First it was the Swedes, Daniel and Sara who we'd met last year in the Philippines turning up in Mamallapuram. Then on the Andaman Islands we chanced upon Radoslav and Alzbeta, a couple from a tiny town in Slovakia, where Elenka'a mother was born.

Yesterday, I was sitting on our porch at the Blue Corner when I heard this ‘hello’ two cabinas away. It was a woman we'd met six weeks ago and over 2000 kilometres away on the Andaman Islands. It should have been no surprise that she was staying two cabinas away from us on the Andamans too. Viviane is from France, so of course we can't speak with her, but just like all of the others on this odd Indian journey she's friendly and does say a lot of, I'm sure, nice words we can't understand. In the beginning these meetings caused a certain amount of unrest. Now it feels quite normal.

I just had the most frightening thought. What if this is all in my head? What if the Swedes, Slovaks and the French woman don't really exist. Here is the test. Look at the photo. If you only see Elenka and the dog let me know.