South East Asia - part 2 of our travels!!

Hello everybody - I am glad that a few people read the blog, I have received some very nice comments on my writting skills, who knows may be a new carreer for me!.

Anyhow, as I was saying in the previous post, we have left India and arrived in Bangkok on the 3 January, my daddy's birthday. By the way happy new year to all of you, may it bring you everything you want and more, my daddy's birthday!

I have to say that we were very shocked when we got to Bangkok airport as it was sooooooo clean, we could have eaten on the floor, a massive change from dusty ad dirty India!!! It was dead easy to get to the center of Bangkok as well, here the buses run on time and everybody speaks English, is very helpfull and not pushy at all - again a massive change from India!!.

In Bangkok it was easy to find a guest house, we stayed near Kho Shan street. We are now getting used to turning up in a city, look around, find a room and it is even easier at the at the moment as Thailand is 70% down on tourism due to manifestations a few weeks ago, so good for us! And double good that we do not have to search too much as our bagpacks are getting a bit heavy!!
The 1st thing we noticed walking in the streets is the photos of the King, his photos are everywhere, posing with his wife, in uniform, young, old, sometimes playing saxophone, they love their king and we like him too!

We spent 3 days exploring Bangkok, went to the royal palace and few more temples (bit templed out I am afraid at the moment!), overall sighseeing ... moved around via the river express boat, so nice you can go everywhere for only 14BHT, it is cheap and a colourfull way to move round the citty. Another reason for liking the river express boat is that there are always lots of monks on board, except that as a women I cannot talk to them, touch them (shame!), basically do nothing with them. They even have their own space allocated on the boat and sometimes someone travelling with them kind of protecting them from people touching them, real shame if you ask me, as they are all so cute in their orange robes!!

On our second day to Bangkok, we walk around the city some more went to China town, and in the evening decided to take a trip to Lampuni park, a bit of a outdoor leisure center where the crazy Thai people do outdoor aerobics!!! Funny. We went to a night market and then to the red light district!. In Bangkok, you cannot move anywhere without bumping into a night market - where they sell so many fake bags, sun glasses, shoes, you name it they have it! - Carly and Jack would love it as it is full of Tiffany's and LV / Gucci bags!
The other thing that is everywhere is food, bars, restaurants, food stalls, it is everywhere and God knows what they sell, some food look good and some other stuff look so yukky, and the smells are a bit much sometimes, it's like fart smells in many places!!!
Food stalls are everywhere in the streets, it is absolutely amazing and so are the rats too living near the stalls! We ate twice at some dinky places and everytime I saw rats which puts you off your food a bit, big fat not as cute as ratatouille! I guess with food everywhere rats will be there.
After the night market we went to the red light district, to check it out and had a few beers there. It was quite fun, people in the street offering you 'ping pong' shows and all sort of lady attractions. They have a menu that they keep flashing at you and I have to say that some stuff look very intersting, in a weird way, like 'electric chighi' or things like this! Basically you can pick up a girl in a club, see a sexy show, anything you want! I was quite surprised to see lots of middle aged couple, may be in need of spicing up their sex life after so many years married!!! I was fun to see anyway, and we laughed a lot when without noticing we arrived in the gay area, I was the only girl there and I think Andrew felt a bit vulnerable!

The day after we went to the floating market which was very cool, what you imagine of Thailand, check out the photos, it's full of people selling again tourist stuff and food on long boats, really cute, liked it a lot.

After 3 days ish in Bangkok, we took an overnight buss to Chiang Mai, north of Thailand. The overnight buss was so good comparing to India, 1st none of the sits were broken, we had regular stops for loos, and the drivers were not crazy and beeping every 2 minutes to wake you up!!!

