Can Do Sandhu

A very long overdue update but needless to say we are back in the UK after completing our round the world trip. There’s so much to tell you about but I’ll keep this posting short as I suspect we’ve lost most of our readership since we haven’t posted since the beginning of the year.

During this year we’ve been to Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Canada. We’ve met up with various extended family members and friends – providing some of the main highlights of our travels.

We’ll post more specific stories and photos in the coming weeks. In the meantime, it’s so good to be home again. We’ve missed some of the basic creature comforts, like waking up in the same bed every day (for more than a week!), fresh food deliveries and more clean clothes than you can shake a stick at! Getting all our gear out of storage was like returning from one mammoth shopping trip, opening boxes and discovering all the outfits, shoes, bags and accessories we’d easily managed without for over a year. Plus seeing all our own family and friends has been fab, and we still haven’t seen everyone yet.

Now it’s back into a new routine of work and play – so far we seem to have found a good balance. Anyway, gotta go as Sainsbury’s are due with our shopping any minute now!

There’s no place like home!

Just a really quick one this time as it’s nearly 6.30pm in Vietnam and we have some partying to do. Well, its more like have a couple of beers sitting on our balcony in Nha Trang and then have dinner in one of the hundreds of restaurants which are just a stone’s throw from our guest house. Whether we stay up for the strike of 12 remains to be decided.

Anyway, what a year. During our lounging on the beach today, I had time to reflect on the past 12 months (while Sat was busy with chapter 18 of his book) and when I think back to what we were doing this time last year, I have to pinch myself as we’re actually travelling around the world, just as we planned! Suppose I wouldn’t be much of a life coach otherwise – you have to focus on what you want and do everything you can to make it happen.

Not that you need a reminder but here’s a quick zip through 2009 month by month:

January – Sat’s on gardening leave (aka playing on the x-box as much as possible). We spend a week in India with Sat’s parents to determine whether we can spend a few months with them once we start our travels. The weather’s pretty rubbish and we miss our flight back to London! The next time we come to India it’ll be for 4 months – gulp.

February – Sat’s still on the x-box and he starts to make progress on the book he’s spent 15 years planning! I spend most of my time at work career coaching colleagues.

March – An enjoyable weekend in the Lake District for Liz’s 40th birthday. It’s Sat’s birthday the same weekend and Liverpool gift him a 4-1 win over Man Utd! Plans for our great escape are in the final stages and I finish work at KSF.

April – We rent out the house, pack our bags and leave on the first of our 3 stints travelling just after the Easter weekend. We treat the first couple of weeks as a holiday and then it’s in at the deep-end for both me and Sat: me teaching English at the local village school, Sat living with his parents for the first time in 20-odd years!

May – teaching comes to an abrupt halt due to the riots in the Punjab. The weather’s getting hotter and the carpenters making the kitchen cupboards are taking an eternity.

June – a welcome visit from Jag goes by all too quickly so we jet off to Goa for a week. Just in time for the monsoon! At the end of the month Sat and I leave for the very northern region of India called Ladakh. A relief to the incessant heat of the Punjab at 54 degrees!

July – spend the month enjoying Leh and the surrounding areas. Our 4 months in India come to an end and we fly back to the UK on the 31st.

August – the month is spent enjoying time with friends and family plus consuming all the food and drink we’ve missed while we were away, this is particularly evident at the Molyneaux family BBQ and at Satpal & Parm’s 25th wedding anniversary party. The month goes all too quickly and soon we’re packing our bags yet again.

September – a short fortnight with mum back at the farm in the Punjab before going back to Delhi to catch our flight to Kathmandu. We’d been looking forward to trekking in Nepal for ages. Even investing in camping gear (tent, stove, waterproof matches, the lot!) – pity we didn’t use any of it! The decision to trek in from Jiri seemed a good idea at the time – we didn’t think that way 8 days later when we were knackered and desperate for some tasty food!

October – our trek in Nepal continues for the first 2 weeks of the month. We finally get to see Everest and we make some more good friends along the way. Fly back to the UK for the second time on the 21st – countdown to Gill & Andy’s wedding! The 10 days prior to the wedding fly by and the day itself is one that will stay in our memories for a long, long time. Everything was perfect. Then we had to figure out our plans for stage 3 of our travelling – the big round the world trip.

November – This was an odd month for us. Felt a bit in limbo because we hadn’t got anything planned at this point and we were relying on the generosity of family to stay with since our place was still rented out. So we bit the bullet and decided to leave at the end of the month and with flights booked our first stop would be Bangkok on 1st December.

December – a quick skip through Thailand and a week in Cambodia brought us to Vietnam. We’ve been away one month exactly and it’s been a time full of adventures and experiences.

It’s New Year’s Eve and when we look back on the last 12 months, we can certainly be satisfied with our achievements. Sat wanted to write a book (it’s virtually complete), I wanted to spread the good word on life coaching (I do at every opportunity!) and we both wanted to travel around the world (we’re in Vietnam today with many more countries still to visit).

So all in all, a pretty good year in a time where many might not have seen the opportunities that we did. We’re having a great time and enjoying life. We wish you a happy, healthy and successful 2010, and look forward to sharing more of our adventures with you in the months to come.

Love & hugs

Jo & Sat

OK, so the title of this one gives our location away. We are in Ho Chi Minh City in the south of Vietnam. We’ve been travelling for just over 2 weeks and I think we’re in the swing of things now.

We arrived in Bangkok, Thailand, on 1st December to beautiful sunshine just as the weather turned bitterly cold in the UK – great timing! A few days in the Thai capital just wandering around and looking at the odd temple (wat in Thai) was all the culture we wanted at that point. We’d seen a lot of the sights there on our honeymoon 8 years ago. The main event was Sat getting his hair cut in a Thai barbers shop for the princely sum of £1! (and this included a head and shoulder massage at the end too!)

This is also an opportunity to introduce Larry. Larry is a llama and he’s from Argentina. Gill and Andy brought him back for us from their honeymoon and thought he’d be a good companion on our travels. Here’s Larry enjoying a beer in Bangkok.

