What I'm up to..

Since the start of March, Carrie & I have been living in Dehradun. Carrie is working at a special school here, while I'm still working for the same project that I was with in the UK.

Dehradun is a fair sized city, quite a sprawl. It's center is crowded, grubby and noisy, as you'd expect, and getting hotter by the day. It's on the plain, but the foothills of the himalayas start just outside town - you can see the ridge of Mussoorie from our front door. Dehradun has got a load of private schools and colleges, and a few large government institutes (Forest department of India, Indian Mapping Survey, large military bases). It's a well-to-do place.

We're living out in the suburbs, in what's called an enclave and it's dull. There probably is life in this town, but it's hard to find - and to do so I think we'd need to have our own transport. I'm missing having a scooter, but can't find one to rent or buy here.

Our house is a 2 bedroom bungalow. It's got high ceilings and basic fittings - it will be the the servant's quarters for a house that hasn't been built yet - hence the large garden.



We're sharing it with Anne, another British speech therapist, who's good company.

Our place is surrounded by more developed houses - mostly the homes of retired generals and doctors.





In fact in the enclave it's easy to forget that this is India, apart from the occasional reminder:



So, our life here is quite different to Goa - no swimming in the sea at lunchtime, or walking along the beach at sunset. We've gone from eating out three times a day to cooking for ourselves three times a day (We were promised a cook, but it never happened - we do have weekly cleaners and a laundry-wallah though).

There's few restaurants in town, a narrow choice of food to buy (no fish, no pizza, no good bread or cheese, and certainly no beef or pork), and no bars or nightlife. At least I've found an off-license now.

Still, Goa must be getting really hot and sticky by now, and we're rarely woken by stoned Israelis playing bongos at 3am, or Russians having heated arguments outside our apartment. There's plenty of time for Carrie to write her PhD thesis - and it's been busy at work for me at the moment too. But I'm missing Arambol.

Dehradun is the capital of Uttarkhand state, which is really mountainous and pretty. So we're making sure we get out of the city whenever we can - so far we've been to Delhi, Mussoorie and trekking around Almora. Weekend after next we're all off to Amritsar to see the golden temple. After that, we hope to fit in the Corbett tiger reserve, a visit to Haridwar, the list goes on.. So, there's a lot more interesting things I've got to blog about - just thought I'd better set the scene first.

This weekend we're going back to Mussoorie - Carrie has heard that there's a cheese shop there.

Bhaktapur

Some more photos of our time in Nepal. Just outside Kathmandu there's a well-preserved town called Bhaktapur - red brick, cobbled streets, and fine woodcarving. It's a magical place to get lost in.

Bhaktapur

Me mate Jamie has written about place previously. I wish I'd read that before I visited - Carrie & I found an amazing thangka, and were about to part with our money when we thought "no, let's shop around in Kathmandu a bit for one". And, of course, all we found there was overpriced low-quality stuff. Rats.

Everest Flight

One morning while we were in Kathmandu, we took a sightseeing flight along the Himalayas to Everest. You can't see the mountains from Kathmandu - the smog obscures them. However, as soon as the plane left the valley the views were fantastic - the mountains stretched in every direction.

Carrie liked it very much.

Everest Flight