Home Sweet Home

It was over 6 months ago that me and my brother James set off from Ainsdale in England on our journey around the world. We had been planning this trip for well over a year, but the idea had been lodged in our heads for many more. The time had come to take the plunge – we had moved out of our abodes and cleared it with work to come back in 2013 and were the proud possessors of two brand new Berghaus rucksacks, both full to the brim with everything we would need for the next 6 months.

I still think that one of the most amazing experiences was when we stepped out of Grand Central Station in New York City and were confronted with the unimaginably high skyscrapers right outside. Unbelievable. New York itself definitely goes down as one of the most amazing places that we visited and I would go back there in an instant as we certainly didn’t get to see all of it. Come to think of it, most of America was amazing, each city in its own unique way. I, of course, have to thank at this juncture Mr Don McFall of Birmingham, Alabama for being our first couchsurfing host. It was a bit of a leap into the dark to do this and he made it very much worthwhile and certainly an experience we weren’t expecting and will never forget!

My next thanks goes to Susan Lauer for letting us stay with her in Fort Worth. She not only put us up for the night but also took us round both Fort Worth and Dallas and gave us the grand tour. I would also like to mention that we would never have got around all the places in the US without the use of the Greyhound coaches. I would like to thank them for the journeys we went on……but I can’t. There were just too many flaws in the system, and we especially got narked with the full bus from Albuquerque to Las Vegas. But without that we would never have met Kwan in the bus stop (and subsequently got a lift to the LVH hotel) or got to ride in the back of the truck to the local Wendy’s in Flagstaff.

Whilst I am thanking couchsurfing hosts I cannot leave out Coco who was a most gracious host in San Diego. She had some truly fascinating thoughts and opinions on the world and that made our conversations and time with her truly memorable. Along with dancing the night away in Whiskey Girl, natch.

The next stop on our trip was one of my personal favourites…New Zealand. A place that I had always wanted to go to and did not disappoint one bit.  Careering round the north and south island in our Toyota Hi-Lux campervan is undoubtedly a highlight of our trip. A month is a long time to be cooped up in a campervan with just the two of us so it was a welcome break when we left to go to Australia.

I had been looking forward to the hot climate and the sandy beaches (James not so much!) and it was a nice change from the chill of New Zealand. The trip to Fraser Island was fantastic but I think the best bit about Australia was staying with my friends from university, Harry and Liam. They were fantastic hosts also, feeding us and taking us round their adopted country. I do feel the need to apologise for somehow letting their puppy learn how to get into the house by using the cat-flap. Oopsy! Thanks also got to Cass and Ti in Sydney for giving us such a good time in Australias biggest city. They really showed us a good time and what it meant to be a true Aussie, even to the point of having a barbecue out on the balcony with a couple of beers and a drop of goon!

And then it was time for Asia. We had not made as many plans as we had done for the first 3 stops and were going to very much “play it by ear” or “fly by the seat of our pants” as it were. It was a nice gentle welcome to Asia in Singapore and we really enjoyed the place. It meant that when we got through Kuala Lumpur and into Thailand we were already well aware of what travelling round Asia would be like. Thailand was amazing and my trip to Phi Phi Island with Svetlana still holds fantastic memories for me. I also thank the guardian angels (if there are any) that my foot didn’t get horribly infected when I accidentally gashed it open on a gate pin thing in the ground.

Cambodia and Vietnam opened our eyes in so many ways. Not just about the culture and the people, but the history too. Not all memories are happy ones, but they will all stay with us for a lifetime. One of the low points of the trip has to be the two day journey from Hanoi into Hong Kong, one that I really wouldn’t want to repeat at any time in the future. But it was a means to and end and it meant that we could begin our foray into China in great style. Chungking Mansions was a memory in itself and even though the movie that was filmed there was rubbish the whole place was just full of character……and characters.

What we also encountered in China was a dramatic drop in temperature. We fought through it with brave English spirit and came out the other side with a whole new winter wardrobe, amongst other things. One of our fondest memories of China is in Shanghai and the great Tea Scam. They thought that they could scam us……us for crying out loud! The story is in two parts and each one has a beauty of its own. But it taught us a few things and made sure that our eyes were wide open and that our spidey senses would be on high alert for the rest of our trip.