Until then we’d been uncertain which direction we’d take from Bangkok but decided a beach would be a good idea. The usual locations of Phuket and Krabi were too far south for us so we headed east to an island called Koh Chang.

We’d arrived there during the celebrations for the King of Thailand’s birthday on the 5th December. It’s a massive event and a national holiday so everyone was in high spirits and everywhere was busy. To get to the island we took a 30 minute ferry ride and at the other end jumped onto the back of a pickup truck with benches in the back (aka a taxi) for the ride to the other end of the island and the resort of Bang Bao. We’d selected one of the Lonely Planet choices to stay and had phoned ahead to make a reservation for 4 nights. Luckily they didn’t have the reservation (more on that in a minute) but they did have a little straw thatched bungalow we could stay in.

Cute on the outside but pretty basic on the inside

There was a pier with many souvenir shops and restaurants along it but not much else in this resort, and definitely no beach (OK so we didn’t research it well enough beforehand but we’re learning!) so after 2 nights we went back to the north of the island to the resort of White Sands, booked ourselves into a nice room and stayed there for the next 5 days.

The beach was lovely and the water great for a cooling down paddle

Koh Chang isn’t too far from the Cambodian border so that seemed the next logical place to go when we decided it was time to move on. We did our due diligence and checked with several tour companies before we bought our tickets (that’s important to know, bear with me). So at 7.20 am we were picked up in a minibus and headed for the ferry. So far so good. When we landed on the mainland we got going but ended up at another of the ferry terminals picking up more passengers and then waiting for ages at a roadside cafe for more people. So far this has taken the best part of 3 hours and it should only have been one hour! Anyway, it’s given us the opportunity to get to know some of the other people on the bus. We chat for a long time with a Dutch couple, Ivo and Angela. They too are on a world tour. They’d packed in their jobs and were just over a week into a year long journey so we had plenty to talk about.

The bus finally gets going and stops just short of the Thai border. We’re told to disembark and enter a building where forms are handed out and we’re instructed to fill them in. It’s then we realise we’ve been on a scam bus. Basically they expect you to fill in their forms and they’ll get the visa for you but at a much inflated price. If you don’t go ahead with this, you’re stranded at the border. After a bit of a fraught altercation (there are now 8 of us standing our ground and insisting we are not paying the scammers) they burn the forms we’ve filled in (since we refuse to hand them back given they have all our personal details on them) and we get a refund of about $4 each. We all walk over the border together and fill in the same forms for a second time and pay the correct amount. It hasn’t exactly gone to plan but at least there’s a bus waiting to take us to Siem Reap which had been our original destination.

We’d already been aware of these “scam buses” but they operate from Bangkok so we didn’t think we’d be affected. Clearly we were wrong. Of the 8 of us ‘mavericks’ 6 of us decided to stay at the guest house where the bus dropped everyone off. At $8 a night it was a bargain. A little foray into town for dinner ($2 each) and a few beers seemed just reward for a stressful day!

In case you’re wondering about the $ prices, some of the countries in South East Asia operate a dual currency system so you can pay in dollars for virtually anything.

Anyway, Siem Reap has a really nice vibe to it and we spend a few days there. Our time was spent getting to know the city but more importantly, seeing the ruins at the ancient site of Angkor Wat. There are many temples built several centuries ago and are the main reason people visit Siem Reap.

Sat and I enjoying a moment of shade in one of the ruins

Once we’d visited Angkor Wat we were quite keen to press on as Vietnam was high on our priority list of places we really wanted to visit. Another 6 hour bus journey to Phnom Penh would enable us to get our visa for Vietnam quickly. Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia and although it has a riverside location, it just didn’t grab me like Siem Reap did. However we did visit the Killing Fields and the interrogation centre/prison of S21 where many of the atrocities and murders took place during the reign of the Khmer Rouge. The stories of what happened are truly horrific and it’s hard to understand why the west didn’t intervene when mass genocide was happening. At least some of the leaders of the Khmer Rouge are now being prosecuted but for many it’s too little too late.

A trip to the National Museum sealed our visit to Phnom Penh and with Vietnamese visas in hand, we boarded yet another bus for yet another 6 hour journey to Ho Chi Minh City. And here we are. We arrived yesterday and did the customary arrival ritual of lunch and a beer! $5 total for the 2 of us! The food is excellent, far tastier than the blandness in Cambodia. They know how to use chillies to good effect here!

This morning we went for our first run since leaving the UK. There’s a park just across the road from where we’re staying and it was full of people exercising – many doing martial arts or T’ai Chi and things like that. And most of them were between the ages of 60 and 80.

Lunch today was at a place called Pho 2000 (pho means noodles) and it’s famous because Bill Clinton ate there in 2000. There are pictures of his visit all over the walls. The food was superb, particularly the Vietnamese spring rolls. Think we’ll be going there again while we’re here.

So that’s the story so far. It’s likely we’ll stay here until Christmas as we hope there’ll be a nice atmosphere here. We sat in a cafe this morning by the river drinking coconut juice and listening to traditional Christmas carols sung in Vietnamese! It’s hard to feel Christmassy when it’s so hot. Especially when you know the UK has ground to a halt because it’s snowing.

Vietnam celebrates 65 years of communism on the 22nd and there are festivities and events being organised for that. Should be interesting to be around for that.

If we have any readers left, then we wish you a wonderful Christmas and a very happy and healthy 2010.

Lots of love

Jo & Sat
xxx

I know we’re long overdue an update on our blog so assuming we still have some readers out there, then this is just a quick one to bring you upto speed on what’s been going on over the last few months.

We spent our final couple of weeks at the farm in India at the beginning of September. The monsoon was still ongoing and everything was lush and green and wet! Our long-awaited trip to Nepal got off to a tricky start as our flight to Kathmandu was cancelled when we arrived at the airport. Soon got that sorted and we were put on another flight the same afternoon.

Our month in Nepal was a mixed bag of experiences and I wouldn’t be able to do them all justice in this short post so we’ll do that another time. We came back to the UK towards the end of October just in time for Gill & Andy’s wedding on Hallowe’en. Both the bride and groom looked stunning and everyone had a fabulous day, even the weather was perfect for the photos afterwards. Will add some of our own photos here at some point.

