Where are all the women?

(An edited version of this has been submitted to the Reader's Voices section of The Guardian.)

Men, men and more men

Walking the streets of Bhubaneswar, I often find myself struck by the same question: Where are all the women? Groups of men swarm the streets, but typically in the company of their own sex. There is a noticeable dearth of women. There are two reasons for this. The first is the patriarchal culture in India which keeps many women in the home, tasked with childcare and domestic duties. The second reason is more startling, significant and worrisome; there are simply far more men than there are women. Recent census data suggests that there are as many as 200 million more men than women across the whole of India.

Driving this gender imbalance is the structural makeup of the Indian family system, which ensures a son is more economically viable by way of avoiding costly dowry payments. Once married, a son will remain in the family home to look after ageing and ailing parents, as well as carry on the family name. These factors have created an explicit cultural preference for sons over daughters.

When this cultural preference is combined with ultrasound technology, we find ourselves in a dangerous place where people can make deliberate decisions on the gender makeup of their family. Sex selective abortion is so prolific in India that it is now illegal for a medical practitioner to inform expecting parents of the sex of the unborn foetus. It is difficult to think of a greater violence against women than the denial of life; the termination of a foetus solely on the basis of its sex.

A young tribal girl in Koraput district

Due to this practice of sex selection, the gap between numbers of women and men is widening; this is evident in the particularly large demographic imbalance in the population under 6 years. What will happen to these boys and girls in 15 – 20 years when they are grown up and seeking a partner? There will not be enough women for each man to have a bride, so potentially this could result in forced polyandry, where a woman has to marry or cohabit with several men. A scarcity of women could also lead to an increase in the number of rapes, abductions and trafficked women, and therefore an overall rise in gender based violence. Women could become a scarce commodity, and brides purchased and sold.

Girls in the small town of Raghurajpur

Trócaire are working with local NGOs in Orissa such as NAWO (National Alliance of Women in Orissa) and local government bodies in order to support daughter-friendly initiatives, including sensitising health workers on the issue and printing greeting cards to be given to the mothers of newborn daughters. By engaging with government bodies, female activists, health practitioners and local communities, we are supporting the birth of a movement which rails against the culture of male preference towards a more egalitarian space.

Some of the amazing female activists we work with

Battle royale in traffictown

A peek into the slum near my house

Now that the weather is entirely manageable - it only this week finally dipped into the high twenties - it is a joy to walk the 3km to work every morning. I would love to be able to say it's peaceful and calm at 8am but I would be spinning a yarn; it is chaos. Clunky clanky school buses that look like they were birthed in the 1950s trundle along full of chattering children, excited for the day ahead. I often get a sea of small hands reaching out to wave to me as I pass, which is entirely sweet and smile-inducing. Ancient sinewy men sing out to advertise their steel pots of hot sugary chai, to be gulped down in tiny measures for a couple of rupees. Teenagers in school uniforms linger at the roadside, gobbling down greasy snacks before the academic day begins, staring wide-eyed at me as I pass.

These days I take a quiet road through the side of one of the slums, where livestock and barefoot children rush about giddily, squeaking and squawking, shrieking and squealing.


The nearby slum

It is not unusual for a young child to stop in their tracks when they see me coming; they point in curiousity and horror at this pale-skinned monster with a mound of fiery hair bearing down upon them. Sometimes they can be charmed with a smile, other times they flee in genuine fear. This never ceases to be hilarious. Over the last couple of weeks, are a trillion small fires daily, burning leaves and rubbish, creating noxious fumes that make for a chokey smokey atmostphere reminiscent of a soft-focus 80s music video.


The quiet back road at the start of my journey to work

Despite this, I love being able to get out in the hustle and bustle of the morning and battle for my own space on the road, which is what I wanted to write about today. Oh, the battle.

The roads here are truly a battleground of hierarchies, with everyone and everything struggling for space and supremacy. Trucks, buses, vans, jeeps, cars, tuk-tuks, motorbikes, cyclists and pedestrians... that is the descending order of importance on the roads here. You will notice that it correlates directly with the size of the vehicles. For example, a truck will happily pull out in front of a tuk-tuk in the knowledge that if there is a crash the truck will be fine. Similarly, tuk-tuks will weave dangerously close to cyclists, and cyclists have near-crashes with pedestrians daily. The long road from my apartment to the turn-off at Mayfair is paved but has no path, so the pedestrians are right in there with the rest of the traffic. I am quickly learning the balance between being assertive in negotiating my own space and also knowing when to JUMP OUT OF THE WAY when a vehicle is hurtling directly towards me.

