Travels from India to Oz

So we have finally come to end of our huge trip!

After leaving India we travelled to Nepal for 1 month which was stunning, wonderful snow- capped mountains rising up before you, making you feel very small indeed.

No, we didn’t climb them, after spending 2 months on the beach I don’t think our fitness levels would have been quite up to it.

We would love to go back one day though and climb to base camp, but that is another day.

From Nepal we travelled the length of India on a mammoth 45 hour train trip through blazing sun and almost un-bearable heat to Mumbai.

Where, we took our flights to Thailand.

Thailand was a real eye opener after India and so westernised it was amazing to see new cars, big buildings and real roads, instead of the dusty pot holed paths we had in India.

Also the fantastic shopping.

Bryan really had to restrain me when it came to the knock-off designer handbags, clothes, shoes, jewellery, make-up, etc as I was like a kid at xmas.

I am already planning a shopping trip back there with the girls, when I start working and saving up the cash again.

After a couple of days in Bangkok we headed down the East coast to Ko Phan Ngan where the famous Full moon parties are held.

We stayed on a paradise beach called Ao Tong Nai Pan for a week then got a boat down to a nearer beach to the FMP which was Had Yuan beach, we had a beautiful hut facing the sea costing us £3 a night, with a hammock for lazing in!

I was even waking up at 5.30am everyday to watch the sunrise, it was so amazing.

We went to a half moon party first which was great and in the middle of a jungle fantastic location.

Then Full Moon Party night!

Don’t ask me to re-count what happened there, my memory is a little blurred thanks to the potent Samsong (Thai liquor) buckets of alcohol they sell!

A few days after, our Thai visa was running out (you only get 30 days) so we headed to Malaysia, to the Perentian Islands.

I have never seen sea water so clear it was like swimming pool water and we went on 2 snorkelling trips, where we saw huge turtles, sharks and little nemo fish.

It was awesome, camp fires on the beach and jamming sessions with the local musicians.

Great beach bars and restaurants that you could watch the sunset from.

With the odd cocktail of course.

From Malaysia we travelled up the west coast of Thailand to Krabi to visit the beautiful limestone cliff lined islands and beaches of Ko Phi Phi.

Offering us a stunning back-drop to our beach based activities, ie lazing, swimming, sipping cocktails and snorkelling.

Then it was back to Bangkok to try and find out what was going on with my Aussie visa!

After several tense days of waiting, our visa in Thailand again expired, so we decided to visit Cambodia for a week or two.

Our first night in Cambodia we went to check our emails and much to our joy my Aussie permanent visa had been granted!!!

Several celebratory beers and phone calls later we crawled into our beds ready to get up and go and see the awesome Angkor Wat and surrounding ruins, which were used in the movie Tomb Raider. Tree roots wrapped around the temples and just what you would expect to see in something like raiders of the lost ark.

From Siem Reap we travelled to Phnom Penh to see the Killing fields and the horrifying S-21 prison where Pol Pot’s evil regime tortured confessions out of innocent Cambodians for an excuse to cleanse Cambodia of anyone with any education.

Truly a modern day Hitler.

At the killing fields they have erected a temple with all of the thousands of skulls and bones they found there.

As you walk around it is hard not to notice that there are hardly any elderly people left as most of them were killed by this brutal regime.

We decided to spend our last few days in a nice hotel with a pool at the beach in Sihanoukville on Cambodia’s Southern coast.

Where Bryan managed to find a Kiwi owned bar to watch the All Blacks re-claim the Bledisloe cup and the Tri-nations.

He was more than a little delighted I can tell you.

Then it was back to Bangkok to collect my passport from the Aussie Embassy, with my visa stamped.

We spent a few more days in Bangkok shopping and partying and then it was finally time for our new life in Australia to start!!!

Bryans sister, niece and nephew came to meet us from the plane and took us back to their house in Maroubra, Sydney’s eastern suburbs.

That is where we are now.

So we come to the end of our travels.

We hope you enjoyed sharing our adventures as much as we enjoyed having them!

We will keep you all upto date on how we are faring in Sydney.

But for now we are enjoying catching up with all our old friends and job-hunting.

