Sri Lanka

We have just had a wonderful three weeks in the wonderful country of Sri Lanka (that's Ceylon for all you oldies who struggle with the country's name change!).

This is a beautiful country with a bit of everything, from the ancient cities and the hill country to the lazy beaches of the south and east. And we have done it all!

We spent our first few days in Sri Lanka cycling around the ancient remains of Anuradhapurna and Polonnaruwa with perfect blue skies, sunshine and the magical experience of an ancient treasure round every corner.

(Mind you our cycling skills are nothing like the locals!)

Larry has a chat with Buddha.

We have climbed Sigiriya rock for sunset and the famous Adam's Peak for sunrise (on a full moon day!).

We thoroughly enjoyed traveling 3rd class in the train through the hill country from Nuwara Eliya to Ella through endless tee plantations worked by the Plantation Tamils brought from India to Sri Lanka by the British and spent some time in Kandy, home to the tooth relic of the Buddha. After two weeks of constant moving with only one or two nights in any one place we were pleased to reach Mirissa beach on the south coast where we stopped for a week and did nothing!

Highlights here have included the incredibly shy friendliness of the local people including a comical moment when we briefly became an exhibit in Colombo National Museum to a group of school children who were definitely showing more interest in us than in their own history (we were surrounded and shyly asked “where you from” - cue mass giggling). Rickshaw drivers take top place for getting your attention in the hopes that you will need their services! It's quite funny when we are just walking along and an auto rickshaw glides up beside us and moves along at walking pace, then the monologue begins “you need taxi, good price, tour 100 rupees, can I help you?.....etc.”. Then there are all the randoms who, as they cycle/drive past, shout “hello! welcome to Sri Lanka!”.

After a brief stop off in the Dutch colonial town of Galle we are now in Colombo, we have exhausted the city sights and are wasting away a day or two in a good coffee shop with good food and free wifi and look forward to our next flight which will take us to Vietnam.

Indian Security at its Best...?

Well, after almost 3 months (minus our two weeks in Nepal), it had finally come to the time for us to exit India. What an eventful time we had there! A rollercoaster experience you could say....love India, hate India, love the people, find them frustrating, relaxing, STRESSFUL! India brings out all the emotions!

You will know from our early blogs that we had a “special” visa which required us to register at the foreign registry office (FRO) and we have already shared how that experience went in Delhi! On re-entering India from Nepal we were required again to report to the FRO and we dutifully did so in Darjeeling. It was a rather comical experience when we did and a government official, sitting in front of a backdrop of centuries worth of ancient ledgers told us that it was better for us to report to the FRO in Kolkota instead ... which i think meant “if I register you here that will mean I have to actually work out what to do with your passport and it would really be much easier for me if you just went somewhere else”. After experiencing the FRO in a big city already we were VERY keen to avoid that again and definitely preferred sorting out our registration in a small quiet FRO with no queues (like the one in Darjeeling funny enough!). After gently affirming that we definitely wanted to register in Darjeeling the official asked us what the Indian Special Permission stamp in our passport meant – ehh isn't that your specialty sir?! Anyway, eventually he registered us (filling in th paperwork using his typewriter) and told us that we needed to report to the FRO in every place we visited from now until exiting India, we said 'no problem', walked out, looked at each other and said “no way!”. So we didn't and hoped it wouldn't cause us any problems when exiting India...we were fairly confident that we would be ok, since our registration was lodged in one of those ledgers which once full seemed to exist solely to gather dust....

On reaching the airport to leave India we faced TWELVE security checks between entering the terminal and entering the plane! Needless to say, as we went through each check (having our seat number scored off a sheet...move to next check...official writes seat number down on page...move to next check....official looks at ticket...move to next check....official ticks seat number off on list...move to next check etc etc...) no mention was made at all about the FRO and we breathed a wee sigh of relief – imagine if we had actually gone and spent the best part of a day in EVERY place we had gone to after Darjeeling registering at the FRO's we'd have been raging!

When we finally reached our gate we were told to sit down. Explaining we wanted to do some shopping the airline official said “ok you give me boarding pass then shopping” eh....ok?! Twelve security checks then you're told to hand your boarding pass over to an airline official who then simply has to trust you when you come back to retrieve your ticket from the handful of about 50 tickets and say “that's mine there”!

A very Indian exit!

John expands his skirt collection...

