blog by Bronia We last left you in Sri Lanka on April 25, flying out from a country on the brink of civil war between the Tamils and the ruling Sinhilese, and which over the past few weeks we have heard the Tamils being denounced by the UN for its actions (breaking a cease-fire agreement) as well as officially declaring itself in a state of 'low grade war'. We think we left the country just at the right time. Our flight out of Colombo returning to Trivandrum, India was nearly empty but we sat close to a UK couple Tracy [View Full Entry]

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blog by Dave & Bronia Buddhism in Sri Lanka is followed by 75% of the population and March 12-14 is the Sinhalese Buddhist New Year. We were warned that the country's population swells during the week before and after the New Year as families from abroad come home and people take a week off to celebrate so hotels would be booked and the rates would soar. To avoid the crowds and the expensive hotels we decided to head next to Ella, a hill station with a cooler climate and reportedly boasting stunning views of the surrounding terrain, located in the centre [View Full Entry]

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Blog by Bronia Well here we are, in our 2nd country on this world trip: Sri Lanka and what a country it is! Sri Lanka's main languages and religions were inherited from India with the constant migration, invasion and cultural settling of different groups from India over the course of history, but it has developed into a very distinct society with the dominant religion being Buddhism and the two main societies being the Tamils and Sinhalese. Over time, the Sinhalese came to dominate in culture, population and language (Sinhalese being the official one) and this caused unrest with [View Full Entry]

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Blog by Bronia From Goa and the beaches our journey continued south through the tiny province of Karnataka and into the province of Kerala. Kerala is famous for its 'backwaters' - a series of lakes, canals, rivers and lagoons divided by narrow strips of land, paddy fields, coconut groves and villages built on dykes. For visitors the popular thing to do here is to hire a houseboat or hop on one of the many ferries and wind along the waterways at a snails pace watching village life pass you by. Here again, due to it's coastal location, it's history [View Full Entry]

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blog by Dave & Bronia From Chandigarh our next destination was Goa and it's famous beaches. To get to Goa we booked a cheap internal flight with www.SpiceJet.com from Delhi direct to avoid the otherwise 36+hr train ride which we didn't much fancy. We spent one last night in Delhi in another awfully noisy and grubby hotel with a small temple outside our bedroom window that began morning prayers at 5am with loud chants and the continous clanging of a very large metal bell and chimes. No need for the travel alarm that morning. We were very excited about going south [View Full Entry]

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Blog by Dave Hello again everyone, We arrived in Chandigargh after a thoroughly entertaining and also surprisingly comfortable jeep ride with the guys we met on our last night in Dharamsala/McLeod Ganj. There was Jon (Geordie journalist who has the most entertaining life ever and kept us enraptured on our jeep ride giving annecdotes of the famous people he's interviewed - mostly music stars from Dolly Parton to Liam Gallagher), his partner Lisa (who works in a London city bank) in India for 2 weeks and Jamie (a would-be film director from Cardiff) with his mate J [View Full Entry]

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Blog by Bronia After leaving Darjeeling we made a 27 hour train journey back to Delhi. Having never spent so many consecutive hours on any mode of transport anywhere in the world before we didn't know what to expect other than it was going to be looong. I can confirm it was both long and tedious getting feelings of cabin fever towards the 20th hour! Despite the decent class ticket we booked, sitting in a carriage on bunk beds for 27 hrs whiling away the time and hearing endless calls of "Chai chai garam chai" ('tea tea hot tea') as well [View Full Entry]

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We came to Darjeeling (yes, where the tea is from) for a view of the Himalayas, an unwind from the hectic travel we have done thus far, and to celebrate our birthdays in one place without having to change hotels for a few days. Instead, in true traveller style, our plans changed and we ended up with a different experience of Darjeeling and the Himalayas, but one that was no less enjoyable. We decided on Darjeeling as a destination on the strength of some photos that Bronia's aunt and uncle (Joan & Ron) showed us of their visit there, and because [View Full Entry]

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Hello again everyone - we're back in an internet cafe. These things are so very convenient. Heaven knows how people managed before the web. This entry will be fairly short and sweet - summarising our 2 day trip to Varanasi. All photos in this entry have been kindly supplied by Xavier & Josma due to a technical disaster with our camera memory card when it got a virus from an internet cafe and deleted 2wks worth of photos ! Varanasi is one of the holiest places in India, situated alongside the Ganges. It is where the Hindu faithful gather to bathe, [View Full Entry]

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Hi - we're back online and in one of the few broadband internet cafés we can find. Internet cafes exist in most tourist towns but they are still on a dial-up modem and when you are in the middle of the Rajasthani desert with frequent power cuts a session on the internet just to log in is a long process so we've had to wait until we left the desert to send you this next update. First and foremost - Our hotels are a vast improvement on our first night !!! and with each passing night we compare the hotels to [View Full Entry]

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