We woke up nice and early, full of beans and expectations on seeing the Taj Mahal for sunrise. Our trusty tuk tuk driver was there waiting for us.

Hannah began with a nice loud, “HELLO”

He looked a little startled with all the commotion.

“Yes she always is like this early in the morning, no need for it is there.” I said and slapped him good naturedly on the back.

Our poor tuk tuk driver gave a grimace and ducked into the drivers seat as quick as he could no doubt wishing to give his obviously throbbing head a relative rest.

“I say Hannah, I do believe he has a headache.”

“Do you think our voices are more piercing than this road racket?”

“Can’t help but almost feel offended.”

“Quite, at least we know we aren’t the cause of headaches.”

I paused at Hannah’s comment for a moment, I mean she could speak for herself.

“Mika I hope that pause meant it was the end of the conversation and not what I think you are thinking.”

Disagreeing with her was only going to cause me a headache yet she had put me in a bit of a bind with that sentence. I could say yes or no and she would interpret it the way all girls interpret things, the way she wanted. Yes, obviously would mean yes it was what I was thinking, no meant it wasn’t the end of the conversation and really what I was thinking. This of course was making me pause a moment which also meant I was trying to think of an appropriate response to her question and meant I thought she was the cause of headaches.

Meanwhile Hannah had given up waiting for the appropriate response, the response which I and all males on planet are still searching for, and decided to do something about the situation.

“Mika I do…” a slap on the back of the head.

“not….” Another slap on the back of the head.

“give….” Slap.

“headaches.” Double slap.

Now it seemed to me that the whole situation was quite the contradiction but trying to point out these things to women only seemed to make the situation worse. So I did the only thing I could do, pretend I had no headache and agreed with her.

“Obviously you’re not a cause of headaches, no sir.” There, that should sate the woman. Anyone normal, ie any male on the planet would be leaving it at that. Not Hannah, not a woman on a roll, no way.

“Oh so now you are saying I am a sir, a bit butch looking hey?”

I gulped.

She continued, “I cant believe you are saying I am fat.”

“I am not saying you’re fat!” I pleaded.

“Oh so what ARE you saying then?”

I seemed to recall I hadn’t been saying anything and that had been the whole cause of this mess. I considered for a second whether to bring that point up but decided to go against that, which was probably prudent considering the mood she was in.

“I think we have been through this once or twice before Hannah.”

“So now you’re saying I am forgetful and dumb.”

This pretty much continued all the way to the Taj Mahal. I was grateful when we arrived, I personally think Hannah was quite enjoying herself at my expense.

We paid out 20 rupees while the Indians paid their 2 rupees to get in. It was quite early and the sun had not quite risen yet and we were one of the first in. There was quite a lot of smog and pollution around and the sun came up finally about 10 degrees higher than the horizon.

There are a few words to describe the Taj Mahal. Pretty much all of them along the same lines of amazing. It is definitely one of the most amazing things you will ever see and it went straight to the top of my list of things I have seen. I can never decide which is the best thing so I grouped it in with Pamplona, that church in Barcelona, Venice, Vatican, Pyramids and Swiss Alps. Needless to say it is so intricate and the detail is crazy. So we took a few snaps, barking angrily at all the silly tourist foreigners getting in the way of our perfect pictures, ruining them all. Well I was the picture of civility of course but to keep the peace I’ll say we barked at them. Such was the Taj Mahal that we meandered through instead of the usual sped through we are capable of.

Outside we found our tuk tuk and spent the usual 30 minutes waiting for our driver to turn up again. I needed a few things and I was feeling exceptionally generous so I asked the driver if he knew somewhere I could buy some boxer shorts. He nodded yes but I was a bit unsure that he even knew what I was talking about but he took us to somewhere they had someone make clothes.

In the shop I explained what I wanted.

“So we will make you 6 for 300 rupees.” It was expensive but I didn’t mind because I was feeling generous and I was happy to be going home the next day. So I sat around waiting for the tailor to sow me up a few.

The shopkeeper not content enough that I had bought 6 items for a highly inflated price came up to me again, “So do you want to buy this.” And held up a useless bit of something useless.

“No thank you.”

“What about this then” and he offered something else up for inspection.

“No thank you.” I said politely.

“Ok what about this then?” and proceeded to show me every item in the store one by one. Now I like to think I am a patient man so I replied to each no thank you. However every man has their breaking point.

“What about this?” he said still as hopeful as ever showing me the same bit of uselessness that he had already tried to sell me 3 times already.

“Ok dude go away and leave me in peace. I don’t want anything else.” I thought I was being quite reasonable.

“Ok, what about this?” and help up something useless I had already seen 100 times.

“Dude, read my lips man, go away before I get angry.” I said angrily.

“Ok, what about this?” he said still as hopeful as when offering me the first item.

Hannah says I exploded but she can be wrong about these things. The end result was that I almost got kicked out of the store, I almost broke a few things and the only reason I got the boxer shorts was because our driver wanted his commission so calmed the store man down. It got me what I wanted though and he stopped bothering me.

“What about this?” I heard him ask Hannah.

I stalked over and he quickly left Hannah alone.

After that little debacle our trusty tuk tuk driver returned us to Abdul Boon’s shop. As we got in we found Abdul Boons brother.

“Sorry Abdul Boon isn’t here right now but why don’t you come sit in the office with me for a cup of chai.”

The office was air conditioned so we were only too happy to oblige.

After a bit of small talk he began to get to his point, “So I am a gem seller.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Anyway we have a few retailers in Australia but in order to get the gems to him we have to pay taxes. However if you take the gems over you can sell them to him for double the price. All it costs is $2000 and I can guarantee you can sell them to him for $4000.”

“Oh riiight.” Apparently Hannah and I both had in bold letters burnt on our forehead the words stupid, and stupider.

“Oh really.” I was going to enjoy this.

“Yes, all you need is to buy the gems with your credit card…”

As all well prepared travellers we always had backup in case of trouble. Like everyone says you really shouldn’t travel without a credit card in case of emergencies. So of course neither Hannah or I owned a credit card, our backup plan was to deal with that problem when it arrived. I tend to find leaving future Mika to deal with these sorts of problems the best solution. Anything that can be deferred to him is always best. He can always can be counted on to sort the problems out in the end, or so past and present Mika leads me to believe.

“Well that’s a damn shame then, because neither of us has a credit card.” Hannah pointed out.

“We can work around that don’t worry. Now what you need to do is this….” And so he continued with this big spiel. I was about to release the tiger on him when I remembered that they had our money for the rings and we had no rings and we had to leave in an hour or so to get to the train to Delhi. By suddenly remembered I mean Hannah saw the vein in my head starting to throb, me take a big breath and kicked me under the table none to gently and pointed to her ring fingers. I really don’t know how she seems to read my mind sometimes. I can be as unpredictable as a tiger, a wild tiger. A tiger because I am sure they are unpredictable and if they aren’t they should be.

So I had to be as civil as possible and the only thing I could get out of it was that those Japanese who wouldn’t talk to us the night before for some strange reason apparently had the words stupid and stupider on their foreheads and getting a big of comeuppance for not talking to us. I mean Hannah and I can be quite the gracious hosts. Actually maybe not when I remember back to Badge boy in Edinburgh, and Hannah and I making a list of how to be good hosts. Nothing on the 11 point plan said anything about actually entertaining anyone but ourselves to be honest.

I had drifted off from concentrating and came back with Hannah saying to me, “So Mika what do you think?”

“I think we need to amend some of our 11 points on how to make a good host.”

I think they were getting quite confused about what we had been actually talking about because they had been referring to the fact that we were awfully sorry but couldn’t help ourselves out because we just didn’t have a credit card.

