Day 28 - 39 Bela Crkva to Budapest (Hungary)

Hello!!  It's been a few days since the last post & the best part of 2 countries, Serbia and Hungary.  With the deadline of meeting Mamma Pike in Budapest on July 3rd we had a goal in mind & so apart from an extra day in Belgrade were on a bit of a mission to make up the KM's in time. 

The ride has continued to be mainly flat (which has suited us greatly) and mostly followed the Danube all of the way.  We've tried to follow the Eurovelo 6 route as much as possible, although I doubt how often the organisers have cycled with heavy panniers considering it's taken us over two 10km stretches cycling on grass.  That said, it's helped us avoid the busier highways which is a blessing. 

John unimpressed by the route ahead

Once again the locals have been amazingly hospitable & we've been overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers.  Our first camping experience was with Dragan, right on the banks of the Danube in Serbia who let us camp for free in his garden (even though he advertised as a campsite) and kept us fed & watered with Schnapps for the evening. 

Tan marks starting to show!

As John mentioned, food has been a bit of an issue and it came to a head when hanging out with Dragan and his friends.....basically I'd been ravenous for weeks, feeling very unsatisfied and sick of living off bread, cheese and salad.  Dragan and his 6 friends were having a BBQ, and on hearing I was vegetarian kindly produced a plate containing a block of cheese, couple of tomatoes and a cucumber.  I nearly cried.  For the previous hour they'd been BBQing a whole bunch of fish they'd caught on the river and were whole heartedly tucking into the feast.  Peer pressure & pure hunger were just too much and eventually I caved....after nearly 13 years of being vegetarian (which I still like to think I am) I caved and ate some fish...and it was delicious.

Another clone of our lovely Roo

Another stroke of luck came our way a few hundred kilometres down the line when we were trying to find a place to camp for the night.  We'd set our sights on the small village of Bac Monostor and amazingly it turned out there was a free reggae festival with camping on while we were there.  We met a great bunch of Serbian young people and had heaps of fun dancing into the small hours (well, 11.30pm actually when we both hit the deck with music still blasting in the background) and got back on the bikes with fuzzy heads the next morning.

Hungary has been equally as hospitable and after a hardcore couple of days we finally made it to the capital city.  What a luxury it has been to have 4 days off the bike, see family, have an apartment to stay in and somewhere to cook hearty meals of our choosing.  John's first port of call was the local supermarket to buy cereal & soya milk - something he's been craving for months. 

Hurray for bike signs!

SO!  We're basically half way through the trip.  It's great to have reached a real milestone and we're very excited about the next few weeks, meeting up with friends and family along the way.  Unfortunately our computer that tells us how far we've gone seems to have broken but we've done about 1700km so far and are feeling slightly proud of ourselves.  Now all we need is to reach our sponsorship target (we're not quite half way yet) so it would be amazing if you could spare even just a couple of pounds to help us support New Life Foundation.  Our fundraising page is here:  www.simplygiving.com/istanbultoamsterdam

Next stop Slovakia!  The 2nd half of our trip should be great fun and takes in some amazing cities; Bratislava, Vienna, Prague, Dresden, Berlin and Amsterdam.  Bring it on!!!x

One of the many sunflower fields we passed along the way

A well needed afternoon nap

Waiting for the fun to begin at the Bac Monostor Reggae Festival

Crossing the border into Sebia

A couple of days in the not-quite-so-beautiful Belgrade

Kicking back with Dragan and friends near the Danube.  Not sure where the women are?!

Happy to finally meet up with mum in Budapest

A Thai New Year

Happy new year! We hope you had a good one wherever you were :-) Our first post of 2012, we better make it a good one...unfortunately you have to put up with my ramblings again as John's having a small dose of 'writers block'.

Over the past couple of weeks we've gradually headed up the west coast of Thailand, stopping off at various islands and beaches along the way. I'd like to say we've been super busy filling our days with endless action, but no, we've pretty much done nothing the whole time. It's been absolute bliss though, & has felt like a real 'holiday' if you know what I mean.

