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"Charlotte... what is that? What have you done to yourself? Is THAT permanent?" - My mum's first words when she picked me up at the train station and saw me in my salwar kameez, wearing a bhindi and daubed in Mendhi henna.

Rocking up at Heathrow Airport on August 10th blissfully unaware of being amidst the terror crisis, I arrived back into England. Honestly, I had no idea about what was unfolding around me until I got to Kings X and saw it splashed all over the evening standard... good old no press hush hush airlines... "More chai madame? Gulab? Hand massage?" Ohhhh gulab I miss it so. And bherfi. And grotty street dhabas. And cheesy Pepsi ads with Shah Rukh Khan and Preity Zinta. (Pepsi-India by the way, has just been discovered to contain pesticide levels 14 TIMES the amount allowed by safety regs... and guess who was supping it the whole time she was travelling.. no worries there then.) And Shah Rukh Khan in pretty much every form of advertising POSSIBLE from underwear to lawn mowers to Limca. And aloo parantha and curd for breakfast. And MASALA CHAI! I bought some Assam tea and masala spices back with me and have been experimenting avec saucepan...but seeing as I'm about as Indian as chicken tikka masala, I have so far failed miserably.

So anyways, this will be my last blog on the subcont, as I haven't written anything about my last 2 weeks there - and there is alot to tell - I thought I'd finish that off and tie things up. Please forgive my poor poor memory though, if its all a bit sketchy... I think the mixture of DEET fumes and heat caused a few brain cells to disappear...

PSUTZ AND SHALOM SHABBAT - Back in the bling mobile to MANALI, take away pizza, 3am breakfasts and more Israelis

So after hurtling back up Kunzum La and Rohtang Pass to Manali, we came to a bit of a standstill. India being India, nothing is ever quite so simple, it always turns into an adventure... variety is the masala of life, hey?!

On the way back, we picked up Sunny (2 Tibetan Sunny's, so confusing) the owner of Batal's only free standing builiding - cum guest house - cum dhaba, as he was going to Manali to meet a friend and him and Govinder are thick as thieves. Not that we minded, Sunny turned out to be a really interesting guy. Tibetan, his parents and grandparents came to India by making the arduous journey on foot over the Himalayas from Tibet into India's HP. Sunny has lived in Batal ever since. Curious as to how someone of only 27 finds it to grow up and live literally in the middle of nowhere, with no electricity, no television, and the only company apart from his parents being passing travellers like us, Amelia and I fired the poor guy with questions.

MORE TO WRITE LATER... TOO TIRED

Last night, we watched a film in Dharamsala's mini cinema (basically a widescreen plasma tv and dvd player with curtains and comfy seats... it works well) called Born Into Brothels, about the children of prostitutes in Calcutta's red light district. An amazing American photographer from New York gave the kinds cameras and lessons on how to be a good photographer, some of the pictures they took were amazing. There is not much hope for these poor children, stigmatised by society, with many girls forced into prostitution at 11 by their mothers. This is a side to India that I previously wasn't aware barely existed. It was such a moving film, the realities of what these children face, especially compared to our cushy lives in the West, really hit me. We are so lucky. I know I keep saying that, but my god we are. The other day, I met this Sloanie girl who sent her backpack back to england after 3 days because it was "too heavy" she spent 30,000 rs doing. 30,000! Thats 2/3 people's yearly salary. Its disgusting. We take for granted our position in England, our automatic access to education, sanitation, food, water, child protection. When I get back to England I am going to buy that DVD and show everybody, it is so moving. As equally as it may depress you, it will also make you so happy and appreciative of what you have. I'm reading The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama at the moment (cue hippy mocks :P!) and he says that one of the keys to becoming happy within yourself is through comparison. As humans, we naturally compare ourselves to others, what breeds unhappiness and covetousness is comparing ourselves to those who have more than we have, or what we dont have... it leads to dissatisfaction.

Charlee's thought for the day: The next time you find yourself comparing yourself to others, compare yourself to those less fortunate than yourself: the poor, the handicapped, the lonely... and then look at all that you have and be thankful that you don't have to live in a rubbish heap, drinking water from sewage pipes to survive, that you don't have leprosy and your arms aren't falling off your body, I guarantee you will feel instant satisfaction with yourself

Sorry for being super self righteous, I just wanted to point it out. I promise, alot less of me harping on and alot more about how wonderful India is and how much fun we're having, coming up

Hey everybody, well here I am, sat in an internet cafe in Amritsar typing up what I wrote in my diary yesterday... its amazing actually, we were lucky enough to find a place that has ISDN broadband (thank you LP!) so hopefully I can upload some photos. I don't really have the energy to type much new except to say that Amritsar is MAD. Just as background info, Amritsar is in Punjab, in Northern India, about 30km from the Pakistani border and home to the Golden Temple. Amritsar itself is very dusty and totally crazy, with the Golden Temple standing majestically and silently, almost like a protector above the madness of the old town. We had a 7 hour train journey from Delhi... longggggg.... but it went surprisingly quickly. There's nothing like travelling by train to give you a concept of how vast and beautiful India is... fields upon fields of rice paddies, looking wet and inviting in the midday sun... except for the cobra factor. I'm a bit paranoid about that to be honest, silly really, but I've made sure my room was snakeproof before I left today. Anyways, its 38 degrees here and my brain is very tired, so I will just copy out what I wrote in my diary yesterday.

