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    Jaipur

    11 декабря 2023 г., Индия ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

    The walking tours we did in Delhi and Jaisalmer were some of the best things we've done in India so far, especially in terms of learning about Indian culture, food and travel tips, so we decided to do a walking tour in Jaipur as well. After a solid 10 hour sleep, we met with our guide near Hawa Mahal (palace of windows) to start our walking tour. We spent a few hours walking around central Jaipur, visiting some temples and markets. We visited the largest temple dedicated to Lord Krishna (see video), and flower, fruit/vegetables and wedding markets.

    One of the most interesting stops was at some market stalls where people sold food for cows, monkeys, pigeons and ants (a flour and sugar powder mix). Our guide explained that Indians believe heavily in karma, and that if you feed animals, you will be treated with good karma in return. The type of karma or luck that you are seeking determines the animal you should feed (cows for those looking to have children or favors in real estate, ants for general good luck and birds for luck related to education or careers).

    Between the three walking tours we've done in India so far, as well as speaking to locals, we've learnt a lot about the caste system, arranged marriages and the quality of life in India. India is a country with huge pollution, corruption and overpopulation issues, as well as massive generational and class inequality. Through conversations with young people we've met, we've noticed recurring themes of the conflict between them wanting to uphold culture and tradition (as expected by their families), while also craving the freedoms we experience in western society. We've learnt how the caste system (over 3,000 years old) is so deeply embedded into Indian culture that even today it is not possible to change castes (even if you are highly educated or work in a highly regarded field) or marry outside your caste. We have met people who have married outside of their caste, which has resulted in their families and villages turning on them, and people in very unhappy arranged marriages. Being in India has made us realize just how lucky we are to live in a society where we have the freedom to choose who we love and what we do in New Zealand.

    The last couple of days were spent resting as Mike recovered from a bit of Delhi Belly, and visiting Jaipur's most famous attraction: Amer Fort. We took a tuktuk 20min north of Jaipur City and stopped into Panna Meena Ka Kund - a famous stepwell built in the 16th century. We stopped for a chat with a local guru, some photos, and to admire the longest tail we'd ever seen on a monkey. After the stepwell, we walked up to Amer Fort and spent a couple of hours wandering the former residence of the Rajput Maharajas    Читать далее

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    Jaipur*

    14 декабря 2023 г., Индия ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

    Last day in Jaipur today! The last couple of days were spent resting as Mike recovered from a bit of Delhi Belly, so today we finally went to visit Jaipur's most famous attraction: Amer Fort. We took a tuktuk 20min north of Jaipur City and stopped into Panna Meena Ka Kund - a famous stepwell built in the 16th century. We stopped for a chat with a local guru, some photos, and to admire the longest tail we'd ever seen on a monkey. After the stepwell, we walked up to Amer Fort and spent a couple of hours wandering the former residence of the Rajput Maharajas.Читать далее

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    Varanasi

    15 декабря 2023 г., Индия ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    This morning, we had our last rooftop peanut butter honey toast and chai in Jaipur, and then ubered to the airport. As we missed out on the 1AC and 2AC train tickets for the 20hr journey to Varanasi, we decided to splash out and fly. After taking so many trains in India, it was a really nice break to step onto a plane for a 2hr flight (instead of a bumpy and grueling 20hr train ride in 3AC or sleeper class).

    We arrived to check into our guesthouse to find our host standing in the entrance in his underwear, doing his daily 10min prayer to the sun god. In the past, we would've found this very strange, but we've seen our fair share of odd things that this didn't phase us.

    We spent the rest of the afternoon walking along the ghats, eating dosa and watching the ganga aarti.

