Todays history lessons....

Hello from Loas!!

Before I start I would just like to say that all my begging, pleading and massive hint dropping has paid off because Kate and Harvey are engaged!!! Finally!!!!! I'm so happy for you guys, congratulations!!! Although Harvey I don't know why you didn't just do it that last night out we all had together....I mean surely it would have been even more perfect if cupid had of been there as well, sobbing in the back ground? ;-) Just a though....but no doubt I will make up for it at the wedding...I cant wait!

I arrived in Bangkok about 10 days ago.....and ended up staying in the most beautiful hostel in the entire world, just off Khosan Road. Honestly it was like paradise......all the beds were separated by clean, white netting, the sheets were white and spotless, the duvet was white and spotless....my first night in bed was just sooo incredible CLEAN and spotless!!! You get the idea! I remember the first time I came to Bangkok 2 years ago, I thought Bangkok was the dirtiest, smelliest city I had ever been to. This time around.....I absolutely marveled at how clean everything was.....it just goes to show how easily your perspective on things can change, especially when you have been traveling in India!

Well I'm not going to go into too much of the details, (as being sick on this holiday is starting to bore me) but yes after 2 days in Bangkok I was sick again for another week. It started my last day in Bangkok with the most incredible migraine ever and then just turned into what seemed like flu. I was rather reluctant to go to the doctor, as I just felt like my body needed a rest from medication. But after 3 days of not much changing I decided to go to the hospital in Vientiane. The nurse who saw me went through a whole list of symptoms, as I nodded pitifully to each one and she then informed me that she thought I might have dengue fever! DENGUE FEVER! I had to have a blood test and then dragged my little dengued ravished body back to my hostel. On returning back to see the doctor 3 hours later he asked me what the problem was????
It took every inch of self control not to snap: "you have my blood test in front of you...YOU tell me!!!"
(he obviously wasn't as skilled as the nurse had been...at least she could tell I had dengue and was on deaths door! )
And then it turned out that, no, I wasn't going to live to tell the tale of surviving dengue fever, as I just had flu. Flu! He gave me paracetamol and sent me home.

I spent another 2 day in Vientiane and as soon as I felt able to travel I headed off for a place called Si Phan Don or the 4000 islands. (It appeared that 3900 of these islands were simply single trees growing in the river) But never the less it was still very beautiful. I and spent the next 2 days forcing myself to just lie on my hammock and recover! Its hard work doing absolutely nothing you know, the inclination to constantly want to get get up and go do 'something' 'anything!' was overwhelming- but I struggled through it!;-) The place that I stayed in was right on the river and I had my own little cabin. There was a guy that worked there, and I think he was the gardener....I say 'THINK' because in the entire two days that I was there....all I saw him do was pick up a lawn mower for about half an hour each day. The rest of his time was spent lying in the garden hammock sleeping. I don't know how one man could possible sleep so much...but sleep he did. Laos life is needless to say very relaxed and very chilled!

Exactly a week later I finally felt human again and decided to decided to head back to Vientiane. While I was there I visited the COPE centre, a rehabilitation centre who fit UXO (Unexploded Ordnanc) victims with prosthetic limbs. It was absolutely amazing to see the work that they are doing, all free for the victims.

So for those of you that don't already know about the 'Secret War' in Laos, allow me to fill you in! (It was called the 'Secret war' because at the Geneva Convention in 1962, a formal "Declaration on the Neutrality of Laos" was signed....Neither Vietnam nor the US held up their part in this agreement, resulting in a 9 year attack on a country, that the majority of the world knew nothing about!)

Between 1964-1973 Laos was hit by an average of one B52 bomb load every 8 minutes, 24 hours a day. (2 million tons of bombs - at a cost of nearly 7billion dollars) thus making Laos today, the most bombed country on Earth.
US bombers dropped more ordnance in Laos during this period than was dropped on all the other countries combined during WW2. The bombs that were dropped were cluster bombs, that had an average of 680 'bombies' inside each case.....the cases were meant to open mid air depositing all the bombies over an area of about 3 football pitches. Its estimated that 30 % of them failed to detonate, so of the 260 million bombs dropped, that leaves a staggering 80 million still left all over the land. That of course doesn't include the millions of Bombies that were scattered and that never exploded.
So basically what is now left, over 35+ years later, is a country so contaminated with UXO , its mind boggling. Every year over 300 people are killed or maimed by these bombs. (Close to 40% of the accidents result in death, and 33% of the victims are children) So much of the land as a result of this is just completely unfarmable, resulting in Laos being one of the poorest countries in the world. I think the most shocking thing is that most of the bombs were originally destined for Vietnam, but when their airspace proved to be to difficult to enter....the bombs were simply off-loaded onto Laos, (an easy undefended dumping ground) , so that the air crafts could return safely to their bases or carries.
Unfortunately it now happens that in a country so littered with metal- one of the best ways for Laos people to make money is through collecting these UXO. If the pieces aren't sold as scrap metal they are kept in the houses and used for everyday items. (pots, cooking utensils, made into lamps, the large casings used as animal feeds or legs to hold up the houses) As a result of this familiarity in every day life.....children often come across UXO on the land and immediately recognize it from home, thus resulting in so many deaths of children. Of course it doesn't help that the Bombies are small clusters that are brightly colored and look like small balls. Children also know that finding metal can be a very lucrative way to make extra money....so they often go out searching for it.

The sad thing is that even though so many of Laos farmers know the risks, they still continue to farm their land, often finding and moving the bombs themselves. For so many of them the everyday risk of their family starving is worse than the threat of a bomb exploding. I cant imagine what it must be like to grow up in a world where the threat of bombs are a part of your every day life.

And that brings me to the end of my lesson. But I'm sure it will continue at a later date!

I hope you are all well, thanks for all the messages I have been getting from friends and family.....they always seem to come at the right time!!!

Lots of love

x

The best made plans!

Hellooo again!

For some reason when I do my spell check the ENTIRE second half of this epic appears to have no spelling mistakes.....now we all know, with me, that's highly, highly unlikely...more like an impossibility, so sorry in advance.

Well I can't actually believe this, my last day in India. Less than 3 weeks ago I was wondering why people would ever want to come back to this country and now I quite honestly don't want to leave, and will definitely, definitely be coming back! Its taken me 5 days to finish this blog, but I have absolutely loved writing every second of it so its been well worth it.

I arrived in Rishekesh last Thursday and it is truly a breathtakingly, beautiful city. The city is separated into two main parts Lakshman Jhula and Swag Ashram, joined by two walking only bridges across the Ganges. The entire city is surrounded by mountains and as I mentioned earlier; "it is the self styled Yoga Capital of the world, " with masses of ashrams, meditation centres and temples. I have never seen the Ganges flowing as strongly as it does here and as per usual there are loads of Ghats were you can watch people swimming, washing or just "hanging out by the holy river! The streets are small with chanting and music continuously echoing through the town. It is beautiful!

I have to admit....its taken almost 6 weeks but I am almost completely in the swing of things now. I know this feeling well......every summer holiday I have had over the last 5 or so years its happened. Just as I am finally settling into the traveling life style I then need to leave and get back to the real world. I am absolutely delighted that for once, this is not the case.

I completely surprised myself on the way over here by actually deciding 'not' to go to Lakshman Jhula.....the place recommended as a 'travelers' hot spot. I actually think I have gotten used to not being surrounded by travelers all the time and for my last week I simply wanted to be alone. I know for a fact there will be no shortage of travelers in Loas...so might as well make the most of my down time while I can!

One of my all time favorite books is a book by Elizabeth Gilbert called Eat, Pray ,love.
( Its currently out on Film starring Julia Roberts....one of my all time favorite actresses...how cool is that;-) Its a true story written by a woman,in her 30's, who after a messy divorce, decides to go traveling for a year to Italy, India and Bali. (The fact that while she does all this, she happens to meet her soul mate and live happily ever after...has absolutely NO bearing on my Love for this book. ;-)

Anyway so thus came my inspiration for coming to India and staying in an Ashram....I just absoltely loved her writing about her experiences, her struggle to quieten her ever churning mind and especially the self discipline she seemed to gain, from what to many of us in the western world, would seem like tireless and repetitive rituals of meditation.
So yes I came to Rishekesh with one purpose in mind: to finally find an ashram and spend some time, practicing yoga, meditating, eating healthy food and to just immerse myself in the the general spiritual vibe!
(For those of you that don't already know, all religions fascinate me. I could easily spend hours in discussion on the topic and I have read loads of books written by authors of various faiths. I truly believe that too much time is spent focusing on the differences of various religions, without looking at the similarities in most of them. The underlying principles taught by Jesus, the Buddha, Guru Nanak, Lord Krishna were Love, acceptance and tolerance. All things that are sadly lacking from our world today. I strongly believe that when we look for them, we can find truly noble and good elements in all religions and learning about them, enables us to lead richer and fuller lives!)

So Friday I set off Ashram hunting! Unfortunately I have to admit my day was not much of a success. As I have already mentioned most of the Ashrams are simply lodging at the moment with no yoga teachers and no mediation classes. Next month will be the beginning of the tourist season when everything gets back into full swing! I did however manage to find one Ashram that had lodgings, meditation classes and English lectures. The Ashram itself was called Sri Ved Niketan. The Ashram is situated on the bank of the Ganges with a large, all be it run down garden in the middle. Things were looking up! That is until I saw the room. Now I'm not one to complain...:-) BUT lets just say....it was heartrendingly pitiful. The room itself had a basic cemented and mildly dirty shower room, toilet room and another small room that looked like....well...I can only assume it was some sort of gas chamber! ? All of that I could have dealt with ok, but it was the bed that was the absolute killer. No sheets, no pillow cases...just a grimy looking pillow and mattress, that looked like they had never been washed.
In the second that I saw the bed it was like a million voices started chanting in my head and all they said was: "Bed Bugs, Lice, Run!"

