day 71

England day! We woke up and had breakfast, which was cornflakes and toast which was good. I had to repack my suitcase, and thankfully everything still fit in it. We ended up leaving the hotel about 8.15 and it took an hour to get to the airport. When we got to the airport we were pretty quick getting the luggage checked in. I changed most of my rupees into pounds and got a subway meal wich the remaining rupees I had left. It was disappointing shopping wise, there was only 1 duty free shop, and they only accepted american dollars. I asked a woman why this was the case, as we were in India, so they should accept their own currency, and she gave me some random excuse which didnt make any sense. So I thought, well if they dont want my money, they wont get it! We were meant to board at 12.30, and at 12.40, someone said we were running a bit late because Prince Edward was on our flight. And that very second, he walked past us with a load of police. Im guessing it was him as he was bald and a man. I dont actually know who Price Edward is. I was under the impression it was him that was married to Fergie, but thats Prince Andrew. So all I know he is the Queens son. So we boarded about 10 mins later, and the plane wasnt as snazzy as the one we arrived on! Obviously Prince Edward isnt that good in the royal family if the plane wasnt that good! But although the plane was older and the entertainment wasnt as good for films, TV and music...it did have 1 redeeming feature... A FREE BAR!!! So I thought, I shant be rude and decline Virgin's offer of beverages, so I had 4 beers. Over the course of the flight I might add. After the 4th, we hit some turbulence. That is when I decided 4 was enough, as drinking and jumping up and down doesnt feel too great. We arrived at Heathrow half an hour early, and our bags were some of the first ones off the converyorbelt...happy times! So by about 6.15 me and Duane headed off to find the underground. When we got there we saw Katie, so we got on the tube with her too. Once on the tube, we saw Matea at the other end of the carriage with her mum, holding a welcome home balloon. It was quite funny. We had to change at Leicester Square, so said by to Katie and as soon as we got to the right platform, it arrived. We were only on the underground about 40mins instead of the hour we were told it would take. Once we got to Euston we got the tickets and Duane got a Burger King and we sat down. Then that blonde doctor who's quite young who does programmes on C4 walked past. He looked quite stressed. Anywayyyy, it was finally time to get on our train, and it was virtually empty. I had a nap on the train, and in no time at all we were at Piccadilly. And I met the family there! And that concludes my Indian Adventure, I hope you have enjoyed my little story!

day 70

We arrived at the train station a bit later than expected because the driver got us lost. When we got there we had about an hours wait til the train. There was a man doing a poo on the track...which thankfully I didnt see, but was much spoken about. After that revelation, we then had some food, we had bits of potato wrapped up in tin foil, a cheese slice sandwich, a boiled egg and a banana, which was for tea. It was ok, but wasnt very filling. A train then arrived, so we asked Rakesh, who worked at the house and came with us to the station, if this was our train. He didnt seem to know, but told us to go on it anyway. Thankfully, it was our train. I was sat near Natasha, Matea, Nat, Dan, Mandy and Holly. As soon as we got on the train everyone wanted to go to bed, but I didnt. But because of the mlayout of the train, when the beds are all folded down, there isnt enough room for you to sit up properly, so you have to lie down. So consequently, I went to bed too. We got off the train at about 5.45, and as soon as we got off the train we were hit by the heat and the smell. We had to walk along a main road with all our suitcases, which was a bit mental as there are no pavements and traffic does what it wants all the time. We got on our bus and drove for 45mins to our hotel. It was a nice hotel, I shared a room with Natasha. It also had a proper shower....the luxuries! As it was now about breakfast time, we went upstairs to where the food was served, and it was more like a gazebo with a table with a tray of cornflakes, some toast, and omelettes on, and you helped yourself. There were only about 12 seats there though which was a problem when there were 47 people there. The food was ok though. We were told that we wouldnt be able to get to the Taj mahal, as the train we needed to get on, you had to book 2 months in advance, and the only other train was later on in that day and took 6 hours, so it would have been to late for us to get there. We were all really disappointed, but there wasnt anything we could do, so just decided to have fun in Delhi instead. Me, Natasha, Tash, Matea and Freddie all got a private taxi person to drive us round the sites of Delhi stopping where we wanted. We went to the garden where Gandhi was assasinated, which just was a park really, then to the outside of the Red Fort (it was closed on a Monday, and also was an extortionate price for foreigners to get in), then we went to see the President's office, Parliament, the India Gate, and Connaught Place, which is the main shopping district. When we got to Connaught Place, we found a KFC so got some food there. It was the nicest KFC Ive ever seen! It had police at the doors searching everyone though, which isnt too uncommon. The only searched the Indians though, which was a bit strange. We then did some shopping at a market that was underground that was quite cool. It was massive, and Me, Natasha and Tash lost Freddie and Matea. We didnt think anything of it as we had text them to say we would meet them later on...then we hear our names on the tannoy, Matea was giving us an announcement to meet her! It was hillarious. She sounded so posh. Then we had to ask the Indians the embarassing question of where to find the meeting place, as we have been tannoyed. Outside some little beggar boy gave me a chinese burn because I didnt give him money. I was extremely tempted to give him one back, but didnt because 1) I am a better person than him, so neednt do it 2) I was probably about 14 years older than him 3) I may have got some nasty disease from touching him. We got back to the hotel for tea, and had a selection of curries and rice...that makes a change! It was actually quite nice though. We decided to get an earlyish night as we had to be out of the hotel for 8am the following morning, so stayed in the room and watched some rubbish American films til bedtime.