So, what’s next? I hear you ask. Well, we finally get to do the round the world trip which we’ve been planning. We leave in 10 day’s time for Bangkok and plan to travel around South East Asia, Australasia and North America for the next 8 months. Back just in time for another great UK summer!!!

As well as getting organised to go travelling, the last couple of weeks have been spent fine-tuning the synopsis and first 3 chapters of Sat’s book so that he can send it off to editors/publishers before we leave. It can be a lengthy review process so it’ll be good to get the ball rolling. Watch this space…

So, that’s about it for now. We’ll post our full itinerary in the coming days and hopefully we’ll be back in the swing of blogging very soon.

Jo & Sat
x

Sorry folks, it’s been waaaayyy too long since our last posting at the end of July.  We were quite busy when we were home in the UK in August; what with house-sitting for Satpal and Parm whilst their kitchen extension got built, visiting friends & family, eating and drinking all the lovely stuff we’d missed while we’d been in India, plus we’ve discovered Facebook (shame on us for neglecting our blog!!!).  Highlights of our UK trip included Parm & Satpal’s 25th wedding anniversary party which was great fun, meeting up with Jane from school after 20-odd years and having afternoon champagne tea at Harrod’s together, my matron of honour dress fitting for Gill’s wedding and, of course, the start of the 2009/10 football season!!!

So we have no real excuse for not finishing our stories about Ladakh.  Sat reckoned he’d get it finished before we went to Nepal but given we are currently sitting in Delhi airport waiting to check-in for our flight to Kathmandu, I don’t think that’s likely to happen.  BTW – we stayed at a hotel called Hotel Paradise here in Delhi which must be one of the bigger misnomers we’ve come across in India.  No photos I’m afraid but a pink-tiled bathroom, a broken toilet seat, just one English-speaking TV channel (news only), light blue and pink painted artexing and the scuzziest looking towels and bed sheets give you an better idea.

Well, our bags are packed (again) only this time it’s two big rucksacks we’re living out of for the next month. Our time here in India has come to an end. Mum and dad have looked after us very well, Sat has made great in-roads with his book – he’s on chapter 13 as I type (but is moaning right now as he’s just been outside for a couple of minutes and returned with 7 insect bites!!!) and I really enjoyed my time teaching at the school.

But all good things must come to an end and our next adventures take us to Nepal.  We have a whole month to explore the Himalayas.  A day or two in Kathmandu is all we need before taking a 10-hour bus trip to Jiri (fingers crossed our rucksacks make it with us as we’ve read a lot about theft on this particular trip. Great!) and then we start trekking from there all the way upto Everest Base Camp and around Gokyo Lake.  No time for slacking on this trip. We have a lot of ground to cover and there’s so much to see.  Ladakh provided some good training for us and I think we’re well prepared for this trip. So that’s the plan.  We bought a tent in England as we’d planned to use that along the way but chances are we’ll use the tea houses as they are much more plentiful there than in Ladakh but having the tent means we always have options if we decide to get off the well-worn trails for a while.

We’re both really looking forward to this part of our trip and I’m sure it won’t disappoint.  You can be sure there’ll be plenty of photos as a result (as Gill rightly stated, it’ll all be blue skies, lakes and snow-capped mountains which will bore everyone else rigid) but we don’t care!!!

So that’s about it for now.  We’ll blog when we can and if we bump into a Yeti, we’ll let you know!

Love & hugs

Jo & Sat

xxx

We’ve been at my parent’s farm for just over two months.  It’s been an “experience”!!  I would not be exaggerating if I said it feels like we’ve been here a year.

I’ve had two main goals while I’ve been here and unfortunately I’ve failed terribly at one and haven’t got quite as far as I wanted in the other.

Goal one was to get fit…since the TransRockies I’ve gained a few pounds and I had hoped that with the healthier eating and plenty of exercise that I would lose that weight.  Unfortunately that hasn’t been the case – I actually found it easier staying healthy while I was working because then I had a routine.  Some time ago I wrote a blog posting about the worst thing for training and general wellbeing – inconsistency.  Inconsistency has been the bane of my life (as far as being healthy is concerned) since being made redundant (just before xmas).  When we first got here the weight was slowly coming off, though not as fast as I would have liked (because it is just way too hot to get long runs in – the maximum you can do here is 5km – and for fat-loss that is just inadequate), but I have regained some weight in Chandigarh and Goa.  Also, the food here isn’t as healthy as one would hope – most of the time it’s healthy but my mother has a tendency of making parathas, which are pretty unhealthy, but also too delicious to turn down (yes I take full responsibility for my lack of willpower).  I’ve lost some weight since being here – but it’s insignificant, at least I have stopped gaining weight.

Early Morning Run

It’s funny, my brother Jag arrived a week ago, from the UK.  On the way here in the car, while he was sweating buckets, he said “It’s great, I’m burning so many calories.”  If only it was that simple….sweating doesn’t mean you’re burning extra calories.  Sure the heart rate might be ever so slightly elevated in really hot weather but that’s about it.  If burning calories was as simple as sitting in a very hot place then saunas would be the key to sheding the pounds – sadly it isn’t!

The second goal; a  lifelong goal to write a book (which has been rolling around in my mind for the past fifteen years) hasn’t been a total failure.  It’s just that my target was to finish the book before our return to the UK.  I’m on chapter eleven, out of twenty.  The book’s turning out to be bigger than I anticipated – which is probably a good thing – instead of my original estimate of 400 pages I think it will be about 500 pages.  I was actually making good progress, doing about two chapters a week but, again, inconsistency (interruptions from my father, brother and travelling to Chandigarh and Goa) has got the better of me.  I’ve uploaded the prologue and the first three chapters onto HarperCollins’ website.

http://www.authonomy.com/ViewBook.aspx?bookid=9306

If you fancy reading it then please do – if you like it then back it.  If enough people back it then the editors at HarperCollins will look at it.  That would be a big step in getting it published.

