Some photos so far

Jess getting on well with the rickshaw drivers...

But Hamish struggling with the heat

Tikli Bottom - Paradise retreat

THE SHOT

Beach buddies in Goa

Loo stop anyone?

Scooter racing

Goan beach patrol

Paddling out to camp - note the tasty leech socks

Camp complete with elephant trench

A brief respite for the feet (escaping elephants can be tiring)

Chief tiger tracker

Hard to sleep with these guys trumpeting near the tent

Elephants by morning

It's OK he's not a poacher

Tiger Team (we were well looked after!)

A naked encounter

Hamish and I decided to treat our sore bodies to some pampering after all the running around the jungle but got a little more than we bargained for...

Ayurvedic massage and healing is massive all over India but in Kerala every man and his dog seems to be offering some form of treatment. After investigating several establishments and getting ourselves the best discount we booked an appointment in a nice place and returned ready for a good pampering a few hours later.

I was led to my room, a brightly painted concrete cell with a hard bed, a plastic picnic chair and a steam bath chamber ( your head pops out the top) and was instructed to take all my clothes off.  After triple checking it seemed she really did mean ALL my clothes so I obliged pushing the thoughts of some dodgy tourist porn circuit to the back of mind. I was directed to the plastic chair in the corner where she massaged my head while I stifled giggles thinking how ridiculous the whole thing must have looked and wondering how on earth Hamish would be coping in the next door cell.

After the head massage You are transferred to the hard bed for a full body massage, on both sides- leaving little un touched (!), which was actually professionally done and not dodgy but difficult to relax through when so exposed. Half way through my lady starting asking loads of questions which was not ideal for relaxing and I soon realised she was going through the standard high school English type questions. Trying to shut her out but keep one eye open in case anything untoward should happen the minutes slowly ticked by as she massaged copious amounts of oil over my body.

You are then transferred to the steam bath cacoon, which again could be relaxing if a little Indian lady wasn't standing with her face two cms from mine, however she did mop my brow which was nice.

As it happened Hamish's experience was slightly more successful and less intrusive,  he was even given a loin cloth to maintain his dignity. A good experience to tick off but probably not one I will look to repeat any time soon!

Jungle trekking in Kerala

"Excuse me Mam, please hurry" one of the guides said with only a small  hint on anxiety in his voice. "BLOODY RUN" would have done the job as all of a sudden one of the elephants we had been spying on from the near by bushes spotted us and was charging in our direction.

Hamish and I were a few hours into a three day, two night, Tiger Trek in the Periyar Tiger Reserve near Kumily in Kerala and although we had been warned when booking and paying the expensive, for India, fee of R6000 per person that there was no guarantee we would see any of the 'trophy' wildlife already we were mere meters away from a group of elephants with their babies.

The jungle treks are lead by a park ranger (with a big gun) who is joined by a handful of ex-poachers who have had there convictions dropped on the agreement that they will work in the reserve to use their skills for good rather than evil. The poachers turned out to be a seriously legendary bunch of chaps. Their intimate knowledge and understanding of the jungle and every sound and smell is incredible. Even their snoring, we discovered, has taken on a primal sound. Hamish and I would be bumbling along spotting the odd bird when suddenly one of the guys would stop in his tracks spotting a tiger footprint ten yards from the path, or hearing the faint clap of an elephant flapping its ears and then we would be off through the bushes in hot pursuit.

The trek can take six 'tourists' at a time but we were the only two booked on so with two poachers in camp kitchen, two on the trail with us, plus the park ranger we were well looked after. The evening campfire stories were hilarious, even those that spoke little English were able to entertain us with their animated performance. Tales included a time a small group sneaking around the jungle in the pitch dark very sleep deprived when suddenly they walked smack into an elephant  and all ended up in a pile, much to the angry of the herd. Before going on the trek when I thought of poachers I thought of nasty, blood thirsty, killers but these guys have changed my perception completely. They were poor and desperate and were doing what ever it took to feed their families. Before the group got caught things were so bad that they couldn't go home as everyone in the area knew they were poachers but just lacked the proof to arrest them. Their families were badly bullied and their children couldn't go to school - the outcome, having them work for the park is brilliant, they really made the trip amazing.

We were spoilt for elephant sightings and both nights had the privileged, or on the other hand the terror, of them visiting our camp sight which we were told is a rarity. Thankfully the tent pitch was surrounded by a six foot wide and eight foot deep trench that the elephants couldn't cross however that didn't stop them putting the fear of God in us when one bellowed right outside our tent on the first night. I don't think there could be a more effective alarm clock in the world. Too frightened to get out we stayed safely within our canvas listening to the roars as they called their mates across the valley. By the second night we had pulled our socks up and put on the brave face and sat around the dying camp fire until the little hours of the morning watching them destroy one of our bamboo rafts, bath themselves in dust and try and get the coal from our fire (apparently they like the salt)

Sadly, but not surprisingly, we didn't get to see any tigers but we were treated to several herds of Elephants, Bison, Hogs (one took a particular dislike to Hamish and charged at us through the bushes narrowly missing us), a variety of deer, giant squirrels, bats, Mongoose, poisonous caterpillars (!), snake skins - thankfully not the interior, and we were lucky enough to avoid the famously aggressive sloth bear.

I could go on forever, it was such an incredible experience.I haven't even mentioned the food, which was delicious, but that could be a whole other post. No one else is allowed in the park after dark so we really felt like we were in the wild. It has made me think I might even try my hand at becoming a poacher, without the poaching. Don't think that would be a big money earner though.

