We walked into Pushkar and met Emer, Anna and Clare for breakfast at Honey and Spice one last time and then it was back to Ratan Haveli to settle our bill, thank Sunil and say goodbye. The taxi arrived just after 10am and we set off on the 8 hour journey to Delhi, stopping around 2pm for lunch at a roadside motel.
We got caught in rush hour traffic going in to Delhi and although it had been spotting with rain, it was incredibly hot being stuck at a standstill. At one point, there was a Suzuki jeep in front of us with 9 people plus the driver inside, 4 standing on the step on the back, two on the running board on each side and 3 on the roof. That's a total of 18 on a road that is the equivalent of the M4 going in to London.
We arrived at the Hotel International Inn after driving around for about half an hour looking for it. It was frustrating as I knew exactly where it was because we stayed in it in 2007. It is literally 5 minutes from the airport and we could see it from the road on the way out when we arrived in Delhi 6 weeks ago. Even more frustrating was that even though I wrote the address down on the taxi booking form and told them that it was a hotel we were going to and where it was, the driver tried to take us to the airport. I suddenly realised what was happening when I saw a sign for terminal 3 and arrivals. I had a sneaking suspicion that if anything was going to have a bit of a glitch, it would be this part of the trip and sure enough, when we were shown to our room, which was meant to be twin beds and an extra bed (i.e. a mattress on the floor for an extra Rs300), there was a whacking great king sized bed in it instead. I phoned down to reception to remind them that my booking email said that as there were 3 of us we wanted 3 individual beds but they said they didn't have a twin room and offered us a larger room at no extra cost. This didn't really get us much as the extra space was taken up by a coffee table and sofa but as we were only crashing there till 4am we said it would do. I took the mattress and it was actually the most comfortable bed I had slept in all the trip! The restaurant was next door in their sister hotel and supper was interrupted by constant flashes from a photo shoot for a brochure. It seemed a funny time to be doing it.
I had been able to check us in online in Pushkar as it was within 24 hours of departure but Ali needed to go to the internet shop down the street to check in for her onward flight from Heathrow to Glasgow and then we set the alarm for 4am and crashed out.

Friday 12^th November 2010

The alarm went off and I shot out of bed before I had time to think about the time. Within half an hour we were in a taxi and had been dropped off at arrivals. Our itinerary said enter at gate 7 so we did and I was immediately confronted by a small and aggressive policeman with an indignant moustache, who got right into my face and yelled something incomprehensible about gate 6. I don't respond well to being yelled at in Hindi at 4.30am and the least “they” could do is have policemen who speak a second language , or a few bi-lingual signs considering it is the international departure gate but there you go. I guess it's just me reverting to type and getting all colonial and British. On gate 6 a very nice policeman checked my passport and decided I was a fit person to be let out of the country and then we were on our way, though bag-drop, security and so on and then to the cafe for a coffee and a muffin.

The flight was on time and apart form a bit of turbulence and probably the bumpiest landing I've ever been on, it was uneventful. In fact, the time sort of simultaneously stretched and contracted and although it was about 9 hours, I really couldn't have told you how long we were on the plane. We left the plane and then it was up escalators and down escalators and along on the little train to the main terminal and back up more escalators and then through security and bag reclaim and customs and the next thing we knew, there was Martin at arrivals.
We said goodbye to Ali who had to do the treck over to catch a connecting flight on to Glasgow and then went to the car park and down more levels in a lift and played the usual game with a parking ticket machine that refused to take the credit card and then it was onto the M4, into a traffic jam and eventually home to a heap of happy dogs who, even though comparisons with skinny street dogs are inevitable, are truly and considerably fatter than when I left them, despite their regular runs behind the Landrover.
I on the other hand got on the scales and have lost half a stone and 2 inches around the waist which was rather a shock!

Our last day at TOLFA dawned grey and cool and by the time breakfast was over, it was drizzling. Not a terribly auspicious start to our last day and this was compounded by the taxi getting all of a mile down the road before it got bogged down in the wet sand and refused to go into first or second gear. We got out and walked to the top of the hill, calling a cheery “Namaste” to the woman who made up the road-gang filling pot holes, and the driver managed to get it to follow with much revving and weaving from side to side to avoid the gradient. By the time we were well on our way it was raining properly and it was incredible to see what had been dry ditches the day before yesterday now running with terracotta red water, stained by the red sandstone in suspension that had been washed off the surrounding hillside. We passed several herds of camels being driven in to the camel fair and as we got nearer TOLFA it got steadily wetter.
The entire yard area of the compound was awash with water and it was impossible to walk anywhere without being in at least 3 inches of water. The galleries between E and F block and G and H block on 60 kennels were full of dogs because all the paralysis yard dogs had to come in to the dry before the wet sand caused abrasions and further skin damage. The staff had put sacking on the floor for them to lie on and most of the dogs in the kennels also had a bed to lie on. We started walking dogs which was a bit of a juggling act as some of the paralysis yard dogs aren't terribly friendly with others and there were the odd altercations at the gate where they insist on lying. Getting Dave out was a matter of timing and I finally saw my chance and made a run for it with him.
Later in the morning, Dr. Ashok was doing the dog treatments and as I came back in they were just taking E9 out of her kennel. He came over and said that they were going to put her to sleep this morning so I said goodbye to her. Vikram was there, who is usually on dog treatments, and knows how much time I have put into her and give me a supportive smile. I'm sad but it is a relief because there was a smell of necrosis in her kennel when I went in first thing to give her some Parle G biscuits and see how she was and I'm pretty sure the hip sores are now breaking down. I was thinking about her last night and was pondering how she would fair when we leave as there will only be one nurturing volunteer, Claire from near Bolton in Lancashire who arrived a couple of days ago and she won't have the time to spend. Later in the day, Rachel told me that she thinks E9 would have died within days once I wasn't there to spend the time with her. I walked a couple more dogs and then went into her kennel and found they had put her to sleep.

By lunchtime, the rain had stopped and the compound was starting to clear, largely due to Naja who had spent the morning making dams and trenches and although he is the oldest member of staff, known as Uncle or old man by the others and is shown due respect for his age, I couldn't help being put in mind of a small boy damming streams when I saw him at work with his mattock, a plastic bag fashioned into a turban on his head and a plastic feed sack tied around his shoulders to make a coat.
Meanwhile, Sharda was seen around the compound first dwarfed by a Saint Bernard owner dog that came in a few days ago and then attached to a large, grey Neopolitan Mastiff that arrived on Monday. Later in the day a truly massive Great Dane arrived with his owners for treatment for a foreleg lameness and Rachel said that more and more owner dogs were coming in, sometimes from as far away as 50km because TOLFA'S reputation is spreading and people are often dissatisfied with the quality of treatment and care that their animals receive at the Government Vets. While it is true that this could detract from the care that can be given to street dogs, owner dogs pay the going rate for treatment and so it is a new and vital strand of funding that can be ploughed back into the rescue and ABC programmes. Eventually, Rachel hopes to be able to build a separate kennels for owner dogs and so keep them separate.

Around 1pm, the sun finally broke through and by the time we went off to Sharda's house for lunch it was starting to warm up again. We told Sharda it was our last day and Mary gave her a bangle and in return she went through her vast bangle collection and put two on each of our wrists. Mine are orange and pearl-like beads on a gold bangle and look wonderful....just my sort of colours but how on earth she managed to get them over my hands in a mystery to me . Indian women generally have tiny hands compared to thumping great peasants like me and when I said my hands would probably be too big she shook her head and after some quite impressive squeezing and manipulation of various joints, they slid over. They look great but I suspect they will only be coming off again with the aid of wire cutters!
Mary had arranged for Dr. Ashok to get some Indian sweets on his way in to work from us as a gift for all the staff and after lunch they were handed round along with some Pakora that he had bought for all of us. The only way I can describe them is that they are like a spicy deep fried pasty and really delicious!
I did the cats after lunch and said my goodbyes to them and the puppies in the puppy block and then did my dog treatments and took final photos of their wounds for my case studies and then it was time to go.
We said goodbye to Rachel and got in the taxi which had been (sort of) fixed during the day and drove back through the desert, passing herds of goats and cattle being driven home, people walking back with bundles of firewood, pots of water and animal fodder on their heads and cans of milk in their hands and herd upon herd of camels being driven along the road or let lose to browse the acacia trees alongside.

Mary and I went for an early supper and did a bit of last minute gift shopping and also arranged for our taxi to come at 10.30am rather than 9.30am to give us time to walk into Pushkar for a final breakfast with Emer, Anna and Clare at Honey and Spice. This also gives Ali a bit of time to do last minute packing, money changing and shopping e.t.c because she, Emer and Anna are on Indian cooking course this evening.

As far as the dogs go....E9 is still with us and still refusing to let-go. Rachel and I discussed her and I still feel that she has a quality of life. She tucks into her Parle-G biscuits when I arrive in the morning and then I carry her out into the paralysis yard where she spends the day in the sun. She gets another lot of biscuits at lunch and yet again when I bring her back in from the paralysis yard around 4pm. Weak as she is, she gets up top greet me and will walk to the gates out into the yard on her own and relishes lying in the sun, only moving to the shade when it gets really hot. All but her hip sores have healed but because she will only eat such a limited diet, it is impossible to get the protein levels into her that she needs to put on weight and she can't survive on a purely carbohydrate diet. She will of course but put to sleep the minute there is any sign that she is deteriorating but for the moment, she is not in pain, eats, drinks and enjoys attention and it seems right to let her have the time if she wants it.
E8, Grizzly Adams with the eye wound and rickets went home on Monday and I have got a couple of new dogs, both older with maggot wounds and potential TVT or bladder problems. E14 is nearly healed and will probably go home a few days after I do and all of my other maggot wounds are within days or a week of release.

