Well Sited Toilet Tents

Oh dear, shame on us, no post for over a month, that's really bad ... but we have been off travelling again! News in a while.

Back in India ... there was no further rain overnight and thanks to our early night it was no hardship to get up at 5.00 a.m. for the wonderful mountain views.

Gio was rather taken with the sight of the first rays of the sun lighting up Kanchenjunga. You can see why the range is described as the sleeping Buddha, although sorry, we slightly chopped off the top of his head to the extreme left, an easy mistake given that we were still half asleep (well Yorkie and I were - Gio as usual was as bright as a button).

The walking that day was rather special. As we had left the jeep track behind, it was all off road walking, either across lovely green pastures - such as this one, where our rule train overtook us -

or dirt tracks which were easy to walk on.

As it was a shortish walking day, it wasn't worth having lunch on the way, but as it was going to be a late lunch by the time we'd reached camp, we had a soup stop en route. It was lovely hot soup with a choice of flavours and lovely japattis to go with it. We didn't really need our lunch proper after that!

We had free time at the camp after lunch so we went for a bit of an explore which was good to do as we were at a place where several paths converged and we could only leave on one the next day. The afternoon started off fine and sunny with blue skies, as you can see from our next picture ... Gio was pleased to find another collection of prayer flags on poles ...

... but the sunshine didn't last and quite early in the afternoon it got very cold and windy and a lot of mist rolled in. For the second day running we snuggled up in our tents to keep warm. The visibility got so bad that you almost needed a compass to find your tent again after venturing out for a visit to the dining tent or the toilet tents, and it was quite funny when one lady went into the wrong tent and gave it's occupant a bit of a fright.

The next morning the wind had gone and the mist had cleared. The sun was out again and the sky was blue. What's more, there was a treat in store going to the toilet tents - they were toilet tents with a great mountain view.

Lots of love Gio, George and Yorkie xxx

Reminders of Home

Sorry readers, we forgot to blog ... but we're back now!

Back in India ... we didn't go to bed, however, without viewing the marvellous sunset (o.k. that was at tea-time) and saying goodnight to our mule friends.

Strangely enough we also said good morning to the mules when we went to breakfast the next day. They were ready with their saddles on long before us. As you can see in our picture it was a lovely sunny morning; it wasn't this warm at 5.15 a.m. though, when we climbed the small rise to the rear of this same picture, for our second 'mountain view'. Kanchenjunga was already creeping noticeably closer.

We were trekking along the old military road built by the British so it was a pretty good path, although quite eroded in places. As a result the only wheeled vehicles that could use it were old British series 1 (possibly 2) Landrovers, older than us, and older even than our minders.

We were trekking along the border between India and Nepal, so we were regularly changing countries. We soon came to our first Nepali village with the indigenous Land Rovers ....

... no sooner were we out of the village and we came across our first local monkeys ...

... we weren't carrying any food though, so they were out of luck.

It was a beautiful day to be out trekking and our minders were busy with their sun tan lotion. We had stops for a military checkpoint and also to enter the Singalila National Park proper. Here we are at the entrance.

It had been an exciting morning and we hadn't even got to lunchtime yet, so there's more to come. 

Lots of love, Gio, George and Yorkie xxx

Our Trek Gets Underway

As we arrived in Dhodrey our Jeeps were unloaded with their contents going two ways: humans and bears, plus daysacks, to a village house for lunch, and yellow Exodus bags to our luggage carrying mule train.

Although it was only 11:30 a.m. packed lunches were produced, prepared by or trek chef Manilal. We were all given a cardboard box and it was exciting to open them up and see what was inside. It was quite a feast: a potato, a hardboiled egg, cheese sandwiches, cake and a chocolate bar. There were also cartons of mango juice which weren't too popular with us, but went down well with the local children.

After lunch we were all raring to go and here some of us are at the starting line ...

... Yorkie was still inside, hoovering up the lunch leftovers and living up to his nickname of the Piranha.

We left the village, admiring some of the mooli crops and crossing the local football pitch before starting an easy ascent through woodland.  We had a fine trekking leader in Kundan who you see in the red jacket. He seemed hardly old enough to have left school but he was very good and looked after us well. Our group leader, Dilip, is crouching down in our picture; he was also an excellent leader and very good company.

It wasn't a hard afternoon's walk and we had plenty of time to enjoy it and the views that started to open up as we climbed. We soon left the trees behind and climbed, on a good path, through scrubby grassland. Our female minder had the claim to fame of being the only member of the group to pick up a leech on her knee. Fortunately it brushed off easily (she later found a second one on her boot, but that was the end of them, as we had climbed too high for for any more leeches).

