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.

We arrived at the train station and seeing as Hannah was now the boss of getting train tickets she smiled sweetly and somehow managed to the tickets from the crowd in 10 second flat. I on the other hand tried my hardest to breathe something which had still been troubling me for quite a while now. People milled around and bumped into me and got in the way which didn’t do much for my temper or in feeling any better. Hannah came back with tickets for India general class travel. Now if you have ever heard of General Class Indian, this is like what the poorest Indians do if they need to travel. It consists of wooden boards and 26,000 people in a single carriage. We somehow managed to fit into this carriage and Hannah spotted this space about 15cm wide in the roof racks between a group of other Indians and put the bags on the group and sat up in the baggage racks. The problem I now faced was what to do. So I stood up squashed between Indians for an hour before deciding to try and find somewhere more comfortable. The whole breathing and sweating and coughing had not given me the space I had hoped, not because people tried to avoid me, because they very much were trying to do that, but rather because they couldn’t move either. I managed to get to the doorway and there was a little space to sit down. I pretty much collapsed. And so spent the next few hours hunched up in front of the toilets. This was not doing much for the old nausea, sweating, coughing and general feel of feeling really sick. I needed air badly so once we stopped I got the door and sat hanging out the door. I then proceeded to have a rather marvellous 5 seconds with no one bothering me. Apparently though I had a big invitation sign on my back whilst doing this and I had the pleasure of an Indian man sit next to me.

The first thing he did was breathe on me and I caught the smell of stale alcohol. He then regaled me with stories about being drunk and coming from London and good eating. I looked at the 10cm of the single door I was sitting in and checked to see if my ribs were still functioning in keeping a heart which was dangerously close to stopping from harm and came to the conclusion that the 100kg man sitting next to me was quite right and he did like good food. I turned my head to be polite and received some spit from the window in the eye. I frowned more and thought about how angry I was on the scale of 1 – 10. I put it down as a 9. Noone had killed someone close to me lately so I didn’t think I was as angry as I could be but it was close.

“So do you think you could move over a bit?” the fat drunk Indian said as he wiggled around and squeezed me closer into the door frame. The angry scale went up a notch and went straight to 9.5/10. A cup then flew out the window, half full of coffee and smacked me in the head. I went to 10.

“Woooo! See that cup come out the window! Lucky it hit something and missed us.” The fat drunk Indian exclaimed excitedly.

I then went up to 10.5. 10.5 went to 11 as a tirade of spit went out the window and hit me in the ear, nose, shoulder and lips.

“You know what, I think that cup of coffee dripped on the wall and is dripping on you.”

I looked back at the floor space in front of the toilet and glanced up at the date of last cleaning which read 12/3/95 and decided that I was probably onto a winner with this door frame and coffee and spit and stayed put. A fat man came out of the toilets and the smell from toilets convinced me I was right.

I received another cup of coffee in the head followed by a few more driblets of spit. I went up to 11.5. I didn’t know whether to be happy about the regular bouts of coffee as they seemed to wash of some of the spit. The man wiggled around some more and I considered going up to 12 on the scale but decided against it seeing as I think 11.5 is about as angry as anyone could ever be in their whole life and I was pretty much about the angriest I have ever been in my whole life. After a few hours the man left me and I went back down to 11 on the scale only for it to return to11.5 when my foot smacked into the platform while we were going along which really hurt.

The next 6 hours we only marred by regular hitting of the ankle on platforms, being almost pushed out of the moving train because it was so full and regular spit and coffee dousing. I pretty much alternated between 10.5 and 11.5 on the anger scale the whole way.

An eternity later we arrived at our stop and I gratefully fought my way to the bags. I was quite angry and having something to lash out was quite satisfying and afterwards I pitied the poor Indians who got in the way of the raging tigers which were my elbows.

I called out to Hannah who was in the midst of some highly amusing tale and flapping her arms around animatedly with the other baggage rack Indians and considered leaving her there but I was in so much pain and anger I doubted I could survive without some panadol or valium which I knew she had stuffed in one of her bags somewhere.

When we finally got off the train after much huffing and puffing and elbows.

“Mika I don’t think they like you much on the train back there they are all giving you angry looks.”

I grunted.

