More SRA..

Afternoon All =)
We're getting on well with our volunteering at the Ashram. We've been helping out with the summer camp every morning and spending the afternoon watching the kids practice their plays/dances/talents or playing various games to which the rules are often rather vague. Last night we enjoyed 5 plays that each of the groups put on with spectacular costumes and scenery: they looked great, though health and safety would have been dreadfully concerned by some of the more adventurous set items (at one point we were sure a house constructed out of four boards tied with string was going to collapse and crush its inhabitants). Tonight is the dance competition which we're really looking forward to. It seems that even the littlest people love to dance here: so it should be a very professional show. Tommorow we leave at 8am on a trip to Mussourie with the older kids who've been acting as 'counsellors' at the summer camp. The town is at 2000m and is meant to be rather chilly, so we're understandably excited!
We thought we'd share with you today a few lists which we compiled one afternoon. There are probably many entries we've missed out... but never mind.

Things we'll never understand

1. Old people carrying money in their ears (Singapore/Thailand)
2. Wearing your jacket back to front whilst riding a moped (Thailand/Malaysia)
3. The inability to admit to not knowing/stocking something (widespread)
4. Tuk tuk drivers and their scams (unfortunately also widespread)
5. Taxi drivers constantly stopping for you as you wait at a bus stop (Singapore/Bangkok)
6. Childrens' love of eating unripe fruit (SRA)
7. The love of cows, but not to eat. (India)
8. How everyone knows of Justin Bieber, but looks very blank when we suggest the Beatles or Bob Marley.
9. How every con artist seems to be exhibiting something at the Birmingham NEC in the near future (perhaps a special 'cons of the world' gathering?)
10. Ladyboys (Thailand... though they could have just been hairy butch women....)
    

Things we'll miss

1. Funny head wobbling movement used to indicate practically everything (India)
2. Tropical fruit being ripe, fresh and more common than apples. (Thailand/Malaysia/India)
3. Everyone's tenuous links to England. (India)
   
4. Chai (India)
5. Being treated like celebrities wherever we decided to go, with accompanying paparazzi (Tourist attractions throughout India)
   
6. Cheap everything (Thailand/India)
   
7. Eating out
   
8. Being called Sir/Madam (Thailand/India)
   

Things we're looking forward to (in no particular order)

1. Eating a meal where everyone uses cutlery.
2. Not having to worry that it might be a squat toilet
3. Being cold
4. Meat (Billy at least)
5. Strawberries
6. Water you can swim in, and wear swimwear to do so
7. Bare legs and shoulders (Billys particularly looking forwards to donning some short shorts)
8. Showers at the desired temperature
9. Being able to be understood
10. Visiting the leather shop in the city of Kent (one of the encountered tenuous links to England... )
11. Reasonably priced second hand book shops.
12. Our own beds.

Any suggestions that you might have for additions to the lists will be considered provided they are fit for public viewing.

Lots of love,
See you soon!
Rosie and Billy
xxxx

Sri Ram Ashram...=)

Afternoon All,
We've been at the Ashram for quite a while now and have settled in to the schedule here, which i thought I'd write about today.
The kids wake up around 5.45 for chores etc before hockey or yoga practice. The older boys do crossfit at 6.15 ish - which is an American fitness program involving lots of weights (Billy is hopeless). Then the younger kids go to breakfast at around 7.30 - a rather messy affair if the amount of rice scattered on the floor is anything to go by. I'm usually awake enough to eat breakfast with the hockey players at around 8.30. Billy has been awake for ages but comes to eat then too. Summer camp starts at 9.30, before which we're usually on swing pushing/ unripe mango picking /cow visiting duty. Billy and I run an activity each: I seem to always be left trying to encourage boys to concentrate on various craft activities, while Billy gets to play games or decorate windows or something equally absorbing. After each group has had 30minutes on each activity we begin the task of tidying up the large amount of paper that is ,without fail, shredded into every corner of the room. Thankfully we usually get help with this bit :) After lunch its siesta time, officially, though there's usually a game being played or dancing to get involved with somewhere. At about 4 we regroup for an activity of some kind: today we're taking a shopping trip into town (to give the kids a chance to get something they've chosen themselves rather than been allocated), one day they filled up the pool and swam and usually they get to play with some of the new toys Hema brought from America. In the evenings, after they perform their Arti (sp?) worship, we have a packed schedule of ceremonies, events and performances. Wednesday was movie and popcorn night, yesterday we had the talent contest and tonight is a graduation party. It's all done American summer camp style, and the kids love it!
Afraid we cant upload pictures here - they get charged for upload/downloads so we're not allowed. Never mind, we'll get some up when we get to Delhi so you're all up to date.
See you soon!
Lots of love,
Rosie and Billy
xxx

Delhi - SRA

Good Afternoon,

Once again (seems to be a reoccurring theme!) sorry for taking so long to write. The Internet has been down here so we haven't been able to get online, and we've been pretty busy too!

