Paul and Sophie's Big Trip

Itchy Feet

2007-03-27T08:50:00.000+01:00

Finally I only have three days left of work, I cannot stand my supervisor so much she can make me feel sick with one look. I have enjoyed Melbourne and living in our house, life here is very easy there's lots of live music, festivals and events, eating out is cheap and good as well, However I find it slightly mundane and need to get away. I did enjoy and will miss some parts of work, like moaning about how shit it is, and laughing a lot about really childish things because we have all gone slightly insane with boredom, thankfully the people I work with are really cool.
Anyway we leave on Tuesday to Tasmania, it looks like a really beautiful place so next blog there should be some pictures, we are starting on a farm in Mount Creek as soon as we arrive which we will stay on for a week I just hope i don't they want me to put my hand up a cows arse, I don't know why but for some reason I always think of that, must be a childhood memory of Emmerdale Farm I have.
Paul

Nearly as beautiful as Port Albert...

2007-03-20T06:38:00.000Z

but not quite Lisa! nah we had a fantastic time on the Great Ocean Road after a pretty lunatic time trying to pick up the car from the airport which included me stopping random passersby and offering them ten dollars to take us to Mareno Road - two people actually agreed to - one guy who was so baked he could hardly open his eyes and another guy who seemed almost physically distressed that he couldn't help us (the flaw in my genius plan being that I had no idea where Mareno Road actually was). After a perfect sunset we realised that making it to a campsite and setting up the tent in the dark was going to be interesting - we actually ended up camping in a carpark which was...cold and uncomfortable but did mean we got a perfect sunrise over Loch Ard Gorge, our favourite place on the Road. After that the whole trip was a bit less faulty towers except for the bit where it got really windy and the camping nerds on either side of us had their tent falls down, cue for me to stride around obnoxiously saying 'ours held up okay' (little did they know it was because paul woke me in the middle of the night going 'soph the tents falling down', and then fell asleep leaving me to crawl around in the dark banging in pegs, which was sweet of him) We also liked the Indian family who brought their own box of rice to the pizza restaurant to be microwaved and the 5 old ladies who brought 8 bottles of wine (this was after me and paul had been unsure to eat there cos we looked slightly scruffy). We also camped next to the angriest family in australia who only communicated with high volume swearing including to the five year old who got the sleeping bag a bit wet (he sure won't make that mistake again the 'STUPID LITTLE FUCKER', as he was apparently called) In between these comedy highlights there was a lot of beautiful scenery and being very overexcited and loving our car which was a beast and only 14 pounds a day to hire.
so we are now counting down the days till the end of work (i will actually miss mine cos the people are fun) and the start of our Tasmanian adventure. we have sorted out our farms and flights and the rest should be easy.
love to all and sorry for the gap between updates - when we get on the move again we should have more to report, not that Melbourne hasn't been wicked but average day to day happiness isn't easy to make witty and exciting entries of (and my entries are always witty and exciting right!?)
Most importantly Happy 21st to Harri, my all time favourite sister (!) Have a great day!
Sophie xxx

melbourne life

2007-02-27T07:02:00.000Z

well there really isn't anything too exciting to report but we are very happy. made some good friends already and i may actually become employed by the tourist board because i do keep saying things like 'melbourne truly is one of the world's most livable cities'. but at one bar i walked in and asked in how much drinks were and she said 'oh they're free for the next half hour'. this does not happen in london. ooh that's really scary i heard a voice behind me and it was paulie also updating this blog so 2 for the price of one i guess. as you can read paul hates his job - mine is so boring that i am reduced to flirting with this 60 year old guy who looks like 'the penguin' from batman but with grey hair badly dyed ginger. it's a unique look. he also has the same laugh as danny devito, he's a real catch. but compared to the other weirdos i work with he seems quite normal (one guy brought in a book on birdwatching for the under tens by bill oddie for me to read and then sat by me to make sure i read it. interesting.)
we have seen many cool bands since we got here and i have discovered that i like a lot more music than i thought. however think we need a break from the city so we are going to go driving on the great ocean road weekend after next and then in a few weeks we are going organic farming in tasmania. some people wrote in to the registry for births, deaths and marriages (where i work) to change their names to rainbow and rhythm heart today. they were from tasmania so who knows we may get to stay with them!
love to all sophie xxx

Work Sucks

2007-02-27T06:36:00.000Z

What a shit job I have, most of the people I like have left now only one remains, there's quite a cool aussie guy as well who reminds me of Laurie and he finds my jokes hillarious, so obviously I instantly like him. Reading Tom's comment has made me quite homesick, I am having a wicked time depite the job but the idea of an all day session with everyone and seeing Dee again makes me feel gutted, damn where's that teleportation device. So far these are the things I have been told off for at school...sorry work.

Don't talk (repeatedly)
Radio must be repetitive and cheesy all the time
If there is a small amount of ineligible writing on a box in the corner you must hand it straight to supervisor
You must get back to work on the second break finishes
You must work till 4.36 not 4.35
You must not smile of laugh (ok wasn't said but gets the evil eye)

and today was my favourite, Paul you must tell everyone when break is not just the person next to you.

As you can tell its a fun and laid back place, however I will not drag me down and I enjoy defying them by trying to piss them off.

I am also laughing because I am finished in a few weeks and then don't have to work for a long time and am going round Singapore, Malaysia Thailand Cambodia Loas and Vietnam.So Fuck you all

That felt better, would like to hear from some more people if your still reading, if you don't want to post it on the blog then send it to my address paul_gandolfi @hotmail.com

Sorry i've been lame but love you all

Just a quickie

2007-02-15T06:58:00.000Z

i had hoped to get a job with a computer so i could finally email everyone i am meant to and update this occasionally. unfortunately i got a job with a little numeric machine which does not allow me to use the internet so i will now write down some random thoughts. poppy - agonda for chilled out beautifulness, arambol for nude sunbathing (well that's the only place i saw anyone do it although a secluded beach between villages might be the best idea as people aren't too keen on the whole idea, most people go swimming fully clothed. and yes i do suddenly start worrying about offending people when am not in the uk - i haven't told anyone they are going downtown since i left england). me and paulie are doing well except paul hates his job because it's the sort of place where they're only allowed to listen to pop music stations incase rock music is too difficult for people to listen to. went to a free outdoor classical music concert for valentines which was bit different and very nice especially the fireworks. ooh shit out of time love to all xxx

I Finally have time to blog

2007-02-04T04:18:00.000Z

I have been very busy the last few weeks, mainly sorting, counting and packing baby clothes, recovering from rainbow serpent, cooking(i'm am now a master chef after cooking two wonderful meals which took longer than 5 minutes to prepare) and more recovering from rainbow serpent.
We have been enjoying our cultural exchange with the Koreans, they are impressed with both my darting abilities(we have a board in the garden)and my swingball skills also my ability to speak english to which I just tell them i'm just naturally brilliant and don't have to make much effort.
Yesterday they cooked us a traditional Korean meal which was delicious, we had pork and octopus and it was very hot, however not hot enough that we didn't finish much to the dissapointment of Chow the chef who was looking forward to seeing us clasping our throats and begging for water I think. Today we are cooking for them roast beef which should be interesting as they have never had European food before and its only the the third time I have cooked a meal with this much preparation.
We had a lovely meal at our friend Jana's on Friday, as usual we drank too much wine and shouted a lot but everyone seemed to have a good time.
Last night we went to see a band with two of the girls I work with, sophie liked them but I thought it was shit, although it was hilarious seeing all the young pretty girls in front of the stage staring lovingly at the band and not moving or dancing to the music in any way like a small army of stalkers.
Anyway I have another thrilling week of work ahead of me, my favourite job at the moment is cutting up boxes to go into recycling, I was so wasted as a fitness instructor.
We also have the St Kilda festival happening this week which is mostly free music, comedy and dance performance by the beach, it will also be above thirty and clear blue skies all week.
Hope everyone's enjoying the cold
Seriously wish you were here, I miss everyone
Love Paul

