Ponmudi

Yesterday we went off to ponmudi. Its only about 65km from us here but as the roads leading up there are shocking, it takes two hours to get there by car. The drive up there was interesting though. We were out of the city and going through village to village felt different - lots of colourful people, cows, goats, chickens and an elephant!

So rather than explain myself what and where ponmudi is, I'm just going to blatently copy and paste the next paragraph from neils blog - thanks mate in advance:

"Ponmudi is a hill station at an altitude of 1000m above sea level on the Western Ghats mountain range. Surrounded by tea plantations its name (apparently) means Golden Crown in Malayalam - i'm not sure why i expected it to have a yellow peak.....because it didn't."

The views were stunning. No matter how many pics you take its one of those places that you just have to see it with your eyes to get the full effect. After checking in to our really expensive hut (3 quid each), flashing our passports (bureaucracy), and dropping our gear off we headed up the hill/mountain. We met many happy smiling people on the way up who either wanted us to take their pictures or just wanted to say hi. The most random of encounters at the summit - a bunch of nuns showed up, and a good laugh they were too. They loved having their picture taken and they asked me what I was going to do with the pictures that I had taken. I told them I was going to print them out and put them on my wall due to the fact that they were all so gorgeous. This was met with raptuous laughter from the randy old sisters! Even funnier was later when we were on our way back down. We heard a bus approaching behind us with music blaring out and as it zoomed past us it was only the nuns bus! They were all hanging out the windows and waving/screaming/laughing - I really dont think that is a sight I will ever have the pleasure of viewing ever again.

Although beautiful, ponmudi had been 'done' in 3 hours. As we had only paid a few quid to stay the night we thought we may as well just head home and get an early start for tommorrow. We went to find our driver to no avail, although his/our car was there. Interesting. Through confusion, sign language, head bobbing and broken english, we established from a few of the lads hanging around that our driver had gone to hospital, on the bus, because he had hurt his leg. He would be back at 10..(am or pm?) - I asked why the hell hadnt he taken his car. My question was given the answer - "Yes. Bus." I asked if he had hurt his leg, how was he going to drive us home. My question was given the answer - "Yes." We gave up, looked like we were staying in our hut after all. And what fun that turned out to be. It can be summed up thusly:

"Cockraoches/bacardi/coke/mozzies/ipod/poker/bacardi/powerout/worrying scuttling sound in every corner of room/hide under covers fully clothed to prevent being eaten alive"

Dont ask me how, but I managed to stay in that room despite the fact that it was home to approximately 95% of india's entire population of insect life. There was a sign on the wall which read:

"NO ROOM SERVICE PLEASE"

Were they asking us or telling?

Anyway, we awoke early, saw the sun rise, took plenty of pics and began our trek in the car down the 22 hairpins (each one signposted) that lead to the main "road" home. A lovely place but if you ever go, just do the day trip and dont stay the night.

I learnt alot more about my camera again on this trip so am just going to post the pick of the bunch. High 5 to neil for taking the ones of me (performing the trademark allsworth 'point' of course). As ever, clicked for enlarged.

Shit!

Well it had to happen sooner or later didn't it? I'd gone just over 2 months without seeing anything too worrying (monster flying cockroach aside) and then it finally happened. I came home friday morning to find this little beauty hanging about around my shoes.

The best of it is, I'd been in my room 10 minutes before I noticed the bastard. Just getting into bed and it caught the corner of my eye. A mixture of terror and relief rushed through me. Terror, cause I bloody hate 'normal' spiders let alone big hairy legged motherf*##%$ like this, and relief that I'd seen it before getting into bed and going to sleep.

Right - what do I do now....Smash it against the wall and kill it! No - I cant bare the 'crunch'. Get the guard to catch it like neil did last time then! No cant do that as we only have one key to the house, and the guard now has it as he locked me in. He needs it to let neil in from work in a few hours...we really should get some more keys cut....well its too bloody late now you have an eff off spider in your room what are you going to do about it? Trap it in a glass. Good thinking sherlock but it wont fit in a glass and you'll probably spaz it anyway and end up smashing the glass all over the floor. Ok good point - I'll get a big plastic cup, and a pad of paper and trap it so it cant run off, after capture I can think about what to do with it then. Good idea - go get a cup then....

So I get the cup. And the pad of paper. Return to my room....No spider. Panic. Knowing that I will never sleep in this room ever again unless I find it, I jump up on my bed and scan my room like some sort of security robot.

Finally - There you are! You are hiding in one of my shoes...I can see one of your hairy legs! Now what? You dont want to stomp on your shoes to kill it do you? If you did that and it didnt die then you would have to shake out your shoes and that would cause all kinds of panic wouldnt it you big wimp? Yes. Ok then we'll just wait.

