My Last Blog

Dear All,
I'm back home, at my own computer so can write my last blog without power cuts or queues of people waiting for the computer - bliss!  Its been great to know people have been following my journey - 943 visits to my blog pages - amazing!
There is not a lot more to tell of my adventure, but I kept jotting down 'new observations' so I'll have a round up of those at the end.
I left you waiting to get up before the crack of dawn to see the sunrise from a high hill in Pokhara.  I duly arose at 4.15 and had just got dressed when the guide phoned to say as it was raining (it was like a monsoon outside the window!) there was no point in going, so back to bed.  Up later for a day of sightseeing - I saw a beautiful waterfall then climbed down into the 2nd biggest cave in Asia where there is a huge vertical opening in the rock which frames the waterfall - stunning.  Visited a tibetan refugee village where they spin the fleeces of goats and make beautiful rugs and then sell the rugs to pay for the upkeep of the village.  So I had to buy a couple of small rugs there...  Later in the evening I went for a boat ride across the attractive lake - rough canoes propelled by a boy with a paddle - very peaceful.
The next day, up at 4.15 again, raining again, back to bed with the arrangement we would go up the mountain later just to see the view, which we did before I took the plane back to Kathmandu.  I don't think I told you about the planes... The airport building (domestic) at Kathmandu looks as if it could fall down any minute and is held together with electric wires.  The one flight monitor mentions airlines like Yeti Air, Buddha Air, Nepal Air.  There are 2 gates - nothing to tell you when you are boarding or which gate, so I asked someone who said it would be announced.  Then I heard some shouting and a few people moving and I joined people going out of the gate onto a bus.  No idea if this was right but other people on the bus had boarding passes which said Pokhara - no-one had looked at my boarding pass.  The plane had 12 rows of seats, 2 on each side.  I was 5D but there was a man sitting in 5D and taking up 5C as well so the stewardess sat me in the front with her!  The airport building in Pokhara was a bit newer but the return flight experience much the same!  I checked in to return to Kathmandu to be told the flight before mine hadn't yet taken off so I should go on that flight as they weren't sure my flight would go.  So I arrived early in Kathmandu and was entertained, whilst waiting for my guide & car, by loads of monkeys in the car park, climbing over the motorbikes with their babies underneath them, going through the rubbish bins etc.   Then it was a car ride up to a wonderful hotel, right up high.  Cool and beautiful, wonderful views.  I was meant to see the sunset but it was too cloudy - if its clear you can see Everest, but not that evening, sadly.  Very beautiful around this area - Nargarcot.  Hilly with all the hills terraced extensively.  They can only grow crops during the monsoon season as that is the only way the crops can be watered.
Next day, 1st July, we drove from Nargakot to Baktapur where there are loads of 17th century buildings - most attractive in old red brick paved streets and a pottery area where two 'bonfires' are kept going 24/7 to fire all the pottery they make and sell.  Then to Kathmandu airport (international terminal this time) to leave Nepal.  I loved Nepal, it was a wonderful mixture of Tibet and India and I would love to go back there sometime.  Next time its with an empty suitcase, there are so many beautiful things, clothes, jewellery, leather goods, etc. to buy so cheaply.  So then back to Delhi and Mike and Sarah's house, to chill out and sort out bags before going home on 4th July.  It was good to see Mike again - Sarah and the children are back in Devon for the school holidays.  And one day I met up with the wonderful Indian lady I met on my memorable train journey to Kerala.  I had lunch with her and her sister which was great.  And I had a manicure and a pedicure to come home with.
So now I'm home.  Slowly coming back down to earth, and sorting myself out.  The house was clean and welcoming and my own bed and bathroom bliss!  The garden will keep me busy for a while - if it stops raining!
So, now a random selection of observations from China and India which I haven't mentioned yet but which are quite fun.
The ability of the Chinese to sleep anywhere - if you get on a bus,more than half the people are leaning against windows, seats in front, asleep - even sometimes hanging onto straps and looking asleep.  The other ability of note is that of being able to talk for HOURS.  On the coach trips I went on the guide would talk for an hour and a half, regularly.  I would ask the person who spoke English what they said and she would say - breakfast at 7 a.m. and leave at 7.30.  That's all!  Even during a massage the masseur was chatting for ages on his mobile!
Also in China they have park areas with lots of different things to help you to exercise and these are just for the elderly.  If you go out early these areas are full of 'the elderly' twisting, turning, pulling up, cycling, bending, etc.  Pretty impressive!
The beds are worth a mention - there are no mattresses as we know them.  A bit of plywood covered with 2 or 3 inches of flock, covered with pretty material, is what you lie on.  China, India, Nepal, everywhere.  Sometimes you might get springs - which are between two boards, covered with flock, etc.  With those beds and the car journeys, my back is taking its time to recover!
For some reason, they decorate shoe insoles.  The type of insole you put in a shoe to make it smaller, will be beautifully embroidered.  You can get d-i-y kits of insoles with a pattern printed on it and the embroidery silks needed to stitch it.  People sit by their stalls stitching.  I never found out the reason for this.
I don't think I mentioned the earthquake village... In 2008 there was a massive earthquake which destroyed quite a large area in Sichuan province.  On my coach trip to the waterfalls we stopped at one of the villages where the affected buildings are a tourist attraction.  It was in the what-used-to-be-Tibet part of the province and new homes have been built for the Tibetans and those who live there now have to dress in 'traditional' Tibetan dress and run the tourist part.  It was quite an eye opener to see the collapsed buildings everywhere. On that coach trip a lot was made of the fact that we were 'in Tibet' and we visited villages supposedly authentic Tibet, where everyone dressed in 'traditional' dress and 'hand made' cloth, wooden items, food, jewellery, etc.  But it was a far cry from Ganzi...  In Ganzi I never saw anyone wearing what these people wore.  On the subject of dress, the Tibetan women we saw in Ganzi and around often wear the most amazing hats - the sort you would see at the Queen's Garden party - all frilly and flouncy!  some of the men wear them too!
So that's it folks.  I have seen and experienced more than I ever could have imagined.  Wonderful, amazing places, views, mountains, and wonderful people.  Such beauty, so many unforgettable experiences.  I am so lucky to have all my brilliant memories.
Thank you for staying with me throughout my journey.
With love to you all,
Liz

Nepal - 28th June 2012
Hi everyone.  I haven't been near any reliable computers for a long time so I have some blog catching up to do!  Since my last blog I have met up with Mary and gone up into the Himalayas, done a bit more travelling around China and am now in Nepal.  I wasn't able to do the Lhasa to Kathmandu overland trip, sadly, as there are no Travel Permits to be had for individual travellers at the moment and, sometimes, no Travel Permits at all, it changes every day.   
So, reports begin...:
I left Changsha and the Butterflies.  I am still in touch with a couple of folk from the Butterfly Home and so have the latest news.  They have moved at last and are settling well into the new place with lots of space and playroom areas which is great.  Paul has settled very well in Holland.  Finlay is walking.  They have had new babies in for terminal care so are now more into their Hospice role.  I wonder if I will ever go back...