So I left and took myself back to my lovely, clean, cheap hotel (with TV) to contemplate my next move.
Now its important at this stage to explain something about myself that a couple of my friends and family will already know. You see....... I'm not perfect! Yes its true...mum and dad I'm sorry to shatter any illusions you might have held onto about having ONE perfect child!;-)

No, you see, I seem to be inflicted with a tragic ailment that one might call "emotional colour blindness"! Let me explain.
In a world of beautiful, varying, colorful, "life choices" I unfortunately only see two colours, black and white. For example: In my head when presented with a decision there will unfortunately always, and only, be two answers to every equation. Right or completely and utterly wrong! So yes instead of going with the flow and seeing where different roads take me....I seem to find myself perpetually sitting at the corner of a cross road worrying and fretting about whether or not this particular decision (no matter how completely and utterly insignificant it may be ) is THE RIGHT one, or the WRONG one! Mind you I have to admit I have managed to hide this flaw pretty dam well over the 30 odd years and I don't think I have allowed it to stop me living my life to the fullest.....but bloody hell its hard work sometimes.;-)
So here in lies the most recent dilemma in a poor emotionally colour blind (ECB) person (namely me) life:
White: I am going to come to India, find an Ashram, experience what it's like and leave India a better, calmer, ultimately more centred person who truly knows herself.

Black: If I don't find an Ashram then I have failed in my mission, have missed the whole point of coming to India and will be a complete failure! Never been able to say: "Oh yes I stayed in an Ashram in India!" The sheer horror!!

See black and white!!

and thus is where my contemplation began.....
I desperately wanted to stay in an Ashram, but I also desperately didn't want to stay in that particular one! After being so sick so many times in India, I have begun to absolutely relish my health and the fear of catching something was nauseatingly over whelming, and yet so was the fear of not at least having the guts to try!
(I'm mean surely that's what ashrams are like.....other people manage and survive, don't they? )

(Now I know some of you are wondering how on earth I have managed to survive my life, up to the ripe old age of 34 (uuuhhmmm) with this handicap. But rest assure there are indeed many techniques one can master to over come such afflictions. (Just for the record: As a qualified life coach, who is paid to support people make difficult decisions in their lives, I am by no means advocating these as viable methods for self improvement- but here they are never the less....
First and foremost one must constantly surround ones self with wise and clever friends. The more friends you have the better it works, as the the net is spread wide preventing friends from figuring out your cunning plan. (although that said, the wisest ones ussually do;-)

Now when life throws you a dilemma that you simply couldn't possibly solve all by yourself....you simply pick up the phone and find out what your intelligent friends think. All you need to do is phone 3 people and then you go with the majority ....problem solved!:-) Now if by some small chance your friends don't actually agree with you (because essentially , lets face it, we all know whats best for ourselves) , you disregard their opinion and phone more friends (ones that you are pretty sure will agree with you) until you get the favorable majority. And thus many of life problems can be solved without actually having to make up your own mind EVER! Its Pure Gayle Genius-ism at its best!

The problem of course, arises when you are thousands of miles away with no phone and no friends to do your thinking for you!

What to do? What to do?
After a restless night of deep thinking I eventually decided that I would simply give the meditation and yoga classes at the ashram a go and see what I thought!

If they were good....then that would be my 'sign' from God that I should go there, if they were bad then that would also be my sign from God. (Yes sadly another side affect of ECB would be...manic sign scrutinization and interpretation. When one can't make up ones own mind, one simply looks for the signs from God - so essentially he will make the decision for you!! Needless to say this technique is fraught with difficulties as you will no doubt soon discover.

So bright and early sat morning I set off for my first Meditation class. The yoga teacher there was a middle aged man called Hari Baba who I absolutely LOVED!
His class was brilliant, easy to understand and the best part was his face. I don't ever think I have ever seen a person shining with so much joy, happiness and love for everyone all the time. AS far as I'm concerned, again this is personal opinion and not aimed at insulting any incessantly grumpy people out there....the best way to show Gods love is through your actions, how you live your life, how you treat people and what shines through your face! God = happiness!

Sign 1: Loved meditation therefore I should move into Ashram!:-)

Next was the Yoga class: Mmmmmmmmmm.....(Lets just say it suddenly dawn on me why people always say : You should find the yoga style that suits you! ) It was the longest, most painfully boring 2 hours of my life. I hated ever second if it- Yes I did. It felt like he held every moved for hours and every inch of my unfit body was crying!

I couldn't help but compare it to the class that I had taken the night before at my lovely clean, Raj Palace Hotel (with TV). I had walked out of the class sweating and aching but had enjoyed it tremendously.

Sign 2: Hated yoga class so shouldn't go stay in Ashram? ;-(

After the class a really sweet old man called Agrwal, (I had met the day before)asked me if I wanted to come for some tea in his room. I had been speaking to a Dutch girl earlier so I dragged her with me. Needless to say old man was suitably over whelmed to have two young ladies in his room and not just one...and proceeded to then hug both of us for a considerably long time. Hug was then followed by; the taking of the face and planting two big slow kisses on either side of our lips. Reassured myself that this was spiritual man in Ashram...that he was harmless and that this was just how things were done. Bless he hardly spoke any English...and most of his conversation consisted of him telling us, over and over again how happy he was that we where having tea with him. He was genuinely very sweet, so it didn't really bother me that, while he was talking, he sat with his hand right on the top of my thigh...about 2cm away from bikini area to be exact. In fairness it was placed there so naturally, while he listen earnestly to what we were saying, that I didn't give it much thought!
I came away thinking he was a lovely,charming little man...who is no doubt completely harmless but maybe just a little too touchy feely for my comfort!

I then set off to go to a lecture given by ....lets call him Swami D ( Seeing as I am now border lining on Gossiping I have chosen to leave out names in my blog , so as to deter before mentioned 'bad karma')

I was a bit late when I walked in and Swami D seemed mildly uninterested in my existence, as all the other students had apparently been coming to the class for the whole week. I listened with my resistance up for about an hour at which point the swami went totally off the topic of his lecture and I was mesmerized. Here was a man who truly knew loads of things about everything, he had little stories, antidotes from various different faiths and his English was excellent. I truly felt this was someone I could have 'deep and meaningful' conversations with and I was incredibly excited!

Sign 3 : A good swami with loads to learn from - This is what I should be looking for. I should DEFINITELY come to this ashram!!

After his 3 hour lecture...I went up to him to thank him and ask him where I could leave my donation.

His sullen answer was: You come on Monday, I will see how dedicated you are, and then we will talk about how much you will donate! I was also told NOT to give anyone else the money as it needed to come directly to him....not the ashram.

" UM what? " Since when is a donation up for discussion?

do·na·tion

1 : the making of an esp. charitable gift

and ....ummmm since when is it up to a 'man of God' to decide how dedicated I was?

A little confused by his comment I went to speak to some of the other students, to gain some clarification as to how much exactly this 'donation' would cost.
I was told that he had said the amount should simply be 'respectful'.
And what pray tell, would a respectful amount be to a holy man of God? Apparently the minimum for the lectures and his morning meditation class for a whole week would be RS1000, but, money wasn't an issue for him and I should go and speak to him about what I could afford. They also added that they gave him a lot more than a RS1000 anyway because he was ....that great.....

Mmmmm interesting....
I walked away doing the maths...In the big scheme of things RS 1000 (about 15 pounds) for the entire week was nothing....Hell you would never get all of that in London.......How could I fault someone for simply trying to make a living? BUT this is not London, and I couldn't get past the fact that here was a man of God (sorry a Swami; definition = "swami is a monk, one who has set aside all of the limited, worldly pursuits, so as to devote full time effort to the direct experience of the highest spiritual realization, and to the service of others along those lines.) asking for money for his services.)
So many people, on the way up here, have warned me that a lot of the ashrams in Rishekesh are run like businesses simply to make money. I also worked out that if this man had, mmmmmmm say only 5 students a week....(there were 8 in the class)...and they all paid the minimum RS1000 then he was averaging RS20 000 a month when the average salary in India is RS 10 000 - RS15 000 a month.

And so I went to lunch with a whole NEW decision to make, (even before I could make the original one!) To trust or not to trust Good old Swami D? Or more notably:
Is it wrong to gain 'pure' knowledge from someone who you ethically don't agree with? Does the end, justify the means?

It was at lunch that I saw a very sweet German girl who had been in his lecture and I sat down to speak to her. She had known Swami D for 6 years...this was her 3rd time back to Rishikesh and, yes he was good man that could be trusted. She also filled me in on all the gossip of the Ashram, that goes like this:

Apparently the original owner of the Ashram was a man called Vishwa Guru. When he died a couple of years ago he had left the entire Ashram to Swami D, who has been working at this Ashram for over 25 years now. It was soon after Vishwa Guru's death however, that his long lost Grandson turned up to staked his claim on the Ashram. Not really a man with much interest in God he now runs the ashram simply as a means to make money. And this is how we find it today, two groups of people at war over who actually owns it and how it should be run! Hence the reason for Swami collecting his own money. When she explained it all this way it made a little more sense....and she reiterated that if I couldn't afford the payment then I should just talk to him and he would be fine with that. She said he always took time to warm to people but that he was an incredible man to speak to with loads of knowledge.

Sign3: What are the odds that German girl was in the SAME restaurant as me...it was definitely a sign.....German girl said I could trust him....so there we go I could trust him!!!

So I left lunch, mildly elated that 2/3 of the signs said I should go and stay in the Ashram on Monday!

Of course while all the signs wee pointing towards Ashram stay needless to say I was still dreading the move into my new room.

That night I went to go and try and find Van Prastha Ashram where mildly over-feely spiritual man had told me Hari Baba would be doing his evening meditation class. Argwal had told me to come back to his room at 5 so that he could walk me there.....but needless to say I made an 'actual rational decision' that I did not like enjoy being touched in said manner, spiritual man or not, so would attempt to find the meditation course myself!

It was absolutely bucketing down with rain ......(but finally I had bought an umbrella!) I found the the large Ashram...one that unfriendly security guard had very rudely denied me entrance into the that morning. ( I later discovered that its a 'non-white ashram'....I think we have a word for that sort of intolerance don't we?;-) (ps I have since taken much joy this week in smiling sweetly at above mentioned security guard when leaving and entering)

And after much wondering around I eventually found the class but it wasn't actually a meditation class it was more like a Hindu praise and worship. Its really a funny thing, but growing up in a Christian country, like SA, I just some how assumed that praise and worship was just something "Christians" did....during my time in India I have come across numerous gatherings where Hindu people will sing, dance, clap....in exactly the same way.

