Ginger nuts

We thought we might find a nice place to stay between Kumily and Gokarna. So we jumped on a bus to Kottayam and from there to Trichur. We haven't seen much of Trichur, mainly due to the lack of budget accommodation. We had a fabulous dinner though :) Next stop was Calicut - here we found a reasonable hotel and as it was approaching Josie's birthday we decided to treat ourselves to a bit of luxury and stayed. But funnily enough, even though Calicut does not see many westerners at all, or maybe because it doesn't? Wherever we stopped, people were taking every opportunity to ask us a few questions. So imagine a situation like this, Andy entered a bank to take out money and Josie was waiting outside. There was a chap on his bike, ... read more

It is quite rare for us on our travels to backtrack and return to a place, but we had made an exception this time due to the kind invite from Parth to visit his family and home. It is always a different experience returning to a place you have been before, as there is a certain familiarity and therefore less stress when you arrive. You know how the bus station looks like, and which exit to take to avoid all the hassles. You know where you are in an autorickshaw, and you know if the driver is taking you for a ride somewhere you didn't ask for. You know what the accommodation is like, if you return to the same place, which we had, to Devi Nivas. The whole returning thing is a whole lot more ... read more

So there we were, in the capital of Rajasthan. Being part of the Golden Triangle we expected it to be well visited and got ready for the "over friendly" welcome. But we were prepared, we knew where we wanted to go and made a reservation with Devi Niwas, a family run guesthouse. As soon as we got of the bus a rickshaw driver met us introducing himself as Lucky, that typical Indian name. So Lucky dropped us off and showed us his little book full of recommendations from other travellers who hired him for a sightseeing tour. Why not, we thought, it would certainly be easier than getting around by bus, and probably not so expensive in the grand scheme of things. We arranged to meet the next day, but alarming bowel movements (in Andy)destroyed our ... read more

Back in Delhi - No more escapes from India ;) But actually it was kind of good that we popped out and back in again. India is a place that opens up to you more and more if you give it a chance to do so. This time, only one flight is waiting for us and that is our final flight back home to UK on 29th November. So now we had much more time to explore the treasures of Delhi. However, we also had what excited us the most - friends to tell us where to eat (our favourte passtime, if you hadn't already guessed from our blogs). At Priyanka's we have been given an extensive list of places to go and what to try - we love this kind of itinerary ;) So first ... read more

We had decided to go to Nepal on a bit of a whim, it was never really on our itinerary and at the start of the trip (in fact until a few weeks before we arrived in Nepal) we had never considered we would find ourselves there. Nepal bound we where though, on our way to tackle the Himalayas on our final trek of the journey. Our previous experiences of trekking in Peru, Chile, Argentina and New Zealand had been some of the most memorable moments of our trip with landscapes that had challenged, inspired and impressed us. We hoped that our final trek would provide us with similar memories, and we had chosen to go to some of the highest mountains in the world, not to do things by halves. Entering Nepal was supposed to ... read more