Monday, I arrived back to a smoggy, busy Bangalore very early in the morning. It was quite a difference from the calm relaxing Hampi. I got back to Dr Victors house ( if you missed earlier blog, he is the man who is running the VSFP volunteer organisation which I was staying with) at about 8 am just in time for breakfast which consisted of tea with awfully gone off milk. I gave it away to one of the other braver volunteers as I really couldn't risk getting any ill-er. My plan for the day was to spend the whole morning [View Full Entry]

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I managed to tag along with 3 German guys from my guest house on their sightseeing trip round the area. We all bundled into a small rickshaw and drove around most of Hampi's 26km2 of temples and ruins. We saw so many by lunch time we had had enough. The guys wanted to go to the Mango tree for lunch so I went along and had a delicious panneer massala curry. I came back to the guest house and literally collapsed and slept for hours, think it must have been my illness making me so weak. When I woke some of [View Full Entry]

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I traveled by night train to Hospet and then took tuk-tuk/rickshaw to Hampi. I wasn't sick during the night as i hadn't eaten anything for the last two days which was good as the train loo's are really dirty. When I got off the train I was asked/hassled by about 20 people for a rickshaw ride to Hampi but I wanted to take the bus as it was about 10Rs instead of 150Rs. I arrived at about 9am in Hampi so I wen to internet cafe before looking for a hotel to kill some time. I checked into the Shanti Guest [View Full Entry]

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Grandma Victor was instructed to walk me ( by Dr. Victor) into the slums and visit a slum school/creche. Once there she insisted on us taking pictures and we left after about 30mins! I didnt want to take photos but she hardly spoke any English and insisted. The slums were as bad as expected open sewers, children playing in them. There was every type of pooh on the ground it really stank, Again we waited all afternoon for Victor to come back, about 5hours..!! arg, when he turned up to take me to the evening center he said did i want [View Full Entry]

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So Day 1 of the volunteering. In the morning we were given breakfast cooked by the very kind granny and then taken to Dr.Victors posh college where he worked. We sat around waiting for instructions for about 2hours then were invited into one of his classes to interact with the ridiculously wealthy uni-students where i was asked if i was married by everyone i spoke to.We then went back to the house for some plain rice and bean curry ( the most bland curry i have had in india so far). Dr Victor was still at the college so we had [View Full Entry]

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Sunday was sight seeing day. We came downstairs to see this little spider blocking our way! First travelled across town to the Iskon temple, a huge temple complex which was packed full of people. It was very pretty inside there were lots of forms of the hindu gods and lots of gold. For lunch we went to the famous MTR ( Tiffen rooms) for an indian Thali, it consisted of loads of small currys and objects (such as breads, rice, poppadoms, donut type things & sweets) the best thing was it was unlimited meal so they would bring free refills. I [View Full Entry]

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Sat was spent relaxing and cleaning my clothes. We for a lovely lunch see attached picture and for a kingfisher or two. [View Full Entry]

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Woke up at 6am to get the bus which we nearly missed as my phone clock was out by 10 mins ( my phone seems to be resetting itself randomly my clock is always out) We took a bus towards the airport and then a flight with a company called GoAir, the plane was really really new,in fact it was its 4th flight!! We made it safely to my friend Ramki, who was letting us stay at his house for a few nights. He took us out for a brilliant curry it was the most expensive meal ever in India at [View Full Entry]

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We went on an early morning trek into the tea plantations at 630am. It was very cloudy, we climbed right to the top of the mountain and had breakfast there after a 3 hour trek. I was sooo hungry the guy/guide took ages to get the food out of his bag...first we had a tea which was yummy from the TATA tea company. We then finally got some much needed food (sweet toast and eggs). On the way down/back we went to a flower garden where this young girl (about 20) started taking picture of us. It was a bit odd, [View Full Entry]

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We took a private bus ( which was only bus to Munnar ) for 5 hours to Munnar across the mountains. It was like a roller-coaster ride i had bruises at the end! We stayed in the Green view hotel where we had a smallish room with a lovely view and occasional hot water. We went out for a meal in a restaurant nearby and got in trouble for mixing rum into our 7-ups. It changed the colour of the drink - hehe, there is no alcohol sold at any of the restaurants in Munnar. I had an amazing Keralan fish [View Full Entry]

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