Bye Bye India

Oh it is so sad. Despite the loose motions, dehydration, vomiting, sweating, rashes, insect bites and heat boils India really has been completely amazing. I'm already plotting my next trip back. How could I not, the children are far to brilliantly adorable to not see again.

Although underneath it all I supose I am happy to be coming home, there are so many wonderful people and things here I am going to miss. Despite its many many many flaws I will miss our little apartment, it was a lovely little home. I'll miss its roof and the sunsets, the lane by our house, the friendly man in the internet cafe, the shop thats full of western delights and Mocha Mojo - our air condintioned second home. I'm going to miss Bandra, and Mumbai and ocasionally understanding the hindi people spoken around me. I'll miss the risking my life everytime I get in a rickshaw or cross the street. I'll miss chai at the benches, and chai after school, and chai at the train station, and chai on the street.

I'm really not going to miss rice and Daal. Or the food burning my mouth so much that the blood pounds in my ears.

But mostly I'll miss the people. Josh and Tania for being so supportive, welcoming us into their home and providing such an incredible experience. The teachers at school for being so friendly and helpful. The other volunteers for being generally awesome and brilliant (Hi Amy!). Of course the children for being amazing and giving us so much love and entertainment, they will stay in our hearts for ever.

And I suppose I'll miss Lu and Vikki (who are abandoning me and heading off to South East Asia and Europe). They told me about One! and my experience here would not have been the same without them. They've have been amazing, brilliant, wonderful and fantastical friends and teachers and volunteers and bitching partners and travelling companions. I could not have done this without them. I'm missing them already!

Rash or Bite?

This is one of the many exciting questions you get to ask when living in India. It is one I have been asking on and off for the past week about a strange collection of bumpy red things on my leg. I get bitten a lot, so I asummed they were bites. But everyone else in the house has broken out in heat rashes, which made me think it could be a rash. Well after much puzzling someone finally announced that what ever it was, it was 'infected'. Lovely. And then someone else pointed this out, and another person so I decided perhaps I should toddle off to the doctor and let him decide.

Our local doctor is a funny one. I've been to him before when I had insane stomach cramps. Rather than throughly diagnose you, he pinpoints whats wrong to a rough selection of symptoms and then gives you prescription drugs for all of them. Quite often an array of differet problems are cured by the exact same drug (most recently massive pink horse pills have solved animal bites and colds). Last time he decided I had a stomach infection so I got one set of pills for that. But then he also decided to give me pills for all the other odd symptoms I'd mentioned. So I came away with a prescription for 3 different drugs.

So off I went to discover the secret of the red lumps, it turns out it is neither rash nor bite! Its the mysterious third option.... Heat Boils! Even lovlier. A little departing gift for my body because the sweat and loose motions wasn't enough!

This time I escaped with only 2 prescriptions, I protested against the pain pills. So I have some cream that says get well soon on the packet and some oxymoxycycloquinsilaxisin-thing (big and red and black) for the 'infection'. I have no idea if its working, it mostly makes me feel woozy.

Thank You!!!!!!!

Massive thank you to My Mum and Dad, Nanna, Vikki's parents and Lu's parents for donating money so the kids at Nallasopara and Khar could have Biriyani for their after programme treat, they thoroughly enjoyed it!!!!!!

End of Term

So everything has finished at school: no more classes, no more train rides to Nallasopara and no more children. I feel very sad.

Its been a really busy last few weeks. Straight after exams we went away to the water park, then we had sports day (my team came last, I was very unimpressed) and since then we've been rehearsing songs, plays and dances for the end of term programme. We had one programme in Nallasopara on Friday and the Khar one on Saturday. In between all that we've been desperately trying to finish off all the little jobs and bits and bobs around the office before we leave. Its been pretty frantic. I feels very strange to not have anything to do and to just have to hand all your work over to someone else. I hope it will all work out with the new volunteers. We also got to go on a home visit and see some of the kids in their houses in the slum. It was lovely, we all go offered chai and got to have a chat with the parents and everything. It was a lot like slumdog millionaire, which everyone has probably seen, so I won't go in to details. But it was Amazing.

The End of Term Programme ended up being really fun. We stayed up super late on Thursday night making masks and backdrops for all the performances. Then dragged them all to Nallasopara on the train only for the programme to go quite disasterously. We were quite downhearted. But then the Saturday Khar Programme ended up being awesome so we were very happy in the end. Lu's costumes looked brilliant, Vikki ended up taking on a star role in one of the little kids plays and I managed to get the ADD-tastic Step 3s through 2 verses of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". We also re-wrote The Ting Tings 'That not my name" and taught it to the Step 5s. They were awesome. I have a video!

But now its all over and there's nothing left to do but sleep, so I'm going home to do that!

Only a week to go...

... and even more things have broken in our apartment.

13. Another dead laptop has been found during a clear out we had last week
14. One of the volunteers laptop screens
15. The Fridge. It has finally packed up and given in. It smells. Luckily we have no food, I don't know why its smelling.

On a happier note I've bought another new camera charger, so I've been taking billions of pictures. This time I just went straight to Alfa and found my way round like a pro!

A New Arrival

Look how cute this little bundle of happiness is! Her name is Snow White, we call her Snow for short. She found being eaten by rats and was rescued by Tania and then adopted by the two orphans who live at school, Pavarti and Malesh. So the school has a cat now! She spends her days roaming around the office looking adorable and making it very hard to get any work done. She was quite ill when we first took her in and so came and stayed at our house for a couple of days which was brilliant! She wandered around and explored everything and curled up on the big water bottle to have some sleep. She's all skinny and has giant ears and paws, the lady at the pet shop thinks she might have worms which is quite cute really because lots of the kids at school have worms to! She fits in!

Anyway, Snows adoption seems like the perfect time to write about her new owners, Pavarti and Malesh. I had to say goodbye to them yesterday and it broke my heart to leave them. They have been such a big part of our experience at school and are a great example of why I'm so proud to be working for an organisation like One! International.

Pavarti is about 7 and Malesh is about 16, though no one knows for sure. There father was an alcoholic and he died when they were younger. After that they moved to Mumbai with there mother to find work. She was killed in a car accident by a drunk driver a couple of years ago. They were then split up and sent to live with different relatives. They were both poorly looked after and suffered both physical and mental abuse. Pavarti was hurt the most by this and became very withdrawn and would speak to no one but Malesh. Her health deteriated and they ended up living out on the beach by the school. Back in August Pavarti started having trouble breathing. The fishermen that lived nearby brought them to One! International to see if they could help. One! took pavarti to three different hospitals before someone would treat her. Finally a semi-private hospital took her in and had to perform life saving techniques to keep her going. One! found a sponsor to cover the cost of her treatment. The doctor gave her various timelines for how long she would stay alive. Originally a couple of weeks, then maybe up to two years and then decided that she could live well into adulthood or die the next day, they couldn't be sure. No one knows specifically what is wrong with her. She was attatched to an oxygen machine which she had to stay on for up to 18 hours a day. One! got permission for them to live at school and paid to hire an oxygen machine so she could continue her treatment. They have been living at the school ever since.

In this time Pavarti's health has greatly improved, last month she came off the oxygen completely. She attends class and happily interacts with all the students, teachers and volunteers. She's so funny and has a really evil cackle when she laughs, she climbs up everything and once you pick her up she'll cling on to you and never let go. Malesh is a wonderful older brother and is so sweet with her. He was a bit unimpressed when they first got the cat, but is quite proud of how much attention it gets.