So I waited. I stood on my bed (shoes still on) and waited for it to come out so I could kill it. I didnt have to wait long and jumping down from my bed I took a deep breath as it edged its way out of my shoe. I know its looking at me. It walks a bit to the left, a bit to the right, then it sort of flatterns out like its stretching it legs, warming up. It doesnt know whether to try and hide, leg it or.....

Dear god its bloody charging at me!!!! I knew it sodding would they always do! Right well here it is then, showdown, stamp on it! Ok...Missed! - Now its making a B line to hide under your bed - no way...! Stamp! Missed again! But wait whats it doing now? It has flipped over and its...its...ITS CLIMBING UP MY FUCKING LEG!

I kicked myself about 3 times (looking like a little girl) and the injured beast lay half dead on the floor, twitching. I quickly put it out of its misery and felt exhausted and foolish for being such a pansy. After taking another half an hour to calm down, flush him down the loo and check my shoes for 'eggs' I shakily get into bed. I'd forgotton to brush my teeth so went over to the sink, grabbed my toothbrush and...hmm there are loads of ants in my toothpaste. Lovely. Just about sums it up.

A hilariously funny side effect of this encounter is that I'm now incredibly jumpy. Bit of fluff brush past my leg? I almost hit the ceiling.

It was big though. That picture really doesnt do it justice.

City streets

The day I learnt my lesson about the sea...

So we got to the beach. By the time we had got there, although still drunk, the hangover was already begining to materialise. The only guy renting beds down there that early had an arsenal shirt on so we instantly became friends and he set us up with some nice beds and a brolly. Managed to get an hours or so shut eye and then went for a walk and swim in the sea. With the time being now about 10am I felt rough - and when sheeba (sheebu, sheevba, sheevbu??) asked me and neil if we fancied "some juice" we gladly accepted. It turns out that by "juice" he meant pint of lager.

After taking a few sips and then discretely tipping the rest away we went up for a bite to eat followed by another snooze. Kim from the UK office was over and her and suzie joined us at the beach and politely woke me up by shouting in my ear. Needing to blow a few cobwebs out my head I thought i'd go boarding for an hour or so, the weather was warm, the sun was beginning to go down and the waves looked amazing. It was here that the real fun began.

If you look around on the net about kovalum, you'll find stories about how nice the beach is and how good the waves are. There are surfing websites that recognise kovalum as a good place to go surf. You'll also find horror stories about "the vicious rip tide at kovalum" that not only is very dangerous but also has claimed a few lives over the years. I had of course felt the rip tide before, and it is strong (once getting dragged out a little too deep without a board, worrying,) , but never had been proper caught out by it until today.

It all started out normal enough - the waves were good and the water was really warm as usual. I went out a bit further and caught a massive wave which was so fast, after I had wiped out I wanted to get out further again and catch another one. Swimming out a bit deeper, missing a few waves....waiting for a big one.....that never came. Before I knew it, I was about 50 meteres BEHIND where the big waves were crashing and I was going the wrong way, and by the wrong way I mean I was on my way to africa.

Realising that I was now potentially in a 'spot of bother' I tried waving to neil back on the shore that I was infact still out here and I would possibly need some help getting back in. I wasnt too worried at this point because at least I had a board to keep me afloat, I didnt have to tread water and I wasnt going to sink. But that wasnt making me feel any better with regards to getting back to the shore, I could feel myself being dragged further back. I began paddling forward the best I could and was making a little bit of progress, I wasnt really going back any further now but I wasnt getting any closer to the shore either and i was a fair way out. 10 minutes later I was making better progress but by this time two blokes who sit with the lifeguards had been sent out from the shore to come and help me! There were worried faces on the beach, particuarly kim and suzie who, as neil told me when I got back, "thought they had lost me forever" - slightly worrying too much but hey. Neil had been pretty cool and not worried about me, but I think that was down to the fact that he didnt have his glasses on and couldnt actually see me...

Anyway, I ended up catching a monster of a wave in and returned to safety, tired and a bit relieved. I was talking to arsenal shirt guy after I'd got out of the sea and he was the one that had called the lads in to go and help me. He said that he'd been caught by that rip tide himself twice before and it had scared him a bit, he doesnt go out swimming there much now. It definately taught me a good lesson and I wont be going out that far again but looking back it was a positive experience and a good story to tell.

Up on the roof...

This last week has seen the return of the sun, the return of the toilet flush and even the return of the jedi.

At last the problems we have been having with the house were sorted, and they seem to have (touch wood) stayed sorted. Although having the TV back was a welcome addition, it inevitabely means the guitar practice has suffered as we have been playing the PS2 and watching DVDs (hence the jedi) far too much.

