A big tick off the bucket list.

Whilst in Sri Lanka, there was one thing we could no miss and that was seeing elephants.
We decided to drag ourselves away from the beach (this was made a lot easier by the fact it was cloudy) and hired ourselves a car/jeep to Udawalwe national park - it was worth every penny.

After driving for a very bumpy 1.5 hours we arrived at our awesome 9 seater jeep and set off into the 74,000 acres of park to search for elephants (and other animals).

We saw our first elephant within 5 minutes of being in the park, they all looked so peaceful and happy. This is possibly because they had enough food to last them 5 lifetimes and they are top of the food chain, minus the 5 jaguars, but I hardly imagine they pose much of a threat to 500 elephants.

We had a wonderful 3 hours driving around the lush greenery spotting elephants, water buffalo, lizards, birds and deer. At one point with we're only metre from the elephants! If only we could have touch them but it was probably a good thing we didn't (it's not unknown for them to charge at visitors!)

After the storm started, it was probably time we headed home and back to the beach. God life is so hard. This was worth every penny we spent on it, I definitely recommend it if your ever in Sri Lanka, or even if you love elephants as much as we do.

Sri Lanka you have yet to disappoint and you've managed a big tick off our bucket list.

http://udawalawenationalpark.com/

Hello Sri Lanka!

What can I say, we have finally found some paradise!

After one too many cities, it was time that we saw the sea...and started to work on our tans! Thank god we had finally arrived in Sri Lanka.

All the people we spoke to were right, Sri Lanka is India but sanitised. After a brief stop in Colombo it was off to Fort Galle, where we finally began to act like real tourists - window shopping, enjoying ice cream (even though we probably shouldn't) and getting to lounge around in coffee shops. It was a bit like being in Cornwall but actually hot! (Does this make us the worst travellers ever?)

After Galle we headed east along the south coast, to Tangalle and our own tropical beach. We wasted no time once we arrived, immediately dumping our stuff and straight for the beach - which we can see from out room.

Although the beach looks idyllic, the sea is not. It may be the first sea we've ever experienced that literally feels like a bath but boy is it strong. We have never experience pull back liked it, so used our sensible heads and paddled for the first day and take lots of photos to make one jealous and because the beach all to ourselves so could.

We would love to say our life is hard but it's not.....it finally feels like our travels have begun.

Thank you Sri Lanka, we love you!

Our little hiccup.

Our first little hiccup of our trip was my accidental visit to hospital. Before you start panicking, don't! I'm absolutely fine, I think we all just got a worried and our hotel owner over-reacted.

Basically, I went in for having prolonged Delhi belly -sexy right?! We were taken to a hospital in fort Cochin for me to be looked over by a doctor. Apparently being white gives you one advantage in India, you jumped a lot of hospital queues and go straight to the doctor. The doctor who spoke basic English, tried to keep me in for 3 nights and we point blank refused and finally compromised on 2 injections a day and lots of pills.

I have to say injections straight into a vein are not cool, but LG held my hand the entire way and Maud lightened up each injection by trying to take my mind off it. They were even kind enough to rap during my final hellish injection when the whole A&E heard their rendition of thrift shop.

Basically I'm fine, and I have technically been ill during the best time.

Onward and upward to Sri Lanka :)

Our little bit of heaven in India.

After the hell that was Delhi, it was time for some R and R in Kerala and that's exactly what we had.

Our hostel - Hinterland village resort - was simply idyllic and we had it all to ourselves. This meant we had the run of the pool and the resort and the only people we had to share it with was the staff, some bird and 2 Emu's....who can complain really.

Since we were 3 girls with nothing to do, we decided to spend our days playing in the pool, eating our way through the hotel and finally making use of our kindles and after the stress of north India this is exactly what we needed.

The owners son Ajay, was our saviour taking us on the occasional day trip (including a backwater cruise) a western meal and to see elephants. As I'm sure many of you know, meeting an elephant was one of my dreams and I was so excited to finally make it happen.

Attempt one to meet them failed as I was too ill (not impressed) but the next day I finally made it. The elephant park was not quite what I expect, the elephants were kept in small enclosure and were tied up, that said bath time was awesome. We wondered down to the river, and the party began. The adult elephants clearly knew the drill so obediently lay down in the water for his scrub, unfortunately baby was not having any of this. He decided it would be more fun to dive under water and hide from his cleaner - which may have been annoying for them but very amusing for us.

