Tania James

Technically this is more of a 'blog' than a travel blog, but as we did travel to Edinburgh to do our first ever marathon, I think it's worth counting! Before getting into it, I should prolly back-track a little. So, James and I were sitting down one evening last year and he mentioned at some point he would like to do a marathon while he was still young and able. Now, me being little-miss-competitive and not wanting to let him think he could do something I couldn't, said 'yeah, why not, we should do it together!'. Thus we applied for the London Marathon ballot for 2010, but alas, we didn't get in. Now I can't say I was devastated, I actually had a fleeting moment of relief until James suggested that we just enter the Edinburgh ... read more

We had a long journey to get to the Serengeti by the end of the day, so most of the day was spent in the car. It was interesting to pass through the villages, most towns had buildings which were little more than shacks and generally were built with logs and mud and thatched rooves whilst other houses/shelters outside of the towns were made of anything that was available - sticks, logs, canvas bags and corrugated iron. We also noticed: 1. Speedbumps - there are little to no warnings (generally the latter) for each speedbump, so sometimes they could come as an unfortunate surprise, especially for those who are taller than others (James didn't come out so well after some fun bumps). 2. Roadblocks - heaps of roadblocks were setup with spikes along the highways and ... read more

After some kerfuffle, I finally got the all clear from the doctor that all was okay to travel and thankfully we made it to Africa! We met up with lovely Fiona on Thursday night who picked us up at the Nairobi airport, and then the next morning we were immediately off to one of the Kenyan Wildlife Services Park - Amboseli. We took the two 4WDs, boys (Paul and James) in one car, the girls in the 'hungry hippo car'. The terrain in Africa is immediately identifiable as we travelled along the road; the thorny acacia trees; massive termite mounds; red soil and Masai tribe villages with thatched rooftops. We stopped off at Namunga and then we hit the shall we say, more 'interesting' roads which involved more of a roller-coaster ride at some points and ... read more

The morning started with an evil wake up hour, another crazy/windy/cold tuk tuk ride to the train station and the inevitable late train. Thankfully some chai helped to perk us up, unfortunately it didn't last long with one of the most uncomfortable and cold train rides yet. The small mercy was that it only last about 5-6 hours and then we arrived at the smelliest train station in the world - I swear to god it reaked of pee. A short bus ride later and we were in Pushkar - a blissfully small town of 15,000 people which is situated on a lake and surronded by mountains (well, big hills really). Our hostel was just outside of the main town which is based on the sacred Pushkar Lake which is said to have been created by ... read more

Alas, it was time to leave lovely little Jaisalmer and catch the local bus to Jodhpur, but not before we had our pictures taken for the region's newspapers! Yes, my fame is spreading slowly yet surely. We were wondering around the streets and a journalist wanted to take a picture of all of us with our sunglasses. We then found our piccie in the paper the next day (I've got a copy and will scan a copy later) of a massive colour print of us and a caption stating that we were so over-awed by the beauty of the city that we all had to wear sunglasses! heh heh heh The bus to Jodhpur was quite comfy and thankfully we had good seats, but the rest of the locals were standing room only, that is unless ... read more