We just spent the whole day on a roach-infested train from Patnem Beach in South Goa to Mumbai. Patnem is real nice, if a little busy with dogs. I think the Goa Animal Welfare Trust is doing some cheap sterilisation thing at the moment – 250 rupees instead of 600. It’s a worthy cause!

Tonight in Mumbai I saw three immaculately groomed spaniels being walked. The local mongrels didn’t give them any grief or even sniff around them. Dogs live in a caste society too.

Airtel Mobile Office is pretty cheap and convenient once you get it sorted. Unfortunately, not many Airtel staff seem to know much about it. I got passed round on the phone and went to three Airtel shops before I finally got it sorted. You need an Airtel SIM with some credit and a GPRS recharge card (250 rupees per month). There’s no data charges so you’re looking at a month of all you can eat internet for 600 rupees all up. I had to enter extra modem initialisation commands too. Best bet is ringing the AirTel helpline and asking for a technical support person with knowledge of Mobile Office to ring you back.

We’re in Ooty, aka Udagamandalam or Ootacamund, up at 2250m in the Nilgiri hills. We’ve splashed out on a hotel overlooking the lake with a great veg restaurant and a porter who is happy to catch the bus in to town to fetch us beer so we’re quite happy not moving too far at the moment.

Ooty was established as a retreat for the colonial Brits. I found it quite strange to come across a town of this size way up in the Niligiri hills, very Shangri-la. Apparently Ooty used to look like a cross between an English village and an Australian country town but a lot of that has been lost with all the concrete blocks that have sprung up. Vegetables grow well up here and the bazaar is full of goodies. I’m not too keen on hanging round the chicken stalls though. I saw a crazy article in the newspaper yesterday about some guy drinking chicken’s blood for some festival. The picture showed him with the chicken’s neck in his mouth, feathers and all. I hope he didn’t actually kill it by biting it cos that would be really wrong. Bird flu should do well with those guys.

I thought I was a bit over-templed and was even showing signs of irritable Indian-traveller syndrome yesterday. I hadn’t told any beggars to piss off but I had bowled a few begging kids aside with my backpack at the bus station and apparently I was aggressive and confrontational when bargaining with a autorickshaw driver in Bangalore. I’d even gone off my thalis and dosas a bit. Now I’m all chirpy again.

We’re off to Madurai on a local bus now. Only 3 hours, hope the cricket is still going when we get there. There’s some bar like a spaceship in one of the hotels or something.

We’re off to Pondicherry tonight for a taste of France.

Hope they sort out the airport strikes at Mumbai quick, 500 workers at New Delhi airport are on hunger strike!

We went the Maharajah’s palace today. The palace is described as gothic indo-saracen or something and it’s pretty cool. It houses a museum containing the Maharajah’s many kill trophies including a stool made out of an elephant foot, an entire family of stuffed tigers and a smoking set made of a tiger’s skull with an ashtray in one eye and a matchstick holder in the other….class!

There’s also laughing sessions in some park by the river.

PLEASE SEND THE OTHER HALF OF CREDIT CARD

no Hello Mr Justin???

screw you Bentley I’m going to a hotel that doesn’t use hotmail and can take my credit card details securely.