Planning the Great Escape

20th - 25th June 2012

So we had to take 2 flights to travel the small distance Beijing and Xi'an as nothing is straight forward in this country!! As is customary by now on Chinese flights we got fed on both flights even though we only left Beijing at 7.30am and arrived in Xi'an at 12pm so relatively short timeframe! Again couldn't eat what we were given though!! During the break between flights I witnessed another typical chinese incident which shows how different we are - the fact that it was ok for a woman to bring her daughter 12 month old daughter into the bathroom and let her wee into the sink while holding a clean nappy is beyond my comprehension!!

Anyways we arrived at our hostel and were pleasantly surprised, even Ronan was impressed! It had a great atmosphere, full of other tourists, good bar and really clean & comfortable!

So hard to find a nice restaurant in this city, we walked around for ages and eventually found a place that looked half normal although they gave us the menus on iPads but it was the same story as before with people standing over us, chopsticks and feeling self conscious!!

So far the hostel was the only redeeming feature of this city as it was good fun and the bar had a great atmosphere so ended up having another few mojitos back there!

The following day we were heading out to the Terracotta Warriors, another chinese 'unmissable' site. We used public transport again (no didn't learn our lesson from the stress of doing the Great Wall!). Neither of us very impressed, definitely seemed like a tourist ploy to get money in especially considering the entrance fee of 150yuan/€19 price. To put this in perspective the Taj cost €7.50, the Great Wall €5.60 and a couple of other things we did that cost €5 we considered expensive! Probably kinda hard for you to believe back home in Ireland but we are now in the travelling mentality and our hostels aren't costing 150yuan a night!!! Anyways it's all ok as Ronan pulled out his Public Services Card and passed it off as student id (yes as a 31 year old married man with an ever-growing forehead) and got us both in for half price!!!! So the stressful journey back to the city started with two extremely underwhelmed people wondering what all the fuss was about!!

That evening we walked for an hour and half looking for somewhere to eat dinner before we ended up in Pizza Hut, I kid you not the options were they limited and to be completely honest I couldn't listen to my whining anymore than Ronan could stand to listen to it!! We can laugh about it now though! Thank god for live music and the bit of craic back in the hostel though! We have blessed this day The Worst Day of the Honeymoon!!! Rang my sister for her birthday so that cheered me up, happy birthday again Lorraine xxxx

The following day, 22nd June, we had to check out of our hostel as we were leaving on a 16 hour train to Chengdu later that evening. We decided to rent bikes and cycle the city wall for the afternoon.  It was so much fun and definitely my favourite day in China so far! The entrance fee to the wall and the bikes were fixed price so at least there was no negotiating or getting ripped off. It was so much fun, we were faffing about taking breaks, taking photos, using the camcorder to our hearts content until we realised we were over an hour in and only half way around our 14km circuit so had to fairly belt it around the last 7km to get the bikes back in time (for fear of a 10 yuan penalty - I know it's only €1.24 but we are in budget travel mode) still so much fun!!

We then headed back to the hostel and got showered (the beauty of a hostel even though we were checked out) and prepared for our mammoth train journey.

It left Xi'an at 8pm so between reading and writing in my travel journal the time passed really quickly. We then slept from 12am until 9am which was really good going and when we woke up we only had 3 hours until we landed in Chengdu. We had hoped to be sharing a berth with other travellers but unfortunately it was not to be, we were with locals which included a kid! We did not sign up for the kid! Four bodies is a tight enough squeeze never mind a fifth who needed to be entertained and fed by sucking on slimy, dehydrated meat. Yum!  Oh and we went up the  chatting to a couple from Florida and when we came back they had robbed my bed.  Boo to the chinese!

So anyways we arrived in Chengdu on Saturday 23rd, perfectly refreshed after a good sleep on the train, to much lower temperatures than we have experienced so far - think it was around 30 degrees so more than manageable! As soon as we arrived and got showered we headed out in search of an Irish bar so Ronan could watch the Ireland v New Zealand rugby match so had a lovely afternoon/evening eating and drinking even though the match was a disgrace! There are actually so many Irish ex-pats in Chengdu, it's surprising! What was not surprising was that they spent all Saturday afternoon in the pub no more than ourselves!

The following day we went to the panda reserve. Having learnt from previous experience we decided to bite the bullet and go as a tour with our hostel rather than public transport! So we had an amazing morning, loved the pandas!! My new favourite thing in China, I could have spent all day there and 3 hours was just not enough!