Anyway there he was sitting in the front of the class, face beaming with love, singing away, while leading with loads of little hand actions. It was just so cute to watch. He would sing a line and then the group would follow. After a while I started joining in.....making up words left, right and centre as I went along. (see Kelly my bad lipsynching has finally paid off)

After the group ended I was told that they also met the next morning at 6.15am

Sunday morning my second last night in lovely, clean raj Palace hotel room (with TV) I woke up only to find the biggest cockroach ever, plus 5 little baby ones all congregating in my coffee cup on the floor. Now to you...this might be a mere triviality.....but to me.....it was A sign!!!! A warning maybe? If such vile things were in lovely, clean Raj Hotel Palace hotel room (with TV) then what the hell would be lurking, waiting for me in my horribly, unclean ashram.....?

Definitely gave me something to think about....Everything happens for a reason you know!!!!:-)

So where was I ? Oh yeh...6.00am I managed to drag myself out of bed (flush the horrible little creatures down the toilet) and joined in what was actually a meditation class in Hindi. (also thoroughly enjoyed) After the class ended Hari Baba and I walked to his next Meditation class at the Sri Ved Niketan Ashram where I had first met him. I did that class as well and at 9am....we left the ashram together. He was walking home...I had no where else to go, and somehow ended up simply following the poor man all the way back to his house.....if he found it strange that tall, white girl was just tagging along, (looking around randomly at various things while he chatted to people)...he never showed it.

Once we reached his house he offered me something to drink and thinking that he would make Chai tea, as most people did I said yes. He then proceeded to take three classes, and make three drinks using spices, powders and water! I was horrified to realise that I would now have to drink plain tap water. RULE NO 1 for foreigner when travelling India : Don't drink tap water! But what could I say...he had already started making them and he was very excited for me to try them and tell him which was the best. So when he finished mixing them I said a prayer and gave them all a taste.
Glass 1 tasted like curried water.
Glass two tasted like mildly different curried water.
Glass 2 tasted like: Slightly stronger curried water.
It was at this point that I had to apologize and tell him I didn't like any of them.
He then said eagerly : "Wait we mix them all together and then you try."
(uuhm....ok, I had serious doubts that mixing 3 classes of curried water together would taste like anything else, other than curried water.....but I tried it non the less)

Apologizing again for rejecting his drink, he didn't seem to fussed and said he would drink it later! We then started chatting about how hard it is to find the right meditation and classes in Rishekesh (yes I initiated that conversation...I needed guidance dammit!) and his comment was simple:
"There are many men here that want to take money from you , just because you are white. You must be very careful. Remember that no true Swammi will ever ask you for money. Any one that asks you for money you must be very careful of."
ME: So you dont take money for your classes..?
Hari Baba: Never. I have no need for money
ME: But if you dont take any money how do you survive.
Hari Baba: God provideds for me always. Everything I need to live comes to me. ( I later discovered that he does get a small pension from his Ashram.....but that would probably just cover his food)
We also spoke about my frustration at never knowing when or who to give too in India, and again he said..."There are a lot of people that need help in India....never give money to people that ask you. You will know when it is right to give by simply trusting your heart. If it feels right you will give, if it doesn't then dont."
It was at this point that I told him about lost Goa boy in Hardiwar as my evidence of when giving feels good...only to have Hari Baba shake his head and start laughing.
"There are many people that do that scam, they simply have 'glistening' (not sure what he meant by that) to make tears. You were scammed!"
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo !!!!

He however found it incredibly funny, so Im glad he got some enjoyment out of it!;-)
Later that evening when I came to his chanting class he was still having a good laugh and seemed to enjoy telling all his friends and teasing me about it!

My final and last sign......Hari Baba reflected back exactly what I was thinking and I couldn't in good conscience go to a class of someone whose main interest was money.....ethics didn't matter if he was teaching 'history' 'maths' or any other subject, but it mattered with religion.

Was ever so proud of myself for making serious bonafide decision ALL by myself ....lol except of course for all my signs:-)

So no class, meant no ashram either! ( Thank you God)

But just because I wasn't staying in an ashram didn't mean I wasn't a serious 'spiritual' student ...so I devised a plan for the whole week and this is how it went:

Firstly I would book out of my lovely, clean Raj Hotel Palace room (with TV)and move into the also clean, but smaller and much cheaper, TV-less room downstairs, because as we have all already learnt: TV rots your soul!;-)

Then for the next week I would do the following:

6.15am Hindu meditation at Van Prastha Ashram
7.30am English meditation at Sri Ved Niketan Ashram
8.30am Run back to hotel for Yoga class
4.00am - 5.30 Would attend meditation course the Hari Baba was running at his Ashram
5.30am Attend Hindo chanting at banrif Ashram also with Hari Baba.

I had a plan, I felt motivated....all my thinking and worrying had paid of.

So Sunday night I settled down to watch disgustingly, girlish Chick flick that I had been looking forward to for the last 3 days. My reward for coming up with my plan! I was well stoked! (that means happy...for some of the oldies reading this:-)
20 minutes before the movie ended all the electricity cut off (happens alot here)
Spent the next 20 minutes pleading with God to PLEASE turn the electricy back on because this was my reward and he was ruining it! Needless to say he didn't listen...so eventually went to bed to get a good nights sleep....because I had a plan!!!

3.30am I wake up with what can only be described as tiny little pieces of glass in my eye...stumbled out of bed, switched on light and there staring back at me is big, red, gungy eye. Groaned "Whhhhhhhhhhhyyyyyyy?", and got back into bed. When the alarm clock went at 5.45..there was just no way in hell I was going to wake up then. The doctors wouldn't be open till about 9am which meant 3 hours of unecessary pain. So my lovely, strategically planned plan, unfortunately had to be put on hold!

At about 8.30 I head off to the Shivananda Ashram where they have a medical centre. ( this is also one of the most popular Ashrams in the Rishekesh hence you need to book 3 months in advance) Anyway, lets just say I have new found respect for our medical systems.....there was a massive long queue of people with all sorts of ailments having to simply just stand and wait. I stood for about 10 minutes in the line and it did not move an inche. I then pretty much got ushed through to the front of the queue due to the fact that Im a foreigner. (Neurotic angel was a having a field day telling me how I should wait like the rest of them, I however chose to ignore her as I was in pain and just wanted to go home) In India they have an old Hindu proverb which basically means: "The guest is God" ...hence the reason they are all so keen to always help foreigners.
So I got drops and ointment and discovered that "eye- flu" is fairly common during monsoon time" While I was there I got the time table for the Ashrams daily activities, including a lecture in the evening which were all free!!!! So was very happy to have found a replacement lecture in 'Legit' Ashram and added it to my plan.

Couldn't really do much that day, other than go to the afternoon mediation and singing...so worked on my blog. Tomorrow my eye would be better and the plan would commense.
Tuesday morning I woke up with my alarm at 5.45..... with TWO eyes COMPLETELY swollen and glued together with OOSY GUNK. I looked like Fiona from Shrek, and although my brother Bruce seemed to think this would make a funny picture- believe me it wasn't!!!

Turned of the alarm and went back to bed.

I spent pretty much most of the day with my sunglasses on. I managed to go to the morning meditation at 7.30...and as Hari Baba and I left the ashram on our little walk home, he saw me paying for his class. He was very upset and said that I shouldn't be paying! His class was free. I tried to explain that the Ashram had told me when I first asked on Monday that I had to pay! But no, he was not happy. He re-iterated the fact that he HAD told me no one pays for his classes! Trying to make him understand that I was only doing what I was told to do didn't work either, so yes, I felt like a mildly chastised child! But, never the less it made me smile, even "holy men" can have their buttons pushed!

That evening I decided to go and give the lecture at the Shivananda Ashram a try.
I had just walked into the massive hall when who should I bump in to but a foreigner....a gorgeous one at the that. ( Mental Prayer: God why do you always send the good looking ones after, or during illness?)
It was raining again so I couldn't hide under the disguise of my sunglasses any more....so I stood chatting to Geoff from Chicargo, (who was 'actually' staying in Ashram) the whole time desperately praying that Icky-Gungy puss was no longer seeping out of my eyes, as had been doing the whole day. I lasted about 4 minutes into the conversation and then just had to put sunglases on. ( because clearly sitting in the dark, in the rain with sunglasses on was less embarrassing than huge,puffy infected eyes) Was suitably gutted when lecture started and I realised that women and men had to sit separately in the temple. Dam! But never the less was in REAL ashram, with real 'Ashram' people so would get over the disappointment.

The 2 hour lecture that I was really looking forward to started with some chanting done by monks....which lasted 45 minutes. Now dont get me wrong, I LOVE chanting....but what I really couln't get used to was the really, really hard floor. (In Hari baba's little room he has lovely pillows everywhere! How I wished I had a pillow!) MY bum ached. The entire 45 mintues I kept trying to get comfortable, all the time reminding myself to: "PULL it together Gayle...You are in a REAL ashram now, with REAL'Ashram' people...Bite through the pain!!!!"
BY the time the 45 minutes was up my back was also killing me and I was seriously considering just doing a runner.( After all didn't Hari Baba say if you did something you should do it with an open heart???) My heart at that moment was directly linked to my arse and my back that were both in pain and miserable. But if I did a runner.....what about cute man Geoff? I wouldn't get to chat to him afterwards....(Angel: "Gayle that is soooooooooooo not the reason you are here, focus dammit!")I had just about given up fighting with myself and had decided to leave as soon as the introduction speech for the lecturer had ended.

The introduction speach went like this:
"Welcome to our beautiful Ashram, all are most greatly welcome here. May the undesirables remove themselves or be removed by the ashram....."

You have got to be kidding me God!!!! How the hell could I leave after that statement?! ( let it never be said that God doesn't have a sense of humour!)
And so I sat for another hour listening to a lecture that I could barely understand, the whole time wondering why on earth all the Monks got to sit on lovely soft mattresses and I didn't even warrant a meager cushion??? Intermittently,of course, peering around the room wondering where cute man Geoff was sitting.

Now it was during this painful, painful hour that I eventually began to see the hilarity of this whole BLOODY situation.

