Well, I'm now in India and I'm having a fantastic time, but gettinghere was a bit of a journey.

My flight from Bangkok was at 5am. I decided not to take a room and instead spend the cash on having a massage and my nails done. The last dayin Bangkok was great.

At the airport, I found that my flight had been delayed until 6. Icouldn't check in until after 3 so I just had to sit and wait for acouple of hours. Then I Checked in and had to wait another couple ofhours. I also found that I had to pay a departure tax, and I didn'thave enough baht, so I had to change money, which was also annoying,because the American dollar has fallen, while the Aussie dollar isstill going strong.

Anyway. The filght was miserable. It was full to the brim with annoying, immature indian men, and their was no airconidtioning. The men talked and laughed all the way and got in the way of the air hostess and talked down to her and though it was funny. I was generally tired and unhappy when I got to Delhi at about 9am.

It was freezing, like 10 degrees. I had to wait for a bus in the cold.The bus came and shuttled me into the city with about 100 indians andtheir luggage spilling the doors and windows. I went to the train station and waited in the office for foreigners to buy a ticket to Dehra Dun for about an hour before being informed that their were no tickets leftfor the train that I wanted to catch that arvo.

So I left and went across town to the bus station. Which was crazy. No one spoke english and there were no signs. Just people yelling and shouting. I had to approach millions of bus drivers to try and find the right bus. The bus itself wasn't so bad. But as soon as I fuond it, it left, and I thought I would have time to go the loo, so I had to travel the first 3 hours while busting to go to the loo.

It was crowded and they gave me a seat right behind the driver. Atfirst I though that this was great, becuase it had a great view, but I had forgotten that people in India don't indicate, they blow their horns. This was the loudest horn I've ever hear and I felt like my ears were bleeding after about an hour.

I finally got the the end of the line and then found a auto-richshaw to take me to skye's hospital. It was freezing and i travelled for about 1 hour in the open with the biting wind in my legs and face.

But I finally made it, and ever since I've been here it's been great. The hospital is far out in the country and the people are all very warm and welcoming.

It's so great to see Skye. She's having the most amazing experience. And we've been having so much fun. We went into town today and at ourselves silly, walked through the makets, and had a lot of laughs. People here just stare at us. So we've been staring back and pointing and giggling ourselves. It's great.

She showed me around the hospital where she was working. I went on rounds with some of the doctors. What they're doing is amazing. And what Skye is doing is amazing as well. She's really found a groove there. I certainly couldn't face a lot of the things that she was dealing with on a day to day basis. It was just so cool to see her working there.

We took a bus to the northern town of Mossourie, which was amazing. We traveled up in the evening and as we approached the top of the mountain, the lights of the city blended into the stars.

It was an amazing town with tiny winding streets. Yesterday, Skye and I rose at 5:30 and did an hour climb before sunrise, so that we could see it come up over the Himilayas. On our way up the hill we passed two churches as well as Sikh and Hindi temples that were both putting out calls to prayer. The Sikh one was quite amusing, as the man turned on the microphone, fumbled a little, cleared his voice and then proceeded to sing, all the while competing with the Hindi call. Despite not really nowing where we were going in the dark and being plagued by barking dogs, we eventually found a good vantage point.

We also went to visit a Tibetan shrine on another peak. It was a long walk, but truly rewarding. It was like looking at somebody elses holiday photos. We were standing on a mountain, looking out over snow covered peaks and surrounded by billowing prayer flags.

All in all. India is shaping up to be a lovely stopover.