Of Long buses, Dehra Dun and Weddings

---

Sorry this has been so long but the power/internet's been down a lot, I've been pretty busy and more relevently just plain lazy.

Loads has happened and I can't really remember it all so I'll fill you in on the highlights.

First up is my weekend trip to Dehra Dun which was fun even if the rafting didn't happen because of heavy rain making the currents too strong. What wasn't so fun was the bus there... I decided to save money and take the normal bus to Chandigarh then change there for Dehra Dun... oh how stupid of me. On leaving Chandigarh I was sandwiched between two rather big and smelly men on the back seat, who then proceeded to fall asleep on me - picture this for the next six hours in a bus with non-existant suspension on dirt tracks having just had a nine hour bus trip to Chandigarh. It all made for a fresh fresh fresh feeling upon arriving in a freezing cold Dehra Dun at 5.30am in the morning. I grabbed a rickshaw to the nearest cheap (read: dirty, small and no functioning tap) hotel and crashed out til 11.30, just before check-out following which I wandered round town for a bit before finding myself a nicer place for 350r/night (with premiership football on tv!).
Dehra Dun itself seemed pretty similar to most large Indian towns I've seen so far - hectic, colourful, noisy and a mix of wealth and utmost poverty found everywhere. Thankfully though there's nowhere near as much hassle as in Delhi making it much more pleasant to just ramble around and grab some bananas for lunch from a roadside guy.
Following my quick lunch I met the purpose of my visit - Katie, fully localised in some fetching baggy pants and nose piercing! The bad news of no rafting came first but she took me to a nice chilled (also with air-con, dehra dun was a fair bit warmer than Tashijong) cafe place where I had an amazing ice cream shake. The evening was followed by a meal (best dsescribed as 'interesting') celebrating Katie and Nat's last few days at their school before they left to go traveling. The next day I got to see their school which is really nice quiet and quaint. It was interesting to see the Indian Community they live in seeing as Tashijong is pretty much just Tibetan. Most of all it was nice just to chat with some friends who've already been in India a while.

Arriving back at Tashijong was an event in itself... mainly thanks to roadside thali I ate on the way back which left me dreaming of our semi-functioning toilet. Emerging from the bathroom I realised everything seemed to be shut - apparently a wedding was to take place in the next few days. Being a teacher, and white, I was of course invited. The bride was from Tashijong so they were having a large party the day before the wedding (which was in another village so we couldn't go). This party involved a lot of yummy food at lunch time - the curd with fruit in was amazing - followed by the evening's hilarity... Bharaat and I rock up about 7pm to find all the guys from the village - peaceful buddhist shop owners, craftsmen etc - absolutely smashed, singing and generally having a hard time remaining vertical. Every single one of them then decided we needed to be convinced that just because they were holding hands hands (common practice between friends out here - when I arrived I just thought Delhi had a large gay population), dancing and hugging didn't mean they were gay!

So a busy week it was and with the prospect of a week holiday coming up for religous dances all is roses here!

---