So what happened was we got a naughty note.

We didn’t mean to get one.
We didn’t even mean to be naughty.
We didn’t know we had been naughty until Grumps informed us that we’d overstayed our visa by 1 whole day. You’d have thought we’d drowned his kitten the look he gave us.

We arrived in the Philippines on 18^th October. We had a 1 month visa. So we left on 18^th November. Apparently we should have left on 17^th. Bad times. So off we trotted to pay our fine.
“How much is it?”
Grumps: “For both of you?”
Lyvette: “yes, for both of us”
Grumps: “P4,020”
So off we sloped to the airport cash machine to get our money out with extortionate airport cash machine charges, before returning to Grumps flashing our cash.
Grumps: “P8, 040 for both”
Lyvette: “WHAT?! YOU JUST TOLD US P4,020 FOR BOTH OF US!!!!”
Grumps: “No, that’s for one”
More money out. More airport bank charges. So the equivalent of £80 and some scribbles on our passports later we were free to rush through security with red faces, naughty notes and a declaration that stated;

“This is to certify that the above named subject DOES NOT APPEAR in this Bureau’s Hold Departure, Blacklist, Watchlist and/or Intelligence Derogatory Records”. Well, I mean that’s ideal, nobody wants to be blacklisted in paradise.

It was all very extreme for 1 day of overstaying our welcome. And Grumps, well he needs to learn some customer service. We hate the Philippines. Paradise can do one..

After all the excitement I headed to 7-11 to get some water. There were no prices on the water so I asked the shop assistant.
“Excuse me, there are no prices on the water? How much are they?”
Lady: “There are no prices on the water.”
Me: “I know. How much are they?”
Lady: “There are no prices on the water.”
Me: “I know! (Manila airport was beginning to seriously irk me) That’s why I’m asking you!!!”
Lady leaves the shop with her tiny suitcase, wearing a Philippine Airline uniform with the rest of her air hostess colleagues. Ahhh, I see. I mean, you’d expect the air hostesses to memorise the price of water for pities sake. Our airport experience just kept getting better. And the actual 7-11 assistant just casually looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

“Can you be of assistance in case of an emergency?” Yeah sure, I mean I was a lifeguard for 6 years, I got this covered. “Ok, do you want extra legroom?” Yeah sure, I mean myself and Lyvette definitely need extra legroom. We definitely have the longest limbs on the plane and at 5”2 it’s essential that we stretch them out. No one wants deep vein thrombosis. Ok, so you got the general gist of things here. But extra legroom means an emergency exit seat. And with this seat comes extra responsibility. Which no one actually takes seriously when faced with that required extra leg room. However, when we arrived at our seats still carrying our naughty notes to find a lady sat next to the window shaking, I became concerned. She was scared of flying and wanted to swap seats so I was now next to the window. After reading the safety card I suddenly became nervous about my new responsibilities and my vow ‘to be of assistance’, next to the emergency exit.

I had somehow become responsible for saving nervous womans life. My lifeguard training all those years ago simply hadn’t prepared me for this. If the plane crashed I was single-handedly in charge of dismantling a plane door, throwing it out and inflating a slide (does the slide inflate itself or am I expected to blow it up?!) I mean what if the door flew inside the cabin with the pressure and took everyone else out? What if Lyvette or nervous woman panicked before I could complete my duties and pushed me out of the emergency exit into nothingness? What if I got suffocated by a cloud? Or I accidently popped the slide with my Ironman watch and killed everyone inside?! What if a lost pigeon dropped its load on me?

I decided I didn’t want my extra legroom.
I spent the next 2 hours pooing myself (not literally because in all honesty I hadn’t pooed for 5 days), with nervous woman shaking in the aisle seat. This must have been punishment for the naughty note.

On a positive note this was our last flight with Cebu Airlines which just happens to be the coldest airline in the world. The air hostesses must descend from eskimo’s and they have polar bears for pets. The insides of their planes resemble igloo’s. After 8 flights with them it’s no wonder I can’t poo, my insides have frozen and Lyvette’s glasses had actually iced over. Serious.

