INDIA - I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!!!!

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Fear not my fans, I have returned! …. Apologises for not writing the last instalment but I was busy finding myself a girlfriend (thankfully not an Indian woman but rather the one affectionately referred to as “balcony girl”).

Sting bless her cottons has also been working on her relationship status recently and while in Mumbai attracted the attention of an Indian waiter. She couldn’t understand why he thought she might be interested, until it was pointed out that she had been in the restaurant 3 times that day (twice on her own) and each time conveniently sat on a table he was serving. So desperate for my friend to find the happiness and love I have found, and what with sting being straight now I kindly gave the waiter her number…..obviously he txt….immediately.… aww… sweet…. Sting obviously didn’t reply….bitch….. so he rang her….aww….sweet…. she obviously didn’t answer….bitch…..so he rang again.…aww…sweet…. She obviously didn’t answer…..bitch…..so he rang again…. 84 FUCKING TIMES!!!... only the threat of the police stopped him in the end!!..

We were kindly looked after in Mumbai by Bubu, who’s Yoli’s friend from Germany. She has an apartment in Mumbai, where the butlers don’t offer massages and blow bubbles on your stomach, where Indian men don’t wank over you, where mice don’t run over you whilst you’re asleep and the bed doesn’t have bugs, needless to say we hated it, and I had no choice but to leave on the second night and move into a hotel….(it was purely coincidental that balcony girl was staying in the same hotel)… as happened the last time I left sting for balcony girl she couldn’t resist pulling someone herself, this time Bubu was the lucky lady….so lucky in fact she puked shortly afterwards….

I think we all liked Mumbai, it wasn’t like I expected at all. We went on a slum tour which was really interesting and again entirely different to what I thought. If the truth be told I was expecting it to be pretty hard going, to see a lot of poverty and find it quite upsetting. In reality it couldn’t have been more different. Yes it was dirty and smelly but rather than feel sorry for the people I was actually amazed how independent they were. The slum was basically a small town within Mumbai. Within the slum there were businesses where people worked doing all kinds of things from baking to recycling plastic. It was actually quite an uplifting (what a gay word) place to visit.

We also went to the laundry place Dhobi Ghat which is the biggest open air laundry in the world. It’s here that all the washing is done in Mumbai – which explains why none of it comes back clean! Due to this fact we decided to do all our washing at Bubu’s. This would have been fine had she not stolen half our clothes (with hindsight it may not have been that she stole our clothes and could have been more down to the fact stingray was hammered when packing and left a large number of items behind!!)

Now, every so often an opportunity comes along, it’s often life changing and can open doors to unimaginable worlds and prospects. On the 19th April 2011 we were given this opportunity, quite unexpectedly, entirely out of the blue and without warning, we were thrust into….. the limelight of a Bollywood…..advert!... for the impressive fee of £15, which given we were there for 9 hours actually works out at a slightly demoralising £1.66 an hour (it’s all about getting your foot in the door at this early stage of a Bollywood career!!)

We were picked up by an Indian man in a white car (well it was once white) with 1 wing mirror, we then drove for an hour (crashing into a taxi on the way) before being bundled out and into a waiting van, where the driver then pretended to be an F1 driver weaving in and out of traffic at ridiculous speeds. Clearly this is what being a jet-setting Bollywood actress is all about!! Thankfully arriving on set in one piece! We were hurried out of the van straight to wardrobe to be given our outfits, then off to make-up and hair to make us look respectable. I was asked to wear a rather unflattering suit jacket with black trousers, Emma was turned into a power dressing business woman with rather large shoulder pads and Dee just wore what she had on….oh and stingray….well she was dressed as a middle aged lesbian English teacher….. what she had on …. (see facebook photos).

The premise of the advert was simple… we were all journalists and had to take photos of the Indian cricket team as they drove off… during which time an Indian man carrying a pillow ran through the “journalists” shouting for the cricketers to come back, before having a short conversation with another “journalist” and then running off…..genius! …I think the advert was for Indian Oil….

