The city of lakes

Having discovered that our services were not required at school on Tuesday we collapsed into bed without setting an alarm - such luxury - and slept the morning away. In the afternoon we decided to exert ourselves a little, but not too much, by walking through the local villages. During our wanderings one of the older boys from the school drove past us on his motorbike (yes he is 13 and in charge of a full sized motorbike) and invited to his house for chai. When we arrived at his house we realised the enormity of his family, many of whom were our students. The older kids then explained to us that there were 7 brothers who all lived together with their wives and children and this was their home. There were a total of 20 children; 12 girls and 8 boys - one of which was an adorable 4 month old - the 7 wives, the 7 fathers (who were all at work), the grandmother and her sister and then some of the men had other wives and their children who also lived there! It was a very extended and complicated family but I was amazed by the simplicity that they live in and the fact that it is completely normal to live with such a big family. I was also relieved to hear that none of the younger girls were married yet, although one of the wives was only 18 and had at least one child already. I was also very happy to hear that the father of the oldest girl, who is extremely intelligent and a star pupil, has said she can go to university, however, from what I understood her uncle wasn't so keen!

The rest of the week felt very short as we only had 3 days of school and on the Thursday evening the 2 guys who we met in the flat on Delhi came pit to Tikli Bottom and we shared more of our adventures with each other over their stay here. That evening there was a thunder and lightening (but no rain) storm so when we got back to school we recklessly lay on the roof - very unsafe - and watched the forks of lightening light up and split the sky, it was incredible. On Friday the boys came down to the school for the day and Sheela, the head teacher, organised a day of rounders for them to coordinate and us to assist in our free periods (of which I have many). So I spent the majority of Friday playing rounders (more like a combo of rounders, cricket and baseball), which I had forgotten how much I love, with the kids and getting far to competitive about it, in the scorching sun. For the last period, the head sent all the kids home and we had a staff rounders match that was very entertaining as it got pretty competitive and the teachers argued about the rules more than the kids had! After school, Laura and Kat headed off to Jaipur for the weekend whilst Fenella and I played cards on the roof with Jack and Dan until we had to leave for our train to Udaipur. 

We found ourselves a large plate of edibles (savoury pancake things called puri) on the platform whilst waiting for our train and then settled down for the 12 hour over night journey. It ended up being a 14 hour journey and I had slept too much in the previous days to be tired enough to sleep well on the train so I drifted in and out waking up to the rattlings of the train, the whistling wind and the loud snores of our fellow passengers. 

We eventually arrived in beautiful Udaipur at 10am and made our way to our hotel for a rooftop breakfast (of delicious muesli) overlooking the vast lake that Udaipur is situated around. Our budget, lonely planet recommended hotel was perfectly located, a close distance from most of the sights and right on the edge of the water so with incredible views. Once we had renewed our energy, Fenella and I ventured into the streets where we visited 3 different temples, one for the Hindu elephant god which was magnificent and had carvings of different elephant scenes all over the external walls of the temple. Another temple also had different depictions of the God carved into the marble walls and had more great views over the lake. The final temple was a Jain temple (another religion) which wasnt very well kept but the whole of the inside was made of coloured glass so glistened spectacularly in the sunlight. 

Our next stop was the vast City Palace which was the former home of various Maharanas (royals) of the area hence its enormity and grandness, I definitely wouldn't complain about living there especially with the amazing views over the lake, the hills and the rest of the city. It took us a good couple of hours to make our way around its expanse and we were completely pooped afterwards due to the heat (35°c) and lack of sleep the night before, so we returned to our hotel for a couple of hours and had a siesta. We had learned from our trusty guidebook that there was a guy who ran a mini bus up to the monsoon palace (where a lot of the James Bond film Octopussy is filmed) every evening for sunset so we went to the meeting spot and convened with a number of other tourists - which udaipur is notably full of. We were jolted and jerked up the hairpin bends leading up the hill that the monsoon palace is situated on as our driver was not particularly good at changing gear and the roads were not ideal, but we did make it to the top alive - although I did doubt it a couple of times. The palace itself was a bit dilapidated and home to some very cute monkeys so we took up position on one of the outside walls and watched the sun go down over the hills. The man sat next to us was a photographer who was shooting a time lapse video so he showed us how to fiddle around with our cameras to get the best shot of the glowing sunset. When we got back down into the town we found another nice rooftop restaurant (they seem to be a recurring thing) for a delicious curry dinner. I like to think I am becoming more tolerant of the spicy dishes now; either that or I am getting better at choosing the less spicy ones!