    On our last day in Varanasi, we walked up to the famous Blue Lassie shop - on the way, we met two young men who were in Varanasi for their interviews to join the army. They joined us for lassi, which we had while watching families walking past carrying bodies to be cremated at Manikarnika Ghat. We next went to Manikarnika Ghat, which is a 24/7 cremation ground. This was a really interesting place to visit, which for us was unfortunately tainted by us getting scammed. A man approached us, claiming to work at the crematorium, and gave us some information and a quick tour. While the information was interesting, he then asked that we make a donation towards helping the poor to cremate their families. We were happy to donate some money, but then were told it was 600 rupees (about NZ$12) per kilogram of wood. They insisted that we donated by the kilo, but we only gave them what cash we had on us, which was about 1500 rupees (aboht NZ$30). We should have listened to the gut feeling we had, which was that this was a scam and walked away. I'm not sure why we didn't, it might be because we've been travelling for so long, combined with India being the most challenging place we've been, that we let our guard down. We returned to our guesthouse and our host said the entire thing is a scam and the money never goes to the poor. The only positive of this is that in over 300 days of travel, this is only the third (and hopefully last) time someone has successfully scammed us.    Читать далее

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    Varanasi*

    16 декабря 2023 г., Индия ⋅ 🌙 9 °C

    Woke up early this morning to watch ganga aarti at Assi Ghat (the southernmost ghat) - a quieter ceremony than the one we watched last night. After the ceremony, we took a boat out on the Ganges River to watch the sunrise, see the 84 ghats along the river and the two cremation areas.

    After a rest, we walked up to the famous Blue Lassie shop - on the way, we met two young men who were in Varanasi for their interviews to join the army. They joined us for lassi, which we had while watching families walking past carrying bodies to be cremated at Manikarnika Ghat

    We next went to Manikarnika Ghat, which is a 24/7 cremation ground. This was a really interesting place to visit, which for us was unfortunately tainted by us getting scammed. A man approached us, claiming to work at the crematorium, and gave us some information and a quick tour. While the information was interesting, he then asked that we make a donation towards helping the poor to cremate their families. We were happy to donate some money, but then were told it was 600 rupees (about NZ$12) per kilogram of wood. They insisted that we donated by the kilo, but we only gave them what cash we had on us, which was about 1500 rupees (aboht NZ$30). We should have listened to the gut feeling we had, which was that this was a scam and walked away. I'm not sure why we didn't, it might be because we've been travelling for so long, combined with India being the most challenging place we've been, that we let our guard down. We returned to our guesthouse and our host said the entire thing is a scam and the money never goes to the poor. I am so glad we did not give more, but it makes me incredibly angry that we were taken advantage of. The only positive of this is that in over 300 days of travel, this is only the third (and hopefully last) time someone has successfully scammed us.    Читать далее

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    Nightmare leaving Varanasi

    17 декабря 2023 г., Индия ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    Today, we left Varanasi to head towards Agra. We slept in and opted to rest before our night train as we'd had a few very full on days in Varanasi. After lunch at Dosa Cafe, we picked up our bags and said our goodbyes to our host around 1pm to head to Mughal Sarai for our 3.40pm train. This is normally a 45min drive, but our host warned us to leave 2hrs early as roads might be blocked due to the Rasjasthan Prime Minister visiting, as well as general traffic, and to tell our driver that main routes might be closed. So on his advice, we left over 2.5hrs early.

    We walked the 10mins out of the old city to the main road, where our troubles began when we tried to use Uber and no one would pick our ride up. We could see a number of cars and tuktuks near us on the app, but none of them would pick up our ride. Half an hour later, we eventually negotiated with a tuktuk driver to take us. At this point, our train was showing on google as being delayed to 4.10pm, so we weren't too worried as we were on our way.

    Our tuktuk driver crossed the River Ganges, and from there, there are three ways to get to Mughal Sarai - the northern highway, southern highway or a rural, bumpy road which runs between these. Our driver decided to take the northern highway, driving for 20mins before seeing that the highway was blocked due to the Prime Minister visiting. This wasn't a huge problem as we then mapped a route for him, which took us along the central rural road. At this point, it was only 2.40pm and Google Maps was estimating the drive to be 20mins, so we thought we were fine, but we were wrong. After driving for about 10mins with Google Maps (and us) guiding him, our driver decided to go rogue and start asking locals which way to Mughal Sarai. Everyone was telling him to turn around and take the northern highway, with apparently no idea that the highway was closed. He then turned around and started driving back the way we came. He would not stop driving until we yelled that we would not pay him unless he drove the way we told him. We guided him for the next 40mins along bumpy roads, keeping an eye on our Google Maps to make sure we were on track, whilst urging him to drive faster as our train was now showing as being on time, and if we didn't hurry, we would miss it. At one point, the barrier over a train crossing started lowering very slowly. He started to brake and we had to yell for him to make the crossing or we would definitely miss our train as train crossings take at least 5mins due to the length of the trains (often 1km or longer).

