First post. Delayed. But surely that's built the anticipation and excitement while you've all been sitting in your snow covered homes eating Christmas Cake and listening to songs of praise while you wait for the snow plough.

That's not what we've been doing. We've been staying in an (almost) windowless room with some kind of roosting happening outside the unclosable vents that connect us to the street outside. Mumbai's streets have a horn policy. I'm not sure what it is but it involves using it a lot whether close or far from any other vehicle or pedestrian. Brakes are also frowned upon.

Strolling (read dodging mopeds) through the markets, our skin colour gives us a kind of celebrity I am comparing to a Hollywood C-lister. It seems people (almost) recognise us enough to know we probably have loads of cash, but not well enough to keep a respectful distance. More like Chesney Hawkes, less like the Pope. This celebrity draws the cry of one particular market tradesman ("Lamp? Trumpet? Compass?") every evening, as if after the first few refusals we might suddenly have realised our desperate need to play out-of-tune music, at night, due North.

Eyes wide with wonder, and fists clenched around the notes in our hands that say "500" and make us feel rich we made our way to "Elephant Island". Surely, surely there must be some elephants here. "Maybe," I thought, "I'll get to ride on one and perhaps indulge in that time honoured tradition of elephant polo. No. Not even a solitary elephant. Lots of monkeys however. Doing what monkeys do best. Stealing from tourists.

This is a place of "almost". The buildings are either almost complete or almost falling down, the people are either almost western or almost in poverty, but they're still (almost) happy. It gets them even closer to happy when you pay 25 times more than a local for everything. It's almost unfair. But then you work the exchange rate and it's almost a 50p difference. I guess that makes it OK. Almost.