THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF JESS & DAN

Relaxing in Rio De Janeiro

jess_dan — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 07:45:00 GMT

Dear All,

I’ve left the blog for a few days because our daily activities have slowed down considerably…our days in Rio De Janeiro have consisted mostly of eating, sleeping and wandering the beach or shops..its been lovely!

Were staying at the Lemon Spirit Hostel in Leblon. Leblon is kinda equivalent to Toorak, it’s the fancy/expensive side of the neighbourhood, however in terms of Rio it means that there is a lot less chance of us being mugged. Rio dosnt have a great name for itself, a few people we met along the way told us to watch our things carefully in Rio. Once here, we met a few locals who explained to us that if we had been to Rio 8 years ago, we probably would have found a very different city. Anyone brave enough to go outside in the dark would most likely be mugged, pickpockets were everywhere and it generally wasn’t a very safe city. However since Rio is hosting the world cup in 2 years and the Olympics in 4 years it has significantly cleaned up its act. There are police on almost every corner and they’re easily spotted on the roads day or night. There are still area’s that aren’t as safe as others, but the beaches and surrounding neighbourhoods are a lot more tourist friendly these days. We were at a big market today and watched the police pull aside a guy looking pretty dodgy and kick him out of the market.

Hostel has a great bar serving capirinhas, a cocktail with lots of lime juice, ice, sugar and a sugar cane alcohol, it’s cold, sweet and very tasty. Were staying in a four bed dorm and have been sharing with an American that says he is doing volunteer work however he’s only been once for 2 hours and the rest of the time has been out partying..We also have a guy we’ve called ‘South American Fabio’, we think he’s from Argentina and looks like a version of Fabio. Our 4 bunks are along the wall and each persons feet meet in the middle, it was very awkward today when I woke up with my feet touching Fabio’s feet..felt very strange for my honeymoon. Luckily, were about to go to Paraty for 3 nights and we’ve booked a really nice room at a B&B for the 3 nights and don’t have to share with anyone else!

We’ve been spending most of our afternoons at the beach. The city is surrounded by 3 main beaches, Copacobana, Ipanema and Leblon. We’ve wandered along them all and they are all packed! Everyone has a little space with their umbrellas and chairs set up and then they bake for the rest of the day. They take their baking very serious and are all marvellous shades of bronze. Dan and I must stick out like white tourists! Particularly even more that Dan has turned himself splotchy red as he can’t put suncream on properly, I’m slightly more tanned than I was in Antartica but I don’t think my skin would ever make it to the shade of bronze they achieve. Not only do we stick out because of our tans, we also stand out because our bathers have significantly more material than everyone else’s….dan’s in boardshorts when most men are wearing boyleg type speedos and the girls wear g-string inspired bather bottoms. Again, something else I didn’t imagine doing on my honeymoon was looking at a lot of other women’s very tanned bottoms..

Food wise, we’ve been having a bit of everything…sometimes it’s what we can work out and actually order, especially as we don’t speak any portugese. Today we went to Galitos, a grilled chicken place that was pumping at lunchtime with locals, we sat and stared at the menu for a while and then finally when the waiter arrived we pointed at the food the people next to us were having and said ‘please’. Lol, luckily they laughed and the waiter laughed and we ended up with delicious chicken, chips and a rice-type salad dish, all very tasty. In Rio, they have ‘by the kilo’ restaurants, kinda like a buffet but they weigh it all and you pay by the kilo. We havnt tested it out yet. We had pizza one night, which included ‘hearts of palm’ pizza which is palm tree shoots on a pizza, not very tasty. There’s lots of fresh juice places with all types of sandwiches with huge slabs of cheese in them and even an eggburger..which I’m still not sure about. Although not as good as Argentina, we’ve had some good steak as well.

We did feel that we needed to spend one day seeing the touristy sights of Rio. So we joined a tour bus and visited what I like to call ‘the big jesus’ on the huge hill overlooking Rio. Now in hindsight I wish I hadn’t, it was a lot more peaceful looking at him from a distance rather than going up there with the rest of Rio. There’s a concrete platform underneath the big jesus and it was packed like sardines with people. What made it worse was that because jesus is towering above you people were on the ground looking up with their cameras trying to get their friends in the photos and causing everyone else to fall over them, it was madness. From the big jesus we drove down past the Favela’s (slum like districts that still cause a lot of problems for the police) and old colonial style houses from the portugese. Stopped at the Lapa steps where a crazy Chilean man decorated then with tiles from all over the world. Then we finished at the Sugarloaf mountains which have two huge cable cars that take you to the top of the mountains for a stunning view over the city.

It’s the end of our Sunday here and I think I can hear the bartender calling out that he’s making more capirinhas..perfect!

Lots of love, Jess and Dan xox

Quick thankyou and hug to everyone who visits and leaves a note xoxox

Butterflies and Toucans

jess_dan — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 00:29:00 GMT

Dear all,

This entry shall be considerably shorter as it only covers a few days.

After arriving back in Ushuaia we had a night there, during which we slept, slept, relaxed and slept a lot more. Antarctica was full on everyday, so it was nice to do nothing. We caught up with another couple we did kayaking with and all went to dan’s favourite restaurant; the all you can eat bbq’d meat place.

We flew out of Ushuaia Sunday morning, had a stop over in Buenos Aires and then arrived in Iguazu late Sunday. There were two amazing things that struck Dan and I when we landed in Iguazu; it was HOT and it was DARK!!!! The sun had actually set and there were stars! On top of that it was hot and a bit sticky, but lovely compared to being freezing cold.

At the last minute in Ushuaia Dan had checked out the hostel I had booked for Iguazu..and luckily he did. Somehow I had looked at one website that had great reviews but Dan had found another that had some very nasty pictures about the actual condition of the hostel. Thankfully, we cancelled quickly and booked into a new hostel. Were staying at the Hostelling International “Hostel Inn” and it’s possibly the nicest hostel we’ve ever stayed at. That has a lot to do with the MASSIVE pool, huge deck with lots of chairs and lounges and the poolside bar that serves cheap beer and cocktails. Breakfast is the standard stale bread with butter and jam however our room is clean with airconditioning and there is a massive security guard that patrols around the rooms. He looks like a huge maori and yesterday we were sitting by the pool, he came up to us and placed a very dead and squished 20cm lizard on the table and then made the actions of taking a photo of it….like we would want photos of a dead squished lizard…we took the photos and thanked him immensely for such a generous gift…kinda felt like when the cat leaves a dead mouse on the doorstep looking very proud of itself.

The reason we are in Iguazu is the monstrous waterfalls that border Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. We spent the day there yesterday and it was amazing. The falls are huge and curve around like a huge bay. Everything is green and lush and the only thing you can hear is the water crashing down. We wandered around the paths and lookouts, one point called the ‘Devil’s throat’ takes you right to the edge of the falls with a spectacular view.

It was so hot and sticky though…It reminded me of when you step into the butterfly house at the zoo..when you almost can’t breathe because the air is so sticky, and then you just feel sticky walking around in it..eeewww…the only good thing was that as it was like a huge butterfly house, there were butterflies everywhere. And not just brown and orange ones, some of the most beautifully coloured and shaped butterflies I’ve ever seen. Tiny little purple ones, massive yellow and black ones with lacey wings and fluro green and yellow ones floating around. As we were so sticky, they land on you sticking out their long tongues tasting everything. Dan had a very ticklish tiny one land right on his nose.

There was lots of other wildlife too, we spotted a toucan! A real life TOUCAN! He/she was beautiful and posed for a few pics. Also met some very confident coatis, which are kinda like raccoon-ish with really long tails. They all had babies and were very cute running around…however there are problems with people feeding them and then they get aggressive, so they were cute..from a distance. There are jaguars in the park but we weren’t that lucky.

We are relaxing by the pool today and flying to our last stop; Rio De Janeiro, tonight.

Much Love, Jess and Dan xox

Photos: Antarctica

jess_dan — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 23:54:00 GMT

our amazing freezing cold honeymoon

The most amazing place on earth

jess_dan — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 23:48:00 GMT

Dear all,

I’m not going to be able to do regular updates on the blog as the internet on the boat is ridiculously expensive and you pay per megabyte, so I’m going to write regularly and then upload it all when we get back to Ushuaia

4^th January 2013

Yesterday we boarded the M/S Expedition in the Ushuaia port. Everyone was buzzing and it was so exciting taking photos boarding and getting on the boat knowing we were going somewhere truly spectacular.

Dan and I have spoilt ourselves and are booked into one of the suites on the boat, 4 big windows, queen size bed, a sitting room, cupboards and a fancy bathroom. All the other rooms pretty much have a toilet in the shower, you could probably use both at the same time. However our bathroom has the fanciest shower I’ve ever seen! It has a power button! It’s like a little capsule with lights and I think it can be used as a steam bath, but we had fun just trying to get it to work as a shower. We were spoilt by the crew today, we came into our room to find towel swans holding a bottle of champagne with a little sign saying ‘happy honeymoon Jessica and Daniel’. The hotel manager is lovely and came and congratulated us also.

Yesterday we listened to all the safety drills for the boat and then practiced getting our lifejackets, finding our group and making our way out to the life rafts, if it came to it in Antartica there are full wet suits for everyone to put on, then lifejackets then we all hop into 4 mini capsule boat things that can drive for 3 days with 51 passengers each, they are tiny and would definitely be uncomfortable for 3 days. So lets hope the drill is the only time we see them!

We met all the crew who already seem amazing. There are lovely waiters and cleaners from the Philippines, 2 doctors and then there are a team of CEO’s (chief experience officers) who have experience in everything from geology, marine biology, ecology..and a few other ‘ologies’ in there. Most of them are scientists that have spent several years visitng Antartica, one of the senior CEO’s has been going to Antartica every summer since 1972! They have a wealth of knowledge that they are more than willing to share with us, whether it be chatting over dinner or in the lectures they present. We’ve already been to one today to learn about the sea birds (I never realized there were so many types of albatross or kestrels) we can see on the way down and the WHALES that we might see!! I’m so exciting and really really want to see a whale, just one whale would make me happy. Our options are killer whales, blue whales, humpbacks, minke whales or pilot whales. There should be some dolphins along the way too. Once we get to Antartica were going to learn more about the penguins and seals were going to be able to see. We have learnt already though that the albatross pair will incubate their eggs for up 75 days on a nest and then it takes another 150 days for the chick to be fully fledged and ready to fly. The chicks protect themselves in the nest by projectile vomiting anything/anyone that gets to close. Apparently it’s the most disgusting thing you’ve ever smelt..he did mention though that elephant seals smell worse alive than they do dead!eeeewww, I think Antartica is going to be an assault on ALL the senses.

I feel like I have so much to write and tell you and we havnt even made it to Antartica yet! The meals on the boat have been amazing. Last night for dinner we had a salad, green pea soup, pork tenderloin with mash and veg and crème brulee all served at our table. Breakfast was an amazing buffet including eggs, pancakes, bacon, fruit, toast, cereal, pastries, it was delicious!

There are 120 passengers on board and 70 staff. We were all warned that once we entered the Drake passage, the huge open body of water that is notoriously nasty, we would be encountering 30 knot winds and some swell. We both took seasick tablets and have been ok so far.We have foam wedges on the edge of our bed so we roll into the middle rather than rolling out. I was a little green when we went down the mud room (where we keep all our gear for going onshore) as it was hot, enclosed and swaying horribly..I almost felt like a spew.

