Throwback to India

Looking at the photos of the India school trip this summer, reminds me of when I went on the trip last year and all the adventures we had. 

PREPARE YOURSELF FOR THE PHOTOS!

Here is a picture of our group in India

The trip which lasted two and a half weeks was primarily to help out volunteering in a school and to put on a musical performance with the children. 

Everything started off extremely early at Heathrow Airport where we embarked on a nine hour flight to Mumbai (Bombay). 

Laura, Lucy and I excited for the trip. 

Many hours later we arrived at the airport in Mumbai and walked out into the humid hustle and bustle of noise and smells that is India. 

We spent the first weekend in the city doing some sight seeing. 

This was the hotel breakfast on the rooftop. On the first day we were spared the curry breakfast thankfully. 

We visited the place where the washing is done, the Gateway of India and the Taj Mahal Hotel, and a National Park up the mountain..

Laura and I by the famous washing area.

The Gateway of India is a monument built during the British rule in India and was completed in 1924. 

It is a historical symbol of colonialism and is one of the biggest tourist destinations in India.

Our group in front of the Gateway of India. 

Then we walked over to see the Taj Mahal Hotel and looked inside. 

It would have been amazing to stay inside the hotel but considering it is ridiculously expensive I guess I'll have to save up and go when I am a millionaire. 

Then a trip to a National Park after a coach drive up the mountain.


There are streams which people could sit in or dip their feet in. One Indian man was even sitting in there in his full outfit of jeans and T-Shirt. 

There are monkeys who came to see us. 

And there were some Temples which we explored. 

We also visited the the train station where hit film Slumdog Millionaire was filmed.

We went to dinner 

and tried some of the local cuisine. 

Then went for a little walk about the shops and to get some henna done. 

You can see me on the right sitting down getting mine done.

Laura and my arms with the henna on before we washed it off. You have to leave the henna on for as long as possible to get a darker colour afterwards which will last longer so we laid on our beds chatting whilst it worked its magic. 

After the weekend we took another flight and coach all the way down to Tamil Nadu in the south of India where the school is. 

On the way down we were able to experience some true Indian driving on the roads. 

Basically this features a madman at the wheel who drives at about 100mph on the wrong side of the road at a lorry and then moves at the last second. Oh and don't forget the constant horn sounding meaning there was no hope of a sleep. 

Second part of the trip:The school 

We arrived at the Kings School which is a charity run English School, founded and head by Colin Wagstaff OBE who also set up the Kings World Trust for Children charity.  

During our two weeks at the school we taught the children in classes. I helped out in the Kindergarten classes with the young children aged 5 and 6 teaching them English. There were also art classes and music which my other classmates helped out in. 

Then for the rest of the time we helped out with a year group of 11/12 year olds devising a musical performance of The Little Mermaid. As a group we wrote the script, composed the music, taught the dancing and acting and made the set for the performance which took place on our second last day at the school, and was in front of the whole rest of the Kings School in the outside hall. 

These are some of the children we lived in the boarding house with

Little Geoffrey was definitely the star, and we all found him absolutely adorable. 

Lauren here is teaching one of the boys how to do his singing part in the musical. 

We also had to make all the costumes for the production. Each group were different sea animals and had different dances for some of the songs, such as Under the Sea the opening and closing number. 

My group here were the starfish. 

 there were dolphins, whales, crabs, stingrays and many more. 

Here is my friend Jack trying out the octopus face paints before we did it on the children. 

And here are some photos of the final performance at the end of the trip to the rest of the school and its teachers. 

And here are some other photos of the trip.


With Bronte in our Salwar Kameezes  

In the computer room with Ida and watching assembly.











Laura and I in the dormitories

Lucy with one of her girls in her group. 

There is a pool which we were able to swim and play games together in after dinner at the end of the day. 

Breakfast time - every meal every day was curry, even breakfast!
Now my friends know quite well that I wasn't really a fan of curry before going to India, and now afterwards I'm really not. 

Cooling off! - thank god for the fans in the room otherwise we would have died from the heat. 

Another one of the groups I was part of. I'm with Lucy and Laura here. 

During the trip we also visited the local village and had dinner on a banana leaf. 

Noah and Laura at the restaurant. 

We also volunteered to paint a local primary school. 

Lucy and I chose this part of the school to paint first. 

We also volunteered teaching in a poor school, I visited twice to the Anaikulum school. 

 This is me in my salwar kameez traditional Indian dress with the headmaster of Anaikulum. 

During the time at Kings School we also had a day trip out with the boarding children to the seaside, to 2 temples and shopping..

The main temple didn't look like much from the outside but inside you go down into the huge holy temple. 

And look what we saw!

We all got blessed by the elephant

and this was our shopping trip, Sari shopping!

Near the temple there is a massive department store with everything in. We were able to look at and search through the thousands of Saris and matching tops that go underneath until we found one we loved. 

The rest of the store was so big that Lucy and I got lost and had to ask my teacher who has been here a few times to help us find what we wanted, such as jewellery,silk ties, bags. 

This was all in preparation for our last night at Kings School before travelling back to Mumbai for the last few days. 

On our last night the school had prepared a dinner by the pool side for us with entertainment. A dinner of chicken and paratha bread (no curry!) and it was the best food on the trip. 

Us girls dressed up and wore our saris.  

The house matrons and house mothers in the boarding house dressed us up in our saris. 

And put flowers in our hair - shown here on Laura. 

Then we said our goodbyes and made our way back to Mumbai. 

Last stop: Mumbai again

Back in the hotel again

 Some of us went shopping for last minute things before going home. I tried a vanilla cane drink from the street market stall.

We visited more cultural places such as Gandhi's house.

We had more curry for lunch. 

 And then visited the slums. 

This was a very sad and moving place to visit.

We got to see the immense poverty that there is in this part of the city.




Then we visited the hijras. 

These are transgender people - men who adopt a female appearance and female gender roles. 

Our main teacher of the trip is an anthropologist and so we visited here, to their temple for an anthropology outing. Though even those who don't study anthropology found it very interesting as well as myself. 




After that we had a last dinner together and got ready to go home. But not before we got more henna and bought some that we could take home ourselves as well. 

It was an amazing trip, a once in a life time cultural experience and I am grateful that I had the opportunity to be a part of everything. Don't ever turn down the chance to do something like this as it is definitely worth it - you really learn a lot about yourself. 


Like in my case this is not my favourite meal...


(it was 6 months before I had any more Indian food)