Boxes, Boyle and Bent Bobbies

Mumbai

Countries driven through to get to India: 12

Officials' signatures required to drive Penny through those countries: 6

Officials' signatures required to drive Penny out of Mumbai port: 23

India loves her paperwork. Every hotel or hostel, for instance, since the passing of the Foreign Visitors Act of 1939, requires each person staying to fill in a page of information about themselves, where they live, where they've been, where they're going, and sign it - even the children. The simple process of getting a refund from the YWCA for a couple of nights I'd paid for in advance but then didn't need, required a meeting with the manager in his office, and then the writing of a letter explaining why we needed the refund. On checking out, several different breakdowns of our bill were produced for us to keep, and then as I turned to leave, a flustered cry - "Sir! Wait!"

Another piece of paper was being handed to me. It was a hand written slip, although I couldn't read its scrawl.

"What's this?"

"Your clearance pass", explained the receptionist. "You give it to the security man outside as you leave."

"What will he do with it?"

"He'll file it."

I wouldn't be surprised if the security guard had a boy to file these pointless slips of paper. Job creation schemes like this appear abundant in India.

But nothing I've ever seen can compare to the unfathomable process of releasing a vehicle from India's customs authorities. I could write a book about the intensely complex, bewildering and comical procedure overseen by a myriad of self important egos in uniform. It would be a short book, like The Little Book of Calm, but called The Little Book of Fury. It would have far too many characters, incomprehensible dialogue and a mind boggling plot that went round in meaningless circles until finally proving utterly pointless and leaving the reader exhausted to the point of tears. I should probably pitch it to Dan Brown.

The entire 3 day process of reclaiming Penny, 2 of which I spent at the port, was surreal. My clearing agent, John, repeatedly begged me to complain to my Embassy about the process, in the hope that one day it might improve.

"No one sees how ridiculous this has become", he would moan. "Because no one person is overseeing the import of a vehicle under Carnet, it is falling to many many people, none of whom sees the full procedure. If you drove the car into India," he went on, "one man would stamp the Carnet and you'd be through. But because it comes on a ship, we have all this."

'All this' involves running around and between 2 large buildings at the port (each a tuk tuk ride apart, just to make it more of a challenge), persuading a total of 23 people to sign various forms, each in the correct order, and almost all needing to be told why they have to sign it. My agent was a trooper - I don't know how he keeps sane. But isn't any of this system computerised? you may ask. Yes, it is! One vital part of our 2 day marathon involved visiting an office where we were to hand a floppy disc to a man who attempted to load data from it onto a computer programme written in MS-DOS. For our younger readers, MS-DOS was what Bill Gates wrote software in before he invented Windows (late 1980s), and a floppy disc is...well, just ask your parents. People who remember The Early Days of the Home Computer won't be surprised to hear that the floppy disc didn't load, so we had to go to a different building where another man could access the data and adjust it so the DOS programme on the first computer could read it properly. It's computer nostalgia heaven, and all to the rhythmic whine of dot matrix printers!

The only reason the entire pantomime only took 3 days rather than the threatened 4 or 5 is because my agent used my white Western face to push us past crowds of other clearing agents and get to the front of the queues - "If they see a foreigner they will deal with us quicker". He also knew exactly who to bribe along the way (most people, as it turned out - more on India's corruption in moment), and when no one appeared to be taking the promised action of finding our container and delivering it to the customs inspector, I went and searched for it myself.

"Where will it be, roughly?" I asked John. "If I can find it maybe we can get things moving."

"Oh God", he held his hands to his head. "It'll be somewhere over the back".

'Over the back' was an area of open desert behind the main massive storage warehouse at the Speedy Container Shipping Terminal. (I know, 'Speedy'. The irony wasn't lost on me.) An area of about 2 square kilometres was home to a few thousand containers piled 3 or 4 high in rows, squares, random stacks, all over the place.

"Yeah, but there must be a system, right? A grid system or something so they know roughly where my container is."

He shook his head.

"How do they find it then?"

"The manager will radio his junior supervisor, who will send men out to look for it."

There's that job creation scheme again. A plethora of cheap manpower compensates for a complete lack of order. It's the Indian way.

So, at the risk of putting several men out of a job, skipping an entire layer of bureaucracy and therefore bringing the whole house of cards crashing down, I strode out into the dusty heat to "find my own flippin' box". And in a surprising triumph for a man who can't even find a jar of Marmite in the cupboard - "It's in there! You might have to move something!" - I stumbled across UACU3222307 after about 10 minutes. Many, many pieces of paper later I was opening the container, Penny started first time, and eventually we were free to leave and drive wide eyed and sweating through Mumbai's rush hour traffic at nightfall - a modern and convenient way to reduce your life-span by several years without the costly need for cigarettes or drugs.

*

Before Christmas I promised to tell you about the Dharavi slum. This is the triangle of land between 2 of Mumbai's major railway lines, the same size as London's Hyde Park, that is home to 1 million people and was made famous in the film Slumdog Millionnaire. 'Reality Gives' is a local charity set up by a Brit - Chris Way from Birmingham. He realised while staying in Mumbai that the Dharavi slum, which long before Danny Boyle's film was already famed as India's biggest slum, was misrepresented. Keen to show it for the positive people and values he found there, he gathered the various 'tribal' elders from the different religious 'districts' within the slum and proposed Reality Tours. These small, unobtrusive tours offer tourists the chance to explore the slum and meet the people, while profits are ploughed back into the community. Since they began in 2005 Reality Gives has paid for a kindergarten (and the training of 20 local pre-school teachers), a high school with 33 pupils and a community centre where computer skills are taught.

The dilemma about taking the tour was obvious: It's a very fine line between 'expanding your social awareness' and voyeurism. The fact that cameras weren't allowed (I didn't take the photos you can see here), and that a few articles in Indian newspapers seemed to back up the charity's claims about the way the community was benefitting, eventually justified the visit.

