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 [View Full Entry]

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Sorry, all text lost in server crash...but now found... Well, we're still here in McLeod Ganj. We're going to stay here till the 25th, then leave for Goa - about a total 50 hour journey by train - to see Gianne and Babu and pick some stuff up that we've left at theirs. We should get home to the UK on the 1st July. Its been nice to settle here for a while, however interesting travelling round India can be its also often hard work. Claire has been doing a silversmith course in Bhagsu, the next village. She's going to buy [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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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 we [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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All text was lost due to sever crash, but now recovered... Even briefer entry this time! Actually back in the UK for 5 days to update our visas. Fly back out tonight to Mumbai, stay there one night and meet Keeley, Claire's niece the following day. Then the three of us fly down to Goa, where Keeley is staying with us for three weeks. Just spent a couple of weeks in Rajasthan, and had a fantastic time. Had a car and driver for most of the time, and stayed in Jaipur, Pushkar, Bikaner, Jaiselmer, Jodhpur, Ranakpur and finally Udaipur before driving [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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This blog entry is being written in the middle of Vembanadu Lake, the largest lake in Kerala. Ok, the houseboat we're on hasn't actually got broadband connection, but we have got a notebook and a pen with us and we'll post this on the net as soon as we can. Half an hour later now, and we're moored up on Martandu Island, just having finished our lunch of okra stew and other vegetarian curries. The island is full of paddy fields actually lower than the water we're on, being held back by just a narrow pathway lined with coconut trees and [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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We've just realized that we haven't added a blog for almost 3 weeks so to you all we may have appeared to have fallen off the face of the earth! It's been almost a month now since we got back and gradually we are really feeling like we are here, its only the last week that we've stopped feeling like we are going home and back to work soon! We have had a hectic few weeks, Sean (my big bro) was here for 10 days, his holiday didn't start too well bless him! The bar next door to us is really [View Full Entry]

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