Malaysia & Singapore

Sorry for the lack of updates, as we have gotten further away we have not had access to the technology we take for granted at home and in all honesty we don’t miss it at all. We are currently in a tropical storm in the most picturesque of bungalows on an island called Gili Air, just west of Lombok. Gili Air does not have a great deal of internet connectivity, neither does it have television, ATM’s, banks, a police force, cars or any other form of motorised transport. Instead it has palm trees, clear turquoise sea, young guys playing acoustic tunes on their guitars and a great deal of fresh fish. The only thing it doesn’t have right now is the sun and the only thing I wish it didn’t have are mosquitoes. It still gets to around 35 degrees in the afternoons here, which if reports are accurate is around 45 degrees hotter than where you are right now. On that note, I hope they haven’t closed the schools due to the weather, a child’s education is paramount and lazy teachers having a ‘lie-in,’ is a waste of honest taxpayers money.
But I digress, where have we been and what have we been up to? Well since our last post my Mum, Chairman and his tapeworm flew back to London and we stayed with our Goan friend Joe for a week finishing the painting job on his beach shack that Alex and my mum had started. As you can see it is a mermaid, top half lady bottom half fish (highly impractical).

On our last night we went for a meal with Joe who then invited us back to his shack where we spent the late night and early hours drinking Kingfisher and Old Monk, listening to the sea, reminiscing and putting the world to rights before burning our arms on the oil lamps and biking it back to the accommodation Joe sorted for us. Thanks for an awesome night Joe! From there we had a short stop in Mumbai during which I had intended to visit the same school as my lovely head teacher, Mrs. Wood, but stupidly I had not realised that our dates coincided with Diwali and the school was empty.
We left Mumbai for Singapore, which reminded me of a song Pete sung for us on our wedding bus, I can’t remember all the words but the end of the chorus definitely rhymed with ‘pore’. Although we only spent three days in Singapore, we both felt it was a place we will visit again. Mindblowingly modern with an alarmingly large number of young people and lashings of style. Alex accurately described it as ‘like living in an ipod’. The food was out of this world; pigs trotter in vinegar was my favourite although I was not allowed to try the turtle soup. It seemed as if Singapore was not trying to imitate the West but rather, aiming to better it. Reluctantly we left Singapore for Malaysia. We were slightly gutted as we had intended to go to the Perhentian islands off the East coast but flooding meant this was not possible. Instead we took the most luxurious of coaches up to Malaka on the west coast of Malaysia. It’s not often that I have excess room in my seat when on a coach, but this thing was immense and each seat came with a massage function (but unfortunately no happy ending feature).

Our guesthouse in Malaka was absolutely lovely with incredible free fresh coffee. We chatted with the owners and their friends, a French guy named Coco and his wife who had both travelled the world making short, informative educational programmes for Chinese schools. We were made to feel really welcome and given loads of tips about Sumatra by Coco, the really friendly French guy (maybe French really is worthwhile Debbo). Seeing as my Berghaus bag had broken already we decided to stay in Malaka for an extra day while we took it to be sent back to England, this also allowed Alex to extend her 100% record of post offices visited in each country. After our post office trip, a visit to the local pool and my required haircut, carried out by a local barber between cigarettes, we did what any decent Brit would do. We saw a queue and we joined it. As we neared the front we saw a collection of metal tables each with a hollow in the middle into which was placed hot, steaming satay sauce. We saw locals piling great skewers of raw meat, fish and occasionally vegetables into them. We were slightly unsure of what to do but luckily two local people beckoned us to join them. We chatted in between king prawns and found they were from our next destination, KL, and they insisted that we ring them on our arrival so they could show us the real KL.

