The End of Hong Kong

We have now been in Hong Kong for about five days and have had an amazing time. We have visited Victoria Peak on the famous tram line and wandered the various night markets around Tsim Sha Tsui. Today we headed to Aberdeen which is a fishing market on the other side of Hong Kong, to eat lunch at the 'Jumbo' floating restaurant which we had to take a ferry to get to. It took a long time to reach, as do most places when budget traveling, as the cheapest option usually comprises of several buses and ferries. This afternoon we wandered the streets of Mong Kok, where we saw the flower market, the bird market and the goldfish market, all of which were bustling despite it being a Wednesday night! We then went to the world's biggest sound and light show which features many high rise buildings on Hong Kong Island which cast laser beams into the sky in time with a symphony.
Our favourite sight by far has been the giant buddha on Lantau Island. There's not much to say about it - it's just a giant bronze buddha, but it has a certain aura as it looms over the trees on top of a mountain. We even got to take a really long cable car ride all the way back down to a different island in order to get home. Tomorrow we have booked ourselves a train ticket back to Shanghai to begin our internship at the Shanghai Marine Ocean University. We can't believe there's only a month left of our trip!!

T-ten million fireflies... and a waterpark

Well, it was ages ago but we had a really great time in Malaysia! We were only there for a few days but managed to see many of the attractions! Our visit started with a 3am flight landing during which they played an extremely obnoxious song that went something like "you'll love Malaysiaaaa it's truely Asiaaa" which made us doubt the possibility of us enjoying it - but we did! We stayed in the Traveler's Backpackers Hostel and it was great - we were in an eight bed dorm and met lots of people who had been traveling around Asia. We were also staying right next to the Chinatown section of Kuala Lumpur where there was a great night market going on. One day we spent on a hop on hop off bus tour of the city, visiting the National Mosque and botanical gardens along with the huge shopping malls in the city centre. We spent half an hour getting our feet nibbled on by these tiny foot-cleaning fish and it tickled so much we could hardly keep our feet in the water! The next day we spent with a friend from the Netherlands, Thom, and went up the KL tower to get an overview of the city before relaxing in one of the cities many bars. We also took a night boat ride along one of Malyasia's rivers to see fireflies in the mangrove swamps - there were billions of them and it looked as if christmas trees lining the river. On the last day we ignored our budget and spent a whole day at Malaysia's biggest waterpark!

Our blog works in Hong Kong!

Sorry we haven't written in a while, the web censorship in China really is a pain! We had a great month in Beijing. We were staying with a lovely family, who have an apartment right in the center of downtown Beijing, so we were able to go out and explore every day. After we covered all of the major tourist sights in Beijing, we got into a very relaxing routine of waking up late, going out to a western restaurant for luch (we like chinese food, but it gets tiring three meals a day!) and then wandering around, or sitting in a cafe and reading. We also bought some cheap DVDs, and caught up on our movie-watching a bit. It was nice to chill out a bit after months of non stop traveling! We also took a trip to Xi'an, to see the terracotta warriors. There were over 6,000 warriors in the biggest tomb, each with different uniforms and faces. It was an amazing sight! We decided to travel to Hong Kong for a week, although we didn't realize until we were boarding the train that we were technically leaving China, so it caused our visas to expire. Oh well, it was worth getting another visa because we love Hong Kong. It is so bustling, with tall buildings and lights everywhere. Now we're headed to Shanghai for three weeks, and then we come home!

Blogspot blocked in China! - We'll try and get a post to you soon...

Blogspot blocked in China! - We'll try and get a post to you soon...

