Sophie Johns

Thu, 14 Dec 2006 11:51:42 GMT

map kindly provided by continento.com

Had the leaving party last night!

Fri, 21 Jul 2006 09:12:02 GMT

It was very fun, despiet (or perhaps becuase of?) the lack of DJ Heartbeat! We managed to have some kind of cable that you can hook an MP3 player to the TV with, so we could play music through that, and the TV speakers are pretty good. So we were able to have a mix if Indian music and cheesy pop. Great.

Our group did a dance/sketch based on the Bollywood movie that we went to see, called Fanaa, which was pretty stupid, but very funny, and came off quite well seeing as we only rehearsed it twice! Then after our dance, Claire and I put on our sarees, only she put hers on better than me beucase I only lasted about 3 hours with it until it was falling out so often that I had to take it off, and she managed till we went back to Neugal! Which was a good 5 hours. There was lots and lots of dancing and one of the girls had a video camera so we've just watched the party back, it's so funny!

This morning I've packed up 90% of my stuff! It's quite a scary thought! I can fit the majority of things into my back (not bringing home like shampoo and things, that'd be daft!), AND Ive managed to get in everything I've bought. Which turns out to not really be that much. Well. I thought I had more stuff at any rate. I'll probably pick up a few more things this weekend but they're going to have to be verrrry, verrrry small! I haven't picked up my refilled suitcase yet but I suspect it's going to be HEAVY. Although, it mainly had just clothes in so it shouldn't be too bad. However my hiking boots don't fit in there so they have to be tied on to my small bag. Which is a little annoying. I emptied my suitcase out, and I had all my stuff all around me, and I just thought 'Hmmmm. My suitcase is very, very small'. But I managed it in the end! I'll bet I'll go back tonight and think of 60 other thigns I need to pack! Also I have to find a few things tonight as well. I think the spider in our room may have eaten them though (seriously, this spider is absoultely huge. About the size of my fist!).

We leave Palampur tomorrow at about 3:30, I think, and get an overnight train to Delhi. Then we have breakfast at the station in Delhi, then get on another train to Agra. And we get to Agra at maybe 3pm on Sunday. That's 24 hours of travelling! It's going to be, um. Fun. Then we ahve a few hours in Agra, I think we have an excursion to a market planned (oh dear, MORE stuff!), and then the next morning (Monday) we get up at sometime very early (at sunrise apparently but that's about 4am!) to go see the Taj at sunrise which is exciting. Then, we catch yet another train back to Delhi and get there at around 6pm Monday evening. Then I have to get up at 4 to go to the airport. There are 3 other people on my flight with me, Claire, Lizzie and Sam, so that's nice - we can all get lost in the airport together! And get back into the UK at 5:30 Indian time, 1pm UK time. I'm going to be soooo tired! But, as a smart person once told me, you can sleep when you're dead.

The new group is currently having their Indian dance lesson which is very funny! Ours never really happened so maybe I'll go and join in!

Next time I update, I'll be in England!

Sophie xxx

The Golden Temple was amazing.

Mon, 17 Jul 2006 13:42:26 GMT

So, had our trip to Amritsar this weekend. Set off ridiculously early from Palampur (we were supposed to leave at 6:30 from Neugal, and leave Bindraban after receiving a packed breakfast at 7, but didnt leave till half 7 in the end!). After a nice 7 hour journey we finally arrived at 2:30 in Amritsar, and boy was it hot! I'd never have believed you could sweat that much! Niiice. It was just bizarre - it didnt really feel all that hot, more humid, it was really really strange. You'd never get that in England that's for sure!

We headed off to the border between India and Pakistan to see the lowering of the flags for the night. We arrived at the border at just before 5, we were split of into two queues of males and females, either side of the road just before you enter the little complex where you sit and watch. Then the ladies were allowed to file in first, and we westerners were directed towards the VIP stand, which was the stand closest to the actual border. Then the guys filed in, which took a while becuase there were a LOT of men there! About 3 times as many as the women, and there were thousands of people in total, maybe 4 or 5 thousand? And about a quarter of that on the Pakistan side. Then we waited around until about half 6, which was actually quite entertaining beucase there was music and men were dancing in the mock street (the set up was sort of like something you'd go to in Disneyland to see a performance, I half expected there to be stunt cars and such coming out from under the stands!), and every now and then a man in a slamon pink shirt would yell stuff into the microphone and the crowd would shout a response. He'd shout 'Hindustan!' (which is another name for India) and the crowd would shout back 'Jindaban', but I don't know what that means. He'd also shout something that sounded like 'one day', and the crowd would shout back 'macram!' but beucase there were so many people shouting it sounded like they were shouting 'malta!', which was pretty funny beucause Malte (pronounced Malta) is the name of one of the boys in our group. There was another phrase that was shouted btu I cant remember it.

Afterwards (it finished around 7:30), we headed over to the Golden Temple to see it at night which was amazing. We arrived at about half 8, and all had to have headscarves (I had my duppatta from one of my suits which is basically a scarf so I just wore that, but they had ones you could borrow if you wanted made out of a sort of velvet material with gold trimming in all different colours, so the majority of our group had these pirate-style headscarves on. Then we had to leave our shoes at a locker-room place before entering the temple complex. As you enter there are sunken areas filled with water that you ahve to walk through to wash your feet, like at a swimming pool.

And it's dinner time right now so I'm going to finish updating after dinner! Becuase its macaroni cheese and tomato soup and I'm STARVING, went trekking straight after work today so I've had to survive since breakfast on a measly 2 cheese sandwiches and a banana. I eat sooooo mcuh here, its ridiculous! Going to ahve to portion control when I get back!

EDIT - Ok, so didn't update on Monday, had an impromtu focus group meeting about another potential IDEX project in Goa, and then a mid-term evalutaion last night (and then we have a volunteer meeting tonight, the party tomorrow, where have my evenings gone???).

So anyway, forgot to say something about the hilarity of the troops at the border - the way they marched was just so funny! They brought their knees up to their chest on every step, and were only one step away from a run when they 'walked', it just looked so comical! When they came to a halt they would kick each leg out in front of them and then stomp each foot on the ground (lifting their knees to their chests as they did it!), and after the flags had been brought down, the most senior officer flanked both in front and behind by two other officers, carried the flag back down to where it was kept. The two officers in front of him stepped at their usual position, but the crowd of Indian men who'd been dancing had inched their way forward and were now stood exactly where these officers were supposed to stop, so the officers just carried on and kicked two men in the nose. They thought it was pretty funny being kicked though!

