Tues 1st of April, I'll blacklist you!!!!

Ok so its been a while since my last blog, but there isn't much to write about during the week as all I do is eat, teach and sleep. However the weekends are a totally different story. Our weekend started early last week, on thursday night we went out with the boys we teach for a meal in the local town. Nothing too exciting happened other than one of them did a really good shaggy impression and then got so drunk he passed out and puked, nice eh. The next morning we had to get up really early to catch a train to Galle (the nearest big town to Unawatuna). It was horrific, it smelt and looked like bus station toilet and we were stared at constantly by locals and all the beggars instantly came to us for money, been grabbed by a man with no legs is kinda freaky. Nearly 6 hours later we finally got to Galle and got a tuktuk to Unawatuna. Our hotel we were staying in for the weekend was actually on the beach, as in you walked out the door and it was there infront of you. I've never seen sea so blue it was ace. So then basically we spent till sunday just chilling on the beach and going to a fair few beach parties where prehaps too much Arrack and Vodka was consumed. On sunday I went into Galle to look around with a few other volunteers from the Kosgoda project who were also with us in Unawatuna. It was in Galle I got the best bargain ever (or of the weekend anyway) Ipod speakers that worked and go really loud for less than 3 quid including batteries, whooop. Not much else happened over the weekend other than me and Steph booked to do some scuba diving next weekend so we're going back to Unawatuna, hopefully we will also get to release a baby turtle hatchling into the sea! We came back to Sputnik on monday, we spent 6/7hours on the train to Kandy as there was no direct train and from Kandy we we're supposed to be getting a bus from Kandy back to Sputnik but unfortunatly the train was late and we missed the last bus so we had to get a taxi. I agreed with the taxi driver 2500 rupees however when we got to sputnik he kept going 3500 rupees not 2500, we then argued for half an hour over it and in the end we gave him the money and I then told him I'd tell every tourist I met not to use his taxi firm which sort of worked because he gave us 500 rupees back. Anyways that's about it! xx

Mon 24th March, Its a crocodile!!!No wait its a monitor lizard

Ok, so I won't bore you with the details of my actual teaching but will instead tell you all about my eventful weekend in Kandy. We (me, Stef and Ev)went to Kandy on friday coz we got the day off because it was Poya Day. It took us about 2hrs by bus to get there, and as soon as we got there we got in a TukTuk to Hotel Suisse, which according to Ev's guide book was a budget hotel, it was so not budget! But in terms of english money we got a nice fancy hotel with a air con, a pool and breakfast in a morning for 15 quid a night not bad eh!After a bit of scoffing and a quick dip in the pool, we decided the best thing to do next would be to try Arrack a local drink which is rather strong and tastes good with coke or sprite. 6hrs later, 2 or 3 bottles of arrack down we went to bed, having made quite a few friends around the hotel. One of our new friends was the hotel managers/owners son and he gave us a lift the next day to the elephant orphanage. Now I've done the whole elephant thing in Nepal, but I still enjoyed it as these were like a whole herd rather than just the odd elephant. We also got in the river and scrubbed one, it then promptly did a huge turd. I was not impressed to be stood in a river next to a whooping great big bull elephant and it do a turd. Oh I almost forgot on the way to the elephant orphanage, the brake on the car failed and we ran into the back of a van full of people, but don't worry I'm fine it was only a little dint. Back at the hotel we met up with some other volunteers and went for a meal. The hotel managers son then took a few of us to a local club it was ace, and yet again way too much arrack was consumed but all in all a brill night. On Sunday we stayed at the pool for a bit before getting a bus back to Sputnik. So that was our fabulous weekend!!! Oh and we saw what we thought was a crocodile at the side of a lake in Kandy as we walked past, we were like OMFG is that a crocodile, it was huge, it turns out it was a monitor lizard, and loads of locals saw us run away from it, i think they think we're a bit potty!

Tue 18th March, Sweating like a fat man at the gym

Well I'm finally in Sri Lanka, its bloody hot (in a hot, sticky, humid way) and all I have eaten so far is curry and rice, you get it breakfast, lunch and tea, I'm all curried out. Also they don't use cutlery here, they eat with their hands, so when I get home I'll show you all how to eat curry properly, you do this flicky thumb thing to get it in your mouth. I found when I first tried it my t-shirt got more food than I did!! My actual project in Sri Lanka is called Sputnik and its about 3-4 hours drive from Columbo the capital. Theres 3 parts to it, in a morning I teach pre-school, then after lunch I go to a girls childrens orphanage (well I pick them up from school and take them back to their orphanage and stay for a couple of hours) and on a tues and weds night I teach people my age or older english, but tbh they don't need teaching they are fairly fluent. When I say 'I' I mean me and Ev as she's here now!! whoooo. Apart from that I haven't done much. My actual flight to Sri lanka was ok, nothing got cancelled and Delhi airport is still a shithole. When I got to Delhi airport I really wanted junk food as in like Big Mac, I haven't eaten junk food in over 4weeks, I felt deprived! Anyways I ran around like a total idiot trying to find a Mac Donalds and after half an hour I realised I wouldn't find one because in India cows are sacred, so there was definatly no chance of eating one sliced and diced with fries, I was bitterly disappointed and had to have Subway instead. So thats about it! Comments on my blog would be nice, I feel unloved guys!!! xxx

Mon 10th March, I'm so sorry I puked on you!

