shimla, delhi, leh

well, since my last entry we have travelled up into the himilayars to leh, at 11,000ft we landed into the highest airstrip in the world, the weather was beautiful blue sky so we had an amazing view of the snow caped mountains and the moon like plains and desart, truly a magical place, the people are all very nice and humble, all into their climbing and outdoors life, apart from our hotel we first checked into more of a private cottage run by a millitant guy call situ, he dident speak much english and was quite strict about when me and jamie should have dinner and get up out of bed. which dident go down well with us so we ate at pizza de hutt (good pizza) on both nights and checked out of his hotel on the second night, partly due to dogs barking right outside our window and the very uncomfortbal beds, so we went and stayed at the hotel across the road, that situ kindly arranged for us, after we told him we were leaving.
our trip for the day was to go visit a couple of buddist temples, one being 1100 years old with 1000's of pictures (painted) of the gods dotted all round the temple, photoraphy was strictly forbidin, but i managed to get out my ipod nano with hi-def video recording and hid it in my pocket with the camera pointing out away from the monk, gonna put stright onto youtube!!!
in the morning we visited the hall of fame of the army, (the place felt a bit like isreal with millarty officals all over town) we learnt about the war between pakistan, being fought on a large glaciar in the mountains, it cost them 1m dollars a day and has been going on since....? well a long time. i asked people what they were fighting about and no one could give an answer, religion, tertory, but the area they were fighting for is all isolated mounatins areas, nothing worth setting up home, because it way too cold up there.
we also visited a place that claimed will move your car up hill due to the earth's magnetic field "magnic mountain", but nothing happened, i asked our guide if it ever worked, he just smailed and looked emabarassed (dident speak any english) all he could say was 'no'. he dident seem that borthed by the mountain and it seemed more like somewhere to bring tourist, but the sceanic view looked cool anyway.
i would like to come back to leh one day and hike a mountain and white water raft down their river. defintly worth a visit.
we then flew back to delhi for one night and checked ourselves into a well known international hotel chain, because the last place really dident need a second visit. we got to sit by a pool and get a good night sleep, after visiting the all you can eat buffett of course. (jamie has five plates of food!!!) i had two!
this morning we left for shimla and arrived early, the roads hear whind all the way up and over the mountains and the houses cling onto the sides of the mountains like the flavars in brizil, we got to our hotel, which is in the art -deco style from the 1920's, very interesting place full of pictures of old movie stars from the 30'-60's clark gable, fred astair, sean conorry, tom cruise all signed, the family that lived in the building were indian royalty and one of the princess was the toast of hollywood in those days and hung out with all these people, also there are three tiger heads, jamie said "thats where all the tigers went".. on a wall" it does feel like we have gone back in time to the empire times, the family still live here.
this after noon we went to the last vicory's house and where the indian and british goventment used to come in the summers when it gets to hot in delhi, its a old scottish designed building, looking a lot like reading blue coats boarding house, we paid for a tour along with 20 others, we had to wait 30mins till the tour started and he showed us two rooms!!! he did show us the table where ghandi signed the independence of india (and used in the film ghandi) when the guide wasent looking i touched the table! (he he) but we were annoyed that we only got to see two rooms in a massive building, its now home to the indian socity of advanced science.

we're in shilma for one more day, then back to delhi...oh i saw a bollywood film 'kites' was quite a laugh i will try bring a copy home with me. (its the biggest film out right now, set in las vagas and staring a spanish and india couple. 'really cheesy!

we're in mumbia on the 25h then back home on the 30th, we have cut out goa and kochin because of the rain and our bellies. and we miss home ;)

oh while we we're in leh and walking down to town jamie manages to walk right into a cow!!! it was dark and the cows was black, but very funny.
we have also been watching the monkeys in shimla, their everywhere, one came up to jamie and ask for mans secreat of red fire, then they all broke into song. 'wanna be like you hoo hoo'
well i had to make a kipling referance altough disney might have had something to do with that one.

missing everyone,

ollie and jamie.

