Where’s the LOVE my friends?!

I show you wild and exotic places, risk my brain swelling (ex-hypochondriac in me is saying that could be encephalitis…) just by watching excessive head shaking, suffer delayed flights and mosquitoes galore and 2-TWO!!! bites (that same ex-hypo-c is reminding me of Japanese encephalitis B!), hell, I even embarrass myself by filming my tired self (albeit with a cool accent!) and what do I get in return?
Not an email… not a word… nothing.
OK I know you all have lives outside of mine, but come on, it is/was the weekend!
Well I hope it rained, wherever you are!
See this photo of me getting ready for work? No, it’s not here because of my snakeskin belt (yes real snakeskin! How cool is that! - best present ever!)
I’m posting it to show the above mentioned ex-hypochondriac peeking from behind my shoulder and whispering medical fears into my ear!

I’ve had a busy couple of days. I had to leave the sanctuary of my upgraded room and the care of my butler. I did manage to find a task for him… [slightly evil grin here]. He accompanied me to lunch so that he could act as my waiter and I asked him to show me the sights of Kolkata from the top floor window (it was only floor 5 though so the view was limited, yeah that and the smog!). As he did so I asked a lot of questions as I usually do...
‘And this is a very famous bridge, one of the oldest in Kolkata’ – he said.
When was it built? Why is it famous? What type of bridge is it? Who designed it? Do many people jump of that bridge?
By that time he just laughed and said he didn’t know.
Don’t worry, I wasn’t nasty, I told him in the end, it was a joke.
He also posted most of my purchases back to Australia so that my suitcase is 6kg lighter.
Here’s a video of wild Kolkata streets on my way back to the airport (once again no time for anything else!)

Now Kolkata airport deserves a mention – it’s an absolute mess!
Imagine a nice, punctual and clean German airport… got it? Now, imagine the exact opposite. Masses of people going in all random directions, random checkpoints through which you must pass but no-one tells you until you get to the next checkpoint and then they tell you, you don’t have some sticker on your luggage from the previous checkpoint. Then there are queues at every point and some of them you have to line up at but others you don’t and the guy with a gun yells at you to go through, except there’s no way to tell if you should line up or not. And in the middle of it all, there’s a Krishna guy dancing around in a circle and chanting and of course he’s a white guy, looked German actually...
So far, this was one Indian city I wouldn't mind spending a bit more time in! ;-)

Late last night I arrived in Hyderabad, which at least, has a very new and modern airport. The car that the hotel sent for me (since it was late) didn’t turn up… So when I called them they said it was delayed (do you see a pattern here?) and I had to wait an hour. While I waited I started talking to the hotel representative at the airport about Kolkata airport. He told me Kolkata airport is so bad because they’re all communists. That Kolkata is the Russia of India. Now that’s a novel idea! I asked for details but he failed to explain and instead told me the hotel he was representing (and where I was supposed to stay) was ‘ugly and not nice at all’.
I must say that played on my tired and feeble mind and by the time I arrived at the hotel, I thought it was dirty, old and noisy - not nice at all! The food I ordered (curry – what else?) was too spicy, the bed was hard and the pillow lumpy. I decided I didn’t like Hyderabad at all. If only they upgraded me to a better room, it would have been so much nicer… ;-) Only when I woke up this morning, did I see my stupidity. I actually slept well on my hard bed and the lumpy pillow. But didn't have time to re-examine as off to work I went…
I am now sitting at an airport, waiting for ANOTHER delayed flight to Mumbai… 3hrs and the clock’s ticking.
See ya tomorrow!