Journey to Mumbai

10/06/2013

Up at 06:30 to catch the train at 9am and get Will’s suit on the way.  As usual when I need to be up I slept terribly.  I had laid awake for well over an hour after going to bed at about 12:30 then I had seen a guy let himself into our room (a white guy in PJ’s, in hindsight it must have been a dream) so I courageously threw back the covers screaming “What the f**K are you doing in here!!” and charged at him! He turned and ran out the room.  Will then jumped out of bed and I screamed “There was a man in here! He just ran out! Let’s get him!” Will’s about to run out the room after him and I notice he’s completely naked!  (I can just imagine him chasing an intruder shouting threateningly at him with his flaccid member swinging from side to side and his buttocks jiggilng).  Unwiling to let him wrestle with an intruder with his meat and 2 veg swinging around (as utterly hilarious it would have been inhindsight) I told him to get some pants on first.  He then questioned whether this actually happened to which I annoyingly assured him it had as I was wide awake and then he tried the door and it was locked....from the inside.  He’s still willing to chase after this guy but I start doubting myself.  I’m convinced he was in the room but can’t see how he could have got out and re-locked the door so quickly.  I conclude I must have been dreaming and go back to bed wide awake and wired and unable to sleep at all.  By the time the alarm went off I’d had no more than 2 hours sleep but at least we are going to be on the train all day and I can get some sleep.  (Just the thought of Will running out into that hallway completely b*llock naked makes me laugh out loud.  Not even a ‘lol’, an actual laugh out loud).

We picked up his suit and headed to the train station way before we needed to be there.  We drove through the centre of the city with all the modern shops where there would have been wifi and wished we’d stayed there.  In the end I’d had to text my Mum to ask her to book us a hotel in Mumbai so we had somewhere to go when we arrive. In true Mum form she needed me to send 5 expensive texts before it could be booked so I dread to think what that cost!

We only had 120 rupees in change to tip the driver but he decided to be a martyr and not accept anything.  If he hadn’t said ‘I spent 4 days with you’ I’d have thought he was just being nice but he was cutting his nose off despite his face.  It was either 120 or nothing as we didn’t have anything more and there’s no way the grumpy sod was getting 500Rs from us. 

He left 120 rupees lighter and it didn’t bother us that he didn’t take a tip, only him. I might have felt a bit guilty if he’d not refused to go to Ghost Town and had let me stop to take bloody photos when I asked him to and hadn’t tried to take us back to the hotel at 4pm every day.  But he did, so screw him. 

The train we’re getting is the biggest I’ve ever seen.  It must be 20 carriages long!  The sleeper section looks horrendous. It’s for the locals (it’s really cheap) and they’re all just sat on benches all squashed up together all still wearing their smart shirts and trousers like they all do here.  This train journey, end to end, is 21 hours long and these folks can’t even lie down! 

The station reeks of faeces, it’s stomach churning.  The toilets open straight onto the track but I’d have thought they’d ask you to not defecate in the station as it’s not cleaned but obviously now.  It’s a really sickening smell. 

We’re in 2^nd Class Air Conditioned so we have beds and bedding and AC.  The only difference between this and first class is first class is booths of 4 whereas this is separated only by curtains.  It’s the same as I’d used in Thailand and that quite a nice journey and I had a good night’s sleep.

Bunks on the train

Me and Will squeezed into his bottom bunk (we didn't sleep like this)

Since we’ve been on here I’ve seen random people jumping off the train for a wee either right on the tracks or just on the grass to the side (including small children) so I’m guessing they don’t have toilets in the sleeper section.  The toilet for us (luckily has a seat) but is just a hole straight onto the track, I can’t see how it would cost a lot to give the sleeper section a couple of these to use.  The track in the station smelled like a sewer and was making me retch so someone was defecating somewhere!

Luckily they’re trapped in their sleeper section like cattle and they can’t get into our bit.  That might sound mean but when you’ve spent the last few days having people follow you, blatantly stare and take photos and show no shame you don’t feel overly confident about sleeping with them around.  I’d probably wake up to stripped naked and smeared in curry paste with them all dancing around me.  The workers on here selling food have already congregated in the booth opposite so they can brazenly stare at me with no shame whatsoever.   There’s actually a poster on the wall in regards to fines and prosecutions for things such as taking flammable items onto the train etc. and one part is about harassment of women.  There’s a 2 year jail sentence for it and it lists what classes as harassment and staring is one of them (curry paste isn’t mentioned though). You’ve got to feel for anyone with a lazy eye on these trains. 

I tried having a nap earlier but every time I drifted off I was woken up by either “chi coffee chi” from the hot drink man or “cutlets” from the food man.  Those 3 words are going to haunt my semi-conscious state for the considerable future.  When it was neither of them waking me up it was Will moving me so he was more comfortable.  In the end I just gave up trying to nap.  He on the other hand slept for about 2 hours then when I gave up he went to the top bunk and slept for another 3 hours then came back down to my bunk and drifted off again for another hour!  I honestly don’t know how one person can sleep so much!  He’ll then sleep all through the night after that too.  If I have a nap for more than an hour and wake up after 7pm I can’t sleep until after at least 1am then I’m really restless and have weird dreams normally involving people being in the room or my bed being somewhere it shouldn’t like a car park or the office.  That’s the reason I can never sleep naked as I dream my bed is somewhere public and there’s someone in bed with me and I can’t get out of bed because I’m naked.  After many restless night I committed to pyjamas.     

There’s lots of families on the train which is the only place I’ve seen husbands and wives together.  In the street the women seem to go around in groups and the men seem to hang out with other men.  The kids can all speak English from quite a young age which is impressive.  There’s a young girl on the train that keeps speaking to me, she’s probably only about 8.  She came up to me at one point and told me I was very beautiful :o)

A man walked through the carriage earlier with a holstered gun on his belt.  That wasn’t overly comforting as I thought if he decided to rob the ‘rich white folk’ they’d get my iphone, netbook, tablet, ipod and my camera leaving me with nothing.  (I lot to take on holiday with you, I know, but I am going to be away for 6 months).  I don’t know if you can get a licence for a gun here or if he had to be un-uniformed police or what but he seemed to get off the train before it left the station luckily.

The toilet got progressively more disgusting in smell and someone with a bad aim managed to empty their bowls all the way down the side of the bowl.  As it is open straight onto the track there’s no water so that didn’t shift for the duration of the trip.  Will added to it later on too, just to ensure all toilet experiences tested the gag reflex to the maximum.  

