Indian Impressions

Well, India has been great. It is a country of so many conflicting things and stories that I hardly feel I have scratched the surface, despite having had a month here. Still, I have experienced so much since arriving.

One of the most amazing things I have seen here, the usually reported contrast between abject poverty and mind-blowing riches aside, has been the way people use motorbikes. No helmets, and a family of five can fit on a single 250cc Suzuki-type machine! The dad drives, two kids sit on the tank in front of him; mum rides pillion - side sadlle (side-sadlle!) because of her sari, whilst holding the youngest in her arms. Often along with the groceries. It's amazing. And not a helmet between them! Because of the traffic they rarely get about 20km/h, but still. I would never ride pillion without a helmet. Especially not when drunk in a strange town in India.

Anyway, another amazing thing has been shopping. Not just how much I can do of it (three saris, four salwar suits, three pairs of earrings, deoderant, other sundry items, and no pashminas), but how confronting an experience it is.
"Madam, madam! Please come, look at my shop."
"Yes? Please come."
"You are looking for pasmina shawl, silk scarf, bangle... beautiful punjabi suit, silk saree, please madam..."
"Sister, sister, yes"...
At first it made me not look anywhere, but I am used to it now. I think I will feel quite unloved in a western shops now! Especially if I try to tell them the price they are asking is ridiculous...

The people have been by turns both horrid and fabulous, the politics and culture has been fascinating, the beggars have been successfully ignored, and the food is better at home (it's true! Better for my western tastes, at least). I rather like India, and look forward to spending a bit of time in one place in it at some time in the future, to get a little deeper under it many layers of skin.

Last days

Well, Jaisalmer was great! It is my favourite place in the entire tour - my favourite that I've seen in India, actually. I loved the walled town with its small windy streets - similar but cooler than the other places I've been to. It also helped that I had an excellent night out there, even if the morning after was a little less than excellent...

I had my palm read at the fort in Jodhpur, but didn't see much else of the place due to said self-imposed Delhi-belly. I am now in Udaipur, which is nice, but nothing amazing really. I would have like to go to Ajmer and Pushkar - apparently they are a lot of people's favourites, but my tour doesn't go there! Ah well, I'll just have to come back in August. If I think I could stomach the heat...

So in a few hours I am catching my final sleeper train back to Delhi, where my tour ends in a couple of days' time. Then I get about a day either side of my flight before I start my Contiki! I knew I was mad...

Backroads of Rajasthan

Okay, so it's been ages since I've had enough time on the internet to do everything I've wanted to, so I'm way behind on keeping everyone up on the tour I'm on. I'll try and get something up to this effect now. Maybe we'll just stick to the highlights though...

On the 10th, the day on which the tour started, I met my room mate for the tour. She's pretty cool, so we went to the red fort in Delhi on their metro, which is always fun because the cleanliness inside dramatically contrasts with the dirt outside. Red fort was cool too, I think, though all of the forts have kindas melded into one now... Soomaanyfooorts... I've still taken pics of them all though :p

Day two we went to Agra and saw the red fort there (most of the forts are red, too!). We also saw the Taj Mahal, which is pretty cool. I have the requisite million photos, which I will make anyone foolish enough to ask sit through ^.^

Day three I saw some birds and stuff, day four we got trapped in our hotel in the middle of nowhere by a protests which got a bit nasty. Turns out Rajasthan (the state we were in) had some really bad, highly unseasonal hail and it wrote off all their crops. Our guide, an Indian from this state called (of all things) Paddy, said that they were demonstrating because they were worried they wouldn't get compensation for their lost earnings and be destitute. The farmers have it pretty bad here.

Anyway, the next day we went to Jaipur, which was the place I was in the next day for my birthday. That was fort number... well, I dunno. Soomaanyfoooorts...

The next day was, of course, Camel Day! It was fun, and much more comfortable than a horse. They have more padding, I think, though I may have got lucky - a number of the other girls say they are missing some skin... ouch! I was just strting to find it really uncomfortable at the end of the five hours. We stopped for lunch under a tree, had vegetarian curries cooked for us and then had a siesta in the sand. It was pretty sweet. We then finished our 5hrs after the nap, and got in to our desert camp - all set up for us, with tents and a table with tablecloth and lamps! - in time for the sunset. It was so cool.

