Ubud

We had enough of India, and after a few days of indecisiveness we decided to go to Bali and not Spain. Good decision.

Caroline got taken from the boarding gate to explain to security how the electric toothbrushes were not going to blow up the plain.

The flight was 3 hours to KL. Which is a nice shiny airport...  It was being renovated last time we were there and the results are good. They have golf buggies driving around giving free lifts, so we did that. Plenty of travellators for the kids to have fund on, and the food court is good. They change most currencies, but not roubles...having trouble getting rid of some old roubles.

Arrival in bali was refreshing. Nice clean airport and normal people.... Except the taxi drivers being a bit too pushy. We had a nice meal and got a taxi to Ubud, arriving at Villa Yuliati at about 11.

Villa Yuliati Costa about £25 per night, and we have a nice pool and a outdoor area. It is all clean and everything works. There is a good shop just opposite. The traffic is noisy though, especially due to the shop.

We hired mopeds. £2.50 per day. It was tricky at first, but getting the hang of it now. The kids stand on the step part, or perch on the front of the seat.

We went to visit a couple of swedes that Caroline found via facebook. They had lovely houses, so we decided to move to a nicer villa. We plan to stay here for a couple of months.

We have hired a nanny called Shanti. She works 4-6 hours a day and besides playing with Winston and Henry, she does some cooking and is generally helpful. We pay her about £2.50  per hour.

We went to the monkey forest. The monkeys are not shy, especially if you are carrying a bunch of bananas.

We have spent  of time in the pool. Winston is getting close to being able to swim and Henry is gaining confidence with his armbands.

There are loads of good cheap places to eat, so we barely have to cook. It's quite an easy time really.. Just what we needed.

We move to our new villa tomorrow. In the rice fields, so nice and quiet with a pool, air-conditioning and decent internet.

The weather is perfect. Shorts and T-shirt everyday and warm, but not dripping with sweat and hiding indoors hot.

We have sent our visas off to be extended through an agent, so we can stay until 22nd June, then Darwin.

Lego

Went to a toyshop today in Denpasar. They were selling Lele, a Lego copy. It was very cheap, and the quality is fine. Shame that IP laws in most of the world stop competing Lego products. 

Mysore to Chennai

We went to the UNESCO palace of Mysore. It was built about 100years ago. It costs 200rs for foreigners.. Not sure if its free for Indians, but I can't imagine the  opposite happening in Europe.  The palace is still half owned by the former royal family with the rest being taken over by the state.

We got a golf buggy to take us around the edge first for 100rs.. It would have taken ages otherwise and it was pretty hot.

I managed to lose the tickets, so I had to go and buy some more before going inside. They didn't allow photographs, but we sneaked quite a few anyway. A guard caught us and made Caroline delete all hers.. I was crafty and managed to keep mine.

There were camel rides available for 30rs and elephant rides for 100rs. Caroline and Henry went on the elephant and Me and Winston went on a camel. The driver was helpful with taking photos. Henry's elephant kept getting stopped by people wanting to take pictures of him... So they took a long time to get round the short route.

We only had waiting list tickets for the overnight train to Chennai. At 5pm we found out that we were not going to be on the train... So having got used to a bit of luxury at the Regaalis hotel, we decided to stay at the Radisson. Bargain for £54. Same as a Travelodge in UK... But you get breakfast.

The next morning we spent in the pool, and then went to the train at about 3pm. As there were no spaces available for Chennai, we decided to see Bangalore instead. We were in an AC sleeper compartment with 3 births high. It was empty apart from us and Winston and Henry liked climbing on the top bunk.

There was no one going along the train selling stuff and we had hardly any water. I jumped off the train and quickly bought some water and had to jump back on the moving train.... How fucking heroic.

At Bangalore we hired a porter to carry our bags over the bridge over the tracks for about £2. He huffed and puffed a lot. They are not that heavy and he didn't bother to use the wheels for some reason. Some taxi driver was trying to scam us and a helpful lady pointed us in the direction of an honest firm They took us to our hotel.

We moved rooms because we needed a sofa. Decent hotel for about £30. In the morning Winston puked up at breakfast.. He thought it was going to be a burp. They took about 30 mins to clear it up. Went swimming in the little shady pool and tried to go to a 5 star hotel for a posh Italian lunch, but the restaurant was closed.. So we went to another pasta place which was nice and had super fast service.  We got to the train station with minutes to spare although I had to carry all the bags over the stairs over the tracks. They are not as heavy as they were because we lose stuff here and there.

We had left the kids swimming stuff in the Radisson.

