Natalie's and Sophie's Asian Adventures

Touch down in Beijing, practically arctic conditions (20 degrees but if felt cold coming from India!), still very ill at this point, esp. Sophie, BUT, Hello civilisation!! Got picked up from the airport and discovered that cars actually stay in lanes over here AND keep to their side of the road!! Was a bit of a culture shock!
Arrived at our hostel - It was AMAZING! The courtyard was typical Chinese architecture with red lanterns hung all around and a little pond, which had the cutiest little footbridge that you had to cross to get to your room. It also had full sized beds!! I'd forgotten how big single beds actually are!
Following day spent a futile day on the subway going to change money only to finally get there and told it's closed on Sundays! Doh! Spent the rest of the day in hospital as Soph was still really ill and didn't have enough time to do the forbidden city. The next day we made it as far as Tinamen Square as we spent to long watching the guards twirling sticks around and kicking the air to buy tickets.

.....I'm getting bored of writing in full sentences so I'm going to speed this up a bit....

Went shopping - ZARA!! Found the prettiest pair of heels....managed to restrain myself from buying them...mum you should be so proud!

Found Hagen-Daaz ice cream! extortionately expensive. Can't believe I paid the equivalent of 5.30 for 2 scoops! Not even a cone! Ridiculous! Tasty though...mmmm....

Visited the Great Wall! Amazing. Just can't get over the vastness of it. Also forgot to really consider how up and down it is! Some bits are practically vertical!

We finally got to see the forbidden city. Third times a charm! Managed to lose Soph and thought it would be fine, I'd find her at the exit. Little did I know that there were 4 possible exits! oops! When we finally managed to find each other it was like one of those slow motion runs you see in films! lol

Had a bit of a palava getting to the train station as literally no one speaks english so it was down to our trusty lonely planet guide to translate where we needed to get to. The bus ride across Beijing took forever and evens though we had set off 2 hours early we ended up having to run for the train army style. Well, when I say army style, I should really say it felt like army style due to trying to run with stupidly heavy rucksacks on our back and front, but it probably looked like more of a retarded waddle! We also had to keep breaking our "run" as we both kept falling into hysterically laughing as we both looked utterly ridiculous! to cape it off we still ended up missing our train as apparently trains in china are a lot like airports and have check ins that close 5 mins before departure. No one bothered to tell us this and due to traffic we were 2 mins late for check in so had to watch our train pull away...very frustrating! We then had to find the right ticket office to change our train tickets - harder than it sounds. the station was bigger than some airports. Had 5 ticket offices! Finally found the right one thanks to a chinese lady that spoke a little english and pointed us in the right direction after we'd visited 3 of the 5 offices! Then the only tickets left available on the next train to xi'an was soft sleeper. More expensive - about 40quid - but oh my was it LUSH!! It was 2 tiered, you had your our private cabin for the 4 beds and given pillows, sheets and duvets!!! LUXURY!! Better than some hotel we stayed in in India! There was even a wash room and a restaurant on the train! As you can probably tell I was a little bit excited!

Stayed Xi'an for a couple of nights, went and saw the terracotta army. Was a bit of a let down to be honest, impressive but not worth 110RMB (11quid). Though we did go on a saturday which is a school boy error as half of china seems to descend on these type of things at the weekend.

Sophie, I discovered is not the best at handling compliments. We had decided to go out and make a bit of an effort. Now bearing in mind we didn't really go out at all in india, hadn't bothered with changing our cloths regularly (the sniff test was our method of deeming whether or not it need washing yet. If it didn't smell it was good for another day at least. I wont share how long we wore some things. you would be shocked) let alone wearing make up, this was quite a change for us. Now me noticing that soph's eyes with make up looked really pretty, I decided to tell her so. To which I got the response..."ummm..cheers.....your face is.... ok?" ! Geee cheers soph! What an ego boost!

