Unawatuna

We are in the tiny beach town of Unawatuna on the Southwest coast of  Sri Lanka. The name sounds like something out of the Lion King, I know, but I promise I haven't made it up. We have spent the past two nights in the cheapest room we've had since we've been away. It was 4 pounds per night. It was also boiling hot and full of mosquitoes. I have more mosquito bites than skin now, which is delightful and not at all unattractive. This morning we upgraded to a slightly nicer guesthouse full of luxuries like AC and loo roll. It is 11.40am here and I am already looking forward to bedtime.

We spent yesterday lying on the beach and plan to do the same today. I have made friends with the woman who sells dresses so she is going to bring a selection to my sun lounger this afternoon. Life doesn't get much better than shopping in the sunshine.

Having said that, I did almost drown yesterday. Well, slight exaggeration, but I had a water-based incident. Joe and I could see the beach - the whole town in on the beach basically - but we couldn't figure out where the path to the most sandy part was. In our infinite wisdom we decided we didn't need a path because we could walk through the sea. The water was quite shallow and we were making good progress until we had to pass a load of rocks. The waves were much stronger than I anticipated and I ended up getting knocked over, twice, and soaking the contents of my handbag. Joe marched on ahead, ignoring my cries for help, until he'd got himself safely to dry land. It is reassuring to know that in a crisis he looks out for number one. I almost had to get rescued by an Australian man in a thong. Degro.

My primary activity since arriving in Sri Lanka, other than playing with baby turtles, has been eating shellfish. Over the past five days I have eaten three crabs, half a lobster and a plate of enormous prawns. I am expecting to sprout pincers any minute now. Does anyone know about the nutritional value of crustaceans? Is it wise to eat only grilled crabs?

The joy of private beaches

Hello from Sri Lanka.

We arrived at about 4.30am on Saturday morning after what felt like three years of travelling. Flying in the middle of the night is not the dream. Nor is driving through the Mumbai slums with a dodgy driver and a boot that doesn't lock. But that's another story.

We have spent the past two nights staying in a pretty little guesthouse in Mount Lavinia, which is a kind of resort town just outside of Colombo. The proprietor used to live in Tooting. How random. Anyway, on our first day here we asked a few people for directions to the beach and ended up inside a very posh hotel. After further investigations  we realised that the hotel owns a stretch of the beach and that's where we were headed. It was so beautiful, proper picture-postcard beautiful, and we didn't really want to tell anyone that we weren't staying in the hotel so we just had lunch and kept quiet.

The next day we went to the public beach, trying to be good global citizens. You had to cross the railway track to get there - I thought this was terrifying, Joe thought I was being ridiculous so I acquiesced - and when we did arrive the beach was horrible and covered in litter. So we went back to the hotel beach. This time we paid to be beach guests and so climbed on our sun loungers with a pina colada in one hand and a strong sense of civic pride in the other. The guest tickets we bought allowed us to use the swimming pool as well as the beach and of course we wanted to get our money's worth, so we trooped off to the pool when it got too hot. It wasn't exactly what we had in mind though. The pool was on the roof of the hotel, surrounded by the restaurant, with an easy-listening band blasting out soft jazz classics in the corner. Everyone was fat and European. A child threw a ball at my head while I was swimming, which Joe thought was bloody hilarious, and I thought signalled time to leave the hotel.

We are leaving Mount Lavinia today for Bentota where there is a turtle sanctuary. Apparently you can release the baby turtles into the sea if you go at the right time of day. We are v excited. Joe has even agreed not to eat a turtle omelette (something of a local specialty.)

First impressions of Sri Lanka - beautiful, hot, and much cleaner and quieter than India.

I feel like I have given India a bit of a bad press since I've been writing this blog but I defy anyone to spend six weeks there and not get pissed off. It is an incredible country but has some serious problems - the infrastructure is crumbling, the poverty is endemic, and the population is growing faster than the place can cope with. It is loud, in-your-face, and it often smells of sewage. That being said, it was probably one of the richest experiences I have ever had and I will always be glad we went.

So there.

I'm off to pack my enormous rucksack now but I will write again soon - hopefully with tales of saving wildlife

x

Cinema Paradiso

I am trying to write this while an old man in a turban beams at me in a creepy fashion. It is quite distracting. I hope he can't read through the back of the computer but I wish he would go away. Oh, he's staring at Joe now. Phew.

