Many updates coming soon

This is a temporary post and will be brought down once we get to Australia and update the blog properly.
We've left India and are now in Singapore. It's frighteningly expensive but a very welcome change from India.

Anyhow. That's it for now. More posts in the next week or so.

Blogs coming in a week or so

We've not been blogging recently because we can't get an internet connection for our laptop. Plus, the we suspect that surges in the local power supply have knocked out the batteries in our camera and laptop.
Once we get to Singapore, we'll have wireless internet in our room and we'll add some updates there. Check back on 8th November and we may have added some updates.

Mysore Palace Lights -- 2nd October

Night fell as we arrived at Mysore Palace. The crowds were making their way back from across the city to the palace grounds to see the lights be turned on at 7pm. Above is a photo of some of the dancers from the procession earlier in the day making their way to the palace. As dusk fell, the anticipation built and it was the perfect time get some photos.
The photo below shows the front of the palace which is where the kings and maharajahs would have sat and watched processions and celebrations over the years. It's quite a grand building, and the best bit is yet to come!


Suddenly, and just after 7pm, the lights came on, and it's quite the spectacle. Not only the front of the palace, but all the wall surrounding the gardens and all the temples and gates were lit up.
The first of the photos below was taken looking away from the palace at the main gate, and the one below it is the front of the palace taken from an angle.



We'd wanted to see this the last time we were in Mysore, but it was not to be. We were very glad that we got to see it this time around.
The Christmas lights of Highfields will never seem as spectacular after today! 

The Mysore Elephant Parade -- 2nd October

On the way down from Chamundi Hill, there's a Bull carved from a single piece of rock. There's a few of these around, but this one was pretty good... not that Daisy and I know too much as we stayed in the car with Raj whilst Leanne and Jyohti ran up to see it.


We dropped out of the hill into Mysore and into the throng. There were people everywhere, all tying to get to the best vantage point to see the elephant parade. The photo above shows coaches packed with people inside and on top. We felt very lucky to be in an airconditioned vehicle, even if Jyohti was always complaining that she could walk quicker.

Raj took us to a large roundabout close to the palace where we would get a good vantage point. We quickly realised that whilst there was no agression in the crowd, the sheer volume of people meant that crowding, pushing and uncontrolled surges were not uncommon. The police were there waving their sticks at people's heads, trying to get them to sit down but after getting caught in a couple of (quite terrifying) surges, we knew that we needed to find an alternative place to sit. In amongst the crowds, some enterprising folk had parked their small horse-drawn carts and were charging for people to it in and on them. We gladly paid 1,000 rupees (about £12) for the five of us (Leanne, Daisy, Jyothi, Raj and me) to take a seat. From the roof of the cart we were not only protected from the surging crowd, but were also able to see over the heads of the crowd. The carts were fairly rickety affairs and occasionally the horse would shift a little causing the cart to pitch backwards or forwards, but it was quite safe. As time wore on, the crowds deepened and people were going to great lengths to find a good vantage point. The photo below is of one of the trees to our right.


Most of the trees, signposts, radio masts, and so on were filled with men. After some time, the town rocked to the sound of cannon and the parade officially began! The elephants came at the start and at the end with about 20-30 floats in between. The elephants were exactly what you would imagine to see in India. Draped with bright fabrics and bejeweled spectactularly, they were the highlight of the day.


About half way through the parade, the heavens opened. I ducked down into the cart with Daisy, but everybody else sat up on the roof watching the procession. Raj made a rain hat out of a handkerchief and Leanne and Jyothi sheltered themselves somehow. The rain was warm and brief and it took us no time at all to dry out.
At one point, one of the trees nearby decided that it had too many people in its branches and promptly collapsed. Everybody in the vicinity ran to see what had happened. We stayed perched on our cart, but despite the mass of people running to the scene of the incident, there seemed to be no casualties.

Well, after all the floats and elephants had passed we made our way back to the car and headed towards the palace to see the last sight on our tour...
 

I am not a number

The next part of the story of our trip to Mysore and the posts about Grandma Alison's visit to Bangalore will be along shortly. In the meantime here's some Breaking News!


