Goa, India (By Kev)
2025年3月20日〜28日, インド ⋅ 🌙 28 °C
20.3.2025. Today is my birthday, I'm 45. Getting bloody old, and cranky! Honestly, it's just another day to me, nothing special. I know however, it is special to others. I see that with the messages received, phone calls and how I feel when it's someone I care abouts birthday. Mel always posts something on fb, and I like that. The best thing tho is the little things I got from the kids. We're travelling so we can't pack presents or a cake, so what did I get? Some little notes and pictures from them, adorable. I received an award for being an awesome dad, debatable. Andrew made up a PowerPoint presentation for me, I think he just wanted to use his computer(kidding). But the best thing was the cuddles, they're tighter and longer cuddles on your birthday, love it. Also, it's moving day, yay! Pack all our stuff again and get going. We organised with our taxi driver from 2 days previous to pick us up and run us to the train station at 11am. At 11:15, he still wasn't here. He forgotten or got a better offer. An old guy in a Tuktuk cruised past, honked and looked at us. Waved him down, yep mate we'll take a ride. Bags and kids loaded up, we were off to the station. Turned out way cheaper than what the taxi would of been. It was just after lunchtime and we're hungry. There's a veg restaurant attached to the station, how bad could it be? Turns out, pretty bloody good. We all had a tasty meal, except Emma who is having a little trouble with the food here. Getting grumpy with her isn't going to fix anything, and she's not gonna die from starvation any time soon. Just something to ride out with her. Now we just have to wait for our train, should be here in an hour or so. Nope, it's delayed. Supposed to be here at 3, now 4, great. 4 o'clock turns up it still not here. Guy from the station comes over to check on us, “you've been here long time, what's your train”. We tell him our train number, according to him it's about to arrive and we should move to our spot on the platform. So we do, tho we haven't heard an announcement. We go and stand near the spot where our coach is supposed to pull up, and wait. How long did we wait? Not sure, another 10-15mins, couldn't tell you for sure. But finally, around 4:30 our train arrives. We have to haul arse and get on because it's only stopping here for 1min. We kick the kids and jump on, find our seats and settle in. We were scheduled to arrive in Goa at 7pm, that's gonna be 8pm now. As we travelled along, Mel kept checking the trains progress on a website they found. We're getting later and later. We finally get to Goa, it's 9:30pm and too late to go out and find some dinner. So, we showered and put the kids to bed. Mel apologised that I didn't have a great birthday, that they had planned travel on this day. I reassure that it doesn't bother me, it's just another day to me really. I spent another day with my lot, in other words, I had a good day.
21.3.2025. 45 and one day today. We had a slow start since we had a late night. Unpacked our things a bit as we're here for seven days and really checked out the place. Two rooms with a queen bed in each, great. An aircon in each room, brilliant. Turns out we don't need the AC, it's nice and cool with just the fans. There's a small kitchenette with a fridge, sweet. Downstairs there's a water filter/purifier so we have access to plenty of water, outstanding! You start to realise just how easy we have it in Australia, when you can't trust water out of the tap. When you have to check the bottles you get from restaurants because there is counterfeit water bottles here that are just untreated tap water. We haven't found one yet, but you have to check. I took for granted being able to drink straight out of the tap/hose any time I want. People still sook about fluoride in the water, for fucks sake, just drink your fresh and safe water, that's pumped directly to your house! What did we do after that? We went to a supermarket, got some juice to put in the fridge. Got some butter and cheese, to put in the fridge. Got some eggs for breakfast, they're in the fridge! Simple things, I know, but you don't realise how much you miss it until you don't have it. This new place we're at is the best so far. It's cool, it's comfortable, it's got conveniences, it's got laundry. It’s a bit far from things but eh, nothing’s perfect. After putting our groceries away and having some lunch, we did some more planning for the next part of our trip. In the evening we walked to a restaurant we found on Google, turns out it's actually there. Google has sent us astray a few times, so we're always pleasantly surprised when it's right. Tried a new beer, People's beer. Brewed here in Goa and only allowed to be sold in Goa. Glad we found it as it tastes pretty good. Tried a new type of spirit too, called feni. Distilled from fermented cashew fruit. Didn't know cashews had a fruit too, weird looking things. We ate the fruit in Laos, they called the Laos fruit, bit like an apple to eat but not as sweet. Check it out, looks funny. The feni was ok, not my favourite so Mel finished it. Home and sleep.
22.3.2025. We have a taxi booked for 9 to take us to a waterfall. Before any of that tho, I cooked toad-ina-hole for everyone for breakfast, if you don't know what that is or call it something else, I'm talking about bread with a hole in the middle fried in butter, and you cook an egg in the hole. They all love it. It's been months since we had one. We were getting ready for our day, when Mel's phone says our taxi is on the way. Shit, it's only 8:15, we had it booked for 9. Quickly get our gear ready, by that I mean I left my phone and battery pack on the bed when we took off. Hopped in the taxi, who was starting to drive off looking for us and set off for the water fall. About an hour and a half ride, we stopped short of the waterfall. Google says we still have 30mins to go. Our driver parked, and asked if we had a taxi back. After we said we had to organise that yet, he said he would wait and take us back after. Helpful I suppose and he gets paid both ways. We were notified by a bloke there that to get to the falls you had to take a 4wd, supplied by the park the waterfall is in. Ok, fine, how do we do that? We get taken over to a counter, “have you booked tickets online”? Um no, didn't know we had to. 192rupees if you booked online per person, 540 if you haven't. Checked online to book, need an India number to book online, well that's friggin helpful, guess we're paying full price. Our taxi driver, who stuck with us to make sure we were ok I guess, booked for us online with his number, helpful again. Saved us a bit of money, which we then spent. So, bought tickets to enter the park, went around to another counter where we now had to pay for the 4wd to take us to the waterfall. Around 4000 rupees, bloody hell I just wanna a ride I don't wanna buy it. Then around to another counter where we had to get lifejackets, yep compulsory they are at the waterfall. Though we didn't use them and the lifeguards at the bottom of the waterfall didn't seem to care. We think it's because in India, swimming isn't a life skill they learn early in life like Australia, so they mandate lifejackets. We hopped in a “jeep”, a busted old Indian 4wd that has done this rough road a squillion times, stopped to pay a 100rupee each forest entry fee each and bumped our way 30mins to said waterfall. When we got there we got told we had 90mins to be back, after all this we had a time limit. Walked into the place, smaller than I thought it would have been. Lots of people, and as we stayed more and more turned up. We had started our way back to the jeep, when I heard “my friend, we need to go”. It was our jeep driver, come to get us. I said yeah mate we're on our way, payed a bloody lot to come in here ya know. On our way back I asked, how long he worked as a jeep driver. 10 years was his answer. Who owns the jeeps? The forestry does. How many jeeps are there in total? 450 he told me. 450 jeeps, running in and out, with up to 7 people per jeep! No wonder they only let you stay for an hour and a half. That's a lot of paying people moving through the place. I agree it's not a big enough place to let that many people stay as long as they want, and honestly after 20min of swimming in cold water I was done. We got back to the entrance and our taxi driver found us. Led us back to his car and we were soon heading back. On the way back, I thought to myself. That's a shitload of money moving through that place, where the bloody hell does it all go. It doesn't go to the upkeep of the road that's for sure. It doesn't go to keeping the forest clean. Who's pocket does it stop in? I won't dig too deep, lest the authorities come after me. So, an expensive 40-50min swim at a waterfall. We're still alive so it wasn't all bad I guess. We got back and had a late lunch. Rested and refreshed, by that I mean we made some stinky kids have a shower. Made our way to the beach. Mel had found that a bar here, the Tiki Bab, was having a rock fest night. That was right up our alley, some local Indian bands playing some rock covers. Was supposed to start at 7, so that's when we got there. Warm ups for 2 hours and finally kicked off proper at 9. The kids played on the beach for ages. We left a bit after 10, as Emma was knocking up. We only got to the second group out of three, and there hadn't been any original music, which we had hoped for. It was a fun evening with a few beers, none of which were local stuff(big disappointment), had to lower myself to drinking Budweiser, might go without next time. Made our way back to our room and crashed.
23.3.2025. We contacted some good friends this morning and had a chat. Was nice to catch up, 2 hours flew by and i'm sure we could have chatted for longer. After that we were off to a museum I found, well actually three museums in one area. Three museums and a cafeteria in one place. Sweet, there's the rest of the day and lunch taken care of. Walked there as its only 20min from our stay. Had to have a tour guide, which was ok, but we felt rushed, “come, come, this way”. Well, turns out, when I feel a bit rushed I get more interested in things and start asking more questions. He seemed happy to answer, but kept checking his phone. For a place that claims it has 40,000 artifacts, stretching over 1500 years and me pushing back to slow us down a bit, we were still done in 50mins or so. We finished the tour, and asked about the cafeteria. No that's closed, great. I try to plan stuff and this is how it works out for me, maybe I need to stop trusting google maps so much. Well now we need to find a place for lunch, ah good old google maps. Found a restaurant and off we went. Yep that place is closed too, get stuffed google maps. Now what? We walked about 40 metres, there's this little family restaurant on a corner. Yep that'll do, in we went. Language barrier, what language barrier. Food ordered, drinks ordered, never got the drinks but hey. The guy came and put a cold water bottle on our table, Mel grabbed it and took the lid off. It wasn't sealed, Mel was taking a REAL good look at it when the guy came back and said something like “mistake, India only water” and gave us a different bottle. This one was sealed and was a brand we had before. The food was good, I had chicken biryani and it was very nice. Mel's, as it seems with vegetarian food here, was very spicy. Emma had plain rice, as I said before she is being a little difficult with food atm. Andrew is starting to enjoy his food more again, which is encouraging. While we were waiting for and while we were eating our food. We noticed the mum, watching us while she made our chapati. Watching with a smile. I think the smile was because we were different, but we enjoyed her food. We were different, but still the same, a family. We've been watched a lot since we got to India, but not like this. We had a small laugh together when she came to sit nearer to us and we tried our best to explain that the kids don't like too much spicy. Her smile was genuine and beautiful and it made my day. This small connection was more to me than seeing a museum. Happy and full, we headed back to our room. Laundry time and some blogging.
24.3.2025. We organised another taxi to take us to an area and drop us there, from there we'd make our way across the city to our end spot. First stop was a science museum. It was a pretty good museum, lots of interesting and interactive things for the kids to do. Optical illusion stuff, marble run things and electric/magnetic activities. That was just the first room. We watched a 3d movie about the sea. Sat back in a planetarium and learnt about the sun. Sat in on a small science show. There was an exhibit on the ocean, including a quiz game. A whole room full of mirrors and the illusions they can create, also a mirror maze. Outside, there's all sorts of devices. One which focused your voice, and directed it 15m away where it was then channeled to another person's ear. You could hear clearly from that far away, outside, without shouting. Others that helped us understand pendulums, levers and pulleys. The kids saw how a lever could help you pick up something you otherwise wouldn't be able to move. All in all a fun museum. After that was lunch time, we'd spent nearly three hours in the museum. We kept on moving to our next stop. One thing we've worked out about this place is it's bloody huge! We walked for ages! Eventually, we found what we were looking for. A temple. It looked good on Google maps(yep google), in reality, it's pretty small. Looked closed too, oh well. Well let's not dwell on this minor setback, it was only 40mins or so of walking. Let's move onto the next spot we selected in our tour. Believe it or, we were starting to run out of daytime. We were hoping to see a bit more than we had actually managed to so far, and it was looking like we were gonna have to choose between two. We chose to visit the Immaculate Conception church, as it was big and white and closed. Yep closed, we walked and walked and stopped for a drink cause it was stinking hot and walked some more. The steps up to the church were roped off, foiled again. Well that was that, we sat there for a while trying to work out what to do next. Truth was, not much. It was getting dark and we'd had enough. We messaged our taxi driver and made the long trip back to our room. Shower time because the kids were smelly, then a movie and bed. Our day didn't go completely to plan and we were reminded just how big this place is.
25.3.2025. We're getting to know our taxi driver, Raza. We're happy to stick with him, it's been a bloody nightmare trying to organise taxis or Tuktuks here. Uber doesn't work in Goa and other apps or websites have been shit. This is a bit more expensive but it works. Any way he took us to Old Goa today, more churches. At least these ones are open. The first was Basilica of Bom Jesus, which was built in 1605. Walked across the street to Se Cathedral, then a museum at the back of it. Then a short walk up to the ruins of St Augustine Church, which collapsed after it was left abandoned when this sect of religion was driven out. While the ruins are fascinating, the whole church would have been amazing to look upon. There is a tower still standing, which is 46m high. Walked back down to a restaurant we saw on the way up, fed the masses. I may have said it before, there's good food here. A quick message to Raza, he picked us up in the parking lot and we were off to another part of Goa. It was time to see one of the many forts at Goa. Built in 1612 by the Portuguese to protect the river and Goa. Aguada Fort, a massive fort with a huge water reservoir in the middle fed by a fresh water spring. Said to hold 2,376,000 gallons of water, which they used to resupply ships. After the fort, we stopped at some boats. Raza had told us on the way in that the boats would take you out for an hour to spot some dolphins. Why not! Off we went, into the blue. Within 15min we had our first sighting. We cruised around “chasing” the dolphins. There were 6-7 boats from this company and another big boat joined in from another company. All racing around chasing dolphins. I can't help but think about what we're doing to the dolphins. Sure it was exciting to see them, but as soon as one came up the area was surrounded by boats. They need to fish, they need to breathe. Are we interfering too much? As far as I know the boats run in and out all day. Maybe, after years and years of being annoyed by people now they don't give a shit about us and just go about their business. I hope so. It was time to head back again, hours out in the heat knocks you around.
26.3.2025. Another day, another taxi ride with Raza. This time to another part of Goa, for a cooking class. We learnt about masala tea and were shown how to make it. We were shown how to make cinnamon coffee, as well. We didn't prepare everything, but we got to make our own porotta and masala. We mixed and kneaded dough. We rolled it out and cooked it up. We mixed and fried spices, marinated chicken and tofu. Cooked everything up and smashed it afterwards. Bloody tasty, we were all stuffed. On the way back, we stopped at a new Hindu temple. It was almost completely made of white marble and was carved all by hand. After that, back to the homestay, organise with Raza for our last taxi ride tomorrow to the train station. Inside, coffee, blog. That is all.
27.3.2025. Moving day. Pack bags and head out for some breakfast. Back to the room, finish packing, finish blogging. Move upstairs to the covered roof and wait until it's time to go to the station, about 4 hours.
Kevもっと詳しく
🍻 [Dada]
Super League des 4 👍 [Dada]
Goa, India (By the kids)
2025年3月20日〜28日, インド ⋅ 🌙 28 °C
Hello, it is me, I want you to enjoy this blog, so do it. ENJOY IT.
On the 20th we were going to have a waiting day, we’re going to wait because we have a train to go to Goa. It’s also dad’s birthday, my mum keeps saying sorry because they planned it badly. The train was supposed to arrive at 7pm, so we decided to have a birthday dinner, but the train arrived at 9:30pm. When we got there we went to our room and slept.
On the 21st we did a bit of shopping because we have a kitchen, and I’m missing food from home a lot. After that we went home to do some planning (I mean mum and dad do some planning). Me and Emma did some board games and played a bit of a game I call do crazy stuff. We have this spinner thing that we were chucking at each other, it was fun, then we got a ball that I use for juggling and started using it for a soccer ball. Then did other stuff for ages, then we went to have dinner then, we went home and slept.
On the 22nd we decided to go to a waterfall, we had to take a taxi to go there and it was about a 1 and a half hour drive, I had enough when it was only 10 minutes in the drive. When we got there it turned out that the taxi couldn’t go all the way to the waterfall, but we paid the taxi to go there, even though we didn’t. We had to pay for parking for the taxi so they would stay there for when we wanted to go home again. We had to go get a jeep to go there. So we went to go get our jeep but then we figured out that we need to pay for them so we pay and went in to, pay again? Apparently this was for the jeep, the other one was for the entry to the national park (the waterfall was in the national park). When we left on the jeep, we ran into a check point we had to pay entry fees to get in the park, I thought we already did that? When we finally got there it turned out we could only stay for one hour because there was so many people there. It was fun when we got there because there were lots of fish around me, I spent most of my time trying to catch the fish with my hands. When we went back home we went to go to the beach. We were going to the beach because there was a show down there, there was bands playing rock music. Me and Emma spent most of our time running around, at one point we saw some fireworks coming from the other side of the beach, it was cool. When it finished we went home and slept.
On the 23rd we started our day by calling Mathew and Lachi (there some of our friends) we talked for a while (I ate 5 bananas) then we said goodbye and (sadly) hung up. After that we went to a museum, the museum was divided into three parts. One was about olden day transportation, the second was about how they were living without electricity, and the third was about the Portuguese influence in goa. It was interesting, when we were done with the museum we went home and did schoolwork and blog (I also ate another 2 bananas).
On the 24th we went to another museum, but this one was about science museum, it wasn’t about history or old stuff, it was about fun little experiments. Not like mix stuff together science, it was like move stuff around science, still pretty fun, I’m not complaining. My mum has asked (well not asked assigned) me to write a bit about something I’m interested in, and explain it. So what I’m going to write about is that metal can become non-magnetic, that’s right, metal can become non-magnetic if it is very hot. The way they did the experiment is that they get a coil of wire with a magnet attached to it then they heat up wire and then the magnet falls off, SCIENCE!!!!! The point where it falls of is called the Curie point, it was discovered by Pierre Curie, a French scientist, he is the husband of Marie curie and is from the 19th century, HISTORY. It was very interesting, there was so many cool stuffs like that. When we finished we went to a few temples and churches there was this very old one that was huge. Wait, slight problem we couldn’t get in, well that’s annoying. When we finished we went home and slept.
On the 25th we went to another church well actually two still standing churches, one collapsed church. The collapsed one was my favorited one because it has the ruins around it and I like that sort of stuff. We went to the still standing ones first. In the inside there was lots of decorations it was very pretty, I liked it, there was a lot of gold painted stuff, it was interesting. After that we went to some forts, the forts were near the ocean, the forts were really cool it was amazing. After that we went to a dolphin spotting trip, it went for 45 minutes, we saw some dolphins but I didn’t see many, Emma and Dad saw around 20, I saw 3 (poor me ☹☹). When we came back we went back to the hotel and slept.
On the 26th we went to a cooking class. I really like cooking classes, but for some weird reason I don’t like math classes. In the cooking class we cooked Samosas, butter chicken, paratha, poori, kheer and chutney. The results were an Indian mixture of deliciousness, it was YUMMY. When we went home we were very full so we did our blog and we did more blog (and some more blog) and then we slept.
On the 27th we packed up our bags because we are leaving today, on ANOTHER NIGHT TRAIN we’ve been on about ten already well I think, (it’s probably only around 5). So we finished off our blog and we’re going to post it today. I only have today to do because I did the rest yesterday. We’re going to wait around because the trains leaving at 8pm were going to play some board games and read our kindle a bit. We have a while to wait, why waste it. We’re going to play board games, read, (maybe play computer games). Whatever, we are going to Mumbai I hope it will be fun, so I will see you next time, hasta la vista.
Andrew, sushi lover, annoyer of people and reader of book’s (almost 10 years old).
The End
HHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Me am back. Now on to the story.
Thursday the 20th. we were still in Udupi, but we wanted to get out. Plus, it was dad’s birthday, so we wanted to get him a birthday beer. We had a train in the afternoon, so we still had time to do a little something for him. Andrew and I made a presentation. I made a paper one and Andrew made a computer one. I also stole his phone and rapped it up like a present. After that we went to the train station. it arrived very late. Andrew read his kindle, and I draw. I draw lots of dogs.
Friday the 21st. we did some shopping. Then mum and dad did some planning. While me and Andrew played games. We played three in a row, four in a row, juggling, miny cricket, and other stuff like that. That’s what we did for the whole day. It was fun.
Saturday the 22nd. we took a taxi to the waterfall. Then a jeep for the last 12 km. we spent 1 hour at the waterfall. I practiced swimming and Andrew practiced catching fish. It cost about $170 dollars. Then we went back to the hotel. in the evening, we went to the beach to listen to music (to be honest with you, it was rock music). It was pretty good. Andrew and I spent most of the time running in the sand.
Sunday the 23rd. In the morning, we called Matthew and Lachi. It was nice talking to them. I miss them vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccccccccccccccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wish they were here with us right now. Then we visited a museum. We saw lots and lots of olden day stuff. Then back home and schoolwork.
Monday the 24th we went to science museum. There were lots of stuff like marble runs. Well, there was more than just that one. There were so much more than just that. There was an instrument that you just had to wave your hand above it, and it made music. It was awesome. That interested me very much but there was another that interested me even more. There was this chair that had nails sticking out of it. And people were allowed to sit on it. I know what you’re thinking, who would want to sit on a chair that had nails on it. Well, when someone sat on it, it didn’t hurt. Come with me and I will tell you how it didn’t hurt. If there was only one nail, we would have to put more weight on that same one, while when there are more than one nail, it spreads out the weight. So, it seems painful but isn’t as bad as it looks. It was amazing. Then when we were done, we did a lot of walking. We went to a church, but it was closed. It looked beautiful. We were very unhappy that it was closed. Very sad.
Tuesday the 25th we went to two big churches. Then a museum and, hey, another old church? After that it was down to the fort. We then went on a boat to watch dolphins. We saw a few.
Wednesday the 26th we went on a cooking class. We cooked samosas, mint chutney, paneer/butter chicken masala, paratha/poori, Goan prawn masala fry and kheer. Then we had lunch. And off to the marble temple. The whole thing was made out of marble. Cool.
Thursday the 27th is just a pack day. We have a night train, but we have to get out of our room a bit before, but the people who run the hotel let us stay in another room that was not being used. Bye-bye.
Emma (8 years old).もっと詳しく
Mumbai, Maharashtra (by Mel and Kev)
2025年3月28日〜4月2日, インド ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C
Namaskāra from Mumbai,
We are in Mumbai, one of the biggest metropolitan areas in the world (in the top 10) with 22 million people living there! Mumbai used to be called Bombay, until 1995 and is in the state of Maharashtra, on the west coast of India. The official language is Marathi, but a lot of other languages are spoken here. For example, we took a guide during our stay here and he said very casually that he spoke 5 languages (4 from India and English). Mumbai is the commercial, financial and entertainment capital of India.
We arrive on Friday the 28th of March after a night in the train coming from Goa. The first impression is: that is a lot of people!! We took a local train as our night train stopped on the east of the city and our hotel is on the west. The train was packed. We got on at the first station, so we found seats, but very quickly it got absolutely full. When it was our time to get out, with our big bags on our back, everyone got out to let us out and jump back on quickly. I was expecting having to wrestle to get out, but no, everyone was super helpful.
When I was reading to get ready for this trip, I read a lot about you have to be careful, hold your bags close, there are a lot of pickpockets… So far, yes we got asked some prices that were a bit bigger that what they should be, but overall, we had a lot of help when we looked lost. People are kind and helpful here. We have not had a very bad experience so far.
On the day we arrived, we settle in our room. Then we venture outside and had to learn to walk in the streets of Mumbai. The traffic is crazy, more that what we saw before! And noisy! Car horns every 5 seconds! It is an adventure in itself to walk around trying to find an ATM! Kev found a park on google map called Deer park, we thought it would be nice to be in a bit of green area. This was a disappointment! Very small, the playground was very run down. Well, let’s find something else. We found a place where we can play boardgames! Yeah! Let’s go there. And this time, it was great! We end up spending 3 hours playing various board games which were all very fun! Then we end up having dinner in a restaurant with a live band playing music. It was current Indian music, and we really enjoyed that. The music is catchy and pretty soon, people were standing up and started dancing. People love their music and dancing here and it is really awesome to watch. Men and women dance with no shame. It was a great evening.
The next day, we went to see the Gateway of India. This is a massive arch, built in 1924 (started in 1911) to commemorate the visit of King George V in 1911, the first British monarch to visit India. It has been used since as a symbolic entrance for other dignitaries. It is facing the Arabian sea and near it are 2 very famous hotel in India, the Taj Mahal palace (not the real Taj Mahal, this is in Agra) and the Tower hotel. Unfortunately, the Gateway of India was under scaffolding and some part under black tarp, so we couldn’t see all of it, but it was still an impressive sight to see. From there, we took a boat to go to the Elephanta caves on Elephanta Island. This is one of the small islands around Mumbai. This is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The name comes from the Portuguese finding big elephant statues when they arrived. Those statues are not there anymore but got moved into a museum. There are still the caves dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. The caves have been cut from the rock itself during the 5th to the 7th century. When you arrive on the island, there is a little train that took you to the beginning of the stairs that brings you to the caves. We decided to walk to do some exercise (we took the train on the way back though as we were pretty tired by then!) There are 5 caves. In the first one, gigantic statues (some up to 6 meters high) are visible, though some have been destroyed. In the other caves, slightly smaller, you can see some remaining of statues and painting on the ceiling. This was a wonderful place to visit. The amount of work to excavate those caves and create those magnificent statues is impressive. I am always fascinated about the dedication to honour diverse gods. This is a must see if you are in Mumbai.
The next day, I had a list of temples and places I wanted to see, so we started early. The first stop was Shri Walkeshwar Temple. We took a taxi to get us there and we got dropped a few streets away as the streets were getting too small for the taxi. And I am very glad. We walked into narrow streets, with small temples every few steps, colourful houses, people going about their business of a Sunday morning. We came about a water tank/lake, called the Baganga tank. It is a spring fed tank and is part of the temple complex in this area. We didn’t know about it, until we stubble on it. We saw people washing themselves in one of the small basins, where it looks like the spring was flowing in. I don’t know if people do that every day, or if it is because it was a Sunday. It seems to be a place where people gather to chat and to pray. Despite having a fair bit of rubbish around, like everywhere in Mumbai (it is one of the things I struggle the most with, there are rubbish everywhere here), it was a restful place. I wish I could have asked questions to people about it, but we are always scared of intruding and being inconsiderate. We watch for a bit and then kept on our walk to go visit the temple we came for. It was another beautiful thing to see. It is a modern Hindu temple, made with marble and amazing wood carving on the ceiling. After that we went to visit the hanging gardens, which was a big disappointment. Nothing was hanging, and it looked nothing like the pictures I saw online when planning the day!!! That is one of the things we are having issue with: online pictures are not always accurate, or maybe they were 10 years ago, but it doesn’t look the same anymore! Anyway, next stop please! It was something I was looking forward to: Mani Bhavan Gandhi Sangrahalaya. “Mani Bhavan, a modest two-storied building, served for about seventeen eventful years (1917-1934) as the nerve centre in Bombay for Gandhiji’s activities. It belonged to Shri Revashankar Jagjeevan Jhaveri who was an ardent devotee of Gandhiji and his affectionate host during that period. Today Mani Bhavan is a hallowed memorial to Gandhiji, to his stay here and to the activities he initiated from here.” (taken for the museum website). I wanted the kids to know about Ghandi and his concept of non-violence. For those who are not sure who Gandhi is and what he did, a little history lesson: “Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule. He inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahātmā (from Sanskrit, meaning great-souled, or venerable), first applied to him in South Africa in 1914, is now used throughout the world.” (Thank you Wikipedia). Gandhi applied non-violence methods, like marches, civil disobedience, fasting. In his life, he tried to improve the right and situation of the poorest in India, ending the Untouchability, he fought for women’s right, he fought for the Independence of India with success. In the museum, we saw a lot of pictures of his life, of his actions and words from him. It was very interesting and being a non-violent person, it resonated for me. I am hoping that some of it will reflect on Andrew and Emma.
After that museum, we went to visit the Indian cinema museum. It was a lot bigger than expected! We learnt about Indian cinema which start in 1913 with Dadasaheb Phalke, often hailed as the Father of Indian Cinema, when he released 'Raja Harishchandra,' India's first full-length feature film. Since then, Indians have been crazy about cinema and Bollywood is getting bigger and bigger every year. It is currently bigger in number of films created per year than Hollywood (not in money though). In the museum, we learnt about cameras, filter, censure, sound, special effect and more. It was a lot of information, and I am sure a little bit will stay in my brain! After that, we went on the last stop of the day, Haji Ali Dargah Mosque. This mosque was built on an islet on the coast of now Mumbai in 1431. It is only accessible at low tide. A lot of different religion comes to that mosque as it is a considered a sacred place. It was not as impressive as I thought it would be and as always, the rubbish around the place makes it less pleasant to visit, but as we are trying to visit a lot of different places of worship, this mosque was a good place to go.
After all those visits, we were pretty exhausted, so back to the hotel for a rest, then a small dinner, movie night and bed.
The next day was one of my favourite days so far. We went to see some Bollywood! We booked a tour as it is the only way to get to visit a set. It was a private tour, so I didn’t mind that too much. We got picked up by our guide, Rahul, and started by driving pass the house of an extremely famous Indian actor, Shah Rukh Khan (the richest Indian actor). He wasn’t even there, but a couple of hundred people were there taking pictures in front of the massive gate. And apparently it is like that every day. Then we went to a studio where we watched a live filming of one of the current soap operas, we got to chat quickly with one of the actors, Bhavya Shinde, who was super nice. We then looked at other set. What surprised me was the mess! When they are not using a set, they put props and things that they don’t use in it. Those studios were full! What was very interesting is all the people needed on set, from the makeup to the sound, the guys who checked the script, the light… I knew it, but seeing in real was pretty cool. We got to put on some costume and take some pictures. I got a dress, not my favourite but well! We learn about special effects, green and blue screen (did you know that those colours are use because they are not in the skin ton?) We watch some Bollywood dancing, as no Bollywood movie is complete without some dancing! We got to dance ourselves and it was so fun. We talked about sound effect on movies and Andrew and Emma recorded a song in a studio. It was a really good experience, and I think we will remember that for a while.
To finish this great day, we went to watch some cricket in a spot bar. We couldn’t get ticket to see it live, so we wanted to see in with other people in bar, but being Monday, the pub was very empty. Never mind, we still enjoyed it! It was a good game and I finally start to understand more about cricket! Yeah!
Tuesday was school work and blogging day. Then we went back to the coffee board game place we went a few days ago and spent another few hours playing games. We really enjoyed it!
Today is packing and moving day again. We are on our way to Udaipur. But as always, we have some time between the check out of the hotel (11am) and the night bus we are taking at 6pm! So we might go back to the board game place one more time to kill some time!!
See you all in Udaipur!!!
Mel
28.3.2025. We arrived in Mumbai. Thought we'd try the inner city train for the first time. Got crowded with our bags. When all the locals saw that we were getting off they prepared themselves. One said to Mel “go fast”. As soon as we got to our stop everyone in front of us got off, let us off and got back on again. It would seem they'd all dealt with tourists and bags before. Uber works here in for taxi's and Tuktuk's, we thought we'd give this old guy and his taxi a go first tho. Never again, he wouldn't listen and ended up asking someone in the street to help. We eventually got to our hotel, where he asked for more money than was agreed. Not a chance mate, you got lost and wouldn't listen, not us. Yep, uber from now on. We went inside and even though it was around 9:30-10 they let us check in, yay! Later that afternoon we went out and visited a small park. Kinda crappy, playground things broken. Mel found a board game cafe, we had some drinks and played some games. Three hours flew by. Now it was time for dinner. Found a place called The Finch, live music and they make their own beer. Tried their stout, not bad, think I have made better at home tho. The live band was good and before long people were up dancing. We had fun tonight.
29.3.2025. We're off to the Gateway of India. A big arch constructed for the visit of King George the V in 1911, or something like that. Unfortunately for us it's getting some repairs done, so it's mostly covered with scaffolding and other stuff. Oh well, let's go to elephanta island. Booked seats on a boat and set off. Took around an hour to get there, the island is near the mainland on the other side of the massive harbour in Mumbai. We grabbed lunch then walked up to see the caves. Yep, caves, excavated from solid rock. The Elephanta caves are a UNESCO listed site that is dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. Built between 600-1000ad, it was absolutely fascinating to wander around inside something built that long ago. Exploited and damaged by the Portuguese in the 1600s, there are still lots of carvings that remain. We made our way back to the boats and from there back to the Gateway. Then taxid back to our room.
30.3.2025. We hopped in a taxi and set off for a temple. This was a smaller temple with a beautiful wood carved ceiling. A short walk from here we stumbled across a lake that seems fed by a spring in the middle of all these buildings. It was Sunday morning and people were washing in the water. Some research later tells me it is a sacred place for Hindu's that was built in the 1100s. It's good to find places and go for a look, don't forget to just wander around too! You find so much more. After that we started walking towards the hanging gardens. Found some snacks on our way to keep the worms occupied. The hanging gardens were a bit of a let down, nice park but that was it. We set off for Mani Bhaven, a building where Mahatma Gandhi stayed when in Mumbai, now set up as a museum. We learnt of his accomplishments with human rights issues. Afterwards we went to the museum of Indian cinema. We were given audio guides to listen to as we walked around, some famous indian actor voiced it no doubt. I knew none of the names or faces but it was interesting to see how cinema progressed through the years. They had old cameras and lights and a still frame machine for making cartoons. We heard that the museum would take us roughly 1-1.5 hours to get through, we were there for three hours as there was so much to see. We weren't far from a famous mosque, built on rocks out into the ocean so we went for a look. Built with lots of white marble, it looked nice against the ocean backdrop. Afterwards we headed back to our room. It had been a long day of walking and visiting. We washed and headed out for some dinner, then back for a little tv and bed.
31.3.2025. Today we are doing a Bollywood tour. We got picked up from our stay and driven over to look at a couple of the houses of some very famous Indian actors. Then we were taken to SJ Studios. A real set where we got to see behind the scenes of a soap opera being filmed. We were standing right behind the director, and watched as he guided the actor during the scene. Afterwards we got to meet the actor briefly, he was happy enough to have a chat. While we talked and had a quick look around, they had changed the set for the next scene and began shooting that. We saw more of the actors and more of the rooms they have set up for the show. We moved on with our tour. We passed through a jail set up, a hospital, pharmacy and a big presidential office. We then saw some dancers perform some traditional Bollywood dances and some short films about the special effects that go into movies. The kids recorded a quick song in their sound studio. We had a quick lunch and were driven back to our stay. A fun, full day. We had planned to watch some IPL live here in Mumbai but our bank is a pain in the arse and we couldn't organise tickets. What's the next best thing to do? Watch it in a sports bar in Mumbai. The crowd was smaller than we'd hoped, we wanted a loud Indian crowd but oh well. The Mumbai Indians easily beat the Kolkata knight riders and we had our fill of cricket. Back to the room and sleep.
