Letters from the Larmours » Stories from the travels of the Larmour Family

Hello and Welcome!

Come on in... here you’ll find bits and bobs about us, The Larmours, our life, where we live, what we do, and most of all, about our biggest shared family passion – our travels. This is a record for us, a place for us to share pictures and ramblings on what we’ve done and where we’ve been, but you’ll find occasional blethering about other things too.

We met in Hong Kong, and since then have lived and worked all over Asia before settling in China, where our Saffy arrived and then moving to the UAE where Indy joined us. Since we met we’ve travelled – since we married we’ve been on an adventure – since we had kids it hasn’t stopped… ultimately, all our small travels were preparation for the big one – that one day we hoped to take – a gap year, a sabbatical, a break from the daily grind – and starting 2014 we took off on it..... across the world, and then on a road trip that has taken us to three continents so far.....

Grab a cup of tea and come exploring with us,
Kirsty, Tommy, Saffy and Indy xxxx

Jul 15 2011

Letter from our honeymoon… part 2…

The second instalment from our honeymoon to India – this post makes me laugh – 1200 photos in a 1 month holiday!!! I typically do that in a week these days!

This is just a small selection of the 1,200 photos I took!!!! I know it sounds a lot but really, it’s only 50 per day – which is nothing to remember a holiday of a lifetime by!

Nawalgarha town in the Shekhawati region of Rajasthan famous for it’s painted merchants houses or havelis
I think this painting advertising the most popular whiskey in India is more down to Scottish colonials like my Grandpa than the merchants though! The local grain and spice market	A house painted with a train or car showed the wealth of it’s owner local women going to a wedding – it was the wedding season in Rajasthan while we were there so we saw lots of colourful scenes	A building decorated with dancing girls Tommy with his posse – the local DJ ready for a wedding – they blare out music all night long so you have to hope you have a reasonably soundproof room!
Pushkarthis is an important pilgrimage town and has the only temple dedicated to Brahma. It is famous for it’s annual camel fair.
Tommy and Shankar our driver enjoying roadside parathas	View from the Pushkar Palace Hotel across the lake The Brahma Temple – the only one in India a groom riding a white horse to his wedding	monkeys at the temple
Chittorgarhthis was one of the greatest places we stayed – the town was fascinating and had no tourists so was hassle free and we stayed in a place called Castle Bijaipur where the Prince asked if he could join us for after dinner drinks – it was absolutely charming – plus we were the only guests at the castle so could play at being maharaja and maharani
A wedding in the village outside the castle	on the maharini’s swing!	temple detail a typically overpacked Rajasthani bus! our room mates at Castle Bijaipur!

Tags: honeymoon,india,photography,travel

by Kirsty

no comments

add a comment

link to this post

email a friend

Jul 15 2011

Letter from our honeymoon – part 1

I’ve always written about my travels – that’s Kirsty – but one of the first times I really documented them online was after our honeymoon. We’d had a website we set up with info for our wedding, and instead of having a traditional wedding list, because we were living in hong Kong at the time we asked people to contribute to a honeymoon which would be a trip of a lifetime instead.

We went to Rajasthan in India for 4 weeks – which was amazing and I photographed along the way with my trusty new digital point and shoot and then this is how I documented for our website afterwards…. oh how I wish I’d known about blogging back then!!!!

The honeymoon posts are imported from our old website – the formatting is all wonky but I’ve played with it and can’t seem to sort it out – but I’m over it – it’s the content that matters after all!!!

Firstly a HUGE thanks to everyone that contributed to the honeymoon fund – it was an absolutely amazing holiday and I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to go back to our usual backpacking again. We had a mix of luxury hotels, budget hotels, overnight trains, busses and hired a driver for some of the time. We had completely fantastic food and to top it off saw some truly magnificent sights and had some great experiences.

Agra Home of the Taj Mahal and our first stop – it was truly magical! Walking into our suite and seeing the Taj Mahal outside our window was just breathtaking. Having a day of pampering at the spa which ended with a rose petal bath overlooking the Taj Mahal was pretty special!!!
congratulatory red roses from the hotel!We went to the Taj at sunrise so there were very few other tourists around which was lovely! the view from our suite!	1st view of the Taj Mahal from Agra fortThe “Honeymoon Photo!” the hotel courtyard	Champagne and samosas!looking towards our roomview of the pool from our room our terrace with the Taj in the background me in a rose petal bath!
Fatehpur Sikri followed by Bharatpur and Keoledo Ghana National Park
Farehpur Sikri old cityThe Jama Masjid At Keoladeo Ghana National Park we saw lots of wildlife, including sambar deer, antelopes, monkeys	Alu tikki seller in the market at Bharatpur	Marble screens The park is famous for migratory birds so we were there at the wrong time of year but we still saw lots of peacocks, owls and native water birds
Jaipuris known as the pink city – it has great winding backstreets with random little markets as well as fabulous sights in the form of Amber Palace, the City Museum, the observatory and the palace of the winds
Inside Amber PalacePalace of the winds Courtyard of our villa!	Bangles for sale at a stall in a back alleywayAmber Palace The peacock gate at the City Palace	Roadside water urn sellers – people collect water from miles away because water is scarce in RajasthanThe Saffron garden Rose petal bath – without Kirsty in it!

Tags: honeymoon,india,photography,ramblings,travel

by Kirsty

no comments

add a comment

link to this post

email a friend

Jul 15 2011

Letter to begin…

To start us off I’m going to go back over some old travels… all the way back to our honeymoon in 2005… I posted pictures and stories on our old website back then and in an attempt to keep it all alive and part of our story I’m going to add all of them in here on our Letters site… the writing’s not great and the pictures are pretty shoddy but it’s part of our travels and the adventures of the Larmours…

starting with…

and onto 34 weeks pregnant in Hanoi, Vietnam…

Saffy’s first trip on a plane was to Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia

and several trips to the UK and around Asia later we were in Kyoto, Japan

before heading out on our farewell tour of China…. (this is at the Ping An rice terraces in Guangxi province)

and moving over to the Middle East…

Where Indy arrived… and had her first trip to Oman at 3 weeks old…

and finished off that year with a trip to Amritsar, India….

the inbetweens are also full of stories but I’ll fill them in as I go along….

Kirsty x