Anyway, back to the temple. We walked through the pools of water to clean our feet, then up a few steps and along a walkway to the top of a flight of stairs leading down to the temple complex. Each step we took forwards revelaed a little more of the temple, all lit up at night, and it was truly stunning. The temple stands in the centre of a square pool (called the Pool of Nectar - Amritsar translates as this, amrit means nectar and sar means pool). There's a building build all the way around the golden temple, to sheild it from the outside world, and ther's a walkway that's partly covered all the way around the edge. We had an hour there which we were told probably wouldn't be enough time to go to the temple at night so we wandered round, taking photos and talking to people, and just sat and watched the people around us. There were people sleeping under the covered part of the walkway, they make pilgramages to the Golden Temple and sleep there at night, as the temple is open 24 hours a day.

The next morning we went back to the temple and queued to get inside. The queueing was a pretty intense experience! They have a main queue and then one around the side which is ladies only, so Claire and I went into the ladies only queue (Indian men are half really nice, half really dodgy - you wouldn't want to be crammed up against some of them!) and there were women and children pressing against us from every side. Claire nearly fell beucase a child stood behing her decided to suddenly push Claire forwards, and due to her height pushed Claire right in the back of the knees! She would've fallen except that there was nowhere to fall! Once you reach the beginning of the bridge that leads out over the water to the temple, you're let in in sections by the guards there. The bridge is split into three section, a really wide section on the left as you face the temple, for people going in, a narrow one i the midle which was apparently only for Sikh men and there was something special about them beucase they entered the temple trough a dfferent door and it was something to do with a difference in worship. And the third section on the right hand side was for people leaving the temple. Claire and I were in the first section, and the guards would let maybe 100 people in, first from the womens queue, then from the mens queue, with maybe 5 minute gaps in between. You the queued all the way down the bridge and guards at the other end would let people in about 50 at a time every few minutes. It took maybe 40 minutes of queueing to get to the temple, which was horrible the first 10 miutse or so but once we'd got on the bridge, there was a tent-like structure providing shade and lots of fans all the way along the bridge so it was a lot cooler!

When we eventually got to the temple..... wow. The whole thing is gold on both the outside and the inside - it's basically a square room with a balcony around the top, and there's a huge, amazing chandelier hanging from the ceiling (I don't know what it's actually made of but it looks like diamonds and it wouldn't really surprise me if they weren't!). In the main room, you can only walk around it to the left ot a door in the left-hand wall, as the rest is sectioned off - on the right hand side is where all the Sikh men from the special narrow queue went, they all sat and looked set to do some serious worshipping, chanting along with the priest in the main section of the temple. There were 4 men playig instruments as well and the music and the chanting was picking up by microphone and put out through loudspeakers through the whole complex. Oh the blacony there are murals that've been handpainted onto th walls with a lot of gold embellishment that depict religious stories, I think (the guy who was explaining didn't ahve such great English!).

After the temple we went to the Jallianawla Bagh gardens, which was the site of the Amritsar massacre on April 13th 1919. It was during the Revolution, and a large, unarmed crowd had gathered in the garden (although it was just a plot of land then), to celebrate a Baisakhi Day which is a Sikh religious day. Amritsar (in fact most of Punjab) was under martial law, as decreed by the British, so the gathering of an estimated 20,000 people was far outside the stated limits of only 5 people gathering in one place at one time. A troop of British soldiers went to the garden and opeend fire without warning, killing hundreds and wounding thousands. The official figure is quoted at 370 killed and 200 injured but that figure is bound to be a lot higher as the garden isn't that large, and as there was a curfew imposed the wounded were not taken to receive any medical treatment so many mroe die during the night. There's a well in the corner of the garden, and people jumped in or were puched in by the crowds - 120 bodies were repotedly recovered from it.

The garden itself is lovely, with waterways (mostly dried up at this time of year though!) and lots of flowers and trees but there are a lot of reminders of that day - there's a section of wall still left standing from that day and all the bullet holes are marked, there are at least 50 in one 6 feet section, and the wall is furthest from where the troops were stationed.

After seeing the garden, we heade back to the hotel for lunch and then began the 7 hour drive back to Palampur. We eventually arrived back at about 8:15, all abslutely starving and sooooo grateful for the pizzas that were waiting for us!

Had my last day at daycare today, it was so sad! We had a little party, the children played with handmade maracas we'd made and they all had fruit and biscuits and juice, and we gave them all a little gift (some crayons, stickers and sweets), adn they weer all so excited! I don't know that they really understood that Barbara, Malte and I were leaving. But Abu, who's my speical little one at the DCC, was running around and showing me all his new things and wouldn't let me touch them beucase he was so pleased with them! And then he dropped his little container of crayons, so the crayons all burst out, and he looked so shocked! It was funny. And our little dictator, Arti, was in true form today at lunch, saying 'Chup!' (which means be quiet) and 'youshutup' (she says it all as one word) to the other children when they were being loud, it was really funny as she's only 3!

Probably my next update from here will be my last! What a wierd thought!

I'll update again in a few days (sorry that this has been so lnog, it's probably not interesting to anyone but me!).

Sophie xxx

PS - does anyone actually read these now? Haha. xxx

Off to Amritsar tomorrow!

Fri, 14 Jul 2006 03:29:58 GMT

It's wierd thinking that this is my last full weekend in Palumpur, and we're not even here for it! We leave tomorrow at 6:30am (I don't wanna get up so earlyyyyy!) and get to Amritsar at maybe 1pm, maybe a little later. Then we visit the Golden Temple and see the border between India and Pakistan (there's a sort of changing of the guards ceremony, but the guards don't actually change, I don't think) which should be really good. I'm a little worried about my photo situation though - I have less than 200 pictures to take on my camera! I may haev to go through and delete a few (considering I ahve a 1GB memory card, which holds somthing like 850 photos..... I've taken quite a few!)

Some of the new group arranged to go independantly last week and they said it was 50 degrees the whole time. So I think it's going to be hothothot. I hop it rains then it'll be cooler! FOr the past few nights here, I've had to sleep under my doona (it's like a really heavy duvet) becasue it rains in the late afternoon, so doesn't get a chance to heat up again.

We had our saree workshop yesterday, so we all got the chace to try on a saree (even the boys tried them - they looked beautiful!), and then the boys were dressed up in a turban and a pair of trousers that you take a big sheet and wrap it round you, then take a bit from the front and loop it under your legs to the back, so it looks kind of like a huge nappy. It was pretty funny!

