Intrepid Journeys - India

Back to routine here in the village. A few adventures but nothing too extraordinary. Getting into some chilling out. Getting into some reading. Another aunt arrived from NZ. Another local wedding. Have also resorted to playing cricket with the local schoolchildren to fill in my afternoon (question - how long can are you ethically allowed to bat for when playing against a bunch of ten year olds?)

Spent some more time at Vajifa, as it makes an easy escape from sitting ‘round. Pretty fun too, got to watch the rice terraces being irrigated, worked flat by bullock & cart, then rice planted row by row by the workers. Got cooked a traditional Indian BBQ, rode the bullocks (hota) and took HEAPS of photos. Quick trip to the Bombay Markets (in Navsari, nonetheless) proved not worth the effort. Same shit, different store….yet again. That and a whole lot of bric-a-brac.

A REAL LIVE indian wedding

Plans for further abroad didn’t work out due to our inability to negotiate India’s rail reservation system. In the jumble, I thought that buying “Trains at a Glance” for a mere 35 rupees may further our cause. Only after I paid did it’s tremendous girth become known to me. No less than 267-pages and you need nothing less than a PhD to decipher it. Not so much glancing to be had I’d say…though at least you’re getting your ruppees worth of paper! By the time we’d got back from the train station the three of us were dehydrated as…not to mention bored shitless and sick of little beggar children poking us. Turns out it’s actually a six hour journey and there were no first class tickets left on the trains we wanted. Perhaps a day trip to Surat will have to do…

Haven’t seen any good snakes yet, a few small dead ones on the road but don’t think they qualify! A couple of cheeky squirrels around and the usual gaggle of dogs. Actually one cute little puppy’s adopted our household. He hangs out in the yard and if he’s not there he’s “guarding” (sleeping by) the front door. The local peacocks seem pretty intelligent too, seems as though we’ve got one on a bit of a timetable to appear at our back door so we can feed it and stuff in the morning. Pretty cool – it’ll eat right from your hand and it’s a big male one too. These things are so massive tho, can’t see how it’s physically possible for them to fly!

Great to have some more Marmite from NZ and I never thought I’d appreciate the Weekend Herald as much as I do here. Real articles! Real English! Such a relief… every article’s like poetry when you’ve been on a solid course of The Indian Times for three weeks.

Have also just blown the limit of photo uploads per month so scroll back and check some out! Cheers, Nick

Look theres Mum!