In our last few days in Delhi we visited the Lotus Temple which was very beautiful: though the stone steps were so hot! The temple is open to people of all faiths to worship, which is pretty cool. In the afternoon we watched Hangover 2 which we'd been resisting because we thought it would be censored beyond recognition. The lure of aircon became too much to resist however, and we were pleasantly surprised by the sheer amount of rudeness that was allowed through the net. We planned to go present shopping the next day, as Delhi is meant to be good for shopping, at least according to Lonely Planet. Instead we spent the day mostly riding the metro system (which is very swish and nice) to the various shopping destinations suggested only to draw complete blanks and to grow more and more tired and frustrated. In the end all we had to show for our days work was a towel for Billy (he lost his, goodness knows how), some shampoo and a few packets of toffees for the kids.

We took the overnight train and woke up at 5.30 for our stop which was meant to be at 5.50. Considering we'd been on the train for over 7 hours for a journey that takes 4hrs normally we expected to be on time. However, true to form we rolled in 2 hours late... 7.50 am.. We took a TukTuk to Sri Ram Ashram and spent the day meeting and greeting the 50+ kids that live here. Billy enjoyed a game of cricket and a spot of hockey (the national game of India, we were surprised to hear ours was Cricket) while I bonded with the little girls who were thrilled to have someone tall enough to pick mangoes (usually well before being ripe) for them. As its the summer holidays at the moment everyone has been in 'Summer Camp' which involves singing, dancing, acting and crafts (which involves liberal spreading of glitter on every surface - we are constantly shimmering.) On the 23rd there's going to be a show and all of the kids have been split into groups led by a few older kids. Each group has to put on a play and perform at least one dance piece and the rehearsals are great fun to watch. Billy has been known to attempt a spot of Bollywood dancing, though I'm still struggling to be able to 'screw the light bulb' with both hands at the same time.. think i may be beyond hope.

We'll try to update more frequently now the Internet is back up and running. Once again we think our memory card has a virus (Internet cafes don't seem to know about the existence of antivirus software here..) but we've bought another so we'll upload some soon.

Off to watch some dancing!

See you soon,

Lots of love,

Rosie and Billy

Jaipur - Ranthambore - Jaipur - Delhi

Good Morning!

Hope everything is good at home. Its rather warm here, but i guess we have to get used to it - on Thursday we start at the children's home and they don't have AC at all.. should be fun!

We spent rather a long time in Jaipur in the end as we couldn't get tickets to Ranthambore until the 12th. We spent a few days meandering in the Bazaars, attempting to avoid the touts and find somewhere where they didn't charge 'tourist prices'. In the end we were quite happy with our purchases and found several really nice places. We met up with Geraldine who we met in Mumbai in our hotels' rooftop restaurant on one of the nights and we caught up with each others adventures and heard about her volunteering placement, which was pretty cool.

We eventually made it to Ranthambore on the 12th following a very expensive train ride (15 quid for 2 hours.. almost England prices!) and checked into our tiger themed hotel - I swear they had paintings of tigers from every angle in every scenery type. The following morning we enjoyed a wondrous 4.45am alarm to go to collect our tickets, and then were on our tour bus at 5.45 (as stated on the ticket). In typical style the other people on our trip decided that they were outside the terms and deserved a lie in, so we ended up hanging around until 6.30 when the last few trickled out seemingly unaware of how annoyed we were. This utter disregard for others (and wildlife) became a theme of the tour. When we luckily came across a tiger it was immediately surrounded by around 10 jeep/truck loads of people and followed for at least 45 minutes whilst most continued talking loudly and small children were allowed to scream and shout seemingly to their hearts content. The tiger was suitably magnificent but we felt very sorry for it as it attempted to escape the crowds to little avail. Now we understand what our Kiwi tour guide said about over-viewing. Once the crowds had eventually tired of the tiger the rest of the tour was very enjoyable (loud children excepted). We saw lots of different types of deer/antelope, a black winged stilt (which excited Billy a lot), lots of painted stalks, wild boar, a kingfisher (which took me about 10 minutes to spot!) and a paradise fly-catcher. We arrived back to our hotel at about 9 and spent most of the day napping and reading. Our hotel had a pool, but we forgot our swimming costumes =(

