True Pilgrims

Well our 22 hour trip to Tirupati turned into a 29 hour one. As always me and Paul got to sit next to the noisiest party on the whole train, in this case six fifty-sixty year olds from Delhi on a big tour of India. They were incredible mainly for their food consumption, which involved bringing a huge amoutn of food with them and then stopping anyone selling anything edible to consume yet more (someone went buy about every twenty minutes except for a two hour period wehre for some reason no-one came by at which point two of the chubsters held long loud conversations about how hungry they were) and also for the farting which went on continuously and which they found endlessly hilarious and got quite upset if we didn't join in the laughter (well after twenty hours it just didn't seem that funny anymore)
Tirumala is a big pilgrimage centre (the biggest in the world apparently) and is situated at the top of a hill 11km from the nearest town. Paul insisted we went the whole way by foot like all the other true Hindu pilgrims...we joined the hundreds of other people setting off happily but within ten minutes had joined the hundreds of people collapsing at the side of the ludicrously steep steps (well mainly I had, Paul was loudly announcing that he could run up them easily, which wasn't at all irritating) After the first half hour of moaning continuously, I actually got really into it, helped by the encouragement everyone was giving each other although there were quite a few people clearly wondering why non-Hindus would torture themselves this way. By the time we got to the top 4 hours, 4000 steps and 9km later, the rains (yes, it's monsoon in this part of India at the mo which we'd conveniently ignored when embarking on this journey) had really set in and the last hour was spent walking in the pissing rain unable to see more than a few feet in front of us, not quite the breathtaking views we had hoped for. Still there was the temple to see..... After discovering that getting a paying ticket was a labrynthine process so complex that no-one could even explain how it could be acheived, we joined the free entry queue, glad that we were really experiencing the whole pilgramage thing...right up unitl we found out that the queue entered something called the Q complex and involved being locked in a barn until you would be allowed in at 11.30 pm (8 1/2 hours later!) It was at this point that our dedication to being fake Hindus ran out (although we did resist the temptation to indulge in some small scale bribery to get in quickly deciding this was quite insulting to real Hindus, who were willing to walk all day in the rain and then spend 8 hours in a barn to get in. The nutters) Despite the farcical aspect of the whole day it was actually pretty fantastic, what with the atmosphere and the sense of acheivment (well for me - although Paul who claimed the whole thing was easy is still having naps the following day due to his 'exhaustion' whereas I am quite normal) .
Incidentally thanks to Szymon for the comment - we thought no-one was reading anymore but we have become strangely addicted to writing this so carried on anyway (V - we understand now). Come on Latch you can't tell me that you are now so involved in celebrity mum trivia that you no longer have the average two hour office time to play around on the Internet and leave us witty little messages.......we miss them!