It's all about the money!

The girls greatly enjoyed the Indian shopping experience and with the exchange rate offering about one hundred rupees to the pound it was very easy for us to get an idea of prices in India.

Shopping for gifts

  

So many to choose from

Negotiating the best price

With one of our favourite stall holders

Here are some things to think about next time you are out shopping:

a) Petrol was under 70p per litre

b) The 7 hour coach transfer from the trek to the project cost us only £80 - that's just under £5 each

c) The tilers at the project were on a stagering £8 per day - and they worked very hard!

d) An average meal out would be around £1.50 - 2.00

e) Tuk Tuk rides were about £1 per journey

Tuk Tuks - everyday transport Indian style

This one needed an extra powerful engine!

Where's our driver?

This driver was so jolly and very safe too!

And finally here's one for the parents at CH - fees for private education at the local Indian school were around £360 per year!

The Day of the Elephants!

'This has probably been the best day of my life'. This quote from Poppy R really brought home what was a truly magical afternoon as the girls visited an elephant sanctuary and had the opportunity to ride on these magnificent animals.

At 2pm six Tuk Tuks turned up to take us on our new adventure. After a 30 minute journey, fairly quiet by Indian standards, we arrived at the sanctuary. I'm not going to write too much - the pictures will tell their own story. The sense of wonder and awe on the girl's faces was priceless.

Everyone rode and we had the opportunity to feed them bananas as reward for all their efforts.

This is the day the girls will be talking about forever and for all of us it was a really magical experience. 

The Project

After a 7 hour mini bus transfer from our last campsite we arrive at our project stage in Varkala. As we turned along the sea front to our hotel we were expecting someone to jump out and shout 'April Fool!' because it seemed we had just arrived in paradise...!

Happy campers as we arrive in paradise!

Sun sets on another hard day!

It's a tough life on World Challenge!

The girls are sharing in small beach chalets - all with real showers and the all important sit-on loo!

As we realised this was to be our home for the next few days we all started to switch into holiday mode and enjoy our surroundings. But we were here to work so the next day we took Tuk Tuks down to our school project.

Driving anywhere in India is quite mad but taking a Tuk Tuk ride is a whole new level of experience! It's a bit like Formula 1 but without the safety features.

Arriving at the school we were somewhat stunned by what we found. Because of festivals there were no pupils present but we found out the buildings housed a school of over 1000 pupils in classes of 40+ in what can only be described as very basic conditions. Coming from our own school we really were in a totally different world and the realisation of what we were seeing hit the girls and staff alike.

Tuk Tuk Races!

Buying Tiles, Cement and Paint

Time to unload the lorry

Our project was simply to make two classrooms more habitable and the girls set about painting some bright murals on the walls. On the second day we had some help from workmen as we laid into tiling one of the rooms and completing a veranda. At times it was a bit difficult to tell where the girls ended and the cement begun - everything was spread very liberally around!

Mixing the tile cement

Getting the consistency right is the hard bit

These guys work so fast!

The floor takes shape

After two very hard days we were all very proud of what we had accomplished for the school and hope that the students like there new classrooms upon their return.

We did it!

Tomorrow is a religious festival - although we are India we are in a very strongly Muslim area and everything is focused on Eid. So we are looking forward to a day without any planned activity at all and breakfast at 10am! The R&R phase is beginning!

The Trek!

And so the real 'Challenge' begins as we head up into the Western Ghats for the trekking section of our adventure. Leaving Fort Cochin early in the morning we were taken by minibus to the beginning of our trek. Stopping on route for a traditional India breakfast we arrived at around 11am for a 'short' 5km walk - supposedly our warm up for the subsequent days.

Traditional Indian breakfast - Ummm!

Our minibus to the trek

Where are the elephants?

The trek begins!

Unfortunately short doesn't equal easy! Several hours latter we trudged into our first camp - exhausted and thinking 'how are we going to survive three more days of this?'! However the high point was seeing two elephants roaming in their natural habitat.

Nearly there!

The camp site was also interesting. With high winds blowing (something that was going to become a feature of the next few days) it was thought too dangerous to pitch tents so the girls was ushered into one big room belonging to a local family to bed down for the night. With staff in tents outside (apparently we were expendable!) a not very comfortable night was had by all.

It's a sleepover!

Staff city!

Day 2 begins!

After breakfast the next day we headed out for what proved to be the hardest day of trekking. Beautiful scenery but very step climbs that exhausted everyone. The highlight of the day was stopping at an Indian school where the girls interacted brilliantly with the students. Because we were up high in the hills these were children from the local tribal communities - Cranford this certainly wasn't. We made a lot of new friends that day and left the school reluctantly to continue our trek.

New teachers in the making!

Heads and shoulders, knees and toes...!

Several hours later and very tired we arrived at camp two. This time tents were pitched and we were superbly looked after by the staff from Kalypso Adventures. With bucket 'showers' and the luxury of western loos this was almost home from home.

Day three was more of the same as we went up hill and down dale through Cardamon plantations and forests. This was the longest distance and we covered around 18 km. By now we were all getting use to the format and our strength - both mental and physical was building. Another day another camp site, again with the by now compulsory bucket showers and great food from the Kalypso team.

Tent City

With the best restaurant in town!

Ready for anything Kalypso can throw at us (except leeches!)

It's a jungle out there - our back garden!

Waking up to the first fine day of our trek we breakfasted knowing that this was to be our final day walking - also that it was going to be the most difficult. Not only did it contain two big climbs but we were also introduced to a new and very unpleasant danger - leeches!

These horrible little creatures came out of the undergrowth everywhere and it wasn't long before they were crawling all over our shoes and legs. For the most part our special leech socks did their job - until one managed to crawl up Mr C's walking pole and decided it would lunch on his blood! Slightly strange sensation looking down to see this creature getting fatter at your expense! Some salt carried by our guides soon removed the offending bug!

Back at camp another one was found on Harrie G's leg just above the protection offered by the sock! She was very brave as it was removed in a similar fashion.

Back to the trek and a certain amount of near hysteria had set in - we were so worried about these little vampires that we really didn't notice the steepness of the climb. We just wanted to escape so we scuttled up the steep slope at quite a rate!

Concern!

It's a long way down

At the top with a gale blowing!

The view from the top was worth it though and even a rope supported decent didn't faze us. Last night at the campsite and we were actually on cooking duty ourselves, under the strict guidance of the Kalypso chefs. A good last meal was had by all and sleep soon followed as we thought about the next phase of our challenge - the project!

Learning to cook Indian style!