INDIA: A REVIEW

This is my favourite photo of all the pictures I took in India. Not because it is the best, but because nothing can beat this kids smile. Me and Lauren were buying corn on the cob off a food vendor, when a street kid came up to us jangling an empty tin cup at us. His head was shaved, his clothes were filthy and his feet were bare. Instead of ignoring him, I gave him my corn on the cob that I had just recieved and not yet eaten. I have never seen such a happy reaction from a child for something that felt so little to you or me. His smile melted my heart and I will always remember it. This is why I love this photo the most.

FAVOURITE PLACE: Varanasi or Amritsar?

WORST EXPERIENCE: Getting E Coli four hours into a 15 hour bus journey. No contest!

BEST EXPERIENCE: The Golden temple. It was certainly the most spiritual.

THE FUNNIEST THINGS:

* The dog in the Nappy!

* Lauren getting her ears repierced by an Indian family.

* Paula and the Raccoon sunburn.

* Devinda.

* Rodney and my gift of Valium!

GOOD PLACES TO STAY:

* Hotel Pearl Palace: Jaipur


* Nukkad Guest House: Udaipur

*The Oberoi: Mumbai

* Yogi's Guest House: Jodphur

THE BEST FOOD: Bengali cuisine at the Sidheshwari Ashram in Kolkata. It was also the cheapest!

EATING RECOMMENDATIONS:

* Khyber: Mumbai

* Lotus Lounge: Varanasi

* Indique: Jodphur

* Teapot: Fort Cochin

* Le Club: Pondicherry

HIGHLIGHTS:

* Watching the burning Ghats on a boat on the Ganges during sunset.

* Meeting the Indian family on the train from Kerala to Goa, even though I didn't realise it at the time.

* Visiting Dhavari.

* Taking a cycle Rickshaw in rush hour Delhi and holding on for our lives.

* Recovering from E Coli!

THINGS I HAVE LEARNT FROM THIS TRIP:
There are no easy answers in life and don't eat Indian street food! Haha!

GOA: BEACHENDERS

I arrive at the airport, to catch my flight to Goa. I'm still drunk! I know this because:

1. I have just been ripped off by a taxi driver, by paying double what I should of done for a trip to the airport, and I didn't even argue with the driver. I just hand him the money.

2. My breath smells so much of alcohol that if you put a naked flame next to it, I'll probably blow up the whole airport.

3. I'm trying to read magazines in the shop, even though I can't understand them because there in Hindi!

I roll up to Paula's hotel (Yes she's back "working in India") around noon, feeling dreadful! It's rather a relief at the other end, to find she is feeling just as bad as me.
"I'm really hungover" she moans.
"Good, because so am I!" Well we made be different in so many ways, yet we are just the same in others. We both have an afternoon siesta, to aid our recovery.

The days that I'm with Paula again, follow the same routine as last time. which really is quite a pleasant way to pass the time. I realise on this visit that Paula has kind of turned into some kind of crazy Brigitte Bardot type, with all the local dogs, as she keeps saving half her meals to feed them. She beckons them in off the beach and secretly feeds them under the table. I don't think this pleases Johnny the owner of the bar too much as him and his staff keeping kicking them out (literally) as there are dogs everywhere. This makes Paula feel more sorry for them and she continues to feed the half starved beasts, and so the circle continues.

In the last decade, Russians have invaded London, with their new found wealth. It's not just London either. They have invaded Goa too. A lot of people are negative about Russians abroad, but to be fair, I couldn't be happier as they make the British abroad actually look good for once because:
1. They are whiter and burn more than us.

2. They have the worst dress sense in the world.

3. They can drink more than us and hence get more drunk!

All out win I say? We are all sat in Johnny's bar one night when we are challenged to a game of pool by a Russian aircrew. They have had quite a few drinks and so have we, so it's seems quite even. That is until the Russians start plying us with vodka. This gives them unfair advantage as they can drink it like water, with no effect, where as we get more and more drunk. It's like the Cold War all over again, and after a match that is longer than War and Peace, as no one can focus anymore, the Russians win. Oh well, they still dress bad though!

