"To Be a Poly, Oh My Golly"

Okay, so the blog is currently a little behind. Sorry about this. We've had the best intentions for keeping it up to date, but we seem to be doing more and more as time goes on, giving us less and less time to keep this filled with our most recent goings on. In an attempt to get back up to speed in the next few weeks, this is quite a long post and perhaps one to sit with whilst enjoying a cup of tea and a biscuit (or a coffee if you're that way inclined). Enjoy.

Allow us to introduce you to The Crib. After more than 30 hours of sitting on planes and in departure lounges and stopping through Dubai and Melbourne before finally landing in Auckland, New Zealand, this was the bright green, reliable beast that awaited us. It was also our home for four weeks and so, before we get into the details of the trip itself, The Crib deserves a description.

Also known as an old Toyota Lucida, this automatic spacewagon had been painted lime green and purple by the company Jucy Rentals, ensuring that absolutely everyone would see us hurtling down New Zealand's highways. The front was the normal set-up; two seats, one for the driver and one for the passenger, a steering wheel...you get the gist. In the back though, all of the seats had been removed and replaced with a cushioned bench running the length of the car on either side. There wasn't much room for Richard if he was sitting upright on these, but if it was raining and there was nowhere else to go, they certainly served a purpose. At the foot of the car, in the area which you opened the boot onto, were a sink, a small fridge which ran off the cars secondary battery and a butane-powered gas hob which was housed in a discreet white box. We also had a DVD player on board, for those long, cold nights in the middle of nowhere. 

The reliable Crib

Inside The Crib by day...

...and by night

Picking this up on the afternoon that we landed, we were good to go in spite of our excessive jet-lag and checked in to a nearby Top 10 holiday park, which we'd soon find out were a chain of campsites across NZ. First stop: Auckland.

We arrived after dark, having had to drive around in circles a few times before we were able to find the site. Once there, we did little more than cook up some spaghetti carbonara (pasta!) before literally making our bed, slotting the right planks of wood into their corresponding spaces and ensuring the pillows-come-mattress were in the right order. With everything in it's place, we passed out for around twelve hours straight, save for Ashley's decision to wake up in he middle of the night and christen our camping spot by vomiting out of the side of the van. Richard is adamant that this was a reaction to the tiredness as opposed to his cooking. He ate the same and was fine.

Taking care to avoid the small patch of recycled carbonara as we got out of the van the next morning, number one on our list of things to do was to buy a hoodie. We'd packed in preparation for Asia and, having come from temperatures in the late twenties and, in some cases, well into their thirties, we were utterly unprepared for NZ's descent from Autumn and into Winter. An exciting first adventure in Kiwi-land, we're sure you'll agree, but it was quite the novelty to be venturing into actual shops with windows and concrete walls rather than shacks on the side of the road. The switch back to Western prices was going to take some getting used to though.

Whilst on our jumper quest, we managed to get chatting to a Kiwi guy in a skate and surf shop called Amazon. He'd just got back from his own travels through South East Asia and sat down with us for twenty minutes recommending all of the places we should try and visit whilst driving around. It was great to get the perspective of a local as the Lonely Planet only goes so far.

Before this however, we'd managed to drain The Cribs minuscule battery the previous night by having an internal light on to help us see as we made the bed. With no jump leads, we approached a couple we had spoken with last night called Warren and Barbara. Thankfully, they had a set of jump leads and so we were back up and running pretty quickly, despite the fact that we wouldn't actually be driving The Crib for the next couple of days, opting instead for the local bus to save money on parking in the city centre. Warren and Barbara, two almost strangers, offered to look after the keys for the day so that the car could remain running for fifteen minutes or so and regain its juice. On nothing more than a hunch, we said yes. They seemed like a trustworthy couple and we were right. Despite paranoid visions of our home and transport for the next month speeding into the distance whilst being driven by a couple of elderly con artists, both our keys an The Crib sat waiting for us upon our return. Over the three days we stayed in Auckland, we got to know Warren and Barbara pretty well, discovering that Warren had actually been living with cancer for the past thirteen years, having been given just three years to live. He and his wife had sold their house in NZ and were, in his own words, "gypsying it" around the country, stopping in the odd place for treatment and living out of the back of their van. Despite his situation, Warren was one of the most upbeat, enthusiastic and energetic people we've ever met. He even harboured plans to scale Kilimanjaro later this year. We have no doubt that he will do it either.

We went into Central Auckland a couple of times and, outside of the pant-wettingly exciting experience of buying a jumper, we also had a chance to see some of Auckland's sights. There was Auckland Museum, whose building was a sight in itself: a Greek-style, pillared building with carvings on it's facade - reminiscent in some ways of the New York Post Office, which sat inside Auckland Domain, an expansive park complex complete with sports fields and gardens. Inside was an excellent Maori and Pacific Islands exhibition, which took you through each Islands way of sustaining itself, their dress and spiritual beliefs, eating habits, weapons and so on (and where better to learn about such things than in the most densely Polynesian populated city in the world?). Also on display were some Maori totems, which we discovered represent and embody a particular tribes ancestors, as well as a twenty-five metre, hand-carved war canoe, and green Tikis - carved human figures made from jade stone and worn around the neck to represent the first person on earth and to bring good luck. There was also a fantastic earthquake simulator in the museum. You sat in a mocked-up lounge, on a couch watching fictional news reports of a volcanic eruption in Auckland (which is not so much a possibility as it is an inevitability due to the cities being built on as many as thirty dormant volcanoes). You're then suddenly being thrown around as pictures fall from the walls and ornaments hit the faux oak floors. Scary given the recent events in Christchurch and NZ's ongoing relationship with earthquakes because of its location on the boundary between both the Pacific and Indian/Australian plates. In fact, it was actually an earthquake that brought NZ as we know it to life as, until the plates collided six million years ago, a vast majority of the country was still in the sea. But we digress.

The impressive Auckland Museum

We also payed a visit to the top of the Southern Hemispheres tallest structure, the three hundred and twenty-eight metre high Sky Tower. We took the incredibly fast lift to the UFO-shaped viewing deck just before sunset and were treated to three hundred and sixty degree views of Auckland's skyline as it slowly lit up for the night before treating ourselves to a glass of wine each in the Sky Bar.

Auckland's Sky Tower

Enjoying our first glass of wine in a while in the Sky Bar

We managed to get out of central Auckland before moving on (having slept off the jet lag during our three nights there), visiting two dormant volcanoes, the first of which was Mt Eden. At the top of a large hill is a fifty metre deep crater with almost vertical walls and which cannot be entered as it is considered sacred by the Maori people (slightly unfortunate as the child in each of us just wanted to roll sideways down to its bottom. The child in both of us is also laughing at the word 'bottom'). From its top we gained another great view of Auckland's skyline and were also able to see our second stop, One Tree Hill.

One Tree Hill

Inside the beautiful Cornwall Park, One Tree Hill is a thirty minute, uphill walk (surprisingly) where you zig-zag and weave through sheep to get to its top. The name is a slight misnomer, with no actual tree sitting at the 'peak'. The first was chopped down by the British in the mid-1800's and the second existed until 2000, but is now no more. A NZ fun fact: U2 immortalised this sacred Maori sight on their Joshua Tree album, with the inspiringly title One Tree Hill. It was only released as a single in NZ and went straight to number one. Mmm, knowledge. 

The sheep we had to contend with

Impressive views from the top

With only twenty-nine days and a hell of a lot of ground to cover, we needed to move on, despite there being much more to do in Auckland. Our original intention was to go a little further north to Poor Knights Island Marine Reserve to do some scuba diving, but Ashley had developed a cold and, with congested ears, this wasn't really an option. Plan B then: go a lot further north - over 500km - to the Bay of Islands.

