Tuesday, October 25, 2011

I am sick of big feet.

The difficulty in living in a small town/city/island is that when there are a lot of people with big feet you tend to get trodden on a lot.

Jersey is that kind of place. I had completely forgotten what it is like to live here until this weekend. Whatever you do, or say someone will hear you, someone will see you or know who your out with or be cousins with who your out with, or be their cousins babysitter or some crap. Literally take me somewhere where I know no one, where everyone has tiny feet that you can't easily stand on. Good Lord.

It's like some kind of incestuous pit where even if you try at great lengths to avoid anyone who you know, or your mate knows, or your sisters mate knows, you WILL get pissed off and you WILL piss people off. Whatever you do. Always.

I hate that circles have to mix. I hate that awkward feeling you get when you don't want to see that person, you feel weird about your mates hanging with them, and you generally want them to just disappear from the planet yet they continue to REMAIN. And I hate that feeling you get when YOU are the one hanging out with the people who are linked to your mates, and it shouldn't matter, but it does, and your just mates, but it's still SHIT. I wonder if you can tell I am highly irate?

I cannot honestly believe that I have to stay in this place for another two years. I don't actually feel as though I can do it. I've done it for a couple of months and I am about to kill someone. Maybe it will be different when my friends come home. If they come home. They bloody better come home.

I literally feel like sitting in my room, lying in my bed for the next few weeks. Not seeing anyone, not going out just sitting. And I am not even depressed, it just saves me from foot pain.

I can't even explain how happy I am that I am going to Brighton next weekend to see Bells, Jade and Gina. Even those three days away will help, I know it. Ease this tension, and hopefully I can come back totally fine, and calm and able to cope again. Pleeeeeease. Otherwise, Good Lord.... I have absolutely no idea how I am going to do this????

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Joie de vivre

After getting severly depressed and annoyed that I was home and not leaving anytime soon, I decided I HAD to leave Jersey for at least a few days otherwise my brain may, in fact, explode. So, I booked VEEEERRRRYYY expensive last minute flights to London and trained up to Reading to see Lea Lea Bickersnipe. Whenever she is home we always get so close, and then when she goes to uni we dont really talk for months (not purposly its just harder) and this year I found it even more difficult when she left. This girl is probably the best person I have ever met. Ever. Literally. I think she is the only person who can get every thing out of me, and who I am completely honest with and who most importantly, doesn't judge anything. Just offers advice, sometimes just offers a hug. And knows which one to give at the right time..

Anyway, enough of the Leah-Love!!


I went to see her the other weekend, which was amasing. She is in Reading uni, seems like a really nice area. She has this immense house which has like 10 bedrooms.... so so great. She complains that it is minging and dirty but I swear she forgets how great it is to live AWAY from parents. I would happily live in a hole in the ground if it meant I could live with my friends. Although to be fair my family are fantastic, its just difficult having people to answer to and explain to and that you have to watch what you say around.... but thats what comes with having younger siblings.

Anyway, so I have this new job, I am working in PR which essentially means looking after companies, re-branding, organizing events and raising awareness of them. It has quite a lot of writing and ideas work, which are fantastic but most of the writing is press releases which means it is very formal (a way which i am sooooo not used to writing in) and also at the moment, because I am starting at the bottom, I am doing a lot of very admin-heavy work. It is totally fine at the moment, but soon I am going to push to be given a little more writing work. If you don't ask you dont get!

Other than that I am planning on auditioning for NYT in February which is very exciting!! I thought I may as well give it a try- see if I can get anywhere with acting because if don't ever try I will always wonder.... so anyway my sister is going to help me with that.

I've decided that because I am staying here i need to do things. Which obviously never ever happens, but I am going to try make some things happen next year, so that I dont turn into a middle agd working woman and lose my 'vi de jour' or whatever.

I need to learn French.
I need to audition for NYT.
I need to learn a new skill (there are lots of things here, jewelry making, or massage, there is even some hippy chakra courses)
I also need to try to learn about man things incase said man is not about, so that I can do things such as fix a car/sort out a fuse box. (I know, it is a very big expectation to essentially learn general mechanics but i need to learn this stuff as presently i dont even know how to open my bonnet!!)

So anyway, lovely Highlands college shall assist me with my new learning. Oh and I am doing uberedge.com again. The Just Dance one. Nikki is actually fantastic I think I have a little girl crush on her.

By the way, how boring has my life got? Wow the last posts were much more dramatic then this 'what i will do with my life now' post. Hmmmm. If I wasn't as sensible, I would totally just go away again, but to be fair I am being offered a qualification and experience. It is fantastic. I can't complain at all. So i shouldn't, and I should get on with it, enjoy it as much as possible, and then travel/uni afterward.

After all, two years goes by pretty quickly nowadays.

Back Home

So, I never heard about what happened to that girl. To be fair, I don't think that it was one of her friends top priorities to tell me/michael how she was. It is crazy the things that can happen, and how quickly it can all happen too.

So, now it is October- as IF I haven't written on this for so long! So after Thailand we went to Indonesia - me and Niema traveled from Medan to Sumatra and had the mot unbelievable time.... we trekked through the jungle, saw wild orangutans and their babies, slept under the stars and essentially walked for 7 hours a day. It was hard. But it was absolutely fantastic.

