Getting our tickets for the train trip to Kerelar was a minor drama in itself. Cleverly we forgot to get our passports before buying our train tickets. Seeing as that is what you usually need to travel domestically on trains. I guess having everything done for us for so long made us out of touch and we became regular foolish white tourists. The best part was we waited in this line for 1hr in order to get our tickets before getting through to the ticket lady.

“One ticket to Kerelar please.” We asked.

“mumba amable ahadma.” The lady replied.

Hannah thought back to the recent experience she had in charades and tried to act out Kerelar with a 3 syllables, sounds like and movie action. However the task was difficult owing to the fact that there is nothing that sounds like Kerelar, looks like it and there is sure no movie about it. The only thing it seemed to do was convince the lady that we wanted to go to Bollywood, for three people and we were deaf. However she did start scribbling on this bit of paper and then started pointing furiously at the other room and we assumed correctly that that was where we should be heading.

We waited 2 minutes in this line before the lady got to us. We handed her the piece of paper.

“So you want to go to Bollywood?” she began.

“err no, Kerelar.” We corrected.

“Yes where in Kerelar?”

This little question stumped us. Thinking about it did however raise an important point. One we hadn’t considered before. Saying we wanted to go to Kerelar was like saying we wanted to go to Victoria. Not particularly specific.

“Surprise us.” She didn’t like that much and didn’t have much of a sense of humour but we finally figured out where to go by asking which was the best place to go.

“3 tickets to Kerelar?” The lady continued.

“just 2.”

“passports please.”

“Umm Hannah you have the passports don’t you?”

“No Mika! You have them.”

This little game went on for a while with the lady looking on in an amused fashion before we came to a unanimous agreement that it was all Hannah’s fault. We had to return to the hostel, grab our tickets and then return. A fun little mission which went totally smoothly.

We could only get 3^rd class un-airconditioned. This was pretty much like telling a tennis player he came second. Although probably a whole lot better than being the ball, which is what the non sleeper carriages are like.

Charles had given us a big long chain to tie our bags up while sleeping. It was something we probably should have gotten a long time previously but had never seen it prudent to lock our gear up. Those Indian’s look pretty sneaky with their small hands, which I am sure are good for getting into small places, like my bag. Also I was not suspicious of everyone in India because people are generally really nice there so I wasn’t all paranoid about my stuff so wasn’t busy being suspicious. Because of this fact I decided I should wrap our bags up in the most incredible array of complexity. I didn’t need anything from my bag till we arrived so I made sure both our bags were wrapped up tight. About 10 minutes after locking our stuff up Hannah decided she wanted something from her bag.

During the night I began to be sure we were heading the wrong direction, more towards the Himalaya’s because the temperature started to drop to below 1,000. The lady opposite from us had decided it practical to open the window to add to the ice which had begun to swirl around. I snuggled up into my -8C rated sleeping bag which packed up into the tiniest package. WAY smaller than Hannah’s anyway. Hannah had the nerve to say hers was better than mine. Previously I hadn’t really given her sleeping bag all that much notice but the challenge had been on for a chance for me to prove mine was actually better. I had the whole smaller thing but hers was not much bigger. Travelling in the middle east during summer had not really done all that much to mine being better because it being suitable for colder weather warmer because pretty much it had been like sleeping in a volcano the whole previous few months. Now I positively gloated in the fact mine was better. However I would never admit to hers being better but I secretly coveted hers because it could unzip into a blanket unlike mine.

Anyway I was on the top bunk so the wind wasn’t blowing on me all that much. Hannah was cold so after the lady opened the window, Hannah closed it. 5 minutes later the battle of wills began. Now I can attest to the fact that it takes a very special person indeed to take on Hannah in a battle of wills. Mule like, stubborn, brick wall, all come to mind and I have butted my head up against it quite a few times and mostly only ended up bruising my head in the process. The lady was quite strong willed but are used to being submissive so after about 16 opening the window and closing it again she gave up. I gave a cheer for once to Hannah’s willpower. About the only time I was glad for it.

During the night there was a very helpful chap who would stole up and down the aisle calling out coff-eeeeee, coff-eeee. Generally he would do it about every 30 minutes. Just in case it was the middle of the night and I was feeling like there was nothing better than a hit of caffeine he would make sure I didn’t want any. If he went past and I didn’t acknowledge his calls for coffee, he would tap on my foot and give it a little shake. The fact that I had not accepted a coffee at 10:30, 11:00, 11:30, 12:00, 12:30, 1:00, 1:30, 2:00, 2:30 did not seem to faze his enthusiasm in the slightest.

“Coffee?”

“No thanks.” A grunt, a touched pissed off.

“Coffeeeee?”

“No thankyou.”

“You sure?”

“No, I am quite sure” But I had to admire the persistence. I hoped Hannah wasn’t taking any notice or picking up any pointers.

About 6am when the Byrne alarm went off and wouldn’t turn off I started thinking about how nice it would be to have a nice morning coffee to kick start the day. For some reason Hannah needs a coffee in the morning. I really don’t know why seeing as she wakes up with more energy than I use in my whole day I couldn’t see the advantage some caffeine would do that metabolism of hers. Anyway at about 8am we started wondering where our coffee man had gone. We never saw the coffee man again.

A few hours later everyone had seemed to get off besides ourselves and we started to think about how we would realise when we would arrive at our station. At one station we started asking around and were told this was our stop. Right about then I realised just how clever it was to lock up our gear so securely. Any poor thief in the night trying to steal from that little tangle would have had a real mission on his hands. We couldn’t even get that jumble open for the longest time and we had the key.

Once out we got mobbed by the tuk tuk drivers and he tried the usual molest on us. The trusty old lonely planet however had the map of the town we were in so when he dropped us off at his friends hostel which was clearly not the one we asked for we didn’t bother arguing but got out and got another tuk tuk and didn’t tell him where we wanted to go but rather directed him. He definitely didn’t like that much. He didn’t have much trust in map boy very much and argued with my choice of directions.

That afternoon we borrowed a couple of bikes to go cruising around the town. Down one of the dirt tracks we met a group of crazy kids on bikes so Hannah and I raced them. We won but only because we played dirty and if they tried to pass us we would run them off the road. They were all laughing about it so it was alright. We had to show those 11 year olds that we 20 something Aussie’s could outrun them. At the end of the road I like to think I had quite a bit of speed up and that pesky little 12 year old on his tricycle that was matching me I had managed to run off in the ditch so I was riding on euphoria. I raised my arms into the air in victory and turn around to point at the 12 year old in glee. The road was quickly ending so I reached down with one hand, turned my head backwards to see if the tricycle riding kid was watching my victory. The brakes I were relying on decided to fail me right then and the handle snapped off. Karma had decided to punish me for picking on little kids and I went careening into the building. It was then time for that kid to start laughing at me instead. I think he took my pretending to be alright as me actually being alright and decided the time was right to start asking me for money. That little kid who Karma thought so highly of got no money from me.