I'm covered in henna right now, beucase I'd alrady done the front and back of my right hand and my left foot at our henna workshops, then at daycare yesterday, two men came around with containers of henna and stencils and they stencilled henna onto everyone - I now have the front and abck of the other hand as well. They did all the girls in our daycare as well, and considering they're between 2 and 4 that was quite a challenge, but surpisingly out of the 9 little girls we had yesterday, all but 2 managed to keep teir henna patterns intact until it was dry! One of the litle grls, Shakshi, is our youngest, only 2, and she was so fascinated by it she kept squishing her hand up and making the henna squish around. She ended up with just an orange hand. And another of our girls, Shabu, is one big bundle of energy and she decided that it wasn't enough just to ahve her hand hennaed, so she was scooping the henna off her hand and putting it on her ther hand, on her arm, on her legs and feet, and she would've put it on her her face if it weren't for several shouts of 'NAY, Shabu!' ('nay' and 'nahin' mean no).

We visited a tea plantation ad tea factory yesterday - got to try our hands at picking the tea (the baskets that they wear suspended from their heads are HEAVY) and then we went to the factory to see how they make it. We found out that the tea pickers pick about 20kg of tea per day, and they work for 8 hours a day, and they earn 50Rs a day. That's about 60p.

It's 9am here now so in a few minutes will be the acll for 'All DCC!' (DCC = day care centre), which means I have to head off for another morning of work. Il'l update again in a few days (in Amritsar if I find a cafe!)

Sophie xxx

I'm all Henna-ed up!

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 13:38:56 GMT

As you can probably guess from the title, we had our Henna workshops yesterday and today. Yesterday Veena hennaed all my right hand, all over the palm, and on the back of my hand and the back of my forefinger too. I had to leave the henna paste to dry and then leave for several hours which is really difficult when it's yuor hand! But I managed to leave it for about 2 and a half hours, so my henna is a really dark orange. And today, I hennaed my left foot and up my ankle - I went a bit besrk and there is now a LOT of henna on my foot. It's dry now and 'm going to leave it on as long as possible (I'm aiming for overnight althoguh this may mean I get lots of henna bits in my bed, so maybe I'll take it off right before). I'm hopnig it'll last for a long time but the maximum it lasts is about 15 days, so I may go over it before I leave so that its nice and bright again when I get home.

At daycare today we did colours, so we had the children blow at paint through straws on paper so they could all get nice and messy and make pretty pictures. Becuase school is out now we're finding that we're getting the older brothers and sisters of our daycare children dropping the children off and picking them up, and sometimes they just stay for the whole session, which is fine if they're helpful but when you end up with 3 extra 6 year olds it's not so helpful! After daycare Barbara and I caught the bus into town where we met up with a few other girls for lunch at the Taj restaurant (yummy food and very cheap - i had a whole meal for 50p!), and then Claire and I tried to find an internet cafe but at around 1:30pm this afternoon, no internet in the entirety of Palampur was working. So we went to buy a sari instead. I've got a blue one edged with purple and Claire has a purple one and a blue one (one is for her sister), and we can pick them up from the tailors on Tuesday next week.

I'd just like to interrupt this broadcast with the news that yoga class is going on in the rec room (which is seperated from the area I'm in by just a curtain), and the yoga teacher is making them growl like lions and laugh like hyenas, it's very amusing to listen to!

In other news, I think I'm now fully recovered - took a while longer than anticipated, but I'm glad it got here eventually!

On Sunday, I had planned to go trekking up to the waterfall with some of the other girls, but as we woke up to torrential rain, I decided to go down to Bindraban so that I could wait for the rain to stop in a bit more comfort - my room didnt have any electricity between last Wednesday and Monday, and at Bindraban there's a TV and computers and such, so I felt it would probably be a better option! So 4 of us went down to a yummy berakfast (when there's only a few volunteers here, they always spoil us outrageously!), and then at half 9, the electricity cut out. The rain was still torrential, so it was really dark, but we lit a few candles and I read a phenomenal amount (2 thirds of Wild Swans - I've read my way through about three quarters of th books here at Bindraban - the Enlgish ones anyway - so I had to buy in some literature!) and taught Claire how to play Chess - she's pretty good, she beat me on her third game with only a few hints!

So it was all fine, until the electricity didn't cmoe back on after a few hours or so as usual, so boredom began to settle.... The rain idn't let up all day, the garden was flooded and 3 of the staff went crazy in te afternoon and played football in the monsoon! They got soaked through in about 3 seconds! Eventually the electricity came back on at 4:30 so we had major rejoicing and watched Gladiator.

The rain was so torrential it caused damage somewhere or other in the water system so Bindraban had no water until this morning, so coupled with the fact that up at Neugal my room had no electricity, it made for an interesting 2 days! It's all fine now though.

I think thats brought you all pretty much up to date - tomorrow we visit a tea plantation! Should be fun!

Johns's and Harris's - I hoep you're all having a most excellent time on holiday and I am considerably envious, especially with the amount of rain we'er getting! See you all soon!

Sophie xxx

Gues where I am?

Sat, 08 Jul 2006 06:00:52 GMT

I'm in McLeodganj again. What a surprise!! We left at 8 this morning to get here early so that we could have breakfast at the legendary JJI's restaurant - quite possibly thebest breakfasts in India. Today I think I've eaten a whole days worth of meals just at brekfast - I had a lemon honey and ginger tea (you would not believe how good they are!), a lemon pancake, a big bowl of Special Muesli and then some Tibetan toast with cheese. Mmmmm. I am very full now though!

This week has flown by so fast, and next week looks set to do the same! We've had cookery workshops this week, so I can now cook a variety of Indian and Tibetan dishes so everyone has to come round for dinner when I get home. I'll make you mango shakes and Bombay toast (which is sort of like a doughnut, they're delicious. Really bad for you though - it's essentially deep fried bread!), with pumpkin and roti. Mmmm.

We had the birthday party for Nitu on Thursday as she turned 4, and it was so much fun! (Just apologies - the space bar on this keyboardis very temperemental so if there is a lack ofspaces sorry!) Weplayed party games and had balloons and biscuits and fruit and thekids enjoyed themselves so much - the balloons we had we didnt atually ealise until we tried to blow them up were actually water balloons, so this of course meant we had an impromtu water balloon fight which the kid loved. I have a great picture that I tookjust after I'd thrown a water balloon, just as the balloon explodes and the looks on the childrensfaces are fantastic!It's quite possibly my favroutie photo.

Not really much else toupdate about, so I guess I'll update in a few more days. Family, will callyou later when I get back to camp!

Sophie xxx

Remainder of update... sort of!

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 11:58:13 GMT

I'll try and update where I left off! Am feeling a lot better after my impromptu doctors visit - I got a full nights sleep last night, no waking up coughing! So hopefully by tomorrow or Friday will be cough-free and ready for another illness :).

