Peet and Jules' Meanderings Pootling about tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-04-22:/blog/?domain=julesandpeet 2006-08-31T02:32:59Z Juliet06 img/travel-blog-feed.png Back in the Highlands sooner than I thought... tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-08-30:/blog/?domain=julesandpeet&thisblog_entryid=9&entryid=22154 2006-08-31T02:32:59Z 2006-08-31T02:32:59Z The Cameron Highlands, Malaysia that is. It might as well be Scotland though, it's so frickin' cold. Going from dreaming of air-con to requesting extra blankets in one day is a little strange, but it's a nice contrast. I feel I might have left a few wee things out in the 3 weeks since I last wrote though, so I'll go back to the beginning. And this time I really will try not to fall off the blogging wagon again! ... The Cameron Highlands, Malaysia that is. It might as well be Scotland though, it's so frickin' cold. Going from dreaming of air-con to requesting extra blankets in one day is a little strange, but it's a nice contrast. I feel I might have left a few wee things out in the 3 weeks since I last wrote though, so I'll go back to the beginning. And this time I really will try not to fall off the blogging wagon again!

I last wrote from Saigon, which I totally fell in love with in a lot of ways. From there we travelled over the Cambodian border into Phnom Penh, which didn't exactly turn out to be my favourite place to be, but was good in a "that'll put hairs on your chest" kind of way. The main cultural attractions are the relics from the Khmer Rouge era around the city. The infamous Killing Fields lie a few kilometres outside the city, where tens of thousands of people (civilians, mainly) were slaughtered and buried in mass graves. In the heart of the city lies the S-21 museum, a former school which was used by the regime to hold and interrogate prisoners (many were actually members of the Khmer Rouge, such was the level of suspicion and paranoia). To put things into context, between one and three million people in total were killed by the Khmer Rouge, and of the 20,000 held over the years at S-21, 7 survived. Seven.

We visited these two places in a morning, S-21 first, and by the time we got to The Killing Fields I was completely numb to the fact that I was walking over pieces of bones, teeth, clothing, and looking at a mural containing over 8,000 skulls dug up from the area, arranged by age and gender. I think after seeing the prison left just as it was, complete with torture instruments, photos of the remains of prisoners after 'interrogation', and blood stains left on walls and floors, I just couldn't take any more. In spite of all the gruesomeness and the graphic portrayal of the regimes cruelty, the most harrowing part was an area of the museum containing thousands of photographs of the inmates, the faces of men, women, children and babies who were indiscriminantly wiped out for crimes such as 'laziness' or 'fear of being killed'.

I found that after I had learned more about the scale of the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge, I couldn't look at a Cambodian who was more than 35 or so without wondering how in the world they survived something so brutal and cruel and widespread. The sad part is that Cambodia is still riddled with corruption, and there's still a massive gun culture. There's not much more offensive than being asked, on leaving The Killing Fields, if you want to go to the shooting range to shoot an AK-47, but that only happens because there is a demand for it. Some backpackers obviously do leave The Killing Fields and think "Yeah, this is as good a time as any to go and mess about with the kind of weapons that helped create what I've just witnessed." Not only does it seem tremendously distasteful and disrespectful to do so, but you've got to wonder whether these people actually got the point of what they'd been looking at in any way.

The rest of out time in Phnom Penh was spent trying (unsuccessfully) to extend our tickets for another month in Asia, and making friends with many Dutch people (and an Irishman). Time being tight, we went from there straight to Siem Reap, home of the temples of Angkor. The temples themselves were amazingly old and beautiful, but the experience itself, unfortunately, was pretty unremarkable, due to the number of tourists who were there. We've been pretty lucky so far, even the Taj Mahal was pretty deserted when we were there, but it's difficult to enjoy sunset from the top of a mountain temple when there are so many tourists that you can't even see what everyone's standing on. I guess we were probably quite unlucky with the time of year that we visited.

