The Slov Blog

RETURN OF THE BLOG (Here it is!)

RETURN OF THE BLOG (Come orn!)

RUTURN OF THE BLOG (Oh my Gaaawd!)

You knew I’ll never stop!

Oh Mark Morrison!! YOU NUT!!

Always singing about Macks and Blogs and shit....

BUT HERE IT IS!! FOUR YEARS IN THE MAKING! FOUR years you’ve been waiting for this mother fuckers! Oh it's ORN! It's on big time! Cancel your Love Island and red wine schedule! Kick your babies in their winy little mouths!! 2+2 = 4 YEARS! I'm riding on a horse! Can't nobody tell me nooothing! Can’t nobody tell nooooothing! Let's goooooooooooo

So yeah.... let's all caaaallllm dooooown...... 

BUT FOUR!! Why 4 years you might ask? Well this is actually the first time I've been away with just the "Cat" part of RobCatTravel as just a duo since returning from our 25 country, 3 year stint.

Crazy... but can you really blame us though?? Sick of the sight of each other!! Urgh her voice blog fans, BLAH BLAH BLAAA, my God!! Keep at arms length "CAT". If that is your REEEAAL NAAAME!?

So, what have I been doing since then? How has my life changed? You don't CARE blog fans!! I don't care about you either!! I know how this works....

"Skip to the part about your diarrhoea!" Ok JEEEEZ. Let's do this....

So, Slovenia. That's where we were at for this episode. If you're like a lot of people I've met, and you've never opened a map up in your life; Slovenia is a country in Europe that's located east of Italy, north of Croatia, and south of Austria. And the best way to get into Slovenia, is.... to fly into Italy, blog fans. Yeah I know right. Mind blown. We actually saved about £200 by flying into Trieste (Italy) rather than going into Ljubljana (Slovenia). And Trieste is just only about an hour drive into our first stop, Piran; so it seemed totally worth it and logical. I had been wanting to visit Slovenia for a good few years now, I did my research, planned a route, we booked up our accommodation and car hire, and we were ready for shmosing it up.

We landed in Trieste on the Saturday. It was hot, and smelled like 16 tons of cow shit. Just how I pictured it in my dreams. We got to the car hire windows and none of them had queues, except for the one we needed. Typical. It took aaaaaages to get spoken to there. When we did speak to the guy, he tried to bump us up from a Fiat to a Mercedes straight away. No thanks! Stop trying to finger us up the bumhole buddy, we just landed and want to get a move on! Then he convinced us to take the pricier insurance on top of the one we already had, which was basically like sticking his middle finger right in bum anyway. By the time I heard we had to pay a €30 road tax to drive on the Slovenian motorways, and then we were passing a toll road in the first 10mins of driving, it literally felt like we had a full fist up our anuses at this point blog fans. Yikes! Say ciao to that £200 savings bitches! But that’s life when you’re on holiday init.

We eventually got to Piran in Slovenia with our anuses just about half way intact. I unpacked and unravelled my jacket from my suitcase, and the brand new shades that I ordered online especially for this holiday fell on the floor and smashed into smithereens... Good start, but we move on from these setbacks blog fans. It was getting late in the evening by this time, so we went out for dinner. Cat requested we got seafood. She wanted seafood pretty much every day, for every bloody meal to be honest. I'm surprised that when she asked for a jug of tap water she didn't request for them to put a bloody goldfish in it! Where we ate was really cool though. It was like a hole in a wall that served the food from a hatch, and everyone sat out in a quiet courtyard surrounded by old buildings. Then there was a waiter, who was technically part of the bar next door, running around like a headless chicken handling all the drinks. Thw wine was cheap as fuck so we took advantage of a few cheap drinks. Wine not blog fans. Wiiiiine not... 

The next day we headed out early to do a coastal walk from Piran to Strunjan. The walk was long, hilly, and HOT! We didn't really get a breakfast as we didn't pass any supermarkets or anything and I thought we would pass something eventually. Boy was I wrong. After 20 mins, I felt like a dying desert camel! And like a bunch of dickheads we didn't pack suncream either. It was 30 degrees with not much shade. Our unprotected, pasty white English skin was not ready for this type of molestation. But walk was nice, and we saw some super sexual scenic views along the way. We had a swim, and just before ABSOLUTE DEATH we finally got some food and a cold drink. Cat opted to go for an octopus salad as it was “a healthy light lunch” to continue our walk on.... but she also got three pints of beer to hydrate blog fans. Classic Cat logic. THREE PINTS THOUGH? It was so hot, and we had a long uphill walk to continue! Why would you wanna make yourself feel like a bloated cow doing that!? Lol. When we got back to Piran, we climbed the bell tower at 4.56pm. I’m confident in the accuracy of this time blog fans, because as we were up there, taking in the calm tranquil views, listening to the seagulls and waves, reflecting on life, taking a cheeky holiday selfie or two... the bloody bell went ORRFFFF!! Literally right up behind us in a cage like a perverted ninja... Motherfucker almost gave us a heart attack! Bastard!

In the evening we went for a couple more drinks again, had another little swim again, and ate at the same restaurant as the day before. We actually sat at another restaurant over the road from it, but no waiter came in the first 5 minutes, and we knew for a fact that this restaurant had shitter reviews, and higher prices. So fuck that, we just went back to the old one... But we ordered different dishes, and sat on a different table to yesterday to feel like it was a new unique experience again lol. The next morning we left Piran and headed for Predjama Castle for a quick stop-off before Ljubljana....  I must of stalled the car about 142 times whilst driving blog fans. I don’t think I've driven a manual since 2012, and I kept thinking I was in an automatic. Cat kept asking "what's wrong with the car??" All patronising and shit... Pssst....

"Nothing is wrong! I'm just a fucking shit driver! I haven't used a clutch for about 7 years, this car is about as tight as a bloody bobsleigh inside, and the gear stick looks like a little fucking black lollipop that I keep forgetting is even there!"

Anyway, Predjama Castle is located in some middle of nowhere, in some Lord of the Rings, Hobbit land, countryside vibe. It was super cool though. The outside view of it was so picturesque, that we really didn’t give too much of a shit about going inside. We could of paid entry to the castle or caves, but we’re the type of arrogant arseholes who think we have been to enough cool castles and caves in our lives, so we didn't bother...

We got to the Airbnb in Ljubljana a bit too early to check in, so we parked up, left our bags in the car and hit the town. Now, I know most people might want to chill after a long drive into a new city on holiday if they have an hour or so to spare. You know, get a bite to eat, a refreshing cocktail, a ice cream maybe? What do we do blog fans?.... A long arse walk again.... in 30 degree heat... all up hill... hungry, thirsty, and almost dying... AGAIN... This time it was actually more my fault than Cats. Who would of thought I'd ever admit that? I looked at the city map and saw Ljubljana Castle was not too far from our accommodation. In my head, it was in the middle of a big park, on top of a hill. So I thought we'd go there, see it, find a tree with some shade, and just chill until check in.... I was almost right blog fans... The castle was on a hill in the middle of a park, but the park itself was just one massive uphill hike covered in trees! And you couldn't see the castle in front of you because the whole hill was basically a forest that you couldn’t see past. So we had to walk RIGHT UP to the bloody castle before getting a fucking glimpse of it! SUPER up hill! AGAIN! You might think "at least the trees must of supplied some shade this time?"..... NO! If anything it just felt like it was trapping the heat in and making it humid as fuck... so again blog fans... almost DIIIIIED... 