Today was my last day with Dell. I joined Dell on 11th September 2000 and finished on Friday 13th October 2006. I came to India to help kick-start a team of web developers and I'm pleased to say that it was a success. It was such a success that they called short our time here... although we're really not complaining too much.
I couldn't have asked to have worked with a better group of people for the past few months. They have been generous, courteous, hardworking and diligent. The world needs more people like them. They also bought a fabulous cake to say thanks for the time I've spent with them. It's hard to see how big it was from the photos above, but I'd guess at it being about 40cm or 16" along each edge. It had the sweetest pineapple flavour imaginable and had I not had a rather healthy lunch beforehand, I'm sure I'd have managed to finish my second slice.


They'd also bought a few gifts for us. They presented me with a lovely painting of a marigold... or perhaps it was a lilly... or a rose? I'm clueless when it comes to flowers (except the Daisy of course!) but it's a nice painting that Leanne's already found a place for in our house. All we have to do now is find a house! They also bought Daisy the ideal gift. Daisy loves her handbag and she loves dogs. The team gifted her with a dog in a bag and you can see her playing with it in the photo below.


She had the attention of everyone in the office as she walked around the desks. She also carried her new toy dog with her everywhere she went. We were very proud that she showed how much she loved her toy in front of the people who gave it to her.

So, that's it. If you've not got around to asking me for a cheap Dell system, then it's too late now. We're unemployed and come Wednesday we'll be homeless too. On the other hand, we've no debts whatsoever and no bosses telling us what to do. There's no going back now. Exciting times lie ahead! 

Chamundi Hill, Mysore (Desara festival 2nd of October)

Monday the 2nd of October was a public holiday so we seized the opportunity for another day in Mysore.
For some reason we both like Mysore. It seems a more relaxed pace even though there is probably over a million people living there and there is the ever constant people, noise, traffic adn pollution that is India. This trip we took Jyothi with us as she had never been to Mysore. She was soooo excited and honestly didn't stop talking for the whole three hour journey! She and Raj seemed to get on marvellously and then two of them talked together and Chris Daisy and I sat in the back and absorbed the sights and sounds. Our first stop in Mysore was Chamundi Hill (that was of course after the mandatory stop at the coffee dafe day enroute!) This is a large hill(1062m) that overlooks the city. Pilgrims are supposed to climb the 1000 + steps but we took the easy 'Raj' route in our car. Poor Jyothi had said that she got travel sick and we saw evidence of this after the winding roads of the ascent. She was so funny as she would be chatting and then suddenly step aside, be sick, drink some water adn then continue her conversation with out skippinng a beat. We were both terribly impressed! There is a temple at the top of the hill and various market stalls and hawkers of every imagination! We circumnavigated the temple and found ourselve the centre of attention. We were admiring the view when some nice people aked if they could ahve their photos taken with us. We obliged and soon found ourselves surrounded by clicking cameras and calls to 'look this way'. We must have had over twenty different people taking our photos! After a while we did hav eto move on as there was becoming quite the gathering around us. Not much further on we started to see monkeys in the trees. I am not sure if you remember but Chris and I were having a competion to see who saw the first ten monkeys. It was a furious finish as we were all calling out our monkey sightings (I think Jyothi saw ten first) and Chris pipped me right at the final post. This meant that I had to cook dinner. We wandered in amoungst the throng and sellers and took photograph and looked, watched, smells and were reviled. jyothi narrowly escaped death by almost being crushed under me and I slipped in a huge cow poo and lost my footing. Luckily I didn't go down and there were lots of offeres to help clean my thong and bottom of my trousers. This of course was offered after all and sundry rolled around with laughter!! The view from the top was lovely and worth the trip. Mysore palace, our next destination, is just to the left of centre in the above photo.
 

And the Winner is...

This was going to be a tough decision. We were sure that one of the jokes submitted in our competition had it in the bag, but suddenly! ...with moments to spare! ...we had a last minute submission that became the runaway winner.

Here it is in its full glory:

After getting all of Pope Benedict's luggage loaded into the limo, (and hedoesn't travel light), the driver notices that the Pope is still standing on the kerb.
"Excuse me, Your Holiness," says the driver, "Would you please take your seat so we can leave?"
"Well, to tell you the truth," says the Pope, "they never let me drive atthe Vatican, and I'd really like to drive today."
"I'm sorry but I cannot let you do that. I'd lose my job! And what if something should happen?" protests the driver, wishing he'd never gone to work that morning.
"There might be something extra in it for you," says the Pope.
Reluctantly, the driver gets in the back as the Pope climbs in behind the wheel.
The driver quickly regrets his decision when, after exiting the airport, the Pontiff floors it, accelerating the limo to 105 mph.
"Please slow down, Your Holiness!!!" pleads the worried driver, but the Pope keeps the pedal to the metal until they hear sirens.
"Oh, dear God, I'm gonna lose my license," moans the driver.
The Pope pulls over and rolls down the window as the cop approaches but the cop takes one look at him, goes back to his motorcycle, and gets on the radio.
"I need to talk to the Chief," he says to the dispatcher.
The Chief gets on the radio and the cop tells him that he's stopped a limo going a hundred and five.
"So bust him," says the Chief.
"I don't think we want to do that, he's really important," said the cop.
The Chief exclaimed, "All the more reason!"
"No, I mean really important," said the cop.
The Chief then asked, "Who ya got there, the Mayor?"
Cop: "Bigger."
Chief: "Governor?"
Cop: "Bigger."
"Well," said the Chief, "Who is it?"
Cop: "I think it's God!"
Chief: "What makes you think it's God?"
Cop: "He's got the Pope as a chauffeur!!"

Many congratulations to Thomas Holdstock for posting this one. It's all the more amazing given he's only 10 months old, so very well done to Thomas. We hope you enjoy the Elephant!

Now, we couldn't let everybody else go home empty handed and so we're sending a small gift to everyone who entered. The photo below shows the elephant being modelled against the backdrop of the cheapest Bollywood music and movies that Bangalore has to offer. I've little idea what they are because the titles aren't written in English, but I hope they bring as much joy to their recipients as their jokes brought to us!


Thank you everybody and keep posted as we head into the final month of our Indian adventure! 

Puja my Ride!

The Ayudha Puja is a form of worship that's practiced on the first day of Dasara, a festival that has huge importance in Southern India, and in the town of Mysore in particular.
For the Ayudha Puja, many people worship their cars, bikes and other 'tools' by performing a puja ritual. Whilst the ritual's all very interesting, the best bit is that you car gets decorated with flowers, garlands and banana leaves!


Raj Puja'd our car on Sunday and brought it around specially to show us. It was one of the best we saw all weekend and he was rightly proud of his creation.
The flowers lasted for a couple of days, after which Raj cleaned the car inside and out, leaving only the purple garland and small, decorative lime/chilli pendant.


Daisy was also quite impressed by what she saw! You can see other people's photos on Flikr here, here and here.


...and with our car rightly puja'd we were ready to head off to the epicentre of the Dasara festival: the city of Mysore, which regular readers will know is a 3 hour drive from Bangalore. Leanne will tell all in our next blog entry! 

Shopping!

Shopping is quite the experience here in Bangalore. I must say that I don't go shopping as a relaxing pasttime. We did laugh on Saturday morning when we found this little cow doing a spot of window shopping. I have never seen a cow in the Commercial district but no one seemed to mind or think it out of the ordinary. Shopping is fruaght with danger from many sides. The footpaths come an dgo in no particular order so you must walk on the raod and avoid the cars and bikes and other pedestrians. Then you must watch where you place your feet as there is often excretment of one form or another along with water of dubious orgins. then you have to avoid the hawkers selling wooden things and dangly sparkly things or maps of India or just begging for money with there tiny little brown fingers grasping your arms. All this is while you are trying to look up and find a store that you need. We went into town on Saturday to get Christopher a suit tailor made. It was very straight forward and Christopher didn't complain too much. We go back next week to have final fitting and if it turns out well we might get him another made. There are little oasis from the chaos like the Florsheims shoe store and you can not help but wonder how these shops exist alongside such poverty and dirt. I now go shopping in this district, which is by far the most interesting and has the best presents for the home folk, by myself of a morning when Christopher can look after Daisy.
Below are the City Markets which I haven't ventured into. I think i will leave this area for the seasoned professionals. I will though get Raj to drive me thorugh and around again before we leave with my camera as the palce is alive with sights and sounds.
Mostly I do my shopping in big sterile shopping malls. At least here I only have to deal with people pinching Daisy's cheeks and taking photos of her. I don't buy much but it is nice to wander around and look at things. There is a cookie man where I have bought us a treat and a lovely coffee shop that I buy Christopehr's coffee beans from. There is a supermarket downstairs that has a bottle shop joined to it and I can buy kingfisher or cobra beer here. Bottle shops are few and far between here in Bangalore. I did buy a lovely pair of jeans from the Lee shop at a total bargain price so next week I will take Christopher to see if he likes any. Nearly everyday we find ourselves in the little grocery store downstairs of the apartments here and i adjust my cooking around what they can supply. They are pretty good here. There is another grocery store near to where Chris works that sells weetabix and other improted foods that we visit occasionally called Namdari's and last week I found that Spencer's now sells philly pastry and water crackers and brie cheese so I lashed out and we had a very fine Sunday of crackers and cheese followed by spinach phillo parcels! i am venturing out a bit more in food and including cheese in our diet as long as it is made from pasterised milk and is in date. I found long life cream on Saturday so we had pasta in a fresh tomato and cream sauce with parmesan bought from Spencers. It was absolutley delicious!! Today though we ar back to dal and rice, which speaking of, I must go and make lunch.
 

