Tour

I set off at 9am to go for my bicycle tour.  To say that I was nervous is an understatement.  It’s sad but I can’t really ride a bike.  I never really learnt properly as a kid.  I blame Dad.  He said that me and our Jo were so bad that it was too embarrassing to take us out on the street.  He said that with most kids as soon as you let them go, they would ride off into the distance and that's that.  Apparently as soon as he let go of our bikes we would immediately fall where we were.  I actually can’t even remember owning a bike (I might have to call Childline and report Dad, retrospectively). 

One of the thousand gods in India must have been looking down on me as when I got there I was the only one, so the tour guide asked if I minded jumping on the back of his motorbike instead.   I put on my most disappointed face and said well okay, if it makes things easier.  It's a shame he wasn’t remotely hot as I spent much of the day attached to him.  Oh well, you can’t have it all.

We started off at the main temple and while he was eagerly telling me about all the various gods and all the religious mumbo jumbo I was just completely preoccupied with the amount of animals that were roaming about.  Everyone was taking pictures of the temple and I was busy filming the monkeys playing.  I’m not sure that he was overly impressed (the tour guide that is, not the monkey).   He didn't even laugh when a monkey stole a woman's shopping bag full of fruit (nor did she come to think of it).

The tour lasted for 4 hours.  The place is utterly awe inspiring but my attention span means that I actually only absorbed about 20% of what the poor bloke was saying.  It’s really hard to keep a straight face when, not only do I not believe for one minute that there was a bloke who was half lion, half man, but I also couldn’t really understand half of what he was saying.  I found just smiling and nodding did the trick.  He constantly asked me if I had any questions.  All I could think was what time does it finish so I can have lunch.

When it finally did finish and I’d regained feeling in my arse again I set off to find some volunteering work.  I had called a place and they’d told me to come along at 3pm to help the children with their English etc.  I arrived and was taken out the back of the classroom to the sleeping quarters, where all the children were watching a Bollywood film.  I was asked to sit down and that is all I did, watch another bloody Indian film.  I give up!!  I am quite clearly not destined to be a volunteer in India.