Chiang Mai was ok, it's another city and from there we went on a trecking trip to the jungle! Did 3 days and I cannot beleive I am saying this but I really loved the walking! It's was hard on my jelly legs but I managed it and was really proud of me - and now have got legs of steel!. Andrew did well too, he is much fitter than I am! We also did bamboo rafting, and white water rafting wich was great fun and reminded me of Cristina and the one she did in New Zealand!!!We got a bit pissed off with the trecking tour as it was very touristic and not what we were sold (going to see tribes ...), so as a good French person that I am, I went to complain, but give it to them the Thai are clever and my complaint went nowhere! Still one positive thing out of complaining is that our trecking guide took us to a local restaurant to make us happy where we spent a great evening. We dicovered some of the local delicasees! It was a buffet like restaurant with a little pot on the table where you cook your own food, you can make soup in the pot and also grill the meat! Great experience, as so far I did not feel like I was getting Thailand it seems to commercial, big cities, so it was nice to go where the locals go and chat with the guide about life here.

After trecking we booked ourself in a meditaion centre, in a Buddhist temple!! I always wanting to do it, but never thought I could not think / do anything for more than 10min! Still Andrew and I decided that it could be a good challenge and if anything a cheap way to spend 2 days relaxing! We got to the temple at 8am, had to change into white outfits, which made us look like inmates!!! We laughed so much even though we should not have done. We go taught a bit how to meditate and practised 4 times a day in 2 hour long sessions sometimes indoors and sometimes in the forest! We could not look at each other without laughing. There was a couple of very nice French girls there and we got rapidly used to our routine ...get ready ... 4 times a day 2h meditation, no talking in between (did not really respect that!), separate rooms, which looked like prison cells, no eating after mid day, no smoking ( still had few crafty ciggies behind the temple along with a packet of crisps!!!), bed by 9pm bright and early to allow you to get up at 5am for 2 more hours of meditation!!!
I have to say that the 5am meditation did not go that well, both Andrew and I nearly fell asleep and then went backto bed!! Never mind we tried and had a taste of it and checked out after just under 48h to go to Pai.

I am writting this in Pai and it is so nice, at last I feel like getting to see Thailand. The town is surrounded by moutains, lots of waterfalls, hot springs, we rented a bike yesterday and drove around, and the landscape is absolutely amazing, so green and beautifull. We stopped off in small villages, walked around, and just had a fab day. We suddenly felt so free outside the cities, independent with the bikes, and this is definitely the kind of travelling we love! In Pai, we are staying in a cute place, a little bamboo hut near the river and overlooking the mountains, it is so peacefull, we could stay there for ever, yet we must move on and we shall be going to Laos in the next couple of days. We will return to Thailand after Cambodia and do the south of the country, the Island for a bit of TLC before going back to the UK for 10 days. We will be home on the 1st March and off again on the 14th to South America.
I cannot beleive how quickly this travelling is going, nearly 3 months on the road, we are half way through .... I never want to go back home (well of course we want to, to see friends and familly), this experience is so great.

We really do not regret doing it, the things we see, learn, people we meet, it is also great for our confidence and our relationship. We are still amazed at the fact that we spend more or less 24/7 together and hardly argue!!! Married life is great, thanks you God!!

More photos of India!!

Well now we have found a super duper fast way to upload photos (vs 5 in 15min, let's indulge and add more photos on the blog! And one day I will learn how to put them all nice and neatly too on the blog! I am losing my monica's way!

Delhi to Mumbai - some photos

Delhi to Mumbai

Hello everybody and happy new year to you all!

Hope you had a great Christmas and new year, looking at the messages and photos on facebook it looked like great fun! Whish I was there, then again Xmas and new year in Goa, could be worse hey!!
Right back to the blog, I know I have been crap at updating it, and now that we are in the land of fast internet connection, Thailand, I will endeavour to update our travels more frequently! One more new year resolution!

So where were we?? I think in Delhi. We spent a few days there and then joined a new group and truck to travel to Mumbai. It was not as good as the previous ones, the crew were not leading and there was some grumpy people on the trip who quite frankly should have booked with Thomas Cook 2 weeks in Spain, as the overland adventure was not for them. Still we made friends with some nice chaps, became professional 'shit head' players and had some good laughs, always helped with few beers and magic juice (Vodka & Mango juice yum yum!).

After Delhi we arrived in Bikaner and went to the rat temple. I did not particularly want to get up at 6am to have rats crawling along my bear little toes (temple obliged you have to take your shoes off!), but had a bottle of gin bet with Anjli, so I had to do it!!. It was gross, they feed and look after the rats in this temple, they are supposed to bring good luck, I think they are barking mad personally!