The next day we took a boat ride around the lake and got dropped off at the lovely Jagmandish island which was a beautiful spa hotel where we sat and hid from the midday heat, writing our journals and eating extortionately expensive ice cream. Whilst we were there, I bumped into a family who had been staying in Tikli Bottom 3 weeks previously which was a very odd coincidence but it was great to see them again and they seemed to have enjoyed their travels so far :)

For the remainder of the afternoon we found a restaurant to mooch in, playing cards and filling our stomachs before our train departed. Apart from a heated debate between some of the passengers in our compartment about where one of the couples enormous bag should go because it wouldn't find under the the seat, the train journey went with little to report and I actually slept reasonably well. The only trouble was that the train arrived at Gurgaon station at 4.20am making it hard to have a proper nights sleep! The others had returned from Jaipur the night before so we quietly let ourselves into the room and fell asleep instantly. Funnily enough getting up 3 hours later for school wasn't quite so easy. Jack and Dan were still in Tikli so they organised an afternoon of football/cricket after accompanying us in our lessons in the morning. Now that the weather is so much hotter it is harder to spend long periods of time outside in the heat, especially if it also involves running around. I am also currently writing the end of year exams for the classes that I teach which is a challenge seeing as I've only taught them for 3 weeks! We then showed the boys around the villages in the evening and were of course invited in for chai by one of the students, before heading up to the house and bidding farewell to Jack and Dan, wishing them luck on their next 6 months of travelling around Asia. 

I cannot believe that I have now been in India for 6 weeks and it is only 5 weeks until my family arrive in Tikli B to whisk me away on a much more luxurious tour of India than I have been doing so far. Personally, I quite like the backpacking life but it is nice to have a base to come back to and not always be carrying all our belongings. Onwards to the next weekend of activity....