I spent most of the afternoon writing up the previous days journals and the time went quite quickly and I had just enough battery on my laptop to do so.  I settled down to try and sleep at about 11pm and went to brush my teeth.  I didn’t see anyone else (except Will) brush theirs which surprised me as these people aren’t poor and I would have thought they’d have some element of dental hygiene. 

Being up on the bunk the motion of the train was exaggerated and I was getting thrown around like a ragdoll in addition to being squashed by Will’s big backpack and my rucksack as there was nowhere for luggage to go (major design flaw).  Will had to have my suitcase at the foot of his bunk! 

I just lay in bed for hours then when I did half drift off I was having weird dreams (me? Weird dreams? Surely not.  I’ve not even had any cheese since leaving the UK!) that the train was failing to get up a hill or was careering down the other side out of control.  Luckily that was the extent of my sleep adventures, I was worried I’d go sleep walking (which is why I took the top bunk to make it harder for myself) and I’d end up falling out of the train as the doors are all left open when the train is in motion (I’ve tried leaving hotel rooms in the past so it’s not an absurd fear).  I had just got off to sleep at about 3am when the people opposite decided it was time to get up (that explains why so many people are out and about playing sport at 5am!) so they woke me up which I was ever-so grateful of.  I drifted off into a restless sleep at about 4am and then woke up 2 hours later ready for the train’s arrival. So that’s a total of 5hrs sleep in 2 nights now.  I usually struggle on less than 7 in a night!

Mumbai; Day 1

11/06/2013

We arrived in Bandra station and followed the crown out of the back exit.  The stench in the train station was unbearable.  Someone really needs to get a pressure hose out once in a while.  Will had read somewhere that you’d experience the best and worst smells ever in India, so far I’ve only experienced the worst.  I don’t think I’ve smelt so much faeces in the last 10 years of my life then have in the last few days. 

We’ve noticed a few older men with dyed hair, normally bright orange.  Apparently it’s done by henna; the more you put on the more orange it is.  It’s funny how at home that would be seen as the least desirable hair colour yet they seem to love it here.  We just found it interesting that none of the women dyed their hair too.  Women at home dye their hair regularly and yet they all have the same colour hair here so you’d have thought they’d want to gain some individuality.

After another standard overpriced taxi journey from the train station (900Rs) we got the hotel.  He’d showed us the price on a tariff card but it must have been titled ‘Naive Tourist Prices’ sat next to ‘Tourist Prices’ and then ‘Locals Prices’. 

The hotel is right on the sea front which is nice as there’s a cool breeze and it has a great view.  Unfortunately it’s really foggy though so couldn’t take any photos (I took these the next morning, it still wasn’t sunny but was better than the day before).

Walking around it’s immediately apparent that our Caucasian celebrity status is over.  We’re yesterday’s news here in such a cosmopolitan and western influenced city.  It’s just so unceremonious!  One minute they can’t get enough of us and are all giggling and queuing up to have a photo taken with us and then we don’t even get a sideways glance!  I can see why washed-up has-been’s end up on ‘I’m a Celeb’ now.

We started off on a walk around the city and ended up at India Gate which is quite a grand sight.  It was built to celebrate the arrival of King Edward and Queen Mary in 1911 (if my Roman Numeral interpretation serves me correctly).  It’s another of India’s grand gestures marking the arrival of royals, it must have taken a lot of money and time to build such a thing.

After spending 10 minutes batting off the advances of an over-zealous tour guide my stomach reminded me we were in India and I had got by unscathed for too long.  Making a quick dash to find the nearest toilet I was on the cusp of body slamming the begging children who wouldn’t let me go without buying one of their stupid items.  I know they’re only trying to make money for food but when you can’t walk anywhere without them grabbing you, trying to take your belongings out of your hands for them to keep, shoving the things they’re selling in your hands and then following you for ages you start to lose your patience.  Especially when it’s such stupid things!  Do I look like someone who wants a giant (and I mean GIANT, ¾ the height of me) weird balloon thing shaped like a pear that would be impossible to carry around with you?  Do I look like someone who would want a motorised boat you put in water?  Do I look like I want a coffee table?  Do I look like i want a carpet?  We’re clearly not local and the chances of us having arrived on a private jet are slim so we’re probably just normal tourists with a suitcase with a weight limit.  A suitcase that is never going to be big enough to include a carpet and a weight limit that is never going to include a coffee table!  Come on now, you’re salesmen, assess your potential customers.

After fending off the massively annoying kids I saw a bar and dashed inside sending Will to buy a bottle of drink to appease the barman.  As I burst into the one toilet available I am, of course, greeted by an Indian style toilet; the good old hole in the ground.  I dashed out and opened the next door in the vain hope they’d be a western style next door but I was just greeted by a broom cupboard and a man telling me there was only1 toilet.  Brilliant.  So my Delhi Belly finally gets a hold of me and all I have is an Indian toilet.  It’s beyond me why anyone would rather squat over a hole trying to avoid splash-back (and in cases of urination, failing) when they can sit on a seat!  The trains have both styles right next to each other so people can choose.  I don’t see the requirement for debate!

In the street you can get a haircut or a shave just sat on the pavement.  I saw a guy getting a shave and wanted to take a photo as it’s quite a surreal image so I thought I’d be polite and ask.  I was met with immediate refusal for a photo.  After all the countless photos I’ve had taken of me against my will the last few days and they refuse to let me have 1!  I should have just taken it rather than be polite.  I’ve learnt my lesson now.  I was tempted to go over the other side of the road and utilise my impressive zoom then flick them the bird as I walked off but he did seem to have a traditional cut-throat razor and after seeing a specific emergency number just for crimes against women, children and the elderly I didn’t want to antagonise the crazy barber.  I’ve not seen Sweeney Todd but I didn’t fancy making the Bollywood version.

We strolled through a street market and bought 5 pairs of sunglasses between us for 100Rs each (about £1.15).  Will had 3 pairs of ray bans in different colours and all with different takes on the name; Roy Boys, Ry Don’s and Ray Bon’s.  All of course assured at the point of sale of their authenticity.  It’s very amusing when the sellers come at you with a price of 350Rs and pointing out the name.  “Yes, they’re all fake.  Fake is fake.  One is no more fake than the other so if these were 100Rs then so are they.”