Riding around the town was so cool and it was such a tropical paradise, if there weren’t so many people around and so dirty it would have been such a perfect place to be.

I returned the bikes and hid the broken brake bike behind all the rest of the ones there in the hope it would go unnoticed.

At dinner that afternoon/night we ate dinner with the friendly eagle who was, well friendly.

Day 1 of self sufficiency again was a bit sad because I started to miss home for the first time since I had left almost 3 years ago. Just not having to be on guard and not having to work everything out every day and to be somewhere clean was a wonderful feeling. I was alright by the afternoon again however, there is nothing like a good taxi driver argument to lift flagging spirits.

The taxi driver took us not to where we wanted to go but a shop somewhere else and quite forcefully tried to get us to go inside.

“The shopping center is closed so you go here and look around.”

“No thanks.” I stated.

“You can’t go where you said because it’s Sunday so it’s closed.” The taxi driver tried.

“Actually, it’s Saturday so we’ll try our luck.” I pointed out.

He kept persisting so I went to go and look for another tuk tuk. So he drove 2 minutes to a deserted street, stopped and again tried for 10 minutes to get us to his shop. We finally convinced him to actually take us were we wanted to go. We’d test our luck on whether it was open. Surprisingly, it was.

Nothing much happened of importance except for the rat attack at our 4 star hostel. I was sitting on a chair minding my business reading a book and see this massive rat just wander out towards me. I did a double take and nudged Hannah. She screamed and jumped onto her chair. I casually and carefully got into the standing position, on top of the table. We tried to shoo it away but it must have assumed we were trying to feed it and came closer. Hannah screamed louder and called for the staff to come and save her from the vicious rat. The staff just laughed at us jumping around on top of the chairs and tables wildly and did nothing to help. The rat finally stopped directly underneath our chair and looked around for a minute or two. Then in order to rid us of the rodent I began jumping up and down madly on the chair, holding on to the arm rests to get more leverage and chair height. Everyone of course took it for me in panic stations, which I clearly wasn’t. I was merely trying to rid us of the creature seeing as no one else would.

Then we left for Kerelar.

Chennai day 3 brought about a welcome change. We went to this place which had some old rock carvings of elephants and chariots etc.

On the way we started talking to Chris’s sister who was about 24 or so. Hannah of course wanted all the gossip straight from the start.

“So do you have a boyfriend?” Hannah asked.

At which she looked a little confused, “No, I told my parents I did not want to marry until I was finished my university degree in a year.”

It was now our turn to look confused.

Chris’s sister continued, “Then my parents will find me a good husband. I know how to dance and sing because I took lessons when I was younger, so I they should be able to get me a good husband.” Apparently that is what they look for in a woman over there. I considered what Hannah would be worth if I could marry her off to someone and get me a good dowry for her once I got rid of her parents in a few days. I have heard her sing and seen her dance so guessed it probably wouldn’t be worth much, maybe a couple of pappadum’s. Although I was feeling particularly hungry so maybe it might be worth it.

This was not good enough for Hannah so she pried harder, “So is there a man you have your eye on?”

“No I do not really associate with men much, if I do it is only ever with a group of all my friends and we never speak alone.”

“So you don’t like anyone then?” Hannah tried.

“No,” was the answer.

“Wow that’s crazy,” I hastily butted in.

“No it isn’t.” the girls all shot back a touch too testily.

I had to back peddle quickly, “I don’t mean crazy, crazy. I mean, like, you know, far out.” I was clutching for straws grabbing at anything that would come to me, I wasn’t getting anywhere fast, “as in, crazy how different our cultures are!” I cried out triumphantly. I had dodged a bullet there. “Hannah and I are not even married but we always travel together and alone.” I was going so well and then I decided to continue, “I mean we even sleep in the same bed together sometimes.” It was about then that I noticed that Glenys was sitting not only in the conversation but was pretty much right in the middle of the conversation. It was also about then that I realised how scandalous it was all sounding to a very sheltered Indian girl. It was all going pear shaped. I beated a hasty retreated to the safety of the front seat and looked out the window at where the Boxing Day tsunami had wiped out half of India instead and wished I was out there, possibly even when it was all happening. It was lucky that Glenys is such an understanding lady and knows we never get up to mischief, in fact I heard her tell Chris’s sister that she was glad we travelled together so I could look after Hannah. I don’t know about Chris’s sister but she was still friendly to me, but I am sure it was all due to my incredible charm.

It was pouring down rain when we arrived but that didn’t stop the hoards of hawkers rushing over and thrusting things in our faces. Hannah and I had no worries; the others however were trying hard to be polite and got ensnared.

Once inside to the carvings we were safe. The hawkers however were all waiting patiently for us though to return. On trying to pay for the tickets a tour guide came up to Chris (who is Indian), “I will lead this group.”

“Umm no you wont, they are with me and I’ll show them around.”

“You don’t have a licence so you will get a fine.”

Chris started laughing, “They are my friends.”

The man muttered, scowled and sauntered off trying his luck with the rest of us.

On the way out the others all got trapped by people thrusting things in their faces and they couldn’t get on the bus. It was quite crazy.

I got inside easily enough using my monkey butler leeches, evasion dance. Hannah did some sort of weasel wiggle and was not too far behind me. Once inside the people outside opened my window and tapped on me trying to get me to buy stuff. I closed the window. He tapped. I tapped. He made hand gestures, I made hand gestures. He opened the window, so I shut the window and then opened it up again. He thrust his hand in, so I thrust mine out. He grabbed mine, so I grabbed his. He tried to get in the window so I tried to get out. He gave up so I closed the window and he started tapping again. So I put my hands in front of my eyes and when he tapped I would thrust my hands away and with a big grin cry, “PEEK-A-BOO!” Everyone but Hannah thought I was a bit nuts.

We then went to this lighthouse and were greeted by the hawkers pestering us.

Zyg and Yvonne bought this stuff but obviously it wasn’t enough so more kids came up.

“Beads, beads, statue.” They all cried.

“No thanks, we just bought some.” This only seemed to incite the mob some more. After a while, “You have statue of your god?” Zyg asked.

“Yes, yes!” they all cried.

“We have only one God, his name is Jesus.” And began to preach to them. It thinned them a little, but not much.

