http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/asharpe/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from asharpe en-us Fri, 24 May 2013 00:13:56 +0000 Fri, 24 May 2013 00:13:56 +0000 Varanasi gt DelhiThe riciulous scene where we last left our intrepid travellers is worth revisitingThe streets of Varanasi. Trung and Andy are just finished enjoying their lunch at the Mona Lisa cafe and have ventured out to an internet cafe to update themselves on the schedule of the upcoming train ride. Its a lazy Sunday afternoon and the train isn39t until Monday.Ok that39s where my http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/National-Capital-Territory/Delhi/blog-683861.html VaranasiOur next stop Varanasi is quite a city. It is one of the oldest cities in the world and perhaps the holiest. It is regarded as one of the seven pilgrimage sites for Hindus. It was the birthplace of Bhuddism where the Buddha gave his first sermon. Sikhism can also find its roots here in the city. There is also a large Roman Catholic Jewish Moslem and several dozen tribal religions her http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Uttar-Pradesh/Varanasi/blog-661051.html Jaipur to AgraAfter a couple of days of exploring Jaipur the time has come to catch the train to Agra and the Taj Mahal Everyone says the Taj is the most beautiful of all Indian monuments our guide book says 39nobody comes away disspointed from the Taj Mahal39. So I39m pretty pumped Our train again is pretty uneventful running in the daytime from Jaipur to Agra. This is our first tim http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Uttar-Pradesh/Agra/blog-637116.html Jaisalmer to JaipurOur train arrives in Jaipur at 5am after travelling overnight through the desert. The morning twilight gives us just enough cover that we can escape the train station relatively unharrassed by the scrum of tuk tuk drivers outside. Our guidebook has a long list of hotels relatively near to the train station so we39re just going to walk rather than haggle with a tuk tuk drive http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Rajasthan/Jaipur/blog-635907.html Udaipur to JaisalmerThe bus to Jaisalmer is... interesting. Its a 12 hour journey through mountains overnight. There are no AC buses but we39re on a sleeper at least. The sleeper bus has sliding windows on both the inside and outside of our 1 bunks. You can close them both and be in a coffin of tinted windows or you can open the exterior and have only a small bar to hold you from falling ou http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Rajasthan/Jaisalmer/blog-631289.html Indore to UdaipurOur train from Indore departs at 730am and we39re running a bit behind so after a light jog from our tuk tuk into the station we39re scouring the train station looking for the right platform for our train to Udaipur.Turns out the train is late so we39re left sweaty and waiting with the rest of the billions of flies on the platform. The train station is really well org http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Rajasthan/Udaipur/blog-631049.html Aurangabad to ManduIn order to get to scenic relaxing Mandu we first have to take a bus from Aurangabad to Indore a 14 hour overnight journey. Once in Indore we have to find the local bus to Dhar a city near Mandu then transfer once again to Mandu. Dhar is only 90km from Indore so it shouldn39t be too bad right The bus to Indore is your standard 21 sleeper bus. Trung and I once again http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Madhya-Pradesh/Dhar/blog-630767.html Mumbai to AurangabadOur next stop is Aarungabad a city NorthWest of Mumbai in the central area of Maharashtra. Its close to the Ellora and Adjanta caves a world heritage site. I realize during the afternoon the day we39re leaving that I actually booked the bus tickets to Ahmenebad instead of Aurungabad. My bad There goes 20 hardearned dollars right down the drain Its easy to rebook the http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Maharashtra/Aurangabad/blog-630468.html Mumbai BusWhen we enter the suburbs of Mumbai at dawn Trung is still off in la la land with his earplugs in so I39m left watching the increasingly dense city go by complete with tons of shacks tarp leantos and dozens of people pooping in the open fields between these 39subdivisions39. It makes sense that people do their morning business in the open areas as the streets are really sm http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Maharashtra/Mumbai/blog-629596.html Mysore to GoaOur night bus to Goa starts luckliy enough just down the street from our hotel so it39s a quick walk instead of another confusing ride in a Tuk Tuk. The bus is our first sleeper bus experience in India which I39m looking forward to. I feel like if I can lie down flat perhaps I can sleep a bit while we39re on the bus. Most buses only run at night in India to avoid the traf