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!