It was another tiring week at work, but as me and neil are in together most nights we can have a bit of a laugh and it doesnt drag on quite so much. We managed to get down the beach a couple of times and with the sun shining I feel alot better. We have been trying to sort out some plans for the remainder of our time here - so as we only have three weekends left, we have got something sorted for two of them. The'll be more 'blogger fodder' to come from the southern tip of india and ponmudi.

Friday night we went out for dinner on the residency rooftop restaurant then returned home to our own roof and began the nights drinking. Drink was drank, very bad jokes were told and stupid songs were sang. The nights drinking became the morning and we watched the sunrise. It was all very hazy, I'm not sure if that was the beer/bacardi/vodka or the weather. In any case it was nice, and as it was already morning we didnt see the point in going to bed. Instead we got a cab straight down to the beach which seemed like an excellent idea at the time...

This weeks 'update'

Ok I have a problem here - There is literally, nothing to write about. The last week has been far and away, the most boring and univentful week here yet. Me and neil have literally been getting up, doing naff all and waiting to go to the office. Work has been a bit of a nightmare (basic organisation and communication - out of the window), the whether has been awful (raining every day), the house stopped working (power cuts, no toilet flushing, TV breaking, T'internet down time) and our cook, Aji (bless him), decided to cook the same thing everyday for 6 days. This all boils down to one simple thing, there is not alot to update the good ol' blog with right now.

Guitar playing has seen an improvement which is nice, and the libertines' "music when the lights go out" has been the track of the week in terms of learning progress. We were planning on going out with shab and biju to take some shots round trivandrum yesterday but the whether put paid to that so hopefully we will be able to do that next week. We went with sham to the guitar shop to get a guitar, but he didnt have any - well not the type we were after anyway. He did have a bunch of other interesting looking instruments though so we might be going back there soon...

Having such a quiet week and being indoors the whole time has got me thinking about coming home, and I'm finding that I'm looking forward to doing so more and more. Every time I hear a date, I work out how far away that will be to me coming home. Whats odd is that, I'm not unhappy or miserable here but I also really cant wait to get back now.

I will write some more when something actually happens, but bye bye for now.

It....

Here is a picture (click for enlarged) of me dressed as 'pennywise' the clown, ages 8 years old. Mum sent me this earlier and lets face it., its funny, look at the size of my bloody ears. Anyway this has nothing to do with my time away (update coming soon) but just thought it would bring a smile to your face as it did mine. For the record - I have no recollection of this photo being taken.

Sore fingers

For the last few weeks I've been trying to learn the guitar. I'm quite enjoying it am starting to find a little progress. By the time I come home I think I should be able to almost play green day - time of your life, the libertines - time for heroes and bob sinclair - love generation. Practice practice practice.

Side note...

On a side note, I've been faffing around with the html for the pictures for the last half an hour so the ones that were not linking to enlargements should now be working.

The week preceeding singapore...almost forgot!

Almost forgot to mention, we had a really good week before we went as well. The whether was really good so we had pretty much every day down at the beach and up on the roof sunbathing. We made the most of the roof terrace in the evenings as well, something we dont use as much as we should. The ball got booted off the roof far too many times but I employed my expert climbing skills and looked like the prince of persia climbing down into nextdoors garden with a torch in hand to find the ball. The stars look amazing as well when all the lights are off, can lay and look at them for ages. You can see lots of shooting stars as well which is cool, I think I'd only ever seen one before coming out here.

Within the week we managed to polish off a bottle of Jim Beam, a bottle of vodka and a crate of sandpiper beer - not bad going. Me and nick were actually drunk for 12 solid nights in a row including the trip away so it might be time for a detox. Maybe. Although the roof is calling, along with the iPod and beer....

Three cheesy holiday snaps (as requested)

I can breath again!

So I'm back "home" now from singapore and I have to say I loved it there. I know this might sound a little shallow but after living in trivandrum this last month it was great to go to a modern city. It was like nowhere else I had been before in terms of the climate, the people, the cleanliness and the sheer safety of the place.

First off the climate - pretty much unbearable humidity. I've been told that this time of the year are the cooler months so I dread to think what it would have been like in the hot times. I was expecting it to be similar to here....Nope. Here I can breath. In singapore there isnt much air to actually breath during the day especially. This resulted in me feeling pretty sick throughout the days. I just dont think I'm designed for it, if I go to the sauna at the gym I get the same feeling and generally cant stand them so I guess the same applies here. I was ok in a air conditioned environment though and at night when it cooled a little and we had drank a lot, I felt fine!

The shopping malls there are rediculous. Massive, massive shopping "cities" all placed in a line next to eachother. You really could spend days after days looking round the shops, a ladies paradise. (Talking of ladies fellas, most of them were bloody gorgeous). As I mentioned before prices were not as cheap as I expected, and I didnt see an awful lot of stuff that you couldnt get back home but the sheer quanitity of it all was great and the customer service was a refreshing change. All the staff I spoke to (particularly the camera people) were very friendly, knowledgable and helpful - it was great.