The cats have been joined by another kitten who had an abscess under its eye and it is doing well. The cat with hind leg paralysis went off his food and was looking really miserable so I had a look and found he was really sore. Emer took him to theatre and discovered he ha d an abscess where he had been dragging his hind quarters and after cleaning and antibiotics, he is back on his food, purring and walking a little on his hind legs. Sparks goes from strength to strength and just needs a home. She used to live in the office but one of the blind shelter dogs decided it was worth trying to eat her and after Rachel found her pressed into a corner with a dog breathing all over her, she was moved to a cage in the puppy block. She hopes to build a wall around her house and the she can move Sparks and a couple of the other cats up there to live with her. The feral kitten is fine and very friendly as long as you meet him n his terms and he just needs a home now and the front leg amputee is healed and can go home any day now.
A new volunteer called Clare has arrived and I walked her through the cat routine so that at least there will be someone who can carry on giving them one-to-one attention for another couple of weeks but hopefully once she leaves, most of them will be ready to go home. There will be more to replace them of course!

I am ready to come home now. I have enjoyed it but it has been a long haul and I have been very mindful of the extra work others have had to take on in my absence. Martin phoned me on Sunday when I was feeling at my grimmest, in the middle of alternating between shivers and sweats and said that he is taking the dogs for a 2 mile run behind the Landrover twice a day and they still sit there all evening starting at him with that “take us for a walk” look on their faces so I think they are ready for me to come home and start to “let them down” a bit for winter and occupy their minds instead. Sometimes it is possible to be too fit!
The camel fair in Pushkar is starting to rev up now. It stars the day after we leave but already the tents and pavilions are going up on the camel ground just outside the town and every day as we drive into work, there are herds of camels being driven along the roads from all corners of Rajasthan. This can cause some delays but it is quite an impressive sight to be sitting in a small Suzuki van in the middle of the road, surrounded by 30 camels.
I had the kitten overnight and Mary got her going on solids the previous night so I just had to put food in front of her at bedtime and 5.30am rather than syringe feed her. The biggest job now is keeping her occupied and making she she has company and human interaction but by the time everyone else leaves at the end of the month, she will be around 7 weeks so will possibly be re-homed. I think Rachel is hoping to have her at her house which would be good.

Mary and I spent our day off doing last minute shopping for presents and catching up on emails and I also managed to get a book on wildlife and plants of India as it's been driving me mad not being able to identify the thing I see. We came out of one shop and were very surprised to find that it was raining! It had been very windy overnight and the sky was overcast and grey when we got up but rain is a totally new experience for us. We had lunch outside at Mango Tree as it was only spotting by that time but the two small boys working there (they looked about 12 years old) spent their time putting chairs out and laying table cloths only to whip them under cover again as the next shower started. We sat it out as the temperature and rain was quite nostalgic...a bit like a pub lunch on a Saturday in June in the UK only mildly less cold!Within 10 minutes of getting back to the hotel we had the third power cut of the day so I am now sitting in the dark, typing this by the light of the laptop.
So, last day tomorrow, then the 8-9 hour drive to Delhi on Thursday, stay overnight in a hotel 5 minutes from the airport and then up at 4am on Friday to catch a 6.55am flight to Heathrow, arriving at 11am UK time. It will be good to be home.

TOLFA is like a ghost town a many of the staff are off on holiday. Diwali is also known as the festival of lights (the festival of bangs and crashes is more like it) and is the equivalent of Christmas so many people travel to see relatives and the staff often have up to a week off for the annual Diwali leave. There is a skeleton staff and some of the boys work half days and somehow the work gets done. Emer and Anna have a big workload as Dr. Ashok is away for the fell week but they managed to get through it all.
Dwali itself was crazy although there was a lull of a few hours in the night when it was quiet but we went to bed to the sound of fireworks and “mortar bombs” and they started again around 6a.m. Walking back from Pushkar after supper, everyone was in a festival mood. The buildings were decorated with coloured lights (only sightly more tasteful than “National Lampoons Christmas”) and the entrances and doorsteps are painted with decorative motifs and Happy Diwali. Outside some of the houses they also have cowpats, decorated with flowers and food offerings to a deity who's name escapes me but is probably a little like leaving out a mince pie and sherry for Santa although it's a strange deity that wants it's food served up on a cowpat!
It can be a bit dodgy walking in the streets as you never know when a firework will go off and where and people often put them in the middle of the road. You can't help feeling very sorry for the street dogs and the cows, not to mention the pigs who also hang out on the rubbish dumps around the town and the monkeys in the trees around and about as the noise is deafening, relentless and for them, probably terrifying.

It was Emer's day off so Mary was on veterinary treatments and, as it was also Sharda's day off, Ali and I split most of the dog walking between us...Mary's dogs in G block and the ones Joke did in H block. Walking is almost pleasant now the temperatures is down a little and I am only drinking 1 litres of water during the day as opposed to the 2 litres when we first arrived.
Morning was spent walking the dogs and feeding the kitten and the puppy. I had to syringe fed the pup and he was also given subcutaneous fluids as he is very dehydrated. His eyes have sunk into his head and she looks all shrivelled up. The general consensus is that he definitely has pneumonia. This may be partly as a result of inhaling milk but it's more likely that as he is weak, the swing in temperature has brought it on. It's probably the equivalent of when a bunch of weaned off calves getting it when they are housed in muggy, foggy weather. By lunchtime, he had died.

I did the cats after lunch. Porridge was back in his cage and very pleased to see me as was Sparks who now purrs, rolls on her back and demands to have her tummy rubbed. The little ferral kitten was back living on top of the cages again but I managed to reach up and pick him up and put him on the worktop by the sink with some food so I could handle him a bit more and in fact, he is even more friendly then before I went away. He's quite happy living “up top” as he has a lot of room and has food and water but I did put a litter tray up there yesterday as he hasn't got one and has been going in a corner. As nobody can reach or has got a step ladder and gone up to clean, I thought a litter tray would be a good idea and he is using it.
I did my “special treatments” and have several new dogs to add to them. All the maggot wounds are doing really well and I think another week should deal with most of them.
Rachel finally limped back around 5pm after her 10am appointment at Ajmer Police station for round I've-lost-count-of the visa saga and they had literally only just seen her before she arrived back. She looked shattered.

I brought the kitten back with me this evening and will give her a good wash as I have the where-with-all to do it in my room. She has a heat pad and a little travelling basket and I put her on my fleece jumper between feeds to dry off and keep warm. She will need an 11pm and 5am feed but can otherwise go through the night....if she isn't disturbed by the “mortar bombs” being let off in the street in honour of Diwali. All the hotels round here are covered in curtains of coloured lights and it looks just like Christmas without the inflatable Santa's and neon snowmen but I really am not exaggerating about the fireworks. They do have coloured ones like we have on November 5^th but they also have these ones that are just a single explosion with no visual show and they literally sound like a bomb going off. You can almost feel them and the noise reverberates around the mountains. These aren't formal displays either. People just let them off randomly and often in the middle of the street behind you as you walk, and often in daylight, meaning that a gentle stroll into town at any time is not for the feint hearted! At the moment they have let off about 6 in the last 10 minutes and it feels ever so slightly like being under fire. I won't be at all surprised if John Simpson appears with a camera man and starts reporting for the BBC in a minute!

E9, the emaciated TVT bitch has nosedived and Emer warned me on Sunday that she would probably be put down. The only reason why it hadn't already happened was because the decision is Rachel's and she has spent most of the last week going back and forth to Delhi and Ajmer, fighting crazy, beligerent beurocrats in order to get a 2 month visa extension so she can go home for her sisters wedding on 13^th November. She got back from the Ajmer police station just before we left and was completly worn out from being forced to wait all day and was no further on at the end. She is also still waiting to hear the result of the police “interrogation” that was necessary to apply for a passport for Mahi. As to E9, as soon as I arrived she perked up and started eating again so I made up a bowl of infant milk formula and put Parle G biscuits in it (3=1 chapati according to the legend on the pack) and she had 3 meals during the day and was much more cheerful. The only downside is that she is lame on her back right and I think because of her lack of condition, her nails are starting to weaken and are tearing. I honestly don't know what will happen with her as she is a walking skeleton but every time we think we are getting to the point of euthanasia, she perks up and the astonishing thing is that, comparing the photos I took at the end of last week with the way she is, her small leg ulcers are 50% healed and her large hip ones are 40% reduced in size. However, being realistic, she has absolutely no reserves and a diet of milk and glucose biscuits is not going to be enough to get weight on her as she is protein deprived but she hasn't given up yet so neither will we.

 Sunday

We walked into town for breakfast at Honey and Spice and then spent the morning wandering around the shops, getting a feel for prices and what was new and then caught up with emails etc at the internet shop. It was Joke's last day at TOLFA and we all met up for supper in the evening at Rainbow. She leaves on Tuesday and we will miss her.