Our trip through Nepal was a great experience, if anything it just taught us to be grateful that we always have power at our fingertips in everyday life – those power-cuts were truly soul-destroying. And that led us in to India. I was prepared for what we would be facing but for James it was his first time. After already getting sick in Pokhara, Nepal, it came for James’s turn to look after me when I got the bug in Jaipur. It was a shame to come down poorly so close to the end, but we had been expecting it, and powered through with proper English grit and determination.

And that leads us to……home! Home, where we could recover from our 6 months round the world. The most amazing experience of our lives and one that leaves us with very happy memories. And they will hopefully keep us going......until the next trip!

Heading Home

And so we had done it! We had made it all the way from London to Mumbai and were to head home to England so long as we made it to the airport on-time.

Ready to go... 

We had pre-booked a taxi to pick us up from the hotel at 10:00am and he was waiting for us outside to our delight. The Mumbai traffic is pretty heavy at any time of day and it took us well over an hour to get to the airport, but we had left plenty of time to get on to the flight so we were happy with the progress we had made.

As I tried to check us in the lady behind the desk acknowledged our details for the flight from Mumbai to London, but she was struggling to see us on the flight from London up to Manchester. Oh dear. Neither James nor I said anything to each other, each of us realising that it would be just our luck that we get a cancellation at the very last hurdle and have to stay a night in London or get a replacement bus service up the M1. Apparently, the flight we were booked on “for some reason wasn’t running” and our stomachs turned as our eyes rolled. Within seconds she added that there was a flight 30 minutes earlier that we would be on, so everything looked like it would be alright in the end.

The flight was about 9 hours and the plane wasn’t even half full. We amused ourselves with the in-flight entertainment and snoozed as and when we pleased. There were mixed emotions up there in the air: happy to be on the way back home to everything we know and love, but also sadness that we would be leaving behind all the adventures and cultures from other countries.

A nice drop of Shiraz on the plane back home

It wasn’t long before we were making the change to get our short flight up to Manchester and edge that one last step nearer to home. A last-minute change of gate almost threw us out of kilter, but once we were through all the security and on the plane it was…well…plain sailing from there on in. The one last potential problem that I could foresee before I could truly relax was that maybe, just maybe, our bags wouldn’t have followed us to the north-west. But they turned the corner on the carousel and we breathed a sigh of relief. We had done it!

This is the end...

Thankfully our mum and dad had agreed to meet us at the airport and it was just great to see them again after all this time away. After hugs all round we jumped in the car and made our way back home.

It still felt very weird; like we had been away for a lifetime, but yet that we hadn’t been away at all. A spot of bubbly and some Pringles later and we were absolutely ready for getting some shut-eye in our all-too-familiar beds. It was about 5 in the morning for our body-clocks so we had no problem at all in drifting off to sleep, reminiscing at all the adventures we had had in the past half a year.

Home sweet home!

The Last Day

And so, on the 19^th December 2012, it was our last full day of travelling before flying back to England and home. One more final push to get everything we needed before jumping on the plane bound for London. A quick breakfast set us up for the day and then we were off to scour the markets for a last few trinkets that were still on our shopping list.

Another hot taxi ride and we were back at the No 2 Market we went to the day before. We knew exactly what we were after and how much we should be looking at to make the deal. We headed upstairs in one of the shops we had visited the day before and the portly gentleman welcomed us back with a smile and a handshake. We set about bargaining with the man and eventually got the price we were looking for, and he even got a small Chinese coin into the bargain to give him good luck. We still had a few Yuan left over from our tour of China and James had discovered that these little beauties could be easily introduced to a deal to lower the asking price, with the seller looking at the shiny little coin in awe. I wish I had whipped out a few Vietnamese Dong, we could have probably got everything half price!

Next up we headed back to the Colaba Market near to the Gateway To India and waded through the tourists looking for a few choice items. We managed to get a pretty much clean sweep of everything we were after, so there was just Fashion Street and the Thieves Market to go. The sun was still pretty hot and giving us one last chance of a tan. Topping out at 30 degrees (according to my laptop gadget) but not being overly uncomfortable means that we have probably acclimatised to the hot weather again, so it looks like all the cold-weather clothing we bought in China will be making an appearance once again.

Colaba Market...again!

With success at Fashion Street we then set our sights on the Thieves Market. It was a fair distance away but as we had time on our hands we decided to walk it and drink up that last few moments of the Mumbai street life.