Bye for now

Huge Blog

Well I know it has been a while since i last wrote but the internet has been so slow or non existent where we have been that i gave up! Anyway to up-date you; We left Rajasthan and headed up to Dharamsala and Manali in the Himalayas, which was beautiful and a welcome relief from the heat of India. Surrounded by snow capped mountains and beautiful scenery.
From there we came to Rishikesh where the Ganges river begins, the most sacred river in India and also the only source of water for many millions of people who wash in it, cook with it, bathe their animals in it and also float their dead relatives down it at ther burning Ghats in Varanassi! we went white water radting down it, luckily this was a the begining of the river though and not at the end. As by the time we got to Varanasi where the burning ghats are (cremations take place) the water was almost septic. Ghats of Ganga are perhaps the holiest spots of Varanasi. The Ganga Ghats at Varanasi are full of pilgrims who flock to the place to take a dip in the holy Ganges, which is believed to absolve one from all sins. They bring ther dead relatives to the Ghats and buy the wood for the funeral pyre and you can see the dead bodies being burnt. You feel really spiritual there even if you are not particularly religious as there are ceremonies going on all the time along the Ghats people offering puja (prayer) and floating candles and offerings of flowers money etc. There are also lots of Sadhus (holy men) who cover themseleves in the ashes of the dead and walk around naked.they have amazing dreadlocks so Bryan fitted in well although he didnt partake in covering himself in the ashes! During the height of summer the number of bodies per day that get cremated between the two ghats reaches 650 to 700 and normally around 500 per day. People go there to die and when they have taken a dip in that water as well as DRUNK IT!!! they die, unsurprisingly quite soon after. Finally got to see the Taj Mahal it was stunning and Bryan took a few princess Di style pics of me there! Then it was off to Nepal! What an awesome place and so different from India. The restraunts were cleaner for one thing and for the first time in Months we could eat some red meat and WINE yay!! However India has been very kind to ,my waistline i have lost 2 stone and i feel great. We wont be rushing out for a curry for a while though. In Nepal we caught up with some friends we met down South, Graham and Shelley from Brighton and we decided we would cut our trip short by a few weeks and head straight to Thailand with them! However we had to get from Nepal (top of India)to Mumbai so we had to take a bus from Kathmandu to the Indian border 10 hours all day! Then a train across India in scorching 45 degree heat for 33 hours (actually took 40) we did treat ourselves to air-conditioned sleeper this time though! It was a great journey though seeing the changing colours of the Indian landscape and watching the villagers tend their crops. They have it really tough i can tell you, i wouldnt swap my life with theirs and you can see why they wish for there next ( and better) life to start. We are now in Bangkok! A lot lot easier than India and amazing shopping Bryan has to keep prising my fingers off handbags, jewellery clothes etc, I am like a kid in a sweet shop! The food is wonderful here too so i am going to have to watch how much i eat here, thinking about that wedding dress next year!! Anyway thats us up to date for the time being, we are off to Koh Samui and the islands next and a months r & r on the beach before we go home and start work!

Is it really March

Well what an exhausting week we have had since leaving the serenity of the Goan Coast.
We took an overnight bus from Goa to Mumbai, the buses are very good as they have actual double beds on the top half so you lie down and draw a curtain and sleep all the way which is great on a 12 hour bus journey!
We enjoyed Mumbai and did some shopping in the Bazaars and visited some of the local sights.From Mumbai we got a bus to Aurangabad which is around 350 kms inland to see the Ellora and Ajanta Caves Buddhist,Hindu and Jain Caves sculpted between Ad 600 - 1000 and clinging to a horseshoe shaped escarpement on a mountain.

Amazing Buddhas and a Shiva (Hindu holy deity) that is the largest monolithic sculpture in the world, hewn from the rocks by 7000 labourers over a 150 year period, lucky the same team werent tasked with the job of building Wembley stadium, or were they?

