Kung Fu training

Finally I got to the fort above the town. Would you text someone at 1am in the morning to say that the 4am start time had been put back 30mins. I suppose I am grateful.

Got onto the hill about 7, many people had set off far earlier, we met them coming down. This is an amazing place for a fort. A large flatish top, with a water supply, and few access points, reinforced with big walls where the cliffs are not as fierce. It is over corbett height but since Pune is at over 600m thats not a surprise.

The local story is that a boy maharajah captured it by tying string to iguanas and flinging them up the cliffs, they then towed the raiders up.

It is now a tourist beacon - with lots of locals selling food, tat, t-shirts and books - but mainly food - raw mango potentially with mastanga (see Fridays blip), onion bhagis, curd, blackcurrants that are too big to be blackcurrants but they are black and other stuff

Saw these martial arts students being forced to sit jump down a slope, and then whipped with a stick for cheating and made to do it again. The one at the front appears to be showing some dissent (is praying a whippable offence?) I was tempted to have a word, but then my friends advised me to step back with the photos and hurried away. l decided not to comment.

By midday the sun was through the cloud and the journey back down was not particularly pleasant.

The Chamelions came to mind so that is who I am listening to now.