As we climbed onto a ridge, not any old ridge but the Singalila ridge we were going to follow on our trek, we were almost immediately in the village of Tonglu (3036m) where we were to stay for the night.

Our blue tents were all pitched and ready for us to move in. The cook tent and our dining tent weren't far away.

 
We spent most of the remainder of the day drinking tea and eating, then because it was cold and dark and we'd had lots of fresh air, it was early to bed for us.

Lots of love, George, Yorkie and Gio xxx

Heritage on Wheels

We were awake and ready to leap out of bed when we heard the call of 'Mountain View' at 5.15 a.m. Being bears we don't have to dress, so we were up on the hotel's sun terrace before our minders, drinking in our first view of Kanchenjunga.

It was very exciting especially as the view changed every few minutes, as it got lighter and the sun moved round the horizon, painting the mountains pink. It wasn't worth going back to bed afterwards, as we had to pack before an earlyish breakfast, so we could leave at 7.30 to walk down to the station,  where we would catch the toy train of the Darjeeling Mountain Railway.

The railway was completed in 1881 and built to exploit the difference in the price of potatoes between Darjeeling and Silguri. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. It was built with a narrow gauge of just 2 foot to allow it to follow a tightly twisting route through the hills. The raised track now runs along the edge of the only road into Darjeeling, which is very narrow and very busy, making for a fun journey as you mix it with all the traffic.

Four diesel locos handle most of the scheduled services, but there are still some British built steam engines which take tourists along a 10 km stretch of the railway between Darjeeling and Ghum.

We were lucky to be able to travel on a train pulled by one of the characterful blue steam engines - Blue Bear would have loved it, especially the fact that the engines are blue like him. It was a slow journey at a speed of no more than 12km an hour, with numerous stops for cars parked on the line which had to be moved, and similar.

We had one official stop for about 10 minutes at the Batista loop where there are beautiful gardens and a memorial to Gurkha soldiers of the Indian Army. Close by stands a sculpture of one of the soldiers, appearing behind me in my photo ...

At Ghum station we left the train and our jeeps were there waiting for us. We climbed aboard and set off for the village of Dhodrey, the starting point of our trek. How exciting!

Lots of love

George, Yorkie and Gio xxx

To the Queen of the Hills

The next day, day 1 proper of the holiday, involved some more travelling. We had a civilised, post breakfast, departure from our hotel, for Delhi airport's domestic terminal, then a relaxing flight up to Bagdogra airport. This serves as a military airport so no photos were allowed ... we'll therefore move swiftly on to our journey from the airport up to Darjeeling.

We travelled in jeeps as we had a big climb into the hills to do, on poor quality roads. The first few miles were on smooth wide tarmac, as you can see from our picture below ...

... so we bowled along, keeping an eye out for elephants crossing. We saw the warning signs, but not the elephants. We suppose that was better than hitting, or being hit by, one.

As we started to climb into those cool green hills that so attracted the British colonials, it started to get cooler and our pace slowed due to lots of hairpins and a narrowing of the road. We stopped for a break at a restaurant with a view at Kurseong, and tucked into a few shared plates of delicious momos (steamed dumplings for those who haven't tried them).

It was dark by the time we arrived at Darjeeling. Our hotel, the Himalayan Resort, was quite new but had bags of lovely character. How's this for a fine room ...

... don't worry, we haven't suddenly joined a convent, we're wearing the Buddhist prayer scarf we were presented with, on arrival, along with a cup of tea (Darjeeling, what else?)

The corridor outside our room was equally splendid with lots of beautiful wood panelling ...

... can you see us relaxing on the settee?

As we had arrived in the early evening, we didn't get much further than a local restaurant a 10 minutes stroll away. We also had an interesting briefing telling us what we would be doing the next day. We were getting very excited as we had the start of our trek to look forward to, as well as a ride on Darjeeling's famous toy train.

We found a picture of the toy train outside our room. We sat in the plant below gazing up at it and anticipating the delight of the next day.

We didn't stay up too late though as we were due to have a wake up call the next morning, at just after 5.00 a.m., for our first 'mountain view'.

We'll share this first view with you next time.

Lots of love, George, Yorkie and Gio xxx

1.2 Billion People ... and 3 Bears

We can talk more about caravanning any time, and we will, but we need to pause to bring you news of our latest big adventure.