And then there we were in Hong Kong. It was quite a short visit, 3 nights so I’ll just do a brief summary:

• We have never seen so many tall buildings in our lives. Or buildings for that matter, but definitely tall ones. With lots of lights.
• Lyvette is currently sporting a neck brace from looking up so much at the tall buildings.
• Signs, so many signs everywhere.
• I just ate lamb chops that smelt of wee, they tasted great though.
• People on mobile phones as far as the eye can see, walking with phones, talking with phones, shopping with phones. I have come to the conclusion that everyone in Hong Kong leaves the uterus with a mobile attached to their hand. It’s a condition.
• It’s great, we loved it. Loud, lots of lights, atmosphere and some really nice people.
• Queues, maybe it’s because we went at a weekend but there were so many queues everywhere.
• Shoe shops. I mean how many shoe shops can you fit on one street? How many pairs of shoes can a person own? Do Hong Kongers actually have 3 pairs of feet each? I’m beginning to wish I had a shoe fetish. This would totes be the place to be.
• I’ve now pooed once in 7/8 days and it’s becoming an issue. I blame Cebu Airlines.
• There are 3 days a year when the Big Buddha (one of HK’s main attractions) cable cars are closed. Naturally it was when we arrived.
• Lyvette misses Tiger Balm.
• When we first arrived a very nice man tried to direct us to our hotel, “do you have a number?” he asked. “It’s an English phone number so it doesn’t work” I replied. “I mean the building number in the address”. Awkward. Especially with his wife sitting next to him.
• You can flush toilet paper down the toilet. It feels so good.
• We may have just seen an old lady get robbed, but we’re not quite sure. The outcome was some man took all of her food. And a drink. We just couldn’t work out if she was happy about this or not. It was the most civil mugging we’ve ever seen. We did try and ensure she was ok by giving her the universal ARE YOU OK? (thumbs up) sign but she just spoke extremely fast in Cantonese so we don’t actually know.
• We passed ‘Mingie Bar’ the other night. It stank. That’s not even a joke.
• Victoria Peak is like no other city view we have ever seen before. It’s amazing.
• Hong Kong may be my favourite Asian city.
• The MTR has secret toilets. So secret you can’t find them. “Excuse me, where are the toilets?” “That silver door with the tiny flashing light”. Ah I see. Cue us groping every wall and trying every silver door in the vicinity to find something that may resemble a toilet. Seriously, why can’t there be signs like any normal public place? Are you trying to promote people wetting themselves in public areas HK?!
• I managed a poo. Lyvette had a step by step commentary on this main event. She didn’t need it, we left the door open so she could be involved.

And then it was time to leave, so off we trotted to the massive airport that belonged to HK. Happy as Larry to be heading back to our beloved India and me hoping India would do its job and become my own natural laxative…

“Can we see your return flight please? We can’t issue you a boarding ticket without this.” HEAVENS T0 MERGATROID WHY DOES THIS CONTINUE TO HAPPEN TO US?!!!
We’re travelling, why would we have a return flight booked now? How do we know when and where we are going? Why is this not a requirement on the Indian website, why why why?! They refused point blank to give us a boarding ticket. So we booked a cheap flight to Sri Lanka. We had booking confirmation and the money came out of Lyvette’s account.
“No, we need your e ticket”.
“THEY HAVEN’T SENT US ONE YET! YOU CAN SEE WE’VE JUST BOOKED A FLIGHT, WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO?”
So they let us through and told us they would ring the Indian Immigration once we reached the departure gate if the e ticket hadn’t yet come through, to see whether or not they would accept us. Lyvette’s phone died. Nobody stopped us and we spent the next 6 hours on a flight wondering if India would have merci on us, or whether we were getting deported. And if we were deported could we choose our destination or would they send us home? Could we say we were from the Maldives? Maybe that would work. We definitely look like we’re from that side of the world.

Mumbai had merci on us.

Finally we were back. Back to where our travelling adventures all began. Back to our favourite place.

Back in Incredible India.