Here I was doing exactly what I had wanted, in real 'BONIFIED' ashram, with calm, centred people (who knew all the words to the chants!) and....AND.... I was completely miserable! And on top of that I was still sitting there, simply because I didn't want to look like an "undesirable"
Heaven forbid this 'WHOLE' room of strangers, who I will probably never see again think that I am an undesirable!
Dont get me wrong, as much as I hated it, I still believe that the whole 'Ashram experience' can be incredibly powerful, but lets face it, it takes time to learn self discipline and patience ... Elizabeth Gilbert spent 4 months in an Ashram....thats 120 days (and for over a month of that time, she herself hated it) AND yet I had hope to achieve, all she had done in ONE week? Did I really think one week would be enough to banish the many voices that recide inside my head ( For the record: In Life Coaching we call these voices 'Gremlins', and we all have them in some form or another...some of us are just more skilled at ignoring the buggers! ;-)

I had spent so much time worrying and planning my ashram week, and in 7 days I was going to achieve what exactly? Develop self discipline! Attain inner peace! Ooze calmness, Conquer 35 years of bad eating habits, build a stronger (and significantly more waif like) body AAAAAAANNNNNDDDDDDDD dont forget find God?

and where exactly was I going to find him....?

It's funny....last night I opened my book Autobiography of a Yogi (by Paramhansa Yogananda) that I haven't touched for weeks. I was exactly on the place where he finally gets to the Himalayas.....somewhere he has always wanted to go to....ever since he was child. Half of the book he has spent talking about his deep desire to go to the Himalayas to achieve: "continuous divine communion with God"
It was here after a horrendously hard and tireless journey that he eventually came face to face with another great yogi known as the 'sleepless saint'

After much discussion on why he had actually come there the Sleepless Saint ends up asking Paramhansa
"At home, are you able to have little room where you can close the door and be alone?
"Yes" Paramhansa answered
"Well That is your cave, that is your sacred mountain. That is were you will find the kingdom of God!"

Wise words I think! I have already started the journey of a life with God and it didn't start a month ago when I came to India.

So thus brings me to almost the end of my week in Rishekesh, and my 6 weeks in India. No I didn't stick to all my plans, (neurotic angel still popped up on numerous occasions: mostly for how many hours I have spent blogging!) and I didn't stay in an ashram! But I have absolutely loved the whole experience! Lets just say through writing all of this down, I am more able to see my 'emotioanl colour blindness' exactly for what it really is. An absolute pain in the arse and a complete waste of time!;-)

So I guess I might as well put down the hatchet every now and then, give myself a break and learn to start enjoying the flow. Something the best life coach in the world has been telling me for about mmmmmmmmm 4 years...thanks Harvey, (You see I do listen to you.....it just takes a while to sink in sometimes!!!!)

And last thing. During the course of my yoga class this week, very sweet yoga instructor had a mild obsession with my gorgeous topaz ring that I bought in Mount Abu. After my first Yoga lesson last week he called me, asked me what it was, and then informed me that it had very bad energy and that bad things would happen to me if I continuead to wear it.
"Like a dog will bite you". MMMMM....ok! Lucky for me I dont believe in all that hog wash and simply ignored him.
Seeing as the ring seemed to bother him so, I took it off for most of our session, except for yesterday when I forgot....and yes I got another lecture! Trying to explain to him that I really liked it and that it had sentimental value really didn't help either. He then told me "fine you can put it in frame and on wall and look at it ever day, but not wear, bad energy....you must wear pearl. Pearl is good energy!"

On my usual little walk with Hari Baba this morning I decided to ask him what he thought about all this 'bad energy' supposable seeping from my ring!
His answer was this: "Gayl-ee (he has very sweet pronunciation of my name) you need to not listen to what other people tell you. You need to listen to your heart only. Only you can tell if something is good or bad for you! "

Who knows by the end of this holiday I might actually have learnt this lesson!

Love you all

x

ps.....I had to add this....so arrived back in Hardiwar this evening. (I catch the train to Delhi tonight at 12.40!) Walked into a restaurant and there was this lovely, happy, smiley man sitting at the table with two women. We struck up a conversation, only for me to discover that they are all from South Africa. I then found out that lovely, smiley man is actually a REAL life swami all the way from SA...no less!!! WE had a good laugh talking about the experience I had had with swami D...and he said that he had heard so many people say exactly the same thing!! Yeheeee I made the right choice.....It was all rather kind of surreal really.....had a great chat him and then got the biggest, love filled hug I have had in months! A great way to end India I think....

Cupids work is never done!

Hello again.....yes can you believe it weeks with nothing and now 2 blogs in one day!!!
I am just desperate to get rid of the blog backlog so I can start writing daily. I guess the easiest thing to do would be to simply start from today and forget the back log...but unfortunately for my brain, that's far to rational...and definitely not an option;-)


So I had spent 3 hours waiting in Delhi train station for my connecting train to Hardiwar. I had attempted to go out to get some thing to eat but rickshaw men wanted RS600 to take me to the restaurant a couple of km away.....high way robbery to say the least...but I have come to expect nothing less at stations. They see you lugging your massive rucksack around and know you are at their mercy and usually have no option but to use them. (Although that been said I have never had such a high quote before!) Had I had more energy I would have put up a fight and shopped around...but a group of them all started yelling at each other and when I said I wasn't paying that price one of the men blatantly said: "Fine you go then." Which I happily did. As I walked away one of the other men came running after me "ok, ok RS 100"....but by then I had mentally given up. So returned to the station and sat on the filthy floor with the other hundreds of people there...and even managed to fall asleep for about half an hour.( until some Indian boy walked past and thought it would be really funny to shout: "Wake UP!!!;-) at me. ( Don't worry mum all bags where attached to various limbs.....besides you have so many peope staring at you....it would be virtually impossible for some one to steal some thing without it been noticed.

Anyway so eventually I set off to find my train and was on the platform waiting when a Western girl walked past and we started chatting! She was Swiss and one of the most luminously beautiful people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. She was tall, with flawless skin and the most incredible light green eyes! (what is it with all these beautiful eyed people coming into my life?)She could have quite easily just have stepped out of a magazine! (Any illusions I might have had about my waif like existence where pretty soon shattered after meeting her;-) (Spent the next 3 days continual reminding myself: You are not a teenager anymore gayle!)
So needless to say she was absolutely lovely and we were both very relieved to discover that we were both going to Hardiwar. I was amazed to discover that she was only 19. (sorry 19 and 50 weeks:-) and this was her first time travelling alone. (And she chooses India?? Brave and beautiful!) On talking I discovered that she had planned on going up north as she was very eager to go do some trekking in the Himalayas. She had however now changed her plans as people had told her it was flooding and not possible. I found that a bit hard to believe because I vaguely remembered Gorgeous French boy was heading to that exact area and he had also been mildly elated about going trekking. ( Needless to say 'trekking' is on my list of 100 things NOT to do before I die!)
I thought to myself that it was such a shame that they hadn't met each other, and told her to look out for Frenchie on her travels.

( might I just add at this point.....as predicted good old Karma came back an bit me in the arse for stealing from cabbie man in Calcutta. When Buying my tickets in Calcutta the really great, helpful guy who sold me my ticket told me it would be Rs2000 in total. RS 1400 to get to Delhi and RS390 to get to Hardiwar. I had been in such a mad rush that day that I was quite happy to pay him the RS 210 service fee and I didn't even question checking the ticket before I took it from him.
I then discovered that for the Hardiwar section of the journey he had bought me the absolute cheapest ticket, no air con and right next door to the engine with its massive, massive Hooter!! (that went the entire 3.5 hours) The ticket only cost RS107...giving him a massive bonus of....just under RS 500! Cheeky bugger!
I wasn't to stressed about it though....infact was almost relieved to pay my penance for jilting poor cabbie man! The moral of the story is DON'T cheat...because it comes back to you!:-)
Besides I was just incredibly happy to be spending the next couple of days with lovely Swiss girl.

Hardiwar as a city is small and beautiful, with not much to see but loads of character. I was also quite hopeful that I might find an Ashram here as it was listed as having a couple and is not as 'touristy' as Rishekesh ( Yoga capital of India) which was going to be my final stop in India.

The next day we set out to go and look at some of the Ashrams but unfortunately nothing really grabbed me. It seems that I have chosen possibly the worst time to go to find an Ashram as most of them are not running full programs due the fact that it is the off peak season. So I had to then readjust my hopes back onto Rishekesh...even though loads of people say it is incredibly touristy and a lot of the Ashrams there were simply out to make money. I was beginning to think that maybe all those people the wrote about Ashrams online were right in saying...."do your research before hand, all the good Ashrams book up months in advance!" ( why do we never listen to the experts and always think we know best?;-) But never the less I hung onto what little hope I had left.....positive that something would turn up!

My second day in Hardiwar and I was out by myself when I was I was approached by a young Indian man. He was very well dressed, and said he was from Goa. He had a really good English accent, unlike any other I have heard so far which made the Goa thing definitely plausible. He spoke really quickly and was incredibly nervous. He said that he was a musician and that last night he had had all his stuff stolen coming up on the train. He said the police won't help him and now he is stuck here with no money, and he cant get home... he had some friends staying in another city and he just needed RS450 rupees to get the train there.

I am very proud to say that this time Good old 'Common Logic' stepped in right away:
"Yeh right, I'm so not falling for this again!"
I immediately told him that I wouldn't give him the full amount...but that I would give him RS 100 towards it. (So much for standing my ground)
He thanked me and quickly, put his head down and walked away without the money. I watched him walk away when 'Angel' piped in: "Oh for the love of God, Gayle please tell me that man isn't crying?" I ran after him and yes he was crying. He looked absolutely heart broken, completely stranded and just ...well pitiful! (a feeling I have experienced one or two times while traveling.) ....so what else could I do ..but give him the money! He thanked and hugged my profusely and I have to admit at the time I genuinely, 100% thought it was legit....I came away feeling mildly elated that I was able to help someone and confident that if it was a scam then his 'Oscar' worthy acting was well worth the RS500 he walked away with!

