see a part of it from these photos.

Note the pink and purple hair. The Holi festival has seemed to stick with us... just wash out!!!

We then watched a movie in the guest house and all fell asleep exhausted. We went to see a 'waterfall' today which turned out to be nothing more than some water flowing over a rock in a river but the walk was good nonetheless. It's good to be getting some excersize after so much lazing in Palolem beach.

It's also nice to get back into the thick of India - it is really getting hot here now.

Palolem - good times

2007-03-04T22:58:00.000-08:00

We ordered a shark for dinner and here are the before and after photos of it being cooked...

More photos of Holi festival celebrations. Kristen's top started white!

Doing the chase along the beach to get everyone not coloured - coloured!

Nicky - what can we say you're a legend.

Holi Day in Palolem

2007-03-03T23:53:00.000-08:00

Believe it or not we are still in Palolem - it's hard to leave a place so perfect!

The Hindi festival Holi is on at the moment and here are some photos of the celebrations. Basically everyone just has a massive paint fight! Awesome fun...

We are off to Hampi Tuesday after much deliberation as to whether to go there as it's now out of our way a little. It sounds like a fairly interesting place and most people say we have to go there so we have taken their advice.

Palolem Still...

2007-02-25T22:53:00.000-08:00

We are still in paradise Palolem with our friends so here's some new photos. We went in a group to the night bizzare in Baga which was a fun road trip with 8 of us in a 4WD!

Yes cows really are everywhere...

One of the perks of this beachy haven is the availability of people wanting to pamper you - we both had our nails painted whilst lying on sunbeds which was rather nice...

Another over-tanned individual

2007-02-21T21:09:00.000-08:00

Well we have had fun in Goa's capital Panaji - we followed Caroline and Rich to a secluded beach that was recommended to them by an old weirdo pom "Robbie" (alcoholic) that they met at a bar the night before.

Of course the beach was beautiful and secluded however there was one downfall - Robbie and his budgie smugglers had also made a day of it... Really, those things should be illegal. We kept well away from him all day until we were leaving and he offered to call us a taxi. He suggested while we wait that we pose in front of the sunset on the beach. Unfortunately this was accompanied by a demonstration...

Yeah thought that we'd share it with you!! ;)

We are about to get on a four hour (or so - could be 10!) bus back to Palolem for some more beach time on our way down South...

Panaji (Panjim) - Goa Capital

2007-02-19T00:45:00.000-08:00

We are in Panaji now - the capital of Goa and looks like a pretty town with a Portugese influence and have bumped into Rich and Caroline - our friends who we met way up North near the start of our trip so are going to hang with them for a few days. Clare is feeling better and as it goes Kristen is not... She's ok though... Here are some pics from Goa:

Lanterns for sale at the Ingo's night market at Calangute

A lovely woman who was 'rag snatching' (collecting from rubbish dumps) - she didn't even ask for rupees for this picture!

At Vagator beach. We stopped to have a look on the way to Calangute

Palolem - Anjuna - Calangute

2007-02-17T00:43:00.000-08:00

We left Palolem yesterday after hanging for a few days with Nicky - a fellow Bendigonian and her friends - Simon and Bryan from the UK who are doing India by motorbike and two Swedish girls who left to go home sadly!

Simon and Bryan offered us a lift to our next destination - Anjuna where we were headed to visit the famous Wednesday market. It was an amazing experience to see India from a motorbike!

The market was amazing and absolute hippie heaven with everything that you could think of for sale an about a thousand stalls! We bought a few things each but are now having huge troubles lugging that bag! We then went to a bar next to the market overlooking the beach to watch a band made up of people from all over the glove that had travelled India and just stayed here. It was like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers crossed with the spiritual sounds of India - very interesting!

We thought that we had a nice healthy sun kissed glow but looks like we have a long way to go! ;)

"No really - I didn't mean YOU!!!"

2007-02-12T01:50:00.000-08:00

Ok not much new news as we're still at Palolem beach in Goa doing beach stuff.

Thought this might be good for a laugh though:

Kristen was commenting on how fat a dog was last night as most of the dogs here look near death and so impoverished that you can see their ribs and said "you're fat" to it and a fat Indian in speedos walked past in the mean time and turned around and was like "are you calling me fat?"...

He let out a massive belly laugh and pissed himself laughing as we explained that she was actually referring to the dog. Woops.

Goooooooaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-02-10T20:07:00.000-08:00

< we are staying in the beach huts just behind us in this picture

Ok yes so we stuffed up again - we caught a taxi to the wrong station - this time we had left ample time to rectify any mistakes though so it all turned out fine! It did however end with an argument with the second taxi driver who was of course tried to rip us off as usual and I just wasn't in the mood and Clare was about to snap as she had been poked and prodded by beggars through the windows of the taxi all the way... Funny when you look back. It really can be a frustrating place at times and no matter what you do they try it on! Having said that we have been equally impressed with those that have helped us along the way. I guess you can't really blame them though living in a country where their existence is not so important as ours appears to be at home and they have to do whatever they can to survive including ripping rich westerners off whenever they can. In the end the only harm done is a loss of a small amount of money.

Goa is amazing and such a relief - we're at a beach called Palolem and it's so cute - I passed some cows lazing on the sand this morning. That is something you would only see in India! I am scared of them though now because of Clare's incident and am making sure that I avert my eyes away from theirs! Her bruise has healed now but now I am sporting some of my own! SO embarassing - I bought some shoes, put them on and was loving myself sick as I walked out of the shop, slipped on the stairs and went backwards into the busy street where about 10 Indian's caught me just as I hit the ground hard. I didn't know whethere to laugh or cry! Funny now though. Everytime I walked past that part of the street for the next few days they were all like "are you okay now Madam?" with concern. So embarassing...

We are staying at a beach hut right on the beach front and have been lazing around, reading, drinking freshly squeezed juices and swimming in the sea which has been so nice. We went for dinner last night and there was a dog fight and the one that was being attacked the most bolted under our table to hide. Was so funny. Big commotion! There are heaps of stray dogs, they dig themselves beds under the sun lounges we lie on and stay there out of the sun waiting for any crumbs to be dropped.

I got a cold on the train here because of the AC and have been feeling fairly average but am much better today - just sniffles... We are planning on staying here till Wednesday and taking it easy - there is an awesome market on Wednesdays only so want to be here for that...

Laughing is the best medicine

2007-02-08T02:35:00.000-08:00

We found ourselves doing something strange this morning - laughing our heads off with a big group of hysterical Indians!! We woke up early and sought out the local laughter club and joined in! It was a good way to start the day working out our stomach muscles pissing ourselves whilst watching the sunrise. It also involved some weird exercises like the 'Kangaroo'. The leader of the group was a very cute old man with a laugh so contagious he would have anyone drop to the floor with hysteria. It all ended with a chant on 'We are the happiest people on the world, laughter is the best medicine."

We just went to the movies (in English!!!!!!) and saw Blood Diamond - it is an absolute must see and probably one of the most amazing movies that I have ever seen - but it is very gruesome and not for the faint hearted. We were both in tears a few times throughout. Its a true reflection of the diamond industry in Africa. I swear that I will never buy a diamond in my life!!!

We are getting on the train to Goa tonight and are not so excited about another night rolling from side to side with contant effort to stop from rolling onto the floor. Let's all cross our fingers and hope that we get the right one this time! SSSOOOO ready for the beach!!!

Cultural smultural - show me the golden arches

2007-02-07T02:57:00.001-08:00

We have hit hot, humid and expensive Mumbai (Bombay) and are loving ourselves sick getting the most out of doing anything but immersing ourselves in anything cultural.

Our first question after stepping foot off the train was "Excuse me - where is the closest McDonalds?" followed closely by "oh and the taxi line?" of course. We have been told to stock up on the western food whilst here as we have learnt that any attempt at western food outside the big cities is never quite successful.

We caught the train from Udaipur with no hiccups and spent the night rolling around on the sleeper train next to 2 over-excited but extremely ballsey 19 year old South Korean girls. We were woken abruptly by an Indian telling us that we had 2 minutes to get out of bed, get to the next platform and board the connecting train which we didn't question as much as we should have at the time as our booked train was actually supposed to be departing 2 hours later - anything can happen here though so dishevelled and with one eye open only we did the best we could and hauled on our hugely heavy (and growing) backpacks and bolted for the train. It was like one of those extremely stressful movie scenes where the train is actually moving and the actor jumps on just in the nic of time to find his love. We only found two Indian men occupying what we thought were our seats - this is where it became clear (as the other eye popped open) that we had boarded the wrong bloody train!!!!

Crisis! Everyone who travels on the Indian rail network has some sort of horror story - or at least that's what we are telling ourselves. To cut a long story short it actually worked out for the best as a lovely man helped us to get off at the next station (almost another movie scene) and the train superintendant for that station felt sorry for us, called to make sure that our seats would stay reserved, ordered us some Chai and opened up an amazing glittering room that looked like it was only meant for royalty and let us wait in there until our train arrived. So it actually turned out to be some kind of blessing in disguise! We just didn't think that things like this happened in India but everyone says to expect the unexpected!