Apologies for not explaining day care properly. This is basically playgroup for children aged 2 to 5, which runs in the morning from 9 to 1 (although we attend from 9:30 to 12:30). The day care I attend is called Temple Day Care (so called beucase it is situated right next to a temple, actually in the commune where the priests from the temple live). We attend the temple every day, and some of the children come when they want to! Sometimes they are just too busy playing! We go first to the main shrine, where we are given some holy water in your hands that you drink a bit of and pour the rest on your forehead (I cheat - I don't actually drink the water!), and then we get a bindi on our foreheads (using a red paste). Then we get a little square of newspaper which they fill with sweet rice and nuts, and put a flower petal on, and then make it into a little bundle - this is a sort of food offering. We then walk all the way around the main shrine, and then Veena (the guide for our day care) will usually go to one or more of the different smaller shrines around the temple and do different things. Then we all head back up to the day care and the children clamour for the sweets and nuts we've jsut got from the priest so we share them out amongst them.

We then play for another half an hor or so with the children, then we have a little lesson (very simple things, just numbers or colours or shapes) for a little while (although, today it was a bit horrenduos because they were all so restless! We tried to do 1 to 10 and they just kept beating each other up and having fights, so we had tears and temper tantrums and all sorts! The children then have lunch at around 11:30 and then we play with them until we leave at 12:30. We have 15 children enrolled in our daycare, but usually only around 10 attend (or so I'm told). They are all very sweet, apart from one little boy who is just a menace but very cute when he's in a good mood. Today one of our little boys, called Himanchu, turned up wearing eyeliner! And he's 3 years old!! It was quite amusing.

In the afternoons, we're having cooking lessons so when I get home I can cook the kind of meal that we eat here at Bindraban. So far I nkow how to cook a pumpkin dish (I don't know what it's called, they just call it pumpkin, but there's more in it that that!), plain naan, spring rolls (not traditionally Indian but very good all the same!) and vegetable cutlets, which are sort of veggie burgers but you don't eat them in a bun, just by themselves. They're so good! I have cooking lessons until the end of the week so I should be able to cook a whole range of things by the time I'm finished! Over the next two weeks in the afternoons, we're visitnig a tea garden/factory, having Indian dance lessons, a sari workshop (I'm not quite sure what this entails though!) and a henna workshop! I'll bring home some henna for people to try if they want! It's so much better than the stuff you can buy at home, if you do it right it'll last for over 2 weeks (so I should be all hennaed when I get off the plane!).

It's strange thinking I have only 3 weeks until I get off the plane!It suddenyl seems very near the end of this trip and that's strange beucase at the beginning it seemed like I'd be ehre forever and now I'm thinking things like 'Well, I'd better go here then becuase it'll be my last chance to go', and 'there's no point getting one of those ebcuase I won't get a chance to use it', and so on and so forth. Also thinking about what I can and cant't fit in my suitcase for the return trip! So far I can fit everything but I ahve more shopping to do :). I'm going to try and pack as many clothes in my suitcase as possible beucase I know when I get home, everything will seems RIDICULOUSLY expensive and I won't want to buy anything. Here, you can get everything so cheaply, I got a pair of trousers in a good material, tailored for me so they fit perfectly, for 420Rs, which is about 5 pounds.

I think that thats everything updated now! I'm off to do a bit of shoppnig (surprise surprise!) beucase one of the girls in my day care is turningg 4 on Thursday so we're going to ahve a party for her, therefore I need things like biscuits, balloons, toys, etc. Will update again in the not-too distant future!

Sophie xxx

Just a quick update!

Mon, 03 Jul 2006 03:27:47 GMT

I ahve just 10 minutes befopre I go to day care for the first time so a quick update from where I left off!

Got back from Manali at about 6 yesterday, I've done too much shopping and have bought too many nice things! Met the new group of volunteers - it seems wierd us being the old group, we felt like we didnt know eough but it's strange, the thigns they ask us we know all about so we seem really knowledgable!!

Had a bit of an adventure last night - was taken to the doctors by motorbike at about 10:30, which was interesting! I've had a realy bad cogh the last week or so and it's defintiely getting worse not better, and I was trying to sleep last night and I couldn't actually lie down, so Virun and Krishan, two of the guides, took me to an on-call doctor. I had an injection of something and I have two kinds of tablets to take 2 or 3 timse a day for 2 days and I ahve to go back if it isn't better by then. It was the most bizarre thing ever - there was no power becuase a storm was on its way (we just started being rained upon on the way back) so I was injected by the light from a candle and a chargeable lantern! The doctor was asleep wen we got there so we had to wait for him to wake up, and 5 minutes later he comes out in his pajamas, takse my blood pressure and listens to me via a stethoscope, says something in Hindi and goes back to bed! This other guy then gives me tablets and an injection and I am SO glad Virun and Krishan were there becase they explanied everythign to me, and they were so nice - the injection had to go in a vein in my hand raelly slowly (it toko at least 5 minutes) and I was sat there going 'WHY is it taking so long?' and they wer saying things like 'it's ok, don't worry, you're ok, you're being really brave' so I felt better :).I'm feelign better now though, and I ahve a whole host of things to take for it so I'm praynig that it'll be better within a few days. I want to be able to sleep at night!

I'm giong to have to finish this update later becuase it's time for daycare! I'm really looking forward to it, my daycare is right by a temple and we visit everyday (it's a Hindi temple, this one, Seb, and the other temple I was talking about was Buddhist I think!).

update later!

Sophie xxx

I'm in Manali!

Sat, 01 Jul 2006 13:36:30 GMT

Hey everyone!

Am currently updating from Manali, which is a little town right up in the foothills of the Himalayas. And when I say right up, I mean that this town is basically one long twisty street up the side of the mountain with little side streets at the top and bottom, and there are little mountians all around, it's beautiful.

We left Palampur at 2:30 on Thursday for the long, long drive to a little town called Kullu where we stayed the night. We didn't get there until 9pm so it was a 6 and a half hour drive (including 2 stops), which is a long, long time in an Indian taxi - they're not exactly overly comfy! Our taxi driver was called P.C. and he's a really funny guy - he had a lot of cassette tapes in his car and one Western one, which just happened to be The Venga Boys. Cue almost none stops renditions of such classics as 'Woah! We're going to Ibiza! Woah! Back to the island!' and 'The Venga bus is coming, and everybodys jumping, New York to San Francisco, an inter-city disco...' (I am now word-perfect for these songs. And I cannot get them out of my head).

On Friday morning we went white water rafting , which was amazing! It's right at the end of the season (in fact we went on the lat day of the season which wa lucky because we didn't know that it was the last day!), so the water was quite a bit rougher than normal, due to the monsoon, so we had a really good ride. The ride normally lasts between 1.5 to 2 hours, and we did it in 1 hour so you can tell how muc faster the river was going! It was bizarre, sometimes we were going up waves that seemed almost vertical to us in the boat and the guide was shouting 'Forwards! Forwards all!' meaning for us to paddle, and telling us to paddle faster, and all you want to do is hold on tight! But it was really good fun, and white water rafting is about the safest sport you can do like this in India - we met some other travellers at the rafting and they said someone they'd met, who'd come to India as part of a year off, and tried paragliding, and broke her ankle landing, and now she has to just lie in the Manali hospital for 2 months, beofre flying home to have another operation, so it'll cut her year off short by a huge amount, she was going to do Africa and South America and I think she had 8 months to go still. I feel so sorry for her, it must be awful, especially lying in the hospital for 2 months!