From Siem Reap we had to get back to Bangkok, on what is commonly known as one of the worst roads in Asia. We'd met several people who had told us that the 7 hour trip from Siem Reap to the border was the worst bus trip they'd ever done, so we came armed with exceptionally low expectations, and valium. It really wasn't that bad in the end, the road was appalling, but in the absence of Bollywood films, I'd have to say that Trivandrum - Pondicherry wins hands down.

Back in Bangkok we spent a couple of days meeting up with people we'd met in various places, going to the dentist (immaculate, professional and CHEAP!) and doing a bit of shopping for warmer clothes for our arrival in NZ. We decided on Koh Phangan for our island stop, as the west coast weather hadn't been too great and the north side of Koh Phangan is really quiet and beautiful. On a recommendation we went to a tiny little cove called Haad Khom, with only three guesthouses and no proper road connecting you with the next town. There were lots more friends to be made there, and we ended up staying for a week and still being gutted when we finally had to go. We spent 3 days diving, and got our PADI Open Water Diver Certificate. I'm not sure if it'll be cheap enough to use it in NZ, but we both fancied a bit of a challenge anyway, so it seemed like a good way to spend a few days. I was pretty apprehensive at first, and found all the equipment made me feel really claustrophobic, but once you actually get under the water and learn how to handle the things that would normally make you panic, it's great! We had gorgeous weather and clear seas and loads of coral so I think we chose a good time and place for it.

From there we went straight to Penang, on the west coast of Malaysia, but to be honest, we were still in a bit of a huff about having to leave Haad Khom, and were a bit lazy about exploring much of the island. Malaysia seems to have elements of all the countries we've been so far, such is the diversity of the people. There are loads of muslims, hindus, thais, people of chinese descent and notable remnants of the colonial era. Know what all that means? Yup, the food is amazing!

I'll write more about Malaysia next time, which will be soon, I promise, but for now we're off to run wild in the hills for a few hours before Earl Gray and jammy scone o'clock. Hopefully we won't be out for as long as the Polish guy who got lost for four days on a tea plantation.

Hope everything's great at home,

Juliet

Back in the Highlands sooner than I thought... remains copyright of the author Juliet06, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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]]> 3 weeks in Vietnam tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-08-06:/blog/?domain=julesandpeet&thisblog_entryid=8&entryid=19184 2006-08-06T14:06:20Z 2006-08-06T14:06:20Z I'm getting better at this blogging thing, in that I am still actually in Vietnam, but only for a couple more days. We flew from Bangkok to Hanoi, North Vietnam, 3 weeks ago and have been working our way down the country with the help of the ridiculously cheap open bus ticket. It's a flexible ticket you can use any time, and takes you to set destinations going either north or south. For the princely sum of US$20 we have ... I'm getting better at this blogging thing, in that I am still actually in Vietnam, but only for a couple more days. We flew from Bangkok to Hanoi, North Vietnam, 3 weeks ago and have been working our way down the country with the help of the ridiculously cheap open bus ticket. It's a flexible ticket you can use any time, and takes you to set destinations going either north or south. For the princely sum of US$20 we have spent about 40 hours on buses in the last 3 weeks (more if you count the sitting about waiting for them to actually go anywhere).

I'll try to keep this to highlights I think, otherwise I'll be here all night, and I'm hungry.

Our first stop, Hanoi, was a pleasant surprise. The old quarter surrounding a lake is the backpacker ghetto of the city, but is really quite beautiful. It's a dead busy place, but manages to retain a laid-back sort of atmosphere. It's pretty good for evening wanders and people watching. One highlight of Hanoi was a trip to the Ho Chi Minh Complex, which was really informative and quite beautiful. The socialist touches were evident too, frog-marching soldiers guarding the mausoleum, huge, angular, unadorned buildings and the like. Seeing the ex-president's embalmed body was a little strange, but I'd have gone in again just to get some more of the industrial strangth air-con they had inside! Another nice bit was visiting the first university in Vietnam, which was full of ancient Chinese-style courtyards, ornaments and bonsai trees.