“How was your trip?” Hannah asked innocently.

“Terrible.” I had just gone down to 10 on the anger scale seeing as I was off that cursed train so I could speak.

“Well, I had the most marvellous time ever! I mean we ordered endless rounds of coffee and then we could see how far we could spit out the window and then all of us would throw our cups out the window to see how far they could go. We all usually left coffee in them so they would go further though.”

I went straight to 12.

The next morning I woke up in a pool of sweat and hacking rasping cough. Hannah on the other hand bounded out of bed, leaped around the room a few times a cried out to the world that she was better. In fact the whole 2 years I had known her I haven’t known her not to have a fever, however she was crying out to the world that the fever had gone. Somehow in the midst of my agony she had been cured of every disease under the sun that she could name and even some she had specially invented for some of her afflictions. All except rabies which she knew was going to the cause of her demise.

I rasped out a croak and a cough which I was convinced brought up some blood but I was too scared to check the tissue in case I was right. Hannah heard that and fled from the room in search of breakfast. Food was the last thing on my mind and the thought of it just made me cough some more and sweat. I looked down at the clammy bed we had been sharing and almost felt some pity for Hannah. However all the pity I could muster at that point was well and truly reserved for myself.

Somehow we had managed to be staying in a really clean and comfortable hotel (as opposed to a hostel). We even had about 100 channels of TV to choose from. I tried to make myself comfortable but that only produced more sweat and more coughing. So thus began a 12 hour TV fest. I didn’t even eat. In fact I was in a world of pain and feeling sorry myself. I have been away from home for nearly 3 years and I have never really missed home much before. Right about then I started missing home, hot showers, English speaking people, smog free environment, my mother, a ham and salad sandwich, clean clothes, clean streets, and the list went on and on. Instead all I got was Bollywood movies and the occasional English movie.

At lunch time Hannah peered into the room.

“Hello” I rasped out, bored out my brains and feeling more sick than in my whole life.

“Just checking to see if you are alright.”

“No I am not alright. I mean about 20 seconds before you came in, and I don’t care what any doctor says, my heart just stopped beating for a minute.”

“Mika do you want something to eat?”

“I can’t eat my heart is still not working! I can’t even feel my heart at the moment.” I replied as I limply raised my hand to my non-beating heart for emphasis but all that did was cause a fresh bout of coughing and pain.

“Do you want anything?”

“Antibiotics. I don’t know what they do but I am pretty sure I have lots of biotics in my body at the moment and I don’t want them there. They make my heart stop beating.”

“Mika are you sure you want them, you don’t even know what sickness you have. I think you need a doctor.”

“Doctors, smoktors. What do they know more than me? Not much and all they would say is that I am full of heart stopping biotics.”

She looked quite dubious but left anyway.

A little while later she returned, staying within the safety of the hallway and threw in some antibiotics. “Here I found something to make you better. The man at the counter said these should make you feel better. They are antibiotics.”

The only thing I could do was reply with indigenous bouts of raking coughing.

The next 26 years was spent in that clammy bed and me not leaving our room. It was bad enough getting out of bed let alone to do something such as leaving my room. So to calm the boredom I decided to go mad. I mean I have always had a little respect for madness and being cooped up in this room wanting to die was as good a place as ever to go crazy. I mean I could identify a lot with that crazy lady in Kerelar. I bet she had had these heart stopping biotics.

Hannah also joined me in the madness craze except hers what not really kind of madness I was experiencing but rather the angry, go crazy at Mika for being sick and stuck in this town which contained absolutely nothing to do.

I tried the whole positive thinking deal and tried to picture myself as an old man with grey hair and little kids running around the place and me rocking on the rocking chair yelling at the punk kids to get off my lawn and telling them in no uncertain terms that when we were young kids we were not so punkish and didn’t have the luxury of hover boards and flying cars and gave our elders respect. I soon gave that up when all it produced was another bout of coughing, fever and sweating.

One morning I woke up and stood up and didn’t feel all that dizzy and proclaimed to Hannah I thought I would be alright. As soon as I said the words I think I am alright the dizziness started again but by then Hannah had already packed both our bags and was grabbing the keys to leave. I didn’t really have much choice.