Some pictures from India and KL

Our last thali in Jaipur

Kl skyline

View of Petronus Towers from Kl Tower

Inside the KL Tower

Feeding monkeys in KL

A monkey climbing up our Japanese friend

Sunset in Kuala Selangor

Restaurant in Kuala Selangor

Petaling Street, Chinatown KL

Jagmandir Island, Cooking Classes, Horse Riding

These past couple of days have been some of the best in India. Udaipur is such a great city and there's a ton to do. Yesterday we took a boat around the lake and visited Jagmandir Island Palace - a gorgeous complex with quaint little courtyards and amazing views over the lake. We even got to look around the spa area (like we could EVER afford to go there!). We loved just sitting on white patio chairs watching the boats coming and going - such a beautiful place to journal as well! Then, last night we went to Shashi's cooking class below the Sunrise rooftop restaurant in Lal Ghat. If you are ever in Udiapur, you HAVE to go here - it was a 5 1/2 hour class filled with fun and we learnt over twenty new recipes, including most of the basics for Indian cooking. Think parantha (stuffed, butter, coconut), naan, aloo tomato masala, mango chutney, coriander chutney, pakoras (veg, paneer, onion, potato), vegetable biryani... and so much more! We took the class with a couple from the French West Indes, who are studying in Paris and India, and a Kiwi who is living in Kolkata/Calcutta working for an NGO which works with people in the slums. Talk about an interesting night! And then, of course, there's Shashi - a lovely lady who started the business after she was widowed at 32 and felt held back by her caste's rules. You'll have to take a class to find out the rest of her story, but she is truely amazing. We returned to our hostel at 11pm, exhausted, covered in flour, with a bag of sweet parantha for this morning! Today we have been on a hack/horse riding safari in the Udaipur countryside for 4 1/2 hours and are very sore as a result! We went with two German girls, a guy from Finland, another girl from Spain and our guide. We stopped for chai masala in the rural villages and there was this gorgeous little girl with no clothes and absolutely WILD hair! It was very funny. We stopped by a lotus pool for a break, and came back to the hostel at 2pm very sore, but very happy. Tonight we might try and find the cinema in Udaipur - which, according to the Spaniard, is no easy feat. There's a new Bollywood film out, however, and we can't wait to see it!
(pictures will come later!)

Udaipur, Rajasthan

We've been in Udaipur a day and LOVE it. It's gorgeous - loads of tiny winding pathways, crazy traffic (as per usual) and temples dotted around the lake. Our hostel, Lal Ghat Guesthouse, is awesome - we pay only 100 rupees (about 2 dollars) a night for a bed with curtains, a storage locker, hot(!) showers, and an incredible rooftop view of the lake. Yesterday we wandered around town and managed to find an Israeli restaurant which served humus and falafal for lunch - yum! We went to the City Palace for the afternoon and walked around the King's Palace. The princess of India is having a wedding there on the seventh of March, so it is all being renovated ready for the occasion. We understand why it's called the romantic city - everything is bleached white and reflected in the lake, and the city is nestled in the mountains. Our favourite part of the palace was the peacock mosaic courtyard - it was made with glass imported from belgium and was very beautiful with the light bouncing off the mosaics and creating a glow on the walls. After the palace we went to a yoga ashram in ashtang yoga. It was alright, but not very challenging and the instructor talked for most of it - not quite what we had been expecting! After that we went to a rooftop restaurant to see a James Bond movie. Octopussy was filmed in Udaipur, and all of the restaurants screen the movie from their rooftops so you can just look around at the buildings in which it was filmed. It was a lovely night - we had delicious thali (a platter of four different vegetable curries, chapati, papad, curd and salad) and there were fireworks going on in the distance. Perched on top of a nearby mountain was the Monsoon Palace, all lit up and towering over the city. This morning we awoke at 8am for a morning rooftop yoga class but the instructor was absent. We did, however, continue the class as like a community yoga class with a lady from Ethiopia, a man from Bangalore and another man (we have no idea where he's from). It was really fun and we got to learn all about the different types of yoga people do. Camilla did her first real attempt at a headstand to questionable success. It was a lovely start to the morning doing yoga on a rooftop overlooking the lake! We had breakfast afterwards at a rooftop cafe sitting on a raised sofa in an alcove with chai masala and omelette and porridge. So far, Rajasthan is looking great!!