Paula returned home, and I decided to return to Paloem and pick up where I left off. I went back to my same simple little hut. I found Rob again much as I left him roaming from the bar to the beach. In fact nothing had really changed in the 2 weeks I had been away. The same faces still mill around, doing the same routines. This is a place where the same people come year after year for the season, to the same hut, to do the same things, to see the same faces. I guess it's like some weird community.
"Hello Darling!"
I turn to see Rodney a middle aged man, leaned against the bar swigging cheap rosé from a glass like he always is. I had meant Rodney on my previous visit. I think he might be an alcoholic as I've never seen him sober. I usually find him in the mornings passed out on the sofa outside his room with a kitten sat on his head, while he snores. It's the same kitten that lives in his room. He pretends not to like it, but I know he does. As a leaving present from my last visit Rodney had poured a jar of Valium into my hands after I told him I was taking a 12 hour bus journey to Mumbai.
"Are you mad! Your going to need these. Take yellow for just a hit, and the blue ones if you really want to knock yourself out!" He says leaving me stood there with my palms full of pills, that are spilling onto the floor.
I join him at the bar.
"How was Mumbai? Did the Valium help?" He asks.
"Oh yes! It was great!" I lie. Of course I didn't take any. God knows what was in them. Viagra?

I've come to realise in life, I'm not good at routine. Maybe that's why I travel. Maybe that's why I do the job I do. I like change, or maybe that's what I'm use to? So it's surprises me that I fit into the daily of routine of Paloem so quickly and easily. I get up early every morning and sit at the bar and have banana pancakes, which I'm always served by Sam a little Nepalese guy who becomes my favourite member of staff, due to his dryness and cheeky charm. I then head to the beach where I find my regular chair and umbrella. I take in the morning sun and cool off in the sea every now and again. I hide from the mid day sun in one of the numerous beachside bars, order lunch and read my book. When it is cooler I return to my same spot for more sun. After his daily game of frisbee with his mate Paul, Rob comes and joins be for a beer and our usual late afternoon chat. It's during these chats we put the world to rights. I didn't know Rob that well before Goa. I thought he was a little grumpy. He still is but underneath it all: the not liking being touch or being round lots of people, I realise he's a good guy. I like him and always look forward to our regular chats. After the sun goes down I head for a cold shower (A hot one is not an option) and change and head to the bar, where I'm surrounded by the regulars. There is the old hippy with no teeth who has been coming here since time began. There is the English married couple who are a bit rock n roll and got married on the beach, but then lost their wedding rings on the same beach when they had an argument and threw them at each other, and they got lost in the sand. Then there is the two English guys who I think our a couple but it appears their not as one starts flirting with me one night. My next door neighbour is a former Crystal Meth addict who has written a book on her past addiction. The other neighbour is former party girl in Ibiza, and who looks set to be a party girl in Goa. Then there is the owner, who apparently when he gets drunk, gets naked, so he's not drinking while I'm there, which is probably a good thing. Oh and of course there's Rodney. Many characters, with their own past and their own stories to tell. Due to this there is always some drama or scandal going on. It's like Eastenders or Beachenders as it becomes know.
At night I sometimes sit on my own outside my little hut. The local dog who I call Santa's little helper (As he looks like the dog from the Simpsons) is always there to greet me. So I sit there with my beer, stroking Santa's little helper, quite happy in my solitude, until I realise I'm being eaten alive by mosquito's and the dog has fleas, then I make a sharp exit.

During my stay, the nights become hotter and hotter. It's over 40 degrees in the day sometimes. The air is sticky and it becomes impossible to sleep. My crap ceiling fan that looks like its going to fall down any minute does little to help. After a couple of sleepless night, I'm looking through my bag, when I spot all the Valium that Rodney gave me. "Well it couldn't hurt to try one?" I think. So I pop one. It is Valium, and really good Valium as I'm out for the count in no time. I carry on popping the pills for the rest of my stay and there is not one more sleepless night had. The joys of Valium. Thank you Rodney.

It becomes time to leave and my trip to India is over. For once I'm not sad to go home. In fact I'm looking forward to it! It's not that I haven't enjoyed India. I have! It's been everything I expected it to be: Food poisoning; adventure; drama; dirty and funny, but this trip was not about running away from things anymore. I had a reason to go back, it was time to put down some roots again after living out of a bag for too long again. I had to go and find a home again.well for a little while anyway, until the bug takes me again. Once a traveller, always a traveller I guess?

MUMBAI: CONTRASTS

 FACTS ABOUT MUMBAI 

* Mumbai has a population of nearly 13 million, Making it the most populated city in India, and the 4th most in the world.  

* Mumbai is Indian's richest city.

* Over half the population live below the poverty line and in slums.

* Only 6% of the land in Mumbai is covered by Slums.

* 1.2 million people earn less than 20 rupees a day (that's less than 20p).

* Two of the top ten richest man in the world live in Mumbai.

* Mumbai has over 20 billionaires.

* Mumbai has the worlds most expensive house; Antilla, which has 3 helipads, is 27 storeys high and has a full time staff of 600. It is owned by Mukesh Ambani, Indian's richest man with a net worth of 21 billion.

* Mumbai has 6 million commuters everyday.  It commutes 2.2 billion people a year.  At rush hours 500 people will cram into a carriage meant for the maxium of 188 people.  This is called "Super Dense Crush Load." 3000 people die every year on Mumbai's train system.

