I made it to Delhi

I arrived in Delhi after a rather disorientating 14 hr stop in Munich (which i managed to fill effectively with some shopping- a beautiful pair of black leather boots - and a trip to a concentration camp).

Delhi is an assault on the senses. There are a hundred different smells, sounds, sights at every turn of the head. I saw an elephant yesterday, and cows with big humps on their backs - ox i think, and so many people. Some in rags and others in riches - and they are all going in some direction (which probably isn't the direction the traffic is going in).

He-who-does-not-wish-to-be-named (but i am sure some peoples can figure out the paragliding pilot i am travelling with) arrived today, a day late (after he forgot which day he was supposed to be on the aeroplane). He was lucky - he managed to have his ticket reissued and left me to it yesterday to get acquainted with the madness that is Delhi. Tomorrow more paragliding people will arrive and we will all head to Dharamasala (in the north) on Saturday.

I will try to post some of the millions of pictures i have now taken as soon as i find some wireless Internet!

The Good and the Bad

So, the good news - I bought a house - it all went proper on Tuesday.

My Mum and I have been working on buying for a long time, and my friends were looking to sell. It just worked out that Mum and I managed to buy their house and they have got something else now too. It is in Lake Hawea and is a lovely wee place, not big but definitely cosy and a good location.

The bad - the whole worlds economy is taking a turn for the worse. The financial news keeps getting worse. We are protected from the day to day and I have only read things on the internet and watched CNN but it is not good reading!

Tomorrow they are laying off more people from work. At the moment it has just been one or two here and there; a couple of obsolete departments. Now we are going to see some large cuts and it is going to hurt. Out of our 1500 employees we could easily lose 300 or more. I don’t know how well the town is going to cope with this. There are definitely going to be expats going. All I hope this is enough to keep the place floating while the world goes mad.

Curiosity the cat (and me) PART TWO

So by the way, what ever eventuated from my sister's request for my friend and blogger Karen's address? I know this happened ages ago but i never did get to the bottom of it...

What did she send you???

High risk adventures in kapan

This is probably the most dangerous thing i have done in a long time, and i do like to do the odd 'extreme' sport in my spare time. I was having a couple of beers at one of the lovely summer cafes in town with a couple of the lads when they decided that we needed to move cafes. Apparently there were not enough pretty girls walking past our location.

I mentioned that i had considered risking my life by having a ride on the old, rusty ferris wheel in the park. Peter gallantly offered to come with me and even paid the 100AMD (30 cents) entrance fee. He and i jumped onto this ancient soviet beast and secured the rather ineffective seat belts. Calling this ferris wheel old is like saying that the US financial markets are in a spot of bother.



The whole ferris wheel had that unmaintained, broken down kinda feel. It was surprising how it still operated!


We got surprisingly high, and had a great view over the tops of the four storey buildings around us. We could see the lights of kapan running down the valley. Actually, we are getting close to the local governement elections and so the street lights really are being installed and turned on at night. There are actually quite a number of lights visible now!


So, Peter didn't actually hold my hand, but i am sure i wouldn't have got on the thing without his company. Afterwards we adjourned to another cafe in town where we sat and drank more beer while the boys 'bird watched'.