Yo all! Thought I'd better put down what's been happening this past week and a bit!

 Sunday morning me and Kim got an ancient bus as part of a tour to the Ajanta caves. Some of these were over 2000 years old and are covered in ancient paintings. They're all cut into the side of a big mountain, all from one piece of rock. The paintings were amazing for how old they were - because they'd been hidden from the sun and rain they looked like they were only a?hundred years old or so. We spent the day with some American medical students who were as sick of Indian food as I am now :). The bus ride was a bit scary - lots of steep mountain slopes with lorries scattered down their sides?.

The next day we hired a rickshaw driver for the day to take us around Ellora and Aurangabad. We were initially a bit dubious but Mr Vijas proved to be a pretty awesome choice. We left early in the morning and got to Daulatabad fort before all the bus party tourists got there. This was once the capital of India. Only for about 6 years though till?when the sultan of that time realised he'd been a fool to march a whole city down to a place which suffered chronic drought. This?situation seems to have been cropping up a lot during my travels in India. The fort was amazing and deserted and we climbed right to the top. There were loads of dark passages and traps where invaders were pushed into crocodile pools and a lot of bats. In the middle of the ruins there's a huge orange minaret which looks really weird, like a missile or something, hmmmm.

On the way back down every Indian tourist wanted to have their photograph taken with us. This happened pretty much all day and it felt very strange being a tourist attraction.

We then went to the Ellora caves. I'm so glad we did these on the second day as they were even more impressive than Ajanta. We started at the oldest caves which were simple Buddhist monasteries which then got bigger and bigger and more full of incredible carvings until they were going right under the middle of the mountain. Then we came to cave sixteen which wasn't really a cave at all but one of the strangest things I've ever seen. It's a whole enormous temple carved out of the side of a mountain and all out of one piece of rock. It's over a thousand years old and took about 200 years to build. I felt it was just as impressive as the Taj and until I put some pictures on here it's pretty hard to describe it and do it justice. oh I saw loads of as well which was cool

So anyway after that cave neither of us thought the other's were worth a look so we went and got lunch and visited another small temple. Vijas then took us to Khulzabad to see the tomb of Aurangzeb - the son of the guy whose tomb is the Taj Mahal. His tomb was completely different - it was just a simple marble box with some flowers on it. Then Vijas took us back to Aurangabad and the rickshaw got a puncture. We had to stop and sit in this tiny road cafe with all the Indian's looking at us like we were aliens for about half an hour while Mr Vijas panicked and ran around with tyres. We were cool with it though because we'd had a great day so far and Vijas was a really friendly guy.

  He took us next to the Bibi Ka Maqbara which is basically a poor imitation of the Taj Mahal. Kim thought it was lovely (she hasn't seen the Taj) but I thought it was alright but a bit craply done compared to the Taj so just made fun of it. Got our photo taken loads at this and the mosque garden we visited next by Indians. The people in Aurangabad were some of the friendliest I've met so far. Then we finished off a great day by going to a sari factory and saying goodbye to the best rickshaw driver on this trip.

Then I snored my way through an overnight bus journey and slept all Tuesday. On Wednesday I went to morning class and we did final preparations for graduation day. In the evening all the teachers and me went to the Akansha AGM which was held at a very posh college. Our centre got one award, for out morning helper Maushie, and all suspected a bit of awards politics as one centre got about 70% of the prizes. Grrr. And I had to drink cold mango chai and pretend I liked it.

The boy's centre graduation went surprisingly well. There was no fighting; no Karishma (horrible office lady who is rude and messes up graduation days) and the kids all remembered largely what to do. On Friday we took them to a park where they went mad, fought a lot and got me to push a roundabout around in 40 degrees for about an hour. At the girls centre we just played games and gave out a few gifts. It left me feeling really down finishing this project, it's something I could happily of done for months. The teacher's invited me for a lunch at the office on Saturday but Saturday things went a bit wrong. I ate breakfast and by the last slice realised the bread was mouldy. Felt a bit bad. Got in a rickshaw which bumped me across town hitting every pothole. Felt really bad. Got to the office early. Only Karishma was there. Needed to vomit. Wish I'd done it on her but I made it to the bathroom :(. Felt like crap so came back to Koregaon. That was a bad day for Kim as well as she vomited whilst a dinner guest at her orphanages' directors' house. So we both felt like crap for all Saturday and Sunday and I felt depressed because I had no more teaching and was worried about the rest of my trip.

But today I registered for Osho ashram starting tomorrow. (I'm actually writing this on the 3rd so I've been to Osho and it's been fantastic. I've had no time to update it as I've been meditating and being a hippy lunatic for about 12 hours a day since the 1st. But I'll put all that in another entry. I've only got 4 days left in India from now and I am so nervous. My next blog will be either from Sri Lanka or Singapore.). Anyway my illness cleared up pretty quickly. It's just dealing with the fact I still have a huge amount of travelling to do and I feel like I've done so much as it is that it is making me nervous for my health and all sorts. But Osho is helping loads. I'll put more photos up in Singapore.

Two months gone already! Three to go.

Please ignore all the random question marks - Indian computers go a bit weird sometimes.

Tom