We returned to Jaipur that evening and checked back in to the ever friendly Pearl Palace for the night before we caught the poshest bus we've seen in India across to Delhi (we got free water and everything!). We checked into a vaguely OK hotel (our room is relatively clean but thats about all that can be said for it..) and went out to the cinema where we saw 'West is West' the sequel to 'East is East' which we'd definitely would recommend.

Today we plan on heading over to look at the Lotus temple which sounds pretty cool..

Photos are being silly again, we'll keep trying! (the tiger and camel ones are really good!)

Lots of love,

See you soon,

Rosie and Billy

xxx

Udaipur - Jodhpur - Thar Desert - Jaisalmer - Jaipur

Evening All =)
Sorry for not updating for so long.. for the IT centre of the world its surprisingly hard to find an Internet connection (at least one which doesn't leave you banging your head against a wall in frustration after 10 minutes of page loading)
We've been pretty busy since Udaipur. We spent a couple of days in Jodhpur which was rather warm but very pretty. The bus journey there wasn't so much fun - the advertised 5 hours soon turned into a baking 6.5 accompanied by the frequent sounding of the less than hilarious squeaky arpeggio horn. We made it to our nice little hotel following a severe ambushing by TukTuk drivers - all trying to take us 'anywhere we wanted for 10 rupee'.. yeh right.
The next day we visited the Mehrangarh fort which was very cool and gave us a great view of the 'blue city' below. In the afternoon we sought refuge in a nice cool internet cafe and then wandered around the bazaars nearby when it cooled down. We purchased some very fetching turbans from a shop which took pity on us and made them up into the right shape - in preparation for the camel ride we were planning the following day.
On Sunday we were picked up at 12 (ish.. turned out to be Indian time) by our guide who then took us out into the desert in a rather packed jeep - as he'd decided to invite his uncle/brother (he seemed as confused as we were about which) along for unknown reasons. We'd hoped the jeep would have aircon, but no such luck - though we did get 'free' mineral water! We stopped at a temple in the small desert town of Osiyan where our guide explained the procedure Hindus go through when they visit and we enjoyed a dash around the beautifully carved exterior (the marble floor was boiling!). At around 6 we arrived at his hut complex in the desert, met his lovely family and had a very tasty and rather large afternoon tea. Our camel herders arrived shortly afterwards and took us off on a circuit around the nearby hamlet and up a dune to watch the sunset..behind a cloud. Our turbans caused much hilarity in hamlet and were declared incorrectly tied by the herders who then proceeded to compete as to who could make them the best. When we got back we had yet another huge meal and then settled down for the night in basic cots under the stars.
We woke to the sound of peacocks at around 6am and rushed to get ready as our guide had told us we needed to leave at 7 to arrive with enough time to visit Jaisalmer. Unfortunately this turned out to be Indian time, again, and he emerged at around 8 am still unwashed and in pajamas to take his goat into the hamlet to be sold. We were not amused. After another crowded and hot jeep ride (this time both his wife and son decided to join us too.. making it 7 people, 2 backpacks, 1 suitcase and assorted small bags) we arrived in Jaisalmer rather short tempered only to find the luggage counter at the train station would only look after our backpacks for the couple of hours we had left if they were locked. We explained the impossibility of locking a drawstring, but our appeals fell on deaf ears (seemingly literally) and we left even more wound up than when we'd arrived. In the end we managed to leave our bags with a small boy who was looking after a mobile phone stall and made a quick dash up to the Jaisalmer fort - which was really amazing - we wish we'd had more time! It looks like a giant sandcastle as its made from local sandstone and unlike the other forts we've visited its still inhabited, which is cool.
We took the night train to Jaipur at 4.30, spending most of the trip worrying about the strange men in the bunks below us and the mysterious packages and visitors that kept turning up. We arrived in Jaipur at a glorious 5 am, hung out amongst the beggars, touts and dirty old men in the station before venturing to our hotel of choice - Pearl Palace- which turned out to be very nice - thank goodness!
I spent most of the day dozing and feeling feverish - the 47 degree plus temperatures didn't help much. Billy enjoyed a day of reading and eating with various other lonely backpackers in the rooftop bar. In the evening we ventured out to a shopping mall nearby where we enjoyed a McIndia...
Yesterday we went to the City Palace, which we renamed following a particularly unexciting audio tour - the majority of the content seemed to be a sales pitch for one or other of the shops there - and the attendants who were rather rude and often wanting to add to their 'collection of foreign coins'... There were a few pretty buildings and Billy enjoyed the armoury a lot, but overall we were unimpressed! In the afternoon I took the plunge and got myself a haircut... she lopped off quite a bit but its not so scary. We'd booked tickets to the raj mandir cinema earlier for the Bollywood film 'Ready', which turned out to be entertaining despite us not understanding a single word. According to the Indian guys we met in McDonalds (I know, i know) just before it had a very famous actor as the male lead who even has temples dedicated to him here. Judging by the enthusiastic response of the 1500 strong audience (and not just the women) we are not surprised.
Today we've been to the Amber Fort. We decided against taking an elephant ride as the treatment of them is meant to be not so great and enjoyed the brisk stroll up the hill. The fort was rather spectacular - we took an audio tour which thankfully refrained from advertising and Billy found very amusing. The fort isn't very well signposted or organised, which actually turned out to be an advantage as we got to wander around wherever we wanted, getting lost several times in the process! This afternoon we've mainly been getting hot and bothered while searching for an internet cafe. I think next on the agenda is a trip to the train station again (joy of joys) to try to buy tickets to go to Ranthambore national park tomorrow (they have tigers , hopefully!) .