Hamish took loads of pictures so we will try and post some soon but if you want to see some more on the reserve this is their website: http://periyartigerreserve.org/Periyar/index.htm

We are off to Alleppey next to sample some luxury, house boating through the backwaters...we will let you know how we get on.

Jess and Hamish

Hello strange world..

It turns out that every cliche about India is true. It really is a love hate place. One minute I will be cursing (inwardly) the hawkers who appear from no where and intercept every second step trying to sell everything from tea to t-shirts but then an old man will approach us simply to shake our hands and ask if the people of India have been kind to us.

It is so strange to constantly  be objects of attention. Men will come up and stand next to us just to look at the strange white people, many will take photos on their phones while others will just giggle uncontrollably. It would also appear that there isn't a man in India immune to my boobs - I am relieved Hamish isn't the jealous type.

Our few days in Kathmandu, when we dropped our trekking gear before entering India, were a real eye opener. Nepal is going through a pretty rough time at the moment - there are scheduled power cuts throughout the day and the streets are literally littered with rubble. Generators try to compensate during the power cuts but petrol is sparse and expensive meaning many people just sit in their shops in the dark. We enjoyed many a warm bottle of coke - turned out these were not to be our first.

A whirl wind few days in Delhi saw us take in Agra and the Taj Mahal as well as a side trip to stay with friends of Hamish's parents in Tiki where they run a beautiful guest house, Tiki Bottom - the heat was almost unbearable giving Hamish the change to firmly established himself as the sweatiest man in India. The Taj was beautiful, I secured my 'Princess Di' shot and we had a good look around but we had made the fatal error of getting ourselves tied up with a tour guide and quickly found ourselves whisked off to his uncles stone carving  factory followed by his friends gem stone jewellery shop. We didn't make any friends when we refused to purchase anything at either stop but I certainly learnt a quick lesson on tough love India style.

Tikli Bottom was a little bit of heaven among all the madness. Martin and Annie, who run the private guesthouse, are total legends who have established a local school that started with one class room and now has 12 (I think?) we went along to assembly one morning and I fell in love with the gorgeous little children all dressed up smartly in their school uniforms desperate to shake our hands and greet us beautifully "good morning Mam, how are you today"? I could go on forever about Tikli so I might have to save that for another post.

The 28 train journey from Delhi to Goa went off without a hitch, almost to my disappointment. We were in three tier berths and it was all rather civilised. They have banned hawkers from trawling the trains at stations selling goods because things were being stolen and one tourist was murdered in their bunk. The only excitement was a small man, with a very high voice, kicking off very aggressively because he didn't want to pay 25 rupees for his bottle of water. In true Indian style we all crowded the corridor to watch the action unfold and then giggled about it for a good half an hour.

The south has proven to be much cooler which is a welcome change, Palolem beach in Goa where we are staying is a bit of a ghost town - the tourists come in November - this has good points and bad points. It is nice to have the beach almost exclusively to ourselves but when there are only six tourists sunbathing and four ladies trying to sell us jewellery there really is no escape! The monsoon season is still in full force and leaves us scrambling from the beach with our books to find shelter in one of the beach bars, not always a bad thing.

My words have got away on me so I had better sign off but one conclusion, that I think you will all appreciate, is that countries that sell sodas in glass bottles are still countries worth visiting.  Why a coke tastes better in glass I do not know, but it puts a smile on our faces every time...simple minds!

A rough guide to our plans for the year

We promised many of you that we would get a blog running to keep those of you who care, or feel obliged to show an interest, up to date with our travels. The last week has all been a blur of adventure, mostly fun but sometimes traumatic! I had done a lot of reading on India and Nepal as well as spoken to many friends who have travelled here before but it seems that nothing was to prepare me for this strange and wonderful land! Hamish, having travelled here before as well as being generally more chilled out than me, is taking it much more in his stride and is noticing the change since he was here in 2000.

For those of you who have only just found out that we are off  travelling for a year this is the rough plan, subject to change should the wind take us:

India travelling mainly in the south - until mid October
Nepal, to trek the 20 day Annapurna circuit - mid October until early November. Hamish will then stay on for five weeks to do a mountain medicine course and I will return to NZ via Hong Kong for a week.
New Zealand to spend Christmas with my family - December
Zambia, working for a small charity based in Livingstone called 'On call Africa'. H will be doctoring and I will be helping run health education programmes in remote areas without access to health care. - early January until the end of April
Indonesia, I am still not 100% sure what we are doing out there, I think H is keeping it from me so that I don't object. We will be based on the Mentawi Islands for a month then might get some surf action - May to June
Mongolia, buying some horses and living like nomads for a while and then travelling overland back to the UK - July/ August time

September time we will return to the UK for a few weeks before heading back to NZ for the remainder of the medial year to work.


We would love people to come and join us for a holiday if you are up for it. While in Zambia we plan to do a horse riding safari in Botswana as well as some regular safari in Zambia. Livingstone is right by Victoria Falls so on the edge of Namibia and Zimbabwe so it should be awesome.

Indo will be another good time to come join us living it simple in a beach hut with green faced waves to keep the surfers happy and beautiful sunshine to keep the tan looking good.

We will try and update this blog as often as internet permits, but as I am sure you will understand once you have escaped the lifestyle living constantly on phones and internet it's quite hard to drag yourself into a cafe to put up a post!

Jeffy and Hamish xxx