What is missing from the above-listed chain of command is, of course, the cows. The cows rule the roads here in Bhubaneswar. They slumber happily in the middle of a thronged three-lane road, waking only to flick away some flies or lazily shift their weight in their sleep. All the while, two-, three-, and four-wheelers rumble rapidly and noisily down the roads, swerving carefully to avoid the cows. It is taken for granted that cows lie on roads. Even the busiest, most congested roads will feature cows, who are effortlessly smug in the knowledge that they are safe from all harm. The important thing to remember as a pedestrian is that cows rule, humans do not. Although a tuk-tuk will attempt an impossible manoevre to avoid hitting a cow, it will not afford you the same luxury - so get the hell out of the way!


Ah yes, a perfect place to linger; in the middle of the road

I asked Ravi one day what would happen if a car hit a cow. "Oooh", he said, visibly grimacing at the thought. "First there would be a beating", he mused carefully. "Then, when the bugger is properly taken care of, the police would come and they would also give a beating". Bloody hell. Suddenly the immense care taken to avoid hitting the bovine road users makes perfect sense.


Sleepy road cow

On my walk this morning, a speedy wee tuk-tuk came belting straight for me as I walked at the edge of the road. It was beeping incessantly and the driver was waving like a madman. Once upon a time I would have thought this perhaps meant "get out of my way" or even "be careful, you might get hit". Ha, not at all. This is the technique employed by many tuk-tuk drivers to convince you to jump in the back of their vehicle for a lift. As a general rule I try to avoid getting into the tuk-tuks that try to run me over to get my attention; this rule has served me well so far.

I haven't had the misfortune of witnessing any road accidents yet, touch wood. My American colleague Laura has only been here a matter of weeks and has already seen a motorbike crash as well as a bull and a cow making babies in the middle of the road. I think I had a lucky escape on both counts.

To celebrate a birthday in India is a lovely thing indeed

Thanks India for a great birthday! Martin somehow arranged with a local florist to deliver roses, wine and chocolates to my office which was received with many shrieks and much joy. I think he is still in shock that (a) they actually got delivered, (b) they came on the right day and (c) the delivery man didn't swipe half of the chocolate en route. Success!


Excuse the bad photo, taken with my phone in my office

The roses were beautiful, deep deep crimson red beautifully wrapped and tied with ribbon. To add the obligatory Indian twist, the flowers were sprinkled with silver glitter, the same kind you use as a child to make handmade cards. I now have a glittery work desk and found a piece of glitter on my face this morning when I woke up. Ah, the joys of glitter.


You can just about make out the glitter - plus the wine!

The best part of the delivery was the card - it's hard not to love oddly placed speech marks. Happy "birthday" indeed!



I also received a fantastic package from my parents with some essentials from home, including CHOCOLATE COINS. Holy bejeebus, it's a bag of chocolate coins. My Indian colleagues had never seen these before and they were all devoured pretty quickly. Our driver speaks minimal English and is therefore difficult to communicate with, but was clearly enamoured with these chocolates; I found him turning one over and over in his hand muttering 'looks like five rupees, hmm' to himself.



My new colleague, Laura, also spoiled me silly. On Tuesday she took me to The Breeze restaurant where there is the most spectacularly delicious all-you-can eat buffet. We had some gorgeous chickeny cabbagey garlicky broth followed by an enormous plate of spicy chicken, corn cooked in spinach, paneer butter masala, fresh naan bread, jasmine rice... wowza. It was a lot of food. We were totally stuffed but managed to squeeze in a bit of dessert as you can see below... beautifully delicate creme caramel scented with cardamom and sticky sugary gulab jamun, which is a sort of Indian version of a deep fried donut soaked in sweet syrup.


Lunchtime desserts; so decadent

To continue the spoiling, Laura later presented me with a gorgeous bag of gifts from my favourite shop here, Fab India. Included in this is my first dupatta which is a type of Indian scarf; I'm delighted about this as it will be invaluable on my trip to Ireland next month.


Gorgeous goodies from Fab India

Last night I went for a delicious meal with Juliet, Claudia and Katti, and we were joined by a Frenchman named Leo and an American tourist (a tourist! In Bhubaneswar!) named Joe. We had gorgeous big plates of Chinese food and I thoroughly welcomed the break from Indian cuisine for a night. I've no photos of the evening but it was marked by lots of good food and laughter. A quick pint in the Mayfair pub on the way home (the restaurant didn't serve beer - quite typical here) brought a close to the evening and put a grin on my face. Wonderful birthday, wonderful people. Thanks everyone!