We didn't spend much, and stayed in unreal accommodation in Lake Toba- the locals were so so so friendly and we had a great time- we were kind of sad that we were being rushed so much because we had to meet Jo in Bali as she was having a bit of a hard time. Anyway, by this point I started to realize that I had to go home - I had three hundred pounds in my bank and to get a flight home it was around 200. Bad times.

As anyone from my hometown will know, I have been writing for Gallery magazine so all of my travel stories are in there (which makes me super lazy and not bothered to write about it on here as much which is kind of bad). Anyway, I will link my articles when they are all up on the Gallery site. If your interested you can just google 'Gallery Magazine Jersey' and it will be the first search, you can view 'online edition' and then just look at the contents page.... stressy jessy articles in the travel section are all mine!

Anywho, about being home.....

Well, I have to say it is really strange. I have a job now, a proper job.... all a bit weird. I even have a business card! Doooff!! So looks like this is me for the next 2 years or so.... strange feeling knowing I am glued here now. But i guess it means, if i save properly, then I can go away for ages, or go to Uni or whatever.

Jo is in Australia, and Niema is back here saving to go to India for a few months (Fiji plans have been scrapped for now). Its just weird to think I wont be going anywhere for a while. Well, I guess I will be going to uni's - as in trips to see friends. Obv that isn't really abroad but still its nice to get out of TINY TINY Jersey, and see some faces you don't know.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

I havent written on here forever

So I havent written a blog forever, but to update you quickly we have travelled Cambodi, Laos and Vietnam and are now back in Thailand doing our scuba diving. We have bumped into Gina and now have this amasing group of us which is going to be really sad to leave as were all going our sepeerate ways in just as few days.

But anyway, i decided to write on this mainly because of the full moon party. So this time we were going with our cambodian crew, plus gina charlie and matt.... we had a really really good group of us and were all dead close by this point so we had an amasing night with the only injury by 4am being Michael standing on a smashed glass bottle and needing a few stitches. So we were doing pretty well, me and michael went for a walk and sat down at the bottom of one of the bars whilst we decided where we were gunna go to next, i dont know why i looked up, but i did. There was a bar above us, some 20-25feet high, and i just saw this girl topple over the barrier, hit her head and land about a metre from us, in a rolly polly possition on her neck. her legs were over her head and we heard the crack. I completely froze, i couldnt moove. we were the only people close to her, the only people sober enough to know that she had even fallen.... anyway so michael ran over and flipped her off of her neck to open her airway, her arm was completely fucked so it just bent the wrong way and wouldnt go into place. he checked her pulse, and breathing and i remember yelliung at him 'is she dead?' then he just looked at me. he walked back towards me and told me not to touch her.... her friends all started running over, they had finally noticed and all of a sudden she took in a breath, still unresponsive and started hyperventilating.... then the ambulance came and took her away.... wqe had the email address for her friends because i was the only witness, and michael had been the first person to move her.... we still havent heard back, but it is an image i cant get out of my head and it just made me realise how vunerable we are, and how just a tiny accident can turn into something as serious as what we saw....

I hope to god that she is alive and that she can recover, but from a fall so high and onto her neck it seems impossible. All i know is that it was the scareyest thing i have ever seen and i cant get that image of her limp body from my head, so i had to write about it. I hope never to see anything like that again. But I thank God it wasnt any of us who fell.... i dont know how i would have dealt with it if it were one of my friends who fell.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Chang Mai

as soon as we got to chang mai we organised a jungle tour which basically meant that we'd be going to see a few different tribes, staying overnight with one tribe and doing elephant trekking, bamboo rafting and white water rafting as well as a massive trek through the jungle. it was amazing, and we really enjoyed ourselves but for example when we went to the long neck villiage, we didnt stay for long. we got out of the car and it was as though the people had just been put there for our amusment, like a human zoo. they didnt look happy and although of course we wanted to ask them questions about the rings they wear on their necks, and if they hurt, take photos and look at them.... it felt wrong. it felt really wrong. it wasnt natural, it was made for tourists and even though we didnt like it, we were supporting it by even being on that trip, by paying the money to go and see those tribes.
it really sucked, we felt awful and ended up going and sitting in the car because it just felt so so wrong. it sucks when things are like that. because, of course you want to come to thailand, of course you want to see the tribes, of course you want to ride an elephant..... but what you dont realise is by doing those things, and paying for those things you are supporting the treatment (which is sometimes terrible) of the people involved. I dont know. it seems like in thailand tribes, and elephant mahouts etc dont really exsist any more, so you pay money for a kind of fake version. in india it is just so different, if you go to see a tribe you really really do see a tribe..... i guess india is no way near as touristy as here though. and also india is the land of culture, seriously i dont think were going to get anything nearly as good as the traditions and culture we saw there....

nevertheless the trip we went on WAS fantastic, we stayed overnight in the jungle, it wasnt with a 'tribe' so much as it was with our thai tour guides and 20 other tourists.... still that was really fun, we stayed in bamboo dorms and despite me being a little groped by someones drunken hands in the night (and staying up most of the night terrified) it was a good experience. we ate amasing local food, and took freezing ice cold commmunal showers, tried to learn french as we were the only english ones in the group, and nearly died on the 2 and a half hour uphil trek to the accomidation..... it was really good. but it was not real.... i dont really know how to explain it.... it was something that wouldnt happen normally, but had been created for tourists. kind of like a rustic thai version of disneyland i guess!!