Next came the part which I was quite impressed with. Just as he had finished giving up on us and our repetitions of sorry we don’t actually own a credit card, I think he thought we were lying because tourists never travel without one, Abdul Boon of all people came in and spoke to his brother in rapid Hindi then turned to us, “Oh I am so sorry for my brother, he didn’t know we were actually friends and tried to pull a scam on you.”

I was too busy choking to answer that one so Hannah was gracious enough to answer for me, “Oh we didn’t notice at all, thankyou for warning us.”

I looked at her and she pointed to her finger so I kept quiet.

By now we had 30 minutes until we had to leave so we enquired about our rings.

“They are just getting finished now and I am getting someone to bring them soon.”

“I just have to take Hannah over here and speak to her if you would give us a minute.”

So I lead Hannah over to a quiet corner for a quick word.

“I say we trash the joint. He looks quite small.”

“Mika stop being silly, we have half an hour left until we have to go.”

I am of the opinion personally that everyone is out to get us. Hannah on the other hand is of the opinion that everyone has good in them and can be trusted. So instead of doing anything I stalked. Just to make sure everyone knew I was stalking I tried hard to look like I was stalking and added a big frown to cap it off. That would sure show everyone I was unhappy and was stalking. After 10 minutes of stalking and not getting the attention I had hoped for, the type of attention even I was unsure of but I would know if I had it, so I switched to tapping my feet impatiently and looking at my watch and flexing my guns.

Five minutes to go a courier pulled up and handed Abdul Boon our rings. Hannah didn’t have to be so rude about rubbing it in.

As expected the rings were all mixed up and none of them looked anything like how we wanted them. I was about to tell Boonie that I wouldn’t mind if we had our money back but then I considered how lucky it was we even had some rings so I left it. By I figured it out I mean Hannah slapped me on the back of the head informing me I was to figure something out.

Just as we were jumping in the tuk tuk Hannah turned and looked at me surprised, “Don’t you think you should go to the toilet or something before you get in this tuk tuk, its like 20 minutes away.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well with all the wincing and screwing your face up and walking to and fro scrunched up it is obvious you need to go to the toilet. It would be best to go now.”

“…..”

We had organised with our driver that we would pay a set amount for driving us around the last few days whatever we wanted to do or place we wanted to go. So of course once we arrived at the train station he decided to try and be a bit cheeky and double the price.

“Oh really.” I began. This was the opportunity I was looking for, possibly the third last bloody taxi I was ever going to take in my life and he wanted to play like this, “so you want to double the price after we let you get a commission on our rings, room, boxers, took us to a place that wanted to scam us out of lots of money, lied to us about the alcohol.”

At which point he interrupted, “alcohol?” he hadn’t seemed anything to say about the other things on my list which was weird.

“Yes the alcohol you said we were not allowed to buy and charged us more than the actual price.”

He didn’t know he should just shut up and leave it at that so he tried to look innocent, “No I didn’t charge you more that was the cost.”

I anticipated something like that so I pulled out the scrunched up piece of paper which was the corner of the label and contained the price of the whiskey and showed it to him.

“Oh so you are saying that I am reading this price wrong?” and I shoved it closer into his face, “IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU WOULD LIKE TO SAY.” I may have been a little fired up at this point so I decided to continue. “So you want to change the price when we have said absolutely nothing about always waiting an hour for you to turn up after you take us some place, you are a liar a cheat and trying to be a thief. Where do you get the cheek? I mean you are just like them all and you think I haven’t learnt to deal with them! Just like the first taxi in Cyprus….” And I proceeded to give him in detail an account of just a few of my latest taxi experiences.

Once I had finished he looked a little haggled. Hannah was wide eyed and looking a little afraid for me or of me, I wasn’t quite sure which.

“So that’s a no then? Ok I wont ask for any money then.” and tried to drive off without us paying him anything.

I wasn’t a thief so I grabbed him on the shoulder. He started to panic thinking I was about to rough him up so I got the change out quickly in my stash. When dealing with taxi drivers you must always know how much it is before you get in and always have the change ready and able to give it to them or else they will always manage to wrangle some more money out of you some way. So I had the money and stuffed it in his pocket with him using the full throttle trying to get out of there as fast as he could never quite realising I had actually paid him.

I smiled at Hannah.

“Mika I think we should get out here.”

“Might be a good idea yes.” Apparently it looked like I had been trying to attack a tuk tuk driver and the crowd was not giving me the benefit of the doubt and looking at me in quite the same way you look at a wild tiger.

“Well Mika I think you got what you wanted, you always wanted to unleash the tiger and have people realise.”

I don’t know how she does it because I never mentioned anything about the tiger within before.

There are a number of things I love to do, shopping for even more beads is not one of them. I did however have a good time watching the cheeky monkeys jumping from roof to roof as I watched on. Nothing quite like monkeys being monkeys I always say. I also managed to snap up a few books for the bus trips. We also embarked on another little chemist expedition resulting in us walking away with yet another load of vallium. Gold dust for bus trips, vallium. Pop a few of those puppies and bus trips are a thing of the past. You get on the bus pop one and the next moment you are at your destination. I’d carefully estimated that we’d spent about 3,088,779 hours on bus’s or trains in the last few months and if I had had vallium earlier it would have drastically cut that figure. I considered slipping Hannah a micky and putting some vallium in a drink of water or something in order to cure her morbid fear of the continuing threat of rabies. I decided against it because I didn’t want her sleeping through the whole bag packing ordeal. After Jaipur our already full bags had reached breaking point. Hannahs had already reached that about day one Cyprus and even though it drove me crazy watching her attempting to pack her bags with absolutely no care and attention I wasn’t about to go delving into that little mission, no sir.

“Mika stop mumbling about rabies and vallium and packing bags, anyone would think your crazy, oh my god I think I feel something.”

“Huh?” she had broken my train of thought.

“The rabies, I felt a bit sick for a moment.”

“When do you not feel sick and feverish? It’s just that over active thyroid of yours playing up again.”

She attempted once again to give me rabies with a clip over the back of the head but I wasn’t having any of her rabies and had been keeping a safe distance the whole day.

In order to get her mind off dying I tried to change the subject, “We better book our bus to Agra now then I guess.”

“Yes I guess so, the onset of this rabies is coming, I can feel it and I want the last days to be special and seeing the Taj Mahal will be a fitting end.”

“Yeah you are probably right.” I consoled her.

“Oh my god, I think I felt the rabies again. Is my forehead hot?”

“Hannah it is like 40C, of course your hot.”

This continued even into the bus ticket seller.

“I want a bus which is comfortable because I have rabies.”

By the end of that ordeal the ticket seller knew more about rabies and how she had contracted it than he knew bus timetables.

“So the bus comes at 6pm, it is going to be my final bus ride you know….”

“I think he knows Hannah you already told him about 12 times.”

I tried to cheer Hannah up by pointing out the people with leprosy and no fingers and hands all around us.

“Leprosy is contagious isn’t it?”

“Erm, ummm.” I knew I had made a mistake here.

“Oh my god I have leprosy as well. Why didn’t you tell me all those beggars had leprosy beforehand?”

About then I remembered exactly why I hadn’t mentioned it before. My brain sometimes plays tricks on me for fun I suspect.

That night we got onto our bus which was a sleeper bus. Sleeper bus’s are just that. You get a bed in which you have to lie down and sleep. Brilliant things. I popped myself a vallium to be sure I would sleep. You never can be too careful. It also helped to ensure that I would sleep through Hannah’s moaning about rabies and leprosy.

However there are some things one vallium can not cure. The first was -45C temperates which had sprung up from goodness knows where. The second is 26 excitable Indian children beneath me all playing a very animated game of who can scream the loudest.