1.4.2025. April already, where is the year going? Today is a slower day, with the kids doing some school work and blogging. It's now lunchtime, so we headed out looking for something to fill the void. We had walked past this little family restaurant straight across the street from our stay a few times, and decided to give it a try. I had looked on Google maps so I knew what to expect. On the outside it looked nothing special, with a small seating area just off the street and looking a little dirty. Just past that however, was a door, which opened into a large air-conditioned, well decorated and clean dining area. That's not the best part. We ordered, asking for things to be “not spicy please”. Our food turned up and… nothing was spicy! When I say spicy I mean hot. There's still lots of spices, otherwise it'd taste bland. It was the most the kids had eaten since we were in India, at a restaurant at least, they smashed the cheesy pasta I made. Mel was happy for a break from the spices too, everyone had a great meal. Afterwards we went back and blogged some more. Later in the evening we went back to the board game cafe place we visited a few days before, Mel and the kids really enjoyed the place. We had dinner there, was kinda shit, played games until almost 9 before heading to bed.
2.4.2025. Packing, yay! Coming up with a plan on how to spend our day with all our bags , until we hop on our bus at 6 tonight. We'll see what we come up with.
Kevもっと詳しく
Mumbai, Maharashtra (by the kids)
2025年3月28日〜4月2日, インド ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C
On the 28th we were still just sitting there on the train not a care in the world, well yes I did have a care, I was waiting for the train to arrive at the place where we get off. My mum figured out that at the train station there we some metro things that would drop you off at certain places. We went on it and stopped at a place near our hotel, but we still had to get a taxi after that. On the outside of the hotel it looked small but on the inside it was pretty big. They had lots of rooms but the room itself was tiny, we put our stuff down had a rest, then we went out in search in something to do. Dad found this park on google maps so we decided to go there, let me tell you one thing, IT! WAS! CRAP! There was paths to walk around but there were people every were so it wasn’t enjoyable, we found a playground but it was all dirty and broken so we couldn’t use it. When we left we went to a café that had board games, and I like board games. We played a game called BURRITO V.S TACO! It’s a fun game with cards and you have to make the most disgusting burrito or taco. You can add stuff like an eyeballs, fresh brains, a month old sushi and hair from a moustache. When we were done we went to a bar called finch, there was music, beer and party vibes. We had dinner then went to the hotel and slept.
On the 29th we went to something called the gateway of India, it’s a giant arch that they built to commemorate the visit of king George the 5th, it took eleven years to build. It was really cool, I wanted to walk through it but there was scaffolding everywhere it was annoying. After that we went on a ferry to go to Elephanta island, on the island there were lots of caves carved into the side of a mountain. It turned out to be really cool. Everything was carved really well it was incredible. After that we went to a place called cannon hill, were still on the island, at the top of the hill there were two cannons. But the cannons were huge, they were 9-12 meters long, amazing. When we were done we went home and slept.
On the 30th we went to a temple, we went in and it turned out that it was really cool, there were carvings every were, when we finished we went to a place called the hanging gardens it was nice but nothing was hanging. It’s called hanging because it’s on a hill slope, (but there’s still nothing hanging). When we were finished we went to a Gandhi Museum, let me tell you some information. Gandhi is famous in the Indian history, because when the British were in charge Gandhi held against them and made a big difference. The museum was about what he did and the impact that happened. After that we went to a cinema museum, it was about the evolution of the Indian cinema, it was very big I enjoyed it, it was interesting. When we were done we went home watched a movie then slept.
On the 31st we were going on a Bollywood tour, they said we might see a movie being filmed. We waited to be picked up by the tour guide, when we got picked up, the first thing we did was go visit some of the celebrity’s houses. The first house we went to was the house of Shah Rukh khan, he is the richest Indian actor, and close to the richest acter in the world. There was people everywhere just trying to take a picture of themselves in front of the house. We went to a few other of the people’s house (don’t remember their name). Then we went to the studio, it was a bit messy, (I guess they got to put there props somewhere). When we went in the filming place they were filming, so we had to be very quiet, I was watching the screen because I couldn’t see what was happening. When they took a break we got to look at where they were filming it, and it looked very different from the screen. After that we went and talked a bit to the actor, apparently it’s very hot under the light so they were sweating. After that we went to look at some sets and learnt about green screen & blue screen, they’ll do something in front of a green screen. Then with a computer they take it away and put any background they want. They use green screen in the day and blue screen in the night, the reason they use green and blue Is because none are our body colours. So when they take it away they don’t take away the actors. Then we went to see the sets, they had a jail set, police set and a hospital set, they look so realistic. When we were done we went to a place and dressed up in different costumes it was pretty fun. Then we went into a place to watch a dance show, but it was like Bollywood dance, it was pretty interesting. We got to dance a bit too. Between the dances they showed videos on how they make the special effects in movies. When it finished we went to a sound studio and we got to record ourselves: it was really fun, I am a proper song singer now. When we finished we went home for a bit then we went out to a sport bar to watch cricket (Mumbai Indians V.S Kolkata knight riders) Mumbai smashed them, they won by eight wickets. When we went home we slept.
On the 1st I started my day by thinking of pranks, since I don’t have much, it’s a bit hard. It’s a blog and schoolwork day because were leaving tomorrow were leaving at 6pm tomorrow so not packing yet. When we finished we went to THE BOARD GAME PLACE. I really wanted to play a game called the Sherif of Nottingham, the game is where you have cards and money and you need to try to bring legal stuff into the market (and secretly illegal stuff) without the sherif finding it. Here’s an example, someone says: I have 5 apples, (they could be telling the truth or they might not be) if the sherif checks and there lying they have to pay if not the sherif has to pay.
On the 2nd, today is packing day and finishing blog day, we might go back to the game place because we have nothing to do, were taking a bus at 6pm to go to Udaipur. See you next time, BYE BE.
The End
Andrew (12 days before I’m 10 years old)
Friday the 28th of march we went on a big train to Mumbai. It was pretty cool. Then we took a taxi to our hotel and settled in. There was this park that dad found, and it looked nothing like the pictures. It was crap. After that we went to this place where there were lots and lots of boardgames. We played a train game where you need to try to get as many sets as you can on the board as possible. We played other games as well. It was fun. My favourite game was this skull game. It is very hard to explain but I’ll try to. You had four cards and a place mat. you had to shuffle your cards and put one on the mat. You did that but without looking. On one of your cards there were a skull and on the other three there were flowers. You took turns. You could put on a bet or say you’re out or even put on another one of your cards on. So, if you put on a bet, you could say I bet one or I bet two and so on. Then the person with the highest bet would be able to uuuuhhhhhh. Well, If I said I bet four and dad puts a card on then, mum quits, and Andrew puts one on to I get to pick four cards. So, I start by flipping over my one card and then I flip over… dads. So, for instants my is a flower and dads is a skull. So, dad gets to pick (well I shuffle them again and dad chooses one without looking). Oh, and you must flip all of the cards you put down first. After that we went to a restaurant for dinner. Everybody got up and danced. There was also live music. We got home at about 10:30. It was a great afternoon.
Saturday the 29th we went to the gateway of India. It was built for king George the 5th. He was the first British king to visit India. So, it was built for him. Then we took a boat to Elephanta island. We saw caves, monkeys, and statures. It was lovely. I am really happy we went there. I felt happy, tired and exited.
Sunday the 30th we went to the Hindu temple. We mostly saw wooden stuff hanging. Then we went to the hanging garden. It was nothing like what the pictures said. It was a letdown. After that we went to the Gandhi Museum. Apparently, he tried to help get women’s rights back. And help the poor. He was a good person. One day he got shot. But guess what he said: if I die here I must do it smiling. Then the cinema museum. My favourite bit was uuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. All of it. Then we walked to the mosque. After that we had dinner and a movie night.
Monday the 31st we had a Bollywood tour. We saw people acting, we got to meet an actor, we saw how they make a movie and lots of places that movies got filmed. I learnt that there is such a thing as a green screen and a blue screen. the thing that interested me the most was the actors. Their expressions were amazing. The thing I liked the most the karaoke. We got to record a song. Can you believe that. In the afternoon we went to a bar to watch the cricket. Then back home and to bed.
Tuesday the 1st it is April fools day. Andrew played some stupid trick on me. But other wise it is schoolwork day. Then we went back to the boardgame I mentioned on Friday the 28th, if you don’t remember.
Wednesday the 2nd is just a packing day. Then we’re off to Udaipur.
Emma (8 and a half years old)もっと詳しく
Udaipur, Rajasthan, India (By Mel)
2025年4月3日〜7日, インド ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C
Namastee from Udaipur,
Last blog, we were on our last day in Mumbai. I have mixed feeling about Mumbai. It is a very busy city, with cars, noises, people everywhere… I love big city, but I have to admit that Mumbai is hard to navigate! Nonetheless I genuinely enjoy some things there, like the helpfulness of people, some experience we had like the Bollywood tour, we also find an excellent restaurant there. Anyway it was time to move again, so after killing a few hours, in one of the place we love in Mumbai, the board game café, we jump on a bus for the next 16 hours to go to Udaipur.
The bus wasn’t the most comfortable sleep I had, a lot of wobbling around, but I did manage to get a little bit of sleep. We arrive around 9.30am in Udaipur and we were charmed by the city as soon as we arrived!
This city is gorgeous!!!!! First a tiny bit of geography and history: Udaipur is located in the state of Rajasthan in the North West of India. The city was established in 1559 as the new capital of the Mewar kingdom. The descendants of the king of the Mewar are still alive today and it is the oldest royal line in the world. Udaipur is nowadays a city of 658000 inhabitants, where the 3 major economies are tourism, agriculture and mineral industries.
The city is organised around several lakes (the main one being the lake Pichola) and river. There are palaces, temples, shrines, old buildings all in the characteristic Rajasthan architecture. I don’t know much about architecture, but it is the kind I imagine when I think of oriental palaces in fairy tale stories! That might give you an idea.
Back to our adventures! The bus just dropped us near the old city of Udaipur. Tuktuk to our hotel, which for once is near the main attractions (I researched this one better!). We dropped our bags there as it was still too early to get our room and head off to discover the city. We are in the old city, and at every corner there is a temple, a shrine, painting on the walls, there is always something to look at. We visited a couple of Hindu temples: Jagat Shiromani Temple where a nice man there gave us a tour (without us asking) and asked for a tip at the end. Pretty regular occurrence here! He gave us some good information, so we didn’t mind giving him a bit. The temples here a pretty different from the south of India. They are mainly white but with a lot of carving. The carvings are in order from the bottom to the top: demons, elephants, horses, humans, dancers and gods and goddess. Then we visited the Jagdish Temple, one of the main temples in Udaipur built in 1651. The temple is still very active and host a lot of celebrations. The way to know if a temple is active, is to look if there is a red flag at the top: if yes, it means that it is active, if not, it is still a temple, but with no events happening. It happens that today was the last day of a Hindu festival, so the temple was decorated with flower and people were singing inside. We were lucky to witness this. The temple is beautiful. Well worth a visit. In the temple, there was someone doing some painting on fabrics. He explained to us how he was mixing the natural colours and using paintbrush made with squirrel tail’s hair (they don’t kill the squirrels, just capture them, cute some hair and release them)! The kids loved one small painting with 5 animals on it: a peacock for peace and beauty, a cow for strength and wealth, a tiger for woman power and protection, an elephant for wisdom, a camel for endurance. They decided to buy it together. Yeah one more thing to carry in our bags! Well at least, it is small!
After that we came back to the hotel as it was time to get our room. After a quick settle, we got back out to visit the palace. And it was amazing! The palace (actually palaces, as they are different small palaces inside the big one) was built over a 400 year period by the kings of the Mewar dynasty. It is situated along the lake Pichola. Even if the descendants of the Mewar dynasty are not kings anymore, since the Mewar kingdom merge with the republic of India in 1949, they still own the palaces. Some have been transformed into heritage hotels and other part into a museum. The place is incredible: mirror glass and coloured glass everywhere, latticed windows, inner courtyard, wall painting.., Breathtaking beautiful! There are also some exhibitions who are interesting: old weapons, furniture, musical instrument, ancient board games. But for me, the buildings in themselves are plenty enough to look at! The views are also superb.
In the evening, we went to see a puppet and dance show. One the way, we came across a parade of the end of the hindu festival of this last few days. Woman carrying deity on their head and dancing in front of the Jagdish temple. Again, the colours of India amazed me: all the women were wearing extremely colourful sarees, and it was a pleasure for the eyes to watch. Back to the show: the puppets were the one with strings (there are a lot of other types of puppets) and the show was great and funny. The kids loved it!
Then we had some Rajasthani folk dancers. The costumes were colourful, flowing with their movements, the smiles of the dancers were exquisite, their skills amazing. In one of the dance, (I will call it the pot dance!) the dancer started with one big pot on her head, by the end of the dance, she had 10 (from bigger to smaller). During the dance, she walked on glass, walk with metal pots under her feet… things that I wonder how they thought about! To sum up, another must see in Udaipur!!! And we were lucky, as at the end, the owners of the place showed the kids how to move 2 of the puppets and both Andrew and Emma enjoyed that.
The next day, Friday the 4th of April (we have been on the road for 3 months!!!), we did a walking tour (organised by my own travel tour agency! Hahaha!) I found a map of things to go see, so that is what we followed. I think I said it before, but I love this city. Simply walking in the streets is a spectacle for the eyes. There are so many palaces, temples, but even just the buildings are beautiful. I especially enjoyed the arch on the windows and doors and the pictures drawn on the walls. After that we visited a smaller museum in the Bagore ki Haveli, another palace originally built by the prime minister of the Mewar’s family in 1751, but that the Mewars ended up owing (because you can never have to many palaces!!). It is smaller than the main palace, but still enjoyable to visit. It has a puppet collection, an exhibition about royal wedding, a lovely inner courtyard and more.
This place is also famous for having dance show in the evening, so we came back in the evening for that. It was similar to the one we saw the day before. Similar dances, similar costumes, but the energy of the dancers were not as engaging as the previous show we watched. We even wondered if the wanted to be there! Don’t get me wrong, the dancers were talented, but they looked bored. If you only have time to see one show, the one called Virasat on Nav Ghat road is the one to go, not the one at Bagore Ki Haveli. But it was a good lesson for the kids as they are both learning dancing at home: the expression on your faces is as important as the movement you do. That was a good learning!
The next day, we found a music class for the kids. This was in a small musical instrument shop full of Indian instruments like Indian drums, sitars and other who I don’t know the name off! Andrew was first and he decided to play the Tabla; 2 hand drums used is a lot in Indian music. I think he really enjoyed himself. Andrew always had good rhythm and he plays the drum kit in Australia, so he did pretty good. After the hour, he had one rhythm pretty well mastered.
Emma was next and she tried the sitar, which is a complicated instrument. She learnt to do the scale on one of the strings and managed well. I think it is good for them to try a lot of different instruments that they wouldn’t have the opportunity to try at home. They both seems to enjoy it!
After that we went to visit the Monsoon palace (yes another one!). This palace is on the top of a hill and was built in1884 to study the Monsoon (hence the name and the position). From there, they could watch the clouds of the monsoon coming in and study them. The palace is not massive, but the view from it is amazing. You can see the whole of Udaipur and the nature all around. At the moment, it is a bit dry and brown, but still beautiful with all the hills/mountains around. After that our tuktuk (we got on for the afternoon) took us to Tiger lake which is one of the many lakes around here, but this one is natural. Apparently, there are some leopards in this area but they come to the lake at night: all good then!!! Andrew kinda wanted to see one, but not from to close. We didn’t luckily! Then we went to the princess garden, a lovely garden with fountains and statues, as well as a small painting gallery. It was a lovely park to stroll around for a bit. It was also full of squirrels to the great delight of Andrew and Emma who love watching them.
In the evening, we took a small boat for a sunset cruise. We stay on the bank for a while and we were thinking we were about to miss the sunset, but they know what they are doing. When we finally took off, it was at the perfect time to see the sun set behind a beautiful building, and then after a bend in the river behind a hill. They had the timing perfectly sorted! The light on the lake, on the hills and on all those amazing building of Udaipur was pretty magical. Then dinner on a rooftop restaurant to admire the night lights and bedtime!
For our last full day in Udaipur, we decided to go visit another UNESCO world heritage monument: the Kumbhalgarh fort. On the way there, we stopped at the Ranakpur Jain Temple. And I am so glad we did: it is one of the most beautifullest (the -est is to amplify the word!!) temple ever! First of all, what is a Jainism; because I didn’t really know. It is an Indian religion (around 5 millions Jains in India and more all around the world) who is based on the principle of self-realisation. Like Buddhism and Hinduism, Jain believe good karma will help your soul to self-realised which is reaching enlightenment. To have good karma, the main thing is to not hurt or be the cause direct or indirect of another soul being hurt. The Jains believe every living thing, human, animal (from the smallest ant to be biggest elephant), plants and even things like water and air, have a soul. In order to not hurt another soul, they adhere to a very strict code of non-violence. This includes obviously not eating any animal and even no root vegetable, as taking the root will be killing the plant. I do like that way of thinking. There is way more about the Jain religion, but I am not an expert and I don’t want to say wrong thing about. But it is interesting to read about it. One more thing about Jainism: Gandhi’s family, while not Jains, were influence by this religion and it shaped Ghandi’s principle of non-violence, which I admire and wish more people were too, especially with the state of the world at the moment.
Back to the temple! It was built in in the 15th century and took around 50 years to be finished. The temple is a grand white marble structure spread over 4,500 m2 with 1444 marble pillars, twenty-nine halls, eighty domes and 426 columns, and everywhere you look there is a beautiful carving. There is Jains symbols everywhere. When you visit it, you get an audio guide which explains some of the symbols, but I must admit the surplus of information didn’t all stick! All I can say is that if you are around, this should be at the very top of your list.
After the temple, we went to the fort. This fort was built during the 15th century as well, by Rana Kumbha, the Mewar ruler of the time. This fort is known to have the second longest wall in the world, after the wall of China (thus being sometime called the Great Wall of India). The wall is 36km long (the wall of China is slightly longer!!!). To get to the top, you need to walk a 1km up a steep road, but the views from the top are worth it. The fort inside is empty, and not much to look at, but it is fun to walk around the outside and found small passage between different part of the fort. We also of course, walked on the wall, so we could say we walk on the second longest wall in the world! Yeah!
The fort has a light show in the evening, so we stayed (despite having a 2 hours drive back after). Well, maybe we should have skipped this one. The light show wasn’t even on the fort; well, some lights were on the fort, but most of them on a small part of the wall and one of the temples near the fort. It was not super impressive. We stay because we thought that at the end, the whole fort would be lit up. Nope! Completely dark. Not one light on it. Pretty disappointed. No more light show in India we think!!!
2 hours driving back, with the kids falling asleep in the taxi and be panicking because the driver was in a hurry to go back home I guess, and there was no seat belt at the back (pretty usual in India) . We made it safely back and went straight to sleep as the next day, we are on the move again.
Next stop: Jodhpur!
Melもっと詳しく
Udaipur, Rajasthan, India (By Kev)
2025年4月3日〜7日, インド ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C
2.4.2025. Packing, yay! Coming up with a plan on how to spend our day with all our bags , until we hop on our bus at 6 tonight. We'll see what we come up with.
We had lunch at our now favourite restaurant in Mumbai (not spicy!). Then we went back to the board game café (pair of dice cafe on Google, board and bistro on the front) and spent a couple more hours there before having trouble getting a taxi. We cut it close to our bus departure time, and there is nothing clearly marked as to where our pick-up area was. Thankfully, as with everywhere we've been, there's been a helpful local to point us in the right direction. My impression of the locals has changed a bit. Yes they're pushy, they're just trying to get work. They're still loud, but living here with all the noise, cars, motorbikes, Tuktuk's and horns, they have to be, and I guess it's hard to go back to a form of quiet. The bloody horns!! Some people just hold em on for ages. I get it, your horn works, now give it a rest. Anyway, back to our bus. We found it with some help. Saw the company name on the back of a bus so headed there. When we got there I heard a guy say “hold the bus”, hold the bus? We're 15mins early. Bags in, hopped on and the bus was off. Was much like the night bus in Cambodia, but with a little more room. We found out tho that, unlike Cambodia, the road is a bit more shit and I'm pretty sure the bus's rear shocks were gone. Felt like we were in a boat not a bus. About 8, the kids decided it was time for sleep, about 8:10 I was helping Emma down so she could spew, poor kid. Hopped back into bed and was out.
3.4.2025. Managed to sleep a fair bit of the night, woke up stuff and sore tho. Em had been up a bit and was now back to sleep, had another spew just before we got off, poor kid. Tuktuk to our guesthouse in Udaipur, can't check in yet but we can leave our bags there. We walked down towards the lake and found a restaurant for smoko. Had a bit of a look around until it was time to check in. After checking in, we headed for the palace. First thing you see coming in is two huge elephant sculptures. We started our visit, plenty to look at. Paintings, sculptures and just the walls. Plenty of walls painted and decorated. Lots of old weapons on display. Plenty of stained glass and windows to look out of. We thought there would be a light show at the palace later in the evening, that's what google said, but not anymore. They keep the palace open longer and have stopped the light show. Luckily in our earlier walkings we stumbled across a small place close to the palace that does a puppet and dance show. That'll do, we bought tickets earlier in day. After the palace we visited a couple temples very close by. The Jagdish temple was very impressive with all the carvings and singing from inside. After that we went back to our room and showered up, the kids were smelly. Headed out for the show, as always not knowing what to expect. On our way we heard music, we remembered talking to the “priest” of Jagdish temple earlier, he said there was a festival on and it finished today. There was music and women dancing in brightly coloured dresses. Some had big things on their heads and were dancing, lots of people out the front of the temple. We started wishing we hadn't book a show tonight and could stay here. But oh well, off to the show. They started the show with a traditional Rajasthani welcome song, then onto a puppet show. I haven't seen a lot of puppet shows, but this was pretty good. We moved onto some traditional dancing, was very impressive. Lots of spinning, some balancing of pots on heads while dancing and spinning. Then just to make it a bit harder, and more impressive, they danced with pots on their head while balancing on some small pots, and a plate, and then walked on some glass. Pretty straightforward sorta stuff, dunno why we had to pay to see something so pedestrian, honestly! All of a sudden it was over, 1 hour had flown by. Only it wasn't quite the end, everyone was invited up to dance with the performers. The lady we bought the tickets off(owner maybe) came up to us and reminded us of a promise she made when we bought the tickets, to show the kids how the puppets worked. Sure enough, they came back out with two of the puppets used in the show and taught the kids a little bit of how to use them. They both listened well and learnt what they were shown and were able to control the puppets pretty well. Now Andrew wants a puppet when we get back, we'll see. Afterwards we went to find some food. Stopped at a little place overlooking the street, looked really nice. Oh yeah we're on the street in Udaipur, India. The horns! It was still a nice view, the food was only ok tho. Too hot for the kids, mine was almost too hot for me and Mel stole my dessert. Headed back to the room and slept better than the previous night, at least my bed was still.
4.4.2025. We went for a walk today, Mel found a walking tour of Udaipur online which looked easy enough. Already had a couple spots ticked off from the day before. Stopped near the palace for some brekky, and continued on. You get to take in more of the city when you walk. In a Tuktuk, of which we were offered a lot of rides in, you go past too fast, you miss things. I'm sure we still miss stuff while walking, but less I think, and I like it. You see buildings from different angles, you see more shops and what's in them, you see more of the people. You engage with people, whether you want to or not. We've had people genuinely interested in talking to us and fascinated with what we are doing, some people just want a picture, and some seem interested but just want to sell you something. I'm getting better at dealing with all of it. Mel is loving Udaipur, they're a photographer at heart and are in their element here. There's a lot going on here, with palace's and lake views and old buildings. Not to mention the temple festival last night, Mel is loving it. We kinda wish we had more time here, but we'll fit in what we can. We'll probably say that about the next place too, and the next and so on and so forth. In the end 1 year won't be enough I'm sure. In the afternoon we visited Bagore ki Haveli, another palace on the lake, turned into a museum also. There were paintings and sculptures, some exhibits on how day to day life was and a turban museum. We headed back to our room for some rest and to refresh a bit before heading back to Bagore ki Haveli again in the evening for another dance show. The show was similar to the previous nights, but held in a courtyard inside the palace. While the palace created a nice venue for a performance, we felt it wasn't as memorable of a performance as last night's. There was also a small one man puppet show, which seemed to be a token effort, and was not nearly as good as the previous nights. We enjoyed the show, got some dinner after at a restaurant I found and headed back.
5.4.2025. Today we had organised a music lesson for the kids. Andrew had a lesson with hand drums, Emma had a lesson afterwards with the Sitar. They both enjoyed the lesson and I think were happy to be doing some music. After that we had a trip to the Sajjangarh Monsoon Palace, built at the top of a nearby mountain. You can see it in the distance from Udaipur. Once at the top you get a great view of all around the area. It was used as a royal residence during the monsoon season, hence the name. Apparently it's lovely and green at that time, not while we're here unfortunately. There is a small museum inside with a display on local animals and a area dedicated to birds of prey. After that we visited Tiger lake, one of three lakes of the area. Then onto the princess gardens. A large garden area in Udaipur with a small painting gallery. Outside was fountains with elephant sculptures and lots of squirrels. The kids, especially Andrew, love squirrels. We got the driver to drop us near the palace and we went up to a rooftop restaurant and had a cold beer, was lovely after a long hot day. We then bought some tickets for a sunset boat ride, turned out pretty good. Had a chat with some other tourists and watched a nice sunset over the hills next to yet more palace's. Back to the restaurant after for another beer, dinner and watch a little IPL on the tv. Day done.
6.4.2025. We had a taxi organised through the homestay to take us to a temple and Kumbhalgarh Fort. A massive fort way up in some hills, 2 hour taxi ride from here. We're off, we're stopped. Driver pulled into the servo, thinking that would have been taken care of before picking us up but hey, it's India! We're off again, heading towards the temple. We arrived at Ranakpur Temple. Bought our tickets and visited. A massive Jain temple, look up the Jain religion if you're interested, I'm not going into detail. What I can say is they're strict vegetarians who believe in reincarnation. Holy moly, talk about carvings. The temple is spectacular. Apparently 1442 carved pillars holding up, let's say, lots of domes. Everything is white marble, carved by 2785 workers, and took 50 years during the 15th century. There is a tree there that is over 500 years old, a Rayan tree, and every Jain temple has one of these trees. Everything in this temple was carved, and no two pillars were the same. It was truly one of the most spectacular pieces of artwork I have seen so far. Anyway, we'd had our fill of carved marble and were off again, this time heading towards the fort. The fort is impressive, built up on a rock mountain, with a wall that starts and finishes at it. The wall is 36klm long, and is the second longest wall in the world, behind the great wall of China(which is over 21,000klm, so, ya know, close second). Anyway, tickets to buy, forts to visit. If you ever come to India there is something you will notice when buying tickets to see anything. They have an Indian price, and a tourist price. We have dealt with it for 5 weeks so far and it's starting to get to us, just a little bit. For the locals to enter, Rs40 is all you need. For us Rs600, and it's been like that everywhere. As I said, it's starting to get to us a bit. We're seeing the same bloody thing, plus we had to pay for our Visa's just to be in the country, oh and plane tickets. We felt like walking wallets in SE Asia, but I feel it's worse here. We still pay, obviously, not coming all this way to not see anything. Just getting a little pissed off with how unfair it seems. At home everyone pays the same price, standardised pricing, we all get ripped off, as it should be. No bloody extra cost just cause you came from further, if anything it should be cheaper. I won't make tourism Minister I'm sure. Oh right, the fort! Big, way up a hill, and a great view from the top. We could see where a bit of the wall went, over hills and around other stuff. We later tried to walk a bit of the wall, only to find most of it closed off, disappointing. We stayed for a sound and light show that kicked off at 7:30. We found what we thought were some good seats to watch the lights on the fort, everyone else sat the other side of a temple there. Hardly even used the fort for the light show, which seemed a huge mistake to me. At least we all payed the same price for the light show, oh right, nevermind. We sat through a kinda lame light show with a story in Hindi, because we thought at the end they would light up the whole fort, and Mel really wanted a picture of that. Nope, never did that, they kinda just turned most the lights off and we needed the light from our phones to help guide us back down. Disappointed, we walked back and found our taxi driver, vowing, no more light shows in India. Long ride back, early start tomorrow. Off to another destination for more adventures.
Kevもっと詳しく
Udaipur, Rajasthan, India (by the kids)
2025年4月3日〜7日, インド ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C
Hello people of somewhere,
I am here to talk about blog number 19 (I think), well be ready to be amazed.
On the 3rd we are still on the bus to Udaipur, we are not going to spend much time here which is bad, because there’s actually lots to do here. So today were arriving and going to go to the palace and some temples, all right, so here’s the story. When we arrived the hotel was still a tuktuk ride away, so on to a tuktuk hunt, with all our bags it’s going to be hard to fit them in, luckily the tuktuks are like 2 times the size of the ones before. So we got in one, bags fit in easy peasy, then off to the hotel, the hotel looks small from the outside, but we’ve learnt never be fooled by the outsize. We couldn’t sign in yet so we put our bags down and went to look at some temples. On our walk there we saw a music class, why not? We decided to have a look at it, we can’t do it now, maybe later. So when we arrived at the temple there were a few monkeys, but they were big ones, there tail was really long, biggest ones we’ve seen so far. Inside the temple there were layers of different things at the bottom, right at the bottom there were demons then elephants then horses, then humans, then dancers, and after that GODS. The temple was really cool, after that we went to another one it was pretty similar, but in this one they were selling these painting things, me & Emma bought one. After that we came back to the hotel brought our stuff upstairs then went off to the palace. When we got there we paid our entrance fee then went in, it was really cool, they had two fake elephants fighting and two fake parade elephants, it was cool. There was lots of painting, there was also lots of weapons, I liked that part, can’t explain it that well, sorry. So when we left we went back to the hotel did a bit of blog then we went out to a show, the show is going to be about dancing and puppets. When we got there it turned out to be awesome, the puppets were so cool, one of them could take of its head it was awesome. Then they started dancing, but not average dancing they danced with fire on their head. After that the most amazing bit happened. So first they balanced a big pot on their head then they walked on little pots with the big pot on their head. Not enough for you, well then they put another pot on their head then they walked on the little pots again. Another pot anybody, well they do, let’s say they had about 15 pots on their head at the end. Wait, there more, with 15 pots on their head they then walked on glass you heard right, glass, they walked on glass, it was amazing. After the show we stayed because they said they’d teach us a bit about how to work puppets. So I got to do the one that could take its head of, it was really fun. When we were done we went home and slept. Night night.
On the 4th we were going to follow a map around and see some of the cool stuff around, there were ten stuff we were going to go see, we got distracted and wandered around to different places it was beautiful though. My mum assigned (forced) me to write about a place and in detail, I like talking about stuff but not too much about detail. So, at one point we saw a big arch (this is what I’m talking about for my assignment), the arch way had little precise bumps on it and every window had a different pattern on it. The colour of it looked like ivory, it was also on the river side. There was little elephants on it and lots of carvings, it was really cool. It was also very big, in fact it was 20m tall. It had three main entries and two levels above it, it is called the Gangour ghat, also known as the gate way to the water. The reason I picked this one is because it was the most appealing and was also the one that stood out to me. After that we went to a museum, the museum had a puppet gallery it was very cool, after that we looked at some paintings and stuff, after that we went home, did a bit of blog. Then I played a bit on my computer, had some fun, then off to a show. Let me tell you one thing, it was pretty much the same as last night, first they did some dancing it was cool then with fire on their head (they did that last time). Then they did puppets, it was nowhere near as good as last time, it lasted for five minutes, (the puppets in the other show lasted for twenty minutes). After that they did the same pot trick but this time with only 9 pots, they walked on glass again. But I think the main difference was that in the show on the 3rd they looked like they wanted to be there they were smiling and they were enthusiastic about there dancing. But tonight they looked bored and they were not smiling, their face was blank and they really looked like they did not want to do it. After that we went home and slept. Snore noise, snore noise.
On 5th we started our day by going to a music lesson, its nice to be back on an instrument I haven’t been on an instrument. Wait, I forgot to tell you what we were playing, I was playing the tabla, it’s a type of drum, well it actually two drums except that there always played together. The drums make different sound at every place I hit it, it sound really nice, it inspired the idea to get one when I get home. The tabla is the name of the two drum together, Emma played the sitar it’s something like a guitar except it’s just a little different I don’t know because I didn’t play it, Emma did. After that we went to the monsoon palace, well actually we went in a tuktuk to get there first. When we got there it turned out you can’t ride a tuktuk up the mountain (did I tell you that it was on a mountain). Well, it is up a mountain, so we have to take a car over there, and let me tell you, it wasn’t a pleasant ride. They were going really fast around the turns and let me remind you were on the edge of a mountain. When we got to the top, the palace looked really cool, it was also pretty big, next to the mountain there’s a zoo, the palace is pretty much a bit like an advertisement for the zoo. How do I know, there was a tv talking about it, there was a lion encloser that was 3 meters wide, not so good for the animals. After that we went to a lake and that lake was called tiger lake, apparently there is leopards coming out at night, after that we went to the princess garden. It was a really nice park, plus there were squirrels everywhere, and I like squirrels after that we went to a sunset cruise. It was really nice seeing the sun go down on the horizon, it was beautiful. When we got back we had dinner and went to sleep. Nighty night.