My brother, Jag, leaves today.  He’s a “little” strange but his company has been a refreshing change.  It’s funny how people’s expectations can be so different based on what they know or have experienced.  Jag mentioned to one of his American colleagues that he was going to spend a week at his parent’s farm in India…she replied “I love horse riding!”  Horse riding is definitely not on the cards around here – it’s as far removed from an American style ranch as one could expect.

It’s difficult to describe India – you really have to experience it.  But for those of you who have more sense than time, hence aren’t likely to come see it for yourself, here’s a collection of pictures to show you what you’re missing:

I dont even know where to begin describing this one!!!

Safety In Numbers!

Did Someone Say 'Horseriding'?

Luxury Travel

Sunworship!

Kamal (Our Farmhand) Off To Fetch Milk

Morning Rush - The Binman!

See The Wood From The Trees

One thing I don’t think I have mentioned – because I don’t want all the drug cartels setting up shop around here – is that Weed (capital W is intentional) grows wild around here.  It is after all a weed, so it had to grow wild somewhere, didn’t it.  Often you see uncultivated fields with loads of the stuff growing in them.  The farmers eventually clear the weed and burn it (!) and plant crops, but it remains growing by the side of fields all over this region.

Bloody Weeds!

To be honest I’m surprised my brother, Jag, hasn’t just set-up camp in the middle of one of these fields and smoked himself to oblivion….he’s that way inclined!

The Milkyway

Looking ahead, we are off to Ladakh on Friday.  Yippeeee!!  I’m really not sure what to expect – we’ve been let down by our other expectations thus far, hence we try not to build our hopes up too much.  Even so – the mountains should be awesome.  We’re going to be there for about one month – we’re aiming to get lots of trekking in…that should help me shift some weight.  The thing I look forward to most – and I hope it happens – is interaction with other westerners.  We are craving ‘western’ conversation – the limited interaction we’ve had with Indians has not been anywhere near as stimulating as we’re used to.

Once we get back from Ladakh we’ve got one more week at my parent’s farm and then we’re back to the UK for one whole month…..so put the beer on ice and fire up the bbq!!  Awesome

Thanks for reading.

Sat

Sat wants me to make it clear that this is a joint posting since his earlier ones have been a bit scathing of life here and mine are usually more upbeat than his!

So let’s kick off with our trip to Goa. Feels like donkey’s ago already but I guess since we had to leave Punjab earlier than planned due to the aftermath of the riots, then we’ve been away for almost 2 weeks…

First off, the travelling. We left the farm for Chandigarh on Tuesday morning and had an uneventful trip to the house there. Being the height of summer now you can certainly feel the difference in temperature in the city after being out in the sticks where it’s already really hot – we were sweating buckets in no time at all. Lovely. That same day, we’d also hired a truck to take the cooker from the farm and swap it over with the one in Chandigarh as that was a better model. So the truck brought the other cooker back to the farm along with the small generator because we rarely needed it there (more on that later!).

Mum had been advised by her doctor a while ago to have some tests on her heart (just for peace of mind) and since Chandigarh has a state of the art Fortis outpatient hospital, and we had the time to do it, we took the opportunity to to get these done. So Tuesday afternoon was spent at the hospital which wasn’t anything like I expected it to be. The hospital was very large, clean and spacious and also quiet. You still get families all turning up for one family member to have treatment or whatever (we were doing exactly the same thing!) but the ambiance within the building was one of calmness and serenity. A welcome haven from the hustle and bustle outside.  Anyway, better pick up the pace a bit on the story-telling here to keep you gripped with “what happens next…”.  Mum’s heart is as strong as an ox but she has high cholesterol (but we already knew that!) and so that’s about all you need to know about that!

On Wednesday Sat and I hired a car and driver for a few hours and went to mooch around a few shops. The highlight of the shopping trip was a minor crash – our driver hit a scooter driver. Since neither of them was paying attention whilst they were driving they were both at fault. The incident itself happened in a car park and at a very slow pace so it was very low impact.  Although there was actually more damage to the car than the scooter, it didn’t stop the scooter driver from having a good moan. Our driver simply inspected the scooter, tweaked a couple of parts on it then started the engine with no problem at all leaving the rider to continue on his merry way, unhurt, apart from a bruised ego.

A quick funny at this point…we saw another guy on a scooter zooming along with his head on one side and muttering to himself. We then realised that he was on his mobile phone – it was jammed up inside his helmet and his head was on one side so the phone didn’t fall out!  Just wish we had a photo of that to show you.  Instead here’s one below which typifies life here – a whole family on one scooter.  You usually see 2 kids squeezed in between their parents – this boy’s lucky as it’s just him (for the moment!)

Scooter Family

Anyway, we weren’t in much of a shopping mood so we decided to go onto Sukna Lake for a stroll.  Not the best timing as it was midday and the sun was at it’s most intense. There was very little shade at the lake but it was good to be out of the house as there’s nothing to do indoors. It’s a bit of a Catch 22 situation. Stay at home and be bored or be outside and fry. The lake is quite scenic and they even have a jogging path there – and we did actually see one guy jogging (although he was heading towards the cafeteria so maybe he just wanted to get his lunch quickly?).