This is us in Udaipur with our friends Frida and Tove from Sweden

Udaipur - "Goodbye Pappu"

2007-02-04T00:38:00.000-08:00

Well we have said goodbye to our driver Pappu (I found out it was spelt with a 'P' when h gave me his business card after 3 weeks of calling him the wrong thing) and are now out on our own which we are actually very excited about. We are looking forward to being the master of our time and being able to do all the things that we want to and not just things popular on the tourist route.

This place is nice and quiet (by Indian city standards!) compared to the rest of the cities that we have been so far - partly because it is Sunday we are guessing and we are enjoying wandering the streets looking at silver jewellery and seeking out food that we can't get anywhere else like proper coffee and cake... don't think that we will be successful in this but will keep you posted.

We are off to Mumbai (Bombay) tomorrow on the train which may take a couple of days and will be interesting!

Jodhpur - the "Blue City"

2007-02-01T04:33:00.000-08:00

Just a quick one. We're sitting in an Internet Cafe that is pumping with Indian doof doof.

Jodhpur was a nice place and gets its name 'The Blue City" because almost all of the buildings are painted some shade of blue. It looks amazing walking through and especially from a distance. I will upload photos of it later. The streets here were the most narrow, crowded and busy ones that I have ever come across in my life - I think that it took an hour to navigate about half a kilometre! We found ourselves staring at each other from opposite sides of the road many times. It was quite overwhelming but fun at the same time. The cows get precedence above the pedestrians and there is always a string of Indian children following us closely shouting random words of English!

There was a fort here with a great audio tour which helped us heaps with understanding what all of the monuments and statues were all about as most of the time we have no idea and trying to decipher becomes too much of a hassle.

We had dinner at our restaurant on the roof and didn't like it as it had heaps of aniseed and we both hate it so we ate very little. The waiter later on expressed his astonishment that we left mst of it...

Jaisalmer - "Holy cow - it bit me!"

2007-01-30T23:05:00.000-08:00

Can you believe it? Clare got bitten by a cow yesterday!! We walked fairly close to it and Clare said that she was looking into its eyes and it grabbed her on the arm on the way through! Bastard! I guess though if you are ever likely to be bitten by a cow it is in India! At least it was a holy one.

We are in Jaisalmer and there is an amazing fort here that was built over 600 years ago. We had dinner at a restaurant at the top of the fort and it really was magical - the views were unbelieveable. This picture does it no justice really.

We are having fun exploring the fort further today and are about to go to a camel festival which will be interesting.

These images were taken yesterday in Jaisalmer.

"I swear, it wasn't me..."

2007-01-30T00:40:00.000-08:00

We spent last night in the desert with 2 camels and a very starry sky! It was an amazing experience. It was just the two of us, the camels and 2 guides - oh and a dog that decided to tag along.

The camels are so funny. They hold their heads up in the air with such pride and look down on you... They do live up to their name as far as loud and proud goes! They were letting rip all night! The guides didn't even flinch as they were so used to it... We couldn't stop laughing...

This is us by the camp fire loving ourselves sick

Sleeping under the stars was interesting to say the least!!

Bikaner rat temple - we had to take our shoes off and walk through!!

Horn Please and Give Way to the Camels

2007-01-28T05:16:00.000-08:00

Just some of the amazingly weird but typical images we see on a daily basis travelling through Rajastan... Note the road rules are given on the back of passing trucks...
Clare got sucked in by the sweetness of the old man and bought one of his whistles (another item to squeeze into the backpack...)

We sat next to these old men charming snakes (for a fee of course) and Kristen watched in horror as the snakes hissed and leaped at Clare while she smiled for the camera obliviously...

What the?

Pushkar - It must have been something I ate...

2007-01-28T04:15:00.000-08:00

Ok yes it has occurred - the dreaded Delhi Belly. We are not sure what we ate but something caused a massive case of gastro so we haven't been feeling quite up to it for the last couple of days. Thank god for all the medication we lag around in our packs!!
< Pushkar's awesome street markets
It all started when Clare did a bolt for the toilet whilst jewellery shopping in Pushkar. Then on the way to a restaurant later on Clare's limbs decided to give her grief and so Kristen quickly organised a 'rickshaw' (basically a cart with an Indian man on the front instead of a horse) to cheauffer us into town... You should have seen the looks we were given by the protentious tourists now!! Ha ha - one Aussie guy even looked at us with shame and said 'Bloody Lazy'.
We have been fantasising about being given the situation again and what we would have said and even created a full plan in case we bumped into him again... He was going to cop some abuse and patronising and feel terrible for what he had said and change his ways... Moving on...
She was pretty unwell from there on in but came miraculously good after a vomit in the restaurant followed by some dry toast with good ol' Vegemite (thanks to Barb -Kristens Mum who bought some special travel Vegemite on special a few weeks before leaving).
.............Then it was Kristens turn. Skyting about how she never gets sick on the way home from the market she started to complain of some slight aches and pains (as you do) - by the time we were back at the hostel it was on! All night it went on and all day the next day she was bed bound... Clare joined her.
Think it must have been something we ate...