Yesterday we visited the Fun Cinema complex to watch Kung Fu Panda 2. There wasn't a large selection of films (so don't judge us); the panda, something about a lantern, or all sorts of things in Hindi. After some truly dreadful "American diner-style" food, we settled into our enormous reclining seats and waited for the action to unfold. But first we all had to stand up while the national anthem played. Can you imagine doing that in England? Everyone dutifully got to their feet and watched a short video of the Indian army cavorting in the snow while panpipes played the anthem. It was quite a spectacle. Once the film started we were looking forward to a few hours of undisturbed viewing pleasure but hadn't factored in the Indian love of mobile phones. People were actually taking calls and talking during the film. It was hilarious. Or at least, it was a bit hilarious but also quite annoying.

The breaking news is that we are now flying home one week earlier than planned, on the 12th August. So please ensure you have unpacked the bunting, slaughtered the fatted calves and bought the welcome home presents by then.We have had a massive gas bill and need to release some equity from our trip, like on those adverts. In our new flat, if we ever get a new flat, we are going to only wash in cold water, eat raw food, and wear duvet ponchos in the winter. And maybe invest in double glazing.

Joe and I are off for a beer now so we can discuss the new Chelsea manager (I think he is missing male company), but I will write when we arrive in Sri Lanka. Or probably not when we arrive because it'll be 4am, but shortly after getting to Colombo anyway. 

India's biggest celebs

We arrived in Chandigarh on Friday. It is an odd place - very modern and not particularly picturesque - but more comfortable than a lot of the places we have visited. It was designed to sustain a low population density and has lots of mod cons like pavements. We are relishing being able to walk down the street without serious risk of being run over.

We have found a lovely bar called Slippers (actually, Sippers, but artistic licence and semi-dyslexia led me to believe otherwise.) It is part of a very posh hotel but they kindly allow us to drink there, despite our tramp-like appearance,  in the vain hope that one day we might order more than cheap Indian lager. They will be waiting a long time.

This morning we visited the rock garden in Chandigarh, which is apparently India's most visited tourist attraction. It was designed and built by a man who was involved in building roads, post partition, and wanted to recycle the waste products caused by all the construction. The result is part amusement park, part public gardens. Everything is made from rubbish - broken crockery, old sockets, bricks, scrap metal, and even unwanted jewellery. It is one of the most bizarre things I have seen in India, and that's saying something.

Unfortunately the experience was spoilt rather by being papped by every bastard with a camera phone. It baffles me how Indian people can be so interested in Westerners when they watch American TV, listen to British and American bands, wear Western clothing, but still they seem to go a bit mad when they see white people. Needless to say, I did a lot of glaring. Hopefully they will be too frightened to look at the photos again. Ha.

Shimla: the Benidorm of the hill stations

Yesterday we left McLeod Ganj and spent seven stomach-churning hours in the car travelling to Shimla. The driver actually had to leave the vehicle to throw up at one point. Nice. We arrived at about 6pm and discovered that most of Shimla is pedestrianised and is also on the world's steepest hill so we were unceremoniously thrown out of the car with the rucksacks to hike our way to civilisation. The Lonely Planet lists the hotel we wanted to stay in in the wrong place (have since checked online and it really is the LP's fault and not our poor map-reading), so we were marching around fruitlessly for hours, getting harrassed by touts and sweating all over the place.

Eventually we decided we were going to have to stay somewhere else so started asking each place we saw if they had a room. Nowhere had vacancies and everywhere was ridiculously expensive. We ended up in a hotel at the bottom of about four hundred steps where we found a mouse in our room. I kid you not. We then had to move room, I had to get them to change the bed three times ("no, I want CLEAN bedding, this is NOT CLEAN"), and we were woken up several times by the world's rowdiest neighbours.

Shimla is a bizarre place. It's a cross between a hill station, a run down English high street, and Benidorm. It has some beautiful buildings and views but feels really touristy, and not in a good way. It is absolutely packed with Indian people on holiday who like to spend their days promenading in the rain, eating candyfloss and bashing into each other. We were going to spend five days here but have decided to move on tomorrow to Chandigarh for the final week in India. In the meantime we will be watching lots of straight-to-TV films in our (hopefully) rodent-free room.