We took the double decker train to Katpadi, and from there a rickshaw to Vellore. We stayed in SMS hotel. Very good value, I would recommend it.

The highlight of Vellore is a golden temple. It is only 7 years old, and the roof has 5 tons of gold leaf.  The story is that some bloke was praying near an anthill and people thought it was cool so they started to hang out there too. Then they started giving each other food, and donations and before you know it he had enough money to build a hospital and a temple. The guy in charge was doing the anthill thing as a teenager and now he's 37. Now the temple acts as a big draw for donations which can be used to run the hospital.  I'm in 2 minds about this. At least people are funding the hospital without threats of violence like in a state funded system, but they are being lied to and manipulated with impossible promises of healing or a better life in order to get them to donate.

We had an argue on the way in about being asked to put our valuables in their storage. We got our entrance money back, but couldn't be the money back for the clothes they had made us buy so we could be decent enough to go in. We persevered and eventually got a private tour for free and we could take our belongings with us.

We took a taxi to Chennai for 3400rs.

Our hammock suppliers had arranged a serviced apartment for us. We had a few moans. The water stank of sewage. There were no laundry facilities, the pool was green and unusable and they wouldn't let us use the kitchen to cook for ourselves.

Bhatt and Vishal came to collect us in the morning and took us to Bhatts hammock factory. We had a good look around. The factory was very busy with people weaving hammocks and piles of stock and supplies everywhere. The unskilled get about $7per day. The stitchers get about $14.

We went to look at their 2 other sites. One was primarily used for making our hammocks and was staffed solely by women. It was similar to the Pashmina factory.  The other was where they make the hammock stands. We were given a full tour. The road had been dug up by locals who were trying some extortion on all  the factory owners who use that road. I'm pretty sure they will end up just driving away the jobs.

We had a great Chinese meal with Vishal at a restaurant called Mainland China in Chennai. Then we changed accommodation for a place called Somerset. 5 star service apartments. It costs £70  per night including tax, but you have a little flat with a bedroom lounge, washing machine, kitchen., and someone comes and tidies and does the washing up for you every day. There is a pool on the roof and buffet breakfast is included.

5 star in India Vs Renting in Cambridge

We stayed in the Radisson in Mysore a few days ago.

It was lovely. Excellent service, Incredible breakfast, great swimming pool, free internet.

I saw on my card statement that it came to £54.44 per night.

For a 30 day month, this would be £1633.20

This includes break fast and wifi and room cleaning, and toiletries.

Now compare this to renting a flat in Cambridge.

You have to pay council tax which is £2611 a year - £217 a month

You have to pay breakfast (for four people) which is about £100 a month

You have to pay electricity and water at about £100 a month

You have to pay internet at about £30 a month

TOtal expenses come to about £450 per month

So living at the Radisson Mysore is the same as renting a flat in Cambridge for about £1185 per month like these on rightmove  goo.gl/RXNFVb

If in Mysore on business, you save 20% corporation tax at least.

Pay your money, take your choice...

Ooty to Mysore

We went to the botanical gardens. Caroline needed the toilet, but we could see a succession of women coming out of the ladies toilets and throwing up...so decided it was a bit too disgusting.  Load a of people wanted to have their photo taken with Henry or touch his cheeks.

We went to dominos pizza for dinner. Not the best value, but nice enough.

The next day, we went pedal boating on Ooty Lake. It was very busy with Indian tourists. It cost £2 for 45  minutes...with a £2 deposit if you get back more than 5 minutes late.

We had these giant life jackets on the boat which were totally unsuitable for small kids, so we decided we were better off without them. An employee in a motorboat disagreed and was following us around shouting at us and blocking our path with his boat. At one point he was waving a claw hammer at us, but he gave up when I decided to start filming him. I must remember to film problem people sooner, it really makes problems go away.
Winston put his life jacket on anyway after that. I always like it when he makes his independent decisions.

Winston and Henry went on an old kids Ferris wheel.. For ages... Other kids got on and off...but it seemed you could go as long as you liked and you had to tell the operator when to let you out, so they got off when they had had enough. It cost 30p.

We want in a Hindu temple and someone put some paint on our heads. Its quite funny to explain to Winston what people are doing in the temple.. When explaining in simple language it really highlights how mental it all is.

We came across an Easter Hindu procession . There were loads of firecrackers. It was all a bit loud for Winston

The next morning, we couldn't get the train to Mettupalayam because it was fully booked. I was told to queue up at 11:30, so me and Henry went and queud up for more than an hour... First in the wrong queue (for Conoor), then in the right queue... But not even the person at the front of the queue got a ticket... They could have put a sign up to say no tickets available... What a waste of all these people's time. Henry bought some bananas and a few women tried to poke his cheeks.