We got an early dinner on the way back to check in, showered and headed out to the city. Ljubljana is really nice. Typical of most small European cities. Lots of bars, cool looking architecture, and a river running through it. Neither of us was really in the mood to smash back a load of drinks that night because of the earlier trauma, so we decided to head to the Neboticnik skyscraper for a cocktail. I was expecting it to be all fancy pants, and for them to look down on us with our creased Primark suitcase clothes. But it was actually really chill and really nice. We both got a couple girly cocktails, and the views were amazing. Much better way to see that bloody castle! Pst!

In the morning we made our way to the Metelkova art district (by foot of course). It’s a weird area, mostly full of nightclubs, fully covered with graffiti and strange abstract sculptures. Once we were done taking photos there, we thought we'd get a bus into the shopping centre. Just to get a lunch, look around shops, and to basically be in aircon for a while. We got to the bus stop and I asked some local girls how it works to get on a bus here. They told us we needed to get an oyster card style card to tap when you got on, which needs topping up. Unfortunately the nearest shop selling them was pretty far... so what did we do blog fans? We walked to the shopping centre.... By this point I just accepted this is my life now, and didn't even argue with Cat about it. It was only about 6 miles away... Once there, I bought some new shades to replace the ones I broke. I also got a t-shirt as apparently I packed my brothers new t-shirt before I left home thinking it was something I might of ordered online drunk. And he didn't want me to touching that, so I was a kind of a shirt short for the week. After shopping we got a bus (YES A BUS) to a shisha cafe, smoked, and got dinner. Food was banging, and we also went to a couple cool pubs after. Message me if anyone wants any recommendations on them blog fans.

After Ljubljana, came Lake Bled. BEAUTIFUL place. One of the main reasons why I (and most other tourists) wanted to come to Slovenia. As soon as we parked up and dropped our bags off, we hiked... lol... But this was my idea, as I marked out the very best spot to see a view of the lake from. Another LONG ARSE HOT WALK! But once we got there, so worth it. I would say it’s probably hands down the best viewpoint I've been to in all of Europe. We took some sexy photos, and headed back down to the lake for a swim to cool off. I was happy to chill in the shade and listen to music, but Cat was annoyed that we didn't bring a ball or any beach games to play with... This was the point when I started to get suspicious that Cat is actually a dog in disguise blog fans... All she wanted to do for the whole bloody holiday was go walkies, and to play with balls!....... Psst “play with balls” blog fans...... But why does she have no chill??

Anyway... We got pizza that night (Cats was a seafood pizza, naturally), and then we got a famous Bled Cream Cake dessert. It was the tits. Probably put all the weight that we sweated off, back on. But some would say it was worth it blog fans.

The 2nd day in Bled we DROVE to Vintgar Gorge. Yes drove. I put my fucking foot down on this one man. I said we'd drive it as walking it would take an hour and a half each way, on hot concrete, with nothing interesting on route to see, and the Gorge itself takes an hour to walk down and see, and we are tight on time, and the heat gets me angry, and our water will get hot, and we paid for a car for a reason, and blah blah blah blah BLAH! You can just picture how passionate I got about driving this blog fans lol WAS NOT HAVING IT. We’re DRIVING!!

We got to the Gorge early. It was amazing... so blue. We were really tired from all the walking and sweating and early mornings, so we were walking around with puffy morning hamster faces. The cool spray from all the waterfalls kept us daisy fresh though, and we missed all the school trips coming in, so we timed it all really well. One Hungarian school trip came in and there was a grumpy looking fat kid with a “Born to be Wild” t-shirt on, like he was a stereotype straight out of a 1980s family friendly kids movie. It made my day....

In the evening we visited a farm which makes its own home made beers and brandys. The lady who owned it was really cool. She doesn’t advertise... she is happy with the steady small clientele she gets off word of mouth, and lives a good life, meeting people and drinking. She has pet chickens, cats and alcohol... What more does she really need? Kind of envious of her lifestyle haha

Our next stop from Bled was Kobarid. But instead of taking the most direct route, we took the “Vrsic Pass” which was an awesome scenic drive. Maybe my favourite part of the whole trip. It started in a place called Kranjska Gora, and it was sooooo nice there! It had a river running down from the mountains that looked like bath water, and a lake that was so clear. There were hills surrounding the lake and river that had ski resort style cottages on them. So orgasmic. I stopped and said to Cat “this is easily as beautiful as anything we have seen in New Zealand or Iceland for example”. Hard to believe so few Brits come here for holidays. As the drive went on, things got more and more uphill, and there were over FIFTY hairpin turns! Not even exaggerating... They’re numbered out for you. They were all pretty close together too and the fiat was STRUGGLING with the incline! Could barely come out of the 1^st and 2^nd gear! Felt like I was on one of the gym cross trainer things. Gear 1, gear 2, gear 1, gear 2. Jesus! Was tempted to suggest to Cat we get out and walk the rest of the holiday! Might as well, we’ve covered half the bloody country by foot already! The views of the mountains , hills and rivers continued to be orgasmic though. We stopped off to stretch our legs a few times, and I enjoyed prancing around in the hills like a fat, hairy, Julie Andrews on crack. Something about that fresh mountain air just gets to me blog fans. We got stopped by goats casually crossing the road once. I thought Fenton might of had something to do with it. There wasn’t many people or cars about, and roads were pretty quiet up there... I was cruising along at one point, minding my own business, feeling the breeze in my hair, and Cat was like “Errrmmm Rob, are you on the right side of the road??”

“Errmm.... nooo..... I am not.” Casually switch over to the other lane... Smooooth.....

We parked up, and checked into Kobarid just before heading out for dinner and a couple drinks. We had a little wonder and saw the small town, but we saved the real walking for the next day blog fans.

Oh joy. In the morning we headed towards Napoleon Bridge which crossed over Soca River. Some people consider it the sexiest river in Europe, depending on what attributes you look for in sexy rivers I guess. I would probably say it hard to be up there, wouldn’t be too surprised if videos of its wet glistening blueness isn’t all over Porn Hub... Anyway, once we passed the river we arrived at Kozjak Waterfalls. It felt like we were in Uncharted 4 on the Playstation, or on the set of The Goonies. HEEEY YOOU GUUUUYS!!! Looked almost fake, as it looked too perfect. I was keeping one eye open for a pirates treasure chest, because if I was a pirate, I’d definitely leave treasure there. We weren’t allowed to swim in the waters there, but who cares about swimming when you can WALK blog fans!? Yay! We took the longer route back, which was part of a “historical trail”. Inverted commas needed, as the historical part was pile of shite to be honest. Just church rubble... Should of been called “The mostly uphill and in the wrong direction trail”. I swear for a moment I thought this was a footpath to the sun or something! ALL UPHILL! And I was looking down on that little blue river thinking “Wait a minute... we’ve constantly been heading north. The accommodation is south... I know this path goes a LITTLE bit off course..... But......” Up, up, up, north, north, north lol. It was too late for turning back... Every step further from food and water, and closer to the sun... It’s was a matter of cry or die!

We cheated death again, and somehow made it home before vultures ate our decomposing bodies. After dinner we saw that the little town centre had a stage set up, and a little market stall. It seemed like some sort of sports day awards were going on or something, but the whole little village was there, and they were selling beers, and pancakes, and balloons and popcorn. Me and Cat just sat on a step with a beer and soaked in the community atmosphere and listened to the music. Was a nice way to spend our last night in Slovenia.