After the lengthy trek we believed we had found the area where the Thieves Market would be, and after a short sharp trip into a covered market area that smelled like death we asked a young chap nearby where the market was. He pointed to the road across the street and we wandered down it. It wasn’t really what we were wanting. Not at all. If you need parts for your motorbike or such-like then you would be in heaven, but we didn’t really need any of that kind of stuff so we set off in search of a taxi back to the hotel.

Inside another dodgy, dirty, cramped Fiat taxi

It was early enough in the afternoon for us to get back and have a nap. It is another luxury that we will miss when we are back to normality in a few weeks time. And after that it was time to begin the packing of the bag for the final time. Trinkets were safely tucked away inbetween clothes and coats to shield them from the brutes at British Airways baggage handlers. It was the most emotional re-pack that we have done considering that most of the things within the bags have been with us for over 6 months and have become close friends along the way.

Once we had Skyped mum and dad for one last time we headed downstairs to the hotel restaurant that had also become a good friend in our time in Mumbai. Another cracking meal set us up for a nice relaxed evening with a couple of large, celebratory Kingfisher beers and undoubtedly another round of cards.

Nearly There...

Another lazy morning, sir? Why thank you, that will do nicely. James was off down to the leather shop again to pick up his custom-made jacket so that gave me another lazy morning to chill out and relax my way into the day. He didn’t leave til almost 11:00am and it was gone 1:00pm by the time he returned, just as I was about to tuck into mu “lunch” of a slab of chocolate spongecake. I had been happily watching the Arsenal v Reading game on the telly (a game that salvaged only a little bit of pride from a near-appalling game week thanks to Santi Cazorla) but now it was time to leave and get down the markets.

A short taxi ride and we were back in the south of the city, ready to hit the markets again. We got dropped off by the CST train station, which just looks amazing from the outside (not sure what the inside is like!). A short walk down the street led us onto Fashion Street. There were a few too many jeans, pants and shoes on sale for my liking as that just wasn’t what I was after at all. We did manage to pick up a few little things along the way, but not exactly what we went down there for. On the wander down to the other market nearby we took a shortcut through another park with a lot of cricket games going on, with a dash of football thrown in for good measure. The shortcut turned out not to be, so we had to do a 180 and go back out the way we came in, but we had time on our hands so we didn’t mind so much.

Name on a grain of rice, sir?

We found the other market and wandered through the maze of material shops offering us everything from reams of silk to tailor-made suits and shirts. It was a bit of a madhouse in there to be honest and we had numerous people telling us that they had the best shop and we should follow them, but they all turned out to be dead herrings. By this point time was getting away with us and it was hot and musty in there so we made for the exit and jumped in a taxi back to the hotel. As it was rush hour it took a little longer than usual, but we made it back in time for another slap-up meal in the hotel restaurant. 

Market No 2...if you see what I mean

A Stroll In The Park

Our first full day in Mumbai was to be a very relaxed one. Well, for me anyway. James had decided he wanted a custom-made leather jacket that he could get made for pretty cheap, so he had gone off down to one of the nearby leather markets to get measured up. I was gonna use to the time to relax as I realised that when I get back home I won’t have much time to chill out as I will need to get my head around Christmas and sort out somewhere to live in Leeds. So I spent most of the morning tying up a few loose ends and watching a bit of telly, waiting for James to return from the market.

When he did we grabbed a bite to eat and then headed out to try and find yet another market/bazar near to the hotel. We wandered through the local “park” and saw a few kids playing cricket, and you could see the tall new buildings towering over the small houses that is a mark of Mumbai and how on-the-up the place is.

Anyone for cricket?

We found another smaller park down by the sea shore, and yet more kids playing cricket. The view out across the water was amazing and the Mumbai skyline again looked fantastic. You can see the wealth that is present in the city just by looking up above the one and two storey buildings. Yet again the streets were not filled with people badgering us left, right and centre for everything and anything so we had quite a nice little wander along the coast.

Beautiful Mumbai

When we go to the bazar…it wasn’t. Well, it wasn’t quite what we were expecting/hoping. It just seemed like a typical street in any Indian city, selling functional stuff for the locals. With no souvenirs in sight we turned on our heels and headed back the way we came. It had been nice to get out of the hotel and into the 30 degree heat, but maybe the wearing of jeans had been a mistake. And it certainly didn’t feel that hot either, which means that the shock of getting back to England will be pretty bad. We shall just have to remember Beijing and prepare ourselves for the cold weather again.

