Once again, Ghana’s internet is proving something of a lightweight, not being able to stand up to the African heat. One of the excuses for the computers being down last year was that it was too hot! We tried a few times this visit to write a blog, but eventually gave up, this is being written in the less tropical surroundings of Catford, London. Last year we spent nearly two months in Ghana, staying at a leprosy rehabilitation centre called Ahotokurom, meaning “Place of Serenity” in Fante, the local language. One of the nuns who runs the centre, Sister Pat, is a long term friend of Claire’s mum. We returned this year for just a couple of weeks to see how the friends that we’ve made are getting on, and to bring Janet, Claire’s mum, over ... read more

This travelblog was lost due to server crash, but the text now recovered...... I’ve just realised the last entry written by me was at Christmas so I thought it about time I subjected everyone to some of my trademark waffle! Well after spending a week in Srinagar we booked a car to take us on the 11 hour 300km journey south to the nearest train station! The road from Srinagar to Jammu travels up and down the side of the Himalayas mountain range and the scenery is stunning. The road reopened to two-way traffic again on the morning we traveled (luck not judgment!) it was only open north or south on alternate days throughout the winter due to huge rockslides! The evidence of the rockslides were very obvious every few miles and were enough to make ... read more

All text lost due to server crash but now recovered.... Returning back to Goa we found the tourist season winding down. Slowly, some of the shacks and restaurants started to close up, and in the case of the beach sacks, disappear completely leaving little trace of ever existing other than a few confused previously well-fed dogs. Our friend Sanjay left for Kashmir leaving his uncle to tend their shop for the last few weeks. One of our normal haunts, Electric Cats, closed completely although Ramesh's other restaurant in Calangute stays open all year. A couple of familiar new faces though were Clive and Vanessa who returned for another fortnight, again staying in Park Avenue where we first met last season. The temperature had risen since we left for Delhi, and although the days were uncomfortable the ... read more

All text lost due to server crash but now recovered.... We arrived back in Mumbai in the afternoon, and met up with Keeley, Claire's neice who flew out about 12 hours behind us. We spent one night in Andheri, Mumbai, before flying down together to Goa. The next week and a half we spent showing Keeley round north Goa, this being her first time here, in fact her first time out of Europe. So we went to both Ingo's and Macky's night markets, took a speedboat to Mandrem beach where we stayed in a coconut hut again - watching some dolphins on the way, went round the spice plantation where Keeley washed the resident elephant and spent loads of time on the beach, trying unsuccessfully to lose her bright white-with-a-hint-of-blue complexion. It was interesting seeing the ... read more

Just a brief blog entry this time.... Jemma, Claire's best mate, her brother Joe and his girlfriend Lorraine came for a couple of weeks, so we spent much of the time showing them round Goa. A couple of highlights were staying at Dunes in Mandrem, where we stayed with Sean back in November, and a visit to the spice plantation where they washed an elephant. Dunes is built on the side of the most unspoilt beach we have found in Goa. Wanting to arrive in style, we hired a speedboat from Baga, and the journey took about 45 minutes, including a few minutes spent watching dolphins which swam up to about ten yards from us. Our elation at watching them and of arriving at Mandrem beach was short lived though - despite booking the accomodation and ... read more

Well yet again time has flown and we have been slacking! Oh well, this might be another mammoth entry so bear with me! So….since last time…… We spent a weekend in Mumbai (Bombay) a few weeks ago. We traveled up by train overnight which takes 12 hours. The train was actually much nicer than we were expecting, there are 7 classes of train travel in India, we went second class sleeper, which is about the middle. Basically there are 2 long padded bench seats seating 6 people which convert to 4 bunks and then the luggage racks make up the other 2 bunks. You can hire a sheet, pillow and blanket for 20Rs. So after a fairly good nights sleep, (once we blocked out the farting burping snore-fest going on around us with cotton wool in ... read more