on the first night we got to chang mai we went to the night market, ate AMAZING street food and bought a few pressies for home for pretty cheap, the atmosphere at the night market was so much more cultural than any part of thailand we have been to, but was still touristy. see the thing we have found with thailand is that yes, some parts are beautiful but you have to really hunt to get to them. The majority of thailand is so touristy that its been kind of ruined. infact its been really ruined. but dont get me wrong, we had a great time here, weve seen and done some great things, but if its culture your looking for, you wont find it here. sooooo were pretty excited to get out, as you can imagine... thailand also eats your money big time so were hoping to save a bit by moving to vietnam.

this sounds like such a negative post, but its not!!! hahah thailand has been great its just i guess for us our trip is mainly about culture, so it wasnt our favorite place to far. for some people it might be their favorite place in the world i guess, especially if you find somewhere untouched, then of course it is stunning, like the islands we saw on the boat trip (the ones where no one lives).

xxxx anyways if anybody reads this in time, im in bangkok ALL day tomorrow so ill be on skyypppeee!! xx

Thursday, March 3, 2011

'A Paradise Lost' dammmm straight

So, mum and dad now know about the tattoo..... urm i guess its fair to say that they weren't overwhelmingly happy about it, but luckily for me ive been blessed with parents who support me in all the crazy things i do soooooo i think i can go home without being shot now :)

well, what have we been up to?

Well, we arrived in Koh Tao, met our old friend Jo who is now a QUALIFIED DIVER ahhh yeahhhh she even broke out her card and was trying to use it as ID. Brilliant. We stayed in Koh Tao for a few days, had a night out (a crazy crazy night out may i just add) which ended in us all being horribly hungover but finding fluffy dogs dressed in human clothes, it was totally hilarious.... we also found a kebab man called sexy, of course we photographed everything and soon remebered that the night before, we had been barred from seven eleven (the spa shop) the night before, for chasing around a man and whipping him with a belt.... not good.

Anyway, we left Koh Tao and went to Koh Phi Phi where we had a very funny very random night out when we bumped into Rhian and Lynsey from Jersey! we were planning on havnig a 'quiet night in' but of course that did'nt happen, and we ended up totally wasted on buckets of lord knows what, finding illuminous paint and painting everything in sight, including a urinal with our postcodes...... wow.

The next day (we had about 2 hours sleep) we boarded a boat as we had booked a full day around the islands, snorkelling and kayaking all day.... at first this seemed hilarious and we stumbled from our room, all of us laughing about nothing, jo with one shoe and niema with a moustache still drawn on her face. We got on the boat and all promptly passed out until we arrived at our first destination and got into the crystal clear water. It was absaloutly stunning. Once in the water i forgot about everything else and just felt like part of the ocean. I dont really like staying on the surface so i spent most of my time being a dolphin- taking deep breaths and swimming as deep as i could amoungst the coral and fish before i had to resurface for some more H20. The whole day was amasing, and each time i found i was the last to be called from the water- i just didnt want to get out. Id fallen in love with the sea all over again. Unfortuantly for me i have dodgey ears which dont let me equalise which seriously inhibbits the things i can do and how far i can dive down (and that i cant go scuba) BUT when i tried really hard, i managed to equalise. it was only once, and i couldnt do it again, BUT i did it once, which gave me a little hope that maybe someday ill be able to go scuba!

We saw so many beautiful fish, and on the last dive we found black tip sharks! They were not huge, but they were sharks non the less, which was CRAZY as i am petrified since watching jaws. That film seriously has ruined my life, but once i was down there with the fish and in the coral i just forgot about my fear (of deep water and sharks) and instead felt kind of like part of it all? Cliche cliche i know but thats how it was so whatever!

Now, im having a minor money freak out as thailand is robbing us for all were worth and money here doesnt last five minuites. So, were travelling back to Bangkok and then to Chang Mai (north thailand where the long necks are --- you know the ones with the gold bangles on their necks?) to do some elephant trekking and white water rafting etc and then were getting the heeelllll outta here. To be honest what ive seen of thailand has been sometimes beautiful but mainly tacky, ruined, overrun and touristy..... we havent been that impressed. The most beautiful things ive seen were on that boat tour which took us around all the islands and diving spots.... but we went to maya bay, where the beach was filmed, and we didnt even want to take a photo of it. It was so ruined, overrun with boats and shedloads of people it just looked rubbish! Of course on the boat we saw some islands which were absaloutly breathtaking, but the actual islands themselves are just like any other hot holiday.... its like going to malia or magaluf..... maybe not as bad actually but there is that kind of crowd around.... I guess maybe my opinion of thailand may be better when we go north, dont get me wrong we have seem some BEAUTIFUL islands, reefs, and fish and stuff but to see that you have to get the hell away from the people. We were all talking about it and i bet one day all of thailand was like that, stunning, untouched. But it is getting more and more developed, more and more western and it is ruining it..... you do feel like your just zombied around, following everybody else on their path through thailand..... I guess it depends what you want really. I could of stayed in Phi Phi for longer, but i would of had to get a job.... and i wouldnt be seeing culture, id be staying there to get drunk and meet brits..... i dunno i guess its ok for a little while but i couldnt do that for a long time, its not really what i want out of this trip i guess.

I want to do things ive never done before, and see amasing things, and remember them mainly! I didnt come half way around the world to get wasted every night... of course a few drinks is ace, and it has to be done, but not every single night. I am sure for some people, thailand would be paradise. I found a few of the islands i would call paradise, but non that werent in the process of being built on, built up or ruined in some way.....its a shame but its all because of money. And i get that but its also a shame.

