Better late than never...

Sorry it’s been so long since my last entry, I’ve just been a bit lazy! Anyway, here we go:

To our eventual relief we finally left India, as I said in the last post it was good there, we had just had enough. We made our way to northern Thailand. This was done using the Singapore Airlines, a company that I had heard many great things about (repeatedly!), and it didn’t disappoint. We had a choice menu of very nice food and free drinks. The free drinks weren’t as good as it sounds as the air steward was getting annoyed at us keep asking for more beer and eventually stopped walking past us.

We finally arrived in Thailand after nearly 12 hours of travel and made our way to the hostel. We had a quick walk around the area and were disappointed to discover how much of a sell-out Thailand is. Unlike India, Thailand has become very westernised and the American 7/11 shops are on virtually every main street. Later that night, we went to a pub quiz with some fellow university educated, intelligent, backpackers: We finished 3^rd last.

The next day we decided to rent bicycles and go on a tour of the city. We stupidly set off around lunchtime in the midday heat, and it was very hot that day. We decided to visit the temples because we hadn’t seen enough of them in India! They were very nice buildings but all look very similar, and only really vary in size.

The following day we decided to rent scooters instead, as the thought of spending another day cycling in the heat didn’t appeal to us at all. We headed up the mountain to the biggest temple in Chiang Mai, which again was impressive, but was just a bigger version of the ones we had seen the previous day. At night we relaxed and got our weekly fix of English football at one of the western sports bars.

Over the next few days I decided that I needed a laptop, I told myself that I needed it for research, but I really bought it because I missed having one at my fingertips. It wasn’t cheap and I probably could have put the money to much better use, such as more food and beer.

A visit to the famous Chiang Mai night markets was next on our list, we headed there looking for some bargains, but found out that Thailand isn’t as cheap as India, and the Thai people don’t like to haggle.

The next day we organized our epic, top gear style trip on the scooters through the mountains of Thailand. We hired the bikes for 4 days, there were 9 people, 7 bikes and 620km to go. I was skeptical about us completing this in four days. On our first day we covered an eventful 150km, with 7 out of the 9 people being involved in an incident of some sort: 1 flat tire and 3 crashes, luckily I was one of the 2 that didn’t crash. None of the crashes were major and we eventually made it to Pai, a quiet village that is popular with travellers due to the amazing roads and scenery that lead to it. An early start followed the next day and we had another large stretch of amazing mountainous road to cover. We stopped off half way to do a tour of the some caves, which were impressive but pricey. We then drove on to our halfway point, Mae Hong Son.

Another early start and we set off for the highest mountain in Thailand. We drove for a long time and it was very cold for a lot of this leg of the journey as I was in shorts and a t-shirt on the top of a mountain. We reached our target for the number of kilometers covered and were looking for a small village to find somewhere to spend the night. We struggled and we drove for a while until we reached a rest point on the top of a hill and asked if they had a room, they had two wooden buildings and they said we could have one of them. They kitted the empty room out with some sheets and a mosquito net and it was ready for 7 of us to just squash in, the 2 others bravely slept outside. We all gathered round the camp fire for a sing-a-long with a guitar and it was a perfect way to top off the trip, as we would be heading back to Chiang Mai the next day. The next day we set off for the long trip home with everybody weary from a cold nights sleep in a shack, eager to get home with the fond memories of the trip in their mind. It was definitely the best part of my trip so far. I made some great friends and will never forget it.

We decided to leave Chiang Mai after our scooter tour team broke up and people moved on. We headed east towards Cambodia, stopping off in the smaller towns of Lampang, Phitsanulok, Nakhon Ratchasima, and Aranyaprathet before making the journey over to Cambodia. This was very straightforward as we just had a few papers to fill in. It was also evident that it would be incredibly easy to smuggle things over the border if you want as there were no checks at any point.

After arriving in Cambodia we drove 2 hours to Siem Reap, quickly found a cheap hotel, and realised that haggling would be easier in Cambodia, providing we could figure out what we would be paying. This is because in Cambodia 3 currencies are accepted in most places. Thai baht is accepted near to the border and in the rest of Cambodia, American dollar and the Cambodian riel interchange as the main currency depending on what you are buying. In many instances a mixture of the two currencies is used. For example, if something costs $1.50 it will cost you $1 and 2000riel as Cambodians don’t deal with coins, only paper money. This makes conversions back to pounds even more confusing!

We found the main bar street in Siem reap and were instantly bombarded by the small food stall workers to eat at their place. Food was $1 a dish and all places were the same. The beer was also cheap at $0.50 for a glass of draught beer.

We visited the famous Angkor Wat and its surrounding sights, billed as the main (only) reason for visiting Cambodia. It was impressive but the $20 entry fee is quite extortionate, Cambodians get in for free.

The next day we decided we needed to relax after a big day of sightseeing, so we headed for a swimming pool which was $1 to use, well worth it for the ability to lay by a pool and relax.

