Billy and Rosie's Travel Antics
A blog documenting the frequent strange happenings during our travels around the world.
Monday, 6 February 2012
Wednesday, 6 July 2011
SRA - Delhi
We left SRA on Saturday, which was rather sad, and are now staying in Delhi in the very nice Grand Godwin.. though we're pretty sure none of the staff understand a word we're saying most of the time!
The trip to Mussourie was good fun - It was nice to get to speak to the older kids properly and it was great for them to get out and be independent. The journey to Mussourie was not so fun, however. Our driver (who looked about the same age as us, though said he had 10 years of experience.. not sure how that one works out..) rather enjoyed swinging into corners, and seeing as we were climbing from just above sea level to 2000m there were plenty. We think it might have been because the bus didn't have enough horsepower to get moving again if it stopped on a slope - he certainly seemed to have trouble getting started again when we stopped in traffic - we thought we were going to have to get out and push! The torrential rain causing the road to look more like a waterfall and the fact that throughout this the windscreen wipers weren't functioning didn't really help to calm our nerves much either. I forgot to mention the 1.5 hour stop we endured, without air con, about 10 miles from the Ashram whilst a young boy changed not one but two tyres whilst the driver and his mate stood around watching. We weren't sure that the tyres were flat in the first place, but we were pretty certain that the completely bald tires should not just get new tubes fitted.. the company were certainly living up to their name - 'Akshit'. (Perhaps they were missing a J).
When we eventually arrived in Mussourie 3 hours later than expected we enjoyed a dash through the torrential rain to our hotel before a rather late but delicious lunch. We ventured out shopping but were rather unsuccessful - they're used to lots of visiting rich Indian tourists.. so the prices were pretty high and they weren't budging. In the end all we bought was some Lynx deodorant for Billy (who'd managed to leave his at the Ashram), which turned out to be fake and smelt disgustingly cheap and alcoholic - though the other boys snapped it up! In the evening we went out for a nice dinner. Billy made the faux pas of ordering chicken (the instructions to order whatever you wanted weren't meant to be taken that far..), which arrived after about 1 hour (we think they may have been trying to catch the poor bird..) and wasn't the tastiest beast Billy had ever consumed (the sour lemon sauce didn't help).
After a very comfortable and cool night we set off on what was to be an equally eventful journey back. After about 12 hours of near continuous rain it had finally stopped. Unfortunately the driver took this to mean he could now drive as fast as he wished. Requests from Om Prakash for him to slow down had the reverse effect. By this stage we were pretty sure of his immaturity. The roadside strop clinched it for us. After a few minutes of cooling down and a few translated placating words from Seema and Om Prakash, whilst we all waited in the bus perched right between two sharp bends, we continued at a more sensible pace. 1 hour later we hit a traffic jam. After 3 hours of edging forwards by 100m at a time with the only entertainment being monkeys throwing logs at the stationary cars below (and the hilariously incompetent drivers in the opposite lane who couldn't change a flat.. even our driver got out to share some expertise..) we were very glad to return to the Ashram and another very late lunch. In the evening we had the end of summer camp celebrations which involved a glow stick lit ceremony and much disappointment at returning to school the following day.
On Friday we went into Haridwar with Soma and enjoyed shopping at Indian prices. We returned to have lunch with the kids after they finished school, and spent the afternoon playing games.
Since we've been In Delhi we've mostly been shopping, which is thrilling. We spent Sunday around Conaught place, mostly in the Levi's store (Billy is thrilled you can get 2 pairs of real levi's for under the price of 1 pair at home). On Monday we took a day trip to Agra which was good. The Taj was suitably majestic, and as we arrived at 9am, not too busy. We took several amusing posed photos which we'll try to share at some point and then went to visit the fort which was also really interesting. After that we spent quite a while wandering around in search of decent shops, without much success, before giving in and going to wait at the station for the next 3 hours (it really was that bad). We attempted to get into the waiting rooms but were denied access on two separate occasions by unenthusiastic employees of Indian Rail- despite the fact the men's waiting room was full and there were already men in the woman's waiting room it was unthinkable to let two harmless looking tourists do the same. We ended up spending most of the 3 hours sitting on the platform whilst Billy taught me to play bridge. During this time my previous impressive record of having visited both India and Thailand without ever having seen an alive rat or mouse (despite Billy sighting many and even kicking one.) was thoroughly broken.