The next stage of my adventure began in Chengdu where I met Mary (Midwifery with Altitude retired Plymouth midwife) at Hollys Hostel.  Hollys is really great - very adequate en suite room, very friendly staff and other guests, good cafe, etc.  But in China to write a blog you have to have a 'tunnel' on your computer as China blocks anything with the word 'blog' in it.  In the flat we had a tunnel but Hollys didn't, so I couldn't add to my blog there.  Mary told me we would have to wait for the printing order of 'Safe Motherhood and Baby' booklets which MwA give out when visiting the nomadic women, as part of their teaching and support.  So we had a few days in Chengdu waiting for these.  For a big city, I liked Chengdu.  It has a
'Tibetan Quarter' which we wandered around and I got a bit of a feel for what it might be like where we would be going.  There is a park almost on Holly's doorstep which has an area with a lake and lots of little shops as well as the park areas - in the early morning the larger areas are full of groups doing Tai Chi and dancing and Mary and I joined in one of the Tai Chi groups; I came back and joined them again several times when I returned to Chengdu after Mary went home.  There is a lot more colour and colourful people in Chengdu.  We also visited the Pandas - there is a large park area where research and breeding of Pandas goes on - one of the main ones in the world.  There were no babies, sadly, but lots of adults ambling around, up trees, chewing bamboo, etc.  Aah!!   We also spent a day with Holly, from Holly's, being driven around local countryside.  We saw huge lakes of lotus's, a few in bloom - they eat the roots and stalks and use the flowers for medicines.  also lots of other crops - it is a fertile valley.  We stopped at a market where I had my first Tibetan toilet experience - very friendly - a dividing wall about 3 ft high, no door, people just stand waiting and looking and chatting.  I won't go into any more detail but these toilet experiences were something I avoided whenever possible! We called into an 'old' family home - built around a courtyard with 3 families staying in different parts.  All the women were playing cards - I guess the men were working in the field (its usually the other way around!) The house was single storey, very dark and looked very neglected.  Looked more like a large disused shed.  I thought it was probably about 200 years old but Holly said it was 50 years old at the most!  We had lunch provided at a typical home - relatives of Holly - again, a very dark house, no paint on the walls or decorations, extremely functional - sink on a pile of bricks, water from a hose.  We actually ate a delicious meal on the 'terrace' outside. 
The interpreter, Dawa, was also in Chengdu with his wife and two children.  He comes from a village where we would be going, up in the Himalayas in Sichuan province - what used to be Tibet.  Dawa would be making the arrangements for Mary and I to get up to where we needed to be to do the work Mary had planned.
Finally we left Chengdu on a bus to Kanding.  Not a bad road - it was a 10 hour trip with stops for the loo (no avoiding these experiences!) and lunch.  Kanding is at 2,700 m and we planned to stay there 2 days to start getting acclimatised to the altitude.  The first day we took a cable car up a mountain to a monastry and walked up even further for quite a good walk.  I felt just fine.  The next day I walked into town to do some shopping and started to feel most peculiar - sort of fainty and drunk.  As long as I didn't go into a shop I was just about OK and I got back to the hotel without passing out.  I took a Diamox tablet (for altitude sickness) and went to bed for the afternoon.  I felt a bit better by the evening and managed supper.  We were leaving the next day for Ganzi so I wanted to be OK for that!  Our hotel in Kanding gave another experience... in the first night Mary and I both heard rustling and each thought the other had woken up and gone for the biscuits.  However, when we went to get out our fruit for breakfast, it was nibbled and later that morning I saw a rat running down the corridor outside our room!  So the next 2 nights everything was hung up out of the way and a spare duvet put along the bottom of the door.  No more nibbles seen!  I took Diamox for another 2 days and wasn't troubled again, even in Ganzi at 3,400 metre.  Kanding is large, very noisy and not attactive but in a wonderful setting of mountains.
The trip to Ganzi was a bit of a nightmare.  The roads were appalling, troughs, mud, holes, rocks.  We were in a minibus with Dawa, his wife and 2 children, both of whom were travel sick.  We had to take an extra driver who was very fat and took up loads of room!  It was a 12 hour drive and I had started a cold and was streaming.  Memorable day in a not-good way!  But the scenery on the way was stunning, with mountains, waterfalls, yaks and a few black tents.  On the way we were stopped several times by the border police - it could have been that we couldn't have gone to Ganzi one day as sometimes China gets nervous about people visiting what-used-to-be-tibet.  The day we went Dawa had assured us we would be OK, but one lot of police told us to turn back and Dawa had some talking to do to get them to let us carry on.  Ganzi is (to me) as I imagined Tibet to be.  Again, set amongst mountains.  Not a pretty place in itself but full of monks, houses and shops decorated in the Tibetan way, lots of colourful things for sale, and a couple of lovely monasteries, a river and a wobbly bridge. Not a skyscraper in sight.  The Tibetan people are colourful in their way, the women wear a wrap around dress which is often made of lovely material but usually black with a woven colourful apron.  They weave red wool into their hair which is braided around their faces  I thought they were beautiful and the men, very handsome!  They often had long hair and had me in mind of the American indians - very masculine despite their long hair.  So now we were where we were going to do any work we could.  Mary had been given money to make up birth packs (containing a large blanket to put over the straw, towels for mother and baby, nail clippers and soap, and scissors for the cord - plus a Safe Motherhood and Baby book).  So off we went to buy supplies.  We got enough for 100 packs which kept Mary and I busy the whole of 1 day making them up and filled our hotel room.  I have now almost lost my voice but have stopped streaming.  No rats that we could see in the hotel room but it was probably the dirtiest room I have ever been in and I went out and bought a brush to clean the loo with.  We were there 5 days and it wasn't cleaned once.  I emptied our bins and got clean towels!  But the people were friendly!  While we were there China blocked the Internet for Sichuan so we were completely out of contact for those 5 days.  We started teaching in Ganzi - went out to a clinic and a school one day and taught doctors and students who were very attentive.  The school is amazing - 391 students, mostly borders, from age 6 - 14.  All very well behaved,  delightfully curious and wanting their photos taken but when we visited their classes, they were totally into their books, not looking at us at all.
One day we went to Dawa's village and taught a group of 28 women.  Dawa advised us not to give out birth packs or books as we were gathering together a large group of people, the session took place outside... He said he would give them out individually later.  Most of those we taught were parents of the pregnant women as they were working out in the fields!!  But their mothers would be their midwives.  Another day we met an amazing Tibetan women who goes up to an area at nearly 5000 metres where it snows 9 months of the year and she takes health education and supplies to them.  She took 25 of our birth packs to give out and lots of books.  While travelling around I saw such awesome scenery, unforgettable.  And lots of yaks, and a few black tents.  We couldn't get any further than Ganzi as it was politically inadvisable so I didn't get to 'nomad land proper' which meant I didn't go into a black tent and I didn't stay in the monastry with the rats, either!  But we got some useful things done and most of Mary's list ticked off.
Finally it was time for us to come down the mountain and we had to make the terrible 12 hour journey back to Kanding.  It wasn't any better!  This time in Kanding we stayed just outside in a hostel which was a big improvement on rat hotel!  Then back to Chengdu, where Mary went home. 
I then had a week when I should have been going to Lhasa/Kathmandu.  Instead I booked a flight to Kathmandu and spent 4 days on a coach trip to an area which is, again, what-used-to-be-tibet set in a different mountain range.  We visited 2 national parks and saw the most amazing lakes, waterfalls and cascades of irridescent blues and greens lakes - just wonderful. 
So, now I'm in Nepal.  Kathmandu is more like India and not a bit like China.  Colour, life, dirt, smells, cattle, happy people, wonderful things in the shops.  Narrow streets buzzing with motor bikes, people, dogs.  I am so happy to be here!  Absolutely wonderful flight over huge high mountains - and Everest! And today I've come to Pokhara which is set amongst wonderful mountains and just by the 2nd largest lake in Nepal.  Tomorrow I get up for 5 a.m. to see the sunrise over the mountains.
There's loads I've left out but this is quite enough.  My next blog will be from home, where I'll be this time next week.  I have 2 more days in Nepal, then back to Delhi for 3 days where I'm meeting the lady I met on the train from Delhi to Kerala, and having a pampering session!
I can't believe this is nearly the end of my adventure.  Now I'm here I feel as if I've hardly been away any time - but I'm SO looking forward to seeing my sister and family, wonderful friends, house and garden again.  I have the most amazing memories and photos - its going to be a long job getting all those organised - which I'll have to do as I'll have to give some talks!
Thank you all for your perseverence in reading these blogs.  I've kept a diary too, so if you want any gaps filled or have any questions, just email me.
With love, Liz

Visit to Hong Kong / last days in Changsha

Hello everyone!  It is Wednesday over here and I leave Changsha and the Butterflies on Saturday morning - bound for the mountains and Midwifery with Altitude.  So I'm catching up before I go as there won't be many computers where I'm going, for a while.  

I believe your weather is improving - hooray for you.  It's better here too, although we have just had 5 days of torrential rain - but on the whole it is better.  The humidity is something else but even that is better some days than others.  I believe up at 4,500 metres it will be quite chilly so back to warmer clothes.

So - update on Butterfly.  The latest moving date is 10th June.  This may happen.  It all looks ready - except for one floor to be laid most of the installations are complete, or enough for us to move, anyway.  Not while I'm there though!  Two local volunteers from the art college have been filling in the time painting pictures on the walls and they are so great, so they'll be ready!

