I remember the language/reading thing from India - except that Devangari (which is the script most of the places I was) is at least alphabetical, & I'd managed to learn it a bit before going out. There were a couple of places though where it was a different script (and same when I was in Jordan with Arabic, although there I had my mate Rich to translate) & it was *odd*. Sounds like India is easier than China - more people who speak at least a little English. Enough, in fact, that my (very little) Hindi got very little workout as whenever I'd try speaking Hindi people would reply in English :-/

I am still v envious of you getting to go out there. And it's great reading about it, so thank you!