Yesterday we went shopping (again!) in a megamall on the outskirts of town. Billy bought some new converses which he's very pleased with and we stocked up on toothpaste, pencils and deodorant for uni next year (we're fast getting into the student mindset!). We also went to see the new transformers in 3D which was very good, though I personally think the romance aspect of the story was vastly underplayed..! Today the plan is for more present shopping, fingers crossed we'll get it all done so we can be lazy tomorrow!
Lots of love,
See you soon (poor things)
Rosie and Billy
xxx
Tuesday, 28 June 2011
More SRA..
We're getting on well with our volunteering at the Ashram. We've been helping out with the summer camp every morning and spending the afternoon watching the kids practice their plays/dances/talents or playing various games to which the rules are often rather vague. Last night we enjoyed 5 plays that each of the groups put on with spectacular costumes and scenery: they looked great, though health and safety would have been dreadfully concerned by some of the more adventurous set items (at one point we were sure a house constructed out of four boards tied with string was going to collapse and crush its inhabitants). Tonight is the dance competition which we're really looking forward to. It seems that even the littlest people love to dance here: so it should be a very professional show. Tommorow we leave at 8am on a trip to Mussourie with the older kids who've been acting as 'counsellors' at the summer camp. The town is at 2000m and is meant to be rather chilly, so we're understandably excited!
We thought we'd share with you today a few lists which we compiled one afternoon. There are probably many entries we've missed out... but never mind.
Things we'll never understand
- Old people carrying money in their ears (Singapore/Thailand)
- Wearing your jacket back to front whilst riding a moped (Thailand/Malaysia)
- The inability to admit to not knowing/stocking something (widespread)
- Tuk tuk drivers and their scams (unfortunately also widespread)
- Taxi drivers constantly stopping for you as you wait at a bus stop (Singapore/Bangkok)
- Childrens' love of eating unripe fruit (SRA)
- The love of cows, but not to eat. (India)
- How everyone knows of Justin Bieber, but looks very blank when we suggest the Beatles or Bob Marley.
- How every con artist seems to be exhibiting something at the Birmingham NEC in the near future (perhaps a special 'cons of the world' gathering?)
- Ladyboys (Thailand... though they could have just been hairy butch women....)
Things we'll miss
- Funny head wobbling movement used to indicate practically everything (India)
- Tropical fruit being ripe, fresh and more common than apples. (Thailand/Malaysia/India)
- Everyone's tenuous links to England. (India)
- Chai (India)
- Being treated like celebrities wherever we decided to go, with accompanying paparazzi (Tourist attractions throughout India)
- Cheap everything (Thailand/India)
- Eating out
- Being called Sir/Madam (Thailand/India)
- Eating a meal where everyone uses cutlery.
- Not having to worry that it might be a squat toilet
- Being cold
- Meat (Billy at least)
- Strawberries
- Water you can swim in, and wear swimwear to do so
- Bare legs and shoulders (Billys particularly looking forwards to donning some short shorts)
- Showers at the desired temperature
- Being able to be understood
- Visiting the leather shop in the city of Kent (one of the encountered tenuous links to England... )
- Reasonably priced second hand book shops.
- Our own beds.
Any suggestions that you might have for additions to the lists will be considered provided they are fit for public viewing.
Lots of love,
See you soon!
Rosie and Billy
xxxx
Friday, 24 June 2011
Sri Ram Ashram...=)
We've been at the Ashram for quite a while now and have settled in to the schedule here, which i thought I'd write about today.