Sukna Lake

Cooking food in the Chandigarh house is a real chore as mum and dad spend so little time there that the cupboards are practically bare and the local supermarket is very limited in what it stocks, so dinner was spent, as usual, in The Rock, more familiarly known to us as Rocky’s. It’s the only decent restaurant within walking distance of the house. It’s very dark inside with a couple of battered AC units coughing out cool air, a few ceiling fans and stain-ridden tablecloths plus a fish tank in the corner (?). On the plus side, the food is pretty good. You still wouldn’t risk a salad or anything raw or even fish! Noodles, chilli chicken, honey chicken and a few bottles of Kingfisher beer are our usual source of sustenance here. Our night out was followed by a second sleepless night back at the house. Let me explain. The house is south-east facing and gets the sun for most of the day and since it’s made of brick and concrete it absorbs heat and retains it.  So by the evening, even the cold water in the tank has heated up considerably making a cold shower to cool down out of the question. The outside temperature does drop a bit in the evening but the house continues to radiate heat. There’s no air con here either so we rely on ceiling fans to bat the hot air around which would be OK until we talk about the bed we have to sleep on.  Actually, bed is a bit of a misnomer. It certainly looks bed-shaped but measured on the comfort scale, it rates somewhere alongside a wooden board.  All in all, rest and relaxation in Chandigarh just doesn’t happen in the middle of summer. Let’s move onto Goa…

Actually, I can’t move onto Goa until I’ve told you about the flights to get us there. Flights, plural, as we flew from Chandigarh to Delhi first but didn’t change aircraft, and then we continued onto Goa – it’s actually only about 3 hours of flying time but ends up being a 4+ hour journey due to the stopover in Delhi. The safety briefing is pointless and the cabin crew have their work cut out for them since kids are allowed to sit on their parent’s laps (they ignore using the seatbelt) and the kids slam the tray table and window blinds up and down relentlessly during take off, flight and landing – a real pain in the arse when you’ve got them sitting behind you. Adults use mobile phones during the safety briefing and again as soon as we touch down. Kids stand up the whole way (if they’re not on their parent’s lap without a seatbelt). And the aroma of body odour is pretty ripe. I think I’ll leave it there – you get the idea.

Our arrival in Goa was a positive one – it was a relief to get off the plane for a start, and all our luggage had arrived on the same flight as us – what more could we want? We hired a cab to take us to our hotel, which was in a resort called Candolim about an hour’s drive away. We’d done plenty of research on TripAdvisor.com before making our choice, much to the lament of mum and dad who’d stayed near the airport (as they usually do wherever they go – saves on travel time apparently) last time they’d been there. The first thing we noticed was that drivers were much more considerate and competent that those we’d seen in the Punjab. They don’t hoot their horns all the time and because the roads are narrower, they’re not itching to overtake everything in sight. They are patient and wait for an appropriate moment. Plus they drive on the correct side of the road. Makes for a much more relaxing ride as a passenger.

The heavens opened about half an hour into the journey but we didn’t mind. After the heat of Chandigarh, some rain was more than welcome (so long as it didn’t rain all week). We’d seen from the plane that the state of Goa is very lush and green with plenty of rainforest and we were impressed with how just how much we could see from the air since we are used to the smog and dust in the Punjab and visibility is much reduced. The view from the car gave us a better insight into the Portuguese influence, particularly in the architecture. The countryside was very picturesque so our hopes were equally high for the beach resorts.

It took a couple of drive pasts to find our hotel tucked away off the main road but we were soon checked in and unpacking. The room was very basic, no great views to report so we decided to go for a walk along the beach which was at the end of the garden. This is where we wish we’d paid more attention to the one comment on TripAdvisor about the ship which ran aground 9 years ago. The “River Princess” doesn’t deserve its name at all and is an eyesore on this part of the Goan coastline. I’m sure there are good reasons why the ship hasn’t been salvaged or moved but the impact it’s having on the local environment and subsequently on tourism is immense. In short, we packed up the following day and checked into a hotel in a different resort further down the coast at Baga.  The hotel owner in Candolim wasn’t too chuffed but there was nothing he could do.

The monsoon season in Goa runs for 3 months from June to end of August. We were aware of this when we were planning our trip but hadn’t fully appreciated how much things close down for this whole period. Shops, restaurants, hotels – much of the area was like a ghost-town. As a result, the place was much quieter than we’d expected and not the tourist hub we were hoping for. Needless to say, we did find bars and restaurants to provide all the unhealthy stuff we’d didn’t have access to for the last 2 months. Our first night in a beachfront restaurant having steak and chips with mushroom sauce, washed down with a mojito cocktail was absolute bliss! Actually, I think that’s about all Sat ate the whole week (oh, as well as Cadbury’s chocolate and Oreo cookies at regular intervals!)

Late on Day 2 it started to rain. And boy, did it rain!? In fact, it rained so much that it didn’t stop until Monday! We weren’t impressed. Here’s a soggy-looking Sat on the beach…

Sat In The Monsoon

That brings me nicely onto the subject of beaches. We’d seen the Indian Ocean before when we’d been to the Maldives. There the water was crystal clear and full of sea-life. In Goa the water was murky and dirty with a yellowish tinge to the spume that got washed up on the sand. Admittedly it was pre-monsoon so the water was particularly choppy and swimming in the sea wasn’t allowed due to the turbulence of the waves (though, to be honest, we had no intention of swimming in water that grotty anyway). Again, not being there in peak season, it’s hard to know what state the beaches are normally in. During the time we were there, the beachfront was littered with all kinds of rubbish, from plastic bottles to syringes and from red chillies to light bulbs. We found this quite sad really that for a place that depends so much on tourism, the efforts made to keep these areas clean and even recycle were barely visible. Couple all this to the countless stray dogs that live on the beach and the mess associated with them scattered everywhere and you probably don’t have a very good image of Goa beaches in your mind.

One of the funniest things about the beach is there’s about 5km of it stretching from Baga to Candolim and in-between those two resorts is another resort called Calangute which, in comparison to the other resorts we’d seen, was far busier. Without word of a lie, this whole stretch of beach would be empty apart from a 75 metre section at Calangute where all the Indian tourists would congregate and paddle in the sea. I’m specific about them being Indian tourists since our hopes of meeting other Westerners had quickly faded once we saw what low season meant. We only spoke to one other tourist all week, a very friendly girl from Germany. The other Westerners we saw were either high on suspect substances or ignored us completely. Quite disappointing given I hadn’t seen any other non-Indian people for over 2 months.

Calangute

Moving on…so apart from eating, drinking, sleeping and the odd jog or walk on the beach, what else did we do? Well, we downloaded and watched the 5 remaining episodes of 24 (series 7)  which we’d missed in the UK so that made me a happy bunny. Sat watched all of his remaining episodes of The Wire (US crime series he was addicted to), we did emails and Skyped and did loads of internet-based stuff until the owner of the wireless network we’d hooked into cottoned on that their usage had gone through the roof and added a password to it so we couldn’t make use of it anymore! Still, it was good while it lasted.

