Poor Hannah. I hope that it’s an ironic thing being named after the smiling cretin from Steps. Also we will be in Goa in about a month, burning up in the sun. Your olds may just get a surprise from some friendly faces.

Yesterday was supposed to be a beautiful day in which we made the pilgrimage to the top of Arunachala – the holy mountain where Shiva is said to have appeared as I plume of fire.

Unsurprisingly climbling 950 meters in 30-something degree heat isn’t very easy – and the climb was surprisingly steap. An English guy said that it would take about 1 hour and a half but it took us more like 3 and half hours. I was pretty amazed and impressed that Sasha had decided to come too at the last minute.

We eventually got to the top, sweat dripping profusely down my face and into my eyes because I was also carrying provisions and 2.5 litres of water (though Sasha took it for half an hour). We were exhausted and the top was covered in oil because they set fire to it every year for a festival- we both agreed it hadn’t been worth the effort. We sat down on two ledges next to each other on the side of the mountain – Sasha with the bag, when two monkies started to purposefully climb towards us from below. They headed straight for Sasha and the bag - I told her to watch out but she just froze and quick as a flash one of the monkeys approached and attacked her! It was grabbing at the bag and clawing at Sasha. I left over to her ledge and scared them away – she was fine but had suffered a two inch scratch on her back near her shoulder. It wasn’t deep and she wasn’t bleading but it had happened very quickly and she was quite shaken.

We made our way down and were advised by the ashram to go to see a doctor and get rabies vacinations for her just in case. Bites are worse then scratches and the monkies almost certainly weren’t rabid. We got an appointment at 6:30pm and Sasha was prescribed three antibiotics and the rabies vacination. The doctor said we had to buy them ourselves from a chemist. However none of the three pharmacists he recommended had the vacination and we were left wandering around the town in the dark between chemists trying to get directions from locals who spoke only slightlt more English than we spoke Tamil. Eventually the fifth chemist recommeded somewhere that thank goodness, when we got there actually had the shots we needed. Exhausted we went back to the doctor who administered the first injection and then to have dinner in a restaurant recommended by The Lonely Planet. Both out dishes turned out to consist of very spicey tomatoe puree, lots of oil and not much else – gross. After some hassle with a rickshaw driver we eventually got back to the ashram.

Bad dad. Although we’ve been here two weeks they seem to have been very eventful and it seems more like two months. Sasha is fine this morning – we are off to Auroville in an hour.

Wahey Cornwall! Actually I went body boarding last week and although the waves weren’t that vicious they were adequate – it was the deadly rip tide that was vicious. Causing “far too many deaths” according to Lonely Planet. I did find it hard to keep my feet still in the water even when I could touch the ground as I was being pushed so hard but I figured i had a body board and a surfer from California (my friend Jesse- no not that one) to save me if required.

Climbed a mountain today and saw a six foot snake. Most exciting- however it slithered away and was a scrawny little thing not a cobra or constrictor of any type.

I finally worked out the good ponts of Pondicherry. Firstly the streets are slightly cleaner (although the sewage smell was very bad in places), secondly there are no cows in the streets (maybe the only town in India but I like the cows anyway) and thirdly I can appreciate that after an extended period in India the weary traveller would probably kill for some decent food. Not only are the Indian restaurants good (Jesse was right about the butter fish – it does actually taste buttery – yum) but there are genuinely French restaurants (genuine as in the food – I know that they are still in India). We had a pretty swanky time in a proper frog place and ate food that seemed that a French chef had made – a  decent one too! We managed to spend 10 pounds between the three of us - our India record!

Yesterday we left Jesse to go to Karakai and came here to Tiruvanamalai – a pretty tireing journey on a local Indian bus for four hours. I saw lots of fields on the way in which I was told were growing both rice and “ground nuts” – peanuts.

The ashram is a very smart place for India where they do lots of devotional chanting - both to Ramana Maharshi and also to his mother (!?). MOnkeys and especially peacocks are everywhere in the grounds – and the peacocks only make up for their infernal screaching by looking just lovely. Just behind the ashram is Mount Arunachala which is the mountain Ramana came all this way escpecially to be with. It’s supposed to be made of some of the oldest rocks on the planet and although  it isn’t that high it had huge boulders scattered all across. Much of the landscape around here is boulders and hills with boulders on. AT dinner time you sit on the marble floor cross legged with banana leaf in front of you and ashram cooks splosh rice, dahl, milk, a bit of salad onto your plate. Most Indians do a bit where they mix the rice with the liquids and into a goey ball and then scoop in into their gobs. I don’t. I just spill rice on my trousers.

The mossies are numerous and vicious here and Sasha and I have made a little tent (like you do when you’re four years old) out of our mosquitoe net. Very cosy.

Right -it’s 12:30pm now and I’m off to bed now as we got up at 6.20am – 0:50am your time to watch the offering of milk to Ramana Maharshi’s shrine.

Good night

Tom

Also I have spotted another 6th rate celebrity – or rather he spotted me in Tesco. Yes John Ansel – lead singer of popera group G4 acosted me in the aformentioned supermarket in Bognor and we were quite friendly to each other. We used to be the two who did the solo’s in the West Sussex Boys Choir -obviously a swarm enemy then. Kill…