Being a caravan owner has, in no way, diminished our sense of adventure and wanderlust; it just provides us with opportunities for more lovely holidays. As we stayed in Europe last year, this year we felt we were due a more exotic holiday, so off we went to one of our favourite countries ...

... the huge flag, which was flying in Connaught Place, will hopefully tell you that we've been to India. It was Gio's first trip, Yorkie's second and my third (George speaking). I'm beginning to feel quite a veteran. 

We flew into Delhi at breakfast time. We might have arrived early in the day but it was already very hot. Fortunately we had rooms ready for us in the lovely air conditioned oasis that the Florence Inn is. 

It didn't take us long to recover from our overnight flight and to want to go out and brave the 'feels like 44 degrees' heat to explore. We couldn't afford to waste any time as we were leaving Delhi the next day. 

You could be forgiven if you think we were in London, when you see our next photo ... 

... as it does look like I'm travelling on the underground. I was however, on the rather more modern Delhi metro which travels on stilts, overground, rather than underground. It was very easy to use, clean, cool, cheap and not too crowded. Perhaps the fact it was a Sunday helped. 

The most sensible thing to do would have been to stay on the metro all day, but being curious bears we surfaced at Connaught Place. This is where we saw the huge Indian flag flying. We knew it was big and have just found out it is 60 feet wide and 90 feet long, and it flies at the top of a 207 foot mast in Central Park. That's big! 

We strolled round Central Park, took in the Lutyen's architecture and marvelled at the fact that we were looking at the fourth most expensive office accommodation in the world. We preferred the official name of Rajiv Chowk as it sounds a lot more Indian. 

We gathered that Delhi doesn't get too many bear tourists as everyone wanted to talk to us and find out where we were from. It quickly became a bit much for us in the heat so we returned to our hotel for a bear nap and to prepare ourselves for the start of the holiday proper the next day. 

Lots of love, George, Yorkie and Gio xxx

Admiring the Saris

Catching up on more than a few years worth of news made us very hungry. Before we could go off for a celebratory meal though, there were two other pleasant tasks to perform. Firstly, Ted took us round the University to see all the old familiar sights and some new additions. It was strange driving round the campus as in our student days we didn't have a car and so walked everywhere.

Secondly we drove down to Leicester to pick up another of our minder's friends, again not seen for many years, from her workplace. Being in Leicester the pull of an authentic Indian restaurant was impossible to resist and boy were we spoiled for choice as we strolled alaong the delightfully Indian, Melton Road. We were particularly fascinated by the clothes shops whose windows were so full of exotic, colourful and glittering saris that we almost regretted being male bears and therefore denied the opportunity of trying one on! In the end we chose a Gujerati vegetarian restaurant to eat in.


We congratulated Ted on his excellent choice of restaurant as we tucked into a wonderful Thali meal. There were so many different dishes to try and it reminded us very much of our great Indian holiday.

The only sad part of the evening was saying goodbye to Ted and friends. We hope they will come and visit in the summer as we all agreed we mustn't leave it so long next time.

Lots of love Ungi, Dessie, Black Doggy, Chelmer, George & Yorkie xxx

Yummy Yummy Yummy ...

We did say that reports from India had now finished but that doesn't mean that India is now a closed subject. I, Oakley Bear, am having a great time cooking with all the spices and recipe books that George & Yorkie brought back with them. Many of us at Bears Unlimited have a speciality country for cooking and mine is India.


The other day I spent all day conjuring up loads of delicious dishes. In the picture you can see me at the planning stage before it got all chaotic as my creative flair was exercised. The kitchen took quite a bit of cleaning afterwards but all my dishes were quickly despatched and I took the empty plates to be a sign of appreciation.

I did have 2 slight problems with my menu. My vegetable pakoras were supposed to be keeping warm in the top oven but instead they cooked for a second time and ended up rather black and burnt. Then my coconut ice cream set so solid that we couldn't get it out of the dish. We had to sit it by the fire for a good long while to allow it to soften.

We looked at photos and watched George & Yorkie's video as we ate our food and everyone declared it to be a great evening.

Lots of love, Chef Bear Oakley xxx

Closing Credits

Sadly we've come to the end of our tales and pictures of our Indian holiday. We hope you've enjoyed them and got the feel of what a fantastic holiday it was. We can't recommend southern India highly enough. Thank you to Explore for putting together such a great tour.

Our final picture shows us with Andrew our tour leader and the staff of the Rockholm hotel, Kovalam, on the last evening of our holiday. We tried to smile but it was very sad to be leaving.