* Mumbai has the worlds largest slum; Dharavi which has over a million people.

Mumbai is a city of contrasts.  Its a place where luxury hotels, houses and restaurants over look and reside along side some of the poorest people in the world.  It is a city where mankind is at its worst, but then at its best.  A lot of people hate Mumbai and I can totally understand why, its an unforgiving place; it takes no prisoners and will swallow you up whole, if you let it. It is a city falling in on itself, but I love Mumbai.  Why?  Because for me its the place that sums up the India of today the best. Mumbai in places is the 21st century living along side the past.  A place of adventure, where not one spot of land is unused or useless.  Its a place of life.  Its alive!

I was last in Mumbai 5 years ago.  I read so much about the place before I went, to be an informed person and to prepare myself, but nothing prepares you for Mumbai.  As soon as we left the airport it was like some one smacking you in the face with a big hit of reality.  The poverty was everywhere and on a scale beyond anything I had seen.  The traffic was immense, and insane and everywhere there was people, noise, animals. Even though I was dying of a throat infection, I couldn't shut my eyes.  I just couldn't stop looking.  It was like some weird addiction.  Five years later Mumbai still has the same effect, though this time I was visiting a city, that in some ways was very different from the one I had last seen.  In 2008 Mumbai was subject to terrorist attacks that became know as the Mumbai bombings, which killed 164 people.  I remember them well.  I was India at the time travelling around on my own, but I was miles away up in the north.  I still got pleading phone calls and emails to get on the first plane home.  I stayed all the same, but I remember watching news clips on dodgy guest house TVs, showing images of blood stained walls of places I had frequented.  It didn't send a shiver down my spine, because it didn't feel real to me. TV breeds a sense of detachment, even the news.  

It was now though all these years later, being back in the reality of the place it seemed more real than when it actually happened, for me.  The city still has the scars. This is most clearly seen in Colaba.  Colaba is home to the Gate way of India and The Taj Palace, some of the most iconic landmarks of Mumbai, hence targets for the bombings.  Where once, you could roam freely around, now you are met with a barrage of security fences and checks.  They even check your bags.  Now that's a first in India.  Well when I say check its a bit like one of those checks from a drunk night club bouncer, but its still a check all the same. Sort of?  It seemed weird in a city that before, had no rules or restrictions.  It was free, in a strange sort of way. That had been Mumbai's charm.  In the everyday struggle for life that most people face there, it had made it a city where there were no holes barred, where anything goes.  The realisation of this came when I returned to my old favourite: Leopold's.  Leopold's is a restaurant, bar along Colaba Causeway that has become a bit of an institution in Mumbai.  It has always been a tourist hangout due to the fact its one of the few places you are sure to get a cold beer no matter what time of the day. It has also become a cult favourite among a younger generation, with the popularity of the book Shantaram.  I had sat in Leopold's reading that very book, on my first trip, feeling part of the story in the very place that it was set.  We had sat up stairs in the dark windowless bar surrounded by the seedier types of the Mumbai under world that the book told of.  I found it all very exciting.  It was different now.  Your bags had to be checked before you went in.  Once inside the place was just as busy as ever but the clientele had changed.  There were no people that could pass for criminal types anymore.  Just tourists and rich out of town types.  Leopold's had been gentrified. 

