Back at home for my birthday

Well Wednesday I arrived in London after a 9 hour plane ride that I don't remember becuase I was passed out in my seat for the whole trip. I even skipped the first meal because I was sleeping, in fact I don't even remember taking off because I was out super fast. One really nice thing that they gave us on the flight was one of those black out masks that you put on your eyes. Totally helped me because as soon as its dark my body just shuts down. This is the reason that I'm not a cat burglar or else I'm pretty sure I would attempt this profession because it sounds pretty cool and sometimes you get to meet up with Batman when he tries to stop you.

Well Sonja surprised me and met me at the airport, which meant she had the day off so we had lots of fun getting caught up and going to buy my birthday present. It seems like every year I go and buy myself something that I want for my birthday well this year was no different I went out and bought a new watch. This watch is totally pimped out it has everything that you could imagine. Not only is it a pimped out running watch it has a heart rate monitor as well as the huge selling point for me was the speed distance monitor. The speed distance monitor works with the watch so at any given time I can see how far I've run as well as at what pace that I'm going. I've gone on two runs with it since I've bought it and it is totally fun to play with. Its just another factor into proof that I'm a geek and a runner so when you can find things that allows me to match them together I'm super happy.

My birthday was yesterday Feb 8th so I rolled out of bed munched on some toast with PBJ on it (something I totally missed when I was in India) and headed over to the computer. Sadly yesterday was the first day of work, well it was supposed to be but I really didn't work that hard because I had way to many emails to respond to and read. I went out for a solid 52 minute run with an average heart rate of 167 I'm not exactly sure what that means yet but I'll fill ya in when I do. Then my birthday started when Sonja took me to Cirque De Soleil. It was way more dancing and stuff like that and at the start I thought Sonja brought me to Cirque De Ballet but after they were done their intro it turned into a very impressive gymnasitic event. Some of those dudes are total freaks and now I know where all those freaks from school went. It was tons of fun and let me tell you its nice to be home.

Funny statements you would never have heard three months ago:
1) London is such a clean city
2) The weather here is so cold I don't know how people can live in this enviroment
3) The food is good here

thanks for everyones happy birthday wishes and thanks to everyone reading the blog while we were in India.

Goodbye from Rob

Hello I am in Thailand now and Glenn is soon to be back in London. This will (most likely) be my last post. I have started a new blog at http://bobbycho.blogspot.com/ I hope that you all check it out from time to time, even if you are just Glenn's friend and you don't know me at all. He has some wierd friends but you are all still welcome anyway. I hope you guys didn't mind me hijacking his blog for 3 months. I had a wicked time in India and if you want to know more of anything just ask Glenn for my email or post on my blog.

Robinder

Last pictures from India

P1010740,
originally uploaded by Glenn Saqui.

Now that Rob has left me and headed out to Thailand I thought I would post the rest of our pictures. So all you have to do is click on the picture and it'll take you to the correct site.

Last couple of days in India

Well Rob has left to Thailand and now I must make my way back to Delhi to catch my flight back to the UK. Yesterday morning Rob left and I thought it would be nice just to hangout on the beach and do nothing except read my book. So thats what I did until 3pm when I thought it would be fun to go have an orange lassi, something I had never had, well the first one was good. The second tasted a little off but I didn't care it was hot out and the lassi was cold so I was pumped. I then walked down to the internet cafe and checked my email. While sitting there I started to feel a little ill so I decided to head back to the place that I was staying. Well lets just put it this way I got some serious Delhi belly. I slept and was sick from 5pm until 7am this morning. I'm feeling a little better now but it was a rough night. I should have known better then to have to orange lassi no one ever orders those.

Well today I had to rough it and take two buses back to Panjim, Goa where tomorrow I'll be catching a flight to Delhi where I'll be for two days before I fly home. While in Delhi I'm going to pick up a new pair of glasses and check out some stuff Rob and I missed while we were there.

rock on,
g

I found two funny websites you should check out

Chuck Norris Facts
http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/

Type into google "greatest website" and click on the first link. This guy hates everything but I can't believe this is what google comes up with as the greatest website. Scroll to near the bottom and you'll find one of my favs called "I am better than your kids."

