Harry in Sri Lanka with George

Harry’s blog from Galle

Hello and welcome to the blog! Today I will be saying what has happened in the past ten days. Well, first of all we left Delhi and flew into the vicinity of Sri Lanka. We then went on a 4 hour car journey up into the mountains and arrived at our dad’s friend’s residence near Hatton. We stayed there for a day and went on a long walk round some tea plantations not to mention we saw some bird chicks.

Kitty with creature...

We then FZZZT FZZZT BEEP... sorry technical faults.  Be quiet, computer. I`m trying to do a blog here, y`know. SORRY. My bad. 

Well, continuing...We then voyaged in a helicopter (with the window OPEN and I stuck my hand out and nearly got it sliced into human sashimi) to a place called Yala National Park. We went on four long safari trips and got bitten by mosquitoes and we also swam in the river next to our camp.  One night we had a campfire and toasted marshmallows (we kept on stepping on burnt marshmallows and getting big blobs stuck on our feet).

When not in a helicopter....

The next day we left (THANK GOODNESS) on the most comfortable minibus I had ever been in.  

We then travelled to a villa in a town called Galle. (The place in Sri Lanka, not France.) While we were there we checked out a shipwreck museum with nothing that actually came from shipwrecks. (It all got swept away by a tsunami.) Galle has been visited by many people over time. It has been invaded by Dutch, Roman, English™ and Portuguese. Even now, we saw ships travelling past.

 VCHhhhhhvCHhhhhHhhvCHhhhhhhhhFZTFZT!!....SORRY. Well, we stayed there for a while and our cousin’s friends came along. They were very young though. (One of the children was showing us the games on his mum’s IPAD and they were all on the first update! And he was showing off about it!)

Well, after staying at Galle we soon voyaged in the wonderful bus to a villa in a place called Idon`tknow\forgottenit`sname. When we were at forgottenit`sname we went surfing. The surfboard had not been looked after by the villa and gave me friction burns due to its rough surface. We didn`t do much interesting in forgottenit`sname apart from what I just wrote.

Sri Lanka from helicopter (view from the open window...)

Well here’s what I did in the rest of my time in Sri Lanka:

·        We were supposed to go on a train to Colombo (capital of SL) but we had to go by bus and frankly, it was actually faster than the train.

·        We flew from Colombo to Delhi and arrived there.

Well, it seems I have written all I can write. All I can say now is this: goodbye! Click!  

Harry visits Akshardham but no cameras allowed

INDIA UNHYGIENIC INDIA MARCH 31^st 2011 with Harry!

Hello! And welcome to the blog. Today I will be telling you what happened yesterday. Beep possessing processing… sorry! Technical faults. Well anyway, yesterday I went to a place called… processing… Akshardham. It is a colossal temple with the volume of 15895684.8 (15 million 895 thousand and 684 point 8) cubic feet (I didn`t make that number up) and it was made 10 yrs ago. It was made because there was once an Indian boy called... err… can`t remember. Nethertheless, it was something like MayyjtnmhialckKofghy (let’s just call him Joe) or some weird name like that. There were many stories about him like… a fake boat ride through caverns decorated with historical plastic figures, (the boat was a kind of giant mine cart on tracks) a big IMax cinema which showed a film about Joe, (it was all in Hindi, and even though we had headphones speaking in English, the voices of Hindi still made louder noises than the EnglishL) Then at one point he befriended a man-eating lion and also when some explosives were thrown at him they fell to the ground and turned into seeds (then they instantly grew into vines and wrapped around the man who threw the explosives). We also saw a robotics theatre. We watched them do different scenes of Joe`s life. Once Joe(in other words, a robot) brought some fish back to life without doing mouth to mouth. Now it’s time for… WHAT I`VE ACHIEVED SINCE I LEFT ENGLAND! Well, one of the things I did before I went to Akshardham was translate some Greek on a Weetabix packet. It turns out that “oat bar” in ancient Greek is pronounced “spareesbromees”. I`m also pretty sure I have enough knowledge to win any argument. Well, it seems I have written all I can write ^yawn^ well, goodnight. Click! Snore snoresnore burgers snore French fries…….. J

Darjeeling!

Hi everyone it’s me Edward and I am about to tell you um … stuff! Um that um no-one has um ever um heard before! So um I guess I will just get on with it! (I will um try not to say um ok!J)

Ok well I will start where the unicorns invaded no that’s not right. Um (sorry!J) ok I will start when granny arrived! Well about a week after we last came to the Imperial we came back from school and granny was there. She had come from her home in Scotland to do stuff with us, and she brought brilliant news our cat violet (who is the cutest cat ever and is staying with our granny and granddad while we r in India.) has had KITTENS! I miss violet tons but I can’t even visit her for a day because of some stupid visa! Anyway she (violet) had 5 kittens and they r adorable! 

