It could be quiet for a while

We're going to the NCF guest hosue in Mysore at 9am tomorrow (which means a 6am start to get to NCBS and have breakfast in time). No idea when I'll next get access to the net so I will update stuff when I do.

Mossies...

...apear to have aquired a fancy for my left leg, but no-where else. Now have 7 bites.

Friday 2

There was suddenly a cry of SNAAKE, ran out to see but sadly I missed it. Sophie who was the one who spotted it (pretty much next to her) realised it was a cobra and filmed it eating the frog I sat on a couple of days ago - tough life...

Heading off to Mysore then Bandipur either tomorrow or Sunday (we're doing India organisation) so not sure when I'll have the next access to the internet. Also my laptop's fan has stopped working so it could melt at any point so we'll have to see how that goes.

Today I was outwitted by monkeys (as was Kate)

Today NCBS contained: 2 Monkeys

I was sitting drinking the worlds sweetest cup of coffee (I'm pretty sure it was about ninety percent sugar) enjoying a break in the sun, bliss. This was obviously far too calm for me so two monkeys appeared in the ground, climbed the building and entered in an upper floor window. Kate and I grabbed our cameras and ran up the stairs to take photos. While we were climbing the stairs they jumped back out the window, to where we had been sitting, and started rummaging through bags, stealing my tasty dextrose tablets and Kate's Nalgene water bottle. We ran down as they ascended the building and watched as one of them opened the bottle but managed to poor the water on his own face (Nick took a photo of it playing with its testicles so it was definitely a boy). We were obviously not only conned by a monkey but conned by a stupid monkey. After drenching itself it dropped the bottle off the top of the building which Kate collected unscathed, lending credence to Nalgene's "unbreakable" reputation. There were only bite marks on the lid... (we've helpfully suggested she washes it. The monkeys then went back indoors to continue their reign of chaos and steal a woman's icecream. As we got closer to take photos it decided it was his icecream and chased us with fangs bared, so we scattered giggling (by this time it was me, Nick, Kate and two other guys who we didn't know (one Indian and one possibly dutch?). Escaped unscathed but a little over sunned due to the time chasing them about.

Going to a "banquet" this evening, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's probably going to contain curry (curried rice for breakfast this morning, tasty but still a little odd to be eating at 8am).

Thursday

After an epic two hours of pingpong yesterday with a Nick, Sophie and a smelly man, we had to get up at 6:50 am. So far today I have learned hydrology is dull.

Tuesday

Icecreams had: 1 (Mango yumyumyum)

Nearly wet myself today when I was sitting on the grass (mmm colonial) enjoying a coffee while having a break between work and a cleverly disguised frog leaped onto me from between my legs. A giant argument broke out in the middle of our lecture (on how we should focus the fight for conservation) and I managed to shut up one of the prestigious scientists I mentioned yesterday with my insightful comment, hurrah.
Just waiting for dinner now...

Monday

Bite Tally: 1

Today we started our workshop on Biodiversity at the most prestigious biological science department in the country - many cleverer people than I are taking part (who are actually biologists) including a couple of India's big name scientists (who I have read some books by). Interesting but hard work. Halfway through the afternoon a monkey decided to climb in through the window so someone hit it with a book. Spent the evening playing Uno with many people (Mexican rules) and played midnight table tennis (which is table tennis at midnight) but I only had half a bat.