Love to all xxxx

Valentines under the stars

What an amazing weekend I had last weekend. We took an extra 2 days off school to head out to the west of India into the Thar desert in Jaisalmer. However, our first stop was the 18 hour sleeper train on Thursday night to get there. We met a very nice young woman whilst we were waiting on the platform who advised us just to get on the train at whatever coach was in front of us when it arrived, as it would only be at the station for a couple of minutes, and then walk through the train. So we did. However, after squeezing through some of the smallest gaps I have ever managed to fit my body through we got to the other end of the carriage to find you couldn't walk through. We waited at the end of the carriage by the door until the next station where we jumped off and sprinted down the platform to the coach which we thought was ours. It wasnt. So we then did a lot more pushing, squishing and squeezing through the thin aisle along the carriage - which resulted in a lot of bum grabbing and pinching on behalf of the local men - until we managed to find our seats.
When we did eventually find them, our 4 seats were filled with 10 men some of whom thankfully stood up to let us sit down, seeing as they were our seats. The sleeper train beds are layed out with 3 bunks on top of each other and 3 opposite, and then 2 bunks across the aisle, running in the same direction as the train. The middle bunks are folded down so that people can sit on the bottom bunk until they want to go to sleep which is another problem because you then have to make them get off when you want to sleep on either the bottom or middle bunk. Also in our compartment we had a lovely little family with an absolutely adorable 18 month old boy who found us all very entertaining, particularly my tongue!!
At about 9 o'clock there seemed to be a general agreement to pull the beds out so we did so and I settled into one of the middle bunks for a lovely long nights sleep. As if! I slept on and off throughout the night, it was freezing cold with the wind whipping through the train from the open windows and doors and it was a very jiggly and jerky train, oh and the bed was anything but soft and comfortable.
At 7 I gave up trying to sleep any longer and very ungracefully clambered down from my bunk and folded it up. It was now light so I could spend the rest of the journey doing my favourite past time; gazing out the window. This was even better now that we were in the scrubland that is the desert and I could spot the odd camel roaming around as we went by. By 10 o'clock it was really hot so Laura and I decided to go and sit with our legs hanging out the open door and continue our gazing from their. It was a little bit painful with bits of sand flying up and hitting my legs and the handle was disgustingly dirty, as was my face by the end, but it was so exhilarating. The train would randomly stop in the middle of nowhere for prolonged periods of time so at one of these stops, fenella, Laura and I jumped off the train for a little stretch. Whilst we were stood there the train started moving again so we had to scramble back onto the train giving us a nice little adrenaline shot first thing in the morning.
We eventually arrived at jaisalmer station, 18 hours later, and only an hour later than planned with no major mishaps which was amazing seeing as we chose to travel on Friday 13th! We crashed at our hotel for a couple of hours, cleaning off the multiple layers of dirt from the train, napping and refilling our stomachs which had been treated to crisps for dinner and breakfast. Once it had cooled down s bit, but not much, we wandered around the busy, narrow streets of jaisalmer through the towering, golden, sandstone buildings. Found our way to the amazing fort which towers above the city and wound our say through it, admiring the beautiful Havelis which are intricately carved patterns into the doorways and general frontage of the buildings. We located ourselves a little balcony cafe to sip on chai as the sunset over the desert which we watched from the fort battlements and then went out for a lovely indian dinner at a rooftop restaurant with a group of people playing traditional Indian music, then settled down to bed on our dirt cheap travellers accommodation.
Next day we packed up our bags and dropped off at the camel safari office before going back into the fort and walking the other way around it. At 1 we returned to the office and were packed into a jeep, with an American guy travelling India for 4 weeks, and driven for an hour further and further into the desert until we crossed a hill and saw a group of camels and camel men stood in the middle of nowhere. We took the opportunity to relieve ourselves behind a perfectly positioned tree and then mounted our trusty steeds. By this point, more people had joined us: 3 swedish girls doing volunteering in jaisalmer, 2 Aussies, a scot and a Brit who were on a gap year organised trip around India, their guide and a dutch-indian man also on their 'gap year' tour. We wrapped our scarves around our heads in true desert style to shield them from the burning heat of the sun and headed out into the unknown. My lovely camel was called papaya and he was very well behaved although not particularly comfortable as my legs were spread very far apart and he had a habit of just collapsing (probably under my weight) when he was told to sit which was a pretty terrifying ordeal.
We trekked for an hour before a little break under a tree and then carried on for another 45mins when our campsite for the night came into view. The sand dunes looked like they had been plonked in the middle of the desert because they were perfectly rolling, with no plants growing and a perfect gold sand, whereas the rest of the desert had lots of shrubs and bushes and trees sprouting from the ground - it was beautiful.
We all collapsed in a hot sweaty heap even though we hadn't really been doing anything other than sitting astride a wide camel, and were served nibbles and chai tea before climbing up onto the dunes and turning into kids again, rolling about and getting covered in sand. We then watched the sun set from atop the dunes which was stunning before descending to the campfire for dinner! We ate our curry and naan by fire light and it is safe to say it did not disappoint - its amazing what these guys can do on little fires in the middle of nowhere!
The camel men then got out their empty water bottles and used them as drums and sang to us all for a couple of hours whilst I alternated between star gazing and staring into the fire - it was mesmerising. Because we were literally in the middle of nowhere the stars were incredibly clear, I don't think I have ever seen as many, and we even got treated to seeing a few shooting stars - it was so surreal I had to keep checking that we actually were lying in the desert wishing on shooting stars. Once they had finished singing about camel safaris they put out a load of mats on the sand and gave each of us a thick blanket and we snuggled down under to the stars to go to sleep. Sand isn't as soft as you think it would be to sleep on but I kept myself happy by star gazing when I couldn't sleep.
We woke up with the sun the next morning, feeling surprisingly well rested and were served chai, porridge and toast (more exciting than our cereal at school) and then packed up our stuff, prepped the camels and jumped aboard them again. Actually I wasn't jumping anywhere, I was far to stiff from the ride the day before. We rode for just under an hour to meet the Jeeps again which drove us to see a deserted, 800 year old desert village and fort and to an oasis before heading back into jaisalmer. The company that we were with run a hotel so they let us use a room for the afternoon to freshen up before heading to the train station to catch our train to Jodhpur.
We arrived in jodhpur at 11pm and had a minor mishap with our hotel who hadn't got our booking and we full so sent us across the road to his brothers hotel, which was actually much nicer. After them making us check in and give all our details at midnight we dived into bed and slept like the dead.
The next morning we had a lovely breakfast (pancakes a day early ;)) on the roof overlooking the blue rooftops of jodhpur - known as the blue city - and up to the large fort rising out of the ground. We spent the morning wandering around the streets to find the clock tower and then caught a rickshaw up to the fort. We had an audio guide included in our ticket cost which was really good so we dawdled our way around listening to it and taking in the incredible views over the blueness of the city. We walked to a marble palace which we admired from the outside and then found a conveniently placed platform where we snoozed in the sun and then made an executive decision to head to a rooftop restaurant for the rest of the day until our train departed.
The train back to Gurgaon which a much easier ordeal as it was so much less busy and I was exhausted from our brilliant weekend so slept very well, until 5am when our train got in, only 4 minutes later than scheduled!! Whilst in the taxi on the way back from school we got a call from the very helpful sports teacher who informed us that Tuesday was a national holiday so there was no school. I have never seen 4 girls so happy as we were all dreading a day of teaching in our current state of exhaustion.
Overall it was a fantastic weekend and I didn't want to come back to the reality and challenges of school, however, the now very hot weather has made the teaching much better :)
Much love xxxx