They are both so amazing and I think its incredible that without One! Pavarti would not be here today. I hope they continue to flourish and I will miss them terribly.

http://www.one-international.com/

How to buy a battery charger in Mumbai.

Last week the battery charger for my camera stopped working. Its one of those little block ones so you can't just buy new batteries. It meant I wouldn't be able to use my camera for the rest of the trip. It is another, in the long list (see below) of electricals that have died in our apartment. But I refused to live without a camera and so began a very long adventure to fix my charger.

First I didn't believe it had just died. It we perfectly fine the week before. It had to be the fuse. Normally I would just go to dad who would look in a draw and sort everything out. But this is India, so I can't. After much questioning I found a little electrical shack next to the internet place I go to. The scary man there popped out the fuse and tested it, everything was fine. The charger was broken.

If I was in England I would have popped online, bought a new one and carried on with my life. But this is India and the post can take up to a month if at all. So I asked a few questions and found a snazzy airconditioned electrical store that might be able to help me. It was near where we live, so one afternoon after school I popped in to see if they could help. They couldn't. But they did give me the address of the Cannon Master Store or something that could. It was in Santa Cruz (15 minutes away) so I popped in a rickshaw and went there.

The Rickshaw left us at some crossroads where there was no shop called The Cannon Support Centre. After asking a bunch of different security guards I gave up and called the phone number I had. I explained where I was standing and they directed me to them. It turns out all we had to do was go through some guarded gates past a bank and up a fancy elevator to the 6th floor of a building where finally there was a small sign advising us that we were at the Cannon Support Centre. It turned out to be an office where they do something I don't understand. I gave my name to the receptionist and then someone brought us free candy and water, which was all very nice. Except when we finally spoke to someone there was nothing they could do. But they could give us an address of a shop that would sell the battery charger, Alfa. It was big they said. Everyone has heard of it. It was in Vile Parle (15 minutes away) so we popped in a rickshaw and went there.

The first rickshaw we popped in was driven by some idiot who thought we would happily pay him 350 rupees for a 20 rupee trip. We wouldn't, so we had a fight and got out. The second rickshaw was lovely, he dropped us off down a small lane full of vegetable carts, household items spread out on mats on the floor and cramped creepy looking shops lining the road. I was expecting something more PC Worldy. But there, amongst the grubby signs, was a little pink one that said Alfa. Our driver happily pointed it out. And then he pointed out another, next door, and another, accross and the street, and another further down and so on. There was about 7 little Alfa signs dotted all over the street. In a slight daze we got out and looked around. A vegetable seller offered to help. "Cameras?" we asked, "Alfa 3!" he replied pointing down the street. And off we went to find a camera charger. Alfa 3 was down a busy little alleyway. Busy because it hosted the Alfa gift wrapping department: 3 tables full of garish wrapping paper surrounded by people waving their Alfa bags trying to get their things done next. Skeptically we walked in and were suddenly surrounded by ipods and flat screen tvs and cameras. I got to the front of the counter slightly dejectedly pulled out my camera and battery to ask for a charger. The man behind looked at me, then he looked at the man beside him who bent down, had a rumage and pulled out the right camera charger! It was amazing! It had an English plug! He yelled over to someone else who brough out an adapter, tested it for me and I paid. The next thing I knew I was out on the street surrounded by the vegetable sellers again.

So in India all it takes to buy a new camera charger is 3 hours, 3 shops and 4 rickshaw rides. I almost got it gift wrapped!

.... I have since lost the new charger and now my battery is dead all over again with no way to charge it. At least I know where to go and buy a new one.

The funnest most awesomest weekend ever

So, after exams everyone goes a little crazy and does all the stuff that you haven't been able to do for weeks. I know after I finished exams last time I got super drunk and pimped some snacks. Well, the kids at our school get to do fun stuff too! And we get to come along!

Three times a year the kids go away on field trips. They have 2 days trips and one overnighter. Saturday was one of their day trips. We all woke up at stupid o'clock (just like a real school trip!) and they piled on a bus (the volunteers caught the train as it meant we got an extra 30 minutes in bed) and headed off to a Water Park! I love water parks! Both the schools do the trips together but only the children who have had good attendence are allowed to go so we had about 50 altogether and I was given 5 of my own to watch over for the day. It was slightly petrifying at , most of them can't swim and my head started swimming with all the disasterous things that can happen when small children are near water, but everything was fine in the end. We all had a brilliant day in the end. Entrance to the park (which was 3 pounds!) also included breakfast, lunch, dinner, chai and all you can eat popcorn and candy floss! Amazing! The kids went a little crazy (understandably, you don't get much all you can eat candy floss living on the streets) but luckily no one threw it all up on the bus home.

The whole water park experience was very bizzare. It was quite small and only had a few slides (half of which were broken) but the ones it had were fun. Then in the afternoon they opened up an amazing massive slide which we were all only allowed to go on 3 times. I went twice and the realised I should probably be looking after children. It was one of the ones where you sit in a rubber ring and go flying round corners - people kept flipping over ands arriving at the bottom underneath their ring... it was a little dangerous I supose. The oddest thing (yet understandable) was that no one wore swim suits. They all went into the water fully clothed. Some of the teachers went paddling around wearing a full on salwar kameez or saris complete with scarf! We all wore shorts and t-shirt. Vikki got a comedy massive whole in her bottom and had to sit down for most of the afternoon. We all got incredibly bad sunburn. The children were amazed by our pink arms and white shoulders they kept poking the burn to see it stay white a while then fade away. We were quite the entertainment!

It was such a brilliant day, so much fun and the kids were ridiculously well behaved so I didn't have to do much work either!

Attack of the Volunteers or 'Ode to Amy'

So just over am month ago a new volunteer arrived at our apartment. Her name was Amy (it still is, ut shes left now so the past tence felt appropriate) and she was/is lovely. And now she's gone and I've somehow completely neglected to mention her at all. Now we have 3 brand new volunteers living with us (one with with us and two sleeping on matresses accross the street but doing everything else in our apartment) and it seems wrong to mention them and not Amy.

So, Amy... Lu described Amy as a little bit of all of us rolled into one person and it was completely true! She was clean! She loves Buffy and The Office! She will spend hours watching stupid clips on YouTube! She was basically the greatest person ever. With Amy we actually bothered leaving the house to see some sites. When you're somewhere for so long its easy to put off doing touristy stuff until later but because Amy was only there for a month she wanted to do it all right then. Which was awesome. So I got to see 'downtown' Mumbai which is beautiful and exotic: lots of wide open streets, palm trees and European style architecture. We saw Victoria Terminus (got a little Slumdog flashback) and the Prince of Wales Museum (now called something else that I can't spell). We shopped along Colaba Causeway and had lunch at Leopolds. That was really odd, when the terrorist attacks happened everybody who was sitting downstairs in in Leopolds got shot, and now it looks like nothing ever happened. We got the boat over to Elephanta Island and saw some caves and someone asked us to be in a Bollywood movie. It was all very awesome!

But then she left and we thought we had a dull month ahead of us until we left, but its turns out we haven't. This weekend out little flat has been invaded by boys. 3 boys! I've only just met them but they seem nice so far. Vikki and I have moved out of the sittingroom and into the bedroom so we can have an all girl space and Lu has bravely offered to share the sitting room space with one of the boys. We've also had a new pile of volunteers show up at the school so we're very overrun at the moment, I don't know what I'm going to do with myself!

I am a terrible teacher

Today I spent my time sweating and yelling at small children. Why? because I was in Nallasopara and its exam time.