After this we both had 2 of the worst nights sleep imaginable, barely slept. The first night we'd just turned the lights off and got ourselves settled to sleep when 6 chinese people came into the dorm, turned all the lights on and started unpacking thier bags at 1am! They were deaf as well so had no idea how much noise they were making (A LOT). One of them poked me (I was in the top bunk) and then had a massive hissy fit when I moved and sat up! No idea why. They eventually all got into bed and turned the lights out around half 2. Thought that was it and I would get a good nights sleep from then on but then around half 4/ 5am one by one of they turned on their bed light, rummaged around for 20mins and then turned it off again and the half an hour later another one of them would do the same thing! It was bizarre plus very annoying.
Then the following night on our overnight train to shanghai the man sleeping above me had THE worse snoring I have EVER EVER EVER heard!!!! Kept both me and soph up ALL night. We reckon he had sleep apneoa as sometimes it sounded like he stopped breathing for 30 seconds and then it was almost as if he was having a choking fit. How he managed to sleep without waking himself up is beyond me. I even ended up hammering on his bed and poking him but he would just wake up look down at me slightly confused and then, I'm not exaggerating when I say this, litterally about 5 to 10 seconds later he would be snoring again!!! How does anyone fall back to sleep that fast??!!! And then when around 6am I eventually fell asleep he then woke me by stamping on my bed and then treaded on me getting down from his bunk, and he didn't even have the decency to say sorry!!!! I gave him the evilest look I could muster and then turned over and tried to go back to sleep however someone else had started snoring so I just gave up and listened to my music...Anyway rant over.....

Shanghai is lovely. On our first night we walked along the Bund river and all the buildings were lit up, very pretty. We then decided to take a boat up the river so we bought our tickets and then the lady told us it left in 10 minutes and the boat didn't actually leave from here but way up stream and we would have to run! (seems to be a reoccurring theme!) Anyway we made it in plenty of time, probably could of walked instead of running up the Bund looking like eejits but there you go.

The other thing I loved about shanghai was the french concession and the amazing bakeries!! I pretty much lived off cake while I was there. Tasted amazing and it was soo cheap, whats not to love?!!

Also played a lot of pool whilst in china. (I know, how cultured of us. bakeries and pool! We have been to some museums too. Honest!) Soph's really good it, where as I am ...not. I think I'm slowly improving, but then again that's probably wishful thinking!

Soph also managed to inadvertently call herself a hermaphrodite when explaining to a family we met that in her family "there are 2 brothers, 1 sister and me!" Confused child.

Our next destination was Guangzhou to visit Soph's friend Alex, however all the sleeper seats for the train were fully booked so it meant doing a 26 hour journey on hard seats. Pretty much THE most uncomfortable journey I've ever experienced, lets just leave it at that. A couple of things I did learn on that train ride is connect 4 and rummy draws quite a crowd and juice milk drink is disgusting, can't recommend!

Met some of Alex's friends and we all went to an arcade where we discovered the Soph can't throw a punch to save her life. It was like watching the pad being stroked by a fly it went down that slowly! Was very entertaining to watch as those of you that know Soph know she is very competitive and doesn't like to lose ANYTHING and was gradually getting more and more worked up!
We all went for a night out. Was a great night but a bit different from home. The chinese idea of a club is more like a bar crossed with cabaret/talent show! basically a room full a tables with a stage at the front, where every half hour or so there's some type of performance. I have to say the Lady Gaga's were my favourite. The blokes looked better in a dress then I do! Naturally in between the performance we all got on stage and danced! frightening thing is Soph and I weren't even drinking!!

Our last stop for china was Hong Kong. It's very expensive so we ended up staying in a very dingy room in chungking mansions as that was all we could afford. The name of it is very misleading, it's got to be the smallest place we've stayed. How they managed to get 2 beds in there and a ensuite is beyond me. Plus the whole floor stank of stale cats and dogs.

Did quite a lot of shopping and eating in Hong kong. Had some amazing vegetarian restaurants. My bank account might of complained a bit.