There were only 3 on my tour - 2 Australian women and me plus our Indian guide, so we didn't stick out too much in the throng and were able to spend 2 hours winding our way through the slum, seeing and smelling slum life close up. In some respects it was exactly as you'd imagine: Cramped, dark dwellings line a maze of endlessly twisting alleyways and cut-throughs. Smoke fills the air and you have no idea what you might be stepping in. Yet in other ways it was full of surprises: Industries such as pottery, clothing manufacture and leather tanning thrive. Plastic and metal recycling occupies another quarter. Beneath the corrugated metal rooves and plastic tarpaulin shelters is a hive of productivity. Dharavi's commercial output stats. are astounding - the annual turnover of the slum is about 650 million US dollars. Its social statistics also confound expectation - 80% of children go to school. That's significantly higher than a lot of the villages in Rajasthan we were talking about with UNICEF.

The most surprising discovery of my visit was how happy everyone was. I had naively associated slums with misery, yet Dharavi is anything but. In fact, it turned out to be the least threatening place I've been to in my month in India. No one was begging - something impossible to consider outside the slum where, from Delhi to Mumbai and in every town in between, there are beggers at almost every corner. It was a genuine shock, and demanded a mental re-adjustment, when children ran up to me and didn't ask for money by putting one hand to their mouth to mime eating while the other palm is thrust towards me. Instead they wanted to talk. They are all taught English from the age of 4 and are thrilled to see a white face they can try it on.

"Hi! What's your name?" is the chorus as they offer to shake hands, a gaggle of grinning faces. The first child I saw in the slum wasn't interested in me, she was a girl of about 6, neatly dressed in a smart school uniform and she was dancing and skipping through the alleyways ahead of us. She swung every corner knowing this gloomy alien world like you know your own neighbourhood. She stopped at a door, shouted up to her mother and quickly scaled a ladder to reach a single room on the second floor. This was home, and this girl was as happy as any I've ever seen. If a group of 10 year old boys approached you in Delhi, you'd brace yourself to march through a barrage of begging and sleeve pulling. In Dharavi a similar gang surrounded me...to show me their toys - a wooden spinning top expertly propelled into life with a leather cord was the current craze. They insisted I had a go - laughed at my efforts and held out my hand so they could place the quivering top in my palm, as if to show how easy it was. Imagine that, I'm the white guy in the slum and I'm holding out my palm to them.

It wasn't without its poignancy. My spinning top tuition took place at one edge of the slum in the shadow of 2 high rise concrete towers built by the government in the 90s to rehouse some of the slum dwellers. Our guide had been there in 1995 when Prince Charles had officially opened them.

"This area," he remembered, "was a beautiful playground. The grass was like The Oval."

Now, it was a rubbish dump.

"The Governement tidied it up for the Prince, but now they just send a truck every few months to collect the rubbish."

As he spoke, in front of us a young girl of about 4 was hitching up her pretty dress and defecating on the litter. Even this space wasn't wasted though. Behind the preoccupied girl, spread across the mounds of waste, were animal skins drying in the sun. The output of these leather workshops is exported to Europe, and at least 2 major Italian fashion labels use their hides. I'll smile the next time I see one of those designer leather jackets, its owner unaware of the prestigious garment's humble beginnings at the little girl's toilet.

The streets, by the way, aren't awash with sewage. Since Dharavi was made a 'legal slum' in 2000 the Government pipe in mains water for 3 hours per day, (and most dwellings now have electricity), so although raw sewage is still around, you're not up to your ankles in it. However, only 1% of homes in Dharavi have a toilet. Most people use communal facilities, which are massively over burdened. I don't know what the ratio is in your house of people to toilets, but if you live in Dharavi it's 1,500 people per loo. Even with those conditions, though, Dharavi comes with a price tag. Dwellings are rented for the equivalent of about £28 per month, and people can only get them if they know someone living or working there who can vouch for them.

Even in India's biggest slum, demand has out-stripped supply and capitalism has been the result.

It was a fascinating day which my tour buddies and I agreed had been essential in getting a better understanding of the city. It took me about a day to let the onslaught of sensory overload sink in, and the overwhelming feeling I had when I left is the one that stays with me now - that contrary to the menacing squalor of Boyle's Slumdog, Dharavi slum is one of the most uplifting places I've ever had the pleasure of spending time in.

*

Right, before we head off to Goa, here's a quick word on Christmas. As you know, we 'd planned to stay at 'The Y' (as the YWCA is known) for Christmas day and head south to Goa after that. We'd even sourced a local caf that was offering a turkey dinner for those die hard Brits growing weary of curry. At least part of this plan was altered in the nicest possible way by a generous gift. We had an email on Christmas Eve from some great friends in the UK telling us they had bought us all a night in a 5 star hotel on Christmas night! So we started the day in our decorated room at The Y (Ella had drawn a Christmas tree to put presents under), Beth and Edie had planned a Christmas service with carols, a bible reading and a sermon from Edie(!) after which we all opened the gifts we'd bought each other - typically 'budget' and very Indian - tops, sandals, a fake Rolex for me (from the woman whose father worked for Trading Standards) and the surprise hit - traditional string puppets from Rajasthan. Ella and Edie love them! I can't believe we bought Beatles Rock Band for the Wii last year when a puppet would have done.

We asked a splendid Canadian woman we'd met at The Y called Marilyn to join us for lunch and had a slap up feast of turkey, mash and sprouts! What a result! Then we drove for a couple of hours (about 10 miles, then) through Mumbai's terror-traffic to our swish hotel near the airport. We only encountered 2 impacts on the journey, which locals assure me is a remarkably incident free journey through Mumbai. One bus simply changed lanes into the side of us scraping our plucky wing mirror all the way down his side, and a dozy driver in a surprisingly new car pulled out behind us, got his timing wrong and scraped the back of the van...the same panel that had been repaired after the bus incident in Jordan! There's simply no point stopping to deal with these minor scrapes - no one has any road insurance and I've witnessed a few much worse bumps than that always result in a shouting match in the street before both injured parties simply accept they must drive away. It's knock for knock, or rather dog eat dog out there. 

The only other interesting aspect of the journey was our realisation that India's police really are as corrupt as several newspaper articles claim. Actually, corruption in India is so rife that you see signs asking you to report corrupt officials. (But how would you trust the people you're reporting them to?)

