On our second day in paradise we decided to see what Indian bureaucracy was like and so we haggled with the auto rickshaw man for a trip into Trivandrum. This is more like India should be....everyone honking their horns and dicing with death on the potholed roads. We like Trivandrum, it's real and you'll see everything you want in the space of a 30 minute tuk tuk ride. We headed into the railway station and went into the busy complaints/refunds/cancellations/bulk bookings department. We queued up at counter 1 as this seemed a good place to start, when we spoke to the nice lady there she told us to go to counter 5, we queued there for a while and were told to go to counter 8, then at counter 8 we were told to fill out a form and take it to counter 5, at counter 5 they took the form and told us to go back to counter number 8, the nice man at counter number 8 then took another form and walked down to counter number 1 and gave it to the nice lady who we first spoke to, she then came up to counter 8 and wrote everything down and gave me a refund of approximately 1/3rd of the value of an AC2 train ticket. See, it's easy.

Later in the day we went back to paradise and got ready to dine out. Once again we were touted and did the same thing, back to the restaurant with the cheapest prices. once again we had a wonderful time until 10.10pm, when the lights were turned off and we were handed our bill. Grant said "The cops are here.." and in the darkeness there were 3 silhoutted figures standing outside. We got the torch and looked at the bill, the friendly chaps had stung us on a whopping service charge. Once again everyone had vanished, except the cops and the nice man who wanted payment. We paid up. I had the feeling that tickets for the Kovalan Policemans Ball were being sold and that we'd just paid for them. once again all the other restaurants had closed.

The next day we moved further down the beach and got a cheaper place. We supported the local restaurants and made a point of leaving before 10pm......everyone else did. The next day, we went back to Trivandrum on the tuk tuk and had a great day, it was pouring with rain and we just said take us to a palace. It was a great ride, total chaos, floods, the lot. We got dropped off at an impressive temple and took shelter from the rain. the rain wouldnt stop, so in the end we took our shoes off and went to go in the temple.The nice man with the machine Gun told us they werent serving heathens today and so we headed off to another part of the city.