I suffered some mild abuse from Sophie. First of all she kicked me in the head whilst she was sleeping and then secondly whilst travelling down an escalator she though it would be an hilarious idea to lift up my dress and flash my pants to every one on the subway. Gave the one lady a right eyeful! Don't know who was more embarrassed. Poor woman didn't know where to look! Soph tried to claim that she did't realise there was anyone walking up the stairs, whatever! Can't take her anywhere.

So anyway it came to the day to leave hong kong for bangkok. However upon arriving at the airport we couldn't seem to find our flight number on the board so we wandered over to the help desk, where after a few moments of confusion on their part they then told us "umm ma'am, your flight is not until tomorrow??!" OOPS! I think they must of thought we were special, and not the good kind! Then came the problem of what to do next as we had used up all our hong kong dollars. After pooling our remaining dollars and pounds and converting them into HK$ we had the bright idea that staying on Lantau island would be cheaper than going back to the main island. Wrong again! Got as far as the first town and then found out that the next bus we needed to catch had stop running. Ended up having to get a taxi. At one point we thought we would have to get out and push as the taxi was struggling to get the hill in first gear. It then sudden turned down a dirt track into the forest (apparently the hostel was in the middle of nowhere) and it was really foggy, could barely see past the headlights. Looked like a scene out of a horror movie where the kidnapped victims are being taken to be killed. I wasn't worried at all! Soph said it was fine, she knew kung fu!

Wandered round lantau peak, which is really pretty, saw the big buddha and then went to go catch the bus to the beach. Got to a fork in the road and didn't know which one to take for the bus terminus so asked a lady in the shop who looked at us like we were morons and pointed to the mahousive sign that pointed BUS TERMINUS THIS WAY which we had somehow failed to see....I do worry about us sometimes! We hung out at the beach for the remainder of the day and then finally made it back to the airport and caught our flight to bangkok! Woooo!

Journey into india felt like a marathon. It took over 48 hours and included a very bumpy overnight bus to the border at the hands of our manic bus driver, several local buses, followed by a 12 hour train to Delhi. Apparently there is no such thing as locked doors on trains! Can stand in the doorways and watch the world go by - mental! Arrived in Delhi airport at 5:30am and hung out in costa coffee (would you believe!) all morning. Proper cake!!!

Finally arrived in Cochin, kerala in the south of india, where we met a very pushy belgium woman who wanted us to take a taxi with her to god knows where, despite the fact that Soph was very poorly and she only gave up when Soph was running off to be sick!

We then moved to fort cochin, Soph got on the back of some randomers bike, later known as Bobby, to go and find a homestay, which turned out to be amazing. Family were really welcoming, felt like a home from home. Bria the mum , made us traditional kerala style meals on more than one occassion and hot drinks in the evening when we stayed up with them watching films in their front room. It's very hot and humid here, having to have like 3 showers a day, never been more thankful of a cold shower!

Met a lovely lady called Helen from derbyshire, also staying at the homestay, and ended up spending a lot of time with her hanging out in kashi cafe to try and escape the heat and humidity and shopping for our bottom drawers!

We also went with Helen on a backwaters tour. Saw lots of wildlife and visited villages making spices from trees, rope from coconuts- literally nothing is wasted out here. At lunch we ate a traditional kerala meal off a banana leaf on a little island. Bliss.

Two more girls arrived at our homestay, Mae and Julie from the USA, and the 5 of us ended up going to varkala, 3 hours south of cochin, for a few days. The 'cool' sea breeze was a welcome respite.

On one of our evenings there, who should turn up for dinner but the very pushy belguim woman from earlier! Turns out Mae and Julie were sat next to her on the beach and she overheard them inviting their friend Richard to dinner so she got invited along aswell. Not only was she an hour late but when our food finally came (service was on the slow side) no sooner had it been put down in front of us, she was asking to have some! I had a ''joey doesn't share food '' moment, but she quickly turned to Soph and asked to have hers. Soph was too polite to say no, so then she preceeded to have half of the naan, and then move Soph's curry infront of her and started spooning it onto the naan!! we were outraged! Fat Cow. Grrrrr.....

