Really sorry this one is going to be so brief but I'm so behind! So will just do it briefly and try and include some of the more funny and interesting parts!!

InMysore….

Forgot this bit from the last time…

Jess and I hit Mysore on our own we went to a crazy bus tour that sapped the life out of us and I saw a man doing things one does not wish to see whilst staring at me in a park. Stayed in a hotel with a mental asylum type café and then Jess and I hit the train back to Tanya's house.

To the Andaman Islands ….

We flew from Chennai to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands for five days, we arrived and it was raining for the first day. We stayed in Port Blair we saw a crazy sound and light show in the prison where prisoners from India were sent during the fight for independence and then moved to Havelock Island which was so beautiful. We stayed in a bamboo hut where we were slightly too at one with nature. We chilled on the most idyllic beach I have ever seen and the islands are still mainly untouched by tourists so are really quiet. We went on a snorkeling tour which was amazing and made me want to be a pro snorkeler. We then went back to Port Blair, met a waiter where everything on the menu was 'not possible!' saw a bit more and then flew to Kolkata much to my dismay at leaving the beach behind!

Kolkata ….

We were met by our soon to be father figure Partha Roy who we will be working with on our project over the next month. We were taken in his car to our new home a flat which was basic with no furniture except for the hard beds and a upturned cupboard as a bed, it was clean tho and we had our first encounter with a cockroach!! The following day we were invited on family trip to a hotel with a 'pool' so we all crammed into a Jeep and headed off, the pool looked like a pond and had a frog in it against my will and after much persuasion I got in the pool to impress the 'employers' and not be culturally insensitive. Jess and I braved it together and ended up laughing and swallowing a load of water.

The following week we met the NGO that we were working with and a few others the people who work there are all amazing and very inspiring and I could really see myself working in this environment. Over the next three weeks we compiled a booklet type report for the NGO on one of their youngest projects, a crèche and women's centre in a rural village south of Kolkata. During the time we met the families of the people we were working for and we were welcomed as one of their family. We saw sights in Kolkata and just hung round places. The city is far more modern than I expected still totally mental and very crowded the people are nice tho and the city has a good feel to it.

The first weekend in Kolkata we went to the Sunderbans, a mangrove forest region south of Kolkata that's famous for tigers. We stayed in a teachers centre, part of one of the projects we are working with. It was in a very rural area and very untouched. Tanya fell in a rice paddy field which is one of my highlights of the trip after trying to avoid a dog. Jess and I couldn't rescue her as the dog was still around. I was feeling crap before we went and had dehli belly and this just got a lot worse here. I suffered from dehydration and went to see a doc in this rural hospital who wanted to put me on a drip but after lying on a blood stained bed to be checked out I refused, so I was confined to my bed as I was too weak and dizzy to more and sweating through the constant power cuts. Back to Kolkata on a very painful journey back and bed rest followed by 2 more docs/hospital visits several medicines later and still the pain continued. I soldiered on tho and finished our project.

Leaving Kolkata…

As we had finished the project we moved on towards Rajasthan, the desert region which is bloody boiling and well in the 40's everyday and very dry heat.We are slightly mental!

We hit the Ganges and Varanasi, India's holiest city, we trekked with our backpacks which have got seriously heavy through small alleyways splatted with cow pats, there is rubbish and cows everywhere with a rather funny smell to it and arrived at a ghat, set of steps leading to the river, where our hotel was. The next morning we took a early morning boat trip on the Ganges and saw the most mental sights, people bathing in one of India's most polluted rivers, child priests, washer men and women, a burning ghat where people are created and put on the holy water of the Ganges and a dead cow. We then went on a walking tour in 45 degrees and saw a few temples, totally shattered we lugged our bags back to and auto and headed to Agra, the land of the TAj!

THE TAJ MAHAL! …

After the night train we arrived and saw the Taj on the way to our hotel in the mist and it looked magical and amazing! We could see it from our hotel and had breakfast looking at it! Later we went to visit a famous moghuls grave. The next day we hit the Taj and it was amazing and I loved it though the actually tomb in the centre of it is tiny and yet beautiful. We just spent the day on some kind of Taj high and I forgot about my consistent tummy ache for a while. The next day we went to Agra fort which is where the man who built the Taj for his dead wife's tomb was imprisoned by his son, all slightly mental and from here you can see the Taj! Was interesting yet boiling!That afternoon we got a train to Jaipur in Rajasthan where I am writing from now, here we have spent most of our time in bed or at a docs clinic having needles shoved in our bums, Jess is sick now and mines nearly four weeks on continues, however hotel is lovely and quirky, staff our lovely, owner is lovely and we have prob provided the most hilarity they have seen in a while. We are yet to know our travel plans cost our bodies and the heat have changed them. Every tourist is like it too hot which it is many people just stay indoors for most of the day.

Anyway I have to retire to my bed lol as I'm exhausted just from writing this, but you are now briefly up to date. Will try and put some more photos on just its very slow and boiling in the room where computer is so have not had energy top do it yet!

Hope everyone is well and can't wait to see everyone!!!