Thrissur

Waking early to flee Shelob's lair, we endeavoured upon our first long coach journey - reassuring how it seems here that everyone will help to get you headed in the right direction. Our first leg - to Perumbavoor - was straightforward, despite the increasingly draining heat as we left the hills.

It was between Perumbavoor and Thrissur that we came unstuck: without a seat, we had to stand at the front of the coach in the sight of all the locals - a novelty that soon wore off. After my attempts to start chants failed (turns out only the English are easily pleased enough to shout "we're the leeeeeft side/we're the riiiiight side" endlessly), we became the target of looks dirty as Britain's track record in India. One old woman's nose-wrinkling made us particularly insecure - I've learnt that smiling sickeningly at horrible people disarms them far more effectively than they can you.

We arrived at our hotel, the Wariyam heritage - staffed by an outrageously kind manager and an ancient caretaker whose English consisted of the most vigorous head-wobbling we'd yet encountered. Hungry, we headed to the supposedly "jetset" (becoming increasingly doubtful in LP) Joy's Palace, where joy came in the form of ludicrously over-priced sandwiches... perhaps one of the most silly status symbols we've encountered. (Except, maybe, for the "fancy stationary" (sic) sold at Jolly & Jolly).

Thrissur is built around a large, circular, mound, at the middle of which stands the temple, to which we were denied entry by the fashionista guard on account of our unstylish clothes.

Walking around the perimeter wall, we were adopted by a local who fancied his hand at being a tour guide - insightful knowledge, despite a total lack of English. His pointing and view-finding did explain the source of the Savile-esque puffing coming from the other side of the wall: Elephants! 15 of which roam the temple grounds. Caught in an elephunk, we ventured into the pen to meet one of the massive mammals, which is when things got awkward: as I was stroking Sri Ramana's trunk, he seemed to get a little overexcited, to say the least. The keepers then tried to convince Lissy to stroke Sri's second trunk - they must've thought we were properly stupid, especially as they then had the cheek to ask for a tip (in vain)!

We fled back to our hotel, before heading out for a slap-up Chinese meal in town, such a relief to be off the curry for one night at least.

With love