Hello from India!!

Email facilities have been a bit poor so far, but we've finally found a reliable-ish place (besides the occasional power cut), which has a fan and sea glimpses!

Well, we arrived in Mumbai to 35 deg heat and slightly scary taxi ride to our hotel. Lane control in not existent and you have to honk your horn every 30 seconds so someone knows you're there! Mel, Italian driving is a piece of you know what, but I'm not volunteering to drive a taxi! Mumbai provided a few lessons in bargaining for taxis, with one strange encounter leading to us getting a free taxi ride because I refused to pay what the driver wanted! He was trying to rip us off big time and was saving face a bit I think!!

Anyway, since then we have flown to Trivandrum, another busy, hot and dusty place, but good for picking up a taylor-made saalwar and eating yummy Keralan food!

We had a rather dissapointing trip to Ponmudi, a hill station 60km from Triv. The scenery and environment were fantastic, but we could only find one place to stay, which was a dive! I had to sleep next to a cockroach (not Karen!) and only after eating my curry did I realise it was full of flies! So we left the next dayand took a rather rickety and noisy bus back to Triv, via 22 hairpin bends (see the bus photo!!).

We're now in Varkala, which is a nice little beach resort with cute clifftop thatched cafes! So we've spent the last two days chilling out and mentally preparing for the Ashram next week!

I could go on, but as most of you will be picking this up at your desks on Monday morning, I won't gloat too much about how wonderful it is to be away in a very strange country which really does deserve its title "Incredible India" :-)

I hope all is good where you are!!

C x

P.S Have a look at Karen's Blog too, she's more creative than me, so will be more entertaining I'm sure!!