Up close with a baby elephant

Yes, this elephant was a baby, it was only about 5 feet high! It shakes the grass around first before putting it into its mouth. 

Getting some language survey work done

Matt getting some survey work done with some of our colleagues. They actually just finished about three weeks of hard work - hence the big smiles!

The lighter side

I am yet to find out if this cow paid the two rupees for the parking space. 

The Himalayas

This was taken from near our house, on one of the few days in the year that you can see the mountain from the plains. And no they're not clouds . . .

This is me in front of the Himalayas - we were in Darjeeling for 3 days, and it was fogged in the first two days, but on the third it was very exciting to look out the window and see this!
On the way up the hills, there were various warnings of the dangers of driving too fast along the winding road. This was one of our favorites.

 

The view that some never got to see. . .

This is the view from the youth hostel that sells the really yummy Tibetan Bread. Mmmmm.... Mike, Kate, Liz, Clare and "Auntie" this is the view that you never got to see.

The festival of Diwali

During Diwali festival, people light firecrackers all over the place. On night I went outside to see what all the noise was, and to watch the firecrackers and I found that three candles had been lit outside my door, one on the doorstep and two on the fence, on either side of the gate. I was unknowingly joining in the celebrations as well. It must have been my landlady . . .

Holiday

Jo, Penny and I, with very pretty mountains in the background.

Christmas 2004

This is one of the Christmas feasts we were invited to. It's rice and pork, you can just see, in the black wok, the large pieces of fat which the small pieces of meat are attached to (at first I thought it was cut-up potato the bits of fat were so big). It's the absolute favorite of people in this area - it tasted really good too, though all that fat can't be good for us.

This is the church that we go to, we all sit on the floor, gents on the left ladies on the right. Here its decorated for Christmas. Unlike Australia where many Christmas activities are centred around the home, here almost all Christmas activities are at the church, celebrating together, eating together, and sometimes distributing food to those families who are less fortunate.

These are some of the friends that we hung out with on the 25th evening. In the absence of a Christmas tree, you can see an exercise bike in the background all strung up with Christmas lights.