Monday

On Monday, Ali decided to go to TOLFA so Mary and I met up for breakfast and then worked our way through Pushkar doing some serious haggling and present buying. We found a really nice shop, selling painted boxes, pashminas and scarves, rugs and so on that is run by a man from the Punjab. He had some really unusual things there and although he refused to haggle and said he was thinking of becoming a “fixed price” shop as many seem to be now, his prices were fair. We spent a happy half hour chatting to him and got a handful of his business cards to put in the volunteers info pack and when he discovered we were from TOLFA, we were invited back for chai sometime.
The rest of the day was spent catching up on washing, emails and getting ready for work in the morning.

We spent an hour or so wandering around and then went down into the town for a drink and some lunch at nice cafe (complete with mouse that shot up the waste pipe of the hand sink outside the loo but I didn't mention that to anyone). The taxi arrived at 3pm prompt and we set off for Pushkar, a drive of around 4 ½ hours that was pretty much an average drive and involved all the usual stuff....cows, buffaloes, goats, lorries, horns, sharp breaking, gut wrenching swerving e.t.c.
As we hit Ajmer, the next big town before Pushkar, it suddenly started raining! I had read a weather forecast in the paper at lunchtime and it said a risk of showers in some parts of Rajasthan, and Ajmer included but I didn't take it too seriously. By now it was around 7pm and dark and visibility through the wet and dust streaked windscreen was virtually non-existent. Just at the point where I was wondering if the driver would switch on the wipers, he did, and they didn't work but fortunately by that time it had stopped raining and the warm air dried the glass almost immediately.
We eventually climbed up the mountain and then dropped down into Pushkar where the “local militia” had slung up a roadblock and charged the driver several rupees for the privilege of asking me several times loudly and slowly where we were going so that they could give him directions. Pointless really as I could have done that myself. I remember a similar thing happening on a different approach road the first time we visited here and this roadblock thing seems to be quite random as cars and motorbikes just ignored it and carried on by driving down the wrong side of the road, if there is such a thing in this country!
We limped in to Ratan Haveli around 7pm to be greeted by Sunil and before we knew it, we were back in our old rooms as if we had never been away. Mary and I dumped our stuff and went straight to Mango Tree for supper and back to the hotel for an early night but Ali gave food a miss as I think her stomach was still on the road somewhere between here and Ajmer. It's nice to be back in Pushkar and the extra day off will give us time to walk round and do a bit of shopping for presents as we have been putting it off and will soon run out of time.

There's a whacking great monkey just walked along the wall outside my room.
I'm in Bundi at the Hotel Kasera Paradise, nestled right under the imposing walls of the fort that is cut into the rock face behind it. The owner has monkey trouble. The Languars are OK but the Macaques are big and chunky and destructive and silly and he has to tie the chairs to the tables on the roof top terrace or they start throwing them around. The chairs are all made of pretty hefty metal in a “wrought iron” type design and many of them have arms that are loose where the monkeys have pulled them away from the main body of the chair, breaking the weld. You don't mess with monkeys!

So, to backtrack. We went to the Edelweiss Cafe for breakfast and Ali popped to a shop around the corner from the hotel to buy some specialty tea while we waited for the taxi. At 9.20am, I got a call in my room from reception it say it had arrived. So far so good and we were away by 9.50am.
The drive out of Udaipur was short and before we knew it we were barreling along national highway N76, a good, two lane road that has only 2 drawbacks. One is the grooved concrete surface that grabs hold of the tyres and make you feel as if you are aqua-planing now and again, and the other is the 90kmpm speed limit. The road was very quiet and sometimes we only passed a couple of motorbikes and a lorry every 2-3km so it was frustrating to be stuck in a 55mph limit but on the other hand, we made good time and did the journey in about 4 ¼ hours instead of 5.
The road passes through a low, flat area of farm land where the soil is a darker colour and looks to be quite deep and loamy considering this is still a dessert region. The fields are generally unfenced along the line of the medieval open farm system but the individual fields within them are larger, possibly up to 7 or 8 acres at times. The tree cover is acacia and often palm and there is a tree a little like a poplar but with much bigger, shiny leaves that is often pollarded.
Grazing livestock seem to be more formally herded and hefted to their grazing area than they are around Pushkar and there are bigger, mixed herds of cattle, goats and buffalo grazing in larger fields and watched over often by several people at once, usually women with children or older men and women with presumably their grandchildren. At other times they can be seen being herded the wrong way down the outside lane of the national highway or grazing the central reservation while their owners sit on the kerb with their legs dangling into the road but then again, cyclists, tuk tucks and even tractors also seem to drive where they like so it may well but perfectly acceptable behaviour!

As we neared Chittaugarh where the spectacular fort rises from the top of the sandstone hills and covers an area of several square km's and includes 100 temples, the soil turns red and in places, the fields have been ploughed by tractor. The soil is deep and it looks as though they may be going to plant a crop of potoatos as it is ridged up. It is common to see oxon ploughing in one field with a tractor, usually drawing a chisel plough, to be working alongside in another field. Tractors are normally the blue Farmhand, red Mahindra's, the red Massey Ferguson 1035 or another make called Raj something that escapes me although today I saw two John Deere's which are much less common.
It's hard to track our route exactly as once you get off the main highways, the place names are written in Hindi on concrete milestones on the verge but we stared climbing upwards with some amazing views over the flat plateau and into the distance. I think that once we got past Chittaugarh, we turned off the main highway and cut across country towards Bijolia where the spot height is 667m and then we were on single track, potholed and generally pretty dire roads for about 25 miles.

Now, I have to say, our driver was a very nice man and while we were on the main highway, his driving was pretty faultless. He even pulled over to answer his phone rather than carrying on a conversation while simultaneously rummaging in the glove box for something while overtaking 3 lorries, a tuk tuk and a herd of buffalo and we really though the driving genie had been put back in the bottle after the Jodhpur to Udaipur journey but no. With the cross country drive came the usual shenanigans. Actually, there had been one close shave on the N76 when a woman was walking her goat the wrong way down the outside lane and as the car came near, she called the goat and it started back towards her, crossing in front of the car as it responded. The driver slammed his brakes on, left a lot of rubber on the road and missed the goat by about 4 inches as it turned back in front of the car towards the passenger side where I was sitting and could see just how close a shave the goat had survived. It was well driven on his part but if he had slowed down a bit in the first place instead of adopting the usual method of driving up to something at 55mph and assuming it will move then we could all have gone happily on our way without incident. As it was, the goat was probably a bit shaken, the owner who probably only had the one and would have raised it from a kid in her own home would be feeling as if someone had nearly run over her child and Mary and Ali who were sitting in the back would have escaped mild whip lash.
The second near miss of the day came on a bit of single track toad where a crew of road menders were patching tarmac. A woman was shovelling grit into a hole and they had a two wheel cart with buckets of pitch on it, parked right in the middle of the road. As we approached, lurching from one lumpy bit of road to another, I started to think “you need to stop now, you need to stop NOW” ….and then he driver saw the cart and did stop. I think he was just in a daze or just concentrating on the people rather than what they were actually doing and missed the fact that there was something across the road.
To be fair to him, I was very impressed with his driving at one point as we were bowling along happily when the road came to an end. There was literally an 18 inch drop in level from tarmac to sand and the road continued about 30m ahead. An informal cut had been created where vehicles had gone round and this involved driving down a bank, along for 20m or so and then back up a bank again. It was only the equivalent of a verge width but the incline was really steep, probably about 1 :4 so there was a distinct possibility that the car would just dig it's nose into the ground. In a Landrover you wouldn't think anything of it and if the cut had been wider then you could probably have gone down at an angle and reduced the chances of digging-in but as it was the driver had to inch down slowly till the front wheels hit the track and then welly it up the other side. I was most impressed with his off roading skills considering a 1.4 litre Tata hatch back isn't the usual sort of vehicle you would do it in.

In general, I think the thing with this driving situation is quite simple when you think about it. In India, there is one way of driving and when the roads are busy, it isn't comfortable to the western traveller and when the roads are quiet, you wonder what the fuss is all about. However, I do sense a distinct tendency to speed up on smaller lanes and to drive as if everything is going to get out of your way. The number of dead cows and dogs on the way to Udaipur just shows that they don't always. You just have to accept that if you are going to go by car, you will get out with a twitchy right leg or else you just have to blindfold yourself and wear earplugs for the duration.
The drive down the last mile in to Bundi was spectacular as the road twisted back and forth between pavements of solid rock with a 1:6 gradient on the corners and a 1:8 everywhere else. Suddenly the fort and palace came into view, growing out of the side of the rock face and then we dropped down into the narrow road through the town to our hotel. The driver stopped and the sign said Kasera Heritage View. I had a suspicion it was the wrong one as the owners have two with similar names and sure enough it was, but the wife walked us round the corner to the Kasera Paradise and introduced us to her husband who showed us to our rooms and then up to the roof top where we had a quick drink and a sandwich. I was up for a wander to find somewhere to eat as the menu here is pretty much as it was in Udaipur and Jodhpur but Mary and Ali are shattered and a bit queasy from the journey so we opted to eat in.

