The last few days in Pursat

I've spent the last 4 nights in Pursat province staying with the Sustainable Cambodia foundation. Absolutely brilliant. Pursat is the capital of the Pursat province and very rural, and not at all touristy. Steve and I visited two years ago and I was surprised to see a handful of huge hotels have popped up, although I can't imagine who's staying in them? I think the Cambodian philosophy to tourism is 'build big, and they'll come'. There were two other long term volunteers staying as well who were brilliant and very entertaining company; Richard from the UK and Ben from the US. Ate the traditional Cambodian diet of 3 meals of rice and meat a day (when I say 'traditional' I mean for those that can afford it). For breakfast we'd walk to a food stall down the road that sold a dish of crispy pork (that you could pretend was bacon) and rice and you'd pour some sort of ginger sweet chilli lime sauce all over it. It was amazing.

Went and visited the main school in town and went to Lakana's class. They ended up pulling her out of class for my visit ("Umm... are you sure she doesn't need to stay in class??") so we could go and visit her family home. When we were walking down the hall at the school I suddenly realised that she was almost as tall as me! "How old are you now Lakana???" ... she's 17! In my mind she never grew older than when I started sponsoring her when she was about 12! Last time we visited was in the dry season.. being the wet season her stilted house was surrounded by water and we had to cross some very rickety planks of wood to go inside. We sat around and chatted for a while.. simple and lovely. Lakana still wants to be a doctor or nurse.. but they don't know if they'll be able to afford to send her to University (although she still has 3 years left at highschool). Sustainable Cambodia offers scholarship for either tuition or living expenses but the family has to pay the other. Their estimate was that to study medicine it would cost about $3000/year in tuition and that living expenses would be $100/month. Her older sister that I'd met last time had recently moved to Phnom Penh to find a job in a department store.. but unfortunately they weren't sure whether the salary would cover her living expenses away from home! Must be so scary.


The next day Richard and I and a bunch of the SC guys went on an all day expedition to the Bakan area. It was AMAZING! Rural rural Cambodia! The dirt roads were god awful! I was on the back of a moto with Mr Chenda who I'd met last visit. At times the 'pot holes' were the size of small swimming pools and we fell off twice in the slippery slippery muddy slosh! Brilliant fun. We visited a rural school funded by the Australian branch of SC, a rotary club in Western Australia. We had to wade through shin deep water to get inside and the room was partially under water. We had to collect data of the childrens' age, weight and height for the nutrition supplement program. SCA provides food supplements of porridge in the morning as well as vitamins for the children. I think almost all the children in Cambodia must be lacking nutrition or food because they all look years younger than they are. Most 9 year olds look no older than 6 etc etc. The kids were all very entertaining and we taught them the high-5.

Next we visited a newly formed community further out. Apparently they all had escaped financial problems with the bank by just moving out bush... sounds a bit dubious. They had pooled their money together to buy land for a school to be built ($1000 US for a hectare!!) and they were going to start construction in the next two weeks once it dries up a bit. The whole community congregated at one house to see us... we were the very first white people they'd seen. Quite a few women came up and touched my arm and face, seemingly very concerned I had mud on my white skin! A group of children just stared at us (at a safe distance).. I don't think they really knew what to make of us!The next village we visited, we had to drive through another terrible terrible road. At one point there was a flowing stream 1.5m wide that we had to try and carry/pull the motorbikes across. I'm really surprised the engines didn't flood. At this point I'd like to add that when I say 'motorbikes' they weren't dirt bikes or anything... they were scooters! Eventually the road was too bad and we had to slosh through knee deep water for a kilometre to get to the village to do more data collection. The children there were fascinated by us as well. At first they were a timid but after a while I had a group of girls sitting next to me and hesitantly touching my skin. A couple of them even put their hands around my calf and made faces that said 'WOAH' at the circumference of it! We taught them the high-5 as well and eventually had all of them joined in. By the end of it I had two girls hugging me around the hips like baby koalas, not wanting to let go! Sweet little things. They're all just so beautiful.

The countryside was absolutely amazing too. All so very flat bar one mountain range in the distance. Red dirt, bright green rice fields, clear blue sky... the colours just seemed too vibrant! It was just sooooo beautiful I can't even begin to do it justice!


