So decided to wear my special Thailand bought trousers yesterday, long and comfortable and an absolute pain in the arse to go to the toilet in. Honestly, the only time I really and truly hate travelling alone is when I need to go to the blasted toilet. Last night after missing my night bus, due to the tuk-tuk man dropping me off at the wrong place AND me suddenly realising that I didn’t have enough cash for the ticket anyway. I finally found an ATM and the correct drop off point where my ticket was being kept. Luckily the man still had another seat available on the next bus. So only had 40 minutes to wait. Sweating like a pig and desperate for the toilet I was delighted to discover it was one of those long drop thingamajigs. No matter how much I travel I don’t think I will ever get used to these awful things!!
Without anyone to watch your bag for you, it has to come into the toilet with you. And no, there are no hooks to hang it on…and no clean, dry floor space to put it on. So I’m now basically trying to hold the bag with one hand and manoeuvre off the tie string pants from hell with the other. As soon as the thigh string is undone they literally fall off you. I managed to grab most of them but the tie string wasn’t so lucky and got a good drenching. Now holding pants, and awful soggy tie string with one hand and bag with the hand you have to squat!!! And then last but not least with absolutely no hands left you to have to figure out how to wash yourself, because toilet paper it appears is a luxury! Its hell I tell you!

When I finally escaped the toilet, I am confronted with an old lady who clearly didn’t want to wait for the next free cubicle and was simply squatting right next to the basin. Didn’t really know how to conceal my shock on that one!

Ok sorry, rant over….but for the record I don’t like squatting! It’s not natural! 😉

So am currently in a small town called Aurangabad. I arrived this morning on a sleeper bus, which was an experience in itself. Let’s just say, most Indian people come prepared with sheets and I wasn’t. Found myself sleeping on a musty, feet smelling mattress that probably hasn’t been washed this century, with disgusting soggy wet tie string tied around my waist. (Salaha I thought about you and had to chuckle to myself about how much you would have hated it!) I then discovered that I needed to share my bed with another passenger…
Luckily he was a really sweet Hindu man who refused to even lie down at first and just perched himself on the end of the bed. Eventually, he got down to horizontal position after I insisted that it was fine (about 20 times)

So eventually arrived in Aurangabad this morning at 9 am and despite the fact that I had been sleeping since 11 pm the night before I had to go and sleep again. Woke up at 12….. still exhausted, went back to sleep and then woke up at 2.30 ….finally feeling a little more ready to face the day.

I had a really lovely day travelling around with a tour guide called Ashok. (So lovely I can’t really figure out why I am in such a shockingly bad mood tonight) He took me to his house where I got to meet his family. He took me to his friend’s school which was just amazing. The kids were adorable and its just so unbelievable to see how little they have compared to UK children. And yet, as poor as they are….every single child was wearing a full school uniform. I was absolutely gutted that I had left my camera in my big bag at the hostel in Mumbai! So couldn’t take any photo’s. We then went to a chemist to try and get me something for the mild bladder infection that has been caused by all this squatting (did I mention I hate squatting?) It’s not easy explaining what a bladder infection is to someone who doesn’t speak a word of English. Especially when you have a crowd of about 7 men standing around you watching. First, he wanted to give me diarrhoea stuff, then Eno, eventually I called Ashok to come and help me try explain….which he very proudly did and I got handed a box of tampons. Not, quite what I was looking for. Ashok then assured me that he had a very clever doctor friend he would take me to. And thank God he did. Finally got my medicine, bought 2 bottles just to be on the safe side. (I fear my squatting days are not numbered!)

And that’s the end of my day, just realised that this is my first day without a cigarette so that is undoubtedly adding to my grumpy mood. But that said- I always feel better a bit better after writing…and looking forward to a good, clean nights sleep
Nite
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