The earth from above

Well, it's been a while, but we're back again. This time, some photos with a difference...all taken from altitude. Who won the battle for the window seats? In the end, we settled the matter fairly reasonably and mostly just took turns (though I still think Andrew got more turns than me)! Enjoy the view!

Leaving Perth on the 7th December headed for Singapore. You can see the city skyline in the distance and the South Perth foreshore in the foreground

Flying from New Delhi to Istanbul on the 2nd January. Andrew estimates that this photo was taken while we were flying over Pakistan.

You can't really make out very much in this photo, but the colours of dusk were nice! Taken as we flew above Iran on our way to Istanbul.

Leaving Istanbul for Tel Aviv on 7th January, we had a chance to view the very busy port area on the eastern side of Istanbul, the Sea of Marmara.

Crossing over Turkey we passed some mountainous terrain with a dusting of snow...

...but it got colder than that! A large part of southern Turkey was covered in snow...we were glad that we had only visited the north!

A lake amidst the snowy scenery

And then we had left the shores of Turkey and flew over the Mediterranean...

All the time just waiting for our first glimpse of Israel and hoping to see Haifa from the plane. Alas, it was too cloudy for that. As we flew over Tel Aviv preparing to land, the ground glistened with pools of water and black clouds rolled away in the distance. That was the first and last we ever saw of ominous weather, much to our relief!

Almost there...

After almost 45 days of adventuring across 3 different countries, we are just 9 hours away from returning home again. The return leg of our journey back to Perth has been challenging - we left Haifa at 5pm on Wednesday afternoon, spent that night at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv before our early morning flight to Turkey. We arrived in Istanbul at about 9am on Thursday morning, where Shanks and I, despite being severely sleep-deprived at that stage, went in search of the famed Bosphorus cymbals (more about that adventure in another blog!). Then we snatched a few hours of sleep at the hotel we stayed in previously, before setting out to make some last minute purchases (well, you didn't really expect us to leave Turkey without a carpet did you?). At midnight we hopped in a taxi to the airport for our 2:15am flight to New Delhi, arrived there at midday on Friday and once again, without having slept very much at all, had one final Indian market experience (not to mention one final masala dosa!) before heading back to the Baha'i House of Worship for some much needed peace and tranquility. This achieved, we experienced one last crazy rickshaw ride to the airport...there is nothing like a 1 hour rickshaw ride through the streets of Delhi to make you so glad to leave India! Despite our trepidation upon arriving once again at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, our fears were allayed as soon as we saw that there were no unimaginably horrendous queue awaiting us - we even ended up having an hour to spare before boarding!

We landed at Changi Airport at about 4:30am this morning, our third night without uninterrupted sleep! However, being in Changi has a tendency to relax and refresh you straight away - the airport is so clean and visually beautiful, full of little comforts like the famed foot massagers, exotic gardens and of course, the free internet (great for killing time!). We now have about 3 hours left before our flight to Perth...we both have mixed feelings upon our imminent return home. Our travels have provided such wonderful experiences that partly we both feel like just keeping on going. On the other hand, there is never anything quite like home. Shanks is looking forward to returning to his evening musings in the garden and meeting the latest duck/chicken arrivals that hatched while we were away! And we're both looking forward to a looong sleep!

Well, the next post will no doubt be from the comforts of our own home, where we will be able to post lots more photos and magical moments to share with you all.

Just photos...

Here are some photos from our travels so far...

And we're off!

Changi Airport in Singapore has free foot massage rest stops...

Astrid & Christian took full advantage!

Typical street scene in Chennai near our hotel

Shanks' long-awaited, eagerly anticipated masala dosa...


...was wolfed down in seconds, Indian-style (right-hand only)
...and it lived up to all expectations!

Who let these three near the sweet counter???

One smart cookie!

(We've never even eaten these cookies...ah, biscuits...before, but apparently they're a big hit in Chennai)!

Excuse me sir, do you have any stainless steel cookware?

India has truckloads of coconuts!

Bustling bus stop just outside our hotel in Trichy

Astrid, is that your tenth pakora???

View from our hotel balcony in Kodaikanal

Is that Guru Sri Sri Shankar...

or is it Shanks recovering in icy-cold Kodai?

Hindu temple in a village on the walk to Pillar Rocks...

complete with big stack of speakers filling the entire valley with temple music!

Pillar Rocks makes a brief appearance amidst the clouds

Chennai experiences...filling in the gaps

While we are here in Kollam (Quillon) passing time before our trip to the backwaters this afternoon, we thought we would try to fill in some of the gaps since our time here. Photos will have to come later though as we are having difficulty finding a computer with a working CD drive!