On the way back some kids cornered Chiang.

“Yabber, yabber….” The kids jabbered.

“Oh, hello.” Chiang replied.

“Yabber, yabber….”

“No thankyou.” Chiang replied to their constant demands for their wares.

“No I don’t want it, thankyou.”

“Yabber, yabber….”

“Yes, it is very good, I just…. “

“Yabber, yabber….”

“Yes, it is good, I just want…. “

“Yabber, yabber….”

“Yes, I can see it is very intricate, I just want to…. “

“Yabber, yabber….”

“No, I am sure it is very cheap, I just want to go…. “

“Yabber, yabber….”

“I just want… Ok I know it is very hard, … to go with….”

“Yabber, yabber….”

“I just want… Ok I know its very hard, I can see that, … want to go with my…. “

“Yabber, yabber….”

“I just want to… I can see it is very cleverly done.. go with my friends…”

“Yabber, yabber….”

“Yes there is an elephant in an elephant, very clever, but my friends are just, No I cant buy it sorry, if I could just trouble you to move a touch so I could get past, yes it obviously was made by a master craftsman, can I go? Yes, he must have been very skilled.”

I could see this taking all day so I came up and put my arm around one. He got very excited as I walked with him slowly, veering him into a tree.

The next one challenging Chiang was my next target. I walked in between him and Chiang and cut him off, as if by mistake and then walked each way as he tried to get back to Chiang.

“Terribly sorry old chap.” I explained.

“Excuse me”

“Oh, I just cant seem to get out of your way.”

“Hrmmm” He started looking quite flustered.

“Ok I go left, you go right.” I suggested.

“No other right.” I tried.

“Ok maybe if you go the other way we’ll stop colliding.”

All a bit of fun.

That afternoon we went back to the 4 shops we visited the day before to buy more stuff. I revolted and went AWOL.

In the evening we packed everyone except Chris, jumped into the bus, drove 40 minutes and dropped them off at the airport. We assumed, incorrectly, that we would have time in the airport to say our farewells. The Hannah clone, Glenys, had tears in her eyes saying goodbye to her only daughter who was being led away from home by me. Hannah’s father just said not to dare Hannah to do stuff or he’d rip my arms off. I was touched he cared, also a might concerned, because he has long arms, good for flailing or ripping members off boys who dare his daughter to do silly things. Also I was kind of attached to my guns.

This day was a nightmare. Everyone was too tried to go visit temple city so we went shopping instead. We had four shopping stop planned. We arrived at only one. First we had lunch and then visited 3 shops in the shopping mall and then we had to leave because it was getting late. We had only an hour to make our 8:30pm dinner reservations. I thought I was going to die, 3 of the shops were only about 5 by 10m. I mean how many of the shelves of shirts can you try on? The answer, my friend, why all of them. First you get the ones you like which you can only do by trying them all on. Apparently they can look alright off the shelf but not so good on. Then once you have your 50 finalists you try them on and ween out the ones not so good and repeat until only one or two is left. You then decide that you don’t like any and it is someone else’s turn. I warn you now avoid shopping at all costs. It’s a trap.

“So Chiang, you need a skirt for the woman?” I asked Chiang.

“Yes, help me chose one.” So we looked around carefully for the perfect skirt. We hold it up proudly.

“Oh, that is an awful skirt boys, isn’t it. You are both such jokers.” One of the women piped up.

“Heh, Heh, yes we are, aren’t we Chiang.”

“Oh right, yes Mika, we were just saying that.”

“I mean the colour is obviously wrong.” I continue

“Absolutely, look terrible on her for sure.”

Once out of earshot, “Now we have to look again, this time without choosing any animal prints or tiger stripes.” I stated.

“I know, now it will be impossible to find something which actually looks good.”

We came away empty handed.

Hannah’s mother bought me a nice shirt which was very cool but I felt bad because it cost more than the stuff they bought Hannah. I’ll have to put it down to my whit and charm, I guess.

Coming out, “Oh I had the most marvellous day.” The ladies began.

“Yes, I really needed a day to relax and recover from sitting couped up on that train for two days.” The ladies continued, “Retail therapy is just marvellous.”

Meanwhile they had to practically carry me out. I was exhausted.

Later that night we went out to a fancy restaurant for dinner. Chris’s parents ordered for us and requested lots of seafood dishes and one beef dish. Seafood is not particularly one of my favourite dishes so I heaped up on the beef which looked delicious. I looking longingly at the beef while grace was being said and as soon as the amen’s were under way I forked up the biggest piece of meat I could find and hastily shoved it into the old pie hole. I started to sweat. A lot. I quickly filled my fork with rice and scoffed it into my mouth to stop the burning molten lava I had just eaten only to realise the rice was covered in the same beef sauce I had previously eaten. Fire mixed with molten lava and caused a nuclear meltdown in my mouth. I swear I went into instant cardiac arrest. My lips started swelling up and the sweat by now was steaming down my face. I looked around at everyone else who had not yet eaten and was just in time to hear Chris’s dad explain to everyone what the dishes contained.

“The seafood is all mild, but you might want to watch the beef it is extremely hot.”

By now I was choking and the throat was constricting into knots. I choked out a noise to confirm his quite accurate assessment of the beef, before the place where the fork had touched my lips began to feel the full effect of the slight contact of the molten lava. I did a double take on the fork to conform that it hadn’t yet melted and amazingly it hadn’t. The same could not be said about my mouth and lips which had lost all contact with my tongue seeing as it had just melted away.

After the very pleasant journey we arrived at our hostel and basked in what was rumoured to be 4 star accommodation. I don’t know for sure but I suspect it was 8 stars. It had, gasp, new bathrooms, was huge, gasp, had air-conditioning, by now huge gasp, and hot water. I have never felt like such a king. None of the others were as impressed as Hannah and I though. We clocked in at the ungodly hour of 6am, sat around and had the most glorious, epic experience ever. A warm shower, the first wash in 3 days, the first proper shower in 3 weeks and the first warm shower since about, when did I leave England again? I felt like a new man, fresh clothes all soaped up and fresh. Chris arrived again 2 hours later and took me on a bike ride to pick up a lonely planet. I returned sooted, hot, sweaty, greasy and caked in dust. I have never been so happy to be so filthy. I had another hot shower.

I read a few months ago back in dreary England that the greatest invention ever was soap. How Hannah and I scoffed and mocked such a ludicrous claim, cackling with laughter at the fool who wrote it. It didn’t seem so foolish anymore. I now would have to agree with it personally. Space ships, nah, penecilin, nah, computers, not even close. Even beer doesn’t cut it compared to that marvellous feeling of being all lathered up, slippery and then clean. Although I didn’t know what that funny smell was until I realised it was more the absence of smell than the presence of a smell.