I looked over at the kids and tsk’s. This caused one of them to assume I was speaking white boy language and try to imitate me. This brought on another fresh bout of who could tsk the loudest. I rolled my eyes at Hannah next to me who mistook it for an invitation on a discussion about when I thought the rabies would bring about an end for her. I popped another vallium. By the now the seeping cold was driving me crazy and I was shivering violently. I didn’t want to get too close to Hannah and her rabies so I didn’t want to get any closer to her for warmth. This lasted for about 30 minutes and the kids were still playing their game of who could scream the loudest and with me shivering so much Hannah started hitting me to stop in an effort to stop me making the bed shake so much. I popped another vallium. 5 minutes later I figured since I was awake I hadn’t taken any vallium yet so I popped another. Hannah looked at me funny and started speaking in Hindi.

So I spoke to her in the only language she knew I spoke, “not to worrrrrryyyyyy,, whatsssssss yourrrrrrrr nameeee again? You ssssssshould realllllllly ……….”

She didn’t learn and continued to speak in Hindi and was rude enough to shake me a few times.

“Timeeee tooo sleeeeepppppp.” I then fell into a shivering sleep to show her that there was nothing to worry about, I had indeed gone to sleep and this shouting competition and -54C Siberian weather couldn’t hold me back. Somewhere in the middle of the night I dreamed someone, possibly me had found my sleeping bag and had got me in it somehow. You can always count on vallium to get you out of tight spots of impending hyperthermia.

A few minutes later after falling asleep Hannah rudely pulled her wake me up early trick. I wasn’t about to fall for that one again and fell straight back to sleep. Then she got a bit cheeky and rolled me off the top bunk into the isle.

“Wake up Mika its our stop.” The girl in my dream who looked a lot like Hannah was telling me.

“Well you don’t need to roll me into the isle.” I said.

The girl pretending to be Hannah grabbed me and forced me out onto the curb.

“You know you look a lot like my friend Hannah, she would never be so rude as to put me to sleep on the curb though.” I said and got myself as comfortable as I could in the gravel before falling asleep again.

This got me a kick in the back.

Once upon a time I had given Hannah a bit of information I regretted. Boys have two weaknesses. The first is obvious; the second is the piece of hair near the ear which when pulled causes pain. The same pain this girl was causing me right that moment in my dream who was trying to get me to gather my sleeping bag and get in this tuk tuk. I wasn’t going to have any part of that so snuggled a bit deeper into my nice warm sleeping bag.

She tried to get me up but as what happens in dreams when you want to move you are stuck in glue and slow motion and no matter how hard you try you can barely move. I tried my hardest to accommodate the pain girl’s wishes but my body was having none of it. I gave up and my dreams soon changed. The next moment I felt something hard hit my head and myself being placed in a seat. Seats are not very comfortable so I crawled down onto the ground instead and snuggled.

The next morning I woke and looked around startled. I was alone in this room and Hannah was nowhere to be seen. I checked my ribs to see if my pancreas was still there and not been donated to the Indian mafia. Everything seemed to check out besides a sore head, multiple bruises on my back, stomach and a sore ear.

Finally Hannah came in, “Oh my god Mika.”

“What? I told you if you have a vallium for the bus it will get you to your destination with no problems.” I said and smiled charmingly at her.

“Wipe that stupid grin off your face Mika before I wipe it off for you.”

It was really quite uncalled for and I almost told her that. Almost but then I started remembering a certain dream girl laying into my back quite viciously for a girl with her foot.

“What I only had one or two?” At which point I looked at the previously full packet which now was half empty. “Hey someone stole 5 valliums Hannah!”

“…….”

Someone had to get this show on the road so I changed the subject, “We cant sit here all day arguing about this and that, we should go see the Taj Mahal.”

I tried to stand up at this point and fell straight back over.

“Shivers! Earthquake Hannah!”

“No Mika I think it has something to do with the 5 valliums you just had.”

“Lets not going into who did this and who did that, hey you know what maybe we should just sleep some more.” I was feeling rather tired and all, I mean I had only had a few hours sleep.

Later that day when the earthquake tremors had stopped we got out and about with a tuk tuk driver who kept grinning at me and had somehow got it into his head to joke with Hannah about how I was called stupid for some reason.

It ended up being quite a splendid day with a visit to the Agra castle which was just massive and amazing, quite a bit larger than the castles in England. We then went on to see a mini taj and the Taj Mahal from across the river.

Here we met up with 3 little kids who we played around with. They were quite cheerful and fun to muck around with so we searched around our pockets for loose change.

I suspected they spoke a little English so I said to Hannah, ‘IOnlyHaveOneCoinWhatAboutYou?” as fast as I could.

“MeTooButTheyLookLikeGoodBuddiesSoWillShare.”

“NoDoubt.”

So we gave them the 2 coins to share between the three of them. A BIG mistake. This brought on a violent scrap for the coins between the three previous friends.

“I think they are going to kill each other lets get out of here.”

So we ran off back to our tuk tuk.

Driving back I spotted a cheeky little kid peeing on the head of another little kid doing a dump in the gutter. All highly amusing, probably not so hygienic.

“Hannah look! I don’t quite see why the kid on the business end of everything didn’t seem to mind so much.” I said pointing out the spectacle.

“Gross Mika!”

That night we went across the road to a silver shop where we met an ‘authentic’ Australian Indian. Our tuk tuk driver was obviously paid to take all his customers there.

“I know David Boon you know.” The store owners ‘brother’ told us.

“Oh right.”

“Yes, I am from Tasmania and he lives near us.”

He did have an Indian Australian accent so it was hard to tell how much he was lying. There were some cracking pieces in there though so we stuck around to look at everything. Hannah spotted this cool bracelet which even my boy eyes had to admit was really cool and I wished I was a chick so I could buy it. I began reminiscing about a ring I once owned and how you could never buy them anywhere. Goa had given me a cheap imitation but the ring was a lot skinnier than the one I used to have. I said this to Abdul Boon and his eyes lit up.

“Why I can get my factory to make you one to your specifications.”

“Awesome!”

So we sat down and drew out detailed plans for my new old ring. We started to get excited so Hannah and I widened the plan to make us each a pinkie ring in remembrance of our trip. One for Ariane, one for Hannah and one for myself.

Abdul Boon tried to clear things up for us, “So you want the pinkie ones fat and the old new one skinny.”

“Ummm no, the pointer finger one fat and the pinkie skinny.”

“Yes, of course the pinkie one with a groove and the pointer one fat.”

“No, the pinkie one skinny with the pointer one fat with a groove.”

After much deliberation and to scale drawings from Hannah and we finally got him to realise what we wanted.

“So we can have it tomorrow before noon?”

“Sure you can.”

I was a bit dubious but really excited to have a chance to maybe get the same ring made up for me again. I was feeling generous so we even paid up front. Something I never have done before and something you should never ever ever do. I think it was the fact that it was the end of the trip, he sounded Australian and I wasn’t worried about my money situation and the pieces were all very cheap and he offered to make us dinner.

In celebration we decided to get ourselves a drink for the dinner. Our trusty tuk tuk driver was also invited to the dinner so he drove us to the bottle-o.

Outside the shop he stopped and whispered to us, “You should give me the money, if they see you are a white person they will charge you twice as much.”

“Likely story but ok” we agreed because he only asked for like $5 for a 750ml bottle of whiskey.

For some reason he then became in charge of the alcohol until we got to dinner. Abdul Boon had cooked us up a feast of goat with rice.

“How do you like it!?” Abdul Boonie asked us.

We looked at each other, “Its very, ummmm, ..”

“Spicey is the word your looking for Hannah.”

“Yes, absolutely, its very spicey.”

“Spices are good!” I added to make sure he didn’t correctly assume spiciness as us not wanting to be rude to the man making us a free dinner and who had our money invested in making some rings.

The tuk tuk driver certainly liked his spices and dug in like it was the last meal he had had in a long time.