As we walked outside and hailed a tuk tuk, I looked around and stated to Hannah, “Man there seriously is nothing in the place, its so dull.” The look she gave me could have melted stone. I decided it prudent not to press the matter.

Another day brought about another train trip. Unplanned as usual. Good thing to do in India, unplanned train trips. In the tuk tuk to the train station we pulled out the old lonely planet and got the map for India and realised that the only way to go was north and the first place we waned to go north was Goa.

We arrived at the train station and looked around at the confusion and chaos around us and spotted the crowd piled up around the counter and stood patiently at the back. More people seemed to join the throng but it was hard to say because they all looked the same moustached Indian to me. We continued waiting patiently. We didn’t seem to be getting any closer to the counter. We spotted a man laughing at us. So I looked at him and he told us that in India you don’t wait in lines, it’s the survival of the fittest. Get your elbows in and push your way up to the front. Hannah and I had a little chat before deciding that Hannah should try and get into the throng of moustached men and try and get the tickets. I mean last time I checked the book of etiquette it said something about ladies first so I was only too happy to oblige. Hannah tapped the first man on the shoulder and flashed him a million dollar smile.

“Hello” she said.

“Hello, are you wanting to get tickets?” he asked.

“Oh yes please, it is so hard to get tickets isn’t it.” Another smile.

“Well, why don’t I get you to the front.” And he pushed a few people out of the way mumbled in Indian and pointed at the woman and the sea parted before them. This wasn’t the way I planned it going but I could handle that.

When she came back with the tickets, “Did you see that Mika, they just let me right to the front.”

“See I told you, you should go and get the tickets. I knew they would let you through to the front.”

“Mika you said something about if someone had to wait ages in the line it should be me, because you had to go to the toilet.”

“Rubbish.” Girls sometimes get things all so confused. It was about then that I made her the boss of getting tickets at train stations.

So we waited 2 hours for the train to come which had been due any minute and were quite lucky that it had seats. We were right at the start of the train line so we got a seat next to each other but after about 1 hour it started to fill up steadily.

This train was just a regular train and so it didn’t have any facilities besides toilets which I decided not to visit right about the time I walked onto the train. I started sweating and feeling the heat with all the bodies piling up on top of us. The gay couple sitting opposite us didn’t help me feel much better about everything. They were quite friendly with each other. Things started to go steadily worse. About 4 hours into the trip the sweating turned to fever. So in order to feel better I tried to get some fresh air by moving the mans legs off mine and the bag which was on top of that and keep the gay couple getting any more friendly with my ribs and the guy who was sitting on the floor to move a bit so I didn’t have to hold them up and open the window. This more or less didn’t go to plan and only made me feel a bit worse. A few hours later I came the realisation that it wasn’t the sweating moustached men sitting on me which was making me feel sick but rather the sweating feverish shivering feeling I was experiencing. I nudged Hannah and explained to her I felt sick. She wasn’t looking too crash hot herself. An hour later when the people had started to get off the train and I had room to wiggle I pulled out the lonely planet and attempted to diagnose the diseases it had become apparent we were both experiencing.

I flipped open the book. “So Hannah, how are you feeling?” I said after I shifted the bags from between us and moved the guy out of the way.

All I got for reply was a wave of the hand and profuse sweating.

First in the book was jet lag. List of symptoms, Insomnia, fatigue, malaise and nausea. I was pretty sure I was feeling all of that. I didn’t even know what malaise was but I was still sure that I was feeling it because I couldn’t really explain half the pains I was griped with.

“Hannah I think we have jetlag.”

She only started clapping her hands and the sweat dripping off them made me glad that I was only sitting near her and not on her lap like we had almost had to do when the train was fuller.

“But I am convinced that we also have a few other diseases because that sweating isn’t listed as a symptom of jetlag.” She nodded in agreement.

Next on the list of diseases was Coughs, Colds and Chest Infections. I looked around us and realised that the train had not in fact become less crowded but the hacking barking cough I was intermitted producing had given me a buffer and produced some space for the sick white fool tourists. I put a tick next to that one. Even though it could have been 3 different diseases I was sure I had all 3 as well.

