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.