Our Butterflies have changed a little since my last blog.  Our 'bruiser' Paul has gone to Holland with his adoptive parents - I hope he will be OK; he really didn't understand what was happening and his new parents say he is not the boy portrayed by the comments in his Album - but he was chief man at Butterfly so it will take him a while to get used to his new surroundings.  Lots of tears when he left!!  I'm sure he will bounce back soon.  Little Emmanuel sadly didn't make it through his operation and subsequent problems. We all really expected him to do well so that was a sad loss.  The two new babies mentioned in my last blog are still with us - one is very poorly with brain damage and we are just keeping him as comfortable as we can, but he not really conscious and hasn't been for a while.  It will be merciful when he goes.  The other little girl has amazed us - she has very little working brain as shown by scans, and really is not 'with us' - but she came to us crying all the time, not eating and not maintaining her temperature.  Now she doesn't cry, seems to know we are around, will feed from a bottle and is winning hearts so gets lots of cuddles!  The little boy, Luke, who was my first 'new baby' has won everyone's hearts and our cook, Daphne, can be found often just gazing at him in his cot, or in the playroom, and will get a cuddle whenever she can.  Now he has filled out and grown a little we can tell he has Down's syndrome, so he is very loveable!  He doesn't appear to have any of the major problems associated with Down's, fingers crossed.  Hopefully he will be adopted sometime in the not too distant future.  So, the net result of all that is that we have 2 empty beds but the Welfare Institute/orphanage hospital hasn't got anyone they want to send to us at the moment - we are standing by.

In Changsha not a lot to report.  I went to the Botanical Gardens today - my last day off and I thought I should see something else!  The azaleas are out around the flats here so I thought the National Azalea Garden at the Botanical Gardens would be worth a visit.  The gardens were lovely, loads of trees so fairly cool and would have been peaceful if there hadn't been firecrackers let off from surrounding areas the whole 1.5 hours I was there!  It took me an hour to find the Azalea Garden as it is strangely signed.  You go in the entrance and the ticket collector doesn't know where it is or, even, where he is on the map they give you - (there are 3 entrances and I didn't know which one I was at).  You walk for 20 plus minutes before seeing a sign - which points back the way you have come.  So back down again but, at the 3 way road junction, which way?  I had taken a photo of the sign with the Chinese lettering on it but no-one, including garden rangers, knew where the Garden was.  So, after a wrong guess - which was a pretty part of the garden - I went on walking.  I dived in, to look at a sculpture, to find a sign, not visible initially, saying National Azalea Garden.  Hooray.  But no azaleas out - I guess the ones at the flat are rhododendrons...?  However, it was still an attractive visit.  The magnolias here are out too, huge flowers amongst lots of leaves, but none of the 34 species of magnolias at the gardens were out, strangely.

At the flat our new person from the last blog is great.  She's lovely, fun but sensible for her 21 years, and a good nurse to work with.  She is staying for 6 months.  When I leave on Saturday my bedroom will be taken by a Chinese girl who is coming to work in the office.  She has worked in America and her English is excellent so I hope she will enjoy sharing the flat with the others.

So, Hong Kong!  I had such a lovely few days there.  I was lucky in that the sun was out and the humidity down for the 2 days I had to look around.  I spent one day taking the ferry out to Lantau Island and visiting the Big Buddha and walking around.  Lots of wonderful views over other islands, the sea and the green mountains, with beautiful blue sky and fluffy clouds (which you can't see in Changsha due to the smog - I didn't realise how much I had missed the sky and clouds!). I then heading back by a different way.  The next day I took a Big Bus trip which went around Hong Kong Island, including Stanley, with a commentary, then over to Kowloon by Star ferry , then around Kowloon ending up in the evening down by the harbour to watch the laser show.  You could hop on and off the Big Bus so I saw the Botanical Gardens and Zoo there, Stanley Market and some other bits.  It was a full day but varied and interesting - mountains, beaches, amazing houses, Enormous buildings/skyscrapers, bustling streets or leafy quiet parts, big stores, markets - everything..  I can see why people want to live in Hong Kong - I really enjoyed it.  I was extremely lucky to be staying with my neighbour Sally's nephew, who lives there.  He has 2 apartments near each other and I had one all to myself.  The apartments are in an area outside and up from the bustle of Kowloon, surrounded by trees, with just one road up so really quiet and pleasant.  I had a balcony which looked over trees, and 3 beautifully peaceful nights!  Bliss!  (We still have the roadworks at the flats till early hours of the morning...!)

So, a brilliant 'holiday'.  It sort of demonstrated a civilised China.  No spitting/tobacco chewing, barging, queue jumping, and traffic stopped if you were walking across a pedestrian crossing.  Very nice!

Onwards.  Must start sorting out my things and packing up.  After 'up the mountain with Mary' it looks as though I may be able to get a travel permit for Tibet so I'm hoping that my plans may remain unchanged.  If not I will just go to Nepal earlier, I think, and do some walking, before I start my 6 day adventure there at the end of my 4 months away.  I'm looking forward to moving on, now.  Should have lots to tell you all in my next blog.  Heaven knows when that will be - could even be in a month's time when I'm back in Delhi, but hopefully sooner.  I'm not sure when I shall be able to pick up emails after this weekend - maybe not until 19th June, but possibly at odd times before.  

Enjoy the summer and Happy Jubilee.  I'm sorry to be missing that on the tele.  I hope the weather stays good this weekend and you are all able to enjoy whatever you are doing for the celebrations.

Liz xx

Update and Avatar Mountains


I've just come back from seeing the mountains where they filmed some of the movie Avatar.  Although we had loads of rain, it was absolutely stunning.  I thought Avatar must have had loads of digitally enhanced scenes but,really, a lot of it is just as it is in Zhangjiajie (Google it!).  Of course the mountains don't float but they stick up from very green forests in very tall thin spikes with pine trees growing sparsley out of their tops - and there are just thousands of these tall spikes.  It is astonishingly beautiful - perhaps enhanced by the misty weather with clouds weaving their way around the spikes.  I went on an organised trip with a coach load of Chinese people - again I was the only non-Chinese - but I was so lucky in that a lovely Chinese girl adopted me into her group of 5 friends and she was a nurse who also taught English so she made sure I knew what I had to do and see!  They were a lovely group and very friendly.  We left on Friday evening and got to Zhangjiajie around midnight, had Saturday and Sunday until about 3 p.m. sightseeing the mountains, lakes, river and parks, then got back evening Sunday.  It was the first 'adventure' outside Changsha that I have had and I loved it.  The air was clear and good and I felt very refreshed after the smog of Changsha.  Next week I am off on another 'adventure' to Hong Kong to get my visa restamped so I can continue to stay in China for a bit longer.  I shall be in Hong Kong for 3 days and it will be another good break, I'm sure.

So, some updates from Changsha.

First, Butterfly.  We are having a mixed time at the Butterfly Home.  We said goodbye to one of our longstanding butterflies - her adoptive parents came here from America to collect her.  She handled leaving us very well.  We had a party for her and she went with her book of photos, letters from the staff and volunteers, reports, etc.  The family have another adopted Chinese child, another girl, and I'm sure Hannah will be really happy when she settles in. On Monday we shall say goodbye to another butterfly who is going to be adopted by a Dutch couple.  He's a 'bruiser' of 2 1/2 years old - born with some of his insides on the outside but is very well now and a very live wire - I hope his new family have loads of energy!
We lost our little Benjamin - he died peacefully with lots of love around him.  We have 2 new babies now who have filled the cots left by Hannah and Benjamin.  They are both very poorly with brain damage - causes unknown - and are with us for palliative care.  They were in a bit of a state when they came to us so we have improved their lot in life but there's nothing we can do to save them, just keep them comfortable in their last few weeks/months.  Our little boy in Shanghai is keeping us awake at night at the moment, figuratively speaking.  He ended up having a big heart operation and did really well for about a week then, last night, started having complications and had to go back to theatre.  Last night and today has been a nightmare as first of all they thought he would be OK, then there was no hope, now he may pull through.  His name is Emmanuel so positive thoughts and prayers would be appreciated.
We still haven't moved, maybe next month now!  I don't think I will see Butterfly in its new home, somehow.  I am still sorting clothes and will have to hand over that job as I won't finish it before I leave.