The hotel is quite quiet as we are off the main road and on a very narrow alley type road and it is a haveli so has an open courtyard in the middle that runs up through all the floors of the building although there is a big grating over the hole outside my room so you can't fall down 3 floors. It doesn't bother me but Mary was glad to have the room on the next floor so she didn't have to walk over the grating as it gives her the heebie jeebies.
Unfortunatley,  the hotel isn't what we had hoped.  Ali's room is very dark and not somewhere you would want to spend the last two days of your holiday but when they move her the room she is given instead is even worse. It opens out onto the on the terrace (where the monkey's hang out!) and the bathroom is really dirty....not just a little bit grubby but really foul.   The whole hotel is quite dark, being  hemmed-in as it is by other buildings .My room is "OK" but I do have a resident cricket or two. I don't mind sharing but I will be hunting them down if they keep me awake with all that chirruping and hopping and I will need to kick out a few of those small beetles that come into the house on summer evenings when the lights are on and then get stuck in stupid places as a few came in (not sure how they got through the fly mesh) when we were at supper, attracted by the light I'd left on.
Mary and Ali were still feeling a bit shaken up by the bumpy drive here and didn't feel like eating so Ali  just had a drink and went to her room to read.  Mary also passed on food but ended up helping me to finish my rice and Palak paneer and felt a bit more human as a result. I think the mouse scuttling across the floor when we first went into the restaurant was probably the last straw for poor Ali. I must write a review on Trip Advosor when I get back! If the worst comes to the worst we can leave a day early if we can get hold of Sharma Travel and reschedule the taxi but hopefully everyone will feel a bit brighter in the morning and in the meantime I'll do a bit of scouting around for better places to eat. I must admit, having to get them to unlock the kitchen and then having the lady who cooks and the lady who serves sitting on the step watching as we eat is a bit disconcerting but I guess they just want to make sure we are happy as the legend on their website reads “The guest is God!” Hmnn, cleanliness is next to Godliness and we'd be very happy to settle for a room that doesn't  make your flesh creep when you open the door!

As per the review I had read on Trip Advisor, the décor of the whole place is a bit overblown, with black and white murals of camels and horses and Maharanas in howdahs on elephants painted on an ox blood red background. This may be a bit busy to wake up to (red isn't my favourite colour at the best of times unless there is a bit of green to off-set it) and the décor generally is a bit of a Heinz 57 but in my room, the windows are all made of sections of pale green and blue glass and are absolutely beautiful. It was out of one of these that I saw a monkey walking along the wall past my room, which is pretty much where we came in at the start of this blog entry!

Hear that? It's me letting out a long sigh. What a day of total tediousness this has been. No, that's an exaggeration, only in part at least.

It all started when I went to find out the cost of a taxi to get us to Bundi, our next stop. The bloke who deals with this had emailed me and said he could sort out transport for us and I left it (or so I thought,) that should we need it, we would ask. Within 5 minutes of arriving he was pressing me to book, and insisting I had said in my email that I would and when Ali went into the hotel shop yesterday he asked her to remind me to see him to make arrangements. This everso slightly annoyed me so I probably wasn't in the best frame of mind when approaching the situation this morning. If I'm brutally honest, I was probably spoiling for a tiny fight but when he quoted over 4500 Rupees I'm afraid I just had to tell him that was daylight robbery.

Fortunately I had the details of the other cars we have booked and rough road distances and cost per km but when he started asking me how far various places were and what rate I was basing his quote on I decided that it was getting silly. It's up to him to tell me, not vice versa and I really don't take kindly to people folding their arms and rolling their eyes heavenwards when I'm trying to do business with them so I politely thanked him for his help and said that all the advice given to travelers said haggle hard with hotels (that didn't work did it) and get comparisons so we would ask a couple of other tour operators to give us a price and come back if we wanted to book. Then he demanded that I tell him if we book with someone else so of course I shan't as I suspect he already has a taxi booked out to us.

The plan was to go to the City Palace and get the boat trip round the Lake Pichola (named after the village they drowned when the reservoir was made) and then go around the palace which we did but the level of pestering was high, the signs to get us where we wanted to go were intermittent and confusing and the security men posed on every gate only speak key words and not full sentences in English so it was a bit of a performance but we did eventually get to the boat.

I was disappointed that we saw so little wildlife as a lot of guides talk about it being a haven for creatures of all sorts and there may even be the odd alligator left in more remote parts of the lake although the boats dont' go that far across it. A kingfisher, a few small fish jumping clear of the water as they tried to catch midges and pond skaters, what I think was a Comorant but little else. We stopped off at Jagmandir Island which is now a hotel and conference venue, for 20 minutes and decline to pay 150 Rupees for a lime soda (Actually lemon juice and soda water) so hot and thirsty, we went to the Palace cafe for a drink... 87 R here as opposed to the normal 20-25 but it was that or dehydration.
Feeling bit less cooked, we went around the Palace which is lovely but has too many paintings of various princes spearing or shooting various animals for my taste but there were some beautiful views from the upper floors and at one point, an amazing bee swarm dangling precariously from under one of the windows.

We checked taxi pries at a couple of places on the way back and then went off in search of food. The boys were out to play again and there was a lot of pestering. It just gets tedious after a while. We tried one place for food but it was almost the same menu as the hotel and none of us can face that any more so we just had a drink and as luck would have it, we discovered he Edelweiss Cafe had tried on the way down and appeared to be closed, was actually open. In there was Sophie, a lovely Swedish girl who is also a tour operator. A quick phone call later and she had got us an air conditioned car for a drop off to Bundi for 3200 R. That is around 300R cheaper than the hotels final quote but we would have booked on principle even it if they had only matched the hotel price. She gave me the boss's phone number and said the car would be at the hotel a few minutes before 10am tomorrow so (as long as I all goes to plan,) we are sorted.

Not sure why I am being so stroppy today as I'm usually all bark and no bite but we all of us agreed that while we know people try to rip-off foreign tourists at times, having some pushy hotel bloke rolling his eyes at us like a Pantomime Dame with a look on his face that says “silly women” throws down a gauntlet that just has to be picked up !
Back to hotel, kettle on, relax.

We left our comfort zone and tried the Nature View restaurant down on Lal Ghat, as recommended by Sophie and it was really lovely. The sun was almost down and we went on to the rooftop terrace to eat and sat there for a while afterwards just chatting. By the time we left, I was almost ready for another layer of clothing so the temperatures are finally starting to drop after sundown.
As we watched the lake, some big birds flapped rather clumsily past on their way back to roost. They reminded me of rooks coming back to their home roost in the dusk. Ali was convinced that last night, she saw some huge bats and as we watched these birds lumber across the sky, their up and down flight could almost have been bat-like. My guess is that they are either big fat buzzards (but they don't go out and then come back together like that as far as I know) or maybe thy are a type of corvid like a rook or a crow but we decided in the end that they are vampire bats and that's why all the windows have mesh or screens over them and why you have to wear mosquito repellent or the mozzies will be attracted to you and then the vampire bats will follow them and get you instead!

We leave at 10am tomorrow so went back to pack and lo and behold, our new “best friend” was in the foyer of the hotel, waiting to pounce in the hope that we had drawn a black on a taxi and he could deliver the coup de grace and say the price had just gone up so Mary told him we had got a really good price that undercut him by at least 3p per km, the little minx. We'll really be eating humble pie if this taxi doesn't turn up in the morning!!!

Spent a happy half hour before bed downloading podcasts from the Radio 4 website (I'm afraid I just had to know what's been going on in the Archers since I've been away) and then packed my case to save time in the morning.

Tomorrow, taxi willing, we go on a nice 5 hour/277km drive to Bundi. Whether I have internet access there remains to be seen so I shall catch up with my blog when I can.

Woke at 7am, opened the curtains and yes, it's all still out there. The Red Kites are wheeling in the sky, the green parakeets that are so numerous in India that they are probably the equivalent of pigeons at home (although I've got those too and they have got a nest under my room window with one fat baby in it) are screeching in the trees and the Palm Squirrels are happily chirruping and scampering and doing whatever it is that Palm Squirrels do.

Ali was a bit off colour and decided to sleep in and Mary was also feeling "travel weary" settled herself in the shade of the terrace with a good book after breakfast and I spent a happy morning writing up the last few days for this blog, emailing home and downloading photo's while listening to the World Service instead of the Today programme. This threw me initially until I remembered that it was still 2am at home. I was a bit annoyed as the internet connection slowed down for a while and I missed Farming Today.
It's very deceptive here a the sky is often overcast and it looks like a cloudy summer day on Ullswater but when you open the window it is "full hot"!

We have exhausted the possibilities in the hotel restaurant and I am in need of something a bit more substantial and less bland than the dumbed down curries they serve up here so we are planning to wander down to Lal Ghat and try one of the places there and then have a look at the shops on the way back.The plan for tomorrow is to take a boat trip around the lake and then look around the City Palace. Mary has found out that the boat tours leave from there and you have to exit through the Palace so we may as well look around. She has also discovered that it serves “Real English Teas” so I think it could be interesting to try one and see what sort of an Indian slant they can put on it because somehow, they always do. Order a Chinese here and there will be a hint of cumin and loads of chilli so jam, creams and scones could turn out to be anything!
If there is time and if we can bear another half hour drive out of the city and back, we can also go to the Monsoon Palace on the hills overlooking the city for an evening visit to see the sun go down. It was built originally as an astronomical centre and then became a monsoon palace and hunting lodge but was abandoned when it was discovered there was no reliable water source there.