The kids wake up around 5.45 for chores etc before hockey or yoga practice. The older boys do crossfit at 6.15 ish - which is an American fitness program involving lots of weights (Billy is hopeless). Then the younger kids go to breakfast at around 7.30 - a rather messy affair if the amount of rice scattered on the floor is anything to go by. I'm usually awake enough to eat breakfast with the hockey players at around 8.30. Billy has been awake for ages but comes to eat then too. Summer camp starts at 9.30, before which we're usually on swing pushing/ unripe mango picking /cow visiting duty. Billy and I run an activity each: I seem to always be left trying to encourage boys to concentrate on various craft activities, while Billy gets to play games or decorate windows or something equally absorbing. After each group has had 30minutes on each activity we begin the task of tidying up the large amount of paper that is ,without fail, shredded into every corner of the room. Thankfully we usually get help with this bit :) After lunch its siesta time, officially, though there's usually a game being played or dancing to get involved with somewhere. At about 4 we regroup for an activity of some kind: today we're taking a shopping trip into town (to give the kids a chance to get something they've chosen themselves rather than been allocated), one day they filled up the pool and swam and usually they get to play with some of the new toys Hema brought from America. In the evenings, after they perform their Arti (sp?) worship, we have a packed schedule of ceremonies, events and performances. Wednesday was movie and popcorn night, yesterday we had the talent contest and tonight is a graduation party. It's all done American summer camp style, and the kids love it!
Afraid we cant upload pictures here - they get charged for upload/downloads so we're not allowed. Never mind, we'll get some up when we get to Delhi so you're all up to date.
See you soon!
Lots of love,
Rosie and Billy
xxx
Monday, 20 June 2011
Delhi - SRA
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
Jaipur - Ranthambore - Jaipur - Delhi
Thursday, 9 June 2011
Udaipur - Jodhpur - Thar Desert - Jaisalmer - Jaipur
Sorry for not updating for so long.. for the IT centre of the world its surprisingly hard to find an Internet connection (at least one which doesn't leave you banging your head against a wall in frustration after 10 minutes of page loading)
We've been pretty busy since Udaipur. We spent a couple of days in Jodhpur which was rather warm but very pretty. The bus journey there wasn't so much fun - the advertised 5 hours soon turned into a baking 6.5 accompanied by the frequent sounding of the less than hilarious squeaky arpeggio horn. We made it to our nice little hotel following a severe ambushing by TukTuk drivers - all trying to take us 'anywhere we wanted for 10 rupee'.. yeh right.
The next day we visited the Mehrangarh fort which was very cool and gave us a great view of the 'blue city' below. In the afternoon we sought refuge in a nice cool internet cafe and then wandered around the bazaars nearby when it cooled down. We purchased some very fetching turbans from a shop which took pity on us and made them up into the right shape - in preparation for the camel ride we were planning the following day.
On Sunday we were picked up at 12 (ish.. turned out to be Indian time) by our guide who then took us out into the desert in a rather packed jeep - as he'd decided to invite his uncle/brother (he seemed as confused as we were about which) along for unknown reasons. We'd hoped the jeep would have aircon, but no such luck - though we did get 'free' mineral water! We stopped at a temple in the small desert town of Osiyan where our guide explained the procedure Hindus go through when they visit and we enjoyed a dash around the beautifully carved exterior (the marble floor was boiling!). At around 6 we arrived at his hut complex in the desert, met his lovely family and had a very tasty and rather large afternoon tea. Our camel herders arrived shortly afterwards and took us off on a circuit around the nearby hamlet and up a dune to watch the sunset..behind a cloud. Our turbans caused much hilarity in hamlet and were declared incorrectly tied by the herders who then proceeded to compete as to who could make them the best. When we got back we had yet another huge meal and then settled down for the night in basic cots under the stars.
We woke to the sound of peacocks at around 6am and rushed to get ready as our guide had told us we needed to leave at 7 to arrive with enough time to visit Jaisalmer. Unfortunately this turned out to be Indian time, again, and he emerged at around 8 am still unwashed and in pajamas to take his goat into the hamlet to be sold. We were not amused. After another crowded and hot jeep ride (this time both his wife and son decided to join us too.. making it 7 people, 2 backpacks, 1 suitcase and assorted small bags) we arrived in Jaisalmer rather short tempered only to find the luggage counter at the train station would only look after our backpacks for the couple of hours we had left if they were locked. We explained the impossibility of locking a drawstring, but our appeals fell on deaf ears (seemingly literally) and we left even more wound up than when we'd arrived. In the end we managed to leave our bags with a small boy who was looking after a mobile phone stall and made a quick dash up to the Jaisalmer fort - which was really amazing - we wish we'd had more time! It looks like a giant sandcastle as its made from local sandstone and unlike the other forts we've visited its still inhabited, which is cool.