    We eventually made it to the train station at 3.32pm, with 8mins to run from the road over to Platform 6. We were very stressed because we didn't know how big the train station was and Indian trains are very long (again, around 1km for regional trains) and can take a long time to find your coach. After battling with elderly Indian people on the escalator who refused to move for us, and Cass almost pushing over a number of people on the run to the train, we finally reached the train and just jumped on the first coach we saw.

    We were relieved to have made it, albeit puffing from sprinting across the train station and up and down stairs with 10kg bags on our backs - only the 2nd time on this trip so far where we have really had to run. We walked down to our assigned coach and, as usual, found someone else sleeping in one of our beds. Cass was really unimpressed that almost every time we'd gotten onto a train, there was someone else in her bed. He eventually moved after we insisted he was in our seat. We now have 13hrs on the train until we reach Agra.

    Agra is our last (proper) stop in India, just to see the Taj Mahal before we leave. While we have met lovely people and had some great experiences in India, we have also found it incredibly uncomfortable and hard travelling and are looking forward to moving onto Sri Lanka.    Читать далее

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    Agra*

    18 декабря 2023 г., Индия ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    After our hell-ish afternoon yesterday, and a night of broken sleep on the train, we made it to Agra! Very sleep deprived, cold and a little grumpy, we took an Uber to our hostel. Despite informing the hostel prior about our early check in and the room already being ready, they asked us to pay an extra 200rs for early check in. We were too tired to complain, so agreed and were shown our room. While our room looked like the photos, the room was filled with mosquitos, sheets were disgustingly stained and even had several burn holes and the shower head in the bathroom was broken. We were really uncomfortable with the room, but were also starving so we dropped our things and went to find breakfast. Over breakfast, we scoured booking.com for better alternatives nearby and had a look at a guesthouse a few doors down from our hostel, which was cheaper and much nicer and cleaner than the hostel. We picked up our bags, left the hostel and headed to the guesthouse.

    While we waited for our room at the guesthouse to be cleaned, we walked down to Taj Nature Walk and spent a couple of hours walking through the gardens and getting our first glimpse of the Taj Mahal.

    After a rest at the guesthouse, we walked across the road to a roof top restaurant where we had egg curry, dal fry, jeera rice and roti for dinner.    Читать далее

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    Taj Mahal

    19 декабря 2023 г., Индия ⋅ ☀️ 8 °C

    As with every other world wonder we've visited on this trip, our visit to the Taj Mahal started with an early 5am wake up call and 20min walk in the dark to the East Gate entrance. We arrived around 5.50am and were thrilled to be the first ones in line! We waited in the cold until we were let in at 6.30am. The early wake up was well worth it, as for about half an hour, we were able to view the Taj Mahal with virtually no one else around us or in any of our photos. As the sun came up, we watched as the sky turned from dark purples to light blues, and the Taj Mahal started to glow in the morning light.

    After a few hours at the Taj Mahal, we returned to our guesthouse for a nap. We had originally planned to visit Agra Fort after the Taj Mahal, but were a bit forted-out, and instead decided to visit Sheroes Hangout Cafe for lunch. Sheroes is a cafe run by acid attack survivors which operates on a pay as you want basis - none of the items on the menu have prices, and at the end you pay whatever amount you want. We enjoyed a big lunch of dal fry, shahi paneer, rice and chapati while we watched a video and read about the survivors/cafe workers.    Читать далее

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    Delhi

    20 декабря 2023 г., Индия ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C

    We were hoping for a short travel day today, as we were only meant to take a 3hr train from Agra to Delhi, arriving after lunch. However, we'd arrived at the train station an hour early (to avoid a repeat of our episode of trying to leave Varanasi) only to find that our train was delayed. We sat at the train station, fending off beggars and watching rats and monkeys, as our train was delayed three times, with us able to eventually leave 2hrs late at 12.15pm.