Even if you wanted to, it is impossible to escape the fact that Mumbai is a city full of poverty.  Its ever where.  Poverty makes the privileged feel uncomfortable. They don't know how to handle it or how they should react. Most of the time they put their heads in the sand and pretend that it is not happening.  I myself have done this on many occasions. In fact to survive travelling in India you have to become hardened to poverty or you will not last two seconds, but on this time in Mumbai, I did not want to hide from the poverty; I wanted to go straight into the heart of it.
Dharavi is one of, if not the biggest slum in the world, with around a population of a million.  The population density is around 2,000 people per acre. As of 2006 there was only one toilet per 1,440 residents. 90% of all housing and commericial buildings in the slum are illegal.  It is to put it bluntly, one of the poorest places on earth and me and Lauren decided to go on a tour and visit it.  "What!" I bet your thinking, "Why the Hell would you want to do that?"  Well! because I don't want to stick my head in the sand anymore.  To understand things in life you have to confront them head on.  The tour was run by a charity group in which all profits go back into running a kindergarten and community centre in the slum. No photography was allowed, which seemed annoying at first, for our media generation, but was the best thing ever, it made you look with your own eyes.  Besides this was not some tourist circus, this was people's real lives.  We walk around, the place is filthy and over crowded.  We go to the factories.  The working conditions are terrible and dangerous.  I see lots of men with damaged eyes or hands.  I ask Ravi our guide about them.
"They all can have safety gloves and glasses but they chose not to, as they says it slows down their work and so they will get paid less" he says calmly.  I'm speechless that they would rather lose their sight or hands than slow themselves down for money. We move on.  Everywhere there is rubbish.  Everyone just throws their rubbish into the street so it was one huge waste ground.
"Do they not want to keep their environment clean I ask?'
Ravi looks and pauses for a moment. "You see that land over there" he says.  We look to the land in front of us that is filled as far as the eye can see with rubbish.  "The government had it all cleared and cleaned up to stop diseases, but then there was all this land suddenly that all the houses on each side thought belonged to them.  There was so much fighting and arguing, so to put an end to the matter, they just filled it up with rubbish again" he says matter of a fact.  I think he can see the shock on my face, because he turns to me and says" Stopping poverty is not just about giving money, its also about changing the way people think."
Our tour comes to an end.  Its not what I thought it would be.  Yes there was poverty and things that were shocking and not pleasant, but it was not all gloom and despair.  Everywhere we went there were smiling faces.  These people have nothing, but they are more happy than most of us in the west surrounded by everything we could desire.  They have a sense of community that was lost a long time ago from Britain.  Future plans for Dhavari include knocking the slum down to rehouse people in high rise flats.  I'm not sure whether this is the solution, its not that easy, nor is finding the end to poverty.  I wish I had the answers, but I don't, though maybe I understand it a little better now.

There cannot be a bigger contrast than going from one of the poorest places on earth to one of the poshest hotels on earth, but the next day that's exactly what we did.  I had weeks before for Laurens birthday present booked us in for a night at the Oberoi hotel in Mumbai. You can if you  book early enough, get a world class hotel in India for the same as the price of a room at the Holiday Inn in Britain.  Now all these weeks later I felt a sudden pang of guilt as we entered the lobby of this plush 5 star hotel, after the previous days events.  We also looked comically out of place with our scruffy hippie clothes and back packs. The woman goes to show us to our room, I don't think she has ever quite had a reaction like ours on seeing a room.  Its amazing! There is electric blinds; A TV in the bathroom; Bathrobes, a walk in wardrobe.  Me and Lauren start running round the room screaming like kids do when they open their presents at Christmas.  I guess the hotel lady didn't really get this kind of reaction from business men or rich families, as she's looking at us like we are insane.  We are straight down to the pool, where we order Cosmo's for beside the pool.  Then we order some more Cosmo's and before you know it I'm feeling quite light headed. Its while I'm having my tipsy moment that , I start thinking how is easy it would be to forget about yesterday, being in this place.  Its like a different world, and all so easily cut off from everything else, but I won't forget.  It just makes me appreciate everything I have in this life more.

The next day it's time for Lauren to leave.  I feel a sudden tinge of sadness, and get a little teary eyed.  I'm going to miss her.  We have spent the last 6 weeks 24/7 in each others company, through the ups and the downs and now she's gone.  I don't know what to do.  I feel like my right arm has been taken away as I stand there alone at the hotel entrance watching the car drive into the distance.  It can be hard travelling with people.  Travels can break the best of friendships.  You see every side to someone, but with Lauren there were no sides.  What you see is what you get.  I can truly say she is a lovely and kind person through and through.  I wish I could be more like here. 

I had decided to stay in Mumbai a couple more days and hang out with my friend Shanna who was in town for a week with work.   She had even said I could stay with her in her nice hotel.  It all seemed perfect.  Well not so perfect as Shanna had seemed to of vanished off the face of the planet, as I had heard nothing from her and she had not replied to my emails.  "How Strange" I thought.  I was also now left with the problem of nowhere to stay.  I ventured back to the simple but clean hotel me and Lauren had stayed in when we first arrived in the city.

"I'm sorry Madam, the hotel is full" says the camp receptionist as I get to the desk, "But our sister hotel on the next street has space."

The name Hotel Windsor sounded a lot grander than it was.  The hotel, set in an old colonial building was reached by a dingy stairwell, that lend to an even dingier corridor where the office was found.  The man behind reception had little in the way of people skills and spat onto the floor, after the end of most sentences. The cheapest room was a dormitory, which he shows me to.  It's a big dirty room with 5 beds and an old TV.  There is a balcony that over looks the street which is covered in bird shit. Not the best room in the world but its cheap and I do have it to myself.

"I'll take it!"

As I fill in the paper work at reception I see a labrador dog walking around, wearing a nappy. 

"Hi! Is that just me or is there a dog walking around wearing a nappy?' I ask reception guy.

"Yes Madam! It is owners dog."

"Why is it wearing a nappy?"

