Today, is day two in India.

It was a bad night for sleeping, the heat in our room is crazy, and with no wind to speak of it became very difficult to sleep. So after a fit full 3 hours of rest and the remaining night spent trying to sleep it was breakfast time, and the morning of our first visit to Ahmedabad. It was a day of many firsts, to get into the city it is a 45 minute ride on an auto rickshaw. 3 of us squeezed into the back seat of what is essentially a 3 wheeled motor bike with a small cabin, and set off, weaving in and out of motorbikes, cars, buses and cows – at a distance that I can only describe as ‘by the skin of the teeth’. Literally. Chris was laughing at my gasps and “Oh god” s, telling me that we would get used to it. I don’t think that I will get used to the cars driving against the flow of traffic, the cows wandering or sitting in the middle of the road whilst the rickshaw swerves and brakes attempting to avoid crashing. I say attempting, as the rickshaw did drive into the back of a trailer at one point.

They say that you should do one thing a day that scares you – this was most certainly mine.

We arrived in the city centre and grabbed some traditional Gujarati snacks, I had Dataka – potato and vegetables in a ball, deep fried – so good! After a brief wander we escaped the relentless heat and dived into a hotel to use their pool. We spent most of the afternoon relaxing and swimming, before heading off to Law Garden, a park, which reminded me of a London park in ways, families and friends relaxing, eating and filling the grassy areas. Of course, the six of us wandering through was met with plenty more stares, waves and hellos.

Around the edge of the park were market stalls, selling a range of jewelery and clothes. The colours, noise and smell (of roasting nuts) were a lot to take in, but nothing could have prepared me for the tap on my arm. I turned around to see a beggar, and his sibling. Who had no eyes. I have never seen the inside of eyes before. I knew that beggars with deformities being reasonably common, but up until this point had not seen anything of the sort. The experience caught me completely off guard. I think it was true for most of us, and we soon jumped back into the rickshaws for the journey home to NID for dinner.

I will post some more photos soon, but I have not been taking many so far. It is difficult not to feel as though I am pointing the camera at the 'others', which is odd, as I feel like the other so constantly.