On or way to India.....

We went to meet the group, this was a much bigger group 24 of us all on an overland truck through India. We went for a group dinner and out for drinks,got to know few people better even a guy here from upminster who was born in Colchester - small world.

We had a long drive ahead to Chitwan national park, we got to see the truck for the first time his name is Archie...its really good has few tables on it and a fridge.I struggle to even get on it as the step is so high up off the floor Pete was lifting Rox off for the first few days. We stayed at rhino lodge in Chitwan which was really nice,
It was so surreal this place as elephants were just walking down the streets next to the dogs and outside the shops.

We went to an elephant breeding centre not far from where we were staying there were lots of baby elephants, they even had baby identical twins which were so cute. The babies were free to roam away from there mothers one came out looking for food and Pete got to stroke it.

We had an early start which entailed an elephant ride through the long grass and jungle in the mist at 7am searching for rhinos. Now when we say jungle we don't mean a nice path through, when the driver made a weird grunting noise our elephant would break down branches or whole trees with its trunk....the driver had a long knife which he would just lean out and hack at a branch this worried Rox somewhat as he didn't have the best aim and it was right by her face or legs that he was hacking away. It was so funny we were up so high so our faces would go right through huge cobwebs which would soak you, or massive branches that would ping in your face...we came back with scraches all over us and filthy. All sorts of different bugs would land on you when the branches were on you, Rox nearly jumped out of her skin when she put her hand on top of a big yellow wasp/beattle thing...the driver heard her panic and just brushed it off. This was an amazing experience it was so eary with all the mist. Unfortunatly though we saw no rhinos just a deer and some birds..

After the elephant ride we went back for elephant bathing...Pete got the chance with two others to ride an elephant bear back down to the river. This was hilarious as the ladies were relying on Pete not to fall off as they went down a hill and Pete was at the front. We got to a river with lots of elephants in it all bathing... Our elephant threw Pete and the ladies in the water whch was funny. It then laid down and we got in the water and scrubbed the elephant down this was fantastic...the elephant loved it. This was definetly a highlight for us both.

After lunch we went on a large raft for an hour and half down the river where we spotted birds and crocodiles. Now this Rox fond scary as we were in a long canoe type raft which would tilt if anyone moved and we were so low to the river... The huge croc was on the bank and we were only a few meters away from it. The last croc was spotted we actally got out at that spot to have our3 hour walk through the jungle... Rox just kept looking around for it incase it just came up the bank to where we were standing. There was 5 of us and two guides with wooden sticks (our only protection and to only use to fight off sloth bears) we were given a talk about what to do if different animals come over to us. We were told If a rhino charges us to run in a zig zag and climb a tree, if a sloth bear comes make lots of noise don't run of be scared and the men would use the sticks if needed and if a tiger comes your screwed! Rox was petrified and was sure we wouldn't be making it out of there. We saw some wild monkeys in the trees and again lots of bugs but none of the dangerous animals.

We had a really nice dahl baht curry and watched the local dancing which was men hitting sticks to the rhythm of the music whilst dancing. We later joined in with the local dancing in which the group observed and stated that Rox is the best dancer out of us much to Petes dissappointment.

We set off for the boarder town the next day after a 12hour drive... There was not a lot there so we just had dinner at the hotel!out of 25 we were the third to order and 1hr and 30mins later we still had no food. Even the people on our table who came 40mins later had there food, everytime we asked they said it was coming!we got it and it was horrible then they tried to charge us for 3meals and the waiter insisted we had extra food!

The next day we left at 5.45 (this is the time we start most mornings) for the border crossing in to India... Another funny experience as the guy in charge of customs who needed to check out truck, who should be at work at 6am walked it at 8.30 so we had a long wait. When we finally got through we had another long 13hr drive to varanasse, the Indians are so friendly as we went through towns in our big truck full of westernres the local would come out and wave, laugh and take photos!we had noodles for 18p for lunch. The hotel we were at was nice and we had dinner again waitin2hrs before6 of us were served with rude service. Poor Pete has now had an upset stomach for about5days so he's not eating much anyway.

The next morning at 5.30 we had our boat ride down the river Ganges a holy place in which the hindus place the bodies or ashes of loved ones in order for them to find peace.Again it was very misty so it had an eary feeling about it, there were wild monkeys, holy men chanting and singing, locals bathing in the toxic water and then lots of tourists. Luckily we didn't see any of the dead bodies of humans we saw a puppy, a dog and a calf floating down the river although we could see from a distance the burning of things.

We visited places in which silk is made, now this is such an impressive process and takes such a long time. The machines used are very expensive to.

We are off to bandhavgarh national park for 3 nights of camping... Pete is on a breakfast duty and Rox is on a dinner duty cooking for 25... This could be intresting as its really hard to find the ingredients to cook with.

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