On the 6th we are going to go to a fort the fort is huge, it has the second biggest wall in the world, after the great wall of China, only problem is that the drive is two hours away. The driver we had wasn’t that good, here are the things that weren’t so good about him. First when we were going there he had to stop for twenty minutes to fuel up, then when we were driving he told us there were no food in the fort so we had to stop at restaurant (there was actually food at the fort, we think he just wanted to eat at the fort). When we got there the fort was actually really cool it was ginormous, the fort was up a hill it was a kilometre walk up, the fort was awesome. But my favourite part was going to where they used to live, it was really cool there was tight little passageways and a few houses. When we were done with the fort we decided to walk the wall, it was really big, we were going to walk to a point, so we could have a look around. When we got to a place in the way there was a door, a very big door to be precise, bad news, it was closed, so we couldn’t go through to where we wanted to go. There was a light & sound show so we decided to see it, we were waiting and looking at the fort, but there was nobody else, that’s weird, then dad noticed the everyone was some where else. When we went there it wasn’t facing the fort, it was facing somewhere else. When the light show started it turned out it was not on the fort, well there was a little bit on the fort, we were waiting for the end because on the picture the fort was lit up, and mum wanted a photo of it. When it ended it turned out the fort didn’t light up. We went home disappointed then we went to bed. Night night
Andrew (very almost 10 years old0
Hello, hello and more hellos. On Wednesday we took a night bus to Udaipur. You may not know yet, but I hate buses. I spewed on bus twice. It was a 14 hour long bus. Boring. On Thursday we arrived and went and found our hotel. it is a lovely stay. Then we went to some temples. I loved the feeling of the walls. I also loved the colours as well. They looked so beautiful. In one of the temples, we heard music playing. After that we went to the palace. It was ginormous. There were two big elephants at the front and a tiger behind them. there were lots of painting and weapons. It was cool. There were lots of stained glass. You’re probably wondering what stained glass is. It is glass that you just stain with colours. It was so beautiful. If you want a picture of it, just type in stained glass. In the afternoon, we went to a show that had 20 minutes of puppets and 40 minutes of dancing. I liked the puppets. They were so funny. And when it was done, we got taught how to use puppets. The was this dancer that balanced ten big pots on their head. They looked very happy to be there. It was an amazing show. On Friday we went on a heritage walk. We saw a big arch, a few bridges and saw the city. For our assignment today, it was: find a building or place that I will talk about in details. I am going to talk about a place. That place is near the river. It is a bunch of buildings that were very colourful together. One of them were yellow, some were green, some were red and plenty of other colours as well. They were all facing the river. They were all tallish. Some were hotels and some were homes for only a few people. I am talking about this one particular place because the colours catch my eye. Then we had lunch and after lunch we went to a museum. It was a big one. Then we went back home to do blog. We had a show in the afternoon. Again. But this time it was in the museum. They had a tiny puppet show. All of the dancers this time looked like they did not want to be there. They looked like they were fake smiling. They were good at dancing, but I don’t think they wanted to be there. On Saturday we went to a place where we got taught Indian music. I played the sitar and Andrew played the tabla. The sitar is like a guitar mixed with a violin. It has a long stick at the top, that you put your fingers on to make the notes. And at the bottom there is a circle. That’s were you pluck. But guess what you don’t pluck with your finger, you pluck with a triangle thingy that you put on your finger. The tabla is two drum that don’t make the same sound. One is big and one is small. I learnt the scale and that’s all. I had an hour to learn how to play it. after that we went to the monsoon palace on the hill. We took a tuktuk up to the front gate and a jeep to the top. There were pictures, fake animals and lots of other stuff. Then we went to the tiger lake. It was just a lake you could walk next to. there are leopards that come out at night. Then we went to the princess park. I have no idea why it is called that, but it just is. There were billions of squirrels. me and Andrew chased them as long as we could. After that, we went on a sunset cruise. It was lovely. We met a French person. And a few other people as well. We thought we were going to miss the sun set. But we arrived just in time. On Sunday we went to the Jain temple. It is a massive temple that is made out of marble. There were gorgeous sculptures carved into the ceiling.it was absolutely beautiful. Then we went the fort. It was ginormous. we could go inside and outside. We could go all the way to the tipity top. It was pretty cool. We got to walk on the second longest wall in the world. As we call it the great wall of India. In the afternoon we went to the light show on the fort. It was a total letdown there were hardly any lights on it at all. The only reason we stayed right to the end was because we thought the whole thing would light up but guess what, it didn’t.
Emma (still 8 and a half years old)もっと詳しく
Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India by Mel
2025年4月7日〜13日, インド ⋅ ☀️ 42 °C
Hello from the blue city,
We are in Jodhpur. For some reason, I thought that starting in the south of India and then coming back up toward the north, we will get to the cooler season in April…. Boy was I wrong!!! I should have done my research a bit better! It is around 44 degrees here in the afternoon!!!
Anyhow! Monday the 7th of April, we woke up early, finished packing our bags and took a 20 minute-walk in the near empty streets of Udaipur once last time, to reach where the bus I booked was supposed to pick us up. We find the place easily, but it was still closed. No worries as we were a bit early: it was only 7.45am when the bus is supposed to leave around 8.30am. A little bit a wait, and a guy come and open the small bus outlet place and let us know that our bus has been cancelled! Apparently, they tried to contact me but didn’t have any information. I got my ticket by email, so surely, they could have sent me an email!
Go to the bus station across that big roundabout, there are more bus going to Jodhpur. Yeah because I love dealing with crowed bus station, language barrier and people asking for money. I left Kev and the kids with all the bags, dodged cars and bikes to get to the bus station (I am getting good at that), find the bus station and the right counter to get my tickets and buy us some new one. The only thing is the bus I booked was AC, comfortable seat. This new one is the regular cheap bus that regular Indian people use. Live like a local to really appreciate they say. We’ll manage. Get back to Kev and the kids: quick the bus is leaving in 10 minutes. Back to the bus station, jump in the bus, wrestle our massive bags in the overheard thing that is too small for our bags, but they end up fitting in with a bit of pushing. We seat down and it is not too bad. The bus left and I’m thinking to myself, it is not too bad. We stop 3 minutes away from the bus station to a first lot of more people coming in, then another lot 5 minutes later, and so on… Yep that is going to be crowded! I was lucky in the way that I was sitting against the window and Kev was on the aisle, he was the one with all the people pressing against him (we switch after several hours). Once thing I was proud of myself was that I finally bought my first food from a bus window: let me explain: when the bus stop at stations, some people are here to sell you water and food though the bus window: so far, we were always a bit shy about it, but this time, we needed water and food, so I bought some yummy snacks and some water bottle at several stops during the trip. I know it doesn’t sound extraordinary, but it was a little win for me and it is good to celebrate the little wins! 7 hours in a crowded bus with hot air blowing through the windows, sun on the side burning, it was fun… NOT! But as I said to the kids, we were lucky to have seats, some people were standing for 2, 3 of 4 hours of the trip. And this is how a lot of people travel here in India. I am kinda glad we did it, to show the kids that we are very fortunate to be able to afford more comfortable way of traveling. But yeah, once was enough. Talking about the kids, they were amazing. They did not complain, or whinge: they read their books, played together, looked out the window, even when people were squeezing themselves in front of them to let other people pass in the aisle. They were amazing. We finally arrived in jodhpur and got a tuktuk to our hostel and jumped in a shower! A little bit of rest and we were back out in the evening to find some food.
The place we are staying in the old part of the town which is made on tiny little streets, full of people, bikes, tuktuks going too fast. We saw a small parade of people dressed very colourful and playing some really loud drums, with a cart pulled by a camel!! This was some religious celebration. We follow that for a little bit, but we were all very tired and we got overwhelmed a little bit! We could not find a restaurant with seating area, only small food stall with take away food (which was not what we needed as we only nibbled through the day). We came back to the hotel as they said they could cook for us on the rooftop. And it was great!!! The rooftop has an amazing view from the fort, we rested there while our food was being prepared and then enjoy the delicious food while listening to all the city’s sounds: horns and bikes, but also music, drums and bells from temples. Then it was a welcomed bedtime!
Tuesday, we went to visit the Mehrangarh Fort. This is way bigger than the one in Udaipur. This fort was built in the second half of the 15th century, but a lot was added by the following maharajas through the centuries. The fort stands on a hilltop, rising about 122 m above the surrounding plains (hence why we can see it so well from our rooftop!). Inside it has several courtyards and magnificent carvings, exhibition of elephant’s howdah (seat that is put on the back on the elephant to carry around people), palanquin, weaponry, painting and more. The rooms are in the Rajasthan style, with mirror, stained glass and beautiful decorations. Also from the fort you can see the city. The last city we were in, Udaipur, is known as the white city and also the city of lakes. Jodhpur is known as the blue city, as a lot of the houses are painted in blue, as it makes them cooler as well as acts as insect repellent. It took us a few hours to visit the whole fort and we were pretty hungry by then, so we had lunch at the fort. One of the dishes we enjoy here, is called thali (when I say we, it is me and Andrew): it is a traditional meal in India. Each state, does it a little bit different, but the concept is the same. It is served on a big plate (the thali). On the plate are several little bowls with different food in here (lentils, vegetable, pickle, yogurt) in the middle there is usually rice and some type of bread, and it has sometimes a sweet dish as well. Those are delicious!!! After lunch, we went to walk in the old city to find the clock tower which is in the middle of a big place with market stall all around and is obviously a very busy place. It was super hot and we were pretty tired, so we went back to the hotel. The kids played on their computer and Kev and I tried to organize what to do for Andrew’s birthday which is next week! Double digit, 10 years old! I’m not sure I am quite ready. We ate on the rooftop again as it is such a good place! Then we watched a movie on the computer and bedtime!
Wednesday was a bit of a messy day. We went to see some stepwell, called Toorji Ka Jhalra Bavdi. It was built in the 1740s, by the wife of the Maharaja of the time. It was customary for the queens of Jodhpur to built water features for their people. The women were coming there to fetch water and socialised. With time, the stepwell fell in ruin and was submerges for a while. It is only recently that it was restored. You can see a 7 storey symmetrical steps and water at the bottom. The well is nowadays a place where young men have fun and jump for the highest point they can find. The well is around 90 meters deep, so they can jump with no worries! After that we wonder with no real aim in the old town. Kev found a science centre, so we took a tuktuk and got there around 12.30pm. Right in front of our eyes, they closed the gate. We are open at 4pm again! Yeah!!! We are not waiting for 3 and a half hour in that heat. We went to a shopping centre, which end up having only 3 out of 7 storey open, but luckily for the kids, one of those level had arcade games! We spent a couple of hours there, then call it a day and went back to the hotel.
In the evening we braved again the crazy tiny streets of the old city of Jodhpur to find a restaurant. The streets at the beginning of the evening are insane! People, bikes and tuktuks all trying to go first and pushing past everything and anything to do their shopping in one of the many little shops, or simply trying to go back home. It is difficult to describe. We got almost run over a few times: you need to have eyes behind as well as on both side of your head to see everything! We made it to a restaurant for our dinner, played a few games here waiting for our food. At the beginning of our trip in India, we thought the service was pretty slow, but now we understand: they make everything from scratch, so it took a bit longer obviously!
Thursday we booked a walking tour of the blue city. We have been walking around by ourselves, but we thought it would be interesting to have some facts and stories about the city. We learnt a few things: the main reason Jodhpur is the blue city is that when the fort was being built, the highest cast, the Brahmins (priests) started building their houses near the fort, but they wanted everyone to know what their cast was. They decided to colour their house blue (as they worshipped Vishnu, who is represented as a blue god), and it is cooler and insect repellent. The guide took us to some places, we probably wouldn’t have found by ourselves and took us food tasting and everything was delicious. A good morning we had! After that, a small lunch (we were still a bit full for the nibling of the morning) and back to the hotel for a rest. We did nothing much in the afternoon: kids played on their computer, I did some work on mine, we played board game and had dinner on the rooftop. It is nice sometime to do not much!
Next day, we went to the Mandore Garden. The rulers of the Mewar kingdom use to live a few kilometres away from Jodhpur (which didn’t exist at the time) in a city called Mandore. There you can see the remains of a fort built during the 4th or 6th century (We are not sure!). There are also temples built in the following centuries until the rulers decided that this location wasn’t secured enough and decided to move to the now Jodhpur whit the fort on top of the biggest hill around here.
The park was nice. A fair few monuments to see, there was a playground for the kids. There is also a very active temple, which had a festival on when we were there, with a lot of people, music, a fire, some music… It feels like there is always something going on in India. We spend the morning there, walking around. We took what felt like 1000 pictures with people. For some reason, we said yes to the first people who asked, and that started a chain of a lot of other selfies!!! After that we went to a rooftop restaurant for lunch and we saw another parade in the street with loud music, people dancing, a couple of carriages: ‘what is this?’ we asked our waiter: people getting married! They know how to party in India!!!
The afternoon was schoolwork, as we haven’t done much lately.
Saturday, our last day in Jodhpur, Andrew got an early birthday present: Zipline!!! We wanted him to do it on his birthday, but we couldn’t find one in Jaipur (where we will be on his actual birthday) I decided to do it with him this time. I am scared of height and when we did the first zipline in Laos and Emma decided it was too much for her, I was a bit relieved to not have to do it. Part of me, was a bit disappointed too. This time I wanted to share something that Andrew really loves doing. I’m so glad I did: It was actually not that scary and a great feeling to “fly” above those beautiful landscapes. Thank you Andrew for pushing my limits! I am also glad because when Emma saw me doing it, she said that she wanted to try to, but she was too short to do this one. We will have to find one that she can do before she changes her mind!
After that we decided to just walk in the streets of Jodhpur to get one last feel of it. The streets here are pretty narrow with shops everywhere; there are of course no big shopping centres, just a lot of small shops, each specialises in a few products: bangles, locks, sweets (we got some on our walk: delicious!), perfume, fabrics… and so much more. As Jodhpur has not a lot of water, the industries are not related to agriculture, but craft and you can see it in the shops around here. I am conflicted on my feelings about the streets of Jodhpur: one part of me is very overwhelmed by the noise, the crazy drivers that you need to avoid every 5 seconds, the rubbish and dirty streets; but part of me love the atmosphere; it is so lively, full of colours, smells (good and bad), there are small temples everywhere and you often see someone stopping for a few second for a quick prayer. I loved just observing all those lives around me and feel like I could do that forever!
After that, we went back to the hotel to eat our sweets and rest a bit. We did some blogging and pack as we are leaving tomorrow early for our next destination in India: Jaipur. See you there!
Melもっと詳しく
Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India by the kids
2025年4月7日〜13日, インド ⋅ ☀️ 42 °C
On the 7th we were going to take a nice aircon bus not being squished at all. It never happened, we were supposed to but when we got there it turned out to be cancelled, so, we had to take a non-aircon people-crammed bus. IT WAS SH*T. The bus did NOT have aircon, it was people packed , I had to fight for personal space, not a happy bus ride. The bus was supposed to take 5 hours to get there, but with the new bus, IT TOOK A FU**ING 7 HOURS. THAT IS WAY TO LONG. The bus is going to Jodhpur by the way. It is also my birthday in five days, I’M GOING TO BE TEN. It’s double digit, a very exiting birthday. When we got there I was extremely relieved to be out of the bus, I name today the worst day in our travel so far. So when we got there we went to our hotel it was small, wait this isn’t what we booked, so we went to the proper “room” only to find out it was an entire floor, now this is my type of place. After that we went to find dinner, we were walking around looking for restaurants, the only ones we found were take away so we just ordered from the hotel, I wanted a dosa ( delicious Indian meal) but they didn’t have it so I had a plate of cheesy pasta, after that we went to bed and slept.
On the 8th we are going to go to the fort, the fort looked really cool, I couldn’t wait to go there. When we got there we paid to get in, then went to the museum (there’s a museum in the fort), we looked at some stuff for a bit then went to the proper fort. At the entrance there was metal doors just around a corner, they were around the corner so that enemy elephants couldn’t get enough speed to ram through. There was also spikes on the door at elephant height so if they do try to ram through they get injured. When we went in we looked at some of the fort how it used to be then we went to look at their royal positions (fancy way of saying expensive stuff). After that we went back home and went to sleep.
On the 9th we went to a step well, it’s a well that has steps so that people can walk into it, the step well was built to conserve water. After the step well we went to another one, this one was different it was way bigger and didn’t have many steps, when we were finished looking at it, we went to have a look around the city. We looked at the old buildings near us, then we went to a supermarket. We went there because, we wanted to get some lollies, but the one we went to only had one level finished, and guess what that flour was, the arcade. When we got up there I went to crazy. THERE WERE GAMES EVERY WHERE, IT WAS AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We got loads of tokens, (you need tokens to play games) then the fun began. There was this fishing game that Emma spent almost 2\3 of our tokens on, we got lots of points, at the end we used our points on a minion key chain. When we bought it we went home, did our blog then went to sleep.
On the 10th we are going to go on a walking tour around the blue city, the blue city is another name for where we are, like I mean like the city were in. It’s called blue city because lots of the house are blue, the other names for the place are sun city and cursed city. The walking tour was to talk and show stuff about the blue buildings, at one point we saw a line near the fort, and the guide told me it was a zipline that I was going to go on tomorrow (did I tell you I was going on a zipline tomorrow). Well I am, because I didn’t find any ziplines where we are going to be on my birthday. The line is around 300 meters long, it’s going to be awesome, I can’t wait, my mum is going with me because I’m not old enough to do it myself. After that we went to look at some more blue stuff, then we went to look at the market, and then we went home to do our blog. After that we went to have dinner then to bed.
On the 11th we went to a park. The park had really old stuffs. It had stuff dating back to the 4th century, very long ago. We were there for a while looking at stuff like temples, and plants, after that we went to look at an old fort, well ruins of an old fort, most of it wasn’t there, just rock. I can’t explain it much it’s hard, after that we went to have lunch, then went home to do schoolwork. After that we went to have dinner then to bed.
On the 12th we went to do ziplines because it’s my birthday in two days, I can’t wait, well I can but I don’t want to wait. The zipline was awesome, it had a 350 meter long one, mum went with me, Emma was too short to do it so dad had to stay back, (not that she wanted to). Out of six ziplines I only didn’t make 2 until the end (I had to pull myself to finish), the reason that I didn’t make it is because I’m too light, it’s annoying. I didn’t make the longest and third longest. I love ziplines so that’s pretty sad for me, well it wasn’t bad it was just a little disappointing. After that we went on a little walk around the streets, mum wanted to try some of the sweets that people sell from the side of the road stalls, apparently Jodhpur is famous for their sweets. When we were walking to find them, we saw lots of different streets, and they all had a different stuff they were selling, one of the streets had lots of decorations and another one had souvenirs. After that we went home and did our blog. This is our last day here, tomorrow it’s off to Jaipur, (by train not bus).
The End
Andrew (2 days before turning 10!)
Monday the 7th. Our bus was cancelled. We were trying to get to Jodhpur. So, mum went around and booked a smaller bus for us. When we got in, we realised HOW small it was. It was very packed. It was sh*t. IT TOOK 7 long boring HOURS. IT WAS ALREADY HOT, BUT WHEN MORE PEOPLE CAME. IT GOT SCORCHING HOT. The good thing was that we actually got seats. Some people had to stand. When we finally got there, we found our hotel and settled in. in the evening, we walked around the area. Then went back to the hotel for dinner.
Tuesday the 8th. We visited the fort. It was ginormous. We saw weapons, canons, pots, pictures, wine holders, make up boxes and more. We also saw some beautiful rooms. Some were colourful, some had baubles on the roof. In the afternoon, we played our computer.
Wednesday the 9th. We went to the stepwell. It is a well that only woman could use. They would go down to the stepwell and get water. Because it was one of their household chores. Apparently if the king wanted to know what was going on in the village, he sent down people who pretended to meditate, but who are actually listening to people talk. We saw people jump off the high bits.
Thursday the 10th. we went on a tour. It was a tour where they took us to the blue city. It is a place where most of the houses are blue. And do you know why they painted their houses blue. Because it is meant to keep mosquitoes out. And to keep the house cool. It was beautiful. We saw lots of spices. There were chocolate spices, masala spices, chicken spices, fish spices. Loads. It smelt delicious. In the afternoon we played on our computer.
Friday the 11th. We went to a park. There were old temples there. There was a playground we that we played on for a bit. While we were playing mum and dad got photo bombed. There were about 20 or 25 people asking them for a photo. They were surrounded. Then we had an afternoon filed with schoolwork.
Saturday the 12th. We went back to the fort for ziplines. At first, I did not want to do it, but once I saw mum do it, I wanted to. but I was too short. Come on! Then we went to walk in the street. Now I am going to tell you a bit about the street. They are crazy drivers. In the middle of the day all you can hear are horns. If you walk on some of the main roads, you can see hundreds of stalls. The food on the side of the streets are delicious. Then we started walking back to the hotel and on the way, we bought some sweets. As soon as we got home, we ate them. Then we did blog. Tomorrow we are off to Jaipur in a train.
Emma (8 and half years old)もっと詳しく
Jodhpur, Rajastha, India by Kev
2025年4月7日〜13日, インド ⋅ ☀️ 41 °C
7.4.2025. Time to hop on a bus and head out of town. We're up early this morning as we had a bus to catch to Jodhpur. We got to the right spot, it actually had a sign for the company. Waited for the bloke to turn up, just for him to tell us that our bus was cancelled. WTF, really! “We tried contacting you but you gave no phone number”. Ok, what about an email? Reckons there's no email, I call bullshit, that's how we received our bus tickets. Anyway it's cancelled, what are we supposed to do now? Get directed to another bus ticket place, idk what you call it. Mel did well, they got us some tickets to Jodhpur on another bus. A cheap bus, how most Indians travel we think. Bloody hot, bloody crowded, rough and noisy, for 7hrs. As soon as we step off the bus we get pestered by Tuktuk drivers. Literally as your foot hits the ground it starts. Back tf up and give us a minute champ. We were happy to get to our stay. We have a floor to ourselves. Two bedrooms, two showers and toilets and a sitting area, this is great. Straight into the shower, the kids were starting to smell pretty funky. Hot water system is shit, hmmmm. You know what, that's ok, it's 43°, here the water is already hot. We had this idea that the further north we went the cooler it would get. Hahaha WRONG!! At least it's not humid, just friggin hot, reminds me of Cloncurry actually. We rested for a bit, then later when it got a bit cooler(hahahaha), we went out for a bit of an explore to see if we could find some dinner. Checked google maps(yep it's my go to), and headed to a “restaurant”. The streets where we are, are narrow, but that doesn't slow the locals down. I was probably not at my best after being heat blasted for 7 hours, but Jodhpur did not give a great first impression. Bugger all room and they still race around like they're Valentino Rossi. Back to our search for a restaurant, turns out what they refer to as a restaurant here is a takeaway place, or it's closed(thanks google). We did see the end of another festival tho, they had a camel pulling a cart with people on it and people walking playing drums. After about 45mins or so of walking around looking for somewhere to eat, we ended up back at our hotel and eating there. Time to sleep!
8.4.2025. Today we're going to Mehrangarh Fort. We saw it from the rooftop of our stay last night when we had our dinner. It, looks, bloody, huge! Was only a 10-15min walk to get there, and turns out it is pretty huge. It was a very interesting fort, lots to see, another museum inside it obviously, and an audio guide. You can see where cannonballs had hit part of it during a siege. It was designed well, with a 90° bend just before one of the main gates. Why? Because they used to use elephants to smash down the gates, this bend made sure they couldn't build up enough speed to do any significant damage. I had also wondered why there were spikes on the doors about 2-3m up. As another way of stopping elephants. I took a photo, but it never shows properly what you actually see. This fort was a lot bigger and far more grand than the last one we visited. Lots of stained glass, balconies, carvings, old weapons, armour and clothing. Overall an amazing place to visit. Afterwards we headed to a clock tower in the centre of the “old” part of the city. We'd had enough of the heat by then, so we headed back for a shower and a rest. We couldn't be arsed to go out and look for food, so we ate at our hotel again. Which is actually pretty good food. They make it all from scratch in their little kitchen on the rooftop, you can hear them chopping and blending while you're having a beer. Yep, they even have a beer for you here. We saw some fireworks in the distance from the rooftop and the fort is lit up, it looks pretty impressive at night too. Kids have been bugging us for a movie, afterwards sleepy time.
9.4.2025. Had a bit of a sleep in so a slightly later start. We headed towards a place called Toorji Ka Jhalra Bavdi. A huge square well built around 1740, with a depth close to 100m. Several steps leading down on three sides and a covered section that had a water wheel driven by bullocks on-top of it, to draw the water up. It had fallen into ruin, but in recent years has been revamped. It was originally built upon request from the wife of the Maharaj, for the women of the city, for fetching the household water. The day we visited, it was being used by some young blokes as a place to relax and have fun, by swimming and jumping from the various high spots and ledges. We'd skipped breakfast, so by now people were starting to get hungry (Mel mostly), we found a cafe near the step well, and remedied the situation. We walked for a while after, looking for and finding a lake nearby. This one had no-one swimming, it was green and horrible looking, with rubbish everywhere. Apparently there is another step well close by, but we didn't find it. Maybe led astray by Google again. By now we're hot and have had enough. I had found a science centre on GMaps, we thought that might get us out of the heat for awhile. Grabbed a Tuktuk and took off. We got there around 12:30, turns out it just closed and won't open again until 4. GMaps said it was open, yep double checked it, open. I have learned not to be surprised when GMaps gives me useful information, that's completely false. Well what now? There's a “mall” just a short Tuktuk ride away. We need some stuff, toothpaste and whatnot. Let's go there and see what happens. We turned up, there's workers all over the place grinding and welding. Cables running here and there. We asked someone at the door “are you open”? Yep, come on in, don't let a little construction stop you. We found a small arcade on the 3rd floor, handed over Rs2000 and got a card to use with the games. The kids found some games they really liked, Andrew a racing game and Em a fishing game. We all had a go at a new take on air hockey, started with one puck, at some point the machine dropped in another 3-4 pucks. Later it dropped in more and more. I reckon there was 7-8 pucks on the table at one point. The kids were laughing their arse off and their arms were buggered by the end of it. Mel had slipped down to have a look around for the few supplies we needed. Nothing, only clothes and stuff for sale. Oh well, the kids finished all the credit on the card and we tuktuked it back to our room. Later we headed out to a rooftop restaurant I found, a little disappointed with it, but it fixed a craving I'd been having for chicken, our stays rooftop restaurant is vegetarian only. I haven't had much problem with the menus here, love veggies, but after awhile I need to let the carnivore out. What they did well was, masala tea. Mel ordered a pot, and it didn't disappoint, really nice. Saw some fireworks, which is every night here so far, looked at the fort lit up for a bit then headed back. The traffic around our area is crazy at times, especially in the evening. Motorbikes, people and Tuktuk's all trying to go somewhere at the same time, horns and yelling. Throw in a family from Aus trying to get where they wanna go and it's pandemonium. After dinner it had settled down a bit and we had a reasonably stress free walk back. We are much better at navigating the traffic than when we started our trip, but we still have moments. We made it home without incident, if you don't count Emma going arse up in a gutter, should of said without further incident. Cleaned and disinfected, there's shit everywhere (dogs/cows/donkeys/camels), savlon applied, time for bed.
10.4.2025. We headed out this morning to meet up with a guide to take us on a walking tour of the blue city. First stop was a samosa store, we watched the guys mixing the ingredients and making samosas. They're so much neater and faster than we were when we had a go. Tried a few varieties, but my favourite was the oval shaped chilli one. You take a whole green chilli, wrap it with potato mix, dip it in batter and deep-fry it. Turns out pretty good. After that we walked across to a store that specialises in lassi, sweetened yoghurt drinks. We tried three types, I preferred the samosas, kids like the lassi. Now our tour began proper. We walked towards the fort, talking and asking questions. We were shown some of the better wall paintings in the streets, were told why they had chosen blue, which was Indigo, which we had used to dye some stuff in Laos. The blue colour helped the buildings stay cooler, Indigo mixed with other ingredients created an insect repellent. One more reason he would tell us later, was because of the caste system here. The Brahmin caste was the highest ranking caste, and they wanted everyone to know who and where they were, so they painted their homes blue. Anyway, we saw some pretty cool street paintings, some tight little alleyways, the very first gate to the fort and a look out upon the first city of Jodhpur, the real old city. We were shown were they got the water from, a small lake near the fort, you could see where the water wheels used to be for bringing up the water. We also say where Andrew and Mel would be starting and finishing the zipline in a few days. Turns out our guide knows the zipline business and booked us in. We tuktuked it back to where we had started and our guide bought us a chai tea and showed us a few more things, like the spices. Then it was over, it had taken 3hrs for the tour and now what do we do? We thought, well we're right in the middle of the market district, why not just have a look around. We tried to just have a look around, but couldn't, the sellers are pretty pushy and don't/won't take no for an answer. We're just looking means you just haven't been convinced yet. We soon had enough of that and decided not to hang around anymore. Since it was almost 1 we went to find some food. I had something new, Kashmiri pulao. Fried rice with nuts and some fruits, beans and peas. Probably some spices in there somewhere, it is India after all. It was really good, I'm always pretty keen to try new foods, fantastic when it turns out good. We headed back, we all blogged a bit and kids did some math. Afterwards we mucked around making a family “coat of arms”. Kids really got into it and we ended up with a reasonable prototype. We couldn't be bothered going out again, so we went back to the rooftop and had dinner here again. The guy makes the food all himself, tonight's meal was really creamy and delicious. We put the kids to bed and decided a movie would be nice, half way through I was starting to fall asleep, so we called it quits for the night.
11.4.2025. We headed to Mandore gardens today, where the original city was once, about 10klm away. There are buildings and a fort here from the 4th century and up. It was where “Jodhpur” started, tho it wasn't called that. The then king thought the fort was not high enough, and therefore not defensible enough. So, he looked around and found the new spot for his fort, which was both much higher and had a water supply. The new fort was built, the city was moved. They were attacked, and the fort was never breached, so a good choice I guess. There's not much left of the old fort and temples at this site, but there are several of the newer buildings still in good condition and we enjoyed exploring the whole site. When I say newer buildings, I mean 400 years old, ya know, new. The gardens themselves were ok, a bit dry but it's that time of year. We are getting regular 40-44° most days here. There's was a temple here that was quite busy, they were burning something out the front, looked like coconut husk among other things. Not sure if it was a special thing or an everyday sorta thing, and we'll never know. We'd had enough of the park and we're getting hungry. Tuktuk back to the step well, we know there are restaurants there and had some lunch. We chose a restaurant on a rooftop overlooking the stepwell. The kids and I had our fill of chicken again while we watched the young locals jumping off the sides into the well again. We were getting close to finishing when we heard some music. Where can that be coming from? It's getting closer, around the corner came a small truck with heaps of speakers in the back and people following, dancing along behind it. What is going on here? There's another small truck all decorated with people following and dancing. What is going on here, what is going? It's India so we're used to seeing things like this, we're just wondering what it's all about. One of the waiters had walked up behind me and was looking also. He said what I thought was “merry”, whats merry, like a festival I asked. No he said “marry”, ah I get it, it's a wedding procession. Yep, that's it, I'm guessing that's all the people involved heading to the wedding, dancing to bloody loud music and having fun the whole way. They had passed a corner and we're heading towards us a bit now, “BANG”, everyone jumped, what was that, another loud bang. They're setting off crackers in front of the procession. They kept moving, and the music and crackers slowly became quieter. Afterwards we wandered back to our room and the kids did some study ladder, gotta keep the schoolwork up. Andrew played with his Spotify playlist a bit. He likes his music, though I think he likes being able to muck around on his computer more. He found an artist who makes music about Minecraft and SpongeBob and some other games, he loves it. We get a song about creepers going “boom boom boom”, followed by Thunderstruck, he has a very diverse love of music. It's surprising how quickly the afternoon goes by when you are sitting around doing bugger all. We showered and watched a couple episodes of blown away, kids love it. Then it was bedtime as we had an early start the next morning.
12.4.2025. This morning we got up a bit earlier and made our way back to the fort. Mel and Andrew were going ziplining for Andrew's birthday. Mel is shitting themselves, Andrew is just excited as he loves ziplines. Emma doesn't like the idea of it, scares the crap out of her. She couldn't bring herself to do it in Laos, not allowed to do it here because she's not tall enough. It's funny, they didn't care how tall you were in Laos, you could do it if you wanted. Similar to Cambodia and the waterpark, kids could do everything. In India they have height and weight limits. Mel and Andrew got their harnesses on and went down to the practice line for a tutorial. Afterwards Em and I got told we could follow and watch, hell yeah let's go. Where we stood was the starting and finishing point, it worked out we got to see all the ziplines, just from very far. I managed to get a video of them all, some a bit blurry. After seeing her mum, who is scared of heights, do the ziplines, Emma said she wanted to try again if we got the chance. We'll see, can't force her to do it, just encourage a lot. Mel got back with a massive grin, was very happy to have done it. Andrew just wanted to do it again, he has no concerns stepping off and gliding through the air. Once the adrenaline had worn off a little, hunger kicked in. We found a cafe in the fort and had some “ok” food. What now? Well I thought we would like to maybe just walk around a bit. We're usually walking to somewhere, or to do something. What if we just slowed down and just walked, slower, taking in more of the place. So we did, we walked. We never had a destination in mind, we just walked. In our walking we found a sweet shop, bought heaps. Continued on, found some people making some other stuff. Deep fried and soaked in a sweet syrup, so we tried that. Once we'd had enough of our strolling, we slowly headed back to our room. Ordered a pot of chai from the guy at the desk, waited until it arrived and then got stuck into the sweets. Too sweet for me, I had a try but I'm a savoury bloke. Now I'm blogging again as we're going to post tonight. Probably head out for dinner somewhere tonight. I found a place that has some live music on Saturday nights. Hopefully google hasn't lied to me about that, we'll see.
Kevもっと詳しく
Jaipur, Rajasthan, India by Mel
2025年4月13日〜20日, インド ⋅ ☀️ 35 °C
Hello from the capital of Rajasthan,
We are in Jaipur, the capital and biggest city of Rajasthan.
Last time we blogged, we were about to leave Jodhpur. We spent our last evening in a lovely (and expensive) restaurant with live music (a singer, one guitarist and a drummer) and cricket on a big screen. It was a nice last evening in Jodhpur. I think Jodhpur is my favourite place in India so far. I could have stayed there a bit longer!
On Sunday the 13th of April, we took a train to Jodhpur, only 6 hours, not too long! We are getting use to travel! The crazy part was trying to get out of the train when we arrived in Jaipur. The platform where the train got in, was packed with people. When the train stopped, people tried to get on the train, before people could get out! The kids were in front of us with their bags on their back and I got scared for them when they got out of the train, as it would have been easy for them to get lost in that crowd. I had a death grip on both of them with Kev behind me, not being able to come next to me due to the number of people there. It was not the best train station experience we had so far. I was glad to get out of it.
We arrived at our hotel, which is average (with a very smelly bathroom, great!). Not the best first impression so far! After we got our room set, we rested a bit and got out again to find somewhere to eat. We found a rooftop restaurant with a few card games and some blocks (like Jenga blocks) and the kids had fun building things with those. After that we went to the Jawahar circle garden. This is a big circular park with 2 beautiful monuments on each side and a musical fountain in the middle with a music, light and sound show. We decided to give it a try.
