My Life in Words

Hi Everyone. Last post from India - I'm on my way home now, writing this from somewhere over Indonesia. Thank you to everyone who has been reading this and sending me nice messages.  I've been really enjoying blogging in India and it's nice to know people have been enjoying it! Anyway, last time I wrote, I was in Goa. Not much else to report from there. It was a pretty laid back week, which was definitely needed after the hectic busy season I had at work, and after 4 weeks of screaming children. I really enjoyed Goa; the place really grew on me. It doesn't have the worlds most beautiful beaches, or a fantastic party scene, and there are no exciting attractions, but there is something about the place that makes a person want to stay. I think the fact that its sleepy and relaxed without being too quiet or boring is what's appealing. The beaches are nice enough and everyone is very laid back about everything. There is no charge to sit in beach chairs, and there are no

Hello. Me again. I never know how to start these things.  Anyway, I'm in Goa now, which is on the west coast of India, about 600km south of Mumbai.  I arrived Thursday via what turned into a long day of travel.  First, my  9am  flight was pushed forward to 8am  and then I was delayed 3 hours (on top of my 2 hour layover) at the shockingly terrible Mumbai Domestic terminal.  There wasn't even a proper restaurant in it - just a few pretty average coffee shops serving up pre made sandwiches.  I managed to hold out until noon before I caved and got myself a glass of wine. I'm staying in a hostel here which is prison themed. All the windows are two way glass and the doors are bars.  It's quite new (opened in September) so its pretty decent - good showers, comfortable beds, etc.  One of the best features is that they have a bunch of scooters which are free for us to use, which has been handy. So my last week up north was good. Last weekend was Diwali, which is the Indian equi

Hello Everyone Firstly, thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes.  It's nice hearing from home when I'm so far away from everyone and everything. So, since I last wrote, we've spent 5 days traveling around Rajasthan. On Saturday we drove about 5 hours to Jodhpur aka "the blue city". Many of the buildings in the city are painted a periwinkle blue colour, which gives a  very pretty effect when looking over the city.  Apparently the blue colour helps keep the buildings cool and the bugs out.  I don't know if I buy that - if it were true, I would think there would be more blue cities out there. But it looks nice at least. When we arrived we went to....take a guess.....another fort! I wasn't super excited, however I ended up really enjoying it and it's my favourite one so far.  There was an audio tour with it, which was spoken by someone with a British accent (so it was understandable) and was quite well done.  The palace within the fort was in use until

Ok, post number 3. Week 2 is in the books and I don't have a lot to report.  It was a fairly quiet week; working at the orphanage in the mornings and sight seeing in the afternoons. To be honest, I'm pretty Forted out.  I think I've been to more forts in the past 2 weeks, then the rest of my life combined.  We've probably seen 5 or 6 now.  They are all beautiful, but I'm a bit over it. They are all starting to look the same - the amber fort, the tiger fort, the red fort, the monkey temple, etc.  They sound very different by their names, but in actuality they are not.  They are all similar colour (due to pollution), they all have monkeys, and none have tigers.  Anyway, think its time to lay off the forts for a while so that I appreciate them more again. I figured I would use this post to talk about Indian life a bit - what it's like to be here.  The day to day cultural differences are the most interesting thing about this trip so far; how even simple things are r

Hello again. Im glad that everyone enjoyed the first post; it's likely all downhill from here.   Its been a busy few days which started on Wednesday when we decided to go to the cricket.  Australia is here playing India in a series of one day tests, so we thought it would be fun to go check it out.  However in typical Indian fashion we couldn't figure out how to go about buying tickets.  After a few failed phone calls, google searches and a day before trip to the stadium, we decided our best approach was to just turn up on the day and try to buy them at the door.  We were all a bit apprehensive though, as we had no idea whether there were tickets available or at what price (the tourist price of things is usually 3x more than the Indian price). Things were weird right from arrival at the stadium. Upon entering, we had to walk through metal detectors; men in one line, women in another.  We were then haphazardly  searched, and stripped of miscellaneous possessions for no good reas

India, India, India. Where to begin? I've always been on the fence about traveling to India. Sometimes, the idea of it is exciting in the opportunity to see the Taj, the Goan beaches, the amazing food and the completely different culture.  Other times it has scared me; the poverty, petty theft, dirt, stink, and high likelihood of stomach flu. After Egypt in 2010, I decided it would be a while before I traveled to the third world again.  But 3 years on, I'm here, 350km south west of Delhi in the city of Juipur, India.  I was able to get 5 weeks off work and I figured that if I didn't come now, I may never.   I decided to do something a little different for this trip.  Rather than just do a tour, I signed up for a voluntourism program. It's a mix of volunteering during the week and traveling on the weekends.  Yet to be determined whether that was a good idea or a huge mistake.   I flew into Delhi where a driver from the volunteer program was to pick me up from the airport

So I'm in Thailand having what by my standards is considered to be a quiet and relaxing holiday. I wasn't going to write a blog, but then since Im traveling alone and some somewhat interesting stuff has happened, I thought I might write a bit. I'm about to head home, and have had an amazing time. Some things: - I flew business class (points - it was free). It was awesome. I don't remember the last time I've eaten so much. The combination of 2 flights, and two airport lounges added up to 5 full meals. And my drink of choice for the day was champagne. Just unlimited champagne, all day.  - When i got to Bangkok airport I had to check in for a flight to koh samui (slumming it in economy). At the Bangkok Airways check in counter next to me, almost every single person in line had big flat screen tvs. Some people had 4 or 5 tvs, and some had just 1 or 2. The flight was going to Mumbai...it must be cheaper to get a budget flight to Thailand and buy TVs than to buy them the

Hello again I'm going to try to fit my entire second week into this post, so as to not bore everyone too much. I feel like I have written a fair bit on this trip, but everything has just been so interesting. After the mountain we spent 2 nights in an Eco-lodge close to Poring hotsprings. With the exception of a cockroach the size of my hand which I had to kill the first night, the place was ok. While there we went to poring hotsprings, which is a bit of a misleading name. I suppose there were hotsprings there at one time, but now it's just bathtubs which you can soak in and one small roped off section of natural hot springs. While most of us did take a hot bath to soak our aching muscles, the more interesting part was the activities around the baths and pools (which were overridden with children who are on school holiday). There was a nice canopy walk, as well as a waterfall where thousands of tiny little fish gave us all a free fish pedicure. The highlight of the day