This was our first bit of proper driving since we'd landed and the scenery along the way was nothing short of jaw dropping, driving past rugged beaches on the east coast and pootling our way up winding hills (arguably mini mountains in some cases) only to freewheel down the other side, singing along to cheesey and respectable music in equal measure. Driving in NZ was also incredibly easy. When we first picked up a road map, we thought it was a basic one as it wasn't overly detailed. However, it turned out that that's just the extent of NZ's road network. Generally, theres only one road from one place to another, thankfully making it difficult to get very lost.

We rolled into a quaint seaside town called Pahia, which was quite similar in its set-up to St Brelades Bay for all the Jersey readers. Here, we spent two nights at the Beach Side Holiday Park looking out onto the sea, whilst being surrounded by woods. It was slightly confusing and, if you don't know better, you'd have assumed you were looking at a lake. 

The view from outside The Crib

As well as finding a small, secluded pebble beach on a woodland walk, we also went on a boat tour, confusingly and somewhat disturbingly named 'The Cream Tour'. This took you through the Bay of Islands, giving you some facts and history on its crystal clear, blue lagoons and picturesque islands, of which there were tens. For instance, we passed the ominously named Assassination Cove. The story goes that the owner of the island to which the cove's attached died, leaving its possession to his wife, with a Maori servant helping with its upkeep. However, an English chap quickly rolled onto the scene and became close friends with the wife, but the Maori neither liked nor trusted him. The Englishman and the wife were both found dead on the island and there are two versions of the story. The first is that the Maori lopped off the head of the Englishman and then murdered the wife after she witnessed the decapitation. The second is that the Maori discovered the Englishman was manipulating the woman into giving him the island, but got fed up and killed her. The Maori avenged her killing with a decapitation. Either way, the Maori ended up hanged.

We also stopped into the bay of a small island called Urupukapuka for some lunch and were taken to Motukokako, or Hole in the Rock. Unsurprisingly, the latter was just that, an enormous hole 15m in height that had been created from thousands of years of erosion from the relentless sea. Unfortunately, due to rough sea conditions, we didn't drive through it, with not even the prospect of catching a drop of water from its ceiling on the top of the head (considered the height of good luck) warranting such a risk.

Hole in the Rock

Perhaps the highlight of the tour, however, came fairly early on. We'd signed up to swim with wild dolphins and, so long as the following conditions were met, we would be able to get in the water with them:

• Dolphins must not be mating (fine by us, we don't want to get caught in the crossfire)
• They must not be feeding
• There must be no babies in the pod (i.e. below 18 months) as they're prone to disease, with only 40% of new borns surviving in the first place.

The first pod of dolphins we saw, which was about twenty to thirty in size, did have newborns in it, meaning we couldn't get in, but did get some great photos.

A couple of photos Richard caught of the dolphins

We soon approached a second pod and this time we were allowed to swim with them. We got down into our swimming gear and were given a snorkel, mask and pair of fins and were also expecting a wetsuit given the fact that it was NZ's autumn. However, we were assured by the crew that the water was still warm and so we didn't need one. Debatable, as when we jumped off the side of the boat and into the net (more on that in a moment), we, and everyone else, let out a gasp or squeal.

So, the net. Rather than burdening us with the responsibility of jumping straight into the sea, we stepped off the deck of the boat into a large net attached to the side of the boat and which was partially suspended in the sea. Us and the twenty or so people that had signed up to do the swim sat in this like the catch of the day, holding on for dear life as the boat continued to speed towards the pod. The time eventually came to unleash us on the porpoises (Porpoise? Porpoi?) and we sat poised for the signal to swim towards them like horses in their stables waiting for the starting pistol. The suspense was palpable.

We suddenly heard the call from the boat: "Go! Go! Go!" we all frantically released ourselves from the net and splashed, kicked and spluttered towards them in what was more of a scrum during the first thirty seconds. Away from the maddening crowds, we made strange noises and movements (clicks, twirls and high-pitched impressions mainly, exhausting our dolphin impression repertoire) to get them interested. The result was the amazing sight of seeing one swim right under our feet. Incredible!

From cold water to boiling hot, having visited our most northerly point, we drove back down through Auckland and into the Coromandel Peninsula where we were introduced to a NZ phenomena we would soon become pretty familiar with: geothermal activity (go science!).

The drive to Whitianga was long, taking the best part of a day, breaking only for a stop for (incredibly cheap) sushi, a pause for petrol and a excited swerve into a lay-by to capture a photo of the ellusive double rainbow ("what does it mean?!"). Out of Auckland, there are roads called highways, but whilst the name implies a certain busyness, they are in fact just one lane roads with a passing lane every ten kilometres or so (much to the satisfaction of those motorists that chose to drive up our arse as we slowed past various sights). Not a dual-carriage way in sight and it's not surprise. At one point in the journey, we didn't see one car for over an hour and a half, so congestion isn't a huge problem.

Double Rainbow!

Twenty minutes from Whitianga is the confusingly similarly named town of Whangamata ('Wh' is pronounced 'F' in Maori by the way), where we were able to dig our own spa on Hot Water beach. On a specific part of Hot Water Beach, if you dig a hole deep enough, it fills with hot water from below an so, hiring a spade from a beachside cafe, we went to find ourselves a spot on the beach. It took us a few attempts to strike the right water temperature, with our first hole filling with cold sea water. Taking just a few steps to the left and trying again, our second hole filled with water that was too hot to stand in. If you were in there for more than a second or two, your feet would start to burn. Just like Goldilocks, we eventually found a spot with sea water that was just right and marveled at the wonders of nature as we sat back and basked in what was essentially an outdoor bath.

Relaxing in our homemade thermal spa

Everyone was doing it

That evening, we happened upon a small 'fush und chup' shop called Craigs. Yet to indulge in one of NZ's most beloved takeaways, we had a fishermans basket between us: a piece of cod, crab sticks, calamari, fish cakes and oysters, all of which were, of course, coated in a crispy batter. It was glorious and writing that sentence has brought back fond memories. We sat in a car park above a beach to devour this treat and, popping to the loo before we left, we discovered what might just be man's greatest invention.

Every bit as good as it looked

First there was fire. Then there was the wheel. Sliced bread came along and everyone was pretty impressed. All of this, however, was just a drawn out epilogue to...the Excelloo. Once the door was locked, a voice came over a pair of speakers: "Door locked. You have ten minutes before this door automatically unlocks". Introduction over, an instrumental version of 'What the World Needs Now' began to play and, once you were done, the loo was even nice enough to say goodbye. What a charmer.

Kiwi 360 on the way to Rototorua.
Cheesiest attraction ever.

More geothermal action occurred in Rotorua, which was full of bubbling mud pools and hot water springs. Whilst the steam drifting from these areas looked rather mystical, the result was the smell of rotten eggs (sulphur) lingering in the air. An excellent (and free) place to see such things was Kuirau Park.

The source of Rotorua's eggy smell. 

We also payed a visit to the Lady Gnox Geyzer, which was discovered in the 1800's by a group of prisoners that were clearing the surrounding area of gauze. Discovering that the water within it was hot, they began using it to wash their clothes in. One day, however, as one of the prisoners scrubbed at what were no doubt a pair of filthy undercrackers, he dropped his bar of soap into the geyzer, which, moments later erupted high into the air, sending the prisoners running in fear. This is how the geyzer is made to erupt each day at 10:15am, but instead of soap, an eco-friendly chemical is dropped in to create the eighteen foot stream of water. 