That afternoon we all went and saw St Thomas’ grave and then to the beach for some cool drinks.

On the way to see where St Thomas was allegedly killed, we had to do a trip on this road that weaved and snaked up the mountain, which passed through small villages. Intermittedly we would stop for a minute to let the dogs, chickens, goats and cows cross the road and we scarcely payed any attention to the frequent stops. However there was one particular stop which we could barely ignore. We were crawling up the road through this group of half naked kids. However there remained one little nude kid right in the middle of the road. It appeared that apparently he had business to attend to. In order to prepare for the event he turned and faced us, stood up straight as you like, extended his arms and legs until he was in the star position, gave us a cheeky little grin, and released the flow. The song pissing in the wind comes to mind. This lasted for a moment with him frozen in the star position, then he did a little jig, a wobble to finish his business up and continued on his merry way. If I could have, I would have given him a high five for his effort. High ten even. So if you ever see me in the star position, well...

As I was taking a picture on the beach a girl walked up, “Hello, my name is Ffjuiujd. (I’ll just assume Abdulena), I am Muslim.”

“Hi, I am Mika, I am homosapian.” I replied.

“Oh how nice, can you take my picture please?” Abdulena asked.

“Sure” She was quite nice to look at and she had lots of interesting giggling girl friends. I took a few snaps and got mobbed after each one by them all scrambling to have a look. After a while they got bolder.

“Can you take..”, giggle, “..off your glasses?” whisper, whisper, giggle.

So for my fans I obliged and after a few giggles and whispers, “Oh you have beautiful eyes.” Abdulena and her crew informed me, correctly.

I flashed them my pearly whites, what I like to call my movie star smile, “Well thankyou.” I said modestly.

I supposed I did have beautiful eyes. My own thoughts were finally being echoed by my fans and peers. Hannah was gagging behind me. We sadly had to leave my bunch of 15 year old groupies and head home.

A new Indian experience began with out train mission from Poona to Channai, which was located on the other side of India and a 28hr train ride. Because the ‘olds’ were with us, we were travelling in real style. First Class Sleeper, Oh the pleasure, Oh the luxury and you can even sleep while travelling! No sweaty Arab trying to grope Hannah in the night, no sitting in the heat wondering if there will be a toilet stop. No eating dry biscuits, pure luxury the whole way. Well Indian first class is not much chop but air-conditioning and beds is a whole new thing for Hannah and I. Never mind that there was a resident large mouse/small rat gobbling up the fallen scrapes. They at least ate the mess and cleaned up more than the missing attendants/cleaners.

Indians are also polite and nice and all the kids in our coach wanted pictures. I really was starting to feel like a rock star. I could get used to it.

The first morning in the train at about, well some ungodly hour, Glenys, Hannah’s mother, comes around to our cabin, “Hannah, Hannah” poke, poke.

“Hannah woke up sleepily, “What?”

“Oh so you ARE awake, well since you up come and talk to me I am bored.” I then had the pleasure of being the focus for Glenys’s considerable attention.

“Mika, MIKA?” poke, poke harder. I was pretending to be asleep but the poking got harder.

“What?” I said sleepily

“You’re awake too! Oh good, you can come as well.”

Like mother. Like daughter. One Byrne alarm is usually enough, two is just cruel. They don’t even have off buttons.

The next day everyone but Hannah and I went to this anniversary of some church a few hours away. Hannah and I played with the kids. Me more than her. I was taking a picture of a little girl who was about 8 and squatted down and then about a billion saw their opportunity and swarmed me. They struck me down and I ended up lying on the ground with about 100 little grommets all yelling and screaming asking for their picture to be taken.

Late that afternoon the others returned looking real haggled. They had had to sit through a service 3 hours long which had been spoken entirely in Mirati, the Indian language of the state. Apparently Zyg would hear the only English word spoken and would wake and cry with enthusiastic zeal, AMEN! before slumbering again.

I could just imagine if I was there. Me sitting in the church shifting position every 5 seconds.

“Muhum bahuma mada radi muhunda..” the India pastor.

“Pssst! Hannah?”

“SHHHHH”

“Muhum radi muhunda bahuma mada..”

“but I am about to die…”

“SHHHH” wack.

“seriously..”

And right about then I would die. I am sure my decision to stay back had saved my life.

The rest of the week was spent hanging around playing with the kids, and dodging the security ladies who kept telling us off for playing with the kids when they were supposed to be studying and doing stuff.

Some of the kids are such little cuties and are going to be stunning when they grow up. Some of the matron mothers and workers are in their early 20’s and are really pretty as well. If I didn’t have to behave, well they don’t call me Joaquin Casanova Castle for nothing.

I had a group of favourite girls. Mostly the cheeky ones that cheated at the shoe throwing, rock game. They were always on the other team so I got extra pleasure when my team would win and I could rub it in. Gods know they sure rubbed it in when our team lost. Even though they barely spoke English they sure knew how to keep score, in English.

It was quite sad to leave them all in the end. Some of them cried and they all begged me to come back and said they wouldn’t forget me. It was all very ego boosting. I knew it would take even Hannah a few days to get my ego back in control. I didn’t know what I would do without my daily dose of flowers. One of the worst thing about travelling is meeting people and then saying goodbye and knowing you’ll never see each other again.

The following day I took the car to Poona, the closest main city. It is about 1.5 hours drive away. When we had arrived the first night we had been lucky and been in the back a van which we couldn’t really see out of. This time I had a great view of what was really going on.

I like to think I am a seasoned travelling considering the expeditions faced in the last 2 months. Bus trips in Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Egypt with texting drivers and cliff face overtaking around blind corners etc. However all this was nothing in comparison to what I faced this trip. The only thing comparable was the Egypt man trying to catch up to the convoy because he thought the terrorists were about to blow us up.

At one stage I watched in fascination as the bus in front began to overtake the truck in front of him. It was a pretty ambitious venture in the first place seeing as there was another truck coming the other way. So our driver weighs up all the factors and decides the time is right to over take the bus overtaking the truck, thinking that the horn blowing was some sort of invisible force field capable of stopping a 10 tonne truck coming the other way. The truck coming the other way obviously had the same sort of idea and put up his force field furiously. The amazing thing was it worked. The truck on the far inside heard the horns and casually moved into the dirt to allow the bus between us and it to go into the left lane and us to squeeze between the truck coming the other way and the bus. All with about 2cm to spare between us all seeing as this was a 2 way road. I was about to tell the driver to whip that huge grin of his little face and stop thumping his knee with enthusiastic zeal but decided he might need all the concentration he could get seeing as he was about to go around a blind corner and overtake the car in front on the inside seeing as there was already two cars over taking it on the outside.