It was ridiculously hot today, so hot my sweat stains grew so big they merged into one giant seat stain that decided to consume my whole body. It looked like someone had dunked me in water. I think I was dripping on the children's work. By a complete miracle the electricity worked all day, unfortunately I was in the one room that doesn't have a fan. Whenever one of the other teachers walked through they gave me an odd little stare and hurried on. Thankfully Vikki was just as sweaty, so we can blame it on foreignness and not my overactive sweat glads.

But the yelling. Today I have mostly been shouting Chub! and Bhat Jow! which means Shut Up! and Sit Down! respectively in Hindi. I occasionally shouted Cheating! but they didn't understand that and carried on. One child got so used to me yelling at him (I briefly silenced an entire classroom on one occasion) all I had to do was glare and he scurried away from me. I am pleased and upset by this behaviour. I really want the children to like me... but they can be so annoying. I try and make up for the yelling by giving in to their requests for handshakes and high fives. I think this is working.

Anyway, I am a terrible teacher. Some of the children are failing miserably. In one of my classes only one child passed. I think its because I forgot to teach them the alphabet properly. I mean, no one has bothered, so not all the blame is on me, but when you're staring at exam pages you wrote where the alphabet tails off around J you start to wonder.

The frustrating thing is I feel like I've learnt so much about teaching and what to do and how to help and be patient... but none of it will be used again as I'm leaving before the new term starts. Not that I would want to stay and carry on, I'm missing flushing toilets and toasters too much. But still. I was watching them today (inbetween the shouting and yelling) and some of them I could see trying so hard and I just wished I'd tried a little harder and getting things through to them. One of the girls is a bit of a lost cause and last lesson we started working really hard at getting her to write her name and in her exam today... she didn't do it, but she got the first 3 letters right! Which is a start! Between all the depressing exam results we did have one happy moment. All our step 3 spontaneously started singing row row row your boat complete with actions (which we taught them!) so at least one thing stuck!

A clash of cultures

I spent last Saturday in the company of lots and lots and lots of white people. It was very strange, I don't see many and tend to stare quite a lot when I do. I wonder where they're from and why they are here. I spend most of my time at the school or hanging out with the volunteers and I'm on good terms with the man at the internet cafe (he knows my name!) and the man in the local shop I nearly feel like a local (except the other local still stare at me). So I've had a very limited amount of interaction with other foreigners in the country. The ones I have met have all been slightly odd and have a strange ex-patty vibe about them that I don't mesh well with. They're all in the country but not part of it. On Saturday night I spent a lot of time with those kind of people.

One of the old volunteers is now a teacher at the American School of Bombay (ASB). They had organised a fundraiser (poster above) for somewhere that flooded. They had entitled it 'Embracing India'. The fact that they're in India but have to have a fundraiser to embrace it really says everything about the school. The ex-volunteer invited some of our students to perform with her class in the fundraiser (they did an adorable dance to the Slumdog Millionaire song Jai Ho). So on Saturday we trooped along with a bunch of the kids to take part.

I think they all enjoyed themselves, they were incredibly well behaved, no one had to be taken out half way through to use the toilet and only one fell asleep. The ate a ridiculous amount of samosas, buscuits and juice and one threw up on the bus home. But for the rest of us everything was a little bit off. The school is incredibly rich and well supllied and is attend by the children of diplomats and the like. One classroom has more space and supplies than our entire school. The children seemed quite confused to see our kids, like they didn't really understand what India was made up of. The were preserved and protected within their little walls surrounded by shockingly green grass and just knew nothing of what was outside.

The whole fundraiser was very sweet and earnest, and I really don't want to be down on their effort, because it is a massive thing they're doing. But it was just so 'lets all spend the evening helping the poor and then waste more water making the grass greener outside'. Everything was made out to be so far away, like it was another world that was broken, not the one they were living in. The strangest thing was when they played a video of the area that had been flooded. People were wading through dirty water, they were living in little blue tented communities and didn't have access to clean water and medical supplies. The children sat behind gasped in shock, 'how terrible' they murmured, 'look at where they live'.

After the performance we took our kids home. Half an hour drive from the American School we dropped some of them off at one of the slums, another two we just had to leave on the street becuase they weren't entirely sure where their house had been moved to, a couple more went to the shack you saw a couple of posts below and the final couple we walked to a busy street corner. There, the rest of their family had already rolled out their sleeping mats on the pavement. They went to the toilet in the gutter and then curled up for the night. Without even a little blue tent over their heads. I wish the gasping children could have seen what was just outside their door.

For Grandad

On Sunday my Grandad died. He just celebrated his 90th birthday. It has been a hard couple of days, thankfully exams and having a mountain of children screaming around you are a good distraction from the sadness. I've had a lot of emotional phone calls with home. I feel very helpless being so far away. I love him and miss him terribly.

I never really knew my Grandad, but I think I understood him as person. I will miss him watching over me as I made a mess of mowing the lawn, the gleeful look on his face whenever he got a big score playing dominos, the way he used to sneak into the back room to listen to the racing results and seeing him waiting by the gate whenever we went to visit.

He was wonderful.

Ages ago when I first got here Uncle Paul said to post pictures of all the food I'd been eating. Around that time I wasn't really eating anything, throwing up a lot and having 'loose motions' so I didn't have much to show. Now I eat a lot, too much really, and I'm fattening up! In the evenings our 'maid' cooks for us. Depending on how she feels it can be amazing (parathas with vegetable curry) or terrible (plain noodles with one pepper). We've taken to forcing her to put at least four different vegetables in our food, she resisted well but we've finally crushed her. Sometimes when she comes first thing in the morning we're all still asleep and she starts making wierd things in the kitchen. One morning we were confronted with a plate of spicey noodles, another we had a mountain of eggy bread handed to us after we'd all finished eating. The oddest one was some pickle made from the sour fruit that grows in the tree outside, she left it out in the sun on the roof and then presented it to us. It was horrible, we left it in the kitchen for 2 days and then threw it out.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the food I do eat. Everyday at school I have this (though a much smaller portion). Coinsidentally this is the plate of food I had on the day of my 'episode' and I threw the whole thing up again about 30 minute after this picture was taken. Its rice with daal and the most incredibly spicy vegetables I have ever eated in my life. I usually have a tiny portion just to make the food more interesting. One day I got a crazy idea in my head that I would start building myself up a massive tolerance to spicy food by just eating loads of the vegetables everyday. This lasted one day. I had about a palm sized portion, started feeling funny half way through and by the end I was red and sweaty, my nose was running and blood was pounding in my ears. We eat with our hands at the school and my fingers as well as my mouth were burning. They are evily spicy. None of the teachers think this though, one of them rejected them once as she wanted something spicy.
At Nallasopara we only get bananas and biscuits because there's no gas to cook, except on thursdays when we get Samosa Pao from the 'restaurant' across the street. Samosa Pao is awesome. Its a massive samosa that you shove in a bread roll. Pao means bread, you pronounce it pow and I love it because if someone ever asks me what I had for breakfast I can say Peanut Butter POW! like I'm in batman or something! here is Samosa Poa. Its actually Vikki's because I devoured mine before remebering to take a photo. She'd already bitten it and decided it was too spicy so she gave it to a dog. She loves the Nallasopara dogs.

On Saturdays we take the kids to the beach or park and get dinner at a cafe after. We rotate Marsala Doosa (crispy pancake filled with yellow potato stuff, odd donut shaped polenta things and Pao Bhaji. I don't like the donuts. I love Pao Bhaji and not just because of the Pao which they butter on both sides! Top, bottom and middle! Its the tastiest thing ever. Here it is!