Delhi delhi delhi

So we spent our weekend right in the belly of big old Delhi, exploring the sights, smells and sounds that I have heard so much about.
We took the metro from Gurgaon (our local station) into Delhi which was an hours journey and cost us a grand total of 25p per person. We had to change trains at Rajiv Chowk which is the very centre of Delhi, during rush hour on a Friday night which was completely mental with thousands of people all pushing and shoving to get onto the train. I almost got pick-pocketed but I felt the hand undoing my money belt and quickly zipped it up again, tucking it under my top. I didn't dare look whether anything had gone until we got off the train, and just stood on the train praying that my phone, passport and purse were all still there. Thankfully they hadn't managed to take anything and for the rest of the weekend I was much more careful of my money belt, taking it under the waistband of my trousers and then my top over that - I looked a very funny shape of pregnant.
We risked our lives walking around a roundabout to find the road on which Annie and Martin's flat is, only to find that it was the first road had we walked in the opposite direction. We were very relieved to arrive at the flat and were greeted by Anjolie, the housekeeper who lives there permanently, and 2 boys who were also staying there for the night. We spent the evening sharing our adventures with these 2 boys who have been traveling all around India together for 2 months and have another month here before moving on to other parts of Asia. They were definitely craving conversation with other people their own age as they had not met any other gappers on their travels which I find amazing. We may see them again in a couple of weeks as they want to come out to Tikli Bottom and visit the school. It was a cosy night having 7 people in a 4 bed flat (and some of the staffs friends were staying that night too) so the boys slept on the floor in the living room (they had to leave at 4am so it seemed fair) and we squeezed 3 of us into a double bed, and then 2 in twin beds.
We had a lovely lazy morning and then split forces. Katya, Fenella and I headed off to the infamous Red Fort which was a beautiful, large, red brick fort in Old Delhi with a variety of different intricately made buildings dotted around it. We then walked to the muslim Jama Masjid temple, on entering a man tried to force me to wear this hideous, red and white checked robe thing, supposedly because I had bare arms but loads of other people were walking in with bare arms so I just think he wanted to make me look stupid. As soon as I got out of his sight I took it off again, it was too hot to be wearing any extra clothing. We climbed up a very thin, winding minaret tower to the top so that we could see the incredible view over the jumbled rooftops of Old Delhi. Making our way up the 120 steps was a challenge because the stairway was about 1 and a half people wide but people were walking both up and down it, in the dark - we reached the top very out of breath. It was also very precarious up at the top with very little space to stand and about 20 other people up there and a large, uncovered drop back down the stair well. After staggering back down the steep steps we headed back to the flat to freshen up before heading out to the cinema to meet one of Katyas friends from when she lived here. It was not just any old cinema, we were in 'gold class' which had seats that reclined into a bed, pillows, blankets, waitor service and only about 20 other people in the screen. It was such luxury, oh and the film (the imitation game) was great. He then took us out for dinner at a very fancy hotel with an all you can eat, international buffet and we all went to sleep ridiculously overfull.
On Sunday 4 of us (katya sadly left us to go to a safari lodge down south in the early hours of the morning) went right into the centre of Delhi, to Connaught Place which has a circular lay out with loads of shops in it, and then walked to the gallery of modern art, via India Gate which is basically India's version of the arc de triomphe. Spent a couple of hours at the gallery for Nella's benefit as a future history of art student until Kat, Laura and I then left her there and visited Humayun's tomb which is the inspiration for the Taj Mahal and is just as beautiful but made of red stone rather than marble.
Once back in Tikli, in the evening we briefly went to an Indian wedding. We were welcomed like celebrities, having our photos taken and then escorted into a side tent which we later found out was the drinking tent. We were then stared at even more because the women here don't drink and if they do, they do it privately so we were surrounded by men drinking large measures of Indian rum. We were plied with delicious snacks and were then taken back into the main, very brightly lit, pink tent to have dinner of veg curry, rice and freshly cooked chapattis (nom nom nom). We left shortly after dinner and found out the next day that the bride hadn't arrived yet because she was still at the beauty salon and didn't turn up until 11pm.
I was finally given a (semi) permanent timetable this weekend which is actually very nice, I have  Montessori class every day, a few sports classes, some art lessons and then 2 grades that I have for general knowledge and English a couple of times a week which is good so that I can form a proper relationship with them.
We have booked tickets to Udaipur and Varanasi for some of the upcoming weekends which is very exciting, I like to have everything planned out.
On Wednesday there was a big party locally which was celebrating  birth of a baby boy - it wouldn't have happened if it had been a girl - where there was booming music all day so we went over to investigate and were given lots of fresh chapattis and lovely, pretzel-y sweet things and had all of our local school kids running up and saying 'good morning mam'.
It was only a 4 day working week this week as on Thursday evening we headed in to Gurgaon to catch a train to Jaisalmer in the west of India, in the desert....
Weather update: clear blue skies and lovely hot, sunny days. I now have decidedly unattractive flip flop tan lines (not cool)
Lotsa love xxxxx