Sat’s progress with his book had slowed a little and he was getting frustrated so to give him some peace and quiet, me, mum and dad went over to Panjim for half a day. It’s the state capital of Goa and also known as Panaji. It’s a busy port town. I wouldn’t have known it was so busy other than when we were in the cab on the way there, mum clearly stated to the driver that we wanted to go to the beach. An hour’s drive later and we’re in the middle of the bustling town’s crowded shopping area with our driver asking where we wanted to be dropped off for shopping. “We want to go to the beach!” was the deafening reply from both my in-laws. So another 15 minutes of traffic jam later and we’re on the beachfront. Much cleaner that elsewhere but this was mainly due to the lack of restaurants and shacks along the beach.

Mum & Dad

Our final night was spent at Britto’s restaurant. It’s famed for it’s Portuguese food but it’s the place where we’d eaten on our first night and there was only one thing on the menu we wanted – steak and chips. We drank a fair few cocktails and even had dessert – tiramisu for Sat, apple pie and cream for me. Well, we knew it’d be another couple of months before we’d have these sorts of luxuries again, you have to make the most of it while you can. The other really good restaurant we found was called Take 5. It was primarily a jazz bar but did great cocktails and very good food. Also, this was the first place that Sat had a JD & coke in Goa so it holds special memories for him, particularly as it was happy hour and he had a double! We were the only customers in this bar both times we were there – I’m sure it would have had a really great atmosphere in high season as it had a nice vibe about it.

The day we were leaving we had time to visit the resort where mum and dad had gone to the first time they’d been to Goa. The beach was much cleaner but the resort was very small and practically dead so we didn’t feel we’d missed anything there. It satisfied their curiosity though. Unfortunately we arrived at the airport very early due to the Jenson Button-like driving skills of our cabbie. That wouldn’t have been too much of an issue but for the fact the incoming flight from Delhi was delayed which meant we’d be delayed for our departure. We’d arrived at the airport around 10.30 and our flight was due out at 2.15. In the end we took off at 4.30. That’d be alright if you’re in one of the terminals at Heathrow where there’s enough to occupy you for a couple of hours but at Goa Domestic Airport there’s bugger all there. All you can do is eat samosas (we did), wrestle with melted chocolate (we did) and drink cups of tea (mum did). So we were pretty cheesed off by the time we were on the plane and a repeat performance of the shenanigans from the kids sitting (more accurately, standing) near us didn’t go down well either. Particularly the little lad behind me who wiped melted chocolate all over my headrest and just missed my hair. AAAggghhh!!!!!

And then we get back to the furnace that is Chandigarh. Home sweet home. Not. And then, just to cap it all off, we have the same blind and incompetent cab driver that took us to the airport when we left (I forgot to mention him earlier but I’ll fill you in now). That journey hadn’t been too bad as it was early morning and there was little traffic to bother him. The return leg was beyond belief. He couldn’t find his way out of the bloody airport for a start. He had no concept of building up speed to change gears so he’d be in 5th gear by the time he’d got to 35kph and he’d horn all the time as he clearly (?) couldn’t see anything much in the dark so this preemptive manoeuvre of horning all the time probably made him feel more secure that the road ahead was clear. (I’d imagine my parents having kittens if they’re reading this now!) The silver lining in this journey was a quick pitstop at Domino’s pizza to pick up dinner. A shame that another of dad’s estimates was blown out of the water by our driver. What should have been a 10-15 minute journey home from the pizza place took over half an hour. Anyway, the pizza was very tasty and worth the wait and it was still hot! Another sleepless night on the wooden board with churning hot air followed.

This is when parting with the generator and sending it back to the farm proved to be fatal. In the words of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, “big mistake”. You’d think the powers that be would have a better grip of getting electricity cuts sorted quickly in a city like Chandigarh but not during the time we were there. We lots power late evening on the day we got back, it came back on for a couple of hours on the Friday morning and then we were without power for the whole of that day. No electricity does have further ramifications in that no power means no fresh water as the tubewell won’t work. Furthermore not everyone has the luxury of a tubewell so there were many people that day who went without fresh water for over 12 hours. It also meant fridges defrosted, there was no TV, you couldn’t boil water (unless you had gas), ceiling fans wouldn’t work, etc. It does make you appreciate these things we have spent years taking for granted. Many people simply sit outside their houses at times like this because they have nothing else to do – it’s funny, but it’s the one time when there’s actually a bit of community spirit.

To kill time last Friday, Sat, dad and I had gone shopping and dropped mum off at a friend’s place since she didn’t fancy coming with us. The AC of the car was a relief from the intense heat everywhere else. We even had lunch in McDonald’s (the healthy eating would resume once Jag went back to the UK!) – no beef or lamb though, only chicken nuggets and chicken burgers.

I’m not sure if I’ve laboured the Indian heat aspect too much but you feel so helpless in this kind of situation. It’s too hot to do anything outside and if you stay indoors there’s not much to do, worsened when there’s no electricity.  We’ve come from a culture where the norm is to be busy all the time and where we always have things to do, life in India is a complete contrast and takes a lot of getting used to. In the West, time is the one thing we always seem to be short of; time for ourselves and for other people. Yet here in India, we’re at the opposite end of the spectrum where time is the one thing we do have in abundance and knowing what to do with it isn’t always obvious. I still haven’t got used to it and I often feel that I am wasting this abundance of time.  But as Sat pointed out to me yesterday, we are continuing to learn during this time, it’s just not in the conventional way that we’re used to. Our relationships with the people around us and how we deal with things are probably the areas where this is most apparent. We’re still trying to operate in Westernised ‘must maximise our time mode’ whereas the pace of life here runs to a different (slower) beat and requires an altogether different level of self management to handle it. I think Sat’s found it easier to adapt than I have but even he has his moments too. I also think that as we never eat well in Chandigarh (we usually eat out) a lack of fresh fruit & veg in our diet has an impact as these are really key things for the both of us to maintain a healthy mind and body. Sat was in quite a (rare!) philosophical mood yesterday as he also said we’d be stronger for this whole experience. I have to agree with him.