Dengue fever was the next on the list. A mosquito borne disease. I thought back to the day I went to the doctor in London and my £35.56 I had to vaccinate me against such things like mosquito’s. I didn’t remember getting any of those shots and when I read longer it went on to say there was no vaccine. Symptoms include high fever, severe headache and body ache. Tick, tick and tick.

“Hannah we also have Dengue fever.”

She started to pay attention then.

“You haven’t taken any aspirin have you? It says here that you shouldn’t.”

She croaked out something about having had a couple.

“Well then I am quite sure you have haemorrhaging as well then. It says here that aspirin will do that to you.”

I was glad that I hadn’t taken anything for the pain then. Hannah at least had haemorrhaging, something I was quite sure wasn’t happening to me although I didn’t rule it out.

Hepatitis A, yellow skin and eyes, nausea and lethargy. Infects the liver. Over the last year my liver had taken quite a beating and was still doing whatever it was supposed to be doing so I assumed it could take a little thing like Hepatitis A. Although in certain lights both our skin was looking a little yellow.

Hepatitis B, it said you got it from sex. All the symptoms were there so I assumed I must have got it some other way.

Hepatitis E, transmitted through contaminated food and water. I thought back to Hannah and I sitting down in Indian restaurants and looking at the menu which clearly contained no English.

“Ok Hannah you get the one with the scribble that looks like the ocean and I will get the one which looks like grass.”

We had then confidently looked at the menu, pretended to read it, explained to the Indian who didn’t speak English what we wanted and to avoid any confusion pointed confidently to the menu and hoped we didn’t get fried duck feet. Even after we received the food I wasn’t confident it wasn’t duck feet. I did have nausea and lethargy so I was sure I had Hep E, and coming to think of it I probably had Hepatitis C as well. It wasn’t in the book but I was sure I did have it because to feel this bad it had to be something serious.

HIV, I was pretty sure I didn’t have it but I checked my ribs to see if the gay guys sitting next to me hadn’t given it to me. The rash was there but it wasn’t bleeding yet. I didn’t think I had HIV then.

We went down the list and confidently came to the conclusion that we also had Influenza, Japanese B Encephalitis, Malaria, TB, Typhoid. I didn’t have diarrhoea, but I wasn’t sure that I wouldn’t in the near future so I assumed I did have but didn’t know it yet and added, Amoeic Dysentery, Giardiasis and travellers diarrhoea. Also I had been living on a staple diet of anti diarrhoea tablets in the vain hope that prevention was better than a cure.

Hannah seemed to be having all the same diseases as me. Hannah started speaking in Spanish to the man opposite her. I assumed it was Spanish anyway because it was hard to understand, in fact a lot of things were getting hard to understand.

The man she spoke to smelt a lot like alcohol and started giving Hannah the eye. So I gave him the old red/yellow bung eye back which not only seemed to inflame my eye more from staring so hard but inflame the whole situation. Our stop was coming up soon, I wasn’t sure how I knew that but I did and so got up with all our gear and went to the doors with Hannah. Angry alcohol fingers grabbed my arm and started speaking to me angrily. I hacked a cough which didn’t seem to do anything except add sore throat to the growing list of my ailments as well as a now sore wrist from alcohol smelling fingers. At least I knew where that little problem was coming from. I looked at the fingers unsteadily and explained to them between hacking coughs that they had my arm. This didn’t seem to do much and the fingers stayed were they were.

“Dude you have to speak English for me to understand what you want.”

“Mika, he is speaking English.”

By now the whole train was crowding around and yelling at the body the fingers on my wrist were connected to. He got a little closer and I knew then that I hadn’t imagined the alcohol smell and it was from the breath of the body of the fingers still connected to my wrist. I couldn’t understand what was going on much but somehow I managed to release his hold on me at the stop. Hannah and I walked off the train. I tried to think clearly about anything but it wasn’t really happening so Hannah took the lead. She wasn’t in a much better state than me. There were a few things that I could understand though and one was the crowds of people coming up to me saying they had called the police and they had taken the man away. I tried to remember something about a man but the only thing clear was that a little earlier some fingers smelling like alcohol had been grabbing my wrist but nothing about a man.

Hannah somehow managed to get us to the front of the tuk tuk line and people must have felt sorry for the sweating white couple both obviously in some kind of fever and they even told us how much it was for the taxi beforehand and got us the tuk tuk cheaper than we had ever got before.