    We finally arrived at New Delhi Rail Station around 5pm, instead of the scheduled 1.40pm. We'd predicted that after 300+ days of travel and 3 weeks of questionable hostels/guesthouses and cold and/or bucket showers in India, we'd want to stay somewhere nice for a night. We had some points saved up and booked ourselves in for a night at The Metropolitan - a 5 star hotel in Connaught Place. We were right with our predictions because we are both exhausted and feeling run down and really need a proper shower and rest.

    We checked in, enjoyed a nice hot shower (that actually lasts more than 2mins) and ordered room service for dinner. The next day, we slept in and woke up to very smoggy views over Delhi and a delicious buffet breakfast. We wandered around Connaught Place and do some window shopping.
    Our window shopping turned into proper shopping pretty quickly as we found a lot of things we needed to buy were on sale anyway. We say "needed" because all of Mike's socks were holey. After squeezing our shopping into our bags, we made our way to the airport, boarded our flight and arrived in Sri Lanka in the wee hours of the morning.    Читать далее

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    Last day in Delhi*

    21 декабря 2023 г., Индия ⋅ ☁️ 11 °C

    Slept in and woke up to very smoggy views over Delhi and a delicious buffet breakfast. We're both still recovering from colds and didn't feel like doing any sightseeing, so we decided to wander around Connaught Place and do some window shopping. The minute we left our hotel, a man claiming to work as security at The Met approached us and started a friendly conversation, which quickly turned into him trying to get us into his friends tuktuk to go shopping at a "special Indian bazaar" because the shops we wanted to go to didn't open until 1pm. We could smell the scam a mile away, rejecting his offer and continuing onto Connaught Place.

    Our window shopping turned into proper shopping pretty quickly as we found a lot of things we needed to buy were on sale anyway. We say "needed" because all of Mike's socks were holey. After squeezing our shopping into our bags, we made our way to the airport, boarded our flight and arrived in Sri Lanka in the wee hours of the morning.    Читать далее

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    Negombo*

    22 декабря 2023 г., Шри-Ланка ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

    We've arrived in Sri Lanka and we are SO happy to be here! Our flight to Sri Lanka landed 20min early - the first time that's ever happened to us. Our host picked us up from the airport, we checked into our lovely guesthouse and went straight to sleep at 3am. Our guesthouse in Negombo is owned by an Australian lady and her Sri Lankan husband. We'd found cleanliness levels throughout India (with the exception of The Met) to be very poor, so it was really nice to arrive and have a really clean, comfortable room waiting for us. We are having a slow day to recover from our colds/Cass's eye twitching and to rest from our time in India by playing with the hosts dogs, napping and reading.Читать далее

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    Unawatuna*

    23 декабря 2023 г., Шри-Ланка ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C

    Today was another travel day that was a lot longer and harder than it should have been. We needed to leave Negombo and make our way to Unawatuna on the south coast, which would be our home over Christmas. We had planned to Uber to a bus station to the east of Colombo (about an hours drive from Negombo), take a 2hr express bus to Galle, and then take a 20min tuktuk to Unawatuna. We had issues with our tuktuk from Negombo (drove for 2.5hrs only to get to the edge of Colombo city), so we gave up and asked him to take us to the closer Colombo Fort Station. We couldn't take a train to Galle as seats were sold out, so we had to take a bus which went along the coastal highway and took 4hrs to reach Galle. We left Negombo at 10am and finally arrived at Unawatuna just after 5pm.

