Wow, how fast have seven weeks gone. It seems like only yesterday
when we arrived here in Udaipur, India. What an epic journey we are
still on! The past two weeks have definitely been adventurous.
Lets start off the story with Day Care. A couple of weeks ago we
warmly welcomed Didi Abi to Bedla Day Care centre. At first all the
children were a bit nervous around her as they are a bit shy around
new people, but after a couple of days the kids really started to warm
up to her and love her. Abi brought new and fresh ideas to the day
care centre which the kids seemed to really love. Unfortunately, her
stay was only a short two weeks and we had to say goodbye to Abi. With
a final goodbye song and lots of photos, she was on her way! We wish
her all the best and will miss her heaps at the day care centre and of
course at the volunteer house!
Orphanage has also been really great the past two weeks and the kids
have loved playing lots of different games and doing craft. A lot of
the older kids get quite competitive with games such as hand ball,
which is the same as netball without the hoop, and soccer. This week
we brought the kids chocolate cake, it was Amy’s idea as she also left
us this week, which was so nice for them as some of them had never had
it before. It was very messy but enjoyable!
Last weekend we all went on the Ranthambore national park tiger safari
and to Agra to the Taj Mahal. We started the trip off by catching the
overnight train to Ranthambore, it was 6.5 hours train journey and we
had sleepers. It seemed like it went on forever, the train was very
hot and smelt kind of bad. But we all made it fun for each other and
didn’t really end up sleeping on the train. We arrived at 2am Friday
morning. During the next day we went to a beautiful temple in the
national park and in the afternoon we went on the safari. And guess
what! We saw a tiger!! It was quite exciting and really rewarding to
see one after looking for one all afternoon. It was amazing to see
such a beautiful animal up so close. The next morning we got up really
early and went on another safari, which was a bit of a disappointment
as we didn’t see nearly as many animals as the pervious day. That
afternoon it absolutely bucketed down with rain and it was soo cool!
After our adventures in Ranthambore we headed to Agra via overnight
train.
Again this train was 6.5 hours but everyone was so tired so we all
just crashed and slept well. When we arrived in agra we went straight
to the hotel to put our bags away and have breakfast then we went
straight to the Taj Mahal for our guided tour. Words can’t explain its
beauty and photos don’t do it justice so im just going to tell you a
little bit about its history. The Taj Mahal was built by Mughal
emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal. It is
widely considered as one of the most beautiful buildings in the world
and stands as a symbol of eternal love. Taj Mahal is the finest
example of Mughal architecture, a style that combines elements from
Persian, Islamic and Indian architectural styles.
The guided tour took as all around the Taj Mahal and took about 2
hours. It was soooo Hot in Agra through so we decided not to stay too
much longer. While we were at the Taj Mahal, we were just sitting down
and about 20 Indian people came up and started taking our photos and
taking photos with us, that was a bit annoying but funny. After our
day in Agra we headed back to Udaipur, no surprises, on a train!
13hours later we arrived home with little sleep had and sleep for the
rest of the day.
This week we also we for dinner at the nice lake side restaurant,
Amborai, and did lots of shopping in the city. We also said goodbye to
a few other volunteers, frankie, andrea and ty. Goodbyes are always
emotional as we are one big family at the volunteer house and will
miss them all very much. We are welcoming 4 more volunteers tomorrow
into our family. And as we almost reach the two month mark we are
imbarking on new adventures each week.
Until the next time
Bec
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