Off to the Taj!

Gujurat has been wonderful, we have been shopping with Arti, Arjay and Jamie and they have also taken us to their family farm where I drove the small tractor yesterday. It's like driving my truck but only in smaller scale and a little more bumpy. We ate fresh Guava, coconut, chico, green almond and sugar cane which is grown on the farm. Today is our last day here in Vadadora Gujurat.

Tonight we catch the train to Agra (14 hours) where a driver will meet us to take us around the sites of the Taj Mahal! We are very excited to be moving on and finally we can have a cigarette. No one smokes or drinks around here. Alcohol is banned in this state and smoking we believe is frowned upon? Dan is driving me crazy with her narky nicotine withdrawals...ha ha. I too am feeling the pain.

So until next time

We're up North, we're safe

Sorry everyone has been so worried. We didn't even know what had happened.. we got two phone calls while we slept from people in Australia telling us the Taj Hotel was under siege and had caught on fire. We had been inside that hotel only one week earlier but had since left Mumbai for the North. We leave here tomorrow night on the train towards Agra to see the Taj Mahal then up to Rishikesh for around 10 days. Will email everyone properly soon, we just haven't got the time today as we are heading out to a dairy farm and don't want to keep our hosts waiting.
Bipin's family are really lovely and have been taking us shopping and for the most amazing meals ever. Will write more as soon as we can.
p.s. Thanks Les and Amy for letting everyone know we are safe.

Eat or swim or sleep?

We have been in Goa for 5 days now and we could stay here for another 5 years. Sometimes it can be difficult to load photo's on the blog, so we will show you photo's of Goa when we can upload them. Most days are spent at the Shore bar which hosts a spectacular sunset show and great service and food of course. Next door provides a thrilling show during the day with some Israeli drug dealers, holding knife fights on the beach.
Losing weight here maybe be an issue due to the over eating, I (Ang) made it to one class of yoga as I was feeling a bit round in the tummy. Everything is so cheap here, we can spend a whole day at a bar, drinking and eating and it doesn't cost us more than 20 dollars. We went to the night market last night, run by euro's with the mic man Scott being totally fresh.
After the markets we went to the Nine Bar which is a night club in Vagator which plays some terrible doof doof music that appears popular with the hippies. Yes, Goa lives up to it's reputation for hosting most of the worlds hippies.
This morning we had breakfast at the Sharewood restaurant, in a tree house which was very secluded and comfortable, made from bamboo.
In two days we head back to Mumbai for a few hours before we hop on a train to Vadadora to see Bipin's family. We are excited to be moving on but also feeling sad about leaving such paradise, Goa.

from sensory overload to relaxing goa..

We've left Mumbai.... so happy to be out. Was an experience we wouldn't swap for the world, but exhausting none the less. Going on a wild chase for a mobile phone charger (btw.. i am getting no incoming text messages.. sorry guys, not working) back to the story, we go down these weird crazy alley ways near the market. End up in the middle of the most fantastical world. Thousands of Indian men selling their stuff. Mobile phones, digital home phones, electrical appliances, shoes and material and sari's as far as the eye can see. We held on to each other and just explored.

We'd downed a few wines before hand, it took the edge off and made it more fun. It was an experience we shall never forget. After our 3 days in Mumbai, we will never complain about anything in our lives again. Confronting, beautiful, loud, amazing Mumbai.

We arrived in Goa today. Pfew... we can breathe fresh air, see the sky and swim in the ocean. Sitting here in total calm. Admiring Mish's room and life here. Both saying to each other every 5 min... how amazing is this place??

Some photos... I've had enough of trying to describe the indescribable.

Holy Traffic Batman...

well, we've arrived & both of us were not expecting this in the least. The taxi from the airport to the hotel was one of the craziest experiences i think we've ever had. It's hot, dusty heaps of fog and so so many people.... Still waiting on some cows to stroll on by, guess we need to head further out of town for that. We got ripped off at the markets buying spices, got a sob story from the dude walking us around.. his 12 maybe 14 (cause the story changed) year old daughter got hit by a truck.. hurt her leg (supposedly) and he has to pay for medicine.. but don't worry, the operations are free... because he works for some dude in the senate or something. Anyway we have a sh*it load of spices now that we can't take through customs coming home. Now, both Ang and I have learnt, we're going to be tough.
Strange looks on the street, heaps of people sleeping on the road and on the footpath. Getting use to it a little, but looking forward to heading to Goa to see Michelle as she is a 'local'.
We have managed to cross the road without getting beeped at, horn friendly is an understatement. Heading to Colaba now by taxi.

One more sleep

Excited.... started to pack. Taking as little as possible.

We fly out tomorrow, 7am. Ang watched Air Crash Investigations last night, probably not a good move considering we're flying Qantas. Two more "issues" re: Qantas in the paper yesterday. Hmm

I figure if we survive the flight we'll definitely survive India... ha ha.

Many thanks for all the well-wishes yesterday and last night. It's taken so long to get to this point. I remember talking to Ang a few days ago.. we bought our tickets on December 17, 2007. Since then we've moved out of our rental, both turned 30, bought a house, done two semesters of Uni, Ang got promoted and i've suffered through a re-structure.

After all that, we at last get a holiday. Just thinking about it is making me tired.

Back to the packing for us now.

May the adventure begin.

Still In Brisbane, 7 days - can't wait.

Well it's Sunday, the Sunday before we head off into our adventure of a lifetime. A bit nervous, excited and most of all impatient.

We've got 5 work days left, really all the time we have left to buy last minute necessities. We're still planning and booking the majority of our trip. First stop Mumbai. Population 15 million or so. One of the busiest airports in the world. I wonder how over powering and hectic it will be?

I guess this first post is to just get us started. I hope to be able to update often... we shall see.