We crossed a busy junction along with lots of other cars, tuk tuks and cabs and a traffic policeman blew his whistle and waved at us. We were lost, so pulled over to ask his for directions. He looked at the map and told us the way before telling us he needed 500 rupees. Why?

"Penalty" he smiled. "You crossed a signal. Dangerous driving."

"Er...it was green, and we crossed with everyone else."

"No, no, no. 500." he insisted.

I remembered something my clearing agent John had said as I drove him back into Mumbai that first time. As we approached a police check point he'd said "Stick close behind a truck. If they see a foreign car they'll pull you over."

Jill stopped me arguing with the bent copper and offered him a hundred (about £1.40), which he took happily.

A little while later, while driving through the suburbs in a line of traffic a police motorcycle pulled along side my open window.

"Where are you going?" asked the young officer. I genuinely couldn't remember the name of the hotel, so simply shrugged.

"Dunno!"

"Pull over!"

"No thanks!"

And still he stuck with us.

"Pull over up here!"

"I haven't broken any law!" I insisted. He dropped back but then re-appeared.

"Pull over!"

"Stop distracting me!" I calmly instructed. "I'm trying to drive!"

At which point he dropped away, turned round and headed back to his territory.

A third traffic cop tried to wave us down as we pulled across a junction with all the other traffic but we just ignored him.

The only trouble, of course, is that with all this corruption around, how will we ever know if one of our wheels is falling off, or if we have an angry monkey on the roof? No amount of waving and whistle blowing is stopping this big yellow bus. Next stop - Goa.

Getting down in tinsel town

Mumbai, India

It happened at the Gateway of India.

A fitting monument from under which a monumental opportunity should arise.

We had travelled to Mumbai on the overnight sleeper from Delhi. Since watching Michael Palin grapple with the Indian railways over twenty years ago I had wanted to experience them for myself. The brilliant film The Darjeeling Limited only strengthened my desire. I'd already suspected that the wonderful 1940s wooden panelled four-bunk compartments on the picturesque Darjeeling line would have been superceded by more modern carriages on the Rajasthan Express, so wasn't too disappointed to find ourselves in a 'British Rail circa 1970s' plastic palace. The class system on Indian rail is complicated and offers almost a dozen different ways of getting from A to B, from 1AC at the top (air conditioned sleeper in a four bunk booth) down to unreserved sleeper class where, even after purchasing a ticket, you're not guaranteed a place on the train until boards are published on the platform bearing the names of the lucky few.

We'd chosen the third rung down, 3AC, which meant sharing in a booth of eight bunks. The most surprising thing about the journey apart from the price (about £21 each for a 1500 mile journey!) was the constant food we were brought. We only discovered after settling in and chatting to one of our Indian co-bunkees that the Rajasthan Express is the only train line in India which provides food included in the ticket price. It started just after departing at 4.30pm with afternoon tea - a sandwich, a samosa, a cake and tea or coffee. Unfortunately for us, we all thought this was our main meal, and as we hadn't eaten since 8am tucked in with such gusto that when our neighbours offered us their unwanted samosas and sandwiches we heartily unburdened them. It was with some surprise, therefore, that two hours later we were served cups of spicy tomato soup. Delicious, we thought. That'll be supper just before bed.

Then came another tray. Dal, paneer masala, rice, pickle, papads, nan. And still our travel companions were offering us more. 

"You want?" asked bunk six (Kohe, a Japanese student) offering me a nan.

Oh dear. I'm new to sleeper train etiquette, but I imagine vomiting is frowned upon.

We bravely battled on, doing our level best to clear our trays, before collapsing in a bloated sweat.

"Amazing," we panted.

"Brilliant," we gasped.

"Why don't Chiltern Railways do this?"

And just as Ella groaned "I couldn't eat another thing," the porter reappeared.

"Ice cream?"

"Ooh yes please!"

Mumbai is a sixteen hour train ride from Delhi, but is a world away. The narrow, chaotic, smoke-filled streets of the capital are replaced by wide boulevards with trees and daylight above. Traffic stops at traffic lights. There is barely a cow to be seen, and certainly no hogs, camels and piles of burning trash on every corner. The architecture is stunning, a glance to the left looks like Georgian London, while one to the right finds a gothic church sandwiched between tenements reminiscent of New York. The buttresses, domes and stained glass windows of the Victoria Terminus have seen it described as 'to the British Raj what the Taj Mahal is to the Mughal empire' - a stunning mixture of Victorian, Hindu and Islamic styles which is now a World Heritage Site. Our wide eyed first impression of the city as we drove from the station to Colaba was borne out by our experience on the streets. Yes, there were beggars and hawkers - as you'd expect in this touristy part of town - but after Delhi it felt as comfortable as strolling through Oxford. Its relatively obedient traffic, its occasional smart cafe or swish gallery made it feel cosmopolitan, the most western, and 'Western' city we'd seen in India. We've met a few travellers here from all over the world, and it gives us a quiet feeling of smugness to hear their alarm at the noise, pace and sensory overload of landing in Mumbai from Australia, Italy or London. A chap from England used a phrase Jill had herself coined in Delhi.

"It's just a complete lack of order!" he exclaimed.

"You wanna try Delhi," we would smile, grateful now for our toughening up in India's fire-pit. Only one foreigner we've met, a girl from Portugal, had been to Delhi and she described it as "my least favourite city in the world," which made me laugh. I thought that was a bit strong, but it was reassuring to know it wasn't just us who felt a wave of relaxing calm on arriving in Bombay.

And so, having installed ourselves in the YWCA, it was time to explore. The YWCA, by the way, is a fantastic place to stay; clean, cheap and breakfast and an evening meal are included. Best of all, it requires membership, so it is with much pride that I now carry my Young Women's Christian Association member's card. I'll keep it with my Brownie uniform.

*

It was a lazy Sunday morning. Mumbai's streets were surprisingly quiet and we planned to cross a tiny stretch of the Arabian Sea to visit Elephanta Island. (There are no elephants there. Please don't get distracted). I was buying the ferry tickets in the shadow of the Gateway of India when it happened.

"Hello, I'm from Bollywood," said the voice. "Would you like to be in a Bollywood film?"

