Gorillas in Uganda

Hi All
Hope this post finds you well & happy :) We're in Nairobi, Kenya at the moment, after spending some time travelling over to Uganda to see the mountain Gorillas!

There were around 10 ppl on this leg of the trip. We've been living out of an overlanding truck, which has everything you could need stowed away somewhere (tents, cooking equipment, tables, chairs etc). We left Nariobi on the 12th of April & travelled to Lake Nakuru national park, where we were lucky enough to see white & black rhino's, water buffelo, giraffes, zebra, a leopard, and many other animals. We took loads of photos & Richard tried to identify everything in the bird & animal books which were very informative :) It was very exciting to see all of these animals on the first day!

After Nakuru, we travelled onto Eldorett. Eldorett is one of the towns which was affected by the political riots after the December elections, and we saw a few of the burnt out shells of houses & shops. Scary stuff. We left really early the next morning, as we were travelling across the border to Uganda and the roads were pretty bad. Stopping for lunch every day is a bit hit & miss, and that day was one of the worst for trying to find somewhere. When we stop for lunch, all 10 of us pull out tables, chairs food etc & make lunch, before cleaning everything & putting it back. The difficulty is finding somewhere to pull over & setting everything up, as people invariably want to watch the "mzungu" (white person) eat, and hope for hand outs.

So anyway, on this day we tried pulling over on the edge of a grassy field which looked perfect. It was the edge of a school however, & by the time we'd parked there were hundreds of school children who wanted to stare at us, shake our hands & say "How are you?". We were swarmed! Needless to say, we decided lunch would be impossible, & so after shaking everyones hands & saying hello, we hopped back in & continued on. Funny stuff.

Our stop for the night was Jinja, Uganda, which is where we stayed for the next 2 nights. The following day, most of the group went white water rafting down the "white Nile" (said to be the source of the Great Nile river. Richard, Tim (one of the group) & I decided to spend the day with a local charity organisation, Soft Power. We spent the morning at a school for Aids Orphans, where we were the most popular people around. All the kids wanted to hold our hands, or stroke our arms, or play with our hats etc. Richard & I sat in on a class for 4-5 year olds learning their numbers & alphabet. I had the pleasure of trying to teach the alphabet with the help of the teacher, which was pretty funny, but lots of fun. The kids are very energetic with a very short attention span & there are a lot of them in the class for the poor teacher to deal with. Pic of some of them below.

In the afternoon, we went to help paint one of the classrooms in a SoftPower school. I ended up covered in paint, but the room looked good by the time we'd finished!

The next day (Wednesday), we were back on the road to the "Hairy Lemon", which is an island on the Nile, where we spent the afternoon relaxing. Getting there & away was interesting. The roads were very muddy & at one point we all had to get out of the truck so it could slide its way over the mud without getting bogged (& so we wouldn't be in it if it slid off the road)!

Thursday we drove into Kampala (capital of Uganda), were we stayed the night, before packing up the tents and leaving at 5:30am the next morning to drive all the way to Bwindi Impenetrable forest where we were going to trek the gorillas the next day. We left the truck in a town along the way & took a local van as the roads heading up into the forest were really bad. We were bogged twice, the second time at dusk, & the car battery failed when the driver tried to rev the car out of the mud. Lucky for us, he managed to get the engine going again, so once we'd pushed the van out of the mud we were back on our bumpy ride all the way up to the community hostel where we were staying for the next 2 nights.

On Saturday, we split into 2 groups, to track 2 different gorilla families. Our group was the Rushegura group, which had 15 members, one of which was the silverback (the alpha male gorilla who leads the group). Lucky for us, our group was only a half an hour walk from the starting point. The other group was up in one of the dense areas of the mountain, which was several hours of walking, and hacking through the foliage to find them! Both groups had an amazing experience though. They are huge animals, and so human like! I've popped two photos on, one up the top & one below.

The following day (Sunday), we headed back into Kambale (4 hours drive from Bwindi), where we'd left the truck. Pic above of one of the encounters on the road. We had to wait for a while as the truck on the right was broken down and the truck on the left had tried to overtake & become jammed between the wall & the broken down truck & also bogged in the mud on the side of the road. It made it out eventually, & we continued on our way! We took another van to Lake Binyounyi, where we spent 2 nights chilling out, and getting our laundry done. Pic of Richard & I below with the lake in the background.