day 69

ive packed up allmy things and cleaned the bedroom, everywhere is just chaos with bags lying around. we laeve here at 2.30pm, arrive at the train station about 8pm, then get the train to delhi which arrives around 8-10am monday morning. When we arrive we go to the hotel and drop off our bags, then im hoping to go to the taj mahal. We haev to be at the airport at around 9am tuesady morning, and we fly at 1.15pm. This will be my last post from India I imagine, so see u soon everyone!

day 68

I couldnt be bothered going out today because I need to save money for going to Delhi, and maybe theTaj Mahal, and also I needed to pack. So its now lunchtime and I have packed, so I'll probably do a bit of sunbathing outside later, its really warm outside, but at night its freezing.
In the evening we had an awards ceremony for all the volunteers. I was nominated in the sexiest female category. All I can say to that is the people who voted for me must be blind, i look a right state! needless to say i didnt win lol.

day 67

We had to fill in evaluation forms about the project in the morning, then I had to type it up and email relevant people with it. We bought Manu and Anil, our supervisors, a photoframe each with a pic of us all in. They liked it. Iev also had some henna put on my ankle and foot, which looks nice. This evening we are going to a restaurant for Freddy's birthday (a volunteer) so it will be like a big leaving party. The meal was good, the restaurants quite small so we basically filled the whole place. They played proper old school disco music in the background for some reason, like vengaboys, five, backstreet boys...it was like being 9 again! we had also got him a cool cake with a dragon made of icing on it, and it was rather tasty! after the meal we went back to the house and had a bit of a party in the common room

day 66

Today was the last day at school. We were driven all the way to school because we were carrying lots of things for the kids. When we got to school we blew a lot of balloons up and the kisd loved playing with them, I dont think they see balloons too often. After about 10mins the assistant teacher said the kids had to come inside because there was a school inspector. After about 20mins the kids came back outside and we moved all the balloons from outside the classroom to the firld as they were randomly popping and distracting the other kids. They played with the balloons for ages, then they coloured in some hats we had made for them. After lunch we played pass the parcel and made sure every kid had a prize. We also gave them biscuits, crisps and bananas, and gave thm the goody bags we had made last night with a watch, sweets and balloons in. When it came to hometime we got Manu to tel them again that we were leaving for good, as we didnt think they properly understood it when they wre told earlier in the week. As we thought, they didnt actually know we were leaving. Jyoti was the most upset and was hugging us and not letting go. I gave Vishal a hug and he kissed me on the cheek, he's so cute! As we were all hugging the kids, Vinita and her brotehr Kavi must have left to go home, so we didnt get to say goodbye to them which was a shame. As I walked to the bus to go home, Vishal and Jyoti held each of my hands all the way to the bus, and once the bus set off, lots of the kids ran after the bus waving at us, they were so cute!