Our final day in Hardiwar and my new friend and I were heading off to Rishekesh together. I went out early in the morning to go and try catch up on some blogging....when who should I bumped into in the middle of Hardiwar??
Ah yes gorgeous blue/green eyed, French boy from Bodghaya! What are the chances of that?
My immediate reaction was one of pure elation......until I suddenly remembered my wish two days before! Dam!!!! I was gutted to realized that yes, the 'travel gods' had sent him here not for me but for lovely Swiss girl!!! After all its only right that two such beautiful, perfectly symmetrical people, with stunning eyes ....who both love the Himalayas should meet....and my job was simply to facilitate this!

Which I am proud to say I did beautifully.....four hours later the two of them where making plans to hire a car for 8 days and both very excited to be going to the Himalayas. Of course they wanted me to come with, but realizing 2's company and 3's a crowd and acknowledging the fact that I HATE trekking I politely declined and sent them on their way.
Yes the self sacrifices of being a real live cupid are great...but the perks are high....isn't that right Harvey and Kate? And Melissa and Ollie (yes I am so taking credit for that one!!!!;-)

Needless to say my title has now been modified to 'Saint Gayle Rescuer of small puppies and fixer upper of beautiful trek loving travelers'. I take no payment for my work...but feel free to send large donations to my Saint Gayle Foundation!
(www.saintgayle.co.uk)

And now I need to rest!!! Rishekesh...here I come!!! (well technically Im already here... but you guys are all behind for some reason!;-)
Loads of love as always

ps Midget my mum says you sound 'cute' ....am worried that other people might be forming this false opinion of you.....so am posting photo online to end all such speculation!! Dont be fooled people!!!;-)

Just 3 minutes?

Ok so I'm back.....as promised to finish off my Calcutta expedition, (am currently about a week behind so this might be long one , sorry;-)

So were was I .....I had just survived my first Calcutta scamming, and was reasonable unscathed when I asked a man how far Chowringhee road was...he very kindly pointed to the traffic lights ahead and said I had to turn right and I would be there. mmmm....Sounded easy enough. When entering the given road I discovered that no, I wasn't in Chowringhee road.
So I asked some one else....."oh just turn left at the end of this road"
Me: "How far? "
Man: "Only three minutes!"

I won't bore you with the details....but lets just say an hour later I was still walking and still getting "just up the road directions" You might be wondering why I wasn't using my guidebook map at this point....a fair question....and the reason is simple: Lonely planet maps SUCK!

Sweating profusely in the boiling mid day heat I eventually stopped to ask a group of businessmen who were standing outside their building having a smoke. (did I mention that I am over a month smoke free.?;-) Anyway they mostly spoke English and burst out laughing when I showed them where I wanted to be.
"you are miles away from there...you cant walk it...its over 8km...you need to get a cab"
So mildly fuming I hailed myself a cab. As I jumped in I asked him if he knew where the street was, he nodded...then drove a bit, stopped and wanted to have a look at my map. No he was pretty clueless and had absolutely NO idea were one of the main touristy streets was in Calcutta. He then proceeded to drive around for a bit, at which point I thought bugger this I'm getting out! His fair was RS22 but I only had RS500 on me and he had absolutely no change on him. And so we we sat there in a stale mate both of us saying: "no change!" Now what annoyed me is that most of the time when people don't have change (and its easily 60% of the time) they go out of their way to try and find it. He did nothing of the sort...infact he seemed to think that I should just give him the RS500 and call it quits! Over my dead body! By this time my temper was pretty fueled...and I am ashamed to admit I did something I am not particularly proud of, I just got out the cab and walked away with him still shouting at me.
(Of course Neurotic angel was having a field day.)
Angel: That's absolutely disgusting Gayle, how could you possibly cheat that man out of his money! You know karma is going to get you you for that!
Luckily for me 'Fuming Anger' seems to have superiority over Neurotic angel and simple told her to :"Shut it, I'm not in the mood.!"

After asking two more cabbies who also didn't have a clue where my street was I asked another man, on the verge of tears......and he said: Oh its just at the end of this road.
Me: How long?
Man: About 3 minutes!

I was out of cab options so had no other choice but to simply walk......almost 2 hours after the first 3 minute comment I crawled exhausted into my room.
As lovely as Calcutta was I didn't have the energy for another day like that. I didn't feel like a worldly traveller I felt like a complete failure. Lonely planet is always so full of all these "interesting" "quirky" little things to do, with simple instructions like: "Just jump onto the no. 8 tram...or take a bus from the down down station." I couldn't even find way home so how the hell I was going to find the bus station was beyond me. Defeated and miserable, I dragged myself out to get something to eat. I went to go and see if I could organise a car for the following day but the going price seemed to be RS 1300 and there was no way I could afford that on my budget. So was just walking around feeling rather hopeless when as if by magic I met lovely Indian boy called Vicki.
I think what I immediately liked about him was his "lack of interest" in me. He was just chilled, relaxed and not clambering to take me on his bike. We had a chai ( on the street - I m getting braver) and were talking about my day, when he said he would walk me home and then help me plan my next day. So we spent the next 20 minutes drawing all over my "useless" lonely planet map and planning how I was going to get to places and how much I should "actually" be paying for taxis! ! Needless to say I felt massively relieved and we agreed to meet up the next night for dinner!

The next morning I felt determined as ever! I could do this! I set out to get my first cab to the flower market. Vicki has said it was less than 2km and that I should only pay no more than RS30 to get there (going rate is RS10 per km)...... RS100 later I was there! ( I forgave myself...due to the fact that taximan was stubborn individual who kept insisting it was 8km!! I just wanted to get there!)
We pulled up and he motioned down a road...but I didn't see any flower market!

AHA!
I wasn't falling for that again! I told him I wasn't getting out till I saw the flower market. He reluctantly drove forward about 100 minutes and there it was! ( Not even the road he had pointed at all!)

Jubilant I jumped out...I had actually made it to my first port of call. I was sooo proud!! The flower market was run down but beautiful! (I think the photo's say it all) Next stop: Howler train station....looked at "useless" map, got my bearings and asked man: "Just across the road and over the bridge."
I Continued to ask people and 15 minutes later I was back where I started...at the flower market.

Frustration and terror beginning to filter in....I set off in the opposite direction....don't ask me why? (You see in all honesty maps are brilliant if you actually know what street you are in.....but most of the time its impossible to find street names.) I eventually found some policeman and was relieved to find that I was on the main road heading towards the train station...yeheee! All I had to do was walk straight for about 2km! I could do that!:-) Half way there it started raining so I hailed a cab. Now in the guide it says that you mustn't get into a cab unless they have the meter running. Cabbie man absolutely refused to put the metre on and wanted R50 to go 1km? No bloody ways, so continued to walk in the rain. ( Noted to self : Buy an umbrella!!) 20 minutes later I walked into the train station with the biggest smile on my face, confident in the knowledge that I am not a complete idiot and I can get myself from A to B. Happily requested a ticket to a religious centre called Belur Math. Very kindly Indian man smiled at me sweetly and said: "You have the wrong station mame, you want Howler station.....its across the bridge on the other side of the flower market."
Looked in desperation at my "useless " map only to discover that yes it was. I think my face said it all because in that instant it suddenly HIT me.....I am truly and COMPLETELY directionless and I can't read bloody maps!!!! Its not the Lonely planet map that is useless. Its ME!!!!
Sweet station man seemed to find this all quite funny and said: "Come we put you on bus"
Two minutes later he had flagged down a bus for me and I was on my way to Howler station for a mere RS 8. With my mood suddenly buoyant again I had an Epiphany! Just maybe if I accepted my 'directionless' flaw and stopped worrying about the destination the whole time then I could simply start "enjoying" the journey... (How deep is that? Mmmmmm haven't I read that somewhere before....like 100 times?:-)

And so continued the rest of my day......I managed to somehow get myself to all but one of my planned places in a very Haphazard and round about way. (I had to go back to howler station 3 times for different destinations, which probably could have been avoided but I didn't care.) I was traveling BY MYSELF on public transport!!! I figured out that in India you don't need to have any sense of direction. All you need is a bus station and a map. (hell you don't even need the bus station....a road with buses will do!)
Its like this: You go up to someone who looks like they might be able to speak English. (again it doesn't matter if they don't cause the plan still works) You point on the map and within 3 minutes you will be surrounded by at least 10 Indian men. They all start shouting at each other and pointing in various directions till agreement is found and one of them will shout: "Come follow" and will then take you right to your bus....even if they have to stop traffic to do so! Its brilliant! I manage to do a whole days sight seeing spending less than RS60! (Excluding My R100 for the taxi of course!)

I hadn't planned of course not to use any taxi's but I soon discovered that all the taxi's I stopped absolutely refused to use the metre and then quoted me a price at least 3 times more than it should have been. I later found out from another traveler that they always do that and I "should " have had the transport police's number on my phone and threatened to call them, he did this and it worked every time. Alas this I did not know ( I blame my guide) ......so buses it was for the whole day.

( One of the places that I visited was the Botanical Gardens which was absolutely beautiful. It had the most incredible Giant Amazon Lily pads in the water that where all over a metre wide.
There was also a very famous tree called the Banyan tree that is over 250 years old. The tree occupies a 140 metre area and basically looks like hundreds of trees in a forest....every single tree however is part of one central trunk that rotted away in the 1920's. Its incredible to see, as the branches all have massive roots growing down into the ground.

That evening I met Vicky for dinner, and he looked really sweet with a trendy little bowler hat on. Before we went to dinner he took me for a walk through the night market which was amazing. The place was absolutely heaving with people. It was here while we were walking that I probably saw one of most disturbing thing I have seen in India so far...a man with no legs or arms was lying on the ground face down, eyes closed chanting (but sounded more like groaning). Next to him was a plate for money. A couple of metres on there was another one...also lying face down....(obviously positioning them selves well to add the horror of what you were seeing and to elicit more money from gullible tourists- like me) And at the end of the road was a table with a little toddler, about 3 years old lying sleeping also with no arms and legs. As far as shock value goes- it was up there on a 8.2 scale, and it literally stopped me in my tracks.
Needless to say those of you who have watched slumdogs millionaire will know this.....
Many children in India are victims of India’s so-called ‘beggar mafia’ —
" Criminals so violent and amoral that they will cut the arms and legs off their victims simply to maximise the children's earning from sympathetic passers-by"
Vicky said they will pay poor parents for their children and I also read that they go so far as to steal babies from the hospitals.
So basically these children are used for props and hardly get any of the money that is payed to them. A valuable lesson I learn that night was not to give money, and to only give food as you just never know who you are giving it too.

