Ella, Tangalle and Mirissa

We caught a train from Kandy to Ella, with no snacks, thinking it would only be a couple of hours.. 7 hours later we arrived pretty hangry. Totally worth it though because it is actually the most beautiful train journey in the world. We sat on the floor by the open door and dangled our legs out the whole way.

We walked 5 mins to our hostel which was the worst place we had ever seen. Literally a shack on stilts, on the busiest main road in the town and full of lots of little pets in the bathroom. It was called 'SpiceHut' which is never a good start. Frankie had a cockroach crawl up her leg when she was brushing her teeth, never screamed so loud. We found food at a restaurant next door and had 8 Sri Lankan curries and rice each for £2 each, one of which was a jack fruit curry OMG so bloody marvellous.

The next morning we packed up and ran as fast as we could out the door in search of a new home. After maps taking us the wrong way and walking up a mountain in 30 degree heat with all our stuff, we arrived at a guesthouse in the middle of nowhere, bunned off their wifi and found somewhere else. Third time lucky we found a lovely little guesthouse WITH A BALCONY.

After some lunch we decided to walk to Ravana Falls, we were told it was a 45 minute walk so we set off full of promise and excitement. Took us 3 hours actually. It was such a fun journey we got caught in a huge storm and had to walk bare foot down massive windy roads, people kept stopping to give us a lift but we were like NAAAH WE’RE ENGLISH WE LOVE ABIT OF RAIN (ironic as we both came down with deadly colds the next day). After about 3km we found a beautiful hotel and walked in looking like two wet, feral children, everyone inside was dressed amazingly for their buffet lunch. The kind man let us in for a coffee even at the risk of upsetting customers and ruining their rep. We met a lot of dogs on the way down and even a few monkeys, our Frankie has a bit of a monkey complex but she was v brave (and dogs and cows).

At the end of the 7km walk the waterfall was beautiful and we felt well ard for walking when we saw everyone getting off their tourist coaches, we tried to swim but a policeman came and fished us out because it was too dangerous apparently (eejit).

We woke up the next day feeling rank but we soldiered on. Thinking it was just down the road we went to visit the 9 arch bridge, but actually it was another 5km climb. WE LOVE CLIMBING! In the evening we went for dinner at a little shack called ‘Matey Hut’ recommended to us and it was bloody bootiful. There’s only 4 tables and it’s a tiny place but the food!! The world needs to embrace pumpkin curry it is incredible.

The next day we had to move hostels AGAIN, but moved about 3 mins down the road to another super cute guesthouse. We both felt rank from walking in the rain so we laid in bed all day and watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s and ate crisps. The guy who owned it made us an absolutely cracking breakfast the next morning. His wife was away for Sri Lankan New Year, poor sod, so he was holding the fort and kept bringing us more food to try and please us as much as possible. Bex wrapped some of it up to take ‘for lunch’ but actually saved it and fed it to the wee dogs up the mountain. We climbed little Adam’s Peak which was beautiful and not that difficult now we’re professional climbers. The views over Ella were amazing and there were puppies at the top which were so adorable. I love that all mountains seem to have pups at the top it’s such a reward (Bex obviously, Franks don’t like dogs much) (alien).

We went for a coffee on the way down at a cute cafe over looking the valley , we stayed there for aaaaages it was such a little sun trap. Then headed back to the hostel before going for dinner which was absolutely rubbish. The waiter brought out wobbly popadoms so I asked him to bring some legit ones and he was like ‘nooo they’re meant to be moist’ I mean I haven’t dedicated my life to researching the texture of popadoms but I know a stale one when I see it. Me and Franks weren’t appy!

ELLA - TANGALLE.

Got the old 31 bus to Tangalle, now I look back on it I can laugh but at the time I thought I was going to blow chunks all over the Sri Lankan locals, finally I got a seat but I saw a little girl standing up so I let her sit on my lap and my god what a regret, the wee nugget fell asleep and not only was she 100degrees but she was dead weight, frankie was sat at the back like the queen while I was baby sitting a heavy ball of fire, cute though!!! We arrived at our hostel where the staff were all getting blotto for late New Year celebrations, we had the most beeeautiful sea view room. We met a dog called Freddy who slept on our balcony but Bex woke up covered in flea bites from all the cuddling - rank.