Myself and Ronan have been having a wee domestic for the last few days before going to the pandas - so holding a panda is a once in a lifetime experience and cost a lot of money so I wasn't sure about doing it. Ronan reckons he should be allowed to do something that is a once in a lifetime experience and costs a lot of money and what he has chosen is of course to do a bungee jump! I don't want him to do it BUT I got a little carried away when I saw the pandas and kinda forgot what the trade-off was....so in effect I said yes to Ronan doing the bungee by bending and holding a panda (which was awesome may I add!)....anyways watch this space I may talk him around yet! My argument is he is now a married man with responsibilities and should act accordingly!! Why can't he pick a once in a lifetime experience which involves standing on the ground?!

The tour from our hostel had 5 other people on it and we ended up spending the full day with an English couple we met (hi David and Becky!). They showed us the true backpacker style of getting a tasty lunch for €1 and an amazing dinner for €2! Fun times!

We decided to completely chill on our last day in Chengdu cos we have been rushing around doing stuff for weeks with no break and haven't stayed anywhere for more than 2 nights since Jaipur at the start so it was nice to have nothing to do and nowhere to be!

So leaving for Hong Kong early on Tuesday 26th and I'm not sorry although Chengdu has been the nicest Chinese city and the people not as bad. Also the heat wave finally broke so temperatures down to 23 degrees and it's even rained!! Bye bye China, can't see us being back!

Good food and another wonder

17th - 19th June 2012

So we arrived in Beijing, China on Sunday 17th June tired and hungry after being up all Saturday night travelling and waiting on connecting flights. Nonetheless our excitement for China wasn't dampened by the numerous hoops we had to jump through to get into the country - screening for drugs, some weird body temperature screenings, getting photos taken then use of facial recognition software to match it to our passports (wonder if they think that all westerns look like alike??) and finally a full body search so intimate it made me blush. Talk about a violation!!

When we got to the baggage collection our bags were taking ages to come out and Ronan was getting antsy. I was just saying 'Shure if they are lost themselves what about it, there is nothing valuable in them cos everything worth money is in our hand luggage' so anyways eventually Ronan's bag showed itself but mine was still nowhere to be seen, so slowly I had to start eating my words and thinking about replacing every stitch of clothing I had along with hair dryer, straighteners, malaria tablets etc anyways as the last item trundled out of the baggage collection turned out it was my rucksack so big phew all around!

After having a snooze that afternoon we headed out to Silk Street which is a massive counterfeit items shopping centre! I was expecting things to be so cheap considering we are in China and they are made here but no, the prices were crazy! The Chinese try to rip tourists off at every turn so it's hard work trying to buy anything off them. I bought 4 pashminas and I swear the negotiating skills I gained will help us when we decide to buy a house!! So the notion of China not being all I thought it was has taken root. Things are very stressful and hard work so far. Even when we went for dinner and were handed a menu it was hard work with 3 waiting staff standing over us as we browsed the menu. We wanted to tell them that the way it works at home is you look through the whole menu then pick your favourite thing, as they didn't really understand why we looked through the whole menu from start to finish. Unfortunately we were reduced to communicating through pointing as they didn't understand a word of English. We were starving at this stage so things took a turn for the worst when we were handed chopsticks (no cutlery whatsoever), so picture two starving Irish who have never held chopsticks before never mind eaten a full meal with them, trying to eat half a duck and a heap of rice as gracefully as possible (which was not very graceful or dignified I will admit). No wonder 5 members of staff we're standing around watching us eat, felt a bit like being in a zoo and not in a good way....

Gettin' to grips with the sticks!

So finally on Monday 18th June we did what no visit to China is complete without - a visit to the Great Wall (our third wonder). We  looked at getting a tour out but it was too expensive so we looked it up online and decided how hard could it be to get public transport out?! Very, was the answer considering no one speaks English and all signs are in chinese (no letters just little pictures)!!! So after another stressful chinese experience we got to the Great Wall at Mutinyau (not the most touristy part) where we got a cable car and came down on a toboggan slide which was really good fun! The wall itself was grand, to be honest I was a little underwhelmed, having visited another wonder of the world earlier in the trip and found it amazing and so different in real life (Taj obviously!), I thought the great wall was exactly like you see on telly and didn't get any amazing feeling from actually being there!! Ronan loved it and had the same level of 'whelmedness' that he had with the Taj, not as good as the Pyramids.  Par for the course with everything in China so far even buying a banana out there was rip off central and eventually after negotiating we paid a quarter of the original price but again just unnecessarily hard and stressful!