Dan and I have had a meeting about kayaking already and are very excited about it, apart from the fact that later today we have to go back to mud room to be fitted with our dry suits…blurgh…going to have to try my hardest not to throw up on my dry suit…

Our night finished perfectly last night when there was a knock on our door and another couple from Canada were there with champagne and glasses. Turns out we’re not the only ones that are celebrating our honeymoon! We had champagne on the back deck and watched Argentina and Chile disappear on the horizon. We spoke for a while and it turns out that he is the ‘mayor’ of gadventures, which means he is in charge of company morale and ensuring everyone loves what they do and enjoy coming to work. He’s very close with the CEO of gadventures so it was very interesting talking to them about the company and how it all began in Canada.

Thankyou to everyone that leaves a little comment, It’s lovely to hear from you all xoxo

5^th January 2013

It’s almost the end of our Saturday and it has been an amazing day. I’m so excited I have to tell you what just happened at the end of the day before I tell you about the rest of the day! We saw humpback whales!!! Ok, now that’s out of my system I can tell you about the rest of our day.

We were told at breakfast today that we made great time crossing the drake passage because it calm (even though the boat was swaying enough that you couldn’t walk in a straight line) that we had made great time and would be able to make a landing at the Aitcho Islands which are part of the Shetland Islands, just 65 miles off the Antartic continent. As we were cruising in between the islands, tiny little penguins were diving in and out of the water. It was amazing to watch but impossible to time it right to get a photo.

Around 2pm we packed on all our layers…2 pairs of socks, thermal pants and top, fleece pants and jumper, then waterproof pants and our massive goose down jackets, beenie, scarf and rubber boots. We went for a zodiac cruise around the islands and saw some grumpy elephant seals malting and several penguin rookeries. After the cruise we were allowed on shore to walk around the penguins. There were gentoo and chinstrap penguins, they all had chicks or eggs under them so if they movied slightly we caught little glimpses of tiny grey fluff balls. If you sit still, the penguins just walk straight in front of you, on their way to wherever they’re going, its amazing how close they get. What else is amazing is how their little bodies survive in the weather, it was SOOOO cold! I think it was around -2 degrees, and my toes and fingers were so numb they were hurting. It was a relief to come back inside and stand in the warm shower to warm my poor toes and fingers.

Just as I’m getting out of the shower, an announcement comes over saying there are two humpback whales in front of us…you have never seen anyone get dressed quicker than I did! I put on any clothes that were close by and ran outside. It was magical to see the two humpback fins rise and then the tail rise and disappear under the waves. It was exciting waiting to see where they would pop up again. Hopefully we will see a few more whales before the end of the trip.

As long as the weather is clear, we should go out on our first kayaking trip tomorrow which should be amazing!

Much love xoxox

7am 7^th January 2013

I’m up ridiculously early today because last night we spent the night camping in Antartica, even now it still sounds crazy! However, setting up camp, watching the sun go down and then come straight back up and the amazing scenery and wildlife surrounding us finished off an absolutely magical day.

Yesterday started early too, we had been warned though that if we are going kayaking it will all start early because it takes time to get dressed and get the kayaks in the water. We’ve had several meetings over the last few days to make sure every knew what they were doing. We were there at 7am for breakfast (the food has been amazing! Theres even dessert at lunch time, yay!) and then the announcement came over at 7:15 for all the kayakers to make their way to the mudroom. The mudroom is where all our landing gear is stored so we don’t drag wet gear all through the boat. For kayaking I had on thermal pants and singlet top, 2 pairs of socks, pair of pants and a long sleeve top, on top of the goes a semi-dry suit (its got the hand and neck cuffs, made of a canvas waterproof stuff and includes your feet) on top of that goes the sleeve thingy that connects to the kayak (my brain must have frozen overnight because I cant remember what its called) and then a lifejacket…AND then suncream, sunglasses, gloves and a beanie.With all the gear on we then have to get into the kayak. After all the fuss getting ready and getting in, it was a million times over worth it. We paddled away from the boat and suddenly there was a group of gentoo penguins swimming beside us. Sometimes they kind of swim alongside other times they’re porposing (diving in and out of the water like a dolphin) all around and underneath the water. The water is so clear we watched them going under the kayak. It was absolutely magical and a moment I will never forget.

We could see 2 humpback whales as well and we tried to kayak closer however they were feeding so they pop up and then dive down for 3-5 minutes and then pop up on the other side, so it was difficult to get any closer. But still seeing them come up, hearing the blowholes and then seeing their tails disappear was amazing.

After kayaking with the penguins we kayaked around Cuverville Island which took us about 2 hours. Along the way we stopped and looked at the gentoo penguin rookeris, arctic tern nests and chicks and the giant petrels. At one point we were kayaking through a path lined with glaciers and we turned a corner and there was a huge Leopard seal laying on the glacier. Leopard seals are scary looking, not friendly fur seal looking (also learnt fur seals are the only ones that “walk” on their 4 flippers, all other seals blubber along like fat slugs). They have a huge mouth with big teeth and scary eyes and they like eating penguins. We paddled around him, took some pics and continued on back to the boat. After kayaking we had a quick landing at Cuverville Island and sat and watched the penguins busy themselves…they always seem to be doing something or going somewhere, its fun to watch.

In the afternoon we had a stopover at Port Lockeroy, the British Antartica preservation site. It’s a tiny red and blue hut surrounded by gentoo penguins who at the moment are sitting on eggs waiting for them to hatch. The hut used to be used by whalers as a refuge and then by the British as a refuge and scientific research hut. They hut has been turned into a museum filled with all sorts of interesting things. Because there is no humidity here and half the year things are covered in ice, man-made things/structures are preserved relatively well, so we can still see whale bones, old boats used for whaling and all the bits and stuff in the museum..like the ‘tinned bacon’ and the ‘pork and beef bar’..mm, yummy!

On the way back from Port Lockeroy we spotted two Weddell Seals laying on an iceberg, they aren’t as scary looking at the leopard seals but are just as blubbery and slug like in their movements. Just before the boat spotted another leopard seal basking in the sun…stayed well away from him! The wildlife has been truly amazing, around every corner we’ve spotted different animals. At least 5-6 times a day there are announcements to go out on deck and watch the whales, mostly humpback whales but we did see a killer whale in the distance.

We had an early dinner and then packed on all the clothes we had and went ashore to camp/try to sleep on Antarctica for the night. We set up our tents and walked up the snow to a lookout for some amazing views all around us. After being toasty warm from the walking with 20 layers of clothes on we crawled into our ‘fart bag’ also known as a sleeping bag liner and then into a -12degree sleeping bag and feel asleep with beanies over our face because it was so light. We were woken up at 5:30 to pack everything up and make our way back to boat for breakfast and a hot shower..and maybe a nap after breakfast.

Dan and I were talking about how you would describe Antartica when people ask us “How was Antartica” I was thinking ‘stunning’ ‘magical’ ‘amazing’…but dan’s answer was ‘the opposite of the desert’….mmm, interesting observation dano…

7:30am 8^th January 2012

We’ve just had breakfast and are waiting for the kayak meeting to see if we will be going out or not, all dependent on the weather. It’s a tad blowy and cloudy, definitely not as stunning as the weather was yesterday.

Yesterday we cruised through the lumier (must check spelling on that one) channel, the water was so still that it was a perfect mirror of the snowy mountains and glaciers surrounding us.

Dan and I tried to nap yesterday morning after returning from camping but there were at 4 announcements to go to the deck for the amazing scenery or whales. Never thought my nap would be interrupted by humpback whales..

We had an early lunch after cruising along the Antarctic peninsula and put our kayaks in the water around 1pm. We were warned that it was going to be a huge kayak and it was definitely massive! It beat the records for the longest kayak for the gadventures crew. We kayaked just under 20km in 5 hours, my shoulders are still aching, although it didn’t stop us going out on the kayak again today.

We began our kayak through the ‘iceberg graveyard’ a huge harbour where somewhere hundreds of icebergs collect. They were MASSIVE!! Towering above us and then sinking to depths way below us, absolutely amazing. The icebergs are brilliant blues and whites and then under the water they look turquoise, it’s stunning. The shapes are amazing too. Whilst we were kayaking through a huge chunk broke off and then the whole massive iceberg rolled over, it was so amazing..I need a thesaurus to replace amazing…I was using our camera as a video so I captured it all.

After cruising the graveyard we made our way across a huge bay, littered with icebergs. We spotted 2 minke whales in the distance but they are very fast and elusive so we weren’t able to get any closer. However for the 2 hours we spent crossing the bay we paddled into 4 different pods of humpback whales, it was absolutely surreal, I still have a huge grin on my face when I think about it. Our encounters with two of the pods were so close we could smell whale fart! One of the pods was made up of 5 whales with two small calves. You can see and hear their blow holes when they come up and then watch their tails disappear as they dive down. Once they’ve gone down they generally stay down for 2-5 minutes feeding on the krill and then it’s anyone’s guess as to where they will come up next. The family went down and then popped up beside us less than 100 metres away, the whales are soo huge and I’m pretty sure I squealed a little when it popped up beside us.

My highlight of the day was definitely the last pod of humpbacks we came across. 2 large humpbacks were feeding and playing? Slapping their tails in the air at each other. They dived and disappeared and then 2 minutes later popped up only 30 metres away from our kayak rolling around on its back slapping its peck (the really big side flippers) The two whales made their way towards us slapping their pecks and then disappeared just in front of our boats. That very moment will stay with me forever, it was magical and has been burned into my memory.

The kayaking has been amazing, by far the highlight of our trip. The boat carries 130 people but they only have 20 people for kayaking. Everyone else cruises around in the zodiacs with 10 other people and then makes shore landing. We get to cruise around in our 2 man kayaks on our own little adventures. It’s been amazing to be able to get so close to the wildlife and to just sit on the absolutely still water admiring the scenery.

A final stop yesterday was at Peterson Island to see the northernmost rookery of adelie penguins. They have 3 week old black fluffy chicks who were very cute to watch. We watched the cute penguins for a while and then got the zodiacs back to the boat and slept like logs. We were exhausted.

We woke early today, had breakfast and were in the kayaks ready to go by 8am. We were in paradise harbour and kayaked around the edge of the harbour admiring the massive glaciers and icebergs surrounded us. Our eyes were peeled for a closer encounter with the orcas but none turned up. We made a stop at the shore and got out of the kayaks to officially plant our feet on the Antarctic continent, all of our stops so far have been at islands along the peninsula. The peninsula itself is a sponge like maze of channels, islands and harbours. It was very exciting for me to plant my feet on the continent, as I’ve now visited all seven continents, yay. We walked up a snowy hillside and then slid on our bums all the way down, the perfect way to celebrate landing on the Antarctic continent.

In the afternoon we went for a second kayak back in the bay where Cuverville island was, we were meant to be elsewhere but that bay was packed in with sea ice, huge flat pieces of ice that surround Antarctica in Winter. All of the peninsula ice melted ages ago so they think that the sea ice we saw could have blown in from over 100 miles away! In our two hour kayak session we saw an amazing amount of wildlife, there was our very upclose encounter with a humpback whale, only 10 meters off our kayak, a few minke whales diving around the bay, adelie and gentoo penguins diving around the kayaks and posing for pictures on the sea ice and a few leopard seals and weddell seals basking on the pieces of sea ice. It was all totally surreal. Every corner we’ve turned seems to be swarming with wildlife and it has a lot to do with the huge amounts of krill (tiny little shrimps, sea monkey type thingys) that all the animals feast on. Even that, we have been extremely lucky with wildlife and the amazingly calm weather during our time here.

