Something for the cyclists

Whilst we were in Srilanka we stumbled across a bike race that was taking place. Only just got round to posting these photos. These guys must be mega fit as they were racing from 9am through till 3pm, ie across the midday heat. As you can see, there were some class bikes in there, note the bianchi leading this group.


This was the race leader after around 70 miles - again a Bianchi!!
Hope all your cycling is coming along well.

First Impressions of Thailand

We visited a floating market and on the way saw this fruit stall. Can you identify any of the fruits?

We named this local drink "lizard pee". We recommend you don't try it if you come to Thailand. Even with coca cola it was undrinkable, but somehow we managed.
Reclining Buddha at Wat Po - one of the 424 temples in Bangkok. Only 420 more to visit!
The back door of the Throne Room at Vimnanek
The Teak House at Vinmanek. This is a really beautiful massive mansion made entirely of teak without any nails. Any of you budding DIY enthusiasts fancy a try at this?
Buddha at Wat Po.

Health and Safety at work again
Just thought we'd slip in one more photo from Sri Lanka. Our last night in Colombo was spent with some really great guys in a local bar that had never been visited by tourists. Three locals were curious about us and came over to have a chat. They were nice guys and wouldn't allow us to pay for anything including the tuk tuk to the train station. Hope we didn't get them into trouble by keeping them at the pub too long!!

Part of the Grand Palace in Bangkok
Another part of the Grand Palace

And another part of the Grand Palace
Garry's head up a drum - maybe an attempt to get away from Alison's nagging?
This is one of the millions of street vendors selling excellent food
A local custom of feeding loaves to fish. These fish were so huge they can down a whole loaf in one mouthful! Swimming not recommended!
This is the actual Grand Palace!

Sorry the photos are not in chronological order - we are still learning.

When we arrived we booked into a great hotel smack bang in the middle of town - a short walk from the Grand Palace. There is too much to see and do but we have tried. We have been up and down the river and on a fabulous canal backwater tour seeing houses on stilts.

The Grand Palace is spread over around 15 acres and consists of loads of temples and amazing historic buildings. Each time a new king comes to power the done thing seems to be to add another bit. One of the highlights is the emerald buddha, and guess what - this is a buddha made from a single piece of........jade! No photos allowed.

This takes us nicely to an evening out with Greg (Martin Hasler's nephew). He took us to see the sights (again no photos allowed). We were probably the only tourists not to get ripped off that night! The touts offer menus for the shows with items such as sparklers, ping pong, razor blade, cigarette smoking etc. If you need more info, drop us a comment!

On Sunday, we went to a floating market just outside of Bangkok. All the locals go for a food fest. There are all types of food - noodles, rice, chicken satay, pork, sausages, frogs, eels, terrapins, minced bird (not sure what this is), buckets of dodgy looking things. We stuck to something we could recognise. We had one of those huge fish - barbequed. We joined a boat load of locals on a canal tour and they were kind enough to share their food with us (fried banana) so we made them eat our jack fruit. If you get the opportunity - don't try it! It started raining so as we couldn't see a number 79 bus we jumped on a truck bus type thing. A very friendly local girl not only put us off at the right stop but also took us in her taxi back to the hotel. She refused to take any money which seems to be typical of the real thai people (ie not the touts who tell us everywhere is closed to get us to go on a tour with them!)

Generally people have been absolutely lovely.

We have used all forms of transport - sky train, river boat, songphew, tuk tuk, taxi, underground, bus - just the motor bike taxi left to try out.

We have found Thailand (Bangkok) vastly different to India and Sri Lanka as you would expect. In summary, it's cleaner but the food is not as good.

Now we are off to Chaing Mai by train - hopefully to do some trekking if the rain keeps off.

We enjoy reading your comments so please keep them coming.

Quick Update from Thailand

We have now spent 6 days in Bangkok and are having a great time. Photos not allowed in several places we have been to!!
Done loads of touristy stuff and will try to load some photos tomorrow before we move on to Chaing Mai where we hope to do some trekking and visit the tiger temple. Never could resist a sweet pussy cat.
Weather permitting, we will stay in Thailand for a couple of months. So we should be able to settle into a routine of drinking beer, smoking fags and cooking - all things we haven't done for the last 3 months.
Thai phone number is
08 0590 7124
To ring from outside Thailand you may need to insert the Thai country code and drop the first 0.
Thanks to Martin H for his introduction to Bangkok!!

Moving on from Sri Lanka

At the Top of Adam's Peak
The Floods
Setting off

Hi everybody,

this is just a quick update from us, as the big news from Sri Lanka was Carolyn and Farhad's wedding(see separate blog).

