2hrs in Bangkok Makes a Hard Mandrew Humble

Well we made it to Bangkok despite 0.3 inches of leg room for 3hrs. So far from what we've seen in Bangkok; the airport, the airport toilets, the airport bus, the hotel room & internet cafe attached, we are very impressed. We can't remember the last time we've seen traffic obeying the traffic laws, real walkable sidewalks (footpaths) and a real modern elevator with automatic doors. And although we haven't eaten yet, we've been drooling at the smell of all the noodles surrounding us!!!

I guess there will be no weight loss in Thailand either! More updates & photos soon.

Kim & Anand's Wedding

We just got back from a fantastic experience: a real South Indian Wedding. Only pictures can describe how amazing it was, so I will leave it at that until we can find a decent internet cafe that we can upload photos from! Suffice it to say that there were lots of great costumes worn by everyone, excellent South Indian food, and we observed many ancient Tamil rituals in a short few hours of a wedding. Anand's family were incredibly welcoming to us and all overseas visitors, and we were warmly welcomed to their home before and after the wedding.

First things got started with a Hindu ceremony...

Priest with Anand and parents:

Then they moved over to the traditional swing:

The Bride's (Kim's) hand decorated in henna painting:


Sitting around the ceremonial fire:


Mandy and Sharon (Kim's friend & long-time roomate) show off their new threads:


Us with the happy bride and groom at the end of the night (girls showing off their henna painting):

Happy Hannukah

Celebrating the festival of lights with a home-made hannukiah (menorah) made out of sea shells:


Nur:


Amir:

Lazy Cows

Today was our last day of Yoga in Goa (for this year anyway), we only have 2 more days left here so we're trying to enjoy the beach and appreciating our new founded ability of "doing nothing", a skill that many in the west have a hard time achieving. Luckily for us, our friend and "teacher" David Dodd told us about Taoism which preaches following the "path of least reistence". Which for him meant morning yoga, fruit salad for breakfast, chocolate cake for lunch, lying on the beach for a few hours with a good book, and then maybe check and see if there is still chocolate cake left after dinner.




Speaking of lazy cows, there are so many cows everywhere here, wandering the streets and beaches. Yesterday on our walk back from yoga, one tried to impail andrew, but luckily he was quick on his feet and the beast ran straight past (still with horns pointing forward).

Here's another topless sunbather on the beach:




Today in class we were re-learning the "dog" pose, (known to most as downward dog). Our teacher, clearly unimpressed with our poses told us that he couldn't see any dogs, only cows, and proceeded to walk up to various students mooing at them. It was impossible to stay in pose, we were all laughing too hard. It really is like being in a comedy show with Sharat (teacher), he's such a smartarse, and has a fantastic sense of humour. We will miss him & our classmates.

Adding to the hilarity was the Israeli girl who sometimes struggles to understand Sharat's english. When he was explaining the location of the "perineum" (the space between your anus & genitals), she asked him to show the class exactly where it was located on his body. You can imagine the giggling that ensued. Chilidish but belly-aching all the same.

And just in case you were wondering if we really did yoga... it was too early in the morning (6am start) to be taking pictures, but here's Andrew practicing shoulder stand in the hotel in Chennai:

Trapped in Paradise

We just finished our first week at the yoga school which we enjoyed so much, we decided to stay another week. If we had our way, we would probably be here all winter, but other places are calling, so we'll see where we end up. So we will be here until Christmas Day, then to Chennai for Kim Zabora's wedding, and then to Bangkok on New Year's Eve.

The Beach

Warning: Please skip this section if you are prone to fits of raging jealousy over other people's good fortune...

The view from our hut: just a short walk across the river and through the sand to the beach:


Nur and Amir collecting shells on the beach:


...And just being kids...


One of the countless starfish dotting our beach:


Mandy's own collection of shells:


One of our friendly beach vendors:


Sunsets:

Our Fishing Expedition

As a special treat for his birthday, Mandy organized a dolphin-watching/fishing-trip at the nice hour of 5 in the morning!

