Trying to help out

Im still at Magda's place. Yesterday I went for lunch with a friend of Susi, Chris. He is Belgian, but has lived here for about 4 years. He has something like an ashram/retreat place and is about to move it closer to Ernakulam. Susi had told me he needed help to move, so I had offered over e-mail to help him.

Lunch was great. We then decided I would meet him this morning to help cleaning the new place, but I was unfortunately a bit delayed so they were almost done when I came.

We then arranged to meet at the bus station around lunchtime, to go to the old place to move the things. However when I got there I could not find him. So I waited 45 minutes in the restaurant we had arranged to meet in (well I think it was the right one???), but he still did not come. So I guess either he has run into some other problems on the way, or I must have been in a totally wrong place. So I guess he will have to move without me. Arranging things in India is not so simple!

Well I can't really do much about it now. I was intending to stay a few days at his new place though?! But Im not quite sure yet. Today I also got some info about a coffee plantation in the Western Ghats, close to Mysore, where I can stay cheaply in nice bungalows and go for great walks in the nearby surroundings. It would be nice with some mountain scenery and air soon. I guess I better make a decision soon.

Visiting Magda in Ernakulam

I had a great time in Cochin. I didn't stay many days, but I met some very nice people. Especially the girl from Austria, Susi, was really great. It is almost scary how alike we were, so we will definitely keep in touch.

She is addicted to travelling as well. She is even married to an Australian guy, but still spends loads of time travelling on her own. Sounds like the perfect marriage ;)

Last evening I moved to Magda's flat in Ernakulam. ( The girl I met at the Art Cafe the other day). Ernakulam is only 30 minutes by auto from Cochi. She also works for DFID, the same organization that Sonal works for. Magda moved to India just before Christmas with her husband Mark. They are going to live at least 1 year here. However Mark is living in Hyderabad, which is really far away.

Im very happy she invited me to stay for a few days. She seems really nice and the flat is also amazing. I have my own room with bathroom, HOT SHOWER, air condition and TV. Its like getting a total break from India (which I really think I needed just now). Last night we just had a drink, some snack and watched stupid sitcoms on Star World. Im not normally a TV addict, but sometimes it actually very good ;)

This morning I got a ride with Magda into town. I needed to go to a bank and also to buy some water and food.I will soon head back though. They have an outdoor swimming pool, so I think I will go for a loong swim.

Driving rickshaw :)

Last evening when I was looking for somewhere to eat, I ran into a Swedish guy. We decided to have dinner together. After dinner he was just going to show me a bookshop, when this rickshaw guy offered us a free drive (very unusual?) We even got to drive it for a little while. It was fun!

Today I went to have tea in the Art cafe and met Susi, a girl from Austria. She is travelling around on a motorbike by herself. I was very impressed! She said it was no problem at all. Actually she said it was very nice to avoid the hassle of travelling on the overcrowded buses and trains. Im going to meet her for dinner later. I haven't done anything else very useful today. Have mainly been relaxing, drinking tea and reading:)

I am going to see a Kathikali performance at 5 pm. It is a traditional dance from Kerala. Very visual. Should be fun!

Cochin

I got here about noon. Took a bus from Allepey around 10 am. A French couple came also. The bus wasn't actually going to Cochin, but to a town just next to it called Ernakulam, so when the bus was about to cross the bridge to get there, we jumped off to save us having to take an auto rickshaw all the way back. However, we acted a little too quickly, because we didn't really have a clue were we were. I had a map of the area, but that doesn't do much good if you don't know where you are.

So I started asking autodrivers how much it was to go to Fort Cochin, which is where I wanted to go and they were quoting very high prices, so we realized we were pretty far off from our destination.

The French couple decided to go to Ernakulam after all, so when I finally saw a local bus passing with the name 'Fort Cochi' in the window - I ran and managed to jump on just in time. Got lucky there :)

In the end I got to where I wanted and found myself a room in a small hotel. Then I went to have lunch at a nice art cafe that I had passed earlier. When I had a look around me I suddenly noticed this couple I knew I had seen before. I quickly remembered it was some friends of Sonal. I had met them in Delhi a couple of times. Magda & Mark from England. I walked over to say hello and they too were like: "Yes, we knew we had seen you before, but didn't remember where" Quite a coincidence. So we had lunch together. The best lunch I ever had in India. Brown bread tuna sandwich & great mushroom soup.


