Happy Holi/Easter!

1.Foreigners
2.Groups
3.Freedom Fighters
4.VIP's

I love Indian signs...

Goodness, I once again have not managed to write i this for a long time, but this time I promise to be more brief in my brevity. Or something like that.

Last you heard I believe, I was on my way to Agra to stay overnight and relax. Wrong. Due to a slight passport malfunction, i.e. people not bringing them we couldn't check in to any hotels in the area so Ellie and I had to run to the train station to change our tickets to later that day. So we did get to see the Taj and the Red Fort again but for a little less time than I originally would have liked. Nonetheless it was as breathtaking as I remembered it and was still a pretty relaxing day. We said our goodbyes to Ellie and departed, us for home and her for Varanasi, with promises to meet up soon again.

The next week then was an interesting affair. It was the start of my rather long goodbye to the kids that I had been teaching for what seems like years. May still for a couple of days could not come along because of exams, so we sufficed ourselves with giving them role plays in Eglish and getting them to act them out. A big hit and absolutely hilarious for us!
But then came the inevitable on Wednesday, I said goodbye to the Zakhira kids whom I had become very close to. We had long parties, which included a big cricket match with the boys in the middle of a road on a raised platform underneath a flyover. That was different. And then there was the dancing! O the dancing. I have lots of videos and photos do not worry - including one of our computer teacher getting it on in no uncertain terms. A memorable watch! The girls were a bit harder to coax into dancing but a fair few participated in the end. It's always the shy ones who are actually amazing at dancing and that turned out to be the case again. The party was briefly interrupted by a prayer meeting in Hindi and then I had to say final(ish) goodbyes. Some of the younger ones led me by hand to the car, which was amzingly cute - one of them shouting out in an extremely high pitched voice "I am sad". I'm ging to smuggle her home somehow...

More on that later in the week when I return from traveling and see them again.

We were supposed to go north to Himachal Pradesh on Sunday. Wrong again. Orlagh got sick and the last minute so we were encamped in the flat for another few days. However, we were not idle, on St Paddy's night we managed to somehow end up at the Irish Ambassador's house for a wee ceile, rubbing shoulders with diplomats, big important people and the Irish! Who, may I say, stayed long after all the Indians had gone home. We had met the deputy ambassador, Pat Byrne, and an Irish Minister Eamon O Cuiv earlier on a visit to the slum beside ASHA, Ekta Vihar, and he managed to mention this party. We didn't need to be asked twice. The band was great and we tried to start dancing reasoably unsuccessfully - however, our attempts were not unnoticed by the band and we ended up going on with them to (wait for it) one fo the swanky bars in the British High Commission Compound. Yup, on St Paddy's day we ended up with a bunch of trad players and two long haul Irish travellers (www.crazyjourney.com) in a British Compound. Only in India.

Despite some minor scares then that things would fall through, we managed to get going on thursday of last week and flew down to Mumbai where we met up with Orlagh's friend Ashish, for Holi. The first couple of days were spent just around Mumbai seeing a few things and lounging on his 7th story flat (incidently where paranoid movie star Parveen Babi died a few years ago) which he is renting for a short time. It overlooked the Arabian See and really was amazing! Then on Saturday we managed to experience first hand the Indian Holi. Suffice to say that there was a lot of paint, a lot of water involving a huge rain dance and a hell of a lot of it somehow coing to reside upon my person. They like to make white people welcome so to say. It was in the flat block of Ashish's old house with all of his friends and their children (who had amazing English!) and it was so much fun!

I'm afraid that was only a brief account of Mumbai, I am slightly pushed for time. Yesterday we hottailed it to Kerala - near the southern tip of India and I am writing this from a gorgeous little internet cafe overlooking old style portugese and indian houses in a place called fort cochin. We will move on again today top try and find somewhere to go on a spot of houseboating and then hopefully a wildlife park with elephant rides woooooo! I feel like such a tourist but it is just so nice to be travelling at last! Then soon we will be back in Delhi for my fair and final goodbyes for now and then home. Weird.

Will update again soon, hope everything is well!

Graham

PS I lost my phone - o don't try and call me on my british number - if it is urgent then text or call 0091 9999133165. Love to all!