That afternoon we jumped on another bus to Rajasthan another 15 hour bus trip, then a change at Gujarat for a 5 hour trip on another bus to Udaipur the most romantic city in India!
On the way Bryan had been preparing himself for the up and coming Holi celebrations in India, where Hindus celebrate by throwing coloured paint and water at each other. Young and old the whole of India gets involved.
Bryan got amongst it with some vigour and set about buying a huge water pistol with a pump action and plenty of powdered paint for ammo.
However the morning of Holi we were on this bus and Bryan got on very well with the driver and his mate and they thought it would be fun to get this pistol out and attack passers by. But as Bryan put the colour in his waterpistol the water ran out all over the floor of the bus, dyeing it green. Luckily the driver found this hilarious ( his bus was a wreck). Then a water and paint fight started in the cab of the bus with the driver being the instigator and taking his hands off the wheel and eyes off the road, the whole bus was swerving up the road!!
Bryan thought it then best to put it away as, we really didnt want a crash on our hands too!

We arrived safely in Udaipur and it is beautiful lakes with floating wedding cake style palaces that were used in the James Bond Movie Octupussy.

We and the rest of India are now waiting for the cricket world cup to start and there is talk of nothing else here, Bryan has the same conversation with nearly every Indian he meets usually;

Indian; Hi where you from
Bryan; New Zealand
Indian; ahh Stephen Flemming!

Anyway keep warm

Lots of love Julz and Bryan

letter from india

Dear All

It was nice to hear it was snowing,ha ha, we are on the beach again now in Goa soaking up the sun we have a lovely little hut on the beach for 3 pounds a night with en-suite! and clean!!

We have been having a wonderful time travelling about we have been to a place called Madurai and seen these beautiful temples called Sri Meenakshi. covered in riots of colour also got blessed by an elephant there which nearly puts your neck out as he donks you on the head with his trunk.

Then we went to Madras/ Chennai which we didn't really enjoy as we had 24 hour check in and as we had checked in at 6.30 am the previous day meant that we also had to check out at 6.30am not so bad but our train to Bangalore was at 10.30pm, we stowed our packs at the left luggage at the station and wandered round the city went to the beach not the nicest, then sat in a park for about 4 hours.
Being the spectacles of some high amusement of the local kids who kept us entertained, not sure who was entertaining who though.

We stayed in Bangalore for a couple of nights with a couple we had met and hit the nightlife
in Bangalore it was great we went to a really cool rooftop bar that could of been in London and it was full of India's rich and glam young things.
You also had to be rich and glam to afford the drinks so we only stopped for a couple.

We moved onto Hampi which has been the highlight of the tour ruins hundreds of years old, boulders strewn all over the landscape and monkeys everywhere. I will put the photos on line soon.
Bryan hired a motorbike and we rode around all the ruins which was a relief as it was so hot there.
The place was great, though, we stayed across a river next to paddy fields the place didnt even have electricity during the day and was then only on for about 5 hours a night.
So some very romantic candle lit meals.

Then on from Hampi to Goa, I had been dreading this ,moment as i had heard it would be overcrowded with British Louts, but i have been pleasantly surprised, it is a haven a large bay with about 70 bamboo huts and restaurants along the front.
We step right out of our hut onto the beach we are staying in a place called Patnem in Palolem in Southern Goa.

love

julz

Moving around India

Wow Wee the site looks amazing lots of new companies and i love the way the
links go straight to a search of the companies jobs on autojob, cunning! How is the viral going have you been tracking its progress?


I will send this now then send another in a sec.



As i am stuck at the station for 12 hours will tell you in the next mail.
Speak soon love julz n Bry xx

HAPPY NEW YEAR

We have had a great xmas and New Year!
I found myself being asked to DJ at a bar on xmas eve and was billed as a proper dj on their flyers which i was quite impressed with (as i have never done it in my life) as most of my tunes are quite old but i managed to play a few floor fillers!

We have just been to the southern most tip of India to a place called Kanyakumiri for full moon, where 3 seas meet, Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean and Arabian sea, and you can watch the sunrise and the moon set almost at the same time, it was beautiful and there were around 1000 pilgrims watching.

We are now in Trivandrum a hot and dusty city but we are off to Periyar elephant reserve next and also the backwaters of Kerala.

We have met some great people especially Ovre the German Landscape gardener with one of the best handlebar moustaches we have ever seen. Anyway folks we will keep in touch as often as we can.