Canyoning!

Had the most amazing day today! Me and Holly booked this jungle adventure thing, so this morning we met this crazy french guy who runs it who kitted us out with a harness and helmet etc to go canyoning. We set off in an open jeep for an hour long journey into the jungle, the ride itself was amazing - driving in India is always fun especially in a jeep through the jungle! On the way we saw these massive spiders with giant cobwebs which were absolutely disgusting but fascinating, but scared me a little bit in case I walked into one of their webs - I'm scared of spiders normally, never mind when our guide told us these ones were poisonous!  When we got there we set off on this trail (which wasn't much of a trail at all) through the trees and towards the waterfall. It was about a 40 minute trek to the water and was actually really hard work because it was mostly uphill. On the way our crazy french guide saw a snake... and decided to chase it! It was a little green vine snake, which was actually quite cute but apparently poisonous too, but that didn't stop him grabbing it and holding it for us to see! He told us that yesterday they had seen a king cobra on their trek, which is really rare to see and their poison can kill you in 10 minutes! Although that sounds terrifying I'm kind of gutted we didn't get to see one today.When we got to the water we put on our harnesses and abseiled down a waterfall and did a couple of 3m jumps into the pools and slid down the rocks and stuff, it was so much fun! We did a couple of 5m jumps too, and Holly did a 6m jump but I chickened out! Really not keen on jumping off things but what we did was really fun. One of our abseils was about 16m down this waterfall which was soo scary because you had to slide down the first part then try to turn around on the slippery rock and abseil the last bit, but the rock was so slippy it was really hard! Then at the end, the rope was about 1m short so you had to push off with your feet into the pool below, it was so fun! At the end we scrambled onto some rocks on top of the next waterfall which was 55m high, and you could see the one below it too which was 30m high, and in the distance you could see the hills and the forest it was amaaazing, such a good day!

Holiday!

Sorry for not updating this sooner, I haven't had much chance until now! So for the first month me and Holly were just settling in and had to sort out this really long registration process which was really stressful.. typical Indian bureaucracy! And we didn't have a set timetable of lessons because the children had exams so were just revising, and the plan is to start teaching properly after the holidays. We were however randomly given lessons when teachers were ill or when there was no teacher for a class which was a little bit scary because we weren't told what to teach them so didn't have a clue what to do! But we managed and made it through the lesson at least. Teaching the little LGK kids (age 4/5) is so difficult, because they don't speak any English and obviously can't see you so its really difficult to get across what you want them to do! They are sooo cute though, especially when they say their school name they say 'Devnar school for the flind'  which is really funny, and Holly had to leave the room once cause she was laughing so much and left me trying to teach them to say blind and not flind! We're hoping that we'll actually be given a syllabus when we get back though so we know what to teach them. 

The school holidays started last weekend so all the kids left and me and Holly planned a trip to Goa where we're staying for two weeks! We've already spent a week in North Goa, we met up with Sarah and spent a few days with her which was really nice, but now she's gone to Thailand! :( We had a good time though and went out to this nightclub with people from the hostel we were staying in, it was free entry and free drinks all night and had a swimming pool, it was amazing! Otherwise we have just been chilling, we went to a fort where we saw a Bollywood movie being filmed which was really interesting, they were filming a typical bollywood love song scene and there were men wearing white turbans with fake swords dancing in the background which was hilarious. Then we went to watch the sunset which was really nice and we also went for a walk on this beach and found a washed up chicken head! 

Since Sarah left me and Holly have traveled south, on Saturday night we stayed in a place called Panjim with two girls we met at the hostel and went out for somewhere to eat; in one of the guidebooks it recommended a restaurant in a hotel that did really good thali at a reasonable price so we went to find it. Turns out it was a really posh 4* hotel and the staff were dressed up in posh, traditional (and quite funny) outfits! Thali is a traditional south indian dish where you get bits of everything and it was really good and so nice to have a bit of luxury for the first time in 6 weeks! I'll try upload a picture when i can get the pictures on the computer. 

Today me and Holly traveled further south to a place called Palolem which everyone talks about as being beautiful, and it's amazing! The beach has white sand and is lined with palm trees and beach huts, its soo nice, and for the next two nights we're staying in a really cute beach hut! 

Anyway my internet time is about to run out, but I'm going to try and update this a bit more often now i have more to write about :)