“Hey why don’t we open this bottle of whiskey.” Someone suggested, probably Hannah.

We looked over to the tuk tuk driver expectingly.

“Ok, wait a moment.” He said and reached into the bag and started rustling the bag under the table for an inordinate long time. For some reason he even popped his head under the table for a moment before producing the bottle proudly minus half its label.

I looked under the table to see what had been causing him so much trouble. It seemed that it was the other half of the label so I stealthly grabbed it to see what he had ripped off. As I suspected it was the price of the whiskey, about $1 cheaper than the driver had quoted us. I decided to show Hannah but we didn’t want to cause any trouble right then so we left it.

About 30 minutes later our bottle of whiskey was almost empty and as far as Hannah and I could tell we had only had one drink each.

“Hannah did you drink the whiskey?”

“Right as rain, only had the one.”

We both looked over to the tuk tuk driver.

“I sssssaaaayyyy, thisssss whisssssskey isssss niccceeee.” he slurred.

“You look a little red in the face mate.”

“Itssss a bitt hotsssss.”

“I think we solved that mystery, Mika”

“Indeed.” I said moving the whiskey out his reach. He had had quite enough and was absolutely flogged.

“Cant hold their liquor it seems.”

By this time Abdul Boon left us to our beers and half a bottle of whiskey. Hannah and I soon became quite red in the face as well.

Hannahs eagle eyes soon spotted some Japanese across the room and pointed them out to me.

“DOZO HI ARIGATO” I greeted them quite loudly.

“Dojdo sus uouo hiuy” they returned.

“Yes absolutely, same to you.”

For some reason they didn’t seem to want to come sit with us no matter how hard we tried.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come over?” I insisted.

“Zen zen digy my zen”.

“Mika I think they just said no not ever.” Hannah whispered to me.

By this time it was getting late and we had an early morning in order to get into the Taj Mahal for sunrise.

On the way back down Hannah began to get comfortable in the delegating of nuts to my little monkey followers. She stopped dropping then on the group and running away and let them take the nuts from her hand.

“Hey Mika do you think this big male I am feeding is a bit too….” Suddenly the monkey took the last of her nuts and decided she was a bit rude not having any more for him so scratched her on the hand. “…. angry… hey!”

I looked on. She paused for a moment. She paused some more and looked at the monkey running off, the full implications not yet hitting her. She looked at her hand again. More silence. I waited for it to begin.

“Mika.”

“Yes Hannah?”

A bit more silence. “Mika.”

She looked around frantically suddenly realising the sky had fallen on our heads and the end was near.

“This is so your fault Mika!”

“What is?” I said innocently.

“The monkey scratched me!”

“Ohh that.”

“What am I going to do!?” She asked

“About what?” I tried to look confused.

“R-r-rab-rabiessss….” She was in a near panic by this stage, so she hit me on the back of the head.

“Watch where you swing that rabied hand of yours you never know what sort of diseases you are going to spread.” I said defensively.

“I’ll give you rabies!” she retorted and had another swing at my head. I wondered if this was a side effect of rabies and if its onset had set in yet.

“You know I think a side effect of rabies is wanting to go down fighting and take everyone with you, I think it may have already set in.” I informed her.

She sat down on the ground dejectedly.

“This is the end Mika, I have but a few hours to live, we should make the best of what I have left, Mika thanks for the good times. Give me a hug goodbye.”

I wondered if this was a trap or if these wild mood swings were part of the rabies.

“This isn’t a trap Mika! I am serious!” she said angrily.

I decided it must be wild mood swings and not a trap. Then I realised if wild mood swings were part of rabies then all women were born with rabies. Maybe kids were right about this whole girls have cooties thing, but maybe it wasn’t cooties but more rabies. Smart people those kids.

“Hannah are your wild mood swings the rabies talking or you?”

“I AM NOT HAVING WILD MOOD SWINGS.”

“Ok sorry my mistake.”

The monkey scratch had not broken the skin and our helpful Indian guy who was following us/trying to sell us stuff/using my nuts to feed the monkeys/wanted some money informed her that since there was no blood then it was likely she might not have rabies at all.

Hannah peered at the scratch almost willing it to bleed.

“Do you think this part which is a bit red is blood? Is the skin broken?”

“Not at all” I replied, still a little scared of her rabies to inform her that maybe the skin was a little bit broken.

Hannah was still not convinced. “I told you I was going to die of rabies!” and once again she tried to hit me on the back of the head.

“What was that for?”

“For not believing me when I said I was going to die of rabies. Now I am in the middle of the mountain, miles from a hospital and I have 4hrs before I get rabies.”

Like all good travellers I had a plan for the rabies. “I think we should put alcohol on it and maybe then the rabies will be healed.”

She looked at me for a second and shook her head. “Why didn’t I think of that. Maybe you are useful.”

So that became our action plan for curing Hannah’s rabies. The only small problem was we were in a holy village and alcohol was harder to get your hands on than just about anything. As we had learned earlier with the holy man it was easier getting some crack or heroin than alcohol, they sure had their priorities sorted here.

“No I don’t think you should have some cocaine to fix your rabies. Maybe for your wild mood swings… err…. ,“ I paused here for a moments reflection, “Well I guess you don’t have them anyway so it wont help.”

I walked off down the hill quickly in the hope she didn’t notice my serious slipup. I needn’t have worried, she was by now so concerned about her rabies now to mention much about anything besides informing every tourist walking up the hill that she had indeed contracted rabies and she had barely hours to live and if they had any alcohol. Most thought her plea’s a cunning plan to wrangle some alcohol out of them. They were probably not far wrong.

Finally we walked into the hostel, well Hannah stumbled for added effect crying out “alcohol” to the manager. I quickly explained the situation to him. He looked a bit dubious to say the least but he managed to rustle up an empty bottle of scotch which contained a few dregs. Now as any good traveller does when they get their hands on some alcohol they drink every last single drop so when I say a few drops, I mean about three.

Hannah pounced on the bottle snatching it from the mans hand holding it upside down to try and get the final three drops which she eagerly smeared into her hand. I sneaked away hoping no-one noticed that I was with her. I was not to be spared that honour. Hannah began eagerly telling all in the room about how she had probably contracted rabies while with the skinny one sneaking down the stairs over there. I quickly headed to the toilet door to pretend that had been my destination all along and was unlucky to miss the rest of her wildly animated re-enactment of how it had ‘really’ gone down. I don’t think she did me any justice at all from the looks I got when I came out.

The next morning we rose early. Well Hannah rose early and woke me up in the usual fashion.

“Time to teach that mountain a lesson.” She said with far to much excitement for the earliness of the morning.

“What mountain? What lesson?”

“The one mocking us last night.”

I instantly regretted accepting the challenge laid down by the mountain. “Ok Ok I am getting up.” Like I had any other choice.

As usual there was no path to get to this mountain and we had to rely on map boy to direct us to get there. As usual Hannah figured her warped set of directions were more correct. I have seen that kid confidently tell me which way to go when it was the complete opposite direction. Her plan was to take a ‘short cut’ through this farmers field. My plan was to calmly walk around it along the footpath seeing as this farmers field was full of 6ft high fences with barbed wire fences and dotted with rotting bit of machinery all sorts of troublesome items.

“Hannah listen to reason just come my way.”

“Nope.” She said stubbornly. She is so stubborn that if she has made her mind up and you show her the fallacy of it she will still do it just to prove to everyone that she was right.

So she stubbornly attempted the first hurdle. She struggled a bit and got caught a few times.

“Need a hand Hannah.” I said supportively.

“Piss off Mika. If your way is going to be quicker you better be on your way now to meet me there at the end before me.”