The next day I spent with Vicky and he took me to the last couple of places on my list. We spent the first hour riding around trying to find......wait for it: A rubbish heap. We couldn't stop laughing at the fact that only in India would a rubbish heap be listed in the guide as a 'sight to see'
And that is was....I had to put a picture of it in because it was just incredible....it was so huge it looked like a mountain and the smell around it was atrocious. Guide says: "This heap (due for eventual removal) support a community of destitute scavengers who scape together a miserable existence living in tent and box shacks on the neighboring pavements."

After that we went to the Mother Teresa Mother House and watched a film about her life which was pretty incredible. How someone can be so completely dedicated to the welfare of others is amazing!

That night I caught a non stop sleeper coach to Delhi...which was fantastic. It was kind of like a flight on tracks with them bringing refreshments and all your meals.
I ended up talking to a really sweet man from Calcutta that lives in Delhi, mostly about South African politics. ( Noted to myself....mmmm....about 1 minute into the conversation that unlike my politically minded brother, I myself was clueless about SA politics and that it should probably be illegal for me to even open my mouth on the topic;-) Never the less then made a mental vow to listen more to Lloyd when he sprouts intelligent political stuff!;-)


Anna Spanner....I just found out that mum has been posting you my blog ( dont I have a sweet mother!) ....so glad you are hearing all my news and looking forward to seeing you at Christmas time. Hope you are well Yayaai Paai, love you lots!

Ode to Kelly: Make the voices stop!

Hello all,

Ok so after been sick for the last week I had pretty much decided that I couldn't face going to Culcatta, and would do a massive skip to greener pastures, aka Rishikesh. It was only after meeting and speaking to gorgeous blue/green eyed Frenchman, (previously mentioned) who had just arrived from there that I decided to 'suck-it-in' for 2 more days and just go.

What can I say say about Calcutta? ....on arriving at the train station, rather than being surrounded and bombarded with rickshaws there where hundreds of bright yellow taxis. Driving through the city I was amazed at how incredibly clean it was, how controlled the traffic was and the massive, all be it run down, green parks that we passed. My hotel, which kind Frenchman found in his guide for me (bit dubious about trusting good old lonely planet these days) was clean and friendly. Setting off to find some lunch...I was pleasantly surprised to be able to walk around the small streets quite easily, with minimal hassle. There where loads of shopping stalls and even an ' India styled shopping mall. I was impressed, this was not the city of squalor and poverty I had been envisioning. Calcutta is by far now one of my loveliest Indian cities.

After lunch I set off to try and find the Victoria memorial. (Built to commemorate Queen Victoria's 1901 diamond Jubilee. Stated in the guide:"Had this been built for a beautiful Indian Princess, and not a dead Colonial queen , it would surely rate as one of India Greatest Buildings" I was approached by an old guy who offered to take me there in his Rickshaw and I happily agreed. I was mortified when I realised that he actually owned one of those pull rickshaws, no horse, no donkey, no bicycle, just an old man and his old legs. (As far as I'm concerned it's slave labour) and I felt incredibly pompous and hypocritical sitting there been pulled by this poor man......especially when he would attempt to start running to keep up with the traffic....by the time he dropped me off I felt compelled to double his asking price of a mere RS20 just to ease my conscience....

Lesson 3: When in India....make sure you are dropped off right outside the entrance of you destination.

Old Rickshaw man gave me a big toothless smile and pointed around the corner. I think telepathically what he meant to say was:
"This is the main road, I'm not allowed on the main road, your destination is around the corner, across the suicide main road, around the massive park, across the road on your left, walk for another 5minutes and there it will be! Hope you have an umbrella? Oh and thanks for the tip! " And he was off.
Some 25 minutes later after asking about 6 people, and getting caught in a torrential storm.(You would think I have an umbrella by now:-) .I eventually found the VM. Nevertheless I was still smiling, The VM was stunning, the city was beautiful, the people were friendly and I got to take photo's of a foal for Hannah. (aka Utlah- sorry babe your alias is out:-)

After the VM I went to look at St Paul's Cathedral only to discover that it was closed between 12- 3. Was sitting down outside the church, minding my own business, when I'm approached by really chatty, friendly Indian women. She sat down and offered to take me to the local village area. Before I could even answer she had then started telling me her entire life's story. She is a nurse, but she only gets RS400 a week. She was married and had a daughter in collage. (collage is very expensive you know) She was waiting for the church to open because she desperately needed to get money from the church to buy her husbands medicine. Now I have to be honest, immediately alarm bells were going off and I just wanted to get away. But not been brought up to be rude...I struggled to find an opening/ or a pause, at which I could make my escape. I got told how the church continually refused to help her with the money, as did the Mother Teresa House.....she hadn't eaten in 2 days, and her shoes were falling apart. Her husband couldn't work because of the sever pain caused by his brain tumor!! "What could she do?" "What could she do?" She implored me.
At this point a man walked over who she introduced as her husband. He didn't really look like he had a brain tumor....but seen as Im hardly a qualified physician I decide I had no right to make that call. I then made the fateful mistake of asking..."How much is the medicine!" Within seconds she had whipped out the prescription sheet for me....RS450.- Mmmmmmmm...So he was literally only 6 pounds away from a pain free existence....how could I not help? I figured if she was waiting to get medication from the church (thought there might be a health centre in there....) then they would know straight away if she was scamming...so I would be pretty safe. So yes, I agreed to go into the church and get the medicine for her. No sooner as there words were out my mouth was she shouting to her pain infested husband that she was going to get medicine and walking down the road calling me to follow. At this point, yes I should have voiced my objection, but no I didn't- I simply followed meekly. Its OK I rationalized....we are going to go to chemist and actually buy the stuff so the money wont be wasted. First chemist we arrived at this women walked in and shouted rudely at the man who was talking to someone else, once she got his attention and had handed him her prescription he took one look at it, shook his head, gave it back to her and waved her out the shop. She then said to me: "He doesn't have it, we go to next place" And again we set off. There was something about the pace that she was walking and her manner with people that she passed that just made me feel uneasy and for the next 10 minutes we walked I was overwhelmed and in complete turmoil as my inner voices went to war!(lets just call them Irrational Angel and Common Logic!)
Angel: "Gayle stop being so tight arsed, its only 6 pounds for goodness sakes, what ever happened to giving with an open heart?"
Common Logic: "Gayle you are a bloody idiot! 90% of your gut says this women is scamming you,so why are you falling for it? "
Angel: "Brain TUMOR! What if the man REALLY does have a brain tumor? You are in Calcutta Gayle , I bet Mother Tersa wouldn't have thought twice about about helping poor man with a brain tumour! Shame on you!"
Common Logic: "ahhh yes very mature and now you compare myself to the most compassionate person in the world? You fall short miserably! You know she is probably going to go and simply resell the medicine! You know this Gayle!! "
Angel: "That's not really the point and you know it.....even if she is scamming you she still needs the money more than you do......how dare you be so selfish?"
Common Logic: So in a country filled with people begging for help you are going to help the person who is literally lying to your face? So much for your 'love of honesty Gayle!!"
Angel: "Brain tumour! Brain Tumour!Brain Tumour!!! "

So while my inner dialogues were battling it out she then started talking to me about how she has a sister in Canada and wealthy family in Delhi, but she would never dream of asking them for anything.
Angel: "How noble!"
Common Logic: (fuming)" No of course not but you will ask a complete stranger (namely ME!)simply because I am white???? "
It was at this point that I have to admit....good old Common Logic won and I decided in all good conscience I really wasn't comfortable giving her all that money, so I handed her RS100 and marched my 'tight arse' out of there. Needless to say she wasn't very happy, and I then had to deal with the annoying voice of angel berating me the entire way home. She was eventually silenced when I stopped and spoke to a chemist about it, and he said without a shadow of a doubt that she would have simply gone and sold the medication again, and the reason the first chemist wouldn't give it to her was because the prescription was probably out of date! So Yeah for Common Logic. It took a while but she prevailed..... eventually!


Now there is point to this whole story....(I promise) and no its not to shine a light on two of the many voices that continually run through my head on a daily basis. (Alas its hard being me!:-)
I have spent the last couple of days thinking about how, this, has to be the absolutely worse thing about traveling India. Its not the dirt, the constant staring (or the spiting) or even the poverty itself....its the sheer guilt you feel every single time you are confronted with some one begging for money. Its the knowledge that your days spending money could possible feed this person for an entire month or that while you are here on holiday enjoying the sights and experiences, people are scavenging for food and money simply trying to stay alive.
Its also the continual awareness that the tourist industry itself plays such a massive part in maintaining and perpetuating the status quot in India,. As the guide book says : It would probably be better to donate your money to a reputable charity, so it could be put to good use. But for me, personally, although I am sure Im not alone ....giving money has very little to do with actually improving their life style, its simply a means to an end in helping to relieve the overwhelming guilt that I constantly feel for simply having money. And yet every time I give, I'm then compounded with the double guilt that I am actually making the problem worse.

Let me give some examples:

While waiting for my train to Calcutta a scruffy station child (one of the hundreds that sleep in the station) came up to me begging for food......for about 5 minutes, continuously...when that didn't work...she dropped to her hands and knees started touching her head on my foot over and over again, all the time looking up at me and motioning for food. I tried ignoring her at first, then asked her to stop, then firmly insisted that she stop.....but eventually I just went and bought her something, only to have another 5 children come crawling out of the wood works 30seconds later all wanting something too! When I wouldn't buy for them all one of the older girls got really angry and started shouting at me. What can you do?