Christmas day was spent on Koh Lanta, where we tried to make things festive by making a stocking out of an old pair of trousers & swapping a few gifts.  John peaked in the Christmas shopping department by getting me a fake student card complete with photograph from Bangkok, genius!  It didn't quite feel like Christmas what with swimming in the sea & eating mangoes on the beach, but that said we had a great day & spent most of it zipping about the island on 2 wheels.

Our last moment's in Koh Lanta weren't so great though, and as we were waiting for a taxi to the pier, a 4x4 pick-up truck with a bunch of people & their luggage in the back ran over John's rucksack....a loud bang saw the colour run out of John's face as he envisioned his mangled computer underneath. Fortunately it was just his plastic soap box, a tin of sardines (that he still managed to eat) and the contents of his washbag that were sacrificed under the heavy load, thank goodness.

After a few rest days on Koh Lanta, we headed up the coast & treated ourselves to a day's snorkelling in the stunning Similan Islands National Park. I've been snorkelling a few times before but never tried diving, so when the opportunity came up to do a beginners dive without needing the relevant PADI qualification I jumped at the chance. It was great to try but lets just say I didn't exactly take to it like a duck to water.  I spent the afternoon snorkelling instead though which was great fun & the boat we were on was lovely, with an endless supply of food that kept John happy for the day. Unfortunately both of us were temporarily overcome with sea sickness, me on the boat & John as he bobbed along on the waters surface in his mask & fins. Luckily it went unnoticed by the group he was snorkelling with. Apparently snorkelling is much harder for people with facial hair & he had to stop every couple of minutes to empty out the water that his moustache had gradually allowed into his face mask.

Our next stop was the beautiful Koh Phayam, a small island off the west coast of Thailand with just a handful of resorts and restaurants. We've been here ever since & it really feels like the ideal island retreat. Our bamboo bungalow is a stone's throw from the white sandy beach and clear blue sea.

New Years Eve was spent on the beach with fireworks, bonfires and dancing until the early hours. A great way to see in what promises to be a great year.

Next stop Bangkok, where word on the street is that there are a couple of knitting shops and a knitting cafe!  YES!!!x 

Christmas Wishes From Thailand!

Time for the annual email Christmas card, woop!!! I can't believe it's Christmas Eve - I have to keep reminding myself that it's not July and there's been snow on the ground back home. Although, we did spend a few days in the mountains last week in the Tamil Nadu town of Ooty, and we also managed to stay in an old-school Christian hostel that was fully prepared for the big day – baubles and everything.

Going up 2500+ mtrs to Ooty meant a serious drop in temperature that our thin t-shirts and hippy pants just weren't ready for. We needn't have feared though, because Ooty seemingly has an endless supply of truly amazing retro jumpers, all for no more than about 60p. John couldn't resist this super special blue number, and was all too willing to model it for us:

Don't worry – he's posted it home so will be wearing it again on our return.

Now as if an online Christmas card weren't enough, we've also decided to make a short festive film showing bits of our time in India. Too much time on our hands? I think so.

How cute are the little kiddies at the end?!!! So adorable....and they just loved posing for pictures.

The film was great fun to make, & although John's been doing this kind of thing for years its pretty new for me. It's the 2^nd short film we've made in recent months - here's an animation we made for the birthday of John's gorgeous niece, Gwen.   Future employers of John, I take full responsibility for the 'home-made' style :-)

The last couple of weeks in India were great, & probably the most chilled out of our whole time there. After a laaaaaaaazy week by the beach in Varkala, we put our swimming gear to rest and headed north east into the hills of Tamil Nadu. The bus rides there and back were spectacular, taking us through tea plantations, national parks and eucalyptus forests. We even spotted a couple of wild elephants on the way down to Mysore.

Ooty is a bustling hill station with a small pocket of tourists but none of the hassles we've experienced elsewhere. We met some lovely people in the hostel and spent a day trekking through the countryside with a local guide. It was pretty stunning and so nice to finally find true peace and quiet.

We were ready to move on though & head somewhere a little easier, which definitely sums up Thailand! Even the Indian airport proved difficult and we had to pay £100 for a flight out of Thailand that we won't be using, just to assure the check-in staff that we won't overstay our visa. Boo them.