We arrived in Chennai shortly after 10pm on Thursday 7th December. Without any problems getting through immigration, we collected our bags and headed out the doors for our first whiff of the Indian atmosphere. We were pleased to find that the air was not quite as humid and stinky as we were expecting, and we went in search of a taxi to our hotel. This was of course going to be the first haggling experience of the journey, so Lorraine confidently assumed her air of "Indian authority" and quickly proceeded to get the best deal available (so she thinks!) and shortly after we clambered into our taxi headed for a hotel. The first hotel we went to was fully booked, the second wasn't, but upon investigation of the rooms, we beat a hasty retreat back to the taxi. Even in India, there have to be some standards! We finally settled on one further down the road, and the lengthy check-in process became our first introduction to the at-times extraordinarily frustrating Indian bureaucracy! After what seemed like half an hour in the hotel lobby, we finally managed to reach our rooms where we all collapsed gratefully into bed.

The next morning, after a little sleep-in, Astrid and Lorraine were ready to hit the streets (seasoned Indian adventurers that they are)! As the boys were still asleep, we decided to go on a reconnaissance mission to check out good eating places nearby. Having found a restaurant dishing up the local cuisine, we went back for Shanks and Christian, who were by now fully roused. This was to be their first "taste" of India, and we all decided to settle on a firm favourite - masala dosa. I remember getting a masala dosa with Shanks at a restaurant in Perth once - this set us back about $AU25! Here in India, for the authentic version, we paid about 50c! The price of food, and everything else, still amazes us all sometimes. We eat out 3 times a day, and the most we have ever had to pay to feed all four of us is $AU6.00! India is still the place to be for the budget traveller!

Later in the day we checked out a large modern shopping complex called Spencer Plaza, as Astrid was trying to find a camera battery for the digital camera she purchased in Singapore. On the way back to our hotel we looked at another hotel and decided to switch, as the latter one was cheaper and much nicer! On our second day in Chennai we went to George Town, a bazaar area in the older part of Chennai, then T. Nagar - another market area, where we had lots of fun haggling for some nice cool cotton tops. Later in the day it was time to start thinking about organising a car and driver for the remainder of our trip. We decided that it would be a good idea, given our short time here, to hire a car and driver, rather than relying on public transport to get us around. This gives us 100% flexibility with our plans and our timings, and the total cost for a 17-day trip for the four of us came to Rs 25 000 or $AU10.50 each per day!

One thing that has touched all of us is the warmth, friendliness and helpfulness of all the people we meet. Sometimes we may meet with curious glances (especially Lorraine), sometimes with excited shouts of "Hallo" from little children eager to shake the boys' hands, but when the people realise that we are also friendly, keen to eat the local food and observe the local customs, we are treated almost as VIPs and people, especially at restaurants, bend over backwards to ensure that we are being well looked after. We have all decided that we are going to try to fit in as much as possible with the locals - whether this is learning some phrases in the local language, abandoning cutlery and eating with our right hands only, and eating where the locals eat - not the flashier upmarket places which tend all too often to end up becoming clustered with non-Indians!

We will attempt to fill in the trip from Chennai to Trichy in the next post!

Neither here nor there...

OK, so it wasn't the best start to our little adventure...Shanks was working outside until 3am and after coming inside to pack, he only managed to snatch bare minutes of sleep before we left home at 6:30am to go to the airport. I didn't get to bed at all...partly due to over-excitement, part just being so tired that all my attempts at packing were occurring at the pace of a three-toed sloth!

Never mind, we all managed to make it to the airport bright and early (Ted, you would have been proud of us!), and already having checked in online 2 days previously, we were quick to get through all the checkpoints.

Astrid had a VERY pleasant suprise for all of us on the other side of customs...one of her good friends was working at the Singapore Airlines lounge, and managed to get us all in for a free buffet breakfast before boarding! Looking and feeling quite out of place in amongst all the suits and laptops, that didn't stop any of us from having a good feed!

The flight to Singapore was uneventful, we are currently in Changi airport...Astrid is looking for a digital camera, Christian has parked himself at a bookshop, and well, you can tell where we are!

Next post...Chennai...we hope!

Eight days to go...

Well, we can't blame the power for the lack of a post this time...just tiredness and a fast-growing sense of desperation and worry...so much to do, so little time...

I think it will only be when we are three hours into the flight to Singapore that we will slowly start to relax and unwind and really get into holiday mode.

The sight we're looking forward to seeing...leaving Perth behind us...

Well, maybe if you're the one in the window seat that is...

If there is one thing that is going to test marital relations in the next few weeks, it is the matter of WINDOW SEATS. Shanks and I both LOVE getting the window seat. I don't know if in Shanks' case this goes back to his childhood days, but I know that I always used to have to fight over the window seat with my sisters and brother whenever we used to fly overseas.

I think it's OK to steal your sister or brother's window seat...but what about if it's your wife or husband? Are there any window seat rules of etiquette or an international code of conduct to abide by? Is it first in, best dressed, or should we attempt to be civil and take it in turns? If it's the former, do I distract him by asking him if he's got my boarding pass, and then as he diligently checks through his things, quickly run down the walkway and bags the window seat? If he somehow beats me to it, can I wait until he gets up to go to the toilet and then claim that by vacating his seat he has annulled all rights of ownership and jump right in? If we agree to take turns, can I innocently try to arrange all of his turns to be at night or when there's lots of cloud cover? Is it even possible to share at all?

Well, I suppose if it gets too dirty we can always sit separately...