We got to Manali at around 4pm yesterday, and we're staying in two guest houese at the top of the hill. I'm sharing a room with another English girl called Claire and we're paying 250Rs a night to stay there, and that's around 3 pounds a night! (again, no pound sign on this keyboard.....) It's crazily cheap. You can buy anything you want in Manali, its incredible, and if you can't find it you can find someone to make it for you - clothes, jewellery, gifts, you name it. The food here is also fantastic - there are loads of westerners here so all the food is safe as the restuarants and cafes rely on word of mouth, so if people get sick from eating somewhere they dont get any business, so this means that you can eat EVERYTHING - ice-cream, salad (oh my god, fresh salad!), and fruit and chicken and fish and all the other things that it wouldn't be vrey safe to eat elsewhere! And you can get every kind of food as well - I had Mexican for lunch, nachos and fajitas (we eat only Indian food at the camp apart from at parties when we have pizzas so when we eat out, it tends to be more Western food! Especially since no one actually TELLS you what's in all the food so you never know what you're ordering!), and we're going to the same place we went to last night for dinner tongiht, it's a place called Johnsons, and we're going becuase a) we can watch the football on the TV (England v Porutgal - and there was me thinking we could escape the world cup! I've wathced more football out here than I ever would at home! All the volunteers watch the majority of the matche beucase we're from such a diverse range of countries someones country is nearly always playing!) and b) they have excellent food and they serve cocktails and decent drinks! You mainly only get nasty wine and really strong beer out here. They serve fresh trut which is divine - when we all go out for diner everyone ends up trying everyone elses food, so I got to sample trout, chicken lasange, chicken in pepper sauce and ice cream in addition to my own pasta-and-sauce and (wait for it) chocolate cake! Tongiht I might try a desert salled 'Hello to the queen'. Yes it really exists and no I've no idea what's in it but if I try it I'll let you know!

I've been doing supreme shopping today, there's just so much to buy - clothes in particular! I'm getting made a fleece top with a long pointy pixie-hood, in pale pink with brown trimming, and I pick it up in an hour, I can't wait!

There's so much more I should be updating about! A lot has happened thi past week, but right now I have to go and shower etc ready for meeting up with everyone else for dinner.

I'll update again soon!

Sophie xxx

I saw the Dalai Lama!

Sun, 25 Jun 2006 15:51:10 GMT

Ok, so I know I said I was going to go to Kangra today but the Dalai Lama was home and he is giving 4 days of lectures at the temple at McLeodganj so a group of 9 of us went today to see him, and it turned out to be surprisingly hilarious!

It was awful, awful weather when we left (at 6am this morning!), pouring with rain, and this showed no signs of letting up on the way up to McLeod. As we got higher up it became foggier and foggier and so our taxi driver was perring through the windscreen to see the road, which isn't exactly the best situation to be in when to get there is basically a series of s-bends at a very shrp angle and a very high incline! But we made it most of the way in one piece until we encountered a spot in the road where the rain had caused a landslide. We weren't far from McLeod at this point, so we thought, ok, we'll walk. So out we get, raincoats on, and proceed to walk over the landslide. As you can imagine, this was very, very muddy - thick red mud that just clings to you, and (of course), it had to be me who coudln't make it without getting extra-specially muddy! I slipped about half way across (I was the second to last person to cross), and found myself sat on my bum in the mud, both hands submerged up to my wrists (my watch is really nice and brown now) and both legs submerged till half way up my shins, and sat on my nice pink bag (I'd only bought it 2 weeks before!). Sitting like that on top of a landlisde is quite an interesting experience. You can get your hands out of the mud ok, it's your feet that have problems as your shoes don't want to follow. I did in fact lose my right shoe, but luckily I managed to fish it out again, but both my shoes (my trainers, not my sandals) were covered, inside and out, in thick sticky mud. Yummy. I eventually managed to scramble down and just sort of stood there, in the middle of the road, being laughed at by my friends and a bunch of Indian guys who were trying to tow a car out of the landslide.

Luckily Helle (from Denmark) had brought waterproof trousers to wear over her baggies and lent me those so I could change out of my previously grey and now red-brown trousers once we'd got to McLeod. I love Helle for this, as none of the shops were open at 8am (they open somewhere between 9 and 10) so I coudlnt' have bought replacement trousers if I'd have wanted to! It was so funny, I was jsut sat there in the mud thinking 'Oh. My. God. I'm stuck. HELP ME!', but the problem was no-one could get to me without sinking in the part I was sunk in. So they just laughed as I struggled. Well, waht else can you do?

My bag was covered in mud and all through the day a selection of concerned citizens of McLeod, including 2 shopkeepers, one monk, and a sleazy guy, pointed out to me that my bag was, in fact, more mud than bag. Just in case I hadn't noticed, you see!

We had breakfast and waited until 10 for the registration office to open so we could get passes to go to the teachings, only to be told that the top level was full, which is the level you need passes for, and that we could just trn up at the bottom level but we woudlnt' be able to actually see the Dalai until he came down the steps. Well, I for one wasn't going to have endured a mud bath and NOT go, so off we toodled to the temple and got subjected to a very thorough security search at the entrance - I'd say it was actually more stringent than if we'd've been in England, we had to go through a metal detector, and then have our bags throroughly searhced (they went through everything in there! And the lady I handed my bag to was NOT impressed by the state of it!), and then we went and sat near the steps t the upper level. Oh my god, was it cold! Barbara (from Austria - she has the best laugh ever) had a radio s we listened to the translation in English as much as we could but it was very difficult to understand as the reception wasn't always clear, and we were able to watch on a tv, so it was pretty cool. And at the end, we saw the Dalai Lama go apst in his car to lunch, about a metre and a half from us, it was really cool (I'd moved by this time from the steps to a different place).

After, we had a fantastic lunch at a restaurant called McLlo's, where Pierce Brosnan has eaten - there are pictures of him enjoying his meal at the entrance and at the staircase to upstairs, and he wrote a sign while he was there saying 'McLlo's Restaurant! Best in India!' or soemthing. The manager is really proud of this fact and if he catches you looking at the picture he tells you all about it, where Mr Brosnan sat and what Mr Brosnan ate and what a nice guy he is and stuff. I had veg sweet and sour (I've only had meat once while I've been here, once! That was here at IDEX, I haven't trusted meat anywehre else!) and it was absolutely gorgeous.

