Manic Mumbai

We've only been travelling for about a week, but so much has happened in the past few days that it feels like we've been here a lot longer!

Mumbai is probably one of the busiest and craziest places I've ever visited. I couldn't get over the number of people, the noise and the sheer amount of traffic absolutely everywhere. It's fascinating, but it does all get a bit much after a while - there's barely time or space to stop and think. We had a bit of a scare when Karl forgot his money belt - containing all money and credit cards - in a cafe. Was convinced we'd never see it again, and we raced back in a cab to find that the cafe owner had kept it behind the desk for us, with every single penny still inside. Oh my gosh, the relief! So foolish of us, and it definitely taught us a lesson.

Anyway, here's a quick update of what we did and saw whilst in Mumbai:

Gateway of India - to be honest, this was a little underwhelming, especially during the day! It was just surrounded stray dogs, tourists and people trying to sell bits of tat, which kind of took away from a lot of the grandeur it probably had back in colonial times. It looked quite nice at night though, when it was all lit up.

We also visited Crawford Market where, as well as fresh fruit & veg, meat, fish and sweets, they also sell pets - weird! The way they set up their veg stalls is quite cool though - there are two levels, with the vendors sitting on the top, surrounded by all their fresh produce.

At Victoria Terminus, the main train station, we saw some of the dabbawallas who organise the city's complex tiffin system.

Had the most amazing mutton kebab rolls at Bade Miya, a street stall which has become a bit of an institution in Mumbai. I know you're supposed to try out different things while you're travelling, but the food here was so good that we went back there for dinner three evenings in a row - their chicken tikka roll and Paneer roll -are delicious too!

By Tuesday, we'd had enough of Mumbai and decided to book train tickets to Goa. We set off on Wednesday morning, in a 2nd Class carriage, and got a comfy bunk each. It was quite fun - almost like having your own little den, with curtains to close you off from the rest of the train! Passed the time by napping and reading, and had a cheap and tasty lunch of vegetable biryani.

We've been in Goa for a couple of days, and it's amazing - but I'll tell you more about it in my next post :)

Bye for now

xxx

Welcome to our Blog!

Hello and welcome to our blog!

I guess everyone reading this pretty much already knows the story – Karl and I have quit our jobs and are leaving London to spend a year travelling the world. It's something that we've both wanted to do for years, so in late 2009 we finally plucked up the courage, got organised and booked a ticket Round The World (or RTW as they say in the business).

So, where are we going?

Tomorrow morning, on Saturday 20th February, we fly to Mumbai and the adventure begins. We'll travel around India for six weeks and our main stops include Goa, Kerala, Bangalore, Delhi, Agra and Calcutta.

On 3rd April, we fly from Calcutta to Kuala Lumpur. Over the course of 15 weeks (!), we're hoping to visit Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Indonesia – there's no actual route planned, we're just going to freestyle ;)

Sometime at the end of July, we'll fly from Bali to Darwin, and we'll spend about 12 weeks journeying down the east coast of Australia, before moving on to New Zealand for another couple of weeks.

From there, it's on to South America! Our last 15 or so weeks will be spent in Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Peru, where we fly home from in February 2011.

So – that's the plan, wish us luck and keep checking the blog for updates and photos of our trip :)

Lots of love

K & S

xxx