And that’s just about all I have to say about our Slovenian holiday blog fans! On our last day we drove from Kobarid, to Trieste in Italy. We stopped off at more random little areas for a dip in the rivers, drove through some wineries, and got a quick glimpse of the famous Lipica horses. Which was a bit gay... We also stopped of at a brewery I liked the sound of, to try a few tasters, and to buy some bottles to take back for the evening.

In Trieste, parking the car up was a nightmare. Reminded me of parking back home in Watford as our Airbnb was directly opposite a hospital, with no spaces, and I had to park a good 15min walk away. I dropped Cat off with some of the bags, but I had to sweat my arse off carrying the remaining ones back. The Airbnb was really nice, but it had the SMALLEST shower! I'm not a large guy by any means blog fans, but I couldn't clean myself for shit in that shower. Couldn't put your arms out to wash your back as it was as narrow as a coffin in there! I kept knocking the shower gel off the racking, and it had that REALLY FUCKING ANNOYING curtain that clings to you. AGH! I felt like one of those fucking chewy toffee golden quality streets all wrapped up in it all real tight to your skin. Was probably clinging to all sorts of previous skins that week. Just in that shower getting more filthy than when I stepped in it!!

We had pizza and wine in Italy.... Wine not blog fans.... Wine not.....

Handed our car, Andy back, and flew home.

The coach broke down on the way home from Stanstead to London, but like I said at the beginning........ we move on from these minor setbacks blog fans :-)

All in all, it was another successful trip for RobCatTravel. It felt really weird being the two of us again like that. Me having a map in my hands, her having her little finance diary of expenditures lol. Felt like a time warp to 2012 a bit....

If you wanted to know more about my bowel movements.... they were slightly less regular than usual. Nothing too horrific to report.... They were slightly darker and harder than usual...

Sooooooo..... I think that covers everything!

I can give a small run down of each stop-off and rate them out of 10 if you wanted?

Just seems like a lot to read in this blog lol.... Fuck it....

PIRAN: 8/10

Really really nice place... Romantic. Not too much to do there, but perfect for a weekend. If you’re the wanky type of couple who likes to dress up, eat at fine dining restaurants, and look into each other eyes with the sun setting behind her.... You’ll love this place.

LJUBLIANA: 8/10

Again, really nice place but only really enough to keep you entertained for a weekend. I wouldn’t come to Slovenia specifically for this city, but worth a stop off. Decent bars there etc.

BLED: 10/10

Nicest place I’ve been to in Europe probably. The town part of the lake was a bit tacky with casinos and shit, but that’s not what you’re there for. So photogenic... It’s nice.... Imagine Robbie G if he was a lake.... That’s Lake Bled blog fans...

KOBARD: 8/10

Really nice little town, but people would only stop off there for the Vrsic Pass, and Soca River... Which are both AMAZING! So it gets an 8 just for that.

So peace out blog fans!!

Hope you enjoyed this, and found it educational.

Share this with your friends and family so they are able to better their lives by reading this, like you have.

Love you all!

Stay sexy!

And i’m oooooooouuuuuuuuuutttttttttttttttt

ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!

All Good Things....

Boring boring blogs... Big bloody boring blissless blogs! -_- Who caarreeesss!! Booo!! I’m oooovveeerrr it Robbie G!! Another pooy blooog!? Why do this to my soul!? :( Well, luckily for you blog fans... it’s the last one EEEVVVVVVVEEEEEEERRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:O :O :O :O :O

We last left you in Agra, which is where we saw the Taj Mahal... The Taj was pretty amazing... Annndd... Thats all you need to know about it! Phsst... MOVE ON! Get a book and Google images, JEEEZ!!... We didn’t have much time in Agra, so we quickly saw the Agra Fort, before rushing off to the train station. This was the first time we caught a train in India, and as it’s India, it was obviously pretty mental. We arrived to drumming, singing, people walking across the tracks, cows, monkeys, and some people even SHOWERING on the tracks! Wtf?... But yeah, that actually happened... Our next stop was a small little village town, named Orchha. On the first day, we had a little bike ride in the wildlife sanctuary, but it was bloody HOT! Like, “kill me now” hot... We managed to see lots of deer and monkeys through our sweat stained eyeballs... Luckily for Cat, she fell off a rock into the river on one of our stop offs. I would of usually laughed and taken the piss, but I was actually feeling rather jealous at that point :/ In the evening we had an Indian cooking class. The host was really nice, and we learnt how to make a couple dishes... The food was great, but later that day I wasn’t feeling too good... Kinda brushed it off though... Having diarrhoea for me, is as common as brushing my teeth in the morning lol. So we went on a local temple sightseeing day trip... Usual stuff... We did see one palace that was built over a 8 year period, looked really good, carvings, architecture, etc all grand and awesome.... And It was used for one night... Seriously... For one king, on one night... Then abandoned... What’s wrong with people? lol... Came back after that to have an afternoon rest... Then... Oh my goodness... My stomach was playing up again... But this time it was different blog fans... I waited around a bit after the first anal exodus, and then it started coming out the other end... I chundered EVERYWAHHH lol.... Not nice, puking when sober... I’m not used to it... But I was really sick. My temperature was sky high, and my body felt as frail as a poppadom...  I was wondering if it was from the cooking, but I think it was more likely from that “kill me now” heat I was talking about... But luckily I had plenty time to rest that evening, and I recovered for the next day... Which was a good thing! Because that day, was........

CATS BIRTHDAY!!! :D We were staying in Orchha for one more night, but we checked ourselves into a faaaancy hotel in the outskirts. Repaid Cat for the faaancy hotel I had for my bday in Thailand :) Anyway, we checked in, and it was really really nice. The staff were so polite and proper, it was almost intimidating... The hotel had a big garden area, bang in the middle of it. And this is where we get an even BETTER slice of luck... The managers nephew was having a birthday party, on that EXACT SAME DAY! :D So all these tables were being set up, a buffet area, DJ, dance floor... So our timing was impeccable ;) We didn’t wanna spend the whole day in the hotel hanging around, so we decided to see the local Orchha palace. It was good, we walked around, taking it easy... But then... There was another twist in the story blog fans... Brace yourselves... We were walking around a certain area, minding our own business, without any challenges or conflicts in our lives... Cat was walking in front of me, as she stepped off this small step rather sheepishly. I thought to myself “Jeez, cautious Cat or what!...” Then I hopped off with great confidence and poise... And then... F@#%... My foot must of landed on the circular rock, rolled on all my weight, and I totally F%#@ed my ankle lol... Dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes... For about a second, I thought “Shit... Its broken, call the hospital”. But then I realised it was most likely just a really bad sprain... Which it was... I had a moment on my arse, half laughing to Cat saying “It’s really bad”. But I managed to get up not long after, and walk around the rest of the palace... I was fine... Up and down the stairs... Just very slowly, and with a major pimp limp.... We got back to the hotel, showered, and rested a bit before the PAAARTAYY... We sat on the bed for about an hour or two, reminiscing on photos and videos of our past travels... Then I got up to go toilet... But as I hopped off the bed, and started walking... “Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitt.........” My ankle started to KILL! Proper agony!... I called the fancy reception, on our fancy bedroom phone, and someone brought down some ice for it in a fancy bucket... So I iced it up, got changed, and started to head out to the gardens for the buffets... It looked awesome out there. They had green and purple lights, lighting up the grounds, tables set out, waiters serving people, live singing, couldn’t of timed Cats birthday on a better day... Cat walked out towards the buffet to find a table, and I hopped... My foot literally couldn’t make contact with the ground... This obviously caught the attention of some staff, and before I knew it, I was getting a foot massage, and a wheelchair rolled towards me :D I gotta say, I luurrve being spoilt on Cats bday ;) Haha... She did get a bit annoyed by the fuss people were making over me, but she couldn’t complain... We had waiters serving us food, we got beers and a bottle of wine, and she even got fireworks and a chorus of “happy birthday” sung out for her :p Well... It was for the managers nephew, but we could pretend... Turned out, all this fuss was actually made for a ONE YEAR OLD BABY! Who would never appreciate it! So the party might as well of been thrown for Cat in the first place!