day 65

Vinita was in school again today, hooray! We were all pleasantly surprised. We usually do a weekly test on a Friday, but as we arent teaching at all on Friday, and having a patry all day tomorow, we set the test today. It was an epic test of everything we have taught them, and it took them all morning to complete. Vishal got about 63/96 which was good, although for some of the questions he blatantly couldnt be bothered doing the working out so guessed, so erally his mark should have been higher. Vinita got about 33 right, which was good considering her poor attendance, but ist a real shame because think she is cleverer than Vishal, so its just her attendance which is leting her down. About a third of the things on the test she couldnt answer because she hasnt been in to learn it, like times tables and telling the time. In the afternoon we couldnt be bothered doing construction, and a coulpe of the others were feeling a bit ill, so we convinced Anil to let us go home so we could buy things for the party tomorrow. So after lunch we went into town and bought patry food, and each child a watch, just a little plastic one so its fun and also educational...how thoughtful are we! the watches were quite expensive, about 80 rupees each which in English terms is about a pound, but for India terms its a lot. And they were the cheapest we could find as well. Can't wait for tomorrow now!

day 64

Still only Vishal at school today. It was also the teachers last day while we were here, she's going to 'seminars' for the next 6 days. She said she hated her job...if i had a job where i sat in the sun all day doing nothing id be well chuffed! We taught Vishal his 4 and 5 times tables in the morning. In the afternoon Manu was ill so we had to go home so she could go to a doctor, so we had dinner at the house then watched a DVD

day 63

There was only Vishal in school again. I taught him 2 and 3 times tables and read some books with him. He enjoyed Thomas the tank engine. In the afternoon we went to do constuction to find out the hole we had dug had been filled in with a wall that had fallen down into it. So now the hole was a m,ound. So we spent 1.5 hours getting rocks back out. There has been no water in teh house since getting back which is very annoying! I went for a walk round the river bed as well by the hosue which was nice.

day 62

When we got up we put all our bags in the taxi and went for some breakfast/dinner. After that we did some moer shopping adn I bougth an elephant dangly thing. We then went to Manu temple and it was quite rubbish. We set off for home at 2.30 and on the way back there was a festival being held at Kullu which is no the way back, which meant we were stuck ni trafic for 1.5 hours there. There were arndom men carrying chair like things, and they did this for about an hour of the journey. It was starnge. We stopped off in Mandi for food on the way home, and got back about 11pm.

day 61

We left the hotel at about 9.45 and got breakfast at a nearb7y restaurant. The views were good, it is a ski resort in the winter, and it had alpine trees and log cabins so looked nice. After breakfast we went to a fwe templs. One was set in some woods and was pretty.We visited the hot springs, which i thought would be an outside sort of thing ni the rocks, but its just a building with 2 pools, 1 for men, one for women, with semi naked people in. It wasnt that good! Then we went to New Manali to do some shopping, it was erally busy and a festival of some sotr was going no with people playing musical instruments and lighting fireworks. I bought some new sunglasses because my ones were scratched. After that we went for some food at a chinese place near our hotel, then went to buy some alcohol and had a party in one of the rooms at the hotel. We were playing ring of fire, then someone said 'who's he?', and there was a random Indian man sat on the floor of the room. So we said please could he leaev, and he pulled out a massive bag of weed and said sopmething about it was his duty to shaer his weed with us. So he ended up staying a while lol. It was rather random.

day 60

Today is Gandhis birthday...so you know what that means...PUBLIC HOLIDAY TIME! all the kids fmo all the schools came to our huose to watch Gandhi on DVD. As you can imagine it was chaos. The film was too in depth for them so theywere all messing about, and itwas in Hindi so none of us understood it. This afternoon Im going to Manali until Sunday, should be fun! We arrived at Manali at 11.30. We got there by taxi, one of the drivers at the house owns a taxi, so we got a discounted rate. He was our chauffeur for the weekend taking us anywhere we anted. We rang a hotel on the way and booked 3 rooms, there were 9 of us. When we got to Manali we found the hotel, put all our bags in, went to the cafe next door for some cake, then went to bed.

day 59

school was same as always today, just Vishal aagin and I taught him maths all morning. In the afternoon we were meant to be digging the hole, but the hole has a massive boulder in it which we cant break, so some men are working to chisel it away meaning we had nothing to do. I then found uot my bank card has been blocked so im poor and have no way of transferring money as theyve blocked the online bit as well as the actual card. Sad times. It turns out that my card expired toady. If i wanted money yesterday itd have been fine, but now im pennyless! My new cards in the post...all the good that does for me all the way in India. But now mother has transferred money into my friends account for me to take out, it should all be dandy. My online banking doesnt work still which is random, will have to sort that out when im home.