We wandered past a military gate and stopped on the other side to check our map of where we were going.  One of the guards blew his whistle and waved us to walk on.  Somewhat annoying as we were hardly posing a threat to their safety but what was really pathetic was his mate coming out a few seconds after, seeing us walking away he blew his whistle 2 more times and when we stopped and turned to look at him he waved us to walk on!  What an absolute power hungry jobs-worth!  I was tempted to start walking back towards him asking him what he wanted but the idea of Indian imprisonment wasn’t overly appealing so I settled to just bitching about his pettiness instead.  Absolute tool.

The taxi’s round here are awesome.  They’re really old cars from 2^nd world war times (I’m pretty sure they’re the exact same car that I drove around Berlin when I was there a few years ago, they definitely look very similar and both have the gear change on the steering column).  They have so much character and it’s amazing they’re still going strong after all this time and all these miles driven.  Indian’s cabbies don’t strike me as the type who’d commit to regular servicing and general motor vehicle care.  

The streets here are nice and clean, there are green spaces, fountains and statues making it an enjoyable place to walk around and take in.  Where its overcast the temperature is far more manageable too.  The old British buildings are easy to spot as they’re so grand and individual in their style.  Victoria Train Station (named after the Queen) has to be the most grand  train station I’ve ever seen!  (Externally that is, inside it’s dirty and it stinks.  Where they get all these smells from is beyond me, I think they must buy them in cans, how can a train station smell equally of sewage and fish otherwise? ‘Genuine Indian Train Station Odour; Gutters and Garbage’ or the best selling ‘Faeces and Fish’.  Buy one get one free).  There are also modern style buildings and sky scrapers and high rise apartment buildings but then you’ll have a run-down hovel stuck in the middle of them all.  Even in the expensive parts where the Bollywood stars live there’ll still be a little shack or a house with windows missing or part of the roof.

Victoria Train Station

We stopped at a camera shop and the prices of India impressed me yet again.  I’d considered buying one of those gorilla tripods before coming out, the ones with bendy legs so you can use it on non-flat surfaces or even secure it to a tree branch.  As I’ll spend most of this trip on my own and I’d like the odd picture with me in I thought it would be handy.  After going to LA alone and managing to only get a picture of me sat on a fountain and on a bench as they were the only spots with appropriate level flat walls nearby I thought the £20 cost on Amazon was a justified one.  (How Will had laughed when he saw me posed on a bench, gazing out at LA and asked me “who took this photo?” Er, that would have been me..... How the passers-by would have laughed observing me setting that up.  Oh well, better a moment of embarrassment for a life-long memory caught on camera.  The memory of me being a tit but a memory all the same). They sold these tripods in the camera shop and I asked how much they were; 100Rs.  That’s a saving of nearly £19 on what I would have paid at home!  Result!  Whilst I was there I also picked up a memory card reader for just under £2 and a pack of batteries for the same price.  Thank you, Mumbai!

The humidity was causing some serious perspiration (Will more-so than me, see pic below) and upon seeing the gold-dust esque ‘free wifi hotspot’ sign we dove into a coffee shop.  The drinks were pretty over-priced but it was air conditioned and it had wifi so we didn’t care, I just wanted to find the nearest pharmacy and get same anti-diarrhoea tablets.  Every other country I’ve been there seem to be pharmacies everywhere but here they were as elusive as bloody wifi!  We settled down with our expensive drinks (Will realising he’d unknowingly ordered a coffee which he didn’t like so didn’t drink) and attempted to log on to the wifi.  Our excitement ended swiftly when we realised we needed Indian phone numbers to get the activation code.  Con sarn it!

Our day continued just wandering around, taking in the place and taking photos.  It’s so different from the other cities we went to over here it’s hard to believe it’s the same country.  People walk through the streets with laptop bags talking on mobile phones (in Jaipur there aren’t really any pavements), people go jogging here (in Jaipur they probably don’t eat enough to have the energy spare to exercise).  People here walk dogs (in Jaipur they walk around with cows).  The women mostly wear western clothes and the only sari’s I see are on older women.  Apparently the women should wear Punjab suits until they are married and then wear a sari but none of the younger generation seem to bother with the traditional clothing at all.  The people here seem to walk around in couples and in families more whereas in Jaipur I noticed it was only ever groups of women and groups of men.  The men hold hands too as a sign of friendship. 

On the walk back to the hotel we finally found a pharmacy...who told us to go over the road to the other pharmacy as he didn’t have any shower gel.  Over the road we finally found a pharmacy that sold shower gel.  We even got a free washing thing, the poufy ball that lathers up your shower gel so it goes further, I have no idea what it’s called.  We still needed anti-diarrhoea tablets so we asked the guy in the medicine section and he, of course, had no idea what the word ‘diarrhoea’ meant.  We tried ‘poo’ and ‘soft poo’ and ‘runny poo’ but he just stared at us blankly.  I looked and Will and he looked at me, the realisation in our eyes that we were going to have to act this out.  Will took one for the team and put on a sterling performance of poo shooting out of your backside.  Sound affects and all.  Eureka! The shopkeeper understood!  He understood enough to tell us that they didn’t sell any.  We took our shower gel and left. 

I wore my sari out to dinner and it proved very popular with the locals!  (Getting a taste of my old fame again it’s like a junkie having a secret hit).  One lady even stopped me to tell me how beautiful I looked.  We walked down Marine Drive and sat on the wall like all the locals do.  There were hundreds of them all just sat around chatting.  Groups of friends, couples and families.  Despite the road being right next to you with all the relentless beeping it still managed to be relaxing watching the waves and enjoying the sea breeze.

Goa Day 3

15/06/2013

Another very non-eventful day.  We headed down to the reception desk to arrange booking mopeds.  As usual they were 3 members of staff just sat behind the desk doing absolutely nothing whilst one guy was cleaning all the rooms himself.  One of them is an arrogant little sod too, we’ve taken a dislike to him and his swagger.  We wanted mopeds so we could explore the area but just as we were about to pay the heavens opened and it started chucking it down.  There’s no way we were going to ride mopeds in India on wet roads so the poor guy who had to ride a moped round to us in the rain had to take it back again and we just went back to our room.  We needed to arrange the Sri Lanka leg of our trip anyway so we spent the day deciding what we were going to see and how.  There’s a lot to see on the island, annoyingly Colombo airport is on the west coast which is the area affected by the Indian monsoon and we don’t have enough time to trek to the east side of the island.  It’s annoying as the beaches look incredible, some of the best in the world no doubt, but you just don’t appreciate a beach on a grey, cloudy day when you’re soaked through every couple of hours by a horrendous downpour.  The areas in the centre seem to be ok for weather and that’s where the main attractions are such as Sigiriya, Adam’s Peak etc so we should get a good amount of sunshine.   