DELHI-4th July, 2006

It's 38 degrees today and you can definitely feel it. The fresh ice cold bottle of water I bought this morning was actually steaming 2 hours later. But India is amazing, I've barely been here a day and a night but it feels like forever. I feel like I've been taken back to the 70s - there seems to be a general rule of thumb here that if something's not broken; why replace it? The STD-ISD phones (vaguely humorous that the telecommunications here stands for a sexually transmitted disease in England) look like props from Dynasty and the entire railway ticketing computer system is done on DOS!

Being tourists in Delhi has its advantages - the "International Tourist Reservation Office" at the train station has patterned 60s geometric print sofas and air con; whereas for the locals its one massive mad hall with people milling about; men pushing wagons of grain; mothers and babies asleep on sari fabric laid on the ground - a bit like the mass exodus at Kings X when the Leeds train platform is announced except more retro and more indian.

This morning we took a wonder through Paharganj to help me acclimatise. I say "wander", really its a leisurely stroll, skipping over puddles, dodging touts and weaving in between autorickshaws that are driving up your ass.

Going back to the train station (sorry my thought pattern is a little erratic, I wrote last on a rooftop drinking chai as the sun set on my first night in Delhi. Now,I am laid out on my bed in a bikini top and shorts watching Wimbledon (home comfort) having just showered and washed my hair. Okay, by "showered" I mean repeatedly tipped a bucket of water over my head. (NB: English/India translations are very loose!) But I feel so wonderful and clean after being a COMPLETE sweat monster all day - not to be too disgusting but my silk topped was soaked through by midday. Yum.

Anyways, back to the trains. In India it seems, everything is an experience; including booking a train ticket. Like I said before, us "tourists" are lucky enough to have an air con room - the bureaucracy though, is incredible! You have to queue and go to 3 DIFFERENT DESKS to get a reservation.

Step by step guide to train tickets in India:
1. Find out what tpe of train and the number
2. Fill out a reservation form
3. Quw\eue and show reservation form to a man at a desk (usually with a handlebar moustache) who types all your details into an old Acorn-esque computer and tells you the price.
4. Take reservation form and your passport (here you can't do anything w/0 it - change money, book a hotel room or book a train ticket) to a woman who prints off your reservation ticket et voila.

So tomorrow we are catching the 6:50am train to Amritsar... to be honest, I'm worried I won't wake up - the air con and extractor fan here are so noisy - it sounds like a machine being tortured and I'm worried that they will spontaneously combust at any moment.

My room by English standards is very simple; alike to one you would see in Malaga on Holidays From Hell, but by Indian standards its decent and I can definitely more than cope with it - at least there are no cockroaches lurking in the bathroom - something I have been warned about.

India amazes me because some things are so chaotic; its architecture is so higgledy piggledy; houses facing each other are practically touching, and the power lines are just a mangle of wires randomly erected here there and everywhere. traffic, the rumours are true, is insanely chaotic, there are nor rules, no lanes - and yet there's some inherent order to it all. the restaurant-cum-computer shop-cum-dentist seems to work and cars and autorickshaws nearly alway manage to avoid hitting even the most unavoidable of obstacles. And electricity is nearly always available and fully functioning - except for the odd blackout; not good when you're "showering" and the lights cut out and you're slipping around on the floor fumbling for your towel. But nevermind.

One thing that is pretty scarce though is drinking water. From the tap, it just doesn't exist. Luckily bottled water is reasonable plentiful - you can normally get a litrw for around 10/12 rupees (about8-10p) and you have to use it to wash your hands, brush your teeth and for anything hygienic really. Already, after just a day, have I started to really appreciate how lucky we are in the UK to have clean, fresh, safe water at our disposal, straight from the tap. Even the simplest of thingd, like washing your hands before eating has to be timed so that you have a bottle readily available and 12 rs is nothing for us as tourists (thank you strong pound) but for locals, especially the very poor (delhi is full of beggars - heartbreaking at times) 12 rs every time you want a drink or to brush your teeth... forget about it. No wonder then that there is so much disease and water-related illnesses, and also so much dehydration..thin, loose skin a telltale sign.

But, after my first day I can say wow. I've fluctuated between to stay forever and hop on a plane and get the hell out all day. It IS hassle, there is no doubt about it, but if you can get past theheat, dust, pollution and belligerent touts and deal with the pverty in your own way; it holds so much tresure.

It is such a sensual country, every sense, every feeling, every nerve ending is touched - the constant beeping of car horns and the took-took of tuk-tuks; and the smell that is distinctly "India" - a mix of masala and cinnamon, sewage, diesel and the sweet smell of steaming hot chai. It can be rancid and horrible or a sweet heady perfume; it all depends on your outlook