Mumbai Magic

The thin red curtain to my bedroom was flung open by one of the train porters at half 7. I assumed that we were nearing our destination. Either that or I had been snoring too loud. But no. it seemed like everyone else was also being woken in readiness for the terminal station. We collected our things and jumped off the train that had unfortunately got in on-time. It meant that we had an early morning dash to the hotel and a potential few-hour wait before we could check-in, but we had little else to do so we set off for the taxi rank.

The bloke who got was an absolute idiot. He couldn’t find the hotel but that might be because the directions from Booking.com weren’t great either. But when we did eventually get there we were quite pleased. It was way out in the sticks and away from all the touristy areas, but the astronomical prices they can charge in Mumbai meant that we had struggled to find anywhere good near the south, where all the good stuff is. We took a seat while they made up the room and thankfully we were in there by about 9:00am.

James (pretend) reading the Indian Times

After a snooze and a quick scout of the area we jumped in a taxi and headed south to see the Gateway to India. We knew we were close when we spotted a few more Westerners hanging around the place, and then it was confirmed by the presence of a Pizza Express. Sure enough, a little further down the road, there it was. And what a sight it is. Standing proudly at the harbour front it is similar to the India Gate in Delhi but with more people around it as there is not so much space to mingle through the crowds. Almost opposite the Gateway is the Taj Hotel, which was the subject of the terrorist attack a few years ago. We didn’t even want to think about how much it would cost to stay there considering the price we were paying to be out in the sticks!

Gateway To India

Our next port of call was one of the many market streets nearby, so we followed the map and found it straight off. It wasn’t the most amazing street market that we have been to in our travels, but we managed to pick up a few items after some hard-bartering. Time was getting away from us so at that point we found another cab and bombed it back to the hotel. It isn’t too far to go from the hotel into the south and the view along the way is great. The streets seem so much calmer than Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, with a hefty dose of English colonial buildings along the way. I was already warming to Mumbai, and not just because the temperature was topping out at 30 degrees!

Some nice building in Mumbai...

To keep it simple (and clean!) we snuck down to the hotel restaurant for dinner and were surprised to find that it was an oriental restaurant. James still managed to get a curry though, and I went for the sizzling Japanese noodles, which were both pretty top-notch. Yes they were probably more expensive than we could have got somewhere else but it meant that we could get back to the room and see the end of the Spurs v Swansea match. And anyway, it’s our last few days and we have penny-pinched our way round the world so a couple of nice meals in the hotel restaurant has been well-earned I think!

Last Stop...Mumbai

And so it was time to leave Jaipur behind and get our final train towards Mumbai. Mumbai would be our last stop before going home and we were having very mixed emotions about the final day approaching. I had got a much stronger urge to go home during my “down time” in Jaipur, but now I was back to my usual self I felt that one last push for Mumbai was certainly in order.

Due to the taxi driver not turning up when we arrived in Jaipur the hotel owner arranged for his driver to drop us off at the train station as a mark of good faith. That was unexpected but was very gratefully received. At the station we found our platform and waited. We had the usual passers-by glaring at us in wonderment (more so for James than for me) and then we parked our bags near the end of the platform where our carriage was due to arrive. We needed to feed ourselves on the trip as it was only just gone noon and the jam/cheese sandwich we had got from the hotel wouldn’t go far. So we purchased a wide variety of crisps, snacks and cakes that would hopeful do us for lunch, dinner and breakfast the next day. This travelling lark, it really doesn’t do good for your diet.

Waiting for the last train...

With our names on the sheet of paper plastered to the side of the train we found our seat numbers and climbed aboard. After we had settled in to our two-up two-down booth we were asked if we wouldn’t mind switching seats so a family could sit together. We did so (after my initial protestations of “I can’t be bothered”) and if anything we got better seats/beds as they were along the side of the aisle and we got a curtain for each bed which gave us some privacy at least. We managed to pass the time with a few games of cards and a couple of movies before it was time to turn in for the night. It wasn’t the best of beds bearing in mind that I had all my luggage on the bed with me and had people walking past at all hours of the night, especially the chap selling chai tea, very loudly seemingly every 20 minutes.

My bed for the night...