Also had some frustrating times with simcards, which used up lots of time.

We checked out of the hotel..had an argument about some washable pen on a filthy old bed sheet and drove around in a rickshaw looking for a taxi to Mysore. We eventually found one for £40.

About 15mins into the journey, the driver invited UA to his house for a cup of tea. 4 families live in the house..15 people. Very friendly. We had tea and biscuits and curry and rice and Winston and Henry played with an aeroplane and a toy car.

We went down a 36 hairpin road with loads of advertisements for hospitals and ambulances.

We went through a nature reserve and saw wild elephants, wild boar, deer..some amazing sites...even better because we didn't expect to see anything on the journey.

We arrived at our nice hotel in Mysore at about 9pm.

Next morningme and Henry sent for an early swim. We had breakfast a dn then all went swimming. There was some kids lessons going on, so we watched and waited for a bit and then asked if it was ok  to get in the pool and we swam around in the middle of the lessons.

At 3pm we took a rickshaw to a mall and then to an Ashram where they had the most amazing collection of parrots probably in the world. There was even a talking one. It was free to visit.

We

from Ukhulas to Ooty

The boat from Ukhulas to Make was $50 per person.  We booked it the day before with the school headmaster who runs the service. When we got on the boat they had sold our seats to someone else..but they took our bags and said we could go on a smaller boat in about an hour... But when it came time for that boat to leave, they said it couldn't go the whole way, but could drop us at another island from where we could get a boat to Malé for $75 per person..  So our bags were heading for Male and we were facing a $50 price rise. All quite annoying, and we agreed with Saeed that we would get the headmaster to pay the difference...which he agreed to after we had arrived in Malé.

The small boat was really bumpy.. The bigger boat for the second part was smoother.. The boat stopped so Henry could do a wee off the back...then later Winston had to do a wee in an empty bottle.

We went in MarryBrowm in Male. The food was rubbish, but it had AC and there was a nice little play area that Winston and Henry enjoyed.

We went to the hotel in Hhuhlumale, and found the room was too small to fit an extra mattress on, and they wanted an extra $25 per night making the total $80.. So we told them where to go , and I went to 6 hotels in town on the back of Nasheeds motorbike, and eventually found Wonder Retreat for $65 per night. It was fine except the toilet didn't flush properly and the room smelt a bit of eggs once we removed the automatic air freshener.

I sold 5 hammocks to a resort.

We got the bus to the airport but managed to leave a bag at the bus stop. Lucky I realised after a few hundred metres and we got the bus to stop and ordered a taxi.

The airport was quite empty. The plain was a propellor plane and that was half empty too.

We had arranged with the same rickshaw driver Shahir to meet UA at the airport in Cochin. It was easy and he dropped us at the Abad Plaza hotel in Kochi. It took about 100minutes because the traffic was bad, so we didn't get time to swim. The check in person was a bit of a dick, but the room and the hotel was pretty good, almost up to 5 star without the expense.. It was 3000rs per night. About £32. The breakfast was excellent also, especially the Indian fiod., they even had a decent egg chef.

Mr and Henry got up at 6:30am and went for a swim on the rooftop pool. It has 2 pools.. One which is about 50cm deep, so perfect for a 3 year old. The main pool was good too.

We got a rickshaw to Coimbatore train station for 50rs, and paid someone 150rs to carry our bags to the right platform and put them in our train carriage. I had booked the AC carriage as 34c is a bit hot. The train cost about 800rs £8. It took 3.5houra to Coimbatore. Me and Henry walked the length of the train and stopped here and there to look out the windows. The kitchen carriage must have been 50c. We had a chicken fried rice on the train which was pretty good for £1 And pretty spicy.. Winston and Henry ate well despite the spiciness.
We accidentally got off a stop too early because another passenger told us it was the right stop... He got off too, but managed to jump back on before the train left. We could not be so nimble with all the bags and all of us... I phoned the taxi driver I had arranged to meet a Coimbatore, but just as I was trying to tell him to meet us, my phone ran out of credit...  So we took a rickshaw to the main station for 150rs, and Boer end the drivers phone to call our taxi driver, so it work end out fine.

The taxi to Ooty took about 3 hours and cost 2000rs £20. There were loads of monkeys on the roadside and some amazing purple flower trees. Henry puked up from travel sickness due to the twisty turny bumpy roads.. We arrived at our hotel in Ooty around 5pm.. The British Cliff Club.  I had prebooked that on Stayzilla.com for about 5300rs for 3 nights. We had to pay an extra 500rs a night for a heater, but it is quite a decent place. I think we are the only guests. The owner/manager is a bit mental...everything he says at high volume and he never quite looks at you when talking...