I laughed out loud. Now I'd heard them all. Hawkers are constantly bombarding you with lines - "Excuse me sir", "Hello, how are you?", "You want taxi? Hop in!", "City tour?", "Sir! Wait!". Eventually you get immune. But this was a new one.

"Please, I'm serious," said the man, and he looked it. Everything about this should be a scam, I thought, but I recognised the look in his eyes. It was the look of a beleaguered production assistant who'd been tasked with the impossible.

"I need to find 20 people who look English for filming tomorrow," he explained.

"Where's your card?" asked Jill.

The man was taken aback. So was I.

"Er, it's in the car."

"Let's see it then."

As he scurried off to get his business card, Jill explained. She'd read about this happening, which is how she knew the drill - get their card, ask the terms, where the shoot is, all the details. It's not uncommon for Bollywood films to recruit Western tourists as 'background artists' ('extras' to you, me and Ricky Gervais) in the hope of adding some glamour to a movie on the cheap.

"Glamour? Clearly he's more desperate than we thought," I said.

And so it was, that at 8am the next day we were picked up on the Bollywood Bus - destination: Destiny.

At this stage I need to make a few things clear. The casting agent, Imran, who had found us at the ferry terminal (or 'the bottom of the barrel' as it's known in casting terms) had told us the film title, the star, that we could all be used (although Edie may be too young but he'd do his best) and that we'd get to meet the star, take lots of photos and be well looked after with lunch and drinks thrown in. Also, we'd be paid the handsome figure of 500 Rupees for our trouble.

"Seven pounds for a day's work!" I had remarked to Jill later. "It's a bit of a cheek, isn't it?"

"Hmmm. Like you wouldn't have paid them to do it," she pointed out, knowing me far too well.

"And what will we have to do?" I had asked Imran.

"Just dance," he smiled.

"Well, we're all brilliant dancers!" I lied. "Will we be shown what to do?"

"Just freestyle. It's a party scene."

"Freestyle. My favourite!" I beamed.

The rest of the day was filled with nervous chatter about movie stars, costumes, luxury trailer dressing rooms and how on earth we were going to avoid being the five people in the scene who looked awkwardly like they'd been dropped into the party straight off the ferry from the land of Twoleftfeet.

We had duly researched the movie that would herald our big screen debut, and if anything it upped the stakes. Ra.One is a sci-fi movie that holds the impressive accolade of being 'the most expensive Bollywood movie ever made'. It's pronounced 'Rah one' as opposed to 'Ar ray one', (which is a shame because 'Ar ray' is a scouse term of disagreement, as in "Ar ray dat's cheat'n!").

It stars Shahrukh Khan, known as King Khan 'round these parts, who is Bollywood's numero uno, bar none. As well as being the Brad Pitt/Johnny Depp of India, he's the founder of two production companies (one of which - Red Chillies - is making what from this point forward shall be called 'my film'), he's considered to be one of the world's most successful movie stars thanks to fans numbering billions and has a reported net worth of 540 million US dollars. He was also in Newsweek's Top 50 'Most powerful people in the world'. As if that's not enough, he's even been on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross! I was slightly sheepish I hadn't heard of him.

When we arrived at the 'lot' (that's what us movie stars call the studios, plural) we were escorted into an empty 'stage' (that's what us movie stars call the studio, singular) where brightly coloured fabric walls had been erected on bamboo frames, making separate areas for 'makeup and wardrobe' (that's what us movie stars call makeup and wardrobe).

While an eager gaggle of twenty or so tourists waited expectantly, a girl with a clip board, earpiece and wearing a Batman tee-shirt pointed at people, beckoning them inside. Oh no! A selection process! Before I had time to fully gather what was happening she pointed at me.

"You. Inside."

I stepped forward, but suddenly felt that awkward twist in my stomach, like the immigrant men who, trying to enter America, had been separated from their families at Ellis Island. I couldn't leave them, could I? I looked back at their faces. They looked just as uncertain as I did. But none of them reached out to stop me, so I ran towards the light.

Having been duly made up by Santosh - conversation limited:

"I've covered your spot."

"Santosh, you're a wonder."

"Next!"

I was bustled into wardrobe. Girls who just minutes earlier has been bleary eyed travellers in rag-tag clothing on our bus were now tottering about on precarious heels wearing little more than glittery string. Clearly by 'Western glamour' Bollywood meant 'Western flesh.' One girl asked if she could wear something that covered her up a little more and was told "Oh no! This is what London girls wear!" The 'Batman' girl re-appeared.

"What shall I wear?" I asked, secretly eying the heels.

She shouted to a man next to rail of shiny shirts, and shoved me towards him.

"You're behind the bar. Bar tender," she said.

"That's uncanny. You have a gift," I replied, and was squeezed into the campest bar tender's outfit possible without introducing feathers.

Reunited with my family in my shimmering satin shirt, crotch clenching pants, golden bhangra braces and a sequinned (yes, you heard me) tie, I judged by their laughter that they weren't too sore about not being in the film. Ella, Bethan and Jill were repeatedly offered the chance to dress up and go 'on set' (that's what us ... oh forget it) but the sight of what all the other girls were wearing (or not wearing) put them off. They installed themselves in the wings to read, play cards, watch TV and laugh at me.

Just to clarify, this man is straight

I've never been an extra before. It's a lot less fun than it looks in the Ricky Gervais series. Cameras and mobile phones were banned, but, undeterred by my lack of pockets, I snuck mine on-set in my shoe - sorry the shots aren't great. The scene was in a London nightclub and the set was impressive - a central illuminated dance walkway and circular stage, raised tables and seating around the sides, huge video walls leading to a wondrous bar at the back. Behind that bar is a less than wondrous barman. In fact there are two. A long haired guy from Norway and a bloke in unfeasibly tight trousers.

