Life in an orphanage in Nepal....

Living in an orphanage has some advantages and some disadvantages. Breakfast is quite a gamble...
Day 1: Muesli
Day 2: Pancakes (albeit very thick gooey ones)
Day 3: Omelette
Day 4: Biscuits (...?)
Day 5: Popcorn (!?!?!?)

...they seem to get weirder by the day. The monotonous but tasty and predictable dal bhat for lunch and dinner seems somewhat preferable, as it does, at least, fill you up for more than half an hour.

We play the card game Cheat a lot. As the name might suggest, this game is based around using deception to get rid of your cards. Try explaining this to a monk. "I cheated 3 times" he tells us proudly after our first successful game. He giggles a lot at us 'naughty Westerners', particularly me, as I have taken to stealing his sandals and hiding them around the house (the best hiding place yet is my feet). He gets up at 6.30 every morning and doesn't stop until 9.30 at night. Sometimes he goes up to the monastery for a few hours rest and meditation...can't blame him. It's very peaceful there, as long as you ignore the young monks running around practicing the kung-fu moves they've seen on tv. Not so different to the 7 year olds you'd see elsewhere, really. Very wary of females.

The Westerners include Ann, Eva, Katie...Ann, the matriarch of the group, is a vivacious and mature lady with sparkling eyes and a wicked sense of humour. The 19 year old French Eva reminds me a lot of my sister; chilled and witty, with a very sexy pair of Hawaiian shorts. Katie, the recently-turned-Christian, is vegetarian, has Buddhist tattoos and a homeopathic travel survival kit.

Then of course, John and I. Those of you who don't know John might like to know a little about him: Irish, loves Irish folk music, running, and any 'great craic' there is to be had.

Such people have led to some hilarious situations, not least with us piling into a taxi the other day: 5 passengers meant that I had to stage dive in on top of the others. I ended up sitting on John's lap. We start moving. 'John, please put your knob down.' Ann states. John gasps at her in horror and I look round slightly disturbed, thinking I might have noticed had such an event occurred. "...oh, on the door, on the door!!'' she laughs.

We laughed all the way to Mahendra Pul, our Nepalese friend laughing along with absolutely no idea what we were on about.