We didnt experience any bad feeling in singapore. Most people walk round with their families or girlfriends/boyfriends. We saw no gangs of little bastards causing trouble and not one "unsavoury" character the whole time we were there. People were allowed to go out, enjoy themselves and have a good time, regardless of where they go, what they wear and what they do. That was the main difference I noticed from england. Back home I find I cant go anywhere without before long seeing some trouble being caused or someone getting picked on, overhearing people arguing or just general bad feeling. I really didnt get anything at all like that in singapore and you dont even get that here in trivandrum. Maybe i've become too cynical of people back home, who knows. But I would say that the singapore people have toppled the dutch for me for "the nicest people on the planet" award, with the indians coming in at a close third.

So as a quick summary - The hotel we stayed in was great, superb location and had all that we wanted. I could eat meat and drink tap water again (luxury) and ate the best burger in the world and drank the gold winning beer from the 2004 beer awards at the brewerkz bar. English is virtually the first language so communication was not a problem at any time with anyone. Our days were spent walking round the shops and attempting to breath, and our nights were spent around clarke quay eating, listening to music and generally getting
"sozzled". The last night was probably best when we met a few locals and others who lived or worked in singapore - we all ended up at a german kndergarten teachers house which was very random but had a great time none the less! Just about made it back in time the next morning to check out of the hotel. Plenty of aussies about, met a nice guy one night who built oil rigs off the coast who filled us in on where to go and things like that. It turns out that I think we would have been slightly better off going over a weekend, as thats when it all really kicks in but had a perfectly good time none the less.

We went to harrys bar one night for a spot of jazz and was very pleased to see people dancing proper jazz styleee...Most places had live bands playing, mostly covers and stuff but it was good none the less. John Chee (brilliant) was probably the best guy we saw during our stay. Closely followed in terms of hilariousness by Vincent Ting, the man who loved serving us coffee and talking to us about betting on the football. I bought loads of stuff - Lovely new lens for my camera (Canon EF-S 17 - 85 mm) , a new mobile phone , some trainers, a camera bag, a new iTrip and some surfing shorts. There was a dissapointing lack of robots though I'm afraid so I guess I'll have to go to tokyo next time for those. Which reminds me - this recent jaunt to the east has made me want to see more of it and has got me in the mood for a three month trip starting in Japan and working my way down at some point in the future, maybe after next year. If singapore is anything to go by then I'm sure I'll love it. I'll need plenty of cash though.

There is lots more to talk about but I've only got so much time and I guess reading this you lot only have so much patience! I've got plenty of other photos as well, and will perhpas submit them for sale upon my return through work, who knows.

Quick hello from singapore...

So I'm currently in a cyber cafe in singapore, officially crowned by me and king as the worlds hottest country. We are in the funan IT mall, and there are bloody loads of electronics based shops here so as all those that know me will will understand that I am in my element. Prices are not quite as cheap as I would have thought, but saying that they are far cheaper than at home. Laptops are around 300-400 quid cheaper, and the high definition screens are amazing. Me and king have been staring at them in each shop we go in. Thinking about it, everything is about a third cheaper than at home which is not to be sniffed at.

I've been feeling pretty much permanently sick since I've been here though, I dont know if its because of the heat or what. Its definately the hottest place I've ever been, with it seeming like there is no actual air in the air. The only time I havent felt sick was last night when I was drunk. Note to self - get drunk later to stop feeling sick.

Funniest story so far -

We went to a really unique bar yesterday. It has its own brewery on site and you can see it behind the bar. There are massive vats and loads of pipes running all over the place full with different types of beer. In fact they sell 17 different beers, with 8 of them being brewed on the premises. They even do a strawberry beer. Me and king took our seats, ordered a massive plate of chicken wings and settled in watching the sports channels on the huge tv screens. King considered the beer menu and went on to order a specialist wheat beer that was brewed about 10 feet away from where we were sitting. The guy turns to me and asks for my order:

Man - "What beer would you like sir?"

Me - "Ummmm.....I'll have a coke please."

Man (with distraught look on face) - "Coke?!"

Me - "Yes. I'm very hot"

Kingy - "Jam..."

Me - "Yeah?"

Kingy - "You're an idiot"

So yeah - I go to this great bar that serves great beer that is brewed on site and ordered a coke. Stuff em. I like to buck the trend now and again.

So right now we are weighing up the options - What to buy....there is a bank card in my wallet and it is burning a rather big whole in my pocket. Right now I'm thinking new camera lens, new phone, new iTrip. Possibly a DS. Or a PSP.

More to follow.