Although we were told that KL was a shoppers paradise we were not that impressed, in fact neither of us were sold on the city, with the exception of the Petronas Towers which as much as it ethically pains me to say, were awesome and the indoor theme park inside a shopping mall. However, our impression of KL was to improve greatly when we spoke to our friends from Melaka, Angelique and Swee-Boon. They went out of their way to provide us with one of the most memorable nights of our trip so far. They picked us up from our hostel and drove us to the coast, over two hours away to a seafood restaurant owned by their friend. The fresh juices were great, the King prawns were huge and the crabs were fresher than Janet’s. We were really made to feel at home and had eaten our fill... or so we thought. After the two hour drive back, they insisted on stopping off at a fruit stall where they bought us a selection of traditional fruit and showed us how to peel and eat it. We especially liked a red hairy fruit called a rambutan and a smaller round one called a ducu and our friends showed us some tricks to opening them that were unknown to us. The last one we tried was a prickly melon shaped fruit, known in Indonesia as the ‘King of Fruits’... the Durian. It is known for its pungent smell, so much so that it is banned from all public transport and not allowed in airports. Some people like it so much that they become addicted to it and it is considered a delicacy. It is safe to say that we are not some of those people; the smell was repugnant, the texture was like biting into slightly hardened brain and the taste was initially of off cream and it got worse from there.

As if the hospitality Angelique and Boon had shown us was not enough, they insisted on taking us out for lunch before we left for the bus station the following day and we were treated to more delicious – and weird – food, including ice cream with sweetcorn and kidney beans in it! (Apparently invented after parents’ attempts to coax their children to eat fresh veg). Throughout the whole time they would not let us pay for anything and their intelligent, humorous and interesting conversation made them perfect company. Thank you both for making our time in KL so enjoyable.

From KL we began an epic journey to the island of Langkawi, off the West coast of Malaysia. We began by monorail, then a short taxi ride to the station. Although we’d been told that we’d have no trouble getting direct night-bus tickets, our hostel owner ‘Suzie’ had not reckoned on every Langkawian in KL wanting to get back home for the largest Muslim festival of the year, ‘Hariraya’. All buses were full. Luckily another bus had been put on that only left in 3 hours time and went within about half an hour of another ferry port that also serviced Langkawi. The bus was really comfortable and other than the night bus driver’s seemingly never ending love for bass heavy trance music, the journey was good. We arrived at ‘Alor Setar’ at 4.30am, a little early for the bus to the ferry port and the ferry, which did not leave until 8am. Luckily we met a really nice guy on the bus going home to Langkawi for Hariraya, who looked after us well and we even took the same ferry across. After an hour-long minibus ride to the part of Langkawi we wanted to go to and a 45 minute walk in the searing heat we could finally relax. It has to be said, on first impressions, regardless of the 20-hour trip to get there, Langkawi was stunning.
We decided to rent a car as at £5 a day it was within our budget, even though we had to fill the tank (£8). This enabled us to travel round to some of the most amazing waterfalls we had ever seen, including one with a natural water-slide. It wasn’t advertised but I was invited by a couple of locals to slide down some rocks, promised it was safe so thought why not. A risk worth taking, it was awesome.


Next-door to us were two Dutch girls, (a great opening, but a pretty timid ending) one was a teacher and we went out for drinks and dinner. The steak was so good that we decided to stay in Langkawi an extra night so that we could have it again. They are in the top two steaks I have ever eaten.

After we had rested and recharged we took a plane to Penang, stayed one night, ate at a brilliant food market (I just don’t get why these do not exist in the U.K.) then a further flight to Bukit Lawang in Sumatra, ready and rested for some full-on adventures.

Fantastic Four in Rajasthan

I thought it was high time that I (Alex) submitted something to our Blog. Considering I like writing stories the expectation level may be fairly high for the writing quality, but I really can't outmatch Andy's humour so I won't try, and will simply keep to the unadorned facts. Fortunately in India even plain facts are pretty unbelieveable.

After arriving safely in Delhi from Kathmandu and meeting successfully with our friend Chairman and Andy's mum Barbara who had just arrived from the UK, we met our driver, aptly named Raj, and departed straight away for the first stop on our Indian odyssey throughout Rajasthan - a town called Mandawa. Andy and I swiftly had to change our views on things like hotels, tips and meals from those of (we felt) pretty intrepid travellers, to rather privileged tourists, as we arrived at our haveli (read: mansion) in Mandawa and were shown our bedroom - sorry, suite - painted from top to bottom with ancient frescos, a bathroom bigger than our living room at home and an extra room which we couldn't work out the use for, but was something between a dressing room and an art gallery. It was, quite simply, stunning. We had decided to stay in Mandawa to see the famous frescos, but throughout our two days there didn't see one building as beautiful as our hotel. Unfortunately the downside of staying in a living museum is being treated as a first class tourist. The local attitude in Mandawa seemed to be '5 rupees a smile' as almost without exception people expected a tip after any sort of kindness or service. Fresh from Delhi, with wads of notes bulging from our pockets, I guess it was to be expected, but it was still quite a shock to the system. However, the lovely hotel did us proud and Barbara I am delighted to say celebrated her birthday milestone in style.