Anyway, rant over!! Up north is meant to be 'real thailand' so I shall tell you a bit more about it when I go up there! Verrrryyy excited! Have had so much fun in thailand so far, but it really is taking its tole on my bank account! So were gunna do the north as quick as possible, get the hell out and get a job for a little while!!

Right, look for gallery, sri lanka edition is in now!!

Adios x

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Saturday, February 26, 2011

SAWAAADEEEEKKAAAAAHHHH

Ive not written for agus, but we are now in Thailand!

You may already have seen from my photos that we have already conquered Bangkok, made friends with the street dancers, eaten AMAZING street food (mainly pad thai), got a little bit drunk at the top of a very posh skyscraper where i had to exchange my flops for the clogs ofd shame as flops are not in the dress code, and had a lavish hungover spa day which cost us the grand total of 6quid for a full day! Amaaaaazing. After Bangkok we booked a boat to Koh Samui but after listening to a few peoples bad reports (that it was like magaluf only worse) we decided we'd just follow the crowd and go to Koh Phangang for the massivly famous full moon party (basically around 40 thousand europeans dressed in neon and body paint and bikinis on a beach dancing and jumping skipping rope thats been set on fire and drinking murshroom shakes).

We got on the bus and were all a little apprehensive cus it really didnt look like our cup of tea, hundreds of chavvy brits piling into coaches... reminded me far too much of Malia and i had a tiny freak out. But then when we got there we managed to find accomidation on a stunning, white sand blue sea beach which had only 5 other people on it when we arrived. Our accomidation was a lovely little bungalow equipped with 3 hamocks for out door lounging ! (look at the pics, there ace). We met this group of guys from cornwall who at first were very quiet but we knew that they were all pure gentlemen so we had tea with each other a few times, and after spending the full moon party with them we ended up all getting on like a house on fire. These guys are nuts, doing mock takes of peter andre's video 'mysterious girl' in broad daylight in the sea, harmonising Blue's famous 'im sorry' at the tops of their voices and dancing around with their shorts rolled up into speedo size pants, they had no shame. On our last night together we slept on the beach (cus theyd been kicked out of their bungalow) and we all just spend the whole night in stitches..... a really nice group who we ended up inviting back home to see our beautiful jersey!

We have just parted ways, Jo went ahead to Koh Tao (a diving island, normally known as 'turtle island') and me and niema followed her after each getting a sneaky tattoo with Bamboo stick. This was the most pain i have ever experienced, and as mine was 7 hours long STRAIGHT it was pretty excruciating. Im sorry mum and dad if your reading this and i havent told you yet, but I will explain in a few days im just plucking up the courage!! I know that you guys wont appreciate it but i love it to bits. The majority of my back is now covered with a millenium tree, the insides are follow and filled with detailed sketch like drawings of flowers, naked silouetted women, birds and waves. At the end of each branch is a poppy flower.... this tatoo goes around my others and links them in to look like the same thing. Mum and dad, your gunna hate it, i know.... so im sorry !!!

Anyway, after the tattoo ordeal we re met up with Jo in Koh Tao and are just spending a few days letting it heal, snorkelling and taking it easy before going to Phi Phi and then to the North of Thailand. The plan is now to get out of Thailand as soon as possible because of money- we are all running pretty low and need to padlock our wallets away for a little while.

We went out last night here and all had a bit of a mental one, few arguments and tears but it was all just down to the alcohol.... typical!
But now all is well, everything is ok, and everyone is recovering. A snorkelling and exploring day tomorrow and then in a few days off to pHI pHi, crabbe, and then chang mai and then to cambodia..... cannot wait!!!
everything is going ace and were all having loads of fun so all we need to do is think of money a little more!!

So i shall inform of our next venture shortly! and wait for those tattoo pics, sorry again mum and dad xxxxxx love you!!!!

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Sri Lanka the great !!!

So following my not so happy post about how I was so unimpressed with Sri Lanka wah wah wah, we have moved inland! To the beautiful, stunning, amazing, gorgeous, green hill country. Now i understand why people like sri lanka. It is breathtaking up here.

We got to Ella about 4 days ago (clothes are still not dry) so have been wearing leggins, and raincoats of our own and have managed to borrow sweatshirts and long tshirts from Dad (our guesthouse owner) for the last week. Sweeeet!! So, if you look through my photos you can see the beautiful attire, and notice the rugby style sri lankan t shirts and dads grey jumper that i am bed? stunner.

Yesterday we met this family who were on holiday (hello Claire if you are reading this) who were nuts, the Mum is stunning, looks about 20something and she is awesome fun, seriously we could have talked to her for hours, it was her husbands birthday and they invited us on a Trek up Ella Rock (2 hours up, 2 hours down a mountain). Now we met this couple and their friends who they were away with by claire running around our table at the resteraunt screaming 'LEEEEEECCHHH LEEEECCCHHHH GERRIIITTT OFFFF!!!!' bare in mind i had never even SEEN a leech up until this point, but i was so worried about this poor lady that i started grabbing the leeches on her leg and instructed 'GIVE ME YOUR LEG' and pulled each one off without even mildy squirming. I was actually very proud of myself. Anyways, turns out this couple know Vic and Kim (from Jtown) who own Reefs diving school in thailant! The world is such a small place !! These guys were ace, i just wanted to mention them and say thanks to Chris for birthday arraks, and thanks to Claire for all the info on thailand and your interest and genuine care about the orphanage and what you could do to help :)