I also quite like the Doosa. So much so that I've yet to remember to take its picture. The cafe also does incredible fresh juice. When you order the juice you see them go and get the fruit off the shelf to make it. The pineapple is good, but the orange is heavenly, it is the greatest juice you will ever drink in your life. I have it every week and whenever I do I think of how jealous dad would be if he knew how good the juice was. Here is my juice, I had a little before I remebered the picture. Pineapple is in the background.

We goout to dinner sometimes and quite a lot we get takeaways (anther reason why I am fat). Mostly falafel or pizza. Once we made a terrible mistake and got Chinese. I ordered soup. It came in a plastic bag. I will not be ordering chinese again.

A bit of a reality check

Since I started planning to come to India I've know that I would be working with street kids. Since I got to India I've been constantly confronted with the poverty and the shanty houses and shacks the cover any available space. You can't escape any of it. We live in a pretty well to do area and all the allyways around our building are full of little corrugated iron and blue plastic structures, the street that we drive along to get to school is lined with them and no railway line is without its little hut communities dotted along it. But yesterday it really hit me, and it was kind of a shock. What I never realised that most of our kids are street kids not slum kids, and theres actually a massive difference between to two. When people live in a slum theres a communitym support, electrcity and security. You have to pay to live there. But on the street you're subjected to anything and everything. Theres no protection for your home or whatever few belongings you have. Its so easy to forget where the children come from and what they go home to. In the school they're all just regular children who need a hug when they cry and who you shout at when they're being annoying.

I've mentioned our maid before, stroppy but lovely. Shes 16 and always very well put together. Her mum works at the school and all of her siblings (she has 8) go to the school. I know the whole family quite well. Her older sister is pregnant and managed to find me a blanket and a pillow when I had a bit of an 'episode' at school the other week! Anyway, yesterday we went out to the open yard where we do exercise, but it was really hot so one of the teachers suggested we go down to the sea where there's more shade. As we wandered down, our maid's little sister pointed out her house. Its the one in the photo above. 11 people live there. 11. I was just comletely blown away, I still am. I saw slumdog millionaire, I wasn't expecting much, but I was expecting 4 walls, something resembling a door. But this is just props for a roof. I have no idea how they survive here. I have an apartment, that occasionally has running water, a bed, fans, a closet to keep my clothes in and I look and feel like crap 90% of the time I'm here, and the other 10% only happens half an hour after each shower. They all sleep outside, theres room for about 4/5 people tops under the roof. How do they cope during the monsoon? I don't really know what else to say. Seeing her house is the first time I've come close to tears since I got here.

Shout outs!

Firstly to mum and dad for sending an awesome box of eastery happiness to brighten up our dying apartment. We made pink and yellow eggs to eat for breakfast on Easter Sunday and whipped ourselves up an easter tree which is in our family photo below.

And secondly thank you thank you thank you Katy for your Canada post. Vikki figured the chocolate was meant as a cruel joke but we never made it to the shop on Sunday so it ended up being our only easter chocolate and so was much appreciated (and also why the others didn't make it into the picture).

Thank you for the post, it brightens up our day!

Thanks for the sympathy!!!!!

I'm so glad other people think that the world becomes slightly less happier when your laptop dies. It makes me feel slightly less pathetic. I will pass on the sympathy to the others, we're all suffering together.

For anyone keeping track, the broken items in are apartment are:
1. Television
2. Plumbing
3. Toaster (we hold bread over a naked flame to make our toast)
4. Desktop computer (flooded)
5. Desktop computer (dead on arrival)
6. Laptop
7. 3 dining table chairs
8. Washing Machine (we store cutlery on it)
9. Fan in bedroom (you have to give it a good push to get it going)
10. Lego brick speaker for ipod
11. The big speakers we found to replace the lego speaker
12. Every single flyscreen (they're held together by duct tape)
The fridge made a valiant attempt at dying on sunday, it was fixed though, we only lost a tub of ice cream.

For anyone placing bets on when any of these things will be repaired I'd start looking around 2010. I will die of shock if anything gets done before we leave.

Did I ever tell the story of the toaster? Its really not that interesting. The holdy down mechanism was broken when we got there so our maid (an adorable but stroppy teenager from the school who cooks and cleans for us... when she can be bothered) used to jam a spoon in the lever to make it stay down. I found this shocking until I had to stand there for 5 minutes holding it down while the lever dug into my finger and just started jamming a spoon into it too. Anyway, one day the ants (that infest our apartment) swarmed into the toaster and our maid decided the best way to tackle this was to spray it with bug spray... about 6 times. So since then we're all a bit against using it.

In case the post seems a bit depressing I do have good news! Last night we spent a jolly hour checking our hair for lice and we're all nit free!

A bad blogger at exam time

I have to say, I am feeling slightly ashamed by my lack of blogging. I just had a lottle scroll through katy's blog of her adventures in Canada and she really does kick my ass at posting things. She's done about 4 posts in the last 2 days! Anyway, my blogging is probably going to get even worse as yesterday our lifeline in the apartment, the laptop, died. It is extremly sad, well maybe not that sad, but at least quite sad. The tv was broken when we arrived and now with the laptop dead the most exciting things we have to do is read a book and play cards, its like being in olden times. There will be no more DVD watching for us and now we have to trek over to the internet cafe to do important things like check gossip blogs and facebook. We've got a bit of a computer graveyard going on at the flat now: one dead laptop, one dead desktop, and one desktop that could have worked if it hadn't have been on the floor during the flood.

Its actually happened at the worst possible time. Exams are in a couple of weeks and as the 'teachers' we have to write the crazy things. Yesterday I spent about 5 hours sitting on the computer desperately trying to think of different way to test that the children know the alphabet. I have 4 exams to write, all for the little kids. Their English is not so amazing and they can't read much beyond the alphabet. They can speak it ok, so their oral test is fine, but the written one is going to be hard for them. We're suposed to arrange the test so everyone can get at least 40% so my first four pages involve tracing the alphabet, coping 3 letter words and writing their name out. I'm praying they'll all manage that. The volunteers have a crazy folder system in place so they can keep each other informed with what has and hasn't been taught, but this hasn't been kept up to date so we're just teasting them on the things we've taught them. I'm sure it'll be fine!

Don't worry, I have my Diet Coke

So, Catherine commented on my McDonalds blog about India not having Diet Coke. No one ever comments, so I don't really check it, but Dad pointed it out last night. I was going to reply to it, but then I thought a subject as important as Diet Coke really deserves its own post. Also, life has become rather normal so I'm running out of things to say.

First up, Diet Coke completely exists. I was drinking it last night when my dad told me about the comment and I'm drinking it now at the internet cafe. Some of the condensation just dripped on the keyboard.

I really don't want people thinking that India is all curry and kingfisher beer and lacking anything you've heard of just becuase McDonalds when crazy and scrapped most of its menu. Actually its surprisingly easy to get hold of any western delights you fancy. Our local shop, which is tiny and on some suburban back street, is part Indian part Selfridges food hall. It sells skippy peanut butter, and cadburys and the fancy balsamic vinegar and Knotts Berry Farm Boisenberry syrup and Aunt Jemima' pancake mix and that 'fancy' pasta that comes in a blue box. It even has a lone jar of Marmite that taunts me every time I go in. Most of the American stuff is even cheaper than you can buy it in England (not the Marmite, its a tiny jar and 3 pounds so I'm trying to resist its charms). Everytime I go in the shop I find something new and exciting to destract me.

So, don't worry, I have my Diet Coke and also pretty much all the other food I used to eat at home. Even bourbon biscuits!