She had a point there so I casually strolled of kicking a few stones and admiring the view until she was out of site. Now some may claim that I was running but they would be totally wrong. If you want to get technical running is where you lift both feet of the group, walking is where at least one foot is on the ground and I was quite careful about not lifting both feet off the group at any one time. More than I could bet Hannah was doing.

At one stage we could see each other again.

Hannah panted out, “See no worries and I am not even going fast.”

“Me either!”

On the way I met up with a monkey nut seller and procured some nuts to feed the monkeys later.

We finally converged and I looked on in wonder at how someone could possibly have gotten so much grass through her hair and clothes, have mud on her knees and a few shreds in her shirt and still look so calm and in total breath.

“Hannah I have so much energy lets race.” I challenged.

“Well it would be unfair because I got her before you and so have had more rest than you.”

I gaped. “BEFORE ME!”

The way I saw things I had gotten there way before her and my way had been the best by far. I had no rips in my clothes and mud and grass all over me. By the time we got it sorted we both had our breath and had equal face. Very important saving face.

About 20m up the hill.

“Who’s stupid idea was it to climb this hill anyway?”

“I think it was the hill’s”

We stopped often to watch the monkeys and were quite disheartened to see a couple about 80 passing up on the way up.

“Hannah now the old people are mocking us.”

We had another challenge and nearly killed ourselves trying to overtake the old couple. Just as we were overtaking the old couple we noticed an Indian carrying a massive load of bottles and food on his back setting a cracking pace up the hill.

“He is young Hannah so he probably is fit.”

“Yes, he does probably do this every day.”

“I mean it would be silly to try and outpace him”

“Absolutely, I mean I bet he trains all the time.”

“He does look particularly fit.”

“Probably has a good healthy diet as well.”

So we unanimously decided not to try and beat him to the top and just make sure we got to the top before the 80 year olds.

We reached the top about 1 minute before the super grandparents.

“You know the grandparents probably eat well as well.”

“I bet they are super fit.”

“Absolutely, probably travel all the time.”

“Yeah I bet they climb mountains for a living or something.”

“You know we have just beaten to the top of this mountain a couple who obviously are professional mountain climbers.”

“High five!”

So we walked/stumbled away content in the knowledge of how fit we were.

Onto Pushkar

Our bus to Pushkar contained probably one of the hottest girls I had ever seen in like a few months. Some boy dropped her off in his car and carried her bags onto the bus said goodbye hoping for a kiss goodbye but was left without much more than a goodbye.

Every boy on the bus was trying their hardest to catch her attention. One lucky fellow was next to her and was striking up a loud convo, no doubt in order to show how cool he was he was speaking loudly so it was soon apparent that she was Israeli.

Half way through the trip we stopped for a bite to eat and got out.

Hannahs a bit of a chai drinker and because the hot girl was waiting in the line in front of us I decided I would try this chai even though I had grave suspicions as to its health.

“I’ll have chai” the Israeli snapped a little grumpily.

Where in the man poured her a cup of chai. “5 rupees please.”

She looked on in horror, “5 rupees!”

Now 5 rupees is about as cheap as anything in India is. It equates to about AUS 15c.

The man smiled politely, “5 rupees please.”

“No way, who do you think you are charging 5 rupees for a cup of chai!” she snapped angrily.

“Sorry ma’am, 5 rupees please.”

“You can forget about that I am not paying 5 rupees.”

“I am sorry ma’am but that is the price.” And he pointed to the clearly marked sign.

In India a bit of batering never goes astray but there are things that you do not barter for. Chai for 5 rupees from a petrol station is not one of them. It like going into a super market and seeing a lolly and informing the checkout chick that you did not want to pay 20c for those lollies and ‘who do they think they are!’

Things were starting to get interesting. Hannah and I looked at each other and moaned at Israeli’s impertinence.

“You can have your chai back then.” She said and stormed off in a flurry.

The man looked at her back in wonderment.

Hannah then said to me, “Mika I haven’t even seen a 5 rupee coin yet let alone a 1 or 2 rupee coin. It’s not like she can cut a fiver in half or something?”

We ordered our chai and I generously gave the man a 5 rupee tip. The second tip of the whole trip. I hoped the angry, beautiful girl saw it and felt ashamed. Now I know why people say Israeli’s are tight.

We arrived at Pushka and it was really something. A nice little town tucked away in the middle of nowhere which surrounds a holy lake. It was also filled with little stalls and Hannah added to my load by buying another 14kg of beads.

That afternoon we walked around to the lake to sit and take it all in. There were massive fish swimming around and jumping out of the water all the time and it was really amazing.

It wasn’t long before someone noticed the foreigners sitting by the water and approached us.

“Hello I am a holy man.”

I looked at the clearly white hippy man. “err Hi.” We greeted.

“I am a holy man, do you want good karma, a blessing, ice, crack, heroin, weed, a holy ceremony, good karma?”

“I think you said good karma twice mate.” Then I stopped and thought about it for a minute. I looked at Hannah. She looked at me.

“Excuse me.” She said wherein he repeated what he said.

“Did he just say what I thought he said.” Hannah whispered to me.

I nodded. “yes I think a holy man just offered us a whole lot of drugs.”

We looked up from our team huddle. “Umm thanks for the offer but no thanks.”

“No ice, heroin?” he insisted.

“Um yeah we are right thankyou.” I said and waved him off. If you don’t dismiss people properly in places like this they tend to linger and I didn’t want to be arrested and put in a Indian jail for being caught talking to a drug dealer albeit holy man.

“Mika I know you are a bit ratty and those jeans a looking a little worse for wear and your pretty skinny, but it was a bit rough to lump me into your category as a crack addict.”

“Thanks a lot!” I said indignantly. “Well you know it’s a complement.”

“Oh right?”

“Addicts are always really skinny so basically he was saying your skinny.” One of us had to be the better man. I didn’t mention how they usually look feeble and drawn and haggard and pretty much feral. Actually maybe I did. Being the better man is not all it’s cracked up to be.

As we were sitting there. “Hannah see that mountain over there.”

“Yes.”

“I hear it challenging me.”

“I think you are right, its saying to get up first thing in the morning and climb it.” She replied. “No one challenges us and gets away with it.” she said definitely and shook her fist at the mountain mocking us.

So we made a plan to get up early in the morning.

Next on the list was the shop run. First was a rock shop which didn’t really fancy our tickle and we left empty handed. I mean seriously who charges 1000 rupees (AUS$30) for a silver necklace. A bit over the top if you ask me.

Now I like my linen. Everyone does I am sure so I was quite excited to be going to the cloth factory. This was where I met strangely enough Abdul, because I can’t remember his name.

“Welcome my friend.” We were greeted at the door.

“Welcome my friend” I replied in like.

This is where he began talking a million miles an hour and convinced me that I really did need a doona cover. Not really sure how it happened but now I am stuck with this double doona cover for my single bed when I get home. They can be tricksy those Indians. It was quite cheap. I think the real reason I bought it was because another chap strangely enough called Abdul had convinced Hannah that she needed to look at every single item in the shop, and there was a lot, and then because she couldn’t decide to look at them all over again and I was bored. Also Abdul no. 1 was trying to swap me my dodgy black market watch from Turkey for his dodgier watch from goodness knows where and he caught me unawares.

“Mika what do you think of this one.”

“Oh that one is the best for sure.” I tried to be helpful.

“You said that about the last one.”

I realised then that my cunning plan of saying whatever she was holding up was the best was not working and only complicated things. I tried a new tack.

“Mika this one?”

I began of randomly picking items and saying they were the best by far. This only seemed to confuse myself more.

“Mika you said this one was the worst one before and now you are saying it’s the best one.” She retorted and ended with a huff.

Damn those girls and their memories. Can’t they see they all look the same? Strange creatures finding differences when there are none.

She walked off muttering about something, where all I heard was ‘boys’, ‘no idea’, and ‘why do I bother?’ The last was a good one because I sometimes wondered about that as well.