We had a great night in the polar bear bar, one of the staff is a great singer/guitar player and was taking requests all night. Along with drinks served with a chunk of glacier.

9^th January

I can’t believe today is our last day along the Antarctic Peninsula. From tonight we will begin heading back to Ushuaia crossing the Drake passage again, fingers crossed for calm weather!

Our last day started with a stopover at Deception Island. This would be our site for the polar plunge! We went for a kayak first and spent two hours cruising around the caldera, as Deception island is a volcano with a tiny opening where the ship can go in as it’s full of water. A perk is that as the volcano is still active there are patches of warm/hot water. During our kayak we saw nesting shags, huge rocky cliffs and caves and a lazy weddell seal on the warm black sand.

For our polar plunge we had our bathers underneath all our thermal and waterproof gear. We caught a zodiac to the shore, stripped off and then ran crazily for the freezing cold water. It was deceptive though as there was steam pouring of the first meter of water which was around 30 degrees the sand was also beautifully warm. So you run through that thinking it’s easy and then suddenly the edge drops off and its 0 degrees and your heads underwater because its so deep, its so cold that it takes your breath away and all you can think of is madly swimming back to the warm sand. It was crazy cold!!! However totally worth the bragging rights to say we’ve swam in Antarctica.

There’s just been an announcement that whales are around so I’m going out for a look!

12^th January

It’s 7:30am and were sitting in the lounge sadly waiting to disembark. I can’t believe it’s all over, although it will forever rank as one of the most amazing places I have ever been.

Finishing off where I left the last entry, we all pilled onto the outside decks to see the fins and blowholes of a huge pod of killer whales. They were a fair way in the distance and disappeared pretty quickly, however by dinner they were back and right next to the boat. We were surrounded by a huge pod of killer whales, at least 20 around every side of the boat. It was totally amazing. There was even a little calf with it’s two parents right near the boat, it looked tiny compared to the others. It was absolutely amazing to have killerwhales popping up on either side of the boat and infront and behind us, a totally magical moment.

It was also our last kayak trip on Wednesday. We circumnavigated half moon island which took us around 3 hours. We got a little bit of everything, catching the wind and waves on one side of the island, saw 19 seals including weddell, crabeater and leopard, along with chinstrap and gentoo penguins and one lone macaroni penguin, who wasn’t meant to be there as it’s too far south but apparently he visits the island every year as his partner is a confused chinstrap penguin. It was a very fun last kayak with lots of laughs and jokes as we paddled around. We became a close group and celebrated the amazing weather and all the wildlife we saw at dinner. In the end we had kayaked almost 55km over the 5 days, totally worth all the effort.

Following our last day we made our way back through the Drake Passage to Ushuaia. The first 30 hours were perfect, totally smooth and calm. However at 4am Friday morning I woke up as I was rolling around in bed and could hear things rolling around in our room…it got worse..over the next 6 hours, EVERYTHING zoomed off the benches onto the floor, in the violent rolling the cupboards opened and everything came out, the little bottles in the shower came off the shelf and knocked around in the shower. With every roll, everything rolled around in our room, it was crazy. We were told to stay in bed and wait till the storm passed as it was too dangerous to go walking around. Dan got up to take a few pics and bumped and rolled into a few walls along the way. We heard from the captain later in the day, there were 70knot winds which counts as hurricane strength winds, on the beaufort scale the maximum strength for winds is a 12 and the winds we had put as at a 12, it was crazy. The waves were over 10meters and we rolled with it for 6 hours until we came within the coast of Cape Horn (the very tip of Argentina) and it calmed down.

For our last night on the boat, the staff were great and put together a slide show of the highlights and the crew sang a goodbye song. The gadventures crew were great and made us all feel very welcome. The ship is in the port to drop us off today and then it picks up another group by the afternoon and heads off again tonight and I wish it was Dan and I waiting to do it all again!

Much Love, Jess and Dan xoxo

The best of Southern Patagonia

jess_dan — Wed, 2 Jan 2013 10:41:00 GMT

Dear all,

It’s Tuesday night, however because of internet issues, it may not be uploaded until Wednesday night. I’m writing in a slightly comatose state so please excuse me if it dosnt make sense…

We have just returned from our 3 day hike in the Torres Del Paine National Park. Dan hasn’t moved for the last hour, half of my big toe is a blister, my face is almost the same colour as a stop sign and everything we were wearing is in a pile ready for the washing machine because it stinks and if I move it dust goes everywhere!

5 days ago we visited the Perito Mareno Glacier, just out of El Calafate. It is massive, it’s 23 storeys high! We caught a boat to look at it close up and then wandered the walkways watching little bits of ice fall off and crash into the sea. The Glacier is special at the moment because it forms in an arrow shape, when it hits an island in the middle it parts two directions, but it also stops the water flowing between the two parts, so the levels in the lake vary a lot. We were very lucky because the bit of ice touching the island has actually made a tunnel underneath that you can see, and water flows freely between the two areas. The last time this happened was 4 years ago and the time before that 22 years ago!

4 days ago we caught a bus from El Calafate over the Argentinean border into Chile. We got stuck at the border for a few hours as Chile are strict like Australia with what comes in so all the bags had to be checked and we were questioned fairly intensely.

So now 3 days ago, we were woken by the rain..Nooooo! this was our first day at the National Park and it was chucking down..our guide was upbeat and we were in the park walking by 11am. As it was still raining we started in the hike in full wet weather gear; pants, jackets, gloves, everything! It was cold and miserable and we were walking up muddy tracks and couldn’t see any of the view. We were walking in the clouds and could hardly even see the track. We stopped for lunch by 2 and then finally the rain stopped and the clouds started to part. From there we walked another 2 hours to the base of the 3 towers (self explanatory name, but 3 massive granite towers). From there it was an hour scramble up rocky tracks and over rickety bridges to reach the lookout near a lagoon that looks straight up at the towers…although sadly the towers were covered in cloud, grrrr. It was still a triumph reaching the end of the trail. However the walk back was painful, you put all your energy into getting to the top by 4pm to then remember that there’s still 4 hours of walking to get back down. Going down almost hurts more than going up, my favourite comment from Dan at one of our breaks was “It feels like I’ve been hurt” I’m still not sure exactly what he meant, but it definitely hurt. Muscles I didn’t even know I had were sore!

That night we were camping at a private campsite owned by gadventures.We were very spoilt, we were there by 8:30pm, tents were already set up, hot dinner and showers were ready too. At 11pm we watched the sunset and then slept like logs in our tents…well, I did anyway…our fellow campers did not appreciate dan’s snoring and likened it to sleeping next to an idling tractor…

The sun was up early and we had scrambled eggs, toast, juice and coffee to get us ready for ANOTHER day of hiking. We caught a ferry for an hour over one of the glacial lakes, it was a brilliant turquoise colour, to the other side of the mountain. And then…we started walking…again. We were walking by 11am and finally returned to camp by 6pm. However the day was a lot more enjoyable as the weather was clear, bright and sunny (so sunny my face burnt a tad and I have a wedding band tan on my finger!). There were several rickety “Indiana jones” style bridges with warning signs “maximum 2 people!”, icey cold rivers we filled our drink bottles from and breath taking views of the glaciers and mountains. We had lunch with the most amazing views of the mountains. In Nepal the mountains were spectacular but they always seemed so far away, here in Patagonia you can get so close to the mountains it feels like you’re only a day away from the summit. Although that’s not possible, one of massive peaks we could see has only been climbed to the summit 3 times! The first group to climb in were a group of 5 climbers..and three of them are still somewhere near the top. I’ll try and load some photos so you get an idea of how amazing Patagonia has been.

We celebrated the New Year at a public campsite. I queued 25 minutes for a 2 minute cold shower..damn it. We welcomed in the new year with a huge group of travellers with a bottle of champagne we’d been nursing into the national park. Happy 2013!!

On our last day in the park, we were leaving on a ferry by 12noon, so we packed everything up and wandered around the lake taking photos. We spotted a few guanacos, they’re of the lama family, and the strange small emu birds I mentioned last time.

The shower back at the hotel was AMAZING! Tomorrow we have a 12 hour bus ride..yuk! back to Ushuaia ready to get on the boat late on the 3^rd Jan!!! Can’t wait!!! Apparently there’s internet on the boat sometimes and we have to pay, but I’ll try and get on and tell you about the next icey cold weeks!

Love to all, Jess and Dan xoxo

This toe is on fire!

jess_dan — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 07:17:00 GMT

Dear All,

It’s 4:30pm on Thursday afternoon and my legs and toes are still recovering from our huge day yesterday….

I should probably go back a few days further before I talk about yesterday. We met our tour group on Christmas Eve. There are 9 of us; a American family of 4 (kids are adults though), another American, a Canadian and a guy from Nottingham, UK. Our Christmas Eve together was very quite because everything was closed in Ushuaia. On Christmas Day we flew from Ushuaia to El Calafate, still in Argentina. From El Calafate we were in a bus for 4 hours driving to El Chalten. The view along the road got better and better every kilometer we got closer to El Chalten. El Chalten is a small town within a National Park, at the base of the Fitzroy mountains. The mountains rise behind the town and are popular with hikers and climbers. The town is small and everyone walks in the middle of the road as there are hardly any cars. In El Chalten we joined with a few other people doing the hiking part of our trip; a couple from Wantirna! Canadian couple and 2 american girls. We had an amazing Christmas dinner together at a local restaurant, dan had lamb and I had very tasty lamb ravioli, all celebrated with some Argentinean wine.

Boxing day, 2012 will go down in the records book. Not only were we up early but we spent the day hiking 24km for an amazing view of the Fitzroy mountains. We started at 8:30 and went straight up and over the hill behind town, nothing too strenuous and the path was well marked and maintained. From there we had a 2.5 hour walk through the valley, the views were amazing and different every time we turned a corner. So far in South America, we’ve been buying water, however here we can fill our drink bottles straight from the rivers as the water runs straight from the glaciers, it tastes 1,000 times better than the bottles. Walking through the valley in the distance we could see the final part of our climb, a winding rocky track raising 500m straight up the side of a hill.

It took almost 2 hours of going straight up to reach the top, the path was rocky, slippery and windy, I’m surprised we were snapping ankles or falling on our faces. Somehow, we made it to the top look out. From there only the serious mountain/rock climbers attempt the sheer granite cliffs to make the summit. Our leader, Frederico told us each year 6-7 groups attempt to make the summit and every year people die! Last year a Canadian woman was hit in the head by a piece of ice whilst climbing. Her partner had to go back down to get a rescue team to save her, although the weather was bad so it took over 24 hours to get back to her, and then when they did the condors (a type of vulture) had eaten her! Luckily, we were just going to the lookout!