From Mandawa we journeyed a hefty 5 hours to Bikaner, getting nearer to the Thar desert. By now we had started to acclimatise to the high-30s heat, bovine road blocks (which Barbara never fails to find hilarious), and the odd dead dog lying beside the tarmac, legs in the air. The ground turned from grey to red dust, and beyond the road all we could see was flat scrubland with the occasional rocky outcrop. This might be toursit-ville, but it felt like the wild west. Towns in this part of Rajasthan seem to earn their identity by colour, and Bikaner's was red. The crimson fort which decorates the centre of the town was beautiful.

Throne room at Bikaner fort:

However, the real highlight was visiting the camel breeding farm, the only one in India. You see these wonderfully proud, dignified creatures everywhere you go in this part of India. They're used for riding, load carrying, racing and even beauty pageants (we were lucky enough to meet Mr Bikaner 2010!). After a tour round the farm, during which the guide delightedly showed us a display of an unborn camel foetus - which Chairman was admirably sensitive about...

we had a very short ride on two Bikaneri camels. Barbara displayed the altheticism and bravery of a woman at least half her age. It was a proud moment.
Afterwards we had a quick refreshment at the camel farm cafe. Camel milk, anyone?
Just before we went back to our hotel that same evening, we just had time to visit the famous rat temple a few km away. None of us had read that much about the temple, save that rats were offered sanctuary there. So, we thought we may see one or two lurking around which the locals had placed there for the benefit of the tourists. Er, no. There were about a million of them. And they had no fear of humans. And it was the evening, which meant there was rat poo everywhere. Mum - look away right now, as this next bit will scar you for life...

So, after possibly the oddest wildlife experience of our lives we left rather hurriedly for Jaisalmer, the Golden City, a little daunted at what this new town may have in store for us. But - in the unpredictable way that India has - it surprised us by being absolutely charming, without a rat in sight. It truly is a golden city - not one building stands that is not finely crafted from rich yellow sandstone, surrounded by the mighty Thar desert. It's the last frontier town between India and the now impregnable border with Pakistan, and as such relies heavily on tourism, yet has still retained a charm and picturesque beauty that clenches your heart. We spent long evenings on the roof of our lovely hotel, sipping drinks under the desert night sky, with the city twinkling around and below us like a movie set. We also found the people here much more friendly, and our hotel hosts were fantastically generous. We felt we had properly - at last - found the real, magical side of India. We had arrived.

Our wonderful sandstone hotel in Jaisalmer:

Jaisalmer Fort, the only 'living' fort in India:

Our new-found enthusiasm was a little dented the following day as we took part in the compulsory camel ride to the sand dunes, before we left Jaisalmer. The camels were cross, the guides were tourist-weary and the dunes were heaving with tourists, scurrying in the sand like ants, trying to take photos of the 'authentic desert landscape' (which unfortunately was a little marred by a white peugoet 106 which some joker had no doubt purposely planted exactly in the middle of the scene between the dunes and the sunset.) Luckily I did manage to capture one decent snap:

I have never had a more touristy tourist experience. Not because of the camel ride or the orchestrated set - but because of the other tourists. They were almost all Indian and had erupted from a series of coaches further down the dunes. We four seperated ourselves and found a quiet patch of sand a few hundred metres away from the mass, only to suddenly and without warning find ourselves the objects of the Indian tourists' attentions - stuff the sunset. Lenses were poking right at us, we were snapped from different angles and heights. Why? we asked ourselves. We still don't know the answer to this. I can only assume that somewhere in India is a museum with something like the ape-to-human evolutionary diagram on it, but based on us instead ("see the British? They arrived here powerful and proud, with their trilby safari hats, ivory walking canes and gleaming Ford motor cars. See them today, with their cheap chinese manufactured clothing, japanese cameras and vulgar american-style baseball caps. Who has been conquered now? Mwah ha ha ha ha).

