Jaisalmer

We left Bikaner behind bright and early and hit the road to Jaislamer.

Our progress was soon halted when we reached a flooded portion of the road which was deemed to be impassable in our trusty Tata Indigo. Other larger vehicles were passing without much trouble, but we hit the dust tracks running parallel to the main road instead and eventually wound our way back on to the road on the other side of the flood.

August is slap bang in the middle of monsoon season here in India and as we reached the outskirts of Jaisalmer the heavens opened and we had to reroute several times due to flooded roads.

Having reached our hotel in the town we decided to go and investigate the 'Golden city' despite everything still being slightly soggy. With our trusty Thai umbrellas to keep us dry we wandered around the town and eventually found a place to indulge in a Thali, which is a fantastic Indian meal, served in a steel tray with multiple compartments filled with various food stuffs including rice, dahl, vegetables and chapatis; yum yum yum. As we walked back to the hotel we answered, for what seemed the hundredth time, questions about our umbrellas; Indians are obsessed with them and want to know where we bought them and how much they were, very funny!

The next morning the weather was dry and so we were able to walk, unhindered by inquiries about our umbrellas, up to the yellow sandstone fort which is perched on top of the hill.

The main thing we wanted to see were the Jain Temples which are contained within the fort's walls. The carving in these temples was amazingly intricate and incredibly well preserved for such ancient buildings.

There were four different temples to see and with different opening times for each one we also had time to wander the narrow streets inside the 'living' fort

and meet some of the city's population who live within its walls.

By the end of our temple filled morning Dave was coming over all 'ommmm!' and I turned around to find him in this position.

We left the walls of the fort behind us and indulged in some retail therapy before heading back to our hotel where the Manager had obviously taken a fancy to Dave (our driver told us that they think he looks like a sportsman in his attractive singlets, what kind of sportsman we are not sure!) and invited us to have lunch with him at his house around the corner. We had a gorgeous meal prepared by his wife and mother including an okra curry, vegetables, rice and piles of chapatis; amazing hospitality and all for having nice umbrellas and wearing a vest top!

After letting our food go down it was back into the car once more and into the Thar desert for our camel safari. The dunes weren't particularly impressive at this time of year with the desert landscape being somewhat spoiled by an abundance of green. We mounted our camels, of course I got the mankiest, fly ridden beast you can imagine, and trotted off into the desert.

The gathering rain clouds put paid to any hope of a sunset on the dunes but we consoled ourselves by taking photographs of the ever amusing camels.

Dave spotted a mongoose from atop his camel, which is a weasel-esque creature and in India are popularly used to fight and kill venomous snakes; don't say I never teach you anything!

Bikaner

Left Mandawa slightly later than scheduled as just before we were about to set off one of the other drivers sneezed and apparently Hindus believe this to be extremely bad luck; therefore we had to wait 10 minutes until Kanaram felt the bad luck period to be over!

As we made our way towards Bikaner the terrain became more desert like and the vehicles more crowded.

We arrived at our destination, checked into the hotel and then made our way to the Junagarh, Bikaner's magnificent fort.

We opted for the audio guide and enjoyed a couple of hours wandering around the ornate rooms instructed by our 'guide' which had been voiced by an Indian with an impossibly posh English accent, very British Raj.

At one point a very shifty bloke ushered us through a locked door and into a room which contained the Maharajah's chair. He insisted we sit down on it and have our photo taken and then we had to wait until the coast was clear so that he could let us back out of the 'secret room'. All very strange!

We rejoined Kanaram who was waiting outside for us and he then informed us he was taking us to the 'Red Temple', just outside of Bikaner. We arrived at the temple and took off our shoes to venture inside. As we stepped through the gates we spotted a rat scurrying towards us and then another and another. It suddenly dawned on us that Kanaram had actually been saying 'Rat Temple' and not 'Red', eeekkk.
These are not your run of the mill sewer rats, oh no these will be holy rats and in fact it is deemed auspicious if one of these sacred creatures scampers over your toes. I spent the whole time hoping that I wouldn't be that 'lucky' as I feared I might have to boot one of the little buggers if they came too close and suffer the wrath of the worshipping hindus.

On the way back into town we stopped off at the National Camel Research Centre.

We saw lots of camels but were denied entry to the laboratories which made me immediately suspicious of what they were doing in there. We turned down the offer of a Camel milk lassi and returned instead to our hotel's own roof terrace to watch the kites fly over Bikaner as the sun set.