Upon arrival at the hostel I noted with faint surprise that the hotel was swaying from side to side. A smiled happily. A swaying hotel, how fabulous. The next thing I remember it was morning.

The previous night we had met a very smooth older gentlemen. He seemed to have his eye on Hannah and had regaled us with stories of loving coffee, a lost wife and pretty much said all the right stuff that chicks fall for. Anyway he was assuring us of how rich he was so we decided to go for a water tour that day in the hope he would help pay for it.

He duly did this and we got a private water taxi instead of going on this group cruise filled with pissed youngsters.

As we pulled out on the taxi, “Hey Mister Driver is the boat supposed to sound like this?”

We asked in response to the 5 minutes it took to start the boat and the funny sounds it was making. Our exit from the small harbour was only marred by the sounds of a rickety old engine and the site of numerous sunken boats, all not unlike our own. The sight of dead fish floating around did nothing to lighten the thought of touching the water, let alone sink in it.

“So does this boat have lifejackets?”

“Lifejackets? What are those?” The captain reassured any fears I may or may not have allegedly had. I spent the time ignoring my fears by trying to place them firmly on Hannah’s shoulders.

A nudge to Hannah, “See that sunken boat?”

“Yes Mika it’s the fifth one you have shown me.”

“No, actually it’s about the sixth, speaking of fifth did you see all those dead fish over there. Also I can hardly hear you over the boat clacking so loudly, and do you think that smoke is supposed to come out of the engine?”

Hannah gulped a bit and watching her squirm made me feel a whole lot better.

Chugging along, middle age Swiss man tried his luck with Hannah a few times regaling her with stories of passion and coffee and all that crap girls love. He wasn’t getting very far at all. Even his open white shirt and hairy chest wasn’t working too well on charming her. Although, I was impressed with his attempt at being sauvé.

We stopped for lunch at this fish restaurant. I decided to pass on fish. So I had a dish of fire and brimstone instead. Hannah had some lava fish and so did middle age Swiss man. This was followed by a visit to a swirling mass of duck. It was totally cool chugging through a flock of 3000 friendly ducks. I tried to speak to them but they didn’t speak English duck only Indian duck so they ignored my frantic quack, quacking and flapping arms. The driver thought I was going crazy so he took me back to his house for some fresh coconut.

He drove us to his little shack in this village. It was so awesome to see how people really live in the backwater villages.

The driver then got out his extender stick and knocked down a coconut.

“Wow it really falls hard doesn’t it?” I pointed out.

“Yes, lots of Indians die from falling coconuts a year.” The driver informed us.

“Really! Hannah did you hear that, wow look you are standing under a coconut tree right now.” I then enjoyed watching her jitter around the place trying to avoid standing under a coconut tree, which was quite hard to do seeing as the man lived under a grove of coconuts. Anyway being the man of the group the man cut up the coconut and handed all the pieces to me to devour. I twinkled my fingers over the spoils of war and looked up to see a group consisting of Hannah, the drivers wife, a curious village lady, a drivers son, middle age swiss man, driver and a crazy lady. I looked back down at the succulent coconut and thought about the random village lady and she was quite pretty so I decided swiss man wasn’t the only suave man around and offered some to her. She refused about 20 times before I finally forced her to have some. Chalk one up to my tally of browny points for her. I then saw the drivers wife and she was looking a little hungry so finally I got her to accept some after the usual 20 attempts. The boy started running around the place and caught my attention and I thought I could go for the browny point hat trick and offered him some. He wasn’t nearly as shy as the other ladies and took a piece. The crazy lady was looking crazy so I was a bit scared and hugged my coconut pieces tighter. Hannah caught my attention with one of her random shifts of position and so I handed her a piece as well. The driver had done all the work so I gave him a slice. I then smiled happily at the thought of a delicious piece of coconut left and went to grab a piece, only to realise I had given them all out. I looked up at everyone munching on the coconut and thought about trying to grab a piece from someone quickly. I mean I was a bit bigger than the girls, and only the little boy could probably match me in a scrap but he was off skipping, munching on his coconut. I sat there dejected for a moment and then looked up with a smile.