Agra, Mumbai, Goa

The Golden Temple at night

The Taj at sunrise

The market in Fatehpur Sikri

Depictions of Lord Shiva in Elephanta Island, Mumbai

Shopping at a mall with friends in Delhi

 

Humayan's Tomb in Delhi

With India-Pakistani Border Guards

The Golden Temple in Amritsar

We have just returned from a relaxing beach trip to Goa, where we spent four days lounging around and drinking iced tea and fresh lime sodas. It was beautiful there, and one of our favourite nights was wandering around the Saturday night bazaar in nearby Anjuna. We spent yesterday in Panjim, a colonial Portuguese town and really enjoyed the calm streets and colourful houses. We are now back in Mumbai, which we had explored before leaving for Goa, and are preparing for a bus ride to Udaipur, Rajasthan, tonight. Mumbai was really special - we both agreed we liked it the best out of any other Indian city yet! There are tree-lined avenues, a beautifully architectured old university and the famous gateway to India as well as the queen's necklace - night lights lining the Chowpatty beach. We spent four incredible days here - while the necessity of obtaining our Chinese visas (it took forever) made us stay here that long, we had plenty to do in the city. We especially enjoyed the modern aspects of the city - we watched a chick flick in the cinema and were able to enjoy coffee and cake at an atmospheric cafe. We made a day trip out to Elephanta Island, where there are some very ancient carvings out of stone in caves depicting Hindu gods. It was exceptionally beautiful, and the ferry ride there was also very fun. We also had a great time in Agra - doing the usual tourist things like seeing the Taj Mahal, making a trip to Fatehpur Sikri and wandering around the Agra Fort. We befriended a rickshaw driver, Shabbu, who took us around everywhere for hardly anything, and even let us drive his rickshaw! It was very scary as the traffic here is insane! We are now looking forward to heading to Udaipur to do some cooking classes, and yoga! We'll keep you posted!!

Amritsar, India

We had our first horror train experience coming from Old Delhi train station to the Amritsar junction, but got here safely in the end! We accidentally booked a ticket on the notoriously bad train that is routinely delayed, so we ended up sitting in the Old Delhi (worst in Delhi) train station for seven hours (9pm - 4am) on a bench in the freezing cold, watching people relieve themselves onto the railway tracks. All announcements were in Hindi, so we had no idea which trains were at our station, and when ours would finally come. When we did get on the train, we were in the sleeping berths, which were disgusting, but really fun. It's a good thing we've come from Tanzania and are used to less than sanitary conditions so it didn't bother us much. Our beds were suspended from chains from the ceiling and we felt like we had been put in a jail cell. We shared the cabin with many people who helped us and bought us questionable food from the vendors walking up and down the train. We slept well until a drunk guy burst into tears at the policemen who had come to escort him off the train, and lurched into a long-winded account of his life story. Anyway,. we are now in Amritsar, at the border of Pakistan, and have been wandering around the street bazaars and having delicious mango lassis. The city is much nicer and more manageable than Delhi - less traffic and we're less rushed. This afternoon we will go to the border closing ceremony and last night we went to the Golden Temple and walked around the square with many Sikh devotees. It was an amazing sight to see it all lit up and surrounded by people praying, and we are looking forward to returning tomorrow to see it during the daytime.

Delhi, india

We have safely arrived in Delhi, India and have spent the last couple of days staying with friends and touring around the city. India is very unlike what we had imagined and has been a huge change from Tanzania - it feels very strange having constant hot water and electricity!! The traffic here is just as crazy - if not, more so, than in Morogoro. People ignore lanes and traffic cones and instead drive anywhere they want and squeezing into any gap they want to. We have been kindly escorted to see many of the attractions in Delhi by the family we are stayng with. We have been very busy since landing on Wednesday. About that, some sneaky person in Qatar managed to upgrade our seats so that we got to sit first class! Our favourite sights so far have been Humayun's tomb which we saw at sunset last night and the Lotus temple, or Bahai House Of Worship, which is a temple in the shape of a lotus flower with 27 marble petals and nine pools around it's edge. We've also had a lot of really delicious Indian food and have been stuffed at every meal time! We plan on spending the next couple of days in Delhi and will then head up to the Pakistan Border to see Amritsar and the Golden Temple.