    We are both absolutely shattered from today, as well as from 5 out of the last 9 days being travel days. Once we checked into our hotel, we showered, grabbed shwarma for dinner and went for a quick walk on the beach before we went to bed before 8pm (for the 2nd day in a row). We are really looking forward to spending the next 10 days (including Christmas and New Years) resting and relaxing on the beach.    Читать далее

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    Christmas Day

    25 декабря 2023 г., Шри-Ланка ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

    Christmas day was a quiet one for us this year. We slept in, had a big breakfast of tropical fruits, toast and omelettes, followed by some shopping where Mike finally picked up some souvenirs for himself, and a swim at the beach. Our Christmas day ended with a nice meal of sweet and sour chicken and peanut butter honey chicken at the Pink Elephant. While Christmas day was very quiet and different for us, it was nice to relax and catch up with people from home.Читать далее

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    Jungle Beach

    26 декабря 2023 г., Шри-Ланка ⋅ ☁️ 30 °C

    Today was the day we finally ventured more than 500m from our hotel! While we spent the last few days eating, shopping and swimming within a 500m radius of our hotel, we decided that we had to do at least a little bit of exploring in our 5 days in Unawatuna. Popular day trips from Unawatuna include visiting Galle Fort or the instagram famous swing at Dalawella Beach, but you need to pay a tuktuk or hire a scooter to reach both of those which we decided was too much effort (we are still mentally and physically recovering from India). We eventually decided to walk to Jungle Beach, which is a smaller beach about 30min from Unawatuna. The walk there was mostly flat with some very steep sections, and by the time we reached the beach, we were dripping in sweat and the beach was packed. We'd read online that Jungle Beach is normally very quiet and peaceful, but as it's the Christmas/New Years period, you are unlikely to get any beach to yourself. Despite the beach being very busy, we had a nice swim in waters so warm it felt like a bath and read our books. We returned to Unawatuna around 2pm for kottu for lunch and another swim at the main Unawatuna beach. We ended our day with fresh seafood as we watched the sunset over the beach.Читать далее

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    Mirissa

    29 декабря 2023 г., Шри-Ланка ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C

    Yesterday, we had a nice little travel day from Unawatuna to Mirissa - another beach town on the south coast of Sri Lanka. We took a local bus which was an adventure in itself as the bus was full when we got on, and the conductor continued to squeeze more and more people until there were people literally hanging out the door! This, combined with the bus drivers crazy driving, made for an interesting ride. Thankfully, the trip was quite short, with us arriving in Mirissa an hour later. We quickly walked from the main road down to our hotel near the beach as the sky turned dark and rain started to fall. The rain didn't let up all day, soaking us as we went out to run some errands.

    We woke up this morning to another rainy day, and thought we'd try and get some exercise in (the first time in about 2 months). As Cass was putting on her sneakers, she reached into her shoe to pull out old socks and instead pulled out a frog! She screamed, ran inside to wash her hands, and hours later is still traumatized by the slimey frog that was in her hand.    Читать далее

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    New Years Eve

    31 декабря 2023 г., Шри-Ланка ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C

    The weather hasn't been great in Mirissa (rain almost every day), so we spent the last few days alternating between quick swims at Mirissa Beach and back at our hotel. On the one day it didn't rain, we hired a scooter and went for a small tiki tour of nearby Coconut Tree Hill, Polhena Beach and Matara. We hired snorkels at Polhena Beach (as we'd read that green turtle sightings were pretty much guaranteed), but what we experienced was dead coral, extremely poor visibility (no further than an arms length) and no green turtles. It was a little disappointing, but we've been spoilt with swimming with turtles in other places, so we weren't too upset.

