Its been a while since our last update.. I think the last entry covered up to Malaysia to Penang.. That was nearly 3 1/2 months ago!!!! Anyway here goes...
We stayed in Penang for a few days but it was really busy.. we tried to get to Langkawi but the ferry was fully booked for the next few days so had to miss.. We tried to go to Cameron highlands but that was also busy/full. Plan C was to go to Melaka. We didnt book anything we just jumped on the 8 hour bus and hoped for the best. So we arrived..and as per murphys law, there were no rooms available... and it was getting late. After hunting around for an hour or so we managed to find this amazing room but it was a whole days budget. We had to take it in the end...there was another couple in the same position so we had to be ruthless.. its debatable whether it was worth it but it was a nice room. Melaka was really cool.. alot of history. We wandered around checking out the buildings and the markets.. we even went on the eye of melaka which is like a ginormous ferris wheel. That was expensive..but a nice way to see the city. The tuk tuk guy that took us there had been to NZ and was telling us how he had lived in takapuna or something like that.. he'd made friends with the locals and smoked alot of green leaves.. We went to KL after the few days in Melaka.. KL is always easy.. we stayed in the same area and bummed around for a few day sorting the India visa before catching a bus to the Tioman Islands. The funny thing with the India Visa was that we paid a taxi guy to take us to the embassy which was a mission and hard bargining in itself only to find that the embassy didnt issue them, a private company managed it on behalf.. So, we got a ride with some guy who apparently waits around for people like us so he can get some $$.. Funny thing..the embassy stopped issuing visas like 3 years ago. He took us to the place which was about 100m from where we stared. Great. Anyway, we got the bus to the ferry on land, waited around for a bit and eventually got on this small skinny boat for about 2 hours.. It was a bit dicy for a while as the waves picked up.. We made it tho. The islands were beautiful. Amazing blue water. Huge komodo like lizards.. the accomodation was a bit expensive - around 30aud for a very average room. All in all we spent about 10 days on Tioman and covered most of the island. We travelled to the other side and spent a few days on this isolated beach. We had a wicked bungalow right on the beach.. it was all good until Samina was bitten at least 100 times by bed bugs or their beach equivelent. It wasnt that cool so we left and headed back to the other side of the island. Salang bay was the next stop. The water was amazing - we went snorkelling several times. We managed to get Samina out over the coral, which was the best we'd seen so far. Amazing. We even swam through a school of at least 5000 little fish, that was insane.. the water went black, you couldnt see anything but fish. It was a little sad leaving Malaysia but we had to get to Goa to sort some stuff with the houses. We caught a bus back to KL and sorted a flight to Goa. We managed to get our India visa the day before we left.. lucky.
We got to Goa on the 9th August. We intended to stay for around a month but ended up staying for 3. Goa is a beautiful place. Id been there before but it was Sems first time.. We met up with my sister and started working on the houses - annual maintenance type work. It was never really intended as a holiday...we just had to do a few things to get them ready for the season. So....we planted plants, we painted, we fitted lights, we patched/plastered, we sanded, we cleaned, we polished, we put up glass doors, we plumbed.. and so on.. and so forth.. the list is long. It was an adventure in the beginning, trying to sort out all of the things required to compete the 'to do list' but the novelty wore off as we found out how hard it is to get things done in India, especially Goa. Everyone seemed to see us as a meal ticket. We had to fight for a fair price pretty much every time we brought anything. We are both trusting kind of people but we had to adjust pretty quickly to avoid getting ripped off. In saying that we did meet alot of really nice people. Babu showed us around and introduced us to his family and friends and good cheap places to eat. The best by far being 'noodles' which cost 1aud for a serving for 2. We'd get 2 packs and that would last us 4 meals, so we were eating for 50cents each!! and it was damn good. The other place which we went every other day was Cafe Corner - we'd order aloo bhaji, puri and chai... it cost us 1.5-au for both of us!! Anyway enough about food, we could have hired contractors to do the work.. and we did in the beginning, but that was a mistake.. we have very high standards when it comes to workmanship, and it is unfair to expect the same high standards as you get in AU (most of the time) as its a completely different set up. The difference in cost (au vs goa) is huge though. Contractors in goa are paid around 15au a day, and thats a good wage. An electrician in au would cost at least 400au per day, in Goa it was 12au!!! Electrical wiring in India is another story altogether, and not a pretty one. Anyway, the initial contractors cost us many hours and alot of frustration in the long run, even though we paid them twice as much so you cant say you get what you pay for, so we scraped the notion of hiring contractors and did 99% of the work ourselves. It was an experience to stay in Goa for that long. Like we were actually living there. We had curry pretty much every day and never got sick of it. You can always opt for pasta or western food but it costs alot more and doesnt taste anywhere near as great. We were generally eating for around $15aud a day.