The first monument is the Patrika gate, built in 2016, on the site of one of the original seven gates of Jaipur’s walled city. This massive monument, despite being new, was made to reflects the architecture and cultural history of Rajasthan. It is also coloured pink, as the Jaipur is known as the pink city. We were lucky as that evening, an army band was there, so we spent some time listening to 3 different bands (one concert band, one brass band, and one with bagpipes and drums). We then went toward the musical fountain and were disappointed! We really need to stop going to the light and sound show in India, as they are really not the best. We left quickly and went to the other side of the park, where the Toran Dwar, the gate of Rajasthan is. This is a magnificent monument, built very recently as it was opened in 2024. I’ll try to describe it: there are archways on top of archways on top of archways, all made of white marble, culminated at over 50 meters high and 104 meter wide. There are 42 archways and 216 pillars (I researched that, we didn’t count it!). It is beautiful especially at night with the lights shinning on it. I truly loved that monument.
The next day was Andrew’s birthday! Our boy turned 10! Double digits! My mummy’s heart is hurting a bit as time goes too fast. But this is why we are doing this gap year: to enjoy our children while they are happy to be with us. We have been together 24/7 for over 3 months now and we love it. We have had some grumpy moments, but really not that often. We truly enjoy our time together.
Back to Andrew’s birthday. We got pick up by the tuktuk driver that we met at the train station the day before. I asked him to take us somewhere where I could buy a cake and he took us to a small shop with a freezer with a few cakes in it. I guess that’ll have to do. Andrew picked his cake and we went on our way to Fun Kingdom, an attraction park we found on internet. Andrew blew his candle and we ate the cake next to the park waiting for it to open. The park was nice, with some fun rides, but as there were not a lot of people in the park, we were rushed to go from one attraction to another, as they didn’t want to run them for only a few people. The rule about which ride the kids could do, changed depending on who was running the ride at the time, so we got let on some and then deny them 30 minutes later. A little bit frustrating! There was one small zipline, as Andrew loves them, so that was good. But after a couple of hours, and an ice cream and a candy floss, we were done! We went to our second choice (which should have been our first!) called Hop Up. This was a massive place with arcades games, trampolines, rope course, cricket simulator, bowling and I’m sure I forgot something! You should have seen the kids’ eyes when we entered the place!!! This was it! We spent a small fortune there (we still have money on the Hop up card, so we will have to go back this week!) The kids did everything and absolutely loved it. This was a great place for Andrew’s birthday. I am usually not a massive fan of arcade games, but the one there were active one; for example, one was a trampoline you need to jump on to move the character on the screen, or a big ball you need to push to move it on the screen, or a ball you throw at the screen to destroy a building. There were not many games where you sit and just move your fingers, most of them you had to move your all body. I really liked that!
On the cricket simulator, where you need to bat with a real bat, Andrew did very well. He is good at that game. Kev gave it a try too of course: he played 6 over (36 balls) and hit them all (I’ve heard that a few times since! Andrew said he missed one though!) He was hurting the next day (and the one after). I almost forgot: there was a massage chair too, so obviously I spent 10 minutes in it, and I will probably get back on it next time we go there!
Overall, it was a great day. I think Andrew had a good birthday. 10 years old… I can’t quite believe it.
Tuesday we went to the Jaipur palace: yes another one! There are a lot of palace in Rajasthan! There is different way to visit the palace and we picked the most expansive one for once. We did a private tour with a guide of the private area. The Jaipur palace is still partially used by the royal family of Jaipur. This is interesting because, India is a republic but in Rajasthan, they seem to be still very attached to their royal families. I don’t think they have an official role anymore, but they still have influence and money. The current royal family lives in the palace: we couldn’t visit their bedrooms or anything like that, but we saw 4 big rooms that are used for special ceremonies and when they receive guests. The interesting thing about those rooms is that they were built differently to adapt to the different weather conditions: very hot in summer and cold in winter. For example, the blue room was built on the top floor with a lot of openings to let the wind cool out the room. This room is being use during the rainy season. Another room, called the mirror room is at a lower floor, with less opening and the walls are covered with mirrors, which reflect the light and the heat of the candles they were using for light. We also learnt about the ‘Veil rule’ where women couldn’t be seen by people outside of their immediate family. The palaces are built with corners for woman to hide if someone else comes their way, extra rooms for the women to stay in, windows with tiny holes so the women could look outside without being seen… nothing very fun. We saw that in all the other palaces we saw, but as we had a guide, he could explain a bit more. The current royal family doesn’t follow this old custom anymore and one of the princesses is involved in politics and is an elected peoples’ representative in parliament. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of women who cover their faces in Rajasthan. I asked one of our previous guides (in Jodhpur) why and it is to show respect and modesty… I didn’t ask him why men don’t have to show respect and modesty. Maybe I should have. There is some push to stop this archaic custom, but it takes a long time to change a society.
Back to our visit, after the palace we went to Jantar Manta, The Jantar Mantar is a collection of 19 astronomical instruments built by the Rajput king Sawai Jai Singh, the founder of Jaipur. The monument was completed in 1734. It features the world's largest stone sundial (well we think, apparently there might be a bigger one in Italy, we got some conflicting information!) We looked at a all bunch of instruments made to calculate longitude and latitude and distance and plenty of other things of celestial objects. I must admit that I didn’t understand most of it. There were small explanations about the instruments, but not enough for someone who doesn’t already have an idea of the subject. It was still pretty amazing to look at them and trying to decipher their use. I liked the sundial best, because at least this one, I know how to use it!!!
After that we went to one last place: the Hawa Mahal. This is another palace built in shape of a pyramid-ish when looking from the front. Inside there isn’t lots to see, just a lot of empty rooms you can get lost in. There used to be a passage between the city palace and this one, so the women of the royal family could come and see the celebrations that were happening in the street in front of this place, because you know, they couldn’t get out! The outside of the place is beautiful, the colour is more salmon pink, with a lot of windows and archways. The architecture is really stunning.
Our next day was more palace and fort! I think we are getting over forts and palace to be honest! The reason why there are so many forts and palace is that, a while back, there used to have several clans running each a part of the region. Eventually it all merge into one. They also moved their main cities to different location, when they thought it wasn’t safe anymore, and built a new palace each time.
We went to see the Amber palace which is pretty massive. We took a tuktuk to get there, and when we arrived there, we got stopped several times by people trying to sale us elephant ride or jeep ride to climb to the palace. “It is very high”, “lots of stairs”, “too hard for the kids”… Yeah, no thanks! We have legs and they are working well thank you! And it really wasn’t that hard! We got breakfast first at a small shop at the bottom of the palace. We got some delicious food in a small plate with cheap peas, tomatoes, onion and a type of sauce; absolutely delicious. The only problem is we don’t remember the name of the thing, so we might never find it again!!! After that we started walking up to the palace and on the way, we crossed path with elephant carrying tourist to the top. As a family, we made the choice to not use animals that way. We feel elephant should be in the wild, living their best lives, not carrying tourists up and down the same path I don’t know how many times a day. I was saddened to see a lot of white tourists on those elephants. I feel like we should know better. But at the end, each to their own.
On the way up, we are rewarded by amazing views of the hills around, the lake at the bottom of the palace and some beautiful gardens. In the palace, there are several decorated rooms, with small mirrors, tiles painted, marble carving. One of the rooms had an “aircon”: a small waterfall coming from the roof and when the wind was blowing through, it would cool the room: pretty creative! There was also a lot of empty rooms, and we had fun walking around and getting lost.
From the palace, there is a tunnel to get to the fort which is located on a hill above. We missed the entrance to the tunnel and passed the exit of a few meters, before we realised our mistake. We stepped back and the guard at the exit didn’t want to let us back in even if we literally just left by mistake. I think it was expecting a tip to let us back in, but when he realised we weren’t going anywhere, he let us back in. Ha yes, there is the small sign to show the entrance of the tunnel!
We got in, the tunnel run for 500m and then there is a small 1km path to go to the Jaigarh fort. We were the only one there! Nobody wants to walk 1km in the heat on a steep path to get to the fort!! Just us! The fort, being 400m above the palace, has nice views of the palace and the surrounding areas. In the fort, they use to make cannons. There is what is left of a sophisticated cannon foundry, as they use to build massive cannons there. It was interesting to see some of the mechanisms still visible. The kids pretend the big furnace was a pizza oven and played there for a bit. I love their imagination.
After that we went back to the 3 brothers restaurant, as the kids wanted to play with the blocks again. Stayed there playing cards games for a while then back to the room and more board games before bed.
Thursday we didn’t do much. I think we are a little bit tired. India is amazing but also tiring. I feel Jaipur is a bit harder: when walking in the streets, I feel we are constantly being asked if we need tuktuks, if we want to buy something, or we are asked for pictures… It is probably the same is in other cities, but maybe my tolerance for it is growing a bit thin, I’m not sure! The kids did some blogging: it took them forever, so we didn’t do any other school work. Kev and I did some more planning for the Europe part of our trip. After several hours we were all starving, so off for food. We were planning on going to one more fort, but it was hot and we were all feed up with forts, so we changed plan and went to a big shopping centre. We droved past a few time and it looked modern and massive from the outside. We need a few necessities, so a bit of shopping would be great. But it was a lot smaller inside that we thought. Half of it are offices and not shop. We didn’t quite find what we wanted. The food court was pretty good, so we top up on ice-cream! Then back to the room to rest a bit more.
Friday we went to the Alber Hall Museum. It was museum free day apparently. We didn’t know, but it was a nice surprise! We were welcomed with a flower and a red dot on our forehead (which symbolise the 3rd eye and help with concentration among other things). This museum is in a stunning building and has some pretty nice collections: glasswork, metal work, pottery, statues, armoury, coins, an Egyptian collection with a mummy, musical instruments and clay figurines. There is a bit too see, a lot of impressive crafts and history. If you are in Jaipur, this is a good stop. I loved looking at the different coins from different time: some incredibly small, of different material and different shapes.
After that, we went back to Hop up, the place we went for Andrew’s birthday, as we still have some credit on the cards. We spend a lot of time here again, to the delight of Andew and Emma! More trampoline, arcade games, climbing, cricket.. I did my favourite game: the massage chair!!!! I want one when we go home.
For Andrew’s birthday, I had found a Japanese restaurant as it is one of Andrew’s favourite food. We didn’t do it on his birthday as we were still full from a late lunch, so we went there. It was delicious!! Expansive as, but delicious. Kev and I ordered their dumpling and bao celebration things: We had way too much, we couldn’t finish it all!! Andrew and Emma got their sushi that they have been craving for a while! It was a great way to finish the day. Back to the room and straight to bed.
Saturday is blog, school work and planning day. We will probably go out tonight for one last feel of Jaipur as we are leaving tomorrow for Agra, our last stop in India.
Melもっと詳しく
Jaipur, Rajasthan, India by Kev
2025年4月13日〜20日, インド ⋅ ☀️ 36 °C
12.04.2025 (end of the last post) We went to the 4brothers brewing restaurant. They gave us a few taste test of what they had craft brew wise. A Belgian cloudy wheat beer, mango beer and a peach beer. They were all ok, I settled on the Belgian beer but had enough by the end of it. Tried a couple more I had never tasted before, listened to some good live music and had way too much food. Time to head home for sleep.
13.4.2025. Up early, headed for the train station. No problem getting on, the train was waiting there. It left 30mim later but otherwise all smooth sailing. Around 6hrs later we had pulled into the Jaipur station. Bloody hell, what a mess. People trying to get off, people try to get on, all at the same time. There's this old lady pushing the people who were getting off, because she needed to get on. Get out of the way, let people off, then get on. Simple as that. I said before, Indian people don't seem to have any patience, it's “me” first. Emma and Andrew went first and we got kinda stuck, lost sight of them for a bit. At one point, everyone was pushing and nobody was going anywhere. What kinda stupid shit is this? Anyway, we managed to get out of there eventually, found a Tuktuk and made our way to our room. Once settled we went out for a look around and some food. We found a nice rooftop cafe, played some card games and Jenga. Afterwards we made our way over to Patrika gate, a massive gate leading to a central park. Took some photos, went inside and there's an army band. Was nice to hear a brass band. Afterwards we walked over to the middle of the park where there is a big fountain. We waited for a while and eventually, there was a music and light show with the fountain. It wasn't that great, so we moved on. We had trouble finding our next destination, a huge architectural piece next to the park called Toran Dwar, the gateway of Rajasthan. Massive marble structure, can hardly get back far enough to get it all in the photo. After that, back to our room, bath and bed. Oh yeah, at 10:06 we wished happy birthday to our boy. It's the time he was born in Australia, so we celebrated a little early.
14.4.2025. Happy Birthday Andrew!!! Our little bloke is pretty excited about today, and why wouldn't he be? Not everyday you turn 10 in India. He knows we have something organised for today(I say we, I mean Mel mostly), but he doesn't know what it is! We had a Tuktuk organised to pick us up, got him to make a stop to pick up a cake, Andrew's choice. Then we drove over to our first stop of the day. Fun Kingdom!! An Indian amusement park. We're a little early, as always, so we sat under a tree and sang Happy Birthday and ate cake. We did some rides, Andrew got to zipline again, he also abseiled for the first time. We weren't sure what to expect from this park, but we were expecting a little more. Half the rides were for adults only, but Andrew was allowed on some of them, then later he wasn't allowed. There wasn't a lot of people in the park and they wanted to fill the ride a bit before starting it, so we got told to wait a fair bit. Overall it wasn't a great start to the day, but the kids had some fun and that's the main thing. I did get asked why we were leaving and was everything ok with the park. I told them my thoughts, and what I thought was wrong with their park. They seemed to take it in board and sounded like they'd had more than me complain about the park. My final words were “it was ok, not great”. Luckily we had a backup plan. Back in a Tuktuk and off to a place called Hop up. Think King Pin, but bigger. Not quite as many arcades, I think, but indoor bumper cars, trampoline area with a flying fox, rope course, bowling alley upstairs, cricket simulation area, cafe and more. We spent some money and played some games, LOTS of games. The kids found some they really liked, spent an hour in the trampoline area, we sat in some massage chairs for 10mins. We found the cricket game and Andrew had a go for 3 overs. He missed the first few then got his eye in. After that he smashed it. We went up and had a game of Tenpin. It was fun but the lanes here suck, balls changing direction as they went down and not polished at all. That's my excuse for a crap score anyway. We went back and Andrew and I had a go at the cricket. Was fun as, I was sweating afterwards. Somehow, without noticing, we had stayed at this arcade place for nearly 6 hours. We headed back, showered up and Andrew's choice for a movie (SpongeBob ). He tells me he had a great day, I really hope he did.
15.4.2025. Today we visited the palace, bloody expensive. Well, India expensive, most expensive place we've been to so far, if you leave out the arcade we did on Andrew's birthday. Actually nevermind, it seemed expensive, but now that I have thought about it I'll just shut up. Anyway there were two tickets, we paid for the ones that gave you more access and a guide. Our guide turned out to be pretty good, friendly with decent English. The royal family still live in the palace, sometimes areas are off limits because of this. Luckily for us they were away and we got into all the areas, including one which was usually shut but open today. We were shown a room at the top, painted blue with lots of windows for ventilation, used during monsoon season(my favourite). We saw a room they use during the winter, small curved mirrors covered almost the whole ceiling and walls. They would reflect the light and warmth from candles and sunlight. Apparently it gets pretty cold in winter, down to 5°. We walked through massive entrance areas where guests used to arrive on elephants, coming through huge gates. After the tour we were taken to a restaurant inside the platform refreshments. Water, coffee, tea and some biscuits. Had to pay extra for the milkshake Emma wanted. I dunno why I got my hopes up after forking out a load of cash for a ticket that included “refreshments”, I guess inside I still like to be surprised a bit. I got a black coffee, I wanted a cappuccino, but that cost extra and I wasn't giving them any more. Then we got led through the artist area, we'll show you how to tell if this goats throat fur blanket thing, is real or not. Look at how beautiful it is, soft too. Buy, buy, buy! Pfft, no chance. Anyway, the palace was lovely, the coffee was pretty decent and the guide was interesting to talk to. After leaving the palace, right next to it is Jantar Mantar. A museum as such of sundials and devices for tracking celestial bodies. The biggest bloody sundial I have ever seen, 27 metres high. We could see the shadow moving on the base, plus lots of other astrological things I didn't completely understand. Next on the list, find food, hadn't eaten since 4 the day before. We have found out Jaipur is bigger than some other cities and not the easiest to get around. Restaurants are spaced further apart and none close to where we are. Our stays restaurant is closed too as the chef is away. We found some really nice food for lunch, well 2pm, they lunch later here. Worms satisfied, we headed for Hawa Mahal, the wind palace, also the name on our room. Built high on one side with lots of windows. Most were closed so it was hard to feel the wind, ironic that. I could try and explain more, but I'm palaced out and can't remember much anymore. Look it up on the web, it is beautiful. After that we had a short walk back to our room, about 20mins. I dunno how many times we said no to a Tuktuk driver, bloody lots, several times to the same one. Ignoring and walking off doesn't always work, they follow you. After we ran that gauntlet, it was time to shower and rest. The kids played a bit then time for bed.
16.4.2025. Today we decided we'd head to a few forts. We walked out with the intention of either finding some breakfast or a Tuktuk to Amber fort. We found the Tuktuk first, should I say, he found us. An agreement was made money wise and we were off. We were close and could see the fort, when our driver was waved down and he pulled over. The guy that came over said that Tuktuk's couldn't go up to the fort, you have to take a jeep, boat or elephant ride. What are you on about mate? Jeep is Rs650 for all 4 up to the fort. That's more than what we payed for the Tuktuk, that's not gonna happen. We told him to go away and told our driver to keep going. Some words were exchanged in Hindi, our driver looked at us and we told him again to keep going. He did, and we were off again, driving past lots more people trying to wave us down. He didn't look so sure. We got to the main entrance and we got dropped off, like a flock of bloody seagulls and I had a handful of chips, we were engulfed with people trying to get us in a jeep or on an elephant. No thank you, no, no thank you, no, just keep walking. The trip was done, now we needed breakfast. There was a proper restaurant not so far away, and a small outside place cooking all sorts of things. They had samosas, we chose small and outside. We grabbed a couple samosas, something else that looked like a round flat samosa and some puff pastry thing. A chai and a coffee. We got asked if we wanted to try something else, not spicy for the kids, why not. The kids got some noodles as well. They dropped off a little tray of this brown/grey goo with chickpeas, onion and tomato in it. Along with a couple small naan. What's that? I don't know. What's it taste like? I don't know. Bloody delicious is what it tastes like. Still dunno what it was, chaat or chana or something like that. I should have paid more attention. We ate everything as it was all good, got an extra chai and coffee and asked for the bill. Rs630, I'll have that for breakfast every day. Right, off we go up the hill to the fort. Past all the blokes trying to get you in a jeep or on an elephant. Past all the blokes trying to sell you some cheap piece of plastic crap. We walked past some elephants, big buggers they are, on our way up. We stopped to read a sign that had some info on the fort. Some guy tried to sell me a hat, there's a hat on my head, right now. You could have two hats. No, go away. We set off again, it really didn't take long to get to the top. Walked past more people selling stuff, throw in guides now offering their services and we're starting to get annoyed. I'm not sure how many elephants they had there, but it was too many. Not sure how an elephant would like to spend its day, but I'm sure carrying tourists' lazy fat arses up a hill wouldn't be really high on its list. Ok, onto the visit. I like forts, love wandering around checking out all the passageways and towers and all that sorta stuff. I liked looking at the gardens, Andrew was very interested in a particular fountain, which seemed to make a bubble with the water. We saw a massive reception area, where the raja would give audience to guests. It had a billiards room built into the back later on. We had fun just exploring, when we were done with this fort we made our way through an underground passage towards another fort, further up the hill. Jaigarh fort, in here we saw old cannons, a foundry and a huge cannon boring machine that was powered by 8 oxen. There were some very good viewing locations, I like looking out over the countryside. It was now around 1:30 and we were all getting hungry, and tired, we'd done a lot of walking. We left Jaigarh fort and hopped in a Tuktuk back to a restaurant near our room. We ate and played some card games, when we returned to our room we rested and blogged. We played some more card games before bed.
17.4.2025. Blog day and supposed schoolwork day, kids had lots to blog so only that got done. I did a fair bit of laundry as it had been piling up, can't wait to get my washing machine back. All of a sudden it was lunchtime and everyone was getting hangry. We planned on to the Nahargarh Fort, I found a restaurant on the way to it, so we set of. Jeez it's hot out, we're out at the best time of day, too. It's about 42° and we're walking to a rooftop restaurant for something hot to eat, don't sound right does it. We're half way there and I had a thought, the pictures on GMaps shows there's no roof. Surely they'll have an inside area to eat, we'll see I guess. We got there and sure enough they do, also since the pictures were taken they put a roof on top. Just need a few fans now. We ate, pretty tasty. Andrew wanted a dosa, in the north it's harder to get a dosa even if it's on the menu. It's a Southern dish and we haven't had one since being in Rajasthan. So Andrew always has a back-up plan, which is usually egg curry, so that's what he got. He's also found aloo jeera, potato fried with spices, another of his favourites. The restaurant was up the hill a bit that the fort was built on. We got a good look at the fort and walls, also of the city. We finished our meal, and GMaps told us it's another 30mim walk, uphill, to the fort. Turns out only I was kinda keen to do that walk after food and it being that hot. Mel and the kids are a bit forted out. Plan b, we need some supplies, soap and tissues, maybe something else if we see it. We'd been driving past this massive shopping centre for days and decided to head there and see what we could get. World trade park is its name, and no it doesn't have a supermarket. Lots of other stuff, mostly clothing and food. We did manage to get some soap from a boutique shop, kids had an ice-cream and we soaked up some AC. So not a total waste of time. Tuktuked to the room again, some more quality time with each other before bed.
18.4.2025. We're heading to the Albert Hall museum today. We were sorting out a Tuktuk ride when someone, maybe me, complained about being hungry. There's this little place not far from our room that we've walked past a dozen times, they cook on the footpath. That'll do, we told the driver we're gonna get some food first, np. What can I say about our experience at this little place, organised comes to mind. The main guy standing behind the “counter”, seemingly in charge, told us to sit and asked what we wanted. We don't know, something not hot for the kids and whatever for us. There's trays of samosas and other stuff, pots of whatever all around. He gave us samosas, smashed up on a small plate then covered in vegetables. Turned out a bit spicy for Mel but bloody delicious, I had two. Andrew asked for some fried flat bread, which he liked. The guy gave him some yellowish goop to go with it. Andrew said it's not hot and tastes potatoey, loved it. Emma had a flat onion samosa thing, and shared a lassi. A cup of coffee and chai and we were all full. The guy was nice and easy to talk with, when you could, he was busy. I looked around, there is a small ecosystem here. Just to the left there's a guy making the flatbreads, further there's another cooking something else, behind the guy there's more people making other things and a counter full of sweets, our drinks came from outta nowhere. He gave us a couple fried sweet things to try. We're done, all full and ready for a museum, we got our bill and a surprise. All that for just Rs320, we'll have breakfast there again. Alright, our driver is still there so we hopped in and we're off. We got to the museum, lined up at the ticket counter. Today it's free! Planned that, totally. In we go, there's some sculptures at the start, then we walk into a room with massive carpets from hundreds of years ago. The museum had a lot of different things to see. Paintings, pottery, weapons, jewellery, coins and stamps for notes, sculptures, a mummy and lots of old instruments. Also the building itself was something to look at, carved marble pillars and high ceilings. After the museum we had to go back to Hop up, the arcade place, we put too much credit on our card and couldn't spend it all on Andrew's birthday. So the kids did everything again, trampoline area for an hour, ball pit slide area for an hour, dunno how many arcades games, lots. Mel and I sat in the massage chairs again. While the kids were doing the ball pit area we had a go at air hockey again, the crazy one that drops in heaps of pucks. We played, another game started, huh? We played again, by now Mel's arms are giving out. Another game started, what is going on here? We asked a worker there for help. We worked out, Mel had the card in their pants pocket, and that was the perfect height for the tap thingy to pay, ah crap. They turned off the machine and back on again and said they'd sort it out. About 10mins later it was all sorted and we found out during those two games we'd played (was only meant to be one), Mel had tapped the card 81 times. Everyone thought it was funny, Mel found a new spot to keep the card, and I saw several times during the rest of our time there, one the guys near the air hockey table, telling people not to put the cards in their pocket. No doubt retelling our story. The kids got out of the ball pit area very thirsty, so we got some drinks. We finally finished all the money on the card, it had only taken another 6 hours. We had no need for all the tickets stored on the card, so we picked one person, and after a bit of explaining we had given them the card and we left looking for some dinner. We started heading towards a restaurant I found that served some good looking thali’s. On the way, we stopped and watched some blokes playing cricket. In an empty lot, with construction in the background and bricks for stumps, these guys were having fun. We sat there and watched for 10mins or more, before we left another game had started on the other side of the field. Anyway, time for food. We set off again towards the restaurant. We got there no prob, but it's closed. Messaged them, no response. Great, what now? We remembered a Japanese restaurant we had planned for Andrew's birthday that we never got round to going to, so we went there. We got to the spot, but the restaurant isn't here. There's a review from a few days ago, it's gotta be here. We searched around, but couldn't find it. I went back into GMaps and looked through the photos. There, there's a picture from the outside, of the big hotel we walked past. We went and asked one of the security guys, yep it's in this building. Alright we found out restaurant, now let's eat. Got the kids some sushi and Mel and I got a dumpling and bao bun offer thing. Kids loved the sushi, our dumplings and buns just kept coming. We were completely stuffed and we left some on the table. Throw in a couple beers, and we have a new most expensive dinner in India. Tuktuk back to our room, brush teeth and bed.
10.4.2025. Today is blog/schoolwork day. As we're leaving tomorrow, it's also packing day. We had breakfast/smoko at the same place as yesterday, was just as good. That's about it for the day, we'll find some dinner later.
Kevもっと詳しく
Jaipur, Rajasthan, India by the kids
2025年4月13日〜20日, インド ⋅ ☀️ 36 °C
On the 13th we arrived at the Jaipur train station and trust me it wasn’t pleasant, there were people everywhere, it was nearly impossible to get off. There were people just trying to push past me, trying to get on. It would have been easier if they let the people out and then came in, but they didn’t. When we did get off, we went to get a tuktuk to go to our hotel, when we got there, the room had a two people bed a bunk bed. Of course, me and Emma had the bunk bed, why wouldn’t we. We put our bags down then we went out to do our walk around to look at what’s around us. There’s not that many restaurants, there’s lots of cars, motor bikes and tuktuk’s so it’s hard to cross the street. After our walk around, we went to find another tuktuk to go to a park, the park has a huge entrance, it’s a big gate that is decorated very nicely. When we got inside we saw an army band, we wanted to see them playing, sadly they weren’t playing at the moment. In the middle there was a water fountain that was called the musical fountain, it had a light show, the lights weren’t very strong so we couldn’t see that well. When we left we went listen to the army band they were really good. After that we went home and slept.
On the 14th IT’S MY BIRTHDAY I’m extremely excited I am ten, ten T. E. N. 10, TEN!!! Double digits, I am in the double digits age. These are the emotions that I am feeling, excitement, happiness, joy, exuberance, exhilaration, excitement, pleasure, inpatient (it’s still six years till I get a car), and excitement. To celebrate my birthday we are doing, (duh duh duuuuh) I don’t know yet it’s a secret. We left on a tuktuk to go there but when we were going to get there it was not going to be open yet, so what did we do, we stopped at a place bought a cake then kept going. When we were on the way there I saw a sign: fun kingdom, hmmm, interesting. Then, all of a sudden we did a turn, and guess what we saw, yep a castle looking thing with a big sign that said FUN KINGDOM. When we got there it was closed till 11am so we sat down on the grass and ate the cake. When it did open we went to the first ride, it was a bridge that had a cylinder a round it that spun, it felt really weird. After that we went to a few others, they weren’t that fun, but they still were fun. Some of the rides didn’t look that well-constructed, some of them we had to wait for ages, like there was a fun one that supposedly needed lots of people so I could only go on it once. And there was this really fun looking one that I couldn’t go on because it was an adult ride, the annoying thing is that at the same place I went on different adult rides? It depends on the person running it because they change over the time. There was this big one that they were working on, but when we left, it was running, but I think we all agree that I’m not sure anybody would want to go on a ride that was just welded .When we left we activated the back-up plan, and boy was it good, the place was a big building that said hop on\, not that interesting till you get inside. Inside there were arcade games, a rope course, rock wall, a big trampoline area, cricket simulator, bowling, bumper cars and a little ball pit. First we went over to the counter to get a card that would have a lot of points, then to the ARCADE! When we came in we saw a fishing game, it’s like the one at kingpin except that it’s longer, has extra stuff, and you can get more time. The extra stuff are like I can get two hooks, go down to the bottom and the best one is called jackpot it were if you get it you get transported to a place where there is only really good fish, it’s awesome. After that I played a few other arcade games, then I went on to the trampoline area. With the card I can get in without paying I just use the points. The place is like twenty levels up from king pin, it had a bridge above foam blocks. Theres two big sticks that people hit each other with and try to knock them off, I beat Emma every time. After that I went to other trampolines, on one of them I could jump nearly four meters, it felt so cool, in the same place there was a little a zip line, about twenty meters long. After that we went to do bowling, mum was winning a first then dad caught up and ended up having the win. I didn’t get very high of a score but let me tell you two thing it was normally used by adults so there weren’t any ball that were the right weight for me, and the worst bit is the track was RIGGED. How do I know? Well, every time one of us bowled right down the middle always at the same place it started turning, and every ball never stayed straight. After that I went to the batting cage, at first I only did three overs, then dad had his turn and did six overs, no fair, so what did I do, I played my six overs. Am I done yet, NOPE! So, when I finished my batting I went to the rope course, to be honest it wasn’t that good all the good bits I wasn’t allowed to go, and they had a bike on a metal thing that I had to use it as something to balance not the way a proper bike gets used. After that we played a little more games, we earned lots of tickets, and when we left we still had points on our card, so that means WE HAVE TO COME BACK. When we got back to our hotel we decided to watch a movie the movie was going to be my choice, and guess what I picked, SPONGE BOB. My mum doesn’t like sponge bob at all, so I don’t get to watch it often, but since it’s my birthday they can’t say no to me. At the end of the movie, we were all tired, so we went to bed. Night night.
On the 15th we went to the city palace, we got a private tour because there’s a bit of the roof the palace that people can only see if they have a tour. The tour was really expensive want to know why? Because the king still lives there that’s why. The palace is also home to the biggest silver objects in the world they are both the same size, and they are two big pots. They can hold 1800L each and weight 242.7 kg, also going up to an amazing size of 1.6 meters tall. We went in where they live (there not there at the moment) the guide told us that if there flying one flag that means there not here and if there flying two flags that means there here. We went to three rooms that still get used, the first one had lots of blue painting all over it, the second has lots of mirrors and if there’s a candle it reflects everywhere, and the third is a room is like a meeting room that is really comfortable. My mum has asked me to describe one of the rooms and I choose the third. The room has a big soft mattress on the floor and three chairs made out of pillows, we could sit on them, and they were nice, I understand why the king would like it. There was green and red glass on the wall, the glass was from Italy because when it was built they didn’t make glass, so they had to import it. When we left we went to a place called Janta Manta the Jantar Mantar is a collection of 19 astronomical instruments, it is home to the second biggest sun dial in the world, the Samrat Yantra. It is 27meters high and is on a 27 degree angle, we could literally see the shadow moving, this makes it more amazing, it was built in the 18th century, amazing. When we left that we went to see another palace called the Hawa Mahal it’s a palace known for having lots of windows, there are also lots of big areas to walk through, lots of rooms, most of them didn’t have a roof for some reason. When we finished we went back to the hotel to sleep. Snore snore.
On the 16th we are going to go to a palace, the palace is called amber palace, it was built in 1592, we had to drive there it’s 9 kilo meters away. When we got there we had the option to go by jeep, feet or elephant we chose feet here are the reasons why. We didn’t want to pay for the jeep and we don’t want the elephants to be having to be walking all day they should be in their natural habitat, doing what normal elephants do, plus I don’t really want to ride an elephant. When we finished walking up we went to buy our tickets then we went to the temple that was on the way up when we got to the proper palace we looked around and it was beautiful. The carvings were really cool. There was this big open area that had a really nice garden, there was also a fountain, well two fountains one was big and the other one was small but dome-like. After that we went to have a look at some of the other rooms, we were just wandering around, I like wandering, that’s the way I like exploring things. There was a tunnel going to a fort called Jaigarh fort, it very close to where we are, so we decided to walk there. The fort is very old and in it, it has the biggest cannon on wheels in the world. When we got to the top we had a look around the fort it was pretty cool, it had some look out points there was a really good view from one of them. There was also a cannon foundry they made lots of cannons there, the entire thing was oxen powered. We looked around and we saw on the walls of the fort there were marks, dad read some where that the people on duty would sharpen their swords on the rock. After that we went to have lunch then we went home to do some blog. We did that till 7:30pm then we played some board games then went to bed. Sweet dreams.
On the 17th we did more blog because we didn’t finish yesterday, we did that till nearly lunch time, then we went out to have lunch. I had a delicious egg curry it wasn’t the best I ever had but it was yum. We were going to go to a fort a newer one though, but we didn’t go because we agreed to go to a really big shopping centre, there are two reasons why. One: because it’s really hot (it’s the middle of the day) and two: I need some new thongs, I’m wearing shoes right now. The shopping centre was very big, but it was also new so there wasn’t that many shops there were still people moving in lots of the floors offices on them so they weren’t any use. We didn’t find any shoes that we wanted, they were only selling crocs, and I don’t like crocs (no offence). When we came back to the hotel we went to watch a movie then to bed. Sleepy sleepy.
On the 19th we did a bit of our blog again because I write a lot and I haven’t finished, when we need to leave I wasn’t done yet so I was going to have to catch up later. We were going to go to a museum, the museum had a mummy, ancient Egyptian mummy, not parent mummy. There were lots of things in the museum It had all sorts of different types of things, all from different ages it sounded cool. When we got there we were wondering how much it would cost to get in, but when we went to the entrance it was a special day so it turned out to be free. When we got Inside mum told us out of the whole museum we had to find one thing to talk about and explain, when we went in the first thing we saw were giant carpets, and their patterns were amazing, and they were all hand crafted. There were lots of interesting stuff it was so hard to choose what to explain. When we got to the mummy it was cool it had the bandages around it and some cloth, what I was the most amazed about was how well it was preserved. Near the end of the museum I found what I want to talk about, it was stamps they use on notes, money notes, they used it back then when the notes were paper. The stamps had pictures of people and they had notes going up to 500 rupees, with is only $9 Aus, not much. There were also one as little as 25 rupees which is 46c Aus.