Because the scene was a music number, it was shot in tiny chunks. Rather than having a sequence of events, or dancing that you shoot a few times from different angles (which is what happens in TV) the entire jigsaw was precisely built, tiny piece by tiny piece. This means fifteen or twenty minutes of setting up a shot (the first four bars of the song, for example), and then about twenty takes of that same four bars. After each take, the music stops, everyone stops dancing, the director shouts "Re-set," and we all hang around for five minutes until, again, the cry goes out "AC off!" (air conditioning off - that's so they can use smoke) "Dry ice!", and then "Sau sau!" which was the director's way of asking for 'Sound'. Once again the first beats of a banging bhangra dance tune would start. "Let's go! shouts the director loudly. "Energy!" and the room would burst into life, I'd allow myself a small amount of grooving and do a fine impression of Tom Cruise in Cocktail, but without the bar skills and juggling talent.

A standard shooting day in Bollywood is twelve hours. I got to know pretty much every other extra there that day, including Indian models who do it for a living and even an English girl from Norwich who lives in Mumbai and does agency acting to make a bit of cash. There was some unrest a while ago when Indian actors threatened to strike because of studios using tourists as extras, a fact brought sharply into focus when I chatted with Gordum, an Indian model at my bar. He was pleasant enough and we talked for about half an hour about films and music and books, but only after he'd quizzed me on my visa status and what I was being paid. I think the locals still resent white skinned Westerners walking into a day's work. He was earning ten times what I was, so there were no hard feelings.

By 8pm we were all shattered. Jill and the girls were a lot less bored than I feared, and in fact grateful they had not been on the set, where hanging around doing nothing was driving me crazy. At least they had their laptop and books to read. Our scene had got about as far into the song as the first verse. Shahrukh Khan had made an appearance for about an hour to do one shot, where he beckoned the singer over from the edge of the dance platform (I believe it'll be R'n'B star Akon in the film - I can reveal it was a double for this shot) and pulls him off the stage. I never saw him after that, so sorry - no pic of me and one of top fifty most powerful people in the world. My bar tender buddy, though, shared the toilets with him.

"Shahrukh Khan, a man worth 540 million dollars, uses the same loos as us?" I asked, amazed.

"Apparently," shrugged my Norwegian friend. This was quite some revelation, given the typically Indian quality of the facilities. 

Shahrukh Kahn's toilet, yesterday

The floor manager was doing his best to motivate the party people. "Come on! Let's go! It's a party! Keep the energy up! And that includes the barmen!" I'd been noticed! Maybe not for the right reasons, but still ...

By 8.30 I was getting gung-ho with my moves. Years of working in TV weren't wasted as I spent every shot making sure I was within sight of the lens, and lacking the permission to use the bar props (the bottles were all fake - props guys made whisky by diluting cola) I was tossing a chrome cocktail shaker in the air with casual aplomb. I doubt for a moment it will distract the viewer from the eight scantily clad female dancers in the foreground who appeared to be tasked with an enormous amount of 'booty' to shake, but I was having fun.

Again ... and again ... and again we did this shot. When will it end? Let me go home!

Again the music started. Again Akon started singing about a girl who is apparently 'criminal'. Again I smiled jauntily as I spun the chrome beaker into the air. I winked at a girl, because I think detail matters and De Niro would have done it. I dropped the beaker.

CLANG!

Everyone near the bar turned round.

The director shouted "CUT!"

I held my breath.

"That's a take!"

Of course it was. Twelve hours of 'barman' solid gold and they take the one where I drop the cocktail shaker.

They asked me back the next day to continue shooting the scene but I declined. I don't want fame to change me. I learned from 'Norwich Girl' that they're taking five or six days to shoot that one scene, and as 'Norwegian Man' was also occupied the following day, it's safe to assume the bar staff may change five or six times during one song.

But when Ra.One is released next year, and you hear Akon's tune start in a busy nightclub, just keep an eye out for Barman 2. 

And if you don't see me, just listen for the clang.

Grrrrrrrrrrr

Udaipur, India

Miles - who knows? Somewhere around 7,000? Penny's afloat somewhere in the Gulf of Arabia.

When we planned that our world tour would include India, one of the things we dreamed about was the prospect of seeing a tiger in the wild. Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan is widely regarded as the best possible place to witness such a thing, and since we had altered our plans to fly into Delhi rather than Mumbai, it was, in Indian terms, a short drive. Just 7 hours.

Waking before dawn and taking a 6am 'canter' - basically a school minibus with the roof peeled off - through the freezing mist into the wild bushland, our hopes were high of seeing one of natures rarest predators, that ancient Indian symbol of courage, the tiger. To see two would be incredible, and that's why I opened this chapter with that  jaw dropping photo I took...

...of a magazine.

The 1000RP (about £14) each I had invested in our 'safari' (which comes from the ancient African word saf-a-ri, meaning 'expensive disappointment') proved fruitless. Bless the girls for looking on the bright side, saying things like 

"It was nice to see the peacocks."

"And the deer. They were nice."

Peacocks! Deer! It's not Blenheim Palace! I wanted teeth and claws and roars and at the very least a dangerously close encounter with a cobra or two.

"There! On the lake" the guide would whisper with reverence. "An egret!"

An egret! Brilliant! We've crossed countless borders and 2 continents to see a bird also found in Poole Harbour!

"What next?" I whispered in awestruck wonder. "A pigeon?"

Of course I didn't. I was sitting next to Jill and I value my shins. 

In fact, although I can share my inner most thoughts with you, I actually do a good impression of a relatively non-cynical dad when in public. You should have heard me trying to engage Bethan, whose interest had waned somewhat after an hour or so.

"Look at the long grass, Beth. Can't you just imagine the tigers prowling stealthily towards their prey?!"

'Imagine'! That's right, I'm painting pictures in my childrens' minds! I should be invoicing those thieves in safari clothing. To be fair to the 'safari', we did see a crocodile. It was some distance away, but here's my long-zoom picture.

It lay entirely motionless while we watched. I know what you're thinking. I was thinking it too. Is that fibreglass? I blame Disney. I've seen too many theme parks. That damned mouse has robbed me of my wide eyed wonder.