Pimp My Rickshaw

I'm assuming everyone knows what a rickshaw is. If you don't, they're basically a 3-wheeled motor bike that someone shoved a box on top of. They are one of the major forms of transport in Mumbai (and most cities) and I catch at least 2 a day to get to school and back (average journey cost: 20p). They're an exhilerating and petrifying way to travel and I love them!

Sadly there are no good pictures to illustrate this post, rickshaws are very small and cramped and the drivers are often irritable little men who do not appreciate waiting around for a foreigner (who didn't tip) to take photos of them. I did google "rickshaw pimp" which led me to this little beauty http://www.pimpmyshaw.com/ a slightly more extreme version of what I'm talking about!

Rickshaws in all of the India I have seen look exactly the same on the outside: black, yellow and on 3 wheels. They whizz about all over the roads and all you ever really see of them is a little black blur rushing past. But once you get inside a whole other world opens up. Every single rickshaw has put a little bit of effort into pimping and personalising their little vehicle. Its crazy, like a mountain of colourful vinyl washed up shore one day and someone said finally, now the inside of my rickshaw can be fushia. Some just go with one bright bold colour all over the seats and ceiling. We've been in red, blue, green, yellow, black, brown, purple and my favourite gold glitter vinyl covered insides. Others mix it up by adding a colourful trim around the edging. Many choose to take this even further by making their trim a thick band of, what can only be, discarded carpet from the 1970s. My favourite ones are those who do all this and then add little motifs to the backs of the seats: hearts, dolphins, shapes, all neatly colour co-ordinated with the rest of the design. And just when you think there is nothing more that can possibly be pimped, some of that shove a massive set of speakers on the back ledge and play you Bollywood music if you ask nicely.

There is a little leap of happiness in my heart whenever we hop into a new rickshaw and we get to see what madness has unfolded within. I wonder who does it for them. Is there a special place where you pick designs or is it whatever the wifey at home had lying around? It makes you wonder about the stern man driving up front. How can he look so miserable, yet have decorated his handlebars with fringing and chosen a lime green and yellow colour scheme for within?If only I spoke Hindi I could learn these secrets.

Where have all the ovens gone?

No one in India has an oven. This is a bit of a sweeping statement and based solely on the four other apartments I have been in, but seriously, not one single oven. It can't be true becuase I've seen Betty Crocker cake mix in our local shop which very much requires an oven. But still, where are they? Are they in hiding? Is there some kind of rota system that our apartment is not in on? I just can't understand how a mainstay of every kitchen ever has been completely forgotten by a whole country. Instead we have a massive camping stove attatched to a vat of gas. and this is what all the other apartments had as well. Massive gas camping stoves.

The Golden Arches of Happiness

I know this is wrong, but if you look closely you'll see I got myself a McAloo Tikka, not available in England, so therefore competely counts as local cuisine. It also automatically comes with chilli sauce. I've been craving a McAloo Tikka since my third day here when I saw 3 massive billboards in a row advertising it. Luanna refused to induldge this but Vikki has a soft spot for the fries, so one day, after a taxing time in Nallasopara we decided to get our rickshaw home to go via McDonalds. It was totally worth it.

In fact, India McDonalds shouldn't really be called McDonalds at all because, besides its yellow and red decorations, it has nothing in common with the global American chain we all love so much. Firstly it doesn't sell Big Macs, and as side note to this, it sells nothing with beef in it at all (this makes perfect sense with cows being holy and all, but when did McDonalds ever care about cultural sensitivity?!?) So, no Big Macs and no beef. All the remains of the normal menu is fries, a few drinks (shakes, coke, 7up... no diet coke), the McChicken Sandwich and the fillet-o-fish. Thats it. Instead its all McAloo Tikkas and McMaharasha Burger, McPizza Puffs and Salad Sandwiches (Like a big mac, but with no beef) It is a crazy little menu. Thank god for the fries which taste just as lovely and identikit as they would anywhere in the world. The biggest difference is the most shocking (especially for someone who catches the train at 7:30am twice a week). Indian McDonalds (or perhaps just my local) does not open until 11am. Which means.... they don't do Breakfast. The whole of India (or possibly just my local area) does not have access to the delights of an Egg McMuffin. This news hit me hard. I found out at midnight the day before I was planning on an Egg McMuffin breakfast. Don't worry, I pulled myself together and got fries in the afternoon instead.

School Days

Walking back from school at Nallasopara.

Don't worry the dogs aren't dead.
As of yesterday I have officially been in India a month, it feels like forever. While some days everything is amazing others have been really taxing, but I think I'm gradually getting used to how this crazy country rolls. I've learnt to be grateful for the small things like regular bowel movements and water and things that I found insane when I first got here are now perfectly normal: I miss the cows if a day goes by without seeing one and yesterday I actively encouraged a rickshaw to dodge in and out of traffic (he actually stayed in his lane, madness!). I've also learnt that nothing is as you expect it: things that should be straightforward become ridiculously complicated, take away food is nothing like how the menu describes it, flats that go for days without water manage to get flooded and McDonalds has no breakfast menu.

This week is also our first full week of teaching. Its been completely exhausting and tonight is the first night when I haven't had to spend my entire evening cutting out the shapes of fruit and making worksheets, so it seemed like a good time to tell you about school.

One! International runs two schools in the Mumbai area: the original one in Khar where we live and another set up recently that's an hour away in Nallasopara. These were both set up by Tania, our incredible leader, who is the heart, soul and driving force behind everything here. She set up the first one when she was 21 after living in Mumbai for a year. (She was doing an aisoc (?) exchange thingy that Ben used to do). When it began the school ran for two hours, had about 8 kids and took place on a mat at the side of the road. Its amazing how much it has grown in the last 9 years.

Khar school is in a proper building down a little side street and it has an office, tons of resources and little classrooms. There are 10 grades that have about 4-8 kids in each depending on the day. I think officially over 100 kids are registered at the school. It runs roughly the same as a regular school with all the kids learning math, english, hindi, science, games, drawing, exercise, computer, music, drama and health. Most of these classes are taught by employed teachers. The volunteers (me!) are in charge of teaching English (grades 3-8), Math (grade 3), exercise, drawing/craft and computer. This was incredibly scary when we first got here. The communication system in place between the volunteers hadn't been used properly and we had no idea what they did and didn't know and what they're even suposed to be taught. Fortunatley we've got our hands on a curiculum now, so we've been frantically throwing together lesson plans and making teach aids (like fruit and worksheets) so we can come across like proper teachers and not 3 people who think the only qualification need for teaching english is an ability to speak it. Everyday we're learning about what the kids can and can't do and how much they understand when we talk to them. We're even picking up some basic hindi so we can tell them important things like shut up, sit down and write (we learnt to say very good too, we're not always so mean). The brilliant thing is that the kids have such a hunger for knowledge, they love coming to school and love learning things so it can be quite easy to disipline them. All you have to do is threaten to send them out and they're as good as gold, no one ever wants to leave class.

The children all live in temporary slums, one of the older girls is our cook/cleaner and her home got pulled down a week ago so she had to move away briefly, luckily they've decided to illeagally 'rebuild' it so shes back now. The school also acts as a community center for the famillies. When a child is registered they and their family are entitled to free medical help and can also get access to loans provided by One! International. Because of this there's an amazing sense of family about the whole place: lots of the parents work there, there's a pre-school so babies and toddlers roam about the place all day and in the afternoon the mums lie out breastfeeding on the floor. Everything about it is warm and loving. When you come in in the morning you can't get to the office without being hugged by at least 4 children and high fiving some of the older kids. It is a lifeline for the children and their family and its devestating to think what their world would be like if it wasn't there. For most of them lunch at the school is one meal a day they get and situations like our cooks (house being torn down) are common place.