Remember on the 14th how I told you we still had points on the card for hop on, well now’s the time to come back. When we got there we went back to the arcade, then to the trampoline area, then lunch, then to a big slide thing, then arcade again, then all of a sudden we were out of points, sad. At dinner we were looking for a restaurant that we were supposed to go to on my birthday but we didn’t. For some reason we coulden’t find the restaurant, it’s because we were following google maps, in India, google maps has 97% of the time led us wrong and 3% led us right (and I’m being nice). Then dad looked at the picture and it was of the building next door. When we went in I figured out that it was a Japanese restaurant and sushi is my favourite food. Me and Emma had sushi, mum and dad had loads of dumplings, I also had a delicious fried rice. When we were full we still had food left, it was yum, then we paid and went to home to sleep. Night night.
On the 19th we are having a blog and schoolwork day, tonight we’re going to have our last dinner in Jaipur and were going to leave tomorrow. We’re going to go to Agra, Agra has the Taj Mahal. So good by Jaipur I think this might be my favourite stop in india.
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The End
Andrew (10 years old)
Hi, welcome back to the blog. I am Emma Bridson here on the blog channel. It is going to be a long one this time, we’re staying here for seven days. I hope you like your trip. Sunday the 13th. We went on a train all the way from Jodhpur to Jaipur. It was roughly six hours. When we got there, it was packed. When I was trying to get out, there were people trying to get in. they were people shouting. There were people pushing. Urrhhhhh. by that moment I was over people. I wanted to shout out “people, you are never going to make it into the train if you push. You can’t get on when there are still people trying to get off.” We went to our new hotel. it’s crap. The internet sucks. The hot water sucks. Sometimes the water runs out completely. Everything sucks. Then in the evening we went to the Jawahar circle. We saw a marching band. Then we saw the music fountain. Yes. It’s a special time of year. IT’S ANDREWS BIRTHDAY. Monday the 14th. We went to have CAKE. After that we went the fun kingdom. There were lots of rides. But they made us wait and WAIT and WAIT!!! and WWAAIITT!!! It was a bit of a letdown. But not to worry, mum and dad had a back up plan. We went to Hop up. They had video games. A trampoline world. Bowling. Cricket. Rope course. It was paradise. We had the time of our life there. You’re probably wondering how mum and dad did, and I will tell you. It’s pretty simple. There was a massage chair. It was cool. In the trampoline world, there was this green spinning thing that spun, and you had to jump over it. I tried but fell over it and very badly hurt my arm. (Luckly it was only a sprain. A bad one though). We stayed up for a movie because it was Andrew’s birthday. You can probably guess what it was. SpongeBob.
Tuesday the 15th. We went to the city palace. We took a private tour. There were lots of blue rooms. there was a room that was blue and had a big flower on the ceiling. There was this room that had lots of mirrors. It is my favourite because if you close all the windows, and turn on candles, it lights up. Then we went to Jantar Manta. It’s an astronomy place. And there is the biggest sundial in the world there. It is 27 meters high. it is meant to predict the movements of the sun, moon and planets. The name “Jantar Manta” is over 200 years old. After that, we went to the Hawa Mahal. It’s a palace that looks like a pyramid from the front. And guess what, the women had to look out of these tiny little windows. AND THAT REALLY PISSED ME OFF! The women stayed inside all day every day. If the women wanted to listen to meetings, they stayed behind a curtain because they couldn’t be seen. There were lots of steps. There were little viewpoints.
Wednesday the 16th. We went to the Amber palace. We took a tuktuk to have breakfast first. And then went to visit the Amber palace. We saw poor elephants taking people up the hill. We didn’t take one, we decided to walk. We agreed that it would be cool to ride an elephant, but it is not their natural habitat. Apparently, there was 700 steps. But that was said by a tuktuk driver. It was more like 182 steps. They were just trying to get us to go in their tuktuk. When we got up it looked beautiful. There were gardens, there was an outside room that had mirrors. We saw a room where they bathed. There was a temple. Then we took a tunnel all the way from the Amber palace to the Jaigarh fort. There we saw canons, workshops, viewpoints and more. We saw where people sharpen their weapons and I said if I was there, I would play tik tack toe. We walked around a lot and then we went to a restaurant called 3 brothers for dinner. After that we played boardgames.
Thursday the 17th. We did blog and schoolwork and then rest. Then we went to a big mall and me, and Andrew got three scoops of ice-cream. The three flavours I got was mint, cookies and cream and ferry floss.
Friday the 18th. We went to the albert hall museum. It was chockoblock with students. When we first got in, we got a red dot on our forehead representing the 3rd eye. (we also got a lolly). There was one thing that really caught my attention. It was a cup. A cup that had a swan on it. there were flowers and the swan was sitting on them. It was gorgeous. The swan was white. The flowers were green, pink and blue. It is my favourite because I like swans, I like flowers, I like colours, and I just like it. When we were looking at stuff, some kids came over to chat. After that we went to hop up. (Which I mentioned on the 14th, 4 lines down and 10-word in. we still had money to burn). We played the fishing game, the bouncing game, the claw machine, dodgem cars, the trapline world, kid city, cricket and a ball throwing game. In the claw machine I won two dolls. I kept the pink one and gave another girl a yellow one. And for dinner we went to a Japanese restaurant. (which served sushi). It was delicious. I loved it.
Saturday we did schoolwork and blog.
Emma (8 and a half year old)もっと詳しく
Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India (By Mel)
2025年4月20日〜27日, インド ⋅ ☀️ 39 °C
Hello from the home of the Taj Mahal,
We are at our last stop in India. We are in Agra in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Agra is famous for being the home of one of the modern seven wonders of the world, the Taj Mahal. It has always been a dream of mine to see it and now I did!
Sunday the 20th of April, was Easter Sunday. The kids were wondering if the Easter Bunny will find them in India and it did! The Easter Bunny is well organised and got them lollies hidden in the hotel room. The kids were so happy to find them!
After that, it was time to take a train once again. The kids were a bit worried after our last experience at the Jaipur train station (when we arrived it was a bit scary as the platform was incredibly packed), but we had no issue at all this time and everything went well. We jumped on the train and it left almost on time! Which is rare in India. We even arrived a few minutes early in Agra; what a surprise!
We tuktuked to our guesthouse and settled in our room as usual. We were hungry so went in look of some food. After filling our belly, we went looking for a shop to refill our sanitary bag. It is not that easy. There is a lot of tiny shops here (think of counter open on the street, where you don’t get in, you just ask what you need), but as we needed a few different items, we were looking for something bigger where we could look for ourselves. We asked a tukutk to take us to big shop. “Yes no problem”. He took us to a bigger shop, well, slightly bigger shop. I guess in this one we could walk in: there were 2 tiny aisles, where to be honest, we found almost everything we were looking for. So not bad!
We didn’t do much else that day.
During the night, an electric transformer blew up and the whole street end up with no power, which means no fans!!!! And it is hot here!!! Power outages are pretty common in India and we have had a lot, but not as long as this one! It lasted from around midnight until sometime in the morning when they could fix it. Our room without fan got really hot. We end up on the terrace reading book at 2am. But after a while as we opened all doors and windows, the room got a bit cooler and we went back in and surprisingly manage to get back to sleep for a little bit.
When we woke up again, we went to the Agra Fort which looks massive from the outside. The fort covers a surface of 380 000m2, but a big part of it is still in used by the India army, so you can only visit one small part of it. Nobody is sure when the initial fort was constructed but from the 15th century, the ruler of the area started adding buildings to the preexisting fort. The fort was hold by different groups/rulers through the centuries as local wars were going on. It is now owned by the Indian government. There are several buildings inside the fort, some made of red sandstones, and some made of white marble depending on which ruler built it. Both are beautiful. There are carvings, inlay decorations with several type of semi-precious stones, domes beautifully decorated, fountains which were unfortunately off, but looked amazing. We were done faster than we thought as we didn’t know we will only be able to visit just a portion of it.
After that, we decided to walk in the bazaar. Boy it was an experience! It was busy, noisy, colours everywhere, people everywhere, you can find anything you want, you just need to know where to go! There are a lot of stands selling fabrics, clothes, food, bangles, locks and anything in between. I love walking in this kind of ambiance. It is crazy, yes, but it is so full of life! But the kids were a bit worried as they are smaller and there are bikes, tuktuks, cows, dogs and people everywhere. We walked a bit in it but not too long. We went to look for a café type of place, but it is not common here in India. You can buy a chai at a small stand and drink in standing up, but not many places, outside of touristic area have sitting down places. So after looking with no success, we got a tuktuk to take us back to our guesthouse to get out of the sun and rest for a bit.
Our room is near the Taj Mahal. One thing I forgot to mention about Agra, is that obviously, there are a lot of tourists here, and there are a lot of tuktuk, and street sellers, restaurants which cater to tourists. But as there are a lot of them, the competition is fierce and when they saw white people (who have usually more money than Indian tourists) they want them badly. It sometimes can be very annoying and overwhelming. They will follow us for 5 minutes to try to get us in the tuktuk, or put stuff right in front of our faces (personal space means nothing in India) to try to get us to buy. They don’t seem to understand no. And I get it, it is their livelihood, but when you have that 50 times (or more) in a day, it gets a lot. Agra (as Jaipur) seems to be extreme in that aspect. It can sometimes make our experience less enjoyable as it is hard to have to say no every few meters. We had tuktuk pulling in front of us while we were walking to block our path… It is not fun.
The next day was an exciting day for me. Taj Mahal day! We got up early (5am) to catch the sunrise because apparently it is one of the best time to see the Taj. Almost nobody in the streets, that is nice. We get to the entry, I got our tickets online, so no waiting, and we get to the security. They ask if we have a flag, “Nope”, can I check your bag,” yes of course” (we don’t have a choice). “You can’t have that!”. We travel with a picture of the kids school mascot, so the kids can take pictures with it and send it to their school. It has a logo on it (the school one), so that is not allowed in…. Not sure why. The kids don’t want to lose it, so they promise us to keep it safe and we can have it back on our way out (we did, to the kid’s great relief).
The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum commissioned in 1631 by the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan to house the tomb of his beloved favourite wife (he had at least 3 others but probably more), Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to her 14th child that year; it also houses the tomb of Shah Jahan himself who died in 1666. The construction of the mausoleum was completed in 1648, but work continued on other phases of the project for another five years. The Taj Mahal represents the finest and most sophisticated example of Indo-Islamic architecture.
Let’s go visit the place! We arrived in the forecourt which is where the main gate is. From that gate you get your first sight of the Taj Mahal. I loved that entrance. There is this dark arch where you see in the distance, this massive white marble monument. Once you pass that arch, you can take the view in completely. There are symmetric massive gardens all around the Taj Mahal. In the middle is the Taj Mahal: it is 55 meters on each side as well as high (well the dome is). The dome is a perfect onion shape (that is the technical term!). There are four 40 meters tall minarets, one on the 4 corners. Each side of the Taj is decorated with 3 arches and many inlay decorations with a lot of precious and semi-precious stones. There is also inscriptions of verses of the Qu’ran around each arch made in inlay of black marble. The place is stunning. Truly.
We came here at sunrise as it says everywhere this is the best time to see the Taj Mahal, and it is because there are less people than during the day and the temperature is nicer. I also read about the marble changing colours throughout the day, and I have to admit that I did not see that. Yes the sun is reflecting its morning colours on the Taj, but it is not a massive change! Also the sun doesn’t raise behind the Taj (as I was imagining) but on the side, so to see it raise somewhat behind the monument, you need to come to the left side of it. It is nevertheless a magnificent monument amazing to see anytime of the day!
The inside is a big octagonal room with the 2 “fake” tombs of the sha and his wife. The real tombs are in a room under. There is beautifully decorated screen around the tombs, with latticed type decorations, so you can see through it. The interesting thing about that room is the sound! It is really noisy because every sound is magnified. Even a whisper will be heard. You can imagine with all the tourists there, how noisy it gets! This was made in purpose: there used to have people reciting the Qu’ran continually to honour Muntaz soul. The 28 seconds reverberation time (time between when a sound is made and when the last echo died) would let the prayers linger in the air.
Around the Taj are more buildings made of red sandstones: a mosque, a guesthouse, a wall on 3 sides, the 4th is open on the river. The whole place is magnificent.
We walked around taking on the view. There is a small museum which open at 9am so we waited for that and visited it when it opened. It has some interesting artefacts.
After that we went in search of breakfast and despite being in the most touristic area, we found a nice place with great service and reasonable prices. We also bought some postcards and one magnet made of marble (that is the only souvenir we buy from places). After that a bit of rest back in the room and then out again. This time to see what is called the Baby Taj. This is a small mausoleum for the grand father of Mumtaz Mahal buried in the Taj Mahal. The real name is Itmad-ud-Daula. It is a lot smaller than the Taj Mahal, but with a lot more decorations. The settings are similar to the Taj with gardens around and the mausoleum in the middle. It was built between 1622 and 1628, so before the Taj Mahal. The entirety of the walls is decorated with inlay. Inside the ceiling are also heavily and beautifully decorated. It is not as impressive as the Taj Mahal but it is still worth a visit.
We then went to the park across the Taj Mahal to watch the sunset. Again it is not anywhere near the Taj, but the colours are supposed to change… Not sure if it is my eyes, but I didn’t see it! I was still happy to be able to take pictures of the Taj Mahal from a different point of view. The park in itself was pretty average and nothing really interesting to mention. Then dinner and bed!
On the 23rd, we wrote the postcards we bought the day before and went to find the post office. We got out of the hotel and realised that the main road which leads toward the Taj Mahal is blocked. And yes, we read a few days ago that the vice president of the orange buffoon is coming in Agra. Great this is today! This road is closed and everything in it is closed too. The Taj is closed to tourist until he leaves. Luckily, we went yesterday. We read that they cleaned the road he is taking; the only things we notice is that there is no Indian people on that road: is that what they call cleaning? Gosh I don’t like politicians. Especially those.
Anyway, we’ll take the back streets. Which I prefer anyway. Yes they are dirty and uneven, but they are full of life. On the way, as school are closed (for the same reason the Taj is closed) there are a lot of kids saying “Hello”, “What is your name” and wanted to shake the Andrew and Emma’s hands. We found a little (tiny) post office and I asked for stamps: apparently, I need 2 per postcards and I have 19 postcards. I said I can put them on myself, but the guys insist on doing it. And he is doing it very slowly There are people waiting for other things and I feel bad that I am making them wait longer! 2 women are very interested in me and one speak a little English, so we talk. I love those interactions. One of them look at my tattoos on my arms and it makes her laugh. She looks at my white skin too and I lift the sleeve of my shirt revelling my even whiter skin on my shoulder, which makes her laugh too! I says that I love the colour of her skin: that made her smile, a happy smile I think. We talk about my children; a boy and a girl, this is good! (I’ve heard that a few time in India). The guy is finally finished with the stamps and I say goodbye. I love those little moments when we travel. Those are some of the most interesting parts of traveling.
We are going back to our room as we are not sure what is open today. Schoolwork and blog it is. Toward the end of the afternoon Andrew start to feel crap and he is hot. A few painkillers and a nap should help. Hopefully this is nothing too bad.
He ended up being a bit sick during the night but nothing dramatic. He was kinda better by the next day, just a little bit tired still.
Kev went to find an ATM, while me and the kids stay in the room as Andrew is resting, as we are running out of cash (this is obviously an ongoing thing when you travel!). The problem is that not every ATM take our bank card, but the other issue in India is that often we find ATM which are not even on, or not working or with no cash in it. It makes the hunt for money a lot harder. Kev came back empty handed. He had dinner by himself when he was out. When he come back Emma and I are going and Kev stays with Andrew who is still sleeping and doesn’t want to eat. Poor Andrew. It was nice to have some time one on one with Emma, as we don’t get one on one time very often!
The next day, we went in search of an ATM again!!! This time the four of us. I am not lying when I said we tried at least 15 ATMs before finding one that worked!!! We had to walk a lot, which is good exercise but it is hot. I will say that none of the kids complained. They both soldiered. They are amazing. On the way, we bought some tickets for a show that evening.
As we had enough of walking we got back to our room to do some schoolwork and blogging (we try to write every other day otherwise it takes too long on the last day to write everything and we also forget what we did!!!) On the evening we went to see a show at the Kalakriti cultural centre about the story of the Taj Mahal, the love story between Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal. It was a nice show. There was dancing, music with beautiful songs, drama acting (Indian like drama!). We had a headset on with the English version of the dialogues and it worked well. It was nice to finally have a show in English! To be honest, it was not the best show I have seen, but it was enjoyable nonetheless and I am happy we saw some cultural show in India. The dances were fun to watch and at the end of the show, they have this reproduction of the Taj Mahal on stage which is made of the same marble than the real Taj and is supposed to be one of the biggest reproductions of the Taj. Then dinner and bed.
Friday the 25th, we decided to go visited more monuments as we have the time to do it and there is more to see in Agra than the Taj Mahal. We started with the Red Taj: this is a mausoleum for John Hessing, who was a Dutch military officer who served in the armies of the Maratha Empire (the rulers of the region at the time) in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. When he died, his wife commissioned a smaller replica of the Taj Mahal in red sandstone as a mausoleum. It is located in a Roman Catholic cemetery. We walked around the cemetery, reading the names of people buried here and probably forgotten about as the dates were from a couple of centuries ago. I have always loved cemeteries for some reason: it is peaceful (well in India, you still hear the horn of cars and bikes, but well!) and it reminds you to enjoy our life at the fullest, as we all end up in place like this eventually.
After that we went to visit the tomb of Akbar, yes, another mausoleum. It is funny how each region seems to have their own thing; here it is mausoleums, Rajasthan was palaces and forts, the south of India was churches…
Akbar was the third Mughal Emperor who reigned from 1556 to 1605. He commissioned is own mausoleum and the construction actually started before his death and finished in 1613. The entrance of this mausoleum is pretty grandiose. It is made of red sandstone (as usual) with a massive arch and 4 minarets. I thought it was the mausoleum but no, it was just the entrance. Inside are gardens and fountains (not on obviously as everywhere else!) and the building were the tomb is. The architecture is a bit different but still impressive. We walked around admiring the tall arches and the quiet. It is funny because Agra is very famous for the Taj Mahal and when you visit it, it is packed with tourist (even now in the off season), but all those other monuments are practically empty of people. There is so much more to Agra that the Taj.
On the way to there, we saw a white temple and our tuktuk driver told us it is a Sikh temple. Sikh is an Indian religion which started in the 15th century. We decided to go visited it on our way back and I am glad we did. We try to see as many place of religion as we can. I didn’t know much about the Sikh religion, so I did a bit of research about it. This religion is not related to Hinduism or Muslim. This is a different religion. In Sikhi, the word for God is Waheguru ( 'wondrous teacher') and the adherents of Sikhi are known as Sikhs, meaning "students" or "disciples".
The temple we visited is all white and relatively big. Before entering, you need to leave your shoes at the cloak room (and it is free and nobody ask you for a tip!!!!), take a piece of fabric to cover your head (everyone does it, man, woman and everything in between) and walk through a little basin with cool water in it (which feel nice with the heat here). We then went to the main temple, which is very bare. There are no pictures, no decorations, very simple. The floor is covered with thick and comfortable carpet. The room had a lot of pillars and a small shrine in the middle where people pray in front of. We were asked to sit down, so we did and we looked for a little bit. I do not believe in God, but I have always been interested in religion. I love watching how different religion pray and their customs.
After a bit, we got back out and were told to go to a person there who gave us a small amount of a sweet type of food. This is Karah Parshad “The offering and receiving of this food is a vital part of hospitality protocols. It has the same amount of whole-wheat flour, clarified butter and sugar, to emphasize the equality of men and women. The Sewadar serves it out of the same bowl to everyone in equal portions.” (thank you Wikipedia). It is a sacred food and not taking it is an insult. It is sweet and delicious (I like sweets!). We were told that we could eat here as well, as for Sikhs, hospitality is very important, so in every Gurdwara (place where Sikhs come to worship) there is a kitchen and an area where everyone can eat, not matter who you are. We didn’t, as we are still feeling like we are intruding, which is probably not true, but well.
After that there was 2 smaller temples in the same complex that we went to have a look at. One of them was a little bit away and we didn’t grab our shoes back, so we were barefoot, and the ground was hot!! The little basin of water before the temple was very welcome!!!!
It was an interesting experience and I’m glad we saw this place.
After that, we had enough of visiting places and we wanted to get some US dollars as that is one of the currencies they use in Zambia and with all the issues we had with ATM, I wanted to make sure that we will be good for the first few days when we arrive in Zambia. But like ATM, money exchanges aren’t that easy to find! And it was Friday, day of rest for the Muslim and Agra being mainly Muslim, lots of things are closed. We end up finding a place to have some cold drinks and played board games (I usually have a couple in my bag). Then back to our hotel room for some rest before going out for dinner.
Saturday we really needed to find some US dollars and we did! Happy us! Then back to the room to finish our blog and do some schoolwork and planning. Our trip to India is almost finished! This is weird to think that. We are leaving Agra tomorrow, taking our last Indian train to Delhi to catch our plane to Zambia in Africa!!!
We are done with India after 2 months and are going to start the next chapter of our trip on another continent!!! Africa here we come!!!
See you all there.
Melもっと詳しく
Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India (By Kev)
2025年4月20日〜27日, インド ⋅ ☀️ 39 °C
20.4.2025. Up early, load up a Tuktuk with all our bags and kids, set off for the train station. It's nowhere as busy as when we arrived thankfully, Emma was a little worried. We got on without incident and found our seats. I wasn't unhappy about leaving Jaipur, it was my least favourite place in India. Yes we saw some awesome stuff and met some nice people. I also saw things that didn't sit well with me. Elephants made to carry lazy tourists up to a fort all day in the heat, rubbish everywhere. If there was a busted building or spare lot, it was full of rubbish. Then there's the Tuktuk drivers and the traffic. I get that it's their living, but they pester you to the point of annoyance. We were crossing the street and one pulled up in front of us just as we were about to go, we said no and he just kept blabbing about “I take you here, I take you there”. Ended up waving him through and saying just get out of the f-ing way we're trying to cross. We were talking to an old guy about a ride and another, younger bloke comes up and starts saying “come, come, you come with me”. Mel says nope, we're talking to him. Still doesn't listen, “you come with me”. Mel says, nope, you lost it we're not going with you, go away. The old fella took us exactly where we wanted to go for a good price too. Oh and horses that look like underfed skeletons dragging more fat tourist arses around. Admittedly I didn't see many people use these. Oh and the guy at our stay was a tool! Every time he saw me, he'd come over and tell me that he can book tours and Tuktuk's. Yep ya told me that the first day, then he got upset that we had another guy organised to pick us up. I went and asked him if he could take us to the train station when we left and afterwards all he wanted to know was “what that guy on first day say about me”, nunya mate, “why you not use my Tuktuk?” If this is gonna be an issue, I'll find someone else to take me tomorrow, I don't need you. His eyes opened and he shut up for a little bit. Jaipur soured India somewhat for me, I'll try to remember we've had some really good times here too. Anyway, poor little me, getting harassed while I travel the world. I need to put some perspective on it sometimes. We get to Agra, the platform is not too bad. The parking lot is friggin chaos, more Tuktuk's than you came count. One guy found us as we got off the train and led us out, we heard his offer and it seemed reasonable so we took it. We ended riding with his father, Khan, who got us there np. We checked into our new room, our last stay in India. An ok room with fans but no AC. We were starving, so we went in search of food. Wasn't a long search, we're near the Taj Mahal, so there's quite a few restaurants around. We ate well, then decided to walk a bit. The restaurant guys are just as bad as the Tuktuk guys here! They all have someone out front trying to pull you into their restaurant. In between saying no to Tuktuk's we're saying no to restaurants, add the guys trying to sell you some piece of plastic crap and it gets a bit much. Long day, Agra seems worse than Jaipur for pushy people, we'd had enough. We went back to the room, showered(doesn't work properly), blogged a little then headed out to a rooftop restaurant for a beer and some games. Only Emma was a little hungry, so she got some chips. Mel and I had a beer and we all played some card games. Later a young guy from Italy joined us for a chat. He's here for a friend's wedding and is heading back soon. We shared some stories and got a couple tips for when we go to Italy. Time for bed.
21.4.2025. Dunno when the power went out, a bit after midnight I think. Woke up in a pool of sweat as no fans anymore. Andrew was still asleep, so I fanned the kids with one of their books while we waited for the power to come back on. After 20mins of that and Andrew waking up, I decided to stop. We went outside onto the balcony and found it was much cooler. We opened up the room, and sat outside for a while. The power never came back on. Just after three we got the kids back to sleep and tried to sleep ourselves. All covered in insect repellent, but quickly sweating that off. Was a shit night, I seemed to be the least bitten by mosquitos, Emma got smashed. Lack of sleep and blood wasn't going to stop us, we had a fort to see. On our way out the guy who runs the place said that a transformer had blown, and would hopefully be fixed soonish. Into a Tuktuk with Khan, who drove us to our stay from the train station, an electric Tuktuk. They look the same but are white, and there are quite a few here in Agra. Before we got dropped at Fort Agra, Khan took us to a restaurant for breakfast, first time we've had Puri, bloody good. A potato and vege curry that you eat with this puffed up fried bread. Then he dropped us at the fort, an absolutely massive fort made mostly of red sandstone. Bloody high walls and what looks like a moat. As with everything here, wherever you look something is carved. We had a more leisurely approach to today, and meandered around the fort for a couple hours. There's always great views from forts, even though this one was on ground level, not up a hill, we still had a good look around at the sights. After we'd had our fill, we walked towards the bazaar. The bazaar itself was packed and chaotic, people showing their wares and people looking to buy. It's not the same as at the front of a tourist spot. Less pushy, apart from getting pushed in the crowd. Locals come here to buy what they need, we came here to stickybeak. We walked among thousands of people, maybe tens of thousands and not once did I feel worried. Emma was a little worried, she can't see past all the bodies and see where to go. We heard stories from different people and read different things from websites about being careful in India. So far we've had no trouble in India apart from a cancelled bus (hope it stays that way), and have walked through all sorts of streets without concern. I don't feel as safe walking some streets in Townsville. Anyway, we didn't buy anything in the bazaar, that was not the point of our walk. Our walk was to immerse ourselves in the culture, and Mel had fun taking photos of everything that caught their eye. I had had enough of the bazaar, Em too, we needed money so we searched for an ATM. First one didn't work, the search continues. We walked for ages and finally found one that would give us some cash. We were buggered, and decided to head towards the fort train station, where we had agreed to meet Khan there. It was a lot more walking and at some point we called it quits. Mel WhatsApp’d our Khan to come get us. Couldn't get across properly where we were, and he asked if anyone was around. There was a younger guy sitting on his motorbike near us and Mel asked if he could talk to our guy. He told our driver exactly where we were and we thanked him. We have found help here when we needed it, no worries. Shortly after another guy turned up in an electric Tuktuk, said he was Khan's son, that'll do. He called his father and gave me the phone. I had a brief chat with him as he told me this was his son and he would look after us. This was the second son we had met, I asked him how many sons did he have. 5 sons and 2 daughters, bloody hell, busy guy. We got back to the stay, yes the power is back on! They had given us an evaporative AC to use, it's bloody huge and noisy. We fired it up and enjoyed a bit of cool. After a while we got sick of the noise and turned it off again. We rested, then showered before heading out looking for some food. There are lots of restaurants near us so it wasn't hard. We were having our meal when an English themed restaurant, “Old England Cafe”, started blasting out American country music. Where the hell am I? I'm still in India right? What is going on here? We ate, and we wondered. I had looked at going there for dinner, but the menu looked shit and expensive, and now this. Glad we didn't. We finished our meal and headed back for some sleep, an early start tomorrow.
22.4.2025. Alarm went off just before 5, we were off to the Taj Mahal today. We'd read that the time to visit was sunrise, so off we went. It was surreal to walk this early in India, there was almost no one on the streets, except people headed to the Taj. There was no one to ask me if I needed a Tuktuk, and I kinda liked the peaceful, cool, early morning walk. We got there, scanned the tickets, got through security and headed in. We walked up to the main entrance gate and were greeted with our first proper look at the Taj Mahal. Impressive is an understatement, it only got better the closer we got. We had assumed the reason to get here before the sunrise was for the view, turns out it's mostly to beat the crowds so you get a better photo opportunity. Built on a huge platform of red sandstone, the white marble creation stands 55 metres tall, wide and long. Lots of inlaid work, where they used onyx and other materials. We had paid the mausoleum pass, so we got to go inside, something you would be crazy not to. Inside is the tomb of Mumtaz Mahal, the wife of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan. The Emperor had it built in 1631, after the death of Mumtaz, his favourite wife, while giving birth to her 14th child. After he carked it, they put him in there too. Inside is like an echo chamber, and was surprisingly noisy. We passed through, and went back outside. The sun did indeed start to rise over the Mahal from one of the sides, and looked nice. We moved around, taking in as much as we could. The craftwork is amazing, and truly worth seeing. We walked around the long garden area between the main gate and the Taj for a bit, waiting for the museum to open. It opens at 9, it's still very early. After watching squirrels and birds and people, we went into the museum. It's small but had some nice samples of the rocks used in the Mahal’s making, and other things I can't remember. Finally we were done looking at this wonder of the world, and instead went looking for breakfast. Just outside, not far from the east entrance, we found a small restaurant. We figured being this near the Taj it would be shit and not cheap. We were wrong, it was pretty decent and fairly priced. The people who run it were also very nice. The guy who seemed in charge, saw that Emma was having trouble with her food. They had already made it not spicy upon request, he asked, is it still too spicy? Emma said yes, we think she just didn't like it, probably tired. Before we knew it he had taken it away and had another made, this time with no spice at all. Emma still didn't eat much, so Mel and I finished it. It was a simple gesture by him, he cared about the people who ate at his restaurant. When we got the bill, there was no extra charge, no “service fee”, which I had been hit with before. Just the price for the food we ordered. We were due a little change from Rs1000, I told them to keep it and thanked them again for a nice meal and their service. After that we walked back to our room, the streets a lot busier now. About 10mins after we got back, I was asleep. We did our thing in the room for a couple hours before setting off again. This time to Itmad-ud-daula, what they call the baby Taj. Where the grandfather of the emperor's favourite wife is entombed. Way smaller than the Taj, but with more inlay work and painting. It is well worth a look at as well. After that we headed to Mehtab Bagh, a garden across the river from the Taj Mahal, to have a walk around and wait to watch the sunset. The sunset was a bit of a let down, we were hoping for a lot more, but as with the sunrise, it was not over the Taj. Nevermind, back to the Tuktuk, head back and try another restaurant near our stay. After, we showered and watched a little tv with the kids, then bed.
23.4.2025. Little bit of a late start today, then we realised we'd lost Andrew's bottle somewhere. It was either the last Tuktuk of the day, or the restaurant from last night. So we headed that way, or not. The main street to the Taj is blocked off, security guy standing there didn't speak English but he let me past the barrier. Once past, I was in a bit of shock, wth is going on here? There's no one on the streets, no Indians at all, and for India that's weird. There's decorations all over the place and it's eerily quiet. Then I saw it, “welcome JD Vance”, for fucks sake. They shut the whole show down for that utter tool. I'm glad we hit the Taj Mahal yesterday, would suck if this was your only day in Agra and this happened to you. Well what the hell we gonna do now. We decided to get some breakfast and send our postcards. We got brekky from the homestay down the street. They also printed our Visa's for Zambia and Namibia for us. Let's find a post office and send our postcards. 20-25min later we found the post office, or not. There is a small sign, but everything is closed and there's nothing that looks like a post office. We stood there for a bit, not sure what to do next, when a bloke came out of a barbers and asked “ where you want to go”. We said we were looking for the post office, he said “other side”. We walked around to the other side of that building, we were at a small Y section in the road, and there it is. The kids and I stood outside and waited while Mel went in, had some conversations and got things sorted. We started back towards our room the way we came, back roads cause the main road was blocked for some wally. It was kinda nice to take the back roads, apart from the filth. Kids love to say hello and know where you're from. We saw where and how people, even ones sooo close to the Taj Mahal, live. Realising how lucky I am keeps slapping me in the face. We made our way back towards our room and noticed police heading out, the lockdown must be over. Well let's check if we left our water bottle at that restaurant last night. Yep that's where it was, happy to get that back. Now back at our room, we blogged/school work/lollies from the Easter bunny. I read about the VPs visit a little, from the Indians pov. The streets were shut down, shops and businesses forced to be closed and it said people were not allowed to peep from their windows. It was now late Arvo, and Andrew said he wasn't feeling great, and said he was tired. He's running a little hot so I gave him some painkillers. He had a lay down and fell asleep, so I decided to head out and see if I could find an ATM. We've had a LOT of trouble finding ATMs that will give us money, and many messages/conversations with our bank about that matter. I think I have already covered this topic so I won't go into detail. 2 hours wandering around and I don't know how many ATMs later, I came up empty. You would think being less than a 10min walk to the Taj Mahal there would be heaps of ATMs, well you'd be wrong. During my adventures through the streets of Agra, Mel had messaged and said Andrew has not cooled and they gave him more medicine and he was asleep again. After a discussion, and since it was now 7pm, I grabbed some dinner while I was out and came back. Mel and Em then went out, while I watched the boy. Andrew woke up not long after, still pretty hot. Got him to have some chewable Nurofen for kids. That stayed in him for about 45secs before getting flushed. I cleaned him up and since he was already in the bathroom, he had a nice cool shower. As always with our son, after a spew he feels better. Some more painkillers for a slight headache, and he's almost back to normal. Mel and Em got back, Em was really happy to see Andrew was better. Watched a little tv, they're liking Troll Hunter on Netflix, then a good sleep.