When I was going for ride with Santos in Bodghaya, he took me to a very old holy shrine, but as with most religious shines it was surrounded with beggers. Most of them where incredibly old and frail. As we walked in there was a little old lady sitting by the shine that could have easily been 90 or above. I dont think I have ever seen someone so thin and fragile looking so I gave her a little money. But as always one of the others saw and as a result I had 4 old people all heart breakingly hobbling after me the entire way down the road and once we were on the bike, they started angrily shouting at us as we drove off (had I given them something then the other 12 or so beggars around the side would have also started)

Or how about the little boy that walked up to me with a bleeding arm today begging for money for the doctor ( I doubt he needed a doctor for that little scratch) but never the less he was a persistent littler bugger and he then proceeded to follow me for almost a block. I eventually gave him some money just to get him to go away.

And there in lies their lessons: "Hound Foreigners and eventually they (well the weak one) will give in and pay up! "

So yes.....this for me has been the hardest part of India, knowing deep, deep down that I am actually part of the problem. Am I being too hard on myself.....mmmmm yes probably.....but at the same time it has made me so much more aware of how my actions are completely controlled by my emotions....and that awareness alone, I think is priceless.

and now im shattered...so this will have to be continued tomorrow.....as will my replying to my messages...Midget so glad you are well, but I have my own theories...you will just have to wait and see.

Loads of Love from India

Do this one in sections......

Ok so I now find myself in the awkward position of having all the time in the world to write and a mood like thunder with no inclination whatsoever to say anything remotely positive. My glass is not half empty, its completely drained and I smashed it too. If someone would be kind enough to airlift me out of India tonight...I will be waiting, bags packed, International Hotel, Bodhgaya. I don't care where you take me, as long as its not too hot, its clean, there are no cars, no hooters and I can eat anything else other than toast and strawberry jam, oh plus I will not have to smile, be friendly or make conversation with ANYONE for for at least 2 days.

Yes allas it is true I have turned into one of those rude travelers that's simply walks past and through all the 'hellos' with head down, no smiling, no eye contact no chit chat...I have turned into an ice maiden and I fear the wind might change soon and I will be stuck in this mode forever and ever.....so will someone please come rescue me, because that seems to be what happens in all the movies I have been watching 24/7 for the last 2 days on my 24/hour movie channels. Have you ever noticed how pretty much 90% of movies have 'love stories' in them somewhere? And the guy always gets the girl, in some way or another, even if its the wrong girl.....or the wrong guy...and for a 35 year old single woman, alone in India and sick its enough to send you stir crazy!! Its true...TV rots your brain...I am living proof!

OK so I suppose I could edit all of this and save my pitiful writing for a better. brighter day, but unfortunately for you all my blog seems to have turned into my online diary and so far, for 20 odd years I have always documented my life....journalling seems to be the only way of neutralizing the negativism.....and seen as I have desperately been trying to sit down and write for the last 3 days or so...you are just going to have to bare with me or log off.

For those of you that don't know, or who aren't fortunate enough to be on my mummy grapevine, yehaa I've been sick again....so i do have a reasonable excuse for all this daytime TV watching.....
But I think I need to start at the beginning.....

I think my last blog ended off with Aline (lovely french girl, lives in Australia) getting on a train for Khajuharo. Those of you who know me will know that I hate pre planning my trips, but just this once I decided to prebook my next train from Khajuharo to Varanasi. (two days would be enough...I never seem to spend more than two days anywhere) well as luck would have it....ironically enough...Khajuharo turned out to be one of the loveliest, cleanest, most relaxed cities that I have been in India...one of those places I could have easily spent a week in.
Khajuharo is famous in India for two things, some of the most beautiful temples in the world but more so for the Kama Suta calvings that cover them. (Say no more.) When we arrived at the train station we were picked up by Banti, 23yrs old who very proudly pointed out,first thing, that Khajuhro was the city of 'love' and asked rather cheekily if we were looking for Kama Sutra...I replied very politely that we were not.
On arriving at the hotel, Aline and I decided (after a little persuasion on my behalf) to share a gorgeous room at a very good price so I was incredibly happy...best room I had stayed in so far and it over looked a gorgeous little garden restaurant. ( I was a bit confused as to why she seemed so hesitant to share...I mean honestly...I'm a complete stranger but what harm could I do? me?) Never the less we went for breakfast and started chatting to the restaurant owner, a really sweet guy called Shumi. What can I say about Shumi? Lets see here we have a lovely, kind, charming, single man. He owns 3 restaurants in Khajuharo, a hotel and a sweet shop....and yet we very soon discovered his obsession with finding Western women. I can't for the life of me figure out why so many Indian men are so interested in getting us Western girls? They clearly have no idea how difficult we can be?

After making it very clear that we were not viable candidates....he then decided that I would be his love Guru, renamed Gita and Aline, renamed Amber would be my trusty helper...and together we would teach him the great skills of catching a Western women. Lessons would commence that night over dinner at his other restaurant.

The temples were absolutely incredible, and you could spend hours just looking at the stone carvings, all completely different and mid bogglingly intricate. ( Not to mention mildly entertaining if you know anything about Kama sutra)(mum, dad....I know NOTHING!:-)

Dinner that night was with Shumi, and a friend he had brought along, and was amazing. I know I said I would never take photo's of food...but I simply had to!!! He had made it himself and clearly put loads of effort into it. (I have to admit it was simply the most incredibly thing I have eaten here, so maybe there is something to be said for stepping out of your 'food' comfort zone)

Most of the evening was centred around us trying to convince Shumi that he might actually be limiting himself by refusing to even look at Indian women....but I have to admit I think our attempts were futile.

Now let me digress a little to tell you about every teachers worse nightmare...those tiny little things that attach themselves to your scalp and then lay eggs and have hundreds of babies in your hair....itch like hell and are bloody hard to get rid off. (if you are a teacher we only need to hear the word 'lice' and we start itching)
Anyway...after our lovely meal we sat in the garden telling jokes.....them translating theirs...and us not laughing! And us telling them ours and them not laughing.....( mmmmmmmm I guess any one who has ever heard me try and tell a joke wont be surprised with that:-)
But never the less.....we were all laughing at the fact that we weren't laughing...
I started to feel something in my head. At first I just convinced myself that it was my lice paranoia playing up....(I had found two flees on me after our little play with Pinkie at the station...so had been mildly paranoid since then ) but it persisted to the point that I thought I was going mad... I could feel things running on my head...after about 5 minutes of scratching madly I discovered to my horror...two black bugs that looked like mini beetles. And so I made a my first acquaintance with what the Hindu people called Gandhi. We very quickly excused ourselves, due to my over bearing need to got and comb my hair. (just in case)
Once up stairs I flicked over my head to start combing, only to see hundreds of Gandhi just keep falling out of my hair and onto the ground in front of me. At this point Aline started screaming: They are in your hair!!!(she really didn't need to point that out!) .....and was trying to push me out onto the balcony....I started screaming as I tried to push my was back into the room, combing frantically to get them all out. After Alines initial shock she then seemed to be unable to stop her self from laughing, (I needless to say was at this point still unable to see the funny side) With in the space of 20 seconds our entire room was filled with Gandhi. Horrible, black, evil....light guzzling little Gandhi.
It was at this sad time that I found out my true colours....I ran down stairs to call one of the hotel guys who came up to clear them out. I then being the big girl that I am, locked myself in the bathroom for the next 30 minutes refusing to come out until they were all gone. Yes, I always thought that faced with adversity I would be rather brave.... puke, blood, and other bodily excretions...I have cleaned them all at school without out so much as a blink....but that night I discovered: I don't like bugs!!! I hate bugs...flying ones, crawling ones I don't care, I hate them all. And as far as I am concerned they must all die! It was at that low point that I realised I NEVER want to go bush trekking, or jungle climbing or anything else that will bring me into any close proximity to bugs. My first hand eye witness Aline says that there were hundreds of them all over the bed, floor, our bags and while Hindu, "all-creature-loving" hotel man attempted to brush them gently outside, she STOMPED on the little buggers!!! (much to his dismay, much to my delight)
An hour later I was still hunting lost Gandhi to terminate them with my shoe, while swearing profusely at them in Hindi, when my exasperated but trusty Gandhi slayer Alline tried to convince me to go to sleep because she had set a trap for them in the bathroom! (Gandhi flock to the light, but being rather stupid bugs they often fly into the wall and fall to the ground.( at which point I would be waiting to whack them) ) Alinne had left the light on in the bathroom and filled the floor with water!!! Brilliant! We would drown them all!!

Needless to say Aline couldn't stop laughing throughout the entire "fright night" experience, and I caught on towards the end, but I do think the entire experience has scared me for life. We figured out that as she had opened the balcony door earlier, I had just flicked over my head and caught all the Gandhi in my hair as they were flighing in droves towards the light! Yuk!!

After eventually falling a sleep I woke up at 4pm and violently threw up every single inch of my gorgeous dinner. (See what happens when I move out of my food comfort zone! )

The next day was Banti day. Ever thankful that I wasn't sick again I set out with the hotel driver that I mentioned earlier. He took me on his bike to a smaller outside village. While we were there we went and sat with some villagers and they talked while Banti translated the odd thing or two for me. Two of the girls there couldn't have been older that 22, had both been both married to alcoholics that used to beat them and that had now left them. And so these beautiful gorgeous women are now unable to remarry, have no jobs, no money and the added bonus of their husbands pimping them out as prostitutes when they need money for drink.

When we got back Banti and I went for chai and I got to hear his life's story. In love with a girl since primary school, who is a different caste to him. Her father found out that they were dating, beat her with a pole...and arranged for her to be married to someone else. If traveling India is hard....it can't even touch the surface of how hard it must be for so many people that actually live here.....
It just makes me incredibly thankful that although I'm still single, at least I have hope, and the right to chose my own path in life , whatever or whoever it may be.