A few other 'observations'...!
The roads around our flats are being dug up for pipework - everywhere.  There are probably over a thousand flats here and the workman continue working until about 1 a.m. most nights - drilling, throwing pipes around, driving diggers.  You would think they might realise people in a thousand flats may want to sleep... - obviously not!
The traffic continues to amuse me and I took a video the other day of people dodging traffic as they cross the road on a pedestrian crossing.  I should take a video of a police car on a mission:  they sit in the 5 lanes of traffic (which should be 3 lanes judging by the white lines down the road), with lights flashing and a siren of 5 different tunes going, and no-one bats an eyelid or moves a jot.  The police car just continues following the other cars in the traffic jam and gets nowhere!  People walk in front of it crossing the road, etc.
Health and safety is another fun thing to observe.  Workmen in the road, or around buildings wear jeans and t-shirts, no hard hats or high viz jackets.  However street cleaners have the high viz jackets!  We just saw workmen today trying to get up to the 5th floor outside a building so they balanced a ladder here, a few planks with another ladder on top further up, etc. nothing tied on, then they went up it - mad!
Smoking and tobacco chewing is everywhere - taxi drivers, people on busses, in shopping malls, restaurants - pretty unpleasant really.  There are big shops which just sell cigarettes, stacks of them literally.
The weather is improving.  It still rains great dollops but we have more sunny days now, and not all of them humid which is nice.  I am still trying to walk home from work every day.

Our flat has changed its tenants.  The volunteer who was here for 4 weeks left yesterday and another volunteer who will be here for 6 months arrived 2 weeks ago.  I go on 2nd June, for my next adventure with Mary to the Himalayas.  I have managed to pack a large box full of clothes and blankets which I shall send on ahead of me so we can take it 'up the mountain' with us.  After that my plans have become unsure as I may not be able to get a permit to travel through Tibet. They are denying these to individual travellers/small parties at the moment - they will only allow large parties of the same nationality in.  There's nothing I can do, just wait and see and make the best of what happens...!

I'll write again after I come back from Hong Kong and before I leave the flat.  When I am in the Himalayas I think I shall be out of communication for around 2 weeks but I'll let you know.  I've given up trying to get photos to you.  When I get home I can make loads of CDs and you can just let me know if you want one...

I hope you are all well and happy.  I hear you have had gallons of rain - which apparently you needed - but I hope, soon, you get some summer and enjoy your gardens.

Have fun,  Liz

A month in Changsha.
Dear All,  This is the third time I have tried to send this blog - I am hoping third time lucky!!  Last time I wrote a great blog - all 90 minutes of it - and then it disappeared into the ether.
So, I have been here a month, so have found out a bit more around Changsha and can update you on
Butterfly.
First, Butterfly...  We still have the same number of children as we haven't yet moved into our new premises.  We keep hoping "it will be in 2 weeks" but it doesn't happen.  We really need the space as the children, mostly, are quite well and need to be able to play constructively and whizz around a bit. We have 3 waiting for adoptive parents to be able to take them away, two more with adoption papers going through.  One little chap will be able to rest in peace soon.  Another is in Shanghai being assessed for potential heart surgery.  He needs this to live, but it may sadly be too late.  If he can have it there will be a flurry of fund raising activity as Butterfly will have to pay. One way and another we shall get more babies without increasing the number of cots, but we can take another 10 babies on top of that when we move.  Our 'new boy' Luke I wrote about last time is doing very well; he's put on 2 lbs in weight and looks totally different from the worried 'old man' we took in - we still are not sure what is wrong with him and maybe never shall know, but he's OK.  In our flat we have a new volunteer who has been with us for 2 weeks and will be with us for another 2 and, this weekend, we have another volunteer who will be staying for 6 months.  Both these new girls are newly qualified paediatric nurses from Ireland so good to get different ideas and information.  I have been carrying on turning out clothes when there are too many of us around - I am going, now, to take quite a lot of not needed clothing with me to the Midwifery with Altitude children which is good.
So, Changsha...  I've gradually been looking around and finding better things about this huge city.  With 'the girls' (our flat and Lana - long term volunteer who looks after the volunteers and does fund raising)  we have been out to dinner - dumplings and 'typical local Chinese'.  One night we went to 'the mountain' which is across the river and quite high.  We took a bus up and joined with loads of locals to watch the Saturday night fireworks which was great.  A lovely clear evening for a change, good atmosphere and good fireworks.  Lovely views of Changsha and its lights at night, with all the tall buildings and the river.  We walked all the way down and felt it on our legs the next day. Another day, the 'new girl' and I went to the island in the middle of the river and walked to the end to the enormous statue of Chairman Mao as a young man - just his head with his hair blowing in the wind - looks a bit like Beethoven!  We started off in sun and then the heavens suddenly opened and we got completely drowned in minutes.  We have had loads of rain, chunky dollops usually but I am told by a local that, on 1st May, the sun comes out.  Yesterday it poured, thunder, etc. all day but, today, so far, it is sunny-ish.  I have found a roof terrace where you can hang out washing so my sheets are out there with me looking nervously out of the window.  The humidity, however, is sometimes overwhelming, although some days it can be sunny and very pleasant.  The river is nice-ish - wide with Changsha on either side, and the island in the middle.  Pleasant gardens along the river bank.  The girls and I also visited a pretty park - quite big, not far from our flat with lakes, fishing ponds and ponds with fish, lots of trees and shrubs - mostly azaleas which are nearly over but still attractive, and some good walking around.  We get around by bus - you can go anywhere for 18p.  Lots of things here are really cheap - lunch of mixed fried rice, or boiled rice and different veg. for 60p - I don't bother to take lunch to work now!  You can go out for dinner for about GBP2 -3 - the other day we went to a posh restaurant for one of the girls' birthday - that was GBP5 including beer.  (Wine is expensive and not good on the whole..)   I had my hair cut for GBP4.50 and Lyn (Butterfly boss) and I went for a massage the other day - 90 minutes worth of kneading, pummelling, pressure pointing and reflexology for GBP9.  However, clothes worth buying are pretty much the same price as at home and an kind of 'international' food - eg muesli, tinned corn,pasta - is expensive.
China generally... Still on the subject of food - we have a 'wet market' near us which goes on for several streets.  There are most vegetables and fruit we know and some we don't sold everywhere - really nice condition and variety, displayed directly on the street, maybe onto cardboard/plastic sheets on the street, on trestle tables. There is meat of every kind, including live frogs, turtles, chickens, ducks which can be slaughtered for you as you wait (which is a no thanks for me!) - fish, eels, which you buy live in plastic bags and take them home on the bus, prawns running around, giant scallops, and I am told there is a dog meat street near here which I hope never to come across.  If you have a meat dish in the restaurant it is a challenge and all meat is just served cut into chunks with whatever bit it is just joined on - bone, gristle, chickens feet, heads, and intestines, pigs trotters and all 'insides' are a luxury.  We were invited to a birthday party of one of the Ayi's (nannies) and there was a whole chicken or two in one pot, a questionable fish in another, eels, tripe, and something of which origin we never discovered.  Add chopsticks and noodles into all that and the whole meal is still memorable!!  But it was still a happy party!  For fruit, my favourite is pineapple - they choose a good one, skin it, then cut all the eyes out sort of diagonally which makes the pineapple appear as a spiral. Top and bottom come off and it is gorgeous - always just right ripeness.  That is 50 p. max.
Non-food.. The roads are constantly being dug up.  Usually onto the pavement so, on the pavement you have piles of sand and brick (I have seen women in high heels climbing over these) or, if there is a gap,the scooters usually choose the pavement to ride on and the cars park in between the bricks.  It is marginally better to walk on the road - at least you can hear the cars (but not the scooters).  When they put the road back together they often don't fill in around manhole covers  and the patches are just anyhow.  A bus ride is always a bone shaker and I'm not sure how the busses last.
The streets are clean, however, as about every 200 yeards there is a street sweeper in his/her high vis jacket and coolie hat using a besom and dustpan on a long stick.  Folk just chuck stuff onto the streets as its going to get picked up anyway.  There is an industry in 'recycling'  - most bins you pass have people looking through with their bags of plastic, cardboard, glass, getting what they can.  They pile it into huge plastic bags and ride it away on their bicycle to somewhere which pays them peanuts for it.  The street sweepers have first pickings and their barrows will have bags of everything dangling from them.  However, the buildings are terrible. We are living in a block which is just 10 years old and I would have put it at 60 plus.  The outside is just filthy, inside the flats are damp, although quite nicely done up, but the water, gas, etc. comes and goes.  All the flats are the same which gives the city a very dingy look during the day (at night it looks very different with all the lights).
Etc. I still never see a non-Chinese face and people still stare and say hello. I have had to have my photo taken several times - once with a wedding couple!  There are not even other Asian or black faces around, just Chinese.  So all the parks, etc.they have here are just for their own benefit, which is nice.
They love fireworks and firecrackers.  About 3 or 4 times a day you hear quite long displays of fireworks being set off - even though you can't see them in the daylight through the smog!
And fashion... Mostly around here people are very casual, track suits, jeans (which suits me fine!).  High fashion you don't see, as we would recognise it.  What we would think of as a cocktail dress (quite often with a netting skirt like a tutu or long netting) is often worn with leggings and trainers and a mickey mouse T-shirt on the top.  It is not unusual to go out shopping in your pyjamas - with spangledy high heels.  The latest fashion accessory are spectacles without glass and walls of them are displayed in shops like Accessorize - it is quite strange to see people wearing them.