The good news, however, is that our brothers in the Ipswich branch have recently returned from their holiday to New Zealand. We hope they will be able to share some of their photos and holiday experiences soon.

Keep reading the blog though as life is never dull with Bears Unlimited. We'll be taking a back seat as you've heard a lot from us recently but our friends have lots to tell you.

Lots of love, George & Yorkie xxx

Leech Attack!

There was one incident on our holiday that caused us bears particular amusement. We don’t have a laugh at our minders expense too often as they are very good to us, but there are occasions when it just can’t be helped.

The occasion in question was a ranger lead walk in the Periyar national park. We had to meet the ranger bright and early in the morning so as to have the best opportunity for animal sightings – we were particularly hoping to see a tiger. As it was the end of the monsoon season it was very damp and steamy in the park: ideal conditions for leeches. Our minders were therefore issued with some very peculiar leech socks, which completely covered them from knee to toe. They then put their shoes on which made them look really strange. We thought how lucky we were to have stuffing rather than blood and so be of no interest to leeches. We didn’t want to miss out on a photo opportunity though so we posed alongside a pair of leech socks.


We’d only taken a couple of steps and hadn’t even been rafted across the lake to the heart of the park before the leeches struck the humans. We found it fascinating watching them arching their way over our minders’ shoes looking for a way in through the laces.

It wasn’t long before we discovered the disadvantage of leech socks: they don’t cover the upper part of the body. Our female minder said she felt a tickling sensation on her stomach and when we had a look we discovered a leech had crawled up the inside of her shirt and firmly attached itself to her stomach. There was another two and a half hours of the walk to go which would have given the leech time to get very fat, so we thought we had better put a rescue plan into operation. We checked available resources and settled for a DEET (mosquito repellent) spray. This worked a treat, although we did feel a bit sorry for the leech! He soon let go and we were able to pull him off. Bears to the rescue yet again.

That was actually the most eventful part of the walk as there were few animal sighting – mainly just monkeys. When we got back to base our minders found the leech socks had worked a treat and their legs and ankles were leech free but their shoes were full of leeches. There were a tense few moments getting all the leeches out, but after we gave the ranger his tip he was very attentive and did a great job of clearing our shoes. Clearly all part of a day’s work if you’re a park ranger in India, but we’re not sure we fancy it.

Lots of love, George & Yorkie xxx

Tea for Two

Seeing how tea grows is of course only half the story and we saw little resemblance between the cuppa we enjoy several times a day and those healthy green bushes you saw us sitting in yesterday.

When we found a tea factory that was open to the public to visit we were therefore first in the queue to find out more about how tea leaves become tea. In fact as you will see from our picture we were there before the gates opened (yes you do have to look quite hard to see us but we are there).


We thought the Connemara tea factory sounded a bit Irish but it was definitely tea they were making not Guinness! It was a very noisy, dusty and hot process and we were a bit intrigued by all the fermentation going on - we didn't think tea had an alcoholic content!

Sadly there wasn't any tea sampling at the end of the visit but we did know a lot more about manufacturing tea than when we started.

Lots of love, George & Yorkie xxx

More Tea Vicar!

We think our bear radar might have detected a few readers asking, how come they've been all that time in India and not mentioned tea once?

Well the time has come to talk about tea. We like drinking tea almost as much as we like drinking Wherry (it all depends on the time of day) so we looked forward to visiting tea country on our trip. Our overwhelming impression was that tea bushes are very fortunate as they get to look out on some stunning views and spend their days soaking up the sun. Our cycle ride through tea country took us over the Western Ghats and boy did we want to store those fantastic mountain views in our minds to recall on cold, wet and dark days (like today). A second memorable thing about tea bushes was that we had never seen anything similar growing at home yet we've drunk Yorkshire tea on many occasions. Now, just where are those bushes growing in Yorkshire? We will have to look harder when we next visit.

The third memory we took away from our cycle through tea country was the chink chinking sound of the tea pickers' sheers providing a musical accompaniment as we pedalled along. The tea pickers, who all seemed to be friendly ladies, had some very innovative sheers. They had containers attached to them that the snipped tea leaves fell into so they didn't have to stop very often to collect what they had snipped.

We thought some of our readers might not have seen a tea bush growing so we thought we would take a picture of ourselves in a tea bush about to lend the ladies a hand with some tea leaf picking.


Love George & Yorkie xxx

Back Afloat Again

While it was great to try out some truly Indian forms of transport, a visit to Kerala is, more than anything else, about seeing the backwaters. As the backwaters stretch for about 1,000 km and there is so much to see on them - birds, animals, local industry and people simply living out their lives - you simply cannot spend too much time exploring and how better to explore the backwaters than by boat?