Our Road Trip to Belur

Our starting time was 6am! We hadthe forethought not to feed Daisy this time and so Lucy, Christopher, Daisy and I set off roughly on time. Our destination was Channekeshava Temple in Belur a mere five hour bus ride from Bangalore! We headed out on the Goa/Mumbai road and saw the western side of the city. It was much more industrial and yet was much more densely occupied than the rest of the city we have seen. The road had lots more lorries and far less sights to see like rice paddies or coconuts plantations. It was at least two hours before we felt we were in the countryside and travelling through small villages. We stopped for coffee at a local bus stop kind of place where we had smoe nasty nasty toast. Unfortunately a lot of effort had been put into our toast as it was layered and cut into fingers and arranged on a plate to a lovely effect but the strawberry jam that it was smeared with left it to be unpalatable so the coffee was to suffice. Daisy had trvelled well so we fed her ome fruit puree and a glass of water. Ten minutes down the road Daisy felt she didn't like this either and so promptly returned it to my lap! A roadside stop, and bottled water bath all round we were on our way again. The road was quite congested with cows, oxen, wagons, lorries and people and so we found that it took 6 hours to arrive and not 5 like the bus. The Channekeshava Temple was quite an impressive site. It was begun in 1116 to commemorate the Hoysalas' victory over the Cholas at Talakad (I am not sure who these people are or where this place is, anyway...) The temple is surrounded by a large courtyard that you can wander around and there are further smaller temples within this.
The temples are carved out of soapstone and they really are impressive with the detail that they managed. The Hoysala style temples are the most elaborately carved of all Indian temples. We arrived here at midday and found wandering around the courtyard and the temples to be incredibly hot! We had to take our shoes off as this temple is still in use so our feet took quite a beating on the hot stones. It was lovely and cool inside. In one temple I left a small donation and got to wave the heat form a candle over my forehead (I had learned this trick from a monk in the Hare Krishna temple in Bangalore) The monk inside the temple then gave me 'mint water' which he said I had to drink so I pretended to and made a hasty exit. The water did smell very minty and refreshing compared to the searing heat in the courtyard. It was an amazing place and we found ourselves sitting in a pavillion and watching the colourful saris and clothing of the Indians wandering around this ancient place. Back in the car, Raj headed off on a mission and we looked at each other and wondered where our next adventure would lead us. To lunch, we were hoping but this was not to be.
Raj, our driver loves backroad and we soon found ourselves on one such road. the sky was filled with heavy black storm clouds that we were begging to drop their rain but this was not to happen while were we still in the safety of the car. Our next destination was Halebid and another Hoysala style temple. this one was much smaller and more beautifully carved. It was quite astonishing, even enough for us to forget our hunger temporarily as by now it was after 2pm. Then the rains came so it was back into our car and in search of food. Raj took us to an lovely vegeatarian Indian resturant that was filled with locals so we thought it must be good. i had a jar of food for Daisy and as she had been able to keep bananas down we fed her this food. Within minutes she had covered the resturant and Christopher. The waiters were very helpful and Daisy was grinning from ear to ear with all the attention. We ordered lunch and let Daisy wander at will and we took it in turns to play with her and eat our meals. Then it was back in the car and heading home. This took five hours but the last two were in Bangalore evening traffic. Raj loves his backstreets so again we saw parts of the city that we would normally never see. It was the tail end of the Ganesh Festival, a week long festival celebrating the elephant god Ganesh and we drove through two small processions of dancing and drums and people carrying statues of the gods. They were very colourful and loud and a pleasure to come across. We arrived home about 9pm and soon found ourselves in bed after a long long but interesting day. 