This should be interesting

2007-01-25T04:19:00.000-08:00

We are about to go to the cinema to see a Bollywood movie here in a big meringue looking theatre - we won't be able to understand the language but it is meant to be good for the experience anyhow -apparently the people get really into it and shout and yell at the screen! Today we went sight seeing with our driver Bappu and saw some amazing temples and an awesome view of the city.

We went to the Pink City (pink is the colour for public) and wandered around many bazaars dodging traffic and bartering very good prices for some small things that we can fit in our back packs! We just tried Maccas as an experiment and it was awesome - of course curry was involved in the vegetarian burger with fries and coke. I wish it was available at home!! I am sure though that we will never want another lick of the stuff by the time we are finished here! We are staying in the most amazing hotel at the moment and can't quite believe our luck! Room service and people wait on us for our breakfast!! Like I promised yesterday - I will find a computer with a USB port and put some of these photos on the blog! 5 minutes till show time so better rush! This should be interesting!! Love to you all from us and missing you!

Love Levels are Arising

2007-01-24T05:09:00.000-08:00

Well since the last post we have settled in to India and are starting to love it here!
We went to Agra (home of the Taj Mahal) after Delhi with our driver Bappu (yes it's almost 'Apu' guys!) - he is nice and looks after us and makes sure that we dont pay too much for anything and are always safe... He has been doing this for 18 years or something crazy and his English is quite good but there are a few things that we cant understand. Agra is a town with not much in it (apart from the usual million homeless people, cows, dogs, pigs, monkeys, camels, dirt, rubbish and rubble) apart from the Taj Mahal - it was so amazing and we got some good pics of it - we saw it at sun set. We have to find an Internet cafe where we can put some pictures from our cameras on the blog - blogs are boring without pictures so I promise we will put some up soon - probably tomorrow...
< Clare loving herself sick with a very close view of a Father Antelope from the safari canter (topless truck like vehicle).

We stayed one night in Agra (after a huge 8 hour drive from Delhi) and then went to Ranthambore National Park where we went on 2 tiger safaris. Again the town is more of the same as Agra but people go there to explore the jungle and search for tigers and other animals and birds - sadly we didn't see tigers but saw a lot of other animals & enjoyed the bumps of the canter as we sat up the front next to the driver - it was fun! The first one was at 6 in the morning and I have never been so cold in my life! Our toes were going to drop off and we both got wind burn on our faces. Clare looks like she has pash rash and I have rosy red cheeks. Yep feeling great!
The weather is surprisingly cold here in the mornings and at night but will be hot down South. We both bought fleece jackets when we got back and now look like members of some uniformed group as we are obsessed with them and are both refusing to take them off!
< This is us on the tiger safari trying to keep warm with the blankets we *borrowed* from Singapore Airlines...
No wonder everyone wears cloth over their faces - there is dust everywhere!

It's so amazing to drive through the streets of India and see so much of what is so different from home! So much poverty. We have seen a few disturbing things like puppies & dogs dead on the road etc. We went to a wedding last night in Ranthambore - it was next to our hotel (by the way staying in some nice accommodation since booking this tour thing!) so we went there with a Brittish couple we met (accompanied by a male ;) to check it out as there were doof doof party tunes and fireworks and everything going off!!

Their marriage celebrations are just as full on as you can imagine! We ended up getting invited in (the couple we met from Brittain had been to a few and said they were fine and safe and came with us) and danced the night away with them - well maybe not the night away - just half an hours worth or so. We were like the guests of honour and the people made us get up on stage with the bride and groom for photos! It was so embarassing because we looked so crusty and were SO SO SO underdressed! And yes we were wearing our identical fleece jumpers with tiger prints on the back...
We felt so sorry for the bride and groom - they were so young and the bride looked like she had been crying and would not smile for the photos. Everyone else was having a ball at their expense - both looked very unhappy. It made us want to ball...