The next day, we got a car to a town called Khajuraho. It’s a place made famous for its temples with exotic, karma sutra style carvings. Problem was, I still couldn’t walk... Not even stand... So I asked the hotel if they knew where I could get crutches. But they had another suggestion blog fans... They placed me on a motorbike, and drove me off... We came to a small village, and the bike driver sat me down outside, under a tree, in front of the village homes... I sat on the wall, and the driver called out some old man... They told me this guy knew some sort of ancient Indian therapy, and by the next day, I would be able to walk... I was sceptical... I couldn’t even put my foot down at this point... But Cat and I didn’t have time for me to be crippled, so I gave it a go... So I sat on this wall, the guy comes out, and then several of the local kids came to sit next to me... As the old man sat my foot on his lap, the guy who gave me a lift on his bike said “This is going to hurt, a lot”... And it bloody DID blog fans!! He seemed to know what he was doing, touching my foot, rubbing it, massaging it... But then, he went mad, and started twisting it, yanking, and basically trying to rip my foot from its bloody ankle! I had my t-shirt in my mouth, in agony, half nervously laughing, half on the verge of crying... The kids next to me were LOVING IT! Every time I yelped and screamed... They laughed... They were only between 2 and 8... I was like “you next?” They just shook their head and smiled... I payed the old man for trying to break every bone in my ankle, and hopped on the bike back to the hotel. The guy who took me translated that I needed a massage tonight, with hot goats milk, and salt :/ oookkk.... I mean, I had some special injury cream from the clinic, but obviously that wasn’t gonna cut it... I needed goats milk... Unfortunately the hotel restaurant only stored buffalos milk, so they had to wander out to find goats milk for me whilst I rested.... What’s my life coming too? :/ lol.

I wake up the next morning, after a night of resting and goats milk massages... And lo’ and behold, I could stand! :o I wasn’t exactly a spring chicken, but I was able to walk to the toilet, and wee with two feet on the ground... The things we take for granted ay... SO, we got our day of sightseeing... More temples! :D Our schedule was running pretty tight, so we just had the one full day in Khajuraho. The temples were nice. We saw beautiful carvings of women with massive round breasts, some performing oral sex, and some gentlemen bumming horses... It was romantic :) After a couple hours sightseeing... fending off eager touts, and barbaric heat... We went back to the hotel. We had a train to catch later that day to our next destination...

Varanasi... Was very excited to be here, as Varanasi is considered to be one of the most holy cities in India, and possibly the world. We came off the night train needing a rest, plus the afternoon temperature was torture, so we waited until the early evening to explore. When we hit the town, our first stop was a famous lassie shop named “Blue Lassie”, which was situated within a crazy labyrinth of small alleyways. As it was recommended in the Lonely Planet, we got the rare opportunity to actually chill out and speak to the other travellers who have read about it. We met an Aussie girl, and an American guy, who were both equally cool. After our drinks, Me, Cat and David (The American) walked down to the ghats to see the daily 7pm ceremony. It was pretty awesome and special. We heard the prayers, and got a bindy painted on our heads by a little boy. I was also lucky enough to get some ash land on my face... probably from the cremated burning bodies not far away from us :) That worked up our appetite, so we headed off to a rooftop restaurant to eat. We had to be awake early for a boat ride the next morning, so we headed home at a reasonable time. As we’re white, ricksaw drivers literally throw themselves at you... We actually saw one man, jump off his ricksaw to grab Cats arm, EVEN THOUGH two local Indian women were standing there, ready to give him business. He stuck his palm in their face, just to get the opportunity to rip off the stupid white tourists. How low is that? Cat and I were like “NO! You have customers!” He was just like “No, no, no!” Arsehole... Anyway, the next guy who approached said he could take us, and I politely turned him down. He had a cycle ricksaw, and our place was too far out.

He was like “No, no, twenty minutes”.

I said “To here!?” (showing him our hotel key) “How much?”

“150”.... “You sure? 20 minutes? 150 rupees?”

“....yes”

“OK”.... So we went...

You can guess what happened next blog fans... 20 mins later... We get to some weird random hotel we’ve never seen before... “Here... Your hotel”... “Errrmmm no...” The name wasn’t even similar! We told him to forget it, and we’ll get an auto-ricksaw, but he insisted... Got new directions, and set off again... 45 minutes later... “Here you go”... “NO!!” lol... We half felt sorry for the poor old bastard peddling us. But he shouldn’t of lied to us, just to get his foot in the door for business... We were getting tired, and Cat was getting pissed off... We had like 4hrs before we had to get up for the sunrise boat trip in the morning... Luckily the 2^nd guess wasn’t too far from ours, and we eventually got in... Cat gave him a good telling off and finger wagging, and I paid him 50 rupees extra for his hard work ;)

ANYWAY... The next morning we woke up super early, for the boat cruise down the Ganges... We felt tired as hell... The boat set off from the same spot we saw the ceremony from yesterday, and we were able to see the sun come up... We also saw people meditating, and bathing in the river. Even though Cat read that some parts of the Ganges had more bacteria than an actual piece of poo.. watching this was a really nice moment... We had another afternoon rest, before heading out again. This time, to the burning ghats. We walked around the alleys for about an hour trying to find it. Cat and I got offered to go up to a rooftop, where we could look down on family members cremating dead relatives on bonfires... Sounds like a pretty morbid thing to watch, but it didn’t feel that way at the time. The guy explained how only male family members could be there, as female tears could stop their souls reaching nirvana. The men got cremated in white, whilst women were wrapped up in red. The bodies are burnt until their last remaining bone (pelvis for women, sternum for men) They get taken out the fire, and tossed into the river... I personally found it quite nice and comforting... We went for our final meal in Varanasi with David (the American), before heading off to our epic voyage to the north...