As if to add insult to injury, yesterday we arrived in Jodhpur (if you didn't guess, it's where the riding trousers are named after), only to arrive at a perfectly collonial villa, complete with photos of past polo players in full regalia. However, I'm happy to report that Jodhpur is very much a working city, full of craftsmen and marketfolk going about their business, fully restored to India-ness, with a simply magnificent fort to top it off. Oh, and this is the 'Blue City'.

Jodhpur fort:The Blue City:

So it's tallyho as we move on for Udaipur, the 'White City'. I hope everyone at home is well (we heard today that you're enjoying an Indian summer, oh the irony).

Love Alex xxx

Trekking is the new walking

None more than me will be surprised to discover that I actually enjoy walking. Sandra and Ian and Mrs. Flanders you may have had a point all along. The fact we were trekking through the Himalaya up steep inclines, across rice fields, waterfalls and with mountain views may have added to the experience but, strangely I was getting up for breakfast (carbohydrate based) each morning, enthusiastically wanting to walk six hours, and there wasn't even a pub with a pool table at the end.

When our guide, Chandra, a lovely, intelligent and cricket mad (how lucky was that) fella informed us that we would eventually have to be careful of altitude sickness as we were trekking to a height of 4200 metres I realised that some of this walking would be uphill.

We set off on day one in the 30 degree heat confident that we'd missed the monsoon and that we would be strolling along the 'sound of music-esque' low lands for an easy first day. After walking up the four thousand steps to Ulleri my opinion changed and despite the help of my camel-back (a life-saving water carrying gift from my favourite geek, Zac, not a genetic disorder) my opinon changed.

At our first stop in Hille we thought the accommodation was a little basic, the rooms fit two beds, four hooks plus a door and were constructed from thin ply-wood like those used on banana box crates. The toilet was outside, down the corridor and a hole, not a metaphoric hole, just a hole. However, we were to discover in due course that this was in fact luxury.

As we awoke bright and early on day two, feeling surprisingly good, the clouds began to rumble and the rain fell - in fact it kept falling for the next 12 days. Our Nepalese guide did not like the rain but was impressed with our British, it's only a bit of rain, nevermind attitude. We found that it was not only us that did not mind the rain, the leeches or (Zucha) were also rather fond of it and decided to come out and play. Let us quickly dispel some myths about these bloodsucking creatures. Firstly, they can jump and are able to wiggle into the tiny holes in trekking shoes. Secondly, they can eat through socks, even thick hiking ones, and lastly they display great intelligence in judiciously deciding who to attack, such that while on one day one specific person is the main victim, on the next day it is someone else's turn. There is bitterness in the above words spoken by Alex as she was on regular occasions the victim that she speaks of. Never-the-less, through the jungle we bravely marched, trekking poles in both hands, leech oil on our shoes and armed with salt pouches to kill the little buggers when they crept onto our shoes and up-onto our socks. I say bravely, actually at one point we all stopped and started doing that sort of dance you see in Wild West films when the gun slinger is shooting at a cowboy's feet, whilst simultaneously making girly screaming noises of 'ah ah, they're on me, they're on me'.

Eventually we arrived at Gorepani, ready for the 4am ascent to Poon Hill. We were fortunate that this was an excellent tea house and we were able to dry our clothes as they had a fire, also our room had an attached toilet, this was the only time we had this luxury on our trek and as such made it the 5* equivalent of Himalayan tea houses.

Above is a picture of us with our two wonderful guides up at Poon Hill, one of the famous viewpoints for seeing the Annapurna range of mountains. Our guides' names were Chandra and Dawa, which mean Moon and Sun respectively. This was fairly apt as we had to leave for Poon Hill while the moon was still up and arrived in time for the sunrise. It was a strange feeling walking at this time of day without golf clubs. The walk was hard but the views were incedible, we were able to see Machapucchare 'Fishtail' mountain and three of the Annapurna mountains, some of the highest in the world. Upon our arrival back at Gorepani we were aware that the morning's 2 hour trek was a mere apperitif for the day and that after breakfast the traditional 5 hour walk would resume, and so again with poles and salt in hand off we ventured.

