I have now arrived in India via the busy airports of Delhi and Chennai. I am working in the small town of Vellore which is approx a two and a half hour drive from Chennai and is in the state of Tamil Nadu.

I am staying at a great hotel called the 'Darling Residency' which has a great roof top restaurant which does the best curry ever. I have watched the final of the Indian Premier League Cricket where Shane Warne's team the Rajhistan Royals beat the hotly fancied Chennai Super Kings by getting the winning runs on the last ball - this was a big event and there was a massive surge of power as all of India tried to watch the match so everyone was worried that the power would blow and it also means I get on with the waiters at the hotel as we hotly debated who would win the final, and I was right!!

Vellore is a bazaar town and is very vibrant with lots of colour, traders, people, traffic of all shapes and sizes as well as wandering cows. There is a mixture of the old and the new where you can see new cars passing big bulls with painted horns pulling carts through the main street. There is a 16th Century fort and a temple which are very impressive. The temperature regularly tops 40 degrees every day - yesterday it was 31 degrees at 8am - thank god for air conditioning and fans!!!

I have been working in the SPW India office for a few days now and am working with Gopi, Santosh and Emma who are patiently answering all of my questions and digging out information for me. The audit is going well and I have a visit out to one of the field placements tomorrow which will allow me to see SPW India's work in action.

I will update you on my visit to the field on my return.

Richard, Your man in India