Day 5 in India

Cough Cough COUGH COUGH COUGHGHGUHGHGH... (that's Vikki working her Bronchitis)... Bad timing, no? but we're here! Indeed we are! Its been 5 days since we arrived... i feel like i've seen more in these 5 days than i have - Your whole life? - No lol ... in any of my other ventures taken in my gap year. Practically everything is as different as it could be to life back home, which is both good and bad. Good because we have maids that cook us delicious food, and (the maid is singing right now...) because we've been made to feel so welcome. The bad - there are families living in the streets, stray dogs on every road and we turn heads everywhere we go. But actually, these are the things that open your eyes the most.

The driving is shocking!!! On the first night coming home from the airport, it felt like a constant game of chicken (they drive in the middle of the road until they absolutely HAVE to move over). In fact our driver ended up reversing around a roundabout when he missed his exit!!!

I think i could have caved right then and there, but Bry - thats me! - said "just relax and trust them, they know what they are doing". And i did. And its worked for me every since. We drove past hundreds of people on an annual night walk, to a temple over 100km away. We even saw a model temple, all lit up and being pulled by a camel! So as you can imagine, everywhere i look, its new to my eyes.

"i want to go and..pick some of those.. willlld...strawberries!!" camt stop listening to pnau! blame jon ashman!

Its day 5, in India - my hair has no volume! my nails are filthy! and i miss my beef! - she's a beef girl our Bryony - lol but i wouldnt change it for the world! I love it here. Although i'm probably the only blonde in a ridiculous - amount - of - miles radius, i feel completely at home.

The food is different than before but it's all home-made and locally sourced. The fruit is really good. Mmm... that watermelon thing... That was so good! Mmm... We should have that again soon...

Our first class at school was a little scary, i was kinda nervous. Just glad I had Vikki with me, remembering that originally I was planning to come back by myself. Really surprised at how well the younger children speak English - although our names are hard for them to grasp! we had a letter from some little girls today saying "we love you, you are good teachers, Wicky and Brownie" - so cute! - And the 1st and 2nd standards (which are 6 to 7 year olds) struggle with our accents a bit.

Our sleeping patterns are all messed up. My siestas are far too long and obviously this isnt helping me with sleeping at night!

As of Thursday, we'll be getting up at 6am to go horseriding for an hour before school every day. That should straighten out our routine a bit! We've been warned about this one horse, Black Beauty, by Renu and Paul, and yet, as luck would have it, apparently this is the one we'll be learning on!

Our intial plans before arriving here were to do two plays, one each, of about an hour. But as it turns out, our ever wise friend Pamps was right when he said "don't try and plan anything, cause it won't end up going that way!" So now we are looking at two night of entertainment, condensing our plays down from sixty minutes to just fifteen, and including other acts of dancing, singing, and other performances to make up two variety shows performed over two nights.

and OHH - we're going to Kerala! We went to a travel agent yesterday to have a chat about our last ten days in India Okay, so we just asked Kirot (who we're staying with) how to spell Kerala and he doesn't think we should go there because it won't be much cooler in Southern India. He thinks we should go up North like we were planning orginally, but this is what we were thinking... Kerala is "God's own country" and basically paradise, full of greenery and apparently a lot of tea. It's said to be like a different culture altogether down there, and there's plenty of elephants! You know we're going to end up riding one! Yeah, definately... Well, when in India..!

We'll have to keep you posted on the plans for the rest of the trip, but so far, so brilliant! and we're not even a week in...