1 March With much excitement Elise and I jumped in the car with our driver and headed north to Jodphur. While the roads varied greatly in quality, there were a few idiosyncrasies that stood out. Merging onto the highway can be done from the left or right side to go in either direction - you just drive on the wrong side of the road till you can cross over. And according to our driver, you can drive on the side of the road you prefer – this is especially so for trucks as they have their favourite trucking stops. The terrain was mountainous and pretty barren as we pasted through the Mewar area. We drove through a game reserve, where our driver had seen many leopards as he travelled at night. We passed through villages large ... read more

While work at Seva Mandir was generally 6 days a week, we found time to explore in Udaipur and surrounding areas. Often we traveled with other interns, making a multicultural interesting bunch of people to travel with. After I have finished 1 month work, Elise and I took 5 days to travel north and west of Udaipur, still within Rajasthan.... read more

The night was pretty long as we heard all the various groups of travellers leave for the airport at all sorts of hours. After the call to prayer at 0530 we could hear the large security guy of the guesthouse talking in the marbled lobby - big people find it hard to whisper. We enjoyed a Idly and masala breakfast with our German friends and then simply hung out until it was our turn to leave. I was a little concerned about a scene given that we had already asked a tuk-tuk guy to take us to the airport and now a taxi had been ordered instead. Somehow the scene never eventuated. I was actually glad because it is a long way to Kochi airport, and the weather was hot. Not perfect tuk-tuk conditions. Also this ... read more

It is often a surprise to have a good night's sleep without too many beeps or other annoyances. This was a good night. I woke early to arrange photographs of Graham Leach for Facebook, it being one year since his demise. Catherine and I loaded them at the last minute before we left the hotel. By this time we had also accepted that our blog entries were going to be a fair way behind real time - just too much going on. Today we were headed for Periya in the mountains of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Breakfast was a bit of a chaotic affair with a poorly lit buffet, and no concept of time-and-motion. People all over the place. We sat next to two younger men who were some sorts of sails executives in a major ... read more

We rose early to join a yoga class at the hotel. It was run by an Indian guy who spoke some German and so he said, had worked in China in hospitality. He set the class appropriate challenges incorporating chairs and wooden blocks into the practice so that people felt they were achieving enough. We did modified versions of upward and downward dog, warrior #2, shoulder stand incorporating a chair, He was actually quite helpful for me as he pointed out some leg muscles that we not carrying sufficient load. Jorg and Hans (now affectionately called Steinbeiser) were part of the practice and were particularly funny. Hans in particular was breathing inappropriately heavily and entertaining the teach and all. After the practice, Catherine and I went to a German bakery that we had seen the night ... read more