Soph managed to go in the sea with her sunglasses on her head, and come out with them gone, which was very distressing for her as they cost 3 pounds from a service station. Soph also managed to spectactualarily burn in the sun and turned a definate shade of lobster!

We then journeyed back to fort cochin. I was a bit poorly so soph conducted an interactive sing show of old macdonalds ....I got to choose the animals, and the challenge was to perform it in the style of Adele. Challenge accepted and fulfilled! She then performed a puppet show with tigger and batholomew to the back street boys. very entertaining! The following night there was an amazing lighting storm over the ocean which we watched from the seafront. Wish i'd had my camera on me!

My Uncle Phil's cruise ship the queen mary 2 happened to be docking in cochin, so we got to spend the afternoon with him in a very posh hotel. A/C....Bliss! Pip bought lunch which was lovely of him - and was actually quite thankful for as I nearly had a heart attack when I saw then bill!! The manager then wanted to charge us $20 each to use the pool!! So instead when he was out of eyesight we quickly dipped into the pool and when he came back we jumped out and tryed to act nochalent , dripping wet , on the side of the pool! After we left Phil we then decided to go for a proper swim, Soph managed to epically fail at getting out of the swimming pool, arms flailing and eveything as she fell back in! Was a definate you've been framed moment!

The following day Bobby taught Soph how to ride a moped! She then somehow managed to convince me to get on the back, nerveracking to say the least! Had to have a lie down afetrwards!! Next day we decided to go on an adventure to find somewhere suitable for swimming, however neither of us went in. Soph went off for a wander, i couldnt find her anywhere. Spent ages walking in the heat and then got very grumpy and then worried something had happened to her. Sophie found grumpy Natalie highly entertaining, and followed with 'abubububub' noises, shaking face with facial expressions...very sympathetic. This now never fails to make me giggle.

In the evening, Soph learnt to ride a motorbike with Steve, and I was convinced to ride a moped myself. still not a fan! Later we watched the cricket final and got well into it!! India won!! wooo celebrations all around!!

Flew to north delhi, where we had a lovely dinner with a/c and we were joined by a quite tame mouse which we namned maisey! We then chilled out watching movies in our room. luxury! The next night dinner was payed for by a man from afganistan who spoke little english and chatted to us for less than 5 minutes. bizarre. But who can complain at a free dinner!

Chinese visa embassay was a right palava. First day we tried, it was closed for a holiday (most days are bloody holidays!). Next day we had an hour to try and get loads of bits together to enable us to apply before we head to rajisthan, including covering letters, extortionate internet prices and ringing up parents in the middle of the night - thanks Mum and Dad, you're stars! I love you! - Got its done in the nick of time and prayed it would be smooth sailing so we could go to china. We then met up with Chloe and Rob. Unfortunatly their luggage was lost on the flight and they were sporting very charming 'his and hers' white t-shirts, they pulled it off quite well....

We arrived in Jaisalmer, I discovered I had had my purse stolen on the train! nightmare. We then went on camel safari, was truly amazing. Got to watch the sunset in the desert and then have camel races back to base. (sophie's won.):-) lies. all lies. (not) still lies. (really not.) Kind of is though! Sore loser :P

We then attempted traditonal dancing with the girl performing the dance. Definately haven't found our calling!! We then left for a night in the desert. Sophie misjudged the cart height from the ground and managed to fall off....hilarious! (ha ha)...slept out under the stars, truely fantastic, no words can describe!

In the morning I managed to faceplant into the cusions onto the cart (was hilarious!!!!special child...) you're calling me special??! Think you should take a look in the mirror! who's had 4 mishaps now??!!

We then left for the fort, which was massive, and had cool little shops inside. On leaving we got a brilliant bargain for a scarf and Soph got him down to under half price of what he was asking. He chased us down the street on his bike and then gave the 2 of us a lift to our hotel to get our bags! 3 on a bike! True indian style!

