BLOG #4 A JAMMY ADVENTURE

We'd curry like to start this curry blog by making our deepest apologies about the inappropiate material we posted with our last blog ('Curry is Gay'). We hope this reaches our new - accidentally forgotten - indian curry loving friends. We secretly loved the curries you made us. Yes Raj, we are referring to you. Your butter chicken curry was fantastic! No - not you Raj, the other Raj. No not you again!! The OTHER curry making Raj.

Arriving in Kolkata clutching a rose and feeling very well fed (we never predicted being given a rose each when boarding our train, we could however predict the menu - curry curry curry). We were curry picked up by Olga (Daddy Simpson's fairy godmum) and were looking forwards to a home cooked meal, having forgotten it was likely to be curry. It was, in case you were wondering. Did you realise, we've actually already said curry 12 times. You probably didn't... Is anyone bored of us talking about curry? Because we are CERTAINLY bored of eating it. Bring on Thailand and some different food!!!!

We had a lovely, fascinating last couple of days in India staying with real life actual Indians (who knew 90% of their marriages were arranged?! - just one of the facts we learnt whilst staying with them!!) We enjoyed a horse and carriage ride around the city and this time knew better than to pay for the breakdancing monkey sold as 'MJ impersonater' THIS IS A SCAM.. IT JUST JIGGLES AND NOT EVEN TO THE BEAT. After a delicious KFC (for one - Eli's was more gristle than chicken) and cheese sandwiches for dinner we began to pack our bags - againnn - this time for our flight to Bangkok. This proved a massive challenge for meg and saw her throwing away precious items to make space for the kilo of jam and half kilo of compressed mango which Olga wanted to send home (using us as a DHL replacement..) Settling for this little wasn't easy - the argument began with a total of 5 kilos to be taken around the world. Eli considered herself lucky after escaping with a mere 500g of peanut butter which she can 'eat on the way to the airport' OR 'share with new friends in thailand'. Are there any backpackers out there, currently in Thailand looking for new peanut butter loving friends?! Or for that matter, anybody backpacking towards Hounslow, who is able to take a kilo of jam off our backs... literally? All jokes aside, it was really super lovely to stay with them in their home and we really appreciated being made so welcome. Our time in India was officially over and it was time for mission thailand, taking with us some new very valuable life lessons:

1) Tuk Tuk drivers/Taxi's are ALWAYS lying when they assure you they know the way. They WILL stop every minute of your journey to ask directions.

2) We both (apparently?) look a lot like Shakira.

3) You should ALWAYS check your at the right hotel before unpacking and settling in as to avoid hostage.

4) Monkeys CANNOT dance like Jacko.

5) 'Delhi Belly' is myth - 'Whole of India Belly' is fact.

6) We cant work the Sari look and no other white person can - seriously guys everyone can tell your not a local!

7) Monkeys teeth are a whole lot bigger than in cartoons - making them less cuddly.

8) Indians can't say Megan but can say Mecka

9) Eli is a muslim name (we learnt this 35 times.. and each time had to act suprised!)

10) You WILL get told off if your bare feet are casually pointing towards a picture of a god. This includes on long hot uncomfortable bus journeys where there is no where else to put your feet.

AND LETS NOT FORGET THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON... CURRY IS WELL AND TRULY GAY.

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Touching down in Thailand we smelt super bad. There is nothing like a clean country to make you realise how dirty the previous was. Our first comment upon stepping outside was 'where are all the wild cows?!' - we may have some adjusting to do... We looked more out of place than white people in Kolkata as we rocked up in our 5* accomodation, looking as if we'd spent the last month as indian street kids. Trying to play it cool, we were shown to our posh apartment - we lost our cool at the sight of a bath and hot looking shower furthering the street kids image. We were past caring though as the thought of living in such luxury for 2 nights was just too exciting to handle!! After 4 solid hours of bathing, plucking and grooming we felt adequate to set out onto the Thai streets where we found a million 'Mr Chows' and many stereotypical mask wearing Thai's. The obvious choice for dinner was a traditional Thai meal, however curry is gay so we went for a posh italian - which tasted so much better than anything we've ever eaten ever. We only had 3 days this time in Bangkok, so regrettably had to cut down our sightseeing to the mere Bangkok 'must see' spots. This left us getting smashed with fellow (non-thai) backpackers, seeing a ping-pong show, sleeping for hours and eating tons of english cereal and McDonalds. Bangkok - you were inspirational. We now feel like total experts on Thai culture. Jokes, but maybe six weeks on Thai beaches will broaden our knowledge.

