A visit to a beach was on the cards, so planned to leave and head for Mamallapuram, a coastal town which was being recently attacked by the sea, a few of the buildings had just crumbled away.

The heat which attacked us after we had been dumped off the bus in the middle of nowhere was unbearable. Sheltering from the heat in a two minute rickshaw ride (turned out we weren't quite in the middle of nowhere) we got a couple of recommendations for cheap places to stay by a fellow foreigner.

Having dumped our bags in the room we went for a roam around, exploring the stone carved temples, beach and sampling the local cuisine (pesto pasta)! A very unsuccessful game of maximum five, but mainly four word scrabble and having been demolished in chess were the only two downsides to my day!

There was no consumption of beer for me in the evening, as I still wasn't up to scratch, and I didn't want to feel like a rough mad dog/Englishman!

We were arranging to meet up with the opinionated Dutch girl, Florentine, at the orphanage where she volunteered. I remembered from one of our conversations that the kids at the orphanage would enjoy puppets rather than colouring books and pens. The kids have various disabilities and a very short attention span, so I had the idea of designing some puppets and get them made. It only took two hours to get six basic puppets made with buttons for eyes, all bar one representing the Cochin group of friends. I just hope the kids enjoy them...

A two hour government bus journey to the city of Chennai, where fellow travelers had give bad reviews of the place, was planned…