Inspired by the fashionable “lungi” sported by many of the men in the south of India John went in search of a piece of the...cloth for his own collection. On finding a lungi fashion store (see photo) he gladly made a selection to add to his ever growing collection of skirts...honestly, Scots!

Larry's guide to the sout' of India.

I don't know where those two have gone but I thought I'd let you all know what I've been up to.

After Mumbai we headed to these really kewl place called Ajanta with all these caves carved out of the rock. They were over two thousand years old and still in amaaazin' condition, all with carvings of someone called budah. There were hoondreds and hoondreds of carvings of him on the walls, ceilings and entrances so I thought I'd get me picture taken with him.

Not quite sure what it was all about but all the people visiting seemed to be finding it difficult to answer some questions because they were all saying 'ummmmm, ummmmm' while they walked around.

Anyhoo, after Ajanta we got on another train and although I was left in John's rucksack I heard lots of laughter and the like but all I got from Louise was something about goats and pepsi. We eventually arrived in Goa for a week at the beach and for Louise's birthday, those two seemed to do nothing but swim and sit with a cold drink in their hands.

All I got from them at the end of the week was 'Goa was brilliant, Goa was fantastic, narnanarnanar (that's Louise) we wish we were still in Goa.'

After this we headed to Kerela and the really chilled backwaters. Again all these two seemed to do is sit back and drink cold drinks while we drifted round the calm canals.

The food was brilliant and there was even enough after John was finished for me to have some! I tried to have a go at steering the boat but Louise told me I didn't know anything about boats, what does she know? She's from Belfast and they built the Titanic and we all know what happened to that!!

After I dragged them off the boat we headed even further sout', in fact until you couldn't go any more sout', to the very tip at a place called Kanukamari. Jeepers it was windy, I'm Irish so you don't have to tell me how to hold on to me hat, but I had to hold on to Louise so I wasn't blown all the way to Africa!

It was quite foony as all the Indians just jumped straight in the water with their clothes on, even ladies in their Sari's.

After that we headed to Fort Cochin before we flew to Sri Lanka, John and Louise both seemed to like it as they could get to everything quickly and they weren't getting run over too often by the traffic. They also had these massive fishing nets on the shore which take four people to work which were really kewl.

Well, that's all from me now until these eejits let me back on.

Byeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!

From Russia with Love

We had no idea when we boarded the train for a 22 hour journey from Jalgoan to Goa that we were going to have one of the most hilarious experiences of our traveling so far. It all began so, normally...traveling in what is called 3AC, which means in an air conditioned carriage with 8 sleeping berths in each section. We found our seats and locked our baggage to the metal handle underneath, settled down and hoped that no one else would be traveling in our berth other than the woman who was already there when we arrived. But it is India, so of course loads of people sat in our berth opposite or beside us for short sections of the journey, some of them maybe “white people” spotting, some just in search of more space than their booked berth gave. We read, listened to music and giggled inwardly at the Russian woman sharing our berth who kept reading the same bit of her newspaper and bursting into uncontrolled laughter.

After a while a timid Indian who is in the army and was traveling home to see his family joined us and soon after that a confident Indian man who works with goats and biochemistry joined us too. It was the man with goats who got us all talking as he began to share his food. It was interesting conversation, finding out things like Bollywood films are really big in Russia and that every Russian girl dreams of an Indian man?!!!

When the goat man had shared his food, and after kindly advising us never to take food from strangers on the train (as though he wasn't a stranger) the Russian declared that she had something to share too and whipped a bottle of vodka from her suitcase! (Talk about stereotypes!)

“All we need are five glasses and orange juice.” she stated, “get me five glasses!” she demanded of the poor timid Indian and after her third demand for glasses he scuttled off in search of something. The timid Indian duly returned with five 'Indian Railways' paper chai/tea cups and before long we had acquired some pepsi to mix it with too.

Our Russian friend began to set the “glasses” out pour in the vodka...”bas bas!” both the Indians shouted, which I assume means something like “no”or “stop”. The goat man explained he had never had a drink before in his life, so didn't want too much or his wife would know! The timid Indian was obviously relishing this moment, finding it hilarious that the goat man was so nervous. “Cheers” we all said as we shared in the goat mans first drink of his life. Goat man was so nervous that we'd get a fine for drinking on the train that he kept telling the Russian to hide the bottle behind her while he fixed the “privacy curtains” closed and said “shhh” to all the belly laughing going on. We laughed away a good number of hours together and when our glasses were empty the Russian reopened the vodka and began to pour “Russian hospitality never allows a glass to be empty” she stated. As she said this a look of panic passed across the goat mans face and he tried to discreetly slide his glass down his far side, it was comical!