The school at Nallasopara is a little different. Our responsibilities (and the frustrations that go with them) are the same but because of the schools location everything is ten times harder. I'm not sure if Nallasopara even counts as Mumbai. Its a little (but busy) town that I'm not sure I could find on the map and the school is located out in the sticks up in the surrounding hills. We go twice a week by train then rickshaw and get dropped off at the end of a dusty, bumpy, lumpy garbage ridden track full of animals and abandonded flip flops and general madness. Lining the track are buildings that look like garages: they're small and square and have a corrugated metal front that you pull up and down to get in and out. There used as homes, shops, doctors, nursing homes, restaurants, animal shelters, everything really and two of them are our school. We get to walk along the full length of the track (about 15 minutes walk) dodge boulders and piles of mud and massive puddles of mud and motorbikes and cows, turn right at the massive pile of trash in a field and hop over the open sewage system to get to school. There are no resources their becuase everything gets stolen, no water, the electricity kicks in at about 11am (we start st 9) and there's a mysterious toilet somewhere further down the path which luckily I haven't had to use. At lunch we have bananas and biscuits. Today I had six malted milks. Although the children and their famillies recieve the same support as Khar theres no sense of community about the place. The children are much more formal and you basically want to get out of there as soon as you arrive. But we're getting used to it. We're trying to teach the children to high five instead of shake our hands all the time!

So, thats how I've been spending the last couple of weeks and how I'll been spending the next couple of months. I still have no plans of getting in to teaching when I return, I just can't hack it! But my health is improving, I'm drinking lots of water and I've haven't thrown up for 6 days! And today I put on some western clothes (my jeans!), got mcdonalds for dinner and spent the evening in an air conditioned coffee shop with a cappuccino and donut so I'm feeling pretty perky!

That was a really long post, well done for getting through it or even bahoot atcha! (very good in hindi)

Oh India...

So I've realised that a few of my blogs have been less on the perky side. And also contain a lot of details of how unwell I've been. This is mostly because I'm usually feeling ill and rubbish when I write them and not really in the mood for perkiness. But today had been a pretty cool day, despite having spent it at the slightly scary country school in Nalasopara. The kids today all seemed to learn things, classes were under control and we did most of our planning at school so we had our evening free. So all in all I was feeling pretty good and thought I should spread this joy to my blog. Except the thing with India is, even though everything is mostly awesome, as soon as something goes wrong you suddenly feel like hell and want to go running home. Just when you think you've got a handle on it all you're suddenly plunged into crappiness. This happened today.

Right at the end of lesson planning I found out I'd had a hole in my trousers all day (to match the one in the shirt I was wearing that flashed my bra whenever I raised my right arm). I found this out because an ant crawled in and bit me. Then I noticed all this black stuff was coming off my skin when I rubbed it, normally this would mean ah well I'll have a wash, but because our apartment is regularly without water sometimes it can be impossible to even wash your hands (let alone flush the loo and shower). Then I feel asleep on the train and when I woke up my right arm sleeve was soaked through with sweat. Then the rickshaw driver got lost on the way home and had a fight with us on the street over one rupee. So I got home grubby, sweaty, slightly annoyed and with holes in my clothes to discover our apartment flooded during the day (how? we never have water!!!!!!). It had all been cleared up but all our wet backpacks on the floor got put on my bed, so now all my clean sheets (the only clean ones in the apartment) and my matress are wet. Lucky me.

So all in all I'm not feeling remotely perky anymore, so you can have a happy post about the two schools I'm volunteering at another day.

Also, the power cut out in the internet place half way through writing this so I had to type a bunch of it again.

Holi Holi Holi Day!

I will write more later, but for now here we are after the crazy Holi celebrations at school! (Vikki is middle Luanna is right).

Also I added photos to some of my other posts so it all looks at bit more cheery!

Park Nazi

Saturday was our first day out with the kids, we went to a sweet little park near the school that was so fancy it charged a whole rupee to go in. Being out in public with the kids really enforces you perception of the caste system that dominates India. Although the older kids at the school look like any other teenager around the world (jeans half way down their bum and back pack permanently attatched) the younger ones do look a little bit scruffier than reqular kids, but not by much, you'd have to really look to notice. But people at the park did really look, I guess we were quite an odd little group: white people and street kids in a park full of shiny little Indian families, but I wasn't expecting to get quite so much attention as we did. From the moment we arrived the park security guard latched on to us and seemed to spend a very happy couple of hours following us around and blowing his whistle at us for all sorts of terrible crimes like laughing loudly, running, and most hideous of all... walking the wrong way around the path. I never realised park paths had such strict highway codes. It became quite funny by the end and we started having relay races (in the correct direction) around the path just to wind him up a bit. But still, I can't believe people can't just let it go so a bunch of kids can be happy for 2 hours. Anyway, we're going back in a couple of weeks and we're going to pay for them all to ride the train around the park, maybe we'll teach them all a loud song to sing to really give the park nazi something to blow his whistle at!

I've arrived!

A little part of Bandra

I've been in Mumbai for nearly a week now and I'm happy to say that the not moving around constantly and home cooked food has sorted me all out. I've been fit and healthy for the last 4 days and loving every second of it. Its amazing how much lovlier everything is when you're not doubled up in pain and rushing to the toilet!

We are living in Bandra, a leafy little suburb north of the centre, in the One! International apartment. Right now there's the three of us and one other volunteer. She's leaving next week and then we'll have the apartment to ourself for a while. Its very small but we're getting by... although it is regularly completely without water. It seems to only be our apartment that's affected, all the others are fine! So far I've only managed one regular shower, and this was at the apartment across the street that a couple of the other volunteers are living at. The rest of the time its just me, a bucket of water and a small jug. The no water also means we can't flush the toilet or wash up or any normal things that involve water so we have all these massive bottles that we have to rush around filling up everytime the water comes on. It adds to the drama of things.

I've also powered through a whole week at school which is both amazing, exhausting and terrifying all in equal parts. We've been completely thrown in at the deep end and have spent most of this week trying to cobble lesson ideas and plans from the curriculum. Everything is disorganised and we have no idea what they do and don't know. The children are beautiful little people and are so warm and funny and welcoming. Occasionally they end up covered in dirta dn water and try to hug you, but when they're clean theyre lovely. So far I've learnt three different handshakes that the kids come rushing up to perform with you. One of them ends with a game of thumb wars, which I'm hopeless at. They're also all pretty good with the high fiving so I feel like we have a mutual form of communication. The school has an amazing community feel to it as lots of the parents work there as well. At any point in the day there are ladies rushing around in saris and babies crawling around on the floor! We're teaching English, Maths, Craft, Exercise and Computer. The kids English is pretty good, they can understand more than they speak but we haven't had any problems teaching them, yet anyway.

There are a million more things to say, but I won't pile them all into one post. Lets just say I'm enjoying it but the first week of school has completely put me off teaching for the rest of my life!

Udaipur, Land of Octopussy

Udaipur is, without doubt, the most beautiful place we visited in India. It was amazing, and I say this as someone who spend 2 days there with suffering from bowel trouble, vomitting and stomach cramps. From the second we arrived everything was a million and four times better than Jaipur (except in Jaipur whenever you told someone you were from England they said "lovely jubbly". If they did that in Udaipur too that would make it even better). For starters we greeted at the very calm station by a rickshaw driver waving a sign saying "Welcome Rabacca" (they misheard the spelling over the phone). Then we drove through all these lovely quite, by Indian standard, little streets to our hotel that over looked one of the lakes that Udaipur is built around. Our rickshaw driver, Bilhu, then offered to take us out again in the evening and the following day to show us around, which we happily agreed to. It was quite the most lovely arrival I've ever had in India. Then of course the cramping and vomitting began, but I've decided thats my Malaria pills and not Udaipur's fault.