Would anyone not particiapting in the shamanic trance dance workshop please step outside the circle

2007-02-02T06:10:00.000Z

We have been up to write a lot since the last blog. We are now both working, Paulie is still at the warehouse and I am working for the regsitry of births, marriages and deaths which is about as fun as it sounds, still we are earning a lot and saving a lot cos we are now staying in a very cheap house share. There are 7 of us in a three bedroom house but you could fit most London studios in our room and it has a garden. Our housemates are Jamie an Aussie receptionist and 3 Korean guys, Cho, a student, Issac, also a student and more excitingly for the house an excellent gardener, Teho again a student and a mysterious seventh individual who mainly hangs around the kitchen drinking beer and staring at the floor. He's Korean as well so I'm assuming someone know who he is. Either that or we've moved into a ridiculously polite house.... They all seem really nice anyway and we have had a very chilled week watching tennis together... We also went to the Rainbow Serpent festical which was really good if really, really cold (seriously if anyone thinks Australia has good weather, I promise you if this is summer, the UK isn't that bad). We met a few people there but we did spend a lot of time going 'it would be great if .... was here'. Think you need a big gang of mates to go to these things, or at least weather that doesn't mean everyone just stays in their tents. Still we had a good couple of nights dancing and saw some weird and wonderful things including Australia's version of Dean Gaffney using the hula hoop as a seduction technique, a very fucked lady playing violently with an 8 foot snake, an excellent band called Ganga Giri, the aforementioned shamanic trance dance ritual, a lecture on how everyone's personality is determined by their facial features which was just as hilarious as it sounds and Miss Rainbow Serpent who is a very cool old Aboriginal lady called Aunty Mona.
Melbourne is still wicked - everyone is out all the time so even the shittiest little bar has a great atmosphere and the food when you eat out, especially Chinese/Vietnamese, is amazing. Am off to a birthday party now - I am sure there were more exciting things to tell you but i hacve forgotten...another time xx
PS Lisa if you are still reading this I lost your email address and I never got the picture you sent me so I have no way of contacting you! E-mail me and we may hit the rocking venue that is Port Albert again! Sophie x

Paul and Sophie's Big Trip

2007-01-16T04:13:00.000Z

Some Photos, our beloved Camper van, sunset in Gokarna, Sophie on the beach near sydney, some guys sitting over looking the sea in Mumbai and the Tennis and on the previous blog us by a beach just north of sydney,us as bollywood film stars,

I do not want a dog fucking my bed!!

2007-01-16T03:51:00.000Z

We went to the Australian Open tennis yesterday which was fun, it sounds bad but luckily there were bush fires and the smoke blocked out the sun and made it cool as its 40 degrees today which is why i'm in a nice air conditioned Internet cafe writing this.
We watched Maresmo and Federer because we had centre court tickets then spent the rest of the time walking round watching the other courts, ot was a great atmosphere despite the Serbian fans attacking the Croatians shouting "die Croats die"
Tennis audiences are strange most people sit in silence with a round of applause or a few "come on's" or they are completely crazy and dress up in football shirts faces painted and sing after each point, Sophies favorite was a Serbian woman who screamed like she was in pain as if the Croats had got there own back.
We have been very busy apart from that looking for jobs and a room to accomadate, I have found my dream job packing childrens clothes in a warehouse(that sounds a bit strange now i've written it) and Sophie has an interview possibly teaching people to use a computer programme.
Our room hunting has been interesting we have walked half of melbourne on foot and had no luck, although we are waiting to here from this one lady we met yesterday, it didn't go that well from the start as she had two dogs and one was enormous ( I Hate Dogs) which I pretended to like as the room was only 130 dollars, The big dog then proceeded to want to play fetch showing me his huge sharp teeth which the lady joked that she had got her teeth caught in (how hillarious),.
The limit was hit when we got into a conversation about the dog masturbating against the bed, our bed that we would be sleeping in!! She said that he loves the bed but she has to stop him because once his dick was stuck out and he almost died with a permanent erection, and if this happens again with her not around she has frozen peas in the fridge to put on the area to cool him down.
We said we'd be in touch, room hunting continues
Paul

We have mostly been eating pies

2007-01-08T09:02:00.000Z

Well we had an excellent New Year's - having decided to open our midnight bubbly at about 4pm, we then continued drinking well into the next day. We enjoyed the family fireworks at 9 but decided against the 5 hour sitting in the cold that waiting for the main ones at 12 would have required. I think it is safe to say we were the 'life and soul' of the club, Paul in a good way and me in my usual quite intense, 'on the edge of being scary' way. I fell over, spent a lot of time telling everyone the slightly fuzzy TV screen of the midnight fireworks was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen and was very surprised that when we left the afterparty the next day, everyone wanted to say goodbye because if you'd asked me I would have said I had never seen any of them in my life before. An amazing guy called Greg invited us back to his house from the afterparty for 'as long as we wanted' which, given we were starting to tire of the camper, was very tempting but after one night we hit the road again. We went to Canberra which is a very strange place but it does have the Parliament building that has a grass roof which I found very entertaining to run up and down (I know, small minds). We then had a slightly rubbish time going to places in Victoria with names misleadingly ending in '....Beach' which in this part of Victoria apparently means stinky mudflats. After 3 different 'beaches' and one embarassing breakdown in which half the (admittedly small) town tried to restart us but in fact managed to flood the engine, we decided a drink was called for and ended up in a place called Port Albert. I think it's fair to say Port Albert is not the most sophisticated place - sample local 'character' JimmyFourBalls, the man with the deepest voice in the world - but we did have an excellent, drunken time with the lovely Lisa and Scott (hello if you're reading this!), Paul managed to beat an irritating Northern Barmy Army reject several times at darts and I met a girl who claimed to grow up in Telford (this turned out to be a rather confusing fabrication - a fake childhood in St. Tropez makes sense but Telford?!). The evening ended with me forcing a man whose marriage was collapsing to buy me drink (not that great cos i had to listen to him for ages) and Paul meeting the possible future assassin of John Howard who when not telling us of his constant fantasies of killing the Ozzie PM also informed us he loved black women but unfortunately had 'never met one in real life'. In short, it reminded me of nowhere so much as my home nation of Cornwall. Now we are in Melbourne which is an airy, clean city full of beautiful buildings and sophisticated people so obviously I feel quite out of place.
I have gone on quite long enough but we have managed to squeeze in seeing kangaroos, koalas, wallabies and a slightly less cliched Aussie animal - the fairy penguin. Around a thousand of these incredibly cute birds come ashore each evening on Philip Island to be greeted by a thousand weird looking humans (not that all humans are weird, just the crowd that we were with which included this man who out of nowhere started telling Paul about a girl he had gone out with whose picture he had to hide from his mum for 'obvious reasons'?! and a man who I realised after about 20 minutes was talking in a loud monotone about the huge number of 'penguins'/clumps of seaweed massing in the sea ENTIRELY TO HIMSELF). Most importantly we have got rid of the hideous camper that we both actually found painful to look at by the end of our trip and are looking forward to staying in one place for more than 3 nights for the first time in 4 months. And Tom WE WILL BE BACK IN SEPTEMBER FOR POSSIBLY THE TENTH TIME. And you are very sweet regarding your new girl - can't believe you cringed at my soppiness. Pops - keep up the good work and actually I think you should ban yourself from your own house, I'm sure you standing in the cold begging Freddie to be let in would be entertaining (if not for you). Chris - I think they may be growing on me or it may be cos I have been drunk a lot in the past two weeks.
Love Sophie xxx

