Orchha 28th April 2006

After my emergency water run this morning, I went back to bed to try and get some rest. I dozed off and got up at 09:40 as I had arranged to meet The Boss and he was going to take me around the temples. When I got to the restaurant I met Chef (Titto) and told him that I was meeting The Boss, he just laughed and said,” boss drink too much beer last night”. I spent the rest of the morning wandering around town greeting / getting greeted by the locals and drinking lots of water and masala chai. I got back to my guesthouse and sat in the garden with my laptop to update some photos so that I could post them on the Internet.

As I was sitting there the owners son (Rishi) came down to me and started chatting, he’s ten years old and has excellent English. He was really interested in what I was doing and he asked me if I would teach him how to use the computer. So for the next two hours I sat down with him and taught him some of the basics of Photoshop. He really got the hang of it and he enjoyed adding extra arms and eyes to people! His sister who is seven came to see what we were doing, so I let her listen to my ipod, I wandered off to talk to an English couple who are staying here (Liz and Will from Stafford), they teach English in Korea and are meandering back to England for a couple of months before returning to Korea, and the kids were perfectly happy to work away on their own. When I had to go out, the kid asked me if I would give him another lesson at 14:00 tomorrow, I told him that I would if I was around. I’ll print off some of the photos that he was working on so that he can show his family / friends.

I was invited to a wedding in the evening (so many weddings, so little time), actually to be correct it was the family feast the day before the actual wedding. It was Tittos’ uncles wedding and we went to his house, which is just outside the town. When I got there I was motioned to a seat and suddenly I had fifteen kids around me sitting in a circle, I had met some of them the night before and they all wanted me to take photos of them. I was having a good time playing with the kids until a couple of the elders came and shooed them away from me and they sat down. Then I got asked the usual questions and a few about how much my watch cost, sandals etc, I wished they would bugger off and bring the kids back!

I managed to get away from the elders when the meal was served and ended up sitting beside three of Tittos uncles who were really nice and I had a good laugh with them. The food was served on plates made from coconut leaves and was a really nice Thali, they even brought me a spoon to eat with. I surprised them (and myself) by eating the food Indian style (with my hands) and they all laughed and told me that I was an “Indian Foreigner”, which I think was meant in a good way! I was then asked to take some photos of Tittos family and went into the house and took some shots, I asked them if we could go outside (to use the house as a backdrop) and I continued to take photos.

That was until I felt something grab my right calf and bite! I had been attacked and bitten by the family dog, which was a bloody big mutt. Thinking about it, the mutt walked in seen his whole “family” up against the wall and the camera flashing, so I suppose he was trying to protect them, and it worked! Everyone said, “no problem, no problem”, but I told them that I had to go to a hospital and get an injection and the wound cleaned (he had punctured my calf in two places and it was bleeding). It was after 22:00 at this stage and we had to wake the local doctor up, he cleaned the wound, gave me four pills to take and he dressed my leg. He told me to come back in the morning and he would give me an injection and also not to worry about rabies, as it was a family dog and there is no rabies in the area. I’m glad that I got a course of three injections for rabies before I left the London though.

I returned to Tittos house and the party was kicking off. I was ordered to sit down and have some food, I had only eaten about an hour before and couldn’t possibly eat more, but I thought that I’d better make an effort, as I didn’t want to insult anyone. I sat down and was nearly force fed a really sweet dessert and I thought that I did well not to gag, next think I knew someone was trying to feed me curried chick peas, so I ended up having one side of my mouth filled with dessert and the other half filled with curry! Titto eventually rescued me by shouting at my captors and taking the food away. I was then brought to another house and was given some whiskey (No.8), and for a race that are not meant to drink, the old boys in the house were certainly putting some amount of it away. I managed to get away just after midnight and the music was blaring out as me and the Enfield putt-putted down the road.