On Tuesday we headed back to Kampala which was another mammoth driving day, and then again on Wednesday when we drove back to Eldorett for the night. On Thursday we left again at 6am in order to get to Lake Naivasha by 3pm in time for afternoon tea!

At Lake Naivasha is a place called Elsamere, which is a colonial homestead on the lake, which is where Joy Anderson & her family lived, and which is now a museum. Joy spent a lot of her life in Kenya rehabilitating big cats (Lions in particular) & was the author of Born Free (which was later a movie). An amazing woman.

We camped the night on Lake Naivasha, up the road from Elsamere. The lake was gorgeous, and populated with hippo's which are quite dangerous... there is an electric fence between the camp site & the lake to ensure none of them wander into tents! We saw the tops of a few heads, including a mum & baby, & took lots of photos of the sunset & sunrise the next morning on the lake. Gorgeous place. Pic off the edge of the jetty below. The next day we headed back for Nairobi, which is where we are now!!!

Tomorrow we're off to the Masai Mara park for 2-3 days, followed by the Serengeti & then Zanzibar! Hopefully I'll be able to do another update in Zanzibar as apparently there are some internet cafes there.

Stay well & happy!

Love Richard & Corryn

Africa here we come!!!

Hi All

Tomorrow is our last day in India!! The time has flown by and we've had a fantastic stay here. We're definately planning another trip back someday to see more of the country - the mountainous north and the sunny south are on our list of places we'd like to visit :)

So tomorrow we're flying to Nairobi to start our epic two month overland trip through Southern Africa! We're very excited :) Not sure how accessible the internet will be though, as we'll be spending a lot of time in the national parks and on the road. So you may not hear from us for a while, but if you'd like to see what we're doing, our trip is described here: http://www.acacia-africa.com/HolidayDetails.aspx?tc=UAO58&ProductID=7 and I've popped a map of where we're going below.

Stay well & happy and think of us in Africa!!!

Lots of love

Richard & Corryn

Dehli, Taj Mahal & Rajasthan

Hi all.

With Corryn busy at work and my studies over, I guess it's my turn to do a blog update.

We have been in India now for about 3 months and have about 7 weeks left here. Amongst the chaos at Uni and Corryn's office we managed to get away for a short break. We met Vicky at Dehli airport and embarked on a 10 day trip from Dehli to Agra and around Rajasthan, the heart of the Indian Moghul empire (aka the land of Kings).

In Dehli we met our driver, Sampat Gaur, a tall Brahman male of 29 years old who had a very quirky sense of humour. Many interesting times ahead.

Dehli is a busy place but much cleaner than Kolkata. We spent a few days in Dehli checking out the main sights including Jama Masjid which is the largest mosque in India built in the middle of the 17th Century. The pic of the left of Corryn & Vicky in front of the main section also shows the southern minaret that we climbed up. The view from the top was amazing but the journey up and down the tower was more memorable. It was a dark spiral staircase that was built for single file only. However, we managed to pass at least a dozen people in there and the girls informed me that hands do go a wandering! Pic on the right is inside the mosque. So intricate and ornate.

After leaving Delhi we headed south to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. On the way, we stopped at King Akbar's tomb, one of the most famous Moghul Kings (pic on left). They have just released a Bollywood movie about him, which we saw on the weekend. Akbar (Muslim) had 3 wives, each of a different religion. One Muslin wife, one Hindu wife and one Christian wife. It was great to see some of the sights that we visited in the movie, all decked out as if it was 400 odd years ago.

Okay the main event. We finally got to Agra and our heads were poking around in every direction until we finally caught a glimpse of the magnificent structure. For those of those into a bit of history, the Taj Mahal was built by Emporer Shah Jahan as a memorial for his 2^nd wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to their 14^th child in 1631. It took over 20 years to build and is by far the biggest, most beautiful thing I have ever seen. The marble work is so intricate and just looking at it from a distance is so surreal. As the sun was setting, the marble was changing colours from white to grey, to blue, to pink. You could have just sat there for hours looking at it.

It might be pertinent at this point to mention that simply travelling around India and going from place to place can be just as interesting as the main sights. The pic on the left is a common form of transport that you overtake while travelling along the state highways.