Happy New Year from Oz

2006-12-31T05:43:00.000Z

Well doesn't it seem strange to be seeing in the New Year in blazing sunshine.... I WOULDN'T KNOW GIVEN IT'S BLOODY FREEZING HERE AND THE RAIN MEANS OUR PARTY HAS BEEN MOVED TO A CRAPPY CLUB IN BONDI JUNCTION. Apart from that we have a new camper with a message on the back which is so bad I'm not even going to put it here, suffice to say we have seen parents rushing their kids away from the van before they ask what it means, and money is going very quickly here compared to India. However it is ridiculously beautiful in all directions and we are loving cooking our meals outdoors with the rainforest/beaches/harbour/lake as a view. We have been wine tasting which was great except we kept having to pretend we were winelovers looking to buy rather than the pitifully obvious freeloaders we actually were. We have also invested in a body board and now we totally fit in with all the other body-boarders at the beach - well except for two things 1)our board was quite cheap and has 'THIS IS A FLOTATION TOY ONLY AND SHOULD ONLY BE USED UNDER COMPETENT SUPERVISION' in big letters on it and 2) we are so bad at body boarding onlookers may suspect we need competent supervision.
Really this is just a quick seasons greetings to you all - hope you are having a wicked time and wish we could be there with you (with a magic plane to transport us back to Oz immediatly after)
Love you all and if you haven't been in touch for a while let us know how you are.
Love Sophie xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

We're going into space...first stop Uranus!

2006-12-23T03:46:00.000Z

We initially thought our campervan was quite cool with some nice alien pictures and star wars robots but then we saw the back which has the catchy slogan above on it which may have been why we were pulled over by the police within two hours of picking it up (it was just a random breath test cos it's Christmas but we still shat ourselves). Now we're in the mountains where it's chilly and raining and not what you'd expect from an Australian summer.
Now on to more important matters such as our burgeoning film career, or more accurately Pauls. While Sophie was too big for any of the balldresses the rest of the white extras were wearing and ended up in a fifties schoolteacher dress and wedge sandals which gave her the stylish look of a Hassidic Jew, Paul was given the role of chief journalist. This entailed a heavy antique film camera which was such a prized prop that it had its' own minder who stalked Paul around the set giving constant instructions on how to hold it. His outfit was pinstripe trousers with braces, a shirt, Buddy Holly style glasses and greased combover hair. He was on camera for pretty much the whole ten hour all night shoot (about 10 minutes of actual film) and was given a lot of personal attention by the director. After two shots, he just wanted to go and hide but bravely stuck it out for the rest of the shoot while Sophie went slowly insane getting up from a cinema seat and sitting down again in unison with the other extras (in what cinema does everyone sit down together, incidentally?) all of whom were COMPLETE FREAKS. From the ginger albino Indian flirt who Sophie initially thought was Russian to the very angry American reject who wasn't allowed on screen due to his non-fifties hair, from the woman with delusions of grandeur who kept pushing Paul off screen to the cockmunch referred to earlier who pretty much defies description, they were all the sort of people who'd expect to have nothing to do all night than work on a low budget film. He claimed to have been in 3 Bollywood films and obsessively showed anyone who was passing the billboard for the one he was in (we later found out he just did some dubbing for a security guard), thought all the Indian girls were chatting him up when they were really taking the piss, kept referring to a mythical Turkish girlfriend and his many travelling exploits in a loud voice even when NO-ONE was listening, the list goes on.......
The whole shoot was demented chaos and no-one knew what they were doing. Highlights included the director trying to beat up the security guard and a futile attempt to stop Mumbai rush hour traffic in a 200m radius when the filming overran. By this time it was 7am and Sophie was going psychotic, Paul was so wired he had no idea what time it was and a confrontation nearly ensued when we demanded our money and refused to do 'one more shot, one more shot'.
It was a pretty cool end to our Indian trip, even though by the time we reached the airport we were so tired we were hallucinating. Sydney came as much more of a shock than we thought it would and we really miss India. Here are our highlights; walking across Delhi at rush hour, gazing at mountains in Spiti Valley, watching the Tibetan performance in Dharamsala, talking to all the visitors in the Golden Temple, visiting a yogi and watching the puja ceremonies in Varanasi, cycling through the villages around Konark, climbing the pilgrimage trail in Tirupati, standing on a rooftop in Tiruvannamalai, gardening in Auroville, visiting the temples in Thanjavur and Madurai, seeing the elephants in Periyar, the whole of Sophie's birthday, taking a bus ride through the tea plantations and chilling out on the beaches in Costa Malabari, Gokarna and Agonda. Anyway that list is probably more interesting for us than for you but India is great and you should all go there.

Stardom beckons!

2006-12-19T15:07:00.000Z

We are in the middle of filming a Bollywood film - we will be starring as 'random white people in the background', a great part I'm sure you'll agree. I've just sneaked off to do some internet stuff. It's all good fun except one of our fellow background artists or extras as they are sometimes known is the BIGGEST COCKMUNCH I HAVE EVER ENCOUNTERED. Will I last 8 hours without murder occurring. Find out next time.....

Disaster Strikes!!!!!!

2006-12-17T13:55:00.000Z

Just as we were patting ourselves on the backs for not losing anything important and not missing any trains or buses we woke up yesterday morning at 7, our train was at 9.50 and we decided to stay roughly an hour away from the train station especially not to miss it. Anyway as we were getting ready Sophie asked in passing if I had my passport just out of our constant paranoia, and then we remembered we hadn't got it back last time we changed money. So we ran out the hotel hailed down a taxi and explained we had to go back to our last resort 40km away,(in India 40km can take hours if there are very slow trucks and cows in the way) At this point we knew all the trains are booked out for weeks from Goa to Mumbai and we probably have to get about 10 local buses maybe having to stand crushed into someones armpit for hours.
The taxi drivers soothing Muzack of various eighties hits added to the atmosphere as we flew through the roads, and eventually we got the passport and made the train with ten minutes to spare,
Its remarkable this has only happened once so far but I'm very happy it worked out ok as we are having fun exploring Mumbai, its far from the hell hole made out by people and they even have Christmas trees to make us feel at home.
Now we are now just killing time before we go on an opentop bus tour.
Lots of Love Paulie xxxxxxxxx