ANYWAYS, so we climbed this mountain, and you can see photos from the top. So this took us 5 hours. We are doing adams peak tomorrow, which you have to start at 2 in the morning (were starting at one due to fear of heart attack/astma attack/sprained ankles/pitstops) and you arrive up the 3000 steps at around 6 in the morning, and then trek back DOWN yes DOWN the 3000 stairs, with shaking legs and soaking with sweat clothes. Sounds fun right, ah yeah. The reason were doing it is its ment to be this beautiful pilgrimage and if the weather is right then you will see the most incredible sunrise to go with it. This would be ace, but the weather here atm is so dodgy we may well get to the top, and see nothing but cloud. We will have to wait until the day.

So, as you can tell i am a lot happier now! The hill country is really really beautiful and we have done lots of walking and crazy train adventures. Today we spent 6 hours on a train through the most incredible scenery, and the train was stunning in itself, 50year old and beautiful. We bought third class (dirt cheap) tickets, and the train master liked us especially after niema had given him a cigarette, so he upgraded us to first which was this huge empty room with leather comfy seats and french style windows at the very back of the train, so you get the best view EVER. it was ace.

We also tryed the swaddywas today: a battered concuction of fully skinned and head included prawn, chilis, cheese, sweetcorn, batter and LOTS of pepper.... surprisingly nice actually despite them looking like the food of the dead. I think jo actually said 'guys i dont know if we should eat these, we might die'.

Everyone we meet wants to invite us to their home to meet their family and for us to have dinner and stay with them, they are all so friendly. But it is really difficult for us to do that because we are three girls, so we always have to be sceptical of situations. Sometimes you think your safe and your really not, so you have to be careful and take no risks. Its annoying because if we were travelling with a guy id feel a lot more comfortable to do those things, but we have heard a few horror stories from travellers.....

Last week we met a lady who's friend had just left sri lanka. She had befriended this local guy who was her tuk tuk driver, and guide for a week. She was travelling alone and he had told her of this party that was going on the beach, when she got down there there was no party. The woman was gang raped by the man she thought was her friend, and 5 of his mates. The thing is that you never think anything like that will ever happen to you, and hopefully it wont. But you just have to be so so careful, and avoid the risk.

Jo has managed to be a complete retard the last few days, and has not only forgotton the security code on her bank card (she scratched the three digs on the back out so that noone could rob her money if they got her card, problem is she cant even use it now to book flights cus she doesnt even know the numbers) and she also puk'ed her phone last night, and of course has that number written no where either. Its pretty funny because at the moment she is just laughing about how much of a retard she has been, but hopefully her bank will give her the number otherwise shes a bit screwed!!

Anyways, gtg get some food and rest, were getting the train at 6.00am tomorrow!!! rouuuggghhh one xxx

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Our cosy little cave

So i figure that i should explain a little further what our house looks like at the moment. Basically the going rate for rooms is 1500 ruppees, and we got this room for 800ruppees between three of us, which means 270ruppees each a night- this is around one pound. So what does it look like?

Well at first glance the house looked fine, bright paint on the walls, a mozzy net hanging over the tiny bed (we asked for a matress for the floor) and there were covers on the bed. yes yes yes we thought, very very good deal.

Well, firstly we have some kind of crab/spider mutant in our bathroom, he is called henry. Henry also had a baby who was unfortunatly killed last night in our drunken mess, Jo decided to rid us of Henrys baby (he only had 2 legs left after a big fight with another spid). Also, our room has a bit which lets ALL THE WORLDS mosquitoes in, and all our noise out! Our flush broke on the first day so we basically had to go ontop of someone elses shit if we wanted to use the bathroom. Then we wanted a shower, which we did until we realised that oh the drain doesnt work and the water is now spilling into our room where all of our clothes and worldly possesions are.

So, shortened version is our room smells like hair removal cream (courtesy of me and niema and our now smooth legs), dampness (the carpet got wet in the shower flood) and basic shit as our toilet didnt flush.

Thank God this morning the toilet flush breaker (niema) took one for the team and took on responsibility for her actions by fishing out all extra toilet paper and then manually fixing the flush like a good good girl. So now our flush works. We got dad to get rid of henry, so now were (hopefully) spidless. And were just doing rock paper scissors for the floor bed, because tbh its prime animal spot really.

To make matters worse though, we want to move on tomorrow when we are no longer hungover, and so we washed all of our stinky clothes on the first day we got here. Then it rained continusouly for the next 3 days, so now our clothes are wet, cant dry, and smell even worse than when we first washed them. It is a total pain now because if we want to move on (which we do, tomorrow) then our whole rucksack will be stinky, wet, and heavy as hell cus the clothes are wet.

Beautiful beautiful sri lanka.....

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Sri Lanka, Hellloooooo

So firstly

1. I am now in sri lanka

and
2. Gallery article has been published!! whoopppp. Beni's illustration looks amazing, and the whole thing actually came together pretty well considering!

So.... Sri lanka is pretty similar to India really. To be brutally honest at the moment im not really enjoying sri lanka, i just want to leave. Its not very expensive but its not cheap as india. There are plenty of beaches but the weather is AWFUL, raining all day everyday, which gets you really down. Originally we thought it would be pretty easy to travel around but apparently there are a lot of places you can only reach by bus which makes our lives a little harder, as there isnt so many English speakers in less touristy areas so were basically stranded trying to find wherever the hell the landmark is that we wanted to see.