Anyway, back to the story….we had Saturday morning to kill before Jag’s flight arrived from Delhi. So we hired a car and driver for the day (a different guy from airport man, before you ask!) and headed off to the lake again for a potter about and some lunch. Soon it was time to go to the airport and it wasn’t long before Jag’s big beaming grin (and the rest of him, in case you thought he was some kind of Cheshire Cat!) appeared in the arrivals hall. We collected our luggage (I’d be lying if I said it was his luggage. I think of the 45kgs he brought over, at least 42kgs of it was stuff for us! The rest of it was his camera and a spare pair of pants!). A short stop in Chandigarh to load up dad’s car and then we were on our way back to the farm. Since Jag’s on his holidays, it was only fair we stopped at a restaurant en route to get him fed and watered after such a long journey. We stuffed our faces on parathas, butter chicken, mushroom dopiaza, chilli chicken and mum ordered a take out portion of noodles which served as a midnight snack for her later on! We also bought a bottle of Bacardi to replace the one dad accidentally smashed just before leaving Chandigarh but at £5 a bottle it didn’t cost a fortune. (Forgot to mention, on our earlier shopping trip we’d managed to track down some Jack Daniels, Bacardi and Jacobs Creek Chardonnay). Couple that with all the goodies Satpal and Parm had sorted out for us (see previous posting for our wish list) then we were well sorted for another few weeks. Apparently the bag of brown rice he brought for us was a running joke – a bit like taking coals to Newcastle (understandably) but we just haven’t managed to find anywhere that sells it! Sat had also got Jag to bring a stash of chocs from Thorntons as a birthday present for me. Much of it had melted by the time it got here so it’s been sitting in the fridge ever since (apart from the odd bar or two that we’ve secretly scoffed – do you see there’s a trend in our chocolate-eating habits??) As we’re going trekking in Ladakh towards the end of the month and we’ll be away for my birthday then this chocolate needs eating – I don’t need asking twice! The birthday pressies my parents and sister sent will come with us on our trek so I have something to open on the ‘big day’. You’d think by now the novelty of birthdays would have worn off. Not with me and Sat!

Earlier this week, Sat, Jag and I went off for a walk into the village.  I know I said we weren’t going to mention the cricket but we’ll ignore the current Twenty20 competition and talk about grassroots cricket instead.  We came across a bunch of boys playing cricket on the football pitch/playing field of the school where I was teaching.  There’s no grass, just dust and it’s the same place the footy competition was held at when we first arrived.  Happily for me, many of the boys were pupils at the school and I was greeted with cries of “Madam ji, Madam ji” which was very welcoming! They were keen to get us involved so Sat volunteered to take strike.  His first ball was a dot ball – he was just warming up (his words, not mine).  The second ball he somehow managed to score a 4 and at this point he decided to quit while he was ahead.  Thus ending his village cricket playing career.   Jag, meanwhile, had taken another 100 photos to add to his ever-growing collection.  Action shot below!

Cricket

We haven’t mentioned Simba very much in our blog so far.  He’s the farm’s guard-dog/pet/pest/source of amusement.  He’s a few months old and is of no particular breed (in Wigan we’d call him a Heinz 57 i.e. a blend of 57 different breeds).  His default position is to roll onto his back and expect his belly to be tickled.  If that doesn’t get the desired result, he’s likely to run off with your sandal or even your mobile phone.  This is a picture of him looking particularly cute, as if butter wouldn’t melt. We know otherwise but thought a picture of him would please Sukhmuni.

Simba

So there you have it, you’re upto date with everything that’s gone on in the last couple of weeks. I must admit, it’s really good to have Jag around. For one, he’s company for us; two, he’s a much more positive person than mum and dad which helps with the overall atmosphere and three, he can be a tourist for the week visiting places and mum and dad are more than happy to go with him and we have some peace and quiet!  He even came for a run with us this morning wearing the new trainers we’d bought for dad that he hasn’t even worn yet! They’ve all gone to Garhshankar and Nawansher (about an hour’s drive away) today to do some shopping which is why I’ve had the time to write this epic of a posting.

So I’ll love you and leave you for now. We’ll be off to Ladakh towards the end of June so we’ll do another posting before we go.

Had a few technical problems since I wrote most of this, so congratulations to Simren (Sat & Jag’s niece) for passing her driving test (first time) yesterday!!!  Anyone living in the Slough area might want to make sure they have fully comp insurance cover!! (That was Uncle Sat, not me!)

Oh yeah, and for the rest of the Sandhu/Phagura clan – we had lunch at Havelli today. Yum!

Adios amigos!

Jo

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It’s almost a week since Sat’s last posting about the riots going on here and the impact is still being felt out here in the sticks.  The violence in the Punjab which kicked off after the murder of the guru in Vienna resulted in armed forces being deployed to major cities, particularly Jalandhar which was at the heart of the fighting, and a strict curfew being imposed all over the State.  So although we have seen nothing of the conflict (fortunately), we have been on the receiving end of the curfew.  

First off, the schools have been closed all week.  I was halfway through a written alphabet test for Class 6 last Monday morning when one of the other teachers came in and suddenly announced that it was a holiday.  There followed whoops of joy and test papers being flung at me from all directions as they all piled out of the classroom as quickly as they could.  I was then told by Rajwant (the headmistress) that they’d received the directive that all schools in the Punjab would be closed that day as hostilities were mounting and clearly the safety of school-children was a priority. As it was only around 7.45am (school was now starting at 7am due to the hot weather) it was still relatively cool so I decided to walk home. Rajwant was insistent that I have some company en route and instructed some of the older girls who lived near us to walk with me. Many of the younger kids decided they’d tag along too so I felt like the Pied Piper of Kukran as we all trooped through the small villages on the way back.  Rather than walk along in silence, I decide we’d do a verbal alphabet test (after all, I had done the preparation)…”A is for?” I would ask, and there’d be a multitude of different answers (admittedly “a” was always “apple”) but it passed the time and everyone joined in.  Our numbers grew smaller as we passed the various houses and kids would go home shouting “bye, bye!” and waving as they went.  