Udaipur very lush and green with patches of oppulence (spas and luxury hotels), surrounding it all are very dramatic mountains, twisty roads and incredible views across the valleys. It is quite James Bondy in places, which is fitting, as Octopussy was filmed here many a year ago. Bilhu was there when it happened and told us that the locals didn't know what was going on, suddenly lots of English people decended on their town! The guidebook, and a massive sign outside our hotel, promised nightly showings of the film as the town is incredibly proud of this connection. This seems to be complete lies as I didn't see it once. On our last day I spent the entire time (10 hours!) curled up in the cafe nursing my many illnesses and they didn't show it at all. I would have quite liked a bit of James Bond to take my mind off everything!

Anyway, we saw some beautiful things (but also had to suffer through a two hour tour of some villages led by a guide who spoke incredibly slowly and left massive pauses between every sentence. At one point he stared at as all for a good 20 seconds and then started giving us Indian names!) and it was a very relaxing way to spend our last few days before the madness of Mumbai and the school kicks in.

Photos!

Facebook and I have been having some issues, or maybe the internet in the apartment and I have been having some issues... either way I've been trying to upload the photos since Monday and now, finally, they're here! These should be the public links from facebook so you don't need to sign up to anything to view them.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=96888&id=284001155&l=a5a40
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=96889&id=284001155&l=36301

Enjoy!

Things to do for 14 hours in Jaipur

(Me, Vikki and our new elephant friend)

1) Get horribly lost leaving the train station and end up being followed into dead end by a collection of Rickshaw drivers that you've been doing your best to convince that you know exactly where you're going.

2) Spend ages searching for anywhere that sells chai so you can use the toilet, failing this, try and check into a hotel to use their toilet only to discover everywhere is either full or still being built.

3) Hot and sweaty eventually find an amazing hotel/restaurant in the guidebook described as an 'oasis'. Spend you're entire morning (and most of the afternoon) using the facilities. Wonder why you didn't just do this straight away.

4) Get the hotel to recommend touristy things to do and let them provide you with one of their rickshaw drivers to show you around.

5) After a delightfully relaxing day return to the station 15 minutres before night train is due to leave to discover that there is nothing and no-one to tell you which platform your train is leaving from and the cloakroom you left your bags in is padlocked shut for the night.

6) Run around the train station like desperate idiots (entertaining all the waiting passengers) trying to find someone to open the cloakroom and anything to tell you where the train is going from. Gatecrash the station masters office to find out the train is actually an hour late and the cloakroom attend was on a break so your bags are actually fine.

7) Sit on platfrom for over an hour getting hotter and sweatier and feeling incredibly glad that you're leaving Jaipur.

Border Closing Ceremony

(very imposing border security guard man)

(Vikki and Luanna chilling at border)

So the one other good thing about visiting Amrsitar has to be seeing the madness of the India/Pakistan border closing ceremony.

The second you arrive at the boarder you're confronted by hoards of people selling drinks and snacks and bags of popcorn along with postcards and DVDs of the ceremony, its like being at a major sporting event not a minor border closing. We had to queue for ages to get through security, women on one side men on the other. There were about 20 men to the one femal security guard so the womens line soon escalated from an orderly single file to a mass crowd heaving towards the tiny space we all had to get through in order to enter the stadium (I'm not kidding, its actually like a stadium). As we waited the border guards confiscated all the snacks that every one had just purchased. It quite a surreal experience elbowig ladies in Sris to get them to stay behind you while carrier bags of popcorn fly over your head.

Once we were through our white faces got us quickly shooed through to the foreigners seatng section (other less obvious non-indian poeple had to queue and show passports) as we got closer the atmosphere became electric people were running towards the stairs to try and find a good spot. Loud music filled the air people were shouting and chanting from the main gate all along the road people were crowded into the graduated seating, I'm not good at guessing numbers but there were thousands of people, then at the end the seating curves round so you can see the gate directly. This is all mimicked on the Pakistan side, so it really is like you're sitting in a massive oval sprts stadium. There was a compare encouraging the chants, battling with those happening on the Pakistan side, music, young girls dancing in the centre of the road, flags waving and amongst all this the poor border guards rush around blowing there whistles and finding people seats and trying to get everyone to sit down. We got some sweet front row seats.

Things did not calm down once the ceremony began. Basically a row of guards all wearing fancy uniforms and silly headresses come marching out, line up and then one by one march down to the main gate. It alternates between one guard from India and one from Pakistan. Once they're all at the gate the two flag are lowered, the gate is closed and the flag are marched back the main office. And thats it.

Except thats not it. Because while all this is happening the compare is encouraging all this crazy shouting, an elderly lady next to us tried to explain it but I can't remember, its something like "Man Zi Ba! Man Zi Ba!". Pakistan meanwhile is shoutig "Geo Geo Pak I Stan! Geo Geo Pak I Stan!". Then everytime a guard goes to walk down he does ome crazy impression of John Cleese's Ministry of Silly Walks and flings his legs everywhere hitting is head and when he finally skips off to the gate the whole crowd goes even more insane. Once there at the bottom theres a mad array of posturing and posing with out side kicking there heads with their feet and Pakistan throwing some crazy breakdancing shapes. It lasted for an hour, once the flag finally made its way back up the road you'd have though Rupees had just rained down from the sky while god announced India were the masters of the universe.. not, a flag has been folded neatly and put away. Then after, all the guards pose for photos! It was brilliant!

So, I guess what with the temple and the ceremony Amristar wasn't all that bad.

If my description wasn't good enough Michael Palin may do a better one here

Amristar

(The Golden Temple looking very golden)

I have a ton of pictures of everywhere, but I haven't figured out a way to get them off my camera and into the computer... give it time, they will appear.

So the Golden Temple at Amristar is amazing and completely worth seeing. However everything in but that turned out to be pretty terrible. I'm completely blaming Amristar for the fact that 5 days after being there I still can't eat anything more exciting than toast and why I've already powered through a pack of my dihorrea pills.

We got in arund 2pm after 7 hours in our crazy crowded carraige and got hearded off to one side by an elderly rickshaw driver who offered to take us up to the temple, he completely overcharged us but we were so tired we paid it anyway. The rickshaw nearly packed up driving up a hill. Amristar itself is very dusty, dirty and crowded... it almost makes you miss Delhi. The driver dropped us at some manic roundabout because it turns out you can't drive up to the temple so we ended up trekking through the streets with our massive bags warding off men trying to sell us headscaves and postcards. Luckily we bumped into some people from the train who showed us the way. We were hoping to find the dorms that you can stay in, but we were so hot and tired by this point we just left our bags in the baggage place and went into the temple to look around. Unfortunately we arrived at cleaning time, so our peaceful walk around the temple ended up with us being caught up in a crowd of people throwing buckets of water all over the floor, we kept getting pushed to one side and told to move. So after a stressful temple visit and another fruitless search for the dorms we gave up and checked into a guesthouse, one that we didn't look at properly because after we paid we realised we'd actually checked into a building site. There was plaster all over the floor and the workmen were still decorating the area outside our room. That evening we made the terrible decision to go to a nice looking cafe for dinner. I'm pretty sure it was the food there that has made us all so sick. It was while we were there that we discovered our train left a day after we thought. The madness of the day, combined with the knowledge that we were stuck in amristar for 3 nights drove us to do what any sane person would. We went to the nicest hotel we could find and haggled them down to a decent price. Thank God for Hotel Indus, they had room sevice, hot water, free toilet paper and the Disney Channel showing Hannah Montana in hindi. They also had a lovely rooftop balcony with an amazing view of the temple. We spent pretty much all of our time there after that either sitting on the balcony, sitting on the toilet or laying in bed feeling pants.

