Day 178. Mumbai, India. Total balunacy.

The last thing Wend said as we left the hostel this morning was that there was no way she was going to fall foul of Mumbai's infamous con artists.

She lasted 20 minutes.

While taking a mooch around our neighbourhood, checking out the waterfront and the imposing India Gate monument we were accosted by a bloke clutching a balloon of such impressive proportions that his name may well have been Montgolfier.

Before me, Steve or Sarah had had a chance to say "No thanks mate, we're alright for big balloons" Wend was asking how much.

No point in buying just one of these babies when you can have ten she reckoned, especially once economies of scale are factored in, so moments later our pockets were 200 rupees lighter and we were proud owners of a family pack.

A hundred yards down the road we bump into another chap clutching another very large balloon. "That man sold you small balloons, I am only selling the genuine big balloons".

We were about to tell him where to shove his wares when he produced a family pack of his own, and sure enough, they were 3 times the size.

"Bugger" said Wend.
"Bollocks" said I.
"Suckers" said Steve, stifling a giggle.

And we handed over another fistful of money before setting off to the posh part of town to find our friends Dave and Juliette who'd just arrived from North Carolina.

It was several hours later before any of us thought to actually try blowing up one of the balloons.

Here it was, the moment Wend had been waiting for. The anticipation was immense, breaths were baited and fingers crossed as I removed one of the big boys from its pack and went to work.

The result?

A rubber runt. A latex tiddler. It's no exaggeration to say a fart filled condom would've been more impressive.

And I've never seen my missus so completely and utterly deflated.