Bali Yatra, the filthy fair of the East

Welcome to Bali Yatra

I had hoped to visit an elephant reserve this weekend, but plans for such a trip were quickly scuppered when I was quite candidly told by the tour operator that the chances of seeing any elephants (or any animals at all) in the reserve were slim to none. Hmm. Instead, Laura (American), Claudia (German), Juliet (English) and Katti (German) and I decide to take a trip 25km north of Bhubaneswar to visit Bali Yatra. This is touted as the biggest trading fair in the east of India and has been hyped in the newspapers all week. It looks like a good opportunity to do some Christmas shopping and explore another part of Orissa, so off we go.

We take the bus from Bhubaneswar to Cuttack, which in itself is almost a feat worthy of praise. Taking a bus here can be difficult in a group, as demand is high and seats therefore scarce. Upon arriving at the bus stop (or 'bus stand', as it is known here), we find a bus destined for Cuttack - however it is clearly VERY FULL with no available seats, despite the driver telling us otherwise and trying to usher us onto the bus. He gets quite aggressive when we tell him we'll wait for the next bus, and begins shouting in our faces; if our minds weren't made up already then they sure as hell are now. We shout back 'jao, jao!' (my terrible attempt at spelling the Oriya for 'leave, leave!') and after another bout of aggression he relucantly leaves us and the bus rumbles off. PHEW.

We just about squeeze on to the next bus, so 15 rupees (€0.21) and one hour later we arrive in Cuttack. In terms of aesthetics, it looks very similar to Bhubaneswar, albeit a little older and more dated. It has a sort of ramshackle visual charm tempered by a strong smell of urine that makes it doable for a daytrip but perhaps not pleasant to inhabit long-term. The roads are squishier and smaller than Bhubaneswar and the crowding more pronounced, though admittedly we are arriving on the 3rd day of Bali Yatra so a throng or three is to be expected.

Cuttack is the old capital of Orissa, before Bhubaneswar claimed the moniker in 1948. It is famous for it's delicate filigree silver so I am looking forward to some jewellery shopping. It is my birthday this week and I have been given money to shop for gifts for myself; vunderbar!

The 5 of us somehow pile in to a tiny tuk-tuk which fortunately comes with a tiny driver; as you can see he is hemmed in from all sides.



Arriving at the fair, we realise we may be slightly early. It is almost 2pm but many stalls are not yet open; some stall holders are clearly not ready to start work yet.




The fair is a vast expanse of commerce with a staggering variety of stalls. Crockery, handmade shoes, cooking oil, ice-cream, handicrafts and children's toy stalls are all jumbled and muddled together, seemingly in no order whatsoever. I do enjoy seeing this stall which is manned by a rather stern looking woman in a sari; I wonder what she thinks of my inadvertent giggles as I snap a quick photo. Whoops.



I should mention at this point how HOT the weather is. It has been cooling off lately and I find myself needing a blanket at night, so I am completely unprepared for the sweltering heat in Cuttack. It is mid-thirties and I am sweating. Just browsing the stalls is exhausting. Luckily there are wonderful places to get fresh fruit juices to keep us going.



It is also worth mentioning how absolutely bloody filthy the place is. We stop for ice-cream at one point and then realise there are no bins in which to put our rubbish. This no-bin rule seems to extend to the entire fair. This is in spite of the fact that the fair has been planned for months and the organisers knew to expect over one million visitors over four days. There are mounds of rubbish everywhere; empty juice cartons, plastic bags, old newspapers and of course the obligatory cow shit. I don't see any toilets during the whole day either, and it appears that people are using the banks of the nearby river for this purpose. I am unfortunate enough to see a man's bare arse as he stands up after relieving himself. This place is literally a shithole.

I have a good rant about this to Dad on Skype on Sunday and on Tuesday this piece appears in the newspaper... it is nice to see an Indian paper reporting on lack of sanitation as it often seems to be accepted here and taken for granted. I'm not sure why my photograph was put alongside the article but nevermind!