After seeing the Angkor Wat we decided that it was time to move on from Siem Reap, as there is little else to see there. We headed for Battambang, a quieter town with apparently an excellent picturesque countryside. This involved a 5 hour journey, at a cost of $4, on a bus with a mix of the karaoke channel, and a Cambodian comedy, which we didn’t understand. Battambang was a nice place and we spent a day on bicycles again and did a 25km round trip to a temple and one of the many killing cave sights in Cambodia. We were lucky enough to meet a Cambodian the same age as us who was studying English at school, who offered to show us around the sights for free (apart from the donation he asked for at the end), but we didn’t mind paying this. The temple was again impressive and was slightly different than the Thai temples, as it was covered in paintings telling the story of the Buddha. The killing caves were a very moving place to visit. Our friend showed us the caves and explained how the Khmer Rouge would throw the innocent Cambodians 60 feet to their death in the caves, he also showed us the separate part of the cave where the children were attacked and thrown to their death.

After this we headed on to the main temple at the top of the mountain, which had some amazing views of the surrounding area, which was amazingly flat with vast rice paddies as far as we could see. At the temple we were greeted by some of the young monks who wanted to show us around their holy place. They told us the story of the Buddha and were asking us a lot of questions about the western world, and bizarrely about Germany and the strength of its army.

After the tour was over our friend asked us if we had time to visit his home and family. We agreed and made the short trip to his village, were I quickly realised that he had invited us there to show off his new white friends to his friends and family. He later told us that everybody in the village would be shocked and impressed by the sight of him talking English to two white people, we could see how proud he felt.

We departed the village and headed back to our luxury $5 a night hotel to enjoy some beer and our weekly dose of football.

We decided to move on from Battambang after we had taken in the main sights and head for the capital Phnom Penh. This involved another 5 hour $4 bus journey, this time a few Cambodian films, which I tried to watch and read the English subtitles but it was clear that the translator wasn’t fluent in English as the text didn’t make sense!

On arrival in Phnom Penh, we headed towards what our guide book said was the backpackers area in the city, the lakeside. Unfortunately this guide book is from 2002 and we soon realised that this area was dying out. Only half of the bars are still open and a lot of the buildings are up for sale. We had heard that the government wanted to tear down the whole area, as the guest houses built were there illegally having never obtained permission to build. They are also in the process of filling in the lake; which would make the whole area lose appeal.

We came to Phnom Penh to see the water festival, Bon Om Tuk, Cambodia’s number one festival, but this isn’t until the weekend so first we decided to take a tuk-tuk to the killing fields. This was another saddening place to visit and was shocking to see as the first sight you see as you enter the grounds is the huge Stupa built in memorial to those who were killed here. It is a huge building that houses thousands of skulls that very found when the sight was excavated.

After leaving the killing fields, the tuk-tuk driver asked us if we wanted to go to the shooting range next. Not the most appealing activity after visiting a site where 17,000 people were killed!

The next day we hired bicycles for $1 and went on a tour of the city, seeing yet another temple and onto the S-21 genocide museum. This is the place that the Khmer people were held and tortured before they were transported to the killing fields to be murdered. This place was once a school and the Khmer Rouge took over the school and turned it into the prison. It was a good place to visit to get an understanding of what these Pol Pot and his men did to Cambodia.

Anyway that’s it for now, hopefully it won’t take as long for me to do the next post, and hopefully it won’t be as long an entry.

The sweet taste of India

7 weeks, 13 cities, 3252 miles travelled by trains and only about 10 bottles of beer later; its time to leave India. It has been lots of fun for the most part. It has also been quite expensive and at the moment we are still over budget for India, but it has been worth it. I feel that I have experienced some of the best and worst of India. In Delhi we were treated by our friend Hitanshu to some of the best places in Delhi, most notably Set'z bar which is the best bar I have ever been to. It even had an automatic toilet, which I accidentally got a jet wash from when I was messing about with the buttons! That was refreshing to say the least.
We have also experienced some pretty bad situations as well such as the smell of some of the 'sewage systems' which are pretty much large ponds of filth. The train stations are probably the worst places I've had to spend time. They are always packed with people sitting and sleeping all over the floor, the platforms reek of stale urine as everybody urinates on the track and the toilets on the trains are just holes in the floor. Also many large rats sniff around the track looking for food.

We were told about an acronym for INDIA that is common among travellers: I'll Never Do It Again. When I first heard this I agreed with it. But having spent more time here, I realised that it is a good place to experience. I think that I will definitely return one day, but only when I have less of a worry over money and can afford to stay in the nicer hotels that have heard of cleanliness. Which is more than can be said for some of the places we've stayed. But for less than £3 per night, you can't complain too much.


The food in India is very different than that of the UK. Breakfast (or Break your fast) as it is written in some menus is definitely the weakest part of the Indian cuisine. Choice is limited to a few local dishes that are not very nice.
The curries are very different to that which you find in an Indian restaurant at home. There are very nice curries here but they lack the amount of flavour that we get in the UK. We have been told by locals that the food we call Indian in the UK is actually Bangladeshi food not Indian.
It is also cheap for food and you can find snack places everywhere. We found one place in Kerala that was and all you can eat Thali (which is a full meal of rice, chapati and 1-2 curries) for 24rupees which is about 35pence!


