Catching up with the Truppe Alpine in Dubai

The Truppe Alpine reigned supreme as London's premier faux-Italian football team between 2005 and 2006. Things fell apart with the departure of 1st cult hero Paolo Tanet and then Paul 'The General' Fields to Dubai. It would've been rude not to have a stopover in the UAE on our way back to blighty to catch up with these living legends of the Norbury Power League

(Ed, Nic, Paul, Paolo and Hagir)

In one of the strangest twists of our trip we got upgraded on the flight to Dubai, it would seem, sadly, given the evidence, that our selection was based just on us being European.

Backtwatters became Flashpackers and we spent the time gooning about in the enormous adjustable chairs, mucking about with the phones, and tucking into free booze and food.

Dubai couldn't have been a stranger transition to back home. 1st up everywhere is huge, and its a massive building site. It feels like one huge shopping centre; Bluewater in the desert. Its devoid of any real heart or soul. It's impressive, but all without any real substance. The actual shopping centres were incredible. Just a shame we had zero money to spend. There were enormous fish tanks and ice rinks and ski slopes to marvel at too in these cathedrals to consumerism.

Sheiks on skates

Friday night in Dubai led to predictable levels of gooning, and money being spent with reckless disregard for our daily budget. I suppose £45 for 3 drinks will be something that we need to get used to when we get back to London.

An aborted attempt to hook up with Paolo meant that the presents I had for him from India got taken out with us. The Indian bouncer was more than a little surprised by me me having a plastic bag with coffee beans and a lunghi in it, "you wear lunghi?!" Soon after this photo, the sex-pest police that roamed the club took exception to me having my arms round Nicky whilst I gave her a kiss. I, in turn, took exception to this and gave the bouncer an ear full; exploding with an expletive laden rant that she was my wife (I have had to jump the gun with referring to Nicky as my wife over the last few months, as it is unheard of for a couple our age to be together and not be wed. The fact that we don't have children yet tends to melt their heads too). He later came over to me, told me his name, that he was from Pakistan, and that he was sorry. I replied by telling him my name, that I was from Britain and that it was OK. We shook hands and went our separate ways.

Massive hangovers ensued, which were cured by relaxing in Paul's bachelor pad watching the whole second series on skins (disappointing) on his enormous TV, eating bacon sandwiches and baked meat and macaroni pie (Delia's bastard lasagna love child) ticking off 2 of the boxes in our top 5 of our foods we've been missing most list.

All in all, we were fighting it, but its time to go home

Saving the worst till last - Chennai

Chennai (formally Madras) is the worst city we have visited in India, possibly even on our trip. Phnom Penh takes it close. It really has very few redeeming features, well from what we saw, anyway. Rubbish everywhere, rats, extreme poverty side by side with the new wealthy middle classes, no descernable centre and a complete lack of 'sights'. So we spent our time, as always, taking pictures of the stupid stuff that we noticed.

Banana leaves being prepared for use as plates in the restaurants

Fresher than fresh chickens.

I never did get a Chicken Madras, strangely it was never on any menus. Having said that, I've never seen Dover Sole on the menu back at home either, but i think that says more about Dover than the Anglicised Curry we get back home. If anyone can tell me what Chicken 69 is, I'd be thankful, because I never felt like risking ordering it.

This policemen was chuffed to bits with me marveling at his enormous handlebar mustache and asking for his photo. He was on guard outside a police station, but was reluctant for his machine gun to be included in the shot, so merrily propped it up against a wall out of sight. So if anyone is planning a raid on anything being protected by an Indian Policeman, all you need to do to disarm them is complement their facial hair and ask for a photo.

Indian men are insanely and unashamedly vain, so this sign will not be followed

Is it the same man that does the watches and the circumcisions?

Eamon Holmes seems an unlikely poster boy.
I'd love to know if he's authorized the use of his image

Us struggling to enjoy Chennai wasn't helped that Nic wasn't well and had developed full blown curryphobia. This was like torture for me. Having curry 3 times a day is my idea of paradise.

Aloo Paratha (the breakfast of choie in the north of spicy potato filled chapati served with curd) and chai (insanely sweet and milky Indian tea)
- the only palatable breakfast option for a curryphobe

Masala Dosa (the southern breakfast of rice flour pancakes filled with spicy potato and served with a selection of curry dips) and chai
- the only serious option for a curry lover

Sadly all the bad aspects of being in India were getting to us now that the good aspects of India had stopped being so enthralling. We were tired, tired of everyday being a battle, tired of arguing about the price of everything, tired of the beggars and hawkers, tired of the noise and pollution. The romance of India had shrivelled, our love/hate relationship with India was looking dangerously like turning into just hate. We were ready to go home.

Our last evening provided us with a perfect example of the Indian experience. In the space of 15 minutes, we went from being joyous that we were going home, exasperated by the way things work in India after having ridiculous arguments with the staff at the relatively expensive hotel that we'd treated ourselves to about getting hot water and getting a taxi to the airport organized for the morning, to being gutted that we were going home due to the warmth of a waiter at a little locals restaurant round the corner. He was amused and bemused by my request for some chillies to go with my food (goras can't eat spicy Indian food, we have been told a million times, and each and every time we have told them we eat spicy Indian food at home every week but they refuse to believe us) and then watching me eat and remarking to Nicky, 'Your husband is very Mr Dangerous!' with a perfect Indian head wiggle, and wrist twist. Sorry if this all sounds a bit Jim Davidson.

The toilets at Chennai International Airport provide a perfect example of how India have a long way to go before they are the world superpower that they are claim they already are.

Everywhere we have been people are wonderfully proud of their country, nationalism untainted by far right associations, which is a beautiful thing. Sadly in India they take it a little bit too far. They feel blessed to be Indian, that it is the greatest country the world, and refuse to recognise any of the social, political or economic problems that they so clearly have. It is a wonderful country, full of wonderful people, sights and sounds, but also a country that is deeply flawed.

NYE in Fort Cochin

Before I get started on what we got up to in Cochin a mention does need to go to a remarkable hither to untapped gift that Tony 'the silver fox' Wellard possesses. Namely Catalogue posing.

We had it in our heads that Dad and Sue really should do some travel by train whilst we were with them, and after a hair raising time on the chaotic roads down to Kanyakumari, they were happy to give it a go. Whilst our journey to Alleppey saw us on a quite cosmopolitan commuter train with people heading from Trivandrum to Cochin, we had failed to book tickets for the Alleppey to Cochin section and decided that we'd live like a local and just buy an unreserved 3rd class ticket and see what happened. What happened was not unlike buying a standard class ticket in England. We stood in the aisle by the toilets for 2 hrs. Thankfully this cost us about 50p each, rather than £50 like it would at home.

Cochin is famous for its Chinese fishing nets.

They didn't look the most efficient means of fishing to me.

Dad and Sue treated us to a very fancy lunch in Hotel Malabar, where Nic got her mitts on her first glass of wine in months.

The rest of drinking venues we came across weren't quite as posh (see below) and we actually ended up tucked up in our beds before midnight. We really are gettin old.

There wasnt really much to apart from wonder round the winding old streets that had a definite European feel from their days as a Portuguese trading post.

The Portuguese even left their mark with Catholicism being the dominant religion

Only the cats seemed to be Hindu

After our dealings with Israeli backpackers in S America, we were suspicious about visiting the Jewish area of town.

Pornstar Ganesha

An unlikely promise

A very typical scene in India. Cricket is played on every spare scrap of land. These boys had a branch as a bat. They seam to learn just 2 shots; the forward defensive and slog.

Urban goats replaced the urban cow of the north

I'm sure I could get that in most towns back at home free of charge