We are now in Juipur - awesome city - will write more tomorrow as time is up on this crusty computer...

Here we pay for our friends

2007-01-20T06:03:00.000-08:00

Well I must say that this is a trying place but we feel that we have mastered it a little afer a successful day in Delhi:

We got the hell out of the hotel that we were scammed to stay in and made our way to the popular tourist area (in which we originally booked) and booked in to a rather plain to say the least hostel but at least its in the right area... We then got in an autorickshaw (tuk tuk) and attempted to get to the tourist office that the lonely planet book says is the only reputable one. Of course the driver didn't take us to the door (as you would expect at home) and we were ushered to another tourist office that we were not prepared to give the time of day until we read that it was reputable in the book also so we listened to what they had to offer. After two hours of checking their accreditations, making them call tourists already travelling with their drivers and getting everthing in writing we booked 20 days through Rajasthan inluding all accommodation, cheuffer, food etc for peace of mind and no hassles. We went on a tour of Delhi and saw some monuments this afternoon with our driver and he seems very nice. We decided that for a bit of extra cash we can save ourselves so much stress and have a better time. It's really weird because the other tourists that we have seen here so far seem to be annoying and pretentious and don't give us the time of day let alone a smile on the way past - we think that they think this place is theirs and they are the only ones who have discovered it and that generally they are great...losers ;)

Oh my gosh!

2007-01-19T04:29:00.000-08:00

We arrived in Delhi safe today. This is the most full on place we have ever been! We got done by a few harmless money making scams as soon as we arrived and were as careful as we could have possibly been! All is has cost us is staying in a different area and admitedly the hotel is nicer than where we had booked in anyhow. There are cows in the streets and the most amazing jewellery shops and clothes shops! The traffic is full on and the place has this strange sweet smell that i bet will remind of if India for the rest of our lives... We are just taking it slow and working things out one at a time. We had a nice vegetarian curry for dinner. This place really does make us realise how good we have it at home!!

Bloody Alarm Clock

2007-01-18T13:20:00.000-08:00

We are sitting here in our pajamas because we slept in (the alarm clock didn't go off for some strange reason ;) and had a massive rush to the airport - turns out check in is 2 not 3 hours before the departure time and that our flight is delayed so we are really early! There is free Internet and a swimming pool here though but we have to wait till we get through customs to use the pool. Until then I'm afraid we look like some weird pajama party...

We're Off!

2007-01-17T00:09:00.000-08:00

Yep we're in Singapore now! It's an amazingly clean place - immaculate! You can get arrested for chewing chewy gum and can get a whopper of a fine if you eat food on a public bus! It's pretty warm here - I looked up the expected weather before we left and I think that it's about three times that temperature! Sweaty sweaty sweaty... Apparently its been raining but we missed it - must be because we are from Bendigo and we aren't allowed to see rain anymore... I had a long shower too and couldnt' get used to not feeling guilty about catching every drop with a bucket for the garden! We are sight seeing the lush green gardens and lawns more than anything as they are somewhat a thing of the past for us down in Vic! This place is so green! Our flight was ok but a bit long but we got some sleep which was good. The hostess was laughing at Clare because she was trying to clear up her plates and she was dead to the world. Clare is asleep upstairs at the moment - we are both really tired because we booked in to a hostel and they haven't had our beds ready until almost 4 in the arvo - and we arrived at 5.30 this morning so you can imagine the wait! I kept falling asleep in the taxi before and having mini dreams.
Today we tried the weirdest dessert - really creamy bricks of icecream wrapped in a piece of green bread! It's so nice though I almost had two.
< That's a picture of Clare with one... It looks like a brick of dog food in green bread!

We had some Singapore nooodles and dumpling like things in soup for lunch which was nice too. We even managed to have an 'ok' cafe latte this morning which was a bit of a surprise my mates from work will be pleased to know. It was no Bath Lane one though!

We are staying in this backpackers in dorm beds and its so expensive compared to the prices we paid last time - very comparable to Aus backpacker dorm prices $25 SNG.

My god it just started raining a little! I am going to have to go now and wake Clare up to see this!! Hope everyone is well! xxx

This is a test post just to see how it looks

2007-01-11T19:29:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone! I am setting up our blog - Clare doesn't even know it so she will get a nice surprise when she finds out. I can't believe that we're actually going on Tuesday!

Saying Farewell

2007-01-11T19:08:00.000-08:00

Kristen's farewell dinner at the Mexican Kitchen in Bendigo...
From Left back to left front: Kim, Murray, Brad Bennett, Brad Waters, Maxine, Sharon, Kristen, Brett