Five days to go before Christmas and I'm still ill! This time it's gastritis and very painful!1 Aunty Fenn has pumped me full of pills which haven't worked. It's the food here, they think that if they give us rice plus mank without chilli we'll be alright. In the past four days I've eaten very little and, quite frankly, I’m happy to keep it that way!
C. isn't ill.
We saw Nic off yesterday, had a meal at the Hotel Supreme – veg restaurant – with all her European friends from the TTS. There were two German blokes called Mark and Stefan, a Catholic priest from somewhere in India called Julian2 a Swiss girl and a lovely Swedish girl whose names I failed to discover.3 we got on very well, the Swede and I (I hope she won’t mind! Oh well, that's this friendship over...) and I reckon C. got a bit left out. Well he should have made the effort, I mean there were other people to talk to and I was so glad to be able to talk to fellow foreigners who weren't him. We're going to swap addresses (no, not with C.) because she's leaving in January so we won't be able to see each other again. It would be good to have a correspondence with someone – maybe a trip to Sweden in the very distant future! If I want to see the world, I've got to have somewhere to stay!
So anyway we saw Nic onto the bus and chatted and sang songs to her through the window until it left at ten o'clock. Fourteen hours to Madras, then fourteen home! Lucky girl, at least she'll get some decent English cooking and be home for Christmas.
Julian was telling us about Varanasi, we were talking about Hindu cremation for some reason and he told us how they do it there. Apparently they have a huge procession and then dump the body into the Ganges. There are supposed to be loads of bodies around and people go there to bathe! These Indians are crazy! There are a lot of Eunuchs there as well and if you don’t give them money you're in trouble, because most of them are in the 'flesh trade' – ie. They'll carve you up and sell you in pieces. Nice.
But I still want to go there.
- In subsequent tales of my illness, writhing in agony on a hard lumpy bed, I tend to liken the pain to someone stabbing me through the lower abdomen from the side with a sword, then slowly pulling the blade upwards until it reaches my heart. Then it would start again. The whole cycle would take about 15 minutes I guess, for two days solid.
- No, the place in India ISN'T called Julian.
- I’m one of those people who will happily chat to you without ever asking your name. I tend not to use people's names generally, just sort of say hey you or some such. This only becomes a problem when I'm trying to say, write it down in a stupid diary.