Going off track to the real wall

That evening we decided to wander around a food mall which was a collection of street vendors cooking food in stalls. It looked really clean and yummy so we decided to eat dinner there, absolutely delicious and no one watching us was the best part. I had things like vegetable wrap, lamb kebab, corn on the cob. Ronan went for skewers of meat and lamb kebab but stayed away from all the veg in case he got food poisoning! He finished off by choosing which wriggling set of scorpions he would like and the chef obliged and cooked them up for him! He ate all 3 so apart from being a little crunchy he seemed to enjoy! The food here was one of the only things in Beijing that was fixed price and not overly inflated for tourists so this was definitely part of the attraction!

Yummy...

The next day we went to the Forbidden City. It was ok. Too hot, too much walking and China had broken my spirit. The queues and amount of people were crazy and they just pushed and shoved with no concept of queueing. The Forbidden City was just not interesting enough to make up for all the bad points! Afterwards we tried to head out to another sight of interest, the Summer Palace but once again China was not playing ball so we ended up finding a park with a lake, renting a boat and having a lovely time in the peace and quiet of the middle of a lake away from all the chaos!

When faced with the prospect of either being in a goldfish bowl and being watched with every mouthful we ate or eating from street vendors again, the street vendors won out and we ate in a different market but again yummy! Quite funny walking along and having a guy enticing us to his stall by shouting 'sheep penis' and 'sheep balls' yum yum!!

So the next morning the time had come to depart Beijing, we weren't too sorry to see the back of it with the hopes that a smaller city might be easier to deal with. We were flying out of Beijing as when we tried to book trains they were all booked out for days in advance. Again the word stressful comes into play - I know the boy who cried wolf may be coming to your mind but I genuinely cannot overuse the word 'stressful' when describing our China experiences!! We arrived in the airport in what we thought was great time not have taken the chinese aversion to queues and lack of english into account. Our plans for a leisurely breakfast gone to pot, we elbowed and shoved our way through the queues with the best of them and just made it to the gate in time to fly out of Beijing st 7.30am!

A more relaxing side to Nepal

13th - 16th June 2012

End of trekking - 13th June

Since we have being in China and unable to access the blog we have being a bit lazy about updating it so I am currently going back on 10 days (whoops!) to when we just finished trekking and left for Nepal's capital Kathmandu. So we finished trekking on Wednesday 13th June and went back to the town of Pokhara to chill out in the most normal, westernised place we have come across since we left Ireland. By the way I am glad I wrote my experience of the whole trekking while I was in the middle of it and showed my true feelings because time has given me a new romantic, rose tinted view where I am thinking, well it wasn't that bad and I'm glad I did it. Sorta like what I hear happens after childbirth.....

We also learned from our guide on the last day of the trek that marijuana grows 'wild' all over Nepal but people wouldn't smoke it cos that is illegal (ya right!) except for one day of the year when it is allowed to celebrate a religious festival!!

So the next day we left for Kathmandu, the capital. Another excruciating journey where 200km took 6 hours!! We stopped for a break after 1.5hours and lunch 1.5hours later, who needs lunch at 11am?!  Loved Kathmamdu, small city and we could walk everywhere. The people were lovely and so friendly and helpful.

We spent our second day here sightseeing.  Before we arrived in Nepal we were warned about the political instability here at the moment (no Mam & Marlene we didn't think we should enlighten you both to this development!) so it wasn't the best time to visit but we decided to 'risk' it. Basically the country is due an election and there is no constitution as the coalition government can't agree on it. So anyways loads of people said it to us about the political unrest blah blah so as we were out sightseeing we came across a political protest .... I can hear you all gasp wondering how we got through it but honestly the pensioners protesting over the medical cards in Ireland a few years looked more in danger of doing damage than the group of Nepali people we saw....

We have become experts at killing time efficiently since we have being away. The following day we had to check out of our hotel in the morning and we were waiting around to get the plane to China at 11.30pm that night (Sat 16th). But we actually had a great day shopping, eating, drinking mojitos (the Nepali in Kathmandu being as good at making them as their Pokhara counterparts). Good times and we were both sad to say So Long to Nepal but excited about China.