A short 1-hr ride out in the morning ended the camel safari, and we went to transfer to our new hotel. We were all very excited about the prospect of a hot shower and some form of toilet apart from a patch of sand, so you can imagine how excited we were when Paddy (the guide) said we'd been upgraded! We stayed in a Palace! It was so cool - from one type of traditiional Indian life to quite another. It was called the Lallgarh Palace if anyone wants to google it.

Last night we caught an 8 hour bus to Jaisalmer (no toilet stops so no drinking anything that whole day in preparation!) and I am now in an internet cafe in "the golden city" which is a gold-yellow sandstone walled city in which people still live! It is the first inhabited fort we've been to, so it's pretty sweet. It's my favourite place so far.

Well, you are more or less up to date, and I am tired of writing so I'll leave it there. Eight more days until I can eat steak!

Okay, let's try that again...

Man, that was so annoying. I spent like half an hour writing that birthday post, and it didn't go up! It said it had published successfully, too >.< Oh well, I will try to write the abridged version.

It seems I mis-calculated: I wasn't on the camel on my birthday. I was in Jaipur, and that evening was an overnight train to Bikaner where the camels live. It was a good day though, despite the lack of wine etc. I was woken up by txts at 4am, 5am and 6am from dad, Col and Kali respectively (I think that was the order - I was asleep), then a call from dad at 6.30. When I finally got it through my sleeping head that I could probably talk to people despite the cost seeing as it was my birthday, it was great, if a bit tear-inducing.

I then took a couple of my cohorts and went to see the Hawa Mahal ("Palace of the Winds") and the rest of the City Palace, and had some (fairly sloppy) mendhi (henna-hand-decoration-paint-thing) done. It was a cool expreience though.

After that, a lot of us had decided to go to Pizza Hut (!) in town for my birthday. It was so nice to eat western food again, which actually tasted like it does at home! Hehe. While I have enjoyed the Indian food, the novelty was beginning to wear off after eaing it twice a day for so long now.

After lunch we went shopping and I bought some earrings, which are forever to be known as my birthday earrings, according to one of the girls. We then made our way back to the hotel because a palmist was supposed to be there and I thought it sounded like fun. By the time we arrived, however, some people had had theirs done and said he sucked, especially for the price, so we decided against it. I am now on a mission to find a proper Toothless Crone to do it. Hopefully there is one who speaks English...

Thanks for all your comments everyone, it was nice to get birthday wishes from you all. Will try to look in on Santharia soon Art, though I'd like to catch everyone up on the tour so far so I will try to write that first. Internet here is few and far between so I'm trying to use it when I find it. Hope everyone is well and having fun - I am!

My Birthday!

Final Sight Seen

Today is my last day in Kolkata. It's kind of sad, but also quite exciting because that means my tour of Rajasthan starts in a couple of days! I have to check out at midday tomorrow, but my transfer doesn't come until 3.30pm for my train at (theoretically) 4.55pm so I shall be sitting in the garden bar drinking water or tea or Pepsi (they don't seem to have Coke as much in India) for a few hours. It's not really a problem though - that's probably pretty much what I would have been doing anyway!

Today I finished my sighteseeing of West Bengal (the state Kolkata is in, and is the capital of) with a visit to the Raj relic called the Victoria Memorial. It's basically a museum of British rule, although it has a display of modern art on at the moment, and is in a fairly similar style to our museum in the Domain. Perhaps it is not surprising then, given my proprietary-ness of said building, that I have decided that it will do nicely as a bach for me in India. Once I rename it and fix up the plumbing (I had my first experience of Indian-style bathrooms there today, and had to pay a rupee for the dubious pleasure) I think it will do quite nicely.

One day in Kolkata

So yesterday I spent the day on a little tiki-tour of the city: me, a driver, and a tour guide to take me cool places. It was organised by the man who provided my transfers to and from the railway station.