The next day we played in the sea but it was mucho aggresso, we both lost our sunnies when we were piggybacking and got taken out by a wave BUT the most remarkable thing happened when 3 hours later we were sunbathing and Bex’s glasses washed up on to the shore sitting perfectly on the beach. Frankie’s are still in the sea, we like to believe they’re being worn by a wonderful dolphin who’s feeling super sassy.

The hostel owner had the cutest son who was like 7. We played bat and ball with him which was cute (***BEX played with him, bloody Frankie went and hid, I sacrificed myself for you) but when he kept turning up at 7am at our bedroom window, and we woke up to him staring at us with a bat in his hand it all got a bit creepy. After our bad experience with sea the day before we found a calmer bit of ocean and we didn’t get out for 4 hours and splashed around being beached whales when other girls tried to look all sexy. We did competitions and we sung songs really loud and just looked generally really cool.

After a week of bumming around on the beach we hopped on a bus to another beach.

MIRISSA

When we arrived in Mirissa we immediately dumped our stuff and went back to our beloved sea. Bex instantly got blown miles to the shore by a wave leaving Franks just a little dot in the ocean, the waves were NOT OKAY.

The next day we looked for a swimming pool, we asked a TukTuk driver to take us a few beaches down the road but he went half hour to Weligama beach instead, found the cutest pool which they let us use for free at ‘Good Story’ spent the rest of the day splashing about like morons, I feel like people are always confused when we’re in water like 'how long can they stay in there? Did they get out when we weren’t watching? Why aren’t they shrivelled up like raisins? Why is that girl tormenting her poor friend?’ That evening we played cards with our lovely pal Samuel who was a bit of a buzz.

A couple of days later I had savage chest pains, I think it was from being taken out by the waves but I was convinced I was having a heart attack, I plopped down outside a shop and couldn’t get back up so me and Franks hopped in a tuk tuk to the docs. The waiting room was a free for all and all eyes were on me being the weird white girl holding a freezer block on her chest, me and Franks gave the best A* drama performance of all time and they all said I could be seen first (if they’re all going to stare we may aswell make it worth while AMARIGHT). Doc was nice until he recommended going to the hospital for an ECG and in that second I had a miraculous recovery, thanked him for his time and ran away at speed. After a lot of debate we went to the hospital where it was like there had been a zombie apocalypse, the tellies were on but there was no one home.

We walked through and found the whole hospital having a late New Year party (there was even a DJ) in the garden, all the nurses and doctors were having races and apple bobbing and I was having a suspected heart attack. One matey finally came over to help me, I wasn’t convinced he was a doctor he looked like he was doing it for a laugh but he sent me for an ecg and asked me adult questions so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Got in a right strop because the nurses tried to make me get my wee nips out in front of the ward of staring Sri Lankan’s and they kept telling me to calm down cos I was shouting like a hooligan about the lack of curtain drawing. Luckily my gal Frankie was on full nipple patrol. ANYWAY was just a pulled muscle but was a really fun morning in the end!

Naturally after this we went for cocktails to celebrate and then went to find Turtle Beach

It was so jeffin beautiful, a super quiet corner of the beach where we hired a snorkel and dived straight in. Within 5 mins we were swimming with metre long green turtles and it was incredible. Bex probably shouldn’t have been doing it with severe chest pains but it was the last day so had just get over it. At least we knew she wasn’t dying..

The next part of the journey was probably the worst experience we’ve had in the time we’ve been away and to be honest we don’t wanna relive it but here we go. We had made a decision to move closer to the airport a day before our flight so we didn’t have such a long journey, what a bloody stupid idea that was. The train was fine to Colombo, the bus to Negombo was full so we had to get a tuk-tuk (cost a bloody fortune), there was a petrol strike so the tuk-tuk driver couldn’t get petrol and was freaking out, we got super stressed, the cash point kept rejecting my card so I couldn’t pay for the tuk-tuk, the tuk-tuk broke down, we had to change to another one, it was pissing down with rain, the hostel we wanted to go to wasn’t in Negombo (was another 10km’s so an extra £10 to get there) so we ended up at a random guesthouse down a dark road by the airport miles away from anywhere chosen by a sign on a main road that had pretty writing on it. It had A/C and the owner made us tea. After a bit of dinner at the only restaurant in a 3 mile radius, it was bed and then on to JAPAAAAANNNN

SRI LANKA

We landed in Colombo after an extremely quick 1 hour flight, with directions in hand on how to get to our hostel. Only 3 lines long, you expect it to be a walk in the park.. shame! 3 and half hours later after being stuck in 2 thunderstorms, cheated by a tuk tuk driver and sitting on a local bus with no idea where we were going, we made it to Colombo Beach Hostel. We put the journey into a box never to be mentioned again and headed for an over priced pizza and a beloved Sprite. ALL JOURNEY NIGHTMARES FORGOTTEN 💕

Hostel was a hovel but had a nice roof garden.

