Week One in India:

A long blog as we're very excited.. expect this to steadily decline. Sorry if we bore you to death but we found this hilarious.

Cracking start. After happy goodbyes, Eli sets off the metal detectors and Meg's handluggage is highlighted as a potential bomb risk. After 20 hours of rubber omelettes, chicken sausages and an uncomfortable 3 hours in Qatar - spot the english girls, we found ourselves more quiet than ever (literally)! The wooley hat wearing taxi driver (understandable in 24 degrees) picked us up and drove us to our hotel, on his mobile phone the whole way.We still arent sure which side of the road your supposed to drive on as he demonstrated both! We then settled comfortably into our new room, which felt quite homely (once we had cable tied every window shut and barricaded the door shut with a bench...) we now find this SO much funnier than at the time.

Heading out at 1pm, pretty jet lagged we headed to the beach where we found ourselves treated like queens: families kicked off sunbeds, groups of people wanting our picture and we were offered free drinks. We were brought back down to reality when lovely shara told us we were 'white like a chicken'. The highlight for Eli was when a concerned indian sprinted after the sight of our brolly going down to tell her that the sun in the sky burns. Later, we decided to go back to the beach for dinner only to find it deserted. On walking home through a public garden we experienced our first powercut - thank god for the trusty eurocamp torches (when typing this up we realise megs is now broken and eli's is current 'misplaced). We settled for a sparkly restaurant sitting under a branch for our first of many dinner dates :)

Waking up on wednesday we realised we were homeless. We did however have clean (if slightly yellow) bottles of water, thanks to our trusty tablets! All we can say is lets thank sweet jesus for our lonely planet guide which directed us to johnnys hotel - perfect for backpackers. We called for availability on a 'pay phone' which looked suspiciously like a house phone (we were in his house). We reserved for 5 nights under the name 'tintin' - Simpson is apparently a pretty tricky name to pronounce. When arriving in our taxi we found a beautiful yellow building, fairy lit terraces and our friendly father replacement Johnny and his family. They were eager to show us all rooms, which was quite a challenge when carrying 20kg of luggage each up and down four flights of stairs.. in midday heat! After settling in we headed out confidently in the wrong direction. Turning around we realised the sea was a 30 second walk from where we had started. The beach here was more indian but more friendly. We soon adopted two body guards at horizon shack (our new local) who shooed away/hit our papparazi/friendly locals/orphan children beggers - yes its a heart wrencher, especially when your given a note containing their life story and yes, it does lead to an uncomfortable silence. We now realise children are fiestier than their parents by far! We were screeched at by a scary indian mental child girl thing in a stall, shoving hideous lycra jump suits in our faces whilst spitting (what we can only imagine violent and threatening abuse) in loud hindi. Luckily she was so small it only took one kick and she was down! Jokes, totally just pretended we couldnt hear her and held in our giggles. Dinner tonight was curry 5m from the shore watching the sun go down, Eli particularly enjoyed the naan and ate a whole bowl. Meg particularly enjoyed being approached by 20 different people to tell her she had heart shaped sunglasses on.. apparently they dont exist here?!

Thursday morning waking up with achey backs and stiff necks we questioned whether our beds were made of cement! We wondered outside for beans on toast under the pretty terrace full of butterflies and beautiful sights. Then, after a day of beaching and a few new hagglers (selling light up devil horns????) we have come to the conclusion that we would love to emmigrate. Friendly people, gorgeous days sunbathing and evenings spent sipping coctails on the beautiful lit up beach of incredible sights listening to 'english house music' (practically Jaxx on a beach..) we are officially in paradise! ...... PS after writing this paragraph we found the most enormous cockroach in our bedroom. Eli the heroic bug catcher saved the day.

Another day another cockroach... NAWWTTT. Elis Birthday!!!! Party on wooohooooo!!!! The people from horizon shack (Max and Jack aka our bodyguards) helped organise a special day. We had our own driver Raj - meg we hope this pleases you. He took us to the waterfalls where we experienced the worlds bumpiest jeep ride for a solid 45 minutes. The jeep driver seemed to stare more at us in the mirror than the bumpy cliff edges we were teetering across. We then trecked through the jungle to find the waterfall and rockpools. Yes we did jump in despite the shark sized pyranna fish LOL jokes but they were infact banana eating dinosaur fish. We fed the monkeys which was amazing and met two lovely Mel and Cat replacements from Shropshire who have offered us their five star luxury 5 bedroom villa. Destination #2 was with the elephants, we took it in turns to be washed by nelly (we forgot its indian name) this was incredible. On our way to the spice plantation we got stuck in an ALMIGHTY traffic jam for what felt like forever but was probably closer to 5 hours.. or maybe 20 minutes. This was hilarious at the beginning but we then began to swelter. Laughter turned to tears when we realised death would be the kindest option for all involved. PS it was 50 degrees in the car. PPS we had run out of water. PPPS we had missed breakfast PPPPS we had just done a hike PPPPPS we will never repeat this mistake again, lesson learnt sorry parents :/ Reaching the spice plantation we zombied past our big welcome of petals being thrown, dancers and singers directly to the drinks. Rehydration rocks. We then took a very inspiring and super interesting tour of spices and fruits, if anyone needs a herbal replacement for ANY ailement give us a shout and we'll know (or not due to the language barrier and sheer boredom) The highlight was the monkey man swinging the tree tops in just a leather thong demonstrating his tarzan skills. Keeping a straight face is something we're getting really good at!!! As we were leaving megs bravery was seriously tested when a python wrapped its legs around her (a grass snake slithered by and she missed it.. but still incredibly brave). Later we did temples and old goa where families were more interested in pictures of us than the buildings. In the even we went back to Horizon where our table was decorated extravagently as the evening progressed. We ended with a balloon palace made of umbrella bowls, glowing table decorations, a banner, glow sticks, cat masks, one firework set off and Eli was given jewellry. We had an amazing night with newfound friends carrying indian children whilst their parents wanted photos. The most incredible birthday for Eli ever. A hard one to top!

To sum up our week: We have had one photo of us taken on average every 2-3 minutes. We have shaken hands with around 200 people each day. We have learnt too many life lessons. We have spent more time laughing than we ever thought possible. We LOVE travelling.