A Journey from the Madhouse to the Asylum

The Highlands and Beyond

shirandy — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 22:12:00 GMT

I guess we should tell you about Mui ne. It's an oasis on the beach, surrounded by sand dunes. The beach is about 7 kms long beautiful white sand and very very quiet. We shacked up in a brand new hotel on the beach with swimming pool complete with water massager (only been opened for 2 weeks). They've got a tourist river to explore, it's a long hike into the dunes to find the source (a spring) but a nice way to spend a few hours wading up it. Climbing the dunes is pretty tricky, one step up, slide 2 steps back, but coming down is done on a sand sledge. The food was amazing, Andy is turning into a fat western pig (and Shirley is catching up!). The most expensive thing on the menu was a bottle of wine for one pound and 50 pence, it could be very easy to live here. We stayed a week (it just disappeared) and moved on to Dalat.

Dalat is in the mountains, very like a French mountain town. It's a major tourist resort, very beautiful, a bit cooler than the coast, a very good place to spend a few days (but don't bother with the toy train ride, it was absolute crap!) The bus journey to and from Dalat was amazing, stunning scenery, hairpin bends, some brand new tarmac, some no tarmac at all.

We are now in Nha Trang and have been here a week (god knows where that went!). This place is the major beach destination for the whole of Vietnam and correspondingly the most expensive part so far. Like Mui ne it has about 11kms of beach which is never crowded, coconut trees for shade and fresh lobster cooked in front of you for lunch, if that's your thing.

This evening we are taking the overnight sleeper bus to Hoi An, will let you know how it goes (it's only 11 hours!!)

Remember we are only doing all this travelling so you can read this crappy blog! (you can thank us later)

Hope everyone is well.

Vietnam Vietnam

shirandy — Mon, 9 Feb 2009 23:54:00 GMT

Mui ne - WOW!

Good morning Vietnam

shirandy — Fri, 6 Feb 2009 23:26:00 GMT

Well Koh Samui was good, Chaweng beach is the best place to stay on samui lots of bars, places to eat and general tourist nonsense had a good week there. Very expensive and too many touts (including timeshare!)for our liking. We took the bus to Phuket, should have been about 3 hours took about 8 and unfortunately had our (locked!) bags broken into whilst they were stored under the bus (could only have happened during the 1 and half hour ferry crossing) You live and learn at this game.

We stayed in patong hired a bike and saw the whole island, found a nice place for a two week holiday in the north of the island. Naithon, very peaceful reasonably priced resort, the opposite of Patong.

Patong is a single man's dream destination, loads of scantily dressed very pretty young Thai women (or they looked like women, (but some had VERY big feet)). We then flew back to Bangkok for 1 night and are now in Siagon. Within 2 hours of arriving a young lady offered to "Make Andy very happy", I have been racking my brain ever since trying to work out what she meant. We met our neighbour for dinner last night, which was good as he gave us some good tips and sorted some stuff out for us,(a trustworthy person who speaks the local language is worth their wieght in gold). Time for dinner now in the superb place our neighbour took us to last night. (I had fillet steak with all the trimmings for 2 quid!!)

Hope everyone is well and enjoying the snow!!!!

Andy and Shirley

Christmas and Beyond

shirandy — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 01:31:00 GMT

We moved up to varkala into our prebooked hotel, the place is beautiful everything was good until the owner of the hotel asked Andy to move to a different hotel for a few days, we were having none of that so on the spur of the moment took flights via Chennai back to UK for Christmas. Didn't like the weather and are now in Thailand.

We flew into Bangkok found a good hotel in Kohsan Road, it's a really good area to be thousands of tourists at night, street food, street booze, street everything! We thoroughly recommend it. Spent a week in Bangkok very suprised how clean, hassle free and easy to be in it is. Went for a look around the red light district Andy was not impressed when I took him down the Gay Area, you have all heard of the ladyboys, well it's all true.

We took the overnight train and express boat from bangkok to koh samui, no hassle and a good journey. Now staying at Chaweng on Koh Samui, have initially booked for a total of 6 nights, may stay longer or head off to another island, but have to fly to Vietnam on 4th february. We were denied boarding at Heathrow because although we had a return ticket for June, they won't let you fly into Thailand unless you have a ticket out within 30 days. (It would have been helpful if they had told us that when we booked the ticket) Consequently we had to book the Vietnam flight on the internet at Heathrow, otherwise we would have lost our Bangkok return tickets. Of course on arrival in Bangkok imigration did not ask anything, they just stamped our passport and in we came.

It's nice to be back on the beach, will update again soon. Hope everyone is well.