Next day we hopped on a bus and went to a big lake, there were some voodoo looking ducks and a rabbit too but I think he was blind and thought he was chilling balls with other rabbits, tragedy really.

Then walked in the sweltering heat to the floating market but unfortunately there was no market and there was a lack of ‘floating’. Did see a pelican though so who’s the real winner here? Then went to some big boy Buddhist temple which was super weird. There were cabinets everywhere full of Buddha figurines but loads of random ones chucked in too like a Taz and a Dalmatian figure, making it more like a big fancy Sue Ryder than a temple.

We went for dinner, franks had a curry that blew her lid clean off and Bex had prawns (becoming a prawn at this rate).

The following day we hocked a loogey out of Colombo and headed to Kandy via 3rd class carriage of train. Thought we’d be the cool people in 3rd class with all the locals but ended up feeling like a sweaty sardine. Franks was girated on for hours by a fella who kept asking her if she was hungry (hungry for what? Dodgy bigger) *insert corn on the cob reference here*

We headed to Tree Breeze Inn which was on the top of a mountain over looking the city. We walked in to what looked like Grandma’s house and were greeted by the cutest old lady. We waited for what seemed like 4 hours before a guy showed us to our room AVEC BALCONY! 💃🏼 The guy was missing a few marbles and acted like Lenny for Of Mice and Men, all we wanted to do was shit, shave and shower and he just wouldn’t let us leave.

We walked into town for dinner and went to a grotty little cafe which served us our first proper Sri Lankan dinner, AMAZING. We had a barney with an Israeli couple who came in throwing their weight around that it wasn’t clean enough. We swiftly told them to bugger off to the nearest 5* and stop being so rude to the staff.

The next day we went to the Elephant Orphanage. We caught a train there just in time to see them being bathed in the river and it was beautiful. They were all having the time of their lives, splashing around in the water. After a quick bite to eat at some overpriced shit restaurant we went to watch them feeding the baby elephants. We expected it just be the tourists watching them feed them but reminded us too much of zoo culture, teasing the elephants into corners of the pen for visitors to get a good photo.. we boycotted and left.

We made a delicious prawn pasta back at the hostel thinking it would be cheaper than eating out. This supermarket we went to was like a high pressure video game, we were whizzing round chucking shit in the basket being bashed by trollies and they were playing final countdown. I can’t explain how funny it is doing your food shop with the final countdown as the soundtrack, but it caused us to buy a courgette the size of an elephants winkle and loads of other unnecessary crap and the bill came to thousands more than a dinner out would have. OOPS.

The following day we went to climb Pidurangala Rock which was bloody miles away from Kandy. We sat on the sweatiest bus for 2 hours to Danbulla and were absolutely shattered when we arrived. The buses in Sri Lanka drive at 100 miles an hour, honking their horns constantly and playing bolloywood music on full volume. It like a terrible fairground ride that you just can’t get off.

After a traditional rice and curry in an absolute dive that cost us £1 each, we got on another bus for ½ hour to Sigiriya Rock. We decided to climb the brother rock next door and it was so bloody worth it. It was easier, cheaper and less busy and you got to see the famous rock in all its glory. WHO’S THE REAL WINNER.

We missed the bus back to Dambulla because as always we didn’t research it enough, so caught a Tuk-Tuk instead. We ended up on the smallest bus in the world being the only females with 30+ Sri Lankan men. It was pretty nerve wracking but we gave them all such filthy looks when they got near us I think they thought they’d turn to stone if they looked in our direction. As soon as a seat became free we made these men get up to let us take it and played dead for the rest of the journey.

NEXT STOP ELLA.

Kerala

We arrived in Alleppey after a NOT DELAYED 15 hour train (bloody miracle), hopped in a tuk tuk from the station to Wind n Waves hostel and grabbed a private room avec private balcony for £3 a night each (bloody bargain).