It got off to something of a bumpy start: I had organised it for Friday but when the car turned up, there was no guide! Apparently there was not one available, so I told them where they could put that, and that I'd do the tour on Monday if they could guarantee me a guide. On a side note, it has been quite shocking how badly people have tried to rip me off here. I guess they all think I'm rich or something. I suppose, compared to them, I am.

Anyway, the driver and guide picked me up at 9.30 on Monday. We went first to the Temple of Kali called the Kali Ghat. I saw where they sacrifice the goats every day; apparently they use the flesh to feed the poor which I thought was very nice. I also got a little glimpse 0f the Goddess, but we didn't go in... I'm not really sure why. *Shrug* On the way out we saw what looked like a dead tree, which my guide informed me was actually a cactus, to which people tie little blocks of what look like stone with red thread to wish for a child. As we left, the guide slipped a seemingly random guy some money. When I asked what that was about he said it was to ensure we didn't get hassled! Touristy destinations, eh?

After that we had some of the worst chai I've ever had in a stall outside before he took me to see Nirmal Hriday next door: Mother Theresa's Home for the Destitute and Dying. It was quite embarrassing really; he took me in and kind of left me to have a look around while he went outside to have a smoke. So here I am, all clean and touristy, standing around in a place where people are either very sick or very working. I left pretty quickly.

Next we drove to the flower market, which is apparently a must-see. It stank of crushed rotting greenery, but if I had wanted to buy strings and strings of marigolds or a neat little crown made entirely out of flowers, that would have been the place! It was also very crowded and I think I got "accidentally" brushed up against a number of times. People always seem to complain about this but it didn't really bother me, apart from the principle of the thing. There's nothing I find very shocking about having a hand brush your leg as you walk through a crowded area, but I know that the men were doing it with sleazy intent so I guess I felt like I ought to be at least a little annoyed. I didn't spend much energy on it though.

We then went to see the Old Howrah Bridge, a massive construction of steel cables which spans the huge wide branch of the Ganges which flows through Calcutta (called the Hooghly River when they don't just call it the Ganges) from the city Calcutta to the city/district called Howrah, which incidentally is where you find the station my train departs from and arrives to. There are two bridges across the river, the Old and the New. You can't always see the one from the other because of the atrocious amounts of smog here, but later on we went to see the ghats on the riverside at a point between the two and you could see both from there. The Old bridge is fairly similar to the new bridge except that the Old has lanes where massive streams of people can and do walk across it (and it looked like quite a walk! It's a long way across, perhaps twice or three times the straight length of our Harbour bridge), and the New bridge is formed of symmetrical wires holding it up, whereas the Old one looks very much as if it had been cobbled together.

The next two stops were the highlight of the tour. The Kumar Tolly is an area where artisans craft the idols for festivals and, one assumes, temples. They are made of straw tied into the required shape then covered in clay a few times, then painted and decorated. We saw them in all phases of creation and I was very impressed with how a few bits of string and some mud can turn a lump of hay into a goddess!

After this was the stunning Jain temple, a confection of marble and mirrors and mosaics. It's difficult to describe, so you should all go look it up - I think there's only one in Kolkata. I wish I could get some of the photos I've taken up here, but I think that's a bit of an ask for the speeds of the computers here! As we left the guide encouraged me to give a small donation to a priest for a little red-and-yellow wool bracelet. It was for protection, he said, although it was immediately after this that I noticed feeling sick (see previous post) so perhaps it is not so good! I am still wearing it though, just to prove to myself how not-superstitious I am ^.^

They took me back to the hotel for lunch and then at 2 o'clock we headed out again. This time we went to the Old Park Street Cemetery first, which was rather neat. Massive monoliths from the 17- and 1800s, memorialising British men and children from the East India Company are crowded in to a small section of land which is amazingly quiet for this city. The light had a lovely green quality to it from all the ancient towering trees, which was echoed in the green of the moss on the ground, although not on the graves: these were scrupulously maintained.

