Sorry no time for photos - check back and I'll add some later. Quite a lot has happned in the last few days but we’vr been out of touch with the rest of the world, so no chance of Internet connections. So - time for a very quick resume and then I’ll check out the facilities at our final resort. It’s New Years Eve now and we travelled most of today to reach Kovalam which is right in the south of Kerala, quite near to Trivandurum. But in reverse order.... On Wednesday night we stayed on a houseboat in the backwaters [View Full Entry]

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Christmas Day was a travelling day and we left Madurai at 9 am. Not much time to open presents which was OK because Santa didn’t call anyway. Perhaps he was running late, or in a hurry! On Thursday evening we had our special inclusive hotel buffet along with some local entertainers. They were a motley looking bunch probably rejected by the local circus. There was very loud music from a bugle and a drum, a few balancing tricks, some half hearted dancing, then the highlight - leaping through a fiery hoop. Oh well, they tried. Perhaps with a bit more rehearsal [View Full Entry]

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Thursday afternoon now which means it’s Christmas Eve. We’re in Madurai, heading west from the previous stop in Tanjure. Everyone is starting to get temple fatigue now so it’s probably a good job that this is our last day of temple visits. To be fair, those we’ve seen in the last couple of days have been pretty spectacular. The facts and figures have started to wash over my head because I’m sure the last two towns have both claimed that they have the biggest, tallest or most towers. I think they’re all trying to compete for their place in the Guinness [View Full Entry]

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It’s proving harder than usual to find an Internet connection so reports from India could be few and far between this time! I think it’s Monday evening now (I’m sure about the evening part, so I haven’t completely lost it). Still, since this is the first report, I’d better start at the beginning. The flight was early on Friday morning. And I do mean early - 5 to 8 take off from Heathrow. I had a taxi booked from home for 4:45 but seeing how the snow was predicted for early Friday, I changed plans late on Thursday afternoon, found a [View Full Entry]

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I first visited Dubai longer ago than I care to remember. Well actually I can't remember the year but I vaguely recollect that Emirates launched that year with a single second hand plane. According to wikipedia that was October 1985 so it must be true. Wherever possible we took the British Caledonian, Hong Kong flight which had a refuelling stop in Dubai. It was always cheaper and less crowded than BA and used modern DC-10's (all long since scrapped I'm sure). The airport at the time was single runway, single terminal, with only a handful of planes on the tarmac most [View Full Entry]

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So, after just a few weeks I'm heading back to Bratislava. It will probably only be for a few days and because I don't know exactly what to expect, I've decided to travel early so I can be raedy bright and early on Monday morning. Plus, it gives me a chance to get there by a slightly different route and take a quick look at Vienna along the way. I noticed last time that there are three ways to get from Vienna to Bratislava: bus, train or boat. The bus is fast and easy from Vienna airport (but I've done that [View Full Entry]

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And so, week 5 on the road and I seem to have landed in Qatar. Actually not quite five weeks, I think I got a few days at home but it just didn’t work out. I kept leaving my laundry in a bag, ready for collection but honestly, the service was rubbish. Or perhaps I’m jinxed - the hotel here managed to lose my trousers for a day and I had to wear shorts to the office. A drop in standards I know but I think I can be excused - it did reach 42C yesterday. The flight out was uneventful [View Full Entry]

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So with just 72 hours at home after returning from Toronto, it's back on the road. Or more accurately, back to the airport - Gatwick this time. I've been tracking the weather forecast and Bratislava currently has some very unseasonal thunderstorms, so it could be fairly unpleasant. However, I expect to be working pretty much continuously, so it probably won't matter! There are few direct flights to Bratislava, and even fewer at sensible low prices. However, Vienna is only 40 miles away so I'm flying easyjet to Vienna instead and planning to catch the bus. A word in favour of easyjet: [View Full Entry]

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A quick entry as I'm packing to get ready to fly home. To be honest it's been a fairly underwhelming three days since the trip across from Seattle last Sunday. I'm staying in the "downtown" quarter or more accurately the University quarter (downtown). But the students are on their 14 week summer vacation (they have it tough....) so there's only the post grads and those with no homes or whose parents have disowned them. That means the tourists stand out more and believe me, there's lots of them! The district is actually quite grubby (bit like Oxford Street which is always [View Full Entry]

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Look, if you can think of a better title, perhaps you should be writing this blog! I left Richland on Friday evening and after a week there, I'd become quite attached to the place. Most of my previous US trips have been to the big cities (New York, Washington DC) so it was unusual (for me) to visit a relatively small town. I'm guessing but I reckon the population of Richland can't be more than 70,000. The traffic is quieter, the people are friendlier and (this may be the clincher) the weather last week was brilliant. I wasn't sure how long [View Full Entry]

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