I woke this morning to the sound of Martin performing a giant swat in the darkness. The noise had boomed over to me from across the room. The room we had booked for the night had two single beds.

“Is everything alright?” I asked, still half-asleep.

“I think a gecko fell on me, or something,” he mumbled. I threw the blanket over my head as he got up to switch the light on.

“Oh, no, it’s a rat.” Now faced with blinding overhead light, the rat was scurrying around on his bed, trying to find somewhere to hide.

In a nanosecond I was up, standing on the bed, hopping back and forth between feet. I guess I was trying to keep my balance while keeping as little of me as possible touching the bed. It was the classic “girl with rat in the room” maneuver. Until actually doing it, I’d convinced myself that I wasn’t the type. It’s in there ladies, whether you like it or not.

Our furry friend made his way into our bathroom, which was both good news and bad. We could trap him in there until the owners woke, that is, if the door actually remained shut – a rare occurrence in budget guesthouses. Enter: clothes line. Martin and I spent the next ten minutes securing the door closed by running the rope from the door knob to the leg of my bed. It wasn’t pretty, but it did the trick.

Now fully awake, we lay in our separate beds, giggling while the adrenaline wore off. The scampering noises changed pitch when the rat found and fell into the water-filled Mandi (a tall tile-lined tub used to keep water for bathing). The water level was too low for his escape.

Martin didn’t fall back asleep (rats falling on you in the dark is apparently somewhat of a stimulant), but I nodded off to the sound of our attacker swimming laps in our bathroom.