After this excitement was over, it was back to the hotel for our final day of chillin' before we braved the city again and had our first hiccup - my trip to hospital.....

India pt 1. The not so nice bit.

After our slight rant about Delhi, we thought we would fill you in on our time in Agra.

The train to Agra was....interesting. And something we never need to repeat again, but McDonald's that evening made everything better - who knew the Indian Big Mac was the McMaharaja!

After a well deserved beer and sleep, we woke up early for our day tour of Agra, starting with the Big T - Taj Mahal.
From my own point of view the Taj hasn't changed much in 5 years, and the girls who knew it would be amazing. We were not underwhelmed but at the same time not surprised by its beauty. In our opinion, the view of it from the other side was far more breath-taking, easier on the wallet and far quicker to get into - who knew being a white women put you to the back of the queue?!

After the Taj, we had some food and a nap (6am is very early to get up, especially when prayer calls wake you up!) then it was off to the red fort, which was well...big and red. By the time we hit the mini mahal, tiredness and insanity had hit, and we had great run dancing around it whilst rapping thrift shop - parents google it!

Agra something you should see, but trust us, you do not need longer than a day! You can easily be carted around to all the sights by a taxi driver in the day, eat sleep and move on the next day. We do recommend though not returning to Delhi ( see previous post) but instead fly directly down south - if your like us and want to see Kerala.

We will fill you in on this amazing area in the next post - in our opinion India's far better side.

The hell that is Delhi.

What can we say about Delhi? Well to be honest it was pretty shit (excuse the French).

We made the decision to leave Agra early to return to Delhi, this may be one of our biggest mistakes ever, but mistake or not this is what we learnt.

We won't bore you all with detail so here it is in bullet points:

- Never and we mean ever, travel on sleeper class on the train.
- Don't trust any transport driver as they will only rip you off or take you where they want to go.
- When complaining about a bad hotel, threaten them with bad reviews and you get what you want.
- Being a white women, makes you the lowest of the low.
- Being this and not travelling with man is even worse!
- You may get hit with a water bombs for being a tourist - scarier than it sounds.
- Delhi is a very scary place.

I know these are very generalised, but this is what we experienced.

All we can say is the south is completely different, a peace of heaven after hell.

Birthday in Asia...and a bit before.

Hey all.

We have arrived safely in Agra and its my Birthday! It is definitely a birthday I will never forget.

My birthday kicked off in style, with an amazing day at the Radisson Blu New Dehli, and I have to say although we may have backpacks on our backs, we like luxury.

I had the perfect pre-birthday, with a rooftop swim and jacuzzi followed by cocktails and dinner. I have to say us and 5* go well together so a big thank you to Mama P!

My actually birthday, was an....experience. After reluctantly saying goodbye to the very nice hotel, we headed to Delhi train station...it was terrifying! After much panic and confusion we found our platform with our train, with no help as no one spoke English we were safe. Turns out that was the easy bit.
After 5 mins of trying to get on our train, through crying, pushing and shoving (and LG almost being pushed off the train) we found our seats and the fun began.

We were possibly in the Lowest class of seat we could of been, a bench surrounded by men and no AC - I'm not gonna lie we were scared, especially after being told Delhi was not safe. Luckily a lovely old English speaking man calmed our nerves and we were on our way to Agra. Somehow through a lot of heat panic and sweat we made it!

We are now here safely, with a birthday Maccy D's and beer in our belly and having survived our first tuk tul ride, we are finally calm and relaxed.

Goodbye 5* comfort, hello real backpacking!

Miss you all, but the girls are making me feel very special!

Nepal.

So we have officially arrived in Nepal!

Not going to lie it was a slight shock to the system, but after you get over the crazy road systems and drivers, it's amazing.

We really put our degree to good use on the first day buy visiting a mixture of Hindu and Buddhist temples. Parents do not panic, we were not roaming the street of Nepal but were driven around by a driver - you could say we are high maintenance travellers.

The temples (especially Buddhist) were amazing, Hindu ones...slightly less so.

Today we embarked on our first major adventure, we took to the foothills of the Himalayas and trekked. We were probably just as shocked that we actually did it, as you are reading about it.
What have learnt from the Trek...we are not fit.
The views were insane and just made it sink in that we are finally in Nepal.

Anyway just to let everyone know that we are safe and well...except being spat on!

M, LG, LP