Mar 2006

Tongiht at 11:55pm we leave India (Bangalore international) for Singapore, we feel like theres still so much to see here!. Even so we've had a fantastic 5/6 weeks and its been a brilliant start of our trip, we have to keep reminding ourselves that it is still so early on but if the rest of the trip go's anywhere near as quickly as this time has gone then we're going to be back very very soon! and even though we'd love to see everyone we're not quite ready to be back in Blighty.

Bangalore's been great, a very different kind of city to Kochi, and I dont think theres anywhere like Bombay. It's quite Westernised, lots of shops and names we recognise KFC, Lacoste, Nike etc.... and lots of neon lights at night it almost feels like we've already left India......but you still get the stares and curries here so maybe not. It's slightly refreshing for us (as westerners) to suddenly have all these things on offer but we both hope this isn't the India of the future, unfortunately to a point its inevitable.The most appealing thing about visiting India is the vast differences there are to how we live and definately how we treat people, it sometimes makes you feel slightly uncomfortable and some of it's hard to get your head around, but ultimately it's what makes this place so interesting. It go's without saying that money will help the poverty although it doesn't yet seem to have had much of an impact in Bangalore, but we hope the money doesn't create another America or Britain and India stays Indian, if that makes sense?!

One thing the money hasn't done is 'create reasnable opening hours' for pubs and bars, 11:30 is the latest they can get a licsence for. We only discovered this on Friday when we went out for a few drinks, thankfully after about an hour of searching for somewhere to carry on we came accros a bar that was just closing up (around midnight) and the owner, once he saw we were 2 white people immediately re-opened and had a lock in untill about 2:30am! it just emphasises how friendly and helpfull everyone here is, and we'll definately miss that but we're both sure we'll come back again, possibly not as travellers maybe as honeymooners! who knows.

We'll update again, hopefully with pictures from Singapore.

Bye for now, Anthony and Tania xx xx

As from Monday afternoon me (Anthony) and her (Tania) are engaged to be married. Sorry we havnent let everyone know personally but we've been drunk for the last 2 days straight and have been unable to drag ourselves into an internet cafe (if only they sold beer in these places!) We went and got a ring yesterday to make it all official and I have to be honest if Tania just makes a little bit more of an effort with the washing up and improves her cleaning skills just a little then i'm sure she'll make a cracking wife! (Its Tan now! Of course he is joking-I couldnt get any better at washing-up or the cleaning-maybe if he improves we could live a very happily married life!! We are joking btw!)

Seriously though we're both very happy and are looking forward to having a bit of a shin-dig when we get back......in about 6 months! no definate plans about a date etc... all in good time.

Other than the news not a lot to report, as I mentioned we've just been sat in some dark, dingy, smelly little bars for the past 48hours its been very romantic necking booze and scoffing pork scratchings.

We're off on another night train tonight to Bangalore (our final destination) leaving at 8:30pm arriving at 7am, no doubt another interesting experience.

We'll love you and leave you (dont get any ideas Tan!) speak to you all soon.

Anthony and Tania (soon to be Mr and Mrs David-Wallace-Jones.....maybe) xx

Hello everyone, again sorry for the overwhelming slackness on our part not updating the blog for an eternitity, like our school reports we "must do better"!

Right from Palolem we took the train to Trivindrum (capital of Kerala) which was a plesent 14 hour overnight journey, this time we chose to downgrade to a cheaper class, not quite 'chicken and goat' class but a downgrade all the same, we passed some of the time playing our new game 'spot the turd' which can be played by two or more players on any railway track in India, simply spot a stray dropping on the track and yell 'TURD' that gives you (and/or your team)one point it's amazing how the hours get eaten up playing it!

Trivindrum was o.k, we just spent one day there visiting the Zoo, zoo zoo. Along with some temples and an old palace. After such a franticly hectic day we thought it was time to take things a little easier so we caught another train, played some more 'spot the turd' and got off at Varkala, a beach resort perched on some deathly high cliffs. After 2 days of relaxing and generally festering in our increasing wiffy clothes we moved onto Allepey which is the home of the houseboats.

The houseboats are like giant motorised whicker baskets, although that description does them no justice at all. If anyones interested google - houseboats, kerala, backwaters. we hired an extravigantly (sp?!) luxurious boat for 22hours and it took us around a series of lakes, streams rivers etc... for the princely sum of RS3500 (about 32quid) the price included all the food drinks and the company of 3 ridicuously helpfull boatmen, or seamen as we preferred to call them.

