Namaste!

Firstly - I am back in action and as a result suffering from extreme elation to be back in the land of the living again :-) :-)

Secondly - Simon (You know who you are), yes, I still have the constitution of a new born baby, I thought that India would toughen up my resistance to bugs....

Unfortunately, there is not much more that K and I can do to avoid these illnesses, I have a few ideas...

1 - Eat nothing but packaged and manufactured biscuits (no vitamins)
2 - Eat only in Le Meridian (not enough money!)
3 - Eat nothing (starve??)

Problem - all of these would reduce our time spent travelling in one way or another and are therefore not viable :-) I assure you all that we are doing everything possible to guarantee that good food enters our systems. We survey every restaurant, we check to see whether it is busy, whether there are women and children present, whether it is clean, whether the waiters are clean and we wash our hands before we eat. We are also very careful about what we chose on the menu, no salads and nothing that is not hot in temperature. We do not drink the water given to us in glasses and pitchers and only drink bottled water. Really, we are quite clueless as to why these tummy upsets happen, it is part and parcel of travelling.

Anyway, a big THANKS to K for nursing me back to health and ensuring that I do not go cabin crazy in those moments when I was actually awake over the last three days :-) :-)

I have used this opportunity of inactivity to drift from one thought to another and allow my mind to reflect, as a result of this there are some observations that I would like to share with you. So if you are sitting comfortably I shall begin... :-) :-)

On Ahmedabad:

Each day in our hotel room I have listened to the call to prayer from the local mosque, the loudspeakers sound as though they are on our balcony. We are lucky enough to hear this 4-6 times a day, the first one kicking off at approximately six o'clock in the morning and the final one at around 6 in the evening. One orator has a beautiful voice and the words and tones softly roll from one to the other, the other sounds as though his old age has bought him a reversal in his voice breaking. It is very funny that the six o'clock rendition also brings an accompaniment of howling dogs :-) :-)

Helmet laws and the roads - K and I have been confused about the helmet laws here. It would seem that most people wear helmets of one sort or another on their motorbikes. We have come to the conclusion that there is a helmet law (as verfied by the desk clerk at the hotel) due to an article that we read in the paper and we have also concluded that the law probably does not specify the type of helmet required. We see people wearing construction hard hats, polo hats, shorty moto helmets, full face moto helmets (literally in any condition) and finally to head scarves. My favorite of all is the dimpled full face helmet which looks like an oversize golf ball, it reminds me of Nike sphere technology. The funniest/ scariest helmet has to the full face lid that has your nose protruding out further than the chin guard :-) :-)

I have to go and post the photos now so I will finish this dialogue another time, ah, I was having so much fun too :-)

Thanks for reading.