After seeing the riverside and bridges and a quick stop at a souvenir shop where I bought three postcards and they tried to sell me yet another pashmina (I haven't bought one but it seems to be what all the touts think western women want so I swear if I hear that word again...!) we made our last stop at St Paul's Anglican Cathedral. They had some beautiful stained glass there, and the guide told me (a number of times - perhaps I wasn't suitably impressed) that it was where Princess Diana visited when she came to Calcutta. I was, however, impressed when the guide told me that one of the priests or whatever-you-call-'em said that when he saw me he thought Diana had come back to visit! Hehe, I am easily flattered. Apparently she wore a very similar salwar suit with her dupatta (scarf) over her head the way I was wearing mine, when she visited.

So quite a good little day's outing really, though exhausting. I feel now that I can say I have "done" Kolkata, apart from my one outstanding sight which is the Victoria Memorial. Maybe tomorrow.

Betting: End! No more bets!

I have succumbed! Delhi-belly has finally got me.

I was on a tour of the city (to be described in a later post) during the day, and at about midday I began to get a sore neck. Then I started to cough, then to feel hot, then a little dizzy... I went out for dinner and had a fabulous Chicken Tikka at a place called Jojo's (which is so far not implicated), and when I got back I had to go straight to bed. I woke up a couple of hours later burning up but freezing cold. I managed to get back to sleep for a bit before... well, I shall omit the details but suffice to say I started taking my rehydration salts. They're not too bad actually - Simon says they taste awful but the ones I have just taste like a slightly salty orange cordial, which was a nice change from the straight bottled water I've been drinking almost exclusively (apart from the ever-present tea here) for seven-plus days straight.

I felt much better by the morning, and even managed to get to the market down the road after lunch to pick up the saris I bought a few days earlier. I shan't elaborate on those though; I think my shopping will have to have a post of its own!

The Fairlawn

When I first arrived at the Fairlawn Hotel I was a bit shocked. It looked a lot less cute than on the website, and my room was somewhat nasty - the shower is over the bath, which is on blocks, and there is no shower curtain! The air conditioning duct runs through the bathroom too, which is something of an eyesore. There was no soap provided in the room, no flannels and the paper in the loo (a nasty, public-toilet styled room) is as cheap as it comes. The bedroom itself is a masterpiece of floral history, with matching blue rose-covered beadspread, drawer-covers, and curtains over the entryways to the convenience in lieu of doors. All this, after the rather palatial marble-and-wood surrounds at the Bajaj Indian Homestay in Delhi, seemed simply too crude to bear. I considered asking to be transferred to another room but was quickly dissuaded from that course by a lady who stays there frequently - apparently it is wiser not to do anything to upset the owner, the tempestuous Mrs. Violet Smith.

I've been at the Fairlawn for five or six days now. The floral patterns have grown on me, I'm getting to know the staff, the guests are nice to talk to and the lights outside (which masquerade as tacky plastic fruit hanging from the doorways and eaves by day) look so beautiful at night that I am quite comfortable here now, despite the food, which is *looks around hoping that the redoubtable Mrs. Smith never sees this* lacklustre, to be kind. Although the best parts of the hotel - like the lounge and that fabulous carved bannister - are upstairs (where my room is not - it's off the dining room), that only makes me think "if I come back to Calcutta, I'll have to ask them to book me in to an upstairs room"... Once you have stayed here, I doubt you could really think of staying anywhere else.

Indian Rail, first class style.

Well, I have a bit of time to write up something now. I'm in the internet cafe across from my hotel and it's 15 minutes until lunch is served. I seem to have been given all-inclusive accommodation, so I am eating all the meals they try to feed me at the moment.

So, the rail journey. I boarded at Delhi two and a half hours late, because the train before mine was running late. The guy who was doing the transfer from my hotel helped me board, which was brilliant because otherwise I would never have found my berth! Apparently you have to find your name on a board of passenger lists to find out which seat you are in, rather than having it printed on your ticket. Hurdle number two (after the train being delayed 2 1/2 hours) was that we couldn't find my name on the lists! I managed to remain pretty calm about the whole thing - I guess I was so far out of my depth I just couldn't stir myself to worry about anything! When the train finally pulled in we had to run to the front to find the right conductor (one for each carriage) to tell me where my seat was. As I sat down in my carriage I looked out the window and saw a board which said something like "upper class passenger lists". I figure that was why we didn't find my mane on the board we'd been looking at - because I was in first class (I'd decided to pay more and keep my luggage :p )!