India - Delhi and Mandawa

We arrived in Delhi to the heaviest rains of the monsoon season which meant that the capital city was a mud bath and during our first explorations we slid around in the mire and god knows what ever else.

Having been on the road for 11 months we thought we were used to crazy cities, but Delhi really was just something else and as we picked our way through the tuk-tuks, cows, rickshaws and cars we were quite relieved that we would be leaving for Rajasthan the next day.

We were picked up the next morning by our driver for the next 2 weeks, Kanaram

and whisked (as much as any one can be whisked in the horrendous traffic of Delhi) out of the city. We passed hundreds of bare-foot, orange-clad pilgrims on their way to collect the holy water of the Ganges and soon passed into the state of Rajasthan. As we ate up the kilometres on our way to Mandawa we passed Camels pulling carts and women dressed in increasingly colourful clothes and Kanaram informed us that the culture changes every 36 kilometres here in India. 36, not 40 or 50 but exactly every 36!! We passed through several busy market towns and soon began to realise that we were as much of interest to the local people as they are to us, as they stared in fascination into the car.

We finally reached Mandawa and checked into our Haveli hotel.

Mandawa is famed for its Havelis, which are lavishly painted mansions both inside and out. We headed out to take a look at several more Havelis dotted around the small town, the fort and then sampled some of the delicious snacks available on the street. We were already getting used to the numerous young men that want to talk to you as you wander around, with the vast majority ending these conversations with the expected 'my family has a small shop just around the corner', but the most rewarding moments were those people who genuinely did just want to say hello and practice their English.

We ended our evening on the roof top of our hotel serenaded by peacocks, donkeys, dogs and the never ending honking horns.

Koh Chang

We made a dash for Bangkok and carried straight on through and for the pleasant shores of Koh Chang. After a rainy night in Trat we caught the ferry over to the island and checked into the blissful Gajipuri resort in Kaibae. We had our own little bungalow just metres from the beach and even closer to the resort's pool and bar, who could ask for more?

The weather was decidedly iffy for our 4 nights on the island but we still managed to soak up a few rays around the pool
and best of all completely chill out.

Our beach suffered a bit of a pounding from the storms which lashed the island during our stay and during a walk on the shore during our 3rd day we discovered that a large portion of it had been washed away. Where I had enjoyed this swing just the night before there was now a huge ditch and it was impossible to climb onto it any longer.

One of the more random discoveries we made on the island was a pool full of crocs just hidden away over a walled compound down one of the roads in Kaibae. We have no idea who they belonged to and exactly what they were doing there but Dave enjoyed taking these photographs of the smelly creatures.

After 4 lovely but rainy days we left the island behind and headed for Bangkok; where we managed a brief catch up with Hannah and Paul from our Laos adventures, visited the sparkling malls of the city, travelled on the crazy canal barges to get from place to place and finally waved South East Asia goodbye after an amazing 3 and a half months.

Bridge over the River Kwai

We arrived in Kanchanaburi, on the banks of the river Kwai and immediately began to whistle Colonel Bogeys march non stop, you just can't help yourself! After a long list of shabby hotels on our journey south we found ourselves a great little hotel on the banks of the river and on further exploration found that it had a swimming pool too- result! There are some advantages of travelling during the off season and cheaper accommodation is one of them.

Most of the places of interest here in Kanchanaburi are to do with the 'Death Railway', which was built by Allied prisoners of war during World War 2 under the brutal watch of the occupying Japanese Army.

Our first visit was to the Railway museum which gives an overview of how the railway was built, as well as the details of the horrendous conditions the prisoners were made to live in. The most touching exhibits for me were the letters and belongings of the prisoners which have been donated to the museum by the survivors or the relatives left behind. To complete our fun morning we then nipped across the road to the War cemetery where almost 7000 prisoners of war were buried, sobering stuff.

After learning all about the history and the suffering we thought we had better go and see the infamous 'Bridge over the River Kwai' which is immortalised in the film of the same name, but is actually only a tiny part of the 258 mile railway stretching into Burma. If you look hard enough you can still see some of the bomb damage on the stone supports of the bridge from when it was destroyed by Allied air raids.

We walked across the bridge dodging the train as it chugged back and forth loaded with incredibly lazy people who don't want to walk the 200 metres across; or maybe it is for people even more scaredy-cat than me who don't like the fact that you could plunge down between the railway sleepers with a slight trip or stumble and into the murky river waters.