In Ooty we went to a doctors about Henry's verruca, he prescribed some ointment. His office was behind a pharmacy in a very modest room. He didn't charge...makes me wonder how his income compares to a Swedish doctor who work in not so modest surroundings. He was amazed that Henry had never had antibiotics at 3 years old...but I'm not surprised how.many Indian kids get infections with all the filth around.

We went to the dinosaur theme park which was a bit kitcsh and good fun. It cost 570rs (£6) for all of us. 

Just had lunch sitting on charpouys in a restaurant near Ooty lake while Winston and Henry play with a toy tank and rickshaw.

Maldives - continued

Saeed and his family have been extremely helpful with our aims whilst in Maldives.

We have received our shipment of hammocks for photography. Saeed went to Male and got them. He had another reason for going too, but it was still incredibly helpful for him to do that.

The hammocks came from Male to Ukhulas on a fishing boat called a Dhoni. They charged about $10 for the 2 boxes weighing 35kg each. Saja and her friends helped unload the boat and deliver to our house.

We took some hammocks to the Gundaru Inn. They were letting us use their internet for free. They bought all 6 traveller hammocks at the trade price, and an Iguana.

We went on a day trip with Saeed , Saja, Sajia, Sadjias, Jakob, and their 2 kids Yanarl and Yara.  We used Jakobsen dads boat, and only had to pay for the petrol which cane to about $50.

First we went to a resort island which was closed to tourists because the management hadn't paid the staff.. It was a perfect paradise island, and you can see why people are prepared to pay $300 per night for places like this.  We set up some hammocks in a covered bit of jeti and took some pictures. Winston. Went straight in to the sea to play. After about 30 mins all the staff turned up trying to look macho, but it just looked like a bad Hindi movie.. They had a moan, but they didn't kick us off the island.  We went to the other side of the island and took some more pictures on a perfect beach. Yanarl who is 5 got stung by a bee.  There were large parrot fish just by the shore so the kids could easily see them.

Sadjia had been in the photos and later Saeed asked me to edit any pictures of her because she wasn't wearing a headscarf.

After that island we went to another smaller island that just had one shack on it belonging to a shrimp fisherman
The island was about  200m x 400m. in the middle in the shadiest part there was a kitchen and barbecue area. They cooked chicken over a coconut shell fire and a huge pot of rice.  We drank fanta and coke. I think it was the kids first time to have fanta. The giant ants over an the picnic, so we mainly ate standing up and we set up a hammocks which the kids sat in.

After that we went to a sandbank in the middle of the sea. This was 2 tiny island a about 20m x 5m surrounded by in damaged coral reef.  There were tons of fish. Winston and Henry player with Saja jumping in the water and had a great time. Then Jakob caught an octopus and the kids loved that too. When it tried to escape it squirted a load of ink in the shallow water around Winston's feet. Then Jakob killed the octopus. Winston didn't like that idea..and was asking why we had to kill it. He was then more interested in looking for fish under the water through the snorkel mask.  Once the octopus was dead and skinned, Henry got to hold it and posed for a picture.

We had some struggles getting internet connection and it was too annoying, also we were spending a bit too much time on our windowless room because it was too hot, so we decided to leave the island a day earlier.

Some other Ransome memories of our time in Ukhulas...

The burka clad women in our pink house were about as friendly as hermit crabs.. There was always really loud Allah worship TV on even when no one was around. The 9 year old boy started off friendly, but I got the impression he was not supposed to talk with us.

Henry particularly loved coconuts. He always wanted to take one with him everywhere. I learnt how to open one with a knife by hitting it around the middle then prising it open.  Caroline used the coconut grinding machine to get the meat out of it. 

The Maldivian food of mainly fish, coconuts, curry leaves and chilli was fantastic.. Someone should open a Maldivian restaurant... Bug like most places it was such better at someone's house than in the restaurants.

It seems like the mother in laws have some power and can be mean or nice. The house we lived in had a mum with her 3 sons and her daughter, and the son's 3 wives.. The burka clad ones. I was told that women can choose wether to wear burkha or headscarf or not... But husband's and mother in laws can override them.

Saja had been married, but got divorced after 4 months because the mother in law was over demanding.

Saeed was about 20 when he married his wife who was 12... They had there first child when she was 15.

To get divorced, the husband just has to say 'I divorce you' twice in front of some witnesses. Women can't get divorced unless the man agrees.