24.4.2025. Andrew is doing better, and hungry! We have walked past a little restaurant on the main street I dunno how many times. We never really noticed it actually, try it? Why not? They specialise in paratha, which is like a fried bread with stuff in it. These guys made really good paratha. Andrew had aloo (potato), Mel had paneer(cheese) and I had gohbi(cauliflower) and mixed veg. Emma had nothing cause she ate cereal in the room. Oh man, delicious, and cheap! Three parathas, a bowl of curd(yoghurt), a chai and a coffee. Rs280, we'll be back. Right, we still need money. We're down to a couple thousand rupees. The search for an ATM continues. We walked, found ATMs, none worked. This went on for a couple hours and countless Tuktuk drivers asking “where you going”, “too hot to walk”. Finally, after forever! Well maybe 3 hours, we found a “Bank Of Baroda” ATM! It works! It works! If you're ever in India and having trouble, “BOB” ATMs are orange and glorious. Wallet is kinda full again now, let's spend it! We decided (Mel decided) a Tuktuk was now in order, and we took one to the Kalakriti cultural centre. I searched for cultural performances, and this is the only place that came up. Their website is garbage, so we headed there today to sort out some tickets. The show we want to see, the only show they have? Mahabbat the Taj. The story of the Taj Mahal and how it came to be. Lucky we did because there was only about 98% left. Which struck us as weird, or maybe it's just us that likes to see cultural performances. Then we remembered it's not peak tourist season. Anyway, tickets sorted, and lots of that money we just searched for now gone. We started back towards our room. Mel was dying for something cool, so we stopped at a place called “London coffee club”. A bit expensive, but nice drinks and a break from the sun. It's gotten to 45° here a couple times, so when someone says let's have a break we usually do. We sat there for a while, enjoyed our drinks and played some card games. We braved the blistering heat for about another 10mins, the time it took to walk back to our room. We showered, rested and read. Once it was time, we walked back to the Kalakriti centre, and enjoyed the show. We had headphones that told us the story in English. The show had dancing and singing, and at the end a replica of the Taj Mahal popped up through the stage. It was a good show and worth the money, and if you're gonna come all this way to see the Taj, see this too. Afterwards we walked and found another restaurant to try. Emma and I shared a butter chicken, the best we've had for a while. Walked the rest of the way back, brush teeth and bed.
25.4.2025. We're up and off to have breakfast at our new favourite place again. The kids had cereal in the room so weren't hungry, Mel and I really like the paratha they make, and shared three. After that we needed a Tuktuk. Right outside is the guy we used a few days ago, I have noticed him everyday, waiting to see if we need a ride. Not bothering us, he just says hello. Well today he's gonna make some money. We had a couple places in mind we wanted to visit. A brief discussion, and a price settled on and we're off. First stop, the Red Taj, the tomb of John Hessing. A Dutch adventurer, who served as commander at Agra fort. The Red Taj was commissioned by his wife in 1803, was built in Mughal style and has a likeness to the Taj Mahal. It's surrounded by many graves as it's inside a Roman Catholic graveyard. Not that well cared for as it doesn't get many visitors. Not as elaborate as the Taj Mahal, there's no inlay work, just carvings and stone work. Back into the Tuktuk for the next destination. The next stop being the Tomb of Akbar. Akbar was the third Mughal Emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. He was the designer of his own tomb and selected the site it was built on. After his death, his son added his own touches, the marble minarets and upper floor of the main building. When you first walk in you are greeted by a massive structure, covered with inlay work, and mean covered. Made primarily from red sandstone with marble minarets, we found out that's just the front gate. Inside we see a massive stretch of red sandstone running towards the main building, the tomb. There are also three fake gates, just as well built but go nowhere. We entered the main building, looked up and saw a beautifully decorated domed room. Unfortunately falling down, so scaffolding was in place to hold some in place. We then went through a long tunnel, heading down into the basement, where Akbar's tomb is held. We entered, and noticed the room was very bare, no adornment. Whether this was how it was 400 years ago or from some restorations, we don't know. It is a huge room though, with his and only his tomb in the middle. We went back outside and started walking around the exterior. There is so much stonework and inlay work here, more so than the Taj Mahal in my opinion. We walked the length of sandstone out to one of the fake gates. This also was beautifully carved and decorated. We finished our trip around the tomb, noticing the rear gate has fallen into disrepair. We saw that there has been quite a bit of restoration work done to this monument also. We finished our visit, found a filtered, cold water station near the exit and topped up our bottles. We know it's off peak season, but we don't understand why this monument has so fewer visitors than the Taj Mahal. Yes the Taj Mahal is world famous, yes it is beautiful and glorious and all the other adjectives you can think of. The Tomb of Akbar is too, and if you're here to see the Taj, come see this too. Ok, time to get moving again. On our way over, our driver showed us a huge marble temple, and suggested we stop and have a look on our way back, so we did. It is a Sikh temple, well three temples in one kinda. We visited the newest first, then onto the others, finishing with the oldest, which was 400 years old we were told. Everyone was very welcoming, I still feel like I am intruding whenever I visit a temple and it makes me feel uncomfortable. We finished our visit and went back to the Tuktuk, we thanked him for his suggestion to come here. We made our way back to our room. Did the usual blogging and some laundry when we got back. Showered and went out for dinner. I have been sharing butter chicken with Emma, we did again tonight. I'm done with butter chicken. Tomorrow night, Emma can share a dal tadka with Mel, I want something different for our last dinner in India. Maybe a dosa.
26.4.2025. This morning we hit our favourite place for breakfast again. This time I tried the fried rice, it took a bit longer, I don't think they had the rice ready and had to cook it all from scratch. Not sure what they put in it, but everyone, and I mean everyone started coughing when it hit the frying pan. I think it was the chili, was pretty spicy when I got it. Bloody good too. We finished our brekky and headed off to a money exchange place we saw the other day. We want to get some US dollars, as it's accepted in Zambia, and we're unsure how easy it will be to get local money from an ATM. A just in case, backup plan sorta scenario. Didn't miss us, an extra $100 on top of the exchange rate, plus what our bank charged us. I guess that's how they make their money, offering a service. Now we're back in the room, finalising our blogs and repacking our bags. Can hardly believe India is almost over. Admittedly, I am keen to try new foods, never thought I'd have enough of Indian food. That's not true, still like it, just keen for something new.
27.4.2025. Tomorrow, as I am writing this on the 26th. Tomorrow we will have our last breakfast at our new favourite place. Tomorrow we will catch a train and head for Delhi. After that we fly to Zambia.
Kevもっと詳しく
Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India (by the kids)
2025年4月20日〜27日, インド ⋅ ☀️ 39 °C
Hello my lovely readers, I am happy that you have come back to me again to read my amazing blog, admit it, it is amazing, isn’t it. Well time to read it now, 3, 2, 1, READ!!!
On the 20th we were going to have to wake up early because our train is leaving at 8:10am, so that means we have to wake up at 6am. When we woke up we looked around the room seeing if the easter bunny left anything and guess what, they did. There was no chocolate because India’s to hot it would melt, there were lots of lollies, we weren’t allowed to eat that many though. We put them in a bag and then we packed up the last thing we need to pack, then off to the train station. When we got there we still had about forty five minutes to wait, so we just sat there and read our kindle. When our train was close to arriving we went to where we were getting on, it was nowhere near as crazy as when we arrived, when we got on the train we put our bags on the bag racks and sat down for more kindle reading. The train was going to go to Agra, Agra has the Taj mahal, the Taj mahal is a world famous palace, it is ginormous, we’re going to go see it. When we arrived we went to our hotel put our stuff down and then went out to have lunch. Our hotel is on a road that’s right next to a big street that has lots of restaurant, we picked a restaurant and the one we picked had Thalis. Thalis are one of my favourite Indian meals, there always different and the one I chose was delicious it was big and I didn’t think I was going to finish it. That’s the thing in India, there’s no kid meals, I have to eat adult meals all the time. Whatever, when we were done we were all satisfied so we went to walk around and look at stuff. We found this tea thing that teaches you how to make chai tea, and mum loves chai tea, so we decided to do that later in the week. After that we went home to read and do stuff, we did that for a few hours, and then we went over to a restaurant to have drinks and a snack of chips (and card games). We played for a while waiting for the chips to turn up it took ages, when it arrived it was only a really small plate, then why did it take so long? When we were done we went back to the hotel to sleep. Sweet dreams.
On the 21st I woke up sweating, it was boiling hot, I saw mum and dad awake and Emma just waking up, dad told me it was really early and the power was out. There were no fans, no aircon and since the door was open to try to get some ventilation so the mosquitoes would just fly in. the time was 1am, we couldn’t get to sleep so we went onto the veranda to look out and read our kindle. After a while we did go to sleep, it was around 2 o’clock. When we woke up we decided to go to a fort, the fort was a huge fort that had lots of squirrels. We took a tuktuk there, and it was indeed very big, it was made with red sandstone and was built in 1565. When we went in we saw gardens, carvings and all sorts of stuff, I can’t really explain it, it’s hard to. There was this big bathtub that was made out of cement, it was circular, when we finished we went home and did a bit of our blog, then went to sleep.
On the 22nd we decided to go to the Taj Mahal, it’s a giant mausoleum, the structure was completed in 1639. Our hotel is very close to it so we can just walk there, mum got online tickets so we just have to show them and get in. When we got in we saw gardens and a big gate, I suspected that the Taj Mahal was through there, so we went through the gates and voila, there it was. It was huge, it had a huge dome on the top, in today money it would of cost 70,67,37,66,000.000 rupees, that’s 1,289,164,914.24 AUD. When we went into the thing there were loads of people, we coulden’t get close to anything because they had everyone behind a fence, the coffins were behind something so we couldn’t see them that well. Other than that, the place was beautiful, the roof was amazing it had carvings all over it, beautiful. When we went out of it we looked at the gardens, then went to a place called baby Taj. It doesn’t look like the Taj Mahal at all, it’s way smaller and there’s more people buried there. After that we went to a park, the park had lots of plants and squirrels, there were also monkeys to. We played there for a bit then went home. to sleep.
On the 23rd we didn’t know what to do, so we decided to go get breakfast, when we got street it all looked pretty and there was a barricade, then mum remember that JD Vance was coming here. Or as I like to call him professor dumb dumb. There were only security people in the streets, nothing was open, well nothing that he was going to pass, for some reason all the schools were closed. We went to the post office to post some cards, then went home to do blog. We also did some schoolwork and at the end we figured out that I was sick I had a very bad temperature. I lied in bed while dad went out to get some dinner, when he came back mum and Emma went, when only dad and me were there, dad let me play a bit on a game on his phone. When Emma got back I let them have a go, and after that we watched a movie then went to bed.
On the 24th we didn’t have much cash so we had to find an ATM, the first one’s didnt work, the next ones weren’t on. We try lots of different ones, and then finally, we saw one we had got money out of that bank before. So we went over to it and guess what it was out of order. When we eventually did find one working that was the right bank we got some money and went to find a place that had a show going on. We walked over there, bought our tickets, then since it’s in six hours of we went to a coffee shop. The show actually started at 6:30, and it was 1:30. We brought some games so we decided to play them and have a nice drink. After that we went home to do some blog then schoolwork. When it was 5:30pm we started walking towards it, the show was about the origin of the Taj Mahal, it is a place where they buried an empress, the emperor loved them a lot. When it started it was actually pretty nice, the acting was great and at the end there was even a miny model of the Taj Mahal. When the show finished it turned out to be really cool, it was sad it had to end, but all things have to, so when it did we went out to dinner. When we were done we went back home and. S. l. E. P. T.
On the 25th we went to a place called the red Taj, it looks like the Taj Mahal but way smaller, but it’s red, not white. The red Taj is in the middle of a graveyard, it turned out to be very interesting. Earlier this week mum was looking at info on the Taj Mahal, and they found out that the tomb you see in the Taj Mahal is a fake, the actual one is in the basement. I wondered if it’s the same here, so I looked around and I found closed of stairs going down, so it probably is the same. We looked around a bit in the graveyard, then went off to go to a place called the tomb of Akbar. Akbar was the third Mughal emperor, the Mughals ruled north India long ago, the building is a five storeys high and built completely out of red sandstone and white marble. Akbar ruled from 1556 to 1605, he started building the tomb before he died, he didn’t finish It though, his son completed it after Akbars death. Inside the tomb there were a really big room that if I made a noise it would echo for eight seconds, in this big tomb there were carvings on rock, and it was beautiful. The tomb wasn’t just the building, there was also gardens, a big gate and for some reason there were three fake gates, they look the same as proper gate, but it’s just we can’t go through them. When we were walking around we saw a peacock it had a really long tail, the tail was closed though. We kept walking and then we saw a monkey, it was cool, when I was doing my blog I also figured out that there were also antelope there too, (we didn’t see any though). When we left we went to a Sikh temple , the temple was very new and white we had to wear stuff on our heads and coulden’t take our shoes in. It look really nice, at one point we got offered a sweet thing so we took it and were happy we did because if we didn’t it might have been classified as an insult. When we left we went back home did a bit of our blog, then went to sleep. Sleepy sleepy.
On the 26th this is the last day that I’m blogging about in India, tomorrow were going on a train to Delhi then we’re taking a plane to Africa.
To donate money to me go to donate@money@to@Andrew.com.au (the website comes out in the year 6538). By the way have any of you gone to Andrewbloghog.com.au, it also comes out in 6538. Well my next blog will be in Africa, see you later.
THE END
Andrew (10 years old)
HELLO. Me am back. And better than ever. I am having the time of my life here. I thought I should tell you because it is our last week in India. Then we are going to Africa.
On Sunday we went to a train station. we took a train from Jaipur all the way to Agra. We travelled on Easter. When we woke up, we went searching for lollies and guess what, we found a box of lollies, a lollypop, marshmallows on a stick, a cookie and a toy each. (Well, we got everything except the toy.) We named the new toy poppy because the first p means purple, and oppy means hoppy, and bunnies hop. The train lasted for 5 or 6 hours. It was not that busy. After we arrived, we settled into our room. That night we went to a restaurant that was really slow. We played boardgames and chatted. At about midnight the power went out it got so hot we woke up at two in the morning. We ended up reading outside. We were bugged. We needed sleep. We tried to get back to sleep but we couldn’t.
On Monday we went to the fort, and you would probably guess that we would have complained because we were tied. But guess what, we did not. It took a few hours to do. After we finished the fort, we walked around the market. After a while we got so sweaty. We walked around till we found cold water. Then got a tuktuk back to our hotel. by the time we got back the power was back on, so we relaxed in the cool. Then blogged.
On Tuesday we went to the Taj Mahal. It is one of the most well-known places in the world. It was very big. It was made of marble. beautiful. Very beautiful. I loved the texture of the wall. It was white. It had a big doom on the top. It had pillars all around it. we saw the sunrise behind it. it was built for a wife. This man had a favourite wife (because man back then, were allowed to have more than one wife, while women weren’t allowed more than one husband. Which is bullcrap) and it was built for her. She died when having her 14th baby. She was buried in the centre of it. There were monkeys, squirrels and hawks. There was a museum with baby squirrels. Then we had lunch. After that we went to the baby taj. It was the taj mahal but small. It was marvelous. then we went to a park. It had trees and plants and squirrels. Then we had dinner.
On Wednesday we found out that Donald trump’s stupid vice president was coming. (JD Vance.) they closed off the rode he was coming on. He went to visit the taj mahal. We are happy that we went the day before. Then we just did blog. We found out that Andrew was sick. He said that he did not feel good.
On Thursday we had breakfast. Then we spent about two hours trying to find an ATM. When we finally found one, we got a tuktuk back home and blog then got ready for a show about the Taj mahal. The show was about the person who built it and why. He built it because of his wife. I liked it. There was actors and backgrounds and props. We got headphones so we could understand it. it was cool. Then we had dinner. Night-night.
On Friday we went to the red taj. It was a miniature taj mahal. It is made from red sandstone. It is surrounded by graves. Then we went to see the tomb of Akbar. There was someone who was buried in there. It was massive. There was a big gate at the front and three fake gates on the sides and at the back. We walked around a bit in the burning sun. not many people were there. After that we went to the Sikh temple. It is very white and big. We wore stuff on our head as a sigh of respect. Then we walked on very hot cement. Ouch. Then we came back, got ready and went out for dinner.
On Saturday we did blog, schoolwork and stayed home. Not much but tomorrow is a big day, WE’RE GOING TO AFRICA!
Emma (8 and a half years old)もっと詳しく
Our thoughts about India
2025年4月27日〜28日, インド ⋅ ☀️ 39 °C
As it is our last blog from India I want to share my thoughts about this country, after spending 2 months here.
I have always wanted to come to India and I’m so glad I finally did. India is a challenge: not everything is easy. Not everything is made for travelers, you have to work extra hard sometimes.
The amount of people everywhere! It can sometimes be a little overwhelming, especially if you had the noise! Horn, people shouting, and the traffic which is one of the most extreme we experienced so far! The rubbish, there are some everywhere: don’t get me wrong, you can always see someone with a small broom sweeping in front of a shop or a house, but it doesn’t seem to have a lot of very regular picking up rubbish system, and it is badly needed.
Indian customs are different than ours: personal space is not understood here, liberties with children (I don’t know how many times, someone touched Andrew or Emma on the cheek or the head or the arm… I know it is meant on a friendly way but still!), understanding the meaning of no, and the stares, lots of them! All those I struggled a bit with.
The things I really didn’t like was some men’s behaviour toward Emma: a couple of time, old creepy blokes grabbed Emma’s hand and didn’t want to let go, or some looks she received, and I knew they weren’t normal look toward an 8-year-old girl. Or that guy who tried to take picture of himself with Andrew and Emma, despite them saying no and us saying no and moving in front of the kids to bloke the view, but they were still taking pictures… That really got to me.
The poverty around is intense. A lot of people are still living in very poor conditions, while others live in great wealth. Seeing the magnificent temples and palaces was amazing, but the disparity is extreme.
There are also some things that I will remember with fondness: the Indian head wobble to say yes: Indian people often when saying yes, will kind of wobble their head from side to side (we struggled at the beginning trying to know if they were saying yes or no!). The colours of India, clothes, decorations, the sarees women wear are always amazingly colourful, I loved that. Music! Drums, music coming from tuktuk or nearby weddings (with fireworks as well), music coming from temples: it seems there is always music coming from somewhere. Tuktuks, despite being extremely annoying in some places, I loved this mode of transportation. You can see so much more of the lives around than in a closed car. I love tuktuk!
The food!!! Indian cuisine can be delicious, it can also be soooo spicy that no taste is able to come through! But when the spices are right, the food is amazing. I am a vegetarian, and I loved that in India the restaurants are mostly Veg and sometimes also non-Veg. I like that in the vocabulary ‘Veg’ is the norm and if you are not veg, you are ‘non-veg’. It was so nice having entire menus where I could eat everything on it!!! I also discovered Masala Chai (black tea made in milk with spices added to it): I am going to miss a good chai so much. That is all I drink at the moment; I especially like the chai with a bit a spice quick to it. Some are sweeter, some not as spicy, I really like a spicy chai (well just the right spiciness).
One experience I really enjoyed was the Bollywood tour. I have always loved the industry of cinema and would have loved to work in it (not as an actor but maybe creating props or set or something along those lines), so seeing some of it was amazing for me.
The places that I really loved were Udaipur and Jodhpur. The history, the architecture, the streets in those cities were amazing. I could have stayed much longer just for the pleasure of taking pictures of all the amazing details you can see there.
The Taj Mahal was also one of the highlights of those 2 months in India. It is absolutely incredible.
If you have even just a slight inkling to come in India, do not hesitate! Yes, you’ll have some not so fun moments, but you will also visit some amazing place, see some wonderful smiles, eat remarkable food and learn so much about this wonderful country.
Mel
Here are my thoughts and feelings about India.
We had no idea what to expect, and I'll admit I was somewhat worried. India is nowhere as tourist friendly as SE Asia, everything is just more difficult here. The people, most of the time are incredibly helpful, but websites don't work and require you to have an Indian number to use, and then there are so many hoops to jump through just to visit somewhere. As I said, the locals are helpful, they know the system and what you need to do, you just have to trust, which can be hard. It's easy to feel ripped off, believe me we certainly have, lots of times. The price for foreigners at tourist spots is often 10 times the price for locals.
We have had all sorts of food, from various places. We have had some of our best meals from the most unlikely of places. Don't be shy to try, we were at the start because we had heard lots of stories about how careful you need to be here, and I think we definitely missed out on some good stuff because of that.
We had troubles in some places getting a Tuktuk, we relied on uber a bit at the start but eventually we learned how much it should cost and to negotiate, and how to get our drivers to understand where we want to go.
What do I think of when I think of India? A country going forwards at a tremendous pace. Motorways being built, metros being built, humongous buildings going up everywhere. Beside that, people living under tarps, with little to nothing, doing whatever they can to survive, barely. There is an absolute shit load of money here, I just wish it would go everywhere it was needed. I have seen disfigured people, that with decent health care, need not have been. Small children wearing rags and filthy, asking for money or trying to sell me something. Not what they should be doing, learning and having fun. Rubbish, absolutely, everywhere. Filth everywhere, open drains running past peoples houses running with disgusting water and rubbish. Emma slipped into one in Jodhpur, all I could think was, I need to clean her and apply antiseptic.
The bloody traffic and their bloody horns! Lunatics let loose with no seatbelts or sense of self preservation. Our last driver here was one of our best, took his time, picked his route and we never felt concerned at all. Even when he drove up the wrong side of the street. They do that a lot here.
This is a very long sum up, so I'll finish with one last sentence.
India has amazed me with its beauty and hospitality, it has also disgusted me with its lack of care for the environment and its people.
Kev
Now I’m going to do a little speech about what I liked about India. My favourite place in India has been Mumbai, it was our 6th stop in India, Mumbai had Bollywood, temples and lots of stuff I will miss. My favourite foods are Aloo Jera, butter naan, dosa, thali and curd, here is the list of stuff I won’t miss: tuktuk drivers, crazy driving, guides, mosquitoes, ATMs, rubbish and more. But I will miss more things than not missing them. Well Andrew india tour is done. Bye bye.
Andrew (10 years old)
I am going to tell you about what I liked about India, what I want to remember about India and what I did not like about India. I like how helpful people are, how kind people are and how cheerful people are. I want to remember how lucky we are, (some people here live in houses made from sticks, cloth, metal. Stuff like that.) the amazing time we had here and how much I love it here. What I did not like about India was how annoying tuktuk drivers can be, how many people live on the street and how the government isn’t helping. My favourite food in India is dal tadka. My favourite place in India is Udupi. I like how yummy the food is. I am sad we have to leave India but I am happy that we are going to Africa.
Emma (8 and a half years old)
Ps: those are pictures taken randomly in the streets of India during our 2 months.もっと詳しく
Wow! What an amazing experience. Two months in India, what a journey! You've seen the beauty, the challenges, and everything in between. I loved reading your reflections, they were full of heart and honesty. Stay safe, soak it all in, and keep making those unforgettable memories together as a family. [Laura-Beth]
Bridsons of the worldThank you. We truly appreciate the chance we have to travel as a family.
Lusaka, Zambia (By Mel and Kev)
2025年4月28日〜5月3日, ザンビア ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C
Hello from Zambia!!!
We are in Africa, I think we can’t quite believe it yet!
Last time we blogged, we were in Agra, India. On our last day there, we had breakfast in our favourite breakfast place, stay in our room for a while as they didn’t have a booking for it, so we could stay as long as we wanted, which was nice as we didn’t have to wait at the train station with our bags for several hours!
Around 3pm, we took a tukuk to the train station, waited for our train which was late (no surprise there!). We arrived in Delhi. We wanted to take the express metro to the airport as I didn’t trust the traffic in Delhi, but when we got in the metro, just buying a ticket was complicated, finding the right ticket place to buy with cash was hard, there was a bag scanner as well and we had our bags with us obviously, so we didn’t even bother trying and went back out to grab a taxi. There was a bit of traffic but not too bad. We got to the airport on time and took our first plane to Ethiopia first then our second flight to Lusaka in Zambia.
One of the things that surprised us first was, we were cold! We left India which has temperature around 40 degrees and arrived in Zambia with temperatures between 20 and 30 degrees! It was a shock! It is also a lot less crowded obviously. Lusaka, Zambia’s capital, has just over 2.73 million inhabitants, while Delhi, India’s capital has over 10 million. We got a taxi from the airport to the place we are staying. We heard no horn, and nobody try to overtake us from any side! The driving seems so relax here after 2 months in India.
The place we are staying is a disappointment. Our room is smaller that what we booked, and the beds are small, which makes our night uncomfortable. But anyway, there is worth problem in the world!
On the first day, we settled in our room as usual, then went out to explore. The roads here a wide. We walked around a bit but there is not a lot to do, so we went to a restaurant. We tried a local dish called Nshima. This can be with different type of meat (fish, chicken, Tbone) and has a little dish of vegetables and sauces to go with it, but the main thing is those big maize lump (like a very thick porridge). It was delicious but very filling. There was no way we could finish it!!!
To eat it, you grab a piece of the maize, dip it in the sauce and grab some vegetable with it, put that in your mouth and grab a piece of meat as well (well if you eat meat!). This is really good.
After that we went to bed super early, as we had a long night the one before.
Tuesday, we went to visit the museum to have an idea of Zambia’s culture and history. It was an interesting museum with several exhibition. One was about Kenneth Kaunda, also known as KK, who served as the first president of Zambia from 1964 to 1991. He was at the forefront of the struggle for independence from British rule.
Here is my short geography and history lesson: Zambia is located in South-Central Africa. Its official name is Republic of Zambia. Archaeological excavation found proof of human presence dated 36 000 years old. In more recent history, Khoisan peoples then Bantu people in the 13th century inhabited the area (we learnt that in the museum which had a whole part about human evolution and the history of the country). In the 18th century, the British colonised the region. We find a map of colonised Africa: do you know that only 2 countries, Ethiopia and Liberia, never got colonised. All the other countries were colonised by a country from western Europe: maybe people who complained about people coming into their country now, should think about that once in a while! In 1964, northern Rhodesia became Republic of Zambia with Kaunda as its president. In 1973, following tribal and inter-party violence, all political parties except UNIP (Kaundra’s party) were banned through an amendment of the constitution. It lasted until 1991, when riots forced Kaundra to authorised multi-party and that is when he lost the power. It was interesting to look at that exhibition, as for me, anything one party only is a bad idea. Nonetheless Kaundra seemed to have done some good thing and help solves issues in the area with other countries fighting for the independence. But still, 18 years as a single party only country, was a long time and should have been done well before that. Since then, Zambia has had several peaceful transitions of power (which is not the case in every country in Africa). Zambia is now a country with 73 ethnic groups, and as many languages, living in relative harmony: Zambia’s motto is “One Zambia, One nation”. Christianity is its main religion (protestant as a majority). English is listed as an official language as well as the 73 ethnic languages.
I think it is enough about the lesson! We learnt a lot at the museum, but I had to do more research when writing this blog as I did remember everything!
When we were done with the museum, we went to the central bus station to inquire about ticket to Livingstone where we will go in a few weeks. We feel like we were back in India for a bit. The place is crazy with buses everywhere, people trying to get you to buy ticket for their bus. We had a guy following us, mumbling we had no idea what. It was a bit overwhelming!
After a while a guy speaking an English we could understand, asked what we were after, and we told him. He took us to one of the multiple places that sell ticket, and I could ask about price and buy our tickets. We still had the other guy following us and we understood why. When we were leaving, an argument started between the guy that was following us and the guy who talked to us on who brought us there. They probably get some cut of the money for bringing customer in. I told the guy who sold us the tickets who brought us in and left quickly and the argument was still going on.
After the bus station, we walked around the city in search of food and ATM (our never-ending search). We ended up at a shopping centre with both food and ATM! Yeah!!! This was a decent shopping centre (unlike the one in India!). In the shopping center, there is a big cheese board, probably 4 by 4 meters. We came back to that shopping center several time during the week and there are always people playing. We watch a few games and there were some really good players. Chess is apparently a growing thing in Zambia and is promoted to help develop critical thinking. Andrew and Emma got interested and want to play!
Then back to the room to do some schoolwork for the kids and some planning for us: we have to do a shopping list (we haven’t done that in a while) as we are going camping around the national park of Zambia in a few days!
Another thing we need to be grateful for in Australia and all the rich countries, is electricity. In Zambia, there is electricity outage every day, several times a day. The place we are staying as some big batteries that kick in when the power drops off to keep the light on, fridges and basic things. We can’t charge computer or phones though. This is a privilege to have a reliable access to electricity, we should not forgot that.
Wednesday was a not much to do day. We have been looking for things to do in Lusaka and there is not a lot to do for tourists around here. We looked for shows, cultural things and surprisingly, for a capital, there is none!
We had breakfast at a local small restaurant on the side of the road: we order 2 Nshima and that was huge!!!! One with T-bone and one with fish. We could not finish it all!!!! But it was delicious!
After that we went back to our room to do some blogging and schoolwork. I found a dance class for that evening, Salsa and Kzomba. We were excited to do something. When it was time to go, we tried to book a taxi through an app like Uber, but no taxi was available. We tried for a while but to no avail. We know there is some small bus/van type thing going around the city, but they don’t seem to have a fix stop point, so you just need to know their route and stop one, but as foreigner we have no clue about it, so we haven’t used one. We ended up back to our room watching a new Asterix series on Netflix (the kids love Asterix).
Thursday, we went in hunt of breakfast and only found a petrol station who did very average food. We found out later that it was a public holiday (1st of May of course!), so a lot of shops were closed. We then went to see Snow White at the cinema (luckily it was open). We haven’t been to the cinema for a while and it was nice. The movie wasn’t bad. Not the best Disney, but not the worse either! On the way back to our room, we walked pass a massage place and as we had nothing to do, we went to have a massage! We didn’t manage to find massage when we were in India as the few places we contacted didn’t do massage for kids or didn’t answer… Well, we’ll get massage in Zambia! They were advertising a Zambian massage, but apparently it is a rough one for people after doing sport type thing. We asked for a Swedish massage instead and it was nice. We had better massage in the past but a massage is a massage, and I won’t complain!
Then back to the room, Nshima for dinner and more Asterix before bed.
Friday is our last full day in Lusaka. We are finishing our blog for here, going to see one more movie, “the Minecraft movie” and pack as tomorrow we are getting a car with rooftop tent and all set up for camping. We are going on a safari trip in 2 of the national parks in Zambia. We are very excited!!!!
Mel
28.4.2025. Yesterday was spent waiting and riding a train, not much happened. We got to the airport in Delhi without any real hiccups. We got on the plane at around 1:30am, Andrew wanted to stay up for take off, he loves it, but was sound asleep before that. Landed in Ethiopia around 6am, and waited a few hours. Hopped onto our next plane, bound for Lusaka, Zambia. We landed, went through all the immigration and customs stuff, walked out into Zambia, Africa for the first time. It's cold here! We're so used to it being 35° by 9am. It's 24° after 1pm, not what I was expecting of Africa. I'm not complaining, far from it, when I think Africa I think bloody hot. Well not at this time of year, fantastic weather. We found an ATM at the airport that worked, holy crap! Found out later it charged a lot more fees though. Hopped in a taxi and headed off towards our stay. First thing I noticed was a lot less traffic, bigger roads and wide open country. Green grass and trees. No horns!! Zambia has around 22 million people, and Lusaka, it's capital city, where we are has almost 3.5 million people. A Lot less people here, they're not in each other's pockets. India has over 2 billion people and Mumbai has more people than all of Zambia, it's a nice change. We didn't do much today, we checked in, had a little look around. Found somewhere to eat not far from our stay. Tried nshima for the first time, it's a thick “porridge” of several grains, maize, millet and a few others I can't remember. Comes with sides of chopped greens and some tomato stuff and a little bit of chilli. Also a couple chicken legs. Really nice, not disappointed with our first one. We went back to our room, brushed our teeth. Since we were all knackered from our flights, we went to bed, even though it was only 7:30.
29.4.2025. I woke up after a reasonable sleep, not the best. They do breakfast here so I thought we could do that so we didn't have to search straight away. Pretty average, omelette and toast with some tea. No idea what that will cost us, we'll find out when we check out I guess. What to do now? We saw that there is a national museum here, let's do that. After working out a taxi app for Zambia, since uber doesn't work here, we booked one and we're off to the museum. Pretty fascinating, the bottom floor was mostly about Kenneth Kaunda. He was instrumental in Zambia's bid for independence from British rule, and became Zambia's first president in 1964. The top floor consisted of displays of human development and evolution. We saw skulls of early hominids. Lots of tools and weapons through the ages, and even saw a replica of an old iron ore smelter. A tall, hollow dirt pile with layers of iron ore, wood and charcoal. It had air holes at the bottom for it to breathe and once lit, it would get hot enough to smelt the iron ore, which would pool in the bottom. An exhibit further in, showed how they made bellows out of animal hide and wood. Allowing them to work the metal further. We saw an exhibit showing what they had found when excavating a cave. The deeper they dug, the older the artifacts they found got. Afterwards we went for a bit of a walk, and found a statue dedicated to their fight for independence. We found a fruit we had never tried before, the African horned cucumber, or Kiwano melon. Tangy! I see why they call it a cucumber, very much like one on the inside, the taste is different though. One of the guys said put some salt on it, that really changed the flavour, the tanginess was gone. Either way, it was not my favourite fruit but I'm glad I tried it. We went for more of a walk, towards the bus depot, we need a bus in about 15 days. This was just a reconnaissance mission, but we ended up with bus tickets anyway. We also needed more money again, so the search for an ATM was on. We ended up at a mall, where the second one we tried worked for us. We had a bit of a look around, found a cinema we will probably hit up. Had something to eat around 3pm, and watched some young siblings play chess on a huge board in the mall. We made our way back to our room, showered, relaxed and researched Zambia. Afterwards we watched a little netflix, we can watch avatar- the last Airbender here, and hit the fart sack.