There was a lot of Sri Lanka discussion, a little TV watching (from Will) and a trip to the cake shop to buy more chocolate fudge cake.  This time we upgraded to a dark chocolate truffle cake which was even better so Will cleaned them out for all the slices they had.  We’re not allowed outside food in the rooms so we had to smuggle it in.  What kind of hotel doesn’t let you eat in the rooms?!  Especially when they don’t serve food until 7pm at night.  We ended up getting chocolate on the white bed clothes so they will know what we did.  They’ll know we were bad. 

When you walk through the main streets in Goa all you get are people shouting ‘taxi’ at you.  I’m not really sure where they think we’re going?  We have no bags with us, we’re casually strolling along chatting; are we giving off the impression that we’ve just embarked on a reluctant pilgrimage but a pilgrimage that forbids us to ask for help and only allows acceptance of help offered by strangers?  “No thanks bud, think we can make the 100 yard walk to the bar on our own.  It’ll be a struggle but hey, burns a few calories!”

The funny thing about Indians is so many of them look like people you know.  If I’m not looking at one thinking I already know him I’m looking at one thinking that’s an Indian version of someone I know.  They say that everyone has a double, I’ve been to France and can vouch for that fact that at least half of them live in Paris alone wearing patent puffa jackets and I can now confirm the other half of our doppelgangers are Indians. 

We had decided the best option for Sri Lanka was to hire a car and driver again (the roads outside of Colombo are apparently pretty quiet but you can’t drive there on an international driving licence).  We’d emailed a few companies for a quote and just as Will was composing a confirmation email to one the internet rolled over and died on us.  With no sign of reincarnation we considered heading to the bar next door when the whole grid went down in a power cut.  I don’t think the locals of a small village in Goa are overly experienced electricians so I wasn’t expecting anyone to jump to the rescue so we just sat around and waiting for it to kick back in, which it did after about ½ an hour.  Then it went down again, then came back on again, then teased us with a few flickers.  The rain had stopped by this point so we went next door to the bar and ate large amounts of chicken nuggets and played ‘Pub Quiz’ on my phone (we were a good mix of surprisingly good and surprisingly lucky when it came to correct answers which served well in boosting our ego’s that we’re more clever than we realise). 

A weird dog followed us back, I didn’t like how he moved his mouth randomly nor how he had barked constantly the whole time we were in the bar.  (After 20 solid minutes I was heading outside with my fork to stab the thing to death).  I fended his advances off with my umbrella, worried he might have rabies (for no other reason that I hadn’t had a rabies vaccination so I’m a bit paranoid and obviously unlucky).  We managed to get back to the hotel without being bitten though.

Will snapped a coat hanger between his butt cheeks and that ended our extremely chilled out day and we went to bed. 

I’m quite unsettled sleeping under a ceiling fan, I can’t help but think it’s going to fall out of the ceiling and chop us up in bed.  The fittings are far from secure here too which doesn’t little to alleviate that fear and the first hotel we were in the whole fixture moved with the rotation of the fan, how it was still fixed to the ceiling after going all night is a small miracle.  Maybe they’d used some of that Taj Mahal glue on it.  

Bye bye India, hello Sri Lanka

17/06/2013

Well last night was pretty terrible!  Remember how I mentioned there was no window in our room?  Well, there was a window in the bathroom but it didn’t look outside, it looked onto an interior service corridor and with just a plain glass window with no distortion or frosting of any kind.   I didn’t put much thought into that until there was a power cut and a member of staff went running down said corridor to reboot the power.  This happened twice during the night which put me off wanting to shower the next day as there was no way to cover the window.  I can handle the uncomfortable staring in the street as you’ve usually passed them by in a few seconds but a long shower, completely naked, in full few of any unlucky member of staff that needed to retrieve a mop or just wanted to skive off for a few minutes is going a little too far.

“Tell me what happened?”

“I........I went to get the broom from the corridor......but as I turned around I saw.......I saw.....”
“It’s ok, you’re safe now.  You can tell me.”

“I saw horrible things!! It seemed to be showering.....don’t make me think about it again.  PLEASE!”

The other factor contributing to my decision to skip a shower was the fact that Will, after blocking the toilet with his first excretion had then decided to go again on top of it.  So we had 2 lots of poo from an upset stomach festering in the toilet and they’d been there all night.  He’d tried throwing buckets of water down to force it round the U Bend but that had done nothing save break up the poo leaving just a toilet full to the brim of stinking, brown, lumpy water.  A full toilet of stinking, brown, lumpy water that had been sat there all night long.  The whole bathroom had to be sealed off and Will was having to use the toilet on the 3^rd floor for any more stomach upsets (our room was on the ground floor).  Unfortunately I needed a wee late at night and was already in my pj’s and wasn’t prepared to climb 3 flights of stairs so I had to go on top of it all.  Will had led me in with my eyes closed so I didn’t have the see the desecration of the toilet bowl but eyes closed just accentuated the stench and created a weird desire for me to see the mess he’d made. 

 

I woke up in the morning to the smell that had seeped round the cracks in the door as we slept.  Or burnt its way through the timber, either was feasible.  Forget baked bread and freshly cut grass, I’d have taken waking up to the smell of sour milk and rotting flesh over that.

The other addition to our Worst Night in a Hotel (it’s an official thing now) was the fact that we were near the end of the corridor where the lift was located.  This lift didn’t have normal electric doors like most passenger lifts, it had the folded doors that are manually pushed open and make a clatter every time they are.  The lift, obviously feeling like it hadn’t reached a successful level of noise disruption with these old doors also had a warning to ‘please close the doors’ installed.  This warning started sounding the second the doors were open and continued until you closed them again.  From the expert opinion I have now gained as to the timekeeping for getting in and out of a lift I would say it takes the average person 6.5 seconds.  This is enough for 3 full rotations of “Please close the door” each time the lift is used, not taking into consideration delays caused by any disability that may slow down the passenger, physical ailments causing them to not be strong enough to close the doors quickly or even at all, the passenger being distracted and chatting or too drunk to hear the warning and walking off leaving it open. 

The staff must have been tasked with a job that night that required them to ride that elevator over and over, probably more useful a job than to just piss off the 2 English people in room 5, as I swear it was not silent for more than 4-5 minutes maximum for the duration of the night.  I actually felt myself beginning to join in with it in my sleep!  “Please close the door, please close the door, please close the door”. 