We spent a couple of days floating about in Halong Bay, which has beautiful, clear waters and enormous limestone rocks jutting out of the sea. We got amazing weather and a really nice group of people to go with, so it remains a favourite with us. The downside was the touristy-ness of it all, in Vietnam everyone seems to do the same route in a similar timescale, which is nice in a way as you meet up with the same people in different places and get to exchange stories, but also means that a lot of the bits we've seen don't seem too authentic anymore. Halong Bay has some enormous caves in the rocks which are pretty spectacular in themselves, but the neon lighting and crap made-up myths about them don't really do them any favours.

After heading back to Hanoi, we made for Ninh Binh, a small town famous for it's surrounding hills, paddy fields, fishing villages and an enormous national park. We spent a day there exploring by motorbike and seeing some incredible countryside. It's a pretty small place, so we were safe from the hoardes of tourists for a short while. We got an overnight bus after spending a while in the guesthouse drinking beer and munching noodles, and made friends with some English girls who we'd end up spending the next week or so with. From there we went to Hue, another smaller place, on the tourist map for it's heavily bombed citadel and being the closest port of call to the De-militarized Zone. Feeling a bit woozy after a 12-hour bus ride, we decided to take it easy, and rented a car and driver for the day, costing 6 quid each, and the 4 of us drove up to a brilliant waterfall, with big, warm lagoons to float in, rope swings over the water and enormous flat rocks to lie on in the sun. We deposited ourselves there for most of the day, and headed back to the town when we were too hungry to want to swim anymore. The following morning Peet and I hired a cyclo- a rickshaw which is steered from the back by the driver, with the passengers sitting in a chair-like contraption on the front. It's a bit of a tight squeeze to be honest, and somewhat uncomfy to cram two people onto, limbs akimbo, although we seemed to be an endless source of amusement to Vietnamese onlookers. (Amused Vietnamese people seem to be a bit of a theme actually, I don't blame them though, if you compare their elegance and size with that of the average backpacker!)

After another bus ride, we arrived in Hoi An, a small town on a river, full of amaz tailors and silk merchants. The streets were lined with clothes shops with beautiful dresses, suits and coats which could be whipped up to measure in a mere 12 hours, and we were a tad disappointed we couldn't really justify investing in some new clothes to replace our quickly fading travel wardrobes. We mainly chilled out in Hoi An, found some nice bars to play pool and chat to folk, and rented bikes to ride around the old quarter, which is full of pagodas and beautiful old Chinese and Vietnamese architecture.

After such a nice few days, arriving in Nha Trang was a bit of a shock to the system. It's pretty Costa Del Sol like (I'd imagine) and the main activity is the mass booze cruises which leave daily from the harbour. We went on what we thought was a perfectly respectable day trip to 3 islands with a bit of snorkelling thrown in, but were pretty disappointed by the reality of 'international karaoke' (which in my opinion is not acceptable ever under any circumstances) and a floating bar serving up red wine that tasted like tartare sauce. The massively redeeming feature of our trip there was dinner on the beach, where we had a lobster, 3 baby lobster and 8 tiger prawns the size of your hand barbequed in front of us, about a metre from the sea. Add garlic bread and salad from a nearby bar bumping the price up to 4 quid between us, and we had a pretty nice dinner.

Wow, I've just realised this is an epic. Anyway, we headed to the hills the next day, to the kitchy town of Dalat, and - get this - we had to wear jackets and proper shoes! It was like Scotland! Nice for a day or two but I'm happy to be hot again now. We took a trip around Dalat with the 'Easy Riders', a group of motorbike guides who are pretty well known and well regarded for their local knowledge and excellent English. We explored the countryside for the day, keeping away from the horribly touristy waterfalls, and learned loads from the guides about Vietnamese culture, the Socialist regime, the war, modern politics, the police, Vietnamese healthcare... All fascinating and great to be able to get an insiders view and being able to properly communicate questions and responses. I did feel pretty inadequate with my odd hellos, thankyous and goodbyes in Vietnamese when these guys were probably fluent in about 3 languages other than their own.

