dabilster
Anna Biscoe Joined: April 1st 2008
Logged in: November 16th 2008
Logged in: November 16th 2008
Travel Blog Posts
Leaving Goa We finallt dragged ourselves away from Goa and the beach and headed through the state of Karnataka to Hampi on the train with a carriage full of other westeners! You could say that it wasn't exactly off the beaten track but, with the scenic journey churning out waterfalls and lush valleys for its length and what you saw when you arrived, you could understand why! Hampi Hampi is a lovely little place where huge gravity defying granite boulders and temples litter the green landscape of paddy fields and palm trees. The locals are friendly and excited to see you and unlike some other places that are on the backpacker trail little Hampi seems to absorb the influx o... read more
The Journey The journey was always going to be pretty laborious. A 20 hour over night bus from Diu to Mumbai was never going to hold much promise for good times but, when after 3hrs we'd only gone 10km over the bridge to the mainland I feared the worst! The driver managed to realise these fears and those 20 hours felt more like 20 years! He kept stopping and picking up his mates who all proceeded to get hammered and wander around the bus spilling Old Monk everywhere. Because they were all drunk he then had to keep stopping to let them pee for which he chose particularly pungent urinals which, in the most part, just emptied out into a puddle on to the street that they all walked through to get back onto the bus. ... read more
Amritsar From Delhi I boarded my first Indian train to Amritsar, home of one of the Sikh's holiest places, the Golden Temple. The temple is exactly what it says on the tin: Golden and temple-like however, the surrounding shimmering pool of water and white marble walkways do give a real sense of peaceful elegance, importance and if I were to believe in that sort of thing, I'd say spirituality! Also being a Sikh temple it is traditional to both feed and house visitors if they require it and so we sat in lines while food was slopped onto plates from buckets for us, we were given water and chiapata and team of people even washed up for us. It wasn't haut cuisine but, it was pretty good for free! Amritsar resides about an hour away from ... read more
Jodhpur From Agra, where I'd developed a cold, I took what has to be the worst train trip ever to Jodphur. Quite apart from the fact that it was 2 hours late in Agra and delivered me 8.5hrs late to Jodpur, the sleeper carriage I was in was so rammed full I had to sleep on my big backpack on my bunk, the only ventilation were barred windows which did nothing to cut through the stifling heat of the carriage while we sat in the station for hours being slowly cooked by the sun. Babies were screaming, it was filthy dirty, insects and fleas jumped all around me and, more than occasionally, in my clothes and after we finally got moving providing some blessed air movement, the train then stopped after about half an hour for ... read more
Delhi We arrived in Delhi early doors and it was already hot and sweaty. The traffic, according to our taxi driver, was not bad but, our ears still rang with sound of horns and it still appeared to be mayhem to the untrained eye with no lanes, no indicators and apparently right of way to ever beeps the most! Hence the photos are what there is to see mostly: traffic! Delhi in general is a mixed bag. Every vista will present some form of poverty; a birds nest of electrical wiring hanging precariously from the falling down roofs; hustle and bustle; colour and culture; spices, saris and silks; filth and squalor, cows and some evidence of urine, be it the foul stech from the open urina... read more
Southern Mozambique (All hostel recommendations etc are at the end of this blog) So this was our final stint in Africa and it certainly didn't disappoint. After a very brief stay in Maputo we were wedged onto a bus at 4.30 am until it was full and then they crammed on about ten more locals and we all headed in one coalesced lump for Tofu about eight hours North along the coast. Tofu Tofu has become somewhat of a diving mecca. One of our reasons for going there is that you are virtually guarenteed to see whale sharks all year round and that is the one thing we've been hunting all over the world in all the 'Guaranteed-to-see' places which we seem to turn into 'Not so much as a fin sighting' places! So, somewhat predictably, ... read more
South Africa and Lesotho (All hostel recommendations etc are at the end of this blog) So after a 24hr bus ride while being subjected to some hideously over-the-top religious films we arrived in Cape Town, South Africa, where we stayed with some mates (and their nutty cat!) for five days. It was definitely nice to be back to the creature comforts and Stene and Mandy did an excellent job of showing us the sights and sounds: Simons bay, penguins, Capes Argulus, Point and New Hope, a view of Table Mountain from their flat and lots more. We couldn't have asked for much more, except for some good weather! img=http://lh... read more
Namibia We arrived in Namibia after disembarking from our hitched ride with a trucky in Windhoek, got the hostel owner out of bed to get a room and then went to pick up our car complete with roof tents, camping gas cylinders and spade (more useful than you might think) before heading off north towards one of Namibia's most famous attractions, Etosha National Park. Etosha Etosha was zebra-tastic but, did as it promises provide us with 3 Rhino sightings one of which, we only noticed because as we were rushing back to get into the campsite before it closed at sunset and Vicky so surprised could get her words out and sounded like she was having a fit in the car! We all looked round to see a rhino trotting alongside the road with a calf! ... read more
We arrived in Chobe and were soon on our first game drive which started early doors at 6am! It was freeeeeeeezing! We had one sleeping bag between all of us and i'd like to say it was worth it but, frankly there were no animals at all for a good 2.5 hrs! This is a place with over 70,000 elephants...how do you hide that many elephants?! However, just as were about to leave we heard some impala braying and so headed down to the river bank. Here we managed to see a leopard dragging an impala into some bushes! We narrowly missed the kill as it nailed the impala while it was taking a leisurely drink at the river! In order to get a better look we were all climbing about the van and then while ... read more
So it was an interesting introduction to Zambia. Arrived at the border post to the usual disorganised chaos and then had to give some 20usd encouragement to the medical official to let me in the country because of some un-discrepancy with my yellow fever certificate. Good to know the price of the nations health and how effective all the 'zero tolerance to corruption posters' are that he was happily standing next while telling me that 'he was sure we could come to some arrangement'! From here we headed for a place called Chipata where we pitched up a tent and quickly unpitched again when we managed to hitch a lift to South Luangwa national park with a random local the same day! We stayed in a campsite (Flatdogs) right on the doorstep of the park where ... read more