I was taken to visit another school in the Kandieng district. I'd never really thought much of Pursat town.. not a very good looking place, but Kandieng is Beautiful! Last time I hadn't gone further than the main market.. but down the road further next to the river it gets so lush and tropical. Banana trees, sugar palms, and simple stilted timber houses. It was actually really gorgeous. The school was right next to a large open rice field and the view out the window was just so picturesque. I visited 3 classes of varying age. I taught the youngest class how to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star at their request (one of the other volunteers had taught them Baa Baa Black Sheep and they asked if I had a song to teach them too!), which was very entertaining. The other classes just practiced their English by introducing themselves and asking me questions.

This morning we rode out to Krakor and took a boat onto the Tonle Sap to see a floating village. It was really nice. All the houses were painted in various shades of blue and turquoise with other brightly coloured details. The Tonle Sap in the wet season is just such an amazing vast mass of water.. it's all you can see as far as the horizon! It was my first time on the Tonle Sap and I really enjoyed the visit.


Caught the bus to Battambang this afternoon and I'm heading to Thailand early tomorrow morning! I'm going to have to find an impromptu bus route the long way around Bangkok to get to Chiang Mai to avoid getting stuck in the flooding. If all goes according to plan I should meet Steve in Chiang Mai in the wee hours of the morning! So excited but also somewhat apprehensive that my 'wing it' bus plans might not work out... Nah it'll be fine!!
Wish me luck!! x

Bokor - Such a damn shame!!

Well I didn't head back to Phnom Penh as planned.. I actually stayed an extra two nights hehe.

Went on a full day excursion to Bokor Hill.. a National Park with a 1920s French Hill Station with a 'Palace' hotel, casino and Church. I was really looking forward to exploring the derelict buildings but unfortunately that was not to be!

Sokha, the guy who your Angkor admission fees goes to, apparently spent $100 million buying the site and is currently constructing a couple of hotels, casinos, cable car, golf course and even apparently a theme park on the site. National Park, Schmational park right Cambodia? He's hoping to turn it into a major tourist destination and there's even plans for a new Port to attract cruise ships!

Wasn't able to actually get inside the Bokor Palace because it was swarming with construction workers and scaffolding. Apparently doing conservation work. Original plans were to demolish it! ARGH! But they were convinced to keep it *sigh of relief*. God help me if they paint the freakin thing!! There's an 1868 French Colonial villa in town that looks brand new because they've painted it bright yellow. Old buildings should still have a bit of grime about them! Will post some photos soon.

Finished my leisurely stay in Kampot today :( In Phnom Penh for the night before heading to Pursat tomorrow to visit my sponsor child organisation. Not sure what the internet situation there is like so if you don't hear from me, don't panic!

x

KAMPOT

I love this place! I really just can't bring myself to leave! When I first got here I thought.. "well.. there's not much to this place..." but that's half the charm! There are plenty of Western expats here who've started guesthouses/bars/cafes and I can see why. So much yummy French Colonial architecture. Superb sunsets! And zero traffic. I could lie down in the middle of the road and have no problem. Most of the traffic is bicycles and the motos drive so slow they might as well be bicycles!

I went to a graduation ceremony/dance performance for Epic Arts which is a local NGO who works with locals with disabilities and teaches them arty stuff and also gives them vocational training etc. They have a cafe in town that partially funds the school. I also went out and did a day of volunteer 'building'/observing. We first had to pull down the family's old house.. which was easy work, believe me. It was tiny and 7 people slept on an elevated platform in the house, and the family pig slept underneath them. Unfortunately the mother has gotten very sick and now one of the children too so the charity (Teang Tnaut) were building them a new house.

I'm gradually trying every cafe around town. This morning I went to a cafe called Sisters II which funds the orphanage in town. The woman who ran it had an incredibly cute 1 1/2 year old adopted son who she called Moses because he'd been left at the hospital by himself. He was SUCH a cutie. I had pumpkin spice pancakes... mmmmmm.

