I'm in Delhi ready to fly out tomorrow night back to cold London. Not that Delhi is much warmer right now. It's been 16 to 21 degrees celcius and I've had to wear a sweater and jacket. Who would have thought...

After leaving the ashram I first went to Fort Cochin - a seaside town with a laid back feel and tourists aplenty. I visited many spice markets and antiques stores as well as Jewtown (it is actually called that!), one of the only Jewish settlements in India. Fort Cochin was a fun place to be, marred only by the constant smell of burning plastic bags and bottles that the Indians seemed to do on every street corner. Since they have no landfills, burning is the only way they can get rid of waste. This was fine up until the introduction of plastic into India, quite a shame. Our last night was spent in Cochin proper, in a placel called "Hotel Aiswariya." Is it just me or if you say it slowly does it sound a bit like...oh never mind.

Next we took the 12 hour train journey to Chennai and shopped in glitsy malls and ate like royalty. It was fun to treat ourselves a bit after staying in very basic rooms and eating at tiny grubby restaurants on roadsides.

One flight later and we arrived in stinky dirty crazy fun Delhi! I was looking at a couple of hotel rooms to choose somewhere to stay and wandered into the Prince Palace hotel. The boy led me up to a room and as I looked in, the owner of the hotel stepped out of the bathroom flushing the toilet behind him and pulling up his trousers. He hacked up a big glob of phlegm, spat it onto the bathroom floor and looked up at me inquiringly. "So, are you taking the room then?" Needless to say it was not my first choice.

Yesterday we went on a day trip to the Taj Mahal (see pic!) and tomorrow night we head out. I'm sad to go and happy to be back in the land of carpets and supermarkets and price fixing no horns blaring every second of the day and night and comfy beds and a nod meaning yes and of course to family and friends.

See you soon ;-)

love Anna