We took the night train to Jaipur at 4.30, spending most of the trip worrying about the strange men in the bunks below us and the mysterious packages and visitors that kept turning up. We arrived in Jaipur at a glorious 5 am, hung out amongst the beggars, touts and dirty old men in the station before venturing to our hotel of choice - Pearl Palace- which turned out to be very nice - thank goodness!
I spent most of the day dozing and feeling feverish - the 47 degree plus temperatures didn't help much. Billy enjoyed a day of reading and eating with various other lonely backpackers in the rooftop bar. In the evening we ventured out to a shopping mall nearby where we enjoyed a McIndia...
Yesterday we went to the City Palace, which we renamed following a particularly unexciting audio tour - the majority of the content seemed to be a sales pitch for one or other of the shops there - and the attendants who were rather rude and often wanting to add to their 'collection of foreign coins'... There were a few pretty buildings and Billy enjoyed the armoury a lot, but overall we were unimpressed! In the afternoon I took the plunge and got myself a haircut... she lopped off quite a bit but its not so scary. We'd booked tickets to the raj mandir cinema earlier for the Bollywood film 'Ready', which turned out to be entertaining despite us not understanding a single word. According to the Indian guys we met in McDonalds (I know, i know) just before it had a very famous actor as the male lead who even has temples dedicated to him here. Judging by the enthusiastic response of the 1500 strong audience (and not just the women) we are not surprised.
Today we've been to the Amber Fort. We decided against taking an elephant ride as the treatment of them is meant to be not so great and enjoyed the brisk stroll up the hill. The fort was rather spectacular - we took an audio tour which thankfully refrained from advertising and Billy found very amusing. The fort isn't very well signposted or organised, which actually turned out to be an advantage as we got to wander around wherever we wanted, getting lost several times in the process! This afternoon we've mainly been getting hot and bothered while searching for an internet cafe. I think next on the agenda is a trip to the train station again (joy of joys) to try to buy tickets to go to Ranthambore national park tomorrow (they have tigers , hopefully!) .
Sorry about the lack of photos - we'll try to get some up asap
See you later,
Lots of love,
Rosie and Billy
xxx
Thursday, 2 June 2011
Udaipur
On the Jagmandir island
Billy with his fig and honey milkshake (without the fig)
In the Jagmandir gardens
The elephants guarding Jagmandir island
At the bathing and washing ghat
The cute baby tortoise at our hotel (we've been out buying tomatoes to feed them today!)
The entrance to the waterfront (no idea why its gone all sidewards)
Inside the palace
Views over Udaipur
Enjoying our audio guide
Doing some construction work at the palace
Floating Palace
Billy leaning out of the door..
Tired Billy on the train
Hello!
Tuesday, 31 May 2011
More Mumbai
On top of the Intercontinental
Along the seafront
Dharavi
Morning All =)
Friday, 27 May 2011
DIY Cooking Lesson Part 1 - Samosas
Folding instructions!
Good Morning =)
I thought i'd upload the instructions i made following our cooking masterclass with the lovely Hilda. We were rather pleased with the results and no one got food poisoning - yet!
Anyway, we'd be very impressed if anyone attempts them at home - send us a photo if you do!
Samosas
Makes around 8
Ingredients
200g Paneer
100g Spinach
1 Onion – thoroughly diced
Mushroom 50g (if you want) Add 1 clove of garlic if you choose to.
Filo pastry – though spring roll pastry is better
½ tsp curry powder
Salt
Method
1. Fry onion in 1 tbsp of oil
2. Crush up paneer into small pieces in the pan
3. Once onion is slightly browned add diced spinach
4. Add ½ tsp curry powder and ¼ tsp salt (as paneer is already quite salty)
5. Fry the mixture in the pan, stirring around until the mix is of malleable texture (not too wet), then take off the heat and cool.