Due to the lift, the lack of windows, the lack of frosted glass to the service corridor and the broken TV with no channels and the wifi that didn’t work we didn’t feel too bad checking out and leaving Will’s chocolate bumshake behind for them to deal with.

We were quickly using the wifi in the lobby to confirm our route in Sri Lanka and I suddenly got hit with the urge to excrete.  Will said the toilets were on the 3^rd floor so I shot up the stairs presuming to find them signposted easily.  I went up to the top, hit the 4^th floor and found no toilets.  I noticed the stairs split around halfway so I went back down the other way incase I’d missed them but got back to the bottom and found no toilets.  All this running up and down stairs was adding to the gravitational pull and I was started to get a bit panicked.  I went to the opposite end of the corridor and went back down a different flight of stairs and then back all the way to the top and still no toilets!  I bumped into a guy who must have worked there and asked him and he had absolutely no clue.  Getting a bit exasperated (and annoyed with him for not knowing where the damn toilet was) I spun around and found them behind us (dipshit) off a large, empty room with no signs whatsoever to indicate they were there.
On returning to the lobby Will found it hilarious that I’d ran around looking for the toilets with a turtle head (well, hardly a turtle head in the state I was in, more a jellyfish head).  I’d have rather he’d had the common sense to say “they’re on the 3^rd floor in a big, empty white room”  then when I got back we could have had a mutual laugh at something that didn’t involve me almost soiling myself. 

Luckily Chennai airport was much bigger than Goa but had no options for hot food once you were through security.  We managed to find one place called ‘The Golden Chariot’, a more fitting name would have been ‘60’s Dilapidated Brown Bicycle’.  The menu was terribly limited but they said they accepted card and we’d deliberately spent all the Rupees as you’re not allowed to take them out of India.  We both had a lychee juice and a toasted cheese sandwich  which is terrible without cheddar.  The world will be a better place once every country accepts cheddar.  I dream of a world where cheddar is as readily available as Facebook. 

When it came to pay all of our cards were failing on the machine, the waiter was asking for cash but obviously we didn’t have any.  I had a few £1 coins and he was giving me an exchange rate of 0.70RS to £1 when it was actually 0.85RS to £1 which made a difference of £1 to our overall bill.  I’m arguing with him that his exchange rate is wrong, he’s telling me he’s not buying currency or something and I’m telling him it’s his damn fault his machine is broken, not mine!   In the end Will went to another shop with him where he had a tab and paid that off instead (their card machine worked fine) and when I checked the bill after the little turd had added a service charge!  I should have gone upside his face! 

When we go to queue for the plane with everyone else I count 7 women in the entire queue out of about 150 people.  How strange.

We get on the plane and the exit row seats I’d booked us on the website apparently meant nothing and we were in normal seats and some other smug jerk was sat where we should have been.  Not only that but we’re not even sat together!  The guy sat next to Will agreed to swap seats with me then someone else rocked up with the same seat number.  It turned out this dude had just sat in any old seat that took his fancy.  There was no relation in the row number or seat number whatsoever!  This seems quite common on Indian flights.  They just park themselves wherever they fancy.

On our entertainment system we had an episode of Modern Family which we watched all of before we actually set off.  The entire time we’re watching I can see the guy sat diagonally opposite us just staring at me.  I’d look over to him and catch his eye and he would just hold my stare!  Who does that?!?!?! Absolute weirdo!  I noticed that the middle section of exit row had spare seats, the extra legroom coupled with getting out of the stare of the Chennai Rapist was enough of a reason so I asked the airhostess if we could move.

As we’re coming in to land the air hostess’s are sat in their seats with their belts on as they do (facing backwards as it’s the safest way to face on a plane) and all of a sudden this man just gets up and wanders off to go to the toilet!  How has he missed the fact this plane is coming in to land?!  (Later on when I was talking to an American chap he said an Indian fellow had done the same thing on his flight and had ignored the air hostess and gone to the toilet during landing!  She’d just let him go in the end and said ‘let him bang his head if he’s not going to listen to me’).

When we landed the Chennai Rapist was typically one of these idiots that stands up the second the plane touches tarmac, ignoring the fact that the seatbelt sign is still on and gets his bag down from the overhead storage.  Countless other people do the same (their aviation etiquette is appalling) and all stand in a queue whilst the plane is still taxiing despite the fact it’ll be another 6 or 7 minutes at least until they open the doors.  As luck would have it the creepy sod is stood right next to me getting another good look so I just hid behind Will so he couldn’t see my face at least, creepy bastard. 

Getting into Sri Lanka is much easier than India in that you can get a Visa on arrival for $35 US (you can also do it online, were there readily available internet at the Worst Night at a Hotel hotel). 

We got through passport control and collected our bags and headed out to meet our driver who was waiting in the lobby.  As we’re walking through a man leans over the counter of Thomas Cook and screeched at us about money.  I wondered what the hell had happened to justify such an outburst.  A little over the top, buddy, I think we’re aware we can’t use our own currency on the other side of the world.  We’re just going to go to this ATM and withdraw it in the correct currency.  You take a seat, mate, maybe have a quiet drink and some reflection time. 

Sri Lanka is a much nicer temperature than India, it’s warm but comfortably warm.  It’s a lot more green and the people immediately seem far more respectful and not pervy.  The driver takes us up to Dumballa (Dambulla?  I can never remember which way round it is) where wer’re staying the night before we head to Sigiriya in the morning.  It was only 120km away but it took us 4.5hrs to get there.  The roads are in better condition than the Indian ones and there are a lot less cows (there are still stray cows around though) but it’s all single lane roads that pass through little towns so you never go over 40km/h.  They still beep when they overtake here but when they beep the car infront then pulls in the let them past so it’s far more useful and affective beeping.  I think the Indians just like the sound of their beeps.

On route I stopped to buy some water but the shop keeper had no idea what water was.  I looked around the shop and saw none for sale.  The driver took us to another shop and told me what water was in Sri Lanka (‘watura’, you hardly need to be a linguist to work out what I wanted) and they still didn’t understand!  I even did the universally recognised ‘drink’ action with a tilted hand to my mouth and they still had no clue, they’re showing my cans of peas and allsorts!  In the end I find it myself and pay them 70p for two 1.5ltr bottles (England is a disgusting rip-off for bottled water). 