Manali... After a 14hr sleeper train to Delhi, we had a break for lunch and shower at our Delhi hotel. Couldn’t get too comfortable though blog fans... We then jumped on a 16hr bus ride to Manali the same day. I spoke to a couple local people about going to Manali, and a lot of them mentioned the state of the roads going there. Saying they’re dangerous... I thought to myself... “If an Indian guy is telling me a road is dangerous... This one must be f%#*ed” lol... And oh what a ride we were in for blog fans... By the time it got to 1am, and I was ready to stop listening to music, and go asleep... The bus was bouncing around like a rubber ball... The road was going through MAJOR road works, and not only that, it was pretty much pitch black, and on the edge of some major cliffs. The driver didn’t seem too cautious about it, driving at 80mph. But needless to say, looking out the passenger window down a 5000 foot drop, didn’t exactly help me sleep easily... Anyway, we survived, and made it to Manali :) On our first day we had a village trek. My ankle still wasn’t 100%, but I got through it all OK. The scenery was REALLY really nice, and nothing like any of the previous Indian landscapes we had seen. Felt like we were in Peru again. Or up in the Scandinavian mountains or something. Snow settled on the mountain tops, rivers had crystal blue waters running through it, whether was not so “kill me now”... Game changer! Even the people were completely different from the rest of India. Had a very different style of traditional clothing, women were out more, whiter skin, more relaxed... I was like “You sure we’re still in India?” lol. Anyway, we got back from the walk, and Cat fell straight asleep. We were meant to meet a Spanish girl for dinner that day, but Cat was KO’ed. We didn’t sleep well on that bus as I said... Unfortunately, there was no time for lazy mornings though. The next morning was a day of mountain biking. It was HARD! We cycled 14km ALL uphill on the way there. I felt I had to turn back at one point. Don’t know if it’s because of the altitude, or the fact that im now a fat podgy lazy slob... but I wasn’t feeling good. I carried on regardless. Even Cat said it was too difficult, and she LOVES this kinda shiz! Again, we saw some really amazing views. All the snowy tops of the Himalaya’s, grassy hills, blue rivers... Same Same, but different... Then we had our third day in Manali. And what a way to finish it off... A paraglide! We heard from some people that the paragliding had been shut down. There was a death last year, its not illegal, blah blah... Somehow though, we were giving the opportunity to put our lives at risk again. We hiked up a massive hill AGAIN, with about 20 Israeli tourists, to the paragliding spot. Cat and I were able to go within the first five flights, as we had a bus that day... I went before Cat, and for some reason, it didn’t go too smoothly lol... As I was strapped in, the guy suddenly turned to me and goes “run, run, run!” And then... “NO! STOP!”... Then there was a big fuss, because we almost died... I was like “Wait a minute, you haven’t given me ANY instructions or briefings on this... Whats going on?”lol... “How did the last guy die??” :/ Eventually I took off OK, Cat was 2 goes behind me, and we both survived... Just...

Then it was back to Delhi. LAST STOP! OMG BLOG FANS!!... We have some time here to sightsee one more time. Maybe buy a souvenir or two, repack, and compose ourselves... For our next stop... ENGLAND!! Wow.... It’s been a long time coming blog fans... I remember the first time writing my blog in Mexico, back in Nov 2012... I basically couldn’t be bothered with phone calls, or long Facebook statuses. The breaking blog news went from a half-arsed paragraph now n then, to this... The greatest thing online since free porn :p Haha... I’d like to say a quick thank you to Catherine Himer (she’s the “Cat” part of RobCat Travel – who knew! :p ) Shes been a greatest travel companion a man could wish for... For most of it haha... But seriously, I don’t think I could of found someone with an equal enthusiasm, and determination to do a trip this long with. I remember talking about leaving England to see the world, WAY back when we first ever met. We both had that passion before we dated. We got together, worked hard, saved money, and we made it happen. So even though it hasn’t ALL been fairytales – I’d like to thank her, for helping me along the way, and helping achieve many lifelong goals all in one epic trip..... Id also like to thank YOU! The BLOG FANS! :D As I said, this whole RobCat Travel thing started off very personal, and basic... Now, because of you, I try to write something interesting, and entertaining... So that not only are our parents don’t get bored of reading it, but ANYONE can enjoy! Cat’s consistently promoted it, and saying to new friends “Oh, check Robs blog... Its really good”... Lol, I usually get embarrassed... Like, I’ve known this person one day, and now they’re gonna read about my bowel movements :/ Ooookkkk.... But, I appreciate Cats faith in it, and everyone’s efforts to read on...

So.... Its that time.... Last ever blog time :( To be honest, I MIIIIIIGGHHTTT write something again... A collection of thoughts... A summary of our travels... Maybe a Q&A thing... Not sure... Let’s be honest, we have a new mission now... We’re not stepping into old jobs. Things have changed... We left everything behind in London, and have to start again from scratch... FRESSSHHHH... So coming back to England might be the BIGGEST ADVENTURE OF ALL!!! :-O

SO ON THAT NOTE BLOG FANS!!!

KEEEEP YOUR SHORTTTSSS TIIIIIIIIIGHHHTTT!!!

BECAUSE THERE MIGHT, ACTUALLY BE, MORE.....

BREAKING BLOG NEEEEWWWWWSSSSSS IN THE FUTURE!!!!!!!!!!

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(see you soon) x

Incredible India

So... Blog fans... Are you ready to get a big spicy lump of BLOG shoved up your chapatti’s!? Well, keep your chapatti holes tiiiight... Coz we got some good blogging toniiight....

I last hit your dirty chapatti’s with a blog in Jodhpur (I hope you read it). From there we were on a voyage to Udaipur for our next mystical discovery. On route, we made sure to stop off at a Jain temple called Ranakpur. OBVIOUSLY blog fans... I mean, we wouldn’t miss that out would we...  It was fantabulous! Im telling ya, the Taj Mahal is gonna have some stiff competition from the temples, palaces, and forts we’ve seen on our way so far. I can’t really describe how it looked, but the carvings of the pillars and roofs are probably some of the most awesome examples of sculpting I’ve ever seen. We had an audio guide to go around with, and the Jain people are a pretty inspirational bunch too... I personally think we should all study their culture and beliefs, and learn from them :) The drive from Ranakpur onwards was really beautiful too. The temple was situated in the middle of a jungle, and the route ahead kind of reminded me of our drives in New Zealand. Just constant beauty. It was kind of what I always imagined Darjeeling to be like. And considering we are unable to reach Darjeeling this time around, it seemed like a nice little substitute for now... We arrived into the outskirts of Udaipur, and stopped off at some park. It was nice, nothing amazing, but God, we got some amazing stares from the locals there blog fans... I sat down on my own for a minute by the fountain... all of a sudden, a couple young guys came up to me and asked for a photo... Its ok, I was kinda expecting it... I am white after all... Then a bigger group came... I swear, after about 15mins of sitting there, I must of been in a pic with... several sons, the dad, the grandad, several cousins, several uncles, and friends.... and friends of friends... All  individually, and collectively... I literally did nothing to deserve this attention lol... I had a lil chat with them, they were nice... But then Cat came back to me, and I had an excuse to leave... But on our way out, some desperate, fat, middle-aged lady came rambling towards Cat grabbing her, and literally BEGGING for a photo with her... Cat usually refuses anyway, but in this case, I think she actually feared for her life lol... Got checked in to Udaipur and went for an evening stroll with Ashok, our driver... Saw the usual palaces, sightseeing things etc. But this time they were all lit up at night, and set on a really nice big lake. Udaipur was dubbed the “most romantic city in India”. But was probably more the “best place to splash a shit load of cash on your girlfriend” in India... Had lots of hotels and restaurants floating in the middle of the lake that you had to get a boat to go to, and spend more than the average Indian yearly salary on your one meal... Needless to say, we didn’t bother doing that... The next morning we entered the city palace, went to a haveli, wore a turban, and then went to a recommended hotel in the Lonely Planet. We werent staying there, but they had a really really nice rooftop, where you can see over the lake, palace, and buildings... best of all, you can chill major balls... You could also grab something to eat, and drink for a pretty good price. I got myself a lassie, curry, and then fell straight to sleep on all the pillows in the breeze:) Was majorly chillingballs.com blog fans – Didn’t wake up until I heard some MASSIVE cannon explosion from not too far from us. I thought we might of been at war with Pakistan for a minute... Turns out it was some sort of festival going on. Not sure what about, but Indians don’t need much of an excuse for a celebration. Seems to be a festival here every other day lol.