After some rather muted meandering in the hot hot heat, we finally find our way to the area where handicrafts are sold. Many of these are run by SHGs (Self-Help Groups) and by tribal women. Just finding this area is enormously difficult as the fairground literally stretches for miles and miles. In this area are some truly beautiful items. Bronze vases, handmade rugs, carved rocking chairs, delicate jewellery boxes, bed linen, even ornamental elephants.









We take a break for lunch and enjoy some phenomenally greasy noodles for 25 rupees a plate (€0.36). By this stage we are hot, tired and slightly market-weary. We cannot for the life of us find where the silver section is and getting directions in English is near impossible. Eventually we give up and pile into a bus for the trip back home. My shopping was minimal though I did get one or two bits for people back home. On that note, less than five weeks until I'm back on Irish soil... get the Guinness ready there, barkeep.

Put the yum yums in my face hole

Paneer butter masala

I've been enjoying the food here a lot lot more than I had expected. I was more worried about the food before I arrived than anything else due to my low (see: wussy) tolerance of fiery chilli. I shouldn't have been so concerned. In Orissa the food is heavily spiced without being overly spicy; big on flavours without burning your face off. There is still the odd time I'll order badly in a restaurant and get something overly fiesty and infused with heat. This typically results in me leaving the restaurant still partially hungry, with a crimson face, suckling on a bottle of chilled water and rueing my menu choices.

I have a fantastic kitchen here, with a two-stove gas burner that has had a lot of action lately. My evenings are quiet and usually consist of Skyping and laughing at episodes of Community (so, so good) so I have plenty of time to cook and experiment with food. I invested in three cookbooks here; one on general 'Indian cooking', one for paneer (the local cheese - sort of like a firm cottage cheese that you can fry), and one for pressure cooking (this deserves a blog entry of its own). I can now happily while away my evenings cooking different recipes with a variety of spices, making my kitchen into a giant but delicious-smelling mess. Here's some of the meals I've been concocting in the past week... there has been a lot of paneer as I bought a kilo of it and I'm slowly working my way through it. Luckily it goes with everything and is super super tasty.



Creamy curry with paneer and peas



Potato and paneer koftas in a yogurt and cashew nut sauce

I'm off to the beach to read a book

The plan is simple: hit the beach and read a book. It is a glorious plan, splendid in its simplicity. What could possibly go wrong?

My feet barely touch the sand when I am accosted by a young man in shorts and a tshirt, who immediately wants to know where I am from and why I am here. These are fast becoming standard questions, to be expected even before a ‘hello’ or ‘how are you’. Answering politely but somewhat warily, I traipse over to where one of the local lifeguards has set up a hoisted tarp to create shade with rental chairs underneath. This lifeguard was to become one of my favourite people on the beach by virtue of his sense of humour and good nature. I plonk myself in one of his chairs, in a beautiful spot close to the shoreline with a wonderful breeze in my hair.

The wonderful lifeguard, in his distinct pointy hat to make him easy to spot

The young man follows me and continues to chat. This is Santos, the first of many friends I make on Puri beach over the course of two days. Santos is 22 and hails from Andhra Pradesh, in the south of India. He makes his livelihood from fishing and moved to Orissa a number of years ago when the fishing in Andhra became so competitive that it was difficult to earn money. He lives here with his mother, four sisters and one brother. His father died eight years ago, and with Santos being the eldest of the children, he is now the man of the house and expected to provide for the family. It is a lot of pressure for a young man to take on, but Santos is rather cool and collected. He tells me about his involvement in rescue efforts during the local floods. His boat incurred 8,000 rupees worth of damage and he is still trying to recoup this from the local government in order that he might continue fishing. Santos doesn't have an easy life; he works hard and he works often. Despite this, he is jovial and good-humoured.


Santos

We chat for about an hour, after which he eventually plucks up the courage to ask if I am married. I had been waiting for this question; of course the answer is YES. The answer is always yes. Soon after, Santos politely makes his escape but returns throughout the day to check on me and make sure no one is hassling me. He is the personification of manners and chivalry and I am relieved to find he is not sleazy in the slightest. In fact, he claims to have a Belgian girlfriend. How cosmopolitan!

As Santos wanders off down the beach, I fish my book out of my bag as a dog plods over and lays down beside me. Bliss. Although Santos was good company, I am now wonderfully alone and can lose myself in the pages of a novel. Right?

Oh so wrong. Over the course of the day I am continuously approached by curious Indians wondering why I am here and more importantly, why I am alone. It is very unusual for a woman to be alone in Orissa; she is almost always accompanied by a man, be it her husband, brother or father. The differing interests and concerns of the women I speak to are fascinating. The older generation appear genuinely concerned for me, asking if I am alright to be sitting alone and wondering where my husband is.