Speaking of stings lesbian-ness, I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your attention that she has gradually been returning herself to the closet. First the man kissing incident of Vang Vieng, then the constant fussing over the length of her hair, the flirting with the butlers in Chennai, the preening of her eyebrows and the shagging of the American barman in Palolem…. And now…. The piercing of her ears and the choice of 2 rather horrific purple diamond stud earrings! (you know the kind 7 year old girls wear having had their ears pierced for the first time at Claire’s accessories!!) I strongly suggest you all prepare yourself for the inevitable announcement in the coming weeks of her straightness and her marriage to “Bruce” when she goes to Australia.

Amazingly we’d been pretty well heathwise in India, which considering the filth of the place and the fact we were eating in some rather inexpensive dodgy places at times was somewhat remarkable. This all changed though when we were on a bus from Jaisalmer to Amritsar. Such is the distance between the two places that we actually had to get 2 buses, the first for 11 hours got to a place called Bikaner at 5am, we then had to wait there for 12 hours for the second bus to take us to Jaisalmer (about 10 hours away).

On arriving in Bikaner we decided we would get a hotel room for the day as none of us had slept much and we all wanted to get cleaned up. Sting wasn’t feeling too well and had been hallucinating on the bus, which I had just put down to the bang cookies she’d done the previous day and so felt no sympathy for her what so ever!! Thank God we got a room! As sting spent the next 36 hours either sitting on the toilet or with her head down it!! Looking like utter shit (see Facebook photos)

The guest house itself was perfectly nice except for the fact there were a lot of Indian men around constantly! Who wanted to chat to us constantly! and who wanted to hang out in our rooms constantly! They were also quite keen on taking our pictures……constantly! Which was funny as one guy was showing us a picture of him with a white girl “his 60% girlfriend”. We reasoned that it was only 60% as the likelihood was only he was aware of their relationship and she had just unwittingly had a photo taken with him! So be warned if an Indian man shows you a picture of me and him and says I’m his “60% girlfriend” the likelihood is it isn’t true…. If there’s one of sting though it’s not beyond the realms of possibility….

It is somewhat of a miracle that Sting and Emma even made it to Bikaner... We had stopped off for a toilet break and having been directed by the locals to the only toilet in town (which turned out to be a field!!) the pair were nowhere to be seen as the “10 minute” break came to an end. Indeed as the bus filled back up with the 112 Indians who’d been sitting in the aisle and slowly began to pull away the space next to me remained vacant. Thankfully Indians are small creatures and I managed to climb over them whilst shouting at the top of my voice for the driver to stop. Finally somewhat reluctantly he pulled over and we waited as sting and Emma (both blobs in the distance) ran down the highway to catch us up, trousers undone and toilet roll in hand…. Thankfully this story had a happy ending.
Amritsar is famous for 2 things the Golden Temple where Muslims come to pilgrimage and for the border to Pakistan. Having seen the Temple in all of 15 minutes (14 of which were spent having photos taken with Indian families) we headed for the border. The border isn’t just a simple border, no no that would be too normal for a “vibrant and majestic” shithole like India. And when the border closes for the night there is an elaborate ceremony to mark the “occasion” (even though this occasion happens every single day…..twice!!). Like so many experiences before it, it is almost impossible to explain how utterly surreal and ridiculous this ceremony was! Firstly there is music to get the crowd in the mood then a warm up guy to get the crowd really going with pro Indian cheering (on the other side the Pakistani crowd are also being whipped up into a frenzy!!) Then an Indian flag pole is carried to the border gate by some eager Indian plucked from the obscurity of the crowd and thrust into the limelight. To add to the excitement the flag carrier has to sprint the 100 or so metres to the border gate, before turning round and sprinting back again, much to the delight of the crowd who shriek with approval. This process is them repeated by more eager Indians all desperate to run this flag to the gate and back. After painstakingly watching 30 of them do it the only thing you’re hoping for is that one of them falls over! Of course this is just the warm up, the real treat starts when the military gets involved. India a “super power” flexing its muscles at the border crossing, showing off its lean mean fighting machine soldiers……errr….not quite! Instead please imagine the silliest march you possibly can – think of Faulty Towers where he’s marching like a German. But it’s serious, deadly serious! Which obviously adds to the hilarity of the situation! At one point you could be forgiven for thinking the soldiers were about to kick themselves in the head they throw their legs into the air so high!! Then there’s the quick marching (imagine the walking marathon speed with added arm movements!) And finally as the two sides meet at the gate, to close this most dramatic of ceremonies they perform a set of fierce looking martial arts moves straight from the David Brent academy! And with that the gate is dramatically thrown closed forever….well until tomorrow.

