Orchha

Hello everyone.How's it going?We have spent our last couple of days in Orchha, which is a village south-east of Agra (about a 6 hour train/tuk-tuk journey).We are staying in air-conditioned tents, which would be lovely apart from the MILLIONS of critters which seem to get in through every possible opening!On the first night we shared the tent with Barry the Beetle and we were joined in the early hours by some huge stick insect thing (honestly, it was ENORMOUS!); on the second night we were joined by a family of lizards (which were actually quite cute from a distance - there was no mid-night toilet visits that night!).We dug deep and were strong in the fight against these monsters though... we are still alive.

Anyway, the reason for us visiting Orchha was so that we could see what it was really like to live in an Indian Village, so the first night we went to a family's home to be taught some Indian cooking by a lady called Vandana who really was one of the nicest people we have ever met. Her house was literally just a kitchen, living room and a bedroom, so we all ate our dinner around her family's one bed. On our last day in Orchha we visited a school for the poorest children in the village - we have attached some pictures so that you can see how poor these kids actually were, and more importantly, how gorgeous they all were! Every where you go in India there are kids who shout you from way across the street just to get a wave and a hello, and if you ask to take their picture and then show them the picture you've taken, you've made their day. They're adorable - not like the little s***s back in the UK! We also went to another family's home for our last meal in Orchha and had our first squatting experience, which we knew would have to happen eventually but Belle still wasn't quite prepared for (although it was something she had to get used to....!).

There are a fair few impressive temples in Orchha that we visited too, and we attended a hindu prayer meeting which involved a lot of ringing of bells and banging of symbols. We also went rafting on the Betwa River one morning which was quite good fun but not that exciting - even Belle wasn't scared the "rapids" were that tame!

And then it was time to get the overnight train to Allahabad where we get on our boat to sail down the River Ganges......

xxx