6. Cut filo roll into 2 inch wide strip
7. Using a 2 sheets thick strip add a 1 tsp dollop of mix and then fold as shown below
8. Seal the ends using flour and water glue
9. Fry in a wok full of hot oil, deep enough to cover them. The oil is hot enough when it bubbles around the samosa.
10. Drop each samosa gently into the wok and stir them around until they’re nicely browned
11. Remove from oil and dry on kitchen roll.
DIY Cooking Lesson Part 2 - Chapatti
Chapatti
Makes a smallish ball – around 3 chapatti
Ingredients
1 cup strong white flour (we think thats the english translation!)
1 tsp oil
Pinch of salt
Method
1) Mix oil, salt and flour in bowl
2) Add 1 tbsp water and then keep adding more water slowly until dough can be made into a smooth ball (but not too sticky)
3) Leave dough to rest for at least 30 mins to soften
4) Take golf ball sized lump, roll into a ball, squish the ball and then use a rolling pin to roll the mixture into a 1.5mm thick circle. Use flour to stop it sticking
5) Fry in a very lightly oiled hot pan (wipe most of the oil off) until lightly browned. Press down whilst frying to make sure its cooked through
DIY Cooking Lesson Part 3 - Spinach Daal
Spinach Daal
For 4-6 people
½ Cup lentils (we used yellow)
½ Onion
2 Tomatoes
100g Spinach
1 tbsp oil
Small piece of ginger (or use paste)
1 garlic clove (or can use paste also) peeled and crushed
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
¼ tsp turmeric
1/3 tsp chili
Fresh coriander
Salt
Method
1) Wash lentils then boil in around 2 cups of water for 15 minutes in a saucepan. They should be very mushy and runny by the end of this.
2) Fry chopped onion in a pan
3) Grate the tomato (or can blend), leaving the skins
4) Add tomato, ginger and garlic to the pan
5) Chop the spinach finely and add 1/2 to pan
6) Add all of the rest of the spices
7) Add 3 curry leaves if you have them
8) Add the rest of the spinach after a while (can also add mushrooms if you like)
9) Add 1 tsp of salt and stir
10 When the oil rises to the top of the bubbling mixture add the saucepan of lentils.
11) Add lots of chopped fresh coriander at the last minute
DIY Cooking Lesson Part 4 - Chicken / Paneer Masala
Instructions in blue are to make Chicken Masala only, those in red are for Paneer Masala only.
Serves 2-3
Ingredients
1 Onion
200g Chicken in 1 inch cubes
200g Paneer in 1 inch cubes
Pinch chili powder
¼ tsp cumin powder
¼ tsp coriander powder
Pinch turmeric powder
1 green cardamom seed
2 black peppercorns
1 dried bay leaf
1 clove
Small section of cinnamon stick (around 1.5cm)
1 tomato
Small amount dried tamarind
50g dried coconut
100g coconut milk powder
4 curry leaves
Few stalks of fresh coriander
1 clove of garlic
A little grated ginger (less than ¼ tsp)
Salt
Vegetable oil
Method
1. Fry sliced onion in 1 tbsp oil
2. Add cardamom, peppercorns, bay leaf, cinnamon and clove to pan
3. Add curry leaves, if you have them, to the pan
4. Add 50g dried coconut
5. Slice and dice tomato and add to pan
6. Add all of the other spices, garlic and ginger
7. Put the contents of the pan into a blender, add around ½ cup of water and blend until very smooth and relatively thin.
8. Add the chicken to another pan and fry in a small amount of oil
9. Add 100g of coconut milk powder and a glug more of water into the blender and mix again.
10. Once the chicken is white all over and nearly cooked add the sauce from the blender and continue to simmer for around 10 minutes until the chicken is tender.
11. Shallow fry the cubed paneer in 1 tsp oil until browned lightly then add to the sauce which has already been heated for a while. There is no need for the mixture to simmer in this case.
12. Add more water to the sauce to thin it (around ½ cup) and ½ tsp salt (before simmering) (before heating the sauce)
13. Add a few stalks of fresh coriander, finely chopped, to the pan, cooking them lightly before serving.
--
Wednesday, 25 May 2011
Mumbai, India!
We've been in India now for 2 and a 1/2 days and have been having a great time so far. We are staying with Bonkys friends the Elliotts and are being truly spoilt!