We left that shop a bit broker for sure but by now I had seen the end of our trip and was cashed up and eager to spend this free windfall that had come my way. Never worry about how I was going to live when I got home with no job. About then I realised why I never really like to plan ahead too much. It only makes you start to worry about things you probably have control over.

Next stop was a mosquito farm/picture gallery. We tried to get out as fast as we could but it is never an easy job extracting ones self from those kinds of places but we managed. If that shop keeper ever reads this I am really sorry for doing that. You know what it was and I will pay the damages, I swear….

Last stop Hannah managed to convince the taxi man to find a bead shop. It wasn’t too hard though I must admit.

As we arrived it was starting to get dark. Hannah was pretty keen on getting some beads so we knocked on the door of the closed shop. The owner was only too happy to let us in when the first thing Hannah said was, “We want beads, lots of beads.”

I don’t know why she put in the ‘we’ bit but I could run with that.

The store keeper was keen to show off his skills and prowess in rocks. A handy skill rocks, knowing rocks. He also was very proud of his 12 year old daughter and got her out to meet us.

“She is my apprentice.” he stated proudly.

“You must be so proud.” I smiled. Always nice to see a proud father. I hoped it didn’t sound sarcastic because I was pretty impressed because she was young.

“She can tell you what any rock is just by looking at it.”

I whistled appreciative.

“See show me your fingers,” and pointed to the 2 rings on my finger. This is where he informed me of what I had suspected for quite a while.

“That ring is silver and the other one is stainless steel.” he informed me.

“Doh” thanks a lot mate now I don’t like that stainless steel one. I knew he was right though when I looked a little closer.

He then decided it was his daughters chance to show off.

He looked me up and down and noticed my necklace. He spoke rapid Hindi or whatever it was they spoke in Rajasthan. She came closer and peered at it.

“Wood.” She said.

Wow. It WAS wood, amazing. I then felt bad for thinking that because she was little. She then went around showing us all sorts of rocks naming each one. I had no idea if she was right or not but she had a name for everything.

Hannah was getting excited and the little girl more excited with Hannah excitedness and so they took her into the house and then spent the most marvellous 3 hours pouring over all the bead rocks with a fine tooth comb.

I however spent the time with the punk kid son who kept showing me the same joke box thing which when you opened had something jump out.

“Hey, Look, see this.” As he shoved the box under my nose for the 100^th time.

“Actually, yes.” Just in time for him to open it and the thing to shoot out and poke me in the eye.

“You want yes?”

I rubbed my eye. It was probably karma getting me back for me thinking I was being a smart arse to the daughter and since it was India, karma was stronger here. So I considered buying the thing as a present to him seeing as he loved it so much but then thought that since it was his fathers shop he got to play with the thing all the time.

“See this?” as he shoved it under my other eye. I gave the kid 5 rupees.

Hannah came back beaded up to the eyeballs, “OH MY GOD Mika, this is only $50 and back home it is worth at least $500, it’s so cheap.”

I looked ruefully at the massive bag of beads and said practically, “Where are you going to fit that? You can’t even fit everything in now, let alone with all that.”

“Oh don’t worry about that I have a plan.”

I had a suspicion what the plan was and I didn’t like it. Not one bit. As it so happens I was right and ended up packing it that night.

We arrived at the train station, avoiding the faeces eating wild pigs swishing around on the road in the puddles, and caught a nice leisurely train to Jaipur. This was possibly the best train trip we ever did as it was a regular train such as we are used to in the Western world with proper big seats etc. First Class all the way, yeah! On the train I realised we didn’t actually say our goodbyes to our new friends Chris and Dan as they were sitting right next to us in the carriage. Our goodbyes were to be saved for later that night. They had stayed at a hostel in Jaipur which had served them well so we all went there again. At the hostel they spotted a tuk tuk driver they had used and he had taken them around Jaipur on a tour for a good price so we booked him in for the next day. We then bode our new friends farewells, for real.

We woke up nice and early the next morning excited to not have to think, only to be taken around the city, the world our oyster, well Jaipur anyway. First stop was getting our ticket home. We tentatively asked our tuk tuk driver to take us to a travel agent. Always risky and a sure way to get ripped off. However he dropped us off around the corner from the agent and pointed to the door and stayed in the tuk tuk. A truly amazing experience. I could not believe it. He wasn’t coming in to try and get his share of the profits. Also at the start of the trip he said he was going to take us to 3 shops to help make the fair cheaper. Which is was very cheap, and we didn’t have to buy anything. Honest as well. Usually they try and sneak them in or force them on you real sneaky like. He even bought us a chai. I tried not to look at the guy standing at the dodgy stall in the street swilling water around a billy he had just cleaned out from the puddle at his feet. I tried even harder not to look at the chai? I was nervously swilling. I tried the most hardest to ignore the bits and pieces that seemed to be slipping through the teeth. One thing I couldn’t ignore was our driver with a big smile on his face watching us enjoy every single tiny sip urging us on, the smile getting larger with each. “Mmmm. This sure is good chai….err thankyou.” Lucky for us our stomachs were pretty much made from iron about then due to the 3 months pounding they had received. Or so I kept telling myself.

So we sat back and the first stop was a tour of a palace in central Jaipur. As usual the Hannah and Mika tour show jumped out of the tuk tuk about 5 seconds before it stopped ready to get stuck in see the sites, have a quick squiz and then bail. However the driver was on to it and stopped us before we reached the obligatory beggars to give us an in depth 2 hour repeating history in stuttering spluttering English interrupted every now and then to ask if he was saying the right word. He didn’t get our subtle hints. Hannah tapping her foot, Hannah running off and me holding her back, Hannah looking every which way but the driver, Hannah looking at her watch, Hannah yawning, Hannahs name being swapped for mine, Hannah stretching, Hannah coughing.

Finally we untangled ourselves from the ear chewing machine and ran into the palace. After that dittography it was sure going to be good and it sure did disappoint slightly. However we ran around and came back out again in 10 minutes, about 35 minutes before our allotted time slot. However he had a back up but before he could go into details I saw something really interesting, a gate, grabbed Hannah and ran over to it yelling out behind us that we would be back in 35.

The next stop was an observatory.

“Two tickets please and one camera.” It seems cameras being an entity in themselves attract a bit of a fee as well.

Us being us grabbed the tickets and then instantly threw them away in the bin once we realised there was no one checking tickets. We wandered around for a bit jumping on al the instruments.

“Excuse me sir, ticket please.” Said this Indian in a funny looking brown clothes and some dodgy badge.

“Yeah mate, but go away.” I said politely.

“You don’t have a camera ticket. 20 rupee please.” He continued.

I thought about how he knew this without even checking first so I did what every red blooded person would do “You don’t have a real job.” Which he didn’t. I may have red eyes a lot of the time and they may play up and cause me all sorts of grief but even I could see he was just some Indian dude trying his luck with stupid tourists and trying to get me to give him some free money.

I sniffed to show my indignation, waited a minute, and then sniffed again a touch louder just in case he didn’t notice the first sniff.

He was pretty persistant but I could be as well and so I gave him the usual beggar treatment and pretended he wasn’t there. It did feel strange though having a personal assistant follow me around trying to get my attention and grabbing my arm as I slowly toured the site. I took my time just to show this clown that he wasn’t bothering me. My entourage grew a few more people and it wasn’t until I was leaving and person in the ticket booth and one of my little uniformed followers was getting real frustrated with the fact that I didn’t seem to realise he existed no matter how he acted, called over one of the security guards to show that he was really a ticket inspector. Oops. Hannah then took over and did a bit of sweet talking and we didn’t have to pay again.

“Hannah, I can be sweet sometimes too. I am sure I could have got us out of this little problem you put us in.” I stated for the record.