After Agra we headed south towards the state of Rajasthan. However before getting there, we stopped in at Fatehpur Sikri, which was once the Palace of King Akbar. It is now a fortified ghost city but in its day (mid 16^th Centruy) Akbar ruled Hindustan from here. What's amazing about the place is that he has incorporated Muslim, Hindu and Christian achitecture into the place for his 3 wives. Pic of Corryn & Vicky on right.

Okay so we finally made it into Rajasthan and our first stop was the city of Jaipur, also know as the pink city. In 1876, the city was painted pink as a ceremonial colour of welcome for the arrival of Prince Albert. It was a pretty cool town but I would have to say that the colour was more of a rustic orange / brown than pink. Jaipur has a few attractions so I'll try to summarise as best as I can.

The Palace of the Winds is only one room deep and was basically

built so that the ladies of leisure could sit in their rooms and watch the processions going on in the streets below. Pic on left.

The cinema on the right is Raj Mandir, which is where we watched out first Bollywood movie called “Sunday”.

There is also a pic of us at this folk town come handy craft village. It was a little bizarre but I got to wear a turban which was cool.

The main attraction in Jaipur was the Amber Fort. This is another one of Akbar's creations built in the late 16^th Century. It was also huge and really impressive. The pic on the right is looking across the central garden to the main building. You could imagine what it looked like when the fountains and gardens were cared for.

The City Palace also had some really interesting rooms with ornately decorated doorways. Pic on left of Corryn & I sitting under one. (If you haven't noticed by now Corryn has developed a scarf fetish since we've been in India).

On our way from Jaipur to Jodhpur we passed this mass of red and were amazed to find out that they were chillies being dried out in the sun. Pic on right.

Jodhpur is known as the blue city and the pic on the right may help illustrate this. Basically the Brahman's (an elite class) paint their houses blue. When you look down on the city from the Meherangarh Fort, the city literally looks blue. The Fort itself is the also pretty huge and impressive. Pic on the right is looking up at one of the sections from the main gate. Very intrusive!

Once you get inside though, the rooms are still very well maintained given their age (over 150 years old). Pic on left is one of the Maharaja suites. There's even gold on the ceiling.

To give you an idea of how these fort's sit above the cities, have a look at the pic below.

After leaving Jodhpur, we went to a small town called Ranakpur, which is in the hills. There isn't much in Ranakpur except one temple to visit. I'll tell you what though, It was definitely a highlight of the trip. The temple was built by the Jain people. Jain is an extreme form of Hinduism. The Jain's live a pure vegetarian diet and do not believe in killing anything. they even walk everywhere and wear a cloth over their mouths so they don't breath in insects. Fascinating stuff.

Anyway, the temple was absolutely beautiful. It's all marble and hand craved. The pic on the right is a broad pic but the one on the left is an example of some of the intricate marble work within the temple itself.

There were also heaps of monkeys around so I thought I'd include this

pic of one having a snooze while its mate attends to some grooming.

Last stop on the journey was Udaipur. This is a small town on a lake and even though the lake was small, it makes the place very picturesque. Our hotel had a great view and the photo on the right doesn't do the sunset any justice.

There was a main palace and Museum on the lake and whilst going through it was fantastic, the view form the lake was much better (pic on left).

Waking up and looking over the lake with the morning sun on it was a great way to end the trip. Watching the locals washing their clothes in the lake and just enjoying the cool air was a nice break from Kolkata.

Before I forget, we organised our tour through a company called Real India Tours www.realindiatours.com they tailored the whole thing to our requirements and Sampat, our driver was great. Definitely recommend them for any of your Indian travels.

Anyway, as I said earlier, we have 7 weeks to go. We'll try and do another update before we leave.

Love to all

Rich & Corryn

Kolkata - Instalment 1!

Namaste!

Hope this blog finds you well & happy! Apologies once again for not blogging in so long... we've been busy! Richard & I have been in Kolkata, India since late November & have been very busy beavers. I have been busy getting into the swing of things at work, while Richard has been drowning in study. We've managed to see a few things nearby, but still have a lot more to go.

We're heading to Rajasthan on Tuesday to see the palaces and forts in the area, including the Taj Mahal! I thought I should try to update you all on where we're at before we go, since I'm sure we'll have hundreds more photos once we get back!

