Tomorrow seems to have arrived. Almost

I've arrived in Bhubaneswar after an overnight train from Koraput, on my way to Delhi to attend a workshop on fundraising.  I met a lovely young woman on the train, an actor working for a theatre group working to raise awareness among their audience on all sorts of issues, whether it be people's rights, the environment or whatever else seems to be important at the time.  The shows sound exhilerating, I hope I can get to see one sometime.  They've performed overseas in Europe, Japan and elsewhere.  The group is Natya Chetana.  Look them up on the web, they do some exciting stuff.  And what I want to know is how did the lady across the aisle manage to emerge from her neat, tidy bunk this morning looking absolutely immaculate, not a hair or sari fold out of place while I disentagled myself from the sheets and crawled out all bleary-eyed, rumpled, disshelved and looking like I had slept in all my clothes (which of course I had)

I've finally managed to contact my UK bank on the phone, having failed miserably to extract cash from the ATMs again or to get through to them on the phone.  It seems that someone had forgotten I was still in India and will be for the best part of a year and had stopped all my cards from working overseas.  Anyone else heading out here be warned, it's not the first time this has happened in my family, bank security can sometimes get in the way of surviving!  Hopefully I will be able to get some money out now but I can't bring myself to brave the heat of the Bhubaneswar streets at the moment, it's like an oven out there.

I visited the Andhra Bank again yesterday and was relieved to find that they have opened up an account for me although they couldn't pay in the 1000/- that I paid as a deposit as it's a cheque-only account (which I am hoping means that it will also accept electronic banking transfers).  I can't help wondering how the local folk manage to open accounts as this community is almost 100% cash-based.  Except for failed attempts to withdraw cash from ATMs I haven't had a chance to use any plastic cards here in Koraput.  It is hard to use anything of higher value than 100/- notes unless you're buying something expensive like a modem.  How different to home when I carried hardly any cash around with me as I rarely used it.  The downside is that the bank won't give me an ATM until there is money in the account.  I am a bit worried as I don't have a cheque book either - how many tomorrows will I have to live through after my VSO allowance is paid in before I can get an ATM + PIN code and get it all activated?  Time will tell.