Well, enough, I think.  I hope you get this this time.  I am hoping soon to get away for a weekend to the area where they filmed some of 'Avatar ' - the bits with the tall thin mountains.  Its meant to be very amazing.  I was going this weekend but our rota has changed so we can give special care to our poor little boy in his last few days. We are all doing different shifts for 24 hour cover.  However, I think there will still be an opportunity to get there.  And, in 3 weeks time I shall be off to Hong Kong for 3 days to renew my visa so that I can carry on with my travel plans in China.  A month today I meet up with Mary and start my next adventure - but I will try and write a final blog before then:  I shall be incommunicado for a few weeks from that time.

Fingers crossed this gets to you,
With love,
Liz

A few problems

Just to say we seem to be having lots of problems here with computers.  If I have a window here it may not last for long so I am just taking this opportunity to say, bear with me.   Heaven knows when I can send my next blog!  All is well.  We have had a few rain-free days here in Changsha which as been great.  Still hoping to move Butterfly Home to its proper accommodation in the next few weeks.  New person in our flat, another joining in 2 weeks.  Looking around area a bit.  Last time I  tried to send a blog it packed up after a few minutes so I'm going to stop now to make sure this gets to you all OK.    Its just computers in China, I'm told.
Hi and good wishes to you all,  Liz xx

First full week in Changsha

I have now been here just over a week and have spent 7 out of 9 days at work - working 5 days in 7 which I am finding exhausting!!  Getting up at 6.45 am on my days on - roll on retirement again!  Still haven't fully understood my role here and guess I probably never will,  but am more confident to help out the nurses - a bit - although its probably turning out that they're taking longer to do things with me around!  They are very patient!  Spend a fair amount of time just 'playing with the children' as that is what you do, it seems.  I'm getting to know them a bit better and they are very rewarding.  A giggle, smile, reaching out to you is a great moment in time.  I was with one blind boy today who had giggled with me for the first time, when another came over and planted a kiss on my nose and patted me - makes you feel life is good!  One of the children has been adopted and will be leaving us very soon; she is a live wire and a very determined person and we will miss her.  Most of her problems have been sorted out, she just needs regular blood tranfusions at the moment.  Another 2 have adoptions going through - all families from the USA.  It seems overseas couples can adopt only if there is 'something wrong' with a child, otherwise it has to be adopted within China. 
We had a new baby in this week and, because I am the newest person there, I was given the task of giving him his English name (they have an English and a Chinese name and a nick-name) - he's called Luke.  He's pretty sick but I'm willing him to be OK.  We have no idea what is wrong with him apart from obvious prematurity and he's all bone with lots of skin hanging in folds and 2 months old. 
Away from Butterfly, I am looking around Changsha.  I walk home (45 mins) unless its raining (and it does this a great deal, but I have only taken the bus once, so far) and try different routes.  Changsha is The Most Unprepossessing Place.  I can't think of any reason to come here.  Just dirty high-rise and low buildings, busy streets, people who look boring.  Ordinary trees in some places and a few shrubs here and there.  No interesting buildings.  Just a general feeling of grubbiness, drearyness.  However... someone I met the other day took me out on my day off on Monday and we went to an area where they are trying to encourage tourists!!! (why would anyone think of coming here!!) and they have made a street or two into, what felt to me, like a mini Soho - so some shops with interesting things in, clean houses and streets, and that felt so much better.  Then a short walk to the river, which is wide and has a long island in the middle.  On Saturdays they have a fireworks display so I am planning to go this Saturday.  And Ruth (who took me out) told me of some nice parks I can get to by bus so all is not lost! 
Back at the flat, I have turned my room around and scrubbed out the bathroom.  The flat is VERY damp but Suisi (who works at Butterfly) told me today that, on 1st May, it stops raining, the sun comes out and we can dry the flat out.  I am determined to believe her! We have someone new arriving in the flat next Monday - she is staying for a month.  A nurse from Ireland.  Although there's not much to do at Butterfly for volunteers at the moment, they are hoping to move back into their proper 'home',which has been 'renovated', in about 10 days time so there will be loads to do then.  I'm told I shall be in charge of sorting all the drugs into some kind of order - at the moment they are in plastic baskets and boxes and cupboards - so that should keep me quiet for a while!  And Lyn (Big Boss) anticipates that we shall get another 8 or 10 babies when we have sorted ourselves out a bit and have the space - at the moment we are cramped into about a third of what we will have soon. So that will keep us all on our toes.  The two nurses I share the flat with are great, they have picked up the kind of care that has been practised at Butterfly and really helpful, but it is just them and Lyn at the moment who are regular nursing staff and with 10 new babies we will have to get up to speed to help them out.
What else about China in general... I continue to dodge around cars and scooters and will have to get out of the habit when I get home!  Traders and stalls selling just anything are everywhere - in the streets, in the subways, sometimes on the pavements, they sell pineapples which they skin and take the 'knots' out so they look as if they are spiralled, sugar cane in bits, in the supermarkets there are live frogs and turtles - but I still think a proper French market will be a treat again.  I've bought a few creature comforts extremely cheap but am told they won't last long (hairdryer, iron & bedside light for less than GBP 10) but as long as they last 2 months that's great!  And a few cheap clothes, although not as cheap as I would have thought - almost equivalent to supermarkets back home and probably not  as good.  When I went out on Monday we went to what Ruth called Oxford Street, and they did have loads of brand named shops there, and the things there were really not cheap.  And there is MacDonalds and KFC just everywhere.  I have been out for lunch a few times from work and fried rice with veg (big portion) is 60p. so why go to MacD or KFC?! 
Food - Chinese don't go for dairy products so no cheese, butter, spreads, decent milk.  Also no cereals, pasta on the whole but... there are a few supermarkets which do 'foreign foods' and I have now found cheese, butter, milk, muesli and pasta - but at a price.  Even some bacon.  But you do have to grab it when you can.  We heard at work that someone had found cream cheese the day before, but it had gone by the next day.  And only Liptons tea - that and the funny milk, I shall so enjoy a cup of Tetleys when I get home!
You are now up to date!  Next Sunday and Wednesday I have days off and I am going to try and sort photos out - see if I can get them 'blogged' to you.  If anyone has Skype we can get it here, so let me know.  Otherwise I can now get regular emails until 2nd June.
With love to you all and thanks so much for reading my blog.

From China (1)