The hotel we’re staying at is really nice; we have a large room with a patio out the front, a dressing area and a large bathroom.  We ordered some food and they set up a table on the patio outside the room and we eat there.  What a change from the night before with the pleasant chorus of ‘please close the door’ teamed with the warming aroma on the air.  

A brief spell in Chennai

16/06/2013

So it’s time to check out this morning.  We headed down for the one and only breakfast we’ve had since being here (despite them being free, we’re just that lazy and would rather sleep longer than eat free food, I don’t believe that’s a good way to be!  The best things in life are free after-all).  The Manager was working so everyone was actually being busy, or pretending to be busy for once rather than sitting around doing sweet F.A.  The Manager nicely let us use the hotel room until 12pm which was great as we weren't leaving until then and my stomach is playing up again and having to use the poolside toilet right behind the bar is far from ideal, the privacy of our old room is very much more agreeable for my bowels.  My suitcase is annoying enough to lug around as it is but now the handle on the top has broken it’s a ball ache on a whole other level.  On a ball ache scale of 1; enjoyable, to 10; I’d rather chop off my hands so I don’t have to deal with it, it’s sitting at a strong 8 at the moment.  If the handle on the side goes too other than setting the whole thing on fire in a fit of rage I’ll have to buy another one which isn't going to be cheap. 
<Warning; rant beginning> I lent my original suitcase to a friend as I’m nice like that but it was never been returned and then I found out it had been trashed so I wasn't ever going to get it back or get a replacement.  So I had to replace it myself as apparently that’s the thing to do when you put yourself out helping someone who can’t be bothered to provide themselves with what they need in life so I’d picked this one up from Primark.  I should have known better, Primark is such poor quality but I was sucked in by the pretty flowers on the outside.  Damn the flowers!  So now despite having bought a good quality suitcase that I got to use myself once I’m now going to have to pay out for the 3^rd time.  You may be able to tell I’m fed up of lending things to people just to end up being put out myself. Noone ask to borrow anything from me again! My generosity is officially rinsed!  Never a lender nor a borrower be.  I’ve heard this phrase said many times and never appreciated its value until now.  (I also never processed the words through my brain and actually understood it either but it’s very true!)   

The drive to the airport was really nice, full of palm trees, rice fields and big holiday homes.  Rice picking, now there’s a bitch of a job to do; bent over all day long up to your waist in water.  No thanks!

I’m out of patience with the tip culture here.  I don’t mind if someone offers to do something for you and you have a choice whether to accept but a lot of the time they just take your bags from you without asking or giving you chance to refuse and run ahead with them and then they demand money.  But if you refuse their help they get really annoyed too.  My suitcase has wheels, I am more than capable of wheeling it myself!  3 people tried taking it from me.  It has wheels! Be-gone!
A women in the toilets (with a sign next to her clearly saying ‘no tips please’ asked me for a tip because she handed me toilet paper. Err, how about no.

 

At the airport we’re surrounded by people who think they’re higher class because they’re getting a plane rather than a bus or train.  We sat in the restaurant and watched customer after customer be unnecessarily rude to the staff like they were some kind of Sultan (I don’t know why I likened them to a Sultan rather than a King or Queen but I think it sounds better).  One guy called the waiter over just to pour the rest of his beer into his glass.  His wife called the waiter over to spoon the rice from the bowl next to her onto her plate 5cm’s away whilst she watched.  Other tables were yelling at the busy staff because they’d been waiting too long to get served, others were yelling because they had nowhere to sit.  Pretty high and mighty for people who don’t wipe their asses.  When the man from Delmonte turned up dressed all in white with shades on inside a restaurant inside an airport we had to leave.  When we got up I loudly announced (in-front of the tossers next to us) that we should leave now before I started educating people on the beauty of manners.  You’re at an airport, not in a palace.  I’ve been on a plane 5 times in the last 2 months, it doesn't make me better than anyone else so pull your head out your ass and be polite.  It doesn't cost anything!  I’d bet my bottom dollar that at least half of the women there have never worked in their life either.  Marrying into money and success does not in my opinion give you any authority or importance.  Your husband may have earned those things with hard graft or maybe been lucky enough to have inherited it but you keep yourself in room and board just by opening your legs so wind it in.

I noticed 4 women in the restaurant with short hair, they’re the first I’ve seen.  Having short hair would mean regular appointments at the hairdresser which needs money so I’m guessing short hair is s a sign of wealth.

We headed round to security and the queue was huge.  Luckily women can’t be electrically wanded by a man (every passenger has to be metal detected and patted down which was causing the long waiting line) and there was a distinct lack of women travelling so I got to jump the queue and go straight through whilst Will waited in line.

By the time we got on the plane we’d shown our boarding cards to 5 different people, they also checked (twice) that we had a luggage tag on our hand luggage.  Will had decided not to use his and threw it on the floor.  By magic he’d ended up with another one on his bag for a completely different airline (we still don’t know how that happened) but they let him on with that anyway, which in all honestly just made the whole process pointless as it proved nothing except that he might be on the wrong plane! 

The flight was packed with annoying kids.  One in particular screamed and cried and winged for the entire flight.  It was that fake type of crying too, just wailing for no reason other than to make a noise.  Not once did I hear either parent trying to silence it.  I was going to offer the silencing powers of my grip around its neck.  Luckily for them the sound of a winging  spoilt little brat is so soothing to the ears of other passengers that obviously no one minded. 

I heard on TV that they’re thinking of doing child-free flights and I must admit I think that’s a brilliant idea.  Children get bored on flights and create a racket, I understand it’s not really fun for young kids to be on a plane but it doesn't stop it being teeth grindingly annoying to have to listen to it for hours with no escape.  All parents can just be sympathetic together in a cabin of wailing, screeching and nose picking whilst everyone else relaxes in peaceful tranquillity behind a thick, sound-proof door. 

Whilst on the plane I read an article in the local paper about a Dr in Chennai who was transgender.  ‘She’ was going to speak at a conference about how she had come to terms with who she was to raise awareness.  I found it interesting as she said she had been taking hormones (she originally got some online that reacted badly, a comforting thought that someone in the middle of a medical degree felt it a good idea to self-prescribe internet pills) and then she had been prescribed hormones properly and has since grown breasts, grown her hair long and was undergoing laser hair removal.  She followed that sentence by saying that as she still had a beard she still dressed as a man.  Now, in a country where transgender is far from accepted and understood I must disagree that the best person to highlight the normality of gender assignment disorder and the confusion it causes is a man with a beard and breasts.  How confusing must that look?!  She has changed her name to Sofia and is referred to as a woman yet apart from having long hair (which many men do although they really shouldn’t, it’s far from flattering as a hairstyle, get it cut boys) she is simply a man with breasts.  Surely with all the effort of hormone replacement ensuring you shave every day is a minor chore?  If she shaved she could dress as a woman and begin the process of really being accepted as a female. 