Well it's been an interesting couple of days, first of all I finshed off my white water kayaking course on the Seti river. It was ace, I capsized a fair few times and took a bit of a bashing on a few rocks but it was still ace. At night we camped on the beaches at the side of the river, when I say camped we didn't have tents just a small shelter it was like sleeping outside!! By the end we were doing some fairly large drops and some huge waves! I got back to Pokhara on sunday night, where I amazed myself by finding somewhere to have dinner for 60rupees (thats 50p to you guys) it was actually really nice too. Today I went paragliding which was fairly eventful lol, my poor instructor was a french guy called David, and unfortunatly for him in the last 10minutes of my flight we caught a really big thermal (thats a big gust of wind) and were spiralling really fast, it was then I decided I felt bit quesy and emptied the entire contents of my stomach on him. we landed shortly after that and I was like OMG I'm so sorry, he didn't seem too bothered so I think it must happen quite often lol!!! hmmm anyway after my exciting morning I'm just taking it easy in Pokhara and I'm off back to Kathmandu on thursday ready for my flight to Sri lanka on saturday morning, where I get to meet Ev my partner in crime for the rest of my trip!!!

Thurs 6th march, Chicken Hips

So today I started a 4 days white water kayaking course, eeeeeeeee! Our first day was on lake Fewa in Pokhara, we just did all the basics, eg. eskimo rolls, paddling, T-rescues etc without the rapids! I discovered I hate doing eskimo rolls, as I have chicken hips according to my instructor. When you capsize your supposed to flick your hips before bringing your head up to get back the right way. Except I don't do it with enough power hence the name chicken hips, your supposed to have tiger hips lol! From tommorow we'll actually be on the river and doing some rapids whooooo, we camp at night by the side of the river, I can't wait!!!! I've not really done much else today other than eat lol. So I will update you on how it all goes on Monday, hopefully I won't drown!!! Oooo, one final thing I'm going paragliding next week!!!!!
xxx

Tues 4th March, ELEPHANTS!!!

Today has been one of my best days so far of my trip, it was that good!!!I got up about 7.30, ate a quick brekkie and hopped in the back of a wagon down to the river, where I was going to be going crocodile hunting. Now crocodile hunting is one of those things I thought was completly pointless and we wern't going to see one, but hey guess what 5 minutes into our hunt we spotted a long nosed crocodile, these ones are just harmless they just eat fish. The crocodile I really wanted to see was a marsh mugger, these ones are a bit vicious and eat anything including humans!! We carried on down the river for another 30min, eventually we stopped and pulled upto a river bank in our boat. From here we walked through some open grassland to an elephant breeding centre. On the way to the centre there was a chance we could see a rhino but all we saw was a huge pile of its shit and a few footprints. The elephant centre was ace, although it was a bit sad that some of the elephants were chained up, however the centre was completly outdoors and very like the wild for them. The baby elephants were allowed to roam free, there was one which was less than a week old it was CUTE!! I then bought a bag of cookies to fed the baby elephants (don't worry I'm not that stupid they were special elephant cookies) The elephants were well smart as soon as they saw the bag of cookies they were straight over, if you put them in your pocket they would put their trunk in your pocket to get them out. The bigger ones were a bit more cheeky and would gang up on you s they got more cookies! Anyways we finished the feeding and moved on to see a Thuro village. The Thuro's were the original indigenous people in the Chitwan area. Chitwan means heart of the jungle. After we finished looking round we went back to river for the elephant bathing. There were 4 elephants in the river playing and spraying water. The guide was like would anyone like a go, the rest of my group were all boring and said no, but typically me, I was like hell yes. One of the elephants then came over to the river bank and sat down, I then climbed on its back and it stood up (just to note they had their keepers with them, they wern't totally wild). The elephant then waded into the middle of the river and started spraying me with it trunk and generally messing around, however nothing prepared me for what it did next. It clearly decided I wasn't wet enough and ROLLED OVER, sending me into the river with a big splash. Now at this point I totally shit myself I thought it was gonna roll over again and squash me! I've never moved so quick, I was out of that river quicker than you could say elephant. Anyways after a bit more splashing we headed back to the lodge to get dry and have some food. In the afternoon we went on an elephant safari, this was ace, we climbed onto the elephant and disappeared into the jungle for 3hours, where I got to see two rhinos!!!!! They usually really shy and quite dangerous so we were quite lucky to see them. So anyways that was my fantastic day!!!!

Mon 3rd March, OMG can he even drive?

Today has been crazy, I'll cut all the boring bits out and skip a few hours bus ride and we're at the rafting site!!!! The river we were going to be rafting on was called the Trisuli river, it was huge and eventually meets with the Ganges river in India. Anyways onto the rafting, it was a bit boring to start as we had aload of newbies so we were just doing basic paddling but eventually we set off properly and onto the good stuff. Some of the rapids we did were grade 3-4 so they were fair large and I really did think I was gonna fall out of the boat. So 3 hours later we were coming to an end, one person had fallen in, I was thoroughly drenched and it was thunder and lightening!!! After I'd finished the rafting I needed to catch a bus to Chitwan, the national park. This was some what traumatic, I didn't dare sleep incase my stuff got nicked, the woman next to me kept puking out the window and the driver would have been better placed in a loony bin rather than behind the wheel of a bus. But anyway 2hours later I was in Chitwan, by this point I was starting to think shit I'm going to be sleeping in some mud hut and its gonna be awlful, however it turned out ace, my hotel (which I booked in Kathmandu as part of a tour thing) was really nice, hot shower, double bed, the lot! So thats it! Tommorow I'm off crocodile hunting, rhino spotting, elephant bathing and a safari, I'll let you know how it goes!!!