Strange Goan's on

2006-12-15T10:13:00.000Z

Hello everyone, christmas is nearly upon us and its weird to say the least, we've spent the last few days relaxing on the beach in a place called Agonda in Goa, it was nice and quiet(we are turning into geriatrics) and we had a hut on the beach facing the sea, the weather here is perfect no clouds and cool breezes so not too hot.
Anyway now I've made you jealous I will tell you the bad news that we've realised we will probably be spending Christmas day in a 'wicked' camper miles away from civilisation eating christmas dinner in an aussie pub (if they do that?).
Our last week has been fairly busy despite trying to stay in one place for more than two days we have been to about five places in the last ten days, starting in Madikeri which was a dump surrounded by beautiful countryside, we had a nice walk to a waterfall, posed for the Indian tourist paparazzi then walked past the drunks lying outside the Arrack shop(Indian rice alcohol made with ethanol that makes you go blind an can kill you).
We then went to jog falls India's highest waterfall which is probably India's biggest tourist failure after they built a dam nearby and its little more than a trickle, the local shop owners (still mourning the loss of then enormous olympic sized swimmimg pool with three diving boards which is now a dump(litterally))were very keen to have us though and shouted WHAT DO YOU WANT!' at us every opportunity and then 'WHY NOT?' when we refused to buy eveything on there stool.
Next stop Gokarna which was beautiful and we met some interesting characters there was Taff a very hard looking man from Sheffield with no hair and neck tatoo's who turned out to be very sweet and his best quote was, 'some people take India far too seriously' which we agreed with, then there was John a born traveller who had been around the globe for the past couple of years who informed us of handy tips like were your likely to be stripped and searched inside and out on south american borders and which country's the police will steal your camera.
We also met Thomas a Czech guy who walked around in his pale blue Y-fronts and pale podgy body and said he was quitting DHL and telling them to send his things express delivery so he could live in Bangalore to become a computer engineer, this he found so funny he laughed for ten minutes although I think that was because he was very stoned.
We left to Vagator in Goa in search of trance parties, and went to a few but one finished a 10pm after starting at 7pm and the other was on a very small dance floor constructed out of wood over a pit which was a bit dodgy and the music was rubbish.We did have the pleasure of meeting Tristan a lad from Devon who strangely used to drink in the same pub as sophie when she was sixteen in Cornwall and also lived in Roman Way in Bushhillpark 2 minutes from my house, quite spooky, he was a Goa resident most winters and tried to find us a better party but failed, however we did get to hear about his Tarot reading business and his philosphies about England being a magical land of fairys, pixies, witches and wizards, he then claimed he saw a fairy in the bar at which point I found it hard to believe anything he then said(only after that point obviously).
We then went to Arambol which was good but we wanted more seclusion(old people remember!) and Agonda was the perfect place.
We are going to Bombay tommorow which should be fun then in five days saying goodbye to India and hello Australia which we are both excited about.
Anyway hope your all having fun buying useless crap, its one thing I will not miss!!
Love you all Paulie xxxxxxxx

A day of mourning for Pards

2006-12-13T05:37:00.000Z

Despite our huge upset at the sacking of our second favourite manager in football (and one we were actually slightly obsessed with) we have managed to find the strength to prise ourselves away from the bottle and come and upload some pictures. We would like to say, however, how outraged we are with the chairman of West Ham and his poor decision making ability. Football has lost a legend. God bless you Alan and may you return soon, hopefully as manager of England? We are opening our blog for messages of support which we will then send together to Alan to help him through this difficult time - come on guys, he deserves it.
Anyway the photos are of a temple elephant in Madurai, the banyan, the chubster and the giant gold golfball in Auroville and the Sun Temple in Konark.

Travelling's fun, honest

2006-12-02T12:19:00.000Z

As I was lying in bed a couple of nights ago laughing at the fact that while I was under a blanket and a sheet wearing pyjamas, a t-shirt, Paul's big fluffy jumper, a long skirt over my pyjamas and bedsocks and sturggling to get to sleep cos i was too cold, Paul was snoring away, wearing boxers and covered by a thin blanket (I think there may be something wrong with me), I thought that we should check Paul's bank account to make sure the hostel in Sydney had taken the money out for our booking. Well Paul did check and the hostel told him that they couldn't honour our booking cos they would have to ask other people to leave and 'that wouldn't be fair at Christmas, mate', conveniently overlooking the fact that we would be homeless at Xmas and we had booked and paid a deposit in May... I checked some other hostels which were all full and then spoke to a dithering woman at Visit Sydney who said 'Well we might be able to find something....but it won't be in Sydney city......and it will be over $140pn' (we were meant to be paying $40). So I phoned the hostel again primarily to shout at them but after a few seconds of hearing his smug 'don't know what you're getting upset about' nasal voice I hung up and decided there might be a small problem when we get to Australia - I find Australians REALLY REALLY ANNOYING. Anyway we've found one just about reasonable room for the first night and then we will be spending Christmas in a campervan which actually could be quite cool as we figure we can just drive out to a beach and enjoy the view and then we will head down to Melbourne. However, even campervans are in short supply and nowhere had one. Nowhere except 'wickedcampers.com', which in some misguided attempt to be young and funky have painted their entire fleet in zany 'wickedcamper' designs. Check out their website if you want to see the type of monstrosity we will be driving around in and disowning if anyone thinks it is ours. (More worryingly, when we booked ours they offered us wickedcamper t-shirts - who buys clothes that advertise campervan rentals? who?) Anyway sorting this out was a stressful 24 hours, not helped by the fact that the town we were in was full of arseholes and that I have developed a hideous itchy rash all over my body which makes people move away from me when they notice it.
Enough moaning - we actually had an amazing few days before that taking a beautiful boat ride through the narrow backwaters in a canoe, staying in a lovely old house in Kochi and then splashing out (again!) on a guesthouse on a beautiful deserted beach. It really wasn't that expensive and it included all meals which were amazing Keralan food. We also were sent to see a temple ritual called theyyam by the guesthouse owner. This involves a local man being painted in all different colours and putting on a huge costume and headdress and dancing to frenetic drumming and music until he becomes possessed by Shiva and can offer advice to the people who have come to the ritual, often by predicting the future. It was a quite an intense atmosphere, despite the fact that the temple had a corrugated roof and was next to a bus stop (which in a weird way made it more real) and was definitely one of the most unusual and interesting experiences we've had here. Anyway i'm not going to do a Paul and now claim I'm a shaman or something - instead I'm going to go and watch Arsenal v Spurs which I'm sure will be just as fascinating.
Sophie xxx
ps yes paul did make us check into a hotel with a tv for the match. so it better be a good one!

New Photos

2006-11-26T11:59:00.000Z

We just got a new CD done so here are some photos, some of them from near the beginning of the trip cos we feel like uploading quite a few. Paul and the smallest Sikh in the world (our self appointed Golden Temple tour guide) , a fishing village in Orissa and me with my flowers in our hotel room and now we're giving up cos there have been a lot of problems uploading. never mind we will try again another day....

Happy Birthday to me!

2006-11-25T11:59:00.000Z

We've been having an amazing time since we left Madurai, which was also cool. First we went to Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary in the Keralan hills, which is an amazingly beautiful area. We went on an early morning wildlife spotting trek which mainly involved spotting leeches, mainly attached to me as leeches appear to share the love all biting insects have for attaching themselves to me (seriously the rest of the trekkers nicknamed me the leech detector, it's not fair). We also saw this huge black and yellow spider in it's web. After we'd all taken photos of it, with our hands allmost touching it to show the size of the thing, our guide informed us that it was 'one of the few posinonous spiders found in Periyar'. Which was nice. Then we trekked to the top of a very steep hill and were rewarded with the sight of wild elephants on the neighbouring hill which made everyone very excited except for Paul, who stood there loudly making remarks like 'I've seen them much closer in the temples' while we all tried to ignore him. We also saw the Malabar giant squirrel and some Nilgiri monkeys and the scenery was very beautiful. Then we took a boat trip around the lake in the sanctuary, which we'd been told was not very good for wildlife spotting, only to see loads of sambar, wild boar and two more groups of elephants including a big herd with some babies drinking right by the waters edge which actually managed to impress Paul.
After a slightly eventful bus journey down to the backwaters, during which our driver and most of our fellow passengers kept having to get out and hide as he was technically breaking a strike (which was due to end in an hour), we caught the ferry through some beautiful little canals to Alleppey where the hotel we had booked for my birthday was located. We got picked up by a very nice boat which took us to our hotel, which consisted of 12 little wood cottages surrounded by palm trees on the edge of a lake. Our room was lovely with a big outdoor shower under the palms and the sun was shining for the first time in days and we had the pool to ourselves....all in all it was a perfect day. Paul also arranged for an amazing bouquet of flowers about the size of me to be delivered at dinner (they were meant to be in our room when we arrived but weren't so we also got a free sunset cruise. Which was nice). The manager had promised to do it 'subtly - she won't even know it's going to happen' which apparently meant assembling almost the entire staff and then coughing loudly until Paul realised what was going on. They all hovered behind a bookcase as if Paul was going to propose and to entertain them I asked Paul to sing 'Have I told you lately that I love you' and, due to our state of ludicrous overexcitement and some Keralan wine, he did so quite loudly which they seemed quite disturbed by. We were debating whether he should jump on a table to continue the performance or just give up and actually propose when some other guests turned up and we realised we should really just go to bed. The next morning I had a massage with sirodhara which is when they pour oil on your head - travel TV programmes can't seem to go near Asia without the presenter having it done - and, once I'd got over being naked in front of a complete stranger, and the urge to turn to the camera and say 'this is very relaxing and one of a number of treatments offered by the hotel', it was one of the most relaxing experiences of my life. Anyway I'll stop gloating about my birthday now and say thank you to everyone for their messages and thanks also to Paul for shoehorning the date into his last post so only a few people forgot (if you are one of those people I am no longer talking to you. I may be 24 but I'm not a grown up). And, apologies for being very soppy, but thanks to Paul for making it the best birthday ever xx.
Right before I actually make someone vomit, I'll go and find him.....
Sophie xx

