the time has come

Well, its our last day in India

I have mixed feelings of excitment to be coming home and sadness to leave such an amazing country.

Ok, its time for highlights, some of my favourite things about India:

• The people - We have meet some incredible people, been stared at for a whole 5 months, laughed and shared chai with strangers, and watch some of the most colourful people in the world. The Indians are wonderful and their hospitality has been the best. People like, Ramesh, Vijay, Anup, OF, and to the lovely fellow travellers we have met to like, John, Irish Nick, Leah, Arjen and Flora just to mention a few
• The Food - How I am going to live without Masala Dosa?.... and Jim is gonna need his onions and pickles. The food in India is the best, yum, yum!
• The Landscapes - We have seen mountains, lakes, rivers, Oceans, cities, wildlife, paddy fields, temples, mosques, churches, deserts, and salt flats
• Transport - Well I'm not going to miss sitting on buses and neither is my bottom, trains - the best! And don't get me wrong that there are some horrible things about India but I'll bore people with those back in the UK

Some of my favourite moments have been:

• Camel trek
• Seeing lions, elephants, crocodiles and snakes
• teaching English to Tibetans
• lazing on the beaches
• flying down a snowy mountain on a rubber ring

But most of all my most favourite bit of travelling in India has been travelling with Jim.

We have shared the most incredible moments, funny moments - Jim walking around the desert festival with a false beard and moustache, Jim pooing his pants in Mumbai Central Train station (jim - you did this too fi, 4 times in one day?), and wearing his trousers the wrong way on new years day (i was hungover and rushed) .

To the very sad moments and our thoughts are still with the wonderful people affected by the tsunami that we met in Tamil Nadu.

After travelling on our own for many years its been the best experience to share memories with someone else.

And do you know what our first question has been today? So, when we coming back then?!!

Fi

grr in Sasan Gir

The Southern tip of Gujarat has a wildlife park called Sasan Gir, which is home to the last wild Asiatic Lions in the world, around 300 are left.

India is famed for its wildlife and also for the fast speed in which these rare creatures habitats are being lost as well as the constant decline in species numbers. From what we have seen there are many people in India who dedicate their lives to saving these places and the plants, animals and birds that live in them.

Unfortunately, they seem to be fighting a huge battle with other people who are not as bothered about these places! A tiger park in Rajasthan - Rathanbore is the latest victim as they have just found out that no tigers are left, when they have been taking tourist in under the false pretense that 30 are left. Who knows where the tigers have gone, but a good guess could be medicine bottles!!

Anyway, let me concentrate on the amazing sight we saw in Sasan Gir national park.....

We went on 2 safaris and teamed up with a Dutch couple - Arjen and Flora.

The first safari was from 3pm until 7pm. The park is comparivley small and because Lions and there fellow species don't have passports and don't see human boarders they wander in and out of the park and lions have been spotted sunnin themselves on the beaches of Diu.

We didn't see Lions this time but we saw loads of other animals such as:

• Chital, spotted and sambhar deer
• wild boar
• jackals
• Indian Marsh Crocodiles
• and Arjen spotted a red bellied snake

The park is covered in shruby trees and with it coming into the very hot season there are no leaves so it looks very wild and hot.

The next morning we started at 6.30am and it was at least 35'c then! On the island of Diu the temperature soared to 45'c!!!!

This time monkeyrat came with us and brought us luck, within 10 mins we heard the deep meowing of a lioness and got within 50m of her. She was beautiful. Her call was for her cubs, which we didn't see but I will never forget the meowing.

After that we saw:

• honey buzzard
• spotted owlet
• parakeets
• tree pie (bird)
• painted storks
• heron, ibis and kingfishers
• as well as all the deer
• but the best was seeing a 2m king cobra

All in all it was a fantastic 2 days and a great last look at India's wildlife.

Fi

'The earth has enough for everyone's needs, but not enough for anyone's greed' - Mahatma Gandhi

10,650 KM

this is the distance we have travelled by rickshaw, train, bicycle and bus.. the most novel means by coracle boat to our hotel..

we have been missing the water, kayaking and canoeing, and will be the first thing we do when we get back to the UK

we are currently relaxing on the beach, enjoying indian beach life..

** UPDATE ** in mumbai, fi shopping and jimbo.. getting our heads ready for our return to blighty on the 14th april