It was about this time that disaster befell me. One I had been expecting for possibly 2 years but had always managed to avoid somehow. I had been scouring the world for 2 years in preparation for such an event and in that time I had been to England, Wales, Scotland, France, Greece, Spain, Italy, Austria, Hungry, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. You see I had bought sunnies 2 years previous and about 4 days into owning said sunnies Peta had sat on them and crack the glass but I had used them anyway because they were impossible to find. Anyway while adjusting them in the car we hit a pot hole overtaking the cows who had decided to use the road as a resting place and snapped the arm off. I was heartbroken, sunny less and what was I going to do about my poor eyes. The sun it BURNNSSSS. Other sunnies just wouldn’t cut it. I had my reputation to uphold. I cant just wear any old sunnies, and I was never going to find another pair, which was exactly why I liked them so much. Well back then anyway. (Now I come back home and find all the damn emo’s wearing them which makes me not so keen on them anymore.)

Anyway we arrive at Poona relatively in one piece and I saw exactly how India fits its 1.2 billion people. I swear they are all in Poona. It was absolute chaos. I began my search for a replacement pair of sunnies without luck. They had gold ones but I needed silver ones with silver lens’s. I gave up and went in search with Ziggy for a basketball backboard. This was after all the reason for the trip. The day earlier while playing tunnel ball/run around wildly screaming and yelling, I had asked the lady in charge of social activities if they had a basketball hoop. To which she had replied yes they did have one but it was not set up. Apparently they had been given it 2 years ago but had never put it up, even though there is a maintenance staff. I assume their job is to sit around and hang out until something breaks or repair stuff not to actually improve the situation judging by the way the place was. The poles holding up the roof had rusted through at the bottom so to fix it they filled the rust with cement that was obviously mixed in some manner as to cause the most crumbling. I would love to go back there one day with my father or something and a small budget of a couple of grand, lots of time and get the place organised and train the staff.

Anyway I was aghast at the idea that it hadn’t been put up yet and seeing as Ziggy was a very clever handyman I got him on the job. We couldn’t find a backboard or anything closely resembling one lying around so we decided to buy one.

Whilst in the sports store I spotted some soccer balls. Anyone can go and give them money for essentials etc but I was getting no fun out of that so I decided to get 15 soccer balls instead. Then basically I was buying myself a present and if I wasn’t going to buy myself one, I don’t think anyone else will.

So I got the balls. Zyg was still waiting for his backboard so I went for a walk and found a shop that had my exact sunnies! The same shape and size and everything. Only difference was they weren’t cheap copies but the real Raybans. No more would my sight be distorted, no more would the evil sun’s rays infect my eyeballs with their deadly rays. It was so totally novel not to have the 3 tiger stripe cracks in the left eye. I was so excited.

My heart sang the whole way back even though I had 15 soccer balls, a basketball backboard and 300 packets of crisps on my lap. I didn’t, well actually I barely, noticed the numerous close calls of trucks and buses flying past, barely inches away.

The next day Hannah and I hung until 3:30 when we got out 14 basket balls Charles had bought for the kids and attempted to teach some games to 240 kids who couldn’t speak English.

“Ok, everyone in lines.” Screams from crazed kids.

“is there an interpreter?” more squeals.

“Yes” says one lady.

“Can you please put everyone in a line?”

“Yes” we sat around content as the ‘interpreter’ kept looking at us smiling.

“Today is January?” I asked.

“Yes”

“Ok charade’s it is.” So we had to act out what we wanted. It was mostly a disaster. The kids seemed to have fun though and we had fun.

Tunnel ball turned into everyone run around screaming and grabbing balls and throwing them and screaming and throwing balls.

Up and over turned into everyone run around screaming and grabbing balls and throwing them and screaming and throwing balls.

In fact every game turned in into everyone run around screaming and grabbing balls and throwing them and screaming and throwing balls for that matter.

I made some friends and they taught me a game involving throwing shoes at you, stacking rocks, running around and lots and lots of screaming. One thing I learnt was those are good at throwing shoes. Good practice for marriage I guess. At first I was thinking, your only a little girl I can have some fun with this, and danced around taunting them from a distance of 5m.

CRACK! Smack! A shoe slams into my right eye. Girls squeal and scream and dance and clap. The next round I danced around from a distance from 10m. I bet even I could hardly throw a shoe that far and poked my tongue out at the girl with a shoe. She smiled smugly. I danced.

CRACK! Smack! A shoe sails serenely through the air and smacks into my left eye. My eyes were now getting real red and swollen. The girls laughed and danced some more. When it was my turn to throw the shoe I tried to smack the cheeky right eye hitting girl but she just twirled and danced around me laughing at my vain attempts to return the eye favour and stacked rocks.

I started thinking about the whole marriage thing to a Mukti girl and when you would be having a fight.

“I am sorry darling!” you would plead.

“That’s it. I am throwing the shoe at you!”

“It’s a high heel you will poke my eye out!” Desperation.

“with luck!!” and no matter how far away you are the shoe would come hurling along and poke your eye out.

First day in Mukti was spent on a tour of the grounds. It lasted most of the day and I felt every minute of it. There are only many rooms you can see in one day. Seeing the blind ladies making baskets and autistic children making candles was quite moving, I guess.

I did find out some interesting facts however about life in India up to 100years ago and even a little now.

The lady who set up the mission 100 years ago had set it up to help the ladies oppressed in India at the time.

In Hindu/Indian custom a man would marry at about 40 and the girl would be quite young, like 12 or 13 or so. Anyway due to the conditions men would die quite young as well and whilst getting cremated the lady would have to jump in the fire as well and die with her man. How Horrifying! If she did not do this she would become a pariah and not even her mother would be able to talk to her or even acknowledge they existed. So they would wander around and have to fend for themselves. Hence the Mukti lady set up the orphanage to support these ladies/girls.

Being the stud muffin I am I received a few flowers from the girls. I was quite the hit actually. I found out lately as well that by accepting the flowers it was like me saying I like you as well. Those girls sure were forward, and young!

Later in the afternoon Hannah and I wandered around the grounds and met the 2 cheeky girls. The first 20 seconds of meeting them they had Hannah taking a picture of me with the both of them, and one was giving me rabbit ears in the background. I called her cheeky and the other one trouble.

