Thursday 8th July

Tuesday=Plane. Wednesday=Arriving, settling and sleeping.

Discover India. (The name of the diary I purchased out here)
The Indian women look beautiful in their sarees - even as we wizz past at 50km/h. I, on the other hand, am sweaty and have a numb bum and totally windswept hair from being on the back of Gideon's motorbike for most of the day.
I love it.
Today was absolute fun; we started by going, just for a little while, to the reservoir to see the view (beautiful), then to the beach for a walk where we saw a harbor near ''dolphin nose'' (a hill so named due to its outline's resemblance to the nose of a dolphin!) so we went to go see it, well smell it more like! We couldn't get out the other end so we turned around and went through it all again, observing the women dry out fish in the streets which apparently smelt even worse because they have been so wet in recent monsoon rains. Yum.
After that we went to an aquarium which smelt less and had all sorts of crazy fish, turtles and eels!! We also went on a rope carriage thing after driving up the mountain. Gideon says many couples go there to escape their parents and hold hands without politics or pressure! I can see how it would be romantic, especially as it was so green due to said rain and its brilliant views of the sea and the city :)
To finish off we went to a supermarket called ''Spencers'', I suppose Mark did not make it across the ocean...?

''I had a farm in Africa...''
I feel a little bit like the woman from 'Out of Africa' (what was her name?!) as people stare at me all the time and I seem so rich and posh compared to most of the people I encounter - even more so than usual! Gideon's friend, Mohan (?), said I looked like an actress they have over here, Gideon agrees but said I need dimples to look exactly the same! On the hill I had my big sunglasses on and the wind was blowing my scarf behind me and Gideon said I looked like a movie star. I did feel quite glamorous watching our shadows flickering by whilst on the bike. And people like to stare, what could make you feel more like a movie star??

On the guitar?
People seem to come and go in Gideon's house, he has a lovely guitar student with a beautiful voice; I was listening to them sing whilst I played spider-man games on the computer at the insistence of little Joel (almost five years old). I came out to write this and found them in a hot religious debate, I guess she must be Catholic and they were discussing prayer to Mary as the 'perfect mother of God', slipping in and out of English. India is smothered by religion; hindu statues, painted pictures of Jesus and the loud Muslim calls for prayer. Gid says that Hindu's are less encouraged to call on the loud speakers because the government is Muslim and Christians are just plain not allowed because the ministers take too long!
The student's going now, I don't think I saw her play the guitar once; maybe when I wasn't looking..!