Sorry about the lack of photos - we'll try to get some up asap

See you later,
Lots of love,
Rosie and Billy
xxx

Udaipur

Bats Galore!
On the Jagmandir island
Billy with his fig and honey milkshake (without the fig)
In the Jagmandir gardens
The elephants guarding Jagmandir island
At the bathing and washing ghat
The cute baby tortoise at our hotel (we've been out buying tomatoes to feed them today!)
The entrance to the waterfront (no idea why its gone all sidewards)
Inside the palace
Views over Udaipur
Enjoying our audio guide
Doing some construction work at the palace
Floating Palace
Billy leaning out of the door..
Tired Billy on the train

Hello!

We're in Udaipur now. We managed to catch the train up here without too much trouble - thankfully only Billy noticed the mouse that was running around my feet at one stage of the trip. Our AC2 overnight train was pretty comfy, not the cleanest but not so scary, and we were sharing with a nice Physics lecturer which was good. We arrived into Udaipur at 8am rather weary and after much confusion over our pick up made it to our hotel, which is in a really pretty old house on the quieter side of the river. As its the off season everywhere is pretty quiet - according to the people we met today there's only 20 guests at the posh lake palace hotel which has 80 rooms. They seem to be doing quite a bit of decorating work at our hotel which is being carried out in typical Indian style - liberal application of plaster and white paint to both the room and the decorators - its surprising that the rooms look so neat after the process! After a well deserved cold shower we headed out to the City Palace. We got a rather amusing audio tour and spent several hours wandering around and taking hundreds of photos of the amazing interiors and views. We gave up on finding anywhere clean to have lunch (everywhere seemed to be either dirty, dodgy or closed) so returned to eat the rest of the pack up Nicki had made us the day before and to have a nap (we thought we better get into the habit :P). In the evening we managed to find a yummy local restaurant on recommendation of our hotel. We walked down to the nearby bathing and washing ghats for some interesting photo opportunities. Even Billy found the thought of swimming in the rather green river unappealing, though the colour didn't seem to put off the local boys at all.

Today we took a boat tour of the lake which was good fun. We talked to some nice Australians on the way and enjoyed the gardens as well as a yummy milkshake and lychee juice in the posh restaurant on Jagmandir Island. On the way back we stopped at the supposedly fixed price Government Emporium - it turned out to be rather a rip off and not fixed price at all, though we managed to escape with just a couple of miniature paintings. We ate lunch and drank chai (which I like, surprisingly - that's how little it tastes like tea!) by the riverfront. Now we're back at the hotel for a rest before we head out to the Jagdish Temple and the Monsoon Palace, which had a starring role in 'Octopussy', for sunset. Should be good!

I'll upload some more pictures of Billy looking far too neat to be true (only real scruff bags wear t-shirts and shorts here so Billy has been forced to smarten up!) and some of the things we've seen so far.

Off to have a nap now!

Lots of love,

Rosie and Billy

xxx