I'm in China now and have started at the Butterfly Home.  But lots to tell you before I get up to date...
It was great, again, to stay at Sarah and Mike's, get my laundry done and spend some time with them and their children.  The day I left, in the evening, Sarah and I went in the morning to visit Qutb Minar - a monument of victory and great ruins of arches, colonnades, etc, and enjoyed a leisurely and excellent lunch.  I then finished packing and went to the airport for my adventure to China to begin.  Two-part flight as I had to change planes in China to get to Beijing and get my visa stamped at the first airport, where we landed at 6 a.m.  My first brush with Chinese authorities was not great.  I stood in the queue with trepidation after all the palaver there had been to get my visa... would they ask me loads of questions... I reached the desk and handed over my passport.  The immigration officer looked through me, imperceptibly flicked his head and shoved my passport back at me.  I joined a queue next to his but this was for people transferring to an international flight so felt that was wrong.  I decided to check and was told I should have been in the first queue I had joined and I must be quick as immigration was closing.  I squeaked in at the last minute and got my stamp - I can now be in China for 90 days - hooray and phew!  Welcome to China.  I had several hours before my flight so went to a free internet place and tried to update my mobile.  Failed and all the instructions were in Chinese.  Got on the plane eventually and went to turn off my phone, only to realise I had lost it!!!  I went to the cabin staff - none of whom spoke a word of English - and explained by sign language and, to cut a long story short, got off the plane, was told my luggage had also been taken off (to where?) and go and look for my phone and get another flight...  Back to Internet place, found someone who had found my phone and given it to 2 cleaners...  he spoke a smattering of English.  We went together to Airport Information, they didn't speak a word of English (3 Information staff) and he explained.  To cut another Very Long Story short, 2 hours later they called the police after grabbing any airport staff they could find to explain but none spoke English.  I suggested they called my phone but they said no.  2 hours with the Police - one of which spoke some English - in the Police office at this major airport - 2 huge terminals - with the Police smoking with their feet up on the tables - they had this bright idea of phoning my phone.  It was answered and half an hour later, someone brought my phone back.  Wow.  I can't believe I still have my mobile (with Internet, email, addresses, phone numbers, etc.)  so I am very grateful, but it was quite a saga.  Then 4 hours wait for another flight and I arrived at my hostel at 11 p.m. tired but relieved.  Hostel was great.  Lively bar and cafe, tiny but great room, clean, good.  In Beijing I saw the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven,Tian'anmen Square, Summer Palace (which I loved) and had a day trip to the Great Wall.  Another Wonder of the World, and it was amazing.  I hadn't realised there were so many steps to climb so went up and down and up and down for about 3 hours.  The steps are all arranged in different heights (to confuse invaders?) so you do say 15 small, then 2 or 3 deeper, then 10 small then 6 really steep, etc.  I felt I had had some exercise and it was great to do it.  We went to a lesser frequented part of the wall and it was very uncrowded.  Possibly not the views of miles and miles of wall but great views of it going on in the distance.  Wonderful.
Next day it was a flight to Xi'an, another good hostel and then the following day a trip to The Warriors.  I joined a minibus of 6 other people who all spoke English which was brilliant!  The guide spoke, I think, good English, at the rate of knots in such an accent I will have to buy a book to tell me more about it, but he was fun and OK.  He took us around the 3 'pits' of 'Tessacorra Wooriaars" and we saw a few other sights on the way.  It was then off the next day to fly to Changsha to start at Butterfly.  So a few observations on China so far:
Driving.. opposite side of the road from UK and India, slightly better than India but still lots of undertaking, jostling for position zooming into spaces you don't know are there.  Very little horn blowing.  They don't have to stop for people crossing a road on a pedestrian crossing but there's trouble if they hit someone on a crossing, whereas there isn't if you are not on a crossing.  So you walk at a moderate pace across a road so they can guage your speed so they can go around you if you are on a crossing.  Scarey ++.  There are lots of electric scooters and they use the pavements (different from India where there are no pavements!) but you can't hear them coming until they are right behind you peeping their horn. 
Getting around.. Don't come to China if you are disabled... The 'wheelchair access' from pavements to roads to cross are not at pedestrian crossings - and anyway, you'd probably die crossing... - the underpasses for crossing main streets, the subway stations linking to airports, the airport train stations do not have lifts or escalators - I asked - so you have to carry your bags up 2 or 3 flights of steps. If you are deaf you'd probably get killed by an electric scooter.  If you look as if you are struggling a nice young Chinese man will usually come and help you with your bag and they will nearly always give up their seat for you on the subway.  However, that is where gallantry stops.  Whenever there is anything like a queue - ticket offices, supermarkets, bus stops, they will literally push you out of the way, elbows, stretching across you, leaning against you.
Cleanliness...  The hostels were great - cleaner than Norway!  Streets are swept mechanically and by lots of people with broomstick type  brooms.  Nothing like the piles of rubbish in India.  And people spit just a much as in India - maybe more- but into rubbish bins!!  (Although maybe not into bins in Changsha...)  However, a sense of unclean generally persists, market trading is often from pitches on the ground, etc.
Other observations... Lots of people doing one job.  I bought a bus ticket at the airport from 3 people - one person to take my money, to hand it to the next person to check, to tell the next person to give me a bus ticket. 
Police/army.  In Beijing they were everywhere.  Sometimes 5 Policemen/women with 2 or 3 army personnel around an exit to the subway.  But I haven't noticed quite such excess elsewhere.
So, now I am in Changsha.  I will write properly when I have settled in.  I am now sharing a flat with 2 other nurses from the Philippines and 2 more coming from Ireland in the next 2 to 4 weeks.  The flat is really OK and I have my own room.  Will be sharing bathroom when the Irish contingent come.  My first half day on Monday and yesterday I was settling in, seeing Butterfly, buying essentials and food.  Today was my first day officially 'at work' and I met Lyn (boss) for the first time and got an idea of my role.  The children are gorgeous and all very different in terms of ability but all pretty well at the moment.  I've had cuddles and a walk to the play park and an introduction to them all.  They are mainly looked after by Ayi's (nannies) who are brilliant.  At the moment Butterfly is in temporary accommodation as they are 'renovating' their old premises but they are hoping to move back in 3 weeks - we will see!
Well, I think that's enough reporting for you to read for a while and I'll get back to you all later.  I hear different reports about weather in England, it seems to be pretty mixed.  I hope you are all very well.  I'm missing you and my house but am just starting out, now, on the next phase of my adventure, so will write again soon.
With love,  Liz

India 2, continued

I'm now back with Sarah and Mike and they now have broadband and computer working well. Next stop China (tomorrow) but I have more reporting on India to do...
14th March. Off to Mandawa, a town known for its havelis - the houses painted with loads of pictures inside and out.  The hotel is also a haveli and beautifully decorated, but limited water and electricity (only available at certain times).  Was 'guided' around the town by one  the hotel staff and saw all the other havelis.  Most of them are very run down, crumbling even, but a couple have been, or are being, restored and are impressive.  Taken to the inevitable shop and shown loads of things but managed to extricate myself fairly quickly.  That night I was joined at supper by some of the drivers who thought I looked boring and would like company!  I tried to explain the different between bored and boring...
Next day was my last day and we drove back to Delhi.  Sidur took another of his 'short cuts' and we got very late - plus he wanted me to go to his home for lunch, which we did.  It was cooked while I was there by his beautiful wife.  4 different dishes all cooked over a camping gas stove with his wife, Ruby, sitting on her haunches.  It did take a long time but was delicious.  Got back to Sarah and Mike's in time for supper!
Couple of days with Sarah and Mike, sorting out washing, talking English and drinking wine!  And Sarah had recommended a pedicure nearby so we splashed out all of £6 for an hour's foot pampering.  Probably lost 7 ozs with all the rough skin they removed and my toes are now a beautiful shade of deep pink.
On Sat. 17th I started another experience - an Indian train ride.  Friends had said I should travel by train so I booked a 46 hr trip from Delhi to Kerala.  I don't think I'll do it again but I survived!  I don't think the carriages had been cleaned since the train was built although I did have clean sheets and a very dubious blanket which would have stood up on its own.  Sarah had made me loads of sandwiches, gave me crunchy bars and bananas which kept me going for lunches and breakfast but I splashed out on the trains suppers at 25 rupees (30p) and I'm not sure what I ate but I suffered no side effects. People come through the  corridors continuously selling chaia and coffee, sandwiches, nibbles, books, jewellery.  Chaia and coffee are sold continuously and the calls of Chaiya and Caffee never stop. I thought I would spend time looking at the countryside going by but the windows were dirty and made of defective glass so couldn't see much!  Nowhere to wash so thank goodness for wet wipes but the loos were tolerable.  I moved bunks at the request of a guy who wanted to share with his family and ended up sharing a 'cabin' (curtained area off a long corridor full of curtains and bunks - no doors) meant for 2 with a husband and wife and loads of carrier bags.  Finally got back to my original cabin and shared with a very pleasant and interesting lady from Kerala.
So, I arrived in Kerala .  The countryside has changed from desert, to farming, to palm trees and lots of green. Met my new driver, Vipin and got the hotel for a very welcome shower.  Spent the afternoon looking around Cochin town guided by Vipin and saw the enormous fishing nets being used.
20th March we drove to Munnar.  Very slowly, Vipin is in no hurry.  The countryside is gorgeous, green, loads of trees - coconut palms, banana and pineapply plantations, rubber trees.  Very hilly - high hills so the ride was up and down and round and round.  Houses now built more substantially and the villages and towns look more prosperous and not so crowded.  Very few cows, I didn't see any pigs in the road, a few goats, and not so much rubbish everywhere.  Even the chai places are more like little restaurants.  Large, well built and imposing Catholic churches everywhere.  And in Kerala they drive on the left hand side of the road and overtake on the right - just like home!  Still lots of horn blowing and jostling for places in the towns.   Then we got to Munnar and there are tea plantations for miles.  Thousands and thousands of acres.  Every hill is covered with tea.  Shrubby dense bushes about 3 ft. high, in varying shades of green depending upon when they were last trimmed.  They are clipped all year round by women in colourful saris using huge shears which have metal 'buckets' attached to them to save the clippings.  They all look very neat and, although in rows, they are not in straight lines and almost look like sanskrit writing with the gaps around the plants, or perhaps flock carpets.  Silver oak trees, tall and slender, grow amongst the bushes as they not only give shelter but apparently draw up loads of water in the rainy season and leach it out when its dry.  It all makes for a very calm and lovely countryside.  At the side of the roads, too, there are brilliant blue tamarind trees, as well as the palms.  It is a beautiful place, I loved it.  I spent 2 days in Munnar in a hotel with sullen staff whose favourite word was No if I asked for anything, but apart from that, it was great.  I had a Ayurvedic massage which was excellent, and went to a local show of mime particular to Kerala, both good suggestions of Vipins.  The second day he drove me around and we visited two dams and lakes which were picturesque (apart from the rubbish), and went right up high to a view point over a deep valley with hills of tea and other shrubs around - spectacular.  We ate wonderful tasting little bananas sold at the side of the road.  Visited a local plant nursery and the plants are just the same as in England.  Pansies, geraniums, petunias, etc.
22nd March we drove to Periyar.  Left behind the tea and drove through woodland of palms, bananas and rubber plantations, lots of cardoman.  Visited an interesting spice garden with loads of plants used for Ayurvedic medicines and then I had the statutory Elephant ride before a 90 min boat ride on a large lake which is at the centre of a wildlife park.  Still no tigers (!) but loads of huge bison, and deer and different birds.  Great hotel where there were notices up for me to keep my doors closed as monkeys were regular visitors!
The next day we drove to Alleppy for my planned trip in the Kerala backwaters on a traditional rice boat.  We arrived about 12.30 and I have the boat to myself!  Lovely boat, sides and 'roof' covered in woven bamboo and a dear cabin and good 'en-suite'. We set off, poled out of the mooring by a very long bamboo cane and  I was served a 5 dish lunch of delicious fish and different vegetables and rice.  We made our way lazily through wide canals and some parts of a lake.  Sides of the canals are populated by small but mainly quite neat looking single storey houses, coconut palms, banana trees and loads of rice paddy fields.  The river is used by the river folk for washing, doing the washing, cleaning teeth, washing pots and pans, swimming, everything!  The main noise heard is the slapping of clothes against stones by women standing knee high in colourful saris.  It was just wonderful and the crew were chilled and pleasant.  I had a beer as I watched the sun go down behind the palms and then given another great supper - chicken this time - after we had tied up to a bank with our own banana tree bending over the bows of the boat.  The next day we went back and my 'cruise' finished but it was very memorable.  I then flew back to Sarah and Mike and their great hospitality - and more washing!
It has been so interesting to see the difference, not only in scenery but way of life and attitudes, between Rajhastan in the north and Kerala in the south.
Up to date now - and probably enough reading for you for now!  Next blog will be from China.
With love, Liz 

