All life goes on at the side of the road. Broken down trucks surrounded by a bevy of advisors and onlookers, local tuk tuk drivers chewing bright red paan while hanging around waiting for a fare, men clustered around tiny food stalls peddling all sorts of fried delicacies, school kids in impeccable uniforms on their way to or from school, lethargic dogs, contemplative cows, snuffling pigs. No one, it seems, is home. As we, mostly, crawl past, our pale foreign looking faces excite all sorts of interest, passengers crane round to look at us, nudge their neighbour and point out our, what? Our beauty, I like to think. And then they settle in for a good long stare, so they can imprint our fascinating faces onto their retinas and thus have something pleasant and lovely to keep them company on those long, dark, miserable nights. What other reason could there possibly be?

Strangely though it's Nicole who excites the most attention, we really can't work out why.

As we wander around temples, monuments, forts and palace, heck even down a dusty old street we are constantly shyly asked if we will be in people's photos. At first we are bemused, but we've stopped wondering why on earth they want random foreigners in their photo albums and happily stand next to granny, pose with the boys, smile sweetly with the girls and grab whatever baby comes our way. Sometimes it becomes so frenzied that we feel like visiting film stars as families push and jostle their way to the front of the crowd, elbowing aside their rivals to secure that all-important picture by the eager paparazzi.

Meanwhile we're taking our celebrity roadshow to the next stop on our map - Jaipur, the pink city. There's the standard fort of course, elephants (woohoo), an old palace and, in the old town (where it is obligatory to paint every building the same shade of rather sickly germolene pink) the beautiful Palace of the Winds, where the court ladies used to hang out peering through the latticed windows at the passing world. It's an after-eight-thin building designed to make the most of those elusive cooling breezes.

There's also an impressive Observatory next to the palace with some huge astronomical gadgets that were built hundreds of years ago (ok it could have been thousands but I'll be honest it was a bit of a boys own adventure type place, ask Bri if you really want to know) and accurately plotted galaxies, constellations and the time long before you could download an app that would do it all for you.

After lunch we had a wander round the bazaar looking for treasures and trinkets, followed by Inspector Gadget Brian who, when not looking quizzically at the objects that were capturing our attention, spent most of the time peering at the map and trying to work out where the hell we actually are. By the time he thought that he'd fathomed it out (and turned the map the right way up again) it was time to go back to the hotel. So we hailed a handy tuktuk and waited another ten minutes for Brian to dig out the hotel card and direct the driver to where we wanted to go. Not that it really matters, they always say they know where they are going and then stop down the road and ask bewildered passers by for directions. At least once. At which point loads of curious Indians cluster around us staring and jabbering away offering their own version of where it is they think we want to go and how we should get there. We suddenly realise that our tuktuk driver has disappeared, only to be spotted at a nearby chai stall ordering up a cup of milky sweet tea and a samosa and lighting up a quick cigarette, after all, what's the rush?!