28/7/2010

Sunburn in monsoon, interesting . . .

I've moved to a room down a million stairs with a huge balcony, huger room than my old one with a view and hot shower, it was destined, I'm staying in Victoria House for 200rupees per night. My new home for 4 and a half weeks.

I discovered the other day that my name here is a boys name. But Shelly one of the girls doing the course just finishing, her name means vagina here, the guy who told her said her name was bad here and he didn't dare say it out loud so drew her a picture, how funny.

Triund trek today as we failed yesterday to go due to the rain. Good old porridge to set me up for the day. 9km to get from Mcleod to 2825metres. I kept leaving Veronique and Jeannie to go ahead, I'm terrible for just wanting to get to the top. It was hard graft, the sweat just dripping off me. It rained a bit so we stopped for ginger tea then continued up, we did it in good time. At Triund you can go up to snowline but we decided against it as there weren't even a path, just rock climbing up and there wasn't even a view due to the fog, plus beer called. While waiting for the other two at the top I nearly ended up in a dog fight. A dog had followed some people up and the pack of dogs up there just attacked it, apparently it's a regular thing, the dogs wander in gangs and attack dogs not in there gang. So people were hitting and prodding the dogs with their brollies, I casually ran away. The highlight, we got to see two lady birds shagging, well I never.

On my walk back down I walked with a guy who is a trekking guide from the US, he was trying to persuade me to volunteer, too bad I'm being a selfish heartless b**** at the minute. A burnt one at that as I've caught the sun on the way down. A rare occurrence of sunshine without overcast clouds to protect, as I was above them. But everyone who is here volunteers, so they aren't short, I know it's not the point.

I apologise in advance as all the pictures are of mountains, trees and fog, but that's about it here, soon to be photos of temples!. Jeannie is taking photos and I'll be getting tagged in them on Facebook, so you do get to see my frizzie hair at meal times etc after just being caught in the rain everytime. My mourning cape as I like to call it keeps me nice and dry.

Went for tea, becoming a favourite haunt of carpe diem, (seize the day) with all the people who have finished the course I am about to start. I've had rum and beer, and stuffed with Indian food. When yoga begins it's salad and fruit, no beer. It's interesting to hear different points of view and apparently I'll be told I have a psychology problem with me not being able to relax and having bad digestion due to stress. So brilliant, bring it on!

I managed to slip as I stepped out the bathroom, I'm used to carpet and now its tiles, I went arse over tit whilst naked. Not a good look. xx