We went to a hotel near the ghat with an unpronounceable name that was 3 times the price of the hotels we usually eat at (i.e. a main course is £3 instead of £1) but it was a really good meal. We had a bit of a walk afterwards and discovered how to get to the City Palace but oh dear the little boys were out to play on their motorbikes and my word aren't they just so in love with themselves.
As you walk along comments vary from “Your country? ”My reply “Cranham”.
“You look very pretty tonight” (said to Alison) My suggested reply to her “ Slime ball” or “Hello, yes?”  My Reply “No!”
It can be a bit tedious after a while, especially when rickshaw drivers start to challenge you when you say no. I've had them follow me down the street saying “Why do you want to walk? It's not good for you. I'm very cheap” but I'm still going to get where I'm going and it's their own time they are wasting.
Here in Udaipur, there are many more policemen visible and tourists are encouraged to report “Eve teasing” if it gets out of hand. Generally it doesn't feel threatening as long as you don't mind being leered at but the contempt in which western women are held when out without a male chaperone is often palpable and a woman would be deluded to feel flattered by the attention. Just shut up and keep walking is the best way in the end.

After breakfast, we wander through the streets looking at the shops selling textiles and silver jewelry and the minature paintings on marble and silk that Udaipur is famous for. Then we go down to Lal Ghat which is very close to the hotel and watch people swimming and birds flying and a woman carefully laying out cheap silver chains that she hopes to sell to tourists in between swatting away the “sacred cows” that wander around, one of which is getting perilously close to trashing both her display and her newborn baby who is lying on a blanket next to it. She has two other small and filthy children with her, wearing half rags and their hair matted and dull and I wonder where they live and where that baby was born, right here maybe?
The pester level of traders is quite high and there are quite a lot of men hanging around who always ask you where you are from and try and engage you in conversation and then offer you anything from a cheap taxi to a good deal on health insurance...well, not really but you get the idea.

Being in the hills, Udaipur is a little cooler but the main difference is that the sky is often overcast and not the deep, cloudless blue we are used to in the dessert. Last night as we drove down into the city, the sun went down at an incredible rate like a huge, sinking, orange hot air balloon and sunset is probably half an hour earlier than Pushkar. We arranged to meet on the roof terrace at 6pm to see the sunset but although the sky went rose-grey, the haze and cloud blocked out the sun itself and a massive grey cloud that hinted a thunder turned it dark in literally two minutes flat. We ate up there and watched the lights of the Lake Palace and the hotels around the shore as they came on and reflected in the water.
This vist was planned intentionally as a rest and so we are doing as little as possible for the first couple of days and then do the sightseeing and shopping (getting ahead for Christmas!)on the last day or so.

We reach the top and enter the fort proper through the Lohapol (Iron) Gate. Here, there is an “exhibit” for want of a better word that is at the same time both poignant and rather revolting. Stamped on the walls each side of the gate and imortalised in orange paint are the pathetically tiny hand prints of 15 women. These are the “sati”left by the widows of Maharaja Man Singh's widows before throwing themselves onto his funeral pyre after his death in 1843. This is the fabled “self-immolation” of the Indian widow and they were the last Sati widows of the Jodhpur dynasty.
The fort itself houses a labyrinth of courtyards and palaces, all carved in intricate designs from the terracotta coloured stone and the views out over the city are incredible, even with the low haze of smog and mist that hung in the distance. Now and again we could hear an airplane taking off from the airport but the haze was too thick to see it although the view did clear a little as the sun got higher.

We walked back down to the hotel, arranged a tuk tuk and taxi to Udaipur for midday and had a drink while we waited. We were assured the taxi would be waiting for us. At noon, the tuk tuk arrived and took us on the crazy drive in reverse back to the Jalori gate and then we waited. No sign of a taxi. Darn I thought, this hasn't quite gelled the way I had hoped. Despite the number of tourists that pass through the city, white women traveling alone will always attract attention and sitting in the tuk tuk waiting for the taxi was a bit like sitting in a very hot goldfish bowl.
At last, the taxi arrived just before half past twelve and we were on our way with my small suitcase on the back seat between Mary and Ali as the car had no roof rack and the boot couldn't take all 3. Yesterday, on the way into the city, we were pulled over by a policeman who told the driver that it is illegal to have luggage on the roof of a car in the city. This led to an on the spot “fine” and was basically the policeman feeling a bit short of cash and deciding to do a bit of spontaneous wealth creation. I know that this was not an official fine because he refused the initial payment the driver offered him of 20 Rupees and settled on 30 instead. I asked at the hotel if there was a law covering luggage and he said no but this sort of bribery and baksheesh culture still holds sway in India and the police and other officials are apparently consummate practitioners of it. I haven't had much news of the Commonwealth Games other than what I read on the old newspapers when cleaning out the cats but from what I have seen, you will probably be familiar with this from reports of backhanders and the apparent corruption that led to the shambles in the building of the Commonwealth village e.t.c.

So, we were off on another 5 hour journey and heading for Udaipur. I plugged my iPod into my ears and selected a play list of Show of Hands that I had put together to last the journey and prepared for a pleasant ride. If you had told me before we set off that I would have got through Roots, Beat about the Bush, Witness, Cold Frontier, the entire audience recording of the Exeter 2009 gig and a few other assorted live recordings and Radio interviews I would have said you had over-estimated the journey time by 50% . As the road signs are mostly in Hindi, it was hard to track our progress but I found it surprising that we kept turning off main routes onto smaller roads. I thought that perhaps the driver knew a cut through as he was local but after 5 1/2 hours which had consisted of mainly pothole, goat, cow, occasionally sheep and very occasionally, camel dodging on said single track lanes, interspersed with waiting at level crossings, I spotted a milestone that said Udaipur 128km. That was about 80 miles by my reckoning and the entire journey was meant to be around 260km (162 miles) I found it rather worrying that we were only half way there. Things went from bad to worse when we finally hit a main trunk route and he started doing that thing where they straddle the white line, beep their horn and seriously consider that it's OK to try and overtake 3 buses, 2 scooters and a herd of buffalo when there is a lorry coming towards us flashing his lights which in India “means coming ready or not”.

I get to ride in the front because I'm the one least likely to start screaming when the man we are paying to get us safely to our destination makes a decision that could possibly kill us BUT on more than one occasion, I found myself pressing my right foot into the floor of the car with a reasonable degree of force.
The horn on the other hand is used to warn people and animals that you are behind them and to please stay put or move over and give room to pass. The legend on the back of most lorries and tractors is “Horn please, at night use dipper, wait for side”. My irritation grew when he started beeping his horn at old women sitting on the side of the road, small children playing on the verges and men standing on the side of the road who clearly had no intention of trying to cross unless they were going to throw themselves in front of the car at the last second.
The last half an hour of the journey was up the side of a mountain and down the other side where we overtook a string of buses and lorries time and time again by the skin of our teeth. At this point, the drier switched tactics and kept trying to overtake, only to find a lorry bearing down on us so he braked hard but stayed halfway across the right hand carriageway leaving the lorry just enough room to pass without taking the side of the car out.
By now, I was almost at the point of telling him to get out and let me drive but being far to polite and “British” to say anything.
After 7 hours, we limped into Udaipur and there, at a major T junction, was a right turn to Jodhpur on the national highway. The complete numbskull had done the equivalent of drive from London to Gloucester on country lanes which I confirmed later by looking at the location of a few place names I could remember on the map and if it wasn't for the fact we had already paid, I would probably have given him a 100Rupee tip for pulling it off and then promptly stuffed it down his throat for trying!

The hotel we are staying at is called Mewar Haveli and is right on the lake in Udaipur. It is modern with AC in the rooms, towels, bog roll, wonderful views and totally makes up for the journey from hell. The staff are a bit too fussy and attentive and I felt rather smothered but at least they appear not to have a death wish when operating the lift. The best bit is that although they don't have wi fi, I have found that the hotel across the lake from here has a wi fi network that my netbook will connect to so I have cranked up the firewall and security levels and have 4 days of internet access to catch up on this blog, email friends and family and (sad little person I am) listen to Radio 4 which I do miss.
We went to the restaurant, had something to eat and then crashed....thank goodness that was the only sort of crashing we did today but believe me, there were a few moments when it was a close thing!

I am sitting in a beautifully “muralled” room at the top of Singhvi's Haveli, perched on the hillside in Jodhpur after a relatively easy 4 hour drive from Pushkar. Through my window I can see the iconic blue houses of the city and above it, less than 300m as the crow (or rather as the kites and swifts that are circling above it) flies, is the fort, growing almost organically from it's huge rock base as if it is a part of the natural landscape.
It is searingly hot and so Mary and I grabbed a quick lunch downstairs in the restaurant and will emerge again from our respective rooms like two Mrs. Merryweathers on a weather predictor, when it is cooler.

We left Pushkar at 9.30am and arrived at 1.30pm. The drive is only 200km (125 miles using Martins method of divide by 8 and multiply by 5) but because of the frequent pot holes, sections of un-metaled road, wandering livestock and two dead cows to negotiate our way around, the traveling time is around double that of a journey back home. The drive up and through the hills beyond Pushkar is very picturesque with sheer rock faces and a winding road and then it levels into a flat plain with deeper, more fertile soil and I saw maize being grown for the first time as well as the usual crops of millet. The fields are full of round stacks of winter fodder, made up of sheaves of dry millet stems that have been cut by hand using a sickle and then bound and stacked by hand. This job is usually done by women with their babies and children parked under shelters made of sticks and sari fabric they bring to the field with them each day on their heads and has been going on in the fields around the hospital for the entire time we have been there.