We then drove to Jaiselmer which is a gorgeous city, Golden walled city. Chilled and visited the place and then went on a camel safari with Mr Desert, interesting guy full of stories, who was once the equivalent to the Malborough face of Indian cigarettes! After a couple hours on the camel back we stopped at our camp site to watch the sun set in the sand dunes, very beautifull. We had dinner around the fire and then slept under the stars - Andrew and I moved our beds on top of a dune, and it was very romatic, us in the Thar desert with just a materas and blanket looking at the sky and rumbling camels.... also a bit nippy and weird to find a wild dog asleep on our bed the next morning!.
It was fab and really good fun (thanks to the special cookies we found in Jaiselmer!) to sleep under the stars, a great experience which I would love to do again. After that night, we headed back to Jaiselmer on our camels and I asked my little guide to go fast, very fast! Little did I know how I would regret this the next day ... 1 hour of trotting on a camel leaves you with a funny way of walking for the next 48hrs!! Still it was good fun at the time!

We then went to Jodhpur, our guest house there was great and we met some cool guys giving us great advise for the next leg of our travels. I love this about travelling, there is a real sense of community, you meet nice people always very helpfull, have a nice time and some fun with them, exchange memories and then you are off again.
The fort there was grand but that's about it, for some reason I imagined horses and jodhpur trousers everywhere (7 years of horse ridding in this unflaterring trousers have marked me!), but nothing like that. ocal market was ok but then we have seen so many!!

After that was Pushkar where we had a very relaxing time. Pushkar is one very holy city in India and there they do not sell alcohol (dam) or eggs ... not sure what the connection is there! Still we had a laugh when a dodgy priest gave us blessings around the sacred lake and a little bracelet to mark the occasion, and when he asked for the magic donnation (which we knew was coming, they do that all the time ...), Andrew pretended to be a policeman from the fraud department and I gave them a lecture on false Gods like money, whish we had thought about this lines earlier on our trip as it would have saved us lots of hassles and roupies!! In Pushkar you can also go tracking, but we decided to just sit in one of the many opened cafes, watch the world go by (very interesting and colourfull .... local people, tourists, camels, monkeys, cows, nik nak stalls, all sharing the same streets in an organised chaos!), and enjoy the special lassis which helped a lot with the relaxation!!

After Pushkar, we headed to Udapur. A lovely and quiet city with a big temple and hotel in the middle of the lake - it is where a bit of the James bond Octopussy film was filmed. We relaxed some more there, walked leisurely in the narrow streets, went to the city palace which was amazing.

We then set off to Ellora after a very long, painfull and frustrating drive! Ellora is famous for it's caves and like the pyramids in Egypt the construction of one of the monilithic caves is a bit of a mystery and may be a gift from the Gods. I have to say it was so impressive, a huge temple carved from one rock, with so much intricacy and details that it must be from the Gods! We could have stayed longer there as there are more than 30 caves, Hindu, jains and Buddhist, and could have moved onto Ajanta to see more caves, but we had another option more appealing, which was to drive to Nasik, 200km further down and visit one of India only wineyard, called Sula wines.
We got there late in the day but it did not matter as suddenly it felt like we left the Indian dust / dirt / noise / chaos to arrived in a peace sanctuary. There red, white, rose wines and cheese were on abundance .......... it was heaven. After 2 months of not having any descent wine and any cheese except paneer, Frenchy felt like being back home and dare I say it was better than ...... Only joking, we just spent an great evening there drinking away, and gorging on cheese, crackers and later on an amazing Italian dinner. It really makes you realise how at home we take things for granted!!!

The next day was a bit hard to wake up, sore head but worth every drop of lovely wine! We went for a walk near a sacred water tank chilling and then we heard music and saw the groom on his horse (traditional for Indian's wedding!). I stared to take pictures of the band playing, people dancing in the streets and of the groom (who looked so miserable!), and before we knew, we were invited to the wedding! Andrew took part in the Indian dancing which was so much fun, saying this I did not look any better trying to wiggle my hips! After the dancing, we went to the ceremony and saw the bride arriving! It made our wedding look so small with our 120 guests as there the hall was full of people may be 400 people or more! It was fun as we were treated as special guests, made to sit at the front, given gifts and decorated on our foreheads! We even had our photos taken with the bride groom and their families. Two little girls kept us company and took us to help ourself to a lovely buffet - well looked lovely but nearly blew my mouth out, so spicy, then you have to be polite and finish it all off, nightmare!. We had a great time there and somehow it summarise Indian people for us; so welcoming, nice, inclusive, friendly, smiling and humble. Would we invite strangers to our wedding, certainly not. There they were just happy to have us and laugh with us, dance and share their food, quite humbling experience really.