The younger women are riveted by the notion that a woman can travel freely on her own and can sit without fear alone on a beach. They express feelings of jealousy, of amazement, of wonderment. I do make efforts to explain that in my culture it is perfectly normal for a woman to spend time on her own. I also go to great lengths to curtail their jealousy, and attempt to illustrate how lucky they are to live in such a wonderfully hospitable and friendly society. I think I feel guilty for some reason, guilty that I have the freedom to do as I like purely by virtue of where I was born; these women do not know this freedom. Generally, they aren’t interested in my ideas of India, but rather want to know the logistical details of how I manage to stay in hotels alone, how I eat meals alone, how I take a bus alone. This is a world beyond their lives, one of which they are intensely curious.

Rita, from West Bengal. Fascinated that I am alone and somehow surviving

Orissa is notoriously conservative, and women not only keep company at all times, but also stay modest and covered up, even while at the beach. It was a culture shock to see women in full saris and elaborate outfits wading into the sea, throwing themselves into big waves and mucking about on the sand. It was kind of refreshing actually, almost as refreshing as chucking myself in fully dressed (the sand-in-the-pants afterwards made me regret this decision).

Fully clothed women cool down on the shore

The end of each day at the beach finds me exhausted, my energy thoroughly sapped from again and again explaining myself to the locals and repeating reluctant lies about having a husband waiting for me in Bhubaneswar. Despite my fatigue, the days at the beach were wonderful and the stories I shared with each person I met were enjoyable.

Babuli, letting the side down by being interminably sleazy

Two local kids who collected shells and sold them to beachgoers

As for the book, I managed to read about ten pages in two days at the beach. It was far easier to enjoy the novel over a quiet beer in my hotel room in the evening.

I killed a chicken this week

Well, not directly, but I ordered its death. Actually, my interpreter did. I'm like the Pol Pot in this equation; not murdering anyone myself but sending the orders down the ranks to do it. I am the distanced dictator, the mafia bigwig, the subcontracting corporation.

There is no option of buying meat in a supermarket here, so I did as the locals do and took myself to market. I located the chicken man, who boasts a cage full of mangy-looking chickens, and asked to buy one. No problem. Standing behind the dirty wooden counter, he swatted away a hoard of flies and reached into the cage, grabbing an unfortunate chicken by the throat. A machete appeared as if from nowhere and the chicken’s head was deftly removed in one fowl swoop (sorry). There was then the most peculiar and protracted awkwardness while we both stood and waited for the chicken to die. I stood there, morbidly mesmerized, as the headless chicken wriggled and writhed around on the counter in front of us, its feathers gradually staining crimson with blood. The feet-hacking came next, and the chicken was expertly removed from its skin in one aggressive motion, like pulling a sticky wet glove off a too-big hand. The guts were pulled out from the inside of the bird in a torrent of slimy, viscous, liquidy awfulness. At this point the chicken man looked at me and laughed. He must have seen the look on my face. I forced myself to watch the whole thing; I figured it was only fair if I was going to eat the chicken to see the process that goes into making it ready for consumption.


The scrawny little fella sitting forlornly on my kitchen counter

I have been a meat-eater almost all my life (save for a few unsuccessful and short-lived stints with vegetarianism in my hippie days) and I love eating meat. But I had never before seen a live animal turned into ‘meat’ in front of me. I felt slightly ill heading back to my apartment, more so when I realized the chicken I now carried in a plastic bag was STILL WARM. A world away from the cold hard chickens in the fridges of Dunnes Stores.

I cooked the chicken at home in a combination of butter and apologies; ‘sorry little fella, it’s nothing personal, sure your Da would be proud’. I was hungry enough to be excited about the prospect of eating meat after a month of lentils and rice. Unfortunately, between the poor quality of the meat and the resurrecting queasiness in my stomach, I couldn't eat it. The meat itself was very stringy and chewy and my instinct was to feel awfully guilty for causing poultry murder and then not even eating the meat. I wondered was the chicken actually better off this way, rather than going slowly mad and bald in that packed cage. I can’t answer that question.