As we are boating bears, we were very happy to get back afloat. We didn't get to go on a traditional rice barge as none of our boat trips involved overnight stays which they are geared up for, but we were very happy with the boats we travelled on, especially when the masters of the vessels let us have a drive. We were pleased to find there aren't any speed limits like on the Norfolk Broads at home, but while we couldn't resist an occasional burst of speed (just to see what she could do) most of the time we drove like the responsible bears so as to get the best sightings of kingfishers and fish eagles.


The boat in today's photo had very thoughtfully provided safety straps to stop bears unwittingly slipping overboard. We thought this was a very nice touch.

Lots of love, George & Yorkie xxx

Travelling in Classic Style

When, earlier this year, our minders told us they were going to take us to India we started imagining what it would be like and doing some internet research to find out what to expect.

As we like to think we share personality characteristics with James Bond (I'm sure you can spot them) and the Top Gear presenters (we're sure we'll be invited on the show any day) we always pay particular attention to the car chase sequences in James Bond films.

After watching the James Bond film Octopussy, we fell in love with the Hindustani Ambassador and since then it has been our ambition to ride in one. We thought the chance might just come our way on our India trip so did a Google search on 'Hindustani Ambassador'. We just adore one of the quotes we found in someone's blog - the author was talking about a ride in an Ambassador.

''It is like traversing a crazy golf course on your granny's sofa, with added obstructions coming from flitting auto-rickshaws, wobbly, cycling Sikhs and toiling bullock carts''.

After reading this we made a pact that we wouldn't leave India without riding in an Ambassador. We hadn't bargained for there being so many around - they were everywhere and every single one was white. How we longed to take a can of spray paint to one of them to make it different! Was the ride worth waiting for? Yes it was. These are just such cool cars that we have yet another business venture to research for Bears Unlimited.

Love George & Yorkie xxxxx

On yer bike!

While our tuk-tuk driving was great fun we were keen to try some other authentic forms of Indian transport to maximise our travelling experiences. Also we weren't sure our nerves could stand too much more tuk-tuk driving for a while.

We had noticed that not many people owned cars but lots had small motorbikes. To blend in with the locals which we were keen to do, to experience the real India we thought we would try a day on a motorbike.

What we found wouldn't have done our image much good at home but it was perfect for India where practical considerations win over style. Had we had the bike for longer we would have liked to paint it a more vibrant colour but we compensated by putting on some bright clothes when we were ready to go. We also put on our cycle helmets as we weren't too sure about the Indian practice of riding without a helmet.

The bit we really liked about the motorbike was that we were able to go fast enough to keep us cool, this counts for a lot in a country as hot and humid as southern India.

Love George & Yorkie xxx

"Driving in my Tuk -Tuk"

One thing you should know about us members of Bears Unlimited is that we always keep our promises. We have therefore, not forgotten that, a while ago, we promised to report on our tuk-tuk driving lesson. If you've been waiting for this report your patience will now be rewarded.

As we've told you, our tour leader, Andrew, was very kindly disposed to bears. He appreciated that we couldn't do quite as much cycling as the rest of the group in view of our rather short legs, so arranged a number of alternative forms of transport for us to complement our cycling.

We simply loved our tuk-tuk driving lesson - really we should call it an auto rickshaw as that's what they're called in India, but we prefer to call them tuk-tuks. We simply cannot understand why they are not all the rage at home as they are such fun, and we are seriously considering importing them as a new Bears Unlimited business venture.

Most of the tuk-tuks in the area were black and gold in colour but we got to drive in a special blue one, complete with L plates. We got our vehicle started fairly easily and checked the horn was working, as our instructor told us that the most important tip he could give us was to use the horn at every opportunity as most drivers don't obey any rules of the road. As we took to the streets this became quite apparent and we began to wonder why every driver in India doesn't have L plates as most don't appear to have had any lessons!

Mastering the tuk-tuk controls didn't take us very long and once we had established that the best way to get anywhere was to drive like a maniac so we would fit in with the traffic flows, we were well away and left our cycling minders far behind. In fact we had finished a bottle of Kingfisher in a local restaurant before they caught up!



Lots of love, George & Yorkie xxx (beep beep!)

Our Award for Great Headgear

We had another encounter with a man in uniform on our holiday. This time it was at a coffee shop which we pedalled past on our way to Vanilla County.