The lookout was spectacular, we were in front of two glaciers that were draining into two lagoons (a bright blue one and a bright green one). The Fitzroy mountain (name of the tallest peak) towered above us, it was amazing. It was also freezing, the wind blowing off the mountain was so cold! We were very lucky too, Frederico said the last 2 times he had been up the mountains have been covered in cloud! We had lunch empanadas (kinda like pasties) apple and a cake thing, that was kinda like three wagon wheels stuck together with caramel between each layer, lots of sugar to get us back down the mountain and back into town. It was a very long walk back into town…I love you dan, but dan needed a little assistance in getting back down..his legs were cramping up and then he needed bandaiding because his little toe was “on fire” (his words) also known by everyone else as “blisters”. He has been bandaided and given hydrolyte and will survive. It was a huge day we left the hotel by 8:45am and walked and walked to get back by 6:30pm…

After getting back to the hotel and laying still for a while, we went out and had the most amazing steak for dinner ever! BBQ’d meat is eaten and loved by everyone in Argentina, so they know what they are doing. I had a massive steak with wedges and a few veg for AUS$20, which is pretty good considering how much a steak like what I had would cost in Australia. It was soo good my mouth is watering now thinking about it!

After our massive day on Wednesday, we spent Thursday visiting the Viedma Glacier. It is the biggest glacier in Patagonia and begins life in the Patagonian Icefields some 25 km away from where we visited it. We caught a bus from El Chalten, got on a ferry and then hiked over the rocks, strapped cramp-ons onto our shoes and walked across the glacier. The lower part of the glacier we visited is melting and continually moving, up to 1 meter every day. The surface is breaking up, kinda like lots of iceblocks stuck together, but underneath you can see parts of the brilliant blue solid ice. Our guide was lovely and made sure we didn’t smack our faces on the ice while wearing the cramp-ons (metal spikes) and shared lots of interesting glacier facts. To finish our 2 hour walk on the ice, our guide chipped off some glacier and we had chunks of glacier with some baileys, lovely!

We are back at the hotel now waiting for a bus back to El Calafate. Tomorrow we are visiting the Perito Moreno glacier on a boat, it has a massive front that is continually moving so should be very exciting!

Love to all, Jess and Dan xoxo

End of the world

jess_dan — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 22:53:00 GMT

Dear all,

I'm sitting writing at our hostel in Ushuaia, Argentina. It's the southernmost city in the world and hence was a long journey here...

After flying for what felt like days, we arrived in Buenos Aires late saturday night. Hostel was great and we crashed pretty quickly. Somehow our body clocks are tad mixed up because dan and I were both awake by 6am Sunday morning. Our lovely room mate snuffling around all his plastic bags didnt help either...grrr.

We werent flying out of buenos aires till 2pm so we went for a wander.The centre of Buenos Aires is a mix of old and new and a bit of everything else..we walked past soaring apartment blocks and banks, huge old beautiful buildings, white greek looking churches and a greek looking cathedral with pyramids and camels across the front. As we were out early there were street performers setting up along a huge market lined street, we watched the tango dancers and a man playing bucket drums.

By 12noon we headed out to the airport, our taxi driver was lovely...although we have no idea what he was talking about. He jabbered the whole 20 minutes to the airport pointing things out, dan and I nodded and laughed at what we hoped were the appropriate times, but who knows, we probably said 'yes' to a question that required more of an answer, who knows, he seemed cheerful though. We were glad we made it to the airport early, the place was heaving! every man and dog, literally, were there. Everyone seems to fly with their pets. Our small plane to ushuaia held around 100 people and easily 6 of them bought pets along. They were all checked in with their baggage, there were poddles, an english terrier that growled at everyone and even a massive orange cat that came along for the ride.

The flight south to Ushuaia took 3.5 hours and the last 30minutes were stunning. We were flying over snow capped moutains with water filled gorges in between. It was truly beautiful, only shattered that we didnt have the window seat, hopefully on the way out we will so I can take some pics.

The town is small and sits on the bay. The airport is only 4km out of town. All of the cruises going to Antartica leave from here so there is a fair share of shops and restaurants. The town is surrounded by more snowcapped mountains. As we are so far south, the sun dosnt set till 11:30 and its bright again by 4am. Luckily our days have been so busy we were able to fall asleep in the light. A full stomach also helped, we went to a restaurant that serves meat...all kinds and lots of it. It was buffet for all the salads and then a massive grill cooking every kind of meat you could imagine...dan was in heaven! sausage, pork, lamb, beef, chicken, chorizo, black pudding...on and on. There was a fire with whole animals being slow roasted around it. The meat that we tried was delicious!

Were staying at the Antartica hostel for one night before we transfer to the Albatros hotel to begin our trip with gadventures. Were flying to El Calafate on Christmas Day to begin our hike at Glacier National Park.

Merry Christmas everyone, have a lovely day and enjoy the day with family, friends and good food :)

much love and hugs to all, Jess and Dan xoxo

Groundhog day

jess_dan — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 21:12:00 GMT

Dear All,

Wow, I can’t believe how fast the year has gone! It felt like only a few months ago we were at Kelli and Jackson’s wedding super excited because we had finally found a venue and date for a wedding AND decided on our amazing honeymoon destination. Our wedding in October was an absolutely magical day and we loved sharing it with you all xox

Dan and I have always spoken of places we would love to visit, India was always my dream, and Antartica was Dan’s dream. I was definitely hesitant about going to Antartica when dan bought it up, partly because he has this crazy idea about walking to the South Pole, pfffft, that was never going to happen! Partly because only fitness freak loonies would attempt walking that far…and that’s definitely not us. We met somewhere in the middle and are spending our honeymoon trekking in Patagonia, visiting Antartica and then going on to Iquazu falls and Rio De Janeiro at the end so I get a little beach baking time.

As I’m writing were flying somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, only 2.5 hours till we arrive in Santiago, Chile. The flight is 12 hours long…blurgh. However, QANTAS is AMAZING!!! Dan and I have always flown budget airlines…from dodgy air china, air Vietnam, Jetstar, Easyjet..etc, etc, we were use to and generally accepting of horrible plane food, slightly annoyed flight attendants, midget sized seats and zero entertainment. Flying QANTAS this flight though has definitely made us reconsider our choice when flying, particularly when flying long distances. 1^st amazing service: we have tv screens in our seats, hehe, I feel like an excited 12 year old writing that, but having a huge choice of movies and tv’s has helped pass the time. I watched ‘ruby sparks’ and dan watched the ‘housos’ movie, although he turned it off half way because he was worried that people walking pass would judge him for watching such shit….and there was a serious amount of boob.2^nd amazing service: the food! It started with a lunch; pasta, salad, roll and a cookies and cream mousse, all delicious. Dan asked for a bundy and coke and the flight attendant bought back half a cup, enough for about 3 drinks…and we didn’t have to pay! Since then we have been spoilt with regular drink stops (don’t worry mum, no coke or peanuts for me) including Cadbury hot chocolate with a marshmellow! Mini pizza’s and my favourite Weiss icecream bars! Yay, I think before we land we are having breakfast as well.

We left Sydney at 11:30 Saturday 22^nd Dec and after 12 hours flying will arrive in Santiago at 9:40am Saturday 22^nd Dec…eeew. We have a connecting flight at 2:45pm from Santiago to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where we will spend the night and then fly the next day down to Ushuaia. Our trek in Patagonia begins on the 24^th December.

Hugs and Kisses,

Jess and Dan xo

Dear friends,

I have joined Jess and Dan on their adventure, who wouldn’t say yes to a free trip in their backpack! It will be a relaxing break for me as there is a horrible blonde dog at their new house in Mount Evelyn. I hate her, she stole me from the book shelf and buried me in the garden. I spent 2 days half buried!

From Ernie

busy days

jess_dan — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 19:31:00 GMT

Dear All,

It's been a few days since I've been able to write the blog...weve been very busy..so busy that when we get back to our apartment we eat, sleep and rest!We moved from Osaka to Kyoto last Thursday. Were now staying at a small apartment in the middle of Kyoto, very central to everything. The apartment is very new and very nice :) not huge but big enough for the four of us. Kyoto use to be the capital city and it seems that around every corner there is another monument, temple or pagoda to visit. Along with streets and streets full of shops and a huge market that stretches forever..we've had plenty to keep us busy. Oh, and cant forget all the eating we've been doing in between!

Over the weekend we went and stayed overnight with my host family (the Hisanaga Family) at their new house in Kobe. When I stayed with them in Osaka we lived in a tiny apartment in Osaka. They've moved to an amazing house in the mountains overlooking Kobe that is gorgeous. They had a party for us with friends and family which included plenty of food, a surprise "congratulations on promise to marry jess and dan" cake, more food, photos, talking, a cute 2 year old (who was very cute until he got tired and starting throwing chopsticks..) more food and a few too many drinks..for everyone except mum who still fondly remembers new year 2000.Everyone at the party was lovely and bought along gifts for mum and dad. Mum and dad have been enjoying all the food, I think we'll all be going home with a little extra weight..especially if we continue eating mister donuts.

Today we visited Nara. About 30 minutes away by express train. Nara was once also a capital of Japan (when the a new emperor came to power the capital had to be changed..every time!). Nara is smaller than Kyoto and there are beautiful parks and wide roads to wander. We started at Todai-ji which is the largest wooden structure in the world. Its a huge temple that houses the biggest bronze statue, a buddha, in the world. Its amazing. At the back of the temple in a huge wooden pillar there is a hole at the bottom the same size as the buddhas nostril. It is said that if you can fit through the hole you will reach enlightenment...so of course we had a go!Dad and I squeezed through so we're well on our way to enlightenment..same cant be said for mum and dan unfortunately.

Whilst at Nara we fed the deer (they're wandering EVERYWHERE!) wandered the park, visited a few different shrines, had some lunch and what day in Japan wouldnt be complete without mister donuts!

We've come back to rain in Kyoto tonight so luckily Japan functions on soo many levels! Theres the street and below that there seems to be whole networks of restuarants and shops (perfect for wet weather!) below that is the subway networks. On the streets are huge covered arcades that are also good for bad weather. Above the streets are the highways and rail networks held up with huge pillars above the ground...dads very impressed :)

Tomorrow planning on visiting Kinkakuji (the golden pavilion) and dad is madly searching the internet looking for a motorbike shop to visit. Wednesday spending the day with my host mum Kimiko visiting a few more sights around Kyoto and a place where they make kimonos. On Thursday were off on the bullet train to Hiroshima!

Much Love,

Jess and Mandy, Steve and Dan xox

bright lights..

jess_dan — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 18:02:00 GMT

Dear all,

Monday started slowly with breakfast at a small cafe near the station. A traditional Japanese breakfast is expensive and I'm really not a fan of fish for breakfast. So we tried the Japanese attempts at a western breakfast; big thick toast with boiled eggs. Wasn't bad at all, dad had a sausage with his that was more like a big frankfurt and dan had scrambled egg on toast with a weird mustard sauce. A little strange but still good.

Monday we caught the subway north to Umeda. There are two main centres in Osaka, Namba (where we're staying) and Umeda (where I normally played when I lived here because it was closer to home). I took mum and dad to my favourite ramen noodle shop (big bowls of water soup with thin noodles with beanshoots and meat, VERY delicious, my favourite) and gyoza (kind of like dimsims but alot tastier). We wandered the shops and visited hep 5, a huge shopping centre with a life size whale in the middle and a ferris wheel on the top. We rode the ferris wheel and enjoyed the views of the city, mum and dad were amazed that the city never seems to end. As far as you can see there a buildings.

