As I’m sure most of you are aware, India is hot. Well, most of India is. In the northern parts, it stretches up into the Himalayas where the altitude makes it a lot cooler. There are also “hill stations” which are high in the mountains and have much lower temperatures. When the English occupied India, the hill stations were where people would go to retreat from the heat in summer. When I was here last year, in the space of an hour we drove from Mettupalayam at 40 degrees to Coonoor at 2000m up where it was a lovely 23 degrees.

Fires are a very common thing here in Hyderabad. People sweep leaves & debris into a pile and just set fire to it. You see little flaming or smouldering piles at the side of the road all the time. This picture was taken from our balcony and is at the tent village next to our apartment building. The guy who lit it stuck around for a little while before wandering off. You can see from the scorch marks on the wall that a fire here is pretty common.

The other day, we were out buying some supplies for finishing off our furniture. It had rained just before we reached that area of the city but by the time we got there, the sun had come out again and it was hot and humid. While Gopal was sorting out what we needed, I was just standing around outside idly looking around. Without the cooling airflow of the motorbike, I was starting to feel hot and sweaty.

Our maid often brings me flowers to wear in my hair. They are jasmine flowers and they smell lovely all day.

And walk. And ride. And stand around. And shop. And talk. In fact, everywhere I go and everything I do, there are people watching me.

One of the first things we did as soon as we moved into this apartment in January was go to the bank to try and open a joint bank account or get me added to Gopal’s existing bank account. Try is very much the operative word, as nothing is easy in India.

One of the problems we noticed after we’d moved into this apartment, was that the tiles in the wet areas hadn’t been laid properly. Both bathrooms are completely tiled (floors and to 2 metres up the wall) and have two drains in them.