Our stay in Jamnagar was pretty chilled out. Well for my brothers and myself at least. Mum and Dad were shopping almost everyday lol. There isn't all that much to do in Jamnagar really, and to be honest we were happy to watch the Olympics all day! The time difference between India and China isn't too bad either, so we managed to watch quite a lot. Unsurprisingly, India coverage is a bit crappy. Numerous spelling mistakes, mediocre commentary and unusual choices of ad breaks; one of them meant we missed an entire penalty shootout :S
There were a couple of things we did do though. We went to the local fare, which I insisted we went to because I had some good memories of it from previous times I'd been to Jamnagar. The dodgy safety systems (or lack thereof) were still present, with the ferris wheel being particularly unnerving. The giant swinging boat was good fun. Neil and Nikhil were pretty scared so they sat on the opposite side to me and closer to the centre. But this turned out to be a bad decision as someone further up behind them ended up vomiting bucketloads. Thankfully most of the, er, fluids were blocked by others, but Neil wasn't completely lucky lol.
The best part was the 'Indian Daredevils' show. I have to admit, I was seriously sceptical of this. With a ridiculous name like that I really wasn't expecting much. But wow, these guys were mental. I'll get the video up asap, but basically they drove motorbikes and cars on a cyclindrical track...so they were practically horizontal, going round extremely fast, with zero protection. Amazing. And they were able to grab money from people dangling notes at the top. Seriously cool.
Other than that, we got suits tailored for ourselves and did some of the essential visits to relatives.
It rained most days. There were 2 days when it really poured down, leaving the streets a total mess. Mud, sludge and pools of water everywhere. Luckily it was dry on our last day when we went to the train station, and also dry when we reached Mumbai. All in all, we were pretty fortunate the entire 3 weeks as we missed the rain almost every time.
Monday 18 August 2008
Wednesday 6 August 2008
To Cochin and onwards
Sun 3 July: We have to endure 50km of windy roads, followed by some 'normal' Indian roads before we reached Cochin 3.5hrs later. We saw a couple of cool waterfalls along the way. The hotel, Riveria Suites, was reasonably good (but nothing compared to the two best ones we'd stayed in: Travancore Heritage and Backwater Ripples). We had a short tour of a few sights in the centre of Cochin. We went to Mattancherry Dutch Palace/Museum, which used to be Portugese before the Dutch raided it. (Following that, the British arrived and took over everything until Indepedence in 1947 lol). We also went to the coast (Arabian Sea) where we saw some Chinese fishing nets...they're huge! We stopped by a department store for mum/dad to look for some vases etc, but when we went in we realised it was basically Indian Harrods. It was SO expensive! Yes, even by English standards lol.
Mon 4 July: We went to the airport to catch our flight to Mumbai (I said a while back we were getting the train, I was wrong!). During the initial luggage scan, they made us open up one bag. The toy police car set of the scanner...but because there were batteries inside lol. Afterwards, we tried going through security to get to the gates. But this time mum wasn't allowed vases in her hand luggage. So we had to check in her bag as well. Turns out huge, brass vases could be used as weapons (actually they are pretty hefty lol). The inflight entertainment didnt work for neil or me...but we found out it ran on Linux. At first Bombay felt clean/civilised, but then we reached the area of our hotel. Same as it was 6 years ago. SO noisy, dirty and smelly. The place we were staying at was a community hostel-like building. But the rooms were falling apart. Really was a bit of a craphole. To give u an indication...we paid about GBP 1.50 per room for the night.
Tues 5 July: I had a surprisingly good sleep in the dodgy room. We took a trecherous journey to the train station (people were riding their bikes ACROSS the road in the OPPOSITE direction!). The train itself was reasonably good, and air condition. We set off at around 5.30pm.
Weds 6 July: I slept really well considering it was a train. It was only a few hours left before we arrived in Jamnagar at about 10.40am. My phone keeps switching off :( I dropped it from the bed whilst I was on the train so I've probably sped up its death. Seeing my family (mum's side) was really exciting. Feels like we don't really know them. It's really hot! Mosquitos have bitten me many times already lol. All the kids want me to dance with them for some crazy reason. I have so far resisted and will continue to do so lol. Updates may be thin from now, as I doubt I'll be doing much each day. I better go before I catch malaria!