I've taken photos when we got back to camp (no cameras allowed at te Dalai Lama teaching so I didnt take it with me otherwise you woudln've had some better ones!) of me in my Mud Outfit - it is quite amusing! I tried to uplaod them but the computer just gives me electric shocks and doesnt connect proeprly.

On the way back from McLeod (the lanslide had been cleared by then so we could catch the taxi from the bus stnad, not walk 3km down the road!), we were just driving back as normal and 2 girls on a moped drove past, overtaking, and were waving at us saying 'Hiiii' and not concentrating, and they swerved towards the taxi, hit it, and fell off their bikes! They were unhurt althgouh one hit her head with a huge bump, and there was a huge argument when they tried to blame the taxi driver but it wasn't his fault so he ignored them. After about 10 minutes they drove off but we overtook them a little later and they had another argument with our driver. It was a aelly horrible thing, they could so badly have been hurt! The road we were on had a big drop on one side so if they'd've spun to the other side of the road they would have fallen off and been really badly hurt.

But, we all got back in one piece, and it aws a really fun day - I've been buying a few things, I got a (fake, I think) Adidas hoodie for 250RS which is around 3 pounds (there is no pound sign on this keyboard!), ad it looks just like the real thing, haha.

We organised going white-water rafting next weekend, and we've planned out our other free weekend as well, we're going to go to a place called Shimla which is 8 hours away and supposed to be really really beautiful! The weekend after we go to Amritsar ad the weekend after is Agra so it doesnt seem long at all! It means I think I only have 4 days weeks (max!) from now on beucase we always leave on a Friday or a Thursday. Should be fun!

I'm off to watch the England game now, see how we're doing! I hope the half-of-Axbridge coming round was fun at home, hi to everyone at work (by the way - I've bought myself some Marmite! It's divine!), and I'll update soon!

Sophie xxx

PS - If any 4-weekers read this, I miss you! xxx

Yes, I am alive!

Sat, 24 Jun 2006 07:15:58 GMT

I know, I've not updated in two weeks, but there's been problems with the computers at IDEX and I've been ill for a week so getting to town was not an option!

School is going really well, my class have settled down and they know what they can and can't get away with now, which makes things a bit easier. My fellow teacher Sarah left yesterday, as she was only doing the 4-week option, so for the next few days I'm teaching alone. Which does make things more challening, I'll admit, but I'm actually only going to be in school until next Wednesday so I don't have long left - we found out last week that the schools have the month of July off for summer holidays, so there won't be any teaching then. I'm really sad that I have to leave my class soon beucase it seems they're making progress now and I have a basic routine, and also there's one boy in my class who is very backwards in English compared to the rest, and so I've been giving him easier work but he seems to be coming along really well, he's gone from not being able to read any words to being able to read 'My name is Chandan', and I think he now knows happy and sad (the rest of the class hopefully know a few more words but I thought it best not to push my luck there!). So, on Wednesday, I'm planning a little party for my class - they will each get a pencil (the majority of my class have pencils that are an inch long), a rubber, a pencil sharpener (this is very important because a lot of the children have a razor blade that they use, and I'm sure you can understand why I do not want 7 to 11 year olds running around with razor blades! It scares me every time, I've effectively banned them from class). They children will also get some sweets as well, and I think we'll play games and have a relaxing lesson (well, theoretically), beucase they don't get the opporutnity to play in school.

This Thursday just gone, al the schools in the area had a 'party day', which I think is sort of like a fete - no stalls or anything but the children did dancing and singing and reciting which was really fun to watch. Four of the girls in my class were involved in the dancing and they were all dressed up in traditional Indian dresses, very bright colours, and all the other children sang the song while they danced along. I would love to show pictures but the cafe I'm in doesn't have front-loading USB ports and the units are boxed in to I can't get to the back :(. However, it is possible to get photos printed here so maybe I can get a few done and send them home so people can see!

Earlier today I had the unusual experience of using the ATM here for the first time - there's only the on in Palampur and it's the only one for a wide radius, so it gets used a lot and there's always a queue. While Sam and I (Sam is one of the other guys on the prgram here) were in the queue, the ATM ran out of money so we had to wait another 15 minutes for it to be filled up again! But it all worked fine after that so now I have more than 5 rupees to my name (5 rupees is about 6 pence. I did actualy have another 500 but it was hiding in my money belt and I didn't know about it).

Sadly I missed trekking last weekend due to being ill (and everyone who went said that its a good idea I didn't try and go, as up until about half an hour before they all left to go I was still going to go, but I couldn't actually stnad up for more than about 10 minutes so I didn't, but loads of people got sick during of after the trek - it was very steep and very demanding and also the night they camped out, it was about 5 degrees so it was really really cold), but in a few weekends time (I think weekend after next) I'm going to go on a day trek in the surrounding area, there's a temple very near the top of on of the surrounding mountlets (they're not quite mountains, but bigger than hills!) which has a really nice trek up to it apparently. I know its not quite the same but I can either do that and go to Amristsar with the rest of my group, or trek with the new group and go to Amritsar alone, and as I'd have to pay extra to go to Amritsar alone as I wouldn't be taxi-sharing I think I'll probably go for the day-trek.

Last Monday, I visited the local hospital for a few hours in the afternoon, which was an eye-opener. The hopsital is about the same size as Weston back home but caters for an area the size of Somerset. It has 84 beds, and a new scheme is being piloted where 5 of those beds are left unoccupied for emergencys (they don't have an A and E department), and in certain situations people are given a bed but told they must vacate it by 11am the next day. The hospital was very clean though and very light (apart from during the power-cut that ocured while we were there - there are only back-up generators for the operating room and the blood bank), and if only it had more resources it could be a very good hopsital, but currently they have 1 nurse to an average of 35 patients and only 11 doctors, some of whom rotate with other health centres in the area so aren't always there. There used to be an option to work in the hospital but we were told that while the volunteers were keen the language barriers were immense, and patients didnt want their help beucase they weren't qualified, so they were largely useless and looking arund the hospital I can see how hard it would be to work there.

Starting the week after next I'm going to most likely be working in a day care centre for my last 3 weeks (as I can't teach for the last 3 weeks) which should be fun, in the afternoons we do community visits and sometimes make toys or arrnage things for the children at the day care so it'll be a nice contrast to teaching and I'm looking forward to it.

Next weekend, I'm going white water rafting (!) near a place called Manali, and then heading up to Manali for 2 nights (we're taking a long weekend). It's a long way away - 6 hours to the white water rafting place and another hour to Manali - but it's meant to be really beautiful there. Tomorrow I'm most likely going to a place called Kangra which is about an hour away and has a very beautiful temple (some people ahve been already and the pictures are amazing).