Chinese fishingnets - Cochin

Magda is working in Ernakulam which is basically 20 minutes from here with a ferry and bus. Mark is working in Hyderabad, but was on a weekend visit. Magda invited me to come stay at her flat for a few days. So I will go there next week. It shall be nice to have a little break from the travelling life.

Today I have just been wandering around here. Its almost no hassle, so it was very relaxing. I also went the the Jewish part of town (apparently there where a lot of Jewish people who came here many years ago. There are many shops with sooo many great antiques and also a lot of spice shops. I bought some Tea masala.

There is also an art festival going on, so something will happen along the beach this evening. I think some puppet show among other things. I will go and have a look in a wee bit.

I guess from my entries this last week, it is pretty obvious that I had a kind of shitty week, felt a bit lonely after leaving Auroville and Mammallapuram, but today everything is good again. This town has a really good athmosphere, that does count for a lot.

Alleppey

Hey, I arrived here around 6 pm with a small boat. Boarded the boat this morning at 10 am, so it has been a looong journey. It it was very beautiful to see the backwaters. However after about 3-4 hours it did start to get a little bit repetitive and also very hot. In the end I got a splitting headache, so instead of travelling on to Cochin tonight, I decided to stay over till tomorrow morning. Nothing special here though, just a small town...


Backwaters of Kerala

Lost rickshaw drivers

This is going from bad to worse, this town is horrible (or so I feel today anyway, it might have to do with the fact that I slept only 1 hour last night and had to get up at about 5 am to catch a train at 6.30 am)

I reached Kollam about 11 am and got an autodriver to take me to a Hotel that sounded cheap and good in the guidebook. But the stupid auto guy was so impatient, that when he got stuck in traffic he ordered me out of the auto and led me to the place on foot. As if I couldn't have managed that on my own? Grrrrr, so when I got there I only paid him half the money. Of course he got angry, but I was a bit angry too, so I just put the money in his shirt pocket and left (the hotel looked nasty anyway)

I then had another look in the guidebook and found one that was a bit more expensive, but in a town like this, I think that is necessary to get anything half decent. So I found a new autodriver and told him the name of the hotel. Yes, yes, madam, he said. Very soon I realized that he doesn't have a clue about where the hotel I had spelled out to him 10 times was. So he took me to another really posh & expensive looking place. With the help of one of the guards there we managed to make him understand where I wanted to go. So when he finally got me there, he wanted to charge me extra because *he* had got lost?? Well, I did not pay him any extra, I am getting a very fed up with some of the auto drivers now.

I guess Im getting used to it too in a way, more or less expecting it, but still it can be extremely annoying if your about to overheat and have not slept for ages and just want to get to a place without too much trouble!!

Anyhow, I got a good room and had a shower. Then I went to look for a place to have breakfast/lunch and to book a ticket for the backwater cruise tomorrow.

The backwater ticket was easily done, however there was no cafes in sight anywhere, apart from some really sweaty 'hole in the wall' places. So I walked and walked and walked and it was incredibly hot and humid. Finally I found this kind of shopping complex, where there was both a simple cafe and Internet place. There was even a supermarket here! (oh heaven) So I finally got myself some lunch and then escaped into the fan-cooled Internet place. I think I will just spend as much time as possible here. I really don't want to enter that sticky, smelly town again.

Tomorrow morning I will leave for the cruise at about 10 am. Am I looking forward to that or what?

(Sorry for this very negative entry, but some days are just really horrible and when travelling alone this diary is a place to get some of my frustrations out. It might give a wrong impression of my time here though, its not all as bad as it sounds :)

Kanyakumari - Cape Comorin

Im now at the very southern tip of the Indian continent. Three oceans meet here; the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. It's about 5.30 pm and Im about to go and see the sunset and moonrise, it supposed to be very fantastic here!

I came here last evening about 6 pm. My train from Chennai reached Trivandrum around noon, I then had to wait for a connecting train down here at 3 pm, it took 2,5 hours to get here.
Its not a beautiful town at all, but there is a nice temple here and The Gandhi Memorial where an urn containing the Mahatma's Ashes are kept. It is called the Vivekananda Memorial and lies on a small island. There is a boat service there, but of course I missed the last boat out today. Maybe I will try to go in the morning before I leave this place again. It is not very much else to do here. Its a pilgrimage town, so there are busloads of Indian tourists, not so many foreigners.