After 5 days in Thailand we're still amazed by how efficient it is – signs and everything! We spent our first fun day in Bangkok with a friend we'd met in India, then took the overnight train southward - a bus & a boat journey later and we ended up in the small resort of Ton Sai. The pace of life is super laid back & the scenery is pretty picturesque, with amazing cliffs and jungle surrounding the small beach and blue water.

Unfortunately having avoided illness for the whole time in India I've somehow managed to get myself a bit sick, so have spent the past few days not eating and hibernating indoors.  We've managed to move to the island of Ko Lanta though, a couple of hours away by boat and have found ourselves a beautiful beach bungalow to spend the next few days. 

I guess that's it for 2011 then!  We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas & happy New Year!!!

Monkeygeddon

Hello reader(s)!
We've now spent 3 weeks in Mcleod ganj/Dharamsala, and are quite acclimatised to the tea drinking, cake eating, cafe lurking, reading, early bed times and altitude- its been a rough ride.  There are 15 pieces of cake / 3 dogs / 0.2 cows, 1 Buddhist monk,  0.4 monkeys, and 10kg of sugar for every traveller/citizen here.

Our english classes have been a lot of fun, and has given us a nice routine to each day (see above activities).  Its great to get to know the students better now, and the lessons seem productive enough for 2 unqualified teachers (whats a gerund??).  Many have their stories of fleeing Chinese occupied Tibet by walking accross the himalayas and Nepal and into India, and are just incredible survival stories and very humbling.  

  

There are plenty of courses to get involved in, from various types of yoga to cookery and wood work.  I took myself on a cookery 'Momo' class (a tibetan steamed dumpling) in 'Mamas Kitchen', which have quickly become my favourite street food/snack/main meal/supper :) 

I was sat at our desk in our hotel room last week when quite a large monkey come in through the window.  It is so very true how human their faces are (though with bigger teeth). I have watched a lot of nature programmes in my time (its impossible not to isn't it) and so knew what to do.  I stood up slowly and put my arms in the air like a pantomime monster, which sent him quite casually back out of the window. He didnt wink or anything, but he would have done if it were in a film.  

Diwali came and went with quite a bang.  The picture at the top of this post shows our route home across the 'main square' blocked by a spontaneous unregulated and totally frightening fireworks 'session' with drums and dancing.  I watched a man on a motorbike ride through the launching area at one point (the roads through it were not even closed and i guess he needed to get somewhere) as rockets and bangers were blasting up from coke bottles and bean tins and excited childrens hands.  It was insane, and forged a new dimensions to the 'get on with it' / 'itll be fine' mentality here. Heres some photos, but they dont convey anywhere near the full picture or atmosphere.  It was amazing - in the 'oh jesus' sense of the word.

Here comes a cop car to turn a blind eye...

Every so often, the Dalai Lama is requested to do some teachings here, this time by a Korean group, and  so we had the opportunity to go and listen to him read some Buddhist teachings and explanations.  It was in Tibetan, but all foreigners (in 6 languages maybe) had a live radio translation from an unseen man, struggling to keep up.  Together with the celebrations at the Sikh Golden Temple, it was another huge privilege to be a part of. We were sat cross legged in amongst a huge number of smiling and friendly monks and nuns, listening and tucking into Butter Tea (it has salt, butter and milk in it, and laura got saddled with a huge bowl full, "this is disgusting"- my fault, sorry laura) and bread and dahl and rice (much nicer), brought out to the people by a troop of monks with the biggest pots and kettles i have ever seen. There were 3 days of teachings, a lot of it hard to understand, but being here we've learned a lot about Buddhism.  Dont worry mum, it is NOt a cult or anything like, and we are still same old us :) Richard Gere even showed up on the last day.. they are good pals apparently, Who knew.  Security was ever so tight - pity they got everyone's names wrong...

The food continues to be a big part of our time here, and eating out 2 or 3 times a day is a new experience for us and is very lovely.  Its the first time in a long time that every meal we eat is made by someone else, which is quite a thing. This has meant i inadvertently end up eating ghee/milk/egg sometimes, which does no good for my eczema, but i think ive got the clamps on it now.  Although english is widely spoken in india, the concept of no eggs or dairy is not always understood. We've moved guest houses to a very nice place, at the bottom of a big set of stairs, below the town.  Its the same price (£3 ish), but has a huge balcony, nice bathroom and what looks like an alsation crossed with a dalmation - it looks very sci-fi.