From Hep 5 we stopped at Yodobashi Camera, a HUGE electronics store...6 FLOORS! dad was in heaven. On sunday the button to take the photos on mum and dads camera fell off and got lost, so we spent a very looonnnggggg time testing the cameras..firstly changing the language to english and then taking photos of people and testing out the zoom. I'm not sure anyone else appreciated us changing the language but anyway, they'll figure it out..Mum and dad ended up going back today and buying a very nice new fuji camera.

We also visited the game centres and took some purikura (the photo machines that make the little photo stickers) and played some games. Unluckily, we left umeda just on peak time and although it wasnt crushing it was still really busy and we just went with the flow of the crowd..

Last night for dinner we went to "gyukaku" and cooked our own dinner :) It was a tiny restuarant 6 floors up with an even tinier lift...only 3 of us fitted in the lift, so dad waited at the bottom. We arrived at the top and were asked to take our shoes off. We sat down and waited for dad..who arrived and walked straight past all our shoes with his shoes on to then be quickly followed by the little japanese waitress who made him go back and take his shoes off..oops.We grilled think slices of meat and vegetables in a grill in the middle of the table. very tasty.

Today we went to Osaka Aquarium. Its an amazing aquarium. We saw fish, otters, sea otters (which are about 4 times bigger and hairier than normal brown otters), fish, turtles, WHALE SHARK!, huge manta rays, fish, jelly fish, dolphins, seals, fish, sharks, really really big deep sea crabs, sea horse, baby turtles..its goes on and on. There was a gorgeous 'nemo' clownfish display and a whole collection of 'cute sea animals'; really little bright fish, baby turtles, baby sea horse and we got to pat the small sharks and rays. We also met the friendliest seal ever. Her name was chiku and she's 1 year old. We noticed her because she kept coming up to the glass and it felt like she was staring at us, then we noticed she followed your hand if you moved it...finally she followed us if we ran along the glass. She was funny and kept coming back to play for ages. She was very entertaining.

We're back chilling in the hotel room before we go out for dinner tonight. Tomorrow were planning on visiting osaka castle in the daylight.

Hope all is well, were having a fantastic time, seeing some amazing sights and trying all the tasty food :)

Much love, Jess...Mandy, Steve and Dan xxo

24 hours in Osaka, Japan

jess_dan — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 08:41:00 GMT

Dear All,

Wow, the blog is back. I can't believe that a whole year has gone by since we arrived home! And it only took us a year to find a new adventure...although a much shorter adventure this time. Mum, Dad, Dan and I are spending 2 weeks in Osaka, Kyoto and Hiroshima.

Saturday morning began way to early...at 3am..ergh. We originally were leaving sunday morning but Jetstar redirectedd our flight through tokyo which we werent happy with because we didnt want to go to Tokyo and the extra stop meant we got into Osaka at 11pm which is too late for all the transport between the airport and the city. So we swapped to the saturday flight. Melbourne to Goldcoast to Osaka. Thankyou dearest brother for the lift to the airport :) Mum and I were excited about the flight whilst Dad was asleep before the plane even took off. The flight was almost full and I spent most of the time still in teaching mode, thinking about school and lessons and the kids..its not till now on Monday morning that it really has sunk in that I have 2 weeks of holidays to NOT think about school and just relax and enjoy the break.

Our initial welcome to Osaka was to be fingerprinted and our photos taken at the customs desk..not sure why but it meant that it took us forever to go through customs because the technology was a little dodgy and strange beeping alarms kept going off.

We met kimiko and yasuji Hisanaga (my host family from Osaka) at the airport. Kimiko was so excited and their were hugs all around. We arrived at 6.10pm but by the time we got out of the airport it was almost 7 and had got dark. We caught the bus to Osaka and found our lovely hotel very close to the centre of Namba (a huge eating, drinking, shopping, socialising centre of osaka). The hotel is lovely and were staying on the 26th floor so have a lovely view of the city. Dads had fun testing out our hightech toilet seats..pressing all the buttons with a range of spurting, squirting, deodorising and seat warming effects..

For dinner saturday night we went out with kimiko and yasuji for Okonomiyaki...Laura, we paid careful attention so we can make it in Australia! Okonomiyaki is a pancake, made with lots of cabbage, egg, bacon and then all cooked on a hot plate in the table. It was delicious and lovely to spend the time catching up with Kimiko and Yasuji. My japanese is slowly coming back and we got by with a mix of japanese, english and dictionaries.

Slept like logs on Saturday night.

Sunday morning we wandered to supermarket under the hotel to find breakfast. Ended up wandering the supermarket aisles for too long and dad got grumpy so we found some tasty riceballs for breakfast and ate them back at the hotel. From the hotel we walked to the subway station along the underground namba walk which is lined with shops and restaurants. The plastic food, tiny restaurants, odd shops and pachinko halls were all new and interesting for mum and dad. Pachinko especially, even I dont understand why playing a machine where you feed ball bearings in through a kind of pinball machine setup could be fun. Its crazy noisy and definitely not fun. Stopped for curry udon (thick noodles) which were delicious but messy..mum wore half of the sauce. Dan and dad loved it because they could slurp all they liked and mum couldnt tell to them to stop because its rude NOT to slurp..hehehe.

We caught the subway to Kitahama, only 15 minutes away and met up with kimiko and a group of ladies from her local neighbourhood. They had all been for lunch and we joined them to go and see the cherry blossoms along the river. Although I must have translated only half the message because before we went to see the blossoms we stopped at an art gallery to see an artshow...an erotic artshow...all i could think of was "why is theis group of upperclass, very classy sophisticated women going to see an erotic artshow?" I still dont really know the answer to that questions. The small gallery space was full of wire sculptures of various women parts. Lol, who can say they've been to an erotic artshow in osaka?

From the artshow we walked to the river to see the cherry blossoms. We were so lucky..as the Japanese keep telling us "Rucky, Rucky!" because we made it just in time to see the blossoms in their peak. The blossoms will last only a week or so and their peak only 3 or 4 days. RUCKY!! The walkways were lined with trees and each tree covered in pink blossoms. They were gorgeous and the atmosphere was amazing. Under the trees are families and friends celebrating with picnics, parties and beer. Everyone was cheerful and having a great time. We ended up at Osaka Castle where we had our own cherry blossoms party under the trees with delicious food; sushi, fried chicken, squid chips, salads, rice crackers, croquets and lots of other delicious goods. The Castle was lit up at night and made for some amazing photos.

We only just made it back to the hotel..we walked all day and my feet were telling me the same thing! We're in Osaka till thursday and have plenty of other places to explore...Will keep you updated :)

Much love,

Jess...and Mandy, Steve and Dan oxo

were going on a tiger hunt..

jess_dan — Mon, 1 Feb 2010 18:27:00 GMT

dear all, Our chances were slim, however we spent 1 night and 2 days camping and trekking inside Periyar tiger sanctuary hoping to spot a wild tiger..

However luck was not on our side, even though we saw tiger prints and tiger poop there was no tigers.We were very lucky to see lots of other animals though..

Spotted a black sloth bear, it looked exactly like a black bear to me.Our guide had his gun ready because theyre aggressive and we had found him digging up honey..he wasnt impressed. we moved on quickly.

Spotted a herd of 10 elephants,there were even 3 babies with them.It was amazing to watch them in the wild and hear their trumpeting and calls.

had amazing food, watched the camp fire and fell asleep in our tent....only to be woken up at 1am with elephants trumpeting on the other side of the 5m wide and 6m deep hole dug around our camp.It was scary in the dark being surrounded by elephants trumpeting and grumbling..all part of the sleeping in the jungle experience (:

were off to madurai tomorrow and then trichy to enjoy our last week in India!

have loaded some photos up of the trek.

love always,jess xoxox

cruising the backwaters

jess_dan — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:38:00 GMT

Dear All,

In the end we loved Fort Cochin and ended up spending 5 nights there. Looking back I cant remember exactly what we did every day. Fort Cochin was really laid back with wide streets, swaying palm trees and lots of great places to shop and eat. It was nice to find somewhere with good coffee and great food. My favourite place was called Kashi gallery and it gets the award for the best breakfasts in India. Each day was a special which ranged from farmers omlette, toast and fruit to my favourite special which was warm breakfast cake (carrots, cinnamon, walnuts) with a huge fruit platter. It was great to have a tasty breakfast that didn’t include curry or stale bread. It was a really chilled out café and we spent a few hours there each morning reading, watching the lizards and eating.

One night we had cooking lessons at a local homestay. A lady showed us how to make several traditional keralan dishes in her kitchen and then we sat down and ate it all! We had fish curry, eggplant curry, banana curry (they were rock hard green bananas and tasted more like potato than banana) and a yoghurt dish similar to raita. They were all very tasty and the best part was we copied the recipes out so I can make them at home.

During a lazy afternoon we had traditional ayurvedic massages. I was stark naked laying on a plastic table and then had oil poured everywhere, I was so oiled up and slippery I nearly rolled off the table. The massage was fairly vigorous and is meant to improve circulation. For the rest of the day I was in a daze and felt like napping.

Fort Cochin was inhabited by the Portugese until the 1940’s, so there are huge portugese style houses and churches. Along the waters edge are massive Chinese fishing nets, I’m not sure if they are actually Chinese or portugese? But they’re huge nets connected to frames and weights so that the nets can be dipped in and out of the water for fishing. It may be just for the tourists, but the nets are still regularly dipped in and out of the water catching a few small fish. The work seemed very labour intensive for such a small amount of fish, maybe that’s why they aren’t used as much anymore.

On our one morning we left Fort Cochin we caught the ferry across the Vypin Island and then the bus to Cherai beach. The bus ride was an event in itself, everyone wants to know your name, where your form and then if you like shane warne. It can get a little tiring and after a while the bus driver shooed them all away, however it didn’t stop them staring. Even if you stare back at them they just keep staring….

From Fort Cochin we caught the train south along the coast to Varkala. Varkala is perched along huge cliffs with the beach smashing below. The waves were definitely smashing, Varkala is the most dangerous beach in Kerala with scary currents. We spent an afternoon at the beach and luckily didn’t up half way out to the Indian Ocean. Varkala was pretty however it was definitely the hottest place in India, we nearly melted. It was around 35 degrees however the humidity was the killer, just sitting there sweat was pouring out. So after two hot nights we moved back up the coast to Alleppey.

Arrived late at Alleppey and found a nice place to stay just out of the main city, crashed into bed and slept like a log. We woke up to find that our hotel was almost more of a zoo…ferrets, some strange cat/ferret/possum thing that noone knew the name of…turkeys, love birds, rabbits, cats, pheasants, finches, budgerigars and even an EMU!

Between Cochin and Kollam to the south (just above Varkala) is a huge system of interlinked inland lakes and canals called the backwaters. For 2 nights we stayed on a houseboat and cruised around the backwaters. Not like houseboats in Australia, the boat were on is 60ft by 12ft and looks like a really big canoe. It has a front decking, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen which are all covered in weaved bamboo, it’s a little hard to describe so hopefully ill be able to put some photos up at the same time so it makes more sense. Our boat is one of the smallest, there are huge 5 bedroom double storey versions.

The canals are unending and we’ve spent two days watching the small villages going about daily tasks, watched the fishermen and workers in the rice paddies and looked out for kingfishers and white herons catching fish. We stopped at a locals house and bought fresh water prawns for dinner which were cooked by our chef and then enjoyed with a few beers (10 litres of beer was purchased for around $14 aus. Saw something on tv about being washed up on a tropical island and having to climb palm trees to collect coconuts to drink. For some reason its been on my mind and as the backwater banks are lined with coconut trees each one I look at, I judge the number of coconuts and how high it is and whether I would be able to climb it. I’ve decided that due to a serious lack of upper body strength I would not be able to climb a palm tree…and would therefore die of dyhdration. Not sure why I’m still pondering this..