Yesterday we spent A WHOLE DAY travelling to go and see a raging blow hole. As in when the wave blows out of a hole in the rocks....yes yes yes it was really really unfascinating. Infact a total waste of 200 ruppees, and the tuk tuk ride. Wow i sound like im in a horrendous mood which perhaps could be half because i am very hungover today..... see yesterday was the publishing date for gallery and i went on the website all excited to check what my article looked like....only to find that infact it was a different writer who had a spot, not me. So i proceeded to shout and cry a bit and then got very very drunk. It was only this morning that i got a message from my dad telling me he had seen the article and it looked 'fantastic'. Well, it seems i must of been looking at the wrong month....

Anyways, sri lanka is very much like india except the women dress more western, with tshirts and long skirts. The men still wear the traditional indian sarong-style skirt and just a shirt or no shirt, whatever they feel like really. There are hardly any women in sair's and hardly any with decoration on their heads, infact i dont even think ive seen one woman with a nose ring or a red dot on her hairline to show marriage or forhead to show devotion to a certain God. The women dont wear an excess of jewelry like they did in india, to be honest, they are just a little bit more boring to look at really.

Maybe its because i love India, and it is a place i am sure i will return to a lot in my life.... its so so beautiful i cant even explain. Maybe thats why i am so unimpressed with sri lanka. Maybe i have to give it a few more days, i mean weve not even been here for a week yet.

One funny thing in this weather is that lots of the locals own pushbikes, and that is their main way of transport.... so in the rain you will generally see the husband sat on the seat, peddling, whilst his wife is lying across the bar at the front like a baby, holding an umbrella over both of their heads to try to shelter them from the weather. It is so so funny to see, and i think they know it too because normally they are giggling when they go past. Ive got to get a photo to show you, really its something special.

Weve taken to calling every man over the age of 40 'dad' and every woman over 40 'mum'. This helps us a lot as then the people tend to care about us more (its like an endearment term for them) and also its fucking hilarious for us because we just keep calling these random men dad and they dont even notice. Highly amusing for us. 'Dad, the zip in your tuk tuk doesnt work. Im getting rained on. Daaaaaddd can you help me' .....thats what niema came out with yesterday....it was beautiful.

Whoever said to me 'yes yes yes you will have no problem getting waxed in India, the women get rid of all of their hair on their bodies.' was HORREDNDOUSLY WRONG. I have experienced the most TRAUMATIC waxes of my life whilst in india, one lady who proceeded to consecutavly burn Jo, Me and Niema with her stupid hot wax in the space of half an hour, who also turned out to be the worlds WORST waxer. They cannot wax in india. At all. Seriously they cant do it. So weve had to resort to veet which is such a shame because the stuff smells like shit and our cheap little shit hole of a room doesnt have a drain that works.... so we all stink of hair removal cream.Its not nice but its better than risking the 3rd degree burns we suffered at the hands of the last waxer.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Leaving Kerala

So, i think i spoke briefly about some travellers we met at the Tree House who told us about the riot and deaths at the temple festival? Well anyway, we bumped into these three new yorkers in Fort Kochi who were pretty much wanting to do the same path as us, so we decided that 6 is better than three and we travelled for around a week together.

These guys were NUTS. I have never really hung around with anyone from the US so i guess maybe im just not used to americans. Not used to random bouts of singing, seronading, dancing when sober or inparticular rap. But after a week with these guys i got pretty dam used to it and even starting using words like 'Jazzercise'. Ridic, i know.

But despite these New Yorkers being pretty dam full on, mainly making homosexual jokes 24/7, and rapping at random points of the day then high fiveing or knuckle knocking to show their appreciation of one another, they were bucket loads of fun.

We arrived in Allappe (where the famous backwaters are) and niema pulled out the card of a guest house that we were passed on by some lovely travellers(thank you to our good friends beni, jod and brett) with the name 'BIJOU' at the top. I literally had this card in my hand, fresh off the bus and was about to ask how to get there when a gang of indian guys started laughing and then all pointed to their left, where a man stepped forwards and said in this booming voice 'I AM BIJOU'. Coincidentally he was just lingering around the bus, and was just as confused as us about why he was there, and how we already had his card when we had only just arrived. Anyways, we went with this guy and he takes us to a MANSION house which he says we can just decide what we pay. We chose a pound a night, and he is like 'yes yes yes, very good'.... we were pretty shocked, it was lush!
So had a house to ourselves for like 4 days which was amazing!

Then we decided to go on the backwaters, which for me was the most HORRIFIC day of my life. I hated it. I didnt hate it infact, I was just so horrendously swamp sick that i had to put all my concentration on NOT boffing on one of the new yorkers, that i saw pretty much nothing, and moaned pretty much all day. it wasnt so fun for me.

We had this INCREDIBLE guide though, who hated me because i was swamp sick and didnt eat very much so he kept calling me his 'bad daughter'. i tried to save myself from his wrath by pretending i was pregnant, and thats why i felt sick, thinking that he may understand this but instead he just laughed and said 'you no look like this if you pregnant. you look like wrinkles if you pregnant' which i thought was quite funny so i laughed for a long time which made him a bit happier with me.
Anyway, our guide told him to call us 'Dad' which firstly was hilarious, and secondly he spent the majority of the day singing shakiras world cup song 'waka waka' and doing some kind of chemical brothers esque salom dance!! we have videos so when theyre up you can all laugh at him- crazy, crazy guy.