Here's our guide Krishna at the bow:


Oh, is this what a sunrise looks like? It's been so long I forgot:


The boat hands pulling the nets in:


Andrew and Krishna on the beach:


Mandy proud of her large haul (They pulled in about 250 of these):

Exploring Goa

Despite the beach being the main attraction here, we have had some time to check out the neighborhood. We rented a moped and went off to see Tiracol Fort, an old Maharatha fort taken over by the Portugese in the 16th century. The fort was nice, but the best part was the journey, which involved a few small-towns, temples, and getting a little lost on the way. Here is our ferry boat coming in:



Here we are on our bike:



Our first hand-sewn clothes were made by Anita in Arambol:



The silly party hat drew spectators to Andrew's birthday bash, including David who helped put down some Goan port wine:



Once again, the journey is more fun than the destination -- riding to the Wednesday market at Anjuna Beach are our experienced guides: Hila, Amir, Ori, and Nur (and no that's not the most people we've seen on one moped):



Andrew bargaining for bananas at the Mapusa markets:



Luckily for us, we had weekly evening entertainment at Dunes: a Rajastani folk dancer:

Mandrew at Mandrem

After 6 months of "gruelling" nonstop travelling, we are finally on holiday. A real beach holiday in a little hut by the sea here in Goa.

It was only fate, luck and last minute planning that brought us here,
*For 6 months ago India was not on our itinerary, and certainly not the tiny Indian state of Goa which quite literally one member of this pair had never heard of until 2 months ago (not naming names, but it's the one whose home country is one that most people have never heard of).
*Just 2 weeks ago we didn't even have a ticket booked to India
*And just 2 days ago we didn't think we'd be let into the country because of it's bureacratic incompetence.
*But after meeting a very cool Swiss couple in Barcelona who convinced us that India was fantastic, we added it to our itinerary.
*And because all flight to Delhi were booked, we ended up in Mumbai (Bombay).
*And because we happened to find (via the web), a yoga school on the beach...

Here we are, Mandrew on Mandrem Beach, North Goa. A little piece of paradise. And the beauty is, Paradise here only costs only $25/day for our own hut, excellent indian and western food, motor scooter and incidentals!!

Check out our place: Dunes Holdiay Resort and our Yoga school.
We don't actually start at this yoga school until Friday, however in the meantime we're going to join the yoga classes at our "hotel".

Our new cell phone in Inida is: +91 9822 989 212, However we're not getting very good reception here at the beach, but you could give it a shot, in case we're in range!

No Laughing Matter?

So after a pretty hellish 36 hours of being unsure whether or not we could leave Turkey due to the idiots at the Indian Consulate, we finally arrived in Bombay/Mumbai India!! We are pretty happy to be in a non-muslim country, as there seemed to be a lot of tension still in Turkey and we did feel a little scared in Jordan (although that may have been irrational).

Yes, we actually flew Royal Jordanian via Amman and had an 8hr stopover. We anticipated a long afternoon/evening at the airport, but on arrival were given transit vouchers and sent to an airport hotel for a free room & free buffet dinner!! and were able to watch our first english movie for at least 1 month - real quality "Ghostbusters".

On arrival back at Amman airport we had much security to go through, we took particular notice of their list of unsafe carry on luggage (which of course is only posted right at the entry to the boarding lounge). Mandy & I had to stifle our laughs as we read the list while standing in a long line of serious Arabs & Indians.

Of course it contained such recently banned items like nail scissors, pointed metal objects like ski poles, and straight razors. The sign helpfully pointed out that those of us carrying baseball bats, golf clubs and cricket bats must check these in before flying. To our inconvenience we were unable to bring on num chucks, pool cues, hockey sticks, chinese fighting stars, blackjacks, swords, meat cleavers or spear guns... even fire extinguishers which we would have needed had we been able to bring on the banned flare guns and fire crackers. But, can you believe that dynamite, pistols, rifles and even hand grenades have been banned as carry on items?? The gall of the airline!

Trapped in Istanbul?

Well, here we are trapped in the dreaded beuracracy of the Indian consulate in Istanbul, waiting for our Indian visa's to come through. Something about "waiting for a fax from the San Francisco passport agency" which they've been waiting on for 2 1/2 weeks but never bothered to follow up on. So instead of "definitely" getting our visa in 7 days, we are tenuously waiting for our visa, and getting harrassed by the bitchy receptionist for leaving our "security threatening" bags in the waiting room. While peacefully waiting and writing in our journals she asks suspiciously "excuse me, what are you still doing here?", to which we bit our tongues instead of retorting "waiting for your *?#!*#ing backwards bureaucracy to get it's !*#!* together!".

After the visa officer finally agreed to somehow expedite our visa, he said it would be at least 2 hours (which would make us late for the flight), because there were so many people waiting - we counted 1 in the reception room.

Tick, tock, tick, tock - if our visa doesn't come through we'll have to cancel our flight, and who knows when we can rebook for? We might have to stay in Istanbul for another week or longer. Maybe staying longer wouldn't be so bad, we're staying with the fantastic Ralf & Nadia and being spoiled rotten....hmmmm.

..... Finally we are called back into the shabby paper filled office (which surprisingly had a computer - the other officer didn't have one), and are presented with our visas.