2006-11-20T10:27:00.000Z

Just been reading Toms story on the People website and offer my congrats again I don't know who tho woman involved is but its much better than the total non-story in the Sun, I mean who hasn't been groped by Dean Gaffney on a night out at some stage. After scouring the papers I see absolutely nothing has changed in Britain I do find myself mch more interested in the tabloid trash stories than the political news, it seems to be less full of shit. I was interested to hear about the 12 year old Muslim kids laying a game on-line where they shoot Tony Blair I wish they'd have released the website that would have released some pent up agression.
Anyway saw another Temple today there becoming a bit tiresome, same thing every time really, where off to a wildlife park tommorow to ride elephant through Tiger country then a boat trip and a night in a 5-star cottage resort facing a lake, with sunset boat rides and swimming pool for Sophies birthday (23rd).
Wish I was at home in the cold watching I am celebrity though (not really)
love Sri Paul

Auroville and the temple towns

2006-11-19T15:44:00.000Z

Firstly wishing everyone whose had there birthday's a happy birthday.
Gutted I missed Ryan and Tom's and Minnies 'Celebrations'.
Thanks for the latest "news" from back home, well done Tom for getting the front page on such a prestigious paper as the People, I can wait for the pun headline on Jessy Wallace's Crunchy incident.
Anyway Auroville worked its magic on me and I was up during the night after the last blog puking up and being attacked by a million mosquitoes in what I described to sophie as 'my worst shit ever'. So we missed a days gardening, which we were suprisingly gutted about, the people where thoroughly entertaining, there was Wayne and Stacey fresh out of drug rehab, Wayne kept telling me it was great to meet someone from London even though he'd been in India three days, he also insisted on speaking really bad Spanish to all the Indian lads for reasons known only to himself. Katlin the serial optimist from America somewhere who says everything is ausome, probably even if you told her you wanted to chop her head off and bury it in the whole you were digging, which I may have thought about once or twice.
Any way we would have loved to have stayed in Auroville for longer but all our clothes were damp, and I couldn't stand going for another mosquito nightmare poo, so much for the revelution.
Since Auroville we have been to Thiruvunamalai, Thirichipalli, Thanjuvur and where now in Madurai, I hope your looking all these up in the atlas and encyclopedias.
All these town have enormous temples which we have been in awe of, one morning at 5.30 I was woken by singing from the huge temple next to our hotel, I told sophie trying not to wake her up that I was going down to check it out and would be back in ten minutes, as I entered the temple there was an elephant blessing people who gave it money, also a holy cow(couldn't see the difference) with a crowd round it and lots of people lighting fire. I looked a complete fish out of water trying to peer into the 'inner sanctum' that only hindu's are allowed into really when some bloke ask me something about an ashram and I just nodded, so I ended up going through the whole ceremony which involved praying to about twenty statues all called shiva or shakti (I joined in out of respect and didn't look stupid at all) then I put so ash stuff on my head and red dye on my forehead walked around another statue ten times chanting something very badly and when he put his hands in the fire I explained i'd just had my nails done.
Anyway with all the incense and dizzy darkness I felt most peculiar for 6.30 and it was now light outside I started to reflect on what i'd just done and came to the conclusion that I was now blessed and the only decent thing to do is descend into the hills and become a saddu.
My new name is Sri Paul Enfield and I bless you all.

We're very spiritual people

2006-11-13T09:20:00.000Z

Well, we're staying in a community called Auroville which is designed to be an ideal city dedicated to promoting human unity anyway. For us this involves staying in a tree hut with no electricity and a toilet 100 mts away through the long grass. Well obviously I had to tell Paul that we were doing well on the whole illness front with just three really bad days between us which meant that my stomach problems occurred the night we moved into the hut (without a torch!) - a manic dash through the darkness to an equally pitch black toilet with a soundtrack of howling dogs and the large book on 'Common Snakes of Auroville' I'd seen earlier in the day running through my mind wasn't exactly the ideal introduction to the place but since then it's been great. It has a fantastic swimming pool, a nice beach, really nice food....yeah I guess I'm missing the whole spiritual side! Well, we did do some work on one of the farming projects here today and it was wicked, will be doing some more tomorrow. And we did visit the giant meditation building which looks more like a giant golden golfball than anything else - they were doing some building work which meant we couldn't go inside. So Auroville - a great place but maybe not 'Auroville - the city the Earth needs' as the leaflets somewhat grandiosely claim.
Before we got here,we went to Chennai which was a cool city - the highlight was definitely going to see a Tamil film which was just as ludicrously overdramatic as you could hope with loads of random dancing and singing, ridiculous fight scenes and a scene in which the evil woman of the piece was electrocuted in a comedy (well we thought so) style and then spent a few hours dying dramatically. It was really entertaining and it was surprising how much we understood. Then we went to Mamallapuram which was a pretty, sleepy little seaside town. We loved the Crocodile Breeding Centre just outside where me and Paul paid about 50p to feed the crocs, which were in very crowded pens with not very high walls, and then kept running away screaming like little girls when they jumped with their jaws open to get the food. We felt particularly stupid when we noticed some local women doing maintenance work in one of the pens, barefoot and with only a large stick for protection. We also had a kinda weird evening with some fellow travellers including a relic called Mickey who had been coming to India for 18 years and seemed quite nice until he revealed his rabid hatred of Muslims, claiming the tornado that hit Birmingham deliberately targetted Muslim areas (?!). Time for me and Paul to take him to task....oh no we just stared at the floor and muttered (we are actually getting a lot of practise at this as a lot of Hindu Indians do tend to assume we hate all Muslims as they do). Then onto Pondicherry where I had a baguette with loads of butter for the first time in two months (very important for me) but which was a bit depressing due to the very rich Westerners everywhere and the equal number of drunk/destitute Indians, which we haven't really seen that much elsewhere. And then to here, where we are developing our spiritual sides by joining the Om choir and the spiritual healing dance sessions which I'll let Paul tell you about next time.