After allappe we travelled to varkala, a beach which reminded me a lot of home. There was very little to do in varkala apart from eat and drink so we had a few days there including my birthday, which was a fucking FANTASTIC night including a massage which the girls bought me... i was slightly terrified when the woman told me to take off my top and then started massaging my boobs.... stiffling laughter throughout i was! ahaha

Weve been in Sri lanka for a day now, spent it at hikaduwa beach but were all feeling like its time to go inland for a while despite the ridiculous heat. Were planning on going to see the elephant orphanage and maybe work there for a few days, and tomorrow were going to a English convention, mainly for me which also has wine tasting, mainly for jo and niem! hahah so its all good!

Were still having to get used to the currency though because we still work in ruppees but the exchange rate is different, so your really getting twice as much for your money despite things seeming expensive.

So, basically sri lanka here we come! It seems easy enough to travel around here, so much smaller than india so trains are cheap and only last a few hours rather than the ridic 16 hour one we got skanked on!

Right, well thats the update! Ive put up photos of my horrific bum accident for you all to laugh over so hope you enjoy them!!!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

It is a miracle!

So, my bum has healed! After a week or two of extreme difficulty wearing pants and any clothes infact without serious pain, my bum is back to normal minus the albino patch which now graces my left bum cheek. I ended up going to a doctor with niema to mainly get our stomaches checkd out- gastro again by the way- and took the oppertunity to get my behind out for the lovely lady doctor as well, who gave me some weird aryvedic oil she had made. Cost me 500rupees but TOTALLY worked so im not complaining.

Anyways, Heather and Wan have left now, so we are once again the three amigos which feels weird after having those two as well as beni, brett and jod around for a few days in Palolem. We took a train which was supposidly 9hours to Kerala on friday.... in fact scratch that, let me explain this train to you.

So we got to the train station, and were the ONLY white people there. We attempted and failed to find anyone who could really understand English, so we were having a little problem understanding which platform we needed to be on to get the train. Anyways, this train pulls up and we looked inside, lush. Cabins with white curtains and four beds in each, little resteraunt on board, looked like you could happily walk about and stuff so we were pretty excited to get onto our train UNTIL ......our REAL train pulled up....
this looked like a tin can on very badly attached wheels. We walked in with our huge rucksacks banging into everything in their paths, and it was like being in the bottom of the titanic. It looked like the inside of a ship, and bear in mind we got on this thing at 10 at night so it was pitch black, were using torches to find our bunks, and when we do there are people sleeping in them! So luckily this indian guy hears us talking and he can speak very good english so he wakes the people up and tells them that we have tickets so they need basically to get the shiz out of our beds! THEN we have to navigate up three bunk beds, without treding on anyone in the pitch darkness! it was a pretty extreme game! So we get used to it, get to sleep and wake up around an hour before we are meant to get off this train.... turns out the train is another 9hours long!!! so we were on the raging stinky indian train for an extra 9hours in the pumping heat, with no air con and only a stupid dusty fan to cool us. The toilet was a hole onto the train track which had clearly been boffed/diareahed and urinated upon during travel by people with bad aim. Basically it wasnt pretty. But we survived, and secretly im pretty sure we all thought it was a fun experience!! It was totally nuts and mental, and stinky and hot, but it was fun too.

So, now basically we are in Kerala. We arrived in Fort Kochi, where we didnt really find much to do apart from take a look at 'Jew Town', the temples and churches in the area, and i bought an amasing painting for my parents of Krishna. Oh, actually we did go to this amasing temple festival- it might have been in the news, there were something like 100deaths in the riot there?

Well basically, we went to this amasing resteraunt called the Tree House, and one of the staff (ricado) told us about the temple festival which was a 20min ferry ride away so we decided to go. He didnt tell us that the night before there was a huge riot and over 100people were killed! We didnt even know this until we met other travellers who told us about it. But the night we went everyting was amazing and ok.

Anyway, it was like a mini festival, there was a lady im guessing famous indian singer on stage, with all the crowd sitting crosslegged (im talking a stage like at jersey live but obv bigger, with the whole crowd just SITTING in silence, mostly holding heart shaped balloons (for what reason i dont know)) really weird. Then the actual temple itself was lit up with fairy lights, and on the road leading to it there was stall after stall of the kind of tack you find at a fairground. There was popcorn, ice cream, all the shebang. So we go into the temple, and copy all of the indian rituals, lighting a candle each and saying a prayer and then go over to the back of the temple where we can hear all this insane noise and drumming.
There is a massive crowd of people, surrounding a group of men who are drumming, behind these men are 6 huge elephants with massive gold jewelry adorning their trunks, and two men sat on their heads, one with what looks like a broom and the other with what looks like air traffic controller cones. In turn these men stand and wave the objects they are holding in time with the drumming, the elephants just stand there, good as gold, clearly bored as hell but the crowd are having a whale of a time! All of the women are slightly bobbing their heads to the music, but the men are dancing with one hand in the air like guys generally do when they like a song, bouncing and waving one arm about in the air. This includes men from 15 to men who can barely stand let alone jump. They are all doing this move! It was insane to watch. You cant help but smile if your there, its crazy.