http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Goa/Baga/blog-629356.html Colombo to ChennaiWe started our trip to Chennai in Colombo Sri Lanka. The city bus was a full 2 hours from downtown Colombo and dropped us 1km from the airport so after running with our luggage at 900pm to a Tuk Tuk who went painfully slow down the dark road to the airport we finally checked in and got on the plane by 1000pm.The flight didn39t land in Chennai until around midnight. We ha http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/India/Tamil-Nadu/Chennai/blog-629346.html Trincomalee to KandyOur matron at our Trincomalee hotel instructs us how to get to Nuwara Eliya a hill station in the central mountains in Sri Lanka. We take the bus back to Kandy which leaves at 830am. Thankfully it39s the only AC bus of the day. It costs a whopping 1.50 to travel from Trinco to Kandy in AC luxury a 300km 5 hour journey. The bus stops often to pick up passengers and s http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Sri-Lanka/Southern-Province/Galle/blog-626915.html PollonoruwaAfter our great excursion to Sigiria and two nights at the middleofknowhere grasslands guesthouse our driver outlined the last two days of our trip. First we would be travelling to Pollonoruwa an ancient capital city about 50km from our hotel. We would see the ruins and stuppas built hundreds of years ago before heading across the country 150km to Anuradhapura another ancient c http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Sri-Lanka/Eastern-Province/Trincomalee/blog-626799.html Kandy to Dambulla Our driver showed up to our picturesque mountainside Swiss hotel in Kandy bright and early to pick us up. We were just finishing our breakfast of toast with marmalade and an amazing pot of fresh smooth and sweet Ceylon tea when he came engine roaring up the steep hill to the hotel.Our driver was a middle aged man from Colombo driving a very comfortable 199039s era Nissan wi http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Sri-Lanka/Central-Province/Sigiriya/blog-621910.html The FlightsOur flight from Australia to Singapore to Kuala Lumpur to Sri Lanka was a really long journey. We slept at the airport in Singapore a nice lady told us where we could find a quiet outoftheway area to set up camp. I felt like a refugee camping on the floor with about 50 others overnight I had a good sleep though she was right there was nobody around other then our fellow campers http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Sri-Lanka/Central-Province/Kandy/blog-620281.html We left Sydney like we started... by incurring an unknown amount of toll fees while entering an unsigned toll highway with no chance of exiting. Apparently we went through some sort of 39express tunnel39 through the city even though the tourist map showed no such thing. However we still haven39t recieved the toll invoice so who knows if we39ll ever be charged for such an 39express http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/New-South-Wales/Sydney/blog-618802.html After having blasted our way south from Brisbane to Sydney in two days we finally entered the northern suburbs of Sydney in the midafternoon of the 2nd day. Now for some reason Australia is like Canada. The main highways in the country extend THROUGH neighbourhoods freeways become two lane roads with traffic lights and the traffic goes from freeflowing four lane highways to jammed pretty qui http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/New-South-Wales/Sydney/blog-617981.html Our previous adventure left our intrepid travellers exiting the state of Victora driving North passing through Sydney on the way to New South Wales.After driving and parking on the side of the highway for the last few days our spirits were lifted a bit by driving into New South Wales and finding a free beachside parking lot paradise in Newcastle famous for it39s sand and surfing. The weather http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/New-South-Wales/blog-617047.html Australia Part 1 A Camperman Campervan to Remember Our flight from Denpessar Bali was fairly uneventful flying through the night to Melbourne Australia. Jetstar did their best to keep everyone comfortable through the night and the flight was kind of a sleepunconsiousfitful waking type deal. We left Bali at 11pm and arrived in Melbourne at 7am.Once at the airport we decided to pick up some http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Victoria/Melbourne/blog-611450.html After the kerfuffle with Jetstar in Singapore Trung and I were glad to finally touch down in Denpessar Bali after 30 hours of waiting around. Mind you waiting in a 4.5 star hotel isn39t all that bad but Bali was callingBecause of the 39greatness39 of Jetstar we didn39t arrive at the airport until about 2am which meant that we weren39t pulling up to our hotel in Seminyak near http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Bali/Ubud/blog-610512.html