The road to Agra We travel by bus from Jaipur to Agra. All the guide books and travel advice blogs I have read recommend train travel well above buses, but I cannot understand why. Trains have to be booked in advance, and even then it is quite common for there not to be any tickets […]
My brother and his girlfriend came out to visit me during my stay in India, and for the past two weeks we have been travelling within India. Our first stop was in Jaipur, Rajasthan. We arrived in the evening, having flown from Mumbai. It was 35˚C in Jaipur after 7pm when we landed. From the […]
My last day in Kenya. Strangely I feel a bit sick and nervous just like I did before I came here. It’s because the whole world is about to change for me… in the next 24 hours… and Nothing will be the same. I am also looking forward to it, to getting home and seeing […]
Today is Jamhuri Day, Independence day in Kenya. All the shops are closed, apart from the large supermarkets. Yesterday I walked to Fort Jesus and sat on the harbour wall looking out to sea. There are old, rusting canons strewn about everywhere around the Fort, even some laying on the small, rocky beach. And lots […]
Last week I spent my remaining time on Diani swimming in the sea, reading (Amitav Ghosh’s The Glass Palace – incredible book!) and eating. In my delight at having a kitchen I cooked three large, warm meals per day, and put on lots of weight, reclaiming all the pounds I had lost during the previous […]
So much has happened in the past few days. The first thing is the weather has changed and is now so extremely hot that it’s worthy of comment. It began on Sunday afternoon, and through Monday it was almost unbearable. It probably sounds like a lot of fun to you who are stuck in winter-gripped […]
Four days ago I left Kitengela behind me, and set off alone into the big wide world. I took the matatu to Nairobi, but having caught it halfway along the road in Kitengela I didn’t realise it wasn’t from the matatu stand in town, but had come on a different route. This route ended up […]
Last Sunday two things happened: there was a nationwide power cut across Kenya, and the rains finally arrived in (and flooded) Kitengela. The internet has been down since last Saturday so I am really excited that today I can blog again! It’s 4.25pm and I have just got back from school. Last weekend was quite […]
So I have arrived in Kenya, and met my lovely host family. I’m living in Kitengela, a small, rapidly growing town about 30km (19 miles) south of Nairobi. Today was my first day at school. It was overwhelming meeting the kids as they all attached themselves to me and took me off to classrooms 1-4 […]