A Not So Busy Day at the Office

AK and I had been discussing how to recover from jet lag yesterday (in between our bouts of very hard work) and came to no particular conclusion. My theory is to switch to your new hours as soon as possible and suffer the consequences (of course I take flights so infrequently and have no purposeful work to do when I get there that my thoughts on the matter are inconsequential). However, I did go to bed (after midnight) following my theory and promptly sat there staring at the celing fan until five in the morning when I finally succumbed to sleep. The fan was bathed in the violent blue glow from an LED I was too lazy to get out of bed to switch off which might not have helped. Five in the morning coincided with when I did get up to switch the fan off in case it was the flow of air keeping me awake. I guess I'm still on UK-time. One thing I did fathom whilst awake was that I actually have quite a few things to do today (packing, fiddling with bike, planning a route across India).

So I wasn't raring to go when I did get up a few hours later. The bug hunters amongst you will be keen to learn that when I pulled out my earplugs first thing the chirping insect was in full flood (and the fan, of course, was off -- and I was sweaty but that's not important right now). Two datums there: the earplugs are very effective and the insect is just a noisy little sod and not simply enamoured of the ceiling fan.

I evetually rolled down the road to the Ambience Mall around lunchtime and headed down into the Big Bazaar getting plenty of attention for my choice of clothing (full biking gear). I found my emergency foodstuffs (I chose from one of the thirty different varieties of Basmati rice and zero other varieties of rice), stood in the queue behind the bloke who was buying a years supply of clothes and was finally given a big "cloth" bag which was knotted, zip tied closed and then had a number written on it.

The bag and then my receipt were then inspected as I exited the Big Bazaar before I decided to hike round the mall looking for someone who might replace my watch strap for which the death nell has been sounded. The Ambience Mall is big, not that big but still pretty big when you're clumping about in big boots giving the punters the opportunity to fail to give sneaky looks my way. Yes, I can see you looking. The security guards (metal detectors at the entrances and guards at every shop entrance) aren't so keen on you taking bags into shops (you have to leave them at the door and get a chitty) and the one shop where I did wander in unmolested, on the way out I had the bag unzipped, opened and finally the security tag on my bag of raisons was deemed to be the culprit. Of course the shop that was harassing me sold none of the items in my bag but that doesn't matter, does it?

Anyway, to cut a long trip round the mall twice short I eventually ended up with a man trying to flog me the sort of purple leather patterned strap that might give more sensitive souls a seizure. For R2000 (EUR33?). I declined.

I did manage to get some money out with my Nationwide card so all is not yet lost. I had had a reply to my message this morning that was thoroughly non-commital (we have no evidence you've tried to use your card, here's some FAQs for you to read) but maybe the 'Travel Notification' form had kicked in. There was no suggestion that the FlexAccount people had bothered to speak to the credit card people.

I came back and started the process of emptying out my panniers to refill them (and remind myself what I actually have) but managed hardly anything at all before dozing off. I then did pack the panniers but promptly unpacked them again when I realised I hadn't hidden my cash to pay for China away in the bottom. Heat and old age have resulted in my super secret location being locked shut so I'm reduced to a slightly less secret location which relies mostly on no-one fancying emptying my panniers.

I popped round the corner for a decent curry (although it did feel like I was trying to eat about a pint of korma sauce) and then came back to fire off a quick email. Of course, I tried to tease Thunderbird into action. It can now read emails but gets in a tizzy trying to send them. It helpfully announces that my server has dropped the connection which is is really annoying to see when you're logged into said server watching the complete absence of packets on the wire. Why does some software lie like that?

Equally annoying is that both Chrome and Firefox seem to lock up when trying to post these news articles (again no packets on the wire). I'm beginning to wonder if it's this PC which is knackered. That won't be very good for the rest of the trip.