We had a few excursions.. My mother and friend Jenny came over for about 10 days so we made a trip to Jaipur.. Jaipur is pretty crazy with animals like goats, cows, elephants, donkeys, horses, monkeys, cats, dogs etc..and thats just on the road. Its hectic but you can get alot of cool things especially textiles and jewellery.. We also went to this place called Amboli with Babu and his friends.. that was crazy. Theres an amazing waterfall and also these rediculously high view points that overlook the valley.. We drank alot, on the side of the road - thats hows it done. We went and had a shower in the waterfall at night time. That was soooooo cold but the water was so refreshing after a few beers. Another time We went to the Russian village in Morjim.. we had a few drinks there and then carried on to another place, about 2 hours away i forget the name, to party with Babus friends. It was the strangest night I think weve had... It was Diwali so everyone makes these huge statues of the giant..I cant remember why..google it. But anyway so you drive around and you see these statues made of paper, wood etc and they are like 3 or 4 metres at least.. So that night we drank and danced and eventually slept in Babus van, while Babu continued to party, until around 6am when out of nowhere the guys dragged their statue onto the road and started bashing it and pulling it apart. It took 3 days to make it and about 5 minutes to destroy it. After the legs and arms were severed they proceeded to drag it into a clearing and then set it on fire...this is how its done. On the way home all of the statues we had seen were no more.. Its hard to explain that night. Anyway we stopped at this bakery at 6am and got some cake and coffee and proceeded home.. think we eventually got to sleep about 8am.
Our India Visa ran out on the 6th so we made plans to exit India and go to Nepal. We planned to go via train to Delhi and get another train to Gorakpur.. from there by bus to Kathmandu. All up it should have been about 48hours..but this is India. We went to buy tickets from the train place in Panjim but after a bit of conversation, alot of which was lost in translation, the ticket guy told Samina he wouldnt serve foreigners. Unbelievable. As it happens another guy just happened to be there and he just happened to be an agent and could get us tickets. We bargained with him for a bit and managed to get the tickets for 6000r - about 150au. About a day before we were suppose to leave we decided we should also book the next leg so we contacted the same guy again.. 3400r later, we had that sorted. We later found out that you have to be extremely lucky or have good contacts to get tickets so late, normally you have to book at least 3-4 weeks in advance if not more but hey, anything is possible in India.
So we got on the train in Goa - it was 1hr late.. We were lucky and we got a 2ac ticket and were sharing a 4 bed compartment with this nice couple from England, who had moved to India, Yvonne and Joseph. They took care of us the whole trip including getting us drunk on Cherry Brandy haha. The initial leg was suppose to be 26 hours. We felt it was going slow as the train kept on stopping.. At one stage about 4am we went passed a derailed train!!! We later found out that it had only happened earlier that day and there were fatalities. Very sad, but about the 4th accident we'd heard of in 2 months. About 30 hours into the trip we started getting nervous as we couldnt afford to miss the next train..and then the train abruptly stopped! After 5 or 10 min I got out and had a look.. after some discussion with some folks who were wandering around on the track, I found out that we had hit a cow! Also.. this was the 2nd one we'd hit..well actually the first was a buffalo. Crazy. In what makes India an amazing place, the engineers performed a miracle and commandeered the engine from another train and we were on our way again, all within about 30min!!! We arrived in Delhi at 750pm - the same time as our connecting train was due to leave..we sprinted from the train, jumped in a taxi van after some viscous bargaining and drove madly to the other train station.. We made it there in good time after several close calls.. we grabbed a porter showed him our ticket and ran to our platform, or what we thought was our platform.. after visiting 3 different platforms we found out that we had missed our train. Unbelievable. The only train on time was the one we had to catch! We were so disappointed having given ourselves an 8 hour buffer and to have missed that train by 10min was pretty crap. Delhi wasnt that kind to us. The people at the station were ruthless and were out to get our money. They followed us harassing the shite out of us..at one stage there was even a fight over us for our business!! We eventually cracked and were led to a tourist place. We told the guy our situation and he tried to make the most of it. He could got us tickets to get to Varanasi and then Gorakpur but he wanted to charge us 4 x the price. Its so ridiculous. On the way from Goa, there were plenty of spare spaces on the train but the ticket guys told us it was full. They just rip you off all the time. We guessed that there would be space on this train as well so debated the price but he wasnt budging. We sat there for about 3 hours and eventually cracked and brought plane tickets for 16000r including a nights accommodation (in a high class hotel..apparently) and taxi. The hotel was less than average and we were glad to get out of there.. The flight left at 130pm. We got to the airport and splashed out on Subway and lavazzo coffee.. We were glad to say goodbye to Delhi.
Anyway.. its been hard to keep this thing updated so sorry for the delay.. We'll deal with the Nepal side in another story!! Check out the pics!
Miss you, love you
Dale & Samina x