I promise I'll update more regularly! The computers are IDEX are ok now so I can update on those even theough they're really slow (the internet for 3 computers runs off 1 mobile phone but hopefully we are getting broadband soon!).

Have to head back for lunch now - all the old volunteers and our 4-weekers are leaving so I need to say a fond farewell! It seems that these past 4 weeks have gone really quickly even though they sometimes seemed slow whilst things were happening (the bus ride to Jaipur for example....!) and it's odd that I'm halfway through already!

Am missing everyone! See you all in a month!

Sophie xxx

Hello again!

Sun, 11 Jun 2006 09:40:18 GMT

I made it to the CyberCafe! Yay! It's a tiny lile room with 4 computers up a tiny, dark staircase in Palampur, but it does have broadband and its very cheap.

So, after updating how lovely school was and how the children are all so lovely, on Friday they all turned into monsters! We gave them a test on Thursday and most of them did really well, so Sarah and I were basking in comliments from the teachers and our guide Virun (pronounced 'vi-roon') about what good teachers we were. However, on Friday, none of them could remember anything we'd learnt that week, and they wouldn't sit still, one of the boys was ill, and another boy (not from my class) kicked mud over my nice new white-and-yellow salwaar kameez (which is a tunic and trousers worn with a scarf called a dupatta). I was so glad to leave that day and so was Sarah! I hope that they're nicely behaved tomorrow!

Friday afternoon made up for this however - we played pictionary with the girls and they taught us some Indian dancing and tried to get us to teach some English dance (but none of us really knew anything traditional so we went with the Macarena. It was hilarious!).

On Friday afternoon, the majority of our group (everyone except 3) caught taxis up to McLeodganj, which is around an hour and a half away. The journey was quite scary, we were going up some incredibly steep hairpin bends, but also really fun. McLeodganj is a tiny, tiny little town, you can walk around the entire thing in about 20 minutes, but its on a really steep hill, and its very packed full of people compared to Palampur. It's near where the Dalai Lama lives, so you can buy a lot of books written by him and proverbs and sayings by him on little scrolls or on t-shirts and the like. It's a very tourist-y town by Indian standards which is odd becuase it's so small! There are so many white people there though, and we all found it very relaxing not to be stared at all the time. In fact, we were all very excited about this at first!

The town is quiet prosperous but there is a very high proportion of beggars there which was very upsetting. There were a lot of children in particular and a lot of people who had no fingers or feet. There was on particular little boy who had lost one of his legs just below the knee and was shuffling along the ground, banging a silver begging bowl and calling out in Hindi. It was so sad, but our guides told us very firmly not to give anyhting beucase we could make thinsg dangerous for ourselves, so we couldn't do anything.

We had dinner at Nicks Italian Restaurant on the Friday night, and we had pizza! After 2 weeks of Indian food, no matter how delicious it is (and it is so very tasty), pizza is something not to be missed. You can also buy in McLeodganj such luxuries as real Pringles, Nutella (Nutella! We can only get one kind of jam in Palampur and it is a too-sweet mixed fruit jam, so Nutella on my toast in the morning is something to definitely look forward to!!), Marmite (yes Dad, Marmite), muesli and (bizzarely) Ferrero Rocher.

Sadly though, was feeling a little off-colour on Saturday so I went home with the 3 girls who did not come with us on Friday (they had decided to come up just for the day). I feel just fine now though so all is good - I think the lemon, honey and ginger tea I had at breakfast on Saturday worked wonders! It was the real deal, with real sliced root ginger in the bottom of the glass! (In Tibetan restuarants, which is what I was in, you get all hot drinks in a glass).

I did however manage to get a nice bit of shopping done so that was ok!

I'll update again soon (my hour is up) and try and have pictures next time!

Sophie xxx

Monkeys are the worst.

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 13:05:33 GMT

Hiii everyone!

I'm settled in Palampur now - it's felt homely today, which was nice.

I've been assigned my morning and afternoon classes - in the morning I teach Grade 4 at Lohana School (by the way Lohana is pronouced 'Loh-na) and I teach conversational English to older girls in the afternoons.

It was my first day yesterday and so we had nothing prepared, we were just supposed to do introductions and see what our classes knew, and so school was absolute chaos and conversational English was a bit difficult.

In Grade 4, I work with another English girl called Sarah and we have around 25 children - 7 boys and the rest girls! Today we taught them personal pronouns (as in 'I have a ball. This is my ball' and 'he has a ball. That is his ball') and interspersed that with games and things and it worked really well, we're only there for 1 hour 45 minutes really so we got a lot done in the short time we had and i think the children understood it - if I can find some plain paper then we'll do a worksheet for them to fill in so we know if they do or not! Our class are really lovely, really sweet, and we have some real characters! The leader-of-the-pack is a girl called Chandrika (yes, yes, I know this sounds impressive but I only know aout 5 names yet, not all of them!) and she's really cheeky but she's really clever, she understands everything we do. We have some children though who shouldn't really be in grade 4 becuase they aren't up to standard, but I think it's just in English. Some of the children need extra help and on the first day the headteacher cam in and made all the naughty and lazy children stand up so that we would know them!

At the end of the morning session, Sarah and I say goodbye to all our class (today they were sad to see us go!) and we head just across the road to a community-hall-type-building and have lunch outside. There's a shop opposite the school where we stop off for cold drinks too, we need it after school and playing the Hokey Cokey in the blazing heat! We have lunch at the hall instead of going back to camp because we teach at Lohana in the afternoons too and it would just be a waste of time going alllll the way back to camp and coming alllll the way back - it's a good 20 minute drive from Bindraban (the main camp, where we eat and hang out)so we just chat about our class and plan tomorrows lesson.

We teach in the afternoons with 3 others, Claire from England (apparently we could be sisters), Charlie from Australia and Adam from Canada, who doesn't know what a jumper is (we think it's what he calls a sweater but we a\haven't quite figured it out). Yesterday 4 girls came - Neelam, who's 17, Kiram, who's 19, Anita who's 19 and Rinki who's 20 - the last 3 are all friends and Neelam is Kirams sister. And today we had 2 more, Lolita and Bonita, also friends with the others and the same ages. Sarah and I were there when the morning session finished and the same girls go and so we also met Pinki, who is Rinki's sister. See how names can get really confusing? The pronunciation is so subtle as well, it was so hard hearing the difference between Anita, Lolita, and Bonita! Today with the girls we worked on emotions and feelings, like frstrated (raelly, erally hard to explain that one), thirsty and hungry and brave and scared and that sort of thing, and we got them to use those words in whole sentences to describe if they were feelnig happy and why, or sad and why. They had to do it for all our words and we had I think around 20, so that took the majority of the session.

