Puri - India

We are now in Puri, South East of India (roughly in the middle).
It seems like ages away since we wrote on the blog last, it was in Bahrain when we had just started our trip. We are now 2 weeks in and all is going so well.
We arrived in Chennai on the 21st October and it was pissing down with rain, apparently the monsoon are a bit late this year! Great! Chennai dare I say was a shock to the system! So busy, chaotic, noisy, smelly and well quite dirty too! But it seems like an organised chaos for some reasons! You get use to it very quickly!
We meet our group and our truck in Chennai and everybody is very nice. It's like being in big brother! 1 week in we know everything and more about each other, shared many toilet stops and discussed at lenght our body function (loving it!) and we have started to fantasise about the food we are not getting here (anything but rice!), it's funny!
I have been eaten alive by mosquitos, last week I could count 67 bites (my legs look yuk- thank you so much Cristina for the mosy cream you gave us!), but I am happy as I have excaped so far the dreaded diarhea!
After Chennai, we drove North and our truck got stuck so we had to stay somewhere in the middle of nowhere! We carried on North and camped two night which is good fun, we are all chipping in to cook (thanks Elizabeth for the head torch, a life saviour!). Life in the truck is great, just watching life go by, all the great scenary, reading, chatting with others, stopping for Indian snacks, listening to I pod, all is so relaxed and friendly.
We were glad to stop in a hotel after that in Visakhapatnam and wash our hair - thank you Carly for the shampoo, could have kissed you if you had been here! (1st night of camping was in a graveyard, nice). Everywhere we arrive we attract the attention of the locals, we set up camp and they are all around, staring at us, and they even follow you when you are trying to find a quiet spot for your pipi/caca!
We then headed off in land to spend 3 days going around some tribes, camped another 3 nights (we had a guide and a chef there which was great, no cooking and fab Indian food!). Amazing to see them, and spend a bit of time with them, they just have nothing, and yet look so happy! I fell in love with all the children and have so many photos of them, which I will bore you all with when I get back no doubt! It was a very humbling experience, and very informative, some of the rituals they still have in place are a bit scary, let's say the feminist movement has not got tere yet! Yet they have simple values which are good to follow, love, family, laugh and that's about that. We celebrated Diwali with the tribes and teh new Indian year too, it was quite as the tribes do not follow the Indu religion, still we blew a few fireworks, lit some candles and ate sweets.
We are staying in Puri now for 3 nights and then, we will travel by train to Calcutta (our truck is a bit poorly) cannot wait for the experience of Indian trains!
I will post some photos next time, as forgot the lead in the hotel!
Hope you are all well and speak very soon
The Roses