Once we’d had a shit, shave, shower as always, we wandered down the beach looking for food, obviously expecting a Goa-esq beach only to find a construction site and 40 Indian builders staring at us from all angles. After a sweaty, long walk round the local area with no luck we ended up next to our hostel in the cutest restaurant, Cafe Catamaran, which we would have found if we’d gone right not left. We chilled for the rest of evening, watching sunset on the beach, eating prawn pasta (bloody delicious) and listening to Jack Johnson WHATTA JAM!

We woke up at the crack of dawn to go on a day trip to the backwaters in Alleppey. We ferried on over the big lake and stopped for brekkie at a local lady’s house, god love Aunty I’m sure she’s a great woman but she makes a proper tragic breakfast. We declined any extras of coconut wood sawdust shavings or whatever the jeff they were but politely polished off all noodles and curry in sight (waste not want not amaright).

Got in a canoe with two lads from our hostel who were asleep within 10 mins (lightweights) and off we went. It was legit the most relaxing day ever until poor Bexy needed a whazz. Then it became a little like Chinese water torture.

Went back to aunty’s for lunch which was served on a banana leaf it was soooo good and she was such a feeder it was like being at ya nannys house. When we were waiting for the ferry back we picked some mangos and tried to be all cultured and eat them like everyone else was but they tasted like acid reflux and we didn’t come here to impress anyone so we launched them in a bush and carried on with our day.

The next we planned to go to Varkala which is meant to be lovely, so we packed up our lives and strolled downstairs looking like the definition of Gap Yah just to find out there was an auto strike across the whole of Kerala, bollocks. Instead of crying about our misfortune we grabbed two bags of washing powder and spent the day washing all our clothes in buckets. This old matey set up camp across the road to watch us doing the washing all day with confused fascination, by the end of the day the whole family were in the garden like it was a special occasion.

Due to the delay we had to skip Varkala completely and head to straight to Kochi. Ended up staying there too long with not much to do so spent most of the time drunk and eating our way to happiness. We got the bus from Alleppey to Kochi which in the grand scheme of public transport was pretty easy.. MAKES A BLOODY CHANGE

We stayed at Maritime hotel in Kochi which was super cute and had absolutely banging AC and the people we met there were lovely! First day we had a really fulfilling day planned of going to Jew Town and the Synagogue, unfortunately all of this only took us up to 11.30! We found a little coffee shop in this really quiet garden it was so nice, the coffee had cardamoms in which I liked but Frankie looked like she was going to blow a chunder. That night we influenced the hostel into getting drunk (SLOSHERRRRS) so we headed to the booze shack with a queue and mile long (Bex played the ‘look lost’ card and walked right to the front of the queue) it’s the only place to buy it in town and it’s all super secretive very odd.

So we all got tiddled and went for a walk with our new m8s along the beach, saw a headless chicken kicking about on the shore which was strange and then went home.

Nothing else really of any significance happened when we were in Kochi but food was nice.

GOODBYE INDIA, HELLO SRI LANKA 🇱🇰

GOAWN THEN 🇮🇳

We arrived at Goa airport, drawing attention to ourselves by looking as lost as your dignity after being chucked outta Tru on a Wednesday night. Whilst trying to barter the fixed priced pre-paid taxi stand (worth a try init) we met shaboy Tim. He wanted to share a cab to Anjuna. We considered whether our dads were up to the task of being like Liam Neeson if we got kidnapped, and decided we’d give them the benefit of the doubt and hopped in!

We arrived at the amazing Roadhouse Hostel with the even more wonderful Hostel dog, Donut. The whole of Anjuna was a bit of a blur involving alcohol, sunbathing and splashing about in the waves like overweight seals. The highlight was definitely Baba Au Raum, our main man Uday took us to a beautiful sunset at Purple Martini with cocktails and we ended up balls deep in Goan sausage pizza and beer. Him and his mate rode us back on their mopeds and Franks had a baby meltdown because Bex turned up 15 minutes later because they stopped to stroke dogs…

We decided to get a moped cos it’s ruddy hard walking in 3000•c, especially when your thighs rub together so hard they make small fires everywhere you go. We all know how questionable Bex’s driving is (butdidyoudie) so Frankie was nominated as chief driver. After 20 minutes of her wobbling round the field practising we decided it’s not so bad just to walk after all AND THAT WE DID.

The beach was lovely but the constant gawping from men was abit tiresome, especially when you’re laying there in your bikini like a starfish and they’re trying to take a snap of your giblets. Frankie gave in to the relentless henna lady and paid to have her hand done, the promise was it would last a month and within 4 days it just looked like she’d slipped a finger through the tissue when she was wiping her bottom.