From Alleppey we are catching the bus back to Kumily for a 2 day trek in the Animal Sanctuary. After the weekend were moving on to Madurai and then Tiruchirappalli (Trichy) ready for when we fly to Kuala Lumpar on the 8^th Feb. Wow cant believe its all coming to an end to quickly…

Love to all,

Love Jess xox

Not able to upload photos, will try again soon

P.S. Grandma, We definitely picked the wrong season to visit India. Right now every street I see is lined with Mango trees that are packed with tiny green mangoes !! If only we had waited a few more months I could have had mangoes for breakfast, lunch and dinner…probably a lot cheaper than in Australia too!

tea and spices

jess_dan — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 03:00:00 GMT

Dear All,

This time in 4 weeks we will be home! Wowzies, I cant believe how fast it has all gone. Suddenly were planning our last few weeks in India, adding places and cutting some out. Starting to donate my manky (favourite Scottish term for nasty/dirty/stinky) clothes as I’ve been wearing them for 2 years and they are well overdue. But my bag dosnt seem to be getting lighter…the shopping is great in India. Luckily we’ve already paid for the “large luggage” option with our budget airline to get home…on the 12^th Feb!!!

Anyway back to the journey. Its not only the trains that have a range of classes..the buses are the same. From Coimbatore we caught a lovely airconditioned, reclining chair bus to Munnar.very comfy. The opposite scale is the pink windowless, grinding and grunting bus that was shared with bamboo, chickens and way too many people from Munnar to Kumily. However the drivers did share the same philosophy; drive at breakneck speed along windy narrow roads, break very suddenly but only if really necessary coming into the hairpin corners and my favourite talent: overtaking on BLIND CORNERS!!! Going really fast and then giving a little toot one second before you overtake is scary..really scary. At some corners I was grimacing whilst looking down at the extremely steep hills. It didn’t help that some of the barriers had been smashed off where other vehicles had left the road. Luckily someone was looking out for us and we arrived safely after both trips.

Munnar was great from the first second we stepped off the bus. No touts or rickshaw drivers bothering us, the people glanced and then moved on with their business and dan and I were free to find a place to stay. We found a really nice homestay on top of the hill looking over the town. The house had 3 rooms that were clean and the family were really friendly. The kids put dan to work; because of his height he was pulling paper aeroplanes of the roof. Munnar is the main town for hundreds of acres of the worlds highest tea-growing estates (some even becomes Tetley!). There are small villages all along the hills, however villagers come to Munnar for shopping and prayer.

We visited a tea museum in Munnar and it was amazing to hear the history of the hills. The Kannan Devan Tea plantations were owned by an English company up until the 1940’s. However now 60 percent is owned by the workers and the remaining 40 percent split up between other groups. The workers are provided with free housing, education and medical services. I was also impressed that there are also schools and jobs for disabled children available to the families. The whole setup was impressive. The women collect the tea leaves while the men work in the factories and prune and spray the plants…and there are A LOT of plants. I never knew how tea is made, but its actually quiet simple. The tea plants are regularly pruned and then the fresh green leaves are collected, mushed up, oxidised and then dried. I’m still not sure what the oxidisation bit is, we asked and got a weird well rehearsed answer that didn’t make sense, it looked like a drying type machine? Who knows. The factory smelt amazing, like freshly brewed tea.

Indians like their tea crushed very finely so that the flavour and colour are stronger. However most teabags are filled with a coarsely chopped tea. However after our tea tasting session we discovered the best tea is the full dried leaves, very nice. Although we didn’t get to try it, the best tea is the “white tips” it is the whole dried very tip of the fresh leaves. A kilogram sold for 4,000 rupees (around $80 aus). In our tea tasting session we also tried some horrible stuff..tea and cardamom, green tea and rose and tea and vanilla…yuk. Luckily like wine tasting theres a bucket for spitting.

We spent 4 days in Munnar wandering the tea plantations, eating great food and one morning we went for a hike. We left when it was still dark..5am..and drove to the base of a huge boulder filled hill. I started strongly..and then faded quickly, I never really liked sport at school very much. In the end we climbed for 4 hours and the view was definitely worth it. We had a guide with us who pointed out the wild flowers and the trail. There was no one else on the trail which was really nice to be alone for a little while. We also spotted 10 wild endangered native goats..they’re huge, more like a pony than a goat. At the top we had fruit for breakfast and watched the clouds racing up the side of the hill and over the top of us.

Munnar is now up there with Mysore for the favourite place. However we’ve just arrived in Fort Cochin which has a really laidback relaxed feel to it already..I’ll have three favourite places (:

In between Munnar and Fort Cochin we stopped at Kumily which is the town for the Periyar Tiger Sanctuary. We were hoping to spend a few days trekking within the park however as were winging most of this trip we had nothing prebooked and arrived to find that all the treks were fully booked till the 24^th January. Bummer. So we have booked a 2 day trek for the end of January and will stop on our through to Madurai, which is on the way to Trichy (Tirchirappalli) where our flight leaves from. Periyar has wild elephants, bison, macaques, otters, dhols and snakes..there is also a very slim chance we may be able to spot a tiger! Maybe, fingers are crossed for the end of January.

As we suddenly had spare time before the next bus to Fort Cochin we went and visited a Spice Garden. Kumily is significantly lower than Munnar, so there is no tea plantations, instead hundreds of acres of Coffee, Cardamon, Pepper, Rubber Trees and Bananas. In a large 4 hectare private garden we saw a huge variety of spices that I would definitely not recognise. Huge Cardamon plants (a low palm type plant) nutmeg tree (the seed is contained in a horribly bitter fruit) cinnamon tree (fresh cinnamon smells amazing) Pepper (its actually a vine) allspice (I always thought it was a mix of spices, but its actually one plant that smells like a mix of spices) and a lot of plants and herbs that are used in traditional Indian Herbal medicine. There was also bananas, beautiful colourful tropical flowers (my favourite was a red and white bleeding heart) strawberries and tiny little cute chillies that are ridiculously hot.

As we were walking around the garden at around 1pm the light went strange and the birds went quiet. There was a 91% eclipse of the sun! I gave myself as headache trying to look at it,2 pairs of sunglasses only just makes it bearable, it looked really weird to see a huge chunk of sun covered. The people were out with xray film, camera film and welders masks on looking at the eclipse..and the really dumb people *cough jess and dan cough* were looking with 2 pairs of sunglasses..no wonder I got a headache. The eclipse lasted for over an hour, which makes it the longest eclipse for this millenium. Very cool we thought.

At the moment we are in Fort Cochin. Cochin is on the west coast of India and is the capital of the state of Kerala, however the city is made up of Islands. Were staying on a small island that feels more like a village. It’s really nice so we may stay 4 nights or so. From here were planning on going down to Alleppey and staying on a traditional houseboat for a few nights.

Hope the sun is shining..but not too hot (: Right now I really feel like a cheese sandwich, so someone have a cheese sandwich for me…and maybe a piece of mums chocolate cake…

Lots of love, see you all in 4 weeks! that’s only 28 days (: I’m very very excited

Love jess xo

cool mountain air

jess_dan — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 23:03:00 GMT

Dear All,

Firstly, I owe a few late birthday wishes…SORRY!! Happy birthday Grandma. Happy Birthday Josh. Happy birthday Ken, Happy birthday Trent…I’m still worrying that I’ve forgotten someone…I’ll remember after I’ve loaded the blog..

Secondly, I have a little bit of catching up to do for this blog..where to begin..

Left Hampi and caught a overnight train for 8 hours to Bangalore to catch another connecting 2 hour train to Mysore. On the overnight train we sleep on bunks and every other train we have caught has been fine and I’ve been rocked to sleep. However on this train I was crammed into a tiny top bunk on the side barely big enough for a little Indian to sleep in let alone me. On top of that the man under me snored like a tractor and every hour or so choked and made little squeeling noises like a pig. It was horrible and by the time we got to Mysore I was wrecked. Some breakfasts we’ve had toast, butter and jam or fried eggs with coffee or tea. But a traditional Indian breakfast is a little spicier. We’ve had dosas, which are similar to pancakes but bigger and lighter and can be filled with potato and come with a dipping curry sauce. Idli are made of rice and look like flat muffins, it comes with a curry sauce too. As if curry wasn’t enough for dinner and lunch, we can even have it for breakfast now.

Talking of food we had an amazing meal in Mysore. At a little restaurant they served South Indian Thali. Thali is plain rice thats served with 3 or 4 small scoops of vegetable curries, pickles, curd and a few other sauces and then you mix it all together. Its all served on a banana leaf and they keep filling your leaf up until you have eaten enough. Its great food, the restaurant was packed and dan even tried eating it with his hands like a true Indian. I tried but wore most of it so I went back to my spoon.

There was plenty to see in Mysore and we really like the city; wide roads, parks, sunshine and clear air. We visited the Palace, with its huge halls, ivory inlaid rosewood and silver doorways, stained glass roof from Glasgow and a huge hall looking out at the city. The Palace was built in the 15^th century however the originally wood building burnt down and was rebuilt in the 18^th century. It was a beautiful palace however it is covered with 97,000 light bulbs which look a little strange in the daylight but come every Sunday night the lights are turned on giving the place a real Disneyland feel.

Mysore has a great market each section specialising in one type of food. Huge vegetable stalls with onions, garlic, potatoes, cucumber, pumpkin, everything, and fruit stalls with pineapples, coconuts, pomegranite, apples and more bananas than ever needed to feed a troop of monkeys. Stalls full of eggs, rope, buckets, soap everything. Although it made my hay fever go nuts there were stalls with huge piles of flowers including marigolds and jasmine. The flowers are strung together with string and used for as offerings or tied in the ladies hair.

We visited the rail museum that has a carriage that the Maharaja used which was definitely classier than the carriages I’ve travelled in. Caught a rickshaw up to the top of Chamundi Hill which overlooks Mysore. There’s a temple at the top and halfway down is a massive 5m high stone bull. Its huge and is covered in flowers and offerings, we stuck a coin on its side as an offering.

After 5 nights in Mysore we caught a 5 hour bus to Ooty also known as Udagallumallum (something like that anyway) but Ooty is a lot easier to say. It use to be a british hill station at 2,200m so there are gorgeous old buildings all over the town. However Ooty wasn’t very scenic, the surrounding forest was dry and dusty, hundreds of Indian tourists on daytrips and we had trouble finding anywhere decent to eat. We were followed by Indian tourists all day wanting photos..a few followed even followed us when we went on a paddle boat on the lake, we tried to escape and find a quiet corner in the Botanical Gardens but they found us there too, so adding up all the things we didn’t like about Ooty we decided to leave. The area had a heavy monsoon and the train line has been closed for months as they’ve had to build new bridges and clear the tracks. Luckily for us it had just reopened 3 days before we rode the train. it’s a beautiful scenic train ride through the mountains, past tea plantations and colourful villages. On the train we met 3 siblings all over 40 years old and living in Australia that had been born in Ooty. It was great listening to them telling stories about what the area use to be like when the British were there.