Love Sophie xx

True Pilgrims

2006-11-04T14:33:00.000Z

Well our 22 hour trip to Tirupati turned into a 29 hour one. As always me and Paul got to sit next to the noisiest party on the whole train, in this case six fifty-sixty year olds from Delhi on a big tour of India. They were incredible mainly for their food consumption, which involved bringing a huge amoutn of food with them and then stopping anyone selling anything edible to consume yet more (someone went buy about every twenty minutes except for a two hour period wehre for some reason no-one came by at which point two of the chubsters held long loud conversations about how hungry they were) and also for the farting which went on continuously and which they found endlessly hilarious and got quite upset if we didn't join in the laughter (well after twenty hours it just didn't seem that funny anymore)
Tirumala is a big pilgrimage centre (the biggest in the world apparently) and is situated at the top of a hill 11km from the nearest town. Paul insisted we went the whole way by foot like all the other true Hindu pilgrims...we joined the hundreds of other people setting off happily but within ten minutes had joined the hundreds of people collapsing at the side of the ludicrously steep steps (well mainly I had, Paul was loudly announcing that he could run up them easily, which wasn't at all irritating) After the first half hour of moaning continuously, I actually got really into it, helped by the encouragement everyone was giving each other although there were quite a few people clearly wondering why non-Hindus would torture themselves this way. By the time we got to the top 4 hours, 4000 steps and 9km later, the rains (yes, it's monsoon in this part of India at the mo which we'd conveniently ignored when embarking on this journey) had really set in and the last hour was spent walking in the pissing rain unable to see more than a few feet in front of us, not quite the breathtaking views we had hoped for. Still there was the temple to see..... After discovering that getting a paying ticket was a labrynthine process so complex that no-one could even explain how it could be acheived, we joined the free entry queue, glad that we were really experiencing the whole pilgramage thing...right up unitl we found out that the queue entered something called the Q complex and involved being locked in a barn until you would be allowed in at 11.30 pm (8 1/2 hours later!) It was at this point that our dedication to being fake Hindus ran out (although we did resist the temptation to indulge in some small scale bribery to get in quickly deciding this was quite insulting to real Hindus, who were willing to walk all day in the rain and then spend 8 hours in a barn to get in. The nutters) Despite the farcical aspect of the whole day it was actually pretty fantastic, what with the atmosphere and the sense of acheivment (well for me - although Paul who claimed the whole thing was easy is still having naps the following day due to his 'exhaustion' whereas I am quite normal) .
Incidentally thanks to Szymon for the comment - we thought no-one was reading anymore but we have become strangely addicted to writing this so carried on anyway (V - we understand now). Come on Latch you can't tell me that you are now so involved in celebrity mum trivia that you no longer have the average two hour office time to play around on the Internet and leave us witty little messages.......we miss them!

In Puri again awaitng our train

2006-10-31T05:09:00.000Z

We are back in Puri awaiting a 22hour train journey through Andra Pradesh.
The past few days have been very chilled at Chilka Lagoon we had the best hotel room so far with a balcony overlooking the lagoon.Most of our time was spent sittting here reading. I have caught sophie's bug of reading at every spare opportunity however i'm still not even reading half as fast as her, she reads about 500 pages a day I read about 150, she's like a woman possesed devouring them one after the other.I decided to go for a walk on my own on the first morning and it was very quiet and peaceful with little fishing hamlets and small groups of fisherman laying there nets to catch prawns I felt a bit uneasy because it was so quiet and felt completely out of place in my western clothes ans white skin, most of them where wearing very little and looking at me like I was insane just walking through the fields.I decided to imagine I was David Attenborough and sat watching the birds and cragonfly's with his voice running through my mind describing the behavior and making up names for the birds. I then spoke to a couple of villagers who knew english and told me how they fished and wanted to know if I had a wife. Then they wanted to know my business, After being asked this many times and realising the ridiculousness of a gym to these people I just say doctor and they are obviously very impressed.
We are having a few communication problems every now and then alot of people don't understand me I don't know if its my London twang but them understand Sophie better, this wouldn't be as much of a problem but people generally just say yes when they don't understand and its annoying.
also there a problem with numbers, I usually say two and I get three maybe there's a ghostly figure people see behind us or in the case of getting the boat four ghostly figures as I said two please and he asked six? and I said two sticking two fingers up and he responded six, this proceeded for a minute untill he had over six tickets and I gave him back four of them.
The boat trip was nice we saw dolphins and I learnt taking pictures of them are difficult and pointless as you just see a grey blob in the water, I was dissapionted there was no jumping out of the water or tricks, and Sophie informed me that was usually more likely to be seals and at sea world.

Some random pictures

2006-10-26T09:23:00.000+01:00

Kibber village, the worlds highest settlement with electricity in the Himalayas, Park Street Cemetry, Kolkata, Mountains in Shimla and, of course, Gaylords restaurant, Kolkata

Puri

2006-10-26T09:20:00.000+01:00

Just to bring you up to date on our movements we are in Puri a Seaside town in the region called Orissa.I was dissapointed however at the lack of deckchairs, amusement arcades and a theme park, the fish and chips is a bit odd too. It(obviosly) has a huge temple as almost every town in our guide book directs us to towns with huge temples.We went to see it yesterday but couldn't go in because were not hindu(how do they know we havent converted, its all a bit racist to me). Anyway I'm getting fed up with temples I think Natural beauty is much more our thing. We were able to get a slightly better view of the temple from the Library roof next door, you have to sign a book however and give a donation. They cleverly make everyone write down the donations so obviously every one has two Zero's added and one American obviously could wait to part with 3000 rupees to stand on the roof of a condemned building about 300metres from the Temple. Our contribution of 10 rupees was greeted with some looks of contempt(obviously Donation is a loose term) so we said we only had 30 and looked hopefully at them, they "gave in" and let us through feeling like cheapskates which is bollocks really the only usefull thing I got out of going up to the roof was spotting a Cashew nut shop which I puchased some of the best Cashew nuts I've ever tasted, simple mind simple pleasures.
Paul xxxxxxxxx

One more thing

2006-10-24T12:42:00.000+01:00

Tom - the reason you don't have a girlfriend is you beacuse your constantly stalking celebrities mums. You should start your own magazine or reality TV programme on 'Celebrity Parents'. The first issue could deal with your relationship with Jade Goody's mum - just what were the 'unimportant reasons'? Is it cos shes a Millwall fan and that's their only way of communicating?

Diwali in Konark

2006-10-24T12:29:00.000+01:00

We took a packed bus to Konark - however, Paul got to sit down as the crowd parted and we were ushered to the back of the bus. Paul comandeered the only available seat on the basis of his 'weak constitution' which menat Sophie had the joy of meeting a man who among many other pearls of wisdom, imparted the information that 'all Indian women treat their husbands as gods' - we think he may be in for a shock when he gets married. He also found it impossible to understand a word paul said and when Paul stopped attempting to communicate declared he was a 'nice, gentle, simple boy' with a look of sympathy for a halfwit.
When we got to Konark it was Diwali and there were candles and incredibly loud firecrackers everywhere. We bought sparkles and Paul was very scared they would take our faces off cos they weren't British licensed.
We then went for dinner and happened to walk into a restaurant where they were having a Kali puja which we were invited to join in. We weren't intending to join in, we only wanted a picture but we ended up throwing flowers at the image of Kali and were encouraged to join in chanting round the fire. After this the people involved were our best friends and one of them repeatedly declared his love for us and all things English including the Raj and was a bit disappointed when we weren't too enthusiastic about it. He also told very detailed horscopes for us - Paul has to watch out for two tall men, one of whom will have light brown skin, and a very short woman who will cause him trouble and will also feel bad until January 15th when all will become better. In contrast to the other man he also claimed all Indian women had extramarital sex. Despite being a bit freaked out by him we went back there every day cos everyone else was really nice. The main highlights in Konark were the temple and the beach and our bike ride through the very peaceful villages at sunset with lovely scenery, cool breezes and a woman going down on a man in his car.....so maybe crazy man was right.........