We enjoyed our couple of days in the town and enjoyed the added bonus of being able to jump into the pool at the end of a hot and sweaty day. Time was plodding on though so it was soon time to head for Bangkok and beaches beyond.

Travelling South

We caught a minivan back down to Chiang Mai and headed south immediately, landing in Lampang 2 hours later. The guide book described this place as a 'mini Chiang Mai with lumbering elephants and elegant mansions'. Now I don't know if we were in the wrong part of town but we saw nothing that even hinted of these things. We walked to the town's clock tower and had a stroll around the public gardens and concluded that the whole place was deserted and made a hasty retreat back to our shabby hotel.

Not impressed with what Lampang had to offer we set off the following day to Sukhothai. We shared our relatively comfortable bus (AC this time) with monks and several army recruits and 3 and a half hours later pulled into this ancient city. Well, we actually arrived in new Sukhothai which was another nondescript town but we knew that the old town, which was recognised as the first Thai Kingdom, was a mere tuk-tuk ride away.

The next day we jumped aboard the towns' tuk tuk 'bus' and soon found ourselves at the gates of the ancient city. We hired 2 beaten up old bikes and cycled around in the drizzle admiring the crumbling wats and monasteries of this old kingdom.


Some stunning remains, but after a few hours we were damp and soggy and ready for some food. After so much culture in the past 10 months you might have thought that our sense of humour would have progressed from that of an 8 year old but you'd be wrong and we chose our restaurant just because it made us laugh!

One day of looking around crumbling kingdoms proved enough and the next day saw us taking 2 more buses to reach the town of Lopburi. Checked into one of the very uninspiring hotels, the best of a bad bunch and then set out to look at some more ruins. This time a Royal palace and Khmer-esque temple, Prang Sam Yot was on the agenda; coming at the end of rather a long list of South East Asian sights I'm afraid to say we were feeling rather jaded and the most interesting thing about the town were the marauding monkeys who inhabit the place.

They are particularly prevalent around the temple and because they are fed by locals and tourist alike they now think that anything you're holding is fair game. This cheeky sod grabbed my bottle of water from me and proceeded to guzzle the whole lot!


We spent just one night in Lopburi and waved the monkeys farewell first thing the next morning.

Thailand - Pai

After our culinary adventure it was time to head north to Pai and for me to hunt down a certain Mr. Chart. I was told he offers an experience like no other so while Kate pampered herself in a spa I wandered off into the Thai jungle with a little Thai man, machetes and guns in order to learn how to survive.

We only had one night in the jungle but with the amount of rain we had to deal with that evening I'm glad we had such limited time. The first day we walked for several hours before stopping for a delicious lunch of fire cooked pork and beef accompanied with a soup made from wild mushrooms picked as we trekked.

I have never seen so many different uses for bamboo. We used it for drinking, eating, cooking, filtering, digging and many more. I did keep my cup as a souvenir but it went mouldy!

We didn't come across much wildlife but that was a blessing as I think most animals would have been on the menu. We did find a snake which I didn't manage to get a photo of (unusual I know!), thankfully Chart was not interested in it as food. Bear Grylls would have eaten it, I have no doubt.

The main use for the bamboo was building our shelter. Chart went gathering large poles of bamboo while I went off in search of palm leaves to construct the roof, for some reason I was trusted with a machete.

Once I had done my bit as Ray Mears and enough palms leaves had been gathered I set about splitting bamboo into ever decreasing strips to create a strong twine to bind our shelter together. I stopped short of fashioning a birch bark canoe.

Once the camp was complete we cooked dinner of sticky rice in bamboo leaves along with more pork, bamboo shoots and mushrooms.

It looked pretty comfortable and was, however later in the evening the heavens opened and we had to dig an emergency trench around our sleeping area to avoid getting swept away.

Before breakfast Mr. Chart went off with his rifle and returned with a small rodent. It turns out he actually shot it with his revolver as the gun powder had got wet during the night. Our morning meal was therefore red Thai curry with squirrel! (If you want pictures of the dead squirrel and the revolver - email me)

Our second day we walked even further and for the majority we trudged down a small river in search of a waterfall. We found it, although the water didn't look particularly inviting for a dip; the rain the night before had turned it very muddy.

The trip involved a lot of walking, however we probably drank more whiskey than water; it is surprising that I actually remember any of it.