    We were looking forward to New Years Eve as there were several stages on the beach set up by the beach restaurants/bars. However, it rained all day and all night, with roads flooding around Mirissa. We ended up getting dinner at Big Belly Restaurant, ice cream from the supermarket and then walked down to the beach to see what was happening. We had a bit of a dance in the rain at one of the stages which was playing 90s/early 2000s songs, before heading home and getting into bed at 10.30pm. We watched Netflix until midnight and then called it a night. A bit of a different new years for us, but still fun nonetheless!    Читать далее

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    Tissamaharama

    2 января 2024 г., Шри-Ланка ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C

    Today, we needed to travel from Mirissa to Tissamaharama. We had originally planned to take an uber/taxi, but decided to try and take the local bus as it was fraction of the cost of a taxi. We took a bus from Mirissa to Matara Bus Station, and then easily hopped on a bus to Tissamaharama. Our bus stopped in Tissamaharama, rather than the suburbs where we were staying, so we had lunch in town and then an uber to our guesthouse. The trip was hot and sticky, cost us around NZ$11 and took around 4-4.5hrs - not a bad travel day! We will take the rest of today easy as we have an early morning safari at Yala National Park.Читать далее

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    Yala National Park

    3 января 2024 г., Шри-Ланка ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C

    Today, we did the one thing that we were looking forward to the most in Sri Lanka - a safari in Yala National Park! This was our first safari ever and we were so excited to see some wildlife. We had originally planned to do a full day safari (6am-6pm) to make the most of our time here. However, there has been near constant rain for 5 months here, which meant that the roads in the park have been continously flooded and/or badly damaged. It's also harder to spot animals in wet weather, so we didn't have high hopes on seeing much wildlife. Our guide recommended that we do a half day afternoon safari as there wouldn't be enough of the park accessible to warrant a full day safari. We ended up doing the afternoon safari, and it was the right choice! The morning safari that day was only able to access a very small part of the park, whereas by the time we arrived in the afternoon, roads had been fixed allowing us to go much further.

    We left our guesthouse around 1pm, and it took about 45mins to arrive at Yala. As we arrived at the park entrance, huge sections of road were flooded (up to 0.5m in some sections), and only jeeps could get through. We saw heaps of animals just on the drive from the park entrance to the safari gate, including water buffalo, pelicans, storks, monitor lizards and crocodiles. As we pulled up to the gate, we were the 2nd jeep in line, which meant we were some of the first people to enter the park that afternoon.

    We entered the park at exactly 2pm and within the first 30mins, in addition to the animals already spotted, we saw spotted deer, sambar deer, cormorants and mongoose. We watched a wild boar trot across the road and reunite with its family and a herd of spotted deer on the other side. Shortly after, we spotted a leopard sitting in a tree! After we pulled up, it climbed down from the tree, and walked right in front of our jeep - we couldn't believe our eyes! Yala National Park has the highest chance for guests to see a leopard, but there are many days were no leopards are spotted at all, and we found one in the first 30mins! We later found out that that was the only leopard spotted in the park that day, meaning that we were incredibly lucky to have seen it. Even our guide was super happy to see the leopard, as it had been days since he has spotted one in the park.

    After the first 30mins or so, we spent the next 2-3hrs circling around the park on bumpy muddy roads. Many jeeps got stuck in the mud and had to be towed by others. We didn't have as much luck spotting animals as the day went on, most likely because of the increased number of jeeps driving around. Towards the end of the day, we finally spotted an Asian elephant. It got so close to us and walked behind our jeep! Satisfied that we'd seen everything we'd wanted to see (except a sloth bear, but they are incredibly rare), we exited the park at around 5.30pm as the sun was setting. As we drove out of the park, we had one last surprise with a group of hanuman monkeys hanging out on the road! We then drove the 45min back to our guesthouse as the sun was setting over the rice paddy fields, very hot, sticky and sore, but very satisfied.

    We ended our day with a homemade dinner at our guesthouse of banana curry, chicken curry, pumpkin curry, dahl, salad and rice - one of the best meals we've had in Sri Lanka to finish off an awesome day!    Читать далее

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    Ella

    5 января 2024 г., Шри-Ланка ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    We left Tissa yesterday and took a local bus to Ella. The original plan was to take a taxi as Google Maps showed the bus as taking 4.5hrs (via the coast with a lot of back tracking), but our host told us there were 3 direct busses to Ella every morning so we decided to try and take that to save some money. Our host walked us to the bus stop (no signs and not shown as a bus stop on Google Maps, but just a lamp post where locals know the bus to stop) and we hopped on a very full bus to Ella. Thankfully, half the people got off half an hour later and we were able to put our bags down and sit down for the remaining 2hrs of the journey. After 2hrs of very fast and chaotic driving from the low country, we made it to the hills surrounding Ella in the high country. We were a bit sore from the safari, so we had an easy afternoon of shopping in town, followed by an Ayurveda massage.