She said she was going to start dressing as a woman in 6 months time which is backwards to the way we do it in the UK.  You need to commit to the way of life of the opposite sex and dress appropriately for at least 12 months before any medication or procedures can be spoken about.  That way at least you look like a man/woman and hormonal or surgical changes or wouldn’t be so obvious.  This way seems the most disruptive way to do it in my opinion.  

I must admit it is an example of how much the country is developing in terms of their acceptance though.  I would have expected something like that to simply not be done.

On the flip side another article spoke about weight loss.  I am always interested in the next explanation as to how to lose weight the best way as I really do struggle to shift just 1lb.  I get enraged by women who can sit there on their lunch break blabbing on about how they’ve lost 6lb in a week because they just cut out crisps or stopped snacking and it just dropped off.  Eat my sh*t.  I have to heavily diet, no carbs after 5pm, no more than 1200 calories a day, no snacks and 4 lots of 1hr long cardio sessions where I have to sweat my tits off and go a really sexy shade of crimson before I can even drop 2lb in a week.  And that’s on a good week!

So this article caught my attention and I start to read it.  It turns out the editor of the newspaper felt it necessary to dedicate a quarter page to informing readers that eating more than your recommended daily allowance of calories (2000 for women, 2500 for men) will cause you to put on weight.  If you want to lose weight you need to burn off additional calories.  That was pretty much it.  How is this newsworthy?  Is this honestly new information?  Because on the same note I can inform the general public with confidence that water is wet, the earth is round and Elvis is dead. 

Getting off the plane they checked our boarding cards AGAIN and also our hand baggage tags, just incase we’d slipped through the previous 5.  I stopped at the toilet and ended up in an Indian style one.  (How these women use them whilst wearing sari’s without weeing on it is a miracle).  The toilet, or should I say, porcelain lined hole, was up on a pedestal so when you stood up you could see over the cubicle walls!  I felt like a dirty meercat trying to perv on other meercats having a wee. 

Will had booked us a hotel that morning but hadn’t saved the address so we were unable to get a taxi as we couldn’t tell it where to go.  After being looked at like a pubic hair in soup when asked if there was internet at the terminal we went to a tourist agency shop and they found us the address online.  The website had said it was 7km from the airport but when the taxi driver called them they were 18km away.  As we were literally just staying the night to leave again the next day for Sri Lanka there was no need to be so far away from the airport so we went back to the office to see if they could book us something a little closer.  The taxi driver we had been speaking to and his friend decided to follow us back to the shop and awkwardly wait next to us.  They have no sense of social awkwardness here, they ask for a tip and then  stand around and wait when you obviously don’t want to give one, they will stare at you in the street and not look away when they catch your eye and they never say please or thank you or even acknowledge your thank you’s.   

Whilst Will was speaking to the very helpful guys in the shop I went back inside the terminal to find the guy who had previously asked if we needed help and had offered a flyer for a nearby hotel that picked you up from the airport for free.  As I crossed the threshold a security man pounced on me wanting to see my boarding card.  I told him I had literally just arrived and only wanted to find this guy just inside.  He wouldn’t let me in without a boarding card and I firmly told him I was not walking back to root around in my bag when I only wanted to step about 4ft into the building.  At this point his mate with the gun stood up which annoyed me even more.  I’m stood there in a slim fitted dress with no pockets and no bags, what the hell do you think I’m going to do?!  Draw a sword out from between my legs and start lopping off limbs?  I told him I was walking to the next door and he should just walk with me and stand next to me there as I wasn’t going to go any further.  He kept asking me who I was looking for and I’d already explained that to him so he was really getting on my tits.  Annoyingly, after all that hassle none of the 3 men I’d previously seen with flyers for this hotel were anywhere in sight so I had to just leave. 

I feel sorry for any parting couples who can’t wait together, you’re not even allowed in the building without a ticket.  Clearly anyone with any strong terrorist ideas would find buying a budget domestic flight to get into the building too much hassle and would just turn and wander home defeated.

The guys in the shop found us a hotel 3km away with air con and internet (our 2 requests).  They also did free airport drop offs and he arranged late check out for us too for 1pm.  Perfect!  The taxi man was still lingering around like the smell of vomit on a carpet but was asking too much for the journey so the shop guys mugged him off and sent us to a taxi stall. 

We arrived at the hotel and checked in but the room doesn’t have internet, it doesn’t have a window (that’ll be great for waking up tomorrow) and none of the English language channels on the TV work.  Brilliant.  We called reception about the TV and a member of staff came to look at it and had the brainwave of just flicking through each Indian channel one by one.  Genius.  This man is wasted in his current role.  There’s over 800 channels and he was in the 400’s with no sign of stopping.  When the solid 6 minutes of flicking through channels didn’t return a magically fixed television he then called maintenance who came in and did exactly the same thing.  When he had flicked through enough channels without any of them springing into life he decided that they didn’t get any English language channels.  Congratulations buddy, you just justified your wage as ‘maintenance’.  I’ll be sure to call you if I think a broken window pane can be fixed by repeatedly opening and closing the curtains. 
The last hotel didn’t have satellite TV but it still had HBO and the Discovery channel yet we were now stuck with countless Bollywood channels in a dark hole of a room.  On top of that Will managed to block yet another toilet so our en-suite is out of action now aswell as our tv and our depleted vitamin D levels.

We went out for a walk to get some snacks and it’s clear Chennai is not a tourist place, the staring is back in full force!  They seem completely oblivious to the fact they’re in control of a vehicle and should really look where they’re going!
We picked up a couple of chocolate bars, some chocolate milk, water and an ice lolly from a shop.  The ice lolly was 1 month out of date and had turned to jelly (I’d been craving an ice lolly for days but they’re quite hard to come by), the chocolate milk was 2 months out of date and the chocolate was 6 months out of date.  What a successful snack run!  It’s a good job we weren’t looking for soft cheese and red meat with that kind of standard of produce.

Back in the room we found one movie channel that isn’t Indian or dubbed and luckily it’s playing The Return of The King so we at least have something to watch in bed and can chill out before the mental days ahead in Sri Lanka.  We were meant to be confirming our schedule with the driver tonight which was why we definitely needed internet.  Hopefully we can find somewhere tomorrow or else we’ll be a bit stranded when we arrive.

