We have been in India for a few festivals now. In India they have a holy Trinity but it is a bit different to the Christian one. They have The Creator, The Destroyer (of evil)/Liberator and the Protector who looks after the earth after it's been created. Shiva is the destroyer/liberator so they have a festival to Shiva once a year here. When it was Shivaratri, Mum and Dad stayed up all night for it. I stayed up for some and then woke up early to see the end of it. There is usually lots of food at Indian festivals but [View Full Entry]

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Jodhpur grew out of profits of opium, sandalwood, dates and copper. I think it is still thriving on profits from these things. We went to check out the Old Fort. It was founded in the 1400s. The fort is made of red sandstone and has a great view of the city. The blue walls below looked very inviting. Will definitely go back and explore the streets there at a cooler time of the year. The audio that accompanied the tour was very, very good. It gave a good account including reminiscing about the royal family, heroic tales of sacrifice, extraordinary events, [View Full Entry]

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I’m having fun at my new school. One of my teachers gives me a toffee most days and sometimes sultanas or rock lollies, that look like rocks. They are white and you have to crunch them. I’m teaching my class English, some art tricks and one and two handed cartwheels. They are teaching me Hindi. I’m exploring lots around here and making awesome things. Someone in the workshop made me a bow and arrow set. I have a quiver to carry it around in. Today I was dressed up like Robin Hood and my bow broke but Mum fixed it. We [View Full Entry]

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Namaste (Hello). We came here by plane. We arrived in Delhi and went to a big mosque and some rickshaw rides around the city. I like the Gandhiji Museum a lot. There was a spinning wheel that Callum and I had a play with. Gandhiji wrote a lot about truth, love and how animals are scared just before they are killed We tried to see the Red Fort but we couldn’t get in. I now live in India at Jadan Ashram. There are four dogs here. Two stay behind our building called the White House. The dogs are are called Cher [View Full Entry]

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We navigated our way on the local buses to arrive at the Ashram which is just near a very small town called Pali. We crossed a fair bit of desert type country and saw many camels and a few deer. I'll have to work on getting some pictures of these. Ashram means ‘welcome to come and do something’ meaning something for yourself and also something for others. The current focus of the Guru here (who is currently on a world peace tour as he also has many followers in Eastern Europe and a big set up in Vienna. He will visit [View Full Entry]

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I was very impressed with the International Tourist Bureau at the train station in Delhi. The most difficult part about purchasing the train ticket is finding the office as there are many people keen to tell you it has moved or burnt down etc. Once I find it, the staff were extremely helpful and efficient. I was able to book two nights in advance which is not usually a possibility in China, where you need to book much earlier in advance. I assume they have a quota made available for foreigners here. Traffic in Delhi is often on the far right [View Full Entry]

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It was not long until Indian National Day (coincidentally this is commemorated on the 26th) and due to the recent activity in Mumbai, the security measures in Delhi had been stepped up. Some of the big tourist sights were already closed. We will come back to see inside the Red Fort another time. From the Jama Masjid, (India’s largest Mosque) we had a good view of how extremely long the fort walls are. The boys climbed one of the minarets. I enjoyed taking in the atmosphere and admired the larger than life courtyard with red sandstone contrasted with marble. This included [View Full Entry]

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The camping adventures in Hong Kong have come to an end for now. Our visas finally came through for India and it was time to move on. We made it to Delhi! Only a two hour time difference from Beijing to Delhi. Callum acquired a fancy beanie on the plane, left behind by a previous passenger. He was the only one of us who was going to arrive with any sort of warm clothing as I had been assured by my tour guide for India (Mark) that Delhi didn’t have Winter as such, so we had left all our winter gear [View Full Entry]

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When Mum went to China for a few days to see Claire, we made another friend called William. We met him at the campsite. He was carrying a boomerang and we asked if he knew how to throw it. We went out into the big field and threw our boomerangs together. The one we are traveling with is a regular boomerang and they had a three pointed one as well. The next day we went to their house to have dinner. William and I played laser tag and a bit of toys. We had potato, vegetables, soup and rice for dinner. [View Full Entry]

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My Pa and Grandma and Grandpa gave us some money for Christmas so we could do something fun. We went to Ocean Park. I got my photo with the Shark Mascot and then we went over the Mountain on the cable car to the other world. We saw a sealion. I was too small to go on the train mine ride so Aiden had a go and then we went on the Raging River and we went down like this ‘Aagggghhhhhh’ and your stomach goes upside down and inside out. Aiden and Dad won a teddy bear on the shooting game [View Full Entry]

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