Sipping our iced cappucino's whilst waiting for our 12 hour night bus followed by a boat to Koh Tao (island number one) we looked like absolute babes and felt so freaking fly. We regretably didn't consider the effects of the caffeine. Quite frankly, everyone on that bus now hates us - particularly the two young blonde guys we enjoyed continuously shouting 'JEDWWAAAARRRDDDDD' at throughout the night (in our defence from what we could make out they looked a lot like them). After a second failed attempt at starting 'in-bus entertainment' (wheels on the bus) we resorted to eye spy to pass the time. After round 1016 we pulled into the ferry port after one of the most boring journeys so far - and we travel ALOT. In contrast, what was not boring, was whilst waiting for our ferry, witnessing a normal looking Thai lady, prove she was infact insane, when she picked up the LARGEST cockroach in the cockroach history and played with it for a good half an hour - this fun and games included spinning it round, making it physically jump and putting it on her head. We found this highly entertaining until she pretended to throw it at us - which was totally unfunny.

Koh Tao meant spending a glorious 3 days in paradise. Being famous for its diving, we were eager to head out in search for Nemo and his gang. However, diving required way too much 'class time' and concentration and basic learning rubbish so snorkelling seemed a more likely option. Due to our minor fears of all things fishy, we decided to book in for an organised snorkel-fest type boat thannggg (basically reading with more sharks and dreadlocks present). We felt entirely cheated when we discovered that location #1 (of many of this day trip) had been kept a secret from us until the parting line, encouraging us to dive in, wearing just flimsy bikinis. Our lovely Thai boat leader saw us off with this line - 'Wecom to shak baiii - yeterdaaay mornaaaanngg we see fiiiiiiive beeeeg beeeg shax. In halvf hour you come barrk. You jump quiatt or scare sharrrrrk. I be here.' As we're sure you can imagine this wiped the smiles off our snorkel ready faces and we felt like absolute amateurs. The other 20 pro snorkelers seemed unconvinced by our attempts to start a 'who can create the biggest splash competition'. After thoroughly checking all 51 bites on megans legs for traces of blood, we bombed and belly flopped into the shark infested ocean, trying to restart the tsunami. We chose to swim in the opposite direction to all the crazy shark searchers. By the end of the day, we'd overcome our fears, become pro-snorkellers, quoted the whole of finding nemo and also seen the real life characters and more! It was probably one of the most incredible things we've done so far and the rainbow fish, coral and (almost) whale sized fish we saw were geeping. Our minds were blown even further that evening when we ventured into the unknown... A LADYBOY CABERET SHOW! We now understand, how a man could accidentally lure one into the bedroom, as some (not all!) genuinely looked like supermodels and their bikini bodies rival ours after a month of 'India Belly'. Koh Tao was beautiful, just like it's ladyboys, and we enjoyed lazy beach days, evening fire shows, trying to recreate those evening fire shows, and in particular the crazy middle aged pervy thai man who asked Eli if she wanted to swim in the sea with him (at a party) and fought for a kiss from meg - unsuccessfully on both counts!!

All too soon we found ourselves packing our bags (thats totally not getting boring?!) and jumping on a Koh Phangan bound ferry where we will be staying for the next week or so, before later heading to Koh Samui. Our most recent stats are as follows...

• Number of friends we've organised to meet, then ditched, then bumped into on a beach on a different island. - 2
• Number of times theres been a horrific silence following the line 'I'm from __insert country__. Do you even know where that is?' - 11 (We'd like to thank the geography department at Yateley School for failing to teach us where Norway, Germany, Sweden, Holland, Canada and some random pea sized insignificant, untourist filled Asian islands are. Father Simpson, Daughter Simpson will now admit that her geographical skills are less than average.)
• Number of hours spent listening to boring Canadians insult us, our country as a whole, our monachy, our education (kinda understandable), our accents, our trip, our work ethos, our jobs, our trip some more, our intinery and our 'jiggly' beach bods. - 2 horrible hours.
• Number of Canadians we will NOT be adding on facebook as 'friends' - 2
• Number of Canadians we KEPT bumping into everywhere on the island - 2
• Number of Canadians we pretended not to see everywhere on the island - 2
• Number of chicken feet sold in supermarkets in Thailand we poked and laughed at - 32 (never gets old.. they're chicken feet!!!)
• Number of ping pongs we've seen flying out of places they shouldn't - 11
• Number of times Eli's been told she's a Selena Gomez lookalike - 1
• Number of times Meg's been told she's a Mariah Carey lookalike - 1

Hope everythings totally slouky in England (or whichever country you dedicated blog monster are reading this from). We haven't actually managed to, or tried to tune into any news (which as it happened didnt go down well with angry canadians), but don't need to as we are 90% sure we have single handedly managed to free tibet (our long lost tibeten friends must be so proud of our work).

Lots of love as always,

MELI XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Ps. In case you were wondering, we went with Ghandi in the end. We will reveal them at 9pm on May 23rd. Tune in then for a cracking video blog showing off our new tats once they're healed (apparently this takes longer when the needle wasn't clean.. thank god for 'Dettol', it really does protect.)

PS.PS. SOS URGENTLY NEED A DOCTOR OR NURSE (MUM HILL?) AS WE HAVE SLIGHTLY INFECTED GHANDI FACES ON A BODY PART TO BE REVEALED (SEE ABOVE). PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SEND BANDAGES AND LISTERINE (AS DETTOL DOESN'T ACTUALLY WORK!!) CHEERS BABYCAKES. OVER AND OUT.