On Monday we went to teach english with Nikki which was really interesting. She helps every monday morning at a school set up by a charity which is on a building site in town. Over the weeks they go through the alphabet teaching the kids how to form the letters as well as lots of new vocabulary beginning with that letter. This week was the turn of the letter 'B', so we spent a long time drawing birds, bananas and balls with various levels of skill (Billy's were definitely interesting!), though the children didn't seem to mind! I was with two little boys of about 7 who had limited interest in the letter B - they far preferred holding 5 pairs of scissors on two fingers and then chopping them towards my face, Edward Scissor-hands style. Boys will be boys! Afterwards we went to have lunch and a swim at the Elliotts' health club which was very nice. Unfortunately Billy didn't get to swim in the sea (all sorts of icky things in there..), but their saltwater pool on the seafront was a pretty good alternative.
Yesterday we took a tour with Nikki and Geraldine (another friend who's staying with the Elliotts) through Dharavi which was amazing. Its one of the biggest slums in Asia, with over a million people living in 1.6 square kilometres. One toilet is shared between 1500 (they actually didn't smell as bad as we expected!) and despite the less than great living conditions the turnover of the area is 600 million US dollars per year. Our lovely guide took us to see all of the different industries thriving there - virtually all working illegally - from chapatti rolling to melting down tin cans into big blocks to reuse. At some points the smells were not so wonderful and we rather regretted our footwear choices - not the best place for flip flops! As its the school holidays there were lots of children playing and taking great delight in shouting 'Hi!' to us whenever the opportunity arose. We made friends with three little girls who were looking after a baby and took a shine to my fan - they were very cute. At the end of the tour we went to see the community centre the tour company runs along with a school and nursery. Billy and I also got kitted out in matching 'I <3 Dharavi' t-shirts from their office. Unfortunately we weren't able to take photos inside the slum, but they're going to email us some that have been taken before, so we'll put those on here when they arrive. We had lunch in a glitzy aircon shopping mall - a huge contrast - before returning home for a well deserved foot wash. Later on in the afternoon we took a trip to 'FabIndia' which is a chain store selling amazing indian clothes. I have a new salwar suit which is really pretty and Billy has some wonderful new trousers. The cat seems to have taken a liking to my new scarf though - I keep finding him nesting in it whenever i put it down. Strange cat.
Today we're having a cooking master class with Nikkis maid - think daal, samosas, chapattis and veg curry is on the menu. Yummy!
We'll try to upload some photos, though it isn't letting us log in at the moment so we have to email this entry. Fingers crossed it'll stop being silly soon.
Lots of love,
See you soon,
Billy and Rosie xxx
Saturday, 21 May 2011
Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok!
Helpful sign found in ladies at the cinema (but not in gents, which is surprising)
Billy.
Tuk-Tuk ride.
Typical town planning in practice - KL
Billy sporting our lovely pink backpack
Outside the national mosque - KL
'The sign was glowing' - Though they're actually quite a bargain over here! KL
Up the Petronas Towers
Evening All =)
We've finally worked out why the blog keeps getting infected with silly links - fingers crossed we'll be viagra free from now on =)
We got the bus up to Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday and took a visit to the Low Yat Mall which was the most mind boggling shopping experience we've ever had. Over 5 floors of electrical items.. and all we knew was that we wanted a camera. In the end we settled on a very shiny silver number (you can tell how technical we both are) which came with a very exciting free tripod (We weren't sucked in at all!) and has screens on both sides which is very swish. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around various malls, most of the time searching for the exit.
On Thursday we overslept our alarm and dashed into the centre of town to join the growing queue for tickets up the Petronas Towers. Thankfully we weren't too late to get some, though we did enjoy over an hour of queueing - at least the air conditioning was good! We spent the rest of the morning at the National Museum which was very well done and high tech. As ever I dragged my feet through the clothes and pottery sections whilst Billy spent about 10 minutes examining each individual sword, but we made it out in the end. We had an Indian lunch in Chinatown and then took the 42 second 42 floor lift up to the viewing deck of the Petronas Towers. Unfortunately someone offered to take a photo of us at the top so we didn't get to use our nifty double screen feature (we couldnt let on how dissapointed we were!) In the evening we went to watch Pirates of the Caribbean in 3D, which Billy was very excited about. We wore our promo pirate bandanas and wonderful yellow goggles with pride despite attracting stares from other audience members.