Mon 4 July: We went to the airport to catch our flight to Mumbai (I said a while back we were getting the train, I was wrong!). During the initial luggage scan, they made us open up one bag. The toy police car set of the scanner...but because there were batteries inside lol. Afterwards, we tried going through security to get to the gates. But this time mum wasn't allowed vases in her hand luggage. So we had to check in her bag as well. Turns out huge, brass vases could be used as weapons (actually they are pretty hefty lol). The inflight entertainment didnt work for neil or me...but we found out it ran on Linux. At first Bombay felt clean/civilised, but then we reached the area of our hotel. Same as it was 6 years ago. SO noisy, dirty and smelly. The place we were staying at was a community hostel-like building. But the rooms were falling apart. Really was a bit of a craphole. To give u an indication...we paid about GBP 1.50 per room for the night.
Tues 5 July: I had a surprisingly good sleep in the dodgy room. We took a trecherous journey to the train station (people were riding their bikes ACROSS the road in the OPPOSITE direction!). The train itself was reasonably good, and air condition. We set off at around 5.30pm.
Weds 6 July: I slept really well considering it was a train. It was only a few hours left before we arrived in Jamnagar at about 10.40am. My phone keeps switching off :( I dropped it from the bed whilst I was on the train so I've probably sped up its death. Seeing my family (mum's side) was really exciting. Feels like we don't really know them. It's really hot! Mosquitos have bitten me many times already lol. All the kids want me to dance with them for some crazy reason. I have so far resisted and will continue to do so lol. Updates may be thin from now, as I doubt I'll be doing much each day. I better go before I catch malaria!
Saturday 2 August 2008
The last 5 days
Managed to get online again, so here's what we've been up to for the last five days:
Tues 29 July: Arrived in Kumarakom at a hotel called Backwater Ripples. Another slick hotel! This one had table tennis and a chess set (I was swiftly beaten by Nikhil in both lol. Neil beat me in table tennis too. I suck!). We watched 'The Departed' in our room but had to go for dinner just before it finished. Very cool movie, will definitely watch it again. We met a really nice family from Manchester with 3 kids aged 16, 11 and 9.
Weds 30 July: We went to a bird sanctuary at stupid o'clock, only to find out that it was a 2km walk, and due to the constant rain, was a trek thru wet mud. We were told we had to leave at 6.30 otherwise the birds fly away. After all that walking, we barely saw any anyway! lol admittedly it was an experience, and neil's took a sneaky video of me trying to make the walk back more interesting. Here's me praying he doesn't facebook it. In the afternoon we went on a boat cruise. We went passed a school and it was sooo cool seeing all the kids getting excited because we were holding cameras and waving at them lol. Hopefully we brightened up their day (it was, of course, raining!).
Thur 31 July: We stopped by a tea factory on our way to the next place. Unfortunately the processing was shut off for the day because it was the anniversary of someone's death. Still, it was pretty cool seeing all the machines and tea leaves. We also went to a spice plantation. My mum recognised almost all of the spices/plants lol. It poured down with rain again so it was a little frustrating, but the guide was well-equipped with umbrellas for all of us. Neil, mum and myself went up to a tree house. Nikhil and dad didn't, with dad suggesting it wasn't strong enough for the 5 of us. Er, yes. We got to Cardamom County hotel, in Thekkedy where we met up with the Manchester family again! The hotel food wasn't great (for us veges at least).
Fri 1 Aug: Mum bought a huge frame made of different coloured woods to decorate our living room back home. We had to have it shipped to the UK (weight was 10KG!), so fingers crossed it'll get there. Neil, Nikhil and myself went on a 30min elephant ride! We missed out on the elephant with tusks, but still it was awesome. The elephant didn't waste much time going for a number 1, which sounded more like a waterfall underneath us lol. Not long after, it went for a number 2, but the surprising part was our elephant guide moving the 'fresh product' to the side of the track with his feet. He was only wearing sandles :| The road to Hotel Tea Valley here in Munnar was extremely windy, but the view was strangely like some of New Zealand. Dinner was pretty good, but it was challenging to ignore the billions of flies, mosquitos, ants and other insects around our food, on the table and on the ceiling. Yep.