The films are quite heavily edited to remove any swearing or love scenes. Whoever is in charge of programming seems to think it is totally fine to play the world's most violent films at 9am, but that the nation would be corrupted by seeing people kissing. So weird, but what do you expect from a country where you are forbidden to smoke on the street but are allowed to have a bath on the main road?

Last day of antibiotics

And my goodness, I am excited. For the past five days I haven't been able to have anything made with milk or cheese, anything spicy or oily, mangoes, papayas or watermelon, any of the usual stuff like salad, any fizzy drinks or alcohol. My staple diet has been bananas and I have been a bit worried about the likelihood of an altercation with a rogue monkey.

We have decided to stay in McLeod Ganj until Wednesday with Ram the hotel manager/pharmacist, and then we are heading to Shimla. Via car. Score. We are planning to spend the next few days doing a bit of souvenir shopping, maybe doing a cookery course, and hopefully doing at least one day of the volunteering we found out about. Also hopefully learning a new card game because we only know one and it's getting a bit tiresome. Particularly with Joe singing "The Ace of Spades" and "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" over the top.

Shimla is another hill station so should be nice and cool still. It is the place where the Raj government retreated to in the summer so we are expecting lots of faded opulence and tea with milk. There is also a bird sanctuary full of exotic pheasants. Random. From Shimla we go on to Chandigargh. Chandigargh is a modern city built to be the capital of the Punjab when Lahore ended up in Pakistan. Apparently the architecture is crazy and it's full of trees and interesting things to see.

From Chandigargh I think we are going to fly to Mumbai for our flight to Colombo which is a week on Friday. I feel like we have been in India for about three years so it is quite novel to be thinking about going to another country. We are also working out routes and plans for the rest of the trip while we're here. Well, I say we are working this stuff out, but really I mean Joe is working this stuff out and I am typing nonsense.

Our new date for returning in the UK is the 19th August. So we have just under two weeks left in India, two weeks in Sri Lanka, half a week in Bangkok, half a week in Bali (stupid stupid STA) then five weeks in the states. Exciting!

Keep your fingers crossed that we don't have to seek any further medical attention!

Hospital visits

Well, my upset stomach continued to get worse and after a consultation with the hotel manager/pharmacist, we decided to go to hospital to have an IV drip. This was pretty much my worst nightmare about going away but actually the hospital and the staff were great. More insects than you'd get in England and no privacy but other than that all good.

They prescribed me new medicines, which seem to be working, and once the drip was finished I went home. This was Tuesday.

Yesterday, after spending most of the day in bed, we ventured out for a (soft) drink. While we were sitting down my neck started to feel really stiff and strange and as we walked home my throat seemed to be closing up. Back to hospital we went. Turned out it was anaphylactic shock. God knows what had caused it. It was terrifying though. The doctors treated it with steroid and antihistamine jabs and I got to go home last night. I had to go in for blood tests this morning but nothing untoward showed up.

Feeling much better now but pretty freaked out and wishing I was in England.

Miss you all

X

Ou est le Dalai Lama?

We are in McLeod Ganj, aka Upper Dharamsala, which is where he lives. No sign of him yet although he is on TV a lot speaking in Tibetan about stuff. According to his website he goes to Australia on Saturday so I really need to find him soon. Apparently if you give him a white scarf he will bless it and give it back to you. Unfortunately I don't have a white scarf so I'll have to give him my new big gay travelling trousers. All I seem to do in India is buy trousers. These ones make me look like I have one extremely fat leg with trotters poking out of the bottom, which is nice. Photos coming soon.

I have been ill for, well, I can't really remember not being ill these days. Thank heavens for being able to buy antibiotics over the counter for a pound. Although maybe they are actually not antibiotics because they don't seem to have had any effect. I am trying to focus on the potential weight loss implications - there are no scales here so I've decided that I probably weigh eight stone (shh.)

You may recall that Joe and I wanted to do some volunteering while we're here and we've found the perfect thing. Taking children to the park for three hours a day. I mean, how hard can it be? Joe says I will struggle because the only games I know are drinking games but I am confident in my abilities. I have learned a lot since I gave a baby a coat hanger to play with.