Whilst we were in Sri Lanka, we had rather a lot of rain as can be seen from the attached photos. We set off at 3am one day to walk up Adam's peak - the fourth highest mountain in Sri Lanka. It was bloody awful - pitch dark for the first three hours, and it never stopped raining. Garry reckons it is one of the worst things he's ever done! We were so wet, even with waterproofs, that we could wring out our underwear.

On the way from Adam's peak to Galle, the bus had to navigate through some quite deep floods (some of you may know this as a Holy Island experience).

It was great to spend time with Carolyn and Farhad. We are now off to Thailand.

Cheers Alison and Garry

from the newly weds!

Wedding Day Finale

Champagne Cruise

Temple Flowers

Dancers Drummers and Singers

The Bride and Groom

Bride on the Rocks

On the Podium

Dear All,

We're all sitting in the sunshine having a refreshing cold beer. Your guest writers today are Carolyn and Farhad who wish you ayubowan ('greetings' in Singalese). Alison and Garry have proved to be excellant multi-taskers (flower girl, best man, maid of dishonour etc) at our wedding and we had such a wonderful and unique day. We actually married in the morning of 24th April after having got up, gone for a swim, and eaten a huge curry! The weather was mixed and we had sunshine, rain, wind and after our lovely ceremony we had another swim then the four of us went on a great boat trip up and down the Bentota river and then another curry! What a day. We have been having a wonderful honeymoon, but today is our last day. We have had such a ball and feel relaxed, refreshed and raring to go. It's been so fab to see Alison and Garry and I'm not sure how we can justify our next trip out to see them - what about for their wedding?! Not sure either of them will go for that though! Perhaps they'll just need tea and gin and tonic makers and I think we'll qualify for that duty.

Bollywood stars and burnouts - April 19th

We seemed to have done a lot since the last update!

We enjoyed Fort Cochin and treated ourselves to freshly caught red snapper as well as the prawns (baby tuna, shark and barracuda were also on the menu but it didn't seem right to eat them). Garry popped down the local laundrette whilst we were there - see the iron!

We caught a few ferries between the islands which are similar to buses, ie just when you think they are full, another 50 people get onboard. For those of you familiar with the "through the window" technique used in skiing this can also be applied to boarding ferries. See Garry modelling a window exit on a quiet ferry!

We have been trying to integrate ourselves with the India cultures, this applies of course to food and refreshments, but we have been intrigued with the tea towel fashion. It consists of a very long tea towel wrapped three times round your waist, it never falls down, can be wafted about to create a nice breeze, worn short on hot days and long for more formal occasions. Women have to cover bare legs and shoulders, but a tea towel dressed man can wear them very short. See fashion photo.

From Cochin, we went by bus to Kumily and met Tanya and Vikas (Australian and Indian). We went by bike exploring round the spice gardens, tea plantations and feeding baby elephants. Whilst stopping for some refreshments, we were spotted by some celebs from "Kick It", a trendy comedy programme over here. As you can imagine they were very excited and wanted our picture taken with them! Anyone recognise them?

You will be pleased to know that although we had hired a 100cc bike, it was still able to do a burnout by the side of a road and a longer wheelie than was strictly necessary with 2 heavy westerners on the back!! You all know who was responsible for that!!! We have included a "long way round" photo of us. Eat your hearts out Ewan and Charlie.

Tanya was not well in Kumily so we all spent a day at the hospital with her. We met the Doctor who was really interesting and wants to come sailing with us. He invited us to look round his garden one afternoon. He took us into a large brick building and inside was a movie theatre, air conditioning and sound proofed. Absolutley unbelievable in the middle of the countryside.

From Kumily, we went to Allepey and travelled for 8 hours on the backwaters southwards down to Kollam. These are inland canals running parrallel with the sea which support hundreds of families. We have included the Goddess ofLight as she was rather an unexpected sight on the canals. We then took a taxi southwards again down to Verkala. By this time it was dark and raining (yes - just like it does in England!) and we managed to pick up a taxi. We travelled with Giles, Ruth and Nathan. Unfortunatley, Ruth appeared to have done insufficient travelling in India for this to be a comfortable ride. She was worried that driving on the right hand side and veering from side to side was dangerous. We have a bit more experience and knew this was normal. When we eventually arrived at Verkala, we told the hotel manager that we thought the driver was drunk and partially blind. He agreed with us and we all checked into our rooms.