Acting our age as we wait for the geyzer to erupt

What we were waiting for

Arguably far more impressive though were the two geothermal pools we visited. The first was a well hidden secret that we would never have discovered had it not been for a group of Americans and one NZer who had been touring the North Island during their Easter break. The NZer was using an obscure, local guidebook and in order to find this little slice of paradise, they had to decipher some sort of riddle. Thankfully, having done the brain work, they kindly gave us the directions and we were able to find the isolated hot pool (complete with waterfall) down a small dirt path not far from Lady Gnox. The second was bigger, better known and therefore had a name: Kerosene Creek. This wasn't so much a pool as it was a part of a river, but it still had the obligatory waterfall. and we sat here for a good while, floating on our backs and digging our feet into the unbelievably warm silt on the river bed. In fact, probably spent a good couple of hours bathing and paddling in the two pools and, despite the strong smell of sulpher on our skin, we felt suitably relaxed.

The unnamed pool

Another hot water pool: Kerosene Creek

It wasn't all lazing about in Rotorua though. There were plenty of chances to an adrenaline fix through activities such as skydiving, bungee jumping, zorbing, luging and mountain biking. We opted for a spot zorbing and some mountain biking through the expansive Redwoord Forrest (over 100km of Mountain biking track organised, mapped out and graded by difficulty like a piste map). For those unfamiliar with the concept of zorbing, it involves being put inside a large, inflatable ball at the top of a hill and being pushed so that you roll down to the bottom. We opted for two in a zorb, which meant that they filled it a few inches with warm water before closing us in (slightly claustrophobic) and giving us a good shove in the right direction. 

A fun twenty seconds

It was over in a mater of seconds - fifteen? Twenty? We're not sure how many exactly - but was excellent fun. We laughed from top to bottom as we slipped back and forth and bashed into one another, before ungracefully vacating the ball at the bottom of the slope only to find a photographer capturing our exit frame by frame.

"It looks like it's given birth to you" - Alice Coombs

YEAH!

Given NZ's strong Maori presence, which pervades almost every aspect of the country's history, culture and even its politics (for instance, there are Maori-specific political parties and Maori language TV channels), we wanted to learn more about it. We therefore chose the fun but  informative Mitai evening, where we got a look into what a traditional Maori camp would have looked like. Greeted with a powhiri, a traditional and  intimidating Maori welcome that included lots of screaming and oar waving by heavily set men covered in traditional Maori tattoos (moko) in a canoe (waka), we also bore witness to the incredibly intimidating haka. This was not the same haka as that performed by the All Blacks as each tribe has its own distinct version of the war dance. There was still lots of psychopathic chest slapping, foot stamping, eye bulging, throat-hoarsening screaming and tongue protruding nonetheless. It's easy to understand why this was such an effective deterrent until people started showing up with guns.

These guys can still do scary

Educated, better informed and our minds full of facts, it was time to fill our bellies. For the best part of the day, a hangi had been buried underground cooking on the embers of a fire. The chicken, lamb, stuffing, potatoes and sweet potatoes (kumara) were served up buffet style along with other accompaniments and so were able to wander along the long tables and pile our plates high. Which we did. Twice. We also got dessert and, as Richard was considering a second helping (before having finished his first) we were called for our late-night kiwi tour. We downed our cups of tea (hardcore to the end) and spent an hour waddling around on a guided tour of Rainbow Springs, the highlight of which was seeing the long-legged, long-beaked, spiky feathered and surprisingly cute nocturnal kiwi.

Two of these for Richard (plus dessert)

We had been toying with the possibility of doing a skydive since before we left in February, but given Richard's morbid fear of heights, he wasn't sure he'd be able to bring himself to throw himself out of a plane hundreds of feet above the ground. However, Ashley really wanted to do it and, not wanting her to do it on her own, we decided to bite the bullet and book ourselves in to do a skydive in Taupo, our next stop on our journey south. The town is apparently the unofficial skydiving capital of the world, with around thirty thousand jumps taking place there each year, so we figured the odds would at least be with us. We arrived the day before the jump to begin psyching ourselves up. However, after an anxious and therefore restless night of little sleep, we called ahead to ensure the conditions were good only to discover that the jump wouldn't be taking place due to excessive cloud coverage. We were genuinely disappointed that we wouldn't be throwing ourselves out of a plane (as surprising as that sounds), but it was encouraging that the companies weren't willing to take any chances. We moved on and would save the jump for another day. 


Rather than go back on ourselves, we thought it would be more time efficient to stop and fill The Crib up with petrol on our way down to Napier. The petrol light was on, but, we thought, we'd be sure to see a station in the the first few miles of driving. 


An hour and a half and one hundred an thirty kilometres later, we had still yet to fill up and the gauge was under the empty symbol. Running on what must have been no more than fumes, the roads transpired against us, throwing steep, winding hills in front of us every few miles. Richard was probably looking at the petrol gauge more than he was looking at the road and we both were mulling what we'd do when (not if) we ran out of petrol. 

"We've just passed a farm back there. They must have petrol", we said. Richard would have to walk there and leave Ashley and the car parked up somewhere. Anything not to have to call someone out!

We pulled into a cul-de-sac where we saw two elderly couples habit a conversation on the pavement. Pulling in alongside them, we asked if there was a petrol station nearby. "Just ten minutes away. Come out of here, keep going straight and then hang a right", replied one of the old boys. Ten minutes! We could make that!

"Have you got enough to get you there?", they asked. "We think so", we answered, the car engine still running. The conversation continued: "how long've you been on empty?". "Over an hour", we said through gritted teeth. "The cars still running and so we're still burning petrol", we wanted to point out as they asked us where we were from. One of them then told us that he had a couple of litres in the garage if we wanted it. Whilst tempted by what was an extremely kind offer, we were willing to chance it on the ten minute drive and so thanked them all before making a final dash for it. When we saw the neon red and yellow glow of the Shell emblem, we starting cheering like crazy. We may have even wept a few tears of joy. In 1931, Napier was hit by an earthquake that reached 7.9 on the Richter Scale, killed two hundred and fifty eight people and all but flattened the town. Perhaps a silver lining, however, was the fact that the town grew by forty square kilometres in a matter of minutes as the quake heaved a former lagoon two metres above sea level. With the town leveled, there was a need for a quick, cheap, easy and safe means of rebuilding the town and the solution created an enormous  and impressive array of Art Deco buildings that were thrown up between 1931 and 1933. This made for an interesting afternoon walk around the town and a great place to find a good cafe (Ujazi in our case) and do some serious people watching.

A couple of bits of Art Deco architecture from Napier

We have a confession to make. We've been going to McDonalds. Not to fill up on burgers, but to take advantage of the free wifi that they offer. Their set-up in NZ is actually rather good, each McDonalds having an attached McCafe, which is pleasant in comparison to the ones you find at home - the tea even comes out in a pot. It was during these visits Macca's (as it's known here) that we begun to plan the next stage of our travels, Southeast Asia, and it is also here that we made the difficult to decision to cut Laos from our plans. Whilst we really wanted to visit, we are limited by both cost and time and, unfortunately, both were against us. Instead, we decided to split our five weeks evenly between Thailand and Vietnam. 