Mui Ne next. Rainy, dull and disappointing it was, but you can hardly enjoy the highlights of a town famed for it's beaches and enormous sand dunes in the torrential rain, so we won't hold grudges. The best bit was the bus ride out, and not just in a sarcastic way, but there had been so much rain the next town was completely flooded, up to about 3 feet in some places, although the people seemed to largely be going about their business as usual. We marvelled at the cheery passers by in the knowledge that floods like that would grind whole towns to a halt at home, but here they're just part of everyday life. Getting our backpacks out of the hold wiped the smiles off our faces though, as they'd been submerged in the flood water and were soaking wet.

And that was our arrival in Saigon 2 days ago, and I think this may be my favourite city so far. It's big and imposing, but seems to be a nice place to walk around. I keep getting wee ideas about coming back here to get a job teaching English at some stage, but I guess I should focus on the next year and a bit of travelling before I make any more plans.

We've vistited the War Remnants Museum and the Cu Chi tunnels near Saigon (built and lived in by Communist guerrillas in the Vietnam War) and the sombre bit of the trip will continue in a few days with the Killing Fields and Khmer Rouge Security Prison in Phnom Penh. I'm not expecting to enjoy these bits much but I reckon they have to be done on a trip to Cambodia.

So I think I've also learned my lesson about frequent blog-updatery, what with my aching fingers (if only I could type with more than 2 of them) so I'll expand soon on where the adventuring's taking us next.

Take care and keep the emails coming.

Love Juliet x

3 weeks in Vietnam remains copyright of the author Juliet06, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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]]> Two weeks in Thailand - trekking and Singha-ing, mainly... tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-07-28:/blog/?domain=julesandpeet&thisblog_entryid=7&entryid=18245 2006-07-28T09:10:24Z 2006-07-28T09:10:24Z Despite all my best intentions, I've again managed to leave it until I've been in a different country for two weeks before managing to update this thing, but in my defence it has been a pretty busy two weeks. Arriving in Thailand, in contrast to India, was a bit of a mixed bag. The first few days were amazing just for the freedom, we could go out for beers, I could wear shorts and strappy tops, there were hundreds of ... Despite all my best intentions, I've again managed to leave it until I've been in a different country for two weeks before managing to update this thing, but in my defence it has been a pretty busy two weeks. Arriving in Thailand, in contrast to India, was a bit of a mixed bag. The first few days were amazing just for the freedom, we could go out for beers, I could wear shorts and strappy tops, there were hundreds of other tourists about... but a few days in I began to notice the change in the place in the short 3 years since my first visit. Khao San Road seems to have just expanded in every direction, and whereas before it was easy enough to wander into an area where tourists were more scare, now virtually everywhere has menus in English and stalls on the streets selling knock-off Diesel and fake Birkenstocks. The first time I visited I remember thinking how frenetic and stressful Bangkok was, but coming from Delhi, the impression was of a pretty much hassle-free, chilled-out city. The touts were tame in comparison, and the travel arrangements practically came and found us from one of the million travel agents lining the streets of Banglamphu.

As Chiang Mai had definaitely been a highlight of my first trip, we headed up after a couple of days relaxing in Bangers, and ended up taking a trek on the same route I had done previously. Although it had been chllenging, fun and informative last time, it was pretty disappointing the second time round. I presume because of the increase in demand it seemed to have changed from largely a cultural trip to a blatant let's-go-up-to-the-hills-and-get-hammered thing. The guide was a quiffed and mulletted pretty boy in a David Beckham shirt, who quite obviously had zero interest in the countryside or it's inhabitants (besides their opium production), and demonstrated this by squishing every bug he could find, chasing piglets around the villages and telling us absolutely zilch about the hill tribes or their heritage. The group saved the trip really, as it was an interesting bunch, but because numbers were down we were mixed with a group who were trekking for a day less, and as a result of that and our guides blatant come-downs, we spent our mornings sitting about waiting to do something until midday. Although I really wanted to take Peet to the parts of Thailand I enjoyed so much the first time round, I think I've learned that re-visiting things is probably quite likely to be a let-down.