On the decent into Mumbai, Hannah started to get real excited to see her parents, pawing at the windows, hyperventilating the works. I almost had to ask the pilot to drop the oxygen masks to get her under control.

Customs were a breeze and from leaving the plane and getting our bags we were approximately 5 minutes.

At the airport we had some time to kill so after a massive mission we found an internet café for the first time in about a week. After reading my emails I looked at the computer time and saw it read differently from my turkey black market watch, and according to it Hannah’s parents had been scheduled to land 20 minutes previously. Hannah started stressing when I tried to point out to her how the computer time was wrong.

I tried to add to the situation, “We probably missed them Hannah, they must have left without us.”

After waiting for 30 more minutes I started to believe myself. To kill some time Hannah stared daggers into my body.

Finally they arrived. Hannah’s prediction of her father, Charles, wearing a check shirt was true and her mother Glenys having tears in her eyes also spot on. It was all very emotional.

Charles was leading a team of 6 to go to this girls orphanage mission. This team consisted of Ziggy and Yvonne (married couple), Chiang (young doctor man) and Chris (our Australian/Indian guide) and this lady (I forgot her name) who was amazingly 80 or 90 and travelling! Crazy!

The plan was to drive from Mumbai to a small village off Poona and go to Mukti mission. It was a few hours away so Chris’s dad had organised a van for us. Along the way the driver took us all to McDonalds for a McChicken, McCurry.

Coming out of McCurryhouse Zig said, “Look at the tires on our van. The wire is sticking out and it’s going to blow soon.”

“Don’t worry there is a set of racing slicks as spare.” I pointed out at the completely bald spare tire underneath.

“Oh that’s comforting.”

We were quite lucky in that our van was air-conditioned and the windows were all curtained up. Otherwise we could have seen the state of the roads. As it was we were blissfully unawares, and ignorance is bliss.

Chris’s dad had organised to meet us at his friends’ house who was the Indian minister of something or rather. They had some snacks set out for us, some Indian sweets and pizza. My McCurry burger wasn’t enough and seeing as I didn’t want to offend the hosts I generously ate the 7 remaining slices of the 8 slice pizza. Sometimes I am a martyr. I sure took one for the team. I don’t know what they would have done without me. It could have harmed Indian Australian diplomatic relations for years to come. I left the place with a spring my step with the knowledge of having done something good.

Driving along my eagle eyes soon spotted the first monkey butler. I wished I had oxygen mask due to my lack of oxygen from hyperventilating. I couldn’t even speak just wave in the direction of the dancing monkeys. Hannah just nodded and smiled. At least she understood. The others just nodded and shuffled further away from me. Now I knew why my monkey butler plan had failed. I had been in countries without monkeys. I couldn’t believe I had overlooked such a thing. Now I was in the perfect place to launch my plan of taking on the evil taxi alliance.

Along the way the driver was getting lost so Chris handed him the phone to get directions. The police spotted it and took the passengers licence. The passenger and not the driver, because, I don’t know why.

This coming from a country where road rules are closer to suggestions and horns are for passing every car, bus, motorcycle, pedestrian, chicken, goat, cow, tree, dog, cat, field, house, interesting scenery, because you hadn’t horned in the last 2 second, it was sunny, rainy, cloudy, hot, cold. Besides that I guess you wouldn’t use the horn much except for maybe if you were happy, sad, excited, bored, your passenger was talking, being too quiet or you need to the loo.

Also if you are over-taking someone you flash your lights so the cars coming the other way slow down and get out of your way. Anyway I can’t see after all this why phoning and driving is such a crime. Chris slipped the driver 500 rupees, ($16) and driver ran up to the police and bribed him for his licence back. The policeman even gave him 300 change from the 500 rupee note. He must have bargained for the bribe. It seemed so strange and novel for the driver to give us the change back as well instead of taking it as a commission. An Egyptian would have taken it and slept soundly in the knowledge that he deserved the payment for pain and suffering caused.

While we were waiting for all this we saw a stall of coconuts and Hannah and I decided to show off our skills. We sauntered up.

“How much?” gesturing at the pile of coconuts.

“20 rupees” like 70c.

We gasped. “Expensive!”

He shrugged. Didn’t really care what we thought. We tried for a long time to get the price down but he refused. We walked away and walked back and still he didn’t lower the price. This wasn’t how the game was played. In the end we had to plead ignorance and grab a coconut and give the man 10 rupees and pretend we didn’t understand what he meant with the gesturing and grabbing of sticks and chasing us with raised fists. (Coconut Sellar above)

We returned proudly showing off our wares. The Indian driver man seemed confused and in the end told us you don’t bargain with the coconut dudes. You just pay the asking price. Everyone was pretty impressed with our efforts then. We didn’t know whether to be proud or ashamed.

In the end our 5 hours journey took about 9 hours. We found out the children had been waiting for us for about 4 hours with flowers and songs prepared. Whoops.

We were all pretty tired after a few days of constant travelling so we went straight to bed.

Anyway I didn’t get much sleep that night. In the morning Hannah said, “Mika why were you sleeping on my second seat? Your face was in my hair and it was really annoying.”

I spluttered, it was lucky I was over tired and had had a really fun 2 days or I would have released the tiger. As it was I was too tired to do anything but she had been real nice to me by not waking me up because I was snoring for the hour or so sleep I had gotten, so I let it lie.

We had to get a taxi to the airport but we had extra money left so we weren’t too worried about getting ripped off the £5 the taxi driver conveniently didn’t have. I was so happy at being out of the clutches of the evil Arab taxi empire, I didn’t even put up much of a protest, nothing more than a few rocks and raised fist. My monkey butler army have failed me in my holy crusade and I was considering leaving them behind but I can’t stay angry at them for long. They’re monkey butlers!

Once inside we bought a coffee and water

“Can we get the change please?” Hannah inquired politely.

“Yes, Yes”, he looked really annoyed at our strange request, “You’ll get it soon, wait there.”

We had time to burn and no where to go so we didn’t mind. An hour later we decided to move the 2m to the counter and once again inquire about the for coming change. Hannah strolled up and there was much gesturing and flailing of hands and flapping of elbows and nodding of heads.

“We wouldn’t give me the change because it is a different shop keeper.”

I was secretly happy, by now I liked nothing better than a good angry argument with a greedy Egyptian.

I sauntered up, “Change please.”

“No different shop keeper he owes you not me.”

“When is he back then?” I asked.

“Come back tomorrow.”

“Well that doesn’t help me does it?” a rhetorical question.

He shrugged and shift a few pages in the paper he was reading.

