This morning we awoke at the crack of dawn to go to our first yoga lesson. The lesson was great,we both felt very zen and managed to realign our shakras which set us up nicley for the day. Then all that was runied while uploading the following photos on a computer that has less power thann a pocket calcultor.. anyway i'm better now and here they are!!!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomandamytravels/

Since the last time we blogged we have ventured up the country from Ooty.
We spent a couple more days in Ooty, one of which we spent on a hike around the surrounding countryside, strolling through tea plantations (couldn't see the Ringtons field unfortunatly) and culminating in a sweaty after lunch hike up a mountain (ok it was probably a big hill, but it was steep and hot)
The scenary was amazing and takes up a lot of the photos we've put up!
The night after the hike Amys weak belly finally was attacked by the indian bacteria and caused much D and V. Thankfully after my amazing nursing skills (sleeping and giving ames 2 paracetomol so she'd fall asleep) she was revivied and felt a lot better.

Our trip out of Ooty, we booked a private bus so that we could have a bit of
comfort and enjoy the trip... Without going into to much boring detail, the Bus was
illegally carrying some ferns (yeah ferns like on a tree) on the roof and was impounded
by police on the edge of a Tiger reserve. Much annoyed and with the bus driver running .
off into the distance, we managed to hop on another bus and pay for the rest of the drive
to Mysore 3 hours later than we planned.

Mysore was like a watered down version of Mumbai. It wasn't that bad for the day but I
wouldn;t really want to spend much time there...
We were getting a night bus out of Mysore to Hampi that eveving, so we spent the day
walking round Mysore palace, which is a grand old thing. At the entry to the palace we encountered
some balntant racism in the form of the inflated ticket price of 10 times the normal price
for all 'foreigners'... I'd like to see alton towers try that pricing scheme (although the Mail
would probably be all for it). Relatively speaking it cost us just under 3 quid to get in but
my point stands...

Anywho, that night at 8pm we had the worst bus journey ever. The bus we booked we thought would be a comfy
overnight thing with lots of sleeping, oh were we wrong... 10 hours of sitting on arse numbing seats, absolutly shattered,
while not being able to get a wink of sleep, with people getting on and off with all sorts of
bags and packages (it appeared to be a couple of builders work van at one point as they hauled bags of tools and tins of paint onboard).
And amy was freaked out by the cockroaches climbing on the window next her.

So after much public transport nightmares we are finally in Hampi, which is by far the highlight of the trip so far.
The place is built around some 16th century ruins of a Hindu temple which was destroyed by
some Islamic extremists of the time, kinda a historical ground zero.

Our days have been filled, with sunny walks, sitting in hamocks and drinking fresh fruit smoothies.
So all happy agian now!

We are gonna travel to Goa tomorrow on a proper night bus which apparantly has beds and
everything - but i really wouldn't be suprised to find a couple of goats sharing the next
seat, but that's India and despite all the madness you have to put up with it really is a
wonderful place...

Oh tomorrow is my birthday (the big 26), no plans and seeing as alcohol is illegal in this
part of the country I probably celebrate with a mixed fruit smoothie!

love to all and hope you enjoy the pictures, we will eventually get round to sending some
indiviudal emails back to all that have written on our message board!!

Tom and Amy xxxx