Tomorrow I'm going on an excursion to the Bokor Hill Palace which was a 1920s French resort built on top of Bokor Mountain. It's long since been abandoned and was used as a fortress by the Khmer Rouge when they were still around. There are plans to 're-invent' Bokor and make it a major tourist destination - they're currently building a new resort on the hill so I thought it would be best to go now and before the hoards of tourists staying there kill the atmosphere. The day after I think I will finally leave and head back to Phnom Penh for the night before I'm off to Pursat!

xx

CAMBOOOOODIAAAAAAA!!

Man I love this country.
And man I LOVE airports! Even Delhi airport was awesome. People watching in airports is spectacular! And I may be a brainwashed consumer but God it was lovely to be in an airconditioned clean place with comfy chairs and sparkly shiny things to buy. Not that I bought anything! I just sat and drew and wrote in my notebook (my equivalent of talking to myself) and watched everyone walking by. My airport zen was broken, however, by this young Indian guy who was sitting near me. He stood up and put his bag next to me... I could tell he wanted to talk to me so I just kept ignoring him and drawing in my book.. and then he stood over me for like 5 min.. I kept ignoring him.. and then he was like.. "I see you're writing about marriage" (I had written a little snippet about a conversation I'd had with my jewellery guy that day in which he told me that he has had many girlfriends but he makes sure it doesn't affect his wife and family by not spending lots of money on them etc).. The guy had been standing there reading my notebook and took that as a cue to start up a conversation!! Bastard. The usual "where you from? where you going? where you been?" conversation ensued in which I did my best to give him monosyllabic answers and look busy. I even took out my novel and started reading but he didn't get the hint. Eventually I just had to get up and walk away!
Flight was at about 11pm.. was pretty crap due to being put in the middle of a big group travelling together who kept being loud and moving around and bumping my seat.
Got to Thailand 5am local time and found a nice uncomfortable place to nap for an hour. I had to wait until about noon before I could check in my baggage and move to the departure area so I just passed the time drawing in my notebook and people watching! The hours actually flew by surprisingly. I LOVE AIRPORTS! Checked in and found a nice couch to nap on for a while.. but first I went to Burger King and ate my first beef in over 2 months!! OM NOM NOM!!!
Quick flight to Phnom Penh. Man I love this place. Everything is so easy. There's no hassle. And I'm wearing shorts for the first time in 5 weeks! My legs don't know what to do with all the sunlight! Loving it! Gotta go organise a Thai visa now and then I'm heading to Kampot this afternoon! Should only take 3-4 hrs.. SO QUICK!! Brilliant!!
LOVE xx

Rishikesh.. last few days in India!

Rishikesh was nice. I stayed in an 'ashram' that didn't really seem too 'ashramy'... which I guess suited me since I couldn't be bothered with that whole scene right now. Did a yoga class at the ashram one morning which was horse S#&$, then attended a different yoga school 10m down the road after that. The new teacher was very good and knowledgeable and spoke about tensing our anus muscles whilst sitting in order to ensure we have a strong anus. Apparently yogis don't have loose anuses (ani?) or so he says. Fortunately I wasn't the only one stifling laughter under my breath. Hiding out in the courtyard of the ashram was a nice break from the exhausting cities.

Yesterday morning I electrocuted myself whilst trying to charge my mobile phone. Then I voluntarily went for a swim in the Ganges. And yes, I put my head under! TWICE! It was very refreshing and lovely, actually. The sun had just risen, the water was freezing cold and the scenery was beautiful.. closest I'm going to come to a Rishikesh spiritual experience lol.

My transformation into super assertive bitch Amiee is complete... I told off several rickshaw drivers for asking ridiculous prices, and I even told of a beggar who kept harassing me with his hand out in front of my face.

Caught the train to Delhi, which was Uh-MAZING. Like the Agra train, they served food. About 4 courses of food! Each course I thought would be the last, I had no idea how much food there'd be! When I first got on the train they gave me a samosa, some sweets, chai and a mango popper. Then they brought out a bread roll and a cup of soup. Then the main course of 2 vegetarian curries, some chapati and rice! And THEN just when you thought they were done.. ICECREAM! BAM! And GOOD icecream too. A cup of creamy vanilla icecream. Brilliant!