So I got all settled in. The compartment had a long bench-type seat on either side, the back part of which folded down to convert into a bed. As I waited, a man came in and sat down. He was obviously very important because he read about three newspapers in the time I was in there, and kept taking cellphone calls during which he had to shout down the phone in Hindi to be heard, repeating what he said at increased volume each time. It was really quite comical and I had a very hard time not cracking up into fits of hysterics! Poor man, just trying to make a phone call and some stupid foreigner finds you funny!

Anyway, the ticket inspector came in after about an hour and offered me to move to the next door compartment which was a single room. I was relieved because, as funny as I found him, I
didn't fancy sleeping in the same room as the man. So I moved, and they brought me dinner: a cheese sandwich, what I thought was a sausage roll nut was actually some herby curry paste stuff wrapped in pastry; a really nice strawberry drink, some sweets and some cashew nuts. Oh, and the ever-present tea.

A little while later they came in and asked me what I wanted for dinner. "Wait, what? What was that I just ate then?"
"That was snacks, madam."
Snacks! Perhaps unsurprisingly I wasn't hungry at that time, so I said I didn't want anything and asked for the bedding they supply, and went to sleep after being sternly admonished by the guy who brought the bedding to lock the door. I got up at 11pm to do what needed to be done (they have western-style loos in 1st class, thankfully), and they offered me dinner again. Never being one to turn down a free meal, I got roast chicken with veges, potato wedges and some of these excellent fish cutlets which were dome in a spicy shell. I hope they have those again when I go back to Delhi in a few days.

After that I slept quite well, to be woken at about 6am by the sunlight through my curtains. I tried to sleep longer but I had to give up at 7am when the Hindi music they were playing when I got on the train started up again. Not long after there was an announcement that the train was now 5hrs late, sorry for any inconvenience! Still, I was in no real hurry. Breakfast came (with as many different courses and as much food as dinner), followed by lunch. Soon after that we stopped at a station where some little beggar kids came up to the window and begged for food. I don't know how they thought I was going to give it to then - my window had no opening as the carriage was air-conditioned! I locked my door in case they came inside, which turned out to be fortunate. As we pulled out of the station I heard this thump, thump noise from my door. I pulled the curtain back and saw this guy I'd never seen before trying to wrench the door off its hinges! I was a bit freaked out, and although, I reasoned, he might just have got the wrong compartment number, I kept my door locked the rest of the way there just in case.

I arrived without any further excitement at the Fairlawn and have, more or less, been there ever since. I shall update further later but for now I am late for lunch, which is not really done, so I shall have to run. Hope everyone is well; as always do let me know, by email or by commenting below.

Kolkata and Indian Rail

Just a quick one today guys; I'm not sure if I will have time to post tomorrow so I thought I'd whip up something now.

I have arrived in Kolkata (aka Calcutta) in a safe, if not timely manner. My train was five hours late! Kolkata is - at first glance, anyway - different from Delhi in that it has fewer people, marginally less pollution, more nuns and is rather a lot hotter!

Actually, my discourse on the rail system may have to wait: I think I'm due back at the hotel for dinner. Hope everyone is well; leave me comments, or email me! Will post more later...

It's past my bedtime but it's only 4pm....

Well, here I am! I've been in India for about 12 hours now; I landed at 1.30ish, disembarked at 2ish due to another plane hogging our gate, and got into bed after my transfer at about 4am Delhi time. I've had three hours' sleep since then, and been shopping already! But I'm getting ahead of myself...

The fight was smooth and my seat-mate forthe first leg was nice, despite the fact that we didn't have a language in common. I flew AKL-Hong Kong and she was transferring to Taipei. She brought me snacks, and showed me how to use the remote control thingamywhatsit.

I remember thinking as we flew closer to Hong Kong that I had forgotten how beautiful twilight in the air is. There was this band around the horizon like a rainbow, shading red-orange-yellow-green-violet-and then into the deep blue of nighttime, fading up to black. No clouds, just a scattering of stars, the brightest of which sat just above the wing looking like a hole poked into the blanket of night with daytime shining through.

