EastEnders’ Nasty Nick seems over the moon at returning to India in tonight’s The Real Marigold Hotel. Yet it’s funny... the first time he visited the country he was more likely to be high as a kite.
Indeed, actor John Altman was once so curious about India’s, er, hidden gems and relaxing vibes he ended up in an opium den, before running out of cash and having to sell his blood for food.
Now sober, John, 68, recalls: “Calcutta, now Kolkata, was the site of many adventures. I went to a Chinese Opium Den. “Two guys took me in a rickshaw to a rundown tower block where we ended up in a room of elderly Chinese men reading newspapers. “I expected something a bit more like a Fu Manchu film.” The manager got John to lie on a mat on the floor,
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