Day 5 or 6?!?

So this is my first update since i left packing in london, quick update on what has happened so far.
1. flew over, we had an empty plane into mumbia so had three seats each to spread out on and a nice chicken tikia to tuck into (BA getting us into the mood)
2. got to the hotel in mumbia at around 2am, faily nice, considering you pass hurrendous poverty on the way out of the airport, so you are glad with getting a bed and AC. have to say the down side to mumbia is the smell, i got around this by taking a vicks nasale spray with me and use it whenever there is a human pong in the air, (i recomend it to anyone travelling!!)
3. met up with our guide/ driver and head of mens wear from provouge (whome i have forgotton their names) and they took us for a tour around the city visiting Gate of india, taj hotel, victoria station (not the one in london), prince of wales museam, hanging gardens, and general parts of the city.
then we went out for dinner with Monil (head of property at prozone) and Nikial (provouge/zone) then took us to china grill in the hyatt hotel, I'm glad i visited the cream of the party crowd in mumbia because it gave me a good contrast between the real rest of india and the new western clubbing scean of india, we ate pizza at 3:00am and went back to the airport to catch our 5:40am flight to Udipour.

Udipour was amazing the palaces on the lakes and the introduction to real india was spectacular and fastinating. we met a lovely pair of newlyweds of their honeymoon from UK (living in OZ now), Racheal and Rick, we got on very well and went out for dinner together at an amazing resturant in the old part of town over looking the lakes and palces, above us were chipmonks, owls and bats. we hope to meet up with R&R in leh.

Arrived in Jaipor yesterday after taking a night train from udipor, what an expirence!! the plus side was we met three pretty dutch girls on the platform and relised we were in the same carriage unfortuntaly they were in the first class bit and we were in the 2nd class bit, so they shut their door and we saw no more of them! instead we had three fat indian blokes sleeping around us, who i swear did not stop farting all the way across the rajistan deasert (thats where the good old Vic's spray comes in!!)

Dr Arun our guide in jaipor ex-cheese maker and now professional tourist guide and historian has today shown us the palace on top of the hill (sorry i cant remember a lot of the names) but is one if not the most spectatlur buildings i'v ever seen, reminds me of an Indiana Jones scean, we walked around in the scortching heat and listened to his stories of the place, we got up their by elephant, which was good if not a bit touristy, mostly european and Japanese (G5 countires) around us.
I asked lots of questions, because jamie did not ask one!! his contribution was a huh / euh when we entered a secreat escape tunnel for the king and there were 100 bats above us.
this afternoon we visited the inner city palace and observitory another amazing place. i have lots of postcard and two books for anyone interested, the observitory was very cool like something out of star trek (an eutopuian world it reminded me of)

we leave tomorrow at 5:00am to catch the train to Agra to meet with the Majaraga of Battersea aka (dad) to go see the Taj Mahal, and visit the Taj Mahal coffee shop.

love to you all
ollie (jamie is upstairs in the air-con room, with a beer and cricket)

Day 1 packing in London!

We leave on the first day of the new Tory government coming into power. Today we have brought our crocs shoes, recommended to us as the new traveling essential. brought two pairs, but don't know if leather crocs are going to fair well in the monsoon season we're about to enter.
Packing has stopped while I watch Newsnight.
Going through checklist: jamies pills, malaria pills, diarreah pills, bird flu pills, first aid kit, toothpaste. Check!
Clothes check! Passport check, extensive itinerary Carmel and June have very lovely put together (many thanks from Jamie and myself) along with liaising with Reena D'silva organising our trip in India. Check!

So off to bed to get up and go to heathrow T5 to catch our 11:05am flight to mumbia!
I will keep updating this blog whenever I can.

One last note...it seems the lib dems have sold their soles how do they argue in parliament with themselves in govnt.???