Síle & Bruce’s Travel Blog

After 11 mad months spent traveling around asia and austraila, we finally touched down at a chilly heathrow at about 7am this morning. Im not sure where they have gone, I remember shee and myself diving into the rooftop pool in Bangkok like it was yesterday, brillant. Whats next, stay indoors its to cold outside! Two days ago we were living in a hut 20 metres from the beach with a sea as warm as bath water. Think its gonna take a few days to get our heads around what we have just done. Highlights. Bali and the gilli islands, paradise! Shee having her passport photos taken in a car park in Kuala lumper. Night buses in Vietnam and 10p beers! Koh tao for the sunset (at the top of this page) Riding the pulsor 150 around the pot holed roads of goa trying to dodge the police and I can’t forget bombing around bangkok in a 2 stroke animal tuk tuk. There are to many to mention, these are a few of my personal favourites im sure shee can add to that.

Its been a fantastic journey, big thank you to paul for setting up the site, we owe you a beer! and to everyone who has left commets along the way, they have been gratefully received. cheers

Hello all,

Just a quick note to let ye all know that we’re safe and well.

We had planned on heading to Mumbai on Monday, but in light of the past 24 hours, we’ve just cancelled our tickets. We’re still not 100% sure of what our plans are from monday onwards, but we’ve no intention of heading back to Mumbai until we believe it’s safe enough to do so.

Well not long till we’re back now anyway.

We love and miss you all

xx

It was another busy day in india. Sat out on the balcony smoking a ciggy. 3 black dogs or so I thought were walking down the road. They stop right by our guest house. Suddenly one dog goes to mount the other. the other dog starts grawling, I looked back at the dog getting on top of the other and realized it was a bloody goat! The dog that was been mounted kicked the goat off. The dog looked visable upset and confused. It turned and ran of back up the road and you guess followed in toe by the goat who thought it was a dog.

Hello all, it’s been a lttle while since I’ve written so I thought that it’s about time I gave an update.

We’re still in Goa, partly because it’s easy going and enjoyable and partly because we’ve both been quite sick! We’ve both been on and off antibiotics now for a few weeks and being sick in Goa, probably the most western friendly area in the country, has made us a bit nervous about travelling around the rest of India. We are STILL undecided about where to head next, we want to be 100% fit before heading off on a 3 day train journey!

In spite of being unwell we are loving Goa, once people start to recognise you as something other than a TWT (Two Week Tourist!), you, generally, don’t get ripped of as often and begin to build relationships with people.

However, the count down to coming home has really begun for us! We are both really looking forward to seeing everyone again and I think we’re coming home at just the right time. In fact, i’m currently knitting Bruce a scarf to wear for when we get off the plane!

Right I’m off to do some yoga! We love and miss you all and can’t wait to see ye

xxx

After taken to the pitch in Vietnam back in April, I thought I might try it again here in India. Jerry the boss of the guest house we were staying was also the head of the local football association. Great I thought maybe a way in. I spoke to him and he said they trained every monday, wednesday and friday starting at 7am. “ill have a word with the coach and let you know. Sure enough the next day he gives the green light met monday morning at the pitch. As soon as I arrived I realized I may have bitten of more than I could chew. All the players were fit as fiddles and I was beginning to think, its just gonna be a practice match is it. And shore enough after, 15 laps of the pitch jogging, whilst doing exercises i began to feel my lungs start burning two big holes in my chest. After two hours of torture, we had a game by which time I was like an old man looking for the comfy chair. We played for about 40 mins and luckily was put in goal after 20 which was a welcome relief as it was also in the shade. we won the game 4-2. After training I spoke to the coach trying to find out when their next game was and if I kept training maybe a possible 10 mins on the pitch. “We don’t play til December” he told me.

We arrived in Goa a week ago now and managed to get a cheap-o room at Jerry’s Place, it costs just 300rp a night. The beach here isn’t really up to much which has been a little disappointing and I was sick the first night we got here. In the morning Bruce ended up chatting to an English guy, Dale, who took him to the chemist for me. We ended up spending the next few days with Dale, he took us out, shows us around the place and took us out to some lovely places to eat.

It was really nice to have someone just to ’show us the ropes’ and made us feel so comfortable in Goa. We went for a tour of the market in Mapusa, went to a really nice restaurant in Panjim and then he took us to this outta the way restaurant with beautiful views!

He has also let us use his motorbike whenever we want to which is AWESOME! And, he ‘made’ Bruce get a clean shave (!) the first in 7 yrs and It looks really great, I think it even surprised Bruce!

Thanks a million Dale!