Obviously no visit to India would be worthwhile without seeing the Taj Mahal. It was actually pretty amazing – though I wanted it to be whiter!! It was built by this maharaja in honour of his wife who died in childbirth. The maharaja was so distraught by her death it is said his hair went white overnight and he was left heartbroken. I asked balcony girl if she’d build me a Taj Mahal if I died…. she laughed… it wasn’t a joke and has left me pondering the future of our relationship. Despite being at one of the most famous landmark not only in India but probably the world, I found it amazing that people were still taking photos of our ugly mugs! It wouldn’t surprise me if I am currently adorning the mantlepiece of several Indian family homes (and probably a few bedrooms!!)

We booked to go on a camel safari and I must admit to being slightly worried after hearing horror stories of smelly camels, perverted camel guides, boiling temperatures, smelly camel guides, perverted camels and general un-comfortableness. We got up early and went to meet our guide “Tiger” who kindly made us a turban each. We picked our camels. Mine was called Jonny, he was alright, kinda light brown, a hump, drank a lot, pissed a lot. We all spent the first few minutes clinging on for dear life as the camels trudged towards the desert, thankfully after a little while we got our balance and settled into life on board our (extremely slow) camel. Life on board a camel is boring! 18 fucking kilometres on a camel is really really boring!!!! Thankfully we had the link game to keep us occupied, how do you link noodles to duck billed platypus? (strangely easy actually : noodles to Chinese to crispy duck to duck billed platypus!) Sting stopped playing the game after a while, preferring instead to really enjoy the rhythm of the camel……

The desert itself was a major disappointment. Correct me if I’m wrong but I imagined a desert to be the following : pure golden sand as far as the eye can see, no water, no green plants (other than the odd cactus) no other people….. and no bloody wind turbines!! I have never seen quite so many wind turbines! They were literally all over this non sandy, wet, green desert! …fucking India….
We did end up finding a sandy patch of desert where we set up our camp for the night. Tiger cooked us food and made us tea then set up our blankets ready for bed. Sleeping in the desert was great fun, especially when you have “bang cookies”!! (Happy shakes….in a cookie!!) I guess life doesn’t get any better than being happily stoned…. In the desert…..in India… in perfect silence….looking up at the stars…. Under a wind turbine…..

…..until you start realising there are strange animals circling around you!! In this situation sitting extremely still and hoping for the best is the only cause of action!!.. Which was actually fine as we were all silently trying to work out how to link an Indian Man to a MacDonalds milkshake….
With our time in India coming to a close the last place we visited was Varanasi. Varanasi may well be my favourite place in India, which if any of you have been there may be a surprise (Sting, Emma & Dee couldn’t believe it). It isn’t the prettiest place (far from it actually, there is shit everywhere and the whole place stinks). It’s where people come to burn the bodies of their dead and put the remains in the Ganges. The river is also used for bathing and washing! Every day anything up to 150 bodies are burnt here. It was actually a really spiritual place and I found it intriguing to watch their ceremony and learn about their beliefs. It is certainly one of the places in India which will stick in my mind the most. I think if any of you are planning on going to India I’d say “unlucky” and secondly I’d suggest you visit Varanasi.

India itself definitely grew on me, indeed Chennai was the worst place we visited (thank god) and although some of the things that happened to us in India were pretty horrific (wanking train man) it does have some really pretty places. The problem I have discovered with India is the following: it would be a great country, if you could get rid of all the Indians – I put this proposition in the “how to improve India” suggestion box at the airport so fingers crossed! However I can’t pretend to like it and can’t hide my utter delight at leaving the fucking place behind!! India has been visited and will only be returned to in an incredible moment of insanity………or to continue our Bollywood careers….


Answer - Indian man to wanking to cum to cream to milk to milkshake to MD milkshake!

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