Kittens - not cute at all!

So after another week we went on another adventure! One morning we got up as usual and had breakfast also normal, but then we went to the airport and got a plane to the Himalayas. We landed at the bottom, (Bagdogra) so we then had to go on a 3 hour car journey to a hotel in Darjeeling. That night mum and I went out to the mall (a ton of shops in one street). We went down the wrong street and then had to go all the back up the hill and go down the other road which turned out to be the right one we then bought a couple of hoodies (one for me and one for Harry because we left all our sweaters in Delhi) and then found a bakers and bought 2 doughnuts, 2 chocolate tarts and 2 brownies! We then went back and nuked everyone! Just kidding we had supper and went to bed. Beep beep breaking up sorry this blog has just fzzt fuzz fzzz BANG! Sorry I guess the bang made it work again lets continue (there are no guarantees this will not happen again). In the morning we …… sorry Thiz website has gjsdagvjhfghvj. All right sorry about that beep booop beep booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooop rebooting sorry … 

Typical Darjeeling street scene

By the war memorial on train trip

In the morning we had breakfast (Harry left the table because there were Bananas and apple on the table and went to play his beep processing printing beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep DSI and when mum told me to take that away he played on mum’s I-pad so he lost 10 minutes DS time. We went to a zoo and saw lots of amazing animals such as barking deer, 4 kinds of leopard, a leopard cat (cute), red pandas (cute) and other poor caged creatures. We then went on a train that was mega slow. 

slow, blue steam train being fired up

We stopped once at a memorial dedicated to the Gurkhas  who fought in many different wars. We read a quote saying “if you ask a man if he is afraid of dying and he says “no”, he is either lying or a Gurkha”.  

When we got to the bottom we went on a 3 hour long car journey (note from ma - it really was no longer than 90 mins) to a hotel in a place called Glenburn Tea Estate  (It had a brilliant view of the 3^rd highest mountain in the world!J). Kanchendzonga.  For beeeep the rest of the beeeeeep day we just hung around but when we were having supper it started raining and there was lightning and then a bolt of lightning knocked out the electricity beep printing POW! Sorry every computer in the world has just crashed. Sorry continuing …… then the staff came out with torches and about a minute later the lights rebooted and everyone blew up for absolutely no reason, r u laughing yet? Continuing …. The lights rebooted and we continued dinner. The next morning we had breakfast and then me mum and Harry (not Kitty or granny) went on a long walk (2 miles to be preciseJ) to a river. It took ages and eventually we got in a jeep and did the last 10 minutes in it. When we arrived at the river we got on our trunks and I waded around (it was freezing!). We also found some tadpoles and then someone brought us some barbecued chicken and sprite and I had some. We then played cards and had lunch and then got in the jeep and drove back up.

Edward by a tea plantation

The next day we went to a tea factory (I will list some facts at the bottom!). The next day after that we had breakfast, went on a long windy road to the airport and returned to Delhi, tada the end. . …. ……. ………………………………………… beep POOOOOOOOW!

Tea facts: I don’t know how these survived the explosion but here they are…

-There are 4 types of Darjeeling tea 1^st flush, 2^nd flush, monsoon and autumn. (They use different names such as oolong, white tea, green tea and something else.)

-It used to take 40 mins to dry the leaves but know they have machine that can do it in 5 mins.

PS – in the car journey on the way to the airport Kitty threw up all over mum

Wait… the devil is here! No! Must      do     last    symbol!      LBye.

Harry tea-tasting in Darjeeling April

Harry’s Darjeeling Blog

Hello! And welcome to the blog fzzzzt fzzzt beep…! Today I will be giving a special issue! Since you`re all on Easter holiday I am going to do some videos!

Darjeeling - reminded Harry of Scotland

So anyway, last week (written 4th April) we ventured to Darjeeling. We had a 4 hour car journey up the Himalayas and arrived at a cold, Scotlandy hotel. (It was extremely like an island off the Scottish coast called Arran, and the hotel had the features of Arran... e.g. cold climate, wooden floors, Scottish architecture and misty Scottish mornings.)

Next morning, I woke up and did some DSI and Mum banned it for the rest of the day. We walked to town and went on the famous toy train. (A very small steam train which goes around the Himalayan foothills.) My brother forgot his camera and our tour guide had to follow the train in his car and pass the camera through the window while the train was moving! It was a very slow train.

We really DID go to the mountaineering institute....