Next stop – Pushkar... A pilgrimage town, with hundreds of Hindu temples and markets, that surround a kind of hexagon shaped lake. We met up with Vicky, the guy that helped us book this trip. He was there showing around his Japanese girlfriend who came over to visit him... Don’t ask... After having dinner with them on our first night, we had a pretty slow and chilled one on our second day too. Wondered around the lake, through the town, ate falafels, talked with locals... Cat bought some Indian slippers, I got an Indian top, then we had dinner with our driver Ashok. We got street food as a snack before hand, but Cat wanted to go somewhere with beer. Pushkar is a very religious area, as I said, and alcohol is very hard to find... Cat found in the Lonely Planet (again) a place that apparently sold beer. We went there, and they served it for us in a tea pot lol. To keep it on the hush and hidden... Found out afterwards it cost more than Cats slippers and my top combined... Which still wasn’t LOADS of money in pounds, but, not good for India price :/

Cat went on a horse safari on our last morning in Pushkar... I stayed in, and had a lie in... Lovely Jubly... Then we were off to Jaipur! (Dont worry if youre getting lost with the city names). We got there in the early evening, as usual, and this time went for a walk by another lake and watched locals feeding the fish. Except here, they don’t break up little bite sized bits of bread for them... They throw in the whole bloody loaf like cavemen lol... How is that even fun?? We chilled indoors that night, got a take-away tandori chicken (which was the first time I ate non-veg in a long time) and beer with Ashok. Chilling, talking, discussing, in our room whilst watching TV... Just like a Saturday night take-away... After Ashok left, I put on Groundhog Day to watch... Cat fell asleep within 5 minutes, and I got an upset stomach... Which kinda felt like Groundhog Day to me :/

We had another big sightseeing day the next day. The city palace, temple of the winds... I wont bore you with details... One thing we saw that was pretty unique though, was the Jantar Mantar. Some sort of master wizard, mathematical time God must of made this place. It had all sorts of crazy sundials, zodiac clocks, and mind blowing madness. Things like the worlds biggest sundial, and a sundial that can tell the time to the exact SECOND. Its genius, love that kinda stuff...

From there, we were off to our last stop in Rajasthan, Ranthambore  National Park. Where you have the possibility of doing a safari, and seeing WILD TIGERS :o On our journey there we stopped off at a small village hut to get a cooked lunch. A lot of the locals came out to see the white skinned, pastey freaks that came to town lol. I was given some tinsel flowers to wrap around my wrist, as the Indians were celebrating “Sisters Day”... Like I said, any excuse... And I was also given some chubby baby boy, with his willy hanging out to hold... I was fine... I was just hoping that he didn’t get too excited and piss on my like a little puppy... We ate the food there, and arrived in Ranthambore. The hotel was really really nice, and brand new. But as it was Sisters Day, there was no one around to make us a drink or cook us anything. That usually isn’t a problem, as we always go out to eat and drink. But, like I was saying, its Sisters Day AND out of tourist season, so EVRYTHING was closed outside too... We understood that, no problem... But on top of having no food, we had on and off electricity, no wifi, and no water... Not no HOT water blog fans... But no WATER... We spoke to the tiger man, and were told it was best to take the safari early in the morning... So, guess what we saw on the evening before blog fans?... We saw a FORT! Haha.. AGAIN! :D On our way there, we managed to find a somewhere open in the outskirts to get beer and cachori’s (which are similar to samosas) Then we pulled over by a tent that was banging out mad music for the festival, got handfuls and handfuls of snacks for free from a very over enthusiastic man lol. Ashok drove on, eating and drinking his beer. We got to the fort, and the fort itself wasn’t too spectacular. Ashok was pretty drunk from the one beer he had (psst), and almost got attacked by monkeys he was feeding through his window. We then went to a temple for him to say a little blessing... Then he painted a bindy on my forehead, and held my hand whilst skipping lol... Seriously... Cat also managed to befriend a group of young girls who were there with their family. They kept turning to us and shouting “Hello! Bye Bye! Ta Ta!”... They loved us for some reason... Cat had to kiss a couple of the girls on the cheek before we said goodbye lol... Apparently that wasn’t enough though, as they asked us to do a dance... So I reluctantly did my shit impression of the running man... How embarrassing... We went back to our luxury hotel with no water to shower, or flush Cats poo... Woke up early the next day for the safari. To be honest blog fans... We were sceptical about this... When booking the tour, we worked out that we would arrive in Ranthambore on Aug 29-30^th. But we read in the book that the park didn’t reopen until Sept 1^st... We asked Vicky (the guy who booked it) and he said “don’t worry, ill sort something out”. Sounded dodge, but, whatever... Good for us... But then we heard the Lonely Planet was also wrong, and the park wouldn’t open until OCT 1^st! Reason being, that the waters were too low now, and the chances of seeing tigers were slim to none. So, we thought we might of been ripped off a bit there. But we left for the safari expecting the worst, hoping for the best... We entered the jungle area, and we saw cows, pigs, buffalo, peacocks... I was like... “We can see all this on any street corner”... But then we got deeper in, and came across a lot of deer, and antelope... I thought “Well, tiger food is here... maybe we could see a tiger or leopard”... But we didn’t lol... Apparently there’s 28 tigers living there, and even more leopards... But we only saw antelope and deer... No cats... Except a Catherine Himer... How disappointing :p Haha... Slight shame, but to see the wild natural environment, and to go around in the Jurassic Park style Jeep was pretty cool to me. And we both left mildly satisfied...

ANNNDDD.... I think that’s where we’ll leave it for now blog fans!... We have actually just finished sightseeing in Agra. But I think ill start my next blog from there ;) You’re needing a reason to keep those shorts tight init ;) I CAN say we’ve said goodbye to our driver, Ashok now. He was a cool guy, and we’ll probably meet up with him again in Delhi. We’re grateful he got us this far alive. Seen SO many car crashes in India. Some of the suicidal shit ive seen on the roads, I can’t even explain!

Anyway... I’m writing this on a TRAIN now. AS WE SPEAK! You might already know that we’ve seen the glorious, magnificent, sexually sexual Taj Mahal today... But lately my last couple of photo albums on Facebook, have coincided with my blogs... So, we’ll begin there on our next blog. Until then, like I said, keep your shorts tiiiight, and ALL will be explained in our next... breaking... blog... NEEEWWWWSSS!!!!

ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPYLAND!!

WOOOO!!! xxxx

Indian Intro

I can feeeel it coming in the air tonigghht... Oh lorrddd...

It’s our 24^th and final country blog fans... The only thing you should be holding right now is your popcorn, and your shorts... hold em tight blog fans... hold them TIIIIIIIIGHHTT!!!.......

