Three Weeks on the road!

Hello all!
I have been busy busy busy since my last post doing some serious travelling, so i shall try and give you a brief round up to bring you up to date.

Sally and i began our trip in Delhi where, upon arrival we immediately went to satisfy our craving for pasta!! That delt with we were ready to face Delhi, which actually second time round isn't so daunting! I guess we really must have adjusted to the Indian atmosphere! After greeting my parents we dragged their jetlagged bodies around the hustling, bustling and sensory-overloading streets of old delhi! We roaming the silver market, bridal market...which was an incredible array of ribbons, beads and all things sparkly! Plus many other streets we merely got lost amongst. Luckily where we were staying was in Delhi's small Tibetan colony which was a real refuge from the chaos of Delhi's streets. We threw in some culture, visiting the Gandhi museum and memorial and hit Paraganj market for some retail therapy. The next day we relaxed in Lodi Gardens and ate at a gorgeous restaurant called "Chor's bizarre" (thief's market) which was a restaurant decked out in an ecelctic mix of mismatch furniture with food to die for!

Our next stop was Jaipur where i guess our visit entailed the usual mix of sight seeing (palaces,temples, cenotaphs,forts etc. ) and shopping! We visited the Monkey temple which was particularly cool (if not slightly scary at points) as i didn't have much faith of my defences against an army of monkey's. Here we also expanding our travel group as we met up with Tom and headed onwards to our next stop : Pushkar.
Pushkar is a small town situated around a lake with ghats. We spent our few days there roaming the one main (only) shopping street, sitting in rooftop cafes and generally chilling out, enjoying the very hippy vibe! We did also visit the only Brahma temple (in india? i believe) which is kinda cool.

After our few days of relaxation we got an overnight train(our first!) down to udaipur. This is the city of lakes, one of which has a palace on it where James Bond was filmed - "Octopussy" which was subsequently advertised EVERYWHERE! And one was pretty much able to go watch it in some cafe every night! Upon arriving in Udaipur we met up with Sibyl and Lucy which was extremely exciting, especially as it has been a very long 7months apart for sibyl and i! Unfortunately Udaipur was a time of illness for most of us but it didnt' dampen our spirits and we still packed in the sights and shopping!
We visited the city place, a temple, the monsoon palace, which had incredible views and went and saw an incredible dance and puppet show!

we all parted ways in udaipur, apart from sally, me and my parents, our next stop was chandigarh- which involved another overnight train (too much snoring...not much sleeping!) and a very surreal breakfast in an american diner in Delhi! Anyway we made it to the shit hole that is chandigarh all feeling a bit crap. The next morning we headed out to visit the Rock Garden (our reason for going), which luckily was well worth it (despite the icky rainy weather!) As the name suggests it was a park/garden sort of thing of sculptures created from natural materials, if anyones been to barcelona it's very gaudi-esque! Sally and i made a swift exit from Chandigarh catching two buses up to Dehra Dun to visit the other gappers! After a few days being guided around Felix's monastery and the Megan and Charlotte's nunnery we were ready to face our long journey home. Both of us were slightly relieved, as we had begun to slightly tire of living out of a backpack and being constantly on the go!

It was lovely to arrive back at Happy Days, but also slightly strange. In many ways it felt like we were home, but it has been a bit difficult settling back into things. My parents arrived at Happy Days, and only the day after sally and i fell very ill so we weren't exactly great hosts! Luckily they were well looked after by my Principals family so still got a good feel for our home and some of the "sights" of shivpuri! It was sad and wierd to see them leave as i'd gotten so used to having them around. It was just as awesome as i had hoped sharing some of my gap year experience with the old time travellers :P

Having arrived back at school, this month we don't really have a timetable and are doing more sort of community and creative based work. We are going into the local villages some mornings in the week to clear rubbish and we hope to start helping out in some of the local schools also. At Happy days sally and i have designed a mural which we're going to start painting next week with the Hindi-medium part of the school and we've been asked to teach some songs to some of the younger classes in prepartion for a fair of some sort later in the month! So in spite of our lack of schedule we trying to find things to occupy our time and keep our minds busy to distract our itchy feet! We both cannot wait to start travelling and the lure of goa's beaches is difficult to ignore!
Only 3weeks or so left here though and i know we will both find it hard to leave but can't wait to start the next part of our adventure!
So after 3months of living here, India is still capable of pushing my buttons, pulling on my heart strings and of bringing a smile to my face everywhere i go! I do not see how one could tire of exploring this country and all it's diversity, apart from possibly the desire to step back and perhaps let just a fragment of it actually sink in!

my love to everyone xxx

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