The plane journey was funny for two reasons;
- firstly they put us on a bus to get to the plane, grand Ryanair do it all the time but the plane was LITERALLY 20 steps of a walk from the terminal building and we all had to queue to get on a sweaty bus
- secondly (bear in mind we were flying at 23.30 at night) 20 mins into the flight they landed out with a big curry dinner!! Who eats dinner at that hour?? Everyone else on the flight couldn't get enough of it you would swear they hadn't a bite all day. We had to get 2 flights to get around the Himalayans and got another meal on the second flight too! Some novelty after flying Ryanair for years although that was some weird chinese breakfast so we didn't eat that either and got to our hotel starving after not eating for almost 24 hours....

Despite Ronan getting sick of the sound of his own voice saying 'we are on honeymoon' and giving up telling everyone we ended up getting upgraded to Premium class for the second flight. It didn't mean too much except for more leg space and free water but was nice anyways!

Our visit to the Monkey Temple

The highs and lows of the Himalayans

8th - 13th June 2012

After a 14hr land transfer to travel the 500km, we landed in Pokhara, Nepal - I know crazy length of time but it took so long as the roads were so bad - we couldn't read, sleep, write the blog, do anything except look out the window for the full journey!
The border crossing by land from India to Nepal was uneventful - it really seemed to be just a rubber stamping exercise to justify the $25 for the visa.
So first impressions of Pokhara were great, especially considering we were after such a long journey without food and hadn't taken the heads off one another!! Really loved the town and it's just a pity we didn't have more time here.
The next morning (Sat 9th June) we were heading off on our trek so met the guide early to find out what we needed and then went shopping to buy the necessities like shoes (not very prepared I know!)
We then went to the starting point,Nayapul by car. It was 36 degrees! All I had heard since arriving in India was about how much cooler Nepal was going to be so I was thinking it was gonna be around the twenties!!
So the trekking consisted of 52km, 3,250 steps in a row, 4 full days, 4 nights (half days on first and last days) and I hated every minute!!!! Trekking is not for me which is unfortunate considering we have the Inca Trail booked and paid for!
Generally we have been doing 6/7 hours walking up and down sides of mountains constantly - the main thing that got to me was that you could kill yourself on getting up a steep hill only to get to the top and have to go back down straight away!
Our highest point that we climbed to was 3,200m/10,499ft on Poon Hill (over 3 times the height of Carrauntoohil) - climbing a mountain at 4am to see the sun rise was not my highest point of the trip and I may have been in a teeny weeny bad mood but I admit it was worth it as it was an amazing viewpoint of the part of the Himalayans in this area.

For anyone who has done trekking here or is considering it our circuit was Tikhedhunga, Ghorepani, early morning trek to Poon Hill, Syauli and back to Nayapul.
For those doubting the integrity of the backpacking of this trip I would like to produce Exhibit A and Exhibit B, our accommodation on the trek!

The accommodation was so cheap it was ridiculous - the cheapest was 225 Nepal rupees which ends up being €1 per person per night.
It's really random aswell, all the owners of the guest houses sleep either on the floor of the dining room or have a bed set up in the corner! Really strange - we got an awful fright when we got up at 3.45 to go to Poon Hill and this aul lad let out a roar at us waking him!!

So its the final night of the trek and these are the little luxuries I am looking forward to tomorrow :
- washing my hands with soap and water
- using a non squatting toilet
- using a towel bigger than a postage stamp
- shaving my legs
- not having to use a torch to go to the toilet during the night

Ronan is loving the trekking, he would have kept going for longer but unfortunately our flight to China is booked for the weekend so we don't have the time (that is the real reason nothing to do with me at all!). He spent parts of the day walking 10mins ahead, not sure if that was because of my moaning or him going off taking photos!
All in all I am able to say at this stage that I am glad I did it but I didn't really enjoy it and would gladly never do it again!!

By the way it's the year 2069 here in Nepal at the moment so if anyone wants to know what the future holds we have the inside track - people eat with their hands rather than using cutlery, don't use toilet paper and have one word for all the pleasantries (hello, goodbye, thank you etc).

As I said earlier we are on the last night of our trek and staying in our last mountainside guest house which actually has electricity (whoop whoop)! Everywhere in Nepal advertises apple pie as their speciality so we just asked for some here. Now we have gotten used to being told they don't have certain things in stock as its tough getting supplies to most parts of this circuit as there are no roads and everything is transported by people or mule. The local people here carry about 110-120kg up the mountain for hours on end!! So when we asked for apple pie we were not surprised when they said they had no apples! Then our guide pops his head in and says he has apples in his pack so off they went and knocked up a pie from scratch for us! They are really a lovely race of people, very friendly, helpful and want to please.