It's Competition Time!

To say a big Thank You to all our readers, we're holding a competition. The prize is this wonderful elephant-themed hanging ornament. Featuring a style unique to India, this will take pride of place in any home... perhaps it could be yours?


Complete with the original "Handicrafts Museum" bag, this highly desirable item features a brass bell with heart-shaped clanger and an assortment of blue, red, white and gold beads along the string. The golden elephant is oranmented with a silver toe-ring whilst the colours of India are represented by the orange and green pom-poms.


So what do you have to do to win this slice of the subcontinent? Simply post a joke to this blog entry. There's only a few rules. The jokes must be suitable for a wide audience (so that rules out most of yours, Tiel), there's a limit of two jokes per person and the winner will be decided on Saturday October 7th by a panel of two: Leanne and me.
That's only three weeks away, so put your thinking caps on and good luck! 

Banglaore Transport Part Three: 4 Wheels and Above

Now for the final installment of my series of blog entries that show you what's on the roads of Bangalore.
First up is the Hindustan Ambassador. Based on the 1948 Morris Oxford, these are still manufacturered and are a very popular choice. Renowned for having the most comfortable back-seat, they are still a very popular car.

Ever the masters of reinvention, Hindustan Motors also used to make a model called the Contessa (pictured below). This too began life as a British car, this time the Vauxhall Victor. Legend has it that my father used to have one, although I'm not sure that his would have had a "Jesus Loves You" sun visor.



It's not all rebadged British cars though. There's also heaps of rebadged Japanese cars too. Ferocious import duties and luxury taxes mean that many companies partner with local firms. Suzuki have partnered with a firm called Maruti, who manufacture old models that the rest of the world has long moved on from. Still, this means that Indians get cheap, tried and tested transport that does the job amicably.
Below is a Maruti 800 that's been prepared for a wedding. They do love their flowers here!


Once you've made it in India, you'll be looking for a mode of transport that's more suited to your needs. There's not much of a market for the likes of BMW and Mercedes here. Instead people seem to jump several rungs on the ladder and shift right to the top. Occasionally (and I mean very very occasionally) the sea of rehashed metal makes way for something that would be ostentatious even in Chelsea, Manhattan or Middle Ridge.
Parked outside the hotel next to our apartment complex was this Rolls Royce. Heaven knows how much this would have cost after all the taxes would have been paid, but I wouldn't mind betting that it was considerably more than it would have cost back home.


It's such a shame that as soon as you step out of your Rolls, you hit the awful, awful stench of the 'river' that flows just behind those bushes.

That's India for you -- a true land of contrasts!

And I'll be ending this post with a special mention of the trucks. Mostly brightly coloured and decorated with flowers, they are a cheerful addition to the Inidan roadscape.

Aunt Lucy's Safe Arrival.....then shopping!

Lucy arrived safely and excitedly. We were so looking forward to having her and showing off where we live. Our first morning was quiet as Lucy had only landed at midnight. Christopher and Raj eagerly met her at the airport while I volunteered to look after Daisy and grabbed a bit more sleep! I had heard about some markets that I wanted to see so in the afternoon we all loaded into the car, dropped Chris at work and then headed to the markets. We found ourselves in the grounds of an art college and in amongst the most wonderful craft markets that I have found here. There was a band playing traditional music and the whole place had a carnivale feel to it. It reminded me very much of the Eumundi markets behind Noosa in Queensland for it earthy handmade qualities. The band was hilarious and they soon roused the crowd to a mass of dancing and arms and foot stomping.
Apart from the shopping, which proved to be fruitful, the grounds were old and tropical and the trees filled with monkeys. (I spied five so that takes me up to six which was equal to Chris's total up until the next day where he spotted one sitting on the side of the road! Our competition continues for the first to see ten monkeys) There was a small temple in the grounds which made for some great photography. We bought hand made soap from the himalaya and wood blocks from somewhere else, admired cloth from Rajastan, bought hand made paper and pottery and leather shoes. It was a lovely lovely afternoon.
 

