After a little over three weeks in India, Felix shares his thoughts on the positives and negatives...

INDIA GOODS AND BADS

GOOD

1. Food.  This is plain obvious.  Indian food rocks!
2. Liveliness.  The whole place is just buzzing with activity the whole time.  People and animals milling together, all going about their business.
3. Monkeys.  When they aren’t busy attacking you, monkeys are probably the funniest creatures on earth.  They climb so well it makes me jealous, they are greedy, and the babies are adorable.
4. Cows.  Why can’t we have cows just roaming the streets in Australia?  They just add to the place.  Helps build character
5. Yoga.  Duh.  Why did I come here if not to do yoga.
6. Scooter.  Mum has started letting me drive it.  There is not much more fun than hooning down and Indian side street on a scooter.  Believe me.
7. Smells.  Especially where we are staying.  The Indian family that owns the place are always cooking, therefore the house is always full of delicious smells.
8. Meeting new people.  I have made a few new friends on this trip, closest of which is Ariel, a 17 year old from Costa Rica.  We have been having a great time.
9. Coconuts.  Nothing is better than a cold coconut after a hot practice.  I found out that coconuts greatly restore energy.  One time the coconut man wasn’t there after practiced.  I hardly made it home.  I felt betrayed, and my trust in this coconut man has lowered considerably.
10. Hampi!  Of course!  It was such a great experience, seeing and climbing this vast landscape of boulders.  Except when the monkey attacked me.  That wasn’t so fun.

BAD

1. Locals who stare at me.  Every second guy you pass in the street just full on stares at you.  After a while I got fed up, so every guy who stared at me, I stared at them right back.
2. Various animal turds.  They are everywhere!  You have to keep a subconscious crap detector whenever you go outside!  But you can never escape the smell.
3. Monkeys who attack me.  If you read the past blog, you know the full story.  Enough said.  It’s not like I wanted to keep the pants I was wearing that day anyway.
4. Cows who attack me.  I was just walking down the street minding my own business, when a cow decides to ram its horn into my belly and slobber all over me.  Bloody cows.
5. Led class.  Nothing is more tiring than a yoga teacher who holds you in those really uncomfortable poses forever.  And keeping up.  I’m not too good at that.
6. Traffic.  There are no proper rules! Mum and I came up with rules of our own.
   1 don’t go near buses
   2 beep your horn
   3 don’t go near buses
7. Buses.  They are horrible to be in and around.  It is quite terrifying when you are on a small scooter, and then you hear an ear-splitting horn blast, and there’s a bus right behind you.  They are also very horrible to be in for eleven hours straight.  They are hot, smelly, and the bus driver beeps the bloody horn every two minutes.  The horns on the bus are eardrum piercingly loud.  Bus drivers don’t like letting people sleep.
8. Bus stations.  Like the buses, they are smelly, dirty and loud.
9. The toilets.  There is no toilet paper.   Just a bucket and a tap.  Maybe If your lucky you get a hose.  I will let you imagine the rest.
10. Eh, nine is enough.  India is not bad enough to deserve a tenth.