http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/The-Grog-Bloggers/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from The Grog Bloggers en-us Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:34:14 +0000 Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:34:14 +0000 As I jumped off the train at Hospet weary headed from a decent nights sleep on a noisy old rattling train I notice that Danielle is looking worse than ever. Her eyes are bloodshot shes looking frail and a little grey. ldquoHow sick are you feeling Is it better or worse than before How bad is your stomach hurtingrdquo I ask hurriedly focusing on avoiding the oncoming assault of a money hu http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/blog-396718.html With an additional three weeks up our sleeves we decided that we would check out the Nilgiri hills district and in particular a place called Ooty. We have made an effort on this trip to eat a wide range of local cuisines where available and situated right next door to my old work in Sydney was an award winning restaurant named Nilgiri's so I thought that it must be a great place to sample some fr http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Tamil-Nadu/Ooty/blog-388427.html Besides our flight in and flight out our little Indian holiday has been a bit like a choose your own adventure story. If we hear of somewhere that is interesting read about somewhere beautiful the only thing stopping us from going there is an ever shrinking bank account. There was one big budget item that we had planned on forking out for and by luck we saved a bunch of cash and had a couple of http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Kerala/Kochi-/blog-382826.html Over the past two weeks we have transformed from being filthy backpackers to filthy package holiday makers. We don't have any more than Tamil Nadu to compare this part of India with but the contrast between Kerala and our home state of the previous month is like comparing a Ferari with an autorickshaw.After travelling only seventy kilometres or one and a half hours north west from Kanyakamari an http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Kerala/Varkala/blog-379609.html South Tamil Nadu's tourism industry is thriving and surprisingly it is not on the back of the Euro the Pound the Yen or any other foreign currency. I expect that once we step foot over the border from Tamil Nadu into Kerala that things might just be a little different but in this part of the world Indian holidaymakers seem to outnumber foreigners by over 1000 to 1. With not much more than an am http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Tamil-Nadu/Kanyakumari/blog-375276.html I am a long way from being a religious man but when 1300 orphaned children first sang a song to Danielle and I and then followed it up by saying a prayer for us I for the first time in a very long time was not completely critical of Christianity or any other religion for that matter.I mentioned in my update from Mamallapuram that we struggled to find a conversation that did not revolve around yo http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Tamil-Nadu/blog-370928.html Sitting a couple hours further south of Mallamaparum is a place which is in complete contrast to both the India we had seen on TV and the small dose of this country we have had since arriving nearly 2 weeks ago. Pondicherry or Punducherry as it is now known has a bus station just like every other bus station the autorickshaw from the bus station was ridiculously overpriced just like every autor http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Pondicherry/blog-370918.html Admittedly since decided that we would spend some time in India before heading onto Europe Danielle and I have had moments of anxiety and nervousness about travelling to a country that we really did not know that much about. Our preconceived notions of India was that the whole country would be littered with pollution smell like shit be uncomfortably hot all of the time we would be hassled by http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Tamil-Nadu/Mamallapuram/blog-367554.html This whole travelling on the cheap thing has its ups and its downs and this was particularly highlighted by our 200 Baht or AU8 per night accommodation in Chiang Mai. On all but one of our nights we were awoken through our paper thin walls to the sounds of debauchery and seemingly hardcore sex but while it was annoying at the time in hindsight it is pretty damn funny and gave me an decent intro t http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Singapore/Changi/blog-365326.html Since the last update where I was in transit from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang we have done quite a bit more moving. Luang Prabang was exactly as I remembered it from the last time we were here nothing like the party town that is Vang Vieng thank fuck. It was quiet picturesque full of older travellers and incredibly overpriced. Arriving late we settled in at a guest house for 130000 kip drop http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/North-West-Thailand/Chiang-Rai/blog-361657.html As I write this the 12 seater mini bus I am in slowly makes its way along a far less than perfect 1 and a half lane road which winds its way along the mountain range to Luang Prabang in Northern Laos. In the last 4 hours of the 6 hour journey we have come close to cleaning up a dozen stray little pigs have overtaken busses around blind corners and been only a few centimetres from falling hundreds http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Vang-Vieng/blog-360628.html I know this thing is called travelblog and i also realise that i am still in Hornsby however I felt that now is as good a time as any to kick this thing off. So it is a travel blog and we are yet to fly out of this country but the Journey has really already commenced.Routine for me was thrown out the window at 5pm last friday when i was officially unemployed. I had the work christmas party to wrap http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/New-South-Wales/Sydney/blog-355519.html