Hannah snorted.

I spotted some snakes outside with the snake charmers. I crept as close as I dared and took a couple of snaps. The eagle eyed snake charmers spotted me approaching and saw the said pictures and then started yelling at me to give them some money. Now I am a generous man and I will pay up for a bit of a show. However there is one thing I wasn’t going to do and that was get any closer to charmers seeing as the cobra were looking a bit too angry for me.

“Money” they shouted at me.

I shook my head furiously.

“50 rupees a photo.”

I shook my head furiously again. They were freaking cobras! Last time I checked, cobras bite. They started getting a bit angry, the snake charmers that is. I didn’t care. Angry men I can handle, angry cobras are angry cobras and they were looking quite angry enough thankyou. I fled.

By then it was lunch time and our friend the talkative driver took us to this local restaurant. It was obviously his mates but the food was absolutely delicious and cheaper than we were paying anywhere else. The man kept putting more food on my plate. I didn’t want to be rude so I obliged and ate that. I mean these people were starving in India and I didn’t want to have any food thrown out. While I was eating he was hovering around and once that was gone magically another portion of food was on my plate. I didn’t even see him do it half the time. Just that no matter how much I ate there was still food on my plate.

“Hannah, I know I am skinny and all but not that skinny that a poor Indian has to take pity on me and try and fatten me up am I?”

Hannah didn’t need to look me up and down and consider it for a moment. She also didn’t have to sound so sarcastic in her reply.

I was so pleased with the service I even gave him a tip. The first tip in 3 months. I am easy bribed. Give me good cheap food, honesty and free seconds and I am your man.

Right about then mr driver told us of the next plan. Monkey Temple! That’s right folks the holy grail of the Monkey Butler band wagon. I nearly got out and pushed the little tuk tuk there faster I was so excited.

At base camp to monkey temple I bought some nuts to feed the little blighters. Along the way we saw a 5 legged holy cow which apparently cost me money for walking near it. I was way too excited about the impending monkeys to put up too much of a fuss.

I pulled out the nuts at the top and was introduced to monkey heaven with me as their food god. They swarmed around me and jumped around the place.

“Look Hannah, monkeys!!”

“Yes Mika I know you just said that.”

“No but seriously the monkeys Hannah!”

“Yes I can see them.”

“Monkeys!” I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t getting into it as much as I was.

Things then went to monkey hell when the alpha males came and decided to start this big war of the nuts with me right in the middle. I was standing in the middle and on either side were the two tribes. I decided to stir things up a bit and give some nuts to my favourite side. This caused some monkey squeals and an enemy monkey sortie came in for the kill. I tried to rally the troops to defend me their food god. About 2 seconds later I realised monkeys were not as loyal as I had assumed the monkey butlers would be when they both attacked at once. So I dropped my nuts and ran. Cheeky monkeys. I forgave them though because they are monkeys. Who can stay angry at monkeys? They are funny because they are cheeky and that’s why everyone loves them.

Later that afternoon taxi man took us to the water temple. I jumped out and as soon as I did dittography man started to tell us the history 23 times.

“Oh sorry, I have a call.” I said quickly whilst pretending I had a phone in my pocket.

“MIKA!”

“Sorry Hannah I just have to take this.” I said running off to leave Hannah all alone and stuck with the driver.

“Mika, you don’t even have a phone…..”

I was out of there so I jumped around the place trying to get the best angle for a few snaps. I finished up just as Hannah was finished with the history.

“Ok I am ready to go now.” I said.

Hannah positively glared. “Traitor.”

There was no need to set the alarm with the Byrne alarm going off nice and early.

“Be a jolly good chap. Time to get moving. I say Hector, its still dark but the natives are arriving in the canter soon.”

I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and got jumped on.

“Oh I say, this bed is rather bouncy, isn’t it what.”

Hannah was quite excited at another bout of tiger hunting, that I was quite sure of in my sleep deprived state.

“Hannah be a chap and get me a cup of tea, carry on then.” I shooed her out to get rid of some of that energy she always seemed to have unlimited amounts of.

“Cheerio, I’ll be back in a jiffy.” She said, stalking out of the door on the hunt for another victim, most likely our poor new friends.

Being the first people up in the whole of India had its advantages and we got to share the back seat with our new friends. As we drove along on the mildly bumpy roads Hannah was being dramatic and so we all played a game of forced corners. She being in the middle was quite fine and free from the effects of the bare sides of the canter. It did help to wake me up after having like 2 hours sleep however.

Our two new friends got a bit confused with all the Hector and Basel name calling. It was hard enough for me to understand what the hell was going on in Hannah’s head and I at least had an inkling of went on inside that mind of hers.

We were surprised to see that we picked up the couple from the day before who were now on their eleventh tiger hunt. The way I saw it, if there was a 1/10 chance of seeing tigers and they were on their eleventh attempt, well we had to see some tigers!

We arrived in a large convoy of canters and sat patiently about 200m from the entry. Word on the street was that there was a tiger nearby so the 16 canters all full of 16 people each sat there, not at all silently, peering into the bushes.

I am sure we would have seen the tigers soon if not for this bunch of people yelling out every 5 seconds, “I think I can see it!!” and then continuing with, “No wait it’s just a tree.” Everyone in all the canters looked at them in frustration and annoyance. I don’t know about the others but I didn’t like everyone staring at us so.

“Hannah I am serious there it is again!” I pointed at a flash in the bushes.

“YES! I see it as well! I am sure it is the tiger!”

I tapped the couple in front of us who were on their eleventh tour. “We have only been on 2 tours and we saw a tiger.”

“Sorry that was actually just a bush, the guide says the tigers are on the other side of the canter somewhere.” They replied helpfully. I listened to them because they had been on so many tours they knew about as much as the tour guides as what there was to see out there.

Hannah asked a few questions, about once every 6 seconds, “So when the birds all flock it means there is a tiger around?”, “So the monkey calls mean there is a preditor around somewhere.”, “Do you think that is the tiger?” before crying out triumphantly, “There it is!! The tiger!” and 20 canters all thundering towards us only to be disappointed to find out it was only a leaf moving. Hannah was under the disillusion that they actually liked her interest.

We then spent about 2 hours of driving back and forth, not in small part to our constant cries of “I have seen it! I am serious! The others times I wasn’t so sure but this time I am!”, before we set of without spotting the tigers.

Later on during the trip, “Oh I say, lovely day today.” I observed.

“Isnt it what!” Hannah replied enthusiastically.

“A rather good day to spot some tigers. Should be frightfully good sport.”

“Rotten luck to miss the tigers yesterday.” I continued.

“Oh indeed, my good man.”

“I know it’s terribly rude to ask old chap. But didn’t we just pass that tree, 30 minutes ago?”

“Good heavens, I think you are right.”

We continued along the path continuing passing the same tree numerous time. After passing the same tree about 16 times and 5 hours into our 2 hours tiger hunting expedition we began to worry slightly.

“I say Hector, do you think we are going to die.” Hannah asked me.

“Indeed, its been good to know you, frightful way to die though, terrible news for the family to learn of our death.”

I could imagine in the papers, Australian backpackers die while lost in a national tiger forest, presumed dead from Tigers. The fact we had not seen head nor tail of a tiger in our 2 trips didn’t seem to matter any less that they would be eating us. At least Hannah wouldn’t die of rabies as she still assumed.

“I say Hector, do you think the monkeys here have rabies? Will they jump on us as soon as we stop this infernal tour?”

Maybe she would die of rabies after all.

After numerous spottings of the same tree, I don’t care what they say, it was the same tree, and a whole lot of bumping, we didn’t seem to be getting any closer to getting out this infernal forest. By now we were so off the beaten track we hadn’t even seen a single animal in a few hours. Not even birds in the sky. Hannah at least may have been happy that the rabies threat had lessoned but there were only so many “I say Hector’s” you can take without anything else to interrupt it. I knew we were going to die out there.