On the train ride to jodhpur we met some indian guys who taught us a new card game called minus, and we then ended up having a game of rummy with half the carriage! jodhpur fort was gigantic compared to jaisalmer, looked life something out of lord of the rings.

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We then left for udaipur, home of the james bond octopussy, we wondered around the city palace, and mountain palace, very grand and then watched the movie octopussy after dinner in the hotel rooftop restaurant. We were very excited to say 'weve been there!' whilst watching it.

Sophie may have had a couple more blonde moments, falling down the stairs, and in the morning, fell of her chair when reaching for her cornflakes. special child! We then had pizza and icecream for brunch, was very bizarre. Last evening in udaipur we ate curry (surprising) ... which turned out to be not as good as we had orginally thought. Soph was very ill. alot. alot alot. very dark times for her. Arrived stupidly early in pushkar, couldn't wake up the night porter, and so our taxi man sounded his horn to wake up half the street...logical. During the day I carried on shopping and Soph stayed in bed. On the upside our room was lush!! 4 poster bed, en-suite, armchairs, tv and about the size of a tennis court. Landed on our feet!

Another early start to get back to delhi, too late to pick up our chinese visas. In the internet cafe I ran into the afgan man from before, who tried to covince me to go for a party with him and his 2 afgan friends, in their room.... i respectfully declined using Sophie as a decoy. Got up to pay for internet and who should turn up but Soph herself, cover blown! They then railroaded us into having dinner with them (although we couldnt really eat!) afgan man tried to couple Soph off with the guy opposite (even though we both had said we had boyfriends), after this being ever so awkward we then left and the too younger guys walked us back down the street and were very persistent to go into our rooms, we declined but they were very pushy, so we went into our hotel and told the owner to not let them in! scary moments. Although funny moment of this was when compliments took the form of...me getting called a goddess....sophie getting called a multi vitamin...(whatever that's supposed to mean!) Made me laugh!

Picked up visas and then spent the day with Chloe and Rob on their final day and as we were all quie ill we played cards and that was preetyy much it. pretty sad huh! Was nice to see them though.

The following day we went to see the Taj Mahal, but only form a distance, as for our luck would have it we found it to be closed on fridays, would you believe. bugger. Fun way to end our trip to india! Still pretty ill during this trip but hey ho.

Off to china baby!!

:-) x

So.... getting a little lax on the whole blogging front! Ooops! It's been a while so forgive me if the details are a little sketchy!

Right where was I....

So the weekend of 26th Feb I was meant to be going rafting however me and my stomach had a bit of a falling out and I decided that rough waters was probably not going to end well! However all was not lost as I ended up going for a walk with the boys around the Kathmandu valley and on the Sunday, just as it was getting towards the end of the day, we walked round the corner and saw a tiger come skulking down the hill, across the road and then down the other side about 20m in front of us! It was awesome! (Poor Russ unfortunately missed it as he was busy taking a photo in the other direction of the valley!) It happened so quickly I didn't even think to be scared. It wasn't until a pick up truck full of quarry stones stopped by us, told us to get on top of the stones and gave us a lift that we realised we were quite lucky that the tiger wasn't hungry!

Monday 28th finally arrived, which was very exciting as Sophie arrived in Kathmandu. Unfortunately for her I don't think the flight/food agreed with her so didn't see her until the tuesday. (if only she had drank this pocari sweat drink the flight were advertising, she would have been alot better...the slogan reads that it tastes like body fluids.....yum.)