We travelled on, bravely shouldering the crushing disappointment, to Udaipur, a pretty city on a large lake that bills itself as 'The Venice of the East'. (I thought that was Norwich). On the way we stopped at a large fortified town on a hill, looked at some temples, saw an ornate tower on a hill, spent some time in Udaipur looking around a 15th Century palace and another few Hindu temples, and the fact that I'm glossing over all these things is intentional. I need to crystalise in my mind a phenomenon that is affecting us all, and sharing it here is, unfortunately for you, reader, the easiest way I can do that. It's hard to describe the condition without it sounding horribly snooty, condescending and superior, but you're used to me by now, so here goes.

We're all suffering from a malaise that can only be described as 'travel weariness'. It's a creeping apathy that needs arresting and throttling as quickly as possible. A disease that, if left unchecked, may leave me being the only guy who'll turn up at The Grand Canyon and sigh "Not bad. Bit like the Wadi Mujib but with more tourists." I don't want to be that guy!

Getting the driver was a mistake. Naresh (nick name, er...Nick) is a nice enough bloke, but we constantly feel we're letting him down with our reactions. He'll offer us sightseeing opportunities that we feel we can't say no to, only to see him crestfallen when we return to the car after 15 minutes.

"You not like? Why so quick?" he would plead.

It's not that we don't like ruined forts, or old palaces and ornate temples, but...let me put it like this:

There's a scene in a film (sorry for the constant movie references in these blogs), no, not a scene - it's the definitive scene in the definitive sci-fi thriller. Rutger Hauer is Roy, a non-human 'replicant' battling with the realisation that he is mortal, and about to die. As he pushes a nail into the palm of his hand, trying to stave off the eternal sleep that's overwhelming him, he delivers Blade Runner's finest monologue to a rain sodden Harrison Ford.

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe" he starts, and then goes on to describe such fantastical sights as "attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion" and "sea beams glitter in the dark off the Tenhauser Gate" (wherever that is). I'm not going to post the YouTube link right here because you'll click it and then I'll have lost you. It amazes me you've read this far, and if it comes down to me versus Ridley Scott, I don't fancy my chances.

(Sigh, OK...I'll put it at the bottom.)

That scene keeps springing to mind when we feel duty bound to raise an excited smile and say complimentary things about the historic landmarks we're shown. 

"This is seats of ancient theatre" a guide will say, "where emperor would be entertained." Not bad, but I've stood in the Colosseum.


"This jug from 1500s." I've picked up discarded pottery that pre-dated Christ. 

"These walls are dating from 11th Century." I've blown dust off a 3000 year old Moab altar.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.

It's awful, and I feel horribly guilty admitting it. We're all unbelievably lucky to be seeing such treasures, and I really mean it when I say I don't want to become the man who shrugs "Yeah, pretty big. Shame about the flies" at Ayers Rock, but I'm giving you an honest insight into our mental state. At dinner tonight (vegetable biryani, vegetable pakora, zera aloo (potato and cumin) and naans - a week in India and still no meat! - Hooray for absence of dysentery!), one child asked how long the drive will be tomorrow and when Jill said 3 hours another child said "Can we please not stop at a fort?". None of us are proud of that, but there it is; the phenomenon of 'travel weariness'. I'm not entirely comfortable telling you about it, but it's too late now. I'm blowing the taboo wide open. It doesn't help that we're actually missing your snow. There, I've said it. Stop looking so smug.

Chittogargh. It's a fort. It's old.

As this blog is a little light on content (I was really counting on those tigers) I'd like to share a funny story that has entertained us throughout some of the many miles dodging cattle and kamikaze cars as we trek across India:

One of our dearest friends (who shall remain anonymous, lest the parents involved in this story somehow read this and join the dots) is a primary school teacher. She recently went for lunch with another primary teacher friend of hers and the conversation turned to the subject of 'what unusual children's names have you got this year?' - surely a perennial favourite with teachers of our little treasures.

"I've got a girl in my class" said her friend, "who spells her name like this."

She started to write on a serviette. "How would you pronounce it?"

She had written 'Le-a'

"Well," guessed our mate, "that must be Leah."

"Wrong." replied her friend. "I was calling her Leah for several days before her parents corrected me. Her name is Leedasher. You pronounce the dash!"

Isn't that brilliant? The 'text speak' generation is spawning its own breed of punctu-pronunciated children!

So, you know what's coming. 

What other clever names can there be that use this fresh new device? I'm sure you can suggest some. For those readers who are expecting a child, here are a few ideas gleaned from our long car journeys.

There's Dottie, obviously, spelt .e

(The friend in the story got that one, you see.)

But what about +am, P@, M@ and K@? Oh and don't forget H@ttie (or H@T, but that just spells hat).

Andy, Sandy, Sasha and Spike become &y, S&i, S#a and Sπk

But the star of the show, with his shaggy haired panache:

Gun's 'n' Roses guitarist, the man they call /

(and you thought this was just a travel journal)

Speak soon. Enjoy the snow. x

Blade Runner clip - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTzA_xesrL8

Are you telling your friends about this blog yet? What's wrong with you? You're snowed in aren't you? 9,000 hits and climbing! Get emailing! There's nothing better to warm your cockles on a cold winter's day than a mystical tale from the jungles of the East with absolutely no detail on history or culture and where the tigers don't turn up.

Two towns that tuk tuk our breath away

Agra, India

Unless you were born here, I imagine nothing on earth can prepare you for India. I suspect even people who were born here find themselves startled, confused and discombobulated from time to time. You've watched the travel documentaries, read the books, seen 'Slumdog Millionaire'. You know it's kaleidoscopic, crazy and chaotic. But not until you set foot here, for us it was central Delhi, do you feel its insanity full in the face.

With Penny safely stowed in a container in Aqaba awaiting her sea journey to Mumbai, we flew to New Delhi to backpack our way south to meet her as she docked in 'Bombay' (as sailors still call it) in mid December. Our introduction to India was something of a baptism of fire. We'd booked a budget hotel in the middle of Delhi's bazaar area and the pre-arranged cab that took us there at 6am was breaking almost as fast as the dawn. It wasn't even a 'car' as you'd know it. I think it was made of Meccano and cardboard. Doors didn't latch, wheels wobbled when its speed passed walking pace and every lurch and bump greeted us with an alarming screech or scrape from below. I sat in the front squeezed next to the cabbie, our faces lit by a plastic disco temple flashing brightly from the dashboard. Jill and the girls squashed into the back, 1 wide eyed in horror, 3 almost instantly asleep. After about 40 minutes we reached the kind of back streets that make Danny Boyle's 'Slumdog' Mumbai look like Surbiton. It was almost 7am and already heaving with life. 

