still alive – just with bad internet connection
hey everyone,
have not written in ages because the connection is so slow so once i have emailed the people i need to email, i have alrewady been on for an hour. so frustrating. its like what it was in the uk about 10 yrs ago.
anyway, i have joined the tour now and all is well. im with 3 other brits (2 also gappers), 3 aussies (who are amazing, and i am picking up the accent slightly yay) , one german and 2 norwegians . sharing rooms is not as bad as i thought and i actually perfer it as i have someone to talk to and someones else milling around so i dont feel so alone at all. but this has made me worry about when i will be alone again, in katmandu for a week and bangkok for a week.
we have been very busy. i have seen the red fort in delhi and also the friday mosque and a sikh temple. this was on the first day of the tour. oh and by th way…the taxi driver got me there ok, even if it was with me looking down the left roads and him loking down the right roads. we were going round in circles for abit. he got a big tip.
then we visited agra – getting there via train. the toilets on these are interesting – holes through the floor which just go straight throguh to the tracks below. lovely. we spent a couple of night in agra. this was nice after the chaos of delhi which took it out of us all. it was still busy though. it was here, fo course, that we saw the taj mahal. it was amazing.the most beautiful building. everyone says it but thats baecause its true. when we walked thruoguh the archway to see thet typical view down the middle it looked like it was just super-imposed onto a background. it was interesting though – it is all symmetrical – apart from the tombs inside – his is much lkarger than hers. bet you didnt know that did you!!! it was so funny though coz it turned out that we were more interesting thn the taj. we sat down to take a rest right next to the building and an indian fam started arranging their kids next to us for photos. so we joined in and started taking photos of them and a few mins later the whole family (about 20 of them) were sitting with us having a laugh. it was amazing. many good photos were taken. and then a chinese guy joined inm. this did make me laugh – the chinese always wanted our pics when i went to china. but we arent even in china and a chinese guy wanted to take pics of us. and then of course everyone else saw that we were having pics with people and so wanted their bit of the action. i dread to think how many random home around asia i will have my pic in now. the owner probably saying – oh yer and here is my western friend. its crazy!
after agra we came to orchha, again on the trains. this is a small, but touristic village. the shopping is amazing and i have bought lots of jewellery here. the only bad thing is i started loving indian food – and it made me ill. wasnt too bad thoguth coz at least we are in an ok place to get ill. im ok now fingers crossed. yesturday, me and the aussies were invited to a little family home. at first we were very reluctant to go but the, after a lot of persuasion from the tille guy, we went and met his fam. they were very humble and did not want payment, but my chocolate biscuits that i had just bought. the kids were so cute though. again many good photos were taken but i cant get them online due to the bad connection. it would take hours. so i will just put them up here once i get home.
today we leave on the overnight train and i will not have access to the internet for a few days so dont expect many more posts for a while again. and then tomorrow we take the boats down the ganges and camp along the river overnight. i dont think the tents will have walls though so it could be interetsing/cold lol. we will see though. oh yer, and the boats dont have loos so if we need the loo the boat will pull iver and we will go on the baks of the ganges, apparnetly. so you can see why i am abit worried about this but also glad that i have been ill already and am hoping that i will not be ill again. please do keep your fongers crossed for me.
il let you know how roughing it went next time i reach civilisation. i have so much more to tell from the last few days but just not enough time to write about it.
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a little better – starting the tour
i dont have much time to write today and my last post was very random and disjointed :S
i am leaving this hotel today and am not sure when i will next be able to access the internet. hopefully will get a little chance at the next hotel (as it is more expensive) but depends on how much time i get as am not sure what will be going on really.
that is if i get there…i have to take a taxi from here to the next hotel alone again. 
abit sad stil but the friends i made made it a little easier. am worried about getting to next hotel though as when i got here the first day i told them i would need a taxi and they asked to where and when i said the name of another hotel they didnt seem too happy. so hopefully they wont send me to the wrong place. also they are making me pay an extra 400 irp when i leave – i asked gemma and john (my buddies) about this and they said they did not have to pay this, so im gonna refuse…or attempt to anyway.
we went to the zoo yesterday and i was well excited coz we would get to see animals i wouldnt get a chance to see anywhere else. so the taxi took us there etc but when we got there it was closed. the driver admitted to knowing this – so funny. but he took us to the museum instead for no extra charge! i got into the museum for 1 rupee coz i flashed my student card….tight….so that is about 1p or 7p. currency still confuses me slightly. but cheap anyways. i have started eating indian food but have not got ill yet. wished i had though as it now mean i will when sharing a room with some poor person!!! saw some mokeys too! 
took photos but not had a chance to put them up yet.
also, we took a tuk tuk, i would never do this by myself, was waaaaay too scary!
update soon, the replies make me smile. love xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Homesick already
So I’m in Delhi now…after a very long day of flying, not much sleep and quite a lot of worry and stress.
Flight connections were fine and the first flight was amazing. I had 4 seats to myself and was amazed that each seat had its own tv which had a selection of about 50 films, programmes like friends and games like battleships and tetris. The food was also amazing as it was well posh – goats cheese for appetiser!! didnt eat it but it made me smile. I should have got more sleep and not watched rush hour 3 though because i had 6 hours waiting in doha airport for the flight on and then a 3 hour flight in camped conditions. so i am so tired right now. its about 8am gmt time, 1pm here, and i have had about 3 hours sleep.
I have never been this homesick thought, i have missed home but have not had that sicky feeling - i don’t want to eat at the moment and feel very alone. I knew it would be hard travelling by myself but not this hard. i just want to hear some nice english voices which will make me feel more at home so i now cant wait to join the tour. i did not stop crying until the flight had left gatwick and am still finding it hard now. i would listen to my ipod for some english words but it is low on bat due
to the long travelling and not having the right plug sockets in the room homefully they will do at the other hotels or nepal/thailand etc. if not i dunno what im gonna do about my camera and stuff..
i just made a friend in the internet cafe – erro i cant remember her name.
this internet is annoying me, it keeps going gammy on this site. i just wrote loads of other stuff and i just lost it all.
so will update you again when im next on. need some sleep now.
Back from London
Hmmm, so London was a complete disaster. Ended up only getting one of the visas that I needed to get and it was the one which I could have got in 3 days via email…gash. The Vietnamese embassy was apparently closed from today (the day I was going to go and get it) until next Tuesday, as it is ‘Lunar New Year’. So I’m going to have to go down again next week to get it. Gutted. Oh well, hopefully all will work out eventually. The tube etc was fine though, now I’m a pro
Visas in London
So this doesn’t really count as the first part of my travelling but will do for my first blog. I’m staying at my mate Becka’s down in her London pad…got the right train and found my way to her flat from what I could remember from last time. Hopefully I will be this good when abroad. Tomorrow I have to navigate the underground by myself which will also be a challenge, and then find the different embassys using a map.Will let you know how I get on, fingers crossed all will be fiiiiiine. xxx