30.4.2025. We're hungry for breakfast, but not from our stay again. I found a place on GMaps, let's see if it's open. We walked out way over there, about 10min. The place I was looking for was not open, however there was another place that looked open. It was indeed, when we asked they said yes. There looked like there were lots of grills outside in the street, but this was the only place that had smoke rising. The guy asked us what we'd like, nshima please. Ok, we have fish and T-bone nshima, one of each please. Turns out that's too much nshima for us, especially when you get a whole grilled fish and a heap of pieces of T-bone. By the way, the T-bone was delicious and the fish may have been better. It was soo good. They butterflied it, and grilled it, worth a go for sure. The place was empty until 9:30, when some others turned up, starting to think they start a bit later here like in India. I watched the guys on the grill for a bit. The meat was cooked on one side, then passed through some mesh to another guy. He had chopped up a heap of tomato, onion and greens(like Bok Choy), then placed it on a big piece of paper stuff. Chopped up some of the meat and added it to the pile of veges. Folded up the paper around all the food, poured in some oil and salt. Tied the top of the paper at the top so it looked like a sack, and placed it on the grill. Saw the other people eat that, looked good, going to try that next time. Andrew was happy, he ate a ton of meat. Mel and Emma were happy with the fish, and I was happy because I ate everything. After we had no idea what to do, there doesn't seem to be a lot to do here. We went back to the room, we all blogged and the kids some school work. Mel was feeling a bit shit, so they had a nap. The kids did well with the school work so I let them play some games on their computers. The day had slipped away, but we are going to a salsa dance class tonight. Thought we had better eat before that, so dinner was sorted at a restaurant near by. Afterwards we tried to order a taxi, no luck. Mel tried a heap of times, even adding the max amount you can to the fare, but no one would take it. We were standing out the front of the restaurant for around 20mins trying for a taxi. Mel said, if it's this hard now, are we gonna be able to get a taxi back later? We decided to scratch the idea, we just went back to our room a bit disappointed. We watched a bit of Netflix until Mel's computer went flat, the power had been out for ages here. Has been out everyday here at some point, sometimes multiple times. So we played card games. Finished the night with Mel nodding off early and the kids getting some kindle time.
1.5.2025. We wanted breakfast, so I found a cafe on GMaps. Turns out it's closed, even tho GMaps says it's open. There's another across the road, closed too. Alright then, let's head towards the mall and see what we can find. We saw another cafe sign, behind gates and security. Asked the guard there if it was open, no it's not. He said if we want food we can go to the servo nearby. Did that, never again. Was pretty crap and not cheap. We walked a bit further and came across a little cafe, we were still looking for a coffee, so we stopped in there. The guy told us they're open at 7:30 tomorrow morning, so maybe that's a spot for brekky tomorrow. We made it to the mall, our intentions? Get more money and watch a movie. More kwacha in our pocket and a massive box of popcorn for the kids, we watched Snow White. Afterwards we walked around the mall again, looked through a supermarket here to get an idea of what we can get in a couple days time. Bought some chocolate, because it's been ages since Mel had some, sat down and had another coffee. Not a fan of how they make coffee here so far, too big and weak, havta try and espresso next time. Anyway, time to get moving again. On the walk back to our room, we found a massage place. Why not? We've had a massage in every country except India so far. The traditional massage was very deep tissue and used for sporty people apparently, they recommended the Swedish massage, so that's what we got. Mel said theirs was a relaxing massage, mine was still pretty deep tissue. My calf muscle was hurting a bit after. We got back to the room, blogged a bit, showered and headed out for some dinner. Nshima is on the menu again. We got fish and chicken, and the two were enough for the four of us. Played some games then headed back for sleep.
2.5.2025. Grandma's birthday today! We had a video call to wish her happy birthday and to have a chat. Heading out for some brekky, and later hitting the cinema again. This time we're gonna watch the Minecraft movie, we'll see how that goes. We need more money, so hitting the ATM again. Worked out roughly how much money we're gonna need to get around and it's a lot. Zambia may still be one of the poorest countries, but it ain't cheap, not for tourists wanting to see wildlife. Then the plan is to pack this arvo, as we need to get a taxi and pick up our hire car tomorrow morning. That's it, see ya.
Kev.もっと詳しく
Euh je suis larguée, vous êtes bien en Zambie ? Parce que je lis Namibia dans le titre 🤔 en tout cas c est super de voir votre voyage avancé et de suivre toutes vos aventures/rencontres. [Céline]
Bridsons of the worldOui Zambia! Erreur de ma part. Et Oui Il y a des bonnes bieres ici!!
Lusaka, Zambia (by the kids)
2025年4月28日〜5月3日, ザンビア ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C
Hello again my fans, I’ m sure you’re missing me and my blog, well I’m here to share the wonders of traveling, so put your hands together for my blog!!! (clap, clap, cheer, cheer, yay!!!)
On the 27th we were still in India, we were going to go on a train to Delhi, and at Delhi we were going to take a plane to Ethiopia, then take another flight to Zambia, not all in the same day though. So we started the day by going to a nice breakfast place then we went back to the hotel to rest and because we had a long night ahead of us. We stayed there for a while at the hotel and around 3pm we got a tuktuk to go to the train station. We waited there a bit then twenty minutes before it was supposed arrive they announced it was arriving at a different platform. So we got our bags and went over to that platform, we weren’t rushing because on the website it said I was 48 minutes late. No surprise, im not sure we’ve ever had a train that was on time, they’ve all been late. When the train did finally arrive we got on, put our bags down then started reading our kindle, we were going to stay on the train for 4 hours. When we were pretty close the train station the train stopped, it was stopped there for an hour, I still don’t know why, but it ended up being 5 hours. When the train started moving again it took about five minutes to get to the train station, when we got off we went to get a taxi to go to the airport, the plane was leaving at 9pm (mum edit: we left around 2am!), and it was 7pm. So first we went to baggage check, then when we finish that we went to security check, then after that we just had to wait. We waited for a while then when the plane arrived we went on, I wanted to stay up till take of but I was too tired so I went to sleep. Night night.
On the 28th it was 1am (mum’s edit= 6am) and we were very close to landing, landing is my favourite bit on a plane after take-off, I’m happy that I was awake for this bit. When we landed we were in Ethiopia, we were only going to stay there for a few hours then catch a plane to Zambia. When we found our gate that we would board our plane on, we went and found a restaurant near it, we had a plate that had pastries muffins and croissants, it was yummy, when we finished it we went back to the gate a started waiting. When it arrived we went to find our seats then started watching the tv on the plane. When it started taking off I was very excited. The flight lasted a few hours, at the end of the flight we got off then went to get a taxi driving to drive us to our hotel. When we got there we figured out that someone else was using the room we had so we got a refund and got a smaller room. When it was dinner time went out and had some dinner then went home and slept.
On the 29th we went to the museum, it name was the Lusak national museum, classic. Wait, I forgot bout breakfast, we had it at the hotel, they gave us bread and omelette. When we got to the museum we saw a big statue of someone out the front, we weren’t sure who it was, I did some research and figured out that it is 8 meters tall and weighs 2000 kg. But behind the statue there’s a meaning, the statue is made out of old hospice beds on which thousands of people have died of AIDS. When we went in the museum there was this exhibition on the first president of Zambia, he was in charge from 1964 to 1991, 26 years (or 27). When we went in we read a bit about him and that he was a sports person, musician and a vegetarian. He was the first president because the country just got out from British colonisation. Pretty much all of Africa was colonised at one point, the only two that weren’t colonised, were Ethiopia and Liberia. After that exhibition, the rest of the museum was about Africa in the past, like long back, not like parents old, cave people old. It was pretty cool, my favourite bit was where they had a model of an old rock furnace it looked like a big thick pillar but it worked. When we left the museum we went and looked at a statue called the statue of freedom it symbolises Zambia’s freedom. After that we went home and slept.
On the 30th we started our day by going to a restaurant that had nshima, it’s pronounced shee-ma, it looks like it’s spelt wrong because it’s spelt the way the Zambians do. Whatever, the nshima came in two ways T-bone on the side or fish, I chose T-bone, mum chose fish, we had one of each, and the T-bone was good. I ate most of the T-bone, it was so good, absolutely delicious, I could have eaten 10 times more then what I had, it was that good. After that we went home did a bit of blog and schoolwork, at one point we wanted to go to a salsa class to pass time and have fun. But when we tried to get a taxi over there we coulden’t, so we didn’t do it but this is what we did do. We all sat on the bed and watched a movie then when it went flat we played card games then went to sleep. Night night.
On the 1st we started our day by walking around looking for breakfast, well no, we just went back to the place that we went to yesterday, and the day before that and the day before that etc. etc. When we got there we got a nshima, then we went to a cinema, we decided to watch snow white (well I agreed because tomorrow were going to watch the Minecraft movie). When we went there to buy our tickets they were all empty no one had bought a ticket, we could sit anywhere. The movie was going to start soon so I went over to the popcorn place and decided to get large for both me and Emma to share together. We went over but they didn’t have a large they had medium and small, so I chose medium, and when it came out it was huge. Like if the cinema in Townsville had an extra-large, wait no, make it extra-extra-large, and it made me think, how big would the large be? When we went into the movie we watched the movie, it wasn’t my favourite, when we left we started walking home we saw a massage place. We went in had a nice long massage, it lasted one hour, the funny bit is that we all got a different massage. After that we went home and slept. Sleepy sleepy.
On the 2nd this is the last day I’m writing about, today were going to the Minecraft movie, then when it’s done we’re going to go home and pack, and tomorrow were going to the safaris.
Andrew David Bridson, leader of the Emma annoyers and TRALOA (the right and laws of Andrew), 42 time nobble peace prize holder, 95 times Olympics gold medal holder, most beloved human on earth.
Make sure to like and subscribe to the Andrew you tube channel, Andrewbloghog.com.au, it’s still coming out in 6538, make sure to read the book How to write a blog. The book may come out when you’re alive or it may not. Well Andrews blog is over, good bye.
The end
Andrew (10 years old)
Hello party people. Guess what. WE ARE IN AFRICA.
On the 28th. We took a tuktuk from our hotel to the train station. then took a train to new Delhi. Then a tuktuk to the airport. Then took a plane to Ethiopia. Then we took another flight to Lusaka in Zambia.
On the 29th we did a museum. It was called the Lusaka national museum. We saw big pictures, we saw skulls, we saw small fake villages, we read information about the first president in Zambia whose name is Kenneth Kaunda. He was president from 1964 to 1991. It’s cool.
On the 30th. We had breakfast then went home did blog and schoolwork. For breakfast we had fish Nshima and T-bone Nshima. Nshima is spinach with a red sauce that has onion in it. it is bloody good. Next day.
On the 1st. We went to a movie about Snow white. There was only two people there besides us. It was a good movie. We are going to go see another movie tomorrow. After that we had A MASSAGE. It was amazing. I got the hot cloth, and it lasted for an hour. I loved it so much that I wished it never ended. Then we went out for dinner.
On the 2nd. We are going to another movie. Then we are going to pack and get ready for our car trip. We are getting a car for ten days and we are going to go to the safari. Hope we are going to like it.
Emma (8 and a half years old)もっと詳しく
National parks in Zambia (by Mel)
2025年5月3日〜13日, ザンビア ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C
Hello readers,
We had an amazing time in 2 of the national parks in Zambia: the south Luangwa National park and the Lower Zambezi National Park.
Last time we blogged it was Friday the 2nd of May and it was our last full day in Lusaka. We went to watch a movie (the Minecraft movie that the kids loved!) When we got back to our room, it rained!!! I mention it because we hardly saw rain since the beginning of the trip!! It was nice to feel some rain!
Anyway, the next day, we went to pick up the car that we are going to drive with for the next 11 days. It is not in perfect condition and not everything from the list that was send by email is in it, but hopefully it’ll be alright. It also has less space that we thought for our bags. We’ll work it out! After that, we did some shopping to try to get enough for the 11 days. It was hard to decide what to get: we don’t want to buy to much as we don’t want to waste, but we also need to have enough as we don’t know if we’ll find shops on the way or not.
The shop we went is called Shoprite. It has a lot in it, pretty similar to a Woolworth in Australia, plus it has beer and wine! Great! We did our shopping and find almost everything we wanted.
I found a business who sell board games, so off we go. We have several games, but we have played them a lot, so a few new ones will be good! We find the place and they have lots of games. We can’t buy them all and it is hard to control myself! We only bought 4! But they are good one: Uno show no mercy, Dragonwood, spot it minion version and Exploding minions. We tested them since, and they are pretty fun and entertaining.
When everything is crammed in the car, we are on our way to our first camp. It is not far from Lusaka, but it took us ages to get there. On the road was either an accident or something broken down, we are not sure, but we got stucked in a pretty big traffic jam. At some point, we got directed to a side road and google map took us to who knows where! One the map were roads which didn’t exist in real life. We have an old gps that came with the car and the way seems longer but made more senses, so we used that and finally arrive at the first campsite, Pioneer lodge. It is a lovely campsite, we set up for the night, cook dinner (well Kev does), test some of the games we just bought and slept.
Early start the next day as we have around 9 hours in the car to get to South Luangwa National Park which is located in the west of Zambia. On the way, there is amazing landscapes, not unlike some we can find in Queensland in Australia. Some landscape felt familiar. We also see a lot of people walking. All along the road (again 9-10 hours) there were people walking pretty much all the time. Even when it looked like there was no village around or even houses, there was someone walking to go somewhere. That is another thing that we need to be grateful for: transportation. Where we are from almost everyone has a car, or a bike or buses or train to go around. Here a lot of people rely on their feet to take them places. It makes going anywhere a lot longer.
We pass villages with small houses made of bricks and huts, people carrying things on their head, women with little children on their back wrapped in very colourful fabrics, a lot of small shop selling fruits and vegetables. We will try some of those later and they are absolutely delicious!!! Tomatoes like we haven’t had for a very long time! Juicy, tasty, truly amazing.
It took us around 10 hours to drive here and a big part of it was driving around pothole! A lot of them. The road quality is not the best here, but we got there.
We arrived at Track and trails campsite around 7.30pm, tired and happy to get out of the car. Again, the kids amazed me. They did not complain once. They entertained themselves and took the 10 hours drive like champion.
We arrived, set up, ate dinner and bed as we wanted to have an early start the next day.
Monday the 5th of May which was the first day of our fifth month of traveling, was truly an amazing experience. We got up around 5.30am and got ready.
The Luangwa national park is 9050 square kilometres. We drove in not knowing what to expect. During that first day, we saw so many animals: Zebras, elephants, impalas, warthogs, monkeys, crocodiles, buffalos, plenty of different birds... and I probably forgot some. It was amazing to see the animals in the wild and free. I’ll never go to a zoo again. Animals in the wild, is how it is supposed to be.
It was magical to drive around and suddenly spot some zebras, or a big pack of impalas eating grass, their heads popping up to look at us, assess if we were dangerous, and go back to eating when they realised we weren’t, or move a bit away if we were too close.
Elephants!!!! The first one we saw was on a small path, with bush on both side pretty close to the car, and suddenly we saw the bush moving and a trunk popping out, follow by the beautiful face of an elephant, just a few meters away from us. Incredible!
Later, we saw a family of elephants with a brand new little one, which was still wobbly on its legs! That was one of the many highlights of that day.
Warthogs running around (all I could think about was: “Pumba is here!!” Bloody Disney!)
In the river, hippopotamus and crocodile floating peacefully, then disappearing under the water and you wonder if they spotted a prey around (hopefully not us!).
The hippos are huge!!! I knew that, but seeing it is a different story! They are so huge. Some of them, have a head bigger than Emma! The fun thing is, apparently, they come into our camp at night time to eat some grass. Okay…
After 6 hours in the park, we came back to our camp, which is not far from the entrance to have a snack.
Kev was making sandwiches when a bunch of baboons came around and stole our bread. It was right next to Kev and a little baboon came a grab the bag. It was so quick that nothing could be done about it! Then Kev got our second bag of bread, put it even closer to himself and a big baboon run toward us and show his teeth to Emma. I grabbed her and pulled her behind me and told both kids to get into the car. Kev tried to scare it with a stick, but it didn’t work. It managed to get more bread and left. It was terrifying I have to admit. So now we are worried about baboons and hippos in our camp (Yeah for wildlife!!!)! The rest of the afternoon was more relaxed and we played some games, did some laundry (it was necessary!) and rest a bit. We also watch the hippos in the river in front of our camps. Andrew loved playing with the fire in the evening.
Just before going to bed, one of the guy taking care of the lodge come and tell us “Look over there”: one massive hippo is right there, several meters from us, eating grass, no caring about us at all. They come out at night to eat. It is so impressive!!!
The second day in the park was as amazing as the first. We got to add new animals to the list: giraffes, wild dogs and goanna.
We arrived in a big plain area with some wild dogs laying around and having a snooze. Then we kept going and what did we see coming: a graceful giraffe, and another, and another, and more!!! We started counted them but there were too many! It was amazing and then we looked back and a whole family of elephants were there.
The photographer in me didn’t know what to focus on! So many opportunities.
Another thing that I loved was the trees, especially the baobab tree. Some were really big and you wonder how old they are, how many lives they saw and how much longer they will stay around.
And the birds! Some very colourful, some pretty big, some tiny one. All amazing.
What strikes me is how perfect nature is. All the animal we saw, from the small squirrel to the mighty lions, are incredibly beautiful and perfect.
We went out of the park to have lunch at the small village near the lodge. We found a small café attached to a shop selling artisan creations from local people, called Project Luangwa. This is a non-profit organisation which was created by owners of lodge in the area to make sure some of the money from tourism come back into the community. They have lots of different projects which help with education, gender equality, living wages for the artisans… and more. If you want to support them, you can find information on www.projectluangwa.org.
After lunch (amazing delicious sandwich with blue cheese on mine!!! Happy!) we got back into the park. We saw a group of around 10 lionesses laying around. Again, just amazing to watch.
The third day in the park, was a little bit different.
We started like the other two. We wanted to try to spot a leopard as this is on the only animal we have not seen. I save you the surprised, we didn’t see one!
We got bogged for a couple of hours instead! We drove far into the park, looking up at trees to try to spot a leopard, as it is where they usually are during the day according to some documentaries we saw.
At some point, we drove through a path with some mud on it. It didn’t look bad at all, not deep at all. And yet, we got bogged! The mud was very thick, clay like, and grabbed the diff under the car and nothing moved after that! We tried digging, putting sticks to drive on, going backward… nothing helped. You have to remember that we were in a national park, with wild lions and other wonderful animals around! As a self-drive, you are normally not allowed to get out of your car. But we obviously had to! We had Emma inside the car and Andrew on top of the car, on animal and other car watch. We got stuck for 2 hours!!! No car passed us for a while. When we were starting to worry a bit, 2 cars came our ways and got us out of the mud! Yeah. As Kev and I were covered in mud, we got back to camp to take a shower. We were done for the day after that!
So we blogged a bit, wash the car which was covered in mud, Emma did some drawing of the animals we saw.
We had to fight more baboons which were raiding another camp near ours! Baboons, we don’t like them too much!
Then board games and dinner, then early bed as we have another early start tomorrow to go back toward Lusaka before going south.
Thursday the 8th was another long day in the car. We drove back to Pioneer Lodge near Lusaka. Another 9 hours ish: lucky we like to read!!! We got to the Lodge, grab a drink and dinner, set up the camp and went to bed!
This is one the annoying thing with the car we have, as the tents are on the top of the car, we constantly have to set them up and pack them up, which we did the next morning, to drive south to Mvuu Lodge near low Zambezi national park this time. It was a shorter drive, only 6 hours (I think as everything is blurring into one long week in the car!!!) We arrive to the lodge, set up, and rest the rest of the afternoon.
Mvuu means hippopotamus in the language of the area and there are plenty!!
The following day we went into the national park. It is a bit different than the South Luangwa park: it is a bit more wild. The vegetation is also a bit different. At the beginning of the day, we didn’t see much animals apart for the many impalas. We also saw some massive herbivore type of animal with huge twisted horns on their head: we saw one easily higher than our car, magnificent. We learnt the name of it but none of us can remember it now!!! That will have to be some research later on.
After a fair bit of driving, we cross path with a tour vehicle, and they asked us if we saw the lions. No we didn’t! Where are they? The guide gave us a vague direction (they are never keen on giving information to self-drive people it seems), so we took off. And we find them; 3 lioness laying under some low trees. We could only see one very well as the other 2 were hiding more. We were only 4 or 5 meters away from her. She was laying there, moving around a bit, changing position, she even started snoozing, with us just a few meters away! Not a care in the world! That was so awesome to watch.
Of course, we saw other animals; elephants, zebras, Pumbas.. sorry warthogs and more. No giraffe though as there is none in this park. We came back at the lodge around 3pm as we booked a night safari for that evening. At the entrance of the lodge was a hippo! In the middle of the day! They normally come out at night. But here it was. Massive and in the way, we were a bit worried; we waited for a bit, as it slowly made its way to the side of the road eating plants as it goes. We were really not comfortable driving next to it, but we had to, so we did. It looked at us passing while we looked at it… We pass with no issue, but it was intense!
We ate a bit and when we were doing the dishes, we hear some noise and there it was again in the middle of a grass area near our campsite. The people working here had their eyes on it obviously. We talk to one of them and he explained to us that this hippo had a wound the fish in the river keep nibbling on, hence why it was out of the water right now. As it was hurt, it was more aggressive, so we had to be careful! Don’t worry, we will!!! Saying that, we are still more scared of baboons than hippo.
We started our night safari by going up the hills to see the beautiful view from up there toward the Zambesi river (one of the main river in Zambia, which is also the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe). The view was amazing, the colours of the sunset stunning.
After that we came back down the hills and started looking for animals: one of the guide is driving the car while the other one has a powerful lamp which he kept swiping from left to right and back to try to see the light reflecting in the eyes of animals and that is how they find them. We didn’t see much (apart from impalas of course as they are EVERYWHERE!) at the beginning. As the night got darker, we saw more and more hippo walking around eating plants. I know I said it already, but they are so big! They are formidable animals. We were starting to think we wouldn’t see any big cats, when we finally spotted one: a male lion stalking some prey. We were on a small plane strip made from the small planes which land here. It was a big open space and the lion was on the side of it, close to the tree line. The most exciting part was that a family of elephants was trying to cross the strip. The guide told us that elephants have a great sense of smell and they know there is a lion nearby. We could hear the family of elephant on one side and one single elephant on the other side ‘trumping’ at each other. Suddenly we heard the elephant crashing through the trees toward the lion. The sound was so loud! The lion very soon run back under the cover of trees where he stayed hidden. It was super exciting to see. That sound of the elephant crashing trees was very impressive.
The next morning, we packed the car again and went back into the Lower Zambezi park as the guide from the night before, told us about a big pride of lions he saw and roughly where to find them. We drove around the area he told us (well we think) but didn’t see any lions, which was a bit disappointing. We still saw a lot of elephants; some group as big as 15 elephants (with several young ones which are Emma’s favourite).
Around 1pm we left the park, as we had to drive back to another lodge further from the park, called Kiambi lodge. We got there around 5pm and set up camp.
We booked a fishing trip for the next day as Andrew has been missing fishing a lot!
Kev and I shared a bottle of red to celebrate Mother’s day, then dinner, a bit of time around the fire and bed.
On the morning of the 12th of May we took a boat (with a guide) on a river infested by crocodiles and hippo! We have to be crazy! Well, you think if they sell this kind of experience to tourists it must be safe, right! I must admit I was a little bit worried at first, but all the animals seem to not want to eat us, so I relaxed after a while. Andrew was extremely happy to fish. We were told that the fishing was slow at the moment, so we didn’t expect too much. But in the first hour, Emma caught and Kev fought and got out, a tiger fish. This was around 3 to 4 Kg with big teeth! Kev put a good fight to get it out. We took a picture and release it, as tourists can’t keep the fish. I am not a big fan of fishing; I don’t understand why you would take so long to wait for a fish to hook, then fight to get it out and then release the poor fish with a hole in its mouth. It baffles me, but the other 3 in the family loves it (well especially Andrew and Kev) so I put up with it. And I spend 4 hours doing nothing, relaxing with Emma giving me the occasional massage (she says she is practicing in case she want to become a masseuse, and I am all for that!), so I am not complaining!
Andrew almost caught something but the fish got snagged under something and the line broke. I know he was disappointed but he dealt with it very well and he said he had a good time no matter what.
The afternoon was spent blogging and splashing in the pool of the lodge.
Tuesday the 13th of May was our last day of this camping/ national park part of our trip in Zambia. It was a fun adventure, and we will have something similar soon in Namibia!
We drove back to Lusaka, again, to give the car back. We have an apartment booked for one night (I thought after 11 days camping, a nice flat would be good!). When we found the place, the buildings looked a bit shabby but the flat is really nice and big!!! The kids were super excited, as if they have never lived in a big place!!!
Tomorrow we are taking a bus for Livingstone, which is near Victoria Fall: I am very looking forward to that too!!!
See you there.もっと詳しく
National parks in Zambia (by Kev)
2025年5月3日〜13日, ザンビア ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C
3.5.2025. We got a taxi pretty quick, and set off to get our hire car. Mel grabbed the guys WhatsApp, cause we need a taxi when we get back. They're not ready for us, so we went to a mall close by and had breakfast. Went back, hopped into a car with a guy and all our bags and headed off to another spot for the car. Bit of a shit show, tight fit with all our bags and we had to pick out some pretty ordinary kitchen stuff to jam into drawers to take with us. We got a rundown on how lots of it works, paid the rest of the money and went shopping. Loaded the car up with food and drinks and set off for our first destination. Took ages to get to Pioneer Park, as the traffic came to a standstill, we don't know what happened but nothing was moving. We got off that road and found another, now it was GMaps turn to give us the runaround. We eventually got there and it was really nice. Set up in no time, plugged in and started making dinner. Kids played on a big tyre swing in a tree and we slept ok our first night in the tents.
4.5.2025. We woke up kinda early, weren't in a huge hurry. Remembered we had a 9-10 hour drive ahead of us, we got in a hurry. Packed up and shot through. Ages later, in the dark, we drove into Track and Trails River Camp, right next to lower Luangwa national park. Checked in, found a spot, made dinner and went to bed. That's it, packed up, drove for a day, set up.
5.5.2025. First trip to Luangwa. We got up pretty early, packed up the camp and had breakfast in the car. Paid our fees and entered. Had no idea what to expect, was worried about driving around a 9050 square kilometre park, getting bogged and getting eaten by something. Wow! We saw lots. We saw impala, zebra, hippos, crocodiles and elephants. There was a car off the track, we stopped to see what they were doing. They came over to us and told us there are lions in there, and that the ground is rough but ok to drive on. We went off the track, so far I had been reluctant to do so. Drove in close to tree and saw 6 lioness chilling out in the grass. One was chewing on what used to be an animal. We sat in the car about 20 metres away, for I don't how long before deciding to move on. It was a bit after lunchtime and we had a bit to do at camp so we decided to call it early today. I was making some sandwiches for lunch and had put the loaf of bread on top of the Jerry cans. Emma was helping me and suddenly screamed “monkey!” I caught out the side of my eye a hand grabbing the loaf and taking off. I gave a little chase, was a bloody big Baboon, so it was kinda half a chase. A local guy who works here, James, came over. Said to keep everything closed up while in camp during the afternoon, so I did, except for the side I was using. I got another loaf out of the fridge and cut off 4 slices to finish our sandwiches. I put the loaf up on a shelf and noticed a baboon walking back through the campground. He was walking away, then turned and started back towards us. The kids had sticks and I picked up a couple as well. He kept coming and got faster, straight towards us. The kids yelled and I slammed the sticks on the ground. It didn't matter, he came in, scared the crap out of the kids, ignored me, jumped up onto the side of the car where I was making the sandwiches and grabbed our other loaf of bread. I whacked it across the arse 2 or 3 times with a stick. It took off with our last loaf of bread. While it all happened, Mel had come back from the toilet and had grabbed Emma, it headed towards her as it went around the fireplace. Mel told the kids to get in the car. I felt completely useless and powerless, I also felt relieved I didn't piss it off by hitting it and it try to have a go at me. It was a big Baboon, big teeth, ugly as. I checked on the kids in the car, Emma was terrified, poor kid. They sat in the car for a while after that, we couldn't get them out. We had had a few plans for this arvo, one said plan was to check out the bar/restaurant area. We heard hippos near there the night before. We walked over, had a chat to the guy behind the bar and ordered two beers. Pretty expensive beers for Zambia, could have bought 10 for the same price in Lusaka. Still only about $6 AUD each. We looked at the hippos in the river, drank our beer and then played some card games. We returned to our camp and started making dinner. The place was clear of monkeys, and we all felt a bit better. Bed time
6.5.2025. We got up a little later and made breakfast, eggs and beans. We all agreed the baked beans here are delicious. We set off for the park again. After entering, we headed a different direction to yesterday. We had been cruising around for a bit by ourselves, and noticed a few safari cars bunched together. We headed over there too. We got a good look at a pack of wild dogs, lying in the morning sun. They're bigger than you think. We headed off again, across a wide open area. We saw more elephants, then we saw what Emma was really looked forward to. Giraffes! Huge animals, massively tall with long legs. Look, look! There's a giraffe! No wait, there's 2, 3, 4, holy crap there's heaps. I think we counted 12 or 13 in a group. We drove around for ages, seeing more elephants and giraffes. You don't really get sick of seeing these animals, maybe we will at some point, but not yet. We're getting hungry, and they don't recommend you get out of the car and make lunch in the park, so we headed out. There's a small village just outside the park, where we headed to. We needed some supplies and we stopped at a place for lunch. They did sandwiches sooo big, the other three had leftovers for the next day. No leftovers for me, I smashed it. We headed back to the park after that. We drove around for ages again, not seeing a lot this time. We did see a dead impala, we think it died fighting with another impala, as one of its eyes had been punctured and it had other wounds that looked like from horns not teeth. Also, it wasn't eaten. Dead giveaway that. It was just after 5pm, we'd had a long day, so decided that's it, and headed for the gate. We got back to a main road and noticed 6 or 7 vehicles parked up on the road. What's all this then? Are they just handing over to the evening safari guides? Nope, there was a pride of at least 10 lionesses, not far from the road. Just lying there, flicking their tails and poking their heads up now and then. What a way to finish the day. We headed back, made dinner and went to sleep.
7.5.2025. I had this idea, that if we headed back to where we were the first day, where there was lots of impala, we just might see a leopard sleeping in a tree. We drove around for a couple hours, saw all sorts of things but no leopard. We drove further than we had before, went to places we hadn't before. We had been through a few bog holes by now, and this one seemed like it wouldn't be a problem. I was wrong, very wrong. Rock hard in the middle and sides, and the wheel ruts were deep. In we went, about 2/3rds the way through, that's where we stayed. The rear diff and suspension sitting on the rock hard mud. Couple this with bloody Bridgestone dueller at tyres, and we were stuck. We got out, super excited about that. Andrew and Emma were on predator and other 4wd watch. There was a tree about twenty metres, directly in front of us. If only we had a winch. I will definitely be recommending the company install one. We got sticks and jammed them in, we dug out mud. I even managed to dig out all the mud from underneath the suspension and diff, in the hope that we would be able to back up. Nothing worked, the mud in the wheel ruts felt like slime in my hands, super slippery. All the wheels just spun. What now? We wait, of course. Hopefully another vehicle will come along and pull us out. One thing we did have was a long recovery strap. We saw a couple 4wds a long way away, but they didn't see us. The kids asked how long we'd have to wait, don't know, maybe until after dark. They take your rego number when you enter, and the park closes at 6pm. After that, I'm thinking they start looking for you, well hopefully anyway. We got bogged at 10, and gave up trying to get out around 11. We could have a long wait ahead of us. We had food and water, so it was just a waiting game. At 12, Mel said “there's a car!”, I said “where? Over the flat?” No, coming up right behind us. You bloody beauty! There was, I think a South African couple in one vehicle and some guides in another behind them. Happy is one way to describe myself at that moment, relieved is another. I said to the Zambian guide “mate your face is beautiful, I'm so happy to see it”. Which put a pretty big smile on it. They couldn't believe we'd been stuck there for 2 hours. We got pulled out by the guides, packed up the gear we had out, thanked them again, a lot, and started heading back to the main gate. We'd had enough park for that day. We were both covered in dry mud and the car was filthy, with me getting in and out heaps of times. On the way out we still saw some animals, elephants, giraffes among other things. When we got back to camp, one of the locals there noticed how much fun we'd had. James is his name, he offered to clean our car. I asked could we just have a hose and I'll clean it myself. He went off, returned later with a long hose and offered to help clean again. I said no again, I'll be right as I just want to clean the wheels and rims. We're heading off tomorrow and we don't need a big hunk of mud in any of the rims, would make it undriveable. Made use of a handy stick along with the hose and got rid of all the mud from the wheels, then cleaned the windows. We had baboons come through the campsite, which allowed me to vent some frustration. They started going through another camp, we chased them away. Worked out they don't like rocks being thrown at them, the caretakers chase them away with slingshots. When the other campers came back we told them what had happened and to not leave anything out. They “put” stuff away, and went back to the bar. A little later, we saw baboons going through their stuff again. This time I saw a big one pull over their small fridge onto the ground and make off with a bag of something. I grabbed the fridge, refitted the lid and took it to our camp, while Mel went to tell them what happened. They thanked us and “packed” better this time, then headed back to the bar again. No further incidents after that. Had dinner, went to bed.
8.5.2025. Got up, packed up. Drove back to Pioneer Park near Lusaka. 9-9.5 hour drive, thrilling stuff. Kids played on the big swing they have for ages. Mel and I had a couple drinks. We decided to have dinner at the restaurant, some more nshima. It was bloody freezing that night. Almost wish I had a blanket to go with my sleeping bag.
9.5.2025. Guess what? Driving again today. This time we're heading south, towards the lower Zambezi national park. We had to get through Lusaka first, took ages just to get through the traffic. Once on the open road, it was faster, but you have to get around lots of trucks. We got to our destination, Mvuu lodge, around 2 o'clock. We got settled in, lovely campgrounds, but no power. So it's gonna be dark at night. We walked up to the lodge to see if we could organise a night safari, we ran into the owners. Had a chat for a fair while, and settled on an evening safari tomorrow night. We may not have power, but they provide firewood, and even started the fire for us. We ate dinner while looking at the bush tv, the sound of hippos in the background. Was a nice night.
10.5.2025. First day in lower zambezi national park. Once again, no idea what to expect, though we are a little more experienced now. We drove a fair bit into the park, then decided to head off on track headed towards some bush. Places seem a lot more overgrown than the last park. We crossed paths with a safari vehicle, they asked if we had seen the lions? We hadn't, he told us which way to go, so we went. We headed into the thicker bush, up a river, came out of the river and saw another car. We got closer to them and saw a lion, laying down near some low hanging trees. We stopped and turned off the car. We sat there, less than 5 metres from a lioness. Then we saw two more under the tree, none of them really cared that we were there. We drove back out and started looking around the park some more. Zebras and elephants, warthogs and impala, lots of them. Another long day and we'd had enough. We headed back so we could have a late lunch early dinner before our night safari. We hopped into a cut down LandCruiser with a heap of framework and seats. Recognised the driver, he was the guy in the car when we saw lions. He was driving someone else's car for them, a service they offer. Now he was going to drive our night safari, long day for him. His name was Jacob, really nice guy, though a little hard to understand at times. We got lots of information from him during. We had hoped to see a leopard, a very elusive animal. By the end of the night, we still hadn't seen one. Was not meant to be. We did see our first, big male lion. He was waiting to ambush some impala near the airstrip. We stopped, took some photos and just watched. He never got a chance at an impala while we were there. An elephant had smelt him. We heard it, trumpeting and crashing through the trees looking for it. Here we were sitting in the dark, a light flicking to the lion now and again, with an angry elephant smashing its way through everything in its path. Branches cracking, leaves rustling, elephant trumpeting. It. Was . Awesome! A little frightening, but bloody well worth it. Was the best part of the night. I'm just glad the elephant wasn't pissed at me. The lion ran off and hid, the elephant gave up and we moved on. Further up the airstrip we saw more elephants, some very young ones. My guess, this is what the other was protecting. We learnt this night that hippos come a long way out of the water at night to graze. Jacob told us that elephants would climb the mountains near us in the summer at night to sleep in the cooler air. It was a great night, even if we didn't see a leopard.