We are in Goa at the moment, its very laid back here. We are staying at jerrys place, yes the owners name is jerry and his sons have funny names, well one anyway john all good, the other Genesis (Sing it Phil). Anyway on with the story. We met this english chap Dale from oxford, he has been coming to india for 15 years and knows jerry very well. Jerrys sister and husband owns a guest house across the road, when dale overheard how much we were paying a night, he told us its cheap as chips, ” I think jerry undercuts his sister sometimes, just to piss her off” all good for us I said. When jerrys sister first met her now husband alex he was a professional football who played for India. His then and now hero is Kevin Keegan, the geordies favourite. Jerrys sister and alex had two boys, the first one they call Kevin and yeap you guessed it the second they called Keegan. Dale was invited to kevins wedding a couple of years ago. Dale wrote to Mr keegan and told him the story of his indian friends, unfortunately mr keegan couldn’t be arsed to reply. So dale got some to write a letter pretending to be Kevin keegan. He presented at their wedding an made a quick speech. Apparently the picture is framed and on the wall in the house. Quality.

Today has been total and utter MADNESS!! We got up early and headed to the train station to get our train ticketd to Goa (we’re leaving this evening - 13hrs on an Indian train should be interesting!) which proved to be much easier than we thought. With this false confindence we headed to Crawford Market … error! It was sseriously stressful, we were told that we had to have a ”tour guide” to have a peek around, so not really knowing if we were being onned or not we decided to shoot off. We took a walk around and discovered some awesome little markets, and onced we’d relaxed, realle enjoyed the city. Once we got back to our neck of the woods we decided just to sit and ‘people watch’ arounf the Gateway to India, having sat down on a step (about a foot away from human poo!) some India people came up and asked if we’d have our photo taken with them; this had happened a bit in Indonesia so we didn’t think much of it. Once we had done it for one person however, lots more people asked and it ended up with around 10-15 people with their cameras out shouting for us to have a snap with them! Bruce got the sweats pretty quickly so we made a speedy exit - phew!

On our way to get a Coke we again heard someone shoutting “sir, sir!” we turned around and started to chat. It turns out that this guy was from a Bollywood Studio and looking for extras in a film being shot tomorrow! We’d heard that westeners sometimes get asked. BUT we can’t do it! We’ve booked our train tickets to leave this evening, it’s a shame as that would’ve been one to tell the grandkids!

Anyway, we’re just killing time before our train leaves, maybe we’ll catch another curry (this one’s for you Sarah)

We love you all
x

Hi all, Just a really quick one to let ya all know how we’re getting on.

We both arrived in one piece on the 17th Sept … its a shame we couldn’t say the same for our bags, they were still in Sydney! But we got them back a few hours ago, and nothing was missing - we also got 60quid from Qantas so, as of yet we haven’t spent a penny of our own money here.

India is a complete assault on the senses!  Everything in extreme, smells, sights, tastes the lot! Having said that its not in a bad way, I think coming here straight from home would have been a mistake so it’s great that things have worked out the way they have. The food is incredible, eating tasty curry twice a day really isn’t a problem!

We are gonna try to get down to Goa tomorrow, trying to figure out the train system should be interesting.

Anyway, like I said just a quick one. We’ll update again when there is more to tell.

We love and miss you all, keep in touch!

xxx

Well, we are of to sunny or rainy india tomorrow . After 3 months in aus we decided instead of working lets get back on the travelling trail. Its going to be a big slap around the face with the culture bat but thats what we are after. Flying in to mumbai 6pm wednesday. We haven’t got a clue what or where to go but I guess that will sort its self out when we get there. It kind of feels like we are leaving again for the first time and heading out to craziness. Looking forward to a lamb samosa and kingfisher beer chaser! If it all gets abit much we are going to head straight to goa for a 2month beach chill down and kingfisher chaser.

Australia has been good, not what we expected, but then not sure what we expected. The best experience was buy the van and living like tinkers for the last 2 half months. Most of the people we met with coffin dodgers in caravans but you know they have interesting stories to tell. Fraser Island was cool, alot of people had told us to head there and it was well worth it. 

Its been quality staying with some old friends I haven’t seen for a long time. We have eaten some strange stuff on our travels but I think aus so far has it, maybe the old minds got back into the western way but vegiemite and cheese sausage? They are an aquired taste, I personally found them better cold. Best beer in aus, I would say Tooheys new or tooheys extra dry, good beers. Best slang words would be ” No dramas” its cool don’t worry about it or Bogan, which translates to a good old british pikey chav.

Well thats about it, bit gutted we are missing japan but where we are heading to is going to be just as mad

Regards to everyone

Shee and Bruce