We've found the best internet connection in town, which is a lot more reliable i think.  They also advertise 'Paragliding & Lamination' - wouldnt want to get those two mixed up.  

Once again we've added some photos to flickr which you can check out here!

That's all for now!

John

The Golden Temple

No trains running to our next destination on a Sunday meant taking our first Indian bus journey, which having spent enough bemused time in auto-rickshaws, we'd tried to put off as long as possible. But onward we were heading and so off we set to the Punjab city of Amritsar. The journey which according to our guide book should have taken 7 hours, took only 5 and we soon figured out why - I think the driver must have been late for his tea. Despite the bumps and somewhat tense moments when overtaking into oncoming traffic, it was a great experience and a wonderful way to get a glimpse of rural Indian life. Unfortunately for the guy next to us on the bus who kindly offered us a room in his house, we'd already booked a hotel within stones throw of the Sikh Golden Temple, and so were soon on a cycle rickshaw to our digs for the night.

We knew the Golden Temple was a special place for Sikhs, but hadn't quite realised just how special until we arrived. Turns out we'd rocked into town on the birthday of the 4^th Guru Ram Das Ji - the dude who'd built the temple more than 400 years ago. It wasn't just us who'd rocked up either – more than 100,000 Sikhs from all over India were also in Amritsar for the celebrations. And what an incredible celebration it was!!! 

 The Temple in itself is absolutely incredible, but we were blown away by our experience there. As day turned into night, thousands of lights illuminated the buildings and that combined with the amazing colours of Indian dress and the hundreds of candles that had been lit created a mesmerising sight.

We felt a bit awkward at first, gate-crashing such an important occasion, but there was no need to worry – we were literally welcomed with open arms and genuinely felt like people were happy for us to share the experience with them. So many people came over to chat or say hello, ask where we were from and tell us about the temple and their religion. We'd decided it was a safe bet to play the 'we're married' card, and found it worked well until chatting to a 12 year old girl who was ever so concerned that we didn't have a child – her reasoning that although the population of India was going up, the rest of the world was in decline.  Thank goodness my dad wasn't around to get involved in that conversation!

Once again the cameras were out and people wanted their photo taken with us - one guy enthusiastically thrust his baby girl into my arms so she could have her picture taken – unfortunately she didn't seem so keen.

John with his new best friends.

On arrival at the temple we were required to cover our heads (hence John looking like a pirate) and take off our shoes, reluctantly leaving them in surely the world's biggest cloak room holding hundreds of thousands of shoes. We then joined the masses in walking around the temple grounds before picking our spot to watch the incredible firework display. The noise was deafening and fireworks seemed to go on forever – it was a wonderful ending to what had been an amazing occasion.

The next day we returned to the temple to see it in a different light.  Almost immediately after arriving we were swept to one side by a group of wise Sikh men sat crossed-legged and pondering life.  They invited us to join them and enthusiastically recalled tales from the temple.  We learnt so much just from the 20 minutes we spent sat with them and came away feeling enriched, although  John had a small case of beard envy which was felt all the more when he asked one of the men why they grew their beards so long.  "You are a sheep, I am a lion" was the man's sobering reply.

Another astonishing event from our time in the Punjab was our visit to the Pakistan border, to witness the 'closing of the border' ceremony that apparently takes place every single day.  Locals and tourists had arrived by the coach-load to see the spectacle before them, where crowds and officials on both the Indian and Pakistani sides competed with great gusto to be the loudest and proudest.  We sat back in amazement watching things unfold before us, as guards from each side marched to the central gates like something straight out of the Ministry of Silly Walks.  

After about an hour of performance, the flags were finally lowered and the gates closed for the evening.

After an 8 hour journey by train and bus, we have finally arrived at our next destination - Mcleod Ganj.  A renowned traveller hangout in the Himalayan foot hills and home of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan government in exile, this peaceful hillside town is going to be our home for at least the next few days.