“Ok I will tell you what then. You give me the change for him.”

“No I don’t owe you money he does.”

“Do you know anything about store economics?” I inquired, “no? Well I will give you a free lsson. There is a shop who employs you to run it. I buy something form the shop, now get ready because here comes the tricky part so get out your pen and paper, the shop then gives me the change not you.”

He seemed to have some trouble grasping this, “Ok, so I don’t give you the change.”

I shrugged and said as walking off, “Ok I’ll ask this gentlemen here thinks of the situation” and headed towards the security guard walking passed.

He called me back reached into his pocket and paid me. To tell you the truth I was a bit disappointed. I had wanted some more fun. So I pocketed my 20cent change and strolled off.

One thing I am a travel nazi about is toilet paper. I never leave home without it and never leave home without a lot of it. You can never be too sure what sort of little amenities you can find in toilets to deal with those situations and I am always never happy about experimenting with such items. So paid my respects to the toilet man guarding the toilet door, did my thing placed the toilet paper in the back pocket, winked at the toilet guard and walked off briskly.

Around the corner through 4 rooms and 5 stampeding American tourists the toilet guard caught up with me and grabbed me angrily, “Toilet paper!” he screamed.

The 5 American tourists stopped and whispered and pointed and giggled. I tried to look tough.

“Toilet paper!” toilet guard screamed again a little louder to knock me out of my trance and started grabbing my butt to embarrass me in some more in front of the now 5 Americans and 6 Ezbekistani’s I would never see again or recognise again.

He grabbed my butt again to make a finer point about toilet paper. I decided it was time for action and jumped out of the way of the lunging prying butt grabbing fingers. He chased me. We started a little game of run screaming after Mika screaming “Toilet Paper” and grabbing my arse for the growing crowd of spectators. I didn’t like this game much. Finally it dawned on me he thought I was a toilet paper thief and the toilet paper in my pocket was from the toilet I had just vacated. I stopped and turned to face the gesturing arse grabbing “toilet paper” screaming toilet guard and pulled out toilet paper. He skidded to a stop and the crowd chanting turned to a more crowd hush, patiently waiting for this new development to unravel.

I held up the toilet paper and had to jumped back quickly as the toilet guard made a grab for the toilet paper. I ripped off a square and showed him the texture. This was ribbed for my plea… actually I’ll leave that… and not that stock standard smooth iron bark stuff which was currently residing in the toilet block. It took a bit but he finally stopped grabbing at me and screaming toilet paper madly and he conceded defeat/realised it wasn’t his. I gave a square for good measure to appease him. He didn’t seem to appreciate my peace offering. I was glad when the baying crowds dissipated and turned to see Hannah in stitches, rolling around on the big comfortable couch, laughing heartily.

She started to speak but I cut her off, “Don’t even..”

Our flight stopped in Sudan and picked up some passangers. Across from us were 3 starting men. The whole trip they just started at Hannah without a break and when I stared back I was real impressed by how tough they were.

We had a 3hr, 1hr stop over in Addis Abbas in Ethiopia. Ie. it was supposed to be 1hour but turned into 3hrs.

I wandered around and Hannah sat in a chair and sucked on a valium which soon sent her into a sleepy doze.

I spotted the Zimbabwe cricket team but they didn’t recognise me. They were flying in real style, economy, Zimbabwe dodgy brothers air to somewhere.

Once airborn the hostess came up and asked for our dinner preferences, “Chicken or Fish?”

I thought about it a minute and decided on chicken. I figured my stomach was getting quite strong and I though I could handle the meat and it was Ethiopian air how bad could the food get?

Hannah slept on and the hostess inquired again, “Chicken or Fish?”

Hannah looked around groggily, rubbed her eyes and mumbled.

“Chicken or fish?” hostess asked again.

I poked Hannah.

“Chicken or fish” she grumbled.

The hostess was looking quite confused by now. Hannah wasn’t looking too fused let alone confused, so I decided to help and gave her a nice elbow in the ribs and said, “Chick-en or Fi-sh?”

She rolled around stretched and gurgled something.

“Say Chicken Hannah” I tried.

“Chicked?” she replied.

The hostess took that as a cue and ran before Hannah could change her mind.

Our felucca odyssey came to an end the next morning at Kom Ombo. We bode goodbye to our skipper Mohammad and first mate Mohammah II and watched as Conni made one more last ditch effort to find the sugar jar now all our stuff was out. We stopped at this temple called the Temple of Kom Ombo and went to get some tickets.

John went first, “One student please.”

“Student card.” He produced his, an Israeli student card.

“International student card only”, angry man said, end of discussion, and turned away.

So Jordan tried her luck.

“International only!” angry man barked.

Conni’s quite considerable effort was greeted with a camel bark grunt. So we decided to have coffee instead to show him we didn’t need to go see this temple anyway.

“I am not paying £20 for that!”

“Yeah too right, it was bad enough students were £10.”

“I am glad we saved our money then!”

“Yeah, this £20 un-homogenised or pasteurised 3 day camels milk, packet coffee is way better than that 5000 year old temple.”

“It outrageous he wouldn’t give us the AUS$2 saving. I mean after all we are only poor students”, Hannah said as she fingered her video recorder and started flipping through her iPod and put her SLR camera away.

After a few drama’s involving exactly which mini bus and ‘who is supposed to be in this bus anyway?’ we set out in our convoy to Edfu and its absolutely amazing Temple of Horus. It was built in about 237BC taking 200 years to complete and was built in the style of ancient Egyptians so it was almost totally preserved.

Hannah and I wanted to trace some of the wall hieroglyphics’ but earlier Jordan had got in trouble for putting paper up against the walls. So we had a neat little system of circumnavigating the ever prowling Egyptian anti-tracing police with a secret password ‘starfish’ for our guards to say when one was approaching.

I soon got bored because it wasn’t working so I rolled up my paper and started wandering off when our guard, Phil, calls out innocuously, “*cough-starfish-cough*”.

Hannah continued etching.

“Hrm, Starfish, Hannah.” Persisted Phil.

“Where?”

“Starfish, Starfish”

“Wow, a starfish hieroglyphic? Where?”. Hannah looked around furiously.

By now the Egyptian anti-tracing policeman was watching Hannah with interest as she finished up the final touches of a beak nosed god.

“So Phil, where is this mysterious starfish for me to trace?” she said blissfully still unawares.

John became our self appointed guide and Egyptian hieroglyphic expert and told us the stories as they were written on the wall.

Apparently the Lady on the wall was saying,” I don’t care if you have a bird head. I love you anyway for who you are.”

Birdhead man had replied, “Skwark.”