After Nasik, was Mumbai. We got there late again as the crew are so crap at driving and finding hotels ... I was so cross with them. One time cross in India is not a bad result knowing myself I think I did well!
We stayed in the Colaba area, which is where it all happens (and also where the shootings happened a few weeks before). We went to cafe Leopold's, which I really wanted to see, not for the shooting but because I read Shataram and the guy spends all his time there, was interesting to go, like walking on his footsteps.
We met Miss Corner's friend there after nearly 2 months of talking to him by text, Raj, a lovely gentleman who then took us to another bar (we felt like locals) called the Ghetto where we laughed so much with the bar owner. The next day we chilled try to book a train to Goa (not possible as fully booked oups!), went to a heaven shop called fabIndia. Was good, did not buy anything just got cute outfit for Lisa Lou, and rajastany shoes, she is going to look so cute! We then went back to Leopolds and notice this time the bullet marks on the walls and ceiling, felt very very strange about this, I suppose you are used to see atrocity on TV but being where it all happened and seeing the marks of it put things into perspective.

After the next morning sightseeing (doby ghatts are so funny, it's where all the clothes are washed in Mumbai, amazing place ran by men only, interesting concept, India gate, Taj hotel, hanging gardens, malabar hill etc), we departed for Goa having found an overnight sleeper bus. We traveleld sharing a tiny sleeper with Andrew and made friends with David and Martin, nice Sweedish guy and crazy Irish buddhist guy! We 1st stayed in Mandrem beach and spent Xmas eve there, in the swimming pool, drinking away!
On Xmas day we moved to Arambol in a guest house on the beach ... at night the sound of the waves were helping us to fall asleep, amazing! We loved it so much there that we decided to move back our flight to Bangkok (painfull as bank holidays in UK). To summarise our time in Goa, it was 1 week relaxing on the beach, between the sea (so warm it's like getting in your bath) and a sweet lake (fresh water) with nearby a natural mud bath place (which we used a lot and looked very silly all covered in mud!!), toes in the sand, eating, drinking, having fun.... We also went round Goa on bikes which we rented and the sense of freedom and fun was awsome + Andrew my husband is a very sexy bike ridder!
New years eve was eventful, fireworks, fresh seafood dinner on the beach, sand in toes, no wories about what to wear, which party to go to, what make up to put on etc... my idea of heaven. Only black spot was Andrew losing his mobile at 11.45, so as everybody was huging and fire works were going off, here I was, sat on a chair being grumpy whilst Andrew was trying to find his mobile in the sand with a torch, comical looking back! Dare I say that we did not find it!

We left Goa on the 1st January 09, with another overnighth bus (with broken seats & windows! Nice) and spent our last day in India and in Mumbai with Raj waiting to catch our overnight flight to Bangkok.

It was very very sad to leave Goa as we had a amazing time there. Great people, scenary, sea, sand, relaxing atmosphere- after a week we felt like home there, all on our door steps and starting to know the people working in bars!.
This sadness was enhanced because we also were leaving India that night too. India has been the first leg of our adventures and it was a great introduction to our travels.
We both had a great time going round this amazing country, full of contradictions, colours, friendly, smiley, helpfull people (who also try to rip you off every 5 min!), full of dust, dirt, noise, a country of organised chaos which can be fantastic and also frustrating at times. India has been overall a very humbling experience.
Seeing people with so little, so poor, yet somehow so rich in their heart smiling at you made us feel very spoiled westerners and from now on we will make an effort to appreciate life more and not take things for granted so much ................another new year resolution!

But enough of looking back, our adventures continue and Thailand is next on the map! Can't wait
Lots of love from the Roses!
xxx