We weren't too impressed by the coffee served to us, even though it had probably been grown locally and therefore was probably very fresh, but we thoroughly enjoyed the ice cream which was recommended to us as being the speciality of the house.

One of the reasons we had to make this stop at the coffee house was to give our bus driver time to pop down the road to buy 2 days supply of Kingfisher beer, as while Vanilla County didn't sell beer, we were welcome to take our own. We discovered that we and our minders put in the biggest order of the group but then we do like our beer.

We had originally thought about climbing aboard our waiter friend's tray for the photograph but on closer inspection it was a bit wet from coffee spills so we settled for keeping our bottoms dry!


Lots of love George & Yorkie xxx

Food Glorious Food ...

We mentioned our love of food in our last blog - as if you didn't know this already! You therefore probably won't be surprised to hear that when we heard there was a cookery demonstration going on in one of the hotels we were visiting, we made a beeline - or should that be a bearline? - for it, reckoning there should be some free samples if we smiled our winning smiles at the chef.


We managed to get seats on the front row of the audience and immediately caught the chef's eye - off to a good start we thought as we gave him a smile and a wave. Unfortunately having two bears in the audience was clearly an unusual event for him and put him off his stride as very early on in the demo he put what looked to us an alarming amount of garlic in the pan and then seconds later admitted that he'd added pineapple instead of garlic and so had to start all over again. Being the helpful bears we are we ensured he had a fresh supply of pineapple even though this required us to pop outside and harvest one - good job we had our swiss army knife to hand!

After that our chef friend recovered his composure and cooked two lovely dishes. They had some technical Keralan names but we forgot them immediately and all we can remember was that there was a fish curry and a pineapple curry. As we had helped out with the pineapple replacement we got to have first taste and have to admit we didn't leave too much for the rest of the audience.

We had a long chat with the chef who shared with us a number of tips for cooking some traditional Kerala recipes which we are now trying out on our Bears Unlimited colleagues to much acclaim - Wherry consumption is going up which must mean we're making them hot enough!

Hope you like our picture taken with our chef friend. Please don't ask what I (George) am doing with my leg though.


Love George and Yorkie xxx

Gone Fishing ...

After our splendid lunch at the German Bakery we decided to take a stroll along the beach so we could work up an appetite for tea (as you can tell we like our food!)

As is usually the case in India, there was lots to see and lots of people watching to do (we bears do find the antics of humans fascinating). It was great to see huge numbers of the locals out enjoying themselves and they were so much more colourful and attractive than the western tourists. We were a bit intrigued though that all the young ladies we saw were going into the water fully clothed. We think they thought they were only going for a bit of a paddle, but with surf as big as that of the Arabian Sea it is difficult not to get soaked. We mused on the possibility of a marketing opportunity for Bears Unlimited in supplying Victorian style bathing costumes and bathing machines so all modesty was preserved, but before we pursue this idea we would need to consult with Raj of the Midlands branch over local customs.

Also on the beach were a fascinating variety of fishing boats. Being boat loving bears we thought we would climb aboard (with permission of the owners of course) and cast a professsional eye over their build and seaworthiness.



The first boat we tried out had loads of character and we were impressed by the craftsmanship. It was basically a canoe made out of two coconut palm trunks lashed together. As our only canoeing experience is on calm waters we thought it might take a bit more experience than we'd got to take it out through the surf so we moved on to check out a rather bigger boat.


If we'd fitted the whole of this boat in the picture we'd only have been small dots, so we settled ourselves on the prow for our photoshoot. This splendid boat was also made of coconut palms but in plank form, and the planks were stitched together and the gaps sealed with coir. We know all this thanks to the friendly fisherman owner who was on hand to tell us all about his boat - he'd never had a bear audience before. In fact he was so taken with us, that he offered to take us out with him on the night's fishing trip. The prospect of fish for tea was so great we jumped at the opportunity and had a most enjoyable evening.

Love George & Yorkie xxx

A Spud Has Never Tasted So Good

We found it hard to tear ourselves away from such a beautiful beach. And so, when it was time for lunch we decided we would have to go somewhere overlooking the beach. The German Bakery was highly recommeded so we paid it a visit. They had a great menu which included dishes from all over the world, but still no nutella sandwiches! While we are curry loving bears, we couldn't resist the opportunity to have a jacket potato and cheese, as a change from rice and chapattis. Boy did they taste good, but then, what food and drink wouldn't when served up with a view such as this one? I know I (George) am looking particularly smug, but on this occasion I did have every reason to be.


Love George & Yorkie xxx