When we booked The Crib, way back when, we naively thought that the NZ$55 we'd be paying each day would be travel and accommodation, end of. We didn't factor in the fact that we would need to pull up into campsites and pay anywhere between NZ$30 and NZ$40 per night. We were therefore ecstatic to find out about DOC sites, simple, no thrills campsites offering little more than a toilet and a stunning location (next to a lake, river or forest) that usually cost nothing. We stayed in these as often as we could, but eventually had to shower and wash our dirty dishes. Our next stop, New Zealand's capital, Wellington, was quite a drive and so we decided to split it up by stopping overnight at one such site in the little town of Featherston. 

Preparing steak sandwiches

As we prepared our dinner on our butane hob in the boot of The Crib, a man with long, scraggy, slightly greying hair wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt tucked into a pair of jeans and holding a mug of coffe wandered over. We believe the NZ term for such a person is a 'Westie', 'Bogan' or 'Munter': "a rough-edged fellow, probably wearing a black t-shirt, drinking beer and listening to AC/DC". His name, he soon informed us, was Eric and it turned out that this is where he lived, as he pointed over to an enormous house bus in the corner of the field. In fact, this was his job and had been for eighteen years. At the beginning of any given summer, he would buy an old bus, do it up and "kit it out" whilst living it through the winter before selling it the following summer. On his latest project, he had spent NZ$10,000 and, he assured us, he would sell it on for NZ$40,000, having put in an XBox 360 and a wood burner. That's right, a wood burner. In the back of a bus. Actual fire. He pointed to the smoking chimney sticking out of the roof of the bus. Eric was quite the character and was big into his drag racing, pointing to a large circle of mud and saying "that's where I was doing doughnuts last week. I've got a V12 engine in there at the moment". The bus was a good fifteen foot long. At the end of our introductory chat, he invited us over for coffee after dinner so that we could have a look around. We said we would, but when we heard the heavy bassline of some happy hardcore blaring from his direction, we decided we didn't want to interrupt. 

The next morning, however, we wandered over after breakfast, during which we some how managed to set the butane cannister powering the hob on fire. Panicking that the can would explode, Ashley sensibly ran to grab the water, whilst Richard irrationally grabbed and poured the closest liquid to hand - a carton of milk. 


Disaster averted, we knocked on Eric's door and were enthusiastically invited in to what was...a bit of a tip in all honestly. Eric sold the bus quite well, boasting cabinets and sideboards made from old oak from school tables, a cosey fireplace and a big widescreen TV. In fact, the wood was a mish mash of the old faux-wood school tables I'm sure you'll all know or remember, which he had salvaged from a dump, the carpet was straight out of the 1970's (a faded mauve/pink) and the bed looked incredibly dirty. He'd even got a shower on the bus, although technically this was outside and connected to a battery. He'd made himself a little hidey-hole, complete with shower curtain, so he could clean himself up whenever the mood took him. Perhaps it's one redeeming feature was the wood-burner, which had been sat at the bottom of his friends garden for years ("we just set fire to it and it got rid of all the rust"). We were doubtful he'd shift this for NZ$40,000.

We sat down on the questionable couch and chatted for about an hour. Don't get us wrong, Eric was a very nice, very friendly guy. He was just a bit of an odd ball. He'd managed to assume Richard was in some way interested in cars and so kept showing him photos of sooped up Fords and Mitsubushi's, saying "Ah! You'll enjoy this". He did his best to show some sort of knowledge on engines and the like. Eric was not a finger in one pie kind of guy though. Not only did he have his house bus venture, he also sold weed out of his van. He dug an enormous bag of it out of a draw and held it up, before a shocked expression spread across his face, as if to say "where are my manners?". "Did you want a joint by the way?", he offered, as casually as if it were a cup of tea and despite the fact that it was 09.30am and we had mentioned two or three times that we were about to drive on to Wellington. We politely declined and set-off on our way.

Despite being NZ's capital, as well its political hub, Wellington is a wonderfully small city with a lot of character and is easy to cover on foot. We visited the big sights, the Beehive being one of them (NZ's Houses of Parliament) and the Government Building, which is rather surprisingly made completely of wood. The most enjoyable street on which to spend an afternoon (or a day. Or two) was Cuba Street, where the shops were unusual and botique-y and the coffee was easy to come by and incredibly good in the many cafes that lined the street.

Wellington's political powerhouse: The Beehive

Government House: genuinely made
of wood.We knocked on it

We also visited Te Papa museum, an  excellent, sprawling museum offering similar exhibitions to the Auckland Museum (Maori and Pacific Islands, Volcanoes and Earthquakes and so on), but if we had to choose between the two, Ta Papa would probably take home first place as it was more interactive and engaging (and housed a preserved colossal squid).

One of many cappucino's

Ticking off Windy Welly, which more than lived up to its name, we boarded a late car ferry that would take us on to Picton and the beginning of the South Island.

Saying "So Long" to the South

Out of Kerala, our original plan was to spend some time in the temple city of Madurai...but we changed our minds and so as soon as we arrived in the city, we got on a bus playing loud, all-singing, all-dancing Hindi films and music videos, which took us straight up to the hill station of Kodaikanal. This meant a hair-raising drive up the side of a mountain - 2100m to be precise. After watching the side of the bus come within inches of the road edge several times, we found it easier just to shut our eyes and try and nap, especially as the Hindi films on board offered no continuity. One minute we'd be watching a film about kick-ass, no nonsense policemen and the next it would cut to a few music videos, some of which were hilarious. One had two middle-aged overweight men singing in high-pitched voices and prancing around, pulling out flamboyant and questionable dance moves in various locations - beaches, parks, etc. Suddenly, just as you were starting to get into the moves and considering learning a few yourself and taking them home with you, we'd cut to half way through a Hindi Western.

We were thankful to put our feet back on solid ground and, as we did so, we noticed the difference in temperature in Kodaikanal compared to sea level. No more sweating for a few days!

A bit of a history lesson: Kodaikanal's hill station was set up by the Americans (as opposed to the English) in the 1900's and whilst there, their missionaries established an international school to teach European children. Today, the same school teaches children from a range of nationalities and is apparently one of the main reasons the town continues to exist, although we're sure that the wealthy Indian families fleeing the ground level heat each summer also helps. Its international-ness also explains the variety of different foods on offer; as well as the usual Indian fare, there were also Italian and Tibetan restaurants. We cant comment on the Italian, but the the Tibetan food we had in Royal Tibet was incredible. Chicken momo's are superb mountain food.

Richard with Mayan hot chocolate

We stayed in an amazingly located hostel called Greenlands Youth Hostel, located on the edge of a grass cliff which dropped off suddenly and sheerly, offering incredible views of the valley below and the hills around. We could see for miles. Unfortunately, Ashley wasn't feeling good during our time here, but we still managed to scoff a pretty vast quantity of the homemade (and cheap - 35Rs, or 50p per 100g) chocolate they made up in the hills - 100g of fruit and nut one night, 100g of cashew chocolate another, not to mention the white chocolate and almond, cashew milk chocolate. It got to the point where the owner recognised us and, upon leaving, was sure to shake Richard's hand and tell us to come back next year. We probably single handedly kept him going for another year.

A room with a view

Outside of the incessant chocolate munching, and despite Ashley's feeling less than chipper, we also had time to venture down to Kodaikanal lake for a lengthy walk around it's perimeter, watching excited Indian families enjoy the pedal boats and their hired bicycles. We also had plenty more conversations with passing groups as well as the odd photo request. We said no to the latter as nicely as we could.  We didn't feel like having our photos taken and most of the groups that were asking were about 20 in size and so one yes would have led to half an hour of incessant smiling an handshaking. This sounds a little mean and/or lazy, but we've been posing for photos for the last month and a half and that doesn't include all of the 'subtle' photos passersby have been taking. With subtlety not an art yet practiced by the majority of the Indian population, many will happily stick a camera phone in your face, as their looking in the opposite direction aims to disguise the act. The "chk" of a Nokia phone camera has become a very familiar, and often irritating, sound.