India Part 2

I'm sitting in airport waiting for my flight from Kerala to Delhi.  Loads to report and I may not get it all finished before I leave, but at least I will make a start.  Haven't had much luck in finding a computer keyboard and terminal recently and writing lots on my phone is too tortuous to contemplate!    So, update:
on 7th March we went to Jaipur.  Roads were varied to say the least.  They are 'repairing' some and building others.  Building new fly-overs and new towns.  In 5 years time this area will look very different but until then... the road starts well, then it suddenly becomes a dirt track, then a bit more of tarmac, then dirt, skirting around built up bits of flyover but none of it meets the other bit.  Its as if a few people 'here' got together and did a bit of building, then a few people somewhere else.  One place we went on winding through villages and even small towns, through cut throughs in rocks, over gravel, sand, mud, for miles and miles with huge trucks coming towards us setting up sandstorms.  We had a chaia stop, which later became a habit.  Just a few grubby tables at the side of the road, shared with cows and dogs.  Chaia made with boiled sweetened milk, tea and masala all boiled in a pan which should be in a museum, over a paraffin stove and picked up with tongs and poured into pyrex glasses.  I'm getting to like it, and haven't suffered anything as a result! - actually, its 24th March today and I have been very well, no digestive problems, thank goodness!  Anyway, back to Jaipur..  This is the Pink City.  (Actually its a sort of terracotta colour as the sun turns the pink to orange, apparently).  We checked into the hotel and the inevitable guide turned up.  Saw some beautiful 'sights', Jaipur has a wall around it, winding up and down the hills like a mini wall of China.  The Red fort is amongst this and has some beautiful rooms and views.  Also elephants, all painted up, wandering around.  Jaipur is a busy busy place but I still liked it - despite the guide!!  He was pretty creepy, thought he was God's gift and kept going on about the sexual activities of the Sultan, and how I should find a husband soon...  We fell out big time when he took me to a print 'factory' where they sell block printed items "a speciality of Jaipur" and I got very stuck in there, being shown literally hundreds of things even though I kept trying to walk out of the door.  I gave the guide the usual tip, which has been fine with everyone else, and he counted it out in front of me and told me it wasn't enough!  I told him he shouldn't have taken me to the warehouse and to please go...
But better later on - Jaipur has an annual Elephant Festival which was that evening!  So Sidur and I went and mingled with the crowds and wonderfully painted and dressed elephants, watched dancing, etc.  The next morning is was Holi - one of two major Hindu festivals.  It is the colour festival and you buy bags of amazingly bright colours - brilliant blues, reds, yellows, greens - and paint any part of anyone you see.  Some people (mainly children) then squirt water at you.  The ground everywhere is covered with coloured powder and people get pretty merry on different alcoholic concoctions and weave around on motor bikes, 5 to a bike, shouting greetings and waving vigorously.  Horns going, drums.  Great atmosphere.  It is only allowed to go on until 12.30 p.m. so normality can return slowly but there are people looking colourful all day, just not weaving around on bikes.  Sidur collected me at 10.30 to take me around but actually took me to the friends he had been with earlier and I joined in with him and his mates.  My face and hair were coloured and they drank whisky and ate heaven knows what which I ate as well.  I stuck to a beer.  They were fun and it was good to be part of it.  Two of them decided they had to go to work and grabbed a host which was lying around, linked it up to a water tap and stripped off to wash.  Well - its all part of life's rich experience!! 
Despite the whisky, Sidur drove me pretty well (if a little fast), to Pushkar - after I had gone back to the hotel to collect my bag.. the doorman looked at me and smiled and offered me a towel to clean myself off a bit!
The road to Pushkar was a welcome change from flat and dusty, winding up and down hills and greener than before.  Hotel down a dust track with camels lying around.  Somewhat quirky hotel with intermittent electricity and water, but pleasant.  Pushkar is a holy town, so no alcohol (although I understand from folk met the next day, you can find it and there was apparently plenty around for Holi!) and it is at the side of a lake but the only Brahmin temple in India.  The temple offers a great opportunity to grab unsuspecting tourists to give 'students' the opportunity to explain the Brahmin history and theology.  Student then hands tourist (me) over to a 'monk' who performs 'rituals' over you and then demands dollars or pounds - lots - $500 was suggested - and gets very nasty when you decline.  Sad, as I was quite enjoying the place until then! 
Next day (9th) we went to Udaipur.  On the way there, waiting at a railway crossing, we met another car with a friend of Sudir driving and so followed him to Udaipur.  Somewhat scary ride!  His friend was taking an English couple to Udaipur so we joined up for lunch which was good.  A day of guide reprieve - no-one turned up - horray!  so I took myself to the City Palace and a great boat trip around the lake.  This is the place with a palace looking as if it is floating on the lake.  That was lovely.  Probably my most dubious hotel (except for Delhi) and I think I was the only person there! but breakfast the next morning was OKand I had my first 'scrumbled eggs'.  (Observations on Indian English:  it just seems to be OK whatever you write.  It can be traffic signs, hoardings, menus, advertisements, shop fronts, anything - nothing is checked, just write something and it will do.  So, on motorways, motor cyclists should 'ware' their helmets, there are 'dipartmentel' stores, along the way there are resterents, etc.  You may find a place that says resterent at the gate and restarant over the door..)
Off to Jodphur.  My room is in a 'Haveli' - older type place, grand in its time with colums and fountains and fancy lamps.  All a bit faded and lamps don't work - just light bulb on an electric wire instead - but interesting all the same.  Jodphur is the Blue City and view from the fort shows loads of blue buildings everywhere.  It used to be a sign of high caste people's houses, but now its anyone.  Sidur and I went to a nice restaurant in a garden for a beer in the evening which was nice.
Next - Jaisselmeer. Great hotel - a 'new Haveli' and they upgraded me!  I was left to myself and went into the town when I walked through the streets without people grabbing me to look at their things.  Dodged cows and bikes, but cars not allowed in the market streets.  I bought a pair of trousers which were taken up while I waited.  All very nice.  That night there was a wedding party and there was music and lights and parades all through the town.  The restaurant of the hotel was right at the top so you could see it all wending its way through the streets.  The next day I had a guide, but he was good and didn't force me to go where I didn't want to go.  We then drove through desert to where I was staying that night, in a 'tent in the desert' (actually it was about 500 yards off the road!)  Some big windfarms on the way, about 100 turbines.  Camp was interesting.  Tent complete with flush loo (when there was water!) and tiled bathroom floor.  I had a camel ride but, for some reason, this was booked for an hour before anyone else so was on my own and would have had to wait 2 hours in the sand-dunes for the 'shinsat' which I gathered was the sunset.  I elected to go back to the camp for the shinsat and explained when I returned, that it was boring to be by myself.  Later that evening a couple of german girls were asked if I could join them as I was boring!!  However, they agreed and we had a good evening watching dancing and eating by firelight.  Next morning, no water so wet-wipe wash before a long drive to Bikaner.  During this drive Sudir decided to take a short-cut (he likes short cuts and by-passes! which usually end up taking hours!!)  This time we ended up in a sand-drift and 1 1/2 hours later got uot with lots of help from local blokes!! Quite fun, although we ran out of time to see the famous rat temple where it is a tradition to let the holy rats run over your feet.  Well - I was really sad to miss that!!!.
Have been told I have been on this computer long enough, and this is probably long enough to read, so next installment later...
Hope you are all very well.  I do get my emails from time to time but texting is unreliable.  Also, if I can get to wi-fi I can send emails free, but texting is 40 p. although I can receive free texts.  Love to you all. 