We can't drive right up to our hotel because the roads to it become narrower and narrower until they are only 8 feet wide in places so scooters or tuk tucks are the only option. Fortunately I picked up an email from the hotel owner just before we left and he had warned me so the driver got us as far as the Jalori Gate and then we took a tuk tuck from there, 3 of us plus 3 cases squeezed in like sardines. The drive would be hair-raising if we hadn't done similar things before and were prepared for the sheer organised chaos of the thing. Scooters, tuk tucks and pedestrians , plus cows, dogs and the occasional small, hairy pig dart and weave and usually, (although not always if the dunts on various vehicles are anything to go by), manage to get where they are going in one piece. I suspect the driver ripped us off at 100 Rupees (around £1.50-ish) but not having had time to research prices before we left, we paid and were grateful not to have had to lug cases the half mile or so through that lot. I will get the hotel to arrange one for the return trip and I know it will be a lot cheaper.

As usual, the mode and method of arrival instill a little apprehension as to what we will find but the place is an absolute gem and I can see why it was the “author's choice” of budget accommodation in the Lonely Planet guide. For an overnight stop when impact is important it has it all...views, character, a reasonably quiet position and wonder of wonders, toilet paper and towels! Bog roll is never supplied unless you go quite up-market and is usually bought from small stalls or corner shops for around 30-50Rupees. It doesn't last long either as the cardboard roll inside is massive.

Some more things I had forgotten about India.....

The near misses when overtaking motorbikes into the path of oncoming lorries.
The casual way passengers throw litter out of bus windows.
The unfathomable method of navigation when there are no road names and precious few road signs when it matters.
The fact that India must have the highest number of puncture repair shops along it's highways per head of population of any country in the world...but then if you could see their roads you would know why!
The way lumps of stone double up as traffic cones whenever there is a seriously big pot hole, road works, the road simply stops dead or when a vehicle has broken down on the outside lane. I bet the stones directly relate to the number of puncture repair shops as they are rarely moved altogether when the hazard has ended.

Joke was very upset this evening as, despite her best efforts, one of the remaining two puppies died and Sharda was distraught as Serena, who she is very close to, leaves today. By the time we left for our meeting at 3.30pm, there had been a few tears shed all round.
I, on the other hand, am happy/sad because my lovely E7 is due for release tonight. She is a black and tan, hind leg amputee and has become a good friend of mine. I shall miss her but it's fantastic to know she is healed, well and going home.

We had a very constructive meeting with Rachel at Dia, the lovely B&B where Serena is staying, just a few hundred yards further down the road from us but we didn't get back till gone 7pm so there was just time for a rushed pizza at Little Italy next door and then back to the hotel to pack, wash clothes and empty the room as tomorrow, we are off traveling. For once, we didn't get the usual evening power cut. India has many on a regular basis, lasting anything from 2 minutes to an hour or so because at peak time, the demand is so high that they have to stagger the power supply. It is just a part of life and most hotels have either a generator or a stash of car batteries under the stairs as Ratan Haveli has. These are quickly connected up and can just about provide enough energy to run a single light bulb and (thankfully), a ceiling fan in each room.

Rachel was holed up all day with a policeman who was interrogating her as part of, no, not some international veterinary drug smuggling operation, money laundering or an illegal hooch still behind the operating theatre but a simple passport application for her 6 month old daughter Mahi. Rachel will be coming to the UK a few days after we return and will bring Mahi with her and apply for a British passport for her there but needs to be able to take her out of India. What should be a simple case of filling in a few forms and getting a photograph taken turns into a massive interrogation in India where they have to prove her maternity and paternity in case she has been baby trafficked or is the product of some sort of illegal surrogacy arrangement. They even want to speak to Annu's parents (Rachel's in-laws). After much to-ing and fro-ing for various documents,(and who knows maybe even a suggestion that a few Rupees will speed the process??!!), he leaves with a promise to return the following day. As a result, our planned trustees meeting (Serena, Mary and I making up a quorum of TOLFA UK Trustees)has to be postponed to tomorrow when we are already pushed for time with packing and so on ready for our weeks traveling.

I took the pups today and did the feeding, intending to take them back with me tonight and do the night feeds but when I saw Rachel she said that unless we really wanted to, they can be left at TOLFA as the night staff feed them. The other volunteers had been under the impression that it was down to us to feed them or it wouldn't get done which can't be right as there are no end of pups going through the shelter when there are no volunteers so I asked her to clarify the whole puppy situation. A lot of volunteers jump at the chance to do it but it is totally voluntary. Much as I love puppies, I really am not that attached to two hourly feeds all night and then walking dogs all day afterwards if it can be done as part of normal staff duties so I passed on night feeds and Joke, who had been under the impression that she would be left holding the baby, literally, when we take out week off, was relieved and decided to do the day feeds and have them a couple of times a week at night only. It was Joke's day off so Bob and Sharda walked her dogs and I rushed about feeding pups and kittens between dog walks. E7 is still here so I took her for yet another final, final walk and a sit under the acacia tree.

Bob is a “fix it” man, the type of bloke who gets things done. He is a businessman from Birkenhead and comes to India a lot for his work. He is staying at a rather good hotel in Ajmer and inevitably ends up in the bar after work. Last night, he met a very nice Indian man and got talking to him about TOLFA and offered to show him round. The man duly arrived today and was so impressed that he asked if there was something he could do to help. Emer had mentioned earlier on that it is annoying not having any way to quickly warm up fluids for IV drips and so, off the top of his head, Bob said a microwave would be useful. The man went away and returned within the hour with his wife and a brand spanking microwave complete with starter kit of microwave-safe jugs, bowls and dishes! I came in just as he delivered it so was able to thank him on behalf of the trustees.

We were almost finished this evening when one of the boys came in and told Emer there was a bitch in the rescue kennels starting to whelp. She went to check and found that the puppies were dead and decomposing and she was unable to whelp her so took her into theatre for a caesarean. She will die without surgery but due to the toxicity levels in her body, she may well not survive but Dr. Ashok said give it a go so she operated and spayed her at the same time so that, if she does survive, she won't need to go through further surgery later on.

Supper was at Om Shiva where they do an Indian buffet for 80 Rupees which is good and fast but a bit dumbed down in terms of spiciness for the tourist trade which is a shame. On the way home, we went to the internet shop and I emailed the hotel we will be staying at on Sunday to finally confirm our booking. Unlike Bob, we have no access to alcohol in Pushkar as it is totally “dry” (unless you know where to go) and totally vegetarian other than milk products (unless you know who to ask for eggs.... I still don't know how they manage to make pancakes without them????!) so I went back to my room and put the kettle on, safe in the knowledge that Bob was in the bar at his hotel drinking....I mean, networking, on our behalf!

It was Ruth and Natalie's last day so we arranged for the taxi to pick us up outside Seventh Heaven at 9am an all went to Honey and Spice for breakfast.

I fed the kitten as soon as I got to TOLFA and she is doing well although it would be nice to get her either on to a bottle or lapping rather than having to syringe feed her but that's a minor detail as long as she is taking food.
E7 is still waiting for release as the rescue vehicle is flat out and until we get a second vehicle, release and rescue is always a bit of a balancing act. We went for a final, final walk together (she is my favourite dog) and sat under an Acacia tree in the shade sharing a biscuit.
The kitten was due another feed at 12.30 and I was just about to go to lunch at 1pm when an owner dog came in, It was a Doberman puppy, pretty thin and with a nose that was so putrid with rot and maggots that the skin was black and full of holes. Natalie get her into the prep room, knocked her out and, with Mary assisting, started the slow task of cleaning the wound, assessing the damage and then painstakingly removing the maggots with forceps one by one. They were right up in the nasal cavity as far as the bridge of the nose and the nasal bones had been destroyed so that the left and right nostril were now a single cavity.
It took well over half an hour and there are no guarantees she will survive but eventually she was put on a drip and then placed in a kennel and now we wait.

After lunch I did the cats and then fed kitten again at 3.30. Interesting the things you learn when cleaning out cat cages! They are lined with newspaper and at the moment we are working our way through a huge pile of The Times of India dated 30^th September. Apparently some poor Tory M.P. Has just discovered his Brazilian wife of 7 years was a prostitute before he met her and she has “gone back to work” since he was elected in May. Apparently she works Thursdays and Fridays and covers for a friend on her day off. Prices in the range of £40-£70 in case you wanted to know. Her husband was quoted as saying “That's quite a shock. Thank you for telling me” when approached by a reporter.
Meanwhile, at least a third of the worlds species are endangered but you will be glad to know that there is a rat, who's proper name escapes me, that has been re-discovered after 30 years of no-shows, which is good.
In India, there is a big poster campaign in the papers reminding people that with rights come responsibilities and not to drop litter or spit in the street. Judging by the piles of rubbish and the volume of phlegm and paan (chewing tobacco) stains around here, the news has yet to filter through to Pushkar!