Dogs, hogs, camels and cows shared rammed alleys with rickshaws, cyclists, traffic and tuk tuks - the tiny gas powered 3 wheeled rickshaws that fill every gap in every street. Cooking smells merged with the stench of litter, drains, heavy incense and an open trench being used as a gents' loo. There is simply no point of reference for the Western psyche. No high street banks, no car parks, food shops, bars or fast food outlets. All these things exist, of course, but in a form unrecognisable to our English eyes. I found an ATM bank machine, but it was behind a plastic door jammed between a bicycle repair workshop and a fabric stall. Food is available everywhere, you just won't see any brand names (apart from Pepsi of course, a pioneer of globalisation).  Downtown Delhi feels like the design of a child who drew all his streets with a big fat crayon and filled them with his favourite vehicles, shops and animals, before handing the plans to his younger brother, who didn't rub out the original, but simply added more, until several generations later we have the finished product - a multi-coloured chaotic scribble of noise and mayhem.

The hotel was cheap. Not the cheapest, but cheap enough to have damp beds and mice. We got moved to slightly drier quarters, but I think the mouse on our landing had residents status. We sank into an uneasy jet lagged sleep until mid afternoon when I tried to convince my family to brave the streets and see Delhi. A walk through the bazaar (just the name for this quarter, not an actual building) brought the same level of pestering we'd been used to in Syria, but it was obvious from the start that  we wouldn't be quite so isolated in the crowd. There were other westerners here, not coach parties, but every now and again the white face of a traveller wearing relaxed hippy clothing and an SLR camera would drift by. The pestering hawkers were keen, but not aggressive, and as Edie noticed quite quickly, they almost all wore similar clothes to ours - jeans and tee shirts. We'd stuck out so much more in Syria because almost everyone there wore robes.

It was still a lot to take in though, and by the time we'd battled our way past Delhi's train station mayhem and been approached a dozen times by people offering to take us wherever we wanted to go, Jill buckled.

"Let's go back."

"But we haven't got there yet" I whined.

"Got where?"

"Connaught Place. It's a big circle with loads of shops and stuff."

Simply standing still to have this sort of conversation will invite at least 2 random strangers to stop, listen in and offer their advice.

"Connaught Place is just up there." offered the first.

"No, no, come with me," interjected the second. "You must bear left."

"I will take you." insisted the first.

"No, really, we're fine." assured Jill, but a polite refusal won't shake these people, you have to walk away, and even then most will follow you. We pressed on, ignoring several urgent invites into tourism shops all claiming to be the 'official Government office', until the only thing stopping us from reaching our destination was the 6 lane outer ring of Connaught Place. All the traffic lights on the main road had been switched off. Clearly installing them had been a pointless waste of electricity, as no one on India's roads adheres to any rules at junctions apart from 1: Keep going and do not give way to any living thing.

As a result all 6 lanes of one-way traffic were a relentless stream of cars, motorbikes, tuk tuks and rickshaws, none of them sticking to a lane, but all weaving, dodging and constantly edging into any gap that might give them an advantage over their competitors.

I'd always considered New York must be a difficult place to take children mainly because of the traffic, but although it's busy and loud, they do at least obediently stop at traffic lights allowing pedestrians to pass without dying. No such luxuries in Delhi. We grabbed the childrens' hands and waited, forlornly, for a break in the mêlée. After a minute or so of white knuckle half-attempts that saw us scurry back to safety, a boy of about 15 joined us.

"Come with me." he said, his gleaming teeth smiling broadly. "Takes practice!"

He stepped out in front of a speeding Ambassador - an ancient car, prolific here, built like a tank and based on the old British Morris Oxford. I held my breath, the kid held his nerve, the car held back. I dragged Ella and Bethan with me in the boy's wake as he progressed, expertly timing each step to perfection so that we wove through the onslaught like salmon defeating the rapids. If you're a child of the 80s and you ever played the computer game Frogger, we were living it. Relieved and joyous, we reached the other side and thanked the boy who simply said "No problem".

"Wow!" I said, turning to Jill.

Who wasn't there.

"Oh no!" shouted Ella, laughing. She was looking across the traffic to the distant figures of Jill and Edie, still standing on the other side, mouthing "Help". I shrugged. Did she really think I was going to fight my way back to get them? I'd just been helped across a road by a 15 year old boy - I'd lost any shred of pride at lane 2.

Seeing the situation, the lad effortlessly dodged back through the deafening traffic to rescue them, guiding them into the path of an oncoming truck while Ella, Bethan and I witnessed Act 2 of the circus from the safety of the stalls. I tried to capture this moment for you on my phone, but you only see Jill as she reached safety. Look very carefully at the first blurry photo of the speeding yellow tuk tuk, though, and you can see Edie's red top through his window. It's only now, when I look at these photos that I realise there's a zebra crossing on the road! Brilliant.

The same thing happened at the next junction we crossed, a young lad of about 19 stepped forward to slow the traffic and we ducked gratefully into his wake. I got chatting to him as we walked. He told me he could never remember the traffic lights having worked here, and that it takes most visitors at least a fortnight to master crossing the road. I think he was politely humouring me. His name was Bahrat and he was on his way to buy cinema tickets for a later showing of a new Bollywoood film he'd arranged to watch with his girlfriend. He asked all about our trip, and told us he was visiting the UK for the first time next year. His family ran a restaurant in Delhi, but he had the night off - Friday night was date night. When I told him we were getting around by train, and commented that our afternoon of internet searching had proved frustrating as most of the trains were full, he said "Always full online. You need to go to the rail office. They have a tourist quota they hold back."