I arrived at Delhi, and even though I knew the way to the hotel and it was about 500m away I was going to get a rickshaw seeing as it was after 10pm. Well.. I told several more rickshaw drivers off who were trying to take advantage of me and charge up to 10x the price it SHOULD cost. Bugger them, I walked. In theory probably not the smartest choice but ran into no problems.

Probably a good thing I fly out tonight... God knows what I'll do next! I'm a donkey on the edge!!!!!!!!!!

Advice for future female travellers in India

I'm no expert but here's some things I've found during my travels here..

A) Despite advice in Lonely Planet, don't bother getting a salwar kameez made or trying to dress Indian.. no-one really does it. Unless you're hardcore and 'living' in India for months - those people tend to do the whole Indian get-up. Most people just opt for the "I'm a backpacker" garb of colourful baggy pants and tshirt. I sometimes wore a shawl draped over my chest which basically just served to make me feel slightly less uncomfortable when guys stared at my chest (most of the day). Eventually it was just too hot and I couldn't be bothered wearing it anymore.

B) Don't bother trying to look married. There's a lot of advice out there that says to wear a wedding ring or toe rings etc etc so that guys will see you're married and leave you alone. Yeah, right.

Example 1.
Pretty sure the guy driving a rickshaw towards me whilst I was walking down the street didn't check for a wedding ring before telling me, in exact words: "You are a very nice pussy."

Example 2.
I was buying jewellery in a silver shop and asked the owner if he thought I should buy a fake wedding ring or toe rings so that I'd look married and get left alone. He told me not to bother. I trust his advice considering it'd be better for his business if I had bought the rings from him.

Example 3.
When being shown to my hotel room at night, the Indian luggage guy, during the conversation, asked if I was married. I told him that yes I was married and that my husband would be joining me in Delhi in a few days time. Still, when he was leaving he offered to stay the night in my room with me. They really don't care if you're married or not.