I happened to mention my squeaky fan when I got back to the hotel. Within half an hour, there was a knock at my door and man came in, stood on a precarious pile of tables and stools and oiled the fan, decided it was indeed the bearings and said he'd be back by 9pm with the new bits. Mary and I had a pre-trustee meeting with Serena so we went up to the roof terrace to go through the agenda and Mary fed the pups which she has got for the evening and then we popped out for a quick supper. By the time we returned at 8.40pm, the man was sitting on the floor of the hotel foyer, surrounded by bits of my fan and ten minutes later, it was back in one piece, bolted back in place and running sweetly and silently.
India can drive you man. “I will meet you at 8am” means “You will still be waiting and 9.15am”, everyone rushes around slowly,tooting their horns and going nowhere fast and it takes at least 10 people to dig a hole in the road and then fill it up again but where in England could you get a ceiling fan replaced after 5pm on a Wednesday?!

Rachel grabbed me when we arrived this morning and said there is a new kitten in that is about 2 weeks old and needs feeding every 3 hours so that's my job as “cat lady”. It's a tiny tortoiseshell female whose eyes are just open and seems pretty well other than a bit of a grazed pad on one foot. She is being fed on milk and mashed egg yolk from a syringe. I managed to find a towel to wrap up into a sausage around the edge of her basket because she was yelling blue murder and was obviously scared and lonely without her siblings and Mum and when I went back to give her the second feed, she was curled up under a fold of it so I think that helped. Rachel is doing the evening feeds but I can always bring her back with me at night if she needs a break.

The boys were going to the cinema this evening so most of the volunteers went too but Natalie stayed back to fed the puppies and I, in all honestly would rather cut my own throat that sit through a Bollywood film in Hindi. I should have pitched up just for the experience but (as with “shopping with the girls”) it's just not my thing and as my new years resolution was to continue with the previous years resolution of saying “No!!!” to things I don't want to do without (so much of) the guilt, I exercised my prerogative to be a miserable,anti-social old baggage. Mary popped in around 10pm and said it was an hysterical experience (I bet it was) but she was pretty shattered and ready for bed. I had an early supper, caught up on my blog and generally pottered about doing “stuff”.

All my dogs are looking good after my day off and were pleased to see me. It's amazing how quickly they bond to the volunteers at the time but I am under no illusions that they are a fickle bunch and when we are gone,they will respond to the next volunteers just the same once they get to know them. Having said hat, there is always a little piece of them that is feral and as soon as you get them out on a lead for exercise, you cease to be that important to them. You are just the anchor at the end of the lead that happens to go along for the ride when they are out, sniffing, catching grasshoppers and generally reconnecting with the world outside their kennel and if you happen to have a pocket full of biscuits then all well and good. If you don't, you will probably be marginally less interesting to them than squashed, dried toads and other bits of tasty, “mortified monkey” (as my old Gran called it)that they manage to find as they brevitt about in the field margins.
I have a new dog in E5, a young black and white male with a compound fracture that is open from hock to pastern. The bone is in fragments in places so once he is stable he will be scheduled for amputation. This seems very drastic and in the UK, an injury like this would often be pinned and plated but here where we have no xray and the cost of the operation, not to mention the problems of having to keep dogs in the hospital for weeks at a time until the “hardware” can be removed, just makes this unviable. For the dogs sake, it is often kinder to amputate and get hem healed and mobile and back home than it is to try and save a badly damaged limb. I am constantly astonished at the way these dogs adapt to being a “tripod”. They just seem to pick up where they left off.

I have christened E13 Dave. He's been a nameless wonder for far too long and he is an utter “bloke”. I can just see him sitting in front of the TV with his mates, watching re-runs of Top Gear with a larger or two. He's a funny bloke is our Dave. He is territorial and can't be left in the company of other dogs despite his blindness and yet when he is out of the compound, he isn't bothered by their proximity and there are one or two dogs that, growl as they may, simply don't get a reaction from him. He is happy to have company but when he's out and about you may as well not be there for all the attention he pays you but what really floats his boar is grasshopper hunting. Considering he is totally blind and he does it all by sound and smell, his accuracy is pinpoint and it is a rare day that Dave comes back from a walk without at least 6 under his belt (or in his tummy more like). The grasshoppers in the countryside around us are two types. There is a tan and green, large and hopping type and the dull brown and boring type that suddenly spread out bright orange wings and fly off with a clatter. It is the former that all the dogs seem to favour and they crunch them up with relish. As long as Dave gets his 20 minutes grasshopper hunting each morning, he is a happy chap and I know it is a big part of his quality of life so Dave is always first out and gets the longest time being walked. We are, however, going to start fund raising to build a house and large run for Dave and other dogs like him in the future who need to stay with us as shelter dogs because of a disability but can't be integrated into the main pack.
He had a bit of a shock today though. There was a dead snake on the track, not a very big one, probably about 12” long. As we were walking back I was just about to say “Mind the snake Dave” (as you do) when he put his foot straight on it. For a blind dog, his other senses are spot on and reactions are split second. He literally jumped 3 feet in the air, vertically and then sideways towards me like a Harrier jump jet. The snake had probably been dead for 12 hours or more so it begs the question has Dave come into contact with snakes before, was it just a horrible sensation underfoot that we wanted to get away from or is reptile avoidance hard-wired? Whatever it was, it was pretty impressive!

The cats obviously missed me yesterday as I got a purr from “Sparks” the electrocuted cat. He is turning into a real sweetie and is more and more trusting of me which is very satisfying. The little feral kitten is also improving. He doesn't want to be picked up but now steps onto my shoulder and rubs his face against mine although as with most kittens, he still has a fascination with eyes so I have to watch out for a paw dabbing at my face every once in a while.
Porridge met Shahid and Kitekat again and there was a bit of posturing but nobody followed through and they all ended up sitting on various vantage points (Shahid in the gutter, Kitekat on an old suitcase and Porridge on the feed bin) psyching each other out. Hopefully I can get him integrated soon as he is fit and healthy and really needs to get out of the cage.

We brought the volunteers trunk back with us this evening that is basically a metal trunk filled with things previous volunteers have left behind for others to use if they need them....fly repellent, diarrhoea tablets and books, books and more books. This was good news to me as I tend to get through books very quickly and hate being without something to read so I am now stocked up and ready for our weeks holiday.

Our day off although Alison had nobly volunteered to work today and take Monday off so Joke wasn't on her own with all the dog walking. I was awake at 6am and made a cup of coffee around 7.20 and then went back to bed and dozed till 8am when I got up and walked to Honey and Spice via the bookshop. Mary had a lie in and met me half way through breakfast and then we went to the internet shop to catch up on emails, did a bit of vital shopping (toilet rolls don't come as standard in hotel rooms. It is important to know this or you can get caught out!) and then went back to the hotel till meeting for a late lunch at the Mango Tree at 1.30. I spent the heat of the afternoon writing up my diary and reading and generally doing nothing although I did do a load of washing (bucket supplied in every room at no extra charge).

The others came back at the usual time and said that sadly one puppy had died overnight, one during the morning and there was another bitch puppy who had been given extra fluids but probably wouldn't survive so we may be down to just two dogs in the morning who so far look fine and are drinking well from the bottle.

Mary and I decided to give Moondance another chance and the food was much better. There were fireworks going off like mortars in the street and loads of chanting. Apparently it is a 2 week festival an they will be carrying on like this for the whole time.They also only use candles to light their houses for the duration (I have a torch in case this applies to hotels too!). All day there were processions and trucks with carnival type floats depicting various deities and of course all this was accompanied by music playing so loud that when one truck drove by, I could literally feel the bed shaking as I sat on it and my cup of tea shook in it's mug. It was followed by a procession of people, small children first. I'll swear they want their kids to be deaf by the time they are 30!
The next big festival is Diwali in November and this is the equivalent of Christmas and an excuse to spend another 2 weeks letting off fireworks with no sparkly bits that go off like mortars in the street. Can't wait!

Bob arrived today, a long-standing supporter of TOLFA who often comes to India on business and tries to fit in a bit of volunteering at the same time. He bowled up laden with gadgets, batteries, dog leads and collars (always in desperate demand) and heaven knows what else and proceeded to sit outside the office making up useful stuff. It was Bob who, in response to seeing one of the long term paralysis dogs, made a trolley for it to get about on during it's rehab. He's a useful bloke is “Gadget Bob”!

The day started badly as Mojo, one of the shelter dogs who is very old (in street dogs terms) and very timid and usually lives outside Rachel's house, started to fit and had to be brought down for tr4eatment. She spend the day in the shade of the Jasmine trellis outside the office with Bob who sat with her while she was on a drip. By the end of the day she was stable but not really improved. We also lost a dog, literally. E5 who was one of the dogs that came in with Rickets had been out in the yard by the food prep room, getting a bit of sun as he had been cold and after he'd been given fluids, he was put out there to warm up. He was still there when we left last night and normally “the boys” would bring him in to his kennel once the feeding and cleaning out was done but when they came to get him, he was gone.
We searched everywhere, including the loo in case he had got too warm and had gone in there to lie on the cool of the tiled floor but no sign of him. He can walk but he's not exactly Zola Budd so it's unlikely he had got that far. The staff who were on last night are off today so Rachel couldn't ask them till later on but she even checked the “mortuary” in case he had died overnight. The only thing she could think of was that he had died between 5 and 6am in which case his body would already have been disposed of but I'm not convinced because he was much brighter. It''s a mystery and it's horrible to think that something has happened to him and we don't know where he is.