We're staying in a very luxurious hotel in the middle of the city. I've included a pic of the room, and also a pic of an unexpected room guest we found on the first night (the lizard). The hotel is very central, however my office is fairly far out of the city. It takes me around half an hour to get to work in the morning and around an hour or more to get home in the evenings. Traffic is pretty bad, as are the roads. I think my blood pressure has increased substantially over the last month due to the hair raising nature of driving over here. As my colleague described it... a white knuckle death ride... is actually fairly accurate... however I think I'm getting used to it. Watch out when I get back behind the wheel!

The city itself is pretty amazing. There are some gorgeous places and some disgusting places - the old cliche about India being a country of contrasts is actually very accurate. There are whole families sleeping on the pavement, while millionaires drive past in their BMWs.

One of the first places we went to see was the Victoria Memorial, which is a tribute to Queen Victoria and a gorgeous building. See the pic of the building with the lake in the foreground at the top of the blog.

We also went to see St Pauls cathedral which is up the road from us. Pic on the left. We also went to midnight mass there on Christmas Eve for the atmosphere, and couldn't believe the number of people packed in there!

Last weekend our driver, Shiv, took us on a tour to the areas around the city. Across the Howrah bridge into the Howrah area, which is completely different from the area we live in. I've attached a picture of a very cute couple waiting to cross the road, who we saw as we were driving through Howrah. We headed up to see the Ramakrishna temple on the Hooghly river where we saw hundreds of people praying and washing themselves in the Hooghly river. We also took a photo of one of the buildings covered in Bamboo scaffolding (a common sight), and also a picture of Shiv & I in front of hundreds of devotees bikes!

After visiting the Ramakirshna temple we headed further north to the Dakshineswar Kali temple. Both were very interesting and absolutely packed! Unfortunately cameras were not allowed. We didn't end up going into the Dakshineswar Kali temple due to the line to get in which was literally several kilometers long. Apparently now is a time of holiday for a lot of people from Mumbai and Delhi who come to make offerings at the temples.

On the way back from the temple we managed to take a photo of a rickshaw in action on the roads. The rickshaws are rickety old carriages on two wheels which are generally pulled by a wirey, leathery older man, and are everywhere, dodging the traffic and pulling one or two people.

From the temples we came back down into Kolkata & then over into the Botanical gardens. It was great to check out some greenery and with a variety of birds (all we see in Kolkata city are black scavenger birds)! Also in the botanical gardens is the largest Banyan tree in the world. The Banyan tree has proproots which it drops from its branches which allow it to continually expand. This tree covers an area of approximately 14,000m2!

Anyway, back into Kolkata, yesterday we went for a walk in the morning to take a photo of some of the things we'd noticed over the last month or so. You can see a few street scenes photos we took, including a local corner store, with the two shop keepers sitting up on the counter serving a guy. Also a cyclist cycling down a street early in the morning with what we think are gas bottles hanging off the side of the bike... this is a really common sight all the time actually - cyclists with gas bottles or other huge items riding through the streets.

We also took a photo of some people still sleeping on the pavement at 7am on a Sunday morning. They are the big bundles of cloth on pavement in front of a white wall. This is also common in the mornings. People everywhere sleeping on the pavement, from older people to children to whole families. The climate here is quite warm at night which means it is a comfortable temperature outside for sleeping.

Another common sight is fellows getting a hair cut or a shave with a cut throat razor on the side of the pavement. Barbers who don't have a shop, just a razor and a stool who are set up waiting to give you a hair cut or a shave. After asking permission, we took a photo of one such barber who seemed quite surprised that we would want to take a photo of such a common thing.

Finally, we also took a photo of some of the decrepit buildings which are everywhere in Kolkata. Apparently rents are set at very low levels, so building owners don't bother to maintain or upgrade the buildings, which leaves them in amazingly delapidated states. Its incredible some of them are still standing! Also, one last random photo of a line of motorbikes which look like they haven't been ridden in over a year, covered in dust & leaves on the side of the pavement. Very bizarre, and I have no idea where they have come from!

Anyway, as I said, still lots of things to see and describe, and I'll try to keep it more regular!!!

Lots of love to all
Richard & Corryn