Without doubt the biggest anticlimax for us whilst in Kodaikanal (if not our whole time in Southern India) was our visit to Bear Shola Falls. No rain in months meant it was bone dry. Not a drop of water trickled down that tall, vertical rock face. That said, it was still a lovely little walk through a few kilometres of tall, green forest and one of a few that we did during our time here - undoubtedly a good thing given the levels of our chocolate consumption.

Speaking of climaxes, anti- and otherwise, the cricket world cup reached its end when we were in the hills, with the two countries we've spent the last 2 months in (that's India and Sri Lanka in case you've not been paying attention) and the two hosts going head to head. For the first time in twenty-eight years, India took home the cup and so there was a celebratory atmosphere the following day. High-pitched squeals of victory (or at least we think they were cricket-induced squeals of victory) from the Indian men in the room next door to us summed up the general feeling pretty well.

We were wait-listed for a train from Madurai to Chennai, from where we planned on getting a bus to our next and final destination: Pondicherry. However, after the wait-listing failure on our way out of Hampi, we were sceptical as to whether we'd make it onto the train and had partially lost faith in this difficult to understand system. We toyed instead with the idea of getting there by night bus right up until the last minute. In fact, Richard was stood in the coach company's office trying to book a ticket when a bus back down the hill to Madurai turned up. Ashley beckoned to Richard across the station, who quickly picked up his backpack and legged it across the bus park to join her and we were soon on our way back down the winding hills that had brought us here, passing the same small villages and make-shift huts that looked as though they were lived in, despite their roofs being made from thatched palm leaves and their walls being a mix of cardboard and wood. We cannot imagine how cold it gets in those during the winter months.

As our bus pulled in to Madurai bus station, a group of auto drivers literally started jumping down at the windows at the prospect of a Western fare. We discovered the reason for their excitement when we arrived at the train station later: sat in the car park were tens of unused autos. Apparently, the supply of the little yellow vehicles vastly outstrips the cities demand for them, so it's little wonder they were excited to see us.

Thankfully we were booked onto our train, having come off the waiting list, therefore restoring our faith in the Indian train system. With a few hours to use before we departed, we had time to grab a very nice dinner at a great rooftop restaurant which overlooked Madurai's temple complex. Not wanting to wander round aimlessly in the dark, and despite the fact that we knew the restaurant wasn't far, we approached a group of 3 auto drivers to take us there for 20Rs (around 25p). One of them, obviously an honest guy, told us how close it was and that we could walk. Another auto driver, keen to actually have a fare for the day, interjected quickly and scolded the honest chap before taking us off to his auto.

After a great dinner of chicken sheikh kebab, a vegetable byriani and roti, we were on our final Indian train for 2 and a half months, but not before Richard was abused by some small girls. The two of them, who can't have been older than eight or nine years old, shyly and slowly approached us before eventually working up the courage to ask us our names. They seemed rather sweet and so we had a little chat before they ran away giggling. But they came back. With a vengeance. Not satisfied with a conversation, they took to hitting Richard on the head. He had no choice but to...walk away.

Arriving back into Chennai, we were straight in an auto to take us to CMBT bus station where we caught yet another bus which was, once again, playing loud Hindi movies. The one we had on for most of the way had English subtitles (yes!) and was called The Robot. It was essentially an Indian version of iRobot in which a scientist creates a robot he calls Chitty and who looks exactly like his creator. The initial plan is for him to be used by the Indian military, but the scientists arch nemesis (and former mentor) finds a flaw - Chitty will do whatever he's told, right or wrong, because of his inability to interpret and understand emotions. This point is demonstrated by the fact that whilst saving lots of people from a burning building, Chitty rescues a naked girl trapped in her bath, carrying her out to crowds of bystanders and news reporters. Her parents look on ashamed (rather than happy to see her alive) and the girl, so mortified by being seen naked, commits suicide by running in front of a speeding bus. Only in India. The story line goes on (for another two hours), but we won't bore you with it here. If you're desperate to know how it turns out, get in touch.

We were pretty knackered when we finally arrived in Pondicherry. We'd decided in advance on the hostel we were gong to stay in and so were going to catch an auto to it for minimal walking. The auto driver we chose immediately started lying. First, he claimed that the minimum fare for any auto in Pondi is 50Rs. It wasn't and we told him that for 50Rs, we'd walk. He changed his mind and went down to 20Rs, but Richard didn't trust him after trying to treat us like idiots. Secondly, he (and his friend that sat in turnstone with him) took us to our requested guesthouse and it turned out it was  abandoned and practically derelict (this i one of the downsides of having the 2007 edition of the Lonely Planet). Richard didn't believe this was the right place, especially after the initial lie - he lives in Pondi town and his job took him throughout its streets ever day. Surely he knew, and therefore could have told us, the state this place was in and that it had closed down. Regardless, Ashley saw a sign that read 'Ganga Guesthouse' on this redundant building, so we moved on. The driver insisted on taking us to one place before we went on to our second choice and with we few options, we thought we'd check it out. Unsurprisingly it was expensive and not much cop. We insisted we'd find our own way from there, despite his offers of taking us to other guesthouses for free (meaning he'd take us on a tour to every place that pays him commission). He promised he would take us to a guesthouse nearby which would give us a good price! Despite paying him and walking away, he still drove slowly along side us for a while, trying to get us back inside his auto.

So we found our home for the next few days Park Guesthouse using our own two feet and with the help from a passing traveller called Mike. We asked him if he knew of anywhere to stay that was cheap and nearby (we'd been walking with or bags for half an hour and so were sweating buckets by this points). Thankfully, he did. He'd conveniently just dropped his bags off there and told us where to go. We ended up bumping back into Mike at dinner that evening and went to dinner with him the following two nights as well. He had been travelling with his girlfriend around South East Asia and Australia and had decided to come to India while his girlfriend carried on working in Oz and was a good laugh.

The Park Guesthouse actually deserves its own honorary mention as it certainly had its eccentricities. It was actually an ashram, or yoga retreat, and so before signing in you had to agree to its various rules. These weren't extensive, but included no alcohol on the premises, no guests outside the hours of 2:30 and 6:00pm and they had to be met in the designated visitors room and a 10:30pm curfew. It was a well looked after complex that even had a garden full of flowers, trees and other plants, although it had an outrageous name: 'The Garden of Positive Vibrations'. Yeah man. The garden also had its rules:

Leave outside...

• Footwear

• Cellphone

• Speech

• Ego

Come inside with...

• Bare feet

• Quiet mind

• Silent heart

• True self

We were going to go in, but we forgot our silent hearts. Also, all of the rooms  had names as well as numbers, similar to the resort we stayed in in Nasik. However, instead of different wine names, each room had a spiritual name - Happiness, Forgiveness, Thankfulness, Wholeness...We stayed in Stillness...man.

In all seriousness though, it was one of or best stays in India, with big, airy rooms that were cleaned daily and a big balcony overlooking the Bay of Bengal for 600Rs per night.

Pondi was another one of those places where you just didn't feel like you're in India. Its a former French colony and was under French rule until 1947 and so maintains much of its Gallic-ness. Croissants are as common as curry, steaks and red wine readily available, the town hall still referred to as the Hotel de Ville and many of the shops still indulging in the oh-so European long lunch. We wandered the towns heritage walk, which showed off Pondicherry's beautiful buildings and the streets of its French quarter, as well as an tall and imposing Ghandi statue. The beach front also provided a perfect spot for some evening people watching as the strip came to life around 6pm when the heat had died down.

