Pushkar is the next stop heading north through Rajastan, northern India. The guide book describes this place as a hangout for laid back neo-hippy travellers. I've seen more loser hippy English people here than I ever have in England. But we've got stuck in and have been walking and cycling all over the place whilst the hippies think about crazy shapes and colours. Losers. It has been amusing watching them though, like the girl having a private yoga session on the roof next to us while we had a drink, watching on. (Dave wrote this bit: he got scared it might get to him so shaved in case he got the urge to get dreds or something!)

As for us, two days ago we went for a 25km walk through a valley between the Aravelli mountains. We walked through little villages where many children ran out to see us: instead of asking for money they were excited just to be able to say 'bye-bye' to us (This seems to cater for hello, how are you and goodbye!) (see our photo album for some of the lovely little ones we met). It has been annoying at times, as children often say hello and in the same breath ask for 'one rupees?'. These children are often quite well dressed and are just trying their luck. Who can blame them, I suppose, but more distressing are the young children working the trains, going from one compartment to the next, sweeping the floor around passengers' feet with the shirt from their back. Beautiful children born into misery with not much prospect for any improvement. The worst thing is I think the 'poor children' we have seen are not the really needy ones - they are the ones we flew past in our taxi, in the slums between Mumbai airport and Mumbai central town.

However, happily the children here were content enough, just sitting doing school work on the side of the road (a few children have let me see their school books including pompous and arrogant English books saying things like ' through learning English with these exercises children will learn the core elements of language as well as instilling morals and ethics into them'. Hmm! After a turn off and a deserted cafe ('not open yet?!!) we eventually made it to our destination: a temple. We didn't venture in: it was just nice to have made it somewhere after miles without much civilsation.

Yesterday we went to Ajmer, where the red temple was one of the (only) highlights with a model 'world' filled with golden temples and towers and bands and people travelling through the sky on big birds (don't worry we haven't been taking anything, it just was like this) and we had a bit of a chat whilst taking a much needed water break and met 'Sachin', a nuclear power engineer who was back in town for Diwali.

Today's expedition was out to some more temples, about 20km from here and we were promised the world, well, spangly new bikes that were worth lots of rupees. I wrestled him down to 70 rupees (about 90p for both the bikes) and a good thing too- what a heap of rubbish! It was fun though and quite speedy (once we had got through the sandstorms near the edge of town). After a jump in the pool we have had a relaxing evening with some Marsala Chai and a bit of Ipod, and we're off for dinner now. Last day in Pushkar tomorrow, then next stop Jaipur.