Anyway, Hong Kong airport was cool. Its tent-like scalloped roof is neat, as was the art, the travelators and cleanliness, and the amazing-bizarre topiaried mandarin trees just growing in displays around the place. The mandarins were perfectly placed, I wondered if they were real! I didn't dare pick one and see, I figured there'd be some sort of fine...

The plane from Hong Kong to Delhi was much nicer than the one from Auckland. I had a whole window-row of seats to myself, too; much better than trying to clamber or acrobat over nice sleeping Taipei lady.

My first sight of India was a cluster of lights in the darkness on the ground. I think the town was called Decca. We flew over it, flew near Agra, and flew over Patna on our way to Delhi. We landed on time and, after few problems my luggage and I were safely delivered. My first thought upon exiting the terminal was "the air smells different here". It kind of smells like your fingers when you've been chopping garlic and onions. That, mixed with spices, effluent, and the occasional whiff of incense. Glamorous and choking.

I found my transfer people, who found my hotel for me*, and I was installed in my room by about 3.30am. Cue waterworks. Heh. There had been a bit of crying before I left, but this was the "Oh shit, what am I DOING!?" kind of crying. I got over it in a relatively short space of time though, and worked out what it was I wanted to accomplish today. With goals in mind I felt a lot better and eventually managed to fall asleep. I woke at seven, having decided to set my alarm for eight and maybe not even get up then...

It turned out it was as well I didn't sleep in. As it happened, I met an English lady called Cassie at breakfast, and we decided to go shopping together. It made life so much easier to have two of us trying to work out where we were and how we were getting from one place to another, rather than just one!

Well, I think that's me. I might go to bed early actually, I'm starting to feel dizzy from tiredness... Must... stay... awake... till at least 7.... urgh.

Tomorrow at about this time I board an overnight train to Kolkata (Calcutta) where I stay for about a week. Bring it on!

____
*At this point I should mention that I found it highly amusing to be stuck in a traffic jam on the roads on the way to my hotel. At 3am! In the morning!! And before you politicians go on about Auckland roads, this is different. This was a traffic jam of trucks (still referred to as the English "lorries", although some were actual trucks. Anyway...). It turns out, lorries etcetera aren't allowed on the main roads between 9 and 5. I think it's a goood idea. It was quite something, hoewever, to be in one of the only cars amongst a jam of crumbling, rusting trucks, many sans doors; one even sans half the cab! They all seemed to be well loved though, even though they looked like they blonged on the scrap heap! They were all painted with designs and words. Words along the lines of "Use Horn Please" (not that they had to ask - I think driving here is a sport to see who can honk the most!) and "Keep Distance" and, perhaps most bizarrely, on many rear bumpers and mudflaps: "STOP!"

What's the Hindi for...?

Well, I'm off! See you all on the 18th of September, or thereafter. Keep an eye on this for updates. Is there a pool running yet on how long before I get a case of Delhi-belly? I know there's one on how long before I get robbed... :D

Ninja - WIN!

Purely because they were all still sober at the end of the night (I blame the face masks) I think we have to declare that the ninjas won. There were more of them than I ever expected, although I should probably have known that, given the nature of ninjas.


Honourable mentions must go to Pirate Steven for his "albino parrot", Pirate Heidi for wearing that many stripes, and to ninja Dad for wearing a full-body ninja-turtle outfit on what I swear was a thirty-degree day! (look out all you pople in India, I might melt on you...)

Thanks so much to everyone who came; it was an excellent night! Today I'm off to collect my documents from my travel agent, and then it is two weeks to go...!

One Month!

Today it's one month to the day until I leave. I'm not really excited or scared or anything yet - I'm still too mired in the details.

I'm off work until I leave, so... *potter*.

I haven't got my travel documents yet, but I do have most of my other stuff all organised. Injections either all done or all underway, pack bought, shorts bought, accomodation mostly confirmed... although I am still waiting to hear about my Indian Visa - they've had my passport for a while now... I knew I should have got a better passport photo! Haha.

