You’re sat in the office on a dull afternoon reading this immensely interesting blog and quietly wondering to yourself, how can he afford all this? This round the world trip has been a long term plan of mine ever since uni when Jon and I said we would travel once we graduated. Well that didn’t happen due to money and the fact that I was enjoying Spain too much when Jon did set off. For this trip Espe and I had been saving for about a year, helped out by a pay rise (and an unexpected bonus a month before…
Excuse the week or so since my last post. It has taken me a while to collect my thoughts. When I arrived in Bangkok I spent several days doing nothing. I was really lazy, lacking energy to do anything (apart from buy the coolest Transformers t-shirt ever). Initially I couldn’t understand why but it occurred to me that I was suffering from reverse culture shock having left India. I saw so much in India. There was so much to take in, yet so little time. All the madness blurs together and becomes normal. Once I arrived in Bangkok, along with…
Poised on the Ganges, Varanasi, the most holy of all Indian sites, is so surrounded in hype that I actually left the place a little disappointed. That said, thinking back now it was a great experience. Maybe it was the disappointment of leaving the beautiful Himalayas and and the frustration re entering the tourist trap hell that we’d experienced in the Golden Triangle. The evening of the day we arrived we wandered up to see some of the Ghats (steps that go down into the river) to witness a spectacle that I still don’t understand. There were many groups of…
From one of the best journeys to one of the worst? How much would you expect to pay for a helicopter ride out of the Himalayas? 25 quid can’t be bad can it? I didn’t think so either and despite a lot of worrying as to whether the chopper would leave or not due to the mist we found ourselves strapped into the back of a 5 seater, single engined… something. Sorry not enough of a nerd to name helicopters on sight. The journey was absolutely amazing from the moment we gracefully took off, all the while flying along valleys…
Our first sunny day in Darjeeling, typically, was the day we were leaving. For the first time we could see the snow capped peak the world’s third largest mountain, Kangchenjunga. We didn’t have time to take in the views however as we had a shared jeep booked to take us to the capital of Sikkim, Gangtok. The drive over was fantastic. Three hours of beautiful mountain roads that often had me fantasising of a shinny red Integrale… Upon arrival we picked a nice sounding hostel we found in the Rough Guide. It was a good choice. Not only are the…
… starts tomorrow with what is promised to be a mighty fine Chicken Byriani. As more teams arrive in Cochin I’m starting to get quite excited. This blog will remain quiet for the next 2 – 4 weeks as I attempt to drive 2000 miles in a Rickshaw. See our team page for updates: www.shesagoa.com
I spent a long time yesterday writing a post about our three day train journey. I spell checked it in gmail and in the process of copying it back into wordpress I lost 80% of the post (It was a good one too). Most frustrating. Anyway, here’s my second attempt. I’ve always liked train journeys. Ever since I was a kid the hours seemed to pass a quickly as the scenery. Even so, the idea of three days couped up in second class was quite daunting. From Jaipur we had several options to get to Cochin. The first was a…