Bhubaneswar - the place your travelling dreams go to die

2006-10-23T08:34:00.000+01:00

After leaving lovely Kolkata, which was lively, friendly and attractive, Bhubaneswar came as something of a contrast. The only hotel with a room free was at the top of ten flights of stairs, stank mysteriously of engine oil, and involved clambering over a number of random people sleeping outside the room. After absorbing the atmosphere for about ten minutes, we decided to head out in search of entertainment and food. We headed to a restaurant recommended by our guidebook - signs were ominous when they reacted with shock when we asked for food and then ushered us into a room with a single table and chairs and a water coolling noise that constantly emitted a moblie phone-ringtone like jingle. After discovering that most things on the menu were not available, we headed to the Plaza which bore the legend 'a/c bar and restaurant'. What it should have said was 'dark, seedy hellhole with a stench of death (which on closer examination was the toilet) inhabited by the drunks of Bhubaneswar, quietly drooling in corners and trying to forget they live here. Don't come in if you have trouble seeing as we have only one lightbulb and no windows so only one table and the mouldering, spidersweb encrusted Diwali (?) decorations are illuminated.' But they probably couldn't fit that on the window. After a very small meal, we retired to the engine oil paradise with a solitary Kingfisher (our first beer in about a month - can't think why we chose Bhubaneswar to have it) and watched an American sitcom called Hope and Faith which ironically destroyed whatever hope and faith we had left.

To be fair in the morning it was an almost alright place (Bhubaneswar not the Plaza) with some cool temples and a great restaurant and we are now in Konark which is absolutely stunning but we have now run out of time to say anything nice but hey bitching is so much more fun!

Love Paul and Sophie

Kolkata

2006-10-18T15:36:00.000+01:00

Basically I'm getting tired of the blog, our last five days have consisted of lying in our beds as we have discoved TV again after a month without we have realised again its power, the power to make us beyond our will watch, Cricket, Will and Grace, and the Jay Leno show.Enough said for the moment.
Paul

To make up for the lack of posts.....

2006-10-17T12:38:00.000+01:00

in the last week or so, we have finally got round to putting the photos on CD. So, from the bottom up - Keoladeo Bird Sanctuary at dawn (before i got the hang of previewing so was just guessing which picture 100_683 was and then couldn't delete), the Mosque next to the Taj Mahal which Paul greeted with the words 'I don't know why they bothered with this, it's shit compared to the Taj', the riverside palaces at Orchha which we were very excited by, well they are quite nice you have to admit, and spent about 2 hours climbing up and down, the bathing Ghats at Varanasi and, last but obviously not least, the Gaylords ice cream van. There are a lot of things called Gaylords in India and so far Paul has had to take a picture of all of them - for me the hilarity has waned somewhat but I didn't want you to miss out! Incidentally while Paul was framing this exquisite shot, I made the mistake of sitting down at which point a self-proclaimed 'holy' man enforced a blessing on me and then demanded 2000 rupees. Paul then announced he was about as holy as his arse and gave him a few rupees to stop going 'good karma' in our faces and we left. Varanasi, which is where this happened is an amazing place, very beautiful with old streets which you get lost in very easily and an atmosphere like nowhere else but at the same time it has the most persistent and downright rude touts in India that I've experienced. However the people visiting aren't much better - sticking their cameras in peoples faces as they try to bathe in the Ganges, or gawping at funerals or just being a bit twatty like the guys at our hotel who tried to get competitive over who was playing more games with the local kids (sample quote - 'Yeah but I was playing football and kinda fighting AT THE SAME TIME', truly bizarre). Still it says a lot about the place that we still loved it, especially when we went for a boat ride at dawn. Paul also found a yogi who he loved and did a lot of yoga sessions with - at one point I was slightly worried he might leave to go wandering India with him, but then I reminded him that there is a lack of loo paper in such situations which brought him back to earth.

We are now in Kolkata (Calcutta before the Bengali nationalists changed it last year) which the elusive Mr G can tell you about as I have now run out of time.

Love to all

Sophie xxxxxxxxxxxx

The all new lizzie bardsley blog

2006-10-08T10:55:00.000+01:00

It is clear Lizzie is a big hit with our readers so I have decided to dedicate the rest of the blog to discussing her for the next year..... Actually paul and I did come up with a good story for you - another 'celebrity ' with an image problem is...andy fordham! A match made in heaven! Not only could they reveal their steamy love secrets to 'the people' but they could then, as ex-fit club contestants, produce a book on their tragic battles with their weight and a subsequent range of fitness merchandise! Seriously I'm a Max Clifford in the making...Paul took it a step further by suggesting tom could join them in their antics - a saucy three in a bed romp like that could make your career (poss headline: Lizzie made a Viking out of me?)
I now promise not to mention Lizzie for the next three entries....Paul is better but still recovering - we did manage to make it to a few of the palaces this morning and I walked out to another one yesterday afternoon - they are absolutely stunning but I'll just go all drooly if I try and describe them so you'll have to wait for the photos (i know we've been promising them for ages...)
But basically just letting you know we're all safe and well apart from a cow (with horns) trying to headbut me which has left me with a very sore thigh and a paralysing fear of cows which as anyone who has been to india can confirm is a slight problem.....I'm sure I'll be over it by tomorrow.
Love Sophie
Oh just realised - Andy Fordham = 26 stone British darts legend, nicknamed the Viking, for those who are not as heavily into the worlds best sport as me and paul

Sorry Dave....

2006-10-06T12:17:00.000+01:00

...but your wishes for safe stomachs seem to have jinxed us. Even before we read your comment both paul and I indulged in a bit of public vomiting although it was kind of our fault - me for having malaria pills, a garlic tablet (yet another thing to ward off the mosquitos which isn't working) and fanta for breakfast which I regurgitated outside the post office - we went staright to the head of the queue so it wasn't all wasted effort although garlicky fanta puke with a chemical aftertaste isn't nice just for anyone who's wondering. Paul then decided to have a midday workout in the blistering heat followed by a chocolate bar with predictable results. Then as paul so elegantly put it I got the shits for a day and now Paul has a similar problem - as usual when paul gets ill it's all been a bit dramatic but he has now recovered enough to start demanding random bits of food and is claiming he's a superhuman for getting better. So no updates on india cos we haven't really seen that much except bathrooms for the last few days - hopefully this will change and I can leave a less bodily function related post soon.
Love Sophie
Incidentally loving the random celebrity trivia from tom - I'm ashamed to admit I actually know who lizzie bardsley is and whoever gets her is a lucky lucky man...........