The next few days back in Bangkok made up for the disappointment though, as we managed to catch up with Calum and Iona (my step-brother and his girlfriend) and had an excellent time. We went for Thai and foot massages, had facials and saw some more of Bangkok, albeit only in the afternoons since we were staying up pretty late. Jim Thomson's House was a highlight, he was an American arts afficionado who settled in Thailand and worked to rejuvenate the silk trade, before an untimely dissappearance into the Malaysian jungle a few decades back. His teak house is full of artefacts and traditional Thai furnishings, complete with a beautiful tropical garden and fishpond. A trip to Ayuthaya, one of Thailand's ancient capitals was great too, if a little spare on the explanations.

It was good to get to Vietnam though, on the whole. As tradition dictates that I must have left the country before starting to think about writing about it, I'll leave that for next time...

New pictures on Flickr though!

Ta ta xx

Two weeks in Thailand - trekking and Singha-ing, mainly... remains copyright of the author Juliet06, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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]]> Back to Delhi (groan) tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-07-12:/blog/?domain=julesandpeet&thisblog_entryid=5&entryid=16892 2006-07-13T05:58:53Z 2006-07-13T05:58:53Z I've been really lazy with the blog-updatery lately, and we're now a week into our first South East Asia stop, but don't have much time today so I'll leave everything after India for my next entry. We ended up spending a ridiculously long time in Pondy, longer than we'd spent anywhere else in fact, but it's such a relacxing place and we felt quite at home there after a couple of days. We saw a lot of the town and ... I've been really lazy with the blog-updatery lately, and we're now a week into our first South East Asia stop, but don't have much time today so I'll leave everything after India for my next entry.

We ended up spending a ridiculously long time in Pondy, longer than we'd spent anywhere else in fact, but it's such a relacxing place and we felt quite at home there after a couple of days. We saw a lot of the town and rented bikes to get around for a bargain 40 pence a day, and had some nice French-style meals.

Our train back to Delhi was booked from Chennai, a 3 hour bus ride away, so we had a day there wandering along the beach right on the edge of the city. Like everywhere seemed to be in India, it wasn't as relaxing as you'd imagine walking along a beach should be, but crowded with people, touts, food and drink vendors, dogs and the sounds of the city nearby. We took a walk through the streets for a while afterwards but really were glad to get on the train and get ready to leave.

We were in a sleeper cabin with 4 berths, and had some really interesting travel companions. We were on the train for about 35 hours in total, so in that time we got to know a little bit about their lives and religion. One of them was a young guy in training to become an army officer, and he told us a lot about young Indians, their careers, family obligations and the rituals that they live by. The other was a middle aged man who turned out to be a psychologist, and who asked me lots of questions about my career plans and was very encouraging. In addition to this he told us that he practised palm reading and astrology as part of his therapies, so there was obviously an Eastern edge on the type of therapies that he provided. All in all it was a very pleasant journey, although by the third day the loos were to be avoided at all costs.

Our return trip to Delhi was altogether more pleasant than we anticipated, and although we were taking things pretty easy we managed to see Humayun's Tomb, a huge complex of ancient temples, mosques and mausoleums from the Shah period, which was really fascinating. Pictures to be seen on Peet's Flickr page, as he's altogether more organised about these things than I am.

It's www.flickr.com/people/windymiller if you fancy a look.

We're now just about to leave Chiang Mai after heading up to go trekking, and in some ways the contrast between Thailand now and three years ago when I first visited is surprising.

But I'll have to wait 'til next time to get into that.

Cheerio for now.