Even better, the rail ticket office was just opposite the cinema. He showed us there, then nipped off to buy his Bollywood tickets before re-joining us in the office in case we needed any help. The upshot of our investigations in the rail office was that we could get to Mumbai quite easily, but filling the next fortnight with other sights would be almost impossible by rail. The stations weren't placed near the places we wanted to go (a tiger reserve in Rajasthan, for one) and the fact that we'd always be buying 5 tickets forced the rail representative to reluctantly admit it would be much cheaper for us to hire a car. The thought of battling the madness outside in a hire car with a £500 damage waiver hanging over my head didn't really appeal, but that's not what he meant. Most tourists book a car and driver - it's cheaper than hiring a car because you're not paying huge insurance premiums and far cheaper than repeatedly buying 5 rail tickets and numerous cab fares. Soon a deal was done through a local firm and we had secured the services of Naresh (known as Nick - I asked him why. He said it's his nick name. I laughed at the pun. I don't think he got it.) and we were planning days in Agra, Ranthambore and Jaipur before getting the overnight sleeper train (huge tick for me, long held dream, The Darjeeling Limited and all that) from Delhi to Mumbai. We thanked Bahrat (who had ordered us some tea), swapped email addresses, promised to help him with his visit to England and, as we'd spent a significant few minutes discussing Bollywood, promised to visit Asia's Biggest Cinema when we got to Jaipur.

"It is a palace. You will love it!" he beamed, and left to get on with date night.

So now we were tourists. Being without Penny was inconvenient because we missed having our own transport and cheap beds for the night, and it also felt, after 3 months together, like we'd lost a family member. But worse than that we'd lost our credibility as overland travellers. No amount of explaining to people that we were driving around the world and our van was on a ship could change the fact that we were just tourists now. Backpackers, sure, but we needed transport and accommodation just like every other holiday maker from the west. This didn't sit very easy with any of us, so Jill made a mental adjustment.

"Let's treat it like a holiday. We can't get on with our journey until Penny gets here, we've got transport, we've got hotels we can stay in - OK they're not exactly luxury, but all the same - it's a holiday. Let's be tourists." 

"Good plan." I agreed.

"I'm getting a guide" she added.

"What?"

"Nick can get us a guide in Agra to show us the Fort and the Taj Mahal. It's only a fiver for the day. I'm going all 'cruise ship'"

She was living the dream. She'd be having a spa treatment next.

So we started the next day in Delhi at the government buildings - their equivalent of the Houses of Parliament - where we happened to witness the changing of the guard, a daily ceremony with even more pomp than London's. It includes ranks of cavalry men and a marching band, yet incredibly only about a dozen members of the public happened to be there to enjoy it. We seized the opportunity to cover some World History with the girls by visiting Indira Gandhi's house, now a museum, which tells the story of her life and assassination. Most macabre is the display of the sari she was wearing when shot by her own guards in 1984, grizzly dark brown blood stains still clearly visible around the bullet holes. This had the effect of engaging young minds, otherwise bored by newspaper cuttings and photographs, not just of our own kids but of the army of neatly uniformed and beautifully polite school children we shared the museum with.

I mentioned New York earlier, and if you're ever lucky enough to go, you should make a visit to Ellis Island an early priority. It tells the story of how immigrants built the city and gives you a foundation of knowledge that benefits your entire understanding of the place. We had a similar experience - understanding a country's history early in the visit -  at the Mahatma Gandhi memorial. To put Gandhi's life in perspective the museum explained in simple terms the various periods of India's history, including of course the British occupation, which is painted in a predictably poor light. Again, it was his violent end that captured the girls' imagination. You can walk in the great man's final footsteps from his bedroom to the prayer ground where he was shot before taking a public prayer meeting, and read an eyewitness account of how events unfolded.  There are quotes dotted around the site, some from Gandhi - 'My life is my message' and ' I don't preach a new message. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills' are a couple I recall. A particularly fitting one was from Albert Einstein.

"There you go, girls", said Jill. "You can say that when people ask why you missed school for a year."

'The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education'.

Agra is as busy, colourful, polluted and chaotic as any large Indian city, but has one massive USP. The Taj Mahal was built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his second wife Mumtaz, whose death in childbirth in 1631 is said to have turned the Emperor's hair grey overnight. If it wasn't such a poignant story I'd make a joke here about Phillip Schofield. It's often described as the most extravagant monument ever built for love (the Taj, not Schofe's hair) and is therefore a must-see for any visitor to northern India. Its design is clever in that you can't see it from outside its symmetrically placed gates, so only when you pass through one of the mighty arches do your eyes meet its dazzling splendour. It's breathtaking. No, really, it is. Jill nearly cried. I'm not kidding. First of all, it's much bigger than you think. All those travel brochure snaps, and 'that' Princess Diana picture don't do any justice to its scale. When you walk into its gardens and see how tiny the people are at its distant doorways, you do a double take. (I don't mean they have tiny people at its doors. Indians do tend to be quite small, but...well, you know what I mean). The white marble has 4 changing colours each day - pink at sunrise, white in the daylight, golden orange at sunset and a milky cream by moonlight. We were there at sunset, so having taken the obligatory family snaps at India's most famous landmark, we sat down leaning against the west wall's mosque and watched the crowds milling about (almost all Indian, by the way) and the Taj's dome, walls and towers assume a warm orange glow as the sun slid away. It was a trip highlight.

After walking back to the car through the increasingly gloomy park as the wild monkeys came out to play, we made an unscheduled stop.

"Stop here!" several voices shouted from the back of the car. Ella had spotted Agra's Costa Coffee.

"Aahhhh, a taste of the west." I explained to Nick. "Indulge us. We'll see you tomorrow."

We slurped coffee and hot chocolate from familiar corrugated cardboard cups and chattered about the things we'd seen. The feelings of uncertainty that had overwhelmed Jill and the girls back in Delhi were slowly ebbing away. Stepping into the darkness I hailed a tuk tuk to get us back to the slightly cleaner budget hotel we'd checked into, and as we raced through the night, the 4 girls squeezed on top of each other in the back, me hanging out of the front seat perched next to the driver, the wind rushing through our hair, we weaved and beeped past crowd, cows and camels through the busy Agra streets and allowed ourselves several whoops of delight. Giddy and laughing we piled out, and for the first time agreed that India might be quite cool after all.