"It is her blood time. Stop bad dogs going near her."

Its not just the nappy that stops the "Bad dogs" going near her, as I learn one night, as I find reception guy whacking a host of dogs out of the hotel with a metal chain.  I stand there open mouthed, while he just looks at me and says, "You see Madam! Bad dogs!"

The clientele of the place isn't much better either, as most seem to be out of town seedy business men, who have a good perv at me every time I leave my room, but my favourite resident is the mad Kiwi guy who sits at the top of the stairs crying most of the time! The service has a lot to be desired as well.  I ask for an omelet for breakfast, it is slammed down on my table by the moody waiter, with a big dollop of butter beside it.

"Hi!  I'm sorry but I didn't ask for butter.  I don't like it" I say to moody waiter.  With that he walks over to my plate and scoops the butter up with his hand and throws on top of the mountain of butter that sits on the breakfast table.  I feel sick!  I look down at my pathetic omelet. I think I have lost my appetite! I decide to go and use the WI-FI which you can only get connection on if you stand by reception.  Yesterday I was slipping cocktails by a pool, in 5 star luxury.  I look around now. The mad Kiwi is crying at the top of the stairs again; Nappy dog is running around; Reception guy is spitting on the floor, I'm starving and I have a bird shit balcony as the best feature of my room. "Oh! How the mighty have fallen!" I think.

While we had been in Dhavari, we had met an English girl there called Emily, who was working on a project in the slum for her masters degree.  As I was staying in Mumbai for some extra days, she suggested we meet up. We meet up a couple of days later in the suburb of Bandra where she was living.  I like Bandra instantly due to the fact you ask the taxi driver to put the taxi on the meter and he does with out any questions; a first I believe in India.  Emily was a tall thin blonde, with English Rose looks.  She was also extremely intelligent and I was glad of her company, though I think she was just as glad of mine.  I don't think it had been easy for a woman like Emily living in India.  She told me about the old Hindu couple that she was living with.

"There like my parents.  They always want to know where I have been, and who with.  They wait up for me, I'm not even allowed my own key.  They treat me like a child" she says.  

"My worse nightmare" I reply.

"You know you worse thing is?" she continues "I don't even have any privacy in my room as it also has their shrine in it, so I have to vacate the room early and in the evenings too, so that they can pray."  

"Now that does sound like a real nightmare! No lay in's!" I respond.

 We walk to a park that over looks the sea.  Its actually a peaceful haven in all the chaos of Mumbai.  Emily tells me, she comes here all the time while the family pray, and to get out of the house.  We find a bench.  I'm aware of the constant stares, especially as we are both two tall blonde's we stand out like sore thumbs.  

"How do you cope living here as a woman.  It must be hard?  All the stares!  I have never got use to all the stares" I tell her.

"It is difficult.  Being a woman here is difficult in general.  Its hard for us western women, because we come from such a different way of life.  We have so much freedom, but things we take for granted our not the same here.  Take for example your hair."

I look at my hair 

"What?" I reply.

"You wear it down."

"And?" I ask

"Over here wearing your hair lose is seen as sexually suggestive.  Its all these little things, that we don't think twice about."

"But I don't like my ears, I have to wear my hair down"I say.

"I'm sorry, but that means your a lose woman" she laughs.

"Oh well! I can live with that!" and we both start laughing.

She talks to me about life in Dhavari.  Its interesting, funny, hard and scary.  I ask her what is the worse thing that has happened for her since her time in Dhavari.

"One of the young girls who I help and is one of my students.  She is very ill.  I think she is dying.  I spoke to her parents about her and what they were doing for her.  They simply replied nothing! Why? Because she is a girl and they must save all their money for their son and his future.  She will probably die. There is nothing I can do. This is the way of life here" she says with sadness.

Its my final night in Mumbai.  I'm sat in the dingy reception at Hotel Windsor trying to get WI-FI when I get an email.  Its Shanna!  She tells me she is sorry for not being in contact; she has had a nightmare with work, but would love to catch up tonight and I can go and stay at her hotel. Well I don't need to be asked twice.  I'm straight in my room and packing my bag.  I'm nearly finished when the door opens and some hot young guy walks in with a back pack.  

"Oh hi! I'm your new room mate" he says in an Aussie accent.  

"You have to be joking me! I mean you have to be joking me!" I think "I've been here for 2 whole nights with only the birds that shit all over the balcony and a dog in a nappy for company, and now I'm leaving, some hot Aussie guys walks in!  OMG! he's probably going to walk around in his underwear!!!

This is all going on in my head, but what comes out of my mouth is "I'm actually leaving now!"

"That's a shame" he says "We could of gone for some beers together."