First Blog from India

I've been in India one week today.  Spent Tuesday to Saturday with friends, Sarah and Mike, and their 3 children - 2 girls 4 & 6 and boy 22 months.  They have a driver and a "nanny" - it seems as if these are obligatory and all homes have room(s) for a nanny to live in.  When I arrived they were staying in temporary furnished accommodation - an apartment - but while I was with them their furniture arrived and they started moving into a house.  Next time I see them they will be more settled.  Did some 'family' things with them - the children things, school run and an amazing school sports day (the children are at an interesting International School), and coffee morning with loads of expat wives.....  But also Sarah and I took the Metro to central Delhi and had a rickshaw ride through the tiny crowded narrow market streets with loads of run-down shops all selling - shoes in one sreet, saris in another, jewellery in another, leather, wedding outfits, spices, etc. etc. Indescribably amount of people, children, cattle, camels, rickshaws, bikes, motor rickshaws, motorbikes, busses (overcrowded, people hanging off the sides and tops).  Horns going, people trying to sell things, incense sticks, children in school uniform and no shoes dodging the traffic, women carrying anything on their heads - bundles of sticks, bags of flour, water, etc.  Roofs held up by loads of poles, scaffolding with similar poles, none straight, and electric cables as you hae never seen.  Thousands, literally, of them hanging from everywhere and eerything, cross-crossing every street and entrance, all wound around each other and anything on the way.  Thick, think, held up by bits of string or other cables.  It was an amazing 1 and a half huors.  We also had a great evening at a Bollywood type theatre show which was spectacular, colourful and fun, and another evening a great proper Indian restaurant meal. 
Saturday I left S & M and family.  It was so great to stay with them first and get my feet - they were so easy and welcoming and just right.  I then stayed the night in a slightly dubious Delhi hotel ready to start my tour the next day.  As I anticipated, the tour operator didn't arrive that night, but the next morning and I didn't get ,my 'welcome garland and non-alcoholic welcome drink' but I can live with that!  Also as I was expecting he told me that there was no group tour so it is just me in a car with a driver called Sudir.  So meals alone but at least the tour is happening!!
The last 3 days have been varied and good.  Started with a whistle stop tour of Delhi, seeing some of the sights, visiting a temple or two, including a beautiful Lotus temple which encompasses every religion and was very gentle and peaceful.   Then we had a drive to Agra and I now know why no-one drives themselves.  It is not just Delhi being chaotic, the driving is unbelievable.  They have right hand drive cars but drive in the outside lane and undertake with lots of horn blowing, skidding around whatever is in the left hand lane, missing everything by a hairs breadth every time.  Indian cars could not exist without a left hand wing mirror, horn or brakes.  I cannot believe I have never seen an accident.  The roads are shared with cows, camels, goats, sheep, pigs, motor rickshaws with about 15 people in a rickshaw meant for 6, all hanging off and tearing around everything.  If its a dual carriageway its not unusual for something to be coming towards you - and its like that everywhere.  The moment I get in the car till the moment I get out.  Sometimes on long roads its calm, then you suddenly hit a 'town' (conglomeration of run-down buildings, tents, lived in ruins, little shops all selling much the same things, market stalls of veg and fruit, people, more rickshaws, bikes, camels, cows, pigs, sheep, goats, 'cafes' of men drinking beer and smoking, colourful women in lovely saris, barefoot children) and Sudir starts weaving in and out around everything with the inevitable hand on the horn.  He's an excellent driver and has never had an accident in 9 years.
So, yesterday was an early start, we were in the Taj Mahal queue at 6.15.  I had an excellent guide and we finally got through the gate.  For all monuments you have to go through an electronic scanner, have your bag inspected and be scanned by a hand held scanner.  Then I saw the Taj Mahal.  I was a bit knocked sideways by the emotions I suddenly felt and if I hadn't had a guide with me I think I would have been a blubbering heap.   It was just amazing - so perfect and beautiful.  We spent a while there, looking around and  I was sad to have to leave it.  Back to the hotel for breakfast, then more sightseeing - the Red Fort, also pretty stunning, loads of monkeys too! and then a drive to Fahtepur Sigri, the palace built by the last Moghul Ruler who seems to have been quite an amazing bloke.  After a terrible drive over dirt roads, rocks, bits of tarmac which never joined up, then thankfully a proper road with the usual mixture of traffic and toll booths stuck in the middle of nowhere, we ended up in Ranthambore.  The drive had been interesting, through the plains growing masses of wheat and corn.  Seem to be tended by women in colourful saris, wheat stacked up and then threshed, lots by hand, and piled into huge bags which are packed into lorries and hang over the sides like obese tummies!  Past villages of houses which seem to be made from corn, like lived-in haystacks, also make shift tents, houses of any bricks stones etc. stuck together with concrete and dung.  The fuel is bullock dung made into plate sized pats and beautifully stacked into little house shapes and then 'plastered' with more dung and decorated!
Today I visited Ranthambore National Park to see the tigers, but they weren't coming out to play.  It was good to do the visit, though, although we didn't see too much.  Lots of monkeys, deer, peacocks, a few hyenas, crocodiles and some beautiful birds. 
Better stop now as there is a queue for the computer. 
I hope this reaches you all OK.  I'm having a bit of trouble with getting photos on the computer but I'll keep trying.  Speak to you again soon I hope! 

Filled Boxes and what went in them!

Almost there!

I am totally overwhelmed and very humbled by the support I've had and the gifts to the charities.  Not only money donations but children's clothes, bouncy chairs, knitted cardigans for the hospice, blankets for the nomadic women, supplies for both.  The donations have provided hugely need medications for the babies in the hospice and are already out there and yesterday 2 large boxes of chairs, clothes, dressings and other needed items went on their way to China.  There is still a worthwhile amount of money to take out to the charities and hand straight over.  I know there is so much this can be used for, from helping to pay for hospital operations, getting children to hospital and keeping them within their families, and avoiding mothers dying in childbirth.  So, to all who have helped in giving, or in supporting in thought, so many thankyous.  I hope you will keep up with me by my blog but feel free to email me and I will get back to you when I can.
I'm off on Monday, back 4th July!