Our first port of call in Kathmandu was Swayambu or monkey temple as its more popularly known by, mainly due to the fact that there are hundreds of monkeys living there! As I had not yet tried out a rickshaw we thought it would be a good idea to give it go. Soph and I were in one rickshaw and Russ and a german girl named Maria who Soph met on the flight were in another. The rickshaw drivers obviously then thought it would be a laugh to start trying to race each other down the street! This would of been quite entertain if it wasn't for the fact that felt like we were going to fall out!! Eventually we get to the bottom of the very steep hill which the temple is on and the rickshaw drivers stop and tells they're not going any further and that is only a "short" walk up the hill to the temple. short walk my arse! I lost count of the amount of step and at one point when you look up it look almost vertical!!

right Sophie here and i'm talking over to get this blog done, so we can head to the beach!

swayambu, lots and lots of monkeys, which happen to be very aggressive and like to steal food, as a little nepali girl found out when it stole her candy floss!

so first impressions of Nepal, and actually the whole of Nepal as I'm writing it after having left the country!

I loved momos, (a type of steamed dumpling in pastry) and masala chia, (which by the way i now can't drink as it was one of the last things i had before being ill in India and its put me right off!)

Shiviratti festival (the day off Shiva's birthday, which I have to say I found slightly odd as Shiva is meant to have no beginning and no ending but still has a birthday! Think maybe someone had a bit too much weed when then were thinking that one through!) was a little random to say the least, had lunch and chilled out in the garden of dreams, and made bracelets...turning hippy?...we then decided to do an impromptu yoga session as we happened to be with some guys that had been on a course and really into their yoga. i have to say i would definitely do yoga again, however i think i wouldn't be able to take it too seriously, they chant and stuff, and just made the experience a bit...awkward. (but still very good though. note.to.self. don't catch peoples eyes whilst chanting = leads to hysterical laughter which happens to be very rude to people who like their yoga... :-D)

We then took a taxi to pashupati, next to the river, where the smoke from the weed was unbelievable. We made our way through the clouds and crowds to a cave further up the river, and were entertained with offerings of black masala and chylum, ( which is weed through a clay pipe!) have to say i felt the effects, and Natalie and I felt chilled, but other than that we don't think it had an effect. We did sing abba songs on the return journey but i think that was more to do with our jovial spirit as always!)

By the end of the first week we had managed to add singing t barbie girl whilst in a taxi to boudanath and sing Natalie to sleep when she felt ill. My story telling skills were also needed to ease Russ who was also ill. big. momma. Sophie.

So next we headed on an early bus to Chitwan ,early Sophie means grumpy Sophie, whereas early Natalie means sleepy Natalie for the whole journey. (although its rather entertaining) However i was very impressed she managed to sleep at all. We had opted (voluntarily, stupidly) for being in the drivers cabin as they were the only seats we could get. idiots. In the drivers area, you'll be lucky to fit 4 people in. there were 8. logic and spacial awareness does not come in to nepali standards.

Never mind, we got off to find a load of touts with jeeps trying to take all the tourists, we went with the man who hassled us least, and then found a lovely little forest resort, with hammocks, cheap accommodation, hots showers, and it was CLEAN! big bada boom!

So we entertained ourselves by having some lunch and then heading on a bike ride past the tharu villages towards the elephant sanctuary. The elephant sanctuary was a fail, it was supposed to be a breeding program, but i think the just exploit these, so never again.

On our return, we decided to show our skills on the bikes......no hands. ended up on us colliding. luckily no one was hurt and we learn't from our mistakes! not to try it again. Later that night Natalie had a few issues with a bug in our room, I awoke to her having the biggest stress over the invisible bug that happened to maker a noise. Now i was really not phased by this but Natalie was full on destroying the room, to find it. To no avail. Much to her distress. Ain't karma a bitch!

.....Natalie hear again! Soph was starting to lose the will to carry on! Note to self: don't leave it so long between blogging. Too much happens!

