Woke excitedly at 5 this morning to go see the sunrise. It didn't. Seems that during monsoon season you get quite a lot of cloud... Should have known after the sunset was obscured by cloud and thunder but oh well, we were one of the first into the grounds this morning. Well, would have been had I realised that you aren't allowed to take tripods in, so I had to go out and put that in a locker, and also that you need shoe covers, so I went and got one of those too, and again when I remembered I needed to get two of them. So after being searched by the same guy 3 times I made it in, behind a couple of hundred other people who had been queueing behind me. I don't think I'm all that awake in the mornings...
Didn't get any amazing photos of the place going a lovely orange colour in the sun, it was mostly grey but it is an impressive building. Shame they were cleaning the fountains too so there was no water. On the plus side a couple of us spent about an hour and a half taking silly cheesy photos all around the place (to follow when we next find internet...) which amused me no end!
General observations so far are:
1) Most people are very very friendly, even when doing no. 2
2) Everyone here is trying to rip you off - noticed this mainly when a woman rode past with a little child on the back who gave us a lovely smile and shouted "Hello money!" to us. Not hard to see why everyone's trying to get at your money when they appear to be taught that tourists are walking cash machines. One insistant kid this morning realised that he wasn't going to get any money out of me so moved onto asking for chewing gum and then shampoo (I did note that he needed some, but unfortunately I left that at the hotel...). Everyone is trying to sell postcards (I DON'T WANT A POSTCARD!) and tat round here, who buys this crap to keep everyone in business? (Oh wait, Americans?). Tuktuk drivers say one price and then make up a new one when you get to the destination (just say no and carry plenty of change as they won't give you the right money back)
3) Everything happens very slowly in a hugely rushed manner. To buy a loaf of bread yesterday I had to ask for it, get a receipt, pay for it, get another receipt, go back to the man with the bread and show him the receipt to actually end up with it in my hand. It took nearly 2 hours for someone to send a parcel, and 6 hours (including numerous tuktuk journeys and a free lunch) for Sam to arrange train tickets, and then the computer crashed and the power went out so the last 2 weren't booked until the evening! Then you should see the roads - everyone going fast, but getting places very very slowly with plenty of horn - my ears were ringing from being stuck in front of a bus this morning!
Despite this there's something I really like about it here, the next few weeks should be really fun once we get on the truck tomorrow... just got to endure a 3 hour train journey tonight on an overcrowded train again first, at least I know the air conditioning at the hotel works though!
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