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After I drag myself away from the hot Aussie and recover from the trauma in the taxi, I find myself in Shanna's hotel.  I find her already at the bar with a glass of wine.  I got to know Shanna from Hackney Wick and from when we sold our souls top the Devil and worked at London Oktober Fest as tarted up Frauleins! She is a peite, pretty, Californian blonde with a sexy voice.

She greets me.

"Well I don't know about you, but I need to get drunk, because this week has been one Hell of a week! Wine?" she asks.

The next thing I know there is a bottle at our table.

Shanna goes on to tell me about her week from Hell!  She was over in Mumbai to do a food festival with her restaurant from London.  The day they got here, it got cancelled.  Her restaurant have lost thousands of pounds so she has been doing her best to try and salvage what she can, by doing pop up nights, in other hotels.  Its been stressful for her and now all she wants to do is let her down for a bit.  You can hardly blame her.  I don't know what my excuse is? We order another bottle of wine and I do believe another?  Things become a little blurry after that.  I'm not sure how but we are at the front of the hotel, and seem to have befriended most of the hotel staff.  They ask about London, and then I start singing to them my favourite Bollywood song, which they find hilarious! Shanna is talking to a Sikh guy who works at the hotel, who has an electric mosquito killer.  You know the ones that look like a tennis racket!  The next thing I know he's in Shanna's room swinging around with the racket trying to kill not existent mosquito's.  In return for his valour Shanna gives him a gift of a recipe book from her restaurant which she has boxes of in her room. 

"That's a whole £30, that book" she says drunkenly pointing at the price tag.  We then literally have to force Sikh guy out of the room as I don't think he wants to leave. After that I remember trying to drink some wine and then I passed out! I wake up the next day still dressed in a complete daze.  

"Shit!" I think, "I've got a flight to catch!"

Next stop: Return to Goa!

 

TROLLIED!

I'm not a twin. My sister and brother are, though I wouldn't have blamed you in the past for thinking I was one. My mother had this habit of dressing me and my sis the same, when we were kids; Bad jumpers knitted by nan; matching puffball dresses; and our hair was crimped in the same fashion that made us look like we had been electrocuted. I never liked it; being dressed like some one else. I doubt she did either, and I often wonder if it is because of this twin dressing when in our youth, that we are so completely different now, and when I mean different, I mean DIFFERENT! We are like chalk and cheese in every way: Clothes; films; music. I remember an instance when we were driving back along the motorway from a trip in Paula's car. As she was the driver and it was her vehicle, she insisted on the choice of music, but after 2 hours of having to listen to the likes of God dam Toni Braxton, I was going insane. I decided it was time for a bit of Radio Head, which went down like a tonne of bricks and resulted in an argument so big, Paula pulled over on the hard shoulder of the M6 and tried to push me out the car, while I pushed her back. My brother just sat in the back looking a bit bewildered. Basically the long and the short of it is Paula thinks I'm a scruffy, weirdo hippy and I think she is a Princess WAG! You would think from what I have just written that we hated each other, but its just the reverse. For all our differences, me and my sister are very close. We laugh at our differing views; we tell each other everything; we can both party; but most of all we respect each other.

My sister just so happened to be in India at the same time as us. So me and Lauren ventured to Goa, to see her. My sister is an air hostess (or Trolley Dolly as some people say) and had done a flight to Goa and so was being put up for 6 days in a hotel before returning home. The thought of a nice hotel, with clean sheets and hot water after some of the dives we had been staying in, was wonderful, and add to that we didn't have to pay a penny.

If you can remember my last post, you left us after the crazy train journey with the family, being dumped in a Goan station in the early hours of the morning. After haggling with a few taxi drivers and getting the price down by over half (haggling queen!) we are on the road. During the taxi journey, Lauren is fretting.
"Do you think your sister will mind us turning up at this time in the morning? Will she mind us waking her?"
She doesn't know my sister.
"I think she will probably still be up" I reply.
My prediction is not far off as we knock on Paula's hotel door at 4am. She answers looking a little blurry eyed.
"I hope we didn't wake you? " Lauren says.
"No I've only just gone to sleep! I've been out drinking with the crew all night" she says tipsily. As predicted my sister is trollied. I feel a sense of pride that she has not let me down. She sits back on her bed and looks me and Lauren up and down.
"Well you don't look as bad as I thought you would", as we stand there frazzled in a dirty hippie clothing.
We start to undress for bed, when Paula pulls out a bottle, that I know well.
"Before you even think about going to sleep you have to clean your faces, after being on that dirty train. Use the paint stripper!" She tells us.
Paint stripper is what me and Paula call a clearsil type lotion that we use to use during the spotty teenage years. It's so strong that not only does it take all the dirt off your face, it also seems to take a layer of skin off in the process. Me and Lauren use up 3 cotton pads each on our faces, all covered in black from the remnants of an Indian train journey. Paula looks at us in disgust with blurry eyes and says "And you were going to go to bed with that on your face!"
With that she throws herself back onto the bed and passes out into a deep sleep. I then volunteer to sleep on the sofa as its Lauren's birthday (well technically it's not as its after midnight but I'm trying to be nice)! It's not the best night sleep as at 5'10 most of my body is hanging of the edge, but I take comfort in the fact that this is the only place I have slept in so far in India, that I don't expect to wake up with bed bugs!

