The India Trip of 2014 is finally drawing to a close. The past few weeks have been phenomenal – from teaching in the Sunderbans to a wild and tiring Domino's pizza run in Kolkata. We're in Puri now and it's quite different from my expectations. It's meant to be a holy area so I expected it to be far more rural than it is. There's still an insane amount of litter, an abundance of cars, beggars on the road and tuktuk drivers endlessly shouting and beeping.
But we can escape all the bustle in the Mayfair. Oh my god, I absolutely love the Mayfair. We're staying in an ashram but pay to use the Mayfair's pool during the day. It's glorious! They have clean toilets, clean pools, clean water and delicious food (the ice-cream is amazing). We were all fairly excited – I think I screamed – to be in such luxury. The girls were especially happy to show their knees, reveal their shoulders and get a tan – finally. Everyone seemed to enjoy the laid-back approach to the day, it was quite a change from our previous residences. We lay in the sun for hours. Some people got burnt ( I told ye to put on suncream). It was just so nice to rest on something that wasn't a straw mat or plastic chair.
The best thing to come out of this trip, I think, are the bonds made between everybody. I've had great times with people I normally wouldn't hang out with and in some cases these people have become my main companions on the trip. I've begun to wonder if things will still be the same when we get home. I hope so, but school and India are totally different environments. My one hope for going home is that the friendships that we've built up here stay with us because, although I wouldn't have thought this before India, I have a friend in every person here that I wouldn't want to lose.
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