It is seriously beautiful here and doesn't really feel like India at all. There are Buddhist monks and nuns all over the place and prayer flags everywhere. Our room has an incredible view of the mountains only marred slightly by the building site below. Indians seem to have a very relaxed attitude to health and safety so the guys working on the site wear flipflops and don't have hats. C'est tres dangereux.

Tomorrow, we are going to look at the Dalai Lama's house. Hopefully he will be in there so I can burst in and surprise him. If not I suppose I will be boarding the next plane to Australia. Wish me luck...

Joe's guest blog - tales from the Punjab

Kate has kindly let me take over the blog for this entry as it is about our visit to the Punjab.  The land of the Sikhs.  As many of you will know, I am a big fan of our turban wearing friends and so was particularly looking forward to this part of the trip!

We were due to fly from Delhi to Amritsar at 5:00AM.  So we dutifully arrived at 3.30 to check in at the airport.  Of course, with this being India the flight didn't leave until 10.00.  So I decided that I would use the time to discover more about Sikhism from one of the scores of Sikhs that were also delayed.  Arvinder Singh was the lucky oracle of information I chose to learn from.  Here is a brief extract from our exchanges-

AS- India cannot manage itself.  Look at this flight.  We cannot do it.  We do not deserve democracy.  We do not take the responsibility seriously enough.

JB- OK, but what do you think would be better?

AS- A good dictator.......... like Hitler.

So my attempts to be culturally aware were quickly smashed into a fascist brick wall.

We eventually arrived in Amritsar.  Home of the Golden Temple.  It is to Sikhs what Mecca is to Muslims (although Kate the 'theologian' thought it was a Hindu temple).  I presume (as I imagined the same) that a site of such sacred stature conjures up images of quiet meditation and serenity.  

Well you are wrong. So very wrong.  The Golden Temple is a free for all.  Indians aren't great at queuing at the best of times but the dining hall (where, in fairness, anyone can eat for free) and the temple itself are Hillsborough style disasters waiting to happen.  Indeed, I am sure that much like football, it will take such an accident for the authorities to take the problem seriously and clamp down on the hooligan element (which in the case of the Sikhs seems to consist mainly of five foot elderly ladies).

Many of you will know of the Golden Temple from the controversial 'Operation Blue Star' when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered the army to storm the Temple to flush out Sikh separatists.  An action that ultimately led to her being gunned down by her own Sikh bodyguards (she didn't seem to think that one through).  It is however, a spectacular place to visit and well worth a trip (I should take a moment to mention Kate didn't enjoy the accommodation dormitory for pilgrims and visitors.  A hotel is advisable unless you like sharing with strange Australians who make friends with the spear wielding Sikh security staff by referring to the sacred pool surrounding their holy Temple as 'that huge pond')

The other activity of note near Amritsar is the daily ceremony that occurs for the closing of the India-Pakistan border crossing.  It takes a while to get to the border and security is understandably tight. As with everywhere in India, we were separated into male and female lines for being searched.  This made me worried about losing Kate in the large crowd.  However, being a good seven inches taller than the average Indian you see her angry head being pushed around by the tiny grannies and take comfort in the fact she is safe and never likely to be lost. 

The ceremony itself is hilarious.  Think grandstands of chanting Indians and Pakistanis with flags and easily excited comperes to get them going, two nuclear military powers that hate and hate nothing more than losing face in front of the other, a shouting competition between two sergeant majors and goose stepping straight out of Python's ministry of silly walks and you get some idea of what it's like.  I wanted to get involved with the rivalry and patriotism and start some chants I thought the Indian's would take to.  'It's all gone quiet in Pakistan' was a non-starter and Kate barred me from my other two chants of 'You're Shi'ite and you know you are' and for the female contingent of the Pakistani crowd 'get your face out for the lads!'  (Kate described both as crude, brash and culturally insensitive'.  Can't think why?).  So alas, I had little effect on the boring if loud chants from the Indian side!

Anyway we are now in the peace and cool of McLeod Ganj in Himachal Pradesh.  I feel like a member of the East India company retreating to a hill station to get away from the heat and all those who tried to crush us in the Punjab.  I will let Kate amuse you with the details of out trip here and what we get up to.

Thanks for reading!

(the below YouTube clip gives you a taste of the border ceremony)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6l1CHTpt30