Anyway eventually we got out of there at midday. The driver didn’t say he got lost but all the other canters had been back for about 4 hours.

So thus ended our tiger hunting. And our talking like fools.

We bode a sad farewell to our new friends, always the worst thing about travelling, and headed for Jaipur.

“Good morning, jolly old chap.” I said jovially to our tuk tuk driver.

“We are in a spot of bother and were wondering if you could help us out of this pickle.” Hannah added.

I wondered what our spot of bother was, while the tuk tuk driver wondered what a pickle was.

“We were not quite so sure of where our hostel is and were wondering if you could be a jolly good chap and take us to it.”

The driver scratched his head, put the tuk tuk into first gear and speed into the searing mass of the Indian transport system with smoke belching from the exhaust all the while wondering why we were speaking like 1900 English Safari fools and why did they kept on insisting the wasn’t the weather just marvellous on this side of the world and why the woman kept calling him Hector when clearly his name was Abdul. Ok I made up the Abdul bit but who ever heard of an Indian called Hector.

“Oh I say Hector”, Hannah drawled, “do you think we will spot some tigers today? Marvellous creatures those tigers.”

“Besides the ones with Rabies.” I added at which point Hannah forgot she was an English safari hunter and looked around at the monkeys on the side of the road and worried about her impending doom of death by rabies.

I think it was all lost in translation and Abdul just ignored us.

As it could probably be seen my foul mood and biotics had left me and everything was starting to look up again.

The first item on our agenda was to book ourselves into a tiger spotting adventure for that afternoon.

We sat about excitedly the rest of the day alternating between ourselves as to who was the tiger and who was the hunter with the imaginary friend called Hector and endless arguments between ourselves as to who was actually going to spot a tiger first. Which, by the way, was unanimously decided as being me.

So we packed our camera’s, video camera, safari hats and Hannah her book on infectious diseases of wild animals, namely any information dealing with rabies and jumped into our canter, a tiger hunting bus.

“Hannah look this bus has no roof and just think any animals can just jump on in with us.” Yes, I was definitely feeling a lot better being able to add to any of Hannah insecurities like that.

So we set about and ended up spotting every animal under the sun that was named either a monkey, a deer, a Samba, an owl and a mini crocodile. The closest we came to spotting a tiger was a tiger print which we were assured had not been there in the morning. I took a picture, being a good tiger hunter that I am. An absolutely stunning shot I assure you.

We returned home a little dejected at having seen no tigers but not as dejected as this Australian couple me met back at the hotel who had been on 10 tours and seen nary a hint of a tiger.

We went upstairs or dinner and behind us were another couple behind us. Hannah with her keen eavesdropping and constant search for gossip soon picked up that they were fellow Australians and soon got ourselves invited to sit with them. They were Chris the girl and Dan the man, also a non couple like Hannah and I.

We soon found out that while our hostel had a 12am curfew, theirs was not only cheaper but also had no curfew. So we moved our gear to their hotel next door and spent the night playing cards. Somewhere in the middle of the night they told us of their plans for a Tiger Safari the next morning at 5am. So we woke up the manager at 1am and got ourselves booked as well. I am sure he didn’t mind at all. I mean all that eye rubbing and head scratching was a sure sign of his pleasure. Right?

The red faze over my eyes proceeded to memory blank me for much of the next few days. I mean not anyone can go to 12 on the anger scale and become a normal person again. Being sick still did nothing to ease the red faze and kind of killed any will to live I may have ever experienced in the past. After another trip in which we tried to sneak into first class and succeeded for a blissful 15 seconds before we moved to second class and so on down and down until we ended up back in cattle class. Although they seem to treat cattle a whole lot better than I was being treated travelling on that train. This time we spotted a 30cm gap in the baggage racks so we both crawled up there. The screw which was situated at a very unfortunate spot did nothing for the level of comfort. I was happy however not to be sitting on the floor in front of the toilet or in the doorway with 16 other people all vying for the same position and having to share it with 3 of them.

I didn’t much pay attention to where we were headed and only did as Hannah was telling me to. I was too busy coughing and fevering and feeling very sorry myself. Somewhere along the line we ended up in Goa.

Apparently we met some people on the trip there but they were not very friendly and didn’t respond to my grunts very well and soon left us. Some people can be so rude.

By this time all I wanted was to relax and not be on my guard. As any traveller knows when you are travelling around the place every day you cannot trust anyone, you have to work out where you are going, how to get there, the correct price, avoid getting ripped off, know the best way to get somewhere even though you don’t know the place of speak the language, find a good place to sleep, find a place which is clean, find a restaurant which has clean food and isn’t charging you an arm and a leg, and so on. This task is repeated every single day, especially on a lightning tour such as we were doing. Not something you can easily mentally handle for 3 months straight. With the sickness and the train trip added up I had snapped. I just wanted it to end, yet at the same time understood exactly what it was I was doing and couldn’t leave because I knew I would regret it later. This left me in a bit of a pickle and Hannah’s constant pretending to enjoy some crappy book which I knew she wasn’t enjoying at all and ignoring me wasn’t helping my mood much. I mean who could enjoy some crappy book called “What Jennifer Saw”. I mean I had tried to read it a while ago and it was the most boring thing ever. And did she have to wrinkle her nose and pretend to flip a page when I said something when she had just flipped a page already.

Our awkwardness even caused me to not buy a wicked tshirt I really liked because Hannah had pointed it out to me and I hadn’t bought it to spite her. That would sure show her.

We went for a walk down the beach in order to fill the awkward silences and meandered around avoiding the cows until stumbling along I noticed a needle in the sand and we beat a hasty retreat. I started to pay attention then and was surprised to see quite a few heroin addicts stumbling along. Not that I have ever seen one before and would recognise one but people who are skinny and veiny and full on green are to my mind heroin addicts and if they weren’t then maybe they should become one because they were green! Aliens. They needed to fly somewhere. In fact I think they had all flown here, back in the 70’s. Apparently in Goa lots of hippies set up a little shanty town here in the 70’s and spent the time rolling joints and growing copious amounts of weed amongst other things. This of course led to harder and harder drugs and thus the whole heroin community. Damn hippies. However this did lead to a vibrant dance scene and if there is one thing I am good at, well it isn’t dancing but sometimes I like to think I can really boogie. So Hannah and I organised to spend a night out on the town after visiting the markets. Visiting the markets was such a drag and a total mission for me. I could hardly breathe and was still feeling really bad and the will to live was approximately equal to the hippie alien heroin addicts. Except they had something to live for, the next hit.

Hannah soon took offence to my moping about and in no uncertain terms let me know exactly what was on her mind. This didn’t bring about much in the way of conversation topics and we soon spoke even less.

“Mika maybe you should go and see one of those natural doctors.”

I grunted.

“Good come with me then” she said and dragged me to the doctor.

“Doctor man sir, can you give this man back life?” she asked the doctor.

“I think my heart stopped from biotics.” I blurted out, “now I don’t feel like doing anything.”

Hannah gasped at what was the longest sentence I had spoke in about a week besides the constant muttering she had just pointed out to me I was in the habit of lately.

“For 4000 rupees ($120.00) I have such the thing” and pulled out a packet of something white and powdery.

I considered it for a second, I mean he was a doctor, but Hannah grabbed me and we went to the bar instead.

I then proceeded to have a cracking night out. We walked up to this dance bar on the beach and danced the night away. On one side was the DJ and bar and the other side was the beach and you walked along the beach to go from one bar to the next. It was just the thing to lift the flagging spirits. We had to get up early the next morning to catch our train so we couldn’t stay out too late. We had tigers to hunt! Ranthambhore National Park. How exciting.