“So girls, enjoying your coconut?” While really I though, I wonder if I can distract them and grab it off Hannah. However Hannah had given me a bit of distance because I suspected she knew exactly what was going on in my head, either that or was trying to avoid another coconut tree.

“Oh yes, thankyou. This coconut is divine!” they all reassured me.

“Excellent….” I smiled.

I sat there watching them all enjoy their coconut and the random lady and the wife started speaking rapidly in Indian and pointing at me. This convinced me that they were all laughing at my folly in not leaving myself a piece. I smiled at them. They started giggling. Everything was getting all out of control and there was nothing I could do. Hannah by now was sure I was sizing up her piece and so was wolfing it down as quickly as she could. The boy had tripped over and dropped his piece in the sand so I wasn’t keen on his bit. I wasn’t an Indian giver so I couldn’t take it off the driver and he looked pretty tough in a scrawny way. Needless to say I wasn’t going to swim back so I needed him still to drive me back. The ladies were still giggling away, so I was coming up with a cunning plan to relinquish the coconut from them when they stopped giggling and speaking in Indian and started talking in English to me.

“We were just saying”, giggle, “how nice you are.” Giggle. I beamed.

“Well, you know, it just what you do isn’t it.” I said modestly, “Feed the ladies first.”

Giggles and random lady covered her mouth with her sari. I decided about then to throw my cunning plan out the window and ride with this instead.

Random lady then started talking with us and what we got was that she was married and her husband was really bad to her and so she had left him for a month to come back to her village and let things settle before returning to him, because they have to. So to come from an environment of an abusive man to a half boy, half man, half monkeyboy (myself) giving all the ladies the coconut and missing out on it myself. It was right about then that I almost felt guilty about the plan to get the coconut back.

Crazy lady spent this time looking really crazy and freaky. I have never seen a wild crazy person before and it was so alarming. I wondered about what she was thinking about. Which kind of made me go crazy. I snapped a few pictures and then the boy ran inside and put on his best clothes and I took a picture and got their address only for it to blow into the river later on. Whoops.

Anyway all my bitches deserve to be respected so I decided to find out a little more about Swiss man on Hannah regard. The one thing of real note I found was the fact that he had a bit of an interest in 15 year old girls and he told me quite a lot about his interest in young girls and experiences which I never want to hear again and made me quite uncomfortable. Although I was a bit jealous because he seemed to have pulled more girls younger than me in the year so far than I had in my whole life and he was about 58. He was no Brad Pitt either. Once back he attempted to get us to all have a massage together but from the stories of the massages in India he had received so far I decided to pass.

When we finally got away from him I told Hannah all this. Before then she didn’t really have any interest in him besides him being an interesting guy. Afterwards she was totally disgusted. Swiss man then came back from his massage and started talking to an ignoring Hannah.

“That was a great trip wasn’t it?” He began.

“Uh-huh” Hannah replied without looking up from her book.

“So I had the best massage.”

“Really?” again without looking up or listening.

“Yes, you should have a massage as well.”

“uh-huh.” The book seemed to be getting more interesting to her.

“How about I get some massage oil and give you a good massage.”

“uh-huh.”

“Ok, I will be back in 10 minutes.” He was really excited.

Once he was out of earshot.

“Hannah! What the hell are you doing? He asked if you wanted him to give you a massage and you said uh-huh!” I said.

“No I didn’t! Really?” she started to sweat.

“Yep he just went to buy some massage oils!”

She was totally out of her mind.

“We have to hide!”

I nodded my agreement. We hid.

Swiss man then decided to try and tempt Hannah out of our room wearing nought but a tea towel. For some reason it failed to entice her out. I went out to explain to him that she didn’t feel very well and so didn’t want the massage right now. This only caused him to look behind me at Hannah jumping around the room screaming wildly and swinging from the chandeliers and talking to the staff in a very animated fashion. Describing how the coconuts were falling from the sky and she had to jump around avoiding death. He then decided to rub his brow with his tea towel and if you do the maths you can figure out what happened to the parts of the tea towel covering his, errrmmm private parts. I bode a hasty retreat and saw Hannah struggling with the door frantically trying to get in, screaming for the key, her coconut story forgotten with the sight of Swiss mans ‘coconuts’.