I’m really looking forward to waking up in a pitch black hole of a room tomorrow morning....

Goa Day 2

14/06/2013

I’ve noticed that all women in India have long hair.  I’ve not seen one woman with even medium length hair let alone short hair. 

I also can’t believe how many whitening creams are advertised on TV.  At home it’s all about anti-wrinkle cream and then the odd tinted moisturiser with a tenner lady thrown in for good measure.  Here, every 4^th advert is a whitening cream, I’ve not seen any promoting anti-wrinkle.  I guess with the natural resilience to sun wrinkles aren’t as much of a problem as they are to us Caucasians.  At home Garnier gives you a wrinkle chart to map your progress, here they give you a shade chart to map the ‘4 shades lighter’ that they promise you to be in a week.  I’ve noticed that all the people on adverts are all very fair skinned too, I’ve not even seen a medium toned Indian on TV.  It’s so funny when you see the east/west divide like that.  All the adverts are in spoken in English too, some with a token amount of Indian but not a lot.

Today was an extremely lazy day.  We walked down to the beach (after walking in completely the wrong direction first) and watched the big waves crashing in (they even litter their beaches here too, for a people with so much respect for animal life and harmony they don’t give a toss about the environment and cleanliness).  Although it was overcast (and not raining, yey!) it was so humid.  By the time we’d walked back to the hotel we were dripping with sweat so went back for a shower and ended up having a nap too.

  

I was reading Indian Grazia and where it’s Monsoon season all the fashion is angled towards that.  If they made rain a bit more fashionable at home it might make it a bit more tolerable!  (Might, but probably not).  Hunter willies are the festival fashion but that’s where it seems to stop.  What about umbrella hats and waders? That would make the 8 months a year of rain a bit more tolerable even just for the entertainment value.

They have HBO as one of their standard channels here (we had feared the worst when there was no set top box in the room, not that we’re the type to waste time in a room but it’s nice to chill out with a bit of TV before bed) it plays films all days long and has English subtitles aswell as the speech still being in English, I guess with the American accents it’s easier for people to translate the text.  It’s funny to watch the substitutions they make for words; they don’t seem to have ‘sh*t’ in their vocabulary as this is always left in in both speech and text no matter what time of the day whereas ‘ass’ will be bleeped in speech and asterix’d in the text and they swap ‘hell’ for ‘heck’ in the text and ‘damn’ for ‘darn’ but let them say both words so I guess they have no meaning here.

They have the Discovery channel here too showing all American shows.  Now I know the yanks like a bit of drama but the over dramatics in everything just borders on ridiculous.  You can’t watch a show without there being some impending disaster they have to try and avoid.  It’s getting really tiresome now and we’ve hardly had these shows on, there’s no way I could handle that being the style of TV all the time.  Maybe Americans need to all take up base jumping or paragliding to give them more thrills in their daily life and then they can just enjoy a simple TV show without the dire need to get their pulses racing as to whether bakers bread is going to rise or whether the driver is going to get a flat when he has a delivery to make on a time limit.  (Admittedly these weren’t the shows I watched but I think that’s due to them being too tense for the American public, clearly post-watershed viewing).

Every episode of Deadliest Catch is the same, luckily it’s not been on here but it’s the worst one for over dramatics and Will always watches it at home.  They always make their catch every episode so the rotation through different camera angles, the dramatic music and the deep voiced commentator are so unnecessary.  “Out in the deadly seas of Dutch Harbour the skipper fears if he doesn’t make a catch soon they....” they will what?  Just try again the next day?  Oh my heart is in my mouth.  They’re at sea for weeks on end, they’re never going to catch nothing!  Once you’ve seen one episode you’ve seen them all. 

Delhi belly has officially hit Will in Goa, I’m on/off too which is weird as I’m not doing anything different here than I was in the other places.  We headed to the pub for some food and to use the wifi and Will had to dash back to the hotel only just making it in time.  I had to make a dash to the toilet in the pub praying there was toilet roll.  If there wasn’t then I wasn’t sure what I was going to do!  Wait around until Will came looking for me thinking I’d got stuck, or gently wimper for help when I heard another customer come into the toilet?  Luckily there was toilet roll, a bonus for being in the main tourist area.  A couple of young Indian girls had followed me into the toilet and hung around outside the cubicle for no apparent reason, I bet they quickly regretted that!

We popped into a tourist information office to see what there was to do nearby and they said everything is shut for monsoon season.  The other Tourist Information office (that we also checked with as we didn’t trust the others) had 3 tours on offer but the only one that really interested us was the elephant trip but as we’re going to Sri Lanka which to elephants is what Spain is to cats or what India is to cows we didn’t go ahead with booking. 

When we came out we saw a cake shop and popped in for some chocolate cake.  I wasn’t expecting much to be honest but their fudge cake was incredible!  It was so moist and rich, Will ended up buying another 2 slices to take with us. 

As I previously mentioned the men in India hold hands as a sign of friendship and not in any kind of gay way.  It just seems strange to me for 2 heterosexual men to want to hold hands.  I guess it’s because I’ve only ever linked it to an affection thing (or for children)  and for them it’s only seen as a friendship thing (I don’t think I’ve seen couples holding hands here) but it does still look a bit strange.  I managed to get a photo this time:

We had some food in the bar and looked up things to see in Sri Lanka.  Had I known the weather was going to be so bad we’d have stayed here a day or 2 less and had longer over there.  At least we’re getting to relax and recuperate as it looks like it’s going to be a hectic trip to Sri Lanka to fit everything in. 

It was Karaoke night in the bar which was a mix of Western and local songs.  Some Indian boys had guitars with them and they got up and played ‘Tears Don’t Fall’ by Bullet For My Valentine then ‘Wish You Were Here’ by Pink Floyd.  I was impressed they knew Bullet For My Valentine, not many British people I know know Bullet For My Valentine!  I was chatting to one of them and he said there is interest in Rock and Metal music in India but they tend to lean more towards the classic bands like Metallica and other classic groups. 

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a pharmacy for more anti-diarrhoea tablets.  We were about to rock/paper/scissor to see who was going to have to act out diarrhoea this time but luckily the guy knew exactly what we needed.  What a relief!

Back at the hotel I thought I’d back up my photos onto my new pen drive and try out my £1.80 memory card reader which I’m happy to say works perfectly!  Thank you Mumbai.