This is the reason i love religion and temples in India, because there is such freedom in the way that they worship their Gods and pray. If you walk into a temple in India and just look at each person no two people will do the same thing. Some make a prayer possition with their hands, some close their eyes, others will lie face down on the floor, some chant loudly oblivious to all others surrounding them, some press their heads to the walls of the temple whilst silently asking something of their God. Sometimes they dance around, clapping and singing as loudly as they can, and at othertimes the chants from temples sound bone-chilling how eerie and sombre they seem. No one has a set way to worship, they just do what they feel.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Problems begining with ASS

Amazingly, I managed not to hurt myself whilst trekking through the jungle, jumping off waterfalls, riding on the back of motorbike taxi at ridiculous speeds, riding my own motorbike (with a ridiculous helmet).... but i DID manage to hurt myself when taking a nature wee. Brilliant. To get the fishing boats up the beach here, they have logs which they lube up with oily looking tar stuff.... so i sat on one of these logs to take a nature wee, as heather said it was like 'a natural toilet'. apparently NOT.

I woke up the next day with serious ass ache, and when examined found that i have third degree burns (pretty much) ALL over my bum. Pants are a no go. Trousers are even difficult. Naked is best. Which is a problem if you want to venture outside. Were in India after all. Im going to upload a photo because I dont think you can understand the full pain I am in unless you see for yourself. Basically this tar-oil stuff is acidic and reacted with my skin, BURNING IT OFF (thank GOD i was drunk when it happened otherwise i imagine it would of hurt a lot) i have to keep it moisturized or it feels like its going to rip. Arggghhh its awful. But do you know what makes it more awful? Us four girls have had a serious case of Delhi Belly in the last 24 hours which means regular toilet trips which obviously is not what my poor rotting bottom needs right now..... as you can tell i am feeling very sorry for myself and even had a little weep this morning cus i wanted my mum to put some sudocreme on me and tell me im going to be ok, and i wont have a horrific ass scar.

But on the possitive, times like this make the mini ass shower very handy.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Decisions, decisions.....

So obviously I have to have some kind of a plan for when i return to J town. Currently I've applied to uni but really..... being out here is making me think....do i really need to do that? I dont really want to live in the UK for three years, getting into debt. I would kind of rather go find a job somewhere random and just work there for a while, doing something crazy and fun. 
But then in the long run, do i need a degree? Do i even know what i want to do? I literally have no idea. I know what I like doing but I just dont know how that can all format into one career. Very confused. I just dont really like the idea that i'd go and come out in debt, settle down, get a job and life over.
It sucks. I want to be able to do whatever I want for a while, get a few random jobs and travel a bit, no responsibilities and it not matter if i have no money. But then at some point im going to have to get a real job....with real money.....and a house and shiz..... uoh.

Maybe i should find out when i need to make this decision by, because its probally creeping up on me.....

Palolem - Oscar, Eyebrows, Nacho and friends.....

In my last post i talked about travelling down to the south of Goa, where we are now. It's absaloutly stunning. Blue seas and white sand, much more chilled out then Anjuna though with less parties so New Years was more about sitting on the beach watching fire works, rather than dancing half naked in the sea to Trance music which was actually quite a nice thing!

As I am sure most of you know, Heather arrived with an extra person- Jo's Boyfriend Wayne, who had surprised her for a new years pressie!! He is here for the full two weeks with heather so there is a nice little group of us now. Heather is making these two weeks absaloutly hilarious, last night we went for a meal which took 3 hours to arrive and when it did it was cold, turnes out that they didn't have any electricity and were therefore cooking all the food in someones HOUSE across the road! So now the new question when we get somewhere is 'are you serving food? Do you have a kitchen?' thanks to her question of 'what is going on, ive been here for 3 hours and i havent eaten? are you waiting for someone to finish with their plates so you can wash them then give them to us? is your chef on strike? do you even have a kitchen?' Pure brilliance.

In Anjuna we happened to bump into a group of 3 Jersey people which is nuts! Brett, Beni and Jodie.... who we ended up spending christmas dinner with and having a few mental nights out, (including a pagan beach marriage) before we had to split to come to palolem. We all got on like a house on fire, and it was awesome when they told us they were going to come to palolem for a few days before they travelled up to the north of India. Soooo.... i think it is fair to say that whatever you do, if your with them, it will be fun!

 Im sure your going to see photos but our escapades included getting kicked out of our first beach huts (with the other residents leaving a dead, rotting chicken outside our doorstep, as well as a full babies nappy AND throwing coconuts at our huts in the night), the theiving of Shamu, lifejacket wars, 3 man piggy backs, waterfall jumping in the jungle, chai tea at a beach sellers postage-stamp of a house, and pirates of the arabian sea, never mind Eyebrows, Nacho and Oscar. (some of Beni's many rescued dogs)

Basically, we had an awesome time with them and we were all (including heather who had only known them for 2 days) really sad to see them leave, but promised to meet up either back home or along our route somewhere. So now we have one week left in Palolem before we have to leave to get our train down to Kerala which actually im not looking forward to so much at the moment because i FREEEAAKIN love being by the beach, and in the sun, and just travelling about on mopeds all day. But you gotta see something different i guess, time to leave soon.....

But before that we still have time to go tonight to Goa's famous silent disco at neptune point. It is meant to be amaze, so we shall see how that goes! Oh, also writing for gallery in Feb so keep your eyes peeled for the article and check out the photos!

Happy 2011