An example of the french style buldings found in Pondi

However, given Pondi's cafe culture, we spent a good chunk of our three days here dipping in and out of these air conditioned palaces, owned by locals and expats alike and serving up cold coffees, iced teas, European thalis and the aforementioned croissants, as well the odd pizza(!). The muesli, iced tea and graffiti at Cafe des Art were a particular favourite. That's not to say we went without curry though. Seafront restaurant Le Cafe did an excellent all you can eat buffet of various vegetarian curries, dhal, rice, chappathi and sambol, with a warm, sweetened rice noodle dessert flavoured with coconut and cinnamon. Naturally, Richard went to town on this to the point where the lady serving us laughed at how much he was taking.

On our last morning in India, we went to Manakula Vinayagar Temple as Mike had mentioned that there was an elephant there that would give you a blessing. Ashley was still suffering from Kodaikanal, but we decided to get up early and see the elephant before we left. The elephant was beautiful wearing anklets and painted from head to toe. It wasn't a disappointment. We watched the locals feed to elephant bananas which it ate and money which it handed to the guy standing next to it. How did it know the difference? When it was our turn we were a little nervous. Ashley went first, handing the elephant a 10Rs note. The elephant took it in it's trunk, handed it to the guy and then placed it's trunk gently on Ashley's head. It did the same for Richard! So we got a blessing from Lakshmi the elephant - amazing!

The elephant blessing Richard

And then, just like that, Southern India was finished. We were sat on a bus, backpacks in tow, on our way back to where we started: Chennai. We got in a little early and, as rules state that nobody can enter departures over three hours before their flight, we loitered around outside until 1am, before boarding our flight to Dubai, on to Melbourne and then eventually to our campervan in New Zealand - our home for the next four weeks.

We wont miss the incessant beeping from the traffic, but, once again, we will miss the food and the people, as well as the random photographs with strangers, the beaches, the vast changes in landscape and architecture as we move through its various regions and the wandering cows and goats (which we've become strangely and quickly accustomed to). But we'll be back in June! 

Kerala: "God's Own Country""

That's what all of the signs say and, to be fair, they're not far wrong. We'd been hugely looking forward to getting into the state of Kerala - the most socially advanced state in India and with an on-off freely elected communist government -  and it was one of the main reasons we wanted to come to India in the first place. We started our journey through on the island of Fort Cochin, a small town with a very European feel due to its former Dutch and Portuguese colonisers that was amazingly lacking in traffic bar the odd auto or car and was the some-time home of Portuguese explored Vasco da Gama. Testament to the towns European-ness was the man who ran our hostel, The Princess Inn. Freddie was a local man that went to church on Sundays and stressed the fact that Fort Cochin had been this way for centuries, with more churches than temples and was not the product of westernisation.

The slow pace of the town lured us towards its many cafes and restaurants: the cafe-cum-art gallery that was Kashi Art Cafe which served up amazing omelettes, French toast, cinnamon breakfast cake and cold coffees; the high-ceilinged, vintage teapot-clad Teapot whose loose leaf tea and death by chocolate cake hit the spot mid-afternoon; Shala's Keralan food which was cooked by local housewives from the area that were famed in their neighbourhood for whipping up tasty traditional food. We succumbed more than once, if only to escape the heat (Fort Cochin is below sea level, so its humidity is very high - the sweat was rife!).

Whilst there, we also got to experience a bit of Keralan culture first hand. First up was a Kathakali dance show. The Kathakali dancers have brightly coloured faces - vivid yellows, bright greens, deep reds - and so, before each show, make themselves up by grinding down different stones to create their face paints, mixing the powder created with coconut oil. They sat on stage whilst they did this so that we could watch them paint intricate patterns on their own faces. The dance show itself, which traditionally last for several hours, have no words, relying instead on facial expressions and gestures of the hands and arms. So, one eye-lip-hand combo could convey happiness and another anger. The result is a little like an epic game of charades (accompanied by tablas, an accordion-type instrument and singing).

Preparing for the show

The play itself was the classic tale of Princes play a game of dice with their enemies, one bets and loses his wife to the enemy who then uses her to carry out menial tasks, wife refuses to do said tasks and is humiliated by the enemy, wife vows to leave her hair unwashed until her husband (the Prince) combs the blood of the enemy through her hair, husband fights and eventually defeats the enemy, rips out his heart with his bare hands, drinks his blood and has a nibble at the intestines, wipes the blood through his wife's hair, husband feels guilty for his and other killings he's carried our and so appeals to Lord Shiva for forgiveness, Lord Shiva appeases him, reassuring that his actions are the will of God, so it's all fine...you know, that old chestnut. What do you mean you've never heard it?!

We also did a Keralan cooking course with a nice lady call Leelu, where we learned to make traditional Keralan fish curry, green pea masala, vegetable stew, an Indian salad and chapathis (a flat, thin Indian bread). She also gave us her recipe for making Garam Masala, which is normally a family secret making us feel special. Once everything was made, we sat down and ate it all at her table and it was absolutely delicious, particularly the green pea masala, which is surprising as on paper it sounds kind of boring.

The next stop was Alleppey, just a short hour and a half bus journey from Fort Cochin. Here, we were in the market for a converted rice boat to take us onto the Keralan backwaters for 24 hours. We walked straight to the dock, where we met two Swedish girls, Hannah and Christine, who were also after a boat for 24 hours. We paired up with them in the hope of getting a two bedroomed boat for a better price - economies of scale and all that. We wandered along, hopping on and off different boats to see what they looked like inside and what price they were offering. There were tens of rice boats lined up and we must have looked at almost all of them before deciding on ours; it was called Mahata and was the nicest boat moored up. After some serious haggling, we got the price down to 7500Rs for the boat (the equivalent of £27 per person) and included a couple of free beers, lunch, dinner, breakfast and afternoon tea.

Our houseboat

From 12.30pm until 10.30am the following morning, we switched between lounging in the deck chairs on the boats top deck and relaxing in it's seats on the bottom. We watched the world go by and people living their lives by the river - washing clothes, cows and themselves, playing, swimming, rowing - as we pootled along Kerala's backwaters, which are essentially big, blue watery roads (complete with junctions). In the back of the boat, Prince, our onboard chef, cooked up some incredible food - fish curries, pineapple and banana curries, egg curry for breakfast. The smells coming from the back an hour before meal times was amazing and enough to distract you from whatever you were doing.

As we've moved brought India, we've quickly discovered that India is a nation of feeders and so they love to see you enjoy their food. Given Richard's reputation as a human dustbin, Prince too a shine to him constantly offering him more at meal times and, at dinner when all the food was gone, serving him up some of his own dinner - a "very spicy" fish curry. We felt kind of bad, but he insisted!

Just before dusk, we put down anchor in the middle of an enormous lake surrounded by palm trees and, as we watched the sun set, dark, heavy clouds rolled in and eventually broke into a heavy 15 minute downpour. This was the first bit of rain we'd seen in India and we were probably in the perfect place - on a covered boat, in the middle of a lake, watching it hammer the surface of the water. Once the rain had cleared, we jumped off the boat and into the water, which was incredibly warm and went for a swim around the boat before finishing the night drinking bottles of Kingfisher and talking with Hannah and Christine, listening to the sound of tablas and shouting in the distance as a nearby town celebrated its temple festival.