We won't bore you with all the details of the next 10 days trekking, suffice to say that every day featured rain, leeches and tea houses of an increasingly basic level until the point that our standards had changed and we looked for the following in a 'good' tea house.
1) A roof, cement if possible, and if we were really lucky one that attached to the walls thus separating it from adjoining rooms.
2) Sheets without insects, holes or bloodstains (rare).
3) A light - always no more than a bulb, never less than a candle, sometimes back to the good old head torch.
4) A clean bucket. After a days trekking in the rain we would invariably ask the brilliant Chandra, if a shower was available. Ten minutes later a bucket half-filled with scalding water would be delivered to the toilet, which we would then have to mix with cold to get to the right temperature. We would then cast about for an implement to use in order to pour said water over ourselves. Often we discovered a handy little pourer in the room which we thought was very thoughtful of the tea-house to provide. Until we discovered that this was also the device used to wash hands after going to the toilet and flushing the loo. After this we used our tea cups, (sometimes).

Now the food... Those who know me, know I like meat, in fact I love meat, and see vegetarianism as a clear weakness. So to enter into a two week trip where there was only carbohydrate, was, it had to be said, a little disconcerting. In fact in all of our 150 mile+ walking expedition there were two menu based oddities that I had never come across before, let me explain. As we trekked from place to place, village to village, each tea house we stayed at had their menu regulated by the mountains tourist assosciation meaning that they were all virtually identical. The first odditiy was that everything and I mean EVERYTHING on every menu was largely carbohydrate based with very occasional protein in the form of a can of tuna or perhaps an egg. The second oddity was that we'd never been anywhere where inflation was literal i.e. the higher we got, the more expensive the same dishes became.

Finally after days of trekking we reached Annapurna Base Camp, still slightly in shock after crossing the bridge of death that leaned with you inviting you to bathe in the rapids below. Strangely there was no 'danger' sign anywhere, so it must have been safe.

Not that one........

This one!

As we approached the base camp, Alex had tears running down her face that were a mixture of relief, joy and sheer effort for overcoming her battle with the altitude, we'd made it!

From here it was like an Escher painting as although we were going down hill, we still ended up walking up hill. On the way back we stopped at some incredible hot springs (you'd have loved it Clare) next to a jungle river, it was much needed relaxation and we stayed for an extra day (and a chance for Alex to get her washing done).

We decided to cut our penultimate day a little short as the rain was sheeting and our lunch spot had a fire for us to dry our clothes, the first since Gorepani. As we were using the restaurant as a one stop drying shop, the unthinkable happened. We received the menu but there was a new section, unlike any we'd seen for the last two weeks, it said 'special items' and never was a truer word spoken, when on the page it read 'Sukuti' which is 'dried bufalo meat marinated in chilli'. It was a cross between biltong and pork scratchings and hit the spot. Buffalo is the way forward!

We woke up the next morning with the sun in the sky and a mountain vista. It was a great end to a memorable and fantastic trip. After a further 3 hours walking we heard a car horn in the distance and began our descent to reality. Will we do this again.... most definitely! But the last words have to go to Chandra and Dawa our then guides, now friends who made our trip so great.

Chitwan

We have travelled south to Sauraha on the edge of the Chitwan National Park. The weather is amazing, with either sheet rain or blazing sunshine but always humid and without wind, we have not stopped sweating since our arrival. We are staying in a fantastic place overlooking Buffalo and elephants, our room is amazing as is the whole lodge that is set up to benefit the local tribal community with the profit it makes from tourism. Currently the owner, Durbar is constructing a school to provide free education to children who cannot afford to attend school.

Through the lodge we arranged to visit a local Tharu tribe village and go into the jungle to pick vegetables to cook and eat that night, we then made fresh masalas and spent the evening drinking homemade rice wine, chatting and eating our food with the locals. It was an absolutely incredible experience. Late that night we walked into to jungle where we were to sleep. The sounds of the night were loud and intimidating and we ended up sharing one single bed, due to a mixture of the mosquito net not working and fear.

In the morning we were taken on a safari walk by our guide, we were hoping to see rhino's and tigers which both live in the park, but we were not lucky (or we were lucky, depending on your point of view as the guide cheerily informed us that if we saw a rhino, we should simply shin up the nearest tree, seemingly unaware that slightly unfit Brits are not as agile as they are). After stopping for tea with our new friends, Ha-ra-hi, Souraj and Debbie we went back to the lodge for breakfast.

