The second time we visited Perth to stay with friends was a really nice few days, catching up with everyone, washing the curry odour out of our clothes (is that racist?) and eating good food. It was much colder than when we left 5 weeks ago, and still hopelessly full of ozzies.

However, much more interesting than our last few days in Perth was the journey we took to get there…..

Day 1 began by waking up at 6.30am Friday in Verkala, and walking the length of the beach over cliff tops, with all our bags and belongings. This alone, was a mission, and a real taste of things to come…

Next up was the rickshaw journey to the train station, which, as always, was entertainment in itself. How hundreds of people don't die on the roads every day in India, I have no idea. Total mentalists.

The next leg of the journey consisted of having a full blown argument and almost a fight with two Indian boys from our hostel in Verkala. They had inadvertently followed us to the train station and then our platform to try and con us out of money, saying we owed them for additional nights. Katie was literally about to kick the s*** out of them while I watched on while planning which platform would cause them more pain if and when I threw them off of one.

They soon vanished and our train soon arrived.

The train journeys in India are exactly as you imagine and see on TV. Cabins full, face to arm pit, of sweaty and loud men, all shouting and screaming to be heard, while some hang out of the windows and some cling on to the doors, just so they can claim some space of their own.

'Personal space,' is a long gone luxury, and avoiding eye contact with over inquisitive Indians is impossible.

It was a hot, sweaty, dirty and for the majority, an uncomfortable experience. Still, the charm of the situation allowed you to forget the negative and find a way to not only enjoy, but thrive in the experience.

That train journey summarised our experience of India.

While travelling at 100mph in a train that looked and felt like it was made in the Ice Age, you're left thinking,

'This shouldn't work, but somehow it does…' That, to me, is India in a sentence.

The next leg was yet another overpriced and overly dangerous rickshaw journey to the airport. The WRONG airport…. Then, yet another and hopefully final rickshaw journey to the correct airport, which was half the original distance than the one the other driver took us to. We had learnt, luckily, to give ourselves plenty of time to travel in India.

For this trip in total, we had given ourselves 2 full days…..

After a 4 hour wait at the airport our flight to Chennai took off, almost on time, and landed 1 hour later. So far, we had been 'travelling,' for almost 10 hours to get 1 hour closer to our final destination. At Chennai, we had a brief 7 hour stopover before flying to Singapore, which took a further 5 hours.

Day 2 began in Singapore, where we had a 10 hour wait before our flight to Perth. I invaded the children's soft play area, which made a great bed and McDonalds provided us with free WiFi and fat free healthy snacks……

By the time our flight took off for Perth I was almost ready to either cry or crack someone's head open. You could either blame it on the fact that it had been a long time since we last saw day light, or the fact that I was high on McSugar and air con.

Either way, sleep was the only answer.

Late on Saturday night we had arrived.

Smelling of curry, dressed like we were in an Aladdin movie and greeted by mates, we had a few cold beers and back to a clean tidy house.

I had to stay up half the night because Katie wanted to watch the F.A Cup final on ozzie TV, which will probably go down as the most boring Cup Final ever, definitely not worth sleeping for yet another night! I hate football.

The next couple of days, as stated earlier, we spent eating, drinking, sleeping and laughing with friends.

Waving goodbye to friends we may not see for over a year was sad, we had shared Christmas together and had some amazing times in Australia as a family. We hope they have a great year and come back to Croydon soon!

The next stop for us is cairns, high up on the east coast.

Perth and flip flops