The next night we are sat having dinner with my sister and the rest of her crew in a fancy beach side restaurant. Paula is sat at the head of the table like Don Corleone. She is also sipping on a Mojito. She begins:
"Well you know this was meant to be a holiday for me and I've ended up working! I was just meant to be a passenger on this trip with my friend but because of circumstances, I've ended up working!"
Lauren shoots me a look. She looks confused. I move close to her and whisper, "This is her working!"
I can understand Lauren's confusion. OK, so they do a long hard flight there and back, but there is this 6 days in between that constitutes as work as well. Well my sister seems to think it does. So an average day of work in Goa for an air hostess goes something like this:
You rise when you want to. If you can rise early enough, you can get served free breakfast from the hotel, which includes freshly made omelettes. The most taxing part of the day comes next: acquiring a sun bed. This is no simple task. The sun bed must be in the right place around the pool to ensure you get the maximum amount of sun throughout the day. Get this wrong and the whole day could be in ruins. Around midday lunch is ordered and usually ate round the pool and this is usually when, the first beer is drank. The afternoon is spent with more sunbathing and the occasional dip in the pool to cool off. My sister only dangles her feet off the edge of the pool, as she doesn't do swimming or getting her hair wet, and besides she can still catch the sun as well as cooling down by doing this. As the day comes to an end everyone gets a SD by the pool. No! This is not a sexual disease but a Sundowner: a drink (which 99.9% of the time is alcoholic) to watch the sunset with. After that people leisurely stroll back to their rooms for a shower and to get ready for the nights proceedings, which starts with pre-dinner vodkas in someone's room (I believe they managed to consume 9 bottles in the 6 days I was there)! Dinner on mass is also with more drinks and by the time you get to the bars your already wasted, so much so, everyone challenges everyone to a game of pool, which takes about 10 hours to complete as everyone is so pissed they can't see straight to hit a ball with a cue! To fair I don't think the playing would be much better if everyone was sober???? If you are still standing after that, then you can do a lock in, in a bar till the early hours or drink in someone's room. The night is usually ended by passing out in bed or throwing up over a toilet, which Paula decided to do one night while I held her hair back (sisterly love)! She actually just kept saying in her drunken state "Don't tell mum! Don't mum!" Which I find kind of weird that we still do this (me included) when we have done something bad, even though we are now in are thirties. It's like we still think we are going to be grounded or have our pocket money confiscated!
So that was a summary of a day in the life of an air hostess working abroad. Tough hey?

It was after one of these heavy nights I was coming down to the pool, with Paula. She was feeling a little worse for wear. She was wearing her shades and had an head band on her hair line to protect her skin from a little sun burn from the previous day. She lays her head against the wall and in dramatic fashion says "I've just been so wreck less" referring to her hangover "Get me a full fat coke Carl's, I don't think I can even get to the bar." Paula's solution in life for hangovers is always a coke.
I get her, her bloody coke and she swigs it as she lays by the pool in her awful state, and settles in for another hard day of sunbathing. I retreat later to the room to hide from the midday sun. When I return I find Paula in a much worse state than before, but not in the way you would think. It appears that my sister in her hungover state has fallen asleep in the sun. This wouldn't be so bad if her head band hadn't fallen down her head, and left her with a huge white band across her forehead with sunburn either side. Paula is panicking, while everyone around her is telling her, it's not that bad. I can't help laughing which makes things worse!
"I look like a bloody Raccoon!" She shouts. I must admit she looks pretty ridiculous. I make a sharp exit and drag Lauren to the shop. After the shop I suggest we go for a nice drink but the the truth is of the matter is, I don't want to go back to the room and see my sister. When we were younger, getting ready for a night out with Paula could prove difficult. If her hair, her make-up, or outfit wasn't right, my sister could have a temper tantrum like no other, which would see everyone evacuate the room in a matter of seconds. I'm having flashbacks to those moments and I'm dreading what the rage will be like now that she has a face like a raccoon! After a while I pluck up the courage to go back. I open the door preparing myself for the onslaught, but instead I find a beaming Paula smiling back at me. She looks normal. If fact she looks great! She doesn't look like a Raccoon at all. "She must have a layer of cement on her face to cover it, but who cares. She's happy! I'm happy!" I think.
"You should be a make up artist" I tell her.
"I know! I'm amazing!" She says with delight.