At the end of the day, a box arrived with 5 liver and white puppies in it. They are less than 10 days old because their eyes are still closed and their ears are flat so they will need feeding every two hours. Nathalie injected them all with multi vitamins and fluids and then Joke, Ali and I started feeding them with cows milk (all we have at the moment and not ideal because of the lactose content) . We took them home with us complete with heat pad and feeding bottle and Ruth had them in her room overnight so she could feed them. One didn't look well at all and there is a chance that some of them may die fairly quickly but that's no reason not to try.
I have also got a new cat in the puppy/cat block, a ginger and white kitten who was attacked by dogs. He is virtually healed now and has some residual nerve damage so he occasionally lags a leg behind him but with exercise he is getting better and better. He's a sweet little bloke and really friendly so now I have 8 to get out for individual attention each day.

Lunch was a longer affair than usual as today is the start of a religious festival (don't ask me which but it's the one before Diwali. They seem to have one nearly every week). Sharda has been fasting for 2 weeks and is only allowed to eat in the evenings so added to a chest infection, she hasn't been her usual beautiful and smiley self. Today, the men have to cook a meal so all the boys were rushing off for lunch and Sharda's brother, Manoj, was doing the meal...a special dahl, rice and chapati followed by rice pudding with nuts and cardomum, a kind of sweet paratha bread and a sort of bread pudding with spices and nuts. All the children in the extended family came in all dressed up and Sharda looked beautiful in an aquamarine and silver sari. The children sat in a circle and had a special meal and then we had the pudding with them. Getting back to work after that lot was a bit of a struggle!

We all met up with Serena for supper at Seventh Heaven after work and Rachel came too. A much improved experience on last time. The insects, greatly reduced although still around, were more of a garnish than a main course.

Usual dog walking routine on the morning which includes grasshopper hunting with E13 and E10, a black and tan bitch with ligament damage to her back right leg which means she can't use it. It's been put in a cast which didn't work and then bandaged which also failed and if it doesn't improve then it will be amputated. The difficulty with casts and bandages in this climate is that they get damp and then the skin starts to break down. She is a very happy dog despite being on 3 legs , is the one who demands the most and fastest exercise and has an amazing strike rate on grasshoppers. She stalks them in the grass, waits for them to hop and then pounces on them while they are tangled up in the grass and can't hop away again. These are serious grasshoppers we are talking about , being tan and green in colour and anything from 2 to 3” in length. The supplementary protein must be a good thing and she enjoys them if the look on her face is anything to go by as she chomps them with a satisfying crunch!

The cats are all coming on well and Porridge has now met both “office cats”, Shahid, a big tabby male and Kitekat, a sandy tabby female who is besotted with Shahid and gets very worried if he goes off on a hunting trip for a couple of days without leaving her a note. They tend to hang out in the food prep. area so I just take Porridge in and let him loose with the gate shut and let them skirt round each other. The cats are free to come and go because there are two gutters built into the eaves of the building and they use these as an aerial walkway to get outside although Shahid just as often lies upside down in them, fast asleep.

Yet more maggot wounds came in today plus several dogs with bad Rickets. Emer was on her day off and when we arrived back at the hotel, she gave the taxi driver a plastic bag and asked him to drop it off at the hospital as he lives 200m along the road. In it was a small Palm squirrel (little stripy fellows that look like skinny chipmunks)., It was a juvenile and had been attacked by two bigger ones and had several bite wounds. He ran off but Emer followed him and when he collapsed in a little stripey heap she was able to pick him up and have a look at him.
We were finished by 4.15pm but had to wait till well gone 5pm for the taxi to arrive which was a bit galling as he sailed past at 5pm with another fare from Ajmer. He usually has to wait for us as we are always late so I guess you cant blame him for trying to squeeze in a bit more work and it was just bad luck he picked the one day we were early.

E 12 and E 14 were in for ABC today. E12 is healing well so he will probably not be in for much longer and I can't believe the rate of healing of E14's maggot wound. H3 , my new maggot wound dog, who is a very cheerful sort of bloke is also coming along nicely and is very cooperative with his treatment. Meanwhile, Grizzly Adams is doing amazingly and the swelling is going down considerably. I suspect there really is an eye in there under all that gore as Rachel suggested when he came in but we really won't know till the swelling has gone down completely.
E9 the anorexic black and tan bitch with TVT is now going out into the paralysed yard after her breakfast of Parle G biscuits, toast and milk and can lie in the sun and get some exercise. The sand is quite aggressive on the wounds but in some ways this is good as it is cleaning them up nicely and abrading the necrotic tissue so that I have a nice clean wound to treat in the morning. It is also much more cushioning on her poor bony little body than the concrete of the kennel, even though she has a fleece blanket to lie on. She has to come in at tea time because the day/night temperature differential is starting to show and it won't be long before it gets really cold at night, sometimes down tofreezing as the dessert winter kicks in. That is really hard to imagine at the moment!

I took some photos of all my treatment dogs and comparing them with the fist day, it is really good to see the improvements. E2 the owner Doberman is now down to 2 incision wounds that were made for the pus to drain when the maggot wound under-ran his entire loin area and they are now virtually closed up so he may be released sooner than I thought, especially as he is gaining weight and getting very active and a bit “goofy” as a result. It is interesting through that as soon I get out the topical gel to treat his wound, he goes very still and stands solid as a rock for me to apply it which is a good sign that the treatment I still appropriate for him.
Today was Joke's day off so Serena walked her dogs and helped Sharda do “extra feeding” at lunchtime for those animals that are weak or thin. This usually consists of a mix of milk, hard boiled eggs and Pedigree Puppy food to give extra protein.

I was just  bit weary and footsore by the end of the day, rather than tired and we were all feeling pretty similar so decided to have supper at The Mango Tree which is only 100m down the road but service was slow and so we didn't get back till gone 9pm. So much for an early night. I had a whacking great spinach pizza, working on the theory that as I'm nearly a stone and a half lighter than this time last year, I probably don't have the energy reserves I used to and need to up the energy levels from food a bit so we shall see if the theory works or not tomorrow. I suspect I'm just lacking meat protein because I'm hard-wired for the stuff but in all honesty, (and in the safe and secure knowledge that I'm going home to a freezer full of home produced meat) I rarely miss it as I purposely avoid dishes that are usually meat based but made with things that are pretending to be meat. This includes Tofu, which has got to be the most pointless and tasteless thing on earth, next to paneer which is described as Indian cottage cheese but is basically milk, curdled with lemon juice and cut into chunks. It's like Mozzarella but even more tasteless and doesn't melt whatever you do to the stuff.

When I got in to work this morning Rachel warned me that the GSD had died overnight but because he was an owner dog, they had to leave him in his kennel till the owner had been contacted. I went to see him and there was so little dog there now the spark had gone. He was so thin that every bone showed, even the ridge down the centre of the scapula. It was piteous and a totally unnecessary death of a dog who was meant to be taken care of. He was only 4 years old. In this case, the neglect wasn't directly on the part of the owner but sometimes the street dogs have it better than the owner dogs and I still wonder if the definition “owner” dog doesn't always mean “pet” in the context that we know it.

I sat with a new dog for a while, yet another maggot wound and bowed front legs from Rickets. He needed fluids and then we put him outside in the shade of the kitchen yard to get some fresh air and a bit of warmth as he was very cold.

One of the cats is an owner cat but has been abandoned and Rachel suggested that I take him to the kitchen/food prep area where the two shelter cats hang out and start introducing him to them gradually for a few minutes every day as he will stay at the shelter. He's a lovely tabby and white and very friendly although he has a bad habit of digging his claws into your legs and using you as a climbing frame but I'm working on that. He's going quietly crazy in a cage and is starting to yowl and pace so the sooner I can get him out the better and I try and spend plenty of time with him each day, making a fuss of him and getting him to play with a ball of rolled up newspaper which he loves to chase around the puppy block. I have named him Porridge in honor of Mary who always has porridge for breakfast. I am sure she will be flattered when I tell her.
All the other cats are friendly now, even the tiny feral kitten who doesn't like to be picked up but loves to rub his face against mine and to be tickled under the chin. He does have a fascination with eyes, as many kittens do so as his cage is at eye level on the top tier, it's important to watch out for a paw coming my way.
They still haven't managed to get round to taking blood from Sparky (the electrocuted cat) so his eye ulcer is still an issue but he is coming on in leaps and bounds temperamentally, purring when he sees me and demanding to be tickled under the chin. His coat is starting to shine and although his front leg stumps aren't totally healed, he is much more active and is using them to get around on.

We were all really tired this afternoon and I hit a brick wall around 3pm. It felt like mid way through lambing after several really late nights and busy days in a row. The heat and humidity has dragged us all down a bit and I think this is just adjustment but we were all glad to finish work today.
The good bit of the day however was when Serena Schellenberg, a fellow TOLFA UK trustee arrived. She is only here for 2 weeks but it is always good to see her and she is good for morale. Unfortunately she isn't feeling 100% herself so just popped in for a short spell to say hello and then went back to the Seventh Heaven Haveli where she stays when she is over her to rest up and get over the jet lag. Mary, Serena and I will have a mini trustees meeting with Rachel while we are over here and catch up on some “business” as it is so much easier to talk about the place when we are actually here and can see what we are discussing and the impact the trustees decisions have on the ground.