On our last night in Anjuna, after extending it for 3 days, we went to the Saturday night market. Basically booze and market shopping rolled into one.. what a bloody good idea. We did a shot of Fenny which is a local drink that tastes and smells like petrol. We had a five minute silence after which we spent trying not to blow chunks on everyone we’d just met.

Sunday we hopped on 3 local buses and paid £1 for the 3 hour journey and ended up in Palolem. It was super peaceful and nice there and had a fabulous selection of dogs. We stayed at the Roadhouse there and we were welcomed by Coco and Chanel the two hostel pups. Staff were miserable as sin but at least the dogues were polite. Everywhere we went we were guided by little Coco, it was adorable.

The first night we arrived we went down to the beach and had a cocktail (surprise), it was pretty dead there but we had the most beautiful dog family to keep us company. There was Dad, Mum and 4 puppies, so nice when the Dad sticks around- there’s a lot of humping and dumping in the dog world here.

One night we went to watch ‘Moonlight’ at an outdoor cinema in one of the restaurants and it was brilliant (regardless of the half hour power cut half way through), we hit the cocktails hard and by the end of the film we were like badly behaved kids sitting at the back. While we were watching the film we were pretty sure we heard a chicken being murdered in the kitchen which was a bit of a distraction but that’s India for ya.

The next day we boarded the midnight train GOINANYWHEEEREEEE.. (Alleppey to be precise)

Mumbaiiiii

After a lovely flight with Spice Jet "Red. Hot. Spicy", we arrived in Mumbai which was hotter than the centre of the earth. We arrived at the hotel after a horrendous taxi driver that stopped to ask for directions about 200 times and what a shithole it was. The room was smaller than a prison cell and smelt like bad Indian breath. Bonus that the wifi was incredible because we were the only people staying there. We headed for pizza by the bay, an overpriced posh restaurant that gave us both food poisoning, and ended up back at the hotel by 3pm sweating profusely and blowing poo out of us like our bottoms were nerf guns. The next morning we went to 'The Gate of Mumbai' to catch a boat to Elephanta Island. It was really cool, the caves were beautiful and the market sold some nice shiny tat. Highlight of the day was Frankie having a Mexican stand off with a monkey trying to steal her water bottle, ended in a tug of war, a quick growl from the monkey and the monkey won. Another episode of Bex being a shit friend and laughing at Frankies misfortune. Also Frankie now has a cow, dog AND monkey complex, god forbid she has an altercation with a bird; we'll be coming back to England. We found a small local disgusting looking restaurant for some cheap grub. Unfortunate that we were the only females in there, made worse that we were white. Bex was trying to eat her vegetable biryani in peace and all the pervy old men kept staring so she stood up and shouted at them all, and they never looked again BEX 1 - 0 PERVY INDIAN MEN Short and strange trip to Mumbai, next stop GOA 💃🏼

Udaipurrrdy

We caught a local bus to Udaipur from Jaipur for a laff.. we were the only white people on it 8 hours and everyone stared at us continuously as always. We have no recollection of talking to each other for the whole journey as we had our heads out the window panting like dogs the whole time. We arrived at Moustache hostel, booked purely for its rooftop restaurant. WE JEFFIN LOVE A ROOFTOP RESTAURANT WE DO. We got up early and decided to spend our day getting lost (deliberately for a change) and seeing what cool shit we could find. First priority was breakfast (naturally) so we stopped at a dodgy stall and ate samosas, they were sooo good. We ate our brekkie on the bench with all these fellas going off to work for the day. Samosas bring all the races to the yard. We got lured into a little fragrance shop and got covered head to toe with all these bookie smelling oils, we drew the line at White Musk and shifted onwards. Next up we found this cave/shop full of sparkly clothes and treasures, we met the shopkeeper Ramesh who didn't push us at all to buy anything but just wanted to play dress up! He put franks in a sari and bex in a headscarf etc and we all had a bit of a boogie. It was really odd but WHAT A GUY. In the evening we raced to get to a place called 'sunset point' for sunset but we didn't get chance to get the cable car up to the viewing point because we're both serial faffers but we watched it from 'Lake Pichola' which was ruddy beautiful. Bex did her standard and fed the dogs so we had a couple of fluffy little mates sat by our feet watching the sun go down. There were lots of romantical couples but we had dogs SO WHOS THE REAL WINNER? Anyway after this we went to a restaurant full of all the people from our hostel (obviously the hostel recommend this one to every bugger in India) it was naff but nice to chat to people. When we were leaving Frankie was stopped by 3 kids asking for 10 rupees, she tried to avoid them, fell off the step and landed like a sack of potatoes on the floor. I can't actually explain how funny it was but I'm so honoured to be the friend who got to see her face plant the floor. The little kids were like erm is she okay? After a little swearing, Frankie left her dignity in the gutter and hobbled home. We spent day two chilling out at the only rooftop pool in Udaipur. A view over the lake and mountains for miles, it was BLOODY LOVELY. We drank too much gin and got sunburnt to shit, but we had a glorious day. In the evening we went to a Rajasthan dance show, which was as weird as a 90's acid house rave. We woke up from a nap and went straight there, and we both felt like someone had drugged us in our sleep. Two men dressed up as childlike dolls dancing round in circles trying to stab each other and a woman balancing 12 pots on her head.. ON TO MUMBAI 💃🏼