Varanasi + another long train ride

So Varanasi isn't really my favourite place. It is incredibly humid and it's is saaaaa dirty! The place has even more of a rubbish problem than what I've seen of the rest of India; in the old city where I stayed there seems to be zero cooperation in rubbish dumping, it's just dump on the street outside your home. There also seemed to be a lot of very sick or dead dogs, which wasn't very pleasant.
Found a travel buddy who is from Rocky of all places and ironically he's currently living in Melbourne. We took a dawn boat ride on the Ganges which I think is the highlight of my time in Varanasi. For a country that values privacy I sure saw a lot genitalia as people quickly changed after their 'wash' in the Ganges. Was kinda my fault for taking a boat ride in front of the bathing ghats. The burning ghats didn't really phase me after the cremation I saw in Bali. There's 6 types of bodies that can't be cremated and are instead thrown in the middle of the river tied to a rock: children, pregnant women, lepers, victims of cobra bite, sadhus (holy men), and animals. Sometimes, however, as I saw, the bodies become free of their rocks and float down the river. The body I saw was still wrapped up, but another couple of girls I spoke to saw a dead baby float by whilst they were taking their boat ride. Chaaaaarming.
Monday morning I went to the train station at 8am to catch my next train to Haridwar which was supposed to leave at 8:20am. I usually would have gotten to the station earlier but the hotel took about half an hour to bring out my breakfast. Looked at the big screen at the train station... my train number didn't appear to be on it so I had no idea what platform I was supposed to be on. Walked closer to the platforms to find another screen but there wasn't one. Went up to a guy at a booking counter to ask if he could tell me which platform I needed to wait at, and despite me saying "excuse me" about 5 times and explaining that I just needed to ask him a quick question and that I would miss my train otherwise, he just kept ignoring and ignoring me and typing into his computer. Prick. I started getting frantic then and asking random nice-ish looking people if they knew where I needed to go and eventually I was told Platform 9. I heard announcements saying that the train on Platform 9 was ready to depart and so I ran there, showed my ticket to a guy with some sort of seat list who told me I needed to be on the 'A1' coach, and jumped on. Got settled in and started talking to a fellow passenger, relieved that I was on my train finally! Ended up sitting at the station for another half an hour. Then a ticket inspector came to check off the tickets against his list and he told me that I was not on the right train. WHAT?!? That train went to Haridwar as well, but it was apparently not my train. Got frantic, explaining that I had been told this was my train and even the guy with the list outside told me this was my train, and that if this ISN'T my train then how the hell do I find MY train?!?! So I had to get off the train. I had no idea how I was going to find my train and fearing that I had missed it while I was sitting in my fake train. "Bugger this" I thought and went to the tourist ticket booking office.. I knew they spoke English and would know what the hell was happening. Turns out my train was delayed. I was told to sit down in their office (airconditioned, thank god) and listen for an announcement (which are almost impossible to understand). After a while they also got a Tourist Police guy to come in and look at my ticket and go and get information about my train for me. Apparently there were issues with the train tracks and the train was delayed 1 hour. In a few minutes he came back, delay now 1.5 hours. Then for some reason the same booking guy who had told me to wait in his office decided to get up and yell at me in front of everyone, telling me that this wasn't a waiting room and that I need to get up and be checking on my train. I tried to tell him that not 10min prior the tourist police guy had come in and told me it would be another half an hour, but he wouldn't let me speak and instead told me to listen to him. *sigh*
So then every few minutes I would go and re-ask the tourist police guy about the train.. and in turn he would get exasperated at me continuously coming and asking, telling me that he would come and tell me when there had been an announcement.
Next announcement, train had been delayed 2.5 hours. 3 hours passed and no further announcement. 3.5 hours.. no announcement. 4 hours and finally an announcement.. the train was at the station before Varanasi and would be here in 10, 15, 20min. After 30min the train FINALLY arrived. Thank. God.
I had shelled out extra for a 2AC ticket because there were no other tickets available, and I was really really glad about it when I got on the train to airconditioned comfort and an employee handed me a pile of fresh sheets, towel and blanket in a packet. Ahhh comfort.
Halfway through the journey my cabin buddies departed and were replaced by an Indian woman who worked in the army and kindly (and forcefully) shared her bought dinner with me, which was actually delicious. Slept really well and we arrived in Haridwar at 5am (scheduled time was 11:05pm). It was actually beneficial because it was so late that instead of checking into a hotel room and sleeping, I just jumped on a local bus to Rishikesh and kept on going. Saved me the cost of a hotel room!
On the bus I had a little Indian girl next to me who curled up and slept on the chair next to me. Her mother, who was sitting across the aisle, and I had to keep our hands on her so that she wouldn't bounce off the seat. Halfway through she changed positions and fell asleep on my lap instead. Very cute.
It is so lovely and temperate here compared to the sweltering humidity of Varanasi. The breeze at dawn on the bus was actually freezing cold but now it's just a nice bearable temperature.
I'm staying in an ashram to do some yoga for my last couple of days in India. So far I'm not really that into it. There's a lot of people here all hyped up on serious spirituality and I just really can't get to that 'place'. Just way too 'lighthearted' to be bothered getting into that all right now. I'm not on a "my marriage fell apart and now I'm going to Italy, India and Bali to find myself" tour.. I'm not sad.. I'm perfectly content just doing my own thing. So I'll do some yoga and go... obla di obla da... :)