I was planning to see the sunrise this morning too, but I must have been way too knackered after the train journey, because I slept till about 10 am. Not quite sure where I will go tomorrow, maybe Varkala Beach, but have also heard about some other beaches further north, so I might just skip Varkala and go straight to Kollam and the backwaters instead? Time will tell I guess.

Uhm (one hour later). Im back, it is cloudy and about a million Indian people crowded together on the small area where you can watch the sunset. So I left after a short while. Not my lucky day Anyway think Im just gonna leave tomorrow morning, the sooner the better.
By the way, I was passing some time earlier today and was trying to figure out why Indian bus drivers drive as they do.I came to the following conclusion:

The 10 rules of Indian bus driving...

• There is no such thing as a full bus!

• Always use use the horn, preferably every 20 seconds and hold it down for as long as possible. If it gets tiring lifting your hand on and off the horn, just rest your arm constantly on the horn.

• When overtaking another vehicle, make sure you do it before a curve (the sharper, the better), a hilltop, or to make it really exciting, at the same time as another bus coming the opposite way is also overtaking a big vehicle!

• Always start driving before people get properly on or off the bus.

• Don't tell any new passengers that hop on he bus along the way, where you are going, until it is too late for them to jump off, in case they were on the wrong bus)- they will then have to pay you to let them off again, since they did such a silly thing as going on the wrong bus??!

• When driving down very steep and curvy hillsides, always accelerate before the curves, especially at night.

• Don't stop for pee-breaks until half the bus is begging you on their knees to stop. Then let them off at the roadside bushes.

• Chew paan, cough and spit as grossly as you can, regularly out the window.

• Drive fast over any bumps...hm...or better, just drive fast as a general rule...

• If there are small things in your way like; goats, cows, people, cyclists or motorbikes, just blow the horn, don't even think about using the breaks. If they get hit, it is their fault, since you already warned them with the horn (nevermind the fact that the horn would probably frighten any living thing to fall off the bike or off their feat for that matter)!

More Norwegians

Yesterday I met even more Norwegians. After lunch I went to an Internet cafe for a while. There I met Lana, an American girl. She told me two of her friends where Norwegian. They came a few minutes later and we went to a cafe where we had some tea and talked a bit. All 3 of them had been doing volunteer work and studies in Kerala for several months, but the 2 Norwegians (Cecilie & Trond) are flying home in a few days and Lana is heading to Hampi.

In the evening I went to meet Hugh and a Swiss/German girl (Sarah) also came along. We went to an Indian place and had Thali / Dosai. Only 13 rupees, thats like about 2.50 Norwegian kroner. Not bad for a filling meal. You can't even get a chewing gum for that price in Norway!

After that we went and had a look at a dance festival that took place, but watched only for about 15 minutes. Then we went to "Moonrakers" to have a fruit salad. There we also met another guy that stayed in same guesthouse as Hugh and Sarah, Jim from Holland. Anyway, this mightnot be so interesting to hear about. It was a great day though. It is almost impossible to not meet people now it seems.

When I was having breakfast at Moonrakers this morning Hugh came again, the place has a really great Musli and fruit salad - that is why we both go there...hehe.
Well, now Im just passing time till I catch the bus. I went to see another temple on the beach too, but it is so humid and hot today, so I prefer staying somewhere with a fan :)

Carving stone in Mahabilapuram

Believe it or not, but I finally managed to leave the Auroville area. I caught an express bus to Chennai together with Fabian, he was going to Chennai to catch the Trivandrum train. We thought the same bus also went to Mamallapuram. However it was not supposed to stop there, this I found out after about 1/2 hour!? But the conductor told me he could drop me on the highway and from there it wasn't so far to walk in. So it turned out well.

I arrived late Friday afternoon and checked in at Ramakrishna Guesthouse. In the reception I ran into a Norwegian couple, Emil & Anne. I met them again a bit later and we went to have some chai (tea) and beer.

They had just arrived in India and was a little confused by it all. It was nice to meet Norwegian people, apart from Hege I haven't really seen any Scandinavian people at all!?

Next morning I went to have a look at some old temples and stone carvings (this place is famous for stone carving). While I was wandering around I met Mohan, an Indian guy who tried to sell me some stone carvings. I decided to come along to his workshop to have a look and I was also allowed to try it myself. It was really fun. We went and sat up on a high hill with view of the sea and I carved my own little face to use as a necklace:)

Today I went to do some more carving. I also bought a carving knife and some small stones, so I can practise while I travel.