The next day we awoke to go on our canoe ride and jungle trek! which was beautiful. the trek was some what interesting. we thought we wouldn't see much, hence why we had our picture taken with a relatively fresh rhino poop. Next thing we accidentally stumble upon 2 rhino's sleeping under the trees. At this point I wasn't scared but they were facing away from us and so we could see them better the guides decided to circle back around them. They then told us that we could only go so far and then we would have to go one at a time to get even closer so we wouldn't wake them. the younger guide went first and then he beckoned Soph over while me, Chris and the other guide hung back a bit. Meanwhile as we were waiting Chris and I heard a noise on our left that sounded quite a lot like another rhino and then a couple of minutes later we saw it walking across in front of us no more than 10/15m away. This was fine until it decided that it would turn and start coming towards us!! (we'd been given 3 piece of info for escaping rhino's 1-run in zigzag as they're pretty much blind (easier said than done as the jungle as pretty thick), 2-take off a piece of clothing as they might stop and smell it or 3 climb a tree. So then me and Chris are looking around for a tree to climb but every single one of them is vertical and sky high.) Our guide then frantically starts thrown mud and stones at Soph and the other guide to warn them that another rhino was coming towards them. Next thing I know where the 2 rhino's are the trees start massively shaking and the next thing I see is the guide and Soph running out of there, well didn't need any more instructions, we legged it!!! (Rhino's are very territorial and have been know to trample people that get in their way!) Don't think I've even been so shaken! Then about 5 minutes later our guide points out a fresh tiger foot print and I had the thought that "that's it! I'm not getting out of here alive!!" Luckily it didn't get anymore exciting than that and we didn't see any tigers! phew!

We then spent the entire afternoon watching the sunset and drinking in a cafe on the riverfront. The next day we went on elephant safari, seeing lots of different animals: rhino, crocodile, deer, including a stag, boar, peacock, monkeys and when we got back we got to bath the elephants down at the river. In the afternoon Sophie went off on a bike ride through the tharu villages, talking to the locals and going to the cultural museum. Upon her return she spent some time playing a nepali card game, unable to actually play, with some loacals and losing heavily. Meanwhile I just chilled by the river reading my book and staying out of the heat!

The next day was shrove tuesday and thanks to Sophie's mum we had pancakes and actually managed to get some banana pancakes for breakfast in our resort place before heading to pokara. Upon arriving there we were aiming to find peace eye guesthouse based on many peoples recommendations, however directions aren't our specialty so we got lost and ended up taking the long way to the place, and then ended up staying in a hotel over the rod instead! typical. however it did have a TV and a hot shower, absolute luxury! Although we didn't really use it. Lazy days were spent in pokara, reading books and rowing on the lake (which is harder than it sounds. truly!) and getting ready for our trek.

Unfortunately Sophie was unable to go on the trek due to illnesses, but after much discussion I was persuaded to go and I had an amazing time. The view from the top of Poon hill (3210m) at sunrise were absolutely breathing and made the climb worthwhile. We (the group I was walking with) then descended over 2000m in one day and I have to say I was in agony by the end of it as I already had a doggy knee and then managed to also twist my ankle. I was very thankful when we eventually arrived a tatopani, which mean hot water, and got to go in the hot springs!!

Whilst I was doing the trek, good old hard slog of it, Sophie stayed in bed, then ventured into the sunshine and spent time chilling and in peace eye where they had a big family meal and went kayaking on the river and spent long lazy days chilling by the lake recuperating.

So on our return to Kathmandu, we FINALLY got some good seats on a bus, bought some ticket to Delhi through the bus company and got ready for our trip to India.

Slogans we learned in Nepal:

Nepal stands for Never endings peace and love - true. India: I'd never do it again - we hoped not!

......Right my bums gone numb. I've been in this internet cafe for nearly 5 hours!! think I'll update you all on India once I've got some feeling back!

chow for now! x

So haven't written anything for a while. This is mainly due to the fact of the insane daily power cuts they have out here. Loadsheding has increased so we now only get 10hrs (give or take) broken up into 5 hr blocks. However when we actually get these 5 hrs can be quite random. For example it may come on at 1am and then go off at 6am! completely logical! I think the one time I got back from work and the power was on the internet was down. Typical!