There were many others but that one really ticked my fancy. Maybe you had to be there, but it was a classic, seriously. You had to see the pictures to understand because now I am writing it, it doesn’t sound quite so funny.

Tanya, Havilah and I then sat in with a tour group and listened to the guide give an explanation of the temple which was quite good because it was free, for us anyway. Although she did seem to get some facts wrong like calling Birdhead, Thoth, instead of birdhead, and bighorns, Ba. All very confusing.

Later on this mysterious man tiptoed up to us looking left and right, “baby horus?” he said as if selling drugs.

“Sure.” I said. This has got to be good with this much secrecy.

So he wisked us away to a wall covered in carvings. This sure was going to be good, maybe he would press a combination of bighorn, birdhead figures and the wall would drop down and take us into the secret treasure chamber and I would be rich beyond my glorious dreams.

He proudly pointed to the random rock carvings. “Baby Horus.”

“Woooow!” we breathed in the appropriate amount of excitement. No gold treasures, not even any drugs. Not that I would have drugs, not least because I don’t want to spend my time in Egypt soured anymore by spending 20 years in an Egyptian jail avoiding picking up the soap.

“I have 2 wives. One is pregnant with my 8^th child.” Baby Horus drug dealer continued.

“I was thinking of getting some wives as well.” I am hoping to limit it to only 4 though. Any more and there might be too much jealousy for my attention. I mean I am after all only one man. You never know though, you might just meet that special someone who wanted to be the fifth. I could say these things with impunity, without Hannah around to bruise my ribs. (See picture below for 4 potential wives)

A while later our bus driver found us. “Quickly, quickly no police escort for us now you are late.”

He was looking a bit stressed. Maybe it wasn’t safe. However to make it safer he floored that little mini bus acting like it was a Ferrari. I think personally and I am sure speaking for the whole bus group we much would have preferred chancing our luck on the angry Islamic terrorist extremists than that little catch up ordeal. He was driving around blind corners flat stick on the wrong side of the road, careening up one way roads going the wrong way, drifting around the corners on 2 wheels, dust was billowing all over the place, the chicken stalls on the side of the road got knocked over, cars were beeping even more furiously, our driver wasn’t beeping because he was going waaay too fast to risk beeping and besides we would have been well past the carnage by the time he beeped. We soon left the trail of destruction behind us and caught up to the safety of the escort.

“I am glad we caught up to the safety of the escort.” Hannah said.

“Yeah one more blind corner like that would have been the death of us. I have so much more to give to the world and my future 4, perhaps 5, wives.” I replied.

I received my daily dose of rib bruising and eye rolling.

“I suspect the escort is for our protection from crazy drivers, not gun wielding fanatics.

At 2pm we arrived at Luxor. Our flight for India was the nest day so we needed a train from Luxor which left at 9pm. We had 7 hours to kill so the Americans kindly offered to look after our bags in their hotel for us, which was incidentally called ‘Shadey Hotel’. The driver as usual fashion tried to drop everyone off at this much cheaper, better, wives uncles, brothers auntie hotel for a deal.

“We are booked at the Shadey Hotel.”

“Oh the Shadey Hotel you say, that’s bad luck, it closed down last week.” Dodgy driver explained.

“We have reservations.” The Americans said.

“But Shadey Hotel, very bad, They make reservations but are always full. I have a nice hotel for you, very cheap.” He continued.

“No thanks. We’ll chance our luck with Shadey.” Very ironic, “you never know the hotel we already payed for may just let us stay still.”

Strangely enough it was still open and hadn’t been closed down in the last few days and the other 10 occupiers of the 20 room hotel were only too glad to squeeze everyone in to the 2 previously booked rooms.

The tour operator met the Americans at the hotel.

We asked the man, “Can you book us tickets for Cairo?”

“Oh I don’t know its booked out in advance but I will see what I can do.”

Likely story but we had money to burn because we had lots left over and couldn’t be bothered sorting getting a ticket all out for ourselves.

Tour man continued, “By the way do you want to do a tour of Karnak and Luxor temple?”

It was what I had wanted to see the last time we were here but had run out of time thanks to mole face so I asked, “How much?”

“£50”

“I don’t know, very expensive so we will do it for 40.” We agreed on 40. It was a bargain for him anyway because I knew he was making lots of money from the train tickets anyway.

Soon after he came up to us in a panic, “Quick we are late hurry up, quickly now.”

We were in the middle of paying for our lunch and the lady was having a lot of trouble working out our change from the £50 for a £15 meal.

“Quickly, quickly, everyone is waiting.” Panic stations from tour man.

“Yeah we need our change.”

“If you don’t hurry up we go without you.”

“Ok, ok”

As soon as he saw our change handed back tour man said, “I am so sorry I talked to the tour guide and he said it was £50 so you owe me another £10.”

“Umm, I think I’ll just pay the £40 like we agreed upon.” I smiled to him as I walked onto the tour bus and made myself comfortable, cheeky man.

Karnak Temple was first. It was a temple built over 1500 years by lots of Pharaohs’. It is situated over a massive 1.5km by 800m area. Ramsis II built this really cool enclosure filled with massive columns called the Lotus something or rather. It was one of my favourite things in Egypt. Although the fact that we paid for it didn’t make it as exciting as the Horus temple, which we had all sneaked into earlier that day. It’s like girls you see. They only want what they can’t have or someone else has and as soon as they have it they don’t want it anymore. Strange creatures girls, cant live with ‘em, can’t live with ‘em.

Luxor Temple was next on the list so we jumped in the van for the 2.5km journey. In ancient times the two temples were linked by a path of sphinx’s about 3-4m apart. So it used to contain basically about 10,000 sculptures lining the path. Pretty amazing stuff.

Luxor temple was once covered by sand and in that time a mosque was built on top of it. Also Christians built a church there so at the one site there is a temple, a church and a mosque. Nothing much happened there but it was getting a bit sad because we were leaving our new friends in a few hours.

Back at the hostel we said our farewells and I am sure they all cried. If they didn’t they should have, I am sure Hannah and I usually make quite an impact. There was much weeping, wailing and gnashing of Hannah’s teeth all the way to Cairo anyway. I am too tough to cry.

Hannah generously took up two of the 3 seats we had. I was left with a table and one seat to try and sleep. Half way through the night I was woken with Hannah’s hair in my face tickling my nose. I moved to the remaining half of my one seat, by contorting my body backwards awkwardly. Not much sleep came to me. I looked on enviously at Korea man with 3 seats to himself opposite me. He was only little and should have only needed 2 seats. He could have given me one.