There are two things you need to be able to travel with any success anywhere in the world. One of them, as brought to light in my previous post, is a common language. This may involve mime if necessary. Next on the list, but no less essential, is sleep.

Sleep is something it’s tough to get a lot of when you’re on the road. And don’t let ineptly named hostels like the Sleep-in Heaven in Copenhagen fool you. I could have had a better night’s sleep in the lock-up.

I’d just flown in from Germany and was in the nauseating throes of recuperating from an unfortunate incident involving the notorious Berlin currywurst and my untrained stomach. I would have given my own mother – and she is, let me tell you, quite an estimable one – for a good night’s sleep.

I found myself in a fourteen bed dorm - that’s me and thirteen troubled sleepers. There was so much snoring, snorting, sneezing, wheezing and coughing - oh the COUGHING - going on that I barely slept a wink and was up at dawn, grumpy as hell and making a true racket with my pack and my locker just to show them…well, you know, to SHOW them. Yeah.

I thought it couldn’t get any worse, but the following night was equally as disastrous due to the exit of the cougher but the appearance of a new snorer. There was only one thing for it. Coffee.

And I don’t even like coffee.