Andy and Shirley

Christmas On The Beach

shirandy — Mon, 8 Dec 2008 20:59:00 GMT

Well Diwali was really dissappointing, we stayed out till late and just saw and heard a few firecrackers, the men for burning were all lined up along the road (they are about 10ft tall) when we went back to the hotel about 11.30 so we assumed that they would be burning them the next evening, but no, they burnt them at 4 o'clock in the morning (makes sense uh!).

We have finally escaped Goa and both had a very very relaxing 8 weeks. The new pool was beautiful and we both topped up our tans, I am starting to look like a local!

We took the overnight train to Cochin in Kerala. The journey took about 16 hours, and we were both pretty comfortable in our sleeper berth. Unfortunately when we booked the tickets we could not get 2 beds together, so the conductor robbed Andy of 500 rupees to move us (considering the tickets only cost just over 1000 rupees each this was a bit steep!) Just one other problem with the journey, I fell out of the top bunk, when I got up to go to the loo in the morning and woke Andy and lots of other people up with a bang!

We spent one day and night in Cochin, which was very pleasant. The chinese fishing nets are amazing (do have pics), we also did a tour in a rickshaw which was fun.

Next day, we decided to go to Alleppy (not sure if spelling is right), with the intention of saying overnight and doing a back water tour to Kollam. When we arrived at the station Andy left me there with the luggage to look for a hotel, but they were all grotty or mega expensive. So we made a quick decision to get the train to Kollam (about 80 km on)instead and get the bus to Varkala the next day. However when we got on the train we asked a man if we were in the right carriage of the train and he said no, but that we could pay extra to the conductor. He then asked us where we going and when we told him he said that the train we were on stopped at Varkala (another 20 or so KMs) and again we could see the conductor and pay the extra. Well seemed like a good plan and meant that we would not have to spend a night somewhere we hadn't planned to. However, the conductor did not come round before we reached the stop we had paid for. We did not know what to do, so in the end we pretended to be asleep at the station and stayed on!!. We were both a bit nervous about staying on but figured that it was worth paying the fine if we had to. Anyways about 20 minutes later Andy said, oh we are here BUT THE TRAIN DID NOT STOP, it sailed right through the station!!. So once again we had a quick change of plan and decided to stay on to Trivundrum. Fortunately the conductor never came into our carriage, and it is not like at home where you have to show your ticket at the barrier. So we are now fare dodgers!!

Well you would think that we had had enough excitement for one day, but no there's more! We arrived in the evening of 2nd December about 6.30 and it was already dark. We knew that there are loads of hotels In trivandrum so did not think for a minute that we would have a problem in finding one for the night. Unfortuntely between the 1st and 5th December there was an all India TUC conference in Trivandrum and all the hotels were full of delegates!!. After about 1 and half hours we did find one that had 1 room available, which was actually quite nice.

The next day we caught a bus to Kovalam and checked into a what looked like a nice wooden hut in the middle of a large garden on the outskirts of the town for 4 nights. BUT when we came back from dinner in town, we had too many uninvited guests in our hut, creepy crawlies, spiders, ants and the biggest croakroach I ever seen. We had to stay anyway as it was too late and too dark to start looking for another hotel, but needless to say we checked out again the next morning!!.

Now staying in a really really nice pretend log cabin, 50 yards from the beach and we are here until Friday of this week. We are then moving to Varkala and have booked a really nice small hotel on the cliff for 24 nights which will take us through the christmas and new year period. Varkala is beautiful, we spent the day there Thursday to have a look for a good hotel for Christmas. Whilst we were there we had lunch on the cliff top and saw about 8 dolphins in about 1 hour!. Oh and on the way back I missed my step trying to fight my way off the train, through the hundreds of people trying to pile on and fell on to the platform, no damage to my body, just my pride, but at least it gave the locals a laugh!!.

Anyways that's all for now, hope everyone is well, not working too hard and enjoying the weather and the Christmas shopping.

Take care

Shirley and Andy

Beach life Crisis!

shirandy — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 00:44:00 GMT

Hi,

Andy employed a treking guide to get us back to the bus stand for Kathmandu- she was a really smart kid! Andy paid her a 50 rupees fee, she walked us across the road and stopped the local bus and said "That'll take you to the bus stand"

On the journey back to kathmandu, we saw another herd of goats on the bus- but not on the roof this time INSIDE!!!. 1 driver and about 100 goats, we couldn't work out how they all bought a bus ticket. A few miles further down the mountain road, our bus pulled over and picked up a goat that was tethered at the side of the road (it travelled inside the bus with us and about 20 other people!!). At the next rest stop the bus driver was having a good feel of the goat. Yes you've guessed it - it was his festival dinner!!!.