Singapore Stopover

All to soon we found ourselves back on the aeroplane and heading back to India. Christopher arrived in Australia late on the Tuesday evening and back on the plane by Sunday night. We had an overnight flight to Singapore where we organised a day to sightsee. It felt a though we had just closed our eyes when they were turning on the lights for breakfast and an hour out from landing. We didn't feel very refreshed after the last few hectic but wonderful days surrounding Nic's wedding but had to agreee that we must have had some sleep. We arrived into Changi airport at 5.30 in the morning. We changed Daisy out of her pyjammas and ready for the day. From the safety of the terminal we could already feel the steamy air outside coming through the opening doors. A Singapore airlines hostess was absolutely wonderful and helped us find the tourist counter and a bus trip innto town. This booked we wandered off for breakfast. Macdonald's pancakes and 'the full breakfast' was the order of the day. Our bus left at 8am and the only part of Singapore open at that time of the day was an area of the city called 'Little India'! The city that we passed through was just beautiful, everything manicured and clean clean clean! The plants and flowers were magnificent and the smell of recent rain hung like honey in the air! We decided there and then to move to Singapore. We spent our morning wandering the streets and looking at electronics and digital SLR cameras. We almost bought one, or two. Christophers favourite place was SimLim Square which was about five floors of gadgets!! I tried to remain thrilled to bits with the fourteenth mp3 digital firewire dock USB drive but eventually found myself fading. A trip to Raffles was the only cure. We caught a taxi and found ourselves inside imperial England again. The road signs outside read Mountbattan drive and the guide books wrote of Rudyard Kipling drinking in the bar. The hotel was impeccable and cool and inviting.
There were about three or four coutryards surrounded by tropical gardens and each held a fountain. These were the best bits according to Daisy. Singapore weather was much much hotter and more humid than here in Bangalore so we didn't mind hanging around the water too much. We found the 'Long Bar' and ordered a Singapore Sling each. Christopher has since read that the only place to get original and authentic Singapore slings is either at Raffles or on Singapore airlines. The bar had quite a rustic, mascuoine, hemingway kinda feel to it with peanut shells and sparrows littering the floor. Our drinks went down very nicely and we found time to sit back and soak it all in. So we ordered another and sat back a bit more. We decided to let the return bus slip and we would just surround ourselves in this oasis of calm and clean and cool. Daisy even behaved herself for most of it and charmed the other guests. We got the bill and reality began to sink in again, $76 for four drinks!! Now we couldn't afford the taxi back to the airport. (It did remind us of when we were travelling in Paris at Christmas with Tim and Pam and Tim was horrified to discover that he had paid 8 euro for a bottle of coke, which also reminded us of the time that he paid 8US dollars for a bag of chips in Alaska, it made us laugh) We were in time for the free bus to come around again so we loaded up our belongings and headed off. Back at Changi we got our free slice of pizza from the tourism board and settled into chairs to wait our flight home. By this time we are pretty tired and Daisy has passed out. The plane trip wasn't one of our better ones but we arrived home safely and were in bed by midnight and we all slept til 7am when another day began back in Bangalore.
 

All in Australia!

Arriving in Australia was a breath of fresh air. The airport was clean and ordered. The Immigration officials (I am now officially a resident!) had a sense of humour and I was soon in the back of a Holden Commodore, reunited with my family, cruising on the smooth, uncongested Queensland highway out to Toowoomba. Magic!


But there wasn't much time to get settled. The house was a buzz with preparations for Nic's wedding. Daisy seemed to have grown up in the 10 days since leaving India. The photo above shows her sat at her school desk with her colouring books. She's not quite figured out how to draw yet but she knows how to hold a crayon and tries to wave it near the paper, so fairly soon everything will be covered with scribbles.
The desk was to be given to John and Betty's first grandchild, and so it'll now be Daisy's to enjoy (although I'm sure she'll share it with any other siblings and cousins that may come along).


It's winter in Australia, but there was a heatwave the week we arrived and Toowoomba was threatened with level 5 water restrictions. Although it was quite cold in the mornings, the temperature rose to the mid-twenties in the daytime and so we were all able to work and play outside; something that Daisy particularly loved.
We think she's going to like living in Australia!


One afternoon, Leanne, Betty and I went out to a local dam to find kookaburras. They took a while to show but eventually a few turned up. We were out there for about an hour and on the drive back saw wallabies hopping around. They are a very cool creature indeed.


Australia felt like home. In India things work very differently and even buying groceries can be a monumental struggle. Since getting back to India, I've discovered that my assignment may end in mid October rather than the end of November. Although there's still things we want to do, we're both looking forward to being in Australia permanently.

So, if you want to visit us in India, make sure you book it soon. We may not be here for much longer!