    Today, we hired a scooter to do a bit of exploring. After a bit of faffing and a hiccup with hiring a scooter (our host tried to give us a scooter with a non-functioning dashboard, we ended up hiring elsewhere), we made our way to Ella Organic Tea Garden, where we did a fascinating 2hr tour of the plantation and learnt how black, green and white tea are made. All tea is actually made from the same plant (or variety of the same tea plant), but are processed differently to create black, green and white tea. We enjoyed our morning learning about tea and it was one of the better tours we've done on this trip.

    After the tour, we drove to a café that overlooked the famous Nine Arches Bridge. We waited around for an hour for the train to come through, but it was over an hour late and showed up as we were walking back to our scooter - typical!

    We then ended our mini adventure with a massive side mission to get fuel (the only gas station in the area is 10km+ outside the town), lunch and to visit Ravanna Falls.    Читать далее

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    Ella to Kandy train

    8 января 2024 г., Шри-Ланка ⋅ 🌧 24 °C

    We got up early today to ride the famous blue train from Ella to Kandy, which is said to be one of the most scenic train rides in the world. We arrived at the train station around 30min before our train was due to arrive from Badulla. When we arrived at Ella train station, there was a long line of backpackers waiting to buy a last minute ticket for the unreserved carriages. We were extremely glad that we'd reserved seats in advance, as the line was massive, taking a long time to buy tickets, and as the unreserved carriages were packed to the brim of people, which would surely make for an uncomfortable 7hr journey.

    Our train arrived right on time at 6.40am, and we hopped into our carriage and stared out the window, watching the scenery of waterfalls and tea plantations pass by. We sat with and got to know an English couple (Sam and Emma), and took turns hanging out the door and taking some fun photos at the front of the train with the conductor. The weather turned from cloudy to thick fog, to eventually rain, the closer we got to Nuwara Eliya. We spent the rest of the train ride watching the scenery change from tea plantations to rainforest and towns the closer we got to Kandy, listening to the locals play music and drums to Justin Bieber and sharing train snacks and travel stories with Sam and Emma.

    We eventually arrived at Kandy around 1.10pm, only 20min later than the scheduled time, checked into our guesthouse and went for lunch at Secret Alley Cafe and a walk around Kandy Lake.    Читать далее

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    Ho Chi Minh

    11 января 2024 г., Вьетнам ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C

    We have finally arrived in the country we've been waiting 4 years to visit - Vietnam! After a day of lounging in Negombo, we boarded our 11pm flight to Bangkok, where we had a 3hr layover (nb. nap for Mike) before our flight to Ho Chi Minh. We landed in Ho Chi Minh around 9am and were in our apartment by 11am, and napping by 12.30pm. We are SO happy to be in Vietnam, to eat the delicious food and see the familiar smiley faces and sights of South-East Asia again.

    While we were exhausted from our travel day (and 29hrs of no sleep), we wanted to make the most of our time in Vietnam - this meant doing a street food tour, so that we knew about all the delicious things we should try and how to eat them. We spent a fun 3.5hrs walking around Ho Chi Minh, trying out so many things we wouldn't have thought of trying on our own including banh trang nuong (a Vietnamese "pizza" made of grilled rice paper), bo la lot (Vietnamese beef in lolot leaves), banh xeo (stuffed crepe), pork xoi (sticky rice), longan ice cream and others. A great first day in Vietnam!    Читать далее

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    Cass’s Birthday!

    13 января 2024 г., Вьетнам ⋅ ☁️ 25 °C

    Today was a big day! The big 3-0 !