Jaipur

Arrived in Jaipur and swiftly ran away from the hermans having a row with the taxi man about money #notmybusinessthough.

Checked in to backpacker Panda which was cute, we were in a dorm for the first night and it was so quiet we were whatsapping each other in the darkness, I was too scared to even pee incase a little fart came out.

We jogged on down to the Pink City and popped into Hawa Mahal, it was pretty. As per we didn’t have a scooby as to what it was or why it was there but it looked nice! Had a tragique breakfast of deep fried potato smiley faces and a deep fried cheese sandwich and deep fried chips, luckily our Sprites escaped the fatal deep fat frier.

We ventured on down to the City Palace, we’d had a row with some guy before we’d even got in as he was trying to charge us 2500 instead of 500, silly bugger. The palace was cool, we saw some dressed up people dancing round in a circle, a puppet show and some really pretty doors.

Bored of eating curry 24/7 we went on a desperate trek for Pizza Hut, walking for about an hour with no luck. Finally we got correct directions and it was GLORIOUS.

Day 3 was HOLI!!! The hostel had a party (if you can call it that) in the morning with free orange juice and 5 salted crisps each. Once we were covered in colour, we headed to a Holi party for tourists up the road which was amazing. The usual molesting from Indian men was made worse on Holi. Franks got punched in the chest by a 1 legged homeless man on wheels and every man stopped to put colour on our faces and try and touch us everywhere. Two guys got a little too friendly and Bex lost her shit.. she screamed and flung her arms at them like she was in need of an exorcism (papa bear you’d be proud)

Came back and hit the vodka with some other Brits from our hostel. Got dominos, got suitably tiddled and fell asleep about 10!

Day 4 we went to Amber Fort. We hired a tuk tuk driver to take us there and back, and he showed us all the sights on the way which was cool. Apart from the poor elephants being used to carry the lazy fat white people up the hill, which was pretty horrible to see, it was fun. Right on the top of a mountain so you could see the whole city. We went to the jewellery markets in town and got immersed in all things shiny.

In the evening we went and saw a Bollywood film at the famous ‘Raj Mandir Cinema’ it was such an amazing experience!! When the main man came on the screen the women in the cinema went wild and were screaming and whistling. Everyone talked and took phone calls and shouted throughout the film; in Camberley Vue you’d have the granny kicked out of you if so much as rustled your packet of minstrels.

It was such a great film, it was in Hindi and there were no subtitles but we understood most of it and Bex still had a cry at the romantic bits, whatta wetbag.

We got up bright and early this morning to get packed and get the flock out of our hostel. The wifi is down, we’ve been having to poo in a hole and the kitchen is the other side of the wall to where our heads lay so it hasn’t been hugely relaxing. We are now sat on a public bus heading to Udaipur and moving on to pastures new!