From Allepey we took a 6 hour bus ride to Kumily, the town just outside Periyar wildlife santuary. we organised a day gentle treking through the park (or at least we thought) when we saw an Indian version of Daily Thompson arrive to pick us up at 5:30am our concerns began. These concerns continued to grow as 'Daily' set of at world record pace (for the 400m) after 10 minutes we were pleased to see leeches sucking the blood ot of our legs......it gave us a chance to stop and take on water! Good old Daily then provided us with leech socks which allowed us to continue on at our monstorously punishing pace (Great!) Thankfully about 40 minutes in we spotted a family of elephants (Mum,Dad,Baby) and it gave us a chance to stop for a while and take some photos (hopefully uploaded from Singapore next week) we also got glimpses on Bison, Deer, giant squirells, monkeys, numerous creepy crawlies (tania loved that bit) and of course the obligitory cow (it is India after all) A fantastic day, and i'm sure if we had got a chance to get used to the conditions and had, had some altitude training we'd have faired much better with the hiking! (well thats our excuse and we're sticking to it)

Next stop was Munnar, about 5 hours North of Kumily and about 5000ft above sea level (even raising a bottle of beer there leaves you breathless) this place was stunning, steep hills and moutains covered in tea and spice plantations, with lots of lakes, rivers and waterfalls dotted about its just about the most beautiful and tranquil place either of us has visited, its certainly a far cry from Bombay!

We've now arrived back on the coast (Kochi) we we're staring to get withdrawal symptoms from not being able to go to the beach and we're here for 3 days before getting our very last train in India (*sob*) to Bangalore on Wednesday.We'll be sure to savour our last week in India but i'm sure we'll return here again one day, it's such an amazing place!

TTFN, we'll update again soon (we'll at least think about it anyway!)

Love from Anthony and Tania xx

Hello everyone, it's been a week or so since we've dragged our sorry butts off the beach to update you all on our Indian escapades, for that we apologise. Being honest the frequency of updates we imagine will continue on this same path as we realise that sitting in an internet shop whilst the sun beats down through the window and we loose half of our body mass in sweat isn't as much fun as sipping cocktails and frolicking in the sea, but we'll try our best!

Bit of a mixed week, after our early confidence in the local food we were brought down to earth with a bang (well an explosion of some description) I think we just got a bit cocky and started ordering just about anything on the menu that was meat or seafood based. The straw that broke the camels back was the shark and chips and Tuna and chips we shared for breakfast last Sunday. Even as I (Ant) started to eat it I thought 'hang on a minute, theres something fishy about this ummm fish' and low and behold about 6 hours later we were both suffering from acute rapid vomiting and explosive diarrherea simultaniously (sorry for the graphic description if youve just had your lunch, especially if it was a tuna and mayo sarnie! yuck). We've chalked it up to experience after a few days in bed we're just about back on form.

We've moved a few times since our last update, from Anjuna to Baga which is like the costa del sol on India absolutely 'orrible place with 'orrible British people taking in some "Indian culture" LOL. We made a sharp exit from there onto Benaulim which was a quieter town again on the beach but nothing too exciting to report from our 2 days there just lots of sunbathing, swimming and drinking (how is the weather back home?!)

We are now in Palolem which is the beach featured on most of the pictures you see of Goa, it's stunning! we're staying in the cozy nook beach huts and they're bloody great, slightly more pricey than what we've been used to (about IRS900, which is 8 quid(ish)) but well worth the extra, theres a coconut tree growing through our main room (looks lovley but can be a pain when you get up for a wee in the middle of the night),a bed outside in our own little garden area, along with comfy chairs and chair hammocks just in front abd its dotted with lots of candles and seashells, it's proper like! oh and most importantly its faces the nicest beach we've been to yet! Unfortunately our budget wont allow us to stay here forever but we're going to enjoy the few nights we've got there before we move back to another cheap cockroach infested fleapit (cant wait!)

We've booked to go on 2 boat trips, one to spot dolphins on Monday and another to go snorkelling on butterly island we've realised that sitting on a beach all day isn't all we can do! we'll let you know how they go.

We've found the camera cable that Tan lost but the connection is slower than Bob is putting his hand in his pockets for a round (just kidding!) so we'll have to wait until we get to probably Singapore (26th March) before we can upload any pictures.

Speak to you all soon, Anthony and Tania xx