La Place Park Inn Lucknow

... This meant that we had a comfortable seat and air conditioning. The ride was fine. We got off at the station. The porter carried Bob's and my giant duffels on his head and Manuel's suitcase in his hand. We skipped the local sightseeing and got into our private van for the ride to our next destination, Khajuarho. The trip was one hundred miles and four hours of single lane country road ...

... in excrement. <br><br>The right hand toilet was western. Similar to the trainspotting toilet. This negated the need to strip off and was my favored dropping off point. That is until I misjudged my stance (no sitting on the thing, no way, just semi squatting at a 45 degree angle and holding on the sink tight for dear life) and shat everywhere. Had a vain attempt at a clear up operation. But it was beyond hope. I ...

... and chilled us out, plus we saw some of the sights into the bargain!! <br><br>We eventually went back to see about the train tickets thinking we would have to go and get some foreign quota ones as there were no train seats to Delhi for 5 days...not one ....but unbelievably the travel agent guy came up with a flight to Delhi for 100 rps! YES!!!!!! of course you have to add tax...but its still only 1000 rps (£12) so that was that!! 8-12 hrs as against ...

... namaste' and we loved it. It's easy to feel sad when you see the conditions they are living in compared to our own, but if you look past the basics, you see how rich their lives are. I think their lives will always be a struggle but not in the way that we know it. Their houses are clean, they do lots of cooking and eat three meals a day. The ingredients they use are so cheap and so accessible. They all live together in family groups and everyone ...

... someone to bitterly complain that that the shower is cold. I have taken to shower when it is warmer, imagine warm water and wash quick. After meds and a good night sleep, I`m back up and running, well maybe walking, I have a reduced appetite and have to lay of the spices which in India is not easy. I can see how people say they lost weight in India. Tomorrow, we get to packup the tents in the dark, wake up the roosters and move on to our next adventure.

... and the performance in the local newspaper. "My teacher's famous," I told my coworkers as I showed the pictures to everyone at my office. I'm definitely excited to be learning from such a "Kathak master." On Sunday, Nov. 4th, my teacher and her dance troupe had another performance. This one was at a big Mela (festival) about an hour outside of Lucknow, near an area called Barabanki. My friends from class wanted to go, so with help from their Urdu school, they ...

... However, the wife kept bringing out more and more food, all different types of flaky, fried snacks that she had made. We obligingly tasting a couple of the fried delicacies, thanked our hosts and tried once again to explain to them that we had to get home, as it was past 9pm and we had work the next day. However, the man told us that his wife was cooking us dinner and asked us to stay. At this point, we realized that we had to leave now if we wanted to get home at ...

... of Avadh. The Nawabs were the Muslim rulers who controlled north Indian for almost 100 years after the decline of the Mughal Empire. There are many beautiful, old and now-crumbling examples of Mughal architecture in Lucknow dating back to the time of the Nawabs, including mosques, tombs, palaces, etc. In 1856, the British took over Avadh and exiled the last Nawab ruler to Kolkata (Calcutta), and a year later Lucknow became a key site in the First Indian War of ...

... framework. The organization works with many partners in coalitions and helps organize campaigns to support women's reproductive health, youth sexual and reproductive health, and men's action ot combat violence against women. They also do research to document cases of policy violations and provide advocacy training to local community-based organizations that work in rural parts of Uttar Pradesh and neighborhing states. Wednesday was my first day of work. Surprisingly, I ...

It's been a while. Unfortunately illness struck again. We spent 8 days in Kanpur - apparently one of the most polluted, and definitely one of the least inspiring, cities in the world. Then we dragged our convalescing selves to Lucknow - we've now been here for 12 days. It's much more interesting than Kanpur and we've been fit enough to do sight-seeing and pottering. Tummies willing we'll be off again tomorrow. We've recently seen three Bollywood films - which was perhaps ...