Before we get on to the craaaaziness of India, let me tell you about our last day in BangKOK! Which was prreeetttyyyy crrraaazzyyyy itself! ;) We arrived on a beautiful sunrise, which started our day on a positive note. We had one main priority that day, and that was to pick up our Indian visas. Before we could do that, we revisited the same hostel we stayed at the last time we were in Bangkok. Which meant trudging down the alcohol and piss stained streets of Soi Cowboy, at the early hours again... Got to our hostel, and luckily the landlord was awake to let us in. We dropped our bags, and had some free toast with pineapple jam :) We knew the visa centre wasn’t open until 1pm, so we had quite a bit of time to spare. The last time Cat withdrew money in Koh Toa a couple days back, she decided to takeout like, $6000.... Not literally, but you know what I mean... WAY too much for the next couple days. So we decided to use this spare time to go to a money exchange and change up our Baht into Rupees. By the time we did all this, it was time to head to the visa centre. At this point we still weren’t 100% sure if the visa had been granted or not... And with all the hassle last time, I just hoped it all went to plan... It did blog fans... It did :) Nice big shiny visa slapped into the middle of our passports. All gooooood bro! Now we only had 3 things we wanted to do before our last day in Thailand was over... Climb the Ghost Tower, see a German friend (Julia) we made in Mission Beach (Australia)... and maybe chill out a bit.... We gave ourselves one hour to sit back in the hostel air-con, before attempting the other 2 missions... Firstly, the Ghost Tower.... Let me explain the mission...

The Ghost Tower is like an urban legend. We had kinda heard of it before, but never really knew where, or what it was... We bumped into a guy called Arash in Koh Phangan, who had actually been there, and showed us an awesome video he took. So this is when we decided we HAD to see it. When we got there, we were a bit confused to where the entrance was. The whole thing was cornered off like a high security building site. We saw 2 German girls around the bottom who had the same idea... We asked some locals about it. Some just shook their heads, some pointed to a certain area, some just watched us attempting to break in... After everyone gave up watching, and we NEARLY gave up trying, suddenly some guy opened a gate... He hushed us in quickly... He said “500”... We were like “Whoa... No... We heard 200”... He then shook his head, and tried to chuck us straight out... The 2 German girls left, but me and Cat decided to pay. When Arash spoke to us before, he did actually say he paid 500, and thought “I’ll never be here again, and it was well worth it.” So we did the same.... (500 baht is about 10GBP / 20AUD... Which is a lot of money in Thailand).... Anyway, it was proper dodge, proper illegal, and proper rapey.... There had been stories about lots of dead bodies being found there... Either murdered, suicide, or dumped from somewhere else... Either way, that kinda ran through your mind, as we jogged up the forty-something floors to the top. On our way, we came across broken toilet seats, random bathtubs, lots of bats, and graffiti saying things like “All you’ll find here is suffering”... It really set the mood nicely blog fans...  Then, we finally got to the top..... “woooowww!” :D Amaze baaalllsss! :D There were actually quite a few tourists up there. They must have been part of the secret operation too ;) There were a lot of snags, and 6000 foot drops that you could kill yourself with if you wished... Or even if you were just a tiny bit clumsy... But we just enjoyed living life for that moment blog fans... We got there just before sunset and got the best of both worlds... Day and Night... Kid Cudi... We were literally a block or two away from the very posh and expensive Hangover 2 bar. We were like “Wooo!! Look at all you posh suckers, with all your stuuupid posh drinks!” But in reality, we were there less than a month ago :/ And the 500 baht bribe we paid for the Ghost Tower, was about as much as their drinks there... But still..... F*** the system yeah ;)

After all that excitement, we managed to fit in our reunion with Julia. Was really good to see her, catch up, and we ended Thailand on a high... Then... it was on to the next oonneee......

Indings, aka The Incredible India... We finally landed in our last destination, on Aug 15^th... Aug 15^th, if you didn’t know, is Indian Independence Day... Where they celebrate their independence from the bastard British... Welcome to India, Rob and Cat ;) We arranged an airport pickup from the hotel, and it didn’t take long before shiz started to get weird on the streets... I think the first thing I saw was a monkey, trying to pull a pigs tail... Think about that... Monkey, pulling a pigs tale... Dont know about you, but I learnt about farm animals, and jungle animals... Never saw a pig in Jungle Book... Dont recall a monkey in Babe... But it can be found in India blog fans.... We arrived at our hotel, and it was located BANG in the middle of the craziness... Cat seemed a bit overwhelmed by it all...

I was like... “Wow, we’re actually in India!”:D

Cat was like... “OMG, we’re actually in India...” :/

We walked around a bit, but to be honest, we couldn’t venture too far. Especially at the beginning. We were pretty used to us being stared at in other countries, or looked at like walking dollar signs. But here was a different level. Kids would grab your arms, ask for food, money, beer, stand in your way, everyone just walking up to you, and talking, staring, hassling... Nothing we couldn’t deal with, with a joke or smile, but we didn’t go too far away... After spending two days in Delhi, seeing the local area, The Red Fort, etc... We were planning to catch a train and head up north... We did a lot of planning and research, and we decided Rishikesh was gonna be our next stop... So, we went to or reception desk, asked about booking train tickets... And basically blog fans, all our hard work, went STRAIGHT down the shitter! Vicky, the guy we were speaking to, was like “Rishikesh? No.... Not good”... So this is how it went down...

We went into a bedroom, sat down with a beer and Bombay mix (they call it Nampkin)... And “discussed” what we were planning to do... Bare with me blog fans... I was like “OK, we are going to the north, Rishikesh, Manali, Amritsar... Then to Rajasthan to the west... Then Agra, Varanasi, and back up to Delhi.” Great plan.... But then Vicky was like, “No, you will do it this way”... He told us the weather in the north was bad, so suggested to go out west first, and end up in the north before returning to Delhi... Obviously we were sceptical, but he then started to write down our WHOLE itinerary! I was like, hold on... we are experienced backpackers. We can do this... We’ve done our research... We don’t need a package holiday! But then he went on... He explained the train situation, not many cities are easily linked. When I suggested buses, he laughed it off... No one takes buses... Only short runs... He basically knew (from the experience of flogging off this plan to 100s of other tourists doing almost the EXACT same thing as us) exactly what we were looking for, how much our budget would be, and our schedule... I actually did speak to a Dutch guy the night before who just came back from one of his scheduled routes. He said, obviously you pay more, but trust me, its good, and ill do it again... Cat and I were pretty much put on the spot.... 90% of what we wanted to do was in there, a couple little extras we never heard of, and it was still all within the daily budget that we always aimed for since leaving Australia... So, we bit the bullet blog fans... For the next week and a half, we had a private driver, whizzing us around the west, before we drops us off in Agra, where we get the train from there to finish off in Varanasi, and then Manali... We had mixed emotions to be honest. We were upset that we kinda cheated ourselves out of the challenge of backpacking India. But on the other hand, we only had one month, and this would be an enjoyable, and time productive way to do it... So, we paid a chunk of cash, and headed to our first stop... Mandawa...

