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Chaperones at the Youth Hotel

INDIA | Wednesday, 21 March 2007 | Views [787]

Today I should have really taken antibiotics, but then I’d need to forgo the wonder drug plug Imodium, and for the full days bumpy drive south to Hassan, I will bear the stomach pain, balled up on the back seat of the Ambassador. Today’s long drive took us through lots of little villages. It’s so refreshing to get out into the country and see how the locals live. It’s a much more congenial life. You see in some of the very small towns, women and men congregating together in the streets. Typically we’ve only seen the men hanging out together drinking chai, and chatting on the roadside, and the women working, carrying big tins of cement rock and other building and farming materials on their heads. We passed by fields of sunflower that were stunning. We arrived in Hassan just before sunset and I hit the bed, and finally start the weeks round of antibiotics. Not long after laying down for a rest, I woke up to a busload of screaming Euro-teens who all seemed to be staying on our floor. They took the hotel for a dormitory, and were all congregated outside our door on the floors, chain smoking and talking with mum on their cell phones. You know you’re getting old when you have to go out and reprimand kids in the hallways to be quiet so you can sleep. Finally I sent Darrin out after them in his stylish Qantas bed-wear, and that put a quick stop to the chatter just after midnight.

Tags: On the Road