At the end the two girls I was working with (we split off into 2 girls and 1 or 2 volunteers to do sentences, to save time, and also some are less shy with fewer of us!) were trying to ask me to 'learn them' common household words, bu the problem there was that they really know the worsd already, they just need conversational practice with them, so tomorrow we're doing 'Describe what's in your house, and what you do with each item', for example, 'in my kitchen there is a table and chairs where we sit and eat dinner'.

The girls are really lovely and really friendly - Rinki says I look like Lucy from Narnia and the others agree (boy did it take a while to figuer that one out, they forgot the name of the movie and were trying to describe it but kept telling us in Hindi and giggling!) and we've been invited to one of their houses to watch a movie (Indian or English, we're not sure, but we think it was King Kong), and also t a wedding this weekend which would be amazing but I think we're giong to a place called McLeodganj which is right next to Daramshala but seperated by 1000 metres in height and where the Dalai Lama lives (however he is not at home right now).

I'm really looking forward to tomorrows lessons, and also tomorrow after conversational English I'm going to Palapur into town to pick up my first other Indian outfit from the tailor wchih is most excellent news becuase I have been wearing jsut that pink one for 4 days now. And tomorrow morning makes 5 (don't worry, I did wash it, only then we all discovered that Jaipur tailors are 'nicht so gut', to quote my German friends, and also that there is nothign colourfast in India. The pink is a little faded, a layer of gold from the embellishing was left on top of the water I washed it in, and the dark blue accents really faded! I'm hopnig my new outfit it a lot better!).

I will update photos soon but I have to do that in town at the CyberCafe becuase they have broadband tehre and here we only have unreliable dialup! Also apologies for my spelling, the keyboard is a bit edgy sometimes.

I'll update soon!

lots of love,

Sophie xxx

PS - I think I'll reply to comments at the CyberCafe in future, it takes so long between pages!

I've arrived!

Sun, 04 Jun 2006 04:55:55 GMT

Hi everyone,

I've arrived in Palampur, which is a small town up in the foothills of the Himalayas where I'll be staying the next 7 weeks. The scenery is gorgeous - I can see the mountains out of my window, and they're absolutely massive! We're quite high up here, I think about 1500 feet?, so crisp packets and things are inflated due to the altitue, it's quite funny.

Our journey here was eventful - my flight was fine and was collected frm the airport by an IDEX employee, we were taken to a hotel where I managed a few hours sleep! The next ady we caught a bus to Jaipur, and wow, that was something. It was 45degrees, sadly no air-con, and our bus broke down twice and we go stuck in traffic so a 5 hour journey took 9 hours. It was... not so pleasant! But then again it couldn't be helped.

We stayed at host families for 3 nights, I stayed with the Bansal family who were very nice, excellent cooks! The mother cooked us crisps and chips to make us feel more at home, which was nice of her.

We had seminars in the morning, about what we'd be doing, Hindi customs, we learnt a few Hindi words, and had a fascinating seminar on the role of women in Indian society. We also visited Amber Fort, which is a few km outside of Jaipur and I saw elephants! And there were camels, monkeys, and warthogs in Jaipur. We have monkeys here too but no camels or elephants. We also saw a Bollywood film and it was fantastic, it was called Fanaa.

We caught an overnight train from Jaipur to the neaest railhead which is called Chakki Bank, which was raelly good fun, we were in bunks 3 high and the Indian people in the next compartment were playing the soundtrack to Fanaa, and we all were really excited.

(There's a real mix of nationalities here by the way, there's people from England, Wales, America, Canada, Austrlia, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Holland and Austria. Everyone is friendly and I think we're all getting along well!)

After we got off he train we had a 4 hour drive in a jeep to Palampur, and it just got more and more beautiful as we drove! I wish everyone could see the scenery!

I have to go now beucase we're about to go shopping for Indian clohtes - we got one oufit in Jaipur which I'm wearing now, it's bright pink! ASnd so comfortable.

I'll update again as soon as I can, the interent wasnt working for the last 2 weeks so it's a bit unreliable!

Love,

Sophie xxx

Last full day in England!!

Sun, 28 May 2006 12:09:03 GMT

Ok, so I'm leaving in a few hours to go on up to Heathrow with my mum. I'm quite scared! At the moment it still doesn't feel like I'm really going, even though there's a very big and very full suitcase in the hall reminding me that yes, I am! I've checked in to my flight online and am just packing the last few things together - passport, ticket, etc. Can't believe that this is really happening! Wish me luck!

One week left!

Sun, 21 May 2006 18:44:44 GMT

So, only one week until I pack up nd go (although the actual packing will probably be sooner. Like tomorrow). And now I'm starting to wonder things which I wondered before I ever applied for doing this. Things like, will I be any good at it? Will I be really, really ill? What's it really going to be like? And all this. I guess a week from today, I'll know!

Went to see the Da Vinci Code earlier with Dad and Seb and there's a bit with a plane in it and I got a bit side-tracked for a while thinking 'Oh my god I have to catch a plane BY MYSELF'. Plenty of things to worry about there. And I've been getting requests from mum as to what to buy from the duty-free. Which I have to take TO INDIA and back, haha. Got to try not to spend all my savings on makeup and stuff in the airport.

On a bit more of a topical note, I've been looking at the place where I'll be living for the majority of my time in India - the nearest railhead is called Palampur and it's SO NICE. It's the tea capital of that region of India, apparently, and it's near Darjeeling (which I think I should try and visit, bring everyone back some proper tea, lol). I'm surrounded by snow-capped mountains allllll the time and the scenery is lovely and the weather is about 35degrees, accpording to a weather website!

Visa forms are scary.

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 10:10:22 GMT

Who issues passports? And where? I have no idea, but apparently I'm supposed to know, beucase I have to put it down on a form.

My information pack arrived today, filled with all sorts of useful information regarding my trip, and one horrible visa form. How, may I ask, are you supposed to write a very long address and a very long telephone number on three very tiny and very close together lines, whilst still writing in (legible) block capitals? No idea. Equally, how are you supposed to fit a town and country on a line that is, at best, 4 centimetres long? Visas are very scary things. What if they don't give me one? Now there's a scary thought for you. They might take one look at me and go 'Yeah. There's no way we're letting HER into the country.' It's probably best not to dwell on that.

Apparently, my passport was issued at the Newport Passport Office.

The website for the High Comission of India is very confusing. And the UKPA Passport Hotline is not helpful.

EDIT: I got my visa!

Booked it, packed it... not gone yet though!

Thu, 30 Mar 2006 14:55:36 GMT

Today, I applied for my India trip! So it's all booked, paid for, and everything. Very exciting! Now I have to wait for all the information and my visa application to come through, so I can fill that in and post it back.

And it's less than 2 months away!