The train stops at Conoor and we shared a taxi with another couple to get 100km down the hills to Coimbatore where there is a major train and bus station. We were hoping to get there by early afternoon however halfway down the hill a truck had accidently driven off the side of the hill and 2 cranes had blocked the road and were trying to pull the truck back onto the road. Traffic was stopped both ways and everyone unloaded from the cars and crammed around the truck watching the activity like it was a movie. In Australia there would have been police..not in India..and barriers..not in India and noone would have been allowed to stand on the crane base as it was pulling up the truck..only in India.

Finally made it to Coimbatore but too late to make a bus to go onto Mannur. So we spent the night in Coimbatore and were ready to catch the first bus to Mannu..at 5am. Luckily it was a coach bus that was almost empty so we slept most of the way. The bus arrived at Mannur at 11am. Mannur is also in the hills at 1,700m. We drove through gorgeous wildlife reserves that house leopards and tigers..shame we didn’t spot any! The drive through the forest was beautiful and in between the forest are huge hillsides covered in tea plantations. The bushes are short with the tops fanned out flat covered in the fresh lime green leaves.

We’ve found a gorgeous room, its not a hotel, but more of a homestay. it’s a little hut with bathroom in a families backyard. We’ve already met the kids and our room includes breakfast..whatever time we wake up! Yay.

We’re planning on spending 3 nights here as there are some beautiful walks through the tea plantations and the forest.

Hope everyone is enjoying the summer holidays..and if not on holidays than still enjoying the sunshine.

Love always,

Jess xoxo

Hampi

jess_dan — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 22:26:00 GMT

Dear All,

I hope everyone had a very merry merry Christmas. Goa has a large catholic population however a couple of days before Christmas there was still no sign of the Christmas spirit. However on Christmas suddenly Christmas tree decorations, lights and santa hats popped up everywhere. Each house displayed a large decorated paper star that was lit inside with a light bulb and some houses had nativity scenes. One very pretty house had sprouted grass in flat trays to line their very detailed nativity scene. Our day was very relaxed, we had late breakfast and went into Arambol to use the internet to skype home. We were lucky and the net cafes were mostly empty because all the Europeans and Americans were still waiting for Christmas to arrive at home. We relaxed on the beach for the arvo, dan played beach volleyball (daily game with some local boys and the losing team had to buy the pepsis) and then had lobster, prawns and calamari for dinner. Finished the night off with a few beers and then we bought some fireworks. Dan was very excited and at the little milk bar type shop asked for the firework with “big bang and pow”. We ended up buying two big fireworks and 5 little rocket things. Walked to a relatively empty part of the beach and set them off, there was a crazy dog that hung around the fireworks as we were lighting them, but apart from that we enjoyed our own little show without injury.

After two weeks it was time to leave Arambol. It had been a perfect break from India. Goa sometimes didn’t even feel like India, there was no wandering pooping cows, streets were clean, no beggars..it was all very civilised and tourist friendly compared to the rest of India. So although it was a nice break it was time to get back.

The train to Hampi was a 8 hour journey over the western ghats and then into the plains. We sat with Jamie and his daughter Shannon from Scotland and chatted. Soon we were joined by an Indian Pastor and his family, we shared coconut pastries and then they started singing “Jesus loves me” and then the discussions began about what happens when we die. Overall an enjoyable train ride.

Hampi is a 23 acre area filled with stone temple ruins that were built between the 13^th and 15^th century by the ruling family. For a time Hampi was the capital of the area so there seems to be ruins at every corner. The ruins are all mostly temples as they were the only buildings built in stone, the rest were in wood and have not survived. The town of Hampi is small, a few guesthouses, quiet windy roads, few restuarants and souvenir shops. The entire town and the ruins are a World Heritage site. I’m not sure if it is because it is a world heritage site but there is no alcohol or meat available in town. Back to being vegetarians and juice drinkers for us! Its not just the temples that are stunning though, the town is surrounded by huge orange coloured boulders that are stacked into mountains with some balancing impossibly on each other, its all very dramatic.

The ruins range from pillars and simple temples to massive elephant and cow statues and huge ornately carved temples. There’s a few different areas surrounding the town so dan and I are taking our time wandering. The school groups make it interesting, they all want to wave and shake hands and then someone wants a photo…we could be stuck all day!

There a few monkey troops that go banging on the rooves however I’m a little nervous of the monkeys since I saw one huge monkey big enough to carry a small child running down the street. He had big fangs and the Indians are all smart enough to stay away…me too.

One of the temples is still a working Hindu temple. Shoes off we entered and queued to see the deity which was of the god Shiva. Money, coconuts, incence, fruit and flowers were all offered to the Deity and worshippers received a spoon of holy water and dipped their finger in a white powder that they then dotted their foreheads like the red tikka dots. It was interesting to visit a real working temple instead of just the ruins.

The temples most spoiled occupant is 23yr Lakshmi the Indian Elephant. She was rescued from a cruel handler and given to the temple. For a small donation she offers blessings which are when she rests her trunk on your head. She’s huge and well loved, the kids love her and everyone buys a few bananas at the temple entrance to give her. Every morning her handlers walk her down to the river where she is bathed and scrubbed. Shannon and I scrubbed away with brushes while Lakshmi laid there blissfully enjoying her daily bath. She was a beautiful elephant and they are hoping after her date with another local male elephant that she may be pregnant.

The no alcohol rule has put a stop to our new year plans so were planning just a quiet one with a fruit juice. Happy New Year everyone!!!!…see you soon in 2010!!

Love always, jess xox

Merry Christmas from Goa

jess_dan — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 17:49:00 GMT

Dear All,

Dan and I have set up camp at Arambol beach, Goa. May stay indefinitely….tempted at least.

Goa is a very small state on the Western Coast of India, below Mumbai. We arrived at one of the bigger, resort style beaches centrally and decided that definitely wasn’t what we were looking for. Met some other travellers who suggested Arambol. For us, it’s the perfect combination of beautiful beach, few shops and restaurants and a some other travellers to chat to.

Were staying in a beach hut made of bamboo, wood and the walls are some kind of reed. Theres a double bed and mozzie net, porch and a small bathroom with cold water. The cold water comes from a black tank so its not that cold, but because of the heat its refreshing anyway. The best part about our hut is that its ON the beach, takes 30 seconds to get to the water. I’m laying on our bed looking out the window at the ocean now, its perfect.

There are plenty of tourists around however majority of the tourists are Russian (never expected that), there are also plenty of hippies wandering around smoking…cigarettes of course. There’s a huge notice board in town offering everything from yoga lessons to “awareness” classes (not sure what that actually is) to herbal medicine. Dan and I have stuck to good old fashioned relaxing on the beach.

We have breakfast at the hotel restaurant, which is the nextdoor hut that has no windows so we look straight onto the beach with the breeze. Dans been having eggs on toast and fresh pineapple juice and I’ve been having fruit salad (watermelon, madarin, pawpaw, pineapple, banana and strawberry) with yoghurt and honey. From brekkie we set up on the beach under and umbrella and lay in the sun, swim, lay in the sun and then swim. It’s been hardwork.

Although there are a decent number of tourists, there are still plenty of locals going about everyday activities. We watched the fisherman hauling in huge nets today, we think they were herring. There were also huge sea eagles hovering above catching the strays. There’s been more than sea eagles though, there are beautiful green birds in the tree behind us, a squirrel that pops its head in our hut each morning, the friendly stray dog that sleeps on our porch, huge black and red butterflies, beautiful kingfisher birds and we’ve been watching the dophins! Dan spotted them from the shore on the first day and ever since we’ve watched them jumping around.

Goa was owned by the Portugese till the 1960’s so there are a large number of Christians which means for us Christmas celebrations and they eat BEEF!!! Majority of India is Hindu and therefore the cow is sacred and most definitely not eaten. However in Goa they don’t have a problem with beef. We found an amazing restaurant that serves great steak, roast potatoes and apple pie! So although dan lost a little weight in hopsital, I’m sure he wont have any trouble replacing it.

Not just the beef, but Goa is renowned for its seafood. Along the streets there are fisherman that work with the restaurants. Tonight dan and I choose a 3kg Red Snapper that was grilled and served with chips and salad. It was amazing fish with crispy skin and very very tasty and fresh. So we definitely wont be losing weight.

Havn’t spent all our days lounging on the beach though, on Tuesday we hired a scooter and drover inland past massive abandoned portugese buildings and little villages to the train station to buy train tickets (we leave from Hampi on the 27^th December and then onto Bangalore late on the 1^st January). The next day we took the scooter 25km down the coast to Anjuna, where there is a weekly market. We didn’t know exactly where it was but once we saw the stream of traffic it was easy to work out, it was the hugest market I have ever seen. There were the usual tshirts, saris, cotton pants, spices, flashy jewellery and other bits and pieces, but there were also some really nice stalls selling hand made goods. The morning was hot and sticky at the market so we took our little scooter to beach and spent the rest of the arvo in the sun (:

We have one more week here in our hut at Arambol, so we will be here for Christmas. Were still in discussions whether it will be steak or lobster (they don’t do surf & turf in India) for Christmas lunch.

Hope all is well, love always jess xox

P.S We wish all our family and friends a safe Merry Christmas and that Santa brings you all many presents. love always jess and dan xoxo

The pink city and the most populated Indian City

jess_dan — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 01:46:00 GMT

Dear All,

After Delhi we made our way to Jaipur which is south west of Delhi and in the desert state of Rajhastan. Its known as the pink city after the pink sandstone walls and buildings of the old part of town. We stayed in the newer part of town where there were very tasty Indian restaurants mixed in with pizza hut and coffee shops. We had 2 nights in Jaipur, but by the time we arrived early afternoon on the first day we were a little wrecked so didn’t do any major tourist sights.

The next day we hired a tuktuk for the day (total cost $10 aus) and saw the sights of the large city. First stop was Hawa Mahal, also known as the Palace of the winds. It is a five storey building pink sandstone building crammed in between shops and restaurants. Each floor has beautiful honeycombed windows with turrets topped with gold. Thee palace was built in 1799 by the maharaja for the ladies of the royal house to watch the streets below without being watched themselves. The tiny little windows are tiny and u have to position your head to see anything and wouldn’t be very comfortable for a long time. What surprised me was that behind the façade there is nothing else, no rooms or corridors, its just little platforms behind the windows.

From there we visited the City Palace, which is still in residence by the Maharaja of Jaipur and his family. There were 3 courtyards with several buildings housing royal costumes, armoury (dans favourite) and several other exhibits. Our ticket included an audio guide so we learnt a lot about the life of the maharajas in Jaipur. The most amazing were huge silver round vessels that are the largest silver objects in the world..they were massive..and they hold water from the River Ganges. Although for dan nothing compared to the massive guns, daggers with guns, quadruple barrelled guns, cannons and more guns in the armoury. From the city palace we could also see Jantar Mantar which houses an observatory with massive wooden and stone instruments used for measuring all different things from the time to eclipses, the biggest is a 27m high sun dial.

From there we tuktuked past the elephants carrying tourists towards the Amber Fort, although it looked fun the elephants looked a little out of place walking to bitmen road next to the cars. The fort was built in 1597 and was also the residence of the maharaja at that time. The fort was massive and dan and I ended up lost wandering the hundreds of rooms, balconies, corridors and halls. The maharaja used to wear so many layers of extravagant clothing and jewellery that he had to be pulled in cart around the massive fort.

