PhilandSusie's Guestbook

Mum, Sri Lankan food was quite hit and miss in our experience. We were surprised when we got there after hearing people raving about Sri Lankan food that all everyone offered was a 'rice and curry'. Still we ordered one on our first day any
way and what came out was an array of vegetable dishes, daal, poppadoms, curry and rice! More often than not it was disappointing though unfortunately. Usually served luke warm, not cooked fresh unless you got it from the little lady who owns the guest house you're staying at! There were a couple of dishes though that we'll be trying to recreate at home! Population wise it's actually more populated than we thought! We looked it up and Sri Lanka is roughly the same size as the Republic and Northern Ireland together but Sri Lanka has roughly 3 times the population which surprised us. Still it doesn't compare to India! Large animal-wise, we were thinking of going back to see some whales to see if we can piss any of them off and maybe we'll get to see some more! ;-)Dad... What do you think we 'illegally' spent the money on?! Food! :-D As soon as the money was rendered worthless you weren't allowed to spend it at all. We tried our luck in a restaurant and they took it! Also our accommodation guy took a load of it. Nothing sinister I'm afraid!

Great blog, interested in what you bought with your 'illegal' payments, the imagination runs riot! The package bhaji story is worth the read on its own! The punch line is not as expected as I really thought it was going to taste as bad as i
t looks keep up the having fun!

You sound really gutted that you were stranded in Goa for 5 extra days!! (Bring out the violins!!).The down-time was badly needed, given your experience with the mad cow and your constant "runs" - exhausting!!Lovely to hear about it all and
to follow your journey with you! Great to talk to you tonight! Lizxx

Didn't they tell you at the Royal Veterinary College what to do with a mad cow? You should practice like the cowboys how to wrestle it. The dreaded 'delhi belly' it gets everywhere, we remember it well from our holiday in Egypt!!! Keep u
p this very high standard of 'blog', enjoying every minute of your 'trials and tribulations'. Grandad and Grandma.

Thanks Susie and Phillip for your wonderful blog and pictures. IT'S great to have a good feel of your experiences, dealing with shopkeepers hostels and cows. Ye will be experts on Indian travel. ALL good here here we had a great Halloween
at least seven groups of children called to the house. I never saw Lucas so excited he would have loved to have gone with them. All the best for the next leg of the journey Love to both Barry

Chris, not seem many people hanging off the trains (1slightly disappointed about this). There's about 8 different classes on the trains over here, we generally book a class with air con which I reckon the majority of people can't afford. Th
ose who get standard non ac tickets get rammed into carriages with big wooden bench seats, with bars instead of windows to let some airflow into the carriages. Theres usually arms flailing out from the bars and faces pressed up against them! India Rail say on average they only make 57% of the cost of running any one train. We've not seen any sign of organised rubbish collection, although around here cows and goats seem pretty good at just eating it all!

Susie and Phillip thanks for the blog. Your hostel looked nicer than some of the sites. Hope your tummies get used to the Indian diet. How do find the Indian people, are they helpful and friendly? Take care looking forward to your next epis
ode

Great adventures Susie and Phillip! All sounds and looks very exciting! Buildings are amazing, great to see the photos! Agree with Barry - hostel looks fantastic - hope it was as comfortable and interesting as it looks in pic! Hope tummy se
ttles down Philly and you get over the cold quickly! Keep up the blogs and take care!, looking forward to next installment! xxx