Saturday, 22nd January, 2011

We've had a crazy week filled to the brim with trips to town, classes at SEGA, and planning for India. It has been very productive to say the least! We have managed to come up with a basic itinerary for India and booked some of the longer train tickets to alleviate some of the stress that goes along with traveling. We have planned for some amazing adventures including a week up to the Pakistan border, a relaxing beach holiday in Goa and a three week ramble in Rajasthan. It's all very exciting! We will be very sad, however, to leave our girls in Morogoro and are looking forward to one great last week with them! This Wednesday saw the arrival of the new non-formal class, and after some very nervous introductions, each girl was taken by the hand by a Form One student and given a tour of the school. Smiles were abundant and everyone had a good time taking pictures and getting to know their new sisters. As they toured, we were busy reading A Cat In A Hat by Dr. Seuss to the Form Twos and discussing the importance of communication. This new school year has brought on a whole new level of focus for most of the students, and everyone seems to be motivated to learn and study hard. Later that day we went out to town with Fran to celebrate her daughter Gemma's birthday but when we arrived at Ricky's cafe, it had just shut! Instead we headed to Oasis to have a cocktail but were informed that we couldn't have cocktails until after 7pm! We settled instead for chocolate milkshakes and a cold Tusker beer.
On Thursday we had a lovely day with the Form Ones singing a song they had made up about the New Year to send to the girl scout group Global Girls Unite in Pennsylvania. We then gathered all of the girls into the new cafeteria and taught recorders. The new students took to the recorders very quickly and we managed to play Hot Cross Buns all together and sing it! Mary Had A Little Lamb is coming along, but we still find it hard to get the girls to understand and remember the line "whose fleece was white as snow"!
Friday was spent in town - we finally managed to get to Ricky's cafe to have real ice cream and a lovely lunch of "tomato, cheese and onion melt" which turned out to be every vegetable imaginable wrapped up in an omelette - not quite what we had imagined but good nonetheless! We managed to post our letters and also made a trip to the sokoni to stock up on fruit and veg. We also managed to find a CD shop that had Tanzanian music - so we bought some to take home with us! We arrived back home at around 4pm and found that we had no power. Again. It seems to be a new pattern of the power going off mid-afternoon and coming back on for breakfast. This means we spend most nights cooking or reading by candlelight and without much to do. Yesterday we'd had enough - we had to do something! We decided to head down to the bar down the road and have a cold beer. We had walked past there at night earlier in the week and had noticed that they had installed a projector and speakers to play Bongo Flava music videos. We each ordered a Safari baridi and waited for the videos to start up. Soon after our arrival, we were joined by the bar man who had decided we needed company, and spoke not a word of English. It took us a lot of smiling and nodding before we managed to get him to speak pole pole (slowly) and we could actually grasp some of what he was saying. It turns out he is a DJ for one of the clubs in town and was responsible for the video projector. We managed to get him to turn on our favourite music and he even lent us one of his CDs of local music that you can't get anywhere! We came home, ecstatic with our new music acquisitions and spent a good time dancing around and eating popcorn!
We have spent some time today in town and are now relaxing before going to SEGA with Polly to have a sleepover with the girls. We are bringing a lot of things to do - movies, music, arts and crafts, and a lot of popcorn for our movie marathon. We can't wait to see the girls!

Eating Chicken Tikka Masala with Fran and Renee at Oasis

The road to our house when it rains = muddy feet

Our little Kahawa

Before his trip to the vet

Watching Global Girls Unite Video

The girls after receiving photos from Sandra

We babysat Mustafa's kid Abdul

The girls in their dorm

Fran teaching the non-formals

Our Girls Moving In

So last Sunday our girls moved into their new dormitory and they are still ecstatic about being able to sleep at the school! We have had a great couple of days with them teaching and have been getting them to listen to songs and then given them the lyrics with gaps which they have to fill in correctly. We have heard Justin Bieber sing 'Baby' about a hundred times today alone. The girls love it though, and the Form Twos have really enjoyed listening to I Gotta Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas. We even managed to upload the video to Baby to show the Form Ones today which made us very popular indeed! Yesterday was our halfway point of the gap year, and we can't believe a) how quickly it has gone by, and b) how much we have done! Anyway, here are some pictures of the girls moving in...

Some very excited girls and their new dorm

Because our internet works...

The SEGA girls in the sea on a field trip to Bagamoyo

Cooking something off a website. No clue why the face paints are there. Food colouring?

The graduating class with headmistress Salome, Dec, 2010.

A quick shot during one of our promo video shoots while waiting for the wind to die down

Our house!

SEGA school, Mkundi.

