Namaste

Well we were both looking forward to our First Class train that would take us to Chennai on the east coast of India but our excitement was short lived when we boarded the train, it didn't look like it had been cleaned since maybe 1976 and it was like a prison cell with 4 bunks in it. We set of from Mettupalyum and waited patiently for our bedding to arrive eventually I asked the attendant and he said that bedding was extra in 1st Class!!!!!

We settled down for the evening and were just nodding off when three Indian blokes stormed the cell and switched all the lights on and started talking really loud. One of them made a big mistake and sat on Mel's bunk, within a few seconds he knew it had been a bad idea as she proceeded to tell them all what she thought of them and the party soon broke up.

Until you have been to India the smell is really hard to describe it really is one of the worst things and for around two hours of the journey we couldn't sleep just because the smell was so bad outside the train.

At 5am we left Chennai Central station and had to start battling with rickshaw drivers to take us to a hotel, which turned out to be rubbish so we then walked around checking out a few hotels till we eventually found one that was reasonable. Once we had caught up on a bit of sleep we decided to sort out our flight to the Andaman Islands and leave the mainland as quickly as we could, as luck would have it the airline office was close by and 5 minutes and 12 quid later we had got on a flight tomorrow morning at 4.30 am which means that we will be saying goodbye to the mainland for a few weeks and taking it easy on the beach.

Will be in touch from the Andaman Islands.

Lots of Love

M & M

xx