We did go back and visit the temple when it wasn't cleaning time, and when you're not being attacked by people with buckets it really is amazing. The Golden Temple sits in the middle of a pool surrunded by white outer buildings and is such a contrast to the outside world. Visitors and Pilgrims walk around the pool, some pausing to bathe in the pool or pray, and then enter the temple via a long bridge. There is constant chanting and singing from the Sikh holy book. Even though the religious connections are completely lost of me we spent ages sat by the edge of the pool watch the people around us.

Riding the Rails

(Luanna and the most amazing samosa you will ever eat... only available on trains in India)

So on Saturday we escaped from Delhi and headed off to Amristar. Because we left it so late to book our tickets we ended up with 3 seats in 3rd class (no AC). Which I was sightly dreading, but actually ended up being quite entertaining. The whole carriage is made up of 3 seater benches facing each other, but people just pile on, so you have four per bench and people stand up between them and in the aisles, then every time someone leaves there's a mad dash and woop to get any free seats. We were trying to be very reserved and proper about keeping ours, but some older Indian lady didn't notice and plonked herself down at the end of our bench foring me to shove ito the smartly dressed man I was sat next to. At every stop the carriages get filled with people selluing snacks and drinks. Young men run up and down the aisles yelling Chai Chai Chai, others carry huge baskets of fried snacks on their head and a stand under their arm so they can pop it down and sell you something at anytime. Its all quite manic.

Last night we caught a sleeper train from Amristar to Jaipur which was a lot more calm. We were sat with some lovely people, one of whom spoke very good english so he chatted to us for a bit and translated a bit of what people were saying around us. He was travelling with his wife and baby son (who was ridiculously adorable). I think the others in the carriage found us amusing, there were some bits of conversation the man didn't translate, but we could tell it was about us because they kept gesturing, saying english and then laughing! There was an elderly couple who were very sweet and tried to share their dinner with us. We've been having a bit of a rough time the last couple of days, I've been living off jam and toast, but they forced the food on us so we had to eat it. Sadly I threw it all up a couple of hours later... India is just so glamourous!

Everything is better now I've slept...

(This is Luanna, Vikki and Me outside some building)

Everything is more than better, It's Amazing!
I love it, I love everything, even the annoying people harrassing me are quite entertaining at this point! I've seen cows and camels and horses and dogs and monkeys (wild, on a leash and wearing womens clothes) all just chilling on the side of the road, how brilliant is that!

So after I posted the last blog we went back to our room, I read some harry potter and then we met some other girls and all went out to dinner at a lovely rooftop restaurant over looking the main bazaar and since then everything has just seemed more lovely and exciting. You get used to the crazy assault on your senses and I've realised that the cars all have good breaks so even if I do wander into their path, they're probably going to stop!

We've had a driver for the last couple of days who took us on a trip to Agra yesterday and then sightseeing around Delhi today. He's lovely, he claims to speak very little english, but we all ended up chatting away. He has two sons and an ex-wife, but one son is only 10 days old and unfortunately his english wasn't good enough to explain what had happened, so we'll never know. India is massive, it was a 5 hour drive to Agra and then 5 hours back. I couldn't believe it, the Delhi and Agra dots are practically touching in my guide book map! The whole reason for going to Agra was to see the Taj Mahal and the 10 hour round trip was more than worth it. It is an incredible experience, I could have stayed there for hours just gazing at it. It so much more ornate up close, we had a guide who was telling us all about the stone inlaying and different carving. Just so much labour and effort went into its construction, it's amazing. Because of the type of marble the whole building glows in the afternoon sun, it changes colour depending on the type of day. iut was gutting not to be able to see it at sunset or sunrise... I guess its just a reason to come and visit again! Our guide told us in his youth he would take his lady friends there in the moonlight during monsoon season but sadly strict security has stopped that from happening now.

Today he took us on a tour around the sights of Delhi, I forgot my guidebook and that, combined with his lack of English means I'm not entirely sure of the names of where we went... but it was all good anyway! We visited a Hndu Temple where we had to go into a foreigners only room to deposit our shoes and cameras! All the female visitors were wearing crazily bright coloured saris and when we sat at the side to people watch they were waving at us and blowing kisses, it make you feel all special! (way better than yesterday when a group of guys took pictures of us with their camera phones then posed near us so it looked lke we were all together, very creepy. The men today asked permission to do it, we said no, even with permission its wierd! Then we visited hyumanana Tomb (spelt very wrong), India Gate, Qutab Minar (big tower) which was all beautiful and interesting and just so different to anything I've seen before but none of those was amazing as the final temple we visted that was sat in the middle of a beautiful garden and shaped like a lotus flower. In the midst of the madness of Delhi it was so calm and tranquil.

We just got back from a mad few hours shopping outside, we need to find food and the internet is really slow. I haven't even mentioned our insane rides on cycle rickshaws or how rubbish and guilty you feel when little children come knocking on the car windows begging, but I'll have to leave it there.

Sorry if the spelling/grammer is appaulling, I'm too tired to check the post!

Touching down in Delhi

I have spent far too long in airports over the last two days. First Manchester, then a very boring 3 hours in Heathrow Terminal 5 (which is very lame) and finally about 5 hours in Delhi International baggage claim (surrounded by spitting men and army guys with rifles) waiting for Vikki and Luanna to get in.

But after all that... I made it! Delhi is insane. You have to be hyper-aware of everything at all times which isn't getting on well with my jet lag.We've just got back from a little wander and the whole time you're clutching your bag, warding off the 'helpful' people trying to drag you into shops to get commission, avoiding potholes in the road, dodging beggars and leaping out of the way of on-coming traffic. Its an incredibly intense experience. Everywhere is so small and cramped and noisey abd dusty you can't quite believe you're in a capital city. At one point we were trying to shake off some shopkeeper while a small girl did back flips in front of us and then got caught in the middle of a traffic jam between a little rickshaw and a cart pulled by a cow. On the upside we had a little sit down and got some henna done, its very theraputic peeling it all off!

Yep, thats a visa! In my passport!

Woooooooooooop! the visa has arrived!  Finally, after a week of stressing and speaking to an array of people at the Indian Consulate who were "not at liberty to say anything", the visa is here! I'm really going! W-hoo!

Things to help me not die in India

Here is a selection of the pills I am taking to India. For anyone counting I have over 100 Malaria tablets (on one day I get to take 4!), 64 Paracetamol caplets, 42 diarrhoea relief pills and a selection of allergy/insect/rehydration treatments. I'm one more injection away from Hep A and B protection but have left myself wildly open for contracting cholera by refusing to pay for 80 pounds for the vaccine. 

But I don't have a visa yet. I'm refusing to panic about this until Thursday. On Thursday I will panic and call the expensive visa hotline and try tears and bribery to get my visa. 

The visa office also has my passport. So there's a good chance next tuesday may roll around and I'll have one plane ticket to India, one rucksack full of medication and no legal way of entering the country. But like I said, I'm not panicking about this until Thursday.

If it all goes horribly wrong I can always open a pharmacy!