After another couple of boozy days with my sister, its time for them to go home to recover their livers and me and Lauren head to the south of Goa, to Paloem for a couple of days. I'd been to Paloem before, on my first trip to India but don't really remember much of it as I spent most of my time there, after collapsing on arrival with a throat infection, confined to a rundown old shack above a pig stye, with a crap ceiling fan and a rusty old bed complete with an holey old mosquito net. Fond memories! NOT! So I thought I should give the place another try. Besides I had a friend Rob staying there, who had been going for years and knew the place well. He'd also booked us accommodation in advance. After refusing to get a taxi, and having to change local buses 3 times we arrive. We find Rob at his place at the bar. I greet him but don't hug him. I tell Lauren not to either. You see Rob doesn't like being touched. He freezes up like a statue. I find it most amusing. Rob shows us to our accommodation which is a simple beach hut. In fact he's booked two! One each as they're so cheap and it gives us more space. "What a nice thought" I think. Lauren looks less impressed, especially when she walks into her hut. They're dark inside and very simple. I can tell Lauren's not impressed. I explain that most huts are like this in Paloem as they are only built for the season and taken down again at the end. Lauren sheepishly moves her stuff in and I go to unpack in my hut. My solitude does not last long. I hear a scream and Lauren rushes in looking scared.
"I found a spider on my bed. I don't like it! Can I sleep with you tonight?" She asks.
She sleeps with me that night and every night after, as we condense down to one hut the next day. So much for a little ME time.

Me and Lauren spent the next couple of days chilling in the sun and eating well. We started to get to know a lot of the Characters residing in Paloem, but it was time to go before we knew it. I decided that I would return to Paloem after Lauren had left me, but now it was time to leave and get Lauren to Mumbai for her final stage of her journey, which should of been easier than it turn out to be. OK so a 12 hour bus journey is never easy, but hopefully catching the bus in the first place should be? Actually think again! It's India! Nothing's easy! We arrive at Margo and wait for our bus. No bus! We wait a bit more. Still no bus! I ask around.
"Yes Madam bus coming! Wait here."
I look at the clock. Our bus should of departed but its still not here. It becomes very evident that no one has a clue about what is going on and is saying anything to make us happy! It's time to bring out Kevin! Kevin is my crazy kick off alter ego for all of you that don't know. Kevin goes straight for the jugular at the poor bus guy!
"Where the Hell is our bus!" I demand waving our tickets in his face.
"Your bus goes from Panaji madam. Not here" he replies.
"What! What!" I scream "Why couldn't you have told me this an hour ago!" How the Hell our we getting to Panaji?"
"I put on bus to Panaji" he smiles. He then guides us to a bus.
"This bus leave for Panaji in 20 minutes" he says and leaves, thinking he's glad to be rid of the crazy English woman.
We sit on the bus. It's empty. The next thing there is a russle at the back and a topless Indian man rises from his sleep and starts shouting at us in foreign. I can't understand a word he is saying but it's clear he wants us off the bus. We are thrown off and sit by the road.
"We are early? Maybe he's cleaning the bus?" I say hopefully.
We sit there for 20 minutes, then the bus starts up. We try to board again but the topless man blocks our entrance and starts screaming at us in foreign again. This time I scream back. It turns into a full on argument and the bus drives off with him still in the doorway screaming at me and then he tries to spit at us!
"You are a God Dam dick head" I scream across the bus station at him and show him one finger.
"I God Dam hate India!" I scream at Lauren. I'm seeing red now.
"Right! I've had enough of this shit! I'm going to get us on that bus if it kills me!"
Kevin sees bus man! I fling my backpack to the ground, and storm over to him, leaving a bewildered Lauren standing there.
"Right! I want to get on a bus, and I want to get on one now!"
Bus man and his group of mates stare back at me in silence. I then realise that women don't dare scream at men in India, but I'm too angry too care.
"Well?" I scream.
They still stare at me.
"Get me on a bus now! I'm not leaving you alone, until some one does!"
This man hates me. I can see it in his eyes, but he knows I'm not going anywhere.
"I get bus!" he says.
He runs off and comes back a minute later.
"I have bus! Come now. Quick!"
The next thing I know me and Lauren are running with our backpacks along side a bus which is leaving. We jump into the bus falling up the stairs in the process and scramble to get our bags up. It happens so quick we don't have time to think about it. We stand up to find a packed bus staring back at us. I don't really like Kevin but this time he had done us proud. We were finally on our way to Mumbai!