On our way to this mystical place called Manawa (which we previously never heard of). We got to know our driver Ashok, and he was a really cool guy. On one of our first stops, he bought us a bottle of whisky. Which we reluctantly accepted, but agreed to share with him. Then, his little gifts got even weirder lol... We were having a conversation about lassies (the drinks). Saying we like them, how are they made, etc etc... He then pulled up in some random area, on the side of the road, took our empty bottle of water, and marched on towards some sort of farm.... We looked on confused, and he came back clutching a WHOLE 2LTR bottle, FULL of lassie.... We were like... OMG, what are we gonna do with this??... But we were grateful anyway... We got to Mandawa several hours later, in the early evening. Within a couple minutes, we already started to understand what Vicky said to us. The roads were just tiny, skinny, bumpy dust paths. There were no trains, no big cars, and the place basically looked like we were in some sort of middle eastern / Asian time warp. I was kinda expecting to spot Aladdin and Apu, just jamming on a street corner as we pulled up or something... But I was LOVING the vibe lol... The driver had to ask a lot of people for our hotel directions... We asked if he ever used sat-navs. He said “Yeah, in big cities... Not here.” I could see what he meant... Whats the Tom-Tom gonna say? “Turn right after the goat... At the cow, take the 3^rd exit...” Ich don’t think so blog fans... We finally found our hotel, and it was tha BOMB! It was basically a palace! Almost felt embarrassing walking in there... We belong in dorm bed hostels! Not HERE! We checked in, and then got a local guide to walk us around the area, and explain the local history... It was awesome... It was exactly the kind of thing I wanted out of India, and even though we hadn’t been here long... I was starting to feel more happy and settled about our situation...

Our next stop was at Bikaner. Again, another place I had never heard of from my research. And again, it was a really cool, old, tradition town... We got the see the fort there, which had some of the most amazing and interesting artwork and architecture inside. We walked around the local markets, bought samosas, and then popped into a “miniature arts” shop. It had a couple artists there, that were able to paint pictures in the most MICROSCOPIC details! You actually had to look at them through a magnified glass to see the fine detail. They looked like printings... Then, the guy we were speaking to painted a landscape of a camel, an elephant, houses, hills, two people holding hands... All on my BLOODY FINGERNAIL!! :o Ridiculous! We offered a tip, as we couldn’t really get sucked into the slippery souvenir slope, but he refused... Which was kinda refreshing to see...  

Jaisalmer was our next stop. We arrived in early evening, so we were gonna head straight up to a view point, where we could see the fort and the sunset. We stopped off with Ashok to buy some beers. Three extra strong Kingfishers ;) As we did that a group of children came up to us asking for money. They were ridiculously cute, and knew it. They were all smiling at us, holding out their hands for money, with their sari’s and jewellery on. And we were like “what do you need money for?” “cold beer”... Psst what!? This coming from an innocent looking, little 10 year old girl? Ich don’t think so blog fans! They said we could take a photo of them, but as we weren’t gonna feed the alcoholism, I felt we shouldn’t exploit them either... Anyway, we headed up the hill, and Cat couldn’t finish her beer... so I had half. Trust me, one and a half tall cans of that stuff got me feeling pretty tipsy! We walked round the view point taking photos. I couldn’t take many, because for some shitty reason, my brand spanking new, expensive camera, is refusing to charge... Pissing me off.... India has the same voltage as Thailand, so I don’t see why that’s happening... I brought my backup camera Justin Case... (You know the one that broke, but then decided to work again after I paid out my arse for this new one?)So at least it’s good I have that... Unfortunately, I hadn’t used it or checked the battery on that for a while. So after about 10 minutes of being on the viewpoint, I had two cameras with dead batteries... And I missed the sunset moneyshot... Classic!

The day after, we went to Jaisalmers main attraction, The Jaisalmer Fort. It was A-MAZE-ZING! Considered one of the must see sights of Rajasthan, and it was easy to see why. All the architecture, sculptures, and haveli’s... The view, over all the rooftops. It was the shizniz... We had an audio guide for half of it, and an actual real life guide for the rest. To be honest, I think I preferred the mechanical guide this time... I usually prefer listening to people, and asking questions. But this guy seemed a bit motivated to take us into shops, and show us all the magical unique things you could buy off all the “poor locals”... aka... his friends... At one point he took Cat into a shop saying “Just look... Dont have to buy”. I made the point of standing on the doorstep, with my back to the shop, looking out on to the street. Just people watching, taking photos of buildings, walking up and down... “Robert, you want to look?” “No thanks” He could see I wasn’t happy about it... “OK, next time you tell me shops you want to see, and we can see there” “No... No shopping... Only sightseeing”. Seems like people in most parts of Asia nearly die of shock when they hear a white man literally has no interest in buying ANYTHING. But hey....

The last thing we did whilst in the Jaisalmer area, was a Camel Safari. Was really good. We got driven into the desert, then rode camels over the sand dunes not too far from the Pakistani border... Got to see a good sunset there... This time with a camera... (Been using my backup camera permanently now... Annoying)... After the camels, we came back to the camp for some Indian entertainment. Had singing, dancing, and lots of food... We then had the choice to either go back out to the desert to sleep, sleep in a cabin, or sleep outside on a rooftop... Most people wanted to head out to the desert, but it was proper windy... Cat knows how much I had sand in the bed... I have a shit fit brushing sand off a mattress if it was over her feet... So imagine me in a DESERT! Not only that, but I started to feel my stomach going a bit dodge. Surprisingly, I haven’t had too much of a bad experience with the ol Delhi Belly so far... Ironic considering I shat my way through every South East Asian country we visited. Anyway, we decided to sleep on the rooftop. Everyone else went to the desert, so it was just me and Cat. Was really nice. We managed to get a shower, brush our teeth, and go up to the mattress waiting for us. An Indian couple who were also there as tourists, started singing and humming Indian hymns from next door. Was pretty spooky, but with all the stars at night sooooooo bright, it was also pretty romantic times blog fans :p .... Well, it would of been... If Cat hadn’t fallen straight to sleep, and if I hadn’t been hit by the worst case of volcanic diarrhea EVEEERRRR... well.... at least since... last week :/ Must of been the mixture of the spicy mango chilli, along with the sweet porridge pudding.... I could still hear all the singing and humming though the windows, but lets hope to God they didn’t hear me....

We are now in Jodhpur!! Which is enough for me to write about for now, in this “Indian Intro”. We had a village safari here, where we got to see an old man drinking opium, and getting off his tits.... Also seen the Mehrangarh fort... Think forts have become our new temples lol, everywhere... This one was also totally amazing... Not so much the inside of this one, but the view... “Oh woooooow!!” :D They call Jodhpur the “Blue City”, as a lot of the buildings are painted baby blue. Looks so cool from birds-eye view... Now, we’re just in the hotel, maxing and relaxing... We had a really good and CHEAP dinner today. Been avoiding touristy things / prices as much as possible... Had 2 lassies, and a massive BBQed shared plate for.... wait for it.... £3.20... We paid 4pounds with tip... How generous :/ Other than that, we’re both pretty ill at the moment... Both got the flu, and I have a bad toothache... On a positive note, my ankle is looking a lot better... Dont know if you saw a picture on Facebook? But all my lovely friends suggested it was either aids, gangrene, or a zombie bite... Luckily, I saw an Indian pharmacist, and he knew exactly what I needed... Guess that’s why you see so many Indian doctors, and NOOO Thai ones lol....

SOOOO..... Until next time? The last time? The last time I rhyme a sublime line for your mind? I don’t know??? Maybe... Still got quite a bit of India to see in our tight schedule, before Armageddon happens... RobCat Travel, in ENG-GER-LAND :o lol.... Im sure ill find something to blog about in the UK... Reunions, how it feels being home, how it’s changed... I did a good blog after I left South America with my “Top 10’s”. Top ten foods, drinks, hostels, towns, etc. Maybe I’ll do that for Asia... If it’s possible...... So, like I just said, until neeexxxttttt tiiiimmmmmeeeee!! Keep those shorts tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiggghhhhhhhttt!!! For the next, breaking, blog, NEEEEEEWWWWSSSS!!!!

Zooooooooooooooooooooooopatel! x