I'm still in discussions with IRD (i.e. I've sent them a letter about things they've got wrong and they haven't replied... we're on a limited time-scale here people!). I have yet to call vodafone about what I do with my phone so they don't bill me while I'm away, and there are always other things to do.

Drinking is one of them, yay! Lots of little 'last drinks' with different groups, which is cool, then my big leaving party. And making time to do cool stuff with my Simon, like horseriding. Yay.

Eeek! One month to go.

Vaccinations, check... ow!

I went and got my vaccinations yesterday. While you may not find this terribly exciting, I found it amusing to spend an hour in a nurse's office getting jabbed with little bits of polio, diptheria, tetanus, five flavours of meningitis, hepatitis A and my personal favourite, typhoid fever.

And on the 22nd I add rabies to my collection. Now when you call me rabid, it will be just a little more true.

A treat for anyone who has been checking...

There's not too much to report on the travel front. I've a few things underway, like the purchase of a backpack and getting my vaccinations sorted, but otherwise it's pretty much all as organised as it can be until I get my travel documents from the tour operators in January or February.

Still, there is one more big-ish thing I have yet to organise: my leaving party! It will be on Saturday the 10th of February, probably at my house, and it will be a Pirates versus Ninjas theme! It will be favourites.

To help those who aren't yet secure in their pirate or ninja identity, I made a quiz for you to take. Thus, anyone who doesn't know whether they are a ninja or a pirate, doesn't know the meme, or just plain doesn't get it should click here. Everyone else should too, just for shits and giggles.

^.^

On the day I turn 26...

...I will be in the desert, on a camel. Where the star is on the map.

For those who haven't yet figured it out, this is a map of my itinerary in India:
Delhi - Kolkata, Kolkata - Delhi, Gecko's tour around Rajasthan.
For more info, see my first (proper, trip-related) post.

Click the picture for a larger version.

This is what my day will look like on the 15th of March, 2007:

"We arrive into Bikaner by train early this morning and transfer to our hotel. There we can buy some breakfast before driving to Himmatasar - the starting point for our camel ride. We ride for around 2 hours to our lunch point and then on to the main Dunes of Raisar to witness a beautiful sunset. We then continue to our overnight camp where small tents will be provided or you can simply sleep under a star filled sky."

Sounds pretty sweet, although I have a feeling I'll be missing people. Do you think the camels will be extra-nice to me because it's my birthday?

Yeah, me neither.

There's a hole in my bank account.

Well, it's done! No backing out now. I paid for my travel today - I used a bank cheque in the end, because it turns out internet banking has a limit of $1000 on one-off payments. Bah, quoth I. Still, it's sorted now. It's all tying up loose ends and preparing for the day from here on in! Not to mention enjoying the summer.

As part of the paying thing, I have finalised my dates (although there is no charge for me to change the return dates in case I get bored and want to come home (not likely!) or run out of money (...yeeeah, quite a bit more likely... hehe)). I will be leaving on Monday the 26th of February at 2ish and arriving back on Monday the 17th of September at 3pmish. That's two Mondays off work for anyone who cares to use me as an excuse. ^.^ And I will be back just in time to see Turandot. What an amazing coincidence. I will be back in the southern hemisphere on the 12th of September when I'll be in Brisbane, visiting the expat branch of mum's side of the family - thanks for the offer, guys! There are, of course, lots of other dates to do with my journey, but I will post them closer to the time with things like which countries I will be in on which day with my Contiki and such.

Loose-ends-wise:

Before exams I will have to drop my passport in to Jain to get my visa for India, and ring Mrs. Cartmell (my Isle of Man homestay lady) to tell her my ferry dates, and then I can relax (haha) until after exams.

Then, after exams (if that magical time truly exists) I start thinking about talking to doctors about courses of vaccinations, and doing anything else I have't thought of yet, like emailing or MSNing individual overseas friends to see if they will be amenable to having a visitor (this means you Alida, Tony, Jamie, etc, etc...). Ooh, and I get to go backpack-shopping!

It's real

Today is the 24th of October. This time in four months, I will be walking through a gate to a plane to Delhi.

Four months.