Back to Delhi (groan) remains copyright of the author Juliet06, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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]]> Kochi to Pondicherry tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-06-27:/blog/?domain=julesandpeet&thisblog_entryid=4&entryid=15508 2006-06-27T11:05:26Z 2006-06-27T11:05:26Z Hi there, My last entry was written in Kochi (Not Kocki as previously stated, I doubt that's even a place!) where we caught the first bits of the monsoon weather and spent three days enjoying the excuse to get a bit of reading done, play lots of cards and finally venture out in the early evening, when there was normally a bit of a dry spell. It doesn't really cool it down much, just turns the place from sauna to ... Hi there,

My last entry was written in Kochi (Not Kocki as previously stated, I doubt that's even a place!) where we caught the first bits of the monsoon weather and spent three days enjoying the excuse to get a bit of reading done, play lots of cards and finally venture out in the early evening, when there was normally a bit of a dry spell. It doesn't really cool it down much, just turns the place from sauna to steam room pretty quickly. Kochi was really nice, it's made up of two islands off the mainland, one which is a naval base and the other, Fort Kochi, an old Portuguese fort, which is where we stayed. You could tell it would be spilling over with tourists in the right season, but again we missed that all. You could see it for the fishing town it used to be with these enormous Chinese fishing nets that are cast into the sea all day, taking 6 men and a system of counterbalanced rocks to shift. We spent a fair bit of time watching those, and gaping at the enormous fish and little sharks that they'd pulled up.

From there we went on to Alleppey, and spent a heart-stopping forty quid on chartering a houseboat fr a day and night, which took us round the beautiful Keralan backwaters. It was really spectacular, even in the rain, which only seemed to make everything look more green and alive. The food and hospitality were amazing too, it was the most relaxing thing we could have done, and worth every penny. We had a great guesthouse in Alleppey too, a real family run place. We spent the evening in the living room talking and watching football with the owner, and eating one of the most delicious home-cooked meals we've had here. The plates just kept coming out, each more delicious than the last, and all vegetarian too. We've eaten fish maybe 3 times while we've been on the coast, but other than that it's been an entirely meat-free month!

From Alleppey we spent about 4 hours on the floor of the noisiest, bumpiest, swerviest and beepiest bus we've ever been in, and were eager to get off at Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala (until we saw the rats and roaches). It was really just a stopping off point, and having witnessed some pretty gruesome crash-carnage on the road in, I was keen to leave the next day. Our journey to Pondy, the tiny French enclave on the South-East coast of India was 16 hours by a bus similar to the previous one, only this one had the unfortunate addition of all-night Bollywood at DEAFENING volume! I quite like to watch it for the dancing and stuff, but it really was ear-piercingly painful! We got through it though, a little ruffled and even more devoted to rail travel, and set about finding a place to stay in Pondy.

The town is host to the Sri Aurobindo ashram and a slightly strange community who live by it's principles, in what is supposedly a self-sufficient international community called Auroville (google it!), and we are staying in one of the ashram's guesthouses. It has a few oddities, such as no noise (at all) after 9pm, and names over all the doors of all the rooms (we're staying in 'Imagination'). In a fit of mischievousness we joked about replacing all the names of virtuous traits like 'Kindness' and 'Progress' with things like 'Obstinance' and 'Moodiness' but didn't think the ashram folks would see the funny side, so we left it.

Today we discovered the third best thing about India after the Taj Mahal and biriyanis: mopeds! We've been carving up the streets all day, although you have to be pretty cautious as there don't seem to be any rules to it. As neither of us has ever ridden one before there was a brief spell of being overtaken by pushbikes this morning, but now we are lording it over anything slower than an entire Indian family on a motorbike. They get a bit sluggish.

We're doing a bus tour tomorrow so we'll have our tartan blankets ready to go over our knees, and hopefully there'll be no more Bollywood. We lost our Lonely Planet, so it's the next best way to orientate ourselves. I daresay the day after will see some more moped action!

Our next move will be on the 1st of July, when we'll be getting a bus to Chennai to catch the 33 hour train to Delhi fro our flight out. We don't really want to go back, as South India has really just served to illustrate how stressful the North is, but we only have one night there before flying to Bangkok, so we'll just make the most of it. After the last 2 weeks or so since we've really started to enjoy India we can't complain too much.