24+ sucky hours on a train

As the title suggests, I just spent (over) 24hrs on a train.. and it sucked.
Was pretty much like being in jail, I imagine.
I traveled sleeper class, which was the lowest class on the train because the next class up, 3 tiered sleeper with aircon, was triple the price.
It was very basic. 3 tiers of the usual upholstered mattresses, everyone sits on the bottom tier during the day and the 2nd tier is folded down to be a back rest. I was lucky enough to get the Upper Berth which meant I could climb up and lie down whenever I want.
I think the worst thing about extended train travel is the lack of food. There are food hawkers that occasionally walk the aisles but you can't trust their food and since I'd only recently been in hospital with a bad stomach, I wasn't tempted to risk it.
I took some biscuits, a yellow fruit cake loaf 'thing', and some potato paranthas (like naan) for the trip. However when I went to eat the paranthas, I discovered that the ants had discovered my meal before me and they weren't salvageable.
For the most part, the tonnes of men around me were very nice. One guy gave me a chain so I could secure my bag under the seat so it wouldn't get pinched during the night. Another guy went and bought water and juice for me when we stopped briefly at a station. An older guy offered me some of his packed dinner. And one particularly lovely guy who I later found out was a national security guard bought some bananas and gave me 2, woke me up this morning with a cup of chai he'd bought me, and for breakfast went and bought me a packet of biscuits which he practically forced me to eat, obviously seeing that I hadn't been eating much.
I guess that's one upside of being a lone female traveller, the nice people are concerned for your wellbeing!
I did, however, get woken up by one douche at 3am because his elbow touched me. He was talking to his mate in the berth under me and he had his arm on my bed leaning down. It happened twice and when I pushed it off, he took that as grounds to start the usual "where you going? where you from? your name?" conversation. I told him that I'm sleeping, and so then he decided to tell me that I'm "the most beautiful and sexy girl on this train". I went mad at him and told him to GO AWAY. "Sorry if you have trouble" he replied as he slunk off. They just have no idea of appropriate conversation! Maturity level - 14yr old boy.
When I FINALLY got off the train about 25hrs later (apparently the train was running 3hrs late) I then had to go and wait in the booking office to book my ticket for a few days time before it sells out. Then I couldn't find my guesthouse pickup so I bought a prepaid rickshaw drop off.. and THEN my guesthouse pickup shows up. The 2 rickshaw drivers I had paid and the 2 guesthouse rickshaw guys were talking it out with the guy in the prepaid booth, deciding what I would do without telling me what the F was going on.. I kept saying EXCUSE ME but they either ignored me or told me that everything is ok. I was like... NO. NOT OKAY. TELL ME WHAT IS GOING ON?! They'd taken my prepaid ticket and were talking money etc etc without including me at all with what was happening, there was talk of the guesthouse guys charging 200R which was more than twice what I had paid for the prepaid ticket (which had been confiscated) and I just lost it and yelled at all of them. Was effective. You just can't be god damn polite in this place!
After the rickshaw ride I had to walk 20min through the labyrinth of the Old City of Varanasi to the guesthouse. During the walk, liquid of some sort was thrown from an upper balcony and splashed partially on my head and pack.
I got to the guesthouse, closed the door, and had my first real Indian meltdown! It was just all too F-ing much! I was tired, starving and absolutely filthy.
I have since remedied the situation by showering, napping, and I found a restaurant and had my first pizza in 2+ months!
*Sigh*. Cambodia in a week. This place is exhausting me.

Udaipur

Just a quick and probably bland blog post tonight because I am so tired from the 8hr bus trip back to Jodhpur today and I have about 24hrs on a train to look forward to tomorrow!
Went and saw the usual tourist sights in Udaiper once I felt better. Had a couple of dresses tailored for dirt cheap. Met an Indian artist, painted a 6ftx3ft canvas in his studio which he's displaying in his gallery in Udaipur. Was great to paint again!


The kids at the guesthouse were so lovely, I think my heart broke a little saying goodbye to them. Whenever I saw them they'd ask how I was feeling. I'd spend my evenings with them drawing and colouring in and playing snakes and ladders and doing jigsaw puzzles. Nandini and Jinu were my little buddies. The look on Jinu's face last night when I told him I was leaving this morning was so sad, and when I woke up early this morning to catch my bus I found him in the common area outside my room playing lego. He'd woken up early especially to say goodbye to me. He showed me the lego truck he'd made with him and I sitting in the front. Cute kid :(

Took the very dull 8hr bus journey back to Jodhpur today. I had planned on staying half the time I did in Udaipur and seeing Bundi as well but due to my hospital trip I thought it'd be best to just stay put. I much prefer being able to stay longer in places anyway, it's only due to time constraints that I'm moving so quickly now. I just realised that I haven't spoken to a foreigner in 5 days! How odd! Anyway, there was a big Indian guy sitting next to me on the bus today who wanted to listen to my ipod with me (note to self, sterilise earphones). He bopped along and did 'dad moves' to the songs.. was a pretty hilarious cultural exchange.