Right now to rack my brain back to 2 weeks ago (harder than it sounds!). Work at the CP centre is going well. There are currently some german doctors that have come across to the centre to assess different children for suitability for botox. Have sat in on some very interesting cases as well - one little girl had started to self mutilate her hands by biting off her finger tips, apparently this was due to some sort of rare metabolic disorder.

Spent quite a bit of time with the lads I live with, who are all very nice. However I do sometimes miss girl convo as their main focus of conversation a lot of the time is politics. That makes it sound very dull, its actual not that bad. It's quite interesting to hear them talk about it but I have pretty much nothing to add so I usually just sit there and smile and nod! (that old ploy!) I think they are slowly trying to educate me! Typical evenings consist of straining our eyes by candle light to play chess, as this is the only game we had, and me inevitably losing! However Tibo but another board game (ludo and snakes and ladders! rock and roll! this is what my gap year has come to!!) the other day as I think we were all getting a little tired of chess and I actually won Ludo (obviously games that require minimal thinking are my forte! lol).

Last friday I journeyed across kathmandu to kalimati to join Martijn where he was giving a teaching session to the physio's of spark hospital which was very interesting. He really know's his stuff, I'm a little bit in awe of him, but then again he has been practicing for 20 odd years so I supose it would be slightly worrying if he didn't know what he was talking about. I then took a fairly hair raising ride on the back of Bhaskar's (one of the physio's) motorbike to thamel (don't think I have ever been more scared in my life!) where I was taken by Martijn, Bhaskar and another physio to a very definate locals bar. I was literally the only female there, though the food was very good and the gin was very strong! We eventually left there and Martijn and I made are way into thamel and met up with the lads where more drinking ensued. We ended up in a club called the funky bhudda which closed at the late time of... midnight!

On saturday we all met up for a full english breakfast before heading out to a place called pashupati which is Nepal's holiest hindu pilgrimage site. There was 4 of us squished into the back of the taxi and it brought a whole new meaning to word sardines!! The lads had already been there before and the babba's had given Mike the priviledge of painting a picture of bhudda on the side of the cave by one of the meditation temples (bhuddism and hinduism live very harmoniously together). It took him 2 days and it was amazing when it was finished (as soon as I figure how to upload photo's I will show you). While Mike was painting Me, Martijn and Russ just chilled out by the side of the river and caves with the babba's (I was severely hung over saturday afternoon so that was literally all I could manage!) Martijn was very good at playing the guitar so had several jamming session's with the babba's which was very good to listen to. Eventually when I was feeling slightly more human I ventured into the main part of pashupati where they still perform open cremations on the west side of the Bagmati river (never seen so many dead people before but strangely it all seemed very natural). In the evening a family was receiving a blessing and the ritual was performed on the east side of the river. The people who were performing the ritual must have had arms of steel as the things that they were lifting and waving around looked very heavy and the ritual last at least half an hour if not longer! As Mike painting wasn't finished we decided to stay in pashupati and the babba's very generously provided us a cave to sleep in and supplied us with blankets and daal bhaat which was actually very tasty! On the Sunday there was a music festival held in the cave which was very cool to listen to.

This week has been much of the same at the CP centre, though on wednesday it absolutely poured down and Me and Martijn declared that it was raining too much to go to work so spent a lazy day watching films in the hostel (we actually had power all day due to the rain which was a novelty! we actually got excited at breakfast because we could use the toaster! small things!) In the evening we went to the kitchen and made veg and chocolate momo's with Miss Jyoti and some of the students which were very yummy (traditional nepali snack, dumpling like, filled with either veg, meat or chocolate) and made a nice change from daal bhaat! On friday I spent the day at the spark hospital with Bhaskar, was interesting to see the different techniques they use and then after Martijn's class took another hair raising ride into thamel.

Have had a very lazy weekend in thamel, wandered down to kathmandu durban square yesterday and saw all the temples which are just awesome (again I will upload photo's once I know how!) Went out last night with the lads but luckily did't have a repeat of last weekend and didn't drink too much and I am know just about to go and meet Tibo and go to Swayambhu or monkey temple as it is popularily know.