After the eventful 7 1/2 hour bus journey with the 2 flat tyres we made it safely to our guest house in Udaipur, a beautiful small city in southern Rajasthan. These few days were a bit of a holiday from the holiday as the fast pace we’d been setting around Rajasthan so far meant that we just felt like not doing much for a while, and this seemed like the perfect place to not do much at all! We had a room on the quiet side of town, with windows along 2 of the walls (joy!) overlooking Lake Pichola and the City Palace, which looked beautiful at sunset.

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After treating ourselves to a night in a very nice hotel in New Delhi to allow Alexandra to recover from her twisted ankle we filled up on the huge posh buffet breakfast (knowing that we wouldn’t have the chance to eat a full fried breakfast, followed by cereal, followed by pastries, followed by fruit, followed by cheese and crackers, followed by coffee for some time), jumped in a taxi to the airport and caught our flight to Jodhpur, the ‘blue city’.

Unfortunately on our first night we were unable to get into our guest house of choice in the old town and we were stuck in one of the new areas of the city which meant loud traffic noise and lots of smog. Fortunately the ‘rooftop restaurant’ is about as common as a dodgy bathroom in guest houses across Rajasthan. So we spent the evening relaxing and enjoying the view while having dinner on the roof.

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There were numerous times during our week in Mumbai when I thought to myself “shit, I was almost just killed by that bus/taxi/crowd/horse drawn carriage!” when in fact I wasn’t at all. This being our first visit to one of India’s major cities, it just took us a day or two to acclimatise to the sometimes overwhelming combination of the closeness and craziness of this incredible place.

Our overnight train from Margao arrived exactly on time, which was unfortunate because that time happened to be 4.05am and we soon found out that Mumbai before dawn is quite a contrast to the Mumbai we’d be battling with later that day.

We met a fellow traveller (another Alex) in Margao before we boarded our train and we decided to meet up again at Mumbai’s CST Station to see if he could get a room at the same hotel we’d booked ourselves into. It was a short walk from the station to the hotel so we waved away the few taxi drivers that were hanging around outside and set off, map in hand. Unfortunately there were a few unexpected obstacles between the deserted station and the hotel, namely people – lots of people – sleeping across the entire pavement. With me concentrating on the map, a well timed shout from Alexandra stopped me from introducing myself to the first Mumbai residents I’d come across by falling onto them with a 20kg bag on my back! After that near miss, and one wrong turn, it took us slightly longer to find the hotel than we’d hoped, and I (being the map reader) was feeling the pressure to get us to the hotel as the nocturnal wildlife of rats and overly territorial dogs seemed to be closing around us. Luckily for us it was only one wrong turn and we were able to regain our bearings and get to the hotel where, after a minor argument with the ‘cheerful’ (Lonely Planet’s description) reception staff about our very early check in, we finally made it to our room.

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The train ride to Hospet from Margao was our first experience on the Indian railways. We arrived in good time to make sure we could figure out the station and stocked up on supplies for the six and a half hour journey. Only once the train arrived at the platform did we realise that the sign indicating the intended position of our carriage was totally wrong. A backpack-laden sprint later, we found our seats and settled down for the trip. It was an interesting first experience. I don’t think the sound of ‘chaiiii?!’ being shouted loudly into my left ear will ever leave my memory, as one of the numerous chai-wallahs dragged his feet for the thousandth time along our carriage. We were booked into a sleeper carriage, but there was certainly no sleeping to be had on this one.
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For my 30th I was given the best surprise present ever by Alexandra, a ride day on a Suzuki GSXR-600 at the Moto GP Circuit at Phillip Island!

The weather was a bit scary, as it began to rain heavily 5 minutes before my first ride and it was unbelievably slippery out on the track, but it dried up over the course of the day and I actually ended up being able to catch and overtake a couple of people by the end!

There wasn’t any timing allowed, but we think I was about a minute off Nicky Hayden’s circuit record of 1:30.059, not too bad I suppose.

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After the surprisingly pleasant 7 hour bus ride to Bangkok we hauled our lives onto our backs once more and began the hunt for a decent guest house. After deciding to go to Khao San Road a.k.a. Backpacker Central we quickly realised that we didn’t need to put much effort into finding a place to stay, the places to stay would come and find us (usually while shouting and waving at the same time!) Fortunately we ended up with a really comfortable place – a relief after some of the shitholes we had a look at – dropped our bags and ventured out into the insanity of Bangkok.

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We’re now into our second day in Chiang Mai so I thought I’d write a little update about our last stop, Chaing Rai, the capital city of Thailand’s northernmost province of the same name, and our first stop away from the relaxing beach life we’ve been getting used to over the past couple of weeks. Well, it had to come to an end at some point, although Alexandra probably would’ve extended it for about another 50 weeks if she could.

So, Chiang Rai…

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This is why I put all of that effort into getting a motorcycle license.

Note the basket on the front for collecting the roadkill that just can’t get out of the way fast enough, and the ultra wide and grippy tyres. What a stunning machine.

After a couple of flights and a night in Phuket, we fought the jet lag to get ourselves up early and jumped on a tuk tuk to catch the first ferry from Phuket to Ko Phi Phi.
Ko Phi Phi is famous for being the primary location for The Beach and as we approached the island it was easy to tell why. (Obviously a little comp work to remove some of the bars, resorts and long-tail boats would be necessary though!)
Waving away the people trying to sell us boat rides there, we stubbornly headed east to find Viking Resort on our own. After getting lost in the jungle and passing a few other hotels and resorts, we finally found the gourgeous Viking Cove and its tiny secluded beach which is now barely 20 seconds walk from the front of our hut.

Let the holiday begin!

Finally the day has come when we leave these increasingly chilly shores to look for some slightly prettier and warmer ones. I’ve heard that the whole country is planning to give us a big send off by launching lots of fireworks this evening. (Or are they just happy to see us go? Either way, I’ll have to try and get a window seat.)
Thanks to everyone who came to the various goodbye drinks days/nights. It was great to see you all. Hopefully this blog will be a better record of our travels than Facebook will be. We’ll be on Skype every so often with the username ants2d. Check the Skype icon in the sidebar on the right of this page to see if we’re online. Otherwise check back here to see what we’ve been up to and if you feel compelled to tell us how much you hate us for leaving for so long while you’re sitting at your desk, do feel free to post a comment or two. It’d be good to hear from you, even if it is just a bunch of expletives.

Bye everyone, take care and we’ll see you all in a year!