Craig’s News for Tuesday… Awesome!
The trip so far…
So, for the millions that don’t know, My wife and I have upped sticks and left the UK for a 2 year world tour with a year in-between, living and working in New Zealand.
We are currently halfway through a 5 month trip of South/South East Asia. We have made our way from the bottom of Sri Lanka to the top of India so far and will be hitting Nepal next.
The lady and I have generally been staying with family’s in home-stays and so eating most of our meals with them and learning all about the culture. We have incredibly humbled by the generosity and kindness of the family’s that we have been staying with, just as much as we have been blown away what is normality in Asia, like family’s of 5 on a 125 motorbike with the mother sat on the back breast-feeding and only the driver wearing a helmet honking at everyone to get out the way!
There have been too many amazing things to wright about but here are a few of the standouts.
Every single night for our entire stay so far has provided the most epic sunset we have ever seen!
A fully-grown Blue Whale off the coast of Mirissa. The Mirissa coast is the only part of the world where the resident whales do not migrate
Kick ass locals! This was a elephant sanctuary where they had a full working paper mill that produced all sorts of paper inspired objects. The paper was made from the elephant dung.
Canyoning. We spent a day making our way through a canyon in to the jungles of Goa. This also happens to be the same jungle that Rudyard Kipling used to explore when he wrote The jungle Book. Rad!
Two day camel safari into the dessert! We set up camp 40 miles from the border of Pakistan and baked bread on the campfire. Epic!
The unbelievable Animals! A wild Tiger and a rescued dancing bear. The dancing bears were a tradition and a means to making money for the Kalander people (gypsys) The Bears not only get rescued though. The Kalander people have also been set up with businesses and taught other trades so they can support their families after the bears are taken from them.
The burning ghats in Varanasi
One of the craziest cities that I have been too! Everyday and all day people bring their dead here to burn, Their ribs and hip bones do not burn completely and are put into the Gange river. Some people do not get burnt and instead have rocks tied to them and are placed directly in the river.
These are the people that fall into that category.
– Children under a certain age because their souls are still pure so they do not need to get purified
– People suffering from smallpox as well as lepers because the gods already retained them
– Pregnant women because they carry a new life in their body
– People bitten by a cobra because they may get back to life
– Holy men/priests because their souls are also pure
So, those are a couple highlights from the trip so far. If you want to check out some pics that would make national geographic look like a little puss cake hit me up @craigsteves. — Cheers then.