Doing the lesbian

2006-10-02T12:58:00.000+01:00

We are currently in Bharatpur where we arrived yesterday, this morning we got up very early to beat the midday sun and go to to the nature reserve famed for its migrating birds. The park was quite big and looked like typical Indian jungle complete with snakes, jackals and tiger, yes just the one, which is rarely seen, despite this Sophie was scared shitless by it even though there was more chance of us dying of dehydration as we had no drinking water with us and walked around for 5 hours in the baking heat(it was about 80degrees when we got up and 100 by the time we got back)O yeah and the birds where lovely for about an hour then I got pissed of with our guide telling us we were looking at what looked to me like a wierd Blackbird for the fifth time and then spotting our hundredth Kingfisher,(in the last hour I couldn't have given a fuck if there was a pink triceratops crossing my path I was so thirsty).
Despite my whingeing,i'm having a great time, apart from men asking us if we want rickshaws, then following us down the street reducing the price to 2 rupees,(obviosly the words NO I DON'T WANT A FUCKING RICKSHAW is yes I would love one bus the price is a bit steep)
However the drivers are funny, mainly the cycle ones as they obviously go a bit mental peddling whole families in the blistering heat, across suicidal traffic.One guy taking us home innocently asked us questons about our jobs ands when we wanted kids and how do two women have sex............yes thats right he wanted me to 'tell him about different kinds of sex' Sophie had to make herself scarce into the room, and I then had to keepa straight face as we went into the finer points of strap ons and fisting (obviously what I've been told by chance) then he keept pointing to his tongue and saysing 'doing the lesbian' at wich point he looked forlorn and said he tried to do it to his girlfriend but she hit him, so I told him to get her drunk first.
So if anyone needs any tips just send an e-mail
Despite not thinking I would miss people I keep thinking of things to do when I get back imagining it only being a few days then realising its ages away.
Love you all very much and don't forget to send an e-mail every so often to let us know your ok.
love Paul

Paul is having his afternoon nap

2006-09-30T10:43:00.000+01:00

so it will just be me Sophie writing this entry. However Sophie will still be referring to herself as Sophie due to her importance generally. To explain that, we have been writing the posts jointly and we didn't know how else to do it.. We could have just put 'I' but then who would have known who we were referring
to, hmmm? That would have been disastrous! We were jsut thinking of you really.

We are now in Agra, where the most fascinating site is apparently not the Taj Mahal
but me on a bicycle. Everyone has to talk to me about it - my favourite is when people (yes lots of them) on motorbikes slow down alognside me and yell 'you are cycling?', just to check the big girl on a bike isn't some hallucination, almost causing about ten accidents in the process. People have also saluted me (?!), tried to run me off the road in a comedy style which I didn't find that hilarious, shake my hand, yelled abuse, praise.....
Anyway enough about me, we visited the Taj Mahal last night at sunset and this morning at sunrise - it really is as beautiful as everyone says - so perfect it doesn't look real and it changes colour all the time. Paul took some great photos, including of fractals for Ryan who probably has never seen this but nevermind, which should appear here soon - so lovers of the waistcoat, and there are quite a few of you sadly, will have to wait. (I think it may be a slight anti-climax in the end). The wearer himself has now arisen so love to all......

Pauls Frank Spencer Moment

2006-09-27T09:06:00.000+01:00

We have now arrived in Amritsar - luckily in Pauls case as he was attempting to remove our luggage from the roof of the bus when it drove off, with Paul shouting at Sophie who was trotting after it at her usual speed. However, the bus only went to the other end of the station and not to Chandigarh which only added to the hilarity for the people watching.
Apart from that we had a go at Tibetan cooking in Dharamsala and produced some very deformed dumplings but they tasted good. We also saw a Tibetan cultural show which was good at first but kindof waned after the twentieth 'group dance'. The whole thing was enlivened by the happiest man in the world who maintained a beatific expression of joy through a 'wardrobe malfunction', some truly remarkable is-he-joking solo singing, a toddler crawling around the stage, people attempting to leave mid way through and even when almost everyone had left and he was the only person on the dance floor following the bit where everyone had to dance (except Paul who sat with some monks saying that if they weren't going to, neither was he - to be fair most people including Sophie just bobbed up and down on the spot - except two people who tried to recreate the costumes with their jumpers and leapt around the room excitedly - even they only stayed for one sang though, not like happy man who we assume had to be dragged away kicking and screaming, actually no he would probably still have smiled).
We liked Dharamsala but it was a bit small and touristy, mainly people on spiritual retreats having jam sessions and philosophising about Buddhism - we are now in Amritsar which is a bustling place. We went to the Golden Temple this morning which is very beautiful, relaxing, welcoming, friendly - we loved it basically! It has free food and drink for everyone, amazing singing of the Sikh Holy Book which takes 48 hours and pilgrims washing themselves in the lake, most of whom are very friendly and in one case, a bit too friendly - a man who insisted on hurrying us from one end to the other taking photos every two seconds, including of him, and who tried to be a tour guide despite not speaking a word of English, until we lost him (we think to another lucky group).
Tomorrow we are catching an overnight train to Agra - there were only upper bunks left and we know from China this is likely to be a 'hilarious' experience for Sophie who will probably get stuck halfway up. Wish us luck!

Back from the Wilderness

2006-09-22T08:17:00.000+01:00

As you can see we have resolved the photos issue having realised we have a memory card...doh! Don't we look great?! The photos are of a Buddhist shrine on the Kunzum La pass 4550m up, Delhi's mosque and traffic and us! This one was taken when we were walking through the Spiti valley which is 4000m above sea level and meant Sophie went even slower than usual. As you can see it was very beautiful and remote with lots of tiny villages. We realised how remote following our ten hour journey on the 'Bus of Terror' which involved a lot of mountain passes, mostly on narrow rock roads many of them disintegrating and a lot of UNNECESSARY OVERTAKING. Any attempts to reassure ourselves the bus did this every day without any problems were undermined by the roadsigns which included 'Sinking area - caution' (shortly after the left back wheel had come off the road above a 200m drop), 'Alert today - Alive tomorrow', 'If you're married, divorce speed' (what if you're not married?) and, our favourite, 'Life is short, don't make it shorter'. The fear reached comedy levels when we noticed the bus driver had written 'Oh god, save me' followed by his numberplate to ensure god saved the correct bus. Thankfully we have finished all of those journeys and will be avoiding them at all costs in the future. The journey was worth it though - Spiti is a magical place and we stayed in a really nice old Tibetan style house with some very friendly people, ate a lot of momo (which are meat dumplings) and enjoyed some spectacular views on our walks. We are now back in Manali and are off to Daramsala, where the Dalai Lama lives, tomorrow via Mandi which will give Paul a chance to sing his favourite Barry Manilow song a few more times (NOT the Westlife version, obviously).
Also thanks to Latch for his devotion ;-) We have now changed the comments so anyone can post, if anyone is still reading this given our complete lack of effort. Love to all........

Delhi, Shimla and Manali

2006-09-16T07:31:00.000+01:00

Paul and Sophie's Big Trip

We have been trying to update this but there were obstacles such as power cuts and paulie having forgotten the cable for uploading pictures - so you'll just have to enjoy the wedding photo for a year....... So far we have had an excellent time and all of the ridiculous stories told to us by various doommongers have proved to be total rubbish. Delhi was chaotic and energetic - we initially went for a walk in the wrong direction and concluded Delhi consisted of a very peaceful suburb....a walk the next day in the rush hour of Old Delhi definitely changed our minds - we will never complain about London traffic again after witnessing a 100m stand off between two sets of oncoming traffic including taxis, cow drawn carriages and a large number of people carrying long iron poles. The Mosque was beautiful - wish we could show it to you! We then caught a very small train to Shimla through beautiful mountain scenery. Sophie got stuck next to a guy who was very interesting and friendly initially but then spent about two hours moaning about various aspects of his life, India and the world in general. Still he did give both of us sweets so we shouldn't complain. Shimla is a big town for Indian tourists and was a very relaxing place to spend a few days. Paul also managed to pick up a very stylish woollen waistcoat which Sophie loves and in no way finds hilarious or embarrassing. We then endured a ten hour bus journey up to Manali during which Paulie heroically managed not to be sick despite having his head out of the window in preapration for almost the entire trip. We are now staying in a fantastic hotel with amazing views in Manali, which is a bit of a traveller trap and looking forward (!) to a twelve hour bus journey starting at 5 in the morning to Kibber which the highest settlement in the world with electricity and a road. Not sure it will have Internet so you may have to wait a while for another fascinating post...

2006-09-05T00:17:00.000+01:00

We havent left yet

2006-09-05T00:14:00.000+01:00

so we have nothing to say.