Once we'd been fed it was time for us to go elephant washing which was amazing also although we were not told to jump off when the elephant tries to lie down which made it a bit like bucking bronco.

In the afternoon we went to another village to take part in some traditional house decorating, involving mixing buffalo dung with mud to rub into the walls. Alex threw herself into the task with great gusto kneeding the mixture with both hands. She was unsure why all the locals were laughing and a crowd was forming, at this point I joined the mixing but realised that the other ladies were only using their right hands as they eat with their left. Alex's new Tharu nickname was 'two hands' and we all laughed together. Once we had plastered our hosts' walls with shit we let it dry, ate chilli snails and drank more rice wine. We then set about the decorating using dye made from lambs eyes mixed with flour. Alex clearly showed her artistic ability and was creating a house for our host to be proud of. I was making hand prints.

This morning we went on an elephant safari and this time saw: mongoose, warthog, peacock, spotted deer and rhino but unfortunately no tigers or crocodiles. The most exciting part to be honest was when our elephant freaked out towards the end and started to run (well, trot) through the jungle, which when you're in a cramped howdah rocking from side to side is quite a wild ride!

We were about to leave to go fishing with the locals but the heavens have opened and we are stuck until they stop.

We will again be on the bus to Pokhara on Saturday and then trekking in the HImalaya to the Annapurna mountains and to a place called 'Tatopani' which appropriately for us means hot springs. We may not be in contact for a bit.

Hope everyone at home is well and congratulations to Bonzo on the news that his girlfriend is expecting his baby.

All our love, Andy and Alex

Kathmandhu

Well boys and girls what a strange 72 hours its been already, apologies for any spelling errors, the keyboard i am using is in Nepalese.

Our journey to Kathmandu, although knackering, was relatively painless, even you may have managed cattle class Catherine. Kathmandu is a strange place, the centre, Thamel is incredibly crowded, everyone is always trying to sell you something, it is dirty and smelly and impossible to navigate as there are no roadsigns and when you ask for directions you invariably end up at the shop of who ever you asked's friend. The driving is bordering on suicidal and appears to be based on the following principles:
1) Don't stop (ever)
2) Always sound your horn
3) Never, under any circumstances, indicate.

However, all this aside and even with the burning sensation that develops in your throat through breathing it all in, Kathmandu is thoroughly charming.

We are staying in a hostel that depicts what we expected a hostel to be, no bathroom light, hence the pic in which Alex had to use her head torch to shave her legs and the necessary use of our sleeping bag liners (Mo-mos) to prevent the insects. We knew it was a hole when we switched on the T/V, only to see highlights of QPR v Derby.

So far we have done the sight seeing thing, been whitewater rafting and drunk a warm millet based beer called gunka that although it looked great ( we didn't have a camera then) tasted like 'if McDonalds made drip trays.' We are going on a 7 hour coach trip to a little village called Suraha to stay with a tribe and take part in their way of life, i'd imagine Alex will learn to weave, cook and clean clothes in a river with the women whilst i have a beer and watch sky-sports with the men.

From there we have arranged to go trekking in the Himalayas for 14 days which sounds amazing.

Sorry to hear people have had problems signing up but you can still leave messages even if you haven't.

Anyway, hope to be in touch soon, Lots of love, Andy and Alex

Needles and nerves

Considering I have been injected with hepatitus, yellow fever and rabies, thrown away almost everything I own and spent a week laying floorboards in the loft in an attempt to store my few remaining posessions, considering all of this I'm pretty upbeat. My ankle is healing reasonably well and I am hoping to be able to trek in Nepal, as Alex will struggle to carry me as well as our backpacks at high altitude.

We hope that everyone has a great next twelve months though we feel that in general ours will be better. We also hope that reading stories of our journeys, misfortunes and mind-opening experiences will in some way make up for the increasing hours of darkness that you have to look forward to over the forthcoming months.

In all honesty we do not know where this blog will go, what we will be doing from week to week and how often we will be able to update it, in fact we are only sure of one thing, that it is really great to keep in touch with everyone who we are lucky enough to call our friends and we would love to hear from as many of you as possible.

Cheers, Andy