I hadn’t logged into the blog for a while so I decided to check out some older posts from early in the trip. I found a few that I forgot to publish so here is one of them:

Well sensibilities flew out the window the moment Tali touched down in India. My little sidekick and partner in crime. The only person I know who is a bigger idiot than I and capable of creating hilarious stories within days of arriving.

She arrived with a suitcase strategically packed like a game of tetris. Once the clothes come out I knew they were never going to fit back in. Already I’m carrying a hooded jumper for her. Then we go to a shopping centre and she buys a stuffed toy - an elephant - who buys a stuffed toy when they are backpacking for 6 months and already have no room???

Our hotel looks good on the outside but it has a severe electrical problem and the power is constantly cutting out. No air con. No fan. No light. We’re on the top level and the temperature is in the high 30’s even in the middle of the night. We discovered the extent of the heat at 2am this morning when we both awoke in a pit of sweat burning up in a furnace. Shane was next door and also woke up and together we stormed down 5 flights of stairs (Shane in his underpants) to get the power back on. There’s a generator but they hadn’t bothered to turn it on. The man on duty was asleep and tried to ignore us when we asked him to go outside and turn the power back on. Shane who is not known for either patience or politeness in these kinds of situations shines his torch in the man’s eyes and starts jabbing him until the guy eventually rolls off the couch.

The next morning we’re sitting on the rooftop of our hotel. It’s an open air restaurant which looks straight at the Taj Mahal. Imagine sitting at a table in the morning, sipping a coffee and looking at one of the most beautiful structures with the sun hanging high in the background - truly incredible. So we’re sitting at a table, the restaurant is packed with people, mid afternoon enjoying a late lunch. Tali suddenly screams at the top of her lungs and jerks her legs from under the table. The entire restaurant flinches from the scream and everyone turns to look at us. Tali apologises and mutters she thought something was under the table. She had her ipod sitting on the table and one earphone had fallen off and swung into her knee. And then she says to me “I thought my earphone was a monkey” causing the 3 people next to us to laugh hysterically and me to go bright red.

Earlier Tali had opened our door to the balcony and a big monkey had run across the railing. This had also caused an ear splitting reaction and left her on edge.