Kanyakumali was the next destination for us, so another train journey. Luckily for us, Kanya.... is at the very southern tip of India so this time there was no chance of missing our stop. We nearly saw the sunset, but it was cloudy, but we did manage to get up at 5.30am for the sunrise which was pretty spectacliar. See pic. We did another ferry trip out to the southern most tip. This is where the Indian Ocean, the Arabian sea and the Gulf of Bengal all meet. Getting on the ferry was a little tricky. On the video, see how the boat moves up and down the quay!!

This place was just like Blackpool for Indians, loads of stalls selling all those plastic things that you never want when you get them home, but it was great to see them all on holiday.

From Kanyakumali we have moved slightly further north to Kavalan and yeaterday went out for a little ride. We have to take cover from the rain at one point, so Garry found us a classy bar to shelter in and as you see we met a few locals. This is our last day in India and we are really sad to be leaving. We are definatley going to come back, it's just a question of how soon! We catch the plane to Colombo tomorrow so the next update will be from Sri Lanka.

TTFN

Update from Cochin 4th April

Hi Guys, we've now moved South a little and are in Cochin. This is the famous place in Kerala with the big square fishing nets that get lowered into the water. It's also the most touristy place we've visited so far.

On our way here we visited a small town in Goa called Agonda. This is a lovely little beachside town. We had a little crack at Triathlon training and did some swimming (beach picture attached). We also stayed a couple of days on a paradise, white sand, beach. We stayed in a tent with no electricity or water!!! (see pic).Fabulous place would recommend a visit. See another photo of a white beach. At night we joined a group of Russians round a camp fire on the beach. The top guy (I can't help calling him Egor) was a great cook unfortunately for Alison it was meat!!!

We then moved further South to Gokarna. Another train station was missed resulting in a 400 rupee Tuk Tuk ride back up the line. We'll get the hang of the trains one day.

Gokarna is a very holy town with a load of very beautiful beaches. Nothing like the Goa in the news. We saw some Kingfishers, other pretty birds and a school of Dolphins.

Next we moved further South to Cochin. More hassle with trains!!! We had to wait until 2.30am for a train in a one horse town called Kumta. Alison managed to find a restaurant that served beer and a late night drinking bar. I think we were in a bit of a state by the time the train arrived. See attached night time pic of us on the platform (not a pretty sight). Zoom in for detail if you can.

We have now settled into Fort Cochin and had a lovely, you buy we cook experience. We bought a huge basket of tiger prawns and had them cooked with garlic and chili of course. We are on the look out for tonights tea from the fishing nets in final photo.

More news as it breaks.

Travel stories 22nd March

Hi folks,

happy Easter to you all.

We moved on from Agra to Jaipur which our guide book told us would be dispappointing but we have really enjoyed it. There is an obligatory castle and fort and the city is painted pink. We spent a few days here and chilled out, spending several days in a quiet little guest house. Garry has identified some possibilities for Arco here (see pic).

We then moved on to Mount Abu - a mountain village where we could do some spectacular hill walking. We saw a crocodile, snake, bear pooh and a mongoose. Next was Jodhpur (guess what they invented?). This city is painted blue and also has a fort and a palace. For some reason, least known to us we opted for a camel safari in a place called Jaisalmer. Why would anyone want to sit on a camel for hours in the desert with the sun shining down relentlessly? We then slept open air under the stars after having curry and chapatis cooked over a pile of sticks. (you will be pleased to know we beat the indians in 'who can stand on one leg and put their nose on the floor" competition)

The best thing was waking up in the morning and trying to identify the footprints round the "bed"!!

Garry woke early and has found a new skill - rounding up camels (see pic).

We then returned to Jaipur for the elephant festival. This was a parade of elephants, camels, horses, ox, dancers, musicians etc. Garry and Mark entered the tug of war with an elephant competition. It was close but Nelly won, however they did recieve a prize and maybe on Indian tv. The large lady in the photo may have been an entrant in the festival, but we think she likes chappattis like we do.

This was on 21st March. 22nd March was "holi" day. This is the colour festival which is very childish and consists of everyone throwing different coloured paint at each other. The indians obviously love this festival and it was like our Christmas or New years eve when everyone goes round wishing each other "happy holi".We are still stained pink and blue but another 6 showers and it may wear off. Recognise anyone? (see pic).

Hope nothing goes wrong with our teeth as this photo shows the local dentist with his instruments at the side of the road.

We are having a couple of quiet days and fly down to Goa on Tuesday as we work our way over to see Carolyn and Farhad in Sri Lanka.

Next installment to follow soon.