Getting around India is easy and cheap enough. The trains system is impressive. The trains are huge and stretch as far as the eye can see when they pull into the station. We spent most of our journeys in the non a/c sleepers which are the cheapest option above second class, which is definitely not appealing to tourists.

Getting around the city is fun. Rickshaws or Tuk-Tuks are the main way and are relatively cheap, but only after bargaining. The majority have meters that we are always told are 'broken' so we can't use them and have to take a price that the driver makes up off the top of his head. This is usually 2x the real price due to the 'skin tax' (the term Indians use when justifying the higher price we pay) being added on.

Another popular way amongst tourists to get around is by renting scooters. They are around £2.50 to rent for a day and a very good way to get around the sights for cheap. We rented them on a few occasions in the quiet tourist areas such as Goa and Pondicherry. One of the best days I've had so far was when 7 of us rented them in Goa. We set off on a road trip north to find the isolated beaches. It took us 2 hours to do 20km as some of the riders were new and a little shakey. The beach was very nice and quiet. Later 5 of us rode up to a nearby beach bar that was showing Chelsea's Champions League match. On the way back I ran out of petrol! It was 3.30 in the morning and nothing was open. There was now 5 of us and only 2 working scooters. This meant that 3 of us had to squash onto one scooter, bearing in mind that we were all guys, it was cosy to say the least! Definitely an event I'm not going to forget quickly!

Accommodation in India is hard to find for a low price. Hostels are hard to find, we have stayed in only 2 hostels, the rest of the places we've stayed have been grotty guesthouses. The rooms tend to be a small box room which is just big enough to hold two beds and a plug socket with a bathroom sometimes attached. Hot water is a luxury as well. I think in the 7 weeks I have had maybe 10 hot showers, the rest a cold trickle of water that I'm sure isn't worth using.

That's all for India, it may appear that I have been complaining about India but I am not. I am just highlighting my experiences which I will look back on with happy memories.

We now move onto Thailand and the rest of southeast Asia for the next 3 months, and I can't wait!

Incredible India!

Well its been a month now and I am actually enjoying India. Before I came to India I was told that I wouldn't like it. But once you get used to the terrible smell in some areas, the crazy roads, the cows, goats and dogs all over roads, its a nice place to be. My favourite place so far has been Goa, mainly because it is a lot more relaxed there in terms of tempo of life and rules. It is good for beer and beef, which it is difficult to get hold of in other parts of India for religious reasons. A pint of beer in Goa is 60p, where as in other parts of India, it has to be smuggled into the restaurant for you at 3 times the price.

We are now in Kochi in Kerala, which I like because it doesn't smell as bad as other places, and I got to ride on an Elephant, and I never knew how prickly they are.

Next we are travelling 450miles by train to Chennai (which is nothing compared to some of the train journeys we've had) for the final part of the India trip.

Finally...

After a week of having no access to Internet, we have finally found Internet in the hotel we are staying at.
I'll start at with the arrival in India. We were picked up by a friend from the airport and we quickly experienced the terrifying Indian roads. Most roads are 3-4 lanes wide but normally have 4-7 lanes of traffic on them as there are so many cars, rickshaws and bikes on the roads, and the road markings are very rarely taken notice of. At one point we hit bad traffic so we turned around and started to drive the wrong way down the motorway, this is not unusual in India, but it was terrifying the first time we did it. Another key feature of Indian roads is the very common noise of the car horn. Everybody uses it all the time for no apparent reason.
We have visited all the main sites in Delhi, which wasn't cheap. Locals paid 10rupees(about 14pence) to enter each site, foreigners paid 250rupees(about 3.50pounds) not much but when we are on a budget of 10pound per day its a lot. Anyway we got to see the India Gate (better than the two restaurants in Bolton!), Humayuns tomb, red fort, Qutub Minar, and the Lotus temple, which was my favourite of the day, mostly because it was free.

We have now left Delhi by taking a 15 hour train journey to Varanasi, one of the oldest cities in the world and is on the river Ganges. We arrived to this very nice hotel, I'd guess a 3-4* hotel, not the typical backpackers place but it came as part of a package we booked.

India is a very nice place, but would be a lot easier if i didn't have white skin, because as soon as we walk onto any street, a number of rickshaw and taxi drivers hassle us to take us somewhere at extortionate prices. At first I was polite saying no thank you and explaining why I didn't need a lift 100yards down the road. Now its a firm no and then ignore them until they leave us alone.

We have a hectic two weeks now and will be covering about 1700 miles by train as we now visit the Taj Mahal in Agra, Jaipur, Udaipur, Mumbai and end up in Goa for a relaxing week on the beach.

That's it for now. All future posts will be shorter, as this has taken another chunk out of my budget in paying to use the Internet.

Getting ready

Just finished getting everything together, and this is all that I am taking with me for a year!