Oh by the way this is totally not India related

2nd to Last Day in India, from Rob

Glenn will fly to Delhi from Goa on the 5th, he leaves India about midnight on the 7th. This will give him enough time to get a pair of glasses made and to see a temple which we missed there. A while ago we purchased four flights within India and we still had one left so I had planned to use it to fly to whatever city would give me the cheapest fare out of India to Bangkok. I had been checking flights online and the cheapest I could find was 10400RS about 270 CAD, but yesterday we went to a travel agent, which I thought would be a waste of time and I purchased a ticket for 7600RS about 200CAD from Mumbai. That's not bad, but it is for the 3rd since that is when the sale is so I feel a bit guilty to leave Glenn hanging for a few days on his own.
So tomorrow is our last day, then on Saturday I fly from Panjim, Goa at 1335 to Mumbai and I will have a few hours to spend do maybe I will check out a Bollywood flick, and grab my last true Indian meal. Then at about midnight I fly to Bangkok and I will arrive at about 6am Bangkok time. I am not sure how long the flight actually is, its not like Canada where the give you a nice little itinerary of what to expect. All I know is that I am going to arrive in Thailand first thing in the morning with not a clue of what to do.
I have done very little reading about Thailand because mostly I have not felt like it to be quite honest. While in India I would make a point to check out the guidebook because I felt I owed that much to Glenn since we were travelling together so I should contribute to the overall planning. Now that I am on my own I have no responsibilities and if it sucks that I didn't plan better, that's okay because I only have myself to blame, and I only have myself to be upset at mysel--if that makes any sense....
No, I have an old guidebook of SE Asia, but when I get to Bangkok I will find a better one. Then I will have to hang out in Bangkok for probably 4 days while I arrange visas to Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. In that time I will meet lots of travellers, read my brand new guidebook, eat 22 pad thais and 31 nasi gorengs and have a better idea of what my plans will be. I think I will be heading up to Laos asap then east to Cambodia then to Vietnam if time permits then back to Thailand and home.
I can't believe we have been in India for 3 months, and I can't believe I still have 2 months left. I don't have any ideas of running home early but if I could be teleported back for one week and then teleported back here I would do it. I would love to make my own food, drink some real coffee and drive my car and listen to all my cd's that I didn't get to put on my iPod and take the dogs for a walk and not be surrounded by a billon people and have a hot shower and wear some nice clothes and eat some BBQ and drink real beer and watch hockey--just for one week would be really nice.
Despite some of my rantings we have had an amazing time here. Sometimes I just had to vent so that I could concentrate on the good shit. I cannot describe in one short blog how cool India is, all I can say is it gets in you and it will be something I will never forget. Who knows, maybe one day I will come back. They say lots of people leave India hating it, but then get home and start planning when to come back. Glenn has been a great travelling companion even if his running shorts smell; maybe one day we can go somewhere else cool like Russia or South America.
As for continued updates, Glenn is going to help me set up a blog for my future travels. As soon as it is up I will post a link to it from here. There will only be half as many posts since there will only be half as many authors, so don't get your hopes up. Also, I probably won't have much time since I will be mostly in opium dens and they tend to not have great Internet connections, so says lonely planet.

Hampi, from Rob

About a week ago we spent 3 nights in Hampi, checking out something like 26 square miles of temple ruins. We obviously did not see it all, but we got some great pics anyway. Apparently they are still uncovering more of these ruins all the time. Glenn and I were both once again amazed at the how diverse India is. Our last sort of scenic place was Munnar with the tea fields and green mountains. To go from that to Hampi which is all rolling hills with massive boulders precariously balanced on each other was very striking. I would say the one drawback to Hampi was its lack of food. Basically we were forced to stay in a tourist area and there was no real food. In fact I would go as far as to say it was the worst food we have found. We just could not find anything decent and one meal in particular was so terrible I could not finish it. We went across the street and ate some banoofi pie which was almost okay. Then I went to bed and cried myself to sleep while hugging a pillow to my empty growling stomach....Soon we will get the pictures of Hampi up. They are some of our last pix of India and Glenn has burned all of them onto cds to take home with him.