Angry Agra

After what was meant to be a 12 hour train, which on Indian time means 20, we arrived in Agra and what a shit hole it was. Rocking up in a tuk tuk to Big Brother hostel, it was safe to say it was no Hostel LaVie. We were in a dorm, us, 2 guys and 2 girls. The girls had contracted some kind of zombie virus and looked 100% deceased for 2 days straight. As usual, our first instinct was to find food and as usual we set off with no map and not the foggiest idea of where we were going! We ended up in some bookie shanty town, being chased by about 10 children all trying to steal Bex’s unicorn key ring! She kicked off big style! 👊🏻 Rooftop restaurant enticed us in, but unfortunately Agra’s idea of rooftop isn’t the same as Varanasi’s. it was simply a bin and a table on their Aunty’s roof. The food was utter SHIT. We bravely dared to go to the red fort, where we paid 500 rupees to get violated at all angles. Felt like Kim K after the sex tape leak with all the cameras in our faces. It started shitting it down, we went back to the hostel.

After realising how rank Agra was, we met some boring ass German girls who were also travelling to Jaipur.. so booked a private car to take us ASAP. We got up day 2 to see the Taj Mahal, which was alright. Nuffin to write home about. Just lots of old angry Indian women elbowing you in the ribs to be at the front of the queue. All we wanted was a decent picture, totally ruined by the scaffolding all over one side, making it look like the one legged homeless fellas we so often see.

After this we boarded the party car to Jaipur, the hermans immediately fell asleep and we were like naughty school kids squished in the back. BOOOORING.

Varasassy part un

After a super fancy and relaxing time in Abu Dhabi (thank you so much for having us Aunty Zany) we left to begin our travels in India. A 3 hour flight, 1 hour tuk tuk journey, a 7 hour wait in a bookie train station and an 18 hour train journey later WE ARRIVED in Varanasi. We made our way through the masses of people trying to drag us into rickshaws and tuk tuks and grabbed a taxi to take us through the mental roads to our hostel. Dropping us on the busiest main road we had ever seen, pointing us down a alley way, we followed his directions through some sketchy shanty town and landed at the cutest hostel you could imagine! Hostel LaVie was everything you could ask for in a hostel and more - except for the rock'ard mattress and the call to prayer at 5am every morning! After a quick shit, shave and shower we trotted off in search of some real Indian grub. We wandered along the ‘Ganga’ and stumbled upon a rooftop restaurant overlooking the river. Bex went for her staple veg biryani, and frank had her first thali experience! NOM NOM NOM!!

Along the Ganges there’s different Ghats which are like sets of steps leading from temples and funky old buildings. We went to the burning Ghat where the bodies get burnt when they die which was amazing, we saw a set of feet hanging out and the flesh burnt off it leaving just bone, it was pretty rank but cool to see. We thought it was going to be really holy and special but it was all a bit of a shambles, there were bods laying around and cows eating all the ceremonial flowers. THERE ARE COWS EVERYWHERE. EVERYWHERE.

After shit, shave, shower round 2, we headed out to see a ritual at Assi Ghat which they perform every night to give thanks to the river (for letting them clean their beards, clothes, gonads etc in it). This was really beautiful to see, there were 4 ‘Saddhu’ fellas performing the ritual with fire and flowers and things. A cheeky cow came from nowhere and started eating their holy flowers, cows here love a few Marigolds of an evening 😏 They gave us some petals and after the ritual we walked down to the river to throw them in to it, we both missed. But we did see an old Indian lady get stuck knee deep in the mud which was hilarious.

After this it was naturally time for us to eat again (that’s all we’ve done since we got here).

Day 2 began with a 6am sunrise boat tour up the river. What a wonderful way to start the day 💃🏼 we pulled in further up the river to taste Chai tea which received mixed reviews from Frabexit.

We had breakfast after with our new mate Jess from the hostel, and we all set off in search of the golden temple; Shri Kashi Vishwanath. We got totally lost down the backstreets of Varanasi, getting stared at like aliens and photographed like celebs. The temple was pretty cool, they were celebrating the beginning of Holi Festival so it was rammo. When we were leaving we got ushered into a small room, filled with Indians listening to gungadungadunga music and throwing pink paint at each other.. naturally we joined straight in and we had the best time dancing with the old Indian ladies and getting covered in colour! As per, we headed for a little more grub, all that dancing makes you hungry! Walking through the hectic backstreets of Varanasi in search of somewhere to eat, Franks got head butted by a cow and ended the search asap, resulting in yet another rooftop restaurant with some more delicious Indian food 😏

Day 3 was short and sweet as we were catching a train to Agra in the afternoon. A spot of market shopping in the backstreets, getting sucked into buying everything we liked as always! Two pairs of trousers, two skirts and a top later we headed back to the hostel (via a rooftop restaurant for more grub 😏)

NEXT STOP AGRA 💃🏼