We flew out of kathmandu the next day, back to dehli- they are robbing buggers in Nepal, it's the first time we have had to pay to enter a country and then again to leave it. Even having been away from dehli for only a short time, returning was still a shock to the system. Only stayed one night and flew down to Goa YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Not mich to report from here really, we have checked in to our favourite hotel in candolim for 6 weeks and unbelievably we are almost halfway through our stay already! It's quite different to all our other visits here, as most of the resort is closed (imagine blackpool in feb). The beach shacks, most of the restaurants and even the new (fab!) pool in our hotel are not opening until 2nd November. life can be tough!!

We've got a scooter our transport for the next 6 weeks. Tonight we will be all over the resort as it is the start of Diwali and they will be burning the man and letting of fireworks- just like bonfire night at home!!.

Hope everyone is ok and not working too hard.

love to all

Shirley and Andy.

Rocky Mountain High

shirandy — Fri, 3 Oct 2008 02:20:00 GMT

We flew into kathmandu a week ago, a massive difference to Delhi (only minor hassle and much cleaner!!). Unfortunately Andy has been quite ill (Man Problems!!!!, but has perked up considerably the last couple of days. Andy saw 3 doctors and got 3 different diagnosis, eventually one of them must guess right, I suppose! A week in a city nearly drove us mad. We have now moved on to Pokhara which is heaven!!! We have a 3rd floor room in a lovely hotel with uninterupted views of the lake from our balcony (that's not entirely true, there are loads of water buffalo messing around in the mud pools between our hotel and the lake). If we look to the left we can see snow capped mountains, they look soooooooooooooo close, but they can't be as the temp. here is about 35 degrees C. Neither of us are that impressed with the food in Nepal and are looking forward to some Goan cooking. It's also impossible to get ice-cold drinks here but what the heck, it's tough but for your sakes we'll put up with it!

Distinct lack of monkeys in Nepal only seen 1 since we arrived, but we did see a herd of goats yesterday - ON THE ROOF OF A BUS IN THE CENTRE OF KATHMANDU (What do they eat??).

We might take a rowing boat on the lake tomorrow, 200 rupees boat hire and if required 50 rupees for a man to row it, guess what? You're right, Andy's not rowing and neither is Shirley!!!

TTFN, take care all.

Shirley and Andy.

PS comments are getting a bit thin on the ground!

Rocky Mountain High

shirandy — Fri, 3 Oct 2008 02:20:00 GMT

Distinct lack of monkeys in Nepal only seen 1 since we arrived, but we did see a herd of goats yesterday - ON THE ROOF OF A BUS IN THE CENTRE OF KATHMANDU (What do they eat??).

We might take a rowing boat on the lake tomorrow, 200 rupees boat hire and if required 50 rupees for a man to row it, guess what? You're right, Andy's not rowing and neither is Shirley!!!

TTFN, take care all.

Shirley and Andy.

PS comments are getting a bit thin on the ground!

Singing in the Rain!!!!

shirandy — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 18:32:00 GMT

We had a good overnight journey from Pushkar to Delhi followed by a crap all day (9 hours, average speed 18 miles per hour)journey to Dehra Dun. Followed by a 1 hour local bus up the Himalya (7000 ft) to Mussoorie. When we travelled the dehra Dun to Mussoorie road in daylight it is 22 km of hair pin bends, sheer drops and no safety barriers and the bus drivers drive as fast as possible up but slowly down. It's a bit like a roller coaster with no loop the loops. This is a famous Indian Tourist resort, a former hill station. It is stunning scenery when you can see it!! There is a lot of rain here, but it's a nice place to be.

The hotel we pre-booked wasn't up to much but we have since moved to the Honeymoon Suite in the Honeymoon Hotel (27 years to late, but it is very nice). The room has a round bed, leather armchairs and stunning views down the valley (when you can see through the clouds!).

We are staying 2 more nights and then moving on through Delhi to ............. sorry state secret!!! We are going on a first class train back to Delhi, half the journey time of the bus and they feed you- all for an extra 2 quid.

TTFN take care.

Welcome to the Zoo

shirandy — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:12:00 GMT

We are moving on tonight had a good time here except for the swimming pool (no water). There's camels everywhere here they use them for work as well as tourism. There's monkeys all over the town they are not very popular with the locals as they're thieves!!. Mind you the amount of cows we've seen helping themselves to people's shopping bags full of vegetables is unbelievable. You would think they would be more careful after hundreds of years of living like this. We've been using the binoculars to watch huge flocks of parrots it really is like staying in zoo!.