Anyway *sigh* I have to go in the morning and try to find a shop that will sell me the means to nourish myself for my 24hr train trip. Plain biscuits will just not be enough! They sell food but it'll either be A) not hygienic enough or B) too spicy for my poor stomach which has been through a lot. My kingdom for some muesli bars and a ham and cheese sandwich on multigrain bread. Actually, my kingdom for a slice of meatlovers pizza. Damn I miss meat!
So yes, off to Varanasi tomorrow.. will post again in a couple of days if I don't lose my mind on the train.
MWAH! x

My visit to an Indian public hospital!

So I've had an upset stomach for about 4-5 days but yesterday evening it got really bad and accompanied by a high fever, chills, etc. I was shivering under a thick blanket (and it's not cold here) and having to get up once or twice an hour to use the bathroom. Each time I woke up it felt like I'd been in bed fighting it for an eternity and I kept thinking that it's morning, even though it'd only been half an hour to an hour since I last woke! Very demoralising! I went downstairs at about 1am to get some more water.. I felt so dehydrated and my head was pounding. Luckily I'm staying in a family guesthouse and not just a hotel, because the family took very good care of me. They thought it was best that they take me to hospital and I was so run down that I agreed.
First we went to the private hospital but when we walked into reception it was dark and there was no-one there except a random patient sleeping on bed. So then we went to the public hospital. The place was pretty filthy... if it was a hostel, I wouldn't have stayed there. There was even a few motorbikes parked inside. Spoke to a doctor for a while and then I had to get an injection. Was shown to a bed; wasn't your normal white hospital bed.. it was a dirty dark green fabric with used cotton balls and a used syringe just casually sitting there! I started to freak out a bit then.. I'd beaten my syringe phobia back home but this was just too much. Next I had to go and get a blood test. Obviously no-one has a phobia of syringes in India because when I walked into the room there were syringes and vials of blood EVERYWHERE! Managed to get through it all, the guesthouse guys were lovely and held my hand through the injection and blood test. Got back to the guesthouse about 2am and thankfully the injection and medicines were working wonders and I was able to sleep! Brilliant! Feeling a lot better today but still very weak.

Blue City Jodhpur

I love Jodhpur!!
I went and saw the massive Mehrenghar (probably spelt that wrong) Fort that towers over the city this morning. You have to climb up the winding path through several gates with huge ornate doors with spikes so that the elephants couldn't batter them down without seriously injuring themselves in the process. The final gate is at a 90 degree turn so that the elephants couldn't get a good run up! Best fort so far! It's really well preserved and the free audio guide is very interesting to wander around listening to! Interesting fact.. the title 'Maharaja' meaning 'Great King' was first given to a Rajput ruler by emperor Shah Jahan, the emperor who commissioned the Taj Mahal. The displays were very interesting too.. lots of great artefacts like 'Howdahs', the ornate seats used on the top of elephants. There was even one there made of wood and covered in silver that Shah Jahan had gifted to the maharaja of Jodhpur.

I spent the whole morning wandering around the fort and then decided to go and check out some antique shops! DROOL! So many amazing things! Particularly the giant wooden doors.. unfortunately torn from havelis. When a developer buys land with a haveli on it he often sells all the architectural fittings ie. the windows, doors, ornate carvings etc and then demolishes the haveli. Such a shame that the beautiful old buildings get knocked down but at least the fittings survive!

Then spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the Old City, getting lost and finding my way back home! I randomly ran into my French friends while I was lost! I went to ask directions at a juice stand and they were there sipping coconuts! The reason it's called the blue city, BTW, is because a lot of the old havelis are painted Brahmin blue (or other bright colours) which, when you're looking down from the fort, make the Old City appear very blue! I'll post photos soon!

I'm staying in a 500+ year old haveli run by the most beautiful family. It's called Amar Niwas Guesthouse and it's the family home of Sunil and Neena, their adorable 6yr old son and a mischievous kitten! They are such lovely people! The son, Antriksh, so cute, he just finished adorning me with his Ben10 watch, and when I finished my water he quickly ran off to put it in the bin for me. So cute. Owen Wilson and the other stars of The Darjeeling Limited have even stayed here and were so delighted with the service, they gave them the walking stick prop used in the movie!

Wish I could spend more time here but unfortunately with less than 2wks left in India I have to keep on moving! Udaiper tomorrow! WOO!