Not looking so great before going into the oven

This is not a preachy tale. The lesson learned is not that eating meat is bad or that chickens shouldn’t be used as food. The lesson is that if you are living in a small town in a poor country then don’t expect good quality meat from the local chicken man. While it is good to know where your meat comes from, it is not necessarily a good idea to get a front row seat. I will be henceforth vegetarian when cooking at home during my time here. Luckily I love dahl and vegetables and am getting quite good at making the local flatbreads. When the meat cravings hit (and they will), I will take myself to one of the fancy hotels in the town and satisfy my meat lust there, keeping a large and safe distance between me and the slaughterhouse.

Love it, loathe it

Things I love about India after one month: Hot spiced masala chai (tea), paneer cheese, the beautiful clothing, tropical thunderstorms, the plethora of friendly faces, the delicious Indian breads, the feeling of wet hair dripping lovely cool droplets onto my neck, the constant bustle of the city streets.

Things that drive me mental: Ants ants ants, howling barking stray dogs, the many many out-of-date items in the supermarket, the volume that music is played at... actually just the noise levels in general, and the ridiculous level of inquisition from the locals (Where are you from? Why are you here? Are you married? Where do you live? How much money do you earn? How much did you pay for that watermelon?).

Floods displace millions, cut off entire villages

Over two million people have been displaced by floods in India as monsoon rains hammer the states of Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.


Photo taken from The Indian Express

The worst-hit state is Orissa, which continues to suffer the result of one of the worst floods in recent history. Rising waters in more than 3,000 villages across 10 districts are responsible for 17 deaths so far. These floods come less than a week after the massive flooding from the Mahanadi river system, and have cut off over 1,100 villages. Breaches in river banks and embankments are responsible for villages being cut off; helicopters are now the only way to bring food and water to people stranded there.

The State Emergency Centre has declared that in the last 48 hours, five helicopters from the Air Force, the Navy and the State's own fleet have air-dropped 9,009 food packets in a number of cut-off villages. They have deployed 10 teams (over 300 men with 60 boats) for rescue and relief operations. These teams have started evacuating marooned people to safety; officials say that over 61,000 people have been evacuated so far.

Snapshot of a Sunday

Wake up horribly early. The people in the next building have clearly decided OH MY GOD IT'S 7AM ON SUNDAY LET'S PLAY ALL THE MUSIC WE HAVE AND INVITE OVER ALL THE LOCAL SHOUTING CHILDREN. Struggle out of bed and locate these beauties that my wonderful friend Marjorie sent over to me:




Sink back into blissful silent slumber, interrupted only by incredibly lucid dreams I blame on the anti-malarials, Malarone. Distorted dreaming is a widely reported side effect and I am getting it full force. A couple of nights this week I've woken up to find myself standing in the middle of the bedroom, trying to get dressed, apparently convinced I have to go out. Oh dear.



Up and at them after a cheeky lie-in. Say good morning to Martin; still get a giggle from this mafia-style photo. Miss him a lot this weekend.




Do the washing up and laundry and cook up some hearty sweetcorn fritters for brunch. No chilli at this time of day, can't bear it.





About to tuck in and get a phone call from one of the expats: do I want to join them for a free lunch in a nearby hotel? But when is this free weekend? And how much does it cost? And when IS this free weekend?

Can't say no to a free lunch so I shower and head out. Hotel is about 3km away which I end up walking, tuk-tuk drivers can't understand me today. Actually have a very pleasant walk with some welcome cloud cover and lots of shade. Feel like a celebrity with people waving madly and greeting me, it's odd but it makes me laugh so it can't be a bad thing.

Arrive at the hotel to find everyone in the rooftop restaurant. Before I even settle in, I'm presented with a beautiful refreshing mocktail. Never in my life had a mocktail before, first time for everything.





Lunch is a bizarre mix of pizza, cheese fondue, pasta with an Indian twist (chilli-heavy vegetarian lasagne, anyone?), iced coffee shots laced with whiskey and a hot chocolate brownie with ice-cream. All free! Not sure what everyone got up to last night to earn this free lunch but am delighted.







After lunch, have a potter around the bookshop in Pal Heights and treat myself to some colouring pencils, parers and erasers plus some cute books for my nephew.





Find myself in a camera shop looking at Samsung digital doohickeys - try to make a purchase to be told they don't take credit cards. Who carries around 7,000 rupees in cash? Will return.

Get a tuk-tuk to take me home, send him completely in the wrong direction, he laughs and finds the right way. The gentleman that he is drops at right at my door and doesn't charge me any extra for having to go the scenic route. Into the apartment, cold drink, feet up, Bill Bailey. Success.