Life As Solo Traveller In India Well I am halfway through my Midlife Crisis (trip), and I am celebrating this milestone with 5 days in fab hotels in the Maldives, before I start my next project here. This downtime gives me the opportunity to reflect on the past 6 weeks. Particularly my time in Goa, and life as a solo traveller in India. Slum Living In the afternoons I worked on a new initiative to teach basic English to the women living in the Salgado slums. The hope is that this skill will help them to get work as cleaners and maids. The first day that I arrived I was shocked, and I had known it was going to be bad. Large families live in breeze block cells measuring 2m x 2m with no windows and leaking corrugated roofs. At night they simply lie down to sleep on the earth…

Projects For Volunteers Since arriving in Goa I have been working on two community projects for volunteers. In the mornings I visit 2 old people’s homes. I would like to write something amusing and superficial about my experiences, but it would not be appropriate. The homes are run by Franciscan nuns, one is for men and one for women. Many of the residents are highly educated and have led fascinating lives. Home For The Aged In Indian it goes without saying that elderly parents are looked after by their children. Inhabitants have usually ended up in these homes as they did not marry, hence did not have children, or their children have emigrated. So many young people leave Goa to find work abroad in Australia or the USA, particularly in the fields of IT and medicine. The result is that the parents become destitute unless they are fortunate enough to…

Yoga In Goa I am getting used to life in Goa, it has a really laid back vibe. On Thursday I was asked to go along to a yoga class. As I do Pilates I thought it would be the same, only with a bit more heavy breathing. When we arrived I spotted an older white lady with big gold earrings and pink flip flops who had assumed a prune-like appearance from excessive sun worshipping. She was chatting outside, smoking a fag, and I was thrilled to hear she was a fellow Brummy, with the broadest Brummy accent. I got talking to her, and learnt she had done a Shirley Valentine. She came here on holiday 20 years ago, met an Indian guy, and never went home. Her love for the guy soon faded, but her love of Goa remained. As we chatted she lit one cigarette from another, and…

It was with a very heavy heart that I said goodbye to the children in Kathmandu kindergarten on Friday. They were a very special bunch, who had so little in terms of material possessions, and appeared in the same filthy clothes day after day, yet they were so appreciative of the little I could give them. What they wanted, as much as knowledge, was love and attention, and I was far better at giving that than teaching the English alphabet. In return they gave me heaps of cuddles and a real sense of purpose. I do wonder what will become of them as adults. I desperately hope they will be able to elevate themselves from the poverty they were born into, and have more secure and comfortable lives. Volunteering Programme Abroad Saturday morning marked the end of the first leg of my ‘Volunteering Programme Abroad’. I set off on my…

Yoga In Nepal I have really got into a routine now in Nepal. Every night at 6pm I go up onto the roof of the Compound and do ‘Yoga with Press-ups’ for 30 minutes, whilst listening to Spotify. This serves several purposes; firstly, the sight of Kathmandu twinkling in the sunset is breathtaking, secondly, I find it enormously therapeutic and thirdly, my next stop is Goa. Goa means the opportunity to wear one of my new (or should I say five new) bikinis. I do not want to spend all my time there trying to reposition a sarong to hide the Wobble, so press-ups and crunches and Yoga in Nepal it is. At this point I do have to say thank you to Nicky, my ever-patient Pilates teacher in East Grinstead who, in 3 years, has turned me from looking a Plank to doing the Plank, beautifully. On Sunday evening…

Nepali Dishes I know I haven’t mentioned the food since I have been in Nepal and there is a good reason for this…. There isn’t any.  So much for delicious Nepali dishes. If any lady readers are considering shedding a few pounds in time for Christmas, sod the 5:2 diet, come to Nepal for instant and dramatic weight loss. So swift has been my shrinkage that some of the ‘Glamorous Granny’ linen clothes I bought only 4 weeks ago are way too big. Yesterday I was bending over the table in the classroom when 3 little gnomes starting tugging on the backs of my trousers legs to get my attention. They got more than they bargained for, as my black tie-waisted peg leg chinos gravitated south with alarming speed. I then revealed my knickers to Kathmandu Kindergarten. Thank God for bucket pants. Small Portions On the night I arrived, I…

One of the inmates in the Compound is a beautiful Spanish girl, 33, called Raquel. She has given up her high-powered job in HR to travel the world for a year and is like a walking ‘Lonely Planets’ guide. When I heard that she had planned a trip to watch the sunrise over Everest on Saturday, I asked if I could join her. Early Start This meant a 3.30am start but I figured that I could sleep in the car en route. How wrong I was. Once we got off the main road, the road literally stopped. Instead there was a winding unmade track full of craters 5 feet wide and 1 foot deep for the last 12km with a sheer drop on one side. This might have been bearable in a 4 x4 but we were in the Nepalese equivalent of a Ford Focus. On numerous occasions my new…