When it came to bedtime the Russian was true to form and abandoning all cordiality abruptly stated “I want to go to bed now” meaning, 'you are all going to have to lie down and turn the lights out because I now want to sleep'. Not that we minded, our stop was a four something AM, but it was perhaps a little rude after so many hours of sharing food, drinks and conversation.

I am sure this has not seemed that funny to you at all, but I had to share it. For us it was just a quality experience, and very funny. Amazing how a few strong personalities and a bottle of vodka can transform a 22 hour train journey!

Two travellers, a Russian vet, goat man and timid Indian army guy :o)

Larry's latest update!

We'll be jeepers it's been a while I tell ya! Those Heywood's hardly ever let me have a turn on the computer but here I am now typing away and I've got so much te tell yous about what I've been up te!

After that wonderful place of tea plantations that was baltic, like Ireland...Darjeeling, I went to a place called Kolkata. It's actually Calcutta, I mean what eejit decided to change the name and then gave it the same name wit a different spelling? Anyway, maybeee they had extra money in the budget that year and fancied changing all the signs in the place or something, mind you I wouldn't know what having extra money in the budgets like, being from Ireland and all that but hey ho!

Kolkata was a nice place, it had lots of buildings like in England, big grand ones...mind you loads of them were totally run down and even rotting away because apparently there's this here law to do with social housing which has been around forever, well actually since the partition of India from Bangladesh when the dominant communist party tackled land ownership issues with

strict rent controls. Anyway this law means that some tennants even today only have to pay 1 rupee a month rent, which is like 1.5p!! So the landlords just never fix the buildings and someday they will just be beyond repair. I got to go see where Mother Theresa's Mission is and saw the room where she worked and slept which was reeeely cool. Her room was small, but not as small as the one i have to live in at the front of John's rucksack! Every aspect of life was really lived on the streets here, where people wash, sleep, eat, type documents, tailor clothes, play cricket, mend shoes and shop.

After Kolkata we took a big long train overnight to Varanasi. It was quite dirty with loads of rubbish but it was cool to get to go on a boat down the ganges river as the sun rose. There

were all these people swimming in it and washing in it and loads of people washing clothes too, the Heywood's wouldn't even let me dip me toes in the water but I saw I sign for a swimming club

on the banks of the ganges so I don't know what they were so uptight about. There were some fires on the banks of the river, apparently these were bodies! Something to do with reaching Nirvana if you die here, but I never liked that band anyway so I don't think i'll head here for me cremation.

I was taken to Jaipur next, it was shopping heaven and full of palaces! Then on to Mumbai. Mumbai was sweltering! I nearly drowned in me own sweat cause those there Heywood's didn't tink to take me out of the rucksack pocket for ages! I was delighted when they did take me out because the buildings were amazing! Left from India's colonial days the university, massive Victoria Terminus the gateway to India and the Prince of Wales Museum, to name just a few, make quite an impression. Then I tought they'd taken me to a war zone, there were things flying past me head from all directions and people with bats....they Heywood's said it was just some game,

“cricket” i tink they called it, but I don't know, there were literally tousands of people on this wee patch of grass! John and Louise sneaked me into a Bollywood film without getting me a ticket...I couldn't understand a single word but those two obviously found it hilarious cause they were laughing all the way trough...I couldn't really enjoy it cause I was recovering from a practical heart attack after tinking we were being gunned down at the start of the film, but it was just all the chairs folding up as everyone in the cinema stood up abruptly to sing the national anthem before the film came on! My favorite place in Mumbai though had to be the masala market...it was a mad place. Loads of wemen come to get their year's supply of spice! They choose all the spices they want at the right quantities and then they wait while the shop heats them, cools them and them pounds them into powder. This woman I spoke to...once she got over the fact leprechauns really can talk, told me she had been waiting eight hours for her spice mix to be ready!! Mad!

Anyway, the battery on the computer here is low and the Heywood's will go mad if they goto use it and find the battery dead so I'm off! I'll stick some pictures in soon so you can see the places I told you about!

Byeeeee!

Larry