The sights were amazing in Jaipur however the city felt like Delhi with dusty busy streets and crammed stalls selling everything from elastic bands to samosas to leather sandals to enamel jewellery to haircombes. So we decided to move on to Mumbai.

The train to Mumbai left Jaipur at 2pm and arrives in Mumbai the next day at 8am. Even though we had beds and slept the night, it was a long train ride that we passed teaching the two Indian business men next to us how to play a card game called Mexican rummy (it’s a great game mum, ill show u!). I’m not sure if they really picked up the simple game though because they lost by 200 points each game. Dinner on the train was rice, dhal (curried lentils) and a tasty curry sauce with chunks of cottage cheese (the cheese part isn’t so good, but the sauce was good) and chapattis. The train journeys have been great for meeting normal Indian people and chatting about where to go, what to eat and where to stay. We have tried vegetable curries (it looked like sticks in sauce, lol) and a very sweet clear chunk that looked like jelly but was made of pumpkin..apparently, that could be a translation error??..

Finally arrived in Mumbai at 8am, found a hotel (Mumbai is definitely the most expensive city) and crashed till early afternoon. Mumbai doesn’t have the same historical landmarks like Jaipur, however it does have great shopping! There are thousands of stalls selling jewellery, incence, massive balloons, tailored clothes, leather sandals, fruit..anything!in between them are the proper shops like nike, reebok etc. Dan finished his course of antibiotics on our first day in Mumbai and has made a full recovery and is feeling a lot better. Was feeling a little curried out so we went to a very nice restaurant where dan had risotto and I had pasta and then a raspberry tart with icecream..all very tasty.

The next day we went out to Elephanta Island. Wandered past the Taj Mahal Hotel (I remember watching the news last year when terrorists attacked the hotel, there is still scafollding on the front where theyre doing repairs, we went inside and the security was crazy, rooms start at $450 aus per night!). Walked behind the huge stone gate that was built in 1924 to commemorate the royal visit of King George V, it is called the gateway to India as all those arriving by sea use to come through. These days only the ferries going out to Elephanta Island leave from behind the gate. It was called Elephanta Island because there use to be a huge stone elephant, however it disintegrated and fell apart. The 15 walk up the stair was sweaty and sticky, the temperature in Mumbai sits around 35 degrees but the humidity is a killer at 88%. At the top of the stairs are amazing caves built into the hills, theyre not completely sure of the date but estimates are around 450 - 750 AD. Inside the caves are massive pillars, tiny little elephant sculptures and other huge sculptures of various gods and goddesses.

The caves were so peaceful inside however outside you had to be on guard. The signs warn “Do not tease the monkeys or they will attack”…ahh..we huddled to edges of the path and snuck past the monkeys however we watched a large monkey approach a large burly guy with a plastic bag with crisps inside, the guy dropped it in a flash and sped off..Monkey 1, Man 0...the next monkey saw a guy drinking from a water bottle, monkey approached man and held out his hand for the bottle, the guy handed the monkey the bottle and the monkey took the bottle and drank the rest of the water! Monkey 2, Man 0. I think the trick was to not eat or drink anything in front of the monkeys because they hang around in gangs, screeching and showing they nasty little teeth, I don’t want to be attacked and then catch some nasty monkey disease all over a bottle of water that cost me 30 cents!

For our last day in Mumbai we wandered around the Colaba (our hotel is in this area) and fort areas. Mumbai has a totally different feel to Delhi or Jaipur. The architecture seems very English, with yacht houses and huge stone museums, add in a few mosques, churches and modern art galleries and then finally top it off with old taxi black and yellow fiats swerving and tooting around the city (there are over 40,000 of them!). it’s a huge city, here are a few facts…

Mumbai population density is 29,000 per square kilometre

The average annual income in Mumbai is $1000 USD which is three times that of the national average.

There are 17 public toilets for every 1 million people in Mumbai.

2.5 million people pass through the Victoria Terminus train station.

There are 7000 on average crammed into a 1800-person-capacity train..hence the roof is handy.

The numbers are crazy, but away from the train stations it dosnt feel anymore crowded than anywhere else in India.

Tomorrow we are off early to Goa, were going to start with the Northern beaches and make our way down south. Not sure how long we are planning on staying, if we can find a nice beach spot to relax we may not leave (:

Love to all,

Jess xoxo

dans dodgy delhi belly

jess_dan — Thu, 3 Dec 2009 23:30:00 GMT

Dear All,

The blog has been quiet for a very good reason!

After a week of diarrhoea, we decided that was enough and tuktuked dan off to a medical clinic recommended by the lonely planet. He was admitted Thursday afternoon.

The clinic is spotless and too expensive for Indians so there are only foreigners here. We contacted our travel insurance company straight away and they were amazing and helped us out with everything and its all covered.

After blood, stool and urine tests dan was put on an IV drip and two different types of antibiotics for the bacterial infection and the parasite..eeewww…sounds nasty but once the antibiotics go through he will be as good as new.

The doctors arent sure where the bacteria or parasite came from, it could have been food, or food, dishes or glasses that were washed in infected water..they don’t know. But he is feeling a lot better. I left the clinic for a walk and came back and he had eaten all the biscuits that came with my cup of tea!

The clinic has been really helpful, I was staying in a bed next to dan in our own room with a bathroom. There is a nurse just outside the room and the doctors drop in at least 5 times a day to check up on him. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are provided for dan and I.

After over a week of talking about poop though im looking forward to talking of other things…

The clinic is in the wealthy area of Delhi and straight across the road is a small collection of shops and cafes! Woohoo, so while dan has been resting I’ve wandered across the road and had a cup of coffee and a piece of cake in a very nice café above a book shop. My favourite shop is called Fabindia, which sells gorgeous printed cotton and silk shirts, cotton pants and skirts, cotton , silk and cashmere scarves and beautiful bed linen and printed fabrics. Ive enjoyed wandering the shop and looking at the pretty prints and colours..if only my backpack wasn’t so small!!I did manage to squeeze a scarfe in…

Dan was released from the clinic yesterday. We were there almost a week as he had to be re-hydrated and then treated with antibiotics. Dan didn’t feel well at all so the doctors kept him in to monitor him until the diarrhoea was over.

So finally yesterday we waved goodbye to the clinic and made our way back to Pharaghanj in delhi where a chuck of hotels, restaurants and shops are.

Today we decided to visit the Red Fort. Agreed a price with an auto rickshaw driver and we were off. However something was definitely off when he started driving in the wrong direction…eventually we told him to stop and he argued with us that he couldn’t drive to the red fort so he was driving us to his mate’s taxi stand so that we could pay for a taxi to get to the red fort..arrggh, sometimes its just frustrating, if you cant take us to the redfort just say no!easily solved, we didn’t pay him a cent and hoped in the next rickshaw which was 2 seconds behind and arrived at the redfort.

The Red Fort was built as the King’s residence in Delhi. It was built in the 16^th century with red sandstone from Agra and White marble from Rajasthan. The evil son that put his father (the man who built the taj mahal) lived at the Red Fort. Inside the huge walls are a mosque, beautiful gardens and white marble buildings. The main buildings were used as reception areas for guests and the king and queens sleeping quarters. There was also a huge building which was the bathroom..that apparently is so big so that the King could offer it his 300 ladies in waiting!popular man..

The funniest part of the day was the security checks to get into the Red Fort. There are separate queues for men and women to go through metal detectors, be patted down and then to have bags checked. Although we were at a tourist attraction, there are more Indians than foreign tourists, actually in the Red Fort I could count the number of foreign tourists on one hand. Walked through the detectors, got roughly patted down and then plonked my bag down on the counter to be searched. My bag is a decent size and is filled with paper, pens, tissues, lip balm, hand sanitiser, pills, beads, ipod…and the rest. However the one item of interest to the female bag checker was my fluro pink highlighter. I’m guessing she pulled it out for personal interest rather than a security risk. It was pulled out “what’s this?” I pulled the cap of f and explained it was a pen, the other ladies were all interested by then, “AAh, not lipstick?”…I almost felt like replying with “If I ever wear that shade of lipstick please shoot me”..but refrained. She was happy with a squiggle on her page and then I was allowed to leave with my high security risk highlighter. I giggled all morning thinking of fluro pink lipstick…

The Red Fort is in the old part of Delhi, where the shops, people, cars and dogs are crammed into very small spaces. We wandered along and found the Jalebi shop…one that I was particularly interested in. It serves the sweetest fried goodies I have ever tasted! Jalebi’s are dough squiggles (it really looks like a squiggle!) that are fried and then soaked in a sugar syrup. The outside is crunchy, but the dough is soft and the sugary syrup goes everywhere..but they were oh so good and will satisfy my sweet tooth for the rest of the week.

All around Delhi we have noticed huge street signs saying “Work in progress, Commonwealth Games 2010”..however looked more like demolition than work, so hopefully in a few months the city will be shining for the Games.

Early tomorrow morning we are on a train for Jaipur. Train leaves at 6am and arrives in Jaipur at 10.30am. Planning on staying 2 or 3 nights, but have no ongoing tickets so will see what the city is like.

Hope all is well at home,

Happy Birthday Grandpa for the 2^nd Dec.

Love lots,

Jess xox

the Taj Mahal

jess_dan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:02:00 GMT

Dear All,

Dan and I arrived in Agra smoothly. It wasn’t till around 9pm dan started to feel unwell..and spent the night sitting on the toilet. So instead of visiting the Taj Mahal the next day dan slept and recovered and I lazed around. He’s in on a 3 day course of antibiotics to clear out the nasty bug(easily purchased without prescription from gupta’s medical supplies). Were not exactly sure what it was, but he’s feeling a lot better today.

So finally today feeling a lot more human, we visited the Taj Mahal. Building started in 1631 by emperor Shah Jhan as a memorial to his second wife Mumtaz Mahal who dies giving birth to their 14^th child. Shah Jhan was heartbroken and building started that year and was finally completed in 1653. Sadly Shah Jhan was overthrown that year by his son and spent the rest of his life only gazing at the Taj Mahal from Agra Fort. Eventually his remains joined his wife within the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal was built in semi-translucent white marble with inlaid semi-precious stones. From a distance it looks totally white but up close there are beautiful vines, flowers and quotations from the Qu’ran inlaid on all four sides of the Taj Mahal. There are 3 red standstone gates, and two identical red sandstone mosques on either side of the Taj Mahal. Inside a replica of their tombs can be viewed however the real tombs are housed under the floor, it was designed this way to trick thieves.

The Taj Mahal was beautiful. We visited early morning before all the tourist buses arrived so walking up the Taj Mahal was peaceful and very relaxing in the early morning sun. It was beautiful and changed colour as the sun came up, can understand it being one of the seven wonders of the world.

From there we treated ourselves to a very tasty exepensive lunch in a nearby very flash hotel. Lunch seemed expensive but was around the same as prices in Australia, but expensive by Indian standards. The hotel was beautiful and is one of the most talked about hotels in India, Salman Rushdie, Will Smith, Meg Ryan and World Leaders all stay here, just from wandering the entrance dan and I could understand why, it was gorgeous. Although we couldn’t justify the ridiculous prices starting at $900 a night, it was a very nice lunch and afternoon.

Were off to Delhi in the morning for a few nights.

Hope all is well,

Lots of love, Jess xoxxo

going to try load some more photos after loading this