11.5.2025. We packed up everything, as after we go to the park today, we head to another campground this evening. Jacob had told us about a spot in the park where he had seen a large pride of lions. Including lionesses, males and cubs. We made our way there as best as we could from his directions. We saw some amazing things again, but after 8 hours driving around the area, we never came across any lions today. LOTS of elephants, will never get sick of seeing elephants. The biggest group consisting of 15, ranging from massive to very young. We watched them walk across the plains and disappear into the forest. We had to give up, we had over an hour to drive back to the entrance, and almost two more hours to drive to the next campsite. The road is pretty rough and it's slow going, we finally made the next campgrounds just after 5. We set up, then wandered back up to the lodge. We organised a fishing trip for the next day, then grabbed a bottle of wine to share. South Africa make decent reds, we wished we could find something Zambian but have had no luck. During our wine, I realised I had completely forgotten about mother's day. The kids came up with a quick little improvised performance for Mel, I apologised and felt like shit. I will try to make it up to them.
12.5.2025. We had a sleep in, I was actually not the first one out of bed. I made a big breakfast for everyone, then at 9 we headed up to the lodge for our fishing trip. Andrew is super excited, as we followed the guide down to the boat, Andrew was almost stepping on the back of his feet. We hopped into the boat, hoping for the best but not expecting too much, as we were told a couple times that the fishing is slow at the moment. Still, nothing could curb Andrew's enthusiasm. We got started. We only hired two rods, as Mel doesn't fish and Emma and I will share. Live baits got out on and cast out. We drifted with the current, hoping for a bite. After about 30-45mins, Emma felt a pull on her rod. She got a bit worried and handed it to me. I gave it a rip, set the hook and held on. After about 5mins and 4 or 5 jumps, we had a tiger fish in the landing net. We estimated it to be about 4 to 5 kilos. Lots of teeth, need a steel trace to get one in. It took a bit swimming it, but we managed to get a good release. After that, very little else. We saw lots of hippos and a few crocodiles, but no more fish. At the very end Andrew had something on, but got snagged and we had to break it off. Four hours seemed to fly by for Andrew and I, I reckon it dragged on for Mel, they don't like fishing. We came back, made lunch, did a lot of blogging, had a couple of beers, had dinner, marshmallows around the fire, then bed. Long sentence, right. Good night.
13.5.2025. Today we're heading back to Lusaka again. So cups of coffee were made, the car was packed, we settled our bill with the lodge and set off. It took a few hours to get back. We found our stay for the night and dropped off our bags. Then we fuelled up the car and dropped it back to the hire company. Thankfully they dropped us back near our place, so we didn't need a taxi. Had some lunch, walked back to our stay and relaxed a bit. We're back on a bus tomorrow to head to Livingston. We'll see how that goes.もっと詳しく
National parks in Zambia (by the kids)
2025年5月3日〜13日, ザンビア ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C
Hello ladies and gentlemen and kids and babies and children and teenagers and dogs and cats and kittens and puppies and birds and ants and snakes and nits. Welcome to another episode of Andrew’s blog, this one is going to be different then any others (to be honest none are really anywhere close to the same). Well be ready to be amazed, clap and cheer for me, I mean my blog, it is about to start.
On the 3rd we woke up and went to try to get a taxi, the taxi was going to take us to a car rental place, we had a car already rented so now we just had to pick it up. When we arrived over there we were early so we went over to a shopping centre for breakfast, they had no food that was Zambian so we had to get something not Zambian. When we were done with our food we could go get the car, we went back to the place to get our car. When we got it, we signed some paper, not sure what it was for don’t really care, all I know is that after that we tried to go to our camp site. On google maps it said it was going to take 30 minutes to get there but when we were halfway we got to a roadblock. All the cars were moving very slowly and eventually we made it there, we were only staying there one night and then we were going to another camp closer to the national park. When we got there we went to find a place to set up, then we went to sleep. Night night.
On the 4th we packed up our tents and began our drive to the camp site, the drive was supposed to take 9 hours but it ended up taking 10, there were lots of potholes, making us slow down every time. When we go to the camp site it was late at night so we set up the tent and cooked dinner, after that all we wanted to do sleep. So we did. Snore noise snore noise.
On the 5th we packed up our car and took our first trip to the park, when we got into the park we saw the deer looking things called impala. We drove around a bit, there were lots of impala everywhere, we kept driving and then we saw a tour vehicle parked on the side. We pulled over to the side and we saw zebras, it was really cool. All the stripes on the zebras looked different, there was even a young one it was awesome. When we kept driving we saw a pond and in that pond we saw a, wait for it, a HIPPO. It was in the water just swimming around, it was ginormous, humongous, stupendously huge, they don’t move very fast when they don’t have to. When we kept driving we also saw elephants, monkeys, lions, crocodiles, mongooses, buffalo, wart hogs, turtles, squirrels and lots of different birds. It was a very successful day, Emma really wanted to see a giraffe, we didn’t. When we were near the start of the evening we went on a path that didn’t look like it gets used very much and we saw lots of elephants. There were elephants showing up here and there, we even saw a baby one, we know it was very young because it was still stumbling, it was adorable. At the end of that we went home and decided to make lunch, we got out the bread and started to make a sandwich. Shortly after something jumped up and then Emma yelled, MONKEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All of a sudden the monkey grabbed our bread and took off. Luckily we had already cut off some bread but not enough, also luckily we had another loaf of bread so we cut as much as we needed and... oh no. the monkey was coming back, dad got a stick and waved it around, the monkey didn’t care it just ran at us, teeth showing, it jumped up grabbed our last loaf, dad hit it several times, the monkey did not care at all. It stole our bread and left. After that we ate our sandwich, did stuff then had dinner, and went to sleep. Sleepy sleepy.
On the 6th we packed up and went out to the park again, we drove for a bit and then we went on to the gps. and found a spot and decided to go there. The path there was very rough and lots of bog holes, it was very muddy and it wasn’t and pleasant ride, but when we got to the place where we were supposed to be going it was worth it. It was a big open plain that in a certain spot, there were lots of tour vehicles parked around so we went over there and we saw wild dogs, it was a whole pack of them. We looked at them for a bit and then I spotted a whole bunch of elephants over on the other side of the of the plains, so we started headed over there and then Emma saw something. THERE WAS A GIRAFE, it was huge, about 4 meters high, then further on I saw a whole herd of giraffe, so we went over there. We watched them for a while then we drove back through the park and made dinner then went to sleep.
On the 7th this was our last day in the park, so we hopped it would be a good last day, it’s not our last day in the car, it’s the last day in this park, we’re going to another one tomorrow. So, we kept driving, for a bit it was pretty fun we saw impala and other stuff, then we went throw a bog hole, and guess what, we got bogged. We were stuck there for hours, we only got out when somebody came along and towed us out after that we went back to our camping ground and then cleaned the car down. After that we did our blog then went to sleep.
On the 8th we drove back to pioneer park we were staying there one day and then we were going off to another park, the drive was the same 10 hour drive we made to get here. It was long and annoying, we stopped halfway there to make sandwiches, it was yum, (before we left we bought some more bread). After eating we kept on driving, when we arrived at the place it was nearly nighttime but instead of cooking we went to the restaurant there instead. At the restaurant they had nshima it was pretty yum, it was the smallest nshima we have had so far, it was still enough though, when we were done we went to bed.
On the 9th we went to another camp that was close to a different national park it was a bit far away, but not 10 hours, it was only 6 hours. Whatever, when we arrived it was a pretty nice camp, the only thing annoying. I mean the only two things annoying, it is that it didn’t have an electricity plug, and the toilet didn’t have a roof so monkeys can come in which means there’s nowhere your bread can be safe, not even on the toilet. So after that we went to have a look at everything, then we had a talk to the owners, after our walk around we went to the car and made dinner then slept.
On the 10th we went off to another trip to the park, it was a different park, the parks name was lower Zambezi national park, it was supposed to be wilder than the other park we went to. So we started driving there and about halfway there we saw a big impala looking thing, it was the size of a moose. After that we kept driving and guess what, we came across a whole herd of the animals, they were ginormous, then we kept driving. When we arrived there, there were lots of hippo skulls and other skulls that I didn’t recognise. We didn’t see much at first, mainly just impala, so we kept driving for a while, eventually we were just driving and then we stopped to look at a river hoping to see something, then another tour group asked us “have you seen the lions”. They told us the way there and when we were on the way there we saw another vehicle park and looking at something. When we got up to them we saw it, right on the side of the road, only 5 meters away were the lions. There were 3 female lions one of them in clear view (a great photo opportunity for mum) and the other two were behind a tree. When we left we went back to the camp and waited till night because we had booked a night safari. We were going to drive around looking for animals that normally come out at night (aka a leopard). When we left on the tour vehicle, we drove around for a while and eventually saw something really interesting, there was a huge herd of Zambian buffalos, they are really big. After that we kept driving and then at the top of a tree one of the guides saw a tail, we hoped it was a leopard, but it ended up being a genet. Genets are carnivores that appear catlike with a tail usually as long as the body, the common genet is found in Africa and Europe, there are other species of genet, though most of them are found in Africa. After that our time was nearly up, so we went back and slept.
On the 11th we went to the park again but this time we saw lots of elephants, the count went over 40, there was this group that had 15, including a few really young babies and some very big ones. We found this place that had lot of big open space and we were trying to see if there were any lions but sadly there weren’t so we drove through some paths saw even more elephants we saw lots of different things. At the end of it we went back to the camp to pack up everything up because soon we were going to another camp further away from the park, don’t understand? I will explain. We were going to go away because they did some river activities, we are very close to a river called the Zambezi River, it is the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. We were going to go over there to go on a boat and go fishing, we were also going on that boat to look at animals, like hippos and crocodiles. When we finished driving there we set up and went to sleep.
On the 12th we were going to go on the boat and we were going to fish, (yay cheer woo yay clap). I have been wanting to go fishing and now it’s happening, I’m not getting my hopes up to high because lots of people have told me that it’s not the right time of year. When we left on the boat we had live bait and lures, we were trying to catch some type of fish called tiger fish, even though I watch lots of fishing shows with my grandad I’ve never heard about tiger fish. We were fishing for a while and then Emma said “dad I think I’ve got something” it didn’t look like anything at first but a few seconds later Emma’s rod was bending, like a lot. Emma got worried and past the rod to dad, and there was defiantly something on it, dad had to put up a good fight even to get it close to the boat and when it was close it did a jump. The fish was very big about 60cm long, it weigh about 4kg, the guide was at the side of the boat with a net ready to scoop it up. When dad got it in the boat he said it fought a bit like a barramundi, it was definitely the size of one, after that it was a long time until some thing else happened. All of a sudden I felt a tug on my rod and then something was pulling really hard, I yell out to the rest of my family, dad came over to me to help, I tried to tire it out but all it did was swim down into the snags and got me snagged. We coulden’t get it off so we had to break the line instead. We would have caught two fish if the fu**ing fish didn’t swim into the snags. It was a pretty successful day because apparently were lucky to have caught at least one fish, over all I was pretty happy with myself, so to end the day we went to the pool to play a bit and then to bed.
On the 13th we packed up the tent and drove over to Lusaka again it was going to be a 4 hour drive, the 12th was our last day with the car, were giving our car back tomorrow and then the day after that we are going to go to Livingstone. So when we got to Lusaka we found our hotel and then we put our bags there then dropped our car back, then we went to find lunch. When we found a restaurant we ordered our food and then ate it, when we were done we went to the hotel to do our blog, and you know me I write a lot. So when I finished we watched a movie then went to sleep.
Andrew (10 years old)
On the 3rd we did shopping. We hired a car for ten (10) days. We got some pasta, some rice, some potato, some chips some popcorn and some meat. It was fun to go camping.
On the 4th we drove to the south Luangwa Park. It took us 10 hours. 10 HOURS! There were lots of holes in the ground.
On the 5th it was our first day in the park. We saw elephants, (we saw a baby elephant that was so young that it was stumbling. it was adorable.) hippos, crocs, Impalas and lions. We saw zebras, monkeys, warthogs, birds, buffalos, turtles, squirrels and mongoose. An Impala is an animal that lives in a group. The males fight. The males have horns that they fight with. The male that wins the fight is the leader of a group. There is one male and lots of female in one group. Awesome. the landscape is beautiful. It has flowers and grass and trees. There are some clouds but not too many. The park is so amazingly beautiful. We came back in the afternoon to make sandwiches and guess what, the fricking baboons stole our bread. The big male one ran up stood on its back legs and showed its big teeth to me. It scared the shit out of me.
On the 6th it was our second day at the park. We saw all the animals I listed on the 5th and more. The new animals we saw were GIRAFFES (I wanted to see them the day we got there but we didn’t.) wild dogs and goannas. Pretty cool. One thing that I am very happy about is that the animals are free and not in a cage. The way the giraffes move is so elegant.
On the 7th it was our third day in the park. We got bogged for a few hours. I got a bit worried when we couldn’t get out. I thought we might be stuck there for the whole day. Luckly a car came after a while. I was very thankful. We got home from the park and found MONKEYS. There was a new couple that moved in, and the monkeys raided them. Mum and dad got rocks and threw them at the monkeys.
On the 8th we are leaving south Luwangwa park. We went to Pioneer Park near Lusaka. It took all day. To keep myself busy, I read and played games with Andrew.
On the 9th we went from Pioneer Park all the way to Mvuu camp. (Mvuu means hippo.) it took six hours to get there. We spent the afternoon at the camp. The toilet and the shower had no roof, which meant the hideous monkeys could watch.
On the 10th we had a full day in lower Zambezi Park. We saw three female lions under the tree. Then we did a night safari. We saw one male lion and some hippos. The male lion was sitting and then an elephant came crashing through the trees and scared the lion off. It was funny seeing the lion get chased by the elephant.
On the 11th we spent the morning at the lower Zambezi Park. We saw loads of elephants. We saw a group of 15 elephants. There were some young ones and some old ones. After that we drove to Kiambi lodge which was 2 hours away.
On the 12th we did a fishing trip. It lasted for 4 hours. In the first hour we caught a tiger fish. (I caught it, and dad got it in the boat) For you who don’t know what a tiger fish is, they are big, they have sharp teeth, and I’m sure their bites hurt. We only caught one fish, but they said it was rare to catch any. We were lucky. It felt so quick. In the afternoon we did blog, and we played in the pool.
On the 13th we gave back the car because we were getting a flat. We got a vvvvveeeeerrrrrrryyyyyyy big room that had a shower a toilet a kitchen a room with a small bed, a room with a big bed and another room with a big bed. It also had a dining area. Tomorrow we are going to Livingstone by bus. I HATE BUSES!
Emma (8 and a half)もっと詳しく
Pictures taken on roads in Zambia
2025年5月13日, ザンビア ⋅ ☁️ 23 °C
This is just some pictures taken while driving on the roads of Zambia.
Livingstone, Zambia (By Mel)
2025年5月14日〜17日, ザンビア ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C
Hello from Livingstone, the town of one of the seven natural wonders of the world.
For our last blog we were in Lusaka, where we took a bus to get to Livingstone in the south of Zambia. The bus trip wasn’t bad until it was! The bus broke down around halfway through the 7 hours trip. They could not fix it. The trip, which was supposed to last 6 to 7 hours, ended up lasting around 15 hours! We had to wait on the side of the road, for the next bus coming this way to pill up with the people already in the bus. We arrived after midnight to Livingstone. We were lucky that the owner of the place we booked was nice enough to wait for us and come and drive us to the place. We got straight to bed as we were exhausted!
Livingstone is a small town in the south of Zambia, on the Zambezi River. It is name after the Scottish Christian missionary, David Livingstone, who travelled through Africa to spread the word of God, and is known as the first white person who saw the Mosi-oa-Tunya ("the smoke that thunders") waterfall in 1855, despite the fact that there was Portuguese traders in Africa for a few centuries before that, but none officially saw it. He named the waterfalls Victoria falls in honour of the Queen Victoria. But the real name for me, is the name that the people from the region call it, Mosi-oa-Tunya, the smoke that thunders: this name represent the falls perfectly.
This is obviously, the place we went to visit first. It is one of the seven natural wonders of the world, and it is magnificent. I knew that we would get wet, but I didn’t know how much!!! I was thinking, it is just water, we don’t need raincoat! Yeah right!!! We got soaked!!!! But that is ok as there is an old story from the tribe of this area saying that when you go to the Mosi-oa-Tunya, the water will wash all your troubles away; so we have no more troubles now!
Lets start back to the entrance: there is a statue of David Livingstone of course. That rubbed me wrong for some reason. Why make such a big deal about a white guy, when this is not his country nor his continent and he wanted to travel in Africa to make African people change their religion. Anyway, not my business, but I did not care about the statue!
We got our first view of the fall and it is breathtaking. The rainy season just finished, which means, the fall is in full strength. We learnt later that around 5 000 m3/sec of water fall down at that time of the year. It is deafening! That is why it is called the smoke that thunder! Because it sounds like it! The water falls down with so much strength that mist get pushed up so high and then fall back down feeling like rainstorm. Some place, it feels like mist, but some place it feels like a cold very strong storm! As I said before, we got drenched in seconds! We were really surprised by the sheer amount of water. Kev walked, very chivalrously, back to get us all raincoats (they rent some at the entrance of the fall) as the kids were shivering within minutes (Andrew had blue lips). We were still wet, but we didn’t get more wet and I could protect my camera! If you go to the fall, do not snob the raincoats, they are very much needed!
Mosi-oa-Tunya is between Zambia and Zimbabwe. On the Zambia side, which is where we were, you can see around 25% of the fall. You can see less, but the part you can see is amazing: watching the water falling from 107 meters (at the highest point) and boiling at the bottom, projecting water up to hundreds of meters high, visible several kilometres from the fall, is a tremendous experience that we won’t forget.
We followed the different trails that take you to different point of views of the fall: some with a great view, some all you can see is white cold mist and sometimes, when the wind clear a bit of the mist, a tiny piece of the fall appears, and it is magical. There are also a lot of rainbows: as there is a lot of water and sun, rainbows appear everywhere regularly, which add to the magic of the place.
We got down at the boiling pot: this is an area at the bottom of the fall where you can see the water coming from the fall, rushing against the rock and splashing back, creating whirlpool and ‘boiling’. The path to get down was slippery and hard but going up was even harder and I am still very not fit! I struggled a fair bit on the way up. We also crossed path with a big group of baboons, which we still don’t like. We had no food though, so they were not interested in us.
Going to Mosi-oa-Tunya was a big expectation for me and it did not disappoint. I’m so very glad we saw it for the first time as a family and it will stay one of the highlights of our trip. Luckily we are going on the Zimbabwe side in a few days!
As it was school picture day at Andrew and Emma’s school in Australia, we took the opportunity to do our world school picture with Mosi-oa-Tunya in the background.
After that we went back to our rental and enjoy a lovely evening watching movies with the kids.
The next day, we had booked a game drive in the hope of seeing rhinoceros. Around 7.20am, our guide picked us up, and we went to the Mosi-oa-Tunya national park, which is one of the smallest one in Zambia. We got very lucky as in the first 30 minutes, we came across 5 white rhino, including a young one. We had to wait to find a ranger, to be able to walk near them ( you are not allowed to leave the tour vehicle without them, for our safety and the safety of the animals). We walked to about 15 meters from the rhinoceros. They are incredible animals: big, beautiful and impressive. The guide took a couple of pictures of us in front of the rhino, which mean we had to turn our back to trhem, which I was not super comfortable with! They run up to 40Klm/Hr, and I don’t run that fast! But all was good, we took some pictures, I could have stay there for hours just watching them, but we couldn’t stay too long to not annoy the rhino and get them stressed. Fair enough!
We saw more giraffes, zebras, impalas, monkeys and a whole colony of ants on the move (that was cool!). We didn’t see as much as we hoped, but the rhinoceros part was amazing. Our guide was also full of knowledge of the animals: we learnt a fair bit. For example, females zebras have larger stripe on their bottoms and that is how you can make the difference between male and females, giraffe make sounds but not on a frequence we can hear, a bunch of standing giraffes is called a tower of giraffe, but a group of running giraffes is a journey, a group of zebra is called a dazzle because when they are threaten, they get together and they dazzle your eyes so you can’t isolate one target. We learnt more but not everything stayed in my memories unfortunately!
When the game drive was over, we asked our guide to drop us in the centre of the town and it was a good idea to do that, as we saw groups of traditional musicians and dancers advertising a festival for the next day. We stayed there to watch them. Then we had to do some shopping as Emma was in desperate need for a jumper (she has been using mine). We found one she loved in a second-hand shop for 60 kwachas (AUD$3.50); great!
We visited the local museum. There was an exhibition about human evolution, there was a room about David Livingstone obviously, as well as information about colonisation and what happen since the independence. It was interesting, similar to the museum in Lusaka, but as this history is very new to us, it is good to reread some of the information to understand them better.
Then we found a pub with live music in the evening. It was still only afternoon but we had nowhere to be, so we went there, had a coffee and chat for a while. We got told that the music will start around 7pm. We moved into the area where the music was supposed to be around that time, but they seemed to be having a big team meeting and no music was being played. They only started playing after 8pm. We listen to the music for a bit (3 guitars, one keyboard and one drumkit), it wasn’t bad but not the best either. Around 9pm we got a taxi and went back to our apartment and bed time!
Saturday the 17th of May was our last day in Zambia. As we saw the day before, there was the Livingstone International Cultural Arts Festival (LICAF) happening that day. It was supposed to start at 8am. We got there a bit after 9am but not much was happening yet. The floats of the carnival were still in town and only arrived at the main place of the festival around 11am I think. There was some music to entertain us but the festival properly started only then. I am so glad we got to see this. We have been looking for cultural dances and music in Zambia but haven’t seen any until then. This festival was all about promoting the arts to Zambian and tourists alike. We saw representation of all the region of Zambia; dancers and musicians in traditional clothes, singing and dancing traditional dances. It was a great last day in Zambia.
Each region had different costumes, some more crazy than other, some had lots of colours, some all in white, some had animal masks on. We listen to a concert band doing the national anthem, then each group had instruments, singers and dancers: we saw different type of drums, singers, one group had a type of xylophone, and I am sure I forgot some! The diversity and creativity were truly amazing.
I had a lovely moment with one boy, around Andrew’s age. He was standing next to me when I was taking pictures and we said hello to each other. He asked where I was from as usual, so I told him, asked him if he knew where Australia was. Then asked if he was from Livingstone, which he was. I then asked him if he like dancing and his answer was amazing. He said: “Yes, dancing is the best part of us.” I loved that answer. Then he asked: “Can I capture some?” It took me a second to understand that he wanted to take some pictures. I gave him my camera and show him how to use it and he took a few pictures. I think he was happy about it. I asked him if I could take a picture of him, which he agreed. I loved his pose. His name was Elijo (not sure how to spell it) I’ll remember him for a long time.
Emma also had a great moment. She got picked by a scary looking warrior/dancer to go where he was dancing and he danced in front of her for a tiny bit. It was impressive to watch and Emma was very brave to go and also very lucky to be picked. I’m sure she’ll talk about it in her blog!
Then we had to go as we had someone waiting for us to pick us up on the other side of the border in Zimbabwe.
We got a taxi to the border, got our passport stamped by the Zambian stamps, walked on the bridge going above the Zambezi River, stamped our passport again this time with Zimbabwe stamps, meet with Sissy, the owner of our next stay. We wanted to book some activities for the adrenaline junkie of the family (Andrew), so she took us there (we spent a fortune), then to our little house we are going to stay for the next 4 days.
That’s it for the moment,
See you soon.
Melもっと詳しく
Livingstone, Zambia (By Kev)
2025年5月14日〜17日, ザンビア ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C
14.5.2035. Bus trip today. We had a taxi booked for 8, and they turned up right on time. Good thing too, as traffic was a bit shit. Nevertheless, we were on time, that's why we leave early for everything. What a show! What the bloody hell is going on! Random people in regular clothes asking where we are going, which bus, trying to take our bags. Nunya mate and bugger off. They probably work for the bus company, how am I supposed to know that tho. Walked past butt loads of people and bags and packages and who knows what else, into the ticket booth. Checked in and got our seats numbers and different tickets. Our bags got loaded, along with half of Lusaka I think. We hopped on board, and waited. Bus left 20mins late, ah that's not so bad. We made a stop after a few hours for food. Grabbed these pastry things they called pies, flat one side, domed the other. Like they were made in a bowl. Meat and potatoes and some other stuff in them. Really nice, Andrew and Emma smashed 1 each. Mine didn't last real long either. We grabbed some other stuff and a bag of mixed fruit, and we're off again. We stopped at a railway crossing and stayed there. What’s happened? Everything was going too smoothly apparently. The bus had decided to shit itself. The guys working in the bus, we're now working on the bus. It was getting warm, so I hopped off the bus, much cooler outside. Some people were waving cars down and hopping in with them. An older lady came over to Mel and I and asked if we were going to Livingstone. I replied that yes we were, but there were 4 of us and we had quite a lot of bags. There was not enough room for all of us, so we thanked her and stayed with the bus. That was a nice gesture, this lady had noticed some foreign people having trouble, probably recognised a “we don't know what's happening” look on our faces and stopped to help us. I asked the driver a little later what was happening, he told me another bus was coming to get us and that it was about 40mins away. I thought he meant they had sent another bus to pick us up. Nope, it was another bus already packed with people that stopped to pick us up. Bags and people somehow managed to all get jammed into an already full bus. I sat beside the driver on a water container, with Andrew sitting in the aisle right behind me. It was a little after 8pm when we left this little town in the middle of nowhere, we had been there for 4hrs, we should already be at our stay in Livingstone. Finally we arrived in Livingstone just after 11pm, we'd been having trouble with our phones not working outside of Lusaka and if course they didn't work here. We couldn't call the owner of the apartment, who had offered to pick us up. Mel had been in contact with him during the day, letting him know we would be late. He had said he would pick us up at anytime, and had also went and gotten some eggs milk and bread for us for breakfast and left it in the stay, which was greatly appreciated. We had turned down a few taxi offers, then the bus driver came over and asked if we needed help. We do, our phones aren't working so we can't call the guy to pick us up. He asked if he is on WhatsApp, then gave us his phone to use. We made the call, thanked the driver and waited. By the time we were picked up, dropped off and shown around the house it was getting very close to 12:30. Kids in bed, I sat on the couch for a few minutes just to decompress a bit I think, then went to bed.
15.5.2025. You would think we'd all have a sleep in after a day/night like yesterday wouldn't you. Nope, brain wouldn't let us. The kids were up early too, they had managed to sleep a fair bit, albeit a little uncomfortably, on the bus. Time for breakfast, we had a decent lunch yesterday, but no dinner. We had eggs on toast, and it was delicious. Throw in a coffee and I was good to go. We got a taxi over to Victoria Falls around 10, grabbed some tickets, ignored the people trying to sell us things and entered the park. We walked past a place where you can rent ponchos, nah we won't need that. Got our first good look at the falls, noisy, with mist rising up and blowing all over. We got to a bridge, hmmmm the mist looks a bit heavy on that. We walked across, by the time we got to the other side, we were soaked through. We hid a bit from the spray and I went back to get some ponchos, not for us really, to cover our phones and camera and backpack. I was wearing denim shorts, so I was wet all day after that. Ponchos now on, we braved the rest of it. The spray/mist whatever you wanna call it was something else. Pushed far into the air above the falls purely by the power of the water crashing over the rocks at the bottom. Sometimes it seemed to go 20-30metres above us, then land on-top of you like the heaviest rain you have ever witnessed. We were already wet, but at least under the ponchos we were starting to feel a little warmer. We walked a path down to the water a little away from the falls, called the boiling pot. What a place to see, the water is at different levels right in front of you as it can't get away quick enough, gets pushed up the rocks and swirls around creating whirlpools. No wonder they call it the boiling pot, that's what it looks like. We hiked back up, passing a few baboons. If you don't have food, they don't give a shit about you. We walked further around, checking out all the lookouts and seeing the boiling pot from a different point of view. We had lunch at a restaurant near the entrance, it was ordinary, wouldn't recommend it, and went back in. This time we went to the right, up river above the falls. This was also nice, dry too. It was time to go, our taxi turned up and on our way back to our stay, we stopped in to organise a safari for tomorrow morning. Back “home”, watched some tv and went to bed.
16.5.2025. We got picked up at 7:20am and headed off for our safari. We don't really like safaris, they're expensive for what you get and you’re not in control. Why did we do this one? It's the only way to see white rhinoceros. We were in the park for 5 mins maybe, and there they were. We found a park officer, it's their job to watch and protect the rhinos. They're in camouflage and armed, it amazes me in this day and age there is still poaching. We drove back to the rhinos, and walked with him over to them. We were 15metres or so from 5 white rhinos, which in my opinion, is close enough. We were told there are only 9 in the park, and we got to see 5 of them, one of which was fairly young. After a short visit, we walked back to our vehicle, dropped the officer back at his then continued our tour. We didn't see much after that, got close to some giraffes and saw a few buffalo. Our guide told us buffalo are the most aggressive animal in Africa. I wouldn't like to mess with one. Not much else happened, we got a couple drinks and a packet of chips as a snack and got dropped back in the middle of Livingstone. It was awesome to see rhinos, that's the reason we took the safari, but the last 2 hours of it were a bit of a let down. Anyway, we had asked to be dropped in town because Emma needs a jumper, we never brought one for her. Not very far from where we got dropped off we came across some dancers and musicians. We had no idea what was going on, but we sat under a tree near a carpark and enjoyed the show. There were dancers in traditional outfits and people drumming and singing. We found out it was advertisement for a cultural festival happening tomorrow. Oh we'll be up for that. We sat there watching for ages. Afterwards we found a secondhand shop and found a jumper Emma liked on the cheap. The shops profits go towards helping children, so a good thing. We found some postcards, walked to the post office and sent them. We were starting to get hungry, we walked again along the main street looking for somewhere. It's all bloody touristy, burgers and chips and pizza, where's all the local food! I looked at GMaps, found a restaurant that was listed as “local food”, eh let's have a look. A little off the main road, good start. The “local food” was right, tho it wasn't one place, it was several places offering food. We ordered two plates of nshima with different foods on each, they had a lot of choice. It was cheap, it was local and it was delicious. This is where the people who work here, the locals, come to eat for lunch, soo good. Afterwards we discussed what we would do now, well there's a museum right there, let's do that. The museum had more artifacts and models from history. Village life from long ago and not so long ago. It had what I think were real stuffed animals, and lots of skulls with horns of various species. It also had a section on Dr David Livingstone, naturally. By the end of it we were all museumed out again. It was now just after 4pm, what now? Too far to walk back to our stay, hmmmm. How about a coffee? Or maybe a beer? Hey it's Friday, is there any live music tonight? We found a pub/bar/restaurant not far from us that advertised live music. We walked the wrong way for a little bit, backtracked and set off in the right direction. We got to a driveway and walked in, it opened up to a big bar area, a small cafe area and past that into a back area that hosted the live music. We sat and had a coffee first, this one was pretty good, we've had some not so good coffees in Zambia. After that we went into the bar area, but got told the kids weren't allowed. So we went out the back to place where the music will be. We had a couple beers, ordered food, which took forever to come out and listened to some music. It was a nice finish to a long day. We taxid back and went straight to bed.
17.5.2025. We organised a taxi to pick us up and take us to the Livingstone International Cultural Arts Festival. The flyer we got yesterday said it started at 8am. At 9:30am, when we drove through town, all the floats in the carnival where still in the middle of town at the post office. We got dropped off and walked in. There was still some setting up going, but they had some live music going on and we had a look around. Just before midday the carnival arrived, heaps of kids from the town preceding it. All the performers filled the area and did a huge welcome dance. They then all filed out, at that point we decided to get some lunch. Nshima again, oh yeah! Emma and I shared a sausage nshima and Andrew got a goat meat nshima. Mel got some other stuff, a fantastic muffin/scone thing and some fried salted sweet potato. We tried a Zambian beer we hadn't previously seen, Eagle lager. It was good, but I had to pee in the bush after that. We watched performers from all over Zambia, wearing traditional costumes, all different and different instruments were played. One performance, the main dancer looked like he had a rhino horn on his head dress. He was carrying a wooden stool around in his teeth, he placed it down and danced. After a bit he started walking our way. He kept coming closer and closer, then reached out and took Emma's hand. She was so nervous, she couldn't even look at him. With a little encouragement, she went out with him into the middle and sat on the chair he danced a bit, then brought her back. What an opportunity, Emma may not realise it right now, but that was a once in a lifetime kinda thing. We talked and I found out she felt terrified, I'm so glad she did it, and Em feels pretty good about it now. I watched Mel have a moment with a young fella, he had asked about Mel's camera, they had then spent a few minutes talking and Mel letting him take a few photos. He looked to be around Andrew's age, and they both seemed to enjoy the exchange. Unfortunately, we had organised to be picked up at 2pm, to be taken to the border. It got to 2pm way too fast, Andrew wanted to stay forever, he really loves watching live performances. Anyway, we had to go. Into the taxi and off to the Zambia/Zimbabwe border. Through passport check, walk across the bridge, through another passport check, this time Zimbabwe. The lady who owns our next stay was there waiting for us. With her help we got some money and organised a day of fun(ziplines and stuff), then took us to our flat. We were thinking of maybe heading out for dinner, but Mel was feeling shit, a migraine, so I asked the owner to run me to a supermarket and I grabbed some food for a few dinners. When I got back, I put Mel to bed, annoyed the kids for a bit, made dinner (cheesy pasta), fed everyone and put Mel back to bed. The kids and I them watched some tv and went to bed.
Kevもっと詳しく