Just as we were about to leave, the officer turns to mandy and says "what city was your passport issued in?", she said "Wellington, NZ". He looked a little confused, and showed us the fax that he had sent and the response that he had then received back regarding her visa application. The city of the passport office was Stockholm, Sweden!! So some person in the Swedish passport office was kind enough to sanction Mandy's Indian Visa!!!! He was so sick of us at that point, he turned a blind eye and let us out of the consulate!

Thank g-d for good NZ-Swedish relations, or we may still be in Istanbul!!

Recently found Cappadocia & Istanbul Photos

Whirling Dervishes at Turkish Night in Cappadocia:



Andrew belly dancing at Turkish Night:



Kids riding mules:



Andrew exiting one of the cave dwellings:



Caves from "Star Wars":



Another "Star Wars" shot. Can you picture Luke and Obi Won in this landscape?



Back in Istanbul, Nadia with her beautiful sculptures:



Andrew and Ralf on the Bosphorous:

Thanksgiving Tours around Turkey

It's almost thanksgiving but here it's 26C/75 F and instead of eating Turkey, we'll just be on the beach, and swimming in the clear waters of Turkey.

We left Istanbul just as the rain began, and headed south west along the Gallipoli peninsular. It was a pretty long bus ride, but we met a cool Father/Son traveling team, Mark & Nick from Canberra, so the trip went a little faster.

A perfectly fine and calm day for touring around the battlefields of Gallipoli, and apart from one other minivan full of people, the 6 of us were the only ones there. Our Turkish guide Ali who lost both his Grandfather and Great-Uncle during the fighting there in 1915, managed to keep us in good humor, despite the solemness of the area. It was extremely calm, and peaceful; hard to imagine how many people lost their lives for no real purpose. The Brits clearly had no idea what they were doing and led thousands of Aussies & Kiwis to their deaths. It was a very educational and somewhat spiritual experience.

Our guide Ali:


The now calm waters of the Gallipoli Pennisula:


The group sitting at ANZAC cove:


Hideously early (6.30am) the next day we were on another bus to Selcuk, a town which is the base for Ephusus an amazing Roman ruins right on the Agean Sea. We had a barbecue on the beach watching the sunset, and the next day did a few hours around the ruins. It is a very impressive collection, with a huge fully intact amphitheatre that held 25,000 people, and also a beautiful library which is still somewhat in one piece.

The group - Andrew, Nick (Aus), Abbie (NZ), Mandy, Mark (Aus) & Cheree at Ephysus:


The boys on the crouching over the toilets at Ephysus:


The Ephysus Library:


We then had a hellish multiple bus ride from Selchuk to Pammukale, culminating in one great Turkish tout scam, whereby after we were so exhausted from 7hrs of travelling, some guy came onto our bus and told us that we were in Pammukale and had to get off now, otherwise the bus would take us to another town. We were too tired to know any different and got off the bus, to find that we were about 2km away from the town, right outside his hotel!!!! We were furious, refused to stay in his crappy place, and stomped into town. The pension we ended up in was wonderful, run by Mustafa and his wife, the fattest people I have seen so far in this country! We had great Turkish hospitality, food and another opinion on Turkish politics/religion etc. He didn't know we were Jewish, but only had the nicest things to say about the Jewish community in Turkey.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) our ride on KamelKoc (bus comp.) never came through!


We spent half a day wandering around the calcium formations of Pammukale. It was quite spectacular against the perfectly blue skies. We also wandered around the ruins, another great amphitheater to sit and watch the valley below.

Walking in Pammukale:


We took a 20 seater bus (with 35 people in it) to Fetiyhe (4 hr ride), finally reaching the Mediteranean coast, although with little time up our sleeve, we decided to head straight to Kas for some R&R.

Kas is the cutest seaside village, with beautiful clear water everywhere (beaches are pebbles, but still good for lying on). Andrew has been in bed for much of our time here. He got a head cold /flue, but is slowly recovering now.
I (mandy) went on boat cruise yesterday with a bunch of people from the hostel. It was a pretty rough ride, with 2 metre swells - I was anticipating a swim to shore at any point when the boat sunk, but I made it back unscathed, except from a few scratches from the adorable Golden Retriever that was swimming with me off the boat :) It was worth it! The water is so clear and not too cold, so it's been great soaking up the sun and swimming.

Mandy being told to "moose" by katie the kiwi on the boat trip:


Sunset on the boat back to Kas:


Tonight we head into the interior, Cappadocia, where the temp. will drop considerably. We head to Istanbul on the 30th, and then fly to Bombay
on Dec 1st.