A quick dip in the lake before dinner

We reluctantly left our little taste of paradise behind after an enormous breakfast and caught a three and a half hour local bus to the small but idyllic beach of Varkala, where we stayed in the amazingly well run (and incredibly cheap - £5 for the two of us per night) Shiva Gardens. Spending four lazy days lying in the sun, we ate fresh fruit, read, Richard got mildly addicted to cold coffee,  and decided where to go for dinner, as well as bumping back into two amazingly fun girls we met back in Hampi - Della and Lisa.

Sunset over Varkala beach

Whilst our hostel was excellent (supplying both a ceiling fan and a plug in fan in our room - oh the luxury), it seemed to be a stop off for the 'found-yourself-types', most probably due to its proximity to a yoga ashram. One such character was Thomas, a Belgian chap that spent half an hour talking at us in his hippy-dippy 'yeah man' voice. Here's just a small chunk of that diabolical conversation:

"Last week it was the supermoon and so me and my healer went on a pilgrimage up a mountain with other people and there healers. The energy up there man...the energy up there was incredible. I was just wearing this [he was wearing a lunghi, a white cloth, serrong-like garment wrapped around his waist that didn't pass his knees] and I started to get cold. My healer told me to lie on the rocks and I thought to myself 'why?', but when I did it was so warm. It was amaaazing. My healer told me not to bring anything with me and so I said 'okay, but I will need my toothbrush, no?'. He said 'no, I will show you what we do' and he did. We took the leaf of a tree and we used it to clean our teeth. Everything we need is around us. Not far from here there's a green valley which is sooo beautiful after it's rained - so green! I go there and collect things in the mornings and it's such a beautiful experience."

He wasn't lying either. The following morning he was pushing a wheelbarrow full of coconuts and various branches through the hostels back garden. A couple of days later, as we ate breakfast, he passed us whilst walking along the cliff-top and playing a recorder to himself...

We left the sea and sand behind for the last time in a while, a bus taking us to the train station from which we'd travel to the hill station of Kodaikanal. Seating on Indian buses is almost always an issue as they're always so busy - we still haven't figured out where everyone is always going, be it at 8am or 8pm. We were lucky enough to have a seat on this one though and, as we got up to leave, a man who was standing put his briefcase on Ashley's seat to save it for himself. That's fair enough. It was what he did next that was ridiculous, literally defying every ounce of common sense a person could have. Before Ashley had even moved out of the small walkway where you put your feet whilst you're seated, therefore trapping her in. We tried telling him to wait, but he just stood there, poised and ready to take his seat. With no other option, Ashley grabbed the shoulder straps of her backpack, dipped her shoulders and charged the man aside. We couldn't help but laugh as we waited for the train that would take is closer to the end of South India.

Happy Holi!

We always knew we were going to go to Goa after Mumbai, but until we met Jonny and Ali in Aurangabad, we weren't sure where exactly we'd be ending up. Goa is a surprisingly big place, with beaches running from its north to its south end and offering everything from package holiday resorts in Calangute to almost complete seclusion in Palolem. When Anjuna was suggested, almost in the middle of Goa and famed for it's Wednesday flea market, we were sold. Further tales of its quiet beaches and great food had us chomping at the bit to get there.

Staying on the beach normally means there is little to report as we spend the majority of our time sipping sweet lime sodas and cheap beer and taking a dip in the sea when it gets too hot. Anjuna was no exception and we pretty much camped up outside Cafe Lilliput, a bar and restaurant, for 4 days solid. Our biggest decision of the day was usually "do we want a fresh pineapple now or in a few hours?" or "where do you want to go for dinner tonight?". On a really bad day, we'd have to decide on an answer for both questions and, in fairness, we also had to be sure to get rid of any left over fruit to ensure we weren't accosted by the cows roaming the beach.

"I'm gon' eat yo' watermelon

Being (as we're slowly discovering) creatures of habit, the answer to the second question was always Shore Bar, where they cooked incredible freshly caught grilled fish, Goan curries and crab masalas, cheap beers and a crunchy muesli with fresh fruit each morning for breakfast. We ate here every morning and evening whilst in  Anjuna and do not regret it!

We eventually peeled ourselves away from the beach on the Wednesday to attend Anjuna Flea Market. The market seemed to span for miles and had well over 100 stalls, which sold everything from jewellery and pashminas to knock off watches and all kinds of Tibetan paraphernalia. Richard had his eye on a beautiful mosaic Tibetan teapot, but with an outrageous asking price of 4,000Rs (nearly £60!), he wasn't interested in our equally outrageous opening offer of 1,000Rs (£15). We bought a couple of bits and Ashley went back to the same stall 3 times (always a mistake. They can practically smell your desperation for their product) for a bangle that she really wanted. We haggled hard, but couldn't shave off the final 100Rs and so Ashley ended up paying just over a pound more than she wanted to, but was worth it.

After Goa was Hampi, an alcohol-free town surrounded by rock formations which have eroded over millions of years, leaving boulders balancing on top of other boulders as if they've placed there intentionally. It's comparable to Bedrock, home of The Flintstones. On the train there, we met a small group of people which had formed whilst in India and was made up of Niamh and Robert (both from Ireland but traveling separately), Sophie (from London) and Graham and Maisie (a couple from San Francisco). We were invited to tag along with them in finding a place for stay and we did, which, in hindsight, was an excellent decision.

"Yabadabadooo!"

By a stroke of luck, we had managed to coincide our visit to Hampi with the Hindu festival of Holi, a celebration of Spring that is a year old's dream festival - an enormous paint and water fight.  We knew this was happening whilst we were in India, but had read that it wasn't really celebrated in the south to the extent it was in the north; we were wrong. We found out from the guys at our hostel - a chilled out place called Sunny Guesthouse, which served excellent food, showed nightly movies and was run by two men that, no matter what the time of day, would greet you with "gooooood morning!" - that it would be happening Sunday morning. We also heard that there was a bonfire taking place the night before, where the locals gathered together and enjoyed the one night of drinking that they allowed themselves each year.

We wanted to go and check this out, but it was happening in Hampi Bazaar and the set up of the town was potentially restrictive. Split into 2 parts by a 100 metre-wide river running down its middle, Hampi Bazaar, which holds the majority of the shops and sights, sits on one side and on the other sit most of the hostels (ours included). From 9am until 6pm, an engined boat runs people from one side to the other every few minutes. After 6pm, however, you're on your own. A bridge would be a seemingly simple solution to this, but Hampi's not there yet.

With the bonfire not scheduled to start until 9.30pm (Indian time, meaning it's more likely to start between 10 and 11pm), we needed an alternate means of crossing. We also needed to source some alcohol to get into the spirit of the festival, which one of the blokes from our hostel was more than happy to do, bringing us back a litre of Royal Stag whiskey. Apparently Hampi is almost dry; you just need to look in the right places

The bonfire

Our transport across the river, organised by Sophie and Niamh, turned out to be an 'illegal boat', which was essentially a giant, wicker bread basket manned by a chap holding an oar. The seven of us piled in, forcing the lip of the 'boat' very close to the water, and enjoyed the journey across (as quietly as possible so as not to alert the suspicions of the police). Safely across, we asked of the same boat would take us back at 2am and Richard arranged a secret signal to summon him - the classic pigeon call.

Once across, the celebrations soon began, with groups of men playing tablas (drums) whilst throngs of people surrounded them and danced, clapped and screamed to the beat. With some of the crowd a few beers down, a few guys were really going for it, pulling out some excellent moves and shapes (other than travelers, women were completely absent from the festivities by the way). Before long, we were all dancing with the rest of the locals, with arms round shoulders, hands in the air and feet off the floor as we jumped around. The mass of dancing bodies began to move towards the bonfire, following what was very similar to the Guy that we burn on November 5th. We went with it and watched the piled up wood catch alight.