In the afternoon Banti and Shumi said that they wanted to take me to see the river. Sounds lovely I said as long as we were back by 6 so I could catch up on some blogging I was happy. I was leaving that night to catch a train to Varanasi. Lesson Number 1: When Indian boy says he "just wants to take you up the road"...ASK how far it is???? We set off in high spirits....they let me drive the tuk-tuk which was fun and I got to wave at loads of gorgeous Indian children on the way. At one point we stopped for something only to have about 8 little boys all clamoring around us laughing, hands outstretched begging for money, biscuits anything. Shumi had half a packet of biscuits that he threw to one of them. Within seconds one of the other boys had thrown the child on the ground and they were rolling around fighting over 2 biscuits....after a couple of minutes the poor child came back to the car with two hand fulls of crumbs and the biggest tears I have ever seen pouring down his face. The other boy was also crying and obviously complaining that he wouldn't share. Crumb boy then reluctantly handed over one handful of crumbs. 40 minutes later we were still driving, and then we hit what can only be described as the worst road in India....and this continued for another 40 min. An hour and a half later we reached the river...which in all fairness was beautiful. It was also very clearly a nice scenic and romantic spot, which set the seen perfectly for the boys carefully thought out proposition. Wouldn't I please stay for a couple more days. I could stay in Shumis hotel, eat at his restaurant and Banti would be my personal chauffeur...all for free. I wouldn't have to spend a cent....AND they would re-buy my ticket to Varanasi when I wanted to go. As flattered as I was I had to explain that if they were this attached to me after one day...then just IMAGINE how heartbroken they would be after 2 more days...(Lesson 2: When in an awkward position use humour to deflect the issue!) So proposition made and rejected...15 minutes later we set off for the 1.5 hour drive back home. I arrived back after 8.30 pm...just in time to grab my stuff and head off to my next train.

Varanasi- also known as Kashi (city of life) is one of the holiest places in India and its a particularly auspicious place to die. Hindus believe that dying here liberates them from the cycle of birth and death, making it the heart of the Hindu universe. Lonely planet says: "Brace yourself. You are about to enter on of the most blindly colorful, unrelentingly chaotic and unapologetic discreet places on earth. Most visitors agree that its a magical place but its not for the faint hearted. Varanasi takes no prisoners. But if you are ready for it, this may just turn out to be your favourite stop of all. "

I was READY!!!! I was ready!! I was strong...and definitely 'not one of those weak, faint hearted people the guide was referring to. I couldn't wait to get there. Having spoken to loads of other travelers who all loved it I was determined to stay put here for a good couple of days.
After another fantastic overnight train ride I couldn't help noticing how clean and refreshed I felt. Wouldn't even need to shower when i got to my hotel...could just head straight out! Bonus!
And then I got off the train. The first thing that hits you is the absolute stench. The train tracks are covered with faeces and people are simply sitting squatting on the edge of the track using it as a toilet. People are everywhere. I noticed a guy clock me as I got off the train and then proceeded to follow me rather unnervingly. As we were climbing the stairs we walked passed an old man, and I instantly thought he was lying rather still....as I walked passed I realized he was dead. His one entire hand was already half decomposed, literally just skin left and his eyes open and completely white, flies every where. By the time I finally exited the maze of a station I wanted to cry my eyes out. ( mmmm...so very strong) Stalker man then approached me to offer me a lift...obviously thinking following me was a 'good' tactic in gaining my trust..
I phoned my hotel for the pick up service and 10 minutes later we were slap bang in the middle of a massive traffic jam. Cars, Bicycles, Rickshaws, smoke, everyone shouting at everyone, hooters blaring. We arrived at the edge of the old town that is built around the many River Ghats in Varanasi and had to walk the rest of the way, 2km of winding fifthly roads with 18kg on my back. By the time we arrived at what can only be described as one of the filthiest hotels I have seen so far I was dripping with sweat, and could barely stand. Took one look at my room and decided that there was no way in hell was going to stay there. After another hour of walking from hotel to guest house with another couple I met along the way...we eventually settled on the 2nd place we had been to.
(It took that long for it to sink in that most accommodation, our price range, is pretty awful in Varanasi. )
The one good thing about our rooms was that as awful as they were (I still have bruises from that rock they call a matress) we did have beautiful views of the Ganges.

Our hotel was right next to the biggest of 2 Burning Ghats. (photo 2)Basically people pay thousands of Rupees to be cremated on the Ganges and their ashes are then put into the water. These cremations are done in public throughout the day...with constant parades of people walking through the streets carrying their loved ones to the ghat. A ceremonial ritual is then carried out before they are publicly cremated.

(A word about the Holy Ganges; The many ghats are flocked to daily for swimming, bathing or washing of clothes. In Varanasi there are 32 points were raw sewage from the town flow directly into the river! Water that is safe for people to swim in should have less than 500 faecal coliform bacteria in every litre. On testing water from the Ganges, samples show 1.5 million per litre. The river is so heavily polluted in parts that the water is actually septic! Shocking stuff hey!!

Sitting down to eat some lunch, finally in the hotel...the beautiful views from the rooftop hotel where slightly marred by the smoke from the cremations.
I struggled my was through my meal, feeling mildly nausea's and decided I needed to go have a shower and a sleep.
I must add at this time that over the last couple of weeks my appetite has been waning considerable.....much to my delight of course. Was very excited to discover my super human ability of surving on 1.5 meals a day and no snacks...add the mild diarrhea, and you have : The worlds best diet ever. (But as is always the case , if it seems too good to be true then it generally is.) Heading out into Varanasi later that evening and the next day ....I struggled. I was finally in my exciting city of choice and I absolutely hated it. The winding little streets are like filthy mazes. Everywhere you look are piles of rubbish.....I watched in amazement as people order food from the stalls simply drop the cups and papers on the floor afterwards. I dont think I ever saw A dusbin while I was there) The stench of rubbish and smoke just seemed to permeate into every inch of my body, I felt constantly nausea, weak and could no longer even bring myself to eat anything. I tried to explore, I really did, I tried to find the great German bakery mentioned in the guide, I found the sign , the door, but no bakery inside? I went on a 5am boat ride to experience the beauty of the Ghats...I just felt sick. I hung around and watch a cremation ceremony...I just felt sick.....I even tried to get past the burning Ghat and explore the other ghats....but got so absolutely lost I had to turn back in tears. And the whole time: Gayle Gremlin is screaming in my head: "You call yourself a traveler?' 'Whats wrong with you women???" "Tough it UP!!!" Eventually after a day and a half of this nausea, physically exhausted and emotionally drained I was forced to declared defeat and accept the fact that maybe I was just not going to get the full "Varanasi experience" in the state that I was in...and just maybe I should get out of this hell hole and try to get better! I crawled back to my grotty hotel, spent half a day arguing with my hotel guy who states he sells train tickets but then seems unable to actually do that....."not possible, not possible" His final suggestion was that I just go to the train station and wait for a bus!! He had no idea what time the bus left...so I could be waiting there the whole day ( Later I found out that the bus left 4am...thank goodness i never took up any of his pearls of wisdom! )

Eventually I got so frustrated with him that I stormed out to find SOMEONE who could actual help me! (It has never been so hard to get out of a city before!) And low and behold....a couple of streets up I did. Clearly it "is possible" to escape Varanasi...if you find someone that actually knows what they are doing. By the time I got home and crawled into bed (or should I say onto the rock), I was dry gagging from nausea and having eaten nothing the whole day..... and had to admit that I wasn't super human...and yes just maybe I had been a complete idiot for not dealing with this a couple of weeks earlier when it had started.

And so I arrived in Bodhgaya almost 6 days ago....and have pretty much spent the whole time resting and just getting better (and writing this blog in sections) Being the drama queen that I am was totally convinced on day 1 that, yes I was going to die of starvation in my room, and like that poor man on Varanasi station, nobody would know who I was or where I had come from...and Id be buried somewhere in India with only "Tall, White women" written on my tomb. The doctor I saw said i needed to eat rice and bananas but I just couldn't stomach the stuff......eventually I started ordering toast....and pretty much just ate that for 3 days.

The last 2 days have been so much better.....and I am please to report I am even smiling again. My first day here I met a really sweet man called Santos who has pretty much been my hero. He found me almost about to murder a poor Rickshaw guy who had insisted he knew where the health clinic was but then stopped half way and asked me to get out because he was clueless.
Santos stopped to ask if everything was ok: I sobbed: "Just you tell him not to say he knows where he is going when he doesnt, Tell him. tell him!!"
Santos: "Ok ma'me don't shout a the man because you are sick! (Shame on me!)

Anyway Santos and his trusty 250 then became my chauffeur for the next couple of days....taking me to the doctors in the mornings and the evenings and driving me to the odd sight when I felt up to it! (another brilliant example of the hospitality westerners are shown here!)

Bodhgaya is another very important spiritual town that attract Buddhist pilgrims from the around the world. It was here 2600 that Siddhartha Gautamu attained enlightenment beneath a bodhi tree and became the Buddha. The entire town is filled with Buddhist temples and Monasteries from around the world, (my plan had been to actually stay in one of them when I got here). There is also THE BIGGEST Buddha statue I have ever seen , 25 meters high!

So all in all its been a great place to rest and I no longer feel like taking the first flight out of here! Have made friends with the sweetest little boy also called Santos who runs up to me every time I leave the hotel. Bless, the child is continually eating and always trying to get me to try his food. Not going to happen.


And alas...I thought I would be finished by now....but 5 days of blogging...and noooooooooo there is more!!! You see yet again God heard my desperate plea...and yesterday sent me a gorgeous French man with the most amazing blue/green eyes ever! ( I have a thing for eyes!) We met over breakfast and agreed to have dinner last night! I sat in this mildly expensive Indian restaurant grinning from ear to ear. Closest I think I have had to a date....in ummmmmmm about 3 years...and yes.....doubt-ably not really a date but in sheer delirium I happily convinced myself it was! Was simply delighted to be having a great conversation, ( can't much remember what it was about, but it was intellectual, I think I was too busy staring into those incredible eyes ) and eating great food!

And THAT brings me to the end!!!! Well done those of you that got through it all in one setting...you must love me lots!!!
You have my solom promise that I will try and blog more frequently, but that been said its not always easy.

I am also midly concerned about Midget....its been well over a week since here last spamming attempt and I am DEEPLY worried.....so if you see here tell her I love her and to get back to what she does well!

Kate and Angie....thanks for your lovely messages...was going to reply after this ...but think I have had enough of writing today. Kate...my return flight to London is for July next year so best you and Harvey sort out a wedding date by then!:-) Thats a direct order from Cupid!

and Mr Sparrow.....are you out there?

Am heading out to Calcutta tonight. Feeling strong, healthy and happy, once again determined enjoy the India Experience!

Love to you all!