Really looking forward to getting back to civilisation tomorrow (13th June) and spending our last few days in Nepal between Pokhara and Kathmandu (the capital city). Next blog entry will probably be from China, time is really flying!

N

Wonders and worshippers

5th - 8th June 2012

So rising at 4:30am earns you the right to be first into a wonder of the world - well it did for these two Irish eejits who were a good 20 minutes in the queue waiting for the gates of the Taj Mahal to open before any other tourists came along and queued behind us! Still all worth it as they opened the gates we go through and get the first photo like image of the marble giant peering out through the entry archway. Being first in allowed us to get an unblemished view of this magnificent  image (that gets 3million+ visitors a year). Nicole also got the opportunity to perfect the infamous Princess Di pose on the bench leading up the tree lined pool avenue that provides a mirror reflection of the Taj - and even though we were in an oasis of calm, very rare in this chaotic country, I could hear an Indian voice in my head say "see Sir I do you good price, two Taj for the price of one" as the Taj reflected back at us.

Nicole was "overwhelmed" by the whole experience and the Taj has entered straight in at number one on her all time favourite sights - how it beats the Pyramids I can't understand but she put my "appropriately whelmed" feelings on the morning's visit down to me contracting the obligatory dickey Indian tummy (affectionately known as Delhi Belly) the day before!!
You got to hand it to the guy who commissioned the building of the Taj in honour of his 3rd wife's death - but as Karl Pilkington (An Idiot Abroad) said - I'd wonder if her was as nice to her before her death or was this down to some form of guilt...

We spent the rest of the day in Agra waiting to leave Agra - it's very much a one sight town, or maybe it's just the the Taj Mahal paves all the City's other offerings into insignificance. Given that it was 46 degrees of piercing sun we sought solitude in a local (westernised style) coffee shop offering the best AC we could find - on settling in we were joined by a Canadian couple who had the same idea and were also awaiting their late evening exodus from Agra!! 3 hours in, and after watching all Jurassic Park subtitled, I felt we were "cheating" as tourists and much to Nicole's disapproval I said we should go visit the Fort (must see sight number 2 of Agra). All I can say is Nicole was of course right and we were better off where we were! So picture this, a large square courtyard with high dilapidating walls, hawkers coming at us from all angles trying to sell all matter of junk and us looking angrily at each other while we sweated faster than we could replenish with water... So after a power visit where we hogged whatever shade was available off we set with a chancer of rickshaw driver - Bring on my first argument with a local as he obviously never met a melting Irish man being blinded by the suncream running off his forehead before - long and short even he knew it was in no ones interest that we visit his 'brothers' shop where he could get us a 'special price'!

Off we set that night for our 10 hour road transfer to our next stop - Varanasi, or as we renamed it 'the Knock of India'. The place was wedged with pilgrimages worshipping all varieties of gods. The Knock reference came as our boat guide on the Ganges said that pilgrims always bring a bottle of the Ganges water back home to those that couldn't come - sure this could only conjure up the image of the reservoirs of holy water sitting in presses up and down the country back home - Though why anyone would bring a bottle of this stuff home is beyond me. We rowed (well we were rowed) up by the cremation area of the river and it was surreal, the scene that confronted us could have been any time in history and by looking at the evenings events you couldn't tell if it was 2012 or 1812. Our guide then went on to tell us that the bodies of pregnant women and children who died couldn't be burned and were weighed down with stones and thrown into the centre of the river - just another reason that baffled me as to how they washed, swam and even drank from the river!
Following the cremation site we stopped off, parked up our boat and sat to watch 'mass'. Every evening at 8 there's an hour long praying ceremony - but 20 minutes in, following much bell ringing and chanting that would put 20 decades of the rosary to shame, I was fit to pass out with the heat that was being added to by the thousands there praying - so we set off on our boat again and head back to base.

Our second night in Varanasi we head out for a walk around the craziness that the streets of India had to offer as it was our last night before we head for Nepal - and my God we were immersed in the chaoticness of it all as our wandering caused us to get lost and go round in circles but always seeing something bizarre along the way! India is truely a fascinating, colourful and busy country and the thoughts of ever escaping a crowd looked like they would never come - but than came Nepal...

P.S - Nicole wanted to delete half this entry - but lets be honest when she said 'Ronan you do the blog on our last few days in India' who expected any less??