The party seemed to finish as abruptly as it started and so we walked back to the riverbank to meet our 'boat'. To begin with, the police tried to turn us away, but we eventually convinced them to let us call our man to get us back to our beds. On the riverbank though, despite some serious pigeon calling, we were left stranded on the wrong side of the river. Thankfully, another two friends of the group we'd met, Amy and Kyle, were staying on the right side of the river and they tool the 7 of us back to their hostel, where it quickly became obvious that 9 of us were not going to be able to sleep in a double room. Instead, we were able to get onto the roof of their hostel and got some sleep there.

The next day was Holi proper and, having surface at around 8am, we saw that many of the local children were already in full swing. We created a very basic water pistol by piercing holes in the cap of a water bottle with a fork and armed ourselves with bags of paint powder before excitedly hitting Hampi Bazaar ready for multi-coloured warfare. Adults, children and travelers were crowded together and caked in paint, throwing powder and smearing it on others (without any sort of animosity either. This is the sort of thing that could turn into a riot elsewhere). The children all wanted to get on our shoulders for a better vantage point, especially Richard's. At one point, as we was talking, one kid started trying to climb him like a tree. Also, Ashley got a little over confident and put a girl who was only a foot smaller than her up there - she was the second and last child to sit on her shoulders. 

The aftermath

No one was safe from Holi, as demonstrated by a couple of gents who drove straight into the middle of the crowd. Needless to say, they were immediately covered in paint. The driver then put his hands above his head and began to clap and chant. "Oh! Oh! Oh!" The crowd joined in, clapping their hands and stamping their feet in the build up to a big crescendo, which was: "HAPPY HOLI!". There was an enormous cheer and the bike drove away. It was as if the crowd had been expecting them.

Our last couple of days in Hampi were spent exploring it on hired motorbikes (320Rs or £4.50 per day). With Richard  driving and Ashley on the back, we rode through Hampi's small villages where the children asked for "school pens", paid a visit to the Monkey Temple and found a large, flat rock that sits about 10m above a lake - perfect for lying on and jumping off. We actually ended up going back here a couple of times as it was a great way to cool off. The scenery in Hampi was incredible and, for the most part, we just pootled along whilst we took it all in. You wouldn't expect to find scenery like this in India - it looks more like Nevada.

Graham and Richard jumping into the reservoir to cool off

On the second day with the bikes, whilst taking the long route back to our hostel, the back of the bike started to slide from side to side and it quickly became obvious that we'd managed to get a puncture. The others went back to find someone to help whilst Richard pushed the bike back in the direction of our hostel, with Ashley walking alongside him offering her moral support.

After about 20 minutes, a Dutch guy pulled over on a Royal Enfield motorbike and offered us his pump, which we tried, but to no avail. A small white van with two Indian men inside also passed, asking if we were alright. We explained that we were fine and just had a puncture. They nodded and drove on, but 20 minutes later they were back and offering us a lift to our hostel. We gladly accepted and they helped Richard lift the bike into the back whilst emphasising the important of not scratching what was the drivers work van. Bike in, we both sat in the back to keep it upright. Minutes later, we heard a horn beeping behind us. We turned round to see Graham on his motorbike and, sat on the back, an Indian man with a pump in one hand and an inner tube in the other. 10 minute later, and for just 100Rs (£1.40), we were back on the bike - quicker and cheaper than your average RAC call out!

Richard and our short term rescuers

We could have spent another week in the surroundings and company of Hampi, but, after saying our goodbyes, we had to move on to our next stop - Mysore via Bangalore. Because we'd cancelled our train to have one more night in Hampi, we were unable to get one to Bangalore as originally planned. However, no thanks to the helpfulness of the railway staff at Hospet station, we were able to get ourselves onto an overnight sleeper bus. It wasn't as comfortable as a sleeper train, the bumps of the Indian roads sending your sleeping body a foot into the air (which, for the record doesn't aid the digestion of a heavy cashew curry) and your sleep being punctuated by the incessant beeping of the coaches horn, but it did the job.

Back on track, we were in Mysore the following morning and checked into the clean, functional, slightly characterless Hotel Dasprakesh for the night. Mysore was a busy city and its main attraction - The Maharaja's Palace - wad visible from quite a way a way, its domed peaks sticking out of the top of its skyline.

The palace is completely walled off within the city an is in fact a remake/tribute to the original palace which burned down in 1897. Rebuilt by English architect Henry Irwin, the new palaces outside is all reds and golds, but it was the inside that was particularly impressive. Brightly coloured stained glass windows showing peacocks sat alongside dark, wood-carved doors (as well as 3 ornate solid silver doors), an infinite number of chandeliers sat above tall, painted pillars produced and shipped from Glasgow and murals by various artists showed various scenes of life in Mysore during the 1900s. All of this made for a gaudy, garish interior that was verging on camp, but it all made for a visually exciting tour. Unfortunately, cameras weren't allowed inside, so you'll have to make do with this stock photo from Google.

Durbar Hall inside The Maharaja's Palace

Also in Mysore was one of India's most colourful and lively bazaars - Deveraja Market - where the stalls zig-zagged up and down the streets with vendors selling spices, dried vegetables, perfumes, fruit and veg, flower garlands, bangles and paint for religious festivals and services (like the ones we used for Holi). As always, everyone wanted us to take a look at their stall, so their was lots of shouting and attention grabbing, with the most common greeting being "Yes, what do you want?", said not with any tone of annoyance, but of expectancy. Our favourite, however, had to be one of the store holders responses when we told him we were from England. Putting on his best mockney accent, he shouted "Ah! Well come 'an 'ave a butchers then!". Brilliant.

Beautifully arranged gulal (paint powder)

We were only in Mysore for just over 24 hours, but had some excellent food whilst there, particularly the thalis. For around 60 Rs (a little less than 90p), you're served a meal of rice, various vegetable curries and poppadoms on a banana leaf and the beat bit is, thy keep coming round and filling it up until you're full. We had some of the best thalis we've had in the South whilst here.

We also had a chance to send a package home. When sending a package in India, it's not normally just a simple case of buying a box from the post office and piling your stuff in. There are small shops that package your contents before stitching it into a hessian bag for safe sending. We found one such 'shop' (although in reality it was a cupboard at the bottom of a set of stairs) run by a man named Syed who said he'd box, wrap, stitch and send our stuff home for a good price. After proudly running us through almost everyone person he'd ever sent a package to through use of his book filled with photos and emails - "Jenny, UK, Wales - 15 days", "Britney, America, sent 3rd April, arrive 24th April" and so on and so on. After thy, he asked if we'd care for a samosa and a chai, which we happily ate and drank - all part of his customer service routine. We watched as he went to own on packing our stuff into 2 old sari boxes, packing in polystyrene, wrapping it in string, then plastic, then more string before placing it into a essay sack and stitching it up by hand (before tying on a bit more string for good measure). Once he'd finished, it was certainly more secure than you're usual Royal Mail box.

Syed's handy work was second to none

A businessman of the 21st century, Syed showed us how his phone synced his emails and promised to send us the tracking code within he next 24 hours before proceeding to run through his past customers again - "Daniel, Italy - 19 Days". We managed to stop him before he got too into it and got ourselves out of there to head to the train station. Leaving a parcel with a man in his cupboard office sounds sketchy, but he seemed legitimate and took what he did seriously.

And just like that, we were moving on to Kerala.

X

P.S. The package made it home in just 10 days!