So far the only real hassle is the constant begging, everyone seems to do it, not just the needy. Everywhere we've been is the same. It's a shame because the deserving lose out against the professional competition.

News Flash, Andy found our first cockroach last night - on the headboard whilst we were in bed! YUK! (the first of many I'm sure).

keep the comments coming, they are fun to read.

Jaipur and Pushkar

shirandy — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 23:28:00 GMT

Whilst in jaipur we did the pink city, chaos, hot and almost as mad as Dehli. We also did a trip to the Amber Fort almost caused a fight (there's a jeep racket to take you the final 500yds. They charge more than a 200 mile bus journey costs. We did a deal for the return journey but when we came back all the other drivers insisted we paid double what we had agreed. They got their money!!. There are some interesting sites here, an interesting few days and then moved on to Pushkar. This is a real tourist area also very religous (over 500 temples around a lake- they all look the same to us!!). It's less hassle than anywhere else we have been so far so we are going to hang around here for a few more days before moving off to Moussori (not sure if that's spelt right but it is a hill station that sounds nice.

No more incidents with RATS or near disastrous train journeys!!

bye for now

What a crazy place this is!

shirandy — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:33:00 GMT

Where to start? such a lot seems to have happened since we updated in this Agra.

Well firstly th train journey for Delhi to Agra and back was fab a really well run journey (mainly just for us tourists), we even pluckd up the courage to eat the free meal which was included in the price of the ticket for the return journey.

We had already found another hotel in Delhi to move to too which was far better than the first, spotlessly clean superb location for getting the trains (more on that later) and the metro to other areas of the city so we spent a couple of relatively chilled days in Dehli. Ate some really good food and had our first Thali which cost 40 rupees and was superb our whole meal including soft drinks and coffee cost less than 3 pounds (sorry no english sybmols on this keyboard) for both of us.

Saw loads of monkeys at new dehli railway station, goodness only Knows how they manage to live there amongst the sheer volume of people but we must seen about 30 on the roof. Then one evening as we walking across the platform bridge through about 2000 people there was a whole family just walking in the opposite direction across the same bridge!!!/

There are cows everywhere, too eating rubbish ( I am not eating any beef here!!) and cra**** everywhere!

On our final night in Dehli in our new hotel just as we were going to sleep we heard this starange noise coming from what sounded the bathroom. Despite there being no way into except through a solid wall I was convinced that there was someone in there. Eveytime Andy got back into bed it started again, I was by now very spooked and wanted hime to call reception. Eventually Andy discovered that we did in fact have an intruder- in the air conditioning duct A RAT!!. I was very relieved that that was all it was and after he convinced me that there was no way in I slept very peacefully!!/

Anyway we had had enough of Dehli after 4 nights and decided to head to Jaipur to see the "pink city" and all that. By the way if you are wondering it is not PINK it is muddy brown. We decided that the easiest way was by train even if that did mean getting up at 3am. But they are doing repairs at the major station in Dehli so we had to go to one just outside which was ok. We got there in plently of time and low and behold a train turned up at the time on our tickets- so we got on, the attendant was asleep and we could not find our seats. Seconds before it pulled away from the station he woke up and told us we wwere on the wrong train!!!!! We still don't know where it was going!!!

Now in Jaipur at a really lovely laid back small hotel, so going to hang around for a few days, Japuir iself is almost as mad as dehli but now have camels as well as cows, cats, dogs, monkeys and parrots.

Love to all

Welcome to India!

shirandy — Sat, 6 Sep 2008 20:34:00 GMT

Hi,

A bit tricky flying over, made huge mistake tried to blag an upgrade for Andy, treated like a leper!!. Arrived in dehli 06.15 hotel pickup not waiting 6 phone calls 3 hours later driver arrives via wrong airport. Welcome to India. Hotel Ok- no cockroaches went up to the room in the lift all ok, came back down no lift doors on ground floor (THEY FELL OFF!!).

Did a coach tour of the sights of smelly Delhi yesterday, should have finished at 5.00 pm still on the coach at 9.00 (starving!).

Today we are in Agra and have seen the Taj Mahal and I wasn't allowed to take dopey Oakey in (my teddy) so I am afraid he could not pose for pictures there! He has been posing all over Delhi (will upload another day).

Must go now our personal cycle rickshaw driver is waiting outside in the sun and melting fast!

We are happy to hear that everything is going well your end and your not missing us!

Final Days in The Madhouse

shirandy — Mon, 1 Sep 2008 08:52:00 GMT

No, we haven't gone yet 3 days to go! 1 bag each, small enough to go hand luggage, hotel booked for 2 nights in Delhi then the adventure begins!