We then stayed there and did nothing (note from ma – we went to the zoo and saw three types of leopard, a red panda, a bear, a tiger and some monkeys, we went to the Himalayan Mountain Institute and museum and saw lots of artefacts from expeditions to Everest, we went to the Tibetan Refugee Centre and took a trip on a small steam engine – but apart from that, as Harry says, we did NOTHING) until we went on yet another 3 hour car journey to a place called Glenburn. (it was actually a one and a half hour car journey, says ma)  (A very Scottish name, says Harry.)

TEA!

When we went to dinner a storm started brewing and a colossal fork of lightning struck a power station and the power went out. Luckily, the hotel had its own generators and the power was soon back on although the rest of the valley was still dark and we could see torchlights flashing everywhere.

The next day we went on a walk which was 10 times longer than Marriage Hill. (Warning! This next sentence is completely true. I am not joking. It would have been 20 times longer than Marriage Hill if I had walked the whole way.) Half way there I got so tired that I fell on the ground and almost fainted. The jeep had to pick us up and then it took us where we were going. We turned up next to a river and then got changed to go swimming. I found some mud next to the river and started slidingJ. I soon fell into the river and started swimming. It was FREEZING!

Tea in packing cases. First flush in wooden
cases and second flush cardboard boxes

The day after that we went to a tea factory and there should be some videos here. (I really liked the tasting part J and the filtering process where they put dried bits of tea leaves on a shaky ramp and shook it to get the bad bits out.)

We soon went to the airport and left for Delhi. And what do you know, here we are! Well, it seems I have written all I can write! 

And now for some recommended YouTube titles to entertain you! There is Klay World: Pancake Mines and there`s also The Annoying Orange. These are both non-violent and they don`t have swearing! (note from ma...the pancake mines video blows up all the klay people and annoying orange contains scenes of graphic violence against fruit - using knives...apart from that, as Harry says, totally non-violent)

Well, goodbye! Click!FZZZT FZZZT BANG POW! Ouch.

Edward's video of panda, Darjeeling Zoo

Edward visits Ghandi Smriti

Ghandi Smriti

Hi it’s me Edward. Today (actually in March, mum has been having technical diffs loading blogs recently) we went to the Ghandi Smriti. We have been in Delhi for about a week and a half. This is what I found at the Gandhi Smriti…J

First of all we dropped Kitty off at school (bwahahahaha!J) and then headed off to the Gandhi Smriti*. We went in and looked at the posters that had pictures of Gandhi and some texts about him. We saw his little room with his spinning wheel and various other objects including a glass case with some personal objects like his pocket watch (it stopped the moment he died - spooky huh!?), his staff, his glasses (they look strange) and some cutlery he used. We also saw a Gong of Peace covered in stickers of countries’ flags.

Ghandi's bed, spinning wheel and a few things he left

Next we walked upstairs where we found a few electronic things that helped us learn more about Gandhi such as a screen with plastic figures and if you swiped them across the screen they appeared on the screen and started talking about Gandhi. There was also a special xylophone (this was not electric) that if you played from one side to the other it played Gandhi’s favourite tune. There were electric spinning wheels and a screen and if you touched the spinning wheel it made some writing on the screen. 

We then went downstairs and into the garden and saw the last footsteps Gandhi took and the Martyrdom Pillar on the spot where he was assassinated. 

The spot where Ghandi assassinated

We also saw the place where he was going to pray (this was a couple of metres away from where he was assassinated). OK well that is pretty much it so I guess I will just say thanks for reading!

*Just in case you didn’t know the Gandhi Smriti was the house where Gandhi spent the last 140 days of his amazing life.

P.S.  I love the breakfast at the Imperial Hotel!

Harry in Cochin/Madurai with George and mosquitoes

Hi! And welcome to the blog. Today I will be telling you what has been happening recently. First of all I have more than ten mosquito bites and they`re Really, Really itching. I got them because when we went to a hotel I forgot to put on repellent and there was no screen windows or doors and we didn`t know how to put the air conditioning on so I didn`t go underneath the covers. When I woke up I was covered head to toe in mosquito bites L. So anyway, after we left Cochin we went to a place called Madurai. (That was where I got my mosquito bites). One night we went to a temple.  The Hindus don`t allow people to go into temples without taking their shoes off. Also, they never clean the floors so I`m pretty sure this whole idea was made by some evil guy like Vasco da Gama or Hitler. (Vasco da Gama was a Portuguese man and the first European to sail too India. He liked putting Muslims in ships and then setting fire to them).  

Harry making friends with elephant

I also saw a dead beetle and a dead cockroach on the floor. We saw a ceremony of putting Shiva to sleep (I only know three Hindu gods and they are Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma. I have 997 more gods if I want to know all the Hindu gods. Right now I`m going back to Delhi and we’re on a plane. Well, it seems I have written all I can write. I can only say one thing and that thing is this. Goodbye! Click!