Grandparents

Had a lovely weekend with the arrival of my grandparents and I actually got to enjoy the many delights of Tikli Bottom and surrounding villages. The other 2 girls went off to Jaipur for the weekend so I was left all alone in our little dormitory to fend for myself (you'll all be pleased to know I am alive to tell the tale).
I had a lovely lazy Saturday morning before heading up to the farm to await granny and grandpa's arrival. They turned up rather flustered after their drivers sat nav had taken them into the deepest darkest fields of the Indian countryside along some very questionable roads. So they were even more relieved to see me! We spent the afternoon catching up on each other's activities over the last 3 weeks and it was great to see them on such a high from their 2 week tour of India. I walked them around the farm showing them the buffalo and other assorted wildlife including peacocks and squirrels that look like chipmunks and then showed them the school and my little humble abode. For dinner we were joined by a large group of Indians who were having a 20 year reunion having all gone to fashion college together.
On Sunday, I was treated to breakfast up at the house which was delicious and we then went on a gentle stroll through two of the local villages that are home to many of my pupils. We saw gazillions of buffalo, lots of yellow mustard fields and uncountable numbers of what I like to call poo pancakes which are hand flattened cow pats left about to dry or in 'poo huts' to then be used as fuel - it is very resourceful, if a little unhygienic!
Sunday also hailed the arrival of 2 new volunteers - Laura and Kat - who will be here until the end of march (like meeee!). We all had lunch together and then spent the afternoon playing scrabble and generally enjoying the warm sunshine. The newbies stayed up at the house for their first night and Katya and Nella returned late at night from Jaipur.
Granny and Grandpa came down to school for assembly on Monday morning and got to experience the slightly obscure school prayer and a sing song before they bid me farewell and headed off to the airport to fly back home.
This week has been very higgledy piggledy because there has been a couple of teachers off so I spent all of Monday with the middle montessori class and one other teacher, which was exhausting because it is full of 4/5 year olds who speak very little English and have ridiculous amounts of energy that they channel into shouting and fighting with each other. Thankfully I got the afternoon off to snooze on the roof in the sunshine as a recovery. Later on in the week I had the oldest Montessori class which involved one morning with just me and 30 kids - I nearly ripped all my hair out and had a very sore throat afterwards. Now that the weather is better, a lot of the lessons are taken outside sat around a portable whiteboard on the ground which I love.
On Thursday evening we popped into Badshapur, the local town, to book tickets for a trip to Jaisalmer for next weekend and then went up to the farm for both Peter and Katya's last supper. After dinner we went to Mr Kumar's - the lovely neighbour - for the after party where we drank rum and coke, accompanied by yummy picorra (vegetables deep fried in chick pea batter) into the small hours and went for a beautiful moonlit (full moon) and starlit walk around his 'estate' to see if the local leopard was about - sadly she was not. Getting up for school this morning was a bit of a shock having gone to bed at 1am but thankfully I had a pretty gentle timetable so I survived. The only proper academic lesson I had was science so I taught about water in its solid, liquid and gas forms. Apart from that the other things I have taught this week are similes and multiplication using a mixture of positive and negative numbers (which I used to be tested on weekly for the 3 years running up to GCSEs and loved it).
This weekend we are heading to the bright lights of Delhi to see some of the sights, deposit Katya at the airport and of course do some shopping. Annie and Martin have kindly let us use their flat in delhi so it will be two nights of luxury.
I cannot believe that I have now been away 4 weeks, time really is flying by!
Lots of love xx