We made them Congratulations posters for their Graduation

Teaching in action...!

Jumanne. Tuesday.

Morogoro Bus Station (courtesy Elena's Dad)

Elena, Camilla and Babu Jona

So our first day teaching we were supposed to only teach three classes (we say only, but it’s actually quite a lot). We ended up with five.  We arrived in time for tea break and managed to wolf down a peanut butter roll, and a mug of deliciously sweetened chai before settling down to meet with a new member of the staff, Naomi. We are lucky to have two new staff with us at SEGA this year – a guidance counsellor, Pauline, and a communications and library teacher, Naomi. We were supposed to help set up the new sponsorship program and library with Naomi, but were called in at last minute to sub for one of the classes as the teacher was caught up in a meeting. We were subbing as Kiswahili teachers. If standing in front of the class trying to jumble a few Swahili words together while they’re all fluent isn’t nerve-wracking, then we’re not sure what is! Somehow we managed to come up with an impromptu lesson plan, though, and got them to write about New Year’s Promises (we didn’t know the word for Resolution in Kiswahili). It seemed to work out, and pretty soon the girls were busy crafting sentences about how much they want to learn English, or help the new girls at SEGA, or study all the way to graduation without any interruption. We then asked them to come up with three mwisho or goals, that could help them build up to their eventual ‘promise’. This is where things got a little mixed up. Some of the girls knew exactly what to do, and some of them ended up with sentences like Nakupenda Helen na Camel – I love you Helen (Elena) and Camel (Camilla) and Baadaye nitaenda kula ugali – later I will go and eat ugali. Well, at least some of them got it! After a quick lunch of ugali and sauce in the brand new cafeteria, we got back to work on creating a library sign-out book and organised the craft supplies. Later we had a double block with the Form Twos and made postcards about our holidays to remind them of their English. Tomorrow is a public holiday, which is very welcomed in this household – Fran has been working non-stop and is tired and Elena and I have a lot to organise as well. We will, however, still make a special visit to the school to make friendship bracelets with them as we know how much they love doing it and we just got new supplies!           

Sokoni - the Morogoro Market

Our lil puppy Kahawa

Road to the tailors

            

Back to School!

Well, we don't have lovely new outfits, but it's back to school for us! School officially started today, and yesterday we watched thirty ridiculously excited Form One girls each carry a new mattress and pillow to their new dorm room. We almost wanted to move in with them - they made it look like so much fun! We are still teaching a lot of classes for our last three weeks - around four hours of teaching a day. It's great! We had a really good time with our families these past two weeks - Elena headed to Jambiani in Zanzibar for Christmas, and then a safari in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater, and Camilla did the safari first then went to South Africa for New Years. We both had a really good time on safari and saw so many animals up close, and we even got to radio chat each other when our safaris overlapped! But now, after the luxury tented camps, heaps of delicious buffet food and taxis (thanks mama na baba!), it's back to the real world of budget travelling. Our power is out, our showers are cold and we have cockroaches. But we're still very happy to be in Morogoro and home again. We are planning our trip to India and trying to tackle the Lonely Planet while still in holiday mode. We managed to get our Indian visas after much trouble with the embassy. Basically they leave a forty-five minute window in which to pick up your passport, and they arrive half an hour late to that. And the dalla-dallas don't care that you have an urgent appointment and insist on taking ridiculous routes and taking the time to squeeze as many limbs into the bus as possible. The trouble with the Indian visas did, however, bide us time for a (not really) well-earned beach holiday in Kipepeo (butterfly) beach for a few days. We stayed in a tent on the sand with just a mattress and both spent the entire time reading and lounging in the shade. We had expected to swim but both managed to get stung by jellyfish and spent more time running out of waves screaming than enjoying the ocean. Nevertheless, it was relaxing. We also got to spend one last day with our friends Sadie and Belle before their departure back to Vancouver (we'll miss you!) We went khanga and kitenge shopping (big mistake seeing as our bags are already full) and went to a sugar cane juice stand. After a long (8 hour when it should have been 2.5) journey back to Morogoro, in which we saw an overturned bus due to the storm (eee scary), we are ready to embrace our last three weeks in Morogoro. Bring it on!