We are now in Rajasthan in India, where the sun is shining though when we arrived in Delhi the newspapers were full of news about the possibly record breaking cold snap (the overnight low of +4 degrees was enough to see schools closing!).

Actually this is a very scummy country - there are open sewers in the streets, a bewildering menagerie of animals wandering and defecating everywhere, everyone is after your money by whatever means available to them and the noise and the stench and the grime is like nowhere else i've ever visited. On the other hand, all this is still just an ugly scab on top of some fabulous architecture and history.

We arrived in Delhi, and somewhat foolishly signed up for a tour of Rajasthan (they tried to sell us more but that was quite enough). Its actually quite nice to not have to worry about finding a hotel every night, and we have our own driver but the suspicion is that we could have done the same itinerary with more flexibility for half the price... We also have to face almost daily battles with our driver about not wanting to go into certain shops, not eating in certain restaurants, and battling him over which sights we want him to take us to (the commision scammers are years ahead of their Thai counterparts here).

So far we've seen (amongst others) Delhi, Jaisalmer (Golden city, best one so far), Jodhpur (Blue city - where the trousers come from), and we're currently in Udaipur (White city where they won't let you forget that Octopussy was filmed). So just the Pink one to go then... We also went for a camel ride and slept out in the desert under the stars, a wonderful if uncormfortable experience.

When we finish our tour in Agra (home of the Taj Mahal) we have to decide where else to head. So far Mumbai and Goa are the main possibilities (cos everyone goes there). Varanasi is on the way to Kathmandu so we'll probably go there and I have a fancy to head to Darjeeling and drink tea, though that's a bit out of the way.

The food here is great, though curry twice a day isn't doing my insides much good. It's very cheap but surprisingly I have yet to have a curry as good (or as hot) as we can get in the UK. Grapes is suffering a grapes shortage as wine is expensive and rare here, and beer is more difficult to get hold of than expected (mysteriously you can always get one Kingfisher Strong but they can never supply you a second one...). Rajasthan appears to have some limited prohibition and in some cities you can't even get meat.

For those that know him, we have also found the Future Mrs Miserable Bloke. Most people we meet are also on similar tours to us, but we've met (and said hello) to this woman on at least 8 different occasions but only with the barest flicker of recognition back!