And sadly, that’s the last time I saw the kids. School has been closed since Monday and today (Saturday) would have been the last day of term.  I’d planned to get loads of fruit for every child and ice-lollies as treats but that will all have to wait now until the holidays are over in July.  Not quite the end I was hoping for but it does mean I’ll be back there again in the near future.  

Mind you, speaking of fruit and ice-lollies, we would have struggled to give the kids these treats even if school had reopened this week.  This is due to the curfew.  We’ve only been allowed to go out for a couple of hours each day – usually between 2pm and 4pm – which isn’t very long at all.  If you consider this applies to everyone, then the supplies in the shops have been depleted and stocks have been completely used up.  People here rely on buying their fresh produce such as fruit, vegetables and dairy stuff almost every day and since the curfew hours are so limited, very few supplies are getting into the Punjab or even being transported within the state.  (I guess if you had to compare it with anything we’d experience in the West, you’d have to imagine people stocking up on food and booze at the supermarkets at Christmas time when you’d think the shops would be shut for weeks instead of just one day!!!!! )  Don’t misunderstand me, we haven’t starved or gone without, we’re lucky in that we always have stocks of the staple foods such as flour, potatoes, onions, tomatoes and things like salad ingredients (green peppers, cucumbers) were still available and we’ve eeked out the fruit to last us.  Masala flavour crisps and dry biscuits are still in plentiful supply though!

So, no school, limited food and we can’t go out of the house.  We’ve suffered a bit from cabin fever this week – I think that might be more a mental thing since we’d hardly be jetting off all over the place even if we could go out.  It’s more the fact we’d had a good routine going between us and we all had a purpose and then the routine  completely changed.  I’ve found it hard to fill my time and been bored, which has frustrated Sat as he’s happy just to get on with writing more chapters on his book (he’s on Chapter 10 already).  He’s trying to upload a few chapters to Harper Collins’ new website, http://www.authonomy.com, but the site hasn’t been working properly (it’s a beta…a new concept by Harper Collins to get budding authors to submit their work for the general public to read).  We’ll let you know when it’s successfully uploaded as many of you have asked about it.

The carpenters have finally finished the kitchen cupboards – if we’d got them to stay and fix everything that needed fixing then they might as well have moved in with us (!) so instead we kept about 9000 rupees back (in case they fall off the wall or something) and they’ll get the money owed once we’re happy and using them.  Sat and I spent Wednesday sanding, wood preserving and then putting a first coat of varnish on them.  Labour is cheap here and if we’d been paid a day’s wage for what we’d done, we’d have earned the princely sum of 120 rupees each (that’s less than £2 each!!!). Having said that, what we managed in a day, would have taken workers here at least a week – there’s no rush to do anything round here.   Also I don’t think Sat could have handled the stress of directing workers to varnish the cupboards without inflicting GBH on someone for crimes against woodwork!  

We’d earmarked Thursday for a second coat of varnish and filling the cupboards on Friday – fat chance!  The heat has conspired against us and the varnish is still a bit tacky even today, Saturday.  We’ll be lucky to have them finished and in use before we head off to Goa on Wednesday.  

So yesterday I decided to bake bread.  The stuff you get here is laughable (for those of you who remember Nimble think square instead of round slices and half the size per slice!) – you need at least 6 slices of it to know you’ve eaten anything. We’d spent time driving around a couple of weeks ago in a quest to find yeast and amazingly we managed to find some.  For those of you desperate to know the results, I made one loaf and 4 rolls, one of which we scoffed smothered in marg as soon as they came out of the oven – yum yum (that’s for you, George!).  We’ve had most of the rest at breakfast today, toasted and with either eggs (Sat and dad) or bright orange marmalade (me) and a cup of tea/coffee.  A little touch of home goes a long way!

Oh, and even though there’s been no school I’ve been able to work on my real passion –  I’ve been doing some coaching.  I had the last teleclass of my recent coaching course on Wednesday evening.  I’ve enjoyed these as the rest of the guys on the course have become good friends of mine and we all get along really well.  This last course, again with The Forton Group, was the Developing Course in Leadership Coaching.  I’d definitely recommend them to anyone looking to get into Leadership Coaching – I’ll do a separate posting on this later on.    

I’ve also started coaching another client this week who I speak to over Skype which just goes to show that the miles don’t matter.  Over the coming weeks and months, I’ll be focusing more on expanding the coaching arm of Can Do Sandhu Ltd and I’m already exploring several new avenues.  In the meantime,  coaching is for anyone so if you’re interested in getting the most out of life, reaching new goals and not settling in the here and now…what are you waiting for? Get in touch!

Builders arrived yesterday to drop off supplies for the pool area renovations that Sat’s planning.  Work has started today and involves lots of bricks and cement which will ultimately end up as the extended poolside area (there’s currently nowhere to sit by the pool, you’re either in it, or out of it, if you see what I mean?!)  I’ll let Sat go into the actual detail of it some other time. 

Speaking of supplies, I sent my sister-in-law, Parm, a shopping list of stuff which will make our life here a bit more comfortable.  The goodies will be given to my brother-in-law, Jag, to bring as he’s coming out in a couple of weeks’ time.  It’s an assorted list ranging from hair conditioner and a pumice stone to cotton sheets and cling-film!!!  Not all to be used at the same time, I hasten to add!!!  ( When proof-reading this posting, Sat said that since we’ve been married over 7 years now , we don’t do that kind of stuff anymore!  

Think that just about wraps up this week’s events.  I’ll leave you with Sat’s phrase of the day, which I guarantee will bring a smile to your face, even though it’s cheesy…”I’m so happy, I can’t stop smiling!”  I dare you to try and say it with a straight face!!!  Although a deep and meaningful this morning (with his mum) would challenge anybody to maintain a happy disposition.

I’ll love you and leave you and hope life’s treating you as well as it is us!

Love 

Jo

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