Hindu Bootcamp

So our arrival in India wasn't quite what we'd call a pleasurable experience. Our flight was from Kathmandu to Chennai via Delhi but it was somewhat delayed as they forgot to put one of our bags on the plane in Nepal and consequently waiting for it to turn up on the next flight meant that we had 15 minutes until our connecting flight departed. Sprinting through Delhi airport we imagined a scene from that programme about Easy Jet where some kind steward at the check-in desk would make the all important phone call and hold the plane for us... in reality we got stopped by every security guard who wanted to see our ticket and had trouble making sense of the computer print-out. The woman at the desk said the plane had already gone (yeah right, since when has a flight ever left early??) and she said not to worry that there would be another flight in about 5 hours. Great 5 hours in Delhi airport on the wrong side of the duty free. We tried to wrangle an upgrade for the remaining leg of the flight but somehow she made it sound as though she were doing us a huge favour by putting us on the next flight - hang on, we only missed the connection because your airline couldn't be bothered to put all of the bags on the plane. We eventually arrived in Chennai and got out of there 1st thing the next morning, we had no desire to wait to see the city in daylight.

After another day or two of travelling we arrived at the Sivananda Ashram near Neyyar Dam in Kerala. It was definitely a worthwhile experience but not necessarily one that we would hurry to repeat. We decided that being in the ashram was probably a lot like being in the army, a wake-up bell was rung every morning at 5.20am, silent mediation at 6am followed by chanting, a cup of tea at 7.30am and then yoga 8-10. You finally got breakfast at 10 served up on mess plates, sat on the floor, which you had to eat with your hands, oh and no talking at meal times. At 11am you would do your 'Karma Yoga duty' which was essentially a chore that had been assigned to you - Tom's was emptying bins and mine dishing up dinner. 2pm the director of the Ashram would give a lecture which was occasionally interesting but mostly a bit to cosmic for us. 3.30pm 2nd yoga class of the day, followed by dinner (we only got 2 meals a day) and then a little bit of free time before evening satsang (mediation and chanting) from 8-9.30pm. If it hadn't been for the four hours of yoga a day I'm not sure that we would have stayed for the full 2 weeks but in retrospect we got a real insight into Hindu culture - some evenings there would be special fire puja's or ceremonies which the priests would conduct and the ashram itself was a really beautiful place, full of paintings, colour, palm trees and incredible butterflies.

We left a few days ago and are now sunning ourselves on Varkala beach which would be slightly more enjoyable if we hadn't got burnt on the first day but it's amazing to be able to splash in a warm sea, makes a change to the Cornish coast for sure! Tomorrow we're going to move on again, heading further up the coast for the Keralan backwaters.

I'm starting to really worry that it's not going to smell like Christmas in Australia; the christmas trees, mince pies, cinnamon, nutmeg. I wonder if they'll have gingerbread latte's....

1 month down

We can't really believe that this is our last day in Nepal. At first it felt like we would have more time than we knew what to do with but now we are very reluctantly packing our bags.

The first stop is probably the hardest because not only are you adjusting to a foreign country (and the unrelenting chaos if it is a developing one) but you are also getting used to the travel itself; not working 6 days a week or frantically planning for the long-awaited trip.

After our 7 day trek in the mountains we spent some time in the beautiful Pokhara, waking up at ungodly hours to see the sunrise, renting bicycles and taking boats out on the lake. We had a fantastic thrill ride one afternoon when we went white-water rafting on the Upper Seti river - we had imagined there would be paddling followed by a rapid then a bit more calm and then another rapid etc but no, we could barely see for all the water being thrown in our faces and constant adrenaline surge just waiting for our Nepali guide to shout "GET DOWN!" (which he did every couple of minutes for the full hour and a half) this command basically meant there's a strong possibility you'll be thrown off the raft here. Somehow we remained in the raft for the duration!

From Pokhara we went to Chitiwan one of the national parks where we spent 3 days animal spotting and elephant cohorting. On the elephant safari our elephant got spooked by something and ran full pelt into the jungle which was pretty exciting (we have since found out that their top speed is only about 25mph) but it felt a lot faster!

We have spent the last few days doing the typical tourist things in Kathmandu and the surrounding area, visiting temples, avoiding monkeys, haggling and the like. Next stop South India where we will be travelling quite a bit to start with to get down to Trivanandrum where we are booked into an ashram for 2 weeks. We should probably be practicing our OMMM already...

We made it!

We've just got back from our week long trek in the Himalayas and we had the most amazing time of our lives. It wasn't even just the mountains that made it so awe inspiring, it was the villages, the people, the waterfalls and just everything. If the permits to go weren't so expensive we'd definitely be heading back, oh well we shall save it for a return visit.

We'll put pictures up as soon as we can!

London - Kathmandu - Pokhara

We have arrived! Well, 4 days ago now and we've done quite a bit. The plane ride was incredibly uneventful so not much to tell there and we arrived in Kathmandu to find out that this year the monsoon season has dragged on longer than expected (yay global warming!) so it rains every evening, all evening. And all night. And for some of the morning.

Our first night was spent just outside of Kathmandu in a place called Patan where electricity was available for most of the day but also where the lovely woman who ran the guest house took us for a private tour around the town and bought us nepalese sweets (which are an acquired taste) for no extra charge and she charges 100rps for dinner (84p). Kathmandu itself was so busy that we could barely think, the roads are jammed with 3 wheeler buses, 12 year olds on mopeds, dogs and cows. We decided that we would rather start our trek and revisit Kathmandu towards the end of our stay in Nepal.

So we traveled 8 hours on a bus to the city of Pokhara which is so lovely, it is set in the foothills of the himalayas, with a massive lake and although it caters mostly for the trekking tourism it is a lot more relaxed and less busy. We would love to share pictures with you but whilst making sure I remembered to bring things like earplugs duct tape (you never know), I forgot the lead to upload photos. Maybe I'll find a work around when we get to Sydney.

Anyway, we are to start our trek tomorrow which we expect will take 12 days. Perhaps we will take before and after pictures of our calf muscles. We'll be back around 9th October! xxx

Time for Training...

So we've both finished work now and are using this bit of time before we head-off to do some much needed training for our trek in Nepal. We've done some great walks on the Lizard (where we took the picture) but we've also done some not so great ones... case in point getting lost in the marshes on Bodmin moor for 6 hours, having to jump over rivers and avoid sheep skeletons. And yesterday we got some good practice of trying to put on our raincoats and covers in a sudden downpour with gale force winds!