TravellingAli

After a nice but restless 4 weeks at home getting jabbed nearly every week, am now rabies-free and back on with the travels! Not quite jet-setting around the world, but am in Salamanca, Spain, doing a Spanish course for 2 weeks, then travelling a bit for the rest of the month. Salamanca is a small, World Heritage listed city and absolutely gorrrrgeous - the main focus is the grand impressive Plaza Mayor, the Cathedral and the University dating back to the 1300's, but the real charm of the city are the tiny cobbled streets, old sandstone buildings and the general lovely small-town feel. It´s particularly known for being a major university town so there are loads and loads of students everywhere, both Spanish and international - is like being back on campus! My Spanish school is ... read more

It seems that India just wasn't meant to be.... Got randomly attacked and bitten by a dog on a small street in Pushkar, after popping out of my hotel to get some water. It literally just went at me for no reason - it was lying on the ground and I was just walking past. Hobbled back to my hotel, and was completely freaked out as hadn't had my rabies jab, and the wound was quite deep. The lovely man from the hotel took me to the local hospital (on the back of a motorbike!) which was FILTHY and literally looked like a World War II bomb shelter. Either that, or it reminded me of the S-21 torture prison I went to in Cambodia - just a dirty stone building with blackened walls and rusty furniture. ... read more

Left Heidi in Jaipur for a night and went to Pushkar, a small religious town about 3 hours away. It was SUCH a nice change from the big cities - gorgeous whitewashed bathing ghats set around a holy lake, where loads of pilgrims come to bath and do a 'puja' (prayer) in the holy water. Even though I enjoyed my week of luxury with mum, it felt good to get back into the 'traveller's life' again, taking the local bus, meeting random locals and just getting to explore on foot. The town is set out in the mountains and the lake and backdrop was absolutely stunning, and was lovely to just wander down the small dusty quiet streets, meet some of the friendly locals and shop in the interesting bazaar without all the noise and hassle ... read more

Just wanted to wish everyone a very happy Christmas! Hope you had a fantastic day and enjoyed celebrating wherever you are in the world. Christmas was somewhat different this year - woke up to a couple of little presents in our hotel from mum, and some Christmas cake which the hotel staff had delivered, and then went off to Fatepur Sikri - an ancient ruin city, too see the palace and huge mosque there, up on a hill. Then travelled on to Bharatpur to our lovely palace hotel, where I lay by the pool all afternoon in the hot sunshine and then had a one-hour full body massage! Christmas dinner and lunch was full of yummy indian food....but still missed having my roast dinner! Was weird not being all Christmassy - although did make a point ... read more

Finally arrived in Delhi and was met with a barrage of noise, crazy traffic, bad smells and COLD COLD fog! Delhi seemed absolutely manic, but there was no time for that to affect me, as was collected the next day by our driver and whisked off to the airport to meet mum, who was flying in for a week. Was great to see her after 3 months, and then we went to check into our 5* hotel in Delhi which was OH MY GOD, abbbbsolutely AMAZING!! Was just a stunning hotel, very glamorous, elegant and richly luxurious - was loving it all, especially having a fresh box of belgian chocolates put in our room every day! Ate at supposedly one of the top 10 restaurants in the world, and had brilliant indian food. Considering I thought ... read more

An unplanned hello from Chiang Mai! Having a bit of a nightmare getting to Malaysia. Decided to take a slow boat from Luang Prabang to the Thai border, and then on the Chiang Mai where I had booked a flight to Malaysia. As for the boat - when I mean slow I mean SLOWWW - takes 2 days!! Very scenic trip though, endless green mountains, rocky cliffs and little villages along the Mekong River. The boat is an old long cargo boat, so we had to sit on hard wooden benches for 2 days - bum was in pain! But was quite fun - met lots of people and got through 2 great books,(including The Kite runner - amaaaazing!). After 9 hours the first day, we spent the night in a little village called Pak Beng ... read more