It's the Hindu festival Divali, or Deepavali today, the festival of light overcoming darkness. There's a story attached to it, about an ambitious giant who wants to burn people with his hands. He finds a small God and asks for this power.

The God (the fool) grants it and the giant goes off to have some fun. But the God becomes scared and realises that the giant could burn him if he put his mind to it. He goes to a bigger God and explains his predicament and the bigger God calls on the giant. He offers unlimited power and all the giant has to do to get it is put his hands on his own head. He does it. He burns. We laugh.

The festival is celebrated with fireworks, especially bangers – the bigger the more fun. These have been exploding constantly since yesterday, all night and today. We went to the TTS for an evening service and it was terrifying walking there with the fireworks going off right, left and centre.

They light Catherine Wheels on the floor with bare feet! I ask you. Rockets flew sideways, one right in front of us, manned by five year-olds, naturally there are no regulations. It was chaos. The service was in Tamil so we understood nothing and with the no fans in the church it was ridiculously hot. The fireworks all around made it seem like there was a war going on, a bizarre experience to say the least.

We said goodbye to Nic, had a delicious biryani, watched the European students entertain the locals with some Dutch folk song and dance, then braved the bangers home. Back at the Divine Patience we were given another meal. We did phone to say we were going to be late, but they'd already cooked it. Being Westerners, we eat very little and the policy here is 'if it ain't coming out of your ears you're not eating enough.'