R

The Adjustment

Written on journey to Agra just after leaving luxury villa on Monday 4th June.

So as we leave our luxury villa in Jaipur (our ivory tower as I have been calling it!), I am excited about what is yet to come! In a few hours we will see the Taj Mahal, one of the Seven Wonders of the World!!
I am easing Ronan into the backpacking world gently, when booking our Agra hotel I gave him a budget of €40 for the night. We were booking it after I had taught Ronan how to handwash clothes and we had spent about an hour washing everything we own (while simultaneously making the villa look worse than the old Ballymun flats with clothes hung in every available surface!) so I felt he had slummed it enough for one day!!!

Typical Ronan looked up hotels in that price range, but then wanted to upgrade the room to one costing €55! When we looked into it the difference between the €40 room and the more expensive one was 6ft of space so we opted for the cheaper one!

We have booked a trek in Nepal for the this weekend which includes sleeping in huts in the mountains so think that will be enough of a culture shock for one week! Hard to believe that by Friday we will be wearing socks and coats!!

Edited to add after our arrival in Agra:
Sooooo this whole mid-budget accommodation is not going so good. After a promising start, where we got upgraded to the bigger room for free because our original room was noisy due to building works, things started to go downhill. The first indication that all was not well was when the receptionist was marking our hotel on the map and PROUDLY declared they are located 'right beside the largest leprosy hospital in India'!!! Nice......

The second problem occurred when I was taking a shower and ended up in a very undignified position squatting under the tap below the shower head to try to get the shampoo out of my hair. 'Nuff said I think!

Then we went up for an evening meal on the roof top terrace that boasts views of the Taj - but as the Taj is not lit up at night (I know strange for one of the world's most popular sights) we were just eating on a roof. So as it turns out we didn't get to see the Taj yet, who'd have thought they would have built such high walls around it that it can only be seen properly from inside (after paying), we have gotten the odd glimpse here and there but that's it, so alarm is set for 4.45 to watch the sunrise over it!! Here's hoping its worth the early start!!

N

Pools, heatwaves & elephants

Round-up of our luxury week 28th - 4th June 2012

Our villa and private pool

So between the both of us we spent a grand total of 3.5 days sick this week, it sucks but it could have been worse although I did find myself wishing I was at home in my own bed after about 48hours of being unwell! All good again now though.
The powers that be were definitely against us getting out and sightseeing in Jaipur this week between a national strike (against fuel price increases) where EVERYTHING closed (from global companies like McDonalds to the local bazaars) and trying to battle an Indian heatwave!

So we did manage to see some of Jaipur but it was more of a drive-by sightseeing session where I admired the palaces and buildings from the window of the (air conditioned) car and Ronan hopped out to take a quick photo! A lot of Jaipur sights are just the facades, you can't go into them so I didn't feel too bad! For anyone who knows/cares we did go into the City Palace and Amber Fort, they were fine and we would definitely have appreciated them better on a cooler day! Ronan had been hoping to try out his haggling skills so wasn't overly happy that everything was closed - though we did stop at one stall on the way back to the villa to buy two hats to keep the sun off our heads for the elephant ride the next day so at least Ronan got to do some bargaining with a local - though the hats he came back with were a bit chav-ey so thank God we were given the turbans the morning after as they were modern fashion in comparison!!

The highlight of our week though had to be the elephant experience, painting an elephant's trunk with an Ireland flag is definitely up there with one of the more random experiences of my life but there you go! I reckon 'painting an elephant' will become the new 'swimming with dolphins' and everyone will want to do it.

On our 2nd day in Jaipur the national strike had finished and we took a walk through some of Jaipur's many bazaars - however this depicted more like a running scene from Scooby Doo as the shops kept repeating themselves - it was rugs, jewelry, clay pots, T-shirts - rugs, jewelry, clay pots, T-shirts - rugs, jewelry, clay pots, T-shirts... so needless to say we didn't do any shopping there!!

We also ended up experiencing an Indian 'queuing' system in a supermarket where the two polite, Irish eegits stood for about 15mins trying to pay for few bits like water and juice while everyone else piled into the mass of people with just one shop assistant serving (which resembled something like.............). Eventually the security guard either took pity on us or wanted to win the bet for how long we would stand there doing nothing (something like guess length of speeches at a wedding I'd imagine) and dragged us up through the mob to the counter. The Indians - no respect for a queue...

Anyways that's a few of the highlights, gotta run. What have you all being up to??
We are interested, leave us a message!!

N