Kochi to Pondicherry remains copyright of the author Juliet06, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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]]> Anjuna and Vagator - Goa tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-06-21:/blog/?domain=julesandpeet&thisblog_entryid=3&entryid=14998 2006-06-21T08:11:44Z 2006-06-21T08:11:44Z Hi all, adter the last entry we spent a few quite amusing days in the real hippy-haven part of Goa, listening to trance covers of the most unlikely 90's one-hit-wonders. Anjuna had a strange feel to it as everything seemed to be shut up for the low-season, which we actually preferred... until we spent a night in a very budget guest house, in the company of a whole colony of cockroaches which wanted to fight us for the beds. Not ... Hi all,

adter the last entry we spent a few quite amusing days in the real hippy-haven part of Goa, listening to trance covers of the most unlikely 90's one-hit-wonders. Anjuna had a strange feel to it as everything seemed to be shut up for the low-season, which we actually preferred... until we spent a night in a very budget guest house, in the company of a whole colony of cockroaches which wanted to fight us for the beds. Not a wink of sleep was had, and a sharp exit made the following morning as soon as we could get out of the place. We headed the few miles along to Vagator and indulget in a place triple the price of the night before, but worth every penny.

Vagator was also a bit of a ghost-town with not much going on, but the scenery was beautiful, and it was so quiet that you could easily imagine how nice it was before it was developed into a holiday resort. We made ourselves regulars at a nice little bar and took advantage of a World Cup - Kingfisher promotion for a couple of days.

Good thing this was all very relaxing, because it was followed by a five-hour delay through the night at the train station, and then a 12 hour journey to Calicut, in the north of Kerala, intending to travel south and see some of the backwaters and Keralan beaches. We're in Kocki now, which seems like a really nice and varied city, and heading down to Alleppey tomorrow to continue the journey south.

Photos at www.flickr.com/photos/juliets_piccies

I'll write again soon,
take care

Juliet and Peet xx

Anjuna and Vagator - Goa remains copyright of the author Juliet06, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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]]> India - North to South in a week tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-06-14:/blog/?domain=julesandpeet&thisblog_entryid=2&entryid=14391 2006-06-14T09:31:05Z 2006-06-14T09:31:05Z We arrived in Delhi pretty hot and confused at 3am, and were met with a wave of suffocating humidity despite the time. We spent the first two nights in a really nice hotel, with air con and good views over the city, so we were able to get to grips with the layout a little better from there. We did a wee bit of touristy stuff, going to see the Red Fort and the Jama Masjid (an enormous mosque that ... We arrived in Delhi pretty hot and confused at 3am, and were met with a wave of suffocating humidity despite the time. We spent the first two nights in a really nice hotel, with air con and good views over the city, so we were able to get to grips with the layout a little better from there. We did a wee bit of touristy stuff, going to see the Red Fort and the Jama Masjid (an enormous mosque that holds 25,000 people in it's courtyard), but mainly we just walked around and tried to adjust to the heat and the culture. We found it really strange that although people will openly stop and stare at me for minutes at a time in the street, they will only talk to Peet. If I try to negotiate with a rickshaw driver or ask for directions I seem to be ignored until Peet asks the same question again. He gets served his food and drinks first, and wherever we go there are shouts of 'sir, sir, you want taxi?' and the like. Would not be a fan of travelling here alone.

Anyway, we left Delhi on a train to Agra, and after some tout-evading action we got a room in a place called Kemal's on the strip of town called Taj Ganj, where the builders working on the Taj Mahal set up camp. The guest house itself was unremarkable, but it had a roof terrace with an almost completely unobscured view of the Taj Mahal. On first sight it was completely unreal, and surpasses every photo or picture I've ever seen of it. We went the following morning at sunrise and walked round the grounds and inside the mausoleum, feeling lucky we're here in the low season, as there were only a few other tourists around. The rest of Taj Ganj was a pretty unpleasant place in all honesty, it was full of touts, scammers and some pretty funky smells. Perhaps it's better in high season as there are far more tourists to go around, but we felt hassled and defensive at every step. We had planned to stay another night and see the fort and the rest of the town, but we felt like moving on, so caught a bus to Jaipur.