    Last night we had an acrobatics show booked and we were lucky enough to get seats in the 4th row. It was a cute show which was very well choreographed about the history and growth of Vietnam into what it is today.

    On top of the show last night and to further celebrate the big occasion, Cass wanted to make the most of being in Vietnam and eat all day, and eat we did. After a wake up call of Mike poorly singing happy birthday we started our food tour with a roadside phố and bún (8/10). A lady with a bike cart happened to ride by with some fried banana so we stopped her for some breakfast dessert and after a quick laugh with the lady about her ripping us off (we paid her anyway as it was a few cents only) we ate our coconut sauce - topped fried banana (7/10) on our way to our target for the morning - an egg coffee. These are absolutely delicious (11/10) and will become a regular fixture in our days in Vietnam. After wandering around for a few hours looking for a tour to the Cu Chị tunnels we found ourselves ready for lunch - where we discovered crispy phố and pork bún chả! The phố was not soupy as we expected, but more saucy with fried noodles (9/10). The bún chả was deconstructed, but each mouthful was delicious and so full of flavour (10/10). We couldn’t eat much more before a quick mid day nap so that’s exactly what we did.

    Dinner was a degustation of street food. First up was pork sticky rice and a custard bảo (both 10/10) from a place we visited on our walking tour 2 days prior), then spring rolls (7/10), xíu mại (8/10) and then bột chiên (fried tapioca cake) (6/10). Lastly, we had dessert which were in essence profiteroles, but were beautifully decorated and filled with a variety of flavours - we got a passion fruit, almond and chocolate, and 2x chocolate topped and chocolate filled (10/10). I count 8x food and drink stops - we couldn’t possibly have eaten more today!    Читать далее

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    Hoi An

    17 января 2024 г., Вьетнам ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    We've made it to our home for the next week - Hoi An! We are excited to spend our days slowly exploring the yellow streets of the Old Town, drinking coffee and shopping. We flew from Ho Chi Minh to Da Nang, arriving in Da Nang around 7.30am, where we took a taxi to Hoi An. We spent our first day here on a walking tour to familiarize ourselves with the area, tick off some sightseeing and understand market prices. By the time the walking tour ended at midday, we were exhausted and felt like we'd already been awake for three days straight, so we rested for the remainder of the day.

    The next couple of days were spent eating at the Central Market, getting some clothes tailored and visiting art galleries. One gallery we particularly enjoyed was the Precious Heritage Art Gallery Museum, which is a permanent exhibition of Rehahn's project to showcase and preserve all 54 ethnic groups within Vietnam. As the Vietnamese government try to unite the country, and younger generations lose interest in centuries old traditions, many Vietnamese ethnic groups, their culture and traditional costumes are slowly being lost to the modern world. This gallery showcased photographs of the different ethnic groups, as well as their costumes and heirlooms. It was a wonderful experience to read about all the ethnic groups and Rehahn's adventures to find them while they are still around today.

    We spent the rest of our days n Hoi An taking it slow wandering the old town for cheap coffee, shopping and catching up on life admin (laundry, washing dirty shoes and clearing photos). We did an evening basket boat tour where we were rowed in the famous basket boats through the coconut forests, fished for crabs and released some lanterns while we watched the sunset. Our time in Hoi An has been very slow and peaceful, with not a lot to report back on, other than we are finally getting good at bargaining with the locals (Mike got a suitcase down from 500,000VND to 300,000VND!).    Читать далее

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    22

    Hoi An*

    20 января 2024 г., Вьетнам ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C

    We've spent the last few days taking it slow wandering the old town for cheap coffee, shopping and catching up on life admin (laundry, washing dirty shoes and clearing photos). Last night, we did an evening basket boat tour where we were rowed in the famous basket boats through the coconut forests, fished for crabs and released some lanterns while we watched the sunset. Our time in Hoi An has been very slow and peaceful, with not a lot to report back on, other than we are finally getting good at bargaining with the locals (Mike got a suitcase down from 500,000VND to 300,000VND today!).Читать далее

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