Bangalore, Burgers and Belly ache

Greetings Friends.

We've had some highs and lows since we last wrote. From the dizzy heights of the 13th Floor cocktail lounge in Bangalore, to the desperate lows on our hands and knees in the bathroom। Yes: we got sick।

But before we go into that, a few words on our last days in Kerala. Kochi was HOT HOT HOT and very humid. We took a lovely walk in Fort Cochin down to Jew Town and enjoyed looking in all the wonderful old shops full of antiques and caught a glimpse of the world of a spice trader. Fort Cochin is beautiful. The Chinese fishing nets are particularly unusual. Sam had a go helping the fishermen.

They caught a very small Barracuda, if anyone's interested

After a few days exploring it was time to leave Kerala behind us and head inland to the city of Bangalore in Karnataka, where we had been invited by माय family friend Natalie and her boyfriend, Goz, to stay for a few days. We were pretty excited about going to 'The Cocktail Town' - where the young, hip and newly rich Indian's live the high life।

Our train got us into Bangalore at 4.30am on Monday morning and Nats VERY kindly woke up to let us in. We thought we'd died and gone to heaven as she showed us our own lovely big bedroom with en-suite bathroom,a bed that we didn't need to check for bed-bugs and clean तोवेल्स. After a few hours sleep we got up and spent the morning catching up with Natalie and enjoying things like being able to make a cup of tea in their lovely kitchen, hanging out on the balcony, the sofa, watching their big TV and WASHING OUR CLOTHES. Western home comforts are ridiculously exciting when you haven't had them for almost 2 months. We got a 'Ricky' (as we now 'amusingly' call them) to an American style diner for some lunch and had our first bit of meat since being in India. A cheese burger. It was SOOOOOOO good. Nat then took us to Gourmet Foods - the shop that Natalie loves, to buy some supplies. A 'half way decent' bottle of red wine costs 500 RPS from Gourmet Foods. We've been spending that on a 'pricey' nights accommodation, but if you're thinking in pounds - it's just over 6 quid, so not too bad. We decided to think in pounds while in Bangalore! We had a lovely evening in - our first glass of red wine since coming to India, pasta and pesto with Parmesan. The next couple days were spent eating, exploring Bangalore's fancy (oh my gosh, so fancy) hotels and shops and arguing with Ricky drivers. The law in Bangalore says they have to use their metres. They don't like using their metres and see white tourists as prime 'mug' material. Sam takes exception to this.

This is us in the back on a particularly amazing Ricky। 'Pimp My Ricky'. Westwood would be proud. The driver (a bit of a 'card') had decked his rickshaw out with a padded interior and it had a sound system - which he proudly switched on a blared the most terrible Bollywood music so loudly that everyone on the street turned to stare at us. We loved it. Until he whacked an 'idiot tax' on our bill and it ended in another argument।

Wednesday night was cocktail night. Goz got off work early and we headed to Ruby Tuesday's for 2 for 1 cocktails.

From there we moved on to the 13th Floor - a top floor bar in the highest building in Bangalore (they don't built that high here!)। The doorman told us that it was full and if we didn't have a reservation we couldn't get in (oh, so L।A.) but Goz charmed them and we managed to get a table on the balcony overlooking the bright lights of the city. From there we moved on to the Hard Rock Cafe. By this stage I can honestly say we'd totally forgotten we were in India. This is a million miles away from Chennai and our first impressions of hot, smelly, poverty stricken India. George Harrison's sitar hung along side some t-shirt that the someone in the Black Eyed Peas wore once, signed photos of Madonna hung next to one of Elton John's cat-suits. And The Menu, Oh! The Menu. Burgers and Cocktails of every kind. We were living the Indian High Life.

This is me, look how pleased with myself I look.

Let this be a lesson to you children Gluttony is a sin. Pride comes before a fall. Hubris was inevitable. I can hardly bring myself to look at this photograph. I'm sure I don't need to go into the details of what happened next. We woke up at 4am and our fate was sealed. NO, we wouldn't be catching the night train to Hampi that night. NO, we wouldn't be leaving the bathroom for 24 hours and then the sofa for another 3 days. YES, we would watch the entire DVD box set of 'The Long Way Round' with Ewan McGregor and the entire first series of The Tudors and countless movies. Nat and Goz (Who Didn't Get Sick!) were very kind and let us stay in their flat over the weekend even though they were going away, and we will never be able to express how grateful we were to be in a lovely home rather than a dreadful hostel. It was a few days we don't really want to remember.

You will all be delighted to hear that we did survive the terrible episode and we are now in Hampi, which is a beautiful ruined Hindu city set in an extraordinary landscape, covered in massive boulders. It's like being on the set of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Or the Flintstones. It's very, very hot here - which means we've done a lot of lolling about. Luckily there are lots of interesting and fun people here to loll with. Here are some highlights in pictures.

Tomorrow we leave for Mumbai. We've had a last moment change of heart and decided to shun Goa. We'd rather spend more time in Nepal. So we're saying good-bye to beaches and good-bye to South India. Look out The North.