Jaipur is very much a tourist-driven place like Agra, but with possibly even more visible poverty. Rats, street children, dead dogs and cows eating litter from enormous rubbish heaps all made us feel as if we really shouldn't be there. We stuck around only until we could get a train to Mumbai, and although we were able to have a reasonable time after planning our escape, we were really glad to be leaving.

We had planned to travel down through Rajastan with three or four other stops, but after Jaipur we felt so frazzled and stressed out by it all that we changed plans and caught an over night train, followed by an overnight bus, and arrived in Goa 3 days ago. Goa had never really featured in the original plan as anything more than an escape route, but in low season it's completely different to the Indian Costa Del Sol it becomes in the high season. Most of the bars and clubs are shut down over the monsoon, and there are only a handful of white faces - only a handful of Indian ones too really. We spent a couple of days in the capital, Panaji, which has only a hundred thousand occupants (bliss after Delhi and Jaipur), and soaked up the quiet atmosphere. It's an ex-Portuguese colony and had a completely different feel to it. It's Christian, full of European-style architecture and is still mainly a fishing town. I spent a day in bed unwell (not Delhi-belly, I managed to get a cold in 40 degree heat) while Peet did some exploring, and we had a couple of nice meals, but generally were just enjoying not being followed down the street by ten screaming vendors at a time. It's completely true that Goa bears almost no resemblance to North India, but that's what we wanted, just for a few days while we relax again.

On to Kerala in a few days time which seems like the sort of place Goa might have been before it was invaded by hippies. They're still here by the way, the die-hards anyway, and do not seem to want to make friends. We probably couldn't deal with the smell of their dreadlocks anyway.

Home now for rapid and frequent aftersun applications for me, and then perhaps a fish curry on the beach. Goa isn't so bad after all.

Cheerio.

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]]> Doing time tag:travellerspoint.com,2006-04-22:/blog/?domain=julesandpeet&thisblog_entryid=1&entryid=9849 2006-04-22T22:56:29Z 2006-04-22T22:56:29Z So after a year and a half of planning, saving and toiling, we are now a mere 5 weeks away from our biggest adventure yet. The extent of our saving has been that the only holiday we have ever taken together has been a weekend on the lovely Isle of Cumbrae off the west coast of Scotland. Think we could be in for a shock here. We fly to Delhi on the 4th June for a month of extreme heat ... So after a year and a half of planning, saving and toiling, we are now a mere 5 weeks away from our biggest adventure yet. The extent of our saving has been that the only holiday we have ever taken together has been a weekend on the lovely Isle of Cumbrae off the west coast of Scotland. Think we could be in for a shock here.

We fly to Delhi on the 4th June for a month of extreme heat endurance (possibly slightly underestimated when tickets were booked). Oh well, native Indians cope with Delhi heat in the summer, so why shouldn't we? It can't be that hardcore... can it? Probably yes. Oops.

Then on to Thailand to peruse the Bangkok delights before flying to Hanoi and working our way down overland to Singapore, and heading out to spend a year in New Zealand. The plan there is to soak up some culture and work for a bit, then buy some kind of vehicle that will withstand the rigours of a round trip of both the north and south islands. Looking forward to some wild outdoorsy stuff, but I sure as sugar ain't jumping out of a plane. And if Peet does, he'll have to slip me some kind of sedative for the day.

Anyhoo, nose back to the grindstone for another few weeks. We've still got some injections to get, goodbyes to say and one last gig (Peet will miss his turntables), but I'm sure before we know it, we'll be wandering through Heathrow, crabby as hell at 5 o'clock on a Sunday morning.

Cheerio for now,

Peet and Juliet

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