Republic Day

I will start with a very mundane matter; the weather! It has continued to be extremely cold until this week when the fog has cleared and we have been waking up to clear blue skies and actually getting a bit hotter. It is amazing how much difference the change makes to my mood.
At the weekend we made the most of our time off by heading 450km north to Amritsar which is near the pakistani-indian border. The train journey up was an experience in itself It was certainly a budget hotel at £3.50 each a night but it had a bed, hot water and free WiFi so we were happy. We had a lazy morning, moping about in bed making the most of the internet access which we have been so deprived of! We then got up and went to find the famous Golden Temple.
The sikh temple is a stunning, completely gold rectangular building surrounded by holy water which is then enclosed in a square of large white buildings. It is a lovely place and i felt very peaceful as we walked around the water, only disturbed by the plump Sikh men stripping down to their underwear and taking a dip in the water to cleanse themselves and their protruding, round stomachs. We were made to remove our shoes and socks and cover our heads but that made it feel even more serene.
We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the streets of Amritsar which contained millions of little shops all selling exactly the same hotch potch of things. We got some henna done on our hands by a little man on the side of the road which was beautiful but so difficult to keep your fingers spread apart and not touch anything for 2 hours.
Sunday morning was another lazy one and then we upped sticks and went to the place where we had had donner the night before, for breakfast and were greeted with muesli, honey and yogurt which was amazing compared to the dry cereal that we eat in bed from the packet on a normal school morning. We visited a memorial for the hundreds on Indian citizens who were shot dead when a British soldier opened fire on them which was moving but we did feel slightly awkward and out of place being there so decided to tell anyone we were American if they asked ;) we did get a lot of stares because we were the only white people in there and had multiple people come up to us and ask for pictures - I felt like a celeb!
We also went to see the Hindu version of the golden temple which was also very pretty but much less visited so not so well kept or impressive. We opted to take a cycle a rickshaw to this temple which I then regretted because we seemed to chose the rickshaw with the oldest man pedalling so I then felt very guilty for him having to move our heavy load!
When we got to the train station, we discovered that our 16.15 train had been delayed until 22.30 so we would not get to Delhi until 11am. We managed to book onto another train which had reclining seats and heating so was much better but arrived in Delhi at 3.30am. Once back at the school we crashed for a few hours before getting up for the Republic Day celebrations.
For republic day, the school put on a performance which included the national anthem, flag hoisting, speeches, drama sketches, Indian dances and song and of course the 'cauliflowers fluffy' song directed by yours truly. The song went pretty well and could have been a lot worse although I now refer to it is cauliflowers fluppy as that is how they say it.
Once the celebrations had finished we crawled back into our beds and slept for the remainder of the afternoon before heading up for dinner at the farm.
I have been continuing to teach entirely computer and library sessions. I enjoy the library sessions and helping get the kids to grips with new words and how to work out words they don't know, however, I am not so keen on computer so was very pleased to see the new teacher arrive on Thursday and hear she will be teaching from Monday :D
Took another trip into Badshapur - the local town - and got to the post officeonly to be told that the stamp man had gone to his village for the week so we couldn't buy any stamps (faintly ridiculous).
On Thursday was Jasmine's, one of the girls at the school who lives up at the farm, birthday so us 3 volunteers were invited to their quarters for a party and dinner. We were entertained around the fire with a mixture of Indian, western and Nepalese (they're Nepalese) dances to a variety of different music, of which i decided Indian was the best. We then had chow mein, spicy chicken and even spicier pork for dinner which nearly blew my head off but I managed it with the help of some Indian rum and coke! After dinner we sang some songs and read some nursery rhymes and it was generally a lovely evening and nice to experience something a bit different!
I am keenly awaiting the arrival of my grandparents this weekend who have spent the last 2 weeks touring India and are visiting me as their final stop before home.
Much love xxx