On Friday we sent back a rather large package of clothes (too indecent for India) for only 10 pounds which we were rather pleased with. We spent the rest of the day uneventfully in a wonderful mixture of airport buses, airport lounges and airplanes.
Today we've been mainly shopping I'm afraid to report. We went back to our favourite Chatuchak Market and spent the majority of the day marvelling at the array of strange items on sale there (and purchasing a few!). Billy now has some very unrealistic (is that a word?) Ralph Lauren shirts and some very fetching baggy trousers while i bought a totally unsuitable, but very pretty, embroidered skirt. We also bought some lovely Thai pillows which we have very much enjoyed trying to fit into our backpacks this evening. They may be sent home very shortly.
Tomorrow we fly to Mumbai at 8.30am (Eek!) - wish us luck!
See you all soon,
Lots of love,
Rosie and Billy
xxx
Wednesday, 18 May 2011
Penang - Cameron Highlands - Perhentians - Melaka
We spent 2 days in Penang, mostly exploring the rest of the island, though we did go into Georgetown for a bit. On Wednesday we hired a bike (sorry dads :P) and took a very slow and safe roadtrip. We took a trail through the national park to a turtle hatching beach. Unfortunately we didnt get to see any mummy turtles (they only come at night), but they had some very cute hatchlings in a tank at the conservation centre. In the afternoon went on a tour of a tropical fruit farm which was interesting, at least the bits we caught through our guides rather strong accent. Afterwards we got to eat as much fruit as we could, the real reason we'd signed up, though we're still not sure what half of them were! After an interesting drive through the georgetown rush hour we made it back in one piece, though Billy says we're not driving in a town ever again.
Thursday involved a wander around Georgetown in the rain : thankfully it still managed to look pretty. We caught a bus to the Cameron Highlands, a wonderful 6 hour journey despite the book maintaining it took 4. We checked into our hostel and went to a local food stall for tea. Billy decided to have a steamboat, a local speciality where you cook various items yourself in a pair of boiling hot sauce pots heated on a stove in front of you. Despite costing only six pounds and it saying 'steamboat for one' on the menu enough food turned up to feed a family of at least 5 (indeed there was such a family enjoying one right next to us!) and for once Billy was defeated.
The next day we took a half day landrover tour around the area. We went to a tea plantation, which was very cool, the mossy forest, a tea factory and a butterfly house. Billy had a go at carrying the basket and shears they use to cut the tea: all he needed was the lampshade hat to complete the look! After the obligatary tea and scones we spent the rest of the afternoon wandering in the town and in the evening went to a night market for some tea.
The following day we enjoyed another interesting bus journey, followed by an equally interesting speedboat ride to the Perhentian islands. Although we only had time for a one night stop we tried to make the most of our time and booked for a fun dive for the following morning. We hoped we might be able to see reef sharks which are supposedly quite common there, but i think they must have heard us coming and hid. We did see a school of massive bump-head parrot fish which was exciting, as well as a moray eel and lots of other pretty ones! We went snorkeling off our beach and saw lots more fish in the afternoon - including a very cute family of Nemo fish (the baby was so tiny!) We had a rather wet speedboat ride back in the evening, before catching the night train down to Melaka. On the way we made friends with two nice Malaysian students who we talked to for a large part of the journey - there wasnt much chance we would sleep!
After our few hours sleep we arrived in Melaka slightly tetchy and decided to go for a spot of sightseeing in the afternoon. Our attempts at culture included Christ Church, the ruins of St Pauls church and the peoples museum (which included a rather gruesome section on beautification acts - I really dont fancy foot binding at all.). We decided we'd done enough culture for one day and spent the evening at the cinema.
Yesterday was boiling, so we took in the air conditioned Independence Museum, the spectacular Maritime Museum located inside this huge pirates ship and another film (it was too hot outside!). We had yummy indian food for tea and ran back to our hostel through yet another storm.
Have to go now - we're meant to be checking out in 5 minutes!
Our camera is now severely broken : the screen is 70% black - we think it must have got squashed on the train journey. We'll try get another asap.
Hope everythings good at home,
lots of love,
Rosie and Billy
xxx