Sat 2 Aug: Had an extremely bad night's sleep. The bed I was given was basically made of wooden planks with a very thin 'matress' on top. It was SO uncomfortable! I complained this morning and got it sorted :D Breakfast was crap. It was basically warm bread. Anyway, we went to Madupetty Dam, followed by speed boating along the lake created by the dam. It wasn't very speedy unfortunately, but we did see a wild elephant. After that, we went to Echo view point, which was nothing special. We went to another dam, and then a tea factory/museum. This was very cool. We tasted some AMAZING tea (some of you, including my gf, will know how much I like my chai lol). We were shown a demonstration of the tea making from the tea leaves to the final product. Then we watched a documentary on the history of the plantation. Really interesting. Afterwards we bought some much needed fruit. Passion fruit is delicious! Can't remember the last time I had it, but wow :D
Tues 29 July: Arrived in Kumarakom at a hotel called Backwater Ripples. Another slick hotel! This one had table tennis and a chess set (I was swiftly beaten by Nikhil in both lol. Neil beat me in table tennis too. I suck!). We watched 'The Departed' in our room but had to go for dinner just before it finished. Very cool movie, will definitely watch it again. We met a really nice family from Manchester with 3 kids aged 16, 11 and 9.
Weds 30 July: We went to a bird sanctuary at stupid o'clock, only to find out that it was a 2km walk, and due to the constant rain, was a trek thru wet mud. We were told we had to leave at 6.30 otherwise the birds fly away. After all that walking, we barely saw any anyway! lol admittedly it was an experience, and neil's took a sneaky video of me trying to make the walk back more interesting. Here's me praying he doesn't facebook it. In the afternoon we went on a boat cruise. We went passed a school and it was sooo cool seeing all the kids getting excited because we were holding cameras and waving at them lol. Hopefully we brightened up their day (it was, of course, raining!).
Thur 31 July: We stopped by a tea factory on our way to the next place. Unfortunately the processing was shut off for the day because it was the anniversary of someone's death. Still, it was pretty cool seeing all the machines and tea leaves. We also went to a spice plantation. My mum recognised almost all of the spices/plants lol. It poured down with rain again so it was a little frustrating, but the guide was well-equipped with umbrellas for all of us. Neil, mum and myself went up to a tree house. Nikhil and dad didn't, with dad suggesting it wasn't strong enough for the 5 of us. Er, yes. We got to Cardamom County hotel, in Thekkedy where we met up with the Manchester family again! The hotel food wasn't great (for us veges at least).
Fri 1 Aug: Mum bought a huge frame made of different coloured woods to decorate our living room back home. We had to have it shipped to the UK (weight was 10KG!), so fingers crossed it'll get there. Neil, Nikhil and myself went on a 30min elephant ride! We missed out on the elephant with tusks, but still it was awesome. The elephant didn't waste much time going for a number 1, which sounded more like a waterfall underneath us lol. Not long after, it went for a number 2, but the surprising part was our elephant guide moving the 'fresh product' to the side of the track with his feet. He was only wearing sandles :| The road to Hotel Tea Valley here in Munnar was extremely windy, but the view was strangely like some of New Zealand. Dinner was pretty good, but it was challenging to ignore the billions of flies, mosquitos, ants and other insects around our food, on the table and on the ceiling. Yep.
Sat 2 Aug: Had an extremely bad night's sleep. The bed I was given was basically made of wooden planks with a very thin 'matress' on top. It was SO uncomfortable! I complained this morning and got it sorted :D Breakfast was crap. It was basically warm bread. Anyway, we went to Madupetty Dam, followed by speed boating along the lake created by the dam. It wasn't very speedy unfortunately, but we did see a wild elephant. After that, we went to Echo view point, which was nothing special. We went to another dam, and then a tea factory/museum. This was very cool. We tasted some AMAZING tea (some of you, including my gf, will know how much I like my chai lol). We were shown a demonstration of the tea making from the tea leaves to the final product. Then we watched a documentary on the history of the plantation. Really interesting. Afterwards we bought some much needed fruit. Passion fruit is delicious! Can't remember the last time I had it, but wow :D
Rain
Haven't had much time/internet access to update the blog, but I've been writing everything in a notebook so I'll update it properly as soon as I can.
Just thought I'd write this post to say that it's rained every day we've been here except the day we arrived in India. And by rain i mean pissed down!
Just thought I'd write this post to say that it's rained every day we've been here except the day we arrived in India. And by rain i mean pissed down!
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