Just now I went to have some lunch and while I was sitting there, Hugh (a guy from New Zealand, who I met in Auroville) came. He had arrived here last night. We had lunch together and will meet for dinner later. It is fun when you start meeting people you have seen in other places before.

Tomorrow afternoon I will go to Chennai to catch the 7 pm train to Trivandrum. Aanother long train journey, 20 hours. By the way, the longest trainjourney in India is 72 hours from Cape Comorin (the very southern tip) to Jammu (in Jammu & kashmir in the very north)!

Still here :)

This is almost funny, but I am STILL here:) Tal, one of the American guys that came the night before, invited me for a drive on his motorbike (an Enfield) and also it was quite fun with a lot of people here, so I stayed on yet another day.

The roads here are so good for driving a bike and it was almost no traffic. We went up along the coast for a while and then explored a sidetrack that lead to a really nice and deserted beach. It was a great ride and Tal prooved the "Stupid Americans" stereotype by swimming with his moneybelt on. Hehe, well, actually he said that himself. Afterwards we went and had some lunch at the Auroville Pizzeria and then back to the Guesthouse. Hege also came a bit later and we just sat and talked for a while. The American guys, Tal and Michael (Mike) are really very funny! Anyway, gotto run. I have a bus to catch.

Pongal and bullrace

Today is my last day here, tomorrow morning I am off.
Today was also the high point of Pongal. I went with Fabian into the village where Hege lives. There they had some kind of a fair and lots of people. At about 11 am there was a bull race, which was quite fun. All the bulls had their horns painted and a lot of them were also decorated with green bushes. Pretty mad. In the streets they were running with bulls and carts as well. Completely chaos.



When we were about to go back home, we found Hege. She invited us to the house of a 'family member' (the family she lived with in the village). There we had poori and sugarcane (sugarcane is the main Pongal sweet). They also made decorations with it, like we do in Norway on the national day with birch branches.

However it was VERY hectic there, so eventually I walked back to the guesthouse and had a shower and lunch. I think I had my dose of Pongal for now.

It was nice last night by the way. Some American guys and a Spanish guy had arrived and they played guitar, sang songs and also had some music with them. We sat outside for a while enjoying this.



(photo: Fabian & me eating sugarcane)

Posing in Pondicherry

Today Im on a day trip to Pondycherry again. Only 10 minutes on the local bus from the village. I had to go to the train station to reserve a ticket from Chennai to Trivandrum for next Monday.



On the way to the bus I ran into Hege and she came with me. After fixing the ticket we went and sat by the sea and looked at the waves for a while. We also had to pose for a photo with some Indian guys? Well, of course we didn't have to, but they asked and we thought why not. Hmm, a little weird though. Wonder what they will do with those photos ?!

At the moment we are in the most fancy Internet place I have ever seen in India. Ultramodern computers and very fast!

Brown bread and meditation

I've had some good days lately. On Friday I went to have a look for this Norwegian girl (Hege), who I met when I was doing the Auroville introduction tour. She is doing her field work in anthropology in a small village which lies within the area of Auroville.

She had explained how to find her, so luckily she was there. It was great having someone Norwegian to speak with for a change. We decided to have a little walk, but then Hege told me that she had stepped on a nail the day before and she was wondering if she should see a doctor. (She didn't really feel like having a shot though, so at first she thought it wasn't necessary, but after having talked to another Tamil girl as well, she decided it might be best to go and have a Tetanus shot.

So we went to the Auroville Health Centre. It was very simple to get an appointment. While we were waiting there, we met Fabian, a German guy. He was also waiting to see the doctor for an infection. When they where both done, Fabian came with us to where Hege lives in the village and we had some tea.

The next morning I moved out from Auroville again, back to a guesthouse closer to the beach (Muthu Guesthouse). Fabian was already staying there, so I met him again when I got there.

In the afternoon he was making a salad and invited me to join. So I got the task to hunt for brown bread. something which isn't very available in India, but in Auroville Bakery they have it. However it was quite far to the Bakery and I no longer had my moped, so I went down to this restaurant where I remember seeing brown bread on the menu. I was hoping I could by some slices, but of course he didn;t have any left. However the guy, Riaz, who owns the place told me I could borrow his moped to go to the Auroville Bakery. I was very happy, until I got to the bakery and realized it was closed. Lunchbreak. I ended up having to buy this incredibly dry white Indian bread. The salad was nice anyway though:) Espescially after all the activity to find bread.


Riaz working in his kitchen

Later in the day we decided to go and visit the Matrimandir (soul of Auroville). It is a huge building shaped like a golden ball, inside there is a meditation chamber.
Between 4-5.30 pm tourists can access it on a short tour. We started walking from the village about about 3 pm, but it was quite far and we were barely halfway when it was almost 4 pm. But we had luckbecause a woman stopped and offered us a lift (we didn't even try to hitchhike?!) So we made it there in time.

We did the tour, then after you have done the tour you get a meditation pass, which allows you to enter from 5-7 pm every evening. So we went back and sat in the meditation room for about an hour. It was quite special. The room is round and completely white, in the middle there is a crystal ball which light comes from outside and reflects in the ball. It is completely silent. Quite a few people were there meditating.


The Matrimandir

Yesterday met up with Hege again. We went to Pondicherry where we did some shopping and had lunch. It was good to get out of the village for a day. In the evening I was just going to have tea in Riaz's restaurant, when I met Igor, a Russian guy living almost next to Riaz place. He actually lives in one of Riaz huts, so he came with me and we had tea and played chess. I lost though, but had a good time.

Today I dont have any big plans. I will just relax and read I guess. Im planning to leave on Wednesday or Thursday!

Auroville

I must be the most indecisive person ever!? As I mentioned in the last entry I moved inside Auroville to see if I could get a better image of the place, but after about a week I changed my mind about staying. I think I definitely need more time and money to be able to have a meaningful life here. So tomorrow I will move back to the village I was staying in before. I also have more friends in that area, than where Im staying now.

On Sunday Pongal starts, a big festival in Tamil Nadu (it has to do with the harvest and beginning of a new season). Here is a better definition taken from a web page:

"Pongal is a festival celebrated in Tamil Nadu to mark the harvesting of crops by farmers. Held in the middle of January, it is the time when the people get ready to thank God, Earth and their Cattle for the wonderful harvest and celebrate the occasion with joyous festivities and rituals".

So I will probably stay here for that. Then I will see, maybe I feel like moving on soon?! By the way I got even more animals in my room, in addition to the two frogs, yesterday 3 lizards (geckos) came as well at least I cannot complain about being lonely...hehe.

Rat in the ceiling and getting lost in Auroville

I have been a bit busy last week so haven't had time to update the diary and now too much has happened in the meantime to fit in here. I don't even remember it all, so I will just write what comes to my mind.

The introduction tour was extremely interesting. It really gave a varied look into the Auroville community. Although 3 days is hardly anything, I feel I learned a lot more than I had expected! We were presented with both positive and negative aspects of living in such a special place. Despite all the negative things I am very fascinated by the place. Yesterday I also moved inside Auroville. I hope it will give me even more insight into the community.

Anyhow, I forgot to tell about all the interesting room mates I've had lately. While I stayed in the palm-thatched hut in the village outside Auroville I had to change hut because mine was booked out. The new hut however was a bit more "shabby" and soon I noticed it also had a lot of other things living in it!! First of all a handful of insects and creepy crawlies, then I found a cockroach and if this was not enough, in the night I discovered that a rat was living in my ceiling (the ceiling is made of palm leaves). After that discovery I didn't really feel like sleeping anymore, however I hadn't slept much for a few nights so I eventually unwillingly dosed off. The next thing I remember is that I woke up by some scratching sounds and discovered that the owners cat had come inside my hut (yes, the flimsy door made of palmleaves was not possible to close properly)
The cat was now hanging by one paw from the ceiling, in an attempt to catch the rat (and I was lying exactly underneath all this commotion)! Luckily the cat managed to get down without falling onto me and the rat didn't fall on me either (phew). I made a decision right then to move out of that hut as soon as daylight appeared:)

So now I live far inside Auroville, literally in the bush. I rented a moped since it is pretty long distances here and no streetlights when the sun goes down. I don't feel like walking or cycling around alone in this forest/bush area then. Now I also have a solid room again, 2 weeks in a straw hut is interesting, but somehow it is nice to have a little more luxury again, well at least a door to lock!

Yesterday the people who were in the introduction group were invited to Ambre's place (the French girl who was our guide during the 3 days, she was part of the first group of people who came here around '69, when the place was founded!) She lives really far out in the bush too, but I had a map and a moped and thought it should be easy enough to find. However it was not so easy after all. There were too many paths that were not marked on the map, so at one point I chose the wrong direction and ended up in the wrong community. I asked a guy there for the right directions and realized I had to backtrack a bit. So when I was leaving the place this German Shepherd that had been sleeping on the ground suddenly woke up and started chasing after me barking like mad. Obviously I panicked (!) and drove straight into a bush. The dog kept barking angrily, but (thank god) did not attack! (yes I know, it must have looked incredibly hilarious when I drove into that bush?! :) Luckily though I did not hurt myself or the moped, just got a bit of a shock! I guess the smart move would have been to stop the bike when the dog came, but I really did not feel like doing that when I in my imagination saw the dog biting into my leg!

Once back on the main path I met some of the other guys from the group (they were also lost!?), so we kept trying different paths until Jany (the Finnish guy) came looking for us and led us to the right place

Chitambaram temple & backwater trip

Still here. I seem to get attached to places. I like it more and more you see, so I don't know when I will leave?! I met another German man, Jurgen. He is staying at the same place as me, and he also knows the people who owns the place Im staying at. So yesterday he was invited with them (Shakila and Ramalingam and their son Vishnu, 2 years old) to go to a very holy Shiva temple in Chitambaram (uh....it was called something like that...I never get the hang of all these Indian names of places!!!)

Anyway, they invited me along as well. It was very nice, went in a rented car there, Shakila did some puja (prayer/offering to Shiva). Every 1st of January they have a special ceremony in this temple and all the Brahmins recite a lot of mantras for good luck the coming year. Everyone who comes there on this day are all supposed to be blessed with this good luck, so obviously MANY people come here! It was very interesting too see.

After this we drove far into the countryside into a beautiful place full of backwaters. In the end we came to a bigger lake and there we went on a small boat trip. So the whole day was really good.


Ramalingam,Vishnu and me

Oh, forgot to tell about New years eve. I didn't have any plans, so I just went to this restaurant almost next door to where I live and there I met Jurgen. We had some food together and then we asked Riaz (friendly guy running the place) if he knew of any parties and he told us about one held by Auroville in this remote beach place.

He described the way to us very simply as this; just go across the bridge and then turn right!!!

Hehehe, we passed about 5 bridges and after every bridge we had to look for someone English speaking to ask if we were at the right place. It took such a looong time to find the place! But in the end we managed!

It was quite ok, but most people were Aurovillians and a lot of families with kids, not really a party atmosphere, so we left actually before midnight. But it was still fun :)

Uhm, this is getting loong. Today Jurgen and I joined this introductory tour to Auroville (it is for 3 days) to get some more insight into the place. It was very interesting. There were 3 other Germans, 2 French, 1 Finnish, 1 Italian also. Interesting bunch. We saw some videos and a couple of people spoke about the place and about the philosophy of "The Mother" who founded the place in the 60's and Sri Aurobindo, an Indian philosopher, enlighten person who also is a big part of it....

Then we went around a bit to some projects they have going. Like some pavilions they are building to represent each country. So far they have only made one for India and Tibet.
uuups, I got to run. Will add more about this in some days.

Almost war?

Im still here and its been really nice and relaxing so far. I have done a lot of reading and swimming:)

Yesterday I also met a girl from the village, Amsa and a German guy, Ralph. Ralph is a friend of Amsa. I went to Amsa's "house" for both lunch and dinner and it was good having some company for a change. She lives in the poor part of the village in a small mud building with thatched roof. I guess talking to tourists is a way for her to practise English,and also a way to get some cash. She is very friendly, but in a way she also takes advantage and actually asked to borrow a little money that I knew I would never get back. She wanted to buy a moped so she could rent it to all the people visiting Auroville. I thought it was not a bad plan, so I helped out a little. However for me it was not so much money and it was interesting so see life from another perspective and hopefully be able to help a bit.

Since there is quite some tension between India and Pakistan at the moment. They have both armed the borders to its teeth!! I am a bit worried about what to do 'should I stay or should I go' ? Most Indians I talk to have a VERY relaxed view on the situation, but all friends and family back home and elsewhere are urging me to leave India.
So obviously I am a bit confused, but at the moment I have decided to wait